by Mac Barnett
Niles unwrapped the Twinkie and broke it in half.
“Let us remember the noble sacrifice of this perfectly edible snack cake,” he said, handing Miles a piece.
They dipped their fingers into the Twinkie’s white cream and smeared the grease all over the bottoms of Josh Barkin’s shoes.
In P.E. the prank went down like this:
Josh was the last one to change, as usual (he spent most of his time in the locker room throwing wet paper towels at a big mirror on the wall).
Coach B. started blowing his whistle at 2:09.
“One minute!” Coach O. shouted. “One minute and you’re late.”
Coach B. continued blowing his whistle every ten seconds as the stragglers poured forth from the locker rooms. Groups of girls rolling up the sleeves on their T-shirts, a boy who forgot his gym clothes skulking in jeans, slouching kids carrying novels.
“Ten seconds!” said Coach O.
Coach B.’s whistle-blowing had become frantic, and Coach O. waved a pack of pink slips in the air dramatically.
In the locker room, Josh heard the warning. He slicked back his hair in the mirror.
“Five!” said Coach O. “Four!”
Josh liked to cut it close, but he was a Barkin—he had a perfect attendance record to maintain. And so he shook the water off his hands and jogged across the locker room’s rubber mat.
“Three!” said Coach O.
Josh crossed the trophy room’s carpet.
“Two!” said Coach O.
Josh Barkin pushed open the big doors, jumped onto the gym’s wooden floor, slid six feet, flapped his arms like a startled chicken, kicked one leg in the air, and fell over next to the volleyballs.
Coach B. stopped blowing his whistle.
Josh turned fuchsia.
The kids laughed loudly and the sound bounced all around the gym.
Coach O. grinned. “Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Buster Keaton!”
Nobody laughed at that joke, but they were still laughing at Josh.
“The silent-film actor?” said Coach O. “He was always falling down? Come on, that’s funny! I can’t believe none of you know who Buster Keaton is!”
“I know who he is,” said Holly.
“That was funny, right?” said Coach O.
“It was kind of funny,” said Holly.
Meanwhile, Josh was on the ground, feeling the soles of his shoes.
“They’re slippery!” he shouted. “My shoes are slippery!”
If he thought this revelation would make the kids stop laughing, he was wrong. They laughed harder.
Josh licked one of his fingers.
“Cream!” he said. “Somebody put cream on my shoes!”
“That’s DISGUSTING!” said Stuart. “It’s like you just LICKED your SHOE!”
“Shut up, nimbus!” Josh shouted. “I’ve been pranked!”
Miles and Niles looked at each other and scratched their temples with two fingers. It was the way they gave their secret handshake when they wanted to keep it very secret.
Josh pointed the finger he’d just licked at the crowd. “Somebody pranked me!”
“NONSENSE.”
A door opened. The laughter stopped. Everyone turned toward the back of the gym. Bertrand Barkin stood there in a dark suit.
“But—”
“SILENCE, JOSH,” said Principal Barkin. “You’re embarrassing yourself. I could hear your yowling from halfway across the lawn.”
His shoes squeaked as he slowly made his way forward. He left a trail of black scuff marks behind.
Coach O. grimaced. This would mean hours of scrubbing on his hands and knees. “Principal Barkin,” he said, “would you mind taking off your shoes? We just refinished these floors.”
Bertrand Barkin froze. He stared at Coach O. “Did you just ask me to take off my shoes?”
“Yes, sir. We have a strict non-marking-sole policy in this gymnasium.”
“Coach Orville,” said Principal Barkin. He started walking again, and squeaking again, and the scuffs he left behind now were bigger and darker than the ones he’d been making before. “Do you really think that a principal would allow himself to be glimpsed at his school in sock feet? There is power in presentation.” He stopped in front of Coach O. “An underdressed principal is like a coach without his whistle.”
Bertrand Barkin gave the whistle around Coach O.’s neck a sharp tug. The nylon cord snapped.
“Powerless.” The principal placed the whistle in his pocket. Coach O. swallowed and looked embarrassed.
