Isabelle Shows Her Stuff: The Isabelle Series, Book Two

by Constance C. Greene

  “Of course, darling, we’re having applesauce. I’ve set a place for you—I hope you’ll stay.”

  “Oh, I couldn’t possibly!” Aunt Maude cried. They went through this every Sunday. She always stayed.

  “Would you like to stay for dinner, Guy? We’ve plenty of everything,” Isabelle’s mother said.

  “I’ve already aten,” Guy said. “Eaten, I mean.” He blushed furiously, embarrassed at having mixed up his words. He hadn’t eaten dinner, he was just too shy to say he’d like to stay. Plus, he was a very picky eater, and he couldn’t remember whether he liked roast pork or not.

  “Why,” Guy said, really looking at Aunt Maude for the first time, “you look just like my uncle!”

  “How so?” she said in a somewhat haughty manner, not at all sure she liked being told she looked like Guy’s uncle.

  “He’s a state trooper,” Guy said, “and he has a hat just like yours. Plus, he carries a gun.”

  Aunt Maude gave a little scream of pleasure at this interesting information. “Perhaps this is a state trooper’s hat and I didn’t even know it,” she said, running her hand over her hat’s brim.

  When dinner was announced, Guy sat with the family, even though he wasn’t hungry. The roast pork certainly smelled good. Maybe he’d never had any. Suddenly, he was starving. But he didn’t have the nerve to say he’d changed his mind.

  As if he knew what Guy was thinking, Isabelle’s father said, “Send this down to the young man from Hot Water Street,” slicing off some pork and putting it on a plate. Guy ate it in one gulp. It was delicious. He folded his hands in his lap and kept an eye on the other plates. “Help yourself to applesauce and pass it down,” Isabelle whispered, giving him an elbow in the ribs. Then the corn pudding was passed, and Guy had a spot of that. All in all, he did pretty well, especially for someone who’d already eaten.

  Aunt Maude asked Philip what he was up to these days. When his ankle was better, that is.

  “Well, I’m on the Y swim team,” Philip said. “I’m a Webfoot. I do the butterfly in record time. I won a race last month. Next month I swim against the state champs.”

  Each time Philip said “I” Isabelle counted, mouthing the numbers “One, two, three, four, five” so everyone would know Philip had said “I” five times.

  “Isabelle, we can do without that,” her mother said. When dinner was over, Isabelle’s father said, “Why don’t you repair to the parlor, Maude, and put your feet up and rest so we can clear the table.”

  Aunt Maude always got out of KP duty because she broke things. When Isabelle caught on to this, she broke a plate (old) and a cup (new) the next time she was called upon to clear. All she got was yelled at.

  “You take out the salt and pepper,” Isabelle told Guy. “You didn’t eat much so you don’t have to do much.”

  “I ate quite a lot. I had two pieces of meat and some applesauce and—”

  “Just do what I say, and when we’re finished, I’m going to give you a lesson.”

  “Doing what?” Guy asked.

  “In fighting,” Isabelle said.

  Guy dropped the salt shaker on the floor. Isabelle picked it up and said, “Lucky for you it didn’t break. Wait’ll I crumb the table, then we’ll head out.” Crumbing the table was Isabelle’s favorite part of Sunday dinner. With a large napkin and her usual enthusiasm, she brushed all the crumbs that had fallen on the table during the meal into a tray. The floor needed crumbing, too, after she’d finished.

  “Okay.” She regarded the clean tablecloth with a practiced eye. “Mission accomplished. Let’s go.”

  “Is Herbie still sick?” Guy asked, longing for Herbie to be up-and-at-’em so he could fight with Isabelle.

  “I called him up this morning,” Isabelle said, “and his mother said he was in bed. But I could hear him hollering in the background that he was fine. He called his mother a mean old witch because she wouldn’t let him out. If I called my mother a mean old witch, she’d wash my mouth out with soap. Come on,” and she dragged Guy behind her as she left.

  “Don’t go far,” her mother said.

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t know,” her mother said, surprised. “If I call you, I want you to be able to hear me.”

  Outside at last, Isabelle said, “Okay, put up your dukes.”

  “I don’t have any dukes,” said Guy. “I just remembered—I didn’t thank your mother. I better go back in and thank her.”

