Allergic to Girls, School, and Other Scary Things

by Lenore Look

  “Mom!” I squawked.

  My breath puffed out in clouds. My face froze.

  My nose ran. My ears rang. My head spun. Then . . . I had an itch I couldn’t reach.

  But that wasn’t the worst of it.

  It was getting DARK. The wind moved and the leaves applauded. The garden hose hissed and slithered. The grass disappeared, and in its place roared a black, black sea.

  “Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaack!” I screamed.

  Somewhere a piano played.

  Video games blasted.

  And Anibelly sang, “Lalalalalalalalalala.”

  I wanted to cry. So I did. I squeezed the branch with my knees and cried full blast. Crying is really great, even upside down. Everything is always better afterward.

  And it was. Soon I heard Louise coughing up the driveway. Louise is my dad’s wasabi-green car, which he loves more than fireworks. My dad was home! My dad is da dad, which means he’s the best. He would save me, he always does.

  “DAD!” I yelled. “DAAAAAD! HELP ME! DAAD! I’M IN THE TREEEEE!” I screamed as loudly as I could.

  There was only one problem. No sound came out of my mouth. My voice was all in my head.

  Out there in the cold . . . in the dark . . . in the grasp of the evil tree, perched above the hungry sea . . . I was too scared to speak . . . and school hadn’t even begun!

  “Oh, you poor thing,” said my mom, rolling me up in a blanket before carrying me into the house. “How did we forget you?”

  It is easy to forget me. I don’t make much noise whenever I am scared out of my wits. And like my dad says, “Out of sight, out of mind,” which means if you don’t see me, you won’t think of me either.

  But finally, when my mom saw my empty place at the dinner table, she thought of me.

  My mom is da mom. She never had another life, like my dad, who was probably secretly a gung fu action hero spymaster assassin before he was a dad. She was always a mom—she was practically born that way—but that’s okay. She is really super-duper. She is not afraid of heights. She can climb a tree in two seconds flat and tear me—poor thing—from the grasp of the evil tree, just like that.

  I love it when she calls me that: poor thing. It was almost worth hanging like a roast duck to hear it. Poor thing.

  “when i was your age . . . ,” my dad said at breakfast the next day, “I was scared of school too. Worse, I was never a superhero before I went to school, so it was very rough.”

  My dad is not superhero material, but he has read practically everything ever written about superheroes and so knows us from beginning to end, which explains a lot about him.

  “Just hold your head high,” said my dad, “and be a gentleman.”

  “But I feel sick,” I said.

  My dad put a hand on my forehead.

  “No fever,” he said.

  “Are you sure?” I looked at his hands. They are thick like baseball mitts. It was a wonder he could feel anything through them.

  “Where does it hurt?” he asked.

  “All over,” I said. It was true; I was not making it up. I must have grown at least two inches from stretching so long in the tree. And growing hurts, as everyone knows.

  I gave a little moan.

  “Hmmm,” said my dad.

  I moaned a little more.

  “You are not sick,” said my dad.

  “But I will be,” I said. “I will be very, very sick. I’m allergic to school, severely allergic.”

  My dad looked at me.

  “Alvin,” he said firmly, putting one of his mitts on my shoulder.

  “Yes, Dad.”

  “You will be okay, son,” he said. I love it when he calls me that. Son.

  I felt a little better. Maybe my dad was right, maybe I would be okay. A good word from my dad changes everything. Besides, if I missed the bus, my dad might have a few other words for me. So I dashed out of the house and caught up with Calvin just as the bus was pulling up to the end of our driveway.

  “Bye, Alvin!” cried Anibelly. “Bye, Calvin!”

  “Bye, Anibelly!” We waved and climbed on.

  The wheels on the bus went round and round.

  I was okay.

  I clutched my PDK and sat next to Calvin in the back of the bus where all the fourth graders sit. The big kids screamed their heads off. I screamed my head off. We bounced up and down.

  “You will be okay, son,” my dad’s voice echoed between my ears.

  I smiled at Calvin. And Calvin smiled back.

