The Squirting Donuts

by David A. Adler

  After dinner, I’m about to sit down and do my homework when I remember I don’t have any. I take out my doodle book. It’s like a regular notebook only I don’t do work in it. I doodle.

  I draw lots of dog doodles.

  Calvin comes by at six thirty. As soon as he’s inside, he opens his mouth and shows me a huge wad of gum.

  “It’s a whole pack,” he says. “She can’t tell me to spit it out. This isn’t school.”

  Ten minutes later, there’s a loud knock on our front door.

  Mom and Dad hurry into the kitchen.

  I look through the peephole. Dad has told me to never open the door until I know who’s out there. It’s her. It’s hard to describe her look. It’s not happy. It’s not mean. I guess she’s not sure we found her dog.

  I open the door.

  “Let’s go,” she says. “I don’t want to miss my Lollipop.”

  Calvin and I sit in the back of her car.

  “Buckle up,” she tells us and we do.

  Calvin opens his mouth really wide and closes it so his teeth make a loud clicking sound. He wants to be sure Mrs. Cakel knows he is chewing. He slouches so much in his seat that he’s really sitting on his back and not his backside.

  Calvin and I both forgot to look at the name of Naomi’s restaurant, but I remember where it is, so I tell Mrs. Cakel where to drive.

  Mrs. Cakel stops the car at a red light.

  Calvin sits up. He stops chewing his gum.

  “Did you ever think why your dog ran away and never came back?” he asks.

  She turns and gives Calvin the same look she often gives him in school, like she wishes he would run away.

  “I was bringing in groceries and left the front door open. She ran out. She must have run to the park. She loves it there. But the park has lots of entrances and I guess she got lost. I never take her to town, so if somehow she got there, she wouldn’t know how to get home. I just take her to the park.”

  The light changes to green and Mrs. Cakel drives ahead.

  Calvin is still sitting forward. He’s about to say something. I touch his hand and shake my head and he sits back. He’s chewing again.

  I’m glad he didn’t say anything else or call her Beatrice.

  “There it is,” I say and point to the restaurant.

  Mrs. Cakel parks her car. We go inside and I introduce her to Naomi.

  “People are just sitting down to eat,” Naomi says. “When they’re done, I’ve instructed my waiters to take any large leftover pieces of meat and put it in the bowl outside. That’s where you should wait or you might miss her. Your dog doesn’t stay long.”

  Mrs. Cakel thanks her.

  Naomi sets a small bench by the back door. We sit there and wait.

  “If we find Lollipop, I’ll have you to thank,” Mrs. Cakel tells us.

  That’s all she says. She’s not good at what Mom calls small talk.

  That’s like when people ask, “How are you?” Mom says that’s small talk because they don’t really want to know how you are.

  Once Aunt Ella asked me that and I told her, “I have an itchy toe and I’m having trouble in school with fractions and I can catch ground balls but I can’t throw the ball all the way to first base.”

  Mom said I told Aunt Ella too much. When she asked how I was, I should have just answered that I’m fine.

  Well, Mrs. Cakel isn’t good with small talk. She doesn’t say anything and neither do we. We just sit there.

  The back door opens. A waiter scrapes a plate of leftover meat into the bowl.

  We wait some more.

  The door opens again and another waiter scrapes leftovers into the bowl.

  We hear something. We turn. It’s Lollipop.

  I look at Mrs. Cakel.

  Wow!

  What a smile! I’ve never seen her smile like that. It changes her whole face. She even looks nice.

  Mrs. Cakel holds out her arms, grabs Lollipop, and says, “Come to me, baby.”

  The small dog licks her face.

  “I missed you.”

  Lollipop didn’t say that. Mrs. Cakel did.

  Calvin and I watch our teacher hug and kiss her pet. It’s nice to know she can be like that.

  Calvin whispers, “That Candy-On-A-Stick dog doesn’t want her kisses. She’s hungry.”

  He’s right. While Mrs. Cakel is hugging, her dog is looking at the bowl of meat.

