by Sally Warner
I stumble back a couple of steps, and two or three kids laugh. They sound a little nervous, but they laugh.
Okay. I know that a boy is never supposed to hit a girl, even when she’s way bigger than he is, so I don’t. But I nudge Cynthia with my shoulder when I try again to put my map on top of the pile of Treasure Island art projects.
“OW,” Cynthia yells, clutching her arm like I just slugged it.
By now, everyone is watching us.
So much for Sustained Silent Reading. Now, it’s Sustained Silent Staring.
“EllRay hit me,” Cynthia announces to the class.
“He did not,” Emma says, amazed. “We just saw the whole thing, Cynthia!”
“Yeah,” Kevin, Corey, and Annie Pat agree, nodding their heads.
“Mind your own business,” Cynthia tells them. She’s really mad.
Cynthia turns her back to the class, and Heather crowds in close.
And I still haven’t turned in my art project yet!
“I am putting my map on top of that pile, and you guys are not gonna stop me,” I tell Cynthia and Heather.
“Put it under mine,” Cynthia says.
“Why should I?” I ask.
“Just do it,” Heather urges me, sounding nervous. “Just do it, EllRay. Please?”
And I am just about to shrug and give in, because this is such a stupid fight, when Cynthia shoves me again.
And so I shove her back.
Okay. One thing that I haven’t mentioned yet is that right next to the pile of maps and flags is Ms. Sanchez’s very important attendance notebook—and her water bottle, which she usually carries with her everywhere she goes for some reason. But she doesn’t have it with her right now.
Inside her attendance notebook, Ms. Sanchez keeps very neat score each day of who is in class and who isn’t. Then that becomes part of our permanent record. And it’s written in secret code! She showed us once. For example, there are different marks for being in school, for being absent with no excuse, and for being absent with an excuse. And probably codes for other stuff, too, for all I know. Ms. Sanchez says the attendance notebook is her work of art.
We’re not allowed to touch that notebook ever, it’s so important.
“Quit shoving,” Cynthia says, shoving me again.
“You quit shoving,” I say, shoving her back.
“I’m gonna sock you one,” Cynthia says.
She’s going to sock me? Cynthia Harbison, whose hair and clothes and fingernails are always so tidy and clean? Cynthia, who likes to brag about her grades and her perfect record, and how dainty she is?
I don’t think so!
If she actually does hit me, though, I will not hit her back, I decide right then and there. But I will defend myself—and my pirate map—from her Fist of Doom, which is like the one in my video game Die, Creature, Die, only bigger.
I will figure out how to do this when the time comes.
“C’mon, Cynthia,” Heather says, trying to pull her away from the desk. “Who cares if his stupid pirate map goes on top or not?”
“I care,” Cynthia says, and she swings her straight arm toward me like it’s a bat, and we’re playing T-ball, and my head is the ball.
This is a dumb way to hit anything, which is probably why it doesn’t work now, because I duck out of the way. But—over goes Ms. Sanchez’s water bottle, right onto the famous secret code attendance notebook.
Frozen in horror, Cynthia, Heather, and I watch the water GLUG, GLUG, GLUG three times onto the very important notebook before any of us can move. But I’m the one who finally picks the bottle up—just as Ms. Sanchez walks in the door.
Naturally.
“Oh, no! Look what EllRay did, Ms. Sanchez,” Cynthia cries out. “Your poor official attendance notebook! Your work of art! He threw water all over it. On purpose!”
“My notebook,” Ms. Sanchez says, sprinting over to her desk, grabbing the notebook, and shaking it twice. She wipes the wet pages with the corner of her sweater.
“It’s all EllRay’s fault,” Cynthia says, sounding almost scared.
“We’ll discuss this later,” Ms. Sanchez says, still dabbing at the notebook. “Later,” she says again, as if she is too upset to talk about it right now.
BLAME IT ON ELLRAY
“Come over to the drinking fountain,” Cynthia says a few minutes later, grabbing at my shirt in the crowded hallway when me and my friends are headed outside to eat lunch and play. “I have to talk to you.”