  I was okay.

  Then we arrived at school.

  My sneakers landed like a couple of cement blocks when I got off the bus. Pfuump, pfuump.

  My stomach turned like a washing machine when I got inside.

  I found the door that said “Second Grade, Miss Pestalozzi.”

  My throat tightened.

  “Welcome,” said a lady. “I’m Miss P.”

  I stopped dead in my tracks. Her hair was shiny and her skin was clean. She smelled like fresh laundry out of the dryer. She smiled at me.

  But I did not smile back. I hardly even looked at her. I clutched my PDK.

  I felt dizzy.

  I looked around. The room was bright and neat. The walls were blank except for a picture of Henry David Thoreau and another picture of a small cabin. It is a copycat version of the original cabin that Henry had built at Walden Pond with his own hands.

  “Henry David Thoreau is my hero,” Esha said to her friend Flea. “You know, he kept a really cool journal. My sister says we get to read parts of it in second grade.”

  Everyone pushed past me. Eli shoved Scooter and Scooter shoved back. “You’re it!” cried Scooter, tagging Eli, who tripped backward over Jules, who was curled on the floor waiting for Sam to leapfrog. Then Hobson and Nhia scuttled across the room like two crabs in a death lock. They were terrific!

  Everything whirled around me. I was in the middle of it, but I was not in it at all.

  So far, second grade wasn’t any different from first grade, which wasn’t any different from kindergarten.

  I was thinking about running and hiding, when . . .

  “Wanna be desk buddies again?” It was Flea. She was my desk buddy in first grade. She is a girl.

  I wanted to say no way. Nobody wants a girl desk buddy, except for maybe a girl. The scary thing about girls is that they are not boys. Most girls are no good at robbery and mayhem. They can’t punch. But they can kick, which hurts. They skip rope too fast. They are boring. I opened my mouth to tell her all this, but . . .

  My tongue turned into sandpaper.

  Nothing came out.

  “C’mon,” said Flea, pulling out the chair next to her. “You can sit with me and Esha.”

  Everyone was choosing their seat and sitting down. Soon it would be too late to sit with the boys.

  I opened my mouth. I wished for my voice. I wished and wished and wished. But nothing came out.

  Finally, I slumped into the chair.

  I was not okay.

  I was so allergic to school, but I was even more allergic to girls.

  not being able to talk in school is a terrible problem. But having a girl desk buddy is even worse; it is the kiss of death.

  At recess, I heard:

  Alvin and Flea sitting in a tree.

  K-I-S-S-I-N-G

  First comes love.

  Then comes marriage.

  Then comes Alvin with a baby carriage!

  Oooh. It really fried my rice.

  But the real problem with having a girl desk buddy is that she will follow you home no matter how hard you try to ditch her. And it is hard to ditch her when the bus stops at the end of your driveway and nearly everyone gets off and your house is right there and the whole gang can see that a girl is going up your driveway.

  “Hi, Mrs. Ho!” called Flea as soon as we reached the top.

  “Hello, Sophie,” said my mom, smiling and using Flea’s real name. “It’s very nice to see you.”

>   Mouths dropped open at the bottom of the driveway. Pinky, Jules, Sam, Nhia, Eli, Scooter and Hobson, the whole gang, stood speechless.

  “It’s nice to see you too,” said Flea, blinking her one good eye at my mom. If there is anything good about Flea, it is this: she wears an eye patch over one eye, like a pirate. Also one of her legs is longer than the other, like a peg leg, which is also marvelous. “I’m Alvin’s desk buddy again this year.”

  “That’s wonderful,” said my mom, smiling even more and holding the door open. “Alvin is very lucky.”

  “Yup,” said Flea. “He’s very lucky.”

  “Would you like to come in for afternoon tea and rice crackers?”

  I narrowed my eyes at Flea, which meant she had better say no and go away.

  And my mom narrowed her eyes at me, which meant I had better behave like a gentleman or I had something coming.

  “I’d love to!” said Flea, and she stepped right inside my house and then sat right down at my place in the kitchen across from Anibelly.

