Pig City

by Louis Sachar

“‘You’re too stupid to be a teacher! And you have bad breath.’

  “Never begin a sentence with the word ‘and.’ You could have made it all one sentence: ‘You’re too stupid to be a teacher, and you have bad breath,’ or else you could have kept it as two sentences but without the word ‘and’: ‘You’re too stupid to be a teacher. You have bad breath.’ Do you see what I’m saying?”

  Nathan nodded.

  “Okay, now I want you to go to your seat and rewrite this letter so that there are no mistakes.”

  Nathan returned to his desk. His eyes appeared to be spinning.

  “Aaron.”

  “Yes, Mr. Doyle.” His face was red.

  “I was able to hear this tape during recess. Do you want it erased, or shall I have it for posterity?”

  “Erase it.” It became redder.

  “Are you certain? You have a very nice voice. Have you ever taken singing lessons?”

  “No. Erase it, please.” And redder.

  “Do you like the opera?”

  “I never heard it.” And redder.

  “You should listen to it some time,” said Mr. Doyle. “You might consider being an opera singer when you grow up.”

  “I’ll think about it,” said Aaron. “Please erase the tape.”

  Mr. Doyle put the tape back into the machine and erased it. “Debbie?”

  “Erase it,” said Debbie.

  “Can I have it?” chirped Howard.

  Mr. Doyle erased Debbie’s tape. “Tiffany.”

  Tiffany walked to his desk. He told her it was a very funny article. She didn’t agree. She threw it into the trash.

  “Laura!” Mr. Doyle bellowed.

  Laura shook her hair back. She wasn’t wearing the cap. It was stuffed in her desk. She walked to the front of the room.

  She saw her Declaration of Love on Mr. Doyle’s desk. She wasn’t embarrassed. She felt nothing – except hatred for Gabriel.

  The Pig City roster was on his desk, too.

  PIG CITY

  Laura — President

  Tiffany — Vice-President

  Allison — Secretary

  Kristin — underpants

  Debbie — called up Howard and told him she loved him passionately

  Yolanda — note to Jonathan

  Nathan — letter to Mr. Doyle

  Aaron — song

  “What happened to Yolanda’s note?” asked Mr. Doyle.

  “What do you need that for?”

  “I was just curious.” He smiled. “I imagine it was quite a note. You’re right, it’s none of my business. Well, you’ve had a rough time of it today, haven’t you? First the dictionary pages and now this. I suppose everybody in Pig City blames you.”

  “I’m responsible,” she said.

  “I guess that’s what being a leader is all about, isn’t it?” He picked up the Declaration of Love. “I’m very flattered.”

  She shrugged.

  “Seventeen dictionary pages is a lot, isn’t it?” he said. “I can’t very well ask someone who loves me to copy that many.” He smiled. “How about if we just call it seven?”

  “No, I’ll do seventeen,” said Laura. “I don’t love you anymore.” She dropped her Declaration into the wastebasket and returned to her seat.

  40

  Bushwhacked

  Gabriel was the most popular kid at school. Even Jonathan and Yolanda were impressed by what he had done.

  “You were fantastic, Gabe!” said Howard. “Can I please have your autograph?” He handed Gabriel a torn sheet of notebook paper and a pencil.

  Gabriel smiled. He took the paper and pencil from Howard and boldly signed his name. “Here you go, Howard.”

  “Thanks, Gabe!” said Howard. “I bet you’ll be famous some day.”

  Gabriel laughed.

  “Howard, do you want to copy a dictionary page, too?” asked Mr. Doyle.

  “No,” said Howard. He hurried out of the room.

  Mr. Doyle followed him out, leaving only Gabriel and Laura.

  No one from Pig City had spoken to Laura since recess. They’d been teased and/or tickled all day. Anybody who didn’t know about the treasures soon found out.

  Laura stood up and walked to the metal closet. She tore seventeen pages out of a dictionary, one at a time. She didn’t bother looking for pages with pictures or bad words. She returned to her desk without even glancing at Gabriel.

