Pennybaker School Is Revolting

by Jennifer Brown

  She made a cross over her chest with her fingers. “You and me,” she repeated.

  “He can’t come back to teach us until he passes a test.”

  She gasped, and I could just about see her brain trying to work out a way that she could make this between her and me and the rest of the entire free world. Just like I’d hoped.

  “Is it bad?” she whispered.

  I nodded. “He can’t pass it by himself. He needs help.”

  “Help? What kind of help?”

  “That’s what the meeting is for,” I said. “I have an idea. I want to meet on the roof at lunchtime. I just have to figure out who to invite.”

  “I’m on it,” she said, not even bothering to let me finish.

  Perfect.

  The roof of Pennybaker School was home to a greenhouse and to Herb Gardener, a twelfth-grader whose unique gift was horticulture. Nobody ever saw Herb outside the greenhouse, and since there was no planting club, pretty much nobody but Herb ever had a reason to go into the greenhouse.

  It was the perfect place to hold a meeting out from under the watchful eye of Mr. Smith. Not to mention, we didn’t want Principal Rooster to overhear our plan to help Mr. Faboo pass his test. Plus, secret meetings in the overflowing vines of the greenhouse were just kind of cool.

  Which was the first thing Chip said when he walked in. “Secret meetings in all these vines are kind of cool. Oh, hey, Thomas. I didn’t know you were going to be here.”

  “What do you mean you didn’t know?”

  “I knew Wesley and the howl pack would be here, but that was it.”

  “Howl pack? What in the world is a howl pack?”

  In response, Chip tilted his face up to the sky—which was a lot closer in the greenhouse—and let out a long howl. A few seconds ticked by, and then three howls responded to his. And one buzz of a didgeridoo. The guys pushed through the door.

  What the heck? My friends—all my friends—had formed a pack, and had left me out of it? I liked to howl, too, but how would they ever know? I was getting pretty sick of Chip taking my place in this school.

  “You’re letting out the humidity,” Herb complained, rushing to shut the door behind them with a very worried look on his face.

  They responded with more howls, which were deafeningly loud in the enclosed space.

  “You guys are the howl pack?”

  “Ow-ow,” Wesley said.

  “Ooowww,” Flea responded.

  “How come I’m not in the howl pack?” I asked.

  “Oh. I didn’t realize you would want to be. You usually think things like this are dumb. You are certainly most welcome, sir.” Chip bowed low. “Give it a try. Howling is fun.”

  “No,” I said. “I don’t want to be in any stupid howl pack, having to bark at the moon like a dog.”

  “We don’t bark, good sir,” Wesley said in his British accent. “We bay. There is a difference.”

  “And the moon doesn’t really have anything to do with it,” Owen confirmed. He looked up from his laptop screen. “Although tonight’s supposed to be a full moon. Total coincidence.”

  I wanted to lay into Chip. Well, I wanted to lay into all of them, but especially Chip. I can’t believe you started a club without me, I would say. You don’t even have club socks, and it’s not okay that I know that about you and still don’t get to be in your club. I wanted to tell the rest of them that they wouldn’t even have Chip for a friend if it hadn’t been for me, so they’d better appreciate me. But when you started using phrases like “you’d better appreciate me,” you started to sound like you were having a Mom on a Rant Adventure, and nobody wanted to let that guy into their club.

  “It’s technically not a club,” Chip assured me, as if he could read my mind. Good. I hoped he could. My mind was making all kinds of ugly faces at him right now, and maybe even calling him a few names, too. “A club would imply a sponsor, membership dues, and regular meetings and bylaws, not to mention a quorum for voting. We prefer the Not It method, which works great for informal friend groups, but when it comes to official clubs—”

  “Chip!” I clapped my hands in front of his face to make him stop. “It doesn’t matter.” (It did matter.) “It’s totally fine for you to howl your heads off.” (It wasn’t fine.) “And you don’t have to invite me to everything.” (He didn’t, but I wanted him to.) “Can we get on with our meeting, please?”

  “Dude,” Flea said, edging away from me. “The humidity is starting to bring out your skunkiness.”

  “Stolen skunkiness,” I heard. I scanned the crowd until I saw Reap’s familiar face, which was scowling. “That spray was supposed to be mine.”

