Saving Mr. Terupt

by Robert W. Buyea

  That was all it took. Peter’s house was designated as our home base, and no one worried. With the most important project we’d ever known in front of us, there wasn’t anything that was going to tear us apart or slow us down—not even Mrs. Cross, the evil shushing proctor woman.

  “Shhh!” she hissed again, this time with such gusto that spit flew from her mouth.

  I don’t know what Peter was thinking, but the next thing we knew, he stood up and went head-to-head with the hissing lady. “Mrs. Cross, I apologize for our whispering, but we’ve been assigned a very important group project, and we must work on it. I’ll talk to my friends about keeping it down. I love your hair, by the way.”

  “Your flattery won’t work on me, Mr. Jacobs,” she warned. “Keep it up, and you’ll be hanging with me after school.”

  “No place I’d rather be,” he murmured.

  “What was that?” she snapped.

  “I still like your hair,” he said, taking his seat.

  Believe it or not, Peter’s crazy stunt worked—in a backward sort of way. Mrs. Cross rose from her chair and marched over to our table. She glared down at us like a fire-breathing dragon, her eyes scanning our area. I thought for sure she was going to slap each one of us with a detention.

  “This project of yours, is it about Mr. Terupt?” she asked, nodding at my papers.

  I swallowed. “Yes. Do you know him?”

  “My grandson, Kevin, is in his class this year,” Mrs. Cross said. “Best teacher he’s ever had. It’d be a terrible shame if he lost his job. Don’t you worry, I’ll be voting yes.”

  Suddenly, we were all smiles. “Thank you,” I said.

  “Good luck, kids. I’m rooting for you.”

  That was the thing about Mr. Terupt. After meeting him, even somebody as nasty as Mrs. Cross couldn’t help but love him and want to keep him. If we got the word out about Mr. Terupt, people would have to vote yes.

  It was strange doing the biggest Mr. Terupt project without the man himself, but that was the way it had to be. It wouldn’t look good for him to be campaigning for his own job, and he had other things on his plate. It was time for us to look out for Mr. Terupt the way he always did for us.

  LUKE’S SEVENTH-GRADE SURVIVAL GUIDE

  TIP #20: Sometimes things sound simpler on paper than they turn out to be.

  Dear Journal,

  If Mr. Smith thought our efforts during the student government elections were impressive, he’d find all that we’ve accomplished for Mr. Terupt’s campaign unbelievable. But when the man you owe so much to is in danger, you’re willing to go to great lengths to fight for him, to do whatever it takes. I wonder if that’s how Dad feels? Is he willing to go to the end of the ocean for Mom and me?

  Like Dad, I haven’t slowed down. I’ve written one letter after the next for the paper. Recently, I’ve started writing multiple letters each day. I’m being creative. I’ve crafted letters from a concerned student, a concerned parent, a concerned community member, and on and on. I’m not the only one getting creative, either. Vincent is running a special at his restaurant—a sandwich called the Mr. Terupt. It’s a bestseller.

  Mrs. Reeder is doing her part to help, too. Don’t tell me it was a coincidence that she picked now to begin a unit on persuasive writing.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, it strikes me as an opportune time to begin thinking about persuasive writing,” she announced. “Persuasive writing is about careful word choice. The goal is to get your reader to agree with your position by the end of your essay. Since we’ve been thinking carefully about words all year, this shouldn’t be too difficult. In fact, let’s take a few minutes to share some of the insights you’ve made about words thus far.”

  I raised my hand.

  “Go ahead, Jessica,” Mrs. Reeder said.

  “Important words are the ones you feel,” I said. “They can hurt or help.”

  Mrs. Reeder nodded. “Anyone else?”

  “You need to be a good listener if you want to hear the important things people have to say,” Jeffrey said.

  “Whether spoken or written, they can make a difference,” Anna said.

  “Sometimes with beautiful language and complex sentences,” I added, “whereas other times a single word can mean everything.”

  “Terupt,” Peter said.

