The Unteachables

by Gordon Korman

  I swallow what’s left of my pride. “Thanks for your help.” I’m positive that her first act after getting home will be to call her mother and say, Ma—guess what? He’s still got that car. . . .

  The calendar appears in my mind, that magical date in June circled in gold Sharpie.

  Only 172 more school days to go.

  Six

  Mateo Hendrickson

  When I get really bored—which is every day—I match people I know with characters from TV and movies. For example, my sister Lauren is like Venom from Spider-Man because she’s evil and she spits poison. Well, not literally, but since I invented the classification system, I get to choose who’s what. Just don’t tell my mom, because she’s like Professor McGonagall from Harry Potter. Smart and usually fair, but she can be nasty when something ticks her off—like me comparing Lauren to a Spider-Man villain.

  It works for the kids at school too. Parker is like Lightning McQueen because he’s the only kid who drives. Barnstorm is the Flash since he was such a great athlete before he wound up on crutches. Rahim is a little tricky, but I think of him as Birdman, because he has really big ears that could easily expand to wings if he gets bitten by a radioactive canary. Crazy, I know, but in comics, that kind of thing happens all the time. Anyway, I can always switch him to Sleeping Beauty. He’s not that beautiful, but he is that sleeping.

  Elaine is a cross between Chewbacca from Star Wars and Lois Lane, who also rhymes with pain. I try not to get too close to her. She once picked a kid up by the belt and used his head to poke at a fluorescent light that was buzzing.

  Kiana is Blonde Phantom, since they’re both from California, even though Kiana’s hair is closer to light brown. And Aldo? That’s easy. Dr. Bruce Banner, who turns into the Incredible Hulk when he gets mad.

  As for me, I’m part hobbit and part Vulcan—Bilbo and Spock. Big logic in a small package.

  That leaves just our teacher, Mr. Kermit. He’s tough to characterize. I’m leaning toward Squidward because when he comes to class in the morning, he reminds me of Squidward coming to work at the Krusty Krab—bored and bummed out. And he treats us the way Squidward treats the customers. He doesn’t hate us exactly, but he definitely wishes we were someplace else. He’s even a little grumpier than Squidward because he doesn’t have a hobby like playing the clarinet—unless you count crossword puzzles and consuming mass quantities of coffee.

  For someone who’s supposed to be a teacher, he sure doesn’t do too much teaching. He mostly just hands out worksheets. The only time he talks is when somebody asks a question. That usually ends up being me.

  “Mr. Kermit, why do the magnetic poles reverse?”

  With effort, the teacher tears his attention away from his puzzle. “Excuse me?”

  “Every two hundred and fifty thousand years, Earth’s magnetic poles reverse,” I explain. “I was just wondering why that happens.”

  “Yes, but what does it have to do with”—reluctantly, he glances from his New York Times to the worksheet on his desk beside it—“using vocabulary words in a sentence?”

  “I want to do a sentence on Magneto,” I reason. “But since his superpower is magnetism and electric charge, he’d be affected by that.”

  That’s another thing about Mr. Kermit. He isn’t very helpful when one of his students is curious about something.

  The only other time there are questions is when Parker is trying to figure out what a word is. That turns into kind of a game in SCS-8—figuring out what he means by tramgulley when the word is really metallurgy. Sometimes the whole class gets in on guessing. It’s the only fun we have during school. It can get pretty loud when people start laughing at Parker. Mr. Kermit’s usually okay with it, unless Miss Fountain comes over to complain that we’re disturbing her class. Then he chews us out. He doesn’t get mad at us, but he can’t stand it when she does.

  This one time, Barnstorm makes a big stink, pounding his desk with both crutches, because the football team is holding its first pep rally and he isn’t going to be up there with the players. “It’s not fair, man!” he roars. “Just because I’m injured doesn’t mean I’m not a Golden Eagle!”

  Mr. Kermit’s curiosity is suddenly piqued. “If you were in the pep rally, you’d have to leave now, right? You’d be somewhere else for the rest of the day?”

