Charlie Bumpers vs. the Really Nice Gnome

by Bill Harley

I walked up to her desk.

  She pointed to the printout sitting in front of her: my official new script with the Hilarious Gnome. “Why did you do this?”

  “Um, I was thinking about the play and I thought that it might be a little better if my lines were different, but I knew you didn’t have time so I decided I would see if I could make them better and …”

  Mrs. Burke didn’t say anything—she just kept looking at me over the top of her glasses.

  I hate it when adults don’t say anything. It’s almost as bad as when they talk all the time, blah blah blah.

  “And funnier,” I added.

  She looked at the script again.

  “It’s kind of funny,” I said.

  “Yes, it is,” she said. “You did a lot of work on this.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  She handed it back to me. “You’re not supposed to be funny in the play, Charlie. The Nice Gnome is not a wise guy. He is a helper.”

  “But he could be the Hilarious Gnome,” I said. “He could still be good, but funnier. And nobody else would have to change anything.”

  “Charlie, if you don’t do your part the way it’s written, we’re going to have problems. Do you want problems?”

  “No,” I said.

  “Good. Neither do I.”

  Boogers.

  13

  Gnome Pants

  Sunday afternoon I was finishing my homework in the kitchen, labeling continents and oceans on a map. I was thinking about what it would be like in Tierra del Fuego. It’s this little piece of land way down at the bottom of South America. Part of it is in Chile—the country where Hector used to live. I wondered if he’d ever been there.

  My mom came into the kitchen holding a piece of paper. “Charlie, I just got an e-mail from Mrs. Burke. It’s a reminder to all the parents that you’re supposed to bring in your costumes tomorrow. It says she sent a note home last week.”

  “Oh.” I’d forgotten about it. “I guess it must be in my backpack.”

  Matt stuck his head through the doorway. “When’s dinner?” he asked.

  Mom kept talking to me. “Were you going to tell me about this? Don’t you think we need to make a costume?”

  “I guess.”

  “I’m starving,” Matt said.

  “When is the play?” Mom asked me. “Isn’t it next Friday?”

  “I think so,” I said.

  “Charlie!” she said. “We’re going to have to make your costume tonight. What’s the Nice Gnome supposed to wear?”

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  “I know!” Matt said. Suddenly he forgot he was starving. “He should wear a pointy red hat and pointy shoes and a pointy beard to match his pointy brain.”

  “That’s enough, Matt,” Mom said. “We’ll just have to see what we can find around here.”

  “It’s okay,” I said. “You don’t have to worry about it.”

  “Yes, I do,” Mom said.

  “I’ll help,” Matt said.

  “No thank you,” I said. The words “Matt” and “help” do not belong in the same sentence.

  The first thing we did was look at images of gnomes on the Internet. There were a lot of them.

  “Hey, let’s use this one.” Matt pointed to a skinny creature all dressed in black and holding an electric guitar. “The Nasty Gnome.”

  Mom told me my gnome wasn’t going to look like that. Or the ones with burning eyes and scowls and armor and swords. “I like these,” she said, pointing to the ones with blue shirts, white beards, and red pointy hats.

  Just what I was afraid of. “I don’t,” I said.

  “Most of these gnomes are wearing brown pants,” Mom said, ignoring my comment. “You don’t have any brown pants.”

  “Maybe I could wear jeans,” I said. I was thinking a gnome who dressed exactly like I do would be a good idea.

  “Wait,” Mom said. “I know what we can use.” She took me into her and Dad’s bedroom and pulled out an old pair of shorts. “These don’t fit your father anymore. Let’s see how they look on you. They might be long enough for pants.”

  I put them on and looked in their big mirror. They were really baggy. The legs reached down almost all the way to my ankles.

  “What are you doing?” the Squid asked, barging in.

  “Working on Charlie’s costume,” Mom said. “We’re trying to make him look like a gnome.”

  “I want to look like a gnome, too,” she said.

  “One gnome at a time,” Mom said.

  “I want to be a purple gnome,” the Squid said.