  “Well, trust me, you can have it,” I said. I got up and started toward him, lifting an arm—not because there was any smell in my armpit but because if you’re going to wipe a smell on someone, an armpit is the best possible weapon I can think of. The crowd parted. Two girls squealed and jumped out of the way.

  “Gentlemen, gentlemen,” Colton said, stepping between us. I bumped into his chest. He looked repulsed and brushed off the front of his shirt. “Let’s all remember why we’re here.” He turned to me. “Why exactly are we here, anyway?”

  “Didn’t you hear?” Patrice Pillow said. “Mr. Faboo is dying.”

  “What?” I barked.

  “No, not dying,” Samara Lee said. “Just moving to Antarctica to study penguins.”

  “I thought it was Africa, and he was studying lions,” Flea said.

  “I heard he’s running away from a kidnapper,” Colton said.

  Suddenly everyone was talking over one another, all with different versions of what happened to Mr. Faboo. I turned a questioning eye to Babette. She shrugged. “You said not to tell them about the test.”

  “What test?” Wesley asked, and the whole crowd quieted.

  I finally had everyone’s attention, and not because of the way I smelled. “Mr. Faboo is in trouble, yes,” I said. “But he’s not dying or moving or running away from bad guys. He just can’t teach again until he passes a test.”

  “So?” Owen said.

  “So, he thinks he can’t pass it. He needs help. And that’s where we come in. We all have unique talents, right?” There was a murmur of agreement. “Well, I was thinking we could each use our gifts to coach Mr. Faboo so that he’ll pass the test.”

  Now the murmur was much more doubtful.

  “Horatio Oliver Williams?” Hilly asked. It took me a few minutes to work out the acrostic. H-O-W? Hilly wanted to know how she could help Mr. Faboo with the test.

  “Well, you two”—I gestured to Hilly and Milly—“would be great with mnemonic devices.” They looked confused. “Helping Mr. Faboo remember facts by using acronyms.”

  “Like, My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nine Pizzas,” Buckley said. “Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto. The planets.”

  “Pluto isn’t a planet,” Colton said.

  “Yes, it is,” Dawson interjected.

  “No, it’s not,” Wesley said.

  “Technically,” Chip said, holding up one finger, “Pluto is a dwarf planet, which means it looks like a planet but really doesn’t meet all of the criteria to be an actual planet. So you could change your acronym to My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nachos. Or, if you feel compelled to acknowledge the former planet Pluto, you could say My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nine Delicious Pizzas. The D standing for ‘Dwarf,’ of course. Although, now that I think about it, that might not really work, because every other letter of the acronym stands for a planet name, and ‘Dwarf’ isn’t the name of an actual planet, nor is ‘Dwarf Pluto.’ So adding ‘Delicious’ to the acronym might be unnecessarily confusing.”

  Silence.

  “You finished?” I asked.

  He nodded. “Continue, Thomas.”

  “So you guys can help him memorize facts using your acrostics. Owen can help him with computer questions. Flea, you can help with music histo
ry and facts about Australia. Patrice, you’ve got the creative-writing section. And so on.”

  “What are you going to help with?” Colton asked. “I doubt there’s going to be magic on this test.”

  “Chemistry,” I said. “That was what landed me here in the first place.” For the first time since coming to Pennybaker School, I began to feel that maybe I was gifted in a unique way, even if it was with Grandpa Rudy’s help. Lots of people can be given a magic kit. Not all of them can make water dance.

  “You know, it’s not a bad idea,” Babette said.

  Samara Lee nodded. “Mr. Smith isn’t very nice. He made me put away my archery set. Nobody’s ever made me put away my archery set. He said it was dangerous.” She rolled her eyes like nobody had ever been hurt by a bow and arrow before.

  “He gave me detention for dropping one of my bowling balls,” Cecily said. “I was trying for five.”

  “And he threatened to call my parents if I didn’t stop talking,” Babette added. We all looked at her. “My unique gift is talking.” Huh. So I wasn’t so far off in my guess. “Auctioneering, actually,” she added.

  “He doesn’t like musicals,” Wesley added, sounding the most offended of all of us. “Not even Newsies. Who doesn’t like Newsies?”

  Colton stepped up onto an overturned bucket and pumped his fist in the air. “Thomas is right. We need to get Mr. Faboo back! Who’s with me?”

