Skateboard Party

by Karen English

  Suddenly he hears Darnell on the stairs. He glances around again and shoves the container into the oven just in time. Darnell comes into the kitchen yawning. Richard shakes some cereal into a bowl and hands the box to Darnell, trying to look innocent. Darnell shakes the box, frowning. He shrugs and fills a bowl, then puts the cereal box back on top of the fridge.

  Just as they’re sitting down at the table, Jamal comes in, also yawning. He doesn’t speak—just goes to the refrigerator and gets the box of Cinnamon Crunch. He opens it and peers inside. “What? Who ate all the cereal? There’s just some crumbs left!”

  “I just have this one bowl,” Darnell says.

  “Me, too,” Richard says, without looking up. He finishes wolfing down his cereal and brings the bowl to his lips to drink the milk.

  “Mom just bought this box two days ago.”

  Richard shrugs and sets his bowl down.

  Then they hear their mother’s voice calling from the dining room, where she’s cutting out coupons from last week’s Sunday paper. “Don’t you dare go into the cream puffs,” she says. “They’re for my book club meeting today.”

  All three boys say, “Cream puffs?”

  Richard goes to the refrigerator, opens it, and sees a big pink box. He lifts the lid and there they are. Looks like at least a dozen. He swallows. He knows he’s going to sneak one later when half the club members pass because of their diets or something. He just has to wait it out. He decides to go into the den and watch cartoons. Once he’s sprawled on the couch, he thinks: Ah, Saturday.

  After a while, he gets tired of cartoons and decides it’s time to go out and practice the flat-ground Ollie before his mother comes up with a zillion chores for him to do. He needs to get it perfect so he’s not nervous when it’s time to show off at Gregory Johnson’s party. He scoots out the back door to the driveway, grabs his skateboard leaning against the garage, and the crate next to it. His heart begins to beat fast. If his heart is beating fast now—while he’s setting up at home—how will he feel at the skate park?

  After executing two perfect Ollies in a row, he messes up the third. He misses his landing. That’s okay, he tells himself. He just needs to practice. He’s got a whole week to get it right. He’s got until two o’clock next Saturday. He and Gavin plan to walk over to the park—where the party’s going to be—together.

  Richard thinks he feels a drop of rain. He looks up and sees dark clouds. Then the rain begins to fall. Richard considers doing one more flat-ground Ollie, but the rain is coming down a little harder. I’ll wait it out, he thinks as he takes a seat on the top back-porch step. He sighs. Just his luck. What if it doesn’t stop raining? It has to stop. If it doesn’t, he’ll practice the move in his mind.

  So that’s what he does. He sits on the top step and practices the move in his mind until he hears his mother open the back door. “What are you doing sitting out here in the rain?”

  “I’m practicing a move in my mind for Gregory Johnson’s birthday party at the park.”

  “You don’t need to practice in the rain. The party’s a week away. You’ve got plenty of time to practice.”

  Just my luck, Richard thinks. Just my luck that it would start to rain. He stays outside for a little longer, then decides he needs a cream puff. He needs a cream puff and a video game.

  Inside, he peeks through the door that leads to the dining room and sees that the pink box has been moved to the dining room table. His mother’s book club meeting has started in the living room, right next to the dining room. Several of the women have cream puffs on their paper plates. A really fat lady has two! Will Richard be able to sneak one cream puff out of that pink box without being seen? He listens to the women talking to one another. It doesn’t seem as if the meeting has really started yet. It feels as though this is the refreshment part of the meeting. Then he hears someone with a commanding voice say, “Ladies, can I have your attention?”

  While Richard imagines all eyes on that bossy-sounding woman, he tiptoes to the dining room table, opens the box, and plucks a cream puff out of it. He knows it’s going to taste so good while he sits on his bed playing his new video game. For half a second he thinks of Ms. Shelby-Ortiz’s note safely tucked away in his backpack. He quickly thinks about the cream puff instead. No need to ruin a perfectly good Saturday afternoon.