  Sheila was waiting for Howard by the bike racks. “Did you get it?” she asked.

  “No problem,” he said, then gave her the piece of paper with Gabriel’s autograph on it.

  Sheila looked at it. “Good job.”

  “Thanks,” said Howard. “Hey, Sheila?”

  “What?”

  “Do you think Debbie really likes me?”

  “Of course not! Why would she like you?”

  Laura looked up as Gabriel put his completed dictionary pages on Mr. Doyle’s desk. She tried to burn a hole through his brain with her eyes.

  He turned and faced her. “What’s your problem?” he asked.

  She didn’t say anything.

  He shrugged, took a couple of steps toward the curtain, then stopped. He sighed and turned around. “If you want, I’ll help you copy some of your dictionary pages. I mean, I wrote on the board, too.”

  “Go away,” she said coldly. “I hate you!”

  “Don’t tell me you thought I believed you ate a raw egg.”

  “I never lie.”

  “Right,” said Gabriel. “Just like the note you said I wrote.”

  “I showed it to you! It proved I was telling the truth.”

  “Come on. Do you really think I don’t know what I wrote? Besides, anyone could see it had been changed.”

  “I ate the egg.”

  “Tell me another one!” He walked out through the curtain.

  She hated him. She waited a few minutes to make sure he was gone, then took her seventeen pages and left. She hadn’t copied a single word.

  I won’t do them, she thought as she headed home. Then Mr. Doyle will have to flunk me. Maybe I’ll spend my whole life stuck in the sixth grade. She smiled bitterly. That’ll show Mr. Doyle! He’ll be sorry he ever did this to me. She imagined herself twenty years old, in Mr. Doyle’s class, still owing him seventeen dictionary pages. “I’m sorry I ever tricked you,” he’d say. “Let me copy your dictionary pages for you.” “No,” she’d tell him. “I can’t graduate until I copy them myself. It’s your fault. You made the rules.”

  She’d be in all the newpapers: TWENTY-YEAR-OLD GIRL STUCK IN SIXTH GRADE! Everybody would know about the mean trick Mr. Doyle played on her, how he used her goodness and turned it around to suit his own evil purposes. He’d be the most hated man in the country.

  She sighed. She didn’t really hate Mr. Doyle. She didn’t love him, but she didn’t hate him, either. She hated Gabriel.

  “I hate Gabriel!” she shouted to an empty street.

  She wondered if she’d ever meet a boy she’d like. The boys will be more mature next year in junior high, she thought. I’ll have lots of boyfriends – if I ever graduate.

  She walked past the Hollow Creek apartment complex. There was a brick wall, about four feet high, which separated the apartment complex from the sidewalk.

  She wondered what her first boyfriend would look like. He’ll have dark hair, maybe a little curly. He’ll be smart, but he wouldn’t study all the time. He’d be good at sports, and he’d also be interested in other things, like art and books. And he’ll beat up Gabriel.

  She smiled, then suddenly her head jerked back and banged against the brick wall. “Oh!” she said very quietly.

  Someone was pulling her hair from behind the wall. She couldn’t turn around. She tried to reach back with her arms. Her eyes watered from the pain.

  Suddenly the pulling stopped and she fell to her knees on the sidewalk. She felt dizzy. She sat up against the wall, and took several deep breaths. Her head throbbed.

  A grea
t mass of hair lay on the sidewalk next to her.

  She didn’t know what it was at first. It was very odd-looking, like some kind of strange animal. It took her a while to recognize it as hair. A few seconds later she realized where it came from.

  41

  A Wig

  Laura felt the top of her head, then slowly moved her hand down along her hair until she came to the place where it had been cut – just above her shoulders.

  It had been cut with scissors, although at the time it had felt like someone just ripped it out of her head.

  Not all her hair was cut off. Long strands still remained on either side of her head. But a large clump out of the middle was gone.

  On the sidewalk, next to her hair, she saw a torn piece of notebook paper. She picked it up.

  On it was written: PIGS ARE BALD.

  Underneath that, Gabriel had signed his name.