  Isabelle grabbed Guy’s sweater and wouldn’t let go. “You don’t have to thank her,” she said. “We better get going. Dukes are fists, dummy. You got fists. Make a fist.” She showed him how. “That’s right. Now hit me. Here.” She stuck her chin at him. “Hit me as hard as you can. I can take it.”

  He swung at her and missed.

  “Again!” Isabelle shouted.

  Fists flailing, Guy stirred up the air around Isabelle’s head, but he never hit her.

  “You’re not trying,” she said, sounding like Mrs. Esposito. “You’re not concentrating. How can you fight if you don’t try?”

  “I don’t know,” Guy said.

  Suddenly, two creeps from the fourth grade came swooping down the street on their bikes. They headed straight for where Isabelle and Guy were standing.

  “Guy, schmy, couldn’t hurt a fly!” one of the boys bellowed. Guy darted behind a tree and Isabelle took off after the boys. But as fast as she could run, their bikes were faster. One of them spit at her and the other cackled and called names all the way to the end of the block and around the corner until they were out of sight.

  When she came back, panting and out of breath, Guy was still behind the tree, waiting for her.

  “I don’t know what we’re gonna do,” she said. “You don’t want to fight. You can’t get into trouble. It’s hopeless.”

  He nodded. “I know,” he said. “I thought you could help me.”

  “I’ll think of something,” Isabelle said. “But it won’t be easy. You’re a tough case. I’ll need a couple of days. But I’ll think of something.”

  Chapter Nine

  The next morning Guy pounced on Isabelle as she came out of her classroom.

  “Did you think of anything yet?” he said.

  “Give me a break. That was only yesterday,” she told him.

  “Isabelle, may I see you for a minute, please?” Mrs. Esposito said from the doorway.

  “Uh-oh.” Isabelle knew that meant trouble.

  “Look at this.” Mrs. Esposito waved a paper marked with a large red F in Isabelle’s face. “Last week’s test. Multiplication tables, the ones I drilled you in. The ones I told you we’d have on the test. There’s no excuse for the number you had wrong. Absolutely no excuse. You don’t concentrate. You don’t pay attention. Your mind is always someplace else. I want to help, Isabelle.” Mrs. Esposito’s pretty eyes were troubled. “But I can’t do it without your cooperation.”

  If Mrs. Esposito felt bad about Isabelle’s F, Isabelle felt worse. Already she could hear her father saying, “Pull yourself together, Isabelle, or we lower the boom.” Lowering the boom meant no television, no fun, no nothing. She could see her mother’s disappointed face as she said, “I thought you were going to do better.”

  Isabelle spent a lot of time trying to do better, but it was like running in place. She never got anywhere.

  And worst of all, she could hear Philip singing under his breath, singing songs about Scuzzy Izzy. And worse.

  “I tried,” Isabelle said, jigging first on one foot, then the other. “I really tried.”

  “No, Isabelle, I don’t think you did. If you had, this wouldn’t have happened. What am I going to do with you?”

  “I know.” Isabelle snapped her fingers, delighted with the idea that had just occurred to her. “I could come home with you and stay at your house a while. A week or a month, maybe. Then you could drill me on my multiplication tables every morning before school. How would that be?” Isabelle had never been to Mrs. Esposit
o’s house and had always wanted to see what it was like.

  Mrs. Esposito shuddered slightly. “No,” she said, “I’m sure your mother and father would never permit that.”

  “They might,” Isabelle said. “They get fed up with me. Maybe if I went to live with you, they’d be sorry they were so mean to me.”

  “I’m sure your mother and father aren’t mean to you, Isabelle.”

  “Oh, yes, they are. They say I’m a pest and a terrible itch and they make me go to my room until I simmer down. My mother says I’m making her old before her time, and my brother kicks me in the stomach when they’re out and locks me in the bathroom and steals my candy. Even when I hide it in my shoes, he finds it and eats it. He says it smells of feet but he eats it anyway.”

  Mrs. Esposito laughed. “One thing about you, Isabelle, you always cheer me up. Even when I’m cross with you, you cheer me up.”

  “That’s good.” Isabelle danced around Mrs. Esposito. “My father made pizza Saturday. The crust was a little tough but he said to tell you next time it’ll be better and you can have some.”