“TOUGH,” I say, yanking my arm away. “I never want to talk to you again, Cynthia Harbison. You liar.”
“Yeah,” Kevin says, scowling at Cynthia. “Liar. I don’t think Ms. Sanchez even believed you when you tried to explain.”
“C’mon, EllRay,” Cynthia says, not looking at him. “It’s important.”
“So is telling the truth,” I say. “Talk to me outside with my friends, if you have the guts.”
“At the boys’ table?” Cynthia says, like I just asked her to meet me inside the nearest garbage can.
“Yeah,” I say. “If it’s so important.”
And to my surprise, Cynthia—and her robot friend Heather, of course—follow us outside.
At Oak Glen Primary School, kids can eat their lunch in the school cafeteria whether they buy lunch or not, or they can eat outside on the picnic tables, which is a lot more fun. The different grades eat lunch at different times, so we third graders get two tables all to ourselves, one for the boys and one for the girls.
The tables are on the grass, near two big trees you aren’t allowed to climb.
I sit down at the boys’ table next to Kevin and across from Corey. Jared and Stanley are already stuffing their faces, those luckies.
And Cynthia actually walks up to me and tugs my shirt again. “This will just take a minute,” she whispers, almost polite—because she is on the boys’ property, I guess.
I can tell that none of the boys likes having a girl so nearby, so I very s-l-o-w-l-y get up and follow Cynthia to one of the trees. “Go away,” I tell Heather, who is trailing after Cynthia like a shadow. “Or else my friends get to listen in, too. Two against one is no fair.”
And so Heather looks at Cynthia—for permission to leave, I guess—and then melts away to the girls’ picnic table, where Fiona, Kry, and the two church friends are already giggling and eating their lunch.
Girls cannot eat without giggling, by the way. It’s a fact.
Cynthia takes off her plastic headband in a serious way, tosses her straight hair, then scrapes the headband back on over it. It’s like she needs everything to be perfect before she can even start talking. “Listen,” she tells me. “I’m sorry if I got you in trouble for spilling Ms. Sanchez’s water bottle.”
“Well, maybe you didn’t get me in trouble,” I say. “Ms. Sanchez says that even though the pages are curly now, everything was written in permanent ink. And she hasn’t yelled at me yet. And I didn’t spill the water bottle, in case you forgot. You did, when you tried to sock me.” I have to keep reminding her, because Cynthia Harbison is exactly the kind of person who believes that saying something two or three times makes it the truth.
I have the feeling you have to watch it with people like that.
“Yeah, but that’s my point,” Cynthia says, like she’s just won the argument. “Ms. Sanchez doesn’t even care, because of the permanent ink.”
“She cares,” I argue. “The water glugged all over her work of art. And it even soaked into some of the art projects.”
“Not mine,” Cynthia says, shrugging. “Because mine was on top.” She gets a look on her face like it’s hard getting through to me, I’m so dumb. “I mean, she won’t care if you did it, EllRay. Because she’s so used to you messing up.”
“But I didn’t mess up!” I shout. “And I’m gonna tell Ms. Sanchez what really happened when she asks,” I add, trying to lower my voice.
And I start to go back to the boys’ lunch table, because—what
is the point of arguing with someone like Cynthia Harbison? It’s a waste of your brain!
“No, wait,” Cynthia calls after me. “Listen,” she says again, catching up. “You owe me. Remember? Recess? And going to the principal? And the rocket ship Band-Aids? So when the water bottle accidentally spilled for no reason, I thought, ‘I should just blame it on EllRay. Then we’ll be even.’ Think about it, EllRay. It’s a great idea,” she says, her voice suddenly soft as she tries to convince me.
And she pauses a minute, letting the brilliance of her “great idea” sink in.
She actually looks hopeful, like she needs this to happen.
Huh?
MAYBE
“Well, number one,” I tell Cynthia, my voice as cold as an ice cube, “I don’t owe you anything. And number two, why should I take the blame for something you did?”