  Laura’s blood curdled with hatred. She trembled, then tears began to flow. She began gathering up as much of her hair off the ground as she could. In the end, she could barely see through her watery eyes as she picked up the hairs, one at a time, off the dirty sidewalk. Maybe somebody can make a wig out of it, she hoped. I can wear it until my hair grows back.

  She stood up, then a wave of dizziness rushed over her. She steadied herself, then started home, walking, then running, then walking again.

  She came to a block where garbage cans had been set on the curb in front of each house. The cans were empty. The garbage men had come and gone.

  She made it halfway down the block, then stopped. She dropped her hair into an old silver trash can. She leaned over and looked at it, swirled at the bottom, for the last time.

  When she got home, she took two steps inside the house, then ran into her mother’s arms.

  Her mother telephoned her father, who rushed home from work early.

  “Do you know who did it?” asked her father.

  “No,” she answered. It was her first lie in six years, but so what? Her hair was cut off anyway. She could lie all the time now!

  Her parents took her to the doctor to make sure she wasn’t seriously hurt.

  The doctor said she was fine. She had a bump on the back of her head, but no concussion.

  “Do I have to go to school tomorrow?” Laura asked.

  “Yes,” the doctor told her.

  “No,” her parents said sympathetically.

  The doctor suggested that they report the assault to the police, but Laura talked her parents out of it.

  What are they going to do? she thought. Arrest Gabriel for giving me an illegal haircut?

  She remembered that Gabriel had tried to call a truce. She was the one who had told him there were no rules in a war.

  She went to bed early. It had been the worst day of her life, and she didn’t want it to drag on any longer. In the morning, she’d have to get started on her dictionary pages.

  Her parents came in and kissed her good-night as she lay with head on her pillow.

  “Tomorrow we’ll go to the beauty parlor,” said her mother.

  “They’ll just cut off more!” she whined.

  “Oh, just enough to make it even,” said her father.

  “We’ll go to the fanciest, most expensive hair-stylist in town,” said her mother. “It’ll be very exciting. We’ll get you something very exotic.”

  Laura tried to smile. “At least I won’t have to spend an hour washing and combing it every day.”

  “That’s right!” said her father.

  “Probably just towel it dry,” said her mother.

  Laura rolled over, then started crying. “I never told a lie,” she whimpered.

  “We know, baby,” whispered her mother.

  42

  The Conquering Hero

  Gabriel walked to school on Friday morning, whistling the Monkey Town song and snapping his fingers.

  He was met by Sheila and Howard. They stuck their right thumbs in their right ears and wiggled their fingers. He did the same.

  “We got her, Gabe!” said Howard. “We got her even better than you did!”

  “What?” he asked. “Who?”

  Howard looked at Sheila, then back at Gabriel. “Laura,” he said. “You’ll see when she comes to school.”

  “If she comes to school,” said Sheila. “She’s so vain, she probably won’t.”

  “I bet she doesn’t come to school for the rest of the year,” laughed Howard.

  Sheila laughed, too.

  “Wha’d you do to her?” asked Gabriel.

  Howard looked to Sheila.

  “Maybe we shouldn’t tell him,” said Sheila. “Maybe’s he’s still in love with her!”

  “What?” Gabriel exclaimed. “Me? In love with Laura?”

  “I saw the note you wrote her,” said Sheila.

  “What note?”

  “Oh? Was there more than one?” She turned to Howard. “He wrote Laura a note telling her he knew all about Pig City, but promised never, ever, to tell.” She put both hands over her heart. “It was so sweet!”

  Howard laughed.

  Things began to click inside Gabriel’s head. “You changed it,” he uttered.

  “Didn’t she want to kiss you?” laughed Sheila. She told Howard how she had reworded Gabriel’s note.

  Howard laughed, too. “Who would want to kiss Laura?” he asked. “She’s so ugly. She asked me to join Pig City, but I told her to drop dead.”

  Gabriel laughed. “That’s pretty funny, Howie,” he said. “So how’d you get her yesterday?”