“Now, Josh,” said Bertrand. “What’s all this hullabaloo?”
“Someone pranked me,” Josh said. “We have to find them. We have to punish them.”
Principal Barkin forced his thin lips into a thin smile. “Don’t be silly, Josh. Nobody pranked you. Students know better than to prank at this school.”
“No, someone did, Grandfather.”
“You will call me Principal Barkin at school, Josh.”
“Someone did, Principal Barkin. They greased up the bottoms of my shoes.”
“Nonsense. You are clumsy, and you fell.”
“No! There’s cream on my shoes!”
“You are clumsy. You fell.”
“But feel them! They’re all slippery.”
“Josh, I am not going to touch your shoes. That is disgusting, and besides, there is no need. It’s clear what happened here. You are clumsy. You fell.”
“But this is a prank!”
Principal Barkin bent over his grandson, who still lay on the ground. His whisper came out as a hiss. “It is only a prank if we react. And we do not want pranks at this school. Do you understand me, boy?”
Josh nodded.
“Good. You are clumsy. You fell.”
Josh nodded.
Principal Barkin straightened. “Tell everyone,” he said.
“I am clumsy. I fell.”
The gym was so quiet you could hear the dripping shower all the way in the boys’ locker room.
Principal Barkin laughed. “It’s true, I’m afraid. You are clumsy. Must come from your mother’s side. Well, a fall in P.E. is nothing to make a fuss about. Shall we get this class started, coaches?”
And with that, Principal Barkin left.
“He still has my whistle,” said Coach O.
“Here, borrow mine,” said Coach B.
Josh picked himself up and stared at the class, who mostly stared at the ground. Not Niles, though. His gaze was far off, focused on nothing. It was that odd expression again.
Chapter
14
IN MS. SHANDY’S social studies class, Josh was eating a bag of chips.
“Josh,” said Ms. Shandy, “you can’t eat chips in class.”
“Actually,” said Josh, “I have to eat chips. It’s for my blood sugar.”
He licked orange dust from his fingers, one by one. Then he crinkled up the bag, stuffed it in his pocket, and pulled out a pudding cup.
“Josh,” said Ms. Shandy.
“Ms. Shandy,” said Josh, “if I don’t eat this pudding cup, I could faint.”
“Put it away, Josh,” said Ms. Shandy.
“But I’m the School Helper!” said Josh.
“And I don’t care,” said Ms. Shandy.
“This position has power now! It’s not like when he”—Josh nodded toward Niles— “was doing it.”
“Three,” said Ms. Shandy, “two—”
“But where am I supposed to put an open pudding cup?”
“Not my problem. One.”
Josh gently set the pudding cup inside his backpack.
“And take off that hat.”
Josh removed his cadet cap and fluffed up his hair.
“OK.” Ms. Shandy turned back to the whiteboard, on which she had written two words in tall letters: “PROPAGANDA” and “SAMIZDAT.”
“Now,” said Ms. Shandy, “we discussed propaganda yesterday. Who can tell me what it is?”
Several kids
raised their hands.
“Niles.”
Niles made a big show of not reading from his notes: “Propaganda is the dissemination of doctrines and political ideas through art and culture.”
“Good, Niles,” said Ms. Shandy. “Propaganda can take the form of a movie, a book, or a play. A song, a painting, or a poster. But whereas art is an attempt to uncover the truth, propaganda promotes a party line, it maintains order, it instills in us those ideas that people want us to believe.”
Niles wrote all this down.
“So,” said Ms. Shandy. “Samizdat.” She smiled at the class. “What the heck is that?”
Students chuckled.
“Nobody? Any guesses? Where do you think the word comes from? Holly?”
“It looks Russian?”
“That’s right,” said Ms. Shandy. “Samizdat comes from the Soviet Union. It means ‘self-publishing.’ Russian writers, intellectuals, and dissidents used to secretly make and pass around literature that the government, the state, wouldn’t allow.”