  Worse, Lucy came and gave her the kiss that she usually gives to me.

  “It’s a terrible problem not being able to talk at school,” Flea said right off. “So having the right desk buddy makes a real difference.”

  My mom nodded. She had that look on her face that said she thought Flea was a darling girl.

  “It’s a big responsibility,” said Flea. “So I’m even more prepared this year than last year.”

  “You have a PDK?” asked Anibelly.

  “No,” said Flea. “But I made this.” She reached into her backpack and pulled out a book. The Book on Alvin, it said on the cover. “I wrote the book on Alvin,” said Flea.

  Then Flea proudly opened her book.

  Page one: “ ‘Alvin can talk with his eyes,’ ” Flea read loud and clear.

  Page two: there was a drawing of two eyes, my two eyes. “ ‘These eyes mean he’s thinking,’ ” I read.

  Flea nodded. She turned the page.

  Page three: there was a drawing of two more of my eyes. “ ‘These eyes mean he’s okay,’ ” read Flea.

  Page four: a pair of anxious eyes. “These eyes mean he has to go pee!” exclaimed Anibelly without reading.

  “Hey!” I said.

  Page five: a pair of big round eyes. “ ‘And these eyes mean he has bingo!’ ” read Flea.

  “What a great book!” said my mom with that smile on her face that said she thought Flea was a very clever girl, and I had still better be a gentleman or else! “You are very observant,” my mom added.

  Flea beamed. “Thank you,” she said. “People think Alvin’s uncommunicative, but he’s really not.”

  “Alvin should be proud to have a friend like you,” said my mom. She was so pleased that she brought out a special treat, two-thousand-year-old dragon’s beard candy in a box, and offered it to Flea first.

  As if that weren’t enough, Flea asked for chopsticks.

  Then she sluuurped her tea like she really meant it and pinched a dragon’s beard candy between her chopsticks and popped it right into her mouth. She even chewed with her mouth closed the whole time.

  “I saw dragon’s beard candy on a cooking show once,” said Flea, dabbing her lips with a napkin. “It’s made of eight thousand strands of sugar wrapped around nuts and coconut and sesame seeds.”

  My mom beamed.

  “I’m taking Aggression for Girls,” Flea went on. “It’s a combination of kickboxing and karate and it’s supposed to make me stronger . . . and I got a goldfish this summer. His name is Boatswain. He watches action movies and swims around only during commercials.” She smiled and reached for another piece of dragon’s beard.

  I could hardly stand it.

  “I think it’s a stupid book,” I blurted. “And you’re a stupid girl.”

  Flea gasped. She clasped The Book on Alvin to her chest. Her mouth fell open, and some beard strands fell out.

  “Alvin Ho!” said my mom. “You apologize right now!”

  I hung my head. I had used the s-word.

  I crossed my chopsticks this way.

  Then I crossed my chopsticks that way.

  My mom was giving me that look, which meant that I had better apologize or she would make dragon’s beard out of me.

  Yoctoseconds turned into zeptoseconds, turned into attoseconds, turned into a blink of an eye, then into a heartbeat. Then my life crawled before my eyes.

  “Sorry,” I finally peeped.

  Tears filled Flea’s eye.

  It was not a good sign. I had a terrible feeling that a gentleman would never make a girl cry, even a girl with only one eye.

  Flea slipped The Book on Alvin into her backpack and, without a word, headed out the door.

  I was so relieved and happy to see her go, I felt like dancing! If I had danced, the new look on my mom’s face said, she would have broken my legs.

  So I dashed out after Flea. I had a feeling that it was the gentleman thing to do, but I didn’t really know, I couldn’t remember.

  “Hey . . . ,” I huffed when I caught up with her. But Flea did not stop. She moves rather fast for someone who can see only half of everything and walks on uneven legs.

  “Stop!” I said.

  Flea stopped. She blinked her eye. She crossed her arms.

  I breathed in. And I breathed out. I did not feel so good. I was on the sidewalk, in broad daylight—gulp—with a girl.