  But then later that night, when he’s watching television with Darnell, Roland, and Jamal, the note pops into his head again. He almost gets up to retrieve it and give it to his mom, who right then is in the kitchen, talking on the telephone to her sister, his aunt Jen. Maybe his mom would be so busy talking that she’d sign it without really looking at it. But Richard decides that’s not a good idea. He’ll just give it to her at breakfast.

  There doesn’t seem to be a good time on Sunday at breakfast, or during the rest of the day. And Monday morning at breakfast doesn’t seem to be the right moment either. His mother is having a good time laughing and talking with his father. Why spoil the mood? Richard thinks.

  Later, when he’s walking to school with Gavin, the note is still at the bottom of his backpack—right where he had put it on Friday.

  Three

  A Burned-up Blob

  As soon as Richard enters the classroom, he goes to his cubby and deposits his lunch. He unzips his backpack, gets his notebook, then takes out a couple of small racers and a wad of clay. He sees the note looking up at him. He slips the little cars and the clay into his pocket and goes to his desk. He’s one of the kids who have to leave their backpacks in their cubbies. The students usually hang them on the backs of their chairs, but once Ms. Shelby-Ortiz decides you’re a kid who’s constantly going into your backpack for sneaky snacks or tiny toys, your backpack has to be left in your cubby. Richard hates leaving his. There are other kids who he knows are going into their backpacks for stuff all day long. Ms. Shelby-Ortiz just hasn’t caught them.

  He glances over his shoulder at his teacher. She’s busy looking at some papers in her hand. He wonders if she’s going to ask him for the signed note so she’ll know when his parents are coming in for a conference to discuss how he isn’t applying himself. He goes to his desk, takes out his morning journal, and looks at the board. The topic of the day is My Weekend. There’s a lot to write about, but Richard sighs heavily. That’s just the problem. It’s harder to get started when there’s a lot to write about than when there’s nothing to write about. When there’s nothing much to put in his journal, he can make the words really big and write the same sentences in a couple of different ways each. That way, he can get to the end of the page without really thinking. But when there’s a whole bunch of stuff, he feels jumpy and put on the spot and in a big hurry.

  He glances over at Ms. Shelby-Ortiz again. Now she’s looking at her plan book. All of his classmates are basically quiet and on task, as if they’re tired from the weekend or something. Finally, Richard begins to write:

  I had a fun weekend and a not fun weekend. First, I thot (I know I didn’t spell that right but I don’t want to ask anyone how to spell thot) I was going to practice this new move on my skateboard to show off at Gregery Johnsons party. But then it started to rain. But I got to play video games and I got a creem puf from my moms club meeting and that was good. And I played with my brothers and pored soda on my brothers face while he was asleep. That was real fun but then he woke up and started punching me and stuff. And I ate cinamon crunch for breakfast and then I hid some in the oven to eat later and I am going to eat it today after school.

  Just then Ms. Shelby-Ortiz says, “Journals closed. Leave them in the upper corner of your desk. I will collect them and check them at recess. Please take your readers to your groups.”

  Everyone gets up and goes to their reading groups. Richard knows he’s in the slow group, even though Ms. Shelby-Ortiz doesn’t call it that. It’s the group where she sits during oral reading. She “visits” the other groups while they’re reading out loud to one another, but she mostly stays at the table whe
re Richard sits. When he gets there today, Yolanda is already seated. She’s a really slow reader. When she reads, it takes so long for her to get through one paragraph that Richard practically falls asleep. He doesn’t know how Ms. Shelby-Ortiz can keep such a happy look on her face. He looks over at Gavin at the smart table. He knows Gavin is in the top reading group because they’re all the time getting to do independent activities: writing skits, writing letters to a famous person from the past, rewriting the ending of their favorite book . . .

  Gavin wrote a letter to Davy Crockett. He asked him if he actually wrestled with a bear and what kind of wrestling moves he did—which Richard thought was a really good question.