  “Tell your father I’d like that.” Mrs. Esposito handed Isabelle her test paper. “Take this home,” she said, “and go over it. Correct all the mistakes you made and bring it back tomorrow.”

  “Do I have to have my mother or father sign it?” Isabelle asked.

  Mrs. Esposito sighed. “Not this time. This will be between you and me. Just this once.”

  Isabelle threw her arms around Mrs. Esposito and almost knocked her down. “I love you!” she cried. “You’re the most excellent teacher in the whole world!”

  She raced out of the room and almost bumped into Jane Malone.

  “Sally Smith is moving,” Jane said. “My mother said I could give her a farewell party.”

  “Neat. Who’re you going to ask?”

  “The class.”

  “The whole class!” Isabelle said, astonished.

  “Yep. My mother says she doesn’t think it would be nice to leave anyone out.”

  “You mean Chauncey and Mary Eliza and everybody?” Isabelle said, remembering parties she’d been left out of.

  “Yep. Everyone,” said Jane.

  “That’s a lot of mouths to feed,” Isabelle said. “Maybe my mother could help.”

  “That’d be nice.”

  Isabelle raced back and caught Mrs. Esposito just as she was putting on her jacket.

  “How many people are there in the class?” Isabelle cried.

  “Twenty-one, I think.” Mrs. Esposito did a little mental arithmetic. “Yes, that’s right. Not counting me,” she said, smiling.

  Isabelle charged back into the hall.

  “There are twenty-one people in the class,” she told Jane. “Not counting Mrs. Esposito. Don’t forget her. You don’t want to leave her out, do you?”

  “Oh, no,” said Jane. “Thanks for reminding me.”

  Isabelle felt she had done her good deed for the day. Sort of like the Lone Ranger.

  “You’re welcome, Kemosabe,” she said.

  Chapter Ten

  “Have you heard the news?” Mary Eliza popped out from behind her locker. “Sally Smith is moving!”

  “I know. Jane told me,” said Isabelle. “She’s having a farewell party for Sally. She’s inviting everyone.”

  “Everyone?” Mary Eliza drew herself up haughtily. “That’s a lot.”

  “It’s twenty-two, including Mrs. Esposito. My mother’s helping Jane’s mother.” Isabelle aimed a neat blow in Mary Eliza’s direction. “Only one cupcake to a person,” she hissed. “That’s the rule.”

  Mary Eliza backed off and hissed back, “I’m getting Sally’s job!”

  “What job?” Isabelle asked, knowing perfectly well what job.

  “Art editor of The Bee.” The Bee was the class paper. Some kids wanted to call it The Bumble Bee but that was voted down as being too buzzy.

  “It just so happens I have a picture with me I drew only this morning.” Mary Eliza dove down into her briefcase and pulled out a drawing of a girl in a ballet suit.

  Mary Eliza was the only person in the fifth grade, maybe even in the entire school, who had a briefcase.

  Isabelle squinted at the picture. “It looks just like you,” she said, “only not as ugly.” Then she put out her arms and soared in circles around Mary Eliza, making airplane noises, preparing for takeoff.

  Insults bounced off Mary Eliza like bullets off Superman. “It’s interesting you should say that, because it is me,” Mary Eliza said with pride. “A good likeness, if I do say so. Notice the placement of the feet, how the arm is extended. Perfect form. I am the artist as well as the artist’s model. You might say I’m a shoo-in to be the new art editor of The Bee.”

  “You might but you won’t catch me saying it,” Isabelle said. “I wouldn’t say you were a shoo-in if you tied me to a tree and poured honey on my nose so the ants would lick me to death.”

  “Ants can’t lick you to death,” Mary Eliza said, crossing her arms on her chest and slitting her eyes, getting ready to pounce.

  Isabelle backed off. She wondered if it was possible to run backwards. She’d never find out until she gave it a try. Moving backwards, she picked up speed.

  “Hey! Watch where you’re going!” Herbie hollered, as she bumped into him.

  “Oh, hi. I thought you were still sick,” Isabelle said. “I thought maybe your mother locked you in so the germs couldn’t find you.”

  “She wanted to, but I told her if I missed any more school, I might get left back. So she wrote a note to excuse me from recess and gym so I wouldn’t get overheated,” Herbie explained.

