by Rachel Vail
But then I was like, Wait, WHAT?
Because Gianni Schicci was running way far away, toward the jungle gym, chasing the Wiffle ball I’d hit so hard. And my team was yelling FOR me, not AT me.
I ran. I touched first base with the toe of my sneaker and then, since they were still yelling RUN!, I turned left and ran some more. I stopped on second base. I stood on top of the base and rested with my hands on my knees.
“Awesome hit!” Cash yelled toward me.
I smiled back.
Montana B. was up next. She got out and recess ended.
Everybody high-fived me as we walked back in, and said stuff like “What a shot!” and “NICE!”
I put my hand up for a high five from Noah. He hit it so hard, my hand almost got knocked clean off my wrist. I am pretty sure he meant it in a good way.
But not 100 percent sure.
November 5, Friday
Mom said I could have one friend over to help me help at Elizabeth’s birthday party next week. I was thinking of inviting Cash. Or maybe Montana C. or Daisy, but they are girls, and probably Xavier Schwartz is too wild. And Gianni Schicci is too weird. He’s been walking around beeping, pretending to be a robot, a lot lately.
Cash would be fun, but I thought Noah would really like it if I asked him and, anyway, he’s known Elizabeth practically her whole life. And he’s feeling worried about the election. He says no, he’s not worried. He says he knows he’s going to win. He thinks the Bring Back Free Play at Recess platform is a Can’t Lose platform. Who would vote against that?
I know a lot about worries, so I can tell he actually is worried though.
Anyway, maybe Cash would think it was boring to help at a first-grader’s party. Or maybe he would think, Why would Justin Case invite ME?
So I chose Noah.
Elizabeth’s party is right before Class Rep elections, so the other thing is, Noah might be happy for the distraction, I think. Last year, when I was running for class rep, my favorite thing to think about was:
Anything Else.
I hope I don’t regret choosing Noah the way I regret not wearing my rain jacket today. It is so annoying when Mom is right about the weather.
November 6, Saturday
I played goalie in the second half of the soccer game. The nice part of that was the free time. It was relaxing, because I could mostly just stand there enjoying the afternoon while everybody else was running around like mosquitoes.
The not-so-nice part was when suddenly everybody and the ball were all charging fast toward me.
Luckily, Sam Pasternak is huge and strong and he most of the time kicked that ball away. But twice it got by him. Unluckily.
The first time it sailed into the other side of the net from where I was standing. One for the Raging Tigers, tying up the score. I watched the backs of my teammates slump away from me.
Nobody even said, That’s okay, Justin Case. Or Good try.
Or Hang in there.
Not even my dad, over on the sidelines. He was very busy looking at his shoes.
The other time, I watched the ball come off the foot of the biggest kid on the Raging Tigers and zoom, in slow motion, right toward me. I wasn’t thinking about trying to make an awesome brave block. I wasn’t even thinking of how to escape. I was just watching the ball come toward me closer and closer. If I was thinking anything, it was: Oh, no, oh, no.
Then boom, there I was on the ground. I felt like a Colonial guy getting hit by a cannonball.
When I could open my eyes, I noticed there was a soccer ball where my belly used to be.
“Awesome,” Sam yelled, lifting me up.
“What a block!” Cash yelled, thumping me on the back.
I didn’t say anything because I couldn’t. My body had changed into a capital C.
On the way home, after we’d won 2–1, Dad bragged to Mom and Elizabeth that I may have found my calling as a soccer player: Goalie.
Still, I think I might stick with either Philanthropist or Lumberjack as a job. Although I do like the after-game praise and doughnut portion of a soccer star’s life.
November 7, Sunday
The Stuffties on my bed have been excluding Snakey. They are accusing him of being too scary. I understand why they would want to do that, but I am not sure it is nice. Or smart.
Snakey is spending a lot of time coiled up at the end of the bed, maybe cooking up some evil kerfuffles against the others. Or maybe he’s just napping. It is sometimes hard to tell with stuffties.