  Barnstorm nods. “The team gets the whole afternoon off to prepare for it, and I’m stuck here working.”

  That might be pushing it a little. I’ve seldom seen Barnstorm pick up a pencil.

  “That sounds reasonable to me,” Mr. Kermit agrees. “It isn’t your fault you got injured. Why should you have to suffer for it?”

  I get the feeling that Mr. Kermit doesn’t care that much about justice for Barnstorm. What he really wants is to get this disturber of the peace out of room 117 before he puts one of those crutches through a wall. Miss Fountain would definitely notice that.

  So he goes on the intercom and demands to have Barnstorm included in the rally. He argues his way through three secretaries and the assistant principal, and he won’t take no for an answer. We’re blown away. It’s a whole new side to our teacher none of us has seen before. He’s actually fighting for one of us, when we would have bet money that he barely even noticed we were here.

  “Put me through to Coach Slattery,” Mr. Kermit insists.

  “He’s in class right now” comes the reply from the speaker.

  “Well, get him out of class,” our teacher retorts. “Justice and fairness aren’t just part of the social studies curriculum, you know. They’re the building blocks of our entire society.”

  No one is more amazed than Barnstorm himself. “That’s what I’m talking about,” he approves in a satisfied tone.

  By the time Mr. Kermit gets on with the athletic office, he’s really worked up. “You ought to be ashamed of yourself!” he accuses Coach Slattery. “You send these kids out there to be tackled and elbowed and hit with hockey sticks. And when they get injured, you abandon them?”

  When the coach finally breaks down and says, “Okay, whatever. Send him down,” our whole class breaks into applause.

  “You were awesome, Mr. Kermit!” Kiana exclaims.

  “You should be in the Justice League,” I add.

  He looks startled, as if he didn’t realize anybody was listening. He turns to Barnstorm. “Well, off you go. Enjoy your . . .” His voice trails off.

  “Pep rally,” I supply helpfully.

  Barnstorm is already thump-swinging toward the door. “Thanks, Mr. Kermit.”

  Throughout the afternoon, our teacher keeps looking at Barnstorm’s empty desk and smiling—another first for him. And at the end of the day, when we’re called down to the pep rally, he smiles all the way to the auditorium—even though our class is always terrible marching through the hallways. Aldo karate-kicks lockers, and Rahim stakes out a water fountain so he can spray people. This seventh grader gives Elaine a hard time about blocking the stairs but only till he realizes who he’s talking to. Better to be blocked on the stairs than to take a one-way trip down them or to have a classroom door slammed on your head or any of the other things Elaine does to people who annoy her. The kid apologizes and gets out of there so fast that he slams into Parker, and they both end up blocking the stairs for real.

  Not even that spoils Mr. Kermit’s mood. It’s a problem. He’s much too happy to be Squidward now.

  Until we reach the auditorium. We’re standing there waiting for our turn to file in when an earsplitting honk goes off right behind us. Mr. Kermit practically hits the ceiling. He wheels around to see this kid with a bright green vuvuzela—one of those noisemakers that look like a long plastic trumpet. They’re kind of a tradition for Golden Eagle sports, because one of our school board members is from South Africa, where they were invented.

  Without a word, Mr. Kermit snatches the thing out of the kid’s hand, throws it to the floor, and stomps it flat.

  The boy looks up at him, lip quivering. “B
ut it’s a pep rally.”

  “Who says pep can’t be quiet?” The teacher’s furious eyes fix on a girl, who’s holding a purple one. “Don’t even think about it.”

  Nervously, she whisks the instrument behind her back.

  Mr. Kermit nods. “That’s the spirit.”

  Problem solved; he’s Squidward again. When it comes to vuvuzelas, he might even be Lex Luthor.

  At the pep rally, they make us sit in the back, just in case we have to be kicked out. Our class always sits in the back, even in the cafeteria. The teachers don’t want us anywhere near the soda machine. They think giving us sugar is like sprinkling water on the Gremlins.