  After oral reading, the students take out their workbooks and answer a bunch of questions about what they just read. Ms. Shelby-Ortiz guides Richard’s table through this, too. The whole time she’s there, Richard can’t tell if she’s going to ask him about the note or not. He begins to hope she forgot. At the moment she’s helping Yolanda and letting the rest of the class work on their own. Richard wishes he could get to the little cars in his desk. It would help if he could play a little bit while he works. He looks over at Gavin, who is busy writing his answers. Richard wishes he could sit by Gavin and get some of them from him.

  “Richard,” Ms. Shelby-Ortiz says.

  Richard holds his breath. Here it comes.

  “I’m sorry. I know you’re working hard, but can you stop what you’re doing and take the lunch count to the office?”

  Whew! He’d forgotten that he’s office monitor this week. He loves being office monitor. He loves getting out of class and walking down the hall and looking in other classrooms that have their doors open. He wishes he could be office monitor for the rest of the year. He takes his time.

  When he returns, his classmates are busy putting away their readers and workbooks in preparation for recess. Wow! What luck. He hurries to his table and puts away his reader and workbook, pushes his chair forward, and stands behind it like a soldier. It’s a beautiful sound when Ms. Shelby-Ortiz calls Table Three to line up first.

  “You’re lucky Ms. Shelby-Ortiz has forgotten,” Gavin says to Richard on their way to the basketball court. Gavin is ball monitor this week. He shoots the basketball to Richard.

  “Yeah,” Richard agrees, and bounces the ball low all the way to the court. The day’s starting off great.

  Except later, after lunch and during math, which Richard kind of likes, Ms. Shelby-Ortiz says, “Richard, please come up here.” She’s sitting at her desk. There on the desk is her grade book. He hopes she doesn’t start flipping through the pages again, looking for his name. She doesn’t. She folds her hands and studies him closely. “I’m wondering if you have the note I gave you on Friday to give to your parents.” She looks at him as if she already knows the answer.

  Richard swallows nervously. He doesn’t like the way Ms. Shelby-Ortiz is staring at him now, without saying anything. She’s doing that waiting thing. “I forgot it at home,” he says.

  “Mmm.”

  Richard doesn’t know what that means. Does it mean she doesn’t believe him or does it mean that she does believe him?

  “Okay,” she says. “I’m going to be looking for it tomorrow. But if you don’t bring it tomorrow, what do you think should be your consequences?”

  He doesn’t like it when Ms. Shelby-Ortiz makes them come up with their own consequences. He’s always tempted to come up with something easy, like missing one recess or doing yard cleanup, which can be kind of fun. Walking around picking up paper can easily be turned into play, especially if you’re working with a partner.

  He sighs and says, “I have to miss recess?”

  “That’s a start, but I think you should miss morning and lunch recesses until I receive the note,” she says, and smiles at him. “Do you think that’s fair?”

  This is the hard part. He has to say yes when he wants to say no. But he can’t say no. Because it really is fair. “Yes, it’s fair,” Richard says in a low voice.

  “Good,” Ms. Shelby-Ortiz says. “I’m glad you see it my way. Now go over to the whiteboard and write ‘Richard’s note’ in the bottom corner so I can see it first thing in the morning.”

  Richard walks to the whiteboard. He can feel the eyes of the class on him. He picks up the dry-erase marker and writes “Richard’s note.” It’s kind of messy because the whiteboard is slippery and it’s hard to control the marker. He returns to his seat and thinks about how he’ll tell his parents about the note and the missed project.

  Richard’s mother had given permission for Gavin to come over after school to do homework, and Richard has been looking forward to doing a little bit of homework and a lot of playing video games. But as soon as Gavin and Richard walk through the back door of his house, he sees he has a new problem. Darnell and Jamal had dentist appointments, so they are already home with their mom. Roland had a half-day at school, so he’s there in the kitchen as well. The only one who isn’t standing at the kitchen table looking at the strange thing in the middle of it is their father.