“Because it doesn’t matter for you,” she says, like she’s eager to explain. “You’re already the kid in our class who messes up, and I’m already the kid who has the perfect record. So all I’m asking is that you take this teensy-weensy blame for spilling Ms. Sanchez’s water bottle, and we’ll be even about recess and the principal and the clashy Band-Aids. You won’t owe me anymore. I mean, it could have been you who knocked the water bottle over, right?”
“Wrong,” I tell her. “I wasn’t the one swinging my Fist of Doom through the air for no reason, Cynthia. I was just trying to turn in my Treasure Island map, that’s all.”
“And I was trying to help,” she says, lying again. “It was an accident.”
“Maybe,” I say. “But you caused it.”
“Listen,” Cynthia says for the third time, like she really needs to tell me something. “You don’t understand. I just can’t get in trouble with Ms. Sanchez, EllRay. You’re used to it, but I’m not.”
Cynthia’s probably right about one thing, even though Ms. Sanchez is my teacher, too. I guess I am getting used to being in trouble, not that I ever planned for my life to turn out this way. But before I can think up an actual reply, there is a tap on my shoulder.
It’s Emma McGraw.
“Ms. Sanchez says she wants to see you in the classroom, EllRay,” Emma tells me, not looking at Cynthia. “Right away.”
“But I didn’t get to eat yet,” I say, thinking of the big sandwich I helped my mom make this morning. It has turkey bologna on it, and pickles, and no mustard, and everything. “I’m gonna starve.”
No wonder I’m the littlest kid in our class!
“She says you can bring your lunch with you,” Emma says, still not looking at Cynthia, who is giving her the STINK-EYE.
“Oh, okay,” I say, and I stomp off to the boys’ picnic table to get it.
That sandwich had better still be in my lunch sack, that’s all I’m saying.
“Have a seat, Mr. Jakes,” Ms. Sanchez says, looking friendlier than I thought she would, considering.
“Okay,” I say cautiously, and I sit down in the chair she has pulled up next to her desk. But I don’t open my lunch sack, because I don’t want to have turkey bologna flapping in my mouth when my teacher starts asking me complicated questions.
“So, what happened this morning?” Ms. Sanchez asks.
“Well, I got up,” I say, stalling. “And then I took a shower, and—”
“EllRay,” Ms. Sanchez interrupts. “You know what I mean.”
“Okay,” I say again. But I don’t blab the truth right away, because I’m thinking.
1. Maybe Cynthia’s right.
2. Maybe I should take the blame for knocking over that water bottle.
3. After all, Cynthia needs to be perfect, and it’s already w-a-a-a-y too late for that for me, even if we’re just talking about the last couple of weeks.
4. So what difference would it make to me if I took the blame?
5. Maybe I’m already doomed!
THE GEODE
“EllRay?” Ms. Sanchez says, reminding me that she is still waiting for an answer.
“Sorry,” I mumble, and I get ready to walk the plank.
That’s right. Suddenly I just want to get it over with. I will walk to the end of the plank, take a deep, deep breath, then drop off into the cold dark ocean.
It feels like I don’t even have a choice.
“I guess spilling your water bottle was all my fault,” I say to Ms. Sanchez. “I guess I kind of waved my arms around at Cynthia and Heather, and—”
“Stop right there,” Ms. Sanchez says, holding up her hand. “I must tell you that I heard from another source that the whole unfortunate episode happened in quite a different way.”
Whoa. Fancy words alert. Somebody blabbed?
Emma?
“And I’m not even talking about my soggy attendance notebook anymore,” Ms. Sanchez says. “Why are you so willing to take the blame, sweetie?” she asks, her voice gentle. “That’s the question.”
Ga-a-ack! This is the second time this semester that Ms. Sanchez has called me “sweetie”! Well, at least there are no other kids in the room this time.
“Why, EllRay?” Ms. Sanchez asks again.
And I can’t think of anything to say, because it’s too hard to explain.
Or maybe I can’t think because I’m starving. Even my brain is empty.
“Look,” Ms. Sanchez says, pointing toward Zip’s still-empty fish bowl, which is sitting on the table behind her desk. “Do you see that?”
“You don’t have to remind me,” I say, wondering when she is gonna take it home, for pete’s sake.