  Just then Dad walked in. “Hey, those are my shorts,” he said.

  “They’re gnome pants now,” Mom said. “You’ll never fit in them again anyway.”

  I had to hold up the waist of Dad’s shorts so they wouldn’t fall off.

  “I’m going to have to take them in,” Mom said. “And we’ll have to use a belt.”

  “Gnomes are fat,” the Squid said. “Charlie should wear a pillow.”

  “Great idea, Mabel!” Mom said.

  “I’ll get one.” Mabel grabbed a puffy pillow from the bed. Mom stuffed it into Dad’s shorts.

  Mom found an old blue sweatshirt of Matt’s, and I pulled it on over the pillow. I was getting fatter by the second.

  “He needs a beard,” Dad said. “And I have just the thing.” He left and came back with a really old mop—the little strands of rope looked sort of like shaggy hair.

  “That’s disgusting,” Mom said.

  “We can wash it,” Dad said. He held it up to my chin.

  It was the dumbest beard I had ever seen. It was actually pretty funny.

  Matt came in to see what was going on. “He needs a pointy hat,” he said.

  I really didn’t want a pointy hat, but before I knew it Mom had me in the car, trying to get to the fabric store before it closed. Mom bought some red felt for a hat. And purple felt for the Squid so she could be a purple gnome.

  After dinner, Mom got out her sewing machine and sewed the hat. I put everything on except the beard.

  “Go look in the mirror,” Mom said. “It’s fantastic!”

  They all followed me into the hall and I stood in front of the long mirror. I held the mop up to my face.

  When Ginger saw me, she growled and took a step back.

  Ginger didn’t like gnomes.

  “You know, Charlie,” Matt said. “I almost feel sorry for you.”

  “How come?” I asked.

  “ ‘Cause someone’s going to bust you about that dorky hat and baggy pants.”

  “No they won’t!” I shouted at him. “Stop it!”

  “Cut it out, both of you,” Dad said. He made Matt apologize and I said it was okay.

  But it wasn’t. What Matt said made me wonder if someone would give me a hard time. A lot of people would see the play. On Friday afternoon, our class would be on the stage at the monthly all-school meeting in the gym. We were going to dress up and talk about the play and ask people to come that night. I would have to wear my costume and say I was the Nice Gnome in front of everyone.

  There were fifth graders like Larry Ladoux who would probably make fun of anything a fourth grader did. And there was Darren Thompson. He wasn’t in my class this year, but he made fun of me and other kids all the time. And there were always three or four other boys who agreed with whatever Darren said because he was big and it seemed like a good idea to agree with him. He hadn’t given me a wedgie this year, but he still might.

  And then there was Tracy Hazlett. She was in Mrs. L.’s class with Tommy and Darren. I didn’t think she would tease me, but I was afraid she might laugh at me. And I really didn’t want Tracy Hazlett to laugh at me unless I was saying something funny.

  Because I kind of liked her.

  I don’t want to talk about that anymore.

  Except I was pretty sure Tracy might laugh at a fat Nice Gnome with baggy shorts and a pointy red hat and a mop for a beard.

  Ha ha
ha ha.

  Dad took the mop so he could cut the stringy part off the handle and finish the beard, and Matt went to do his homework.

  I followed my brother into his room. “Matt?”

  “What?”

  “I don’t want to be the Nice Gnome. I don’t want everyone to think I’m this goody-goody doofus or something. I hate the part, but I don’t know how to get out of it. I tried to trade parts with someone, and then I tried changing the lines so they were better. But Mrs. Burke said no to everything.”

  Matt leaned back in his chair and stared at the ceiling. I could tell he was thinking. “Did you try messing up?” he asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “If you mess up your part really badly, then maybe she’ll have to find someone else to do it.”

  I thought about that. “Mrs. Burke gets mad at people who don’t know their lines. What if she just kicks me out of the play?”

  Matt shrugged. “She’d have to give you some part. Everybody always has a part in her plays.”

  “Do you really think it’ll work? She could get mad.”

  “Desperate times call for desperate measures.”

