I stared at her.
Because yeah, nobody had heard of Art Club. How could they? It’s not like Art Club had uniforms and cheerleaders and a marching band and encouraging cutout posters plastered to our lockers and fans cheering us on. If we did, there’d already be as many Art Club members as basketball players. More, probably, since Art Club didn’t have to run suicides up and down the bleachers. But all we’d ever had was a lousy bulletin board in the electives hallway, and now we weren’t even going to have that.
While my brain was busy thinking that stuff, my mouth was doing something else entirely. Here’s what my mouth was doing:
“We’ll have a pep assembly,” it said.
Sam stared at me. She pierced me with a Zawicki Glare of What-the-Heck-Is-Wrong-with-You-Beanboy?
Noah shot me a confused frown, clearly wondering if I knew what I was doing.
Kaley C. rolled her eyes again. “That’s just stupid,” she said.
“No, it’s not,” said my mouth, even though the rest of me was pretty sure it was. “An Art Club pep assembly so that everyone will finally know about us and see what we’re doing and maybe get excited, at least a little bit, some of them anyway, to find out there’s a club they might want to join, where they could maybe win a contest, a prestigious, national contest. And even if they don’t, they could at least—”
“Look.” Mr. Petrucelli folded his serious principal arms over his chest. “It’s nice that you want to drum up business for your little club, but we can’t interrupt the school day for a pep assembly. We’re already going to miss class time gearing up for the school carnival. Students need to be in class learning.”
“But”—Emma frowned—“we had pep assemblies every Friday during basketball.”
“That was different,” said Mr. Petrucelli. “The entire student body—”
“And football. And volleyball,” said Emma. “And wrestling. Fair is fair, Mr. P.”
She beamed her mind-jamming superpower over Mr. Petrucelli.
He looked at her, then at the Kaleys, who stood side by side, arms crossed over their basketball warm-ups, rage snorting out of their nostrils. Then at me, with my trash bag. He let out a breath. Pinched the little knob of stress that had bulged up between his eyebrows. “Fine,” he said. “You can have your little pep assembly. Twenty minutes, Friday afternoon, just before school lets out.”
“Great,” I said out loud.
Crud, I said inside.
Six
“A pep assembly?” I hopped on one foot as I dug my lunch card from my shoe. “What was I thinking?”
Noah and I inched along the line into the cafeteria. Around us, Earhart Middle School students talked and laughed. The squawk of voices and clank of silverware echoed off the painted cinder block walls.
“I’m not peppy. I don’t know anything about cheers or jumping or”—I stopped, my voice choked off by a sudden alarming thought—“pom-poms. Oh, man. Pom-poms?” I stared at Noah, my eyes too horrified to blink. “I can’t do pom-poms.”
“Actually”—Noah pulled a lunch tray from the top of the stack—“pom-poms are standard pep assembly gear, but I don’t think they’re required.”
I shook my head. I hoped he was right. I picked up a tray, clanked a fork and spoon onto it, and held it up so one of the lunch ladies could glob a mound of macaroni onto it.
The last thing Tucker MacBean, Real Live Person, needed was to stand in the middle of the gym, in front of bleachers packed with fellow students, and let his dweebery ooze out for everyone to see.
I held out my tray for carrot sticks and applesauce, then followed Noah toward our table.
In middle school, lunchroom seating patterns get established the first day, and they’re pretty much locked into place for the whole year. Noah and I were locked into our table by the (fragrant) trash bins. Sam and her brother, Dillon, were locked into their table under the sputtering Exit sign.
Most days Sam and Dillon didn’t say much to each other. Just sat there, hunkered over their lunch sacks, chewing their peanut butter sandwiches in silence.
But today, for some reason, Sam was talking. Boy, was she talking. She and Dillon were on the other side of the lunchroom, and I couldn’t hear anything over the rumble, but whatever she was saying, she meant it. She’d planted her elbows in the center of the table and was leaned across it, her back rigid, her hair rigid too, her face so far up in Dillon’s, they were practically eyelash to eyelash. She was a whole lot smaller than Dillon, of course—a sparrow going up against a water buffalo—but she was a fierce sparrow, her face pinched and serious. Dillon hunched his shoulders and coiled back, shielding himself from the cannon blast of her voice.