  “Lollipop is hungry,” I say.

  “Are you?” Mrs. Cakel asks Lollipop. “Do you want to eat? Do you?”

  Lollipop doesn’t answer. She seems to know that’s a rhetorical question.

  Mrs. Cakel sets Lollipop down and the dog goes right to the bowl. She eats really fast. She licks the bowl when she’s done.

  Mrs. Cakel picks up her pet. She opens the back door of the restaurant and asks for Naomi.

  “This is my baby, my Lollipop,” she tells Naomi. “Thank you so much for feeding her.”

  “You’re quite welcome.”

  “I want to give you something.”

  “No,” Naomi says and shakes her head. “I don’t need a reward.”

  Mrs. Cakel thanks her again and we walk to her car.

  “But I need a reward,” Calvin whispers.

  Lollipop sits in the front seat and we sit in the back. During the ride, Mrs. Cakel tells Lollipop how much she missed her, how much she loves her, and how many treats she has waiting for her when they get home.

  She stops in front of my house. She turns and tells us, “I haven’t forgotten about you. You found my baby and I did promise a reward to whoever finds Lollipop. I’ll bring your rewards to school tomorrow.”

  “What are you giving us?” Calvin asks. “We spent three days looking for your dog. It took real good spy work to find her.”

  “When I wrote ‘Reward’ on my poster, I planned to give a financial reward.”

  That’s money.

  “I didn’t know that two of my students would find Lollipop. I can’t give my students money. But I’ll give each of you a good reward.”

  “Thank you,” Calvin and I say and get out of the car.

  “I wonder what she’ll give us,” Calvin says as he leaves me to go home.

  I wonder too.

  It’s Thursday morning.

  “She’s giving us something she already has,” Calvin tells me on our way to school.

  “What?”

  “It was too late last night for Beatrice to go out and buy rewards, so she’s giving us something she had in her house.”

  I hadn’t thought of that.

  “She once took a whole bunch of baseball cards from Douglas because he was looking at them in class,” Calvin says. “Maybe that’s what she’s giving us.”

  I say, “If she gives us those cards, we’ll return them to Douglas.”

  “Maybe she’ll give us all the hard candies and cans of soda she’s taken from her students.”

  Calvin must have thought about this a lot.

  “Not just the baseball cards, candies, and sodas from this year, but from all her years of teaching.”

  I tell Calvin, “If you keep soda too long it loses its bubbles. Don’t drink from any can that’s rusted or dusty.”

  We meet Douglas and Annie in the school playground. We tell them how we found Lollipop.

  “Maybe she baked cookies for you,” Annie says. “I bet she’s really good at measuring ingredients and following recipes.”

  I don’t need Mrs. Cakel’s cookies. I like the cookies and donuts Mrs. Waffle gives me.

  The bell rings. We line up and go in the building.

  Mrs. Cakel is standing by the door to our room. She has her usual strict look, the same “just-start-something-and-see-what-happens” look she’s had all year.

/>   Calvin and I walk past and she smiles.

  “I have something for each of you,” she whispers. “I’ll give it to you at lunchtime.”

  I look on her desk. Nothing. I wonder what she has for me.

  I sit in my seat and try to pay attention but today it’s not easy.

  The morning lessons go on and on.

  George Washington did this. Samuel Adams did this. One-half is more than one-third. Heart. Lungs. Circulatory system. Red blood cells. White blood cells. Platelets. Plasma.

  Did you know the heart is a pump? Only you can’t use it to fill your bicycle tires with air. Your heart pumps blood all over your body.

  The bell!

  Lunchtime.

  Douglas, Annie, and all the other kids in my class grab their lunches and rush out of the room. Calvin and I don’t rush. We’re the last ones by the door.

  “Here,” Mrs. Cakel says and gives me a wrapped package. “This is your reward.”

  The package is heavy. I tear off the wrapping. She gave me five books. But not just any books—baseball books.

  “Danny, I know that you love baseball, so I thought these books would be a good reward.”

  “Yes, I love baseball. This is a great reward.”