  “I don’t know,” I said. Matt was pretty smart, but I still wasn’t sure.

  “Well, if it doesn’t work, you’re going to have to wear that dorky hat. And gnome shoes.”

  “I don’t want gnome shoes!” I moaned. “I don’t want to be a gnome!”

  Matt grinned. “Well, you are a gnome, and you need gnome shoes.”

  14

  You Look Like You Are Lost

  Monday morning, the classroom was filled with paper bags and boxes and props to be used in the play. Everyone was showing off their costumes and the other stuff they’d brought. One of the parents had made hats for all the kids who were Mice in the Woods—baseball caps with little mouse ears on them and whiskers sticking off of the brim and a long tail trailing off the back of the hat. Sam Marchand had put on his cape with the awesome skull and was swirling it around.

  “Can I see your costume?” Ellen Holmes asked me.

  I pulled out the pointy cap and put it on.

  “That’s cute!” she said.

  Boogers! I know she didn’t mean it in a bad way, but I didn’t want to be cute. I didn’t want to be nice, either.

  Which is why I did what I did.

  I know I should’ve never listened to my older brother, but he seemed to have a magical power over me as strong as the Evil Sorcerer Kragon.

  After lunch, Mrs. Burke told everyone to sit in a circle. “Today we’re just going to go over our lines as quickly as we can,” she said. “We’re not going to stop for anything. If you get stuck, say, ‘Line!’ and I’ll help you. But other than that, just keep going. No questions. No complaints. This way we’ll find out where the problems are.”

  The scene in the castle went smoothly. The Prince and the Princess and their servants set off into the forest to search for the Magic Rabbit. When the Nice Gnome was supposed to speak, I didn’t say anything.

  “Charlie,” Mrs. Burke said.

  “Line!” I said.

  Mrs. Burke seemed surprised, but she called it out: “You look like you are lost.”

  “You look like you are lost,” I repeated.

  Samantha was already rolling her eyes.

  Dashawn was the Prince. He said, “We are lost. We’ll never get out of these woods and find the Magic Talking Rabbit of Gorlandia.”

  I knew the next line.

  But I didn’t say anything.

  “Charlie!” Mrs. Burke said.

  “Line,” I said.

  Samantha’s eyes looked like they were going to roll right out of her head.

  Mrs. Burke gave me the line and I said it.

  Samantha was so busy being disgusted with me that she forgot to say her next line.

  Mrs. Burke waited.

  “We have a long way to go,” Samantha finally said. “We can’t even get out of the woods and we have to find the Sorcerer’s castle.”

  Mrs. Burke gave me a weird look. Maybe I’d gone too far. Matt was a bozo to think this plan would work. He didn’t have to live in Mrs. Burke’s Empire!

  I decided I’d better stop messing up.

  But now, I was confused. I honestly couldn’t remember my next line. I had my script, and even though we weren’t supposed to look at it, I did. But the pages were all out of order. So I just said, “Don’t worry. We’ll get there.”

  I knew it was wrong. So did everyone else.

  “That’s not your line!” Samantha hissed.

  It got very quiet in the room. I stared down at the floor. When I snuck a glance at Mrs. Burke, she was glaring at me.

  “Charlie doesn’t know any of his lines,” Samantha said.

  Pow! Mrs. Burke snapped her fingers just once.

  Everyone held their breath.

  “Charlie,” Mrs. Burke said, “you can go back to your desk for now. I’ll read the Nice Gnome’s lines.”

  I got up from the circle and went back to my desk. The class went on rehearsing with Mrs. Burke reading my part. I got a book out of my desk and pretended to read. But I couldn’t. I was listening to everyone do their parts. Everyone was doing a good job.

  Except for me.

  I was not the Nice Gnome. Not anymore.

  When they finished rehearsing, Mrs. Burke told everyone to get ready to go home. Then she stood in the doorway.

  “Charlie,” she said. “Please come here.”

  “You’re in so much trouble,” Samantha said.

  “Good luck, Charlie,” Ellen Holmes whispered.

  Hector cleaned off his glasses.