I almost felt sorry for him. I mean, he was Dillon Zawicki and everything, so you couldn’t feel too sorry for him or he’d hit you.
But Sam in your face—not fun.
I was just glad she wasn’t in my face this time. She probably would be later.
I wove my way through the tables.
Wesley Banks was sprawled in his usual chair next to T.J. and Luke, his legs stretched out in the narrow aisle between the tables so that anybody leaving the lunch line had to step over his jumbo basketball shoes to get to their table.
The Kaleys sat there, too, of course.
And Emma.
As I waited for Noah to climb over Wesley’s shoes, Emma turned and beamed her shininess at me, full on.
“Hey, Tucker,” she said. Her voice sounded shiny, too, like a shiny silver bell.
“I—uh—hey,” I managed to choke out. Which, for me, was pretty conversational.
“Hey, Tut.” Another voice cut through the shininess. Not silvery like a bell. Gravelly, like a meat grinder.
I turned. They were all looking at me. Wesley. Luke. T.J. Smiling their smirky smiles. The Kaleys too.
“Oh. Hey,” I said back. I didn’t mean it, of course. But I said it.
Wesley kept his gaze on me, steady, daring me to do . . . something, it seemed like. I didn’t get what.
Till I started climbing over his feet.
He’d been sitting there the whole time, not moving a flick. And now, suddenly, as I started to climb over, as I balanced my tray in my hands—the milk, the silverware, the macaroni, carrots, and applesauce—as I lifted my foot to climb over, in that instant, the jumbo basketball shoes jerked—not a lot, just a little, enough to knock my leg right out from under me.
I stumbled. Tried to catch myself. My tray flailed wildly, carrots shooting one way, silverware another. Applesauce splashed from its neat square compartment onto my face and down my front. My milk carton teetered and for a second I teetered, too, with nothing to hold me up. Somebody grabbed me from behind, I think—I don’t know who—grabbed my shirt, pulled me back. Otherwise I would’ve skidded across the Amelia M. Earhart Middle School lunchroom on my face.
I took a breath. Steadied my tray. And myself. Applesauce dripped from my chin. Snickers and giggles echoed around me.
I cut a quick look behind me. Tried to figure out who’d saved me from falling on my face. The Sundances were the closest, but they weren’t even looking at me. Luke was doubled over laughing—because yeah, Wesley was sooooo funny—and T.J. was busy chugging his milk.
“Oops.” Wesley laughed. “Looks like you spilled something. You need some help?” He held up a wadded napkin.
I gritted my teeth. I tipped my milk carton back up so it wouldn’t fall off the tray.
“I’m fine,” I said.
I didn’t meet his eyes.
I didn’t meet Emma’s, either. If she was laughing, laughing along with Wesley, along with T.J. and Luke and the Kaleys, along with the rest of Earhart Middle, I couldn’t bear to see it. And I couldn’t bear seeing her give me a sympathetic poor-Tucker look either.
I headed through the cafeteria, eyes locked on the ceiling, staring at the hoodie somebody had tossed over one of the light fixtures, so I wouldn’t accidentally look into somebody’s face.
&
nbsp; “Hey, Tut.” Wesley’s voice rang out behind me. “Next time watch where you’re going.”
Seven
After school, I sidled down the hall toward Art Club.
Probably nobody had heard about me and my big mouth and what it had blabbered to Mr. Petrucelli that morning. Probably Mr. Petrucelli had forgotten all about it anyway. Or had at least come to his senses and decided I was the last person on the planet he should put in charge of a pep assembly.
Probably I had nothing to worry about.
I slipped through the art room door—
—smack into a wave of cheers.