  I cheer when Barnstorm is introduced. I’ve never known anybody on a team before. He waves a crutch in our direction, and a few of the other kids clap too.

  Then Rahim falls asleep. His head slumps over and conks the girl sitting next to him.

  We get kicked out.

  Seven

  Kiana Roubini

  I’m still in SCS-8.

  Well, technically I’m in nothing, since I never officially enrolled in school. Back on the first day, Chauncey turned out to have stomach flu. That’s why he barfed—like there needs to be a reason for him to paint the town. So Stepmonster never showed up to register me.

  That night, eating takeout pizza for dinner, while feeding Chauncey medicine out of an eyedropper, she asked me, “Kiana, did you get everything straightened out with the office?”

  “Jeez, Louise!” my father exclaimed. “You were supposed to take care of that.”

  “Chauncey got sick—” she began defensively.

  “It’s okay,” I interrupted. “It’s all taken care of.”

  I’m still not sure why I said that. Nothing is taken care of. There’s no such student as Kiana Roubini at Greenwich Middle School. If I had any teacher besides Mr. Kermit, I would have been busted on day one.

  What’s more, I’m in the Unteachables. Oh, sure, they call it the Self-Contained Special yada, yada, yada. But that’s just code for burnouts, nitwits, rejects, and behavior problems. Plus one displaced Californian.

  It goes without saying that I don’t belong. I’ve kind of boxed myself into a corner, though. It wouldn’t be hard to switch out, since I was never really switched in. But then I’d need Stepmonster to register me for real. And I’d have to explain what I’ve been doing for the past two weeks.

  It’s not worth it. I’m a short-timer anyway. I never changed my address from Los Angeles, so no one will ever find out there’s a girl living here who isn’t enrolled in school. And believe me, Mr. Kermit isn’t going to notice he’s got an extra kid in his class. Most of the time, he doesn’t even notice he’s got a class.

  I’m not learning anything. But even if I was in genius classes, I don’t think there’s much this one-horse town can teach me in two months. Could be even less—Mom says her movie is going really well, which means I could be back in California even sooner than expected. Fingers and toes crossed.

  In spite of all that, I have to admit I’m fascinated by SCS-8. It’s not a good class—not even close. It’s kind of an interesting one, though. I always assumed that kids who end up in programs like that are just plain dumb. Not this bunch. They have quirks, sure. But unteachable? I don’t see what’s so terrible about them that they can’t be with everybody else. Well, maybe Aldo. Anybody who can get that mad at a locker, and all that. Still, when I look into Aldo’s eyes—which are green, by the way—I see a person who doesn’t want to be so angry.

  Anyway, if the kids are a little strange, they’re not half as strange as their teacher. I use the word teacher very loosely. That’s another problem I have about calling them the Unteachables. How can the school know they’re unteachable if nobody ever tries to teach them?

  It’s been two weeks and Mr. Kermit hasn’t taught anything yet. He barely even speaks. He doesn’t like kids, and he doesn’t seem too fond of other adults either. Yet there’s something cool about him too. Nothing throws him, except maybe vuvuzelas. Anybody who could put out a trash can bonfire with a cup of coffee and never mention it must have ice water in his veins—even by LA standards.

  And just when you think you’ve got him figured out, something new about him comes out. Like his secret past with Miss Fountain’s mother. Or when he fought like a tiger to get Barnstorm included in the pep rally. Now Barnstorm is fully reinstated to the Golden Eagles. He even stands on the sidelines at football games, leaning on his crutches and dispensing advice to the players. He has Mr. Kermit to thank for that.

  One day, Barnstorm is off at a team meeting when Miss Fountain pokes her head into the room.

  “Mr. Kermit,” she calls, “my group is about to have Circle Time, and we were wondering if you and your students might like to join us.”

  “Circle Time?” he repeats, mystified.

  I stare at our teacher. How could anybody in the school business never have heard about Circle Time? “You know,” I explain, “like the little kids do.”