November 8, Monday
I am so mad at Mom, I feel like I completely no, thank you her.
No. You know what? Hate.
They can’t make me not think it in the privacy of my own brain. Hate. Hate hate hate.
I wish I could draw Xs on all her shirts.
It is scary to feel like this, but I actually mean it.
November 9, Tuesday
Penelope Ann Murphy’s mom and my mom are two of the moms who all had coffee together, and somehow my mom told Penelope Ann Murphy’s mom about Penelope stealing the ballet toe shoes out of her closet.
After Mom promised she would never tell that secret I told her about those dumb toe shoes.
Mom said she didn’t remember saying anything specific about Penelope Ann Murphy stealing the toe shoes. But she looked a little worried about why was I asking her that question.
“What exactly did you tell Penelope Ann Murphy’s mom?” I asked her.
“Justin, I don’t remember exactly.”
“Fine! Approximately!”
“I just, I didn’t…” Mom said, looking at her wiggling toes on the floor.
“Mom!”
“Well, I remember Mrs. Murphy talking about it, and all the moms were laughing.…”
“Laughing?” I asked.
“Mrs. Murphy is a good storyteller, and…” She reached for my hand, but I pulled it away. “I don’t remember saying anything, really.”
“What do you mean, anything really?” I yelled.
“Maybe Mrs. Murphy figured out what happened to the toe shoes by herself?” Mom suggested.
“No!” I yelled. “She didn’t!”
“Justin, I…”
“You must have told her, because Penelope Ann Murphy came into school and yelled at me in front of everybody for telling on her!”
“Oh, no,” Mom said.
“Oh, yes!” I yelled. “A huge kerfuffle!”
“A huge … what?”
“Kerfuffle! Kerfuffle! Don’t you even know what kerfuffle means?” I realized right then that kerfuffle is one of those words that sounds very silly when you say it too many times in a row, but it was too late. “It was a huge kerfuffle, I mean it, Mom! It’s not funny! And what could I even say? Because I did tell on her! To you!”
“I’m so sorry, Justin,” Mom said. She tried to cuddle me up but I was feeling about as cuddly as a Sloan’s viperfish or maybe a bullhead shark.
“Justin,” Mom called after me while I stomped up to my room. “Justin, come back.”
I didn’t. She might be sorry, but she is not the one everybody in fourth grade is calling the horrible name of Tattletale. She is not the one who had to work independently on the science project yesterday and today when even Noah was included. She was not the one who Noah leaned in close to at recess and whispered, “Why would you tell on Penelope Ann Murphy?”
Nope. That wasn’t Mom. That was me.
November 10, Wednesday
At lunch Noah was sitting squished in between Cash and Xavier Schwartz. When I went over nobody made room for me. I stood there for a long minute, behind all my friends, holding my lunch bag, waiting for a spot. No one looked up, even when I said, “Hey.” No one budged even when I said, “Can I … get in here? Somewhere?”
So I had to make the long walk down to the deserted end of the table and sit down all alone.
My cheese sandwich tasted like an old sponge waiting by the side of the sink to get thrown in the garbage.
Instead of going out to play at recess, I went for extra recorder work. The only other kid there was Penelope Ann Murphy. She had hate darts firing out of her eyes at me the whole time. Maybe I improved a little at smooth airy breath skills, but at my level of recorder terribleness, it is hard to notice.
After school Noah came home with me to help with Elizabeth’s birthday party. He acted like nothing was wrong, like he hadn’t ignored me all day. He smiled at me like he and I were best friends all during the party, while we were setting up Pin the Sword on the Ninja and handing out slices of pizza.
“I’m so mad at my mom,” I whispered to him while we waited at the front door with loot bags at the end of the party. “I wish I could put HER in trouble.”
“Your mom?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Put your mom in trouble?”
“Yes. She promised she wouldn’t tell Penelope Ann Murphy’s mom what I told her and then…”
“Guess it runs in your family,” Noah said. “Telling what you promise not to, I mean.”