Not a huge wave of cheers. For that we’d need a huge wave of people, and as I blinked off my surprise, I realized the Kaleys were kind of right. We’d lost five kids over winter break: two moved away, one kid’s parents made him drop out after he flunked study hall, one switched to Audiovisual Club, and one was banned from afterschool activities for burping the Pledge of Allegiance during a citizenship assembly. Art Club had dribbled down to nine members total, ten if you counted the dust-caked papier mâché Fighting Aviator moldering away on the bookshelf behind Mrs. Frazee’s desk. Sam would thump me into the next galaxy for saying so, but if we only had nine members, maybe we weren’t a real club anymore.
Mrs. Frazee swooped across the crunchy concrete floor, her wild red hair bobbing.
“I’m so proud of you, Tucker.” She looped an arm over my shoulder. Her bangly turquoise bracelets clanked against my cheek. “A pep assembly—brilliant!”
Spencer Osterholtz stepped forward from the tiny mob of club members, a new stocking cap pulled over his head.
Case File: The Spencinator
Status: I’m not sure they’ve invented a category Spencer fits into. He’s clearly not a villain. At least, not intentionally. He’d like to be a hero. But I don’t see that happening. He’d probably like to be a sidekick, too, if anyone would have him. For now I guess his status remains UNDETERMINED.
Base: Art Club.
Superpower: Relentless, single-minded determination. Often annoying to people around him, but, I have to admit, effective.
Superweapon: Sharp, flinging elbows; long, gangly feet on long, gangly legs; and complete and total klutziness. The main two problems with these weapons are (1) they don’t have a lot of accuracy or any sort of control switch, and (2) they’re more of a danger to Spencer than to anyone else.
Real Name: Spencer Osterholtz
Spencer pumped his fist in the air. “Go!”
Art Club let out a whoop and began hoisting themselves on top of one another.
And falling off.
And hoisting again.
I finally figured it out. They were trying to build a human pyramid. It looked more like sumo wrestling for the meek and undersized. Here’s a clue about Art Club: we’re not famous for our upper-body strength. The bottom layer of the pyramid gave a valiant effort, but their elbows just weren’t up to the challenge. They quivered and wobbled, and when they ultimately gave out, the top layers crashed down on them.
Spencer wriggled out from under the pile. “So what do you think?” He peered up at me from the concrete. “Extreme, right?
“Oh—yeah,” I said. “It was—I don’t even—wow.”
“Thanks.” Spencer climbed to his feet. He hitched up his jeans and dusted chunks of dried clay and broken pencil lead from his knees.
He retrieved his stocking cap.
It was red and white and puffy, with earflaps and a perky yarn ball on the top. His great-aunt Bernice had clearly been busy again.
“We’ve been thinking up ideas all day,” said Spencer. “Passing notes back and forth, talking between classes, with one pretty intense discussion at lunch. The pyramid was my idea.” His bony chest puffed with pride. “We need to practice a little more, of course. Polish it up. Give it that extra puh-zing.”
He stopped. He gave me a concerned look. Probably because I was standing there with my mouth open.
“Or not,” he said quickly. “We don’t have to use it if you don’t want to. I know you have your own ideas. You wouldn’t have volunteered us for the pep assembly if you didn’t, right?” He looked at me. “So, what’s the plan?”
Plan? I stared at him. My plan was to tack posters on a bulletin board and maybe, possibly, fingers crossed, make art less invisible at Earhart Middle School.
Not get us all flushed down the toilet of middle school humiliation.
Art Club had gathered behind Spencer, watching me.
I swallowed. “Gosh, I don’t want to, you know, take over the whole thing. I mean, since you guys had all this time to think up ideas, you probably came up with something even better than some crazy pep assembly, right? A beefed-up morning announcement maybe, or—hey!—a newsletter!”
Spencer frowned. “You don’t want to do the pep assembly?” He shot a puzzled look at the rest of Art Club. “But we’ve been practicing.”
Art Club nodded. Their admiration took a confused turn.
I closed my eyes. “I didn’t say I don’t want to. I just meant we should give it some thought—”
That was all it took. Spencer pumped his fist in the air once more, and suddenly everyone was cheering again. By the time Art Club was over, I’d been elected to stand on the top of the human pyramid, holding the papier mâché Fighting Aviator to demonstrate school spirit.