  “Yes, exactly,” Mrs. Reeder said. “Now let’s take a look at persuasive writing so that we know how to choose our words carefully, and then our readers and listeners will decide to agree with our view on things.”

  Feeling persuasive,

  Jessica

  P.S. I know words can persuade, and I deeply hope the words we use on Mr. Terupt’s behalf convince enough voters, but I’m also wondering something else—something I didn’t ask Mrs. Reeder. Can words heal? And, on their own, are they ever enough?

  Lexie and I were responsible for the flyers. We made mini-posters with VOTE YES printed in bold letters across the middle of each one, and right next to those two words we stuck a catchy picture of T, thanks to Anna’s awesome photography skills. Once we had them made, we went door to door delivering them. We’d knock, and when someone answered we’d give them a short speech—using the persuasion skills Mrs. Reeder had taught us—to go along with the flyer we shoved in their hands.

  We met all sorts of people. There were those who were happy to see us, and those who were so happy they offered us cookies and something to drink. We regretfully declined, as ordered by Lexie’s mom. And then there were the ones who greeted us with mean, growling dogs that could’ve swallowed Margo whole, and others who slammed doors in our faces. And who could ever forget Mr. Harold Meezer, the old man who was so nasty he put Mrs. Cross to shame.

  “Hi,” Lexie said when he’d opened his door. “I’m Alexia, and this is Peter. We’re here to kindly remind you to vote on the budget, and we encourage you to vote yes so we can save our extraordinary teacher, Mr. Terupt.”

  “You don’t have to worry about me,” the old man said. “I’ll be voting, but I’m not about to vote yes. That Teenup man you’re all trying to save is just another money-sucking teacher as far as I’m concerned.”

  “And you’re just an old fart who doesn’t know his head from his butt,” I said.

  “You get off my porch!” he roared.

  Lexie grabbed my hand and got me away from there as fast as she could, before I said anything more. I didn’t mean any disrespect to Mr. Geezer, but he didn’t have the right to talk about T that way. I lost my head—and my tongue—after he said those awful things.

  I don’t know anything about it, but somehow Mr. Geezer woke up the next morning with his house and car gift-wrapped in VOTE YES flyers. He even had SAVE MR. TERUPT written in huge black letters across his garage door. From what I understand, it was written in washable marker, but it was still there several days later. That’s what I call karma!

  With Anna and Jeffrey helping me, we made close to a hundred posters. By using a wide range of big, bright block letters, we made sure each one was an attention grabber. We had VOTE YES posters and SAVE MR. TERUPT posters stuck in store windows and staked up on lawns all over town. We even spent several afternoons standing on the corner by school, holding our special HONK FOR MR. TERUPT signs. It felt great every time we heard a beep, but whenever a car drove past without tooting its horn, it reminded us we were in for a fight. I wouldn’t say that scared me, though—that would come later.

  When Mr. Terupt didn’t show up at church Sunday morning, I got another one of those funny feelings. Something was wrong. Later that evening, my funny feeling had blossomed into an itch that I had to scratch.

  “Grandma, can we go over to the church?”

  “What for?”

  “I’ve got to see if Mr. Terupt is there with the candles again. I hope he’s not, and then I can just light one for him and we can leave, but I won’t be able to sleep until I know.”

  Grandma understood. I didn’t have to say anything more. She grabbed her car keys,
I grabbed my designer kit, and we headed out.

  I spotted him the moment we walked in. Grandma put her hand on my shoulder and stopped me.

  “Let him finish,” she whispered.

  We sat in the back and waited. I prayed for him. He was there for a while, which scared me even more, but then he got up and started toward us. He wasn’t his usual self. He walked with his head down.

  “Hi, Mr. Terupt,” I said, startling him.

  He looked up. I’d never seen bags under his eyes before. “Hi, Danielle,” he said, sounding even more tired than he looked.

  “I’m sorry about your job, and this whole predicament,” I said. “The gang’s doing everything we can to help.”