  “And Calvin,” she says. “You love to chew gum, to slouch, and to give strange answers in class. I hope you like this reward.”

  She gives Calvin an envelope.

  “Money?” Calvin asks in a whisper.

  He carefully opens the envelope and takes out several white cards. Each has a fancy printed border. Inside each border in large bold print are the words “Get Out of Trouble Free.” Each card is signed B. Cakel.

  “There are lots of rules in my classroom,” Mrs. Cakel tells Calvin, “and you have trouble following rules. There are seven cards, so seven times during the rest of the school year, if I catch you chewing gum or mumbling, or even without your homework, and you’re about to get in trouble, just give me one of those cards. You’ll get out of trouble free.”

  Mrs. Cakel smiles.

  “This is great!” Calvin says.

  “Thank you for finding my Lollipop,” Mrs. Cakel tells us. “Now go eat your lunches.”

  “This has been a real great week,” Calvin tells me on our way to the cafeteria. “It was fun hunting for that Candy-On–A-Stick dog. I got to eat lots of donuts. These Get Out of Trouble Free cards might get me through fourth grade. And best of all, I found out I’m your best friend.”

  “And the week is not over,” I tell my best friend. “It’s only Thursday.”

  “Look at that man,” my friend Calvin Waffle says.

  We’re walking to school and Calvin points to a man walking a dog. He’s wearing a bathrobe and slippers. That’s what the man is wearing, not the dog. The dog is wearing a leash and a collar and has lots of short curly hair.

  “I know all about that man,” Calvin says.

  Maybe he does. Calvin has told me his father is a spy. Maybe Calvin is a spy, too. Maybe he’s spied on Bathrobe Man. Maybe he’s spied on lots of people in our neighborhood.

  Maybe he’s been spying on me!

  “That man has a child, probably a son named Devon who wanted a dog. ‘I’ll take care of him,’ Devon promised. ‘I’ll even clean up after him. Please, Dad, please.’”

  Calvin stops. He grabs my arm and asks, “And do you know what that man did?”

  I shake my head. I don’t know. I’m not the spy. Calvin is.

  “He bought the dog for his son. Because of all that curly hair Devon named the dog Parsley and for the first two weeks he walked Parsley five times a day. He fed the dog so much that it puked.”

  “Yuch!”

  “That was just two weeks ago and do you know what?”

  I shake my head again. How should I know what? I didn’t even know the boy’s name was Devon.

  “Now Devon doesn’t even look at Parsley. He surely doesn’t take care of him.”

  This is all very interesting but we have to get to school.

  “We’ve got to get going,” I tell Calvin. “We can’t be late again.”

  Our teacher is Mrs. Cakel and she doesn’t like it when we’re late. She doesn’t like it if we write our names too small at the top of our homework papers or too big. She doesn’t like it when we answer her questions too loud or too low—even if the answer is right. She also doesn’t like it if we wear shirts with sparkles or sneakers with blinking lights. Actually, sweet Mrs. Cakel doesn’t like most things we do or wear. I don’t think she’s a happy woman.

  Calvin lets go of my arm. We walk toward the corner.

  Calvin turns and says, “Now look at him.”

  I look at Bathrobe Man again. He’s pulling on Parsley’s leash. The dog wants to smell the grass and Bathrobe Man is in a rush. He looks tired and grumpy. It’s Bathrobe Man who looks grumpy, not Parsley.

  “Devon no longer wants Parsley,” Calvin tells me. “Now he wants a football.”

  We stop at the corner and wait for the cars to go past.

  “Now it’s Devon’s father who feeds the dog. He walks him. He cleans up after him. Bathrobe Man shouldn’t have bought his son a dog. He should have rented one.”

  “You can’t rent a dog,” I say.

  “Why not? You can rent ice skates, boats, chairs for a party, penguin suits, and cars. Why can’t you rent a dog?”

  “Penguin suits?”

  “Tuxedos. You know, the suits men wear to their weddings.” Calvin thinks for a moment and then tells me, “One day I might get married, but I won’t wear a tuxedo.”