“Do you see the geode?” she asks, being more exact this time. “That’s you, EllRay Jakes.”
Huh? Gee, thanks a lot!
“I’m a rock?” I manage to ask.
“I mean, if people were rocks, I’d say you were that geode,” she explains. “A little rough on the outside, at least lately, but beautiful and precious on the inside.”
Beautiful and precious? And I thought “sweetie” was bad!
“Please don’t tell that to the kids, okay?” I say, mumbling again.
But Ms. Sanchez just laughs. “Being beautiful on the inside is much better than being rough and hard all the way through, the way some people seem to be. At least lately,” she points out.
“It’s not as good as being a crystal all the way through, though,” I say.
“Well, not many people are as good as that,” Ms. Sanchez tells me. “Only a very few, in fact.”
Ms. Sanchez is one of them, I think—but of course I could never tell her that. She’d think I was kissing up to her. Smo-o-o-ch.
YUCK!
“I want you to listen to me, EllRay Jakes,” Ms. Sanchez says, leaning forward. “Your reputation is your most precious possession. You have to protect it. You must fight for it. You cannot surrender it so easily, whatever the reason.”
“But I don’t have a good reputation,” I blurt out. “Not anymore. Not since the dead fish thing, and the book I forgot to bring back. Not to mention sometimes getting in trouble for bothering my neighbor during Sustained Silent Reading, and forgetting to get official permission slips signed, and stuff like that. I’m getting famous for messing up.”
“I’m not saying there isn’t room for improvement,” Ms. Sanchez admits, uttering those dreaded words. “But I am saying you’re a wonderful boy all the same. Just don’t give up on yourself, EllRay. I have great hopes for you, and so do your mom and dad.”
“Okay,” I say, sneaking a look at the wall clock and hoping Ms. Sanchez isn’t going to ask me again who spilled the water—because now, I’m still not sure what I’d tell her.
Grown-ups don’t know how hard it is sometimes to be a kid.
Also, I am hoping there is still time for me to eat my sandwich, because my stomach is actually growling—the way Cynthia did on the playground that day. “May I please be excused?” I ask, as if Ms. Sanchez is my mom, and we’re sitting at the dinner table.
“Yes,” Ms. Sanchez says. “You certainly may. But I’m going to mak
e an announcement at the end of class today.”
“What kind of announcement?” I ask, my heart suddenly bouncing around in my skinny chest like a marble in a shoebox.
“Wait and see,” Ms. Sanchez says.
PERSONAL BEST
“And now,” Ms. Sanchez says later that afternoon, about twenty minutes before school is over for the week, “we have a few items of business to take care of. First, I’ll ask Annie Pat and Corey to hand out the latest progress reports for you to take home and get signed. I’d like them back first thing Monday morning, ladies and gentlemen.”
The progress reports are in licked-shut envelopes, of course, with our names printed in big letters on the front.
I am going to remember to get that thing signed by Monday, I promise myself. No matter what it might say inside! I want to show Ms. Sanchez that I can do it.
“Silence, please,” Ms. Sanchez says when the progress reports have all been handed out. “Next, there’s an announcement I’d like to make.”
Cynthia sits up straight in her chair and folds her hands on the desk in front of her like she’s getting ready to hear me get all the blame for spilling that water.
Ms. Sanchez is about to tell everyone how beautiful and precious I am, I think, horrified. “No, wait!” I hear myself say.
Ms. Sanchez stares at me. “You’d like to say something?” she finally asks.
“I guess,” I say, and I walk with concrete feet to the front of the class. “Hi,” I tell everyone. “My announcement is about this hand-held video game I like to play. It’s called Die, Creature, Die.”
A couple of girls in my class look instantly bored, like they were just touched with a magic wand, and Cynthia looks confused. But most of the boys are surprised and excited to hear me talking about this game. They like it, too.
Ms. Sanchez just looks surprised. “TICK-TOCK, EllRay,” she says, which is Ms.-Sanchez-speak for “Hurry up.”
“So, I really like this game,” I tell everyone again, speeding up a little. “Only I’m not very good at it. Not like Stanley and Kevin, anyway.”