  “My job? Is that why…That explains…But it’s not my job I’m worried about, Danielle. I can get another one of those if I have to. It’s Mrs. Terupt. She’s in the hospital again. She went back into preterm labor, and this time they had to keep her. Her blood pressure was high, and they were worried about the baby, so they’ve got her and are monitoring things.”

  I caught my breath. He didn’t try to pretend all was fine, the way adults sometimes do with kids. I felt so bad for him, but I didn’t know what to say. It’s a good thing I had Grandma with me.

  “The bond between a mother and her unborn baby is a miraculous thing,” Grandma said. “There’s nothing else like it. A baby can sense everything that’s going on with its mother. I’m sure this situation with the budget has your wife upset, even if she claims it doesn’t. Once it’s over, things will settle down and everything will be fine—especially after these kids get done.”

  Mr. Terupt nodded. “I hope so,” he said. And then he walked out, his shoulders carrying so much worry.

  Dear God,

  For selfish reasons, I want you to make sure the vote passes so we can keep Mr. Terupt here forever, but that’s not what I’m praying for tonight. Please, God, please take care of Mrs. Terupt and the baby.

  Amen.

  Lukester was overseeing our operation and helping us every step of the way. He never ran out of ideas or suggestions. But as the date for the vote drew closer, we couldn’t help but feel like we still weren’t doing enough, especially after learning Mrs. Terupt was back in the hospital.

  “What else can we do?” Jessica asked all of us.

  No one had an answer. We were silent. Maybe that was what caught Mrs. Cross’s attention, because she lumbered over to our table to see what was going on.

  “How’s it going, kids?” she asked.

  “Not good,” Luke said. “We’re not sure we’ve done enough, and we’re running out of time.”

  “Well, I know of some other kids who’d like to give you a hand,” Mrs. Cross said.

  We instantly perked up. It was like we had just found our second wind late in the third period of a tough match. Of course Terupt’s sixth graders wanted to help! Any kid who had Terupt as his teacher knew how special he was and wanted to keep him forever. We didn’t want to get Terupt involved, but that didn’t mean his students couldn’t get involved.

  “What did you have in mind?” Luke asked.

  “Well, if you’re all okay with it, I was thinking I could have my grandson Kevin put a letter in each kid’s mailbox or backpack instructing him or her to make more flyers or posters for your cause. The students could then give their completed work to Kevin. He’d give it to me, and I’d give it to you.”

  “Mrs. Cross, that’s an awesome idea!” Peter yelled.

  “Shh!” she hissed. “Need I remind you that this is still silent study hall?”

  Peter shrank down in his chair.

  “I wasn’t born last night, Mr. Jacobs. I was a room mom years ago, and that’s how we went about collecting things for teacher gifts.”

  “It’s still awesome,” Peter whispered.

  The woman actually cracked a smile.

  This new plan worked without a hitch, so well that Anna and Danielle even had a joke going about making Mrs. Cross an honorary member of the Spy Sisters—whatever that meant. Before we knew it, we had another hundred posters. We got them attached to stakes and put up on all those lawns that were home to the friendly people Lexie and Peter had met. The younger grades at Snow Hill School had made cards for Terupt following the Everything Fair but hadn’t given them to him yet, so the sixth graders decided to send those to us to pass out rather than more flyers. The cards all showed how special a teacher can be. Peter’s favorite one had a drawing of a boy holding a dog above a big snake. Lexie didn’t like it, but the rest of us got a kick out of it.

  Eventually, Voting Day arrived. And after all our hard work, there was only one thing left for us to do, and that was wait for the results. Not surprisingly, Lexie had an idea about how we should do that.

  It was Voting Day.

  “Like, we need to have a party,” I told everyone during silent study hall. “Remember, every campaign ends with a party.”

  “I don’t know,” Danielle said. “I’d like to be with all of you while we wait for the results tonight, but I’m not sure about another party.”

  “Don’t worry,” I said. “It’ll be different this time. And if it makes you feel better, we don’t even have to call it a party. We can call it—”

  “A party,” Jessica said, cutting me off. “Sorry, but we have to call it a party. That sounds happier and more optimistic, and we need that vibe right now.”