  We watch as Parsley lifts one of its back legs. I don’t want to say what he does, only that I’ll be real careful this afternoon when we walk home from school. I don’t want to step where Parsley stopped and did what he did. I’m wearing sneakers and it not easy getting that stuff out of the grooves in the bottoms of sneakers.

  Calvin says, “Can you imagine: I’m getting married and I’m wearing the shiny shoes people wear with tuxedos and I step in that stuff. People would smell me as I walk down the aisle.”

  I can’t imagine that. I can’t imagine Calvin getting married.

  I look at my watch again and say, “We’ve really got to get going.”

  He doesn’t care if Mrs. Cakel yells, but I do.

  We cross the street.

  As we walk, Calvin keeps talking about Parsley and it’s making me hungry. Mom usually serves parsley on fried fish and she serves fried fish with french fries and I love those fries dipped in ketchup.

  “We’re here,” Calvin tells me.

  We are. We’re in the school playground and we’re on time. Kids are still here waiting for the bell to ring.

  My friends Douglas and Annie are right by the door. They’re not in a hurry to see Mrs. Cakel. It’s just that she gives so much homework and we have to take so many books back and forth to school that our book bags are really heavy. They’re in a hurry to put their book bags down.

  The bell rings.

  “I’m going to think about that,” Calvin says as we walk into school. “I’m going to think about Devon and his father and that curly-haired dog. I’m going to think about how I can start a rent-a-pet business.”

  He can’t. His mother won’t let him have a dog. I think she’s allergic.

  “There’s work on the board,” Mrs. Cakel tells us as we walk into class. “Get started.”

  The whole board is covered with writing. The heading is “Chronology of the Revolution.” Under that is a list of years and things that happened in the time of George Washington.

  Did you know that Paul Revere and William Dawes were not the only ones to warn that “the British are coming”? That was in 1775. Two years later, in 1777, Sybil Ludington, a sixteen-year-old girl, warned that the British were attacking in Danbury, Connecticut.
Sybil Ludington rode eighty miles on a horse named Star.

  “Mrs. Cakel could just print off the stuff and give it to us, but she writes it on the board and makes us copy it,” Douglas once said during lunch. “She does that to keep us busy and quiet.”

  “No,” Annie said. “Copying that stuff helps us remember it.”

  I don’t try to know why Mrs. Cakel tells us to do things. I just do them. That keeps me out of trouble.

  BANG!

  Calvin drops his book bag on the floor.

  PLOP!

  He plops into his seat.

  Mrs. Cakel looks at him and it’s not an “I’m so glad you’re on time today” look. It’s more of an “I’ll get you” and a “you’ll be sorry” look.

  I once asked Calvin why he makes so much noise when he comes to class.

  “She has a big NO sign in the room,” he told me. “No talking in class without permission. No mumbling. No calling out. No walking about. No slouching. No gum chewing. No eating in class. No note sending. It does not say ‘No book dropping.’ It does not say ‘No seat plopping.’ That means it’s allowed.”

  “No it doesn’t,” I told Calvin. “It doesn’t say ‘No kite flying,’ but that doesn’t mean you can bring in a kite with lots of string and fly it in the classroom.”

  “Kite flying in Cakel’s class,” Calvin said. “That’s a great idea.”

  If anyone else had said that I would know he was joking, but with Calvin, you never know.

  “I’ll need a breeze,” Calvin said, “so I’ll open all the windows. I’ll get a dragon kite with long paper teeth and a long paper tail.” He thought for a moment and then added, “I’ll start it flying in the classroom and when it hits the ceiling I’ll push it out the window. I’ll tie the end of the string to my desk. Oh, this will be fun!”

  I didn’t tell Calvin he wouldn’t be allowed to fly a kite in class. It’s not a good idea to tell Calvin what’s not allowed. He thinks of the word “no” as a challenge. That might be why he has so much trouble with Mrs. Cakel. She’s always telling us what not to do and he’s always doing it.