  “Okay,” I said.

  “Okay, what?” said Flea.

  “Okay, I’m going to mean it this time,” I said.

  Flea waited.

  I waited.

  A car rolled by.

  I leaned over to see what was in the gutter.

  Nothing.

  Then I looked up to see if there might be any giant meteorites heading for Flea.

  None.

  So finally, I blurted, “I’m sorry that it’s a weird book and that you’re a weird girl.”

  POW!

  I think it was an uppercut. I’d seen it on Saturday-afternoon boxing with my pohpoh. An uppercut is when you curl your arm like you’re picking up a pail of rocks and you send your fist into your opponent’s jaw from the bottom up. I lifted off my feet and landed on my butt. “Owwwwwww!” I felt like crying. So I did.

  Just as I was about to duke it back to Flea, a police car rolled by. And everyone knows that a police car is much more interesting than punching a girl. It was a good thing that the police car rolled by because I come from a long line of farmer-warriors in China who have been duking it out since 714 AD and it looked like Flea had taken lessons or something and knew what she was doing, so we would have battled to the death for sure. And it is hard to say how scary that would have been.

  if flea were a boy, everything would be different. First, she wouldn’t have ignored me all morning. Second, things would have improved between us on account of boys have more respect for one another after a good pounding. But Flea is not a boy. She is a girl. And girls are weird even if they wear a cool eye patch, drag a cool peg leg and know how to throw a mean uppercut.

  I was thinking about all this when . . .

  “Alvin?” a voice called. “Alvin?”

  My heart stopped. It was Miss P. She is very nice, but she has a habit of calling on you when you least expect it. Everyone was looking at me over the tops of their books and holding their breath. . . .

  The hand on the clock clicked tick, tick, tick.

  Someone’s toe tapped toc, toc, toc.

  My heart thumped boom, boom, boom.

  I couldn’t breathe in. I couldn’t breathe out.

  “Alvin,” said Miss P. “Would you like to skip your turn?”

  It was reading class. We were reading something about Henry David Thoreau’s furniture. He had only three chairs: one for being by himself, two for a friend, and three for a party. Normally, I like reading. Like my dad, I am a great reader for my age. I can make my voice go up and down and pause at all the commas and periods, just lik
e my dad, to make everything super-duper exciting. But in school . . .

  I opened my mouth. The words on the page were supposed to roll right off my tongue . . . but nothing did.

  I was not skipping my turn, but it always looks like I am.

  If there is anything good about reading class it is this: history class comes next.

  History class is not like reading class. History is all about the American Revolutionary War, which happened back when everyone was having fights and firing cannons left and right and enjoying all sorts of explosions without getting busted.

  If you live in Concord, Massachusetts, which is hard to spell, it is hard not to like history. My gunggung says it has something to do with feng shui, which is the Chinese way of saying some places are more exciting than others. The only problem with Concord is that there are no volcanoes. If there were a volcano with explosions now and then, it would be the most exciting place in the world!

  The best thing about history, as everyone knows, is that you can play it at recess.

  Our favorite game is Patriots’ Day, which is based on the most exciting day of the year, April 19, which is the day when the American Revolutionary War began back in 1775. Every year on that day the church bells ring like crazy, just like they rang long ago, to call the Minutemen out from their homes to fight the Redcoats. The Minutemen were the good guys. They were ready to march or fight at a minute’s notice. And the Redcoats were the bad guys, sent by the King of England to capture the gunpowder and explosives that the Minutemen had hidden all over Concord.

  This is how to play Patriots’ Day.

  First, the Redcoats march in across the playground from their hiding place behind the cafeteria.

  Then the Minutemen slither across the grassy field like angry snakes from their hiding places behind trees.

  They meet at the Old North Bridge, which is really the monkey bars, where the Redcoats won’t let the Minutemen swing across. The Minutemen begin to swing anyway because the monkey bars belong to them, and the British say no way, they’ve just captured the monkey bars, so they shoot the Minutemen, who then drop dead on the wood chips.