  I got to the door and Mrs. Burke turned to the class. “Get your things together, everyone. I’ll be watching.” Then she motioned with her exploding bony fingers for me to follow her into the hall.

  “Charlie,” she said. “There is no excuse for what you have been doing.”

  I looked down the hallway to avoid looking at Mrs. Burke.

  “You are ruining the play. You knew your part perfectly during the last rehearsal, but today you didn’t even try. I’m very disappointed in you.”

  “I don’t like my part,” I mumbled. “I don’t want to be the Nice Gnome.”

  “Why not?”

  I shrugged. It was hard to explain. “Can’t someone else do it?”

  “Who?” she asked. “Who’s going to do it?”

  “Josh?”

  “No, Josh has a part that’s right for him. I don’t think anyone else could do the gnome part as well as you can. Or like I thought you could. This is your part, Charlie. What’s the problem?”

  I couldn’t tell her that I didn’t want to be the nice guy and wear a dorky costume. It would’ve been so much easier to be a bad guy, like the Evil Sorcerer Kragon. No one would’ve made fun of the bad guy.

  “Charlie?”

  “I wanted a different part.”

  “Why? The Nice Gnome is one of the most important roles in the play.”

  “But the Nice Gnome is just so …” I couldn’t explain it to her.

  “Tell me,” she said, looking right at me. “Are you worried about being too nice?”

  Boogers! How did she figure it out?

  “Sort of,” I mumbled.

  “Charlie, you are not the Nice Gnome. You are just acting out the part. And besides, this play is not about you. It is about everyone working together on something. Your classmates are depending on you.”

  Now I felt really crummy.

  She gave my shoulder a little squeeze. “You have three days to turn this around, and I suggest you start doing it right now. Now get back into class and get ready to go home.”

  I turned to head back into our room.

  “Charlie,” Mrs. Burke said. “I don’t need you to be a perfect Nice Gnome. I just need you to be a fairly friendly one who knows his lines.”

  When we lined up to go home, Hector tapped me on the shoulder. “If you need help with your
lines, let me know.”

  “Thanks,” I said.

  15

  The Biggest Bozo on the Planet

  The Squid talked all the way home from the bus stop. “We’re going to see your play on Friday night. Mrs. Diaz told our whole class we should see it. She gave us a handout so we could remember by giving it to our parents.”

  That didn’t make me feel any better.

  When I walked in and Ginger jumped on me for the millionth time, that made me feel even worse.

  Matt wasn’t in the kitchen.

  “Would someone else please walk Ginger?” I yelled.

  I heard Matt call from his bedroom, “No!”

  “I’ll walk her,” the Squid said.

  “You’re still too little,” I said.

  “No, I’m not,” she said. “I grew even more. I can walk her. I’ll even do it for free!”

  I thought about Mabel walking Ginger all the way around the block. It was too far. And what if they ran into Lovey-Doodle? Or the dumb cats and the cat lady? Or even worse, the squirrels? Plus, Mom always said Matt and I weren’t supposed to let Mabel go anywhere unless we were with her.

  “Please, Charlie! I can do it. I’ll just walk her down to the corner and back.”

  I thought about that. It seemed like a pretty good idea. If Ginger pooped quickly like she did the other day, they could just come right back. I could look out the front door and check on them. If Ginger didn’t do her business, then I’d just have to take her on her regular walk.

  “Just to the end of the block?” I asked.

  “Yes!”

  “And if she poops, you’ll pick it up?”

  She frowned. “I don’t want to pick up the poop.”

  “Okay, I’ll pay you a dollar if she poops and you pick it up.”

  Her eyebrows went up. “A whole dollar?”

  “But only if she poops and you pick it up, because if she doesn’t, I’ll still have to walk her.”

  The Squid twisted her mouth around, thinking. “Okay, for a whole dollar I’ll do it.”

  “Okay,” I said. “It’s a deal.”

  “Can I have the dollar now?”

  All this time, Ginger was barking and jumping around. I took an old plastic shopping bag from the drawer and handed it to the Squid.