  “We bushwhacked her!” said Howard.

  “We cut her hair off!” said Sheila. “Just like I said I would. You and Karen didn’t have the guts to do it, but Howard did.”

  “I held her hair while Sheila cut it off,” said Howard.

  “She never even saw who did it,” said Sheila.

  “She’s practically bald,” laughed Howard.

  He was still laughing when Gabriel’s fist smashed into his teeth. He fell to the ground. His lip was bleeding.

  Gabriel grabbed Sheila by her shirt collar.

  She screamed.

  “Hey!” shouted the yard teacher. She started toward them.

  “Now you’ll be sorry,” said Gabriel.

  Sheila laughed in his face. “What are you going to do? Tell on me? Are you a tattletale?”

  He didn’t know what to do. He never told on anyone before.

  “You better let me go!” warned Sheila. “Besides, Laura thinks you did it, so you’re in on it, too.”

  “How … Why does she think I did it?”

  “Remember that autograph you signed for Howard? I wrote ‘Pigs Are Bald’ over it and dropped it next to her hair! She’ll never love you now!”

  “Gabriel!” shouted the yard teacher, hurrying toward them. “Let her go!”

  He let go of her. Then he slugged her in the face.

  43

  The New Laura

  Laura stared at herself in the bathroom mirror. “I look like a French poodle,” she said.

  “I don’t know of any poodles who spend over a hundred dollars for a haircut,” said her father, standing behind her.

  She made a face. She didn’t recognize herself. “You wasted your money,” she said. “You should have just taken me to the Pink Poodle. That’s where Allison’s dog gets his hair cut.”

  Her father laughed. “Now you tell me,” he said.

  In front, covering her forehead, she had long curly bangs. They looked like springs that had sprung. The rest of her hair formed a big wave that started just behind her bangs and cascaded down to the back of her neck, where it suddenly turned wild and frizzy, like a wave crashing on the shore.

  In front of each ear she had a long coil of hair. Several other coils adorned her hair in various places. They looked like ribbons on a birthday present.

  The most amazing thing about it was that all she had to do was wash it, then dry it with a towel, and it would bounce back into shape
all by itself.

  She stuck out her tongue at her reflection, then turned and walked back into her room.

  She sat at her desk. She still hadn’t copied any of her dictionary pages. It was Saturday, two days since the worst day of her life. Monday, she’d have to go to school again, where everyone would laugh at her.

  She opened her desk drawer, took out her pocket calculator, and busily pressed the buttons. She figured out it would take six years and five months for her hair to grow back. Somewhere she had heard that hair grows three quarters of an inch every month.

  She wondered if she’d have any friends by then. She knew she certainly wouldn’t have a boyfriend. No boy would want to kiss a French poodle.

  Six years and five months, she thought. I might as well be in prison.

  She looked through the dictionary pages. Why didn’t I at least choose pages with pictures! She shook her head.

  She remembered it was Gabriel who had told her about picking pages with pictures. Of course I didn’t listen to him! I don’t listen to anybody. I think I’m better than everybody else. No one can tell me anything!

  I thought Jonathan was conceited, but I was even more conceited than him.

  She sighed. It was all my own fault, she realized. It’s no wonder everybody hates me. That’s what I get for trying to be such a big shot. Playing all those silly games. Who did I think I was? George Washington? George Washington wouldn’t have made someone give him her underpants!

  She promised herself that in the future she’d be different. She wouldn’t be the president of any club, because she wasn’t better than anybody else. No more tricks. No more games. No more lies.

  She nodded. I lied all the time, she admitted. Even if my words weren’t actual lies, they were lies all the same. I lied to myself, too. I’m glad my hair was cut off. I deserved it! Thank you, Gabriel!

  From now on, there will be a new Laura Sibbie, she decided. And maybe, in six years and five months, somebody will like me.

  The doorbell rang.

  Oh, please, don’t be for me, she prayed.

  “Laura! There’s somebody here to see you,” her father called.

  She didn’t want to see anyone. She didn’t want anyone to see her, not for six years and five months.