That didn’t cheer me up at all.
“You were right about Cash, though,” he said, stealing a candy from one of the loot bags. “He really is fun.”
I just nodded.
November 11, Thursday
There was no school for Veterans Day. Phew. I really needed the break. And I don’t just mean so I could learn how to spell those crazy things on this week’s list, like weird and science and friend.
I kept getting that last one wrong until Dad said, “Just remember that FRIEND has the word END in it.”
Now I will never forget that one. That is for sure.
November 12, Friday
In art class, while we were all trying to weave our Colonial pot holders, Penelope Ann Murphy told the tragedy of being tattled on by me again. She was starting to cry, of course. I tried to concentrate on my pot holder, even though I did not care at all about my pot holder or weaving or even Colonial Times very much.
“And he just, he tattled on me,” Penelope Ann Murphy was saying. “And I got punished—no screen time for two weeks!” I could hear the tears in her voice.
“Oh, enough already,” Montana C. mumbled. “Old news.”
“I’m still punished,” Penelope Ann Murphy said, sniffling.
“Yeah, well. Guess what.” Montana C. slammed her half-made Colonial pot holder down onto the art table. “You stole your mother’s stuff and then you denied it when she asked you about it. Of course you got punished. Leave Justin Case out of it and move the heck on.”
I tried to hold my smile in, but it might not have been a completely successful hide.
At lunch I went straight to the lonely end of the lunch table. As bad as it felt down there, it wasn’t as awful as standing behind people hoping they’d make a space for me. Noah was sitting between Xavier and Cash again. I don’t know what he was saying, but I heard Cash say, “Ew, Noah! Give it a break! Not while we’re eating, dude!”
“Yeah,” all the other boys said.
I was staring at my sandwich, wishing there were such a thing as Veterans Day 2: You Get Friday Off Also, when Montana C. sat down next to me. She didn’t say anything, just took her sandwich and water bottle out. Then Daisy came over and joined us. And a bunch of the other girls.
It felt like I’d wandered into the wrong bathroom.
But it was nice of them.
Cash came and stood next to me while I was on deck for baseball at after-lunch recess. I stopped swinging the bat so I wouldn’t accidentally knock his head off his neck. I wasn’t planning to swing at the ball so I didn’t need the practice.
“I really stink at baseball,” I said.
“Nah, you’re okay,” he said. “So why did you tell on Penelope Ann Murphy, anyway?”
“I didn’t really,” I said. “Well, I didn’t mean to. I was just talking about it with my mom, not to get her put in trouble or anything.”
“No?”
“No! I mean, Penelope Ann Murphy told me she stole the toe shoes. It felt like, I don’t know, aren’t you supposed to tell a grown-up if somebody tells you they committed a crime? Isn’t that like a rule or something?”
“Yeah, probably,” Cash said. “Good point.”
“So,” I said. “That’s why.”
“A lot of kids would’ve just denied telling their mom. Blamed somebody else.”
I shrugged at that.
“It’s cool you didn’t.”
I didn’t say, Maybe I would have if I’d thought of that idea. Instead I nodded a little, like Cash does, slow and with squinted eyes.
“You’re up,” he said. I got walked, and then Cash hit a blast almost into the woods, so we both scored.
I got 100 percent on my spelling test, which was also nice. Even though the spelling trick Dad taught me makes my heart feel like somebody was just swinging his arm and punched me right in it.
November 13, Saturday
Soccer got canceled. Rain. Hallelujah.
And then another hallelujah happened: Cash called to ask if I wanted to go to the movies with him and Xavier Schwartz this afternoon. His mom could pick me up before and drop me off after.
I said, “Hold on. I’ll ask.”
Mom said yes. And she let me not take an umbrella, so no risk of it pinching off my finger in the closey mechanism, and also she let me wear my fleece, like all the other boys wear when it rains, instead of my rain slicker even though it was still raining.
I was a little bit happy for the first time all week.