“It sort of sounds like SALAMI DOTS,” said Stuart. “Like those WHITE DOTS in SALAMI!”
“Well,” said Ms. Shandy, “samizdat often contained ideas that challenged authority, so the authorities made this writing illegal.”
“Like me and my chips,” said Josh.
“No, Josh,” said Ms. Shandy. “The reason you can’t eat chips in class is because it’s distracting to students, and to me, and because you get orange dust all over your assignments, which is disgusting. The Soviet state believed samizdat was a threat to its very existence. Sorry, Josh, but your chips aren’t that important.”
“Disagree,” said Josh.
Ms. Shandy went over to her desk and pulled out a pamphlet. The cover was gray and adorned with strange letters. “This is an actual piece of samizdat, a book of poems by a writer named Alexei Khvostenko.” She handed it to Holly. “You can carefully pass that around. Josh, if you want to hold it, go wash your hands.”
“That’s it?” Josh asked, standing up to look at the book. “That’s so flimsy.”
“Samizdatchiks had limited resources—remember, they had to print these books themselves and smuggle them to readers. Samizdat is about the ideas inside, or really even about the idea of samizdat itself.”
Holly passed the book to Niles, who carefully examined each page, even though he couldn’t read it.
Ms. Shandy continued. “A lot of samizdat wasn’t even political writing. But just the very fact that it existed, that rebels were making these books, that people could engage in this activity forbidden by the state—that was a threat to power.”
“Cool,” said Holly.
“And now,” said Ms. Shandy, “I’d like everyone to get into their work groups.”
The room was filled with metallic squeals as students scooted their chairs and rearranged their desks into groups of three.
“We’re going to once again imagine that this classroom is organized by a system of government,” said Ms. Shandy. This was one of her favorite exercises. Already this year, Room 22 had been a direct democracy, a theocracy, a republic, and an oligarchy.
“For the next two days,” said Ms. Shandy, “we will be living in a totalitarian state.”
“Sweet,” said Josh.
“Now you will need to decide in your groups whether you are going to be propagandists or samizdatchiks. And you will be making either a propaganda poster or a piece of samizdat. So figure it out: Will you be the ruling party, or the underground?”
“Ruling party!” Josh Barkin told his groupmates, Janice Neeser and Stuart.
“I sort of thought it would be fun to make samizdat,” said Janice Neeser.
Josh shook his head. “No way, nimbuses, we’re the ruling party.”
“Who made you president?” said Janice Neeser.
“I did,” said Josh. He checked to see if Ms. Shandy was looking and put his cap back on. “I’m President Barkin and this is the ruling party.”
“We RULE!” said Stuart.
Meanwhile, Holly was talking to Niles and Miles. “OK, I guess we should put this to a vote,” she said. “I say samizdat.”
“Samizdat,” said Miles.
“Samizdat,” said Niles.
“Really?” Holly looked at him, impressed. “I thought for sure you’d be a propagandist.”
Ms. Shandy dinged a silver bell she kept on her desk.
“Listen up,” she said. “By now you should have made your decisions. Here’s the twist. Propagandists, you will have full access to the art supplies and the classroom computers. Samizdatchiks, you can use only these.”
She held up a basket of old pencils. Many were chewed, and none had erasers.
Half the class groaned.
“Boom!” said Josh. “Told you, Janice. Power rules!”
“Now that you know the materials you’re working with, it’s time to decide what you’re going to make. Plan carefully.”
Ms. Shandy looked at the clock. “We have about fifteen minutes today, and you’ll have some more time tomorrow.”
Ms. Shandy walked around the room, absorbing the humming of students in conversation.
“What if we made a book of poems?” Holly said.
“I can’t really write poems,” said Miles.
“OK, then, like, a magazine?” said Holly.
Nearby, Josh was leaning back in his chair.
“Janice, you’re good at drawing. Can you draw chips?”
“What?”
“Chips. I’m seeing a poster with a big bag of chips. And it says PRESIDENT BARKIN SEZ: IT’S A MEDICAL ISSUE. DON’T FAINT. EAT CHIPS. Do you know how to draw a doctor?”