  “It’s not just for little kids,” Miss Fountain corrects. “It’s for everybody. Positive reinforcement is something you never outgrow. Think of how much better our world would be if national leaders would only sit in a circle and be kind and civil to one another.”

  So we all troop over to room 115, and let me tell you, that class doesn’t look too thrilled to see us coming in the door. They’re seventh graders—only a year younger than us—but it’s a major year for growth spurts, so they seem a lot punier. Plus, we have a reputation—that was obvious from the VIP seats they gave us at the pep rally, and how quickly we got thrown out at the first sign of trouble.

  Miss Fountain’s students are intimidated by all of us, so you can imagine how they feel about Elaine, the subject of school legends about force-feeding people pages of their own textbooks and pounding them with uprooted ficus trees. Plus, she covers literally thirty degrees of the whole circle. There really is a circle, marked off with yellow tape on the floor. In the middle is a smiley face, also in yellow tape. If my friends in LA could see me now. On second thought, God forbid. Kid drivers, Unteachables, and now this. Greenwich sure is some town.

  Mr. Kermit doesn’t want to sit on the floor with the kids, but Miss Fountain does it, so he has to do it too. There’s a lot of groaning as he lowers himself down, and a crack that might be from a hip joint. He balances the bucket of coffee precariously on his lap.

  The room is like an overgrown kindergarten class. Bright colors blaze from every wall. There are class lists with multicolored stars awarded. Every single piece of information comes in a voice bubble emerging from the mouth of a happy cartoon animal—Suzy the Science Snake and Harvey the Hall Pass Hippo. I’d probably like it—if I was about Chauncey’s age. Mateo does like it. He lives his life through fictional characters anyway. He lingers in front of the big posters, drinking in the details of the vibrant caricatures. Mr. Kermit has to order him to take a seat on the circle.

  Miss Fountain even has a real animal. In a glass terrarium in the corner of the room, under a sign proclaiming him to be VLADIMIR, is some kind of lizard about eight inches long.

  “A miniature Gorn!” Mateo blurts.

  “He’s a gecko,” a seventh grader corrects.

  Parker snaps his fingers. “Like that lizard from the TV commercials.”

  “He’s a gold dust day gecko,” Miss Fountain explains. “You can tell by the flecks of yellow in his scales.”

  “Gorns are from Star Trek,” Mateo supplies, although nobody asked for an explanation. “They’re a reptilian race from Tau Lacertae 9, advanced enough to have mastered space travel.”

  A loud snicker comes from one of the seventh graders.

  “Class, let’s welcome our new friends to the circle,” Miss Fountain announces. “Who has a compliment to offer?”

  “Somebody’s feet stink,” Aldo complains.

  Mr. Kermit glares at him. “That’s not a compliment!”

  “Yeah, I know,”
Aldo concedes, “but something smells pretty ripe around here.”

  “Maybe it’s the Gorn cage,” Mateo puts in.

  “A compliment,” Miss Fountain goes on as if no one else has spoken, “is a positive comment, a ‘well done!’ to make people feel good about themselves. Try again, Aldo.”

  Aldo is thinking so hard that his face screws up, like Chauncey’s when he’s going to the bathroom in his diaper. He looks all around the circle and comes up empty.

  I know I’m just a short-timer and it’s pointless to care about people I’ll never have to see again once Mom finishes shooting her movie. But my heart goes out to Aldo, who has this red, red hair that just won’t stay combed. How must it feel inside when the closest you can get to saying something nice involves foot odor?

  From the opposite side of the room, a low voice announces, “That’s a nice color.”

  We all crane our necks to see who’s speaking. To my amazement, it’s Elaine!

  “I beg your pardon,” says the young teacher, distracted.

  “Your shirt,” Elaine tells Miss Fountain. “It’s a nice look for you.”

  “What a lovely thing to say! Thank you—” Miss Fountain frowns at Elaine. “I don’t