  “Okay, then,” Peter said. “I’ll see all of you at my place tonight. We’ll have a party while we wait for the results to roll in.”

  “And don’t worry,” I told everyone again. “It’ll be different this time.”

  By “different,” I didn’t mean for it to turn out worse.

  Lexie was right, this party was different. Sure, we had all the food and drink like we did the last time, and Peter played his music and we challenged each other in foosball, but we also had the budget results looming over us. When you’re full of worry because of something like that, it’s hard to go on laughing and having a good time. But Lexie came prepared to help us get through the night. She’d better grow up to be a party planner.

  “Like, I’ve got something we can do,” she said. “Everyone sit in a circle.”

  “No, we’re not doing that again,” Luke said.

  “Chill out. I’m not getting a bottle. I brought something else.” Lexie pulled out a round black object from her pack. “A Magic Eight Ball,” she announced, holding it high for all of us to see.

  “What’s that?” Danielle asked. I wasn’t surprised that she’d never seen one. It wasn’t the sort of thing you found in church.

  “It’s our fortune-teller,” Lexie said. “Like a crystal ball. You ask it a yes-or-no question, give it a shake, and then look through this little glass window and wait for your answer.”

  “How does it give you an answer?”

  “There’s a twenty-sided die inside with a bunch of different responses written all over it,” Peter said. “The die floats to the top, and one of its faces presses against the window, showing you your answer.”

  Danielle still looked confused.

  “Gimme that stupid thing,” Peter said, grabbing it from Lexie. “I’ll show you. Does Lexie snore?” he said, giving it a shake.

  “You’re a jerk,” Lexie said, reaching for the ball.

  “Ah, ah, ah,” Peter said, holding it away from her. “You have to wait for an answer once a question’s been asked.”

  Lexie huffed and sat back.

  “Here comes the answer!” Peter cried. “It says, ‘Like a bear’!”

  “No it doesn’t!” Lexie yelled. “That’s not even on the die.” She grabbed the fortune-teller from him. “Does Peter fart in his sleep?” she asked it.

  That was how it went. Round and round the circle we passed the Magic 8 Ball, each of us asking it our silly questions, then shaking it and waiting for an answer. It was ridiculous, but that thing entertained us for the next two hours. After asking questions about the gan
g, we started asking the fortune-teller things about our teachers.

  “Does Mrs. Cross wax her mustache?” Jeffrey asked.

  Peter thought that one was great, so naturally he had to try to come up with one better. “Does Principal Lee wet the bed?” he asked.

  “Ugh! You guys are terrible,” Jessica said.

  Then Luke went ahead and asked the thing we all really wanted to know, but were too chicken to say. “Will the budget pass tonight?”

  Our circle sucked in one deep breath and waited for the cloudy blue water to clear. Luke peered into the glass opening. “ ‘Outlook not so good,’ ” he read.

  It was just a stupid plastic toy, but its answer took all the fun out of everything. That was the last thing we asked the Magic 8 Ball. Lexie put it away, and we gathered around the TV. We still had about an hour before the news came on and posted the results, so we found a movie to watch. We wrapped ourselves in blankets and began the waiting.

  I thought all the excitement for the night was over until the results came in, but then something you’re never going to believe happened. Someone started snoring, and not little tiny snores, but deep honking ones. The kind you only picture fat old men with hairy bellies producing. I couldn’t believe she’d fallen asleep. I mean, it was late and all, but she was supposed to be the party animal. Lexie’s head was tipped to the side, and her mouth hung wide open. Her whole body shook with each bellow. Those snores were coming all the way from her toes.

  “Told you the answer was ‘like a bear,’ ” Peter said, covering his mouth to keep from waking her with his laughter.

  The rest of us had to do the same thing. We were dying. For Peter, this moment was too good to be true. He couldn’t let the opportunity pass him by. He hurried over to the snacks and grabbed the container of Reddi-wip in one hand and a toothpick in the other.