“I guess,” said Janice Neeser.
“And the doctor should have a chip for a head,” said Josh.
“That’s GENIUS,” said Stuart.
After fifteen minutes, the bell rang. Backpacks zipped, three-ring binders clicked, and students marched out the door of Room 22.
When the room was empty, Principal Barkin marched in.
“Hello, Bertrand,” said Ms. Shandy.
“Hello, Ms. Shandy,” said Principal Barkin. “And may I remind you to address me as Principal Barkin.”
“I thought that was just in front of students,” said Ms. Shandy.
“It wasn’t,” said Principal Barkin. “Now. I hope you don’t mind, but I was observing your class this morning through the window of the back door.”
“I don’t mind,” said Ms. Shandy. “Although you were welcome to come in and observe.”
Principal Barkin smiled. “I prefer to do my observations in secret. I find people change their behavior when they know I’m watching them.”
“Right,” said Ms. Shandy. She looked at the clock. By now there would be a line for the microwave in the teachers’ lounge.
“I wanted to get a look at your teaching,” said Principal Barkin. “But I didn’t see any teaching.”
“Excuse me?”
“From what I observed, you did a lot of walking around. While students chatted.”
“We’re working on a group project,” said Ms. Shandy.
Principal Barkin made a face like he’d just bitten down on an olive pit. “A group project.”
“That’s right. They’re learning from each other.”
“Ms. Shandy,” said Principal Barkin, “they’re children. What do they have to teach each other?”
“Seriously? I believe that—”
“I was asking a rhetorical question,” said Principal Barkin. “When I was a teacher, which I’ll admit”—he gave an insincere chuckle—“was a long time ago, students learned from teachers. I held the knowledge, and I engraved it onto their soft minds.”
“Times have changed,” said Ms. Shandy.
“And now they’re changing back,” said Principal Barkin. “I witnessed pandemonium in here. And I will not have pandemonium in my classrooms!”
“Pandemonium?” said Ms. Shandy. She checked the clock agai
n. “Listen, I have to go heat up my soup.”
“Of course,” said Principal Barkin. “I’m sorry to keep you. Go enjoy your lunch.”
Ms. Shandy slung her tote over her shoulder and grabbed her keys. “Great talk,” she said.
“Oh, this talk is not over,” said Principal Barkin. “Please come visit my office during your prep period.”
The next day Ms. Shandy lectured for the full forty-five minutes. There was no time devoted to group work. Propaganda and samizdat were never mentioned again.
Chapter
15
BACK IN THE PRANK LAB, a grim mood pervaded. A month had passed since the thwarted prank in the gym. That day, in big letters on the wall, Niles had written the words he’d heard Barkin whisper:
Now he sat cross-legged, staring at that sentence.
Miles was shelling a pistachio. “I’ve got an idea,” he said.
“OK,” said Niles.
“We need to go big.”
“OK.”
“I mean, we have to do something that is undeniably a prank.”
“OK.”
“And that’s why”—here Miles tossed a pistachio into his mouth—“I propose a classic prank: We pull the fire alarm.”
Niles said nothing.
“What do you think?” Miles asked.
Niles shrugged. “Feels a little pedestrian.”
“Pedestrian?”
“Yeah, it’s pretty obvious.”
Miles’s face flushed. “So what?”
“So what?” Niles asked. “It lacks panache. Where’s the artistry, Miles? It just feels sort of . . . beneath us.”
“You know,” said Miles, “sometimes you can be real hard to be around.”
“Come on, Miles,” Niles said. “The fire alarm prank is in every movie, every TV show, every hokey comic book from the 1950s. It feels like the kind of thing you used to do before you came here.”
“It is the kind of thing I used to do before I came here!” Miles didn’t mention that when he did it at his old school, he was immediately caught and suspended for three days.
“I don’t know,” Niles said.
“Well, it’s better than anything you’ve come up with. Better than sitting here staring at the wall, making that weird face.”