November 14, Sunday
A thing Cash said yesterday that I keep thinking about:
It’s one thing when you are in second or third grade. But by the time you’re in fourth, you can’t just let your feelings out in school.
I am 95 percent sure we were still talking about Penelope Ann Murphy. She was crying again on Friday on the way to music about getting in trouble for stealing her mother’s ballet shoes. Everybody, definitely including me, agreed that the trouble she got put in for that was ancient history, get over it. Enough already. She was just trying to keep getting attention and sympathy for old news.
I am 3 percent sure, though, that maybe I let my feelings out in school sometimes without meaning to, and Cash was giving me the advice too.
And I am 2 percent just completely unsure of everything in general, including whether the stuff we put on the popcorn was melted butter like Xavier Schwartz said it definitely was, even though the dispenser did not say butter, it said “Golden Flavor.” Which does not sound like food, or even a flavor.
November 15, Monday
The election for Class Rep is tomorrow. Noah wore his suit today and kept trying to shake hands with everybody while asking for their vote. There were no campaign managers allowed this year. But if I had been Noah’s campaign manager, I would have said the advice of:
Maybe stop trying to shake everybody’s hand so much.
And also:
We already know your name, Noah. We have known you since kindergarten, so you really don’t need to keep saying, Hello, my name is Noah and I am running for Class Rep.
We already know. Seriously. We know.
But when I tried to get him to play Tag with everybody in our five minutes of Free Play Mr. Calabrio let us have because of the such nice weather, Noah growled at me and then kept right on introducing himself to all the kids who already know him and were just trying to play Tag in the sunshine.
Our spelling words for the week are all “tion” words. Election, selection, elation, rejection.
Mr. Leonard might be choosing those exact words because he magically knows exactly which thoughts are in our heads. Maybe he really is an Alien Mind Reader. A lot of kids think he actually is. And everything he says and does proves it.
Like today, before dismissal, he gave us the speech about how Class Rep Election is not a popularity contest.
True, every teacher every year gives that same speech. But all the kids who take
the school bus home from 4-L think that when that left eyebrow of Mr. Leonard’s went up, he was really saying the opposite. Like he was really saying:
I know it is a popularity contest.
And I know who is going to win.
November 16, Tuesday
Noah wore his suit again and wrote his speech on index cards but also memorized it. It was a good speech. It was all about free play at recess. He said that we should have it even in bad weather because it is important to our education, according to many studies, and in addition it is our right.
Everybody clapped when he was done. Noah smiled really big and bowed a little before heading back to his seat.
Cash just wore his regular stuff and didn’t have notes. He went up to the front of the room, to the space where Noah had been standing, and waited with his hands in his jeans pockets for a few seconds, not like he was scared, but just calm, just enjoying the moment or something. Like he was about to blow out the candles on his perfect birthday cake.
Then he smiled a tiny bit, just one side of his mouth, ducked his head, and said:
Well, I’m Cash, as you know. And I’m not going to promise any big changes I will make in Student Government. I don’t know if they’d listen, even, and I don’t like to make promises I can’t surely keep. So. Well. Mostly I just want to thank everybody for being so cool to me. It’s kind of terrifying, you know, being the new kid. But you guys made me feel like, well, like a new friend, but like a new friend who will someday be your old friend. Which is awesome of you. So. Thanks.
Everybody clapped.
Then we had to put our heads down on our desks and close our eyes. My desk smelled like paste. I breathed it in, hoping paste is not a poisonous smell, while Mr. Leonard said Noah’s name and then Cash’s name. With our faces hidden in the triangles of our left arms, we had to decide when to raise our right hands. Right after the name of the kid we wanted to represent us. Only one hand-raise per person.
“Thank you,” Mr. Leonard said. “I will post the results while you are out.”
So we all went out for recess. We were forced to play lacrosse the whole time. We stunk. Nobody could concentrate. Even the sporty kids kept dropping the ball. I was not worse than anyone at lacrosse (except Montana C.) for once.