  Richard can’t make out what it is. Gavin stares at it with his mouth hanging open. It appears to be a blob of plastic with some burned, brown, crunchy-looking stuff in it. His mother is giving Richard her squinty-eye look. “Look what I found in the oven,” she says. “When we all got back from the dentist, I thought to myself, Why don’t I make my boys some chocolate chip cookies as a treat? Everybody’s been doing pretty good in school—no bad reports—and keeping up with their chores at home. So I turn on the oven to three hundred seventy-five degrees. The phone rings and I’m talking to your Aunt Jen for a while when I begin to smell this strange odor. I get off the phone and run to the kitchen, thinking something’s on fire. I open the oven door and see this.” She points at the blob.

  Richard looks at the blob again and then does a double take. Suddenly he knows what it is. Oh, no! He had forgotten all about putting the plastic container of Cinnamon Crunch cereal in the oven to hide it from his brothers.

  “Who did this?” his mother asks, looking at each of them to see who looks guilty.

  “Wasn’t me,” Roland says. “I had to have a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for breakfast yesterday.”

  Everyone looks at Roland. He’s suddenly gotten taller and skinnier—in just the past few months. Now he’s on the basketball team at his school and he’s really good.

  “I didn’t do it,” Jamal says. “I was wondering why the box was nearly empty when you had just bought that cereal.”

  “I didn’t do it either,” Darnell says, looking right at Richard.

  Richard looks away. But he can feel all eyes on him. Even Gavin’s.

  “Richard?” his mother says. “Did you do this?”

  He glances up at her and knows he’d better tell the truth.

  “I just wanted to put some away for later. And I didn’t know where to put it, and . . .”

  “Stop right there,” his mother says, raising her palm. “This is ridiculous. Look at my good plastic container.”

  Everyone looks at the melted blob again.

  “You’re going to replace that,” she says. “It’s coming out of this week’s allowance. You can be sure.”

  Richard looks down. He’d had plans for his allowance. He and Gavin are saving up for new skateboards. Now Gavin will probably save enough first and Richard is going to have to see him on a super new skateboard while Richard is stuck using his old one.

  “And forget about TV tonight. You need to work on getting some common sense.” Richard’s mom turns to Gavin and says, “I think it would be better if you come back another time. Richard’s not up to having company today.”

  Richard looks over at Darnell and sees him smirking at him. Darnell loves to see Richard get into trouble.

  Four

  Memory Not Like an Elephant

  When Richard enters the classroom the next morning, he looks quickly at Ms. Shelby-Ortiz. She’s busy talking to Mr. Beaumont
from the other third grade class. She doesn’t even glance his way. He checks the whiteboard. He sees the words he wrote there the day before: Richard’s note. Ms. Shelby-Ortiz probably didn’t even need him to write that. She probably has a memory like an elephant. Richard looks around, surprised to see all the kids going about their business. It always feels funny to be worried about something and see everyone else acting happy-go-lucky. He’d meant to give his mother the note. He really had. But after all that trouble about the burned-up plastic container, he didn’t want to mess things up more.

  Ms. Shelby-Ortiz moves to the front of the class, raises her hand, and puts her forefinger to her lips with the other hand. It’s her signal for them to quiet down, be seated, and listen to what she has to say. It isn’t long before all of the students notice and stop what they’re doing to give her their undivided attention.

  Richard looks past her at his name on the board. Maybe he can accidentally-on-purpose erase it. Maybe Ms. Shelby-Ortiz will be so busy that she won’t remember it was there.

  “Class, I have good news,” she says, bringing her arm down. “Mr. Beaumont’s class has been working on oral language. They’ve broken into groups and have written their own skits! They want to perform one for us this morning.” She looks around. “How many of you would like that?”

  For a moment there’s a lot of “Yeah, yeah”s and other unruly noises. Ms. Shelby-Ortiz has to put her forefinger to her mouth again and look around until everyone settles down.

  As soon as she says, “I love Table Three. Look how they all have their hands folded,” the rest of the students follow suit and fold their hands. Ms. Shelby-Ortiz goes to the door and opens it, and Arthur Wang, Angela Martin, Myrella Hernandez, and Dyamond Taylor walk in looking as though they’re about to burst out laughing. Myrella and Arthur have little white index cards in their hands.