  Everyone shouted that they were with Colton and then began chattering about how each of them was going to help Mr. Faboo. Herb looked very nervous when we all began to file out of the greenhouse with our plan in place.

  I noticed him spraying air freshener behind me.

  But I didn’t care. Finally, when it really mattered, I had everyone on board.

  TRICK #28

  A RIVETING QUICK CHANGE

  Mr. Faboo came to the picnic table as planned, and we implemented our cram revolution, blitzing him one by one with facts and tricks and thermoses full of hot cocoa and fingerless gloves to help him grip his pencil. When it got so cold that Mr. Faboo’s lips turned blue, Wesley figured out a way to sneak him into the theater through a backstage tunnel. We met in the empty auditorium, our voices echoing with algebra equations and facts about muscles and the names of different types of clouds.

  Owen printed out practice tests, and Mr. Faboo got better and better, although his hands shook and a line of sweat appeared on his upper lip while he took them.

  By the time he went home, it was dark outside and he looked exhausted, but somehow smarter.

  “We’re behind you, Mr. Faboo,” I said, shaking his hand.

  Chip leaned in to whisper, “Technically, you’re facing him, so you’re in front of him.”

  “I meant figuratively, Chip.” Apparently some of our facts had leaked into my brain, too.

  We moved on to the World War II unit in Facts After the Fact. Mr. Smith made us memorize European geography, giving us pop quizzes almost every other day to see how we were doing. We were all doing horribly. Except Chip, of course. He was really great at European geography. And any kind of geography. And any kind of anything, really.

  Chip came to class in an interesting outfit. We all watched as he took his seat wearing a pair of wide-leg blue jeans, a denim shirt with the sleeves rolled up, and a bandana around his head.

  “What is this about?” Mr. Smith asked as soon as Chip sat down.

  We were all wondering the same thing.

  “This?” Chip gestured to his shirt. “I was under the impression that this week we were studying the war effort on the home front. I’m Rosie the Riveter, the archetype of the strong working woman who flooded factories and other typically male-dominated career ventures because their male counterparts were ‘over there.’ ”

  “What does that mean?” Flea whispered to Colton. Colton shrugged.

  “It means I’m dressing the part, just the way Mr. Faboo would want it,” Chip said.

  “Act After the Fact Month lives again!” Wesley crowed.

  “I thought we weren’t supposed to do that anymore,” Buckley said.

  “That is correct. You aren’t. Mr. Mason, I would appreciate it if you’d change back into your proper school uniform, please,” Mr. Smith said.

  “I can’t,” Chip said.

  “Pardon me?”

  “This is what I wore to school today,” Chip said. “My proper school uniform is at home.”

  Mr. Smith’s cheeks got puffy. He let out a breath. “Fine,” he said. “Tomorrow I expect you to be dressed appropriately, or you will have detention.”

  Chip’s ears got red, and he looked a little like he was going to cry. Which was pretty unfair. A guy like Chip wasn’t in it for the attention. He really did want to get into the spirit of the lesson by dressing the part. I didn’t see why it was such a big deal for a guy to want to dress up.

  I thought about it for a while, and realized that Chip was supporting Mr. Faboo in the best way he knew how. By refusing to let go of Act After the Fact, Chip was making a statement that he fully expected Mr. Faboo to come back. After all Mr. Faboo’s hard work—and ours—we had every reason to feel optimistic about it. To expect it, even.

  And just as Rosie the Riveter had supported the war on the home front, so had we supported Mr. Faboo on the classroom front. We’d banded together and shared our gifts. Now it was time for us to band together to share our belief in him.

  I called Wesley that night, and told him to pass it on, starting with Babette.

  The next day, I asked Mom if I could borrow some things.

  “Sure,” she said absentmindedly while she dusted around another new trophy. Grandma Jo must have been really good at car racing. “Do you see this? Do you see?” She pointed at the trophy.

  “Nah, that’s been there since Grandma Jo moved in, Mom.” I had a promise to keep to Grandma Jo.

  “It has not,” she said, but her voice was soft and wondering, like maybe she thought it might have been there the whole time after all.