  “I thought only cars got overheated,” Isabelle said. “I didn’t know people did too.”

  “There’s your little brother!” Mary Eliza shouted as Guy came down the hall.

  “She doesn’t have any little brother,” Herbie said, scowling.

  “I knew it! I knew it!” Mary Eliza cried.

  “You can come to my house today if you want,” Guy said. “My mother said it’s all right.”

  “Today’s my last day to do the route,” Isabelle said. “Philip owes me a buck fifty times two.”

  “A buck fifty times two!” Herbie whistled.

  “Whose little brother is he, then?”

  “Go paint yourself into a corner, why don’t you?” Isabelle suggested.

  Mary Eliza twirled a few times to clear her head. “I might just do that,” she said. “A portrait of the artist sitting in a corner. Another first for me.”

  “How about sitting on a tuffet, eating your curds and whey?” Herbie said.

  “What’s a tuffet?” Mary Eliza said.

  “You don’t know what a tuffet is?” Isabelle exclaimed, popping her eyes out.

  “I bet you don’t know what a tuffet is either, smarty pants. What’s a tuffet, then?” Mary Eliza yelled.

  “I’m not telling,” Isabelle said. She made herself stand quietly and smile at Mary Eliza. It was easier to smile than it was to stand quietly. Much easier. But she did it. Then she turned and walked away—walked, not ran. All the way down the hall, she felt Mary Eliza’s eyes on her.

  Slowly, slowly. Walk, do not run.

  Once around the corner she broke into a fifty-yard dash.

  “Slow down!” she heard someone yell.

  A sixth-grade traffic cop, the worst kind. Isabelle slowed down, feeling, in some way, victorious.

  What is a tuffet anyway?

  Chapter Eleven

  “Mother, this is Herbie and this is Isabelle,” Guy said.

  “I’ve met Isabelle,” Guy’s mother said, not exactly unfriendly, but not exactly friendly, either. “Hello, Herbie,” she said.

  Herbie was not at his best in front of strangers. He mumbled hello back and hid behind Isabelle.

  “Would you like some juice and crackers, children? Guy, you may pour the apple juice and Becca will get the crackers.”

  “Read any good books
lately?” Isabelle asked Becca, joking.

  Becca sighed elaborately and handed Isabelle a graham cracker.

  Isabelle felt Herbie tugging on her. She reached around and slapped at him to cut it out.

  Herbie drank two glasses of apple juice as if he’d just come from the desert. “Okay, where’s the hot water?” he demanded, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand.

  “If you’d like to wash your hands, Guy will show you to the lavatory,” Guy’s mother said.

  “Outside, I meant.” Herbie slid halfway under the table as all eyes turned on him.

  “There’s no hot water outside, only inside,” Becca said.

  “I know what he means,” Guy said, coming to Herbie’s rescue. “When my father first said we were moving here, I dreamed that I fished out of my bedroom window. Just let the line down and lots of fish swimming under my window bit and I hauled ’em up and ate them right there on the rug. They were delicious,” he said dreamily. “I thought that was the way it was going to be, a little stream filled with hot water running under my window. I was disappointed for quite a long time.”

  “That’s what I meant,” Herbie said. “I thought hot water ran down the street.” He didn’t say he was disappointed too, but Isabelle thought he was.

  “You want to see my chains?” Becca asked Herbie, having taken a sudden fancy to him.

  Herbie blinked. “What kind of chains?”

  “Chain chains,” Becca said. “Come on.”

  Herbie went reluctantly, sticking his thumbs in his belt and walking like a cowboy, which wasn’t easy considering he was wearing his old sneakers. Wait’ll he found out what all those dangling chains meant! Herbie’d freak out, Isabelle was sure. He’d only read about one book in his whole life. Every time he had to give an oral book report, he got up and said, “This is a story of a boy who was raised in the wild.”

  Last time he’d pulled that, the class had groaned in unison.

  “That will be quite enough, boys and girls,” Mrs. Esposito had said, trying not to smile.

  Guy went upstairs to change his clothes before going out to play. That left Isabelle alone with Guy’s mother. Isabelle considered doing a tap dance to entertain Guy’s mother and started moving her feet, getting them warmed up.