“And”—Spencer grabbed my arm as I was trying to sidle out of the art room—“I’ve got a little extra puh-zing up my sleeve, too. I need to work out the details, but I promise, it’ll be something you never expected.”
Eight
I darted from Earhart Middle—into a wall of winter. It wasn’t even suppertime yet, but the weary January sun had already given up and was sliding down behind the rooftop of the school. I pulled up the hood of my coat and took off toward Quincy Street, clouds of white breath trotting along beside me.
And all of Art Club pressing down on my head.
Because yeah, the most pathetic pep assembly in recorded history was clearly the path to middle-school dominance.
I scooted down Quincy.
Through the park.
Across the tennis court.
Thought about hurdling the net.
Decided to go around. My mom didn’t need the hospital bill.
I cut through the alley and popped out onto Polk Street. Our house stood on the corner, two stories of ancient brick and fussy white trim peering through the brittle, winter-bare branches of Polk Street’s towering oaks.
Joe and Samir had shoveled a path up our front walk using some mathematical calculation they’d invented that would (as Samir explained) “give our walkway the greatest amount of tread area while expending the least amount of human labor.” Which I think was their scientific way of saying, “We’re not shoveling any more than we have to.”
Our house, like most of the old houses by the university, was split into apartments. Joe and Samir, two astronomy students, lived on the first floor. Rosalie, our resident music student and used-to-be go-to babysitter (before Sam Zawicki) (not that I needed a babysitter anymore) (but Beech still did), managed to stay cheery and musical in the festering sinkhole known as the basement apartment, despite the seepy windows and relentless chug and rattle of the boiler.
Mom, Beech, and I lived in the MacBean Family Apartment on the second floor, tucked snug under the eaves.
I stomped up the walk between Joe and Samir’s piles of snow, across the porch, and into our first-floor entryway. I stood there for a few seconds to let the warmth seep into my frozen body, then hiked my backpack over my shoulder and thumped up the stairs.
I found them in the kitchen, Beecher sitting in his spot at the table, Sam at the sink, slicing an apple onto a plate. Beech didn’t have his usual pillowcase tucked into his shirt as a cape. He hadn’t worn his pillowcase cape since that day at Bottenfield’s.
Sam slid the plate in front of him. He stared at it—at the apple pieces, arranged to make a nose, a m
outh, and a pair of eyes, with little slivers for eyebrows and two raisins for the eyeballs—and let out a little squeal, like a happy chipmunk.
“Tool!” He gave Sam a look of pure adoration. “You rot,” he said. “I tell Mrs. Hottins you rot.”
Mrs. Hottins. His special ed teacher. He told Mrs. Hottins everything.
Just like he told Sam everything when she babysat him after school.
Just like he hardly told me anything these days.
His glasses had slid halfway down his nose. Sam pushed them up.
“You rock, kid,” she told him.
Then she turned on me. Fired such a burning glare at me, I had to rub my cheeks to make sure they hadn’t burst into flames.
“Of all the things you could’ve come up with,” she said, “a pep assembly has to be the lamest.”
“No kidding,” I said.
“So.” Sam crossed her arms over her army jacket. “How are you going to make it work?”
“Work?” I shook my head. “What are you talking about? You’ve seen Art Club. How could it possibly work?”
She let out an irritated breath. “I didn’t say it would. It might. But only if you don’t act like a complete doorknob.”
She tipped her head toward Beecher, her ever-faithful lieutenant, who swallowed his apple chunk, wiped his hands on his jeans, and fished out a yellow sticky note from his pocket.
He slapped it on the table and gave a satisfied nod. “Note,” he said.
I gave it a suspicious look. Whenever the two of them started coming up with ideas, it never turned out well for me.
I peeled the crumpled paper from the table.
I read through the list. “So . . . no cheers, no pom-poms—”
Sam stabbed me with a glare. “You bring a pom-pom anywhere near this assembly, I’ll rip your bulletin board down myself.”
“Hey.” I held up my hands. “I’m way ahead of you. What’s this?” I pointed to the last item on the list.
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