  I caught a ride with Chip’s mom that morning, and she said we were cute in our matching Rosie the Riveter outfits. She said she admired our gumption. She said we owed it to ourselves to get as much enjoyment out of our education as we could. She said we would probably get detention.

  But when we walked into the school, we saw that Wesley had done what I asked. The hallways were flooded with Rosies. Even Clara the Poet was wearing an all-black version.

  Principal Rooster and Miss Munch stood next to the Heirmauser head, smiling and clapping their hands and congratulating Mr. Smith on inspiring his students in such a creative way. Chip clapped his hands, too. He looked really proud.

  Mr. Smith was super angry and told us to read silently for the whole class period. I guessed it was his way of giving us detention without giving us detention.

  That afternoon, Mr. Faboo came back to the picnic table for a final brushup. We marched out to meet him, a Rosie the Riveter army.

  “Rosalind Palmer Walter,” he said, wiping the corners of his eyes. “The inspiration behind the Rosie the Riveter song.”

  “Just like you’re our inspiration, Mr. Faboo,” Clover Prentice said.

  There was a chorus of “Yeah!” and “We believe in you!” and one “This bandanna’s giving me a headache”—but we ignored that one.

  “Thank you, students,” he said. “You will never know how much I appreciate what you’ve done for me.”

  But he looked kind of sad when he said it.

  Sad and nervous.

  The next day was the test.

  TRICK #29

  THE FRIENDSHIP FLOURISH

  I still hated pantyhose.

  But a promise was a promise, and we had all made a pact to wear our Act After the Fact outfits to the testing site to support Mr. Faboo. I wrestled into mine, the whole time repeating to myself that they were leggings, not pantyhose. It didn’t work.

  “You’re up early. Where are you off to?” Grandma Jo asked when I came in
to the kitchen. She was peeling an orange, dropping the peel on a paper towel spread out on the table in front of her. She had a black smudge across one cheek.

  “My teacher has a test today, and we’re all going to cheer him on.”

  “Today? But it’s not even a school day.” She was right. It was a Saturday morning. In my opinion, it was just mean to make a guy get up on a Saturday morning to take a test, but Mr. Faboo didn’t have a choice, so we didn’t have a choice. She bit into an orange slice. “You must really like this teacher.”

  I grabbed a bag of miniature cinnamon rolls and sat across from her. “Yeah,” I said. “I didn’t realize it until he wasn’t around anymore, but I really do.”

  “That’s usually the way things happen,” she said. “After Grandpa Rudy died, all I could think about was all the fights we had. Sometimes he was a real pain in my neck. Always off doing his magic at one end of the town or another. Leaving his socks on the living room floor. Snoring. Did you know that every now and then, when he was really tired, he liked to put his underwear in the freezer? Said it woke him right up when he put them on. Woke me up, too, to open the freezer for a bag of peas and instead find a crusty old pair of boxers resting on the ice cube trays.”

  I giggled. “I’m sure it did.”

  She popped another orange segment into her mouth and chewed. “The thing was, after he was gone, I missed that. I even kept his favorite pair of underwear and put them in the freezer. It was comforting having them there, in a weird way. It was sort of like that darn rabbit of his. The thing was always getting loose, and it aggravated your grandfather to no end. He talked and talked about taking it out to a field and setting it free. But then when it went missing, Grandpa Rudy grieved something awful. He looked for that rabbit forever. And kept his dish for a long time, too.”

  “I still have it,” I said.

  Her eyebrows shot up. “You do?”

  “Yep. It says ‘Bill’ on it. It was in the trunk.”

  A small grin crept across Grandma Jo’s face, like she was remembering something funny. “I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised about that,” she said. “The old softie. Anyway, what I’m saying to you is this.” She took the bag from me, shook out the last cinnamon roll, and set it on the table in front of me. “Make this disappear.” I tucked it into my palm using sleight of hand. “Now make it reappear.” I did. She pointed to the roll. “As a magician, you’re used to always being able to make things reappear. Now make it disappear again.” I did. “And reappear.” I did, but before it could even hit the table, she snatched it and stuffed it into her mouth. She chewed and swallowed. “But life just doesn’t always work like that. Sometimes things are just gone forever, and you have to learn to accept it. So you have to eat the pastry while it’s right there in front of you, because you never know if you’ll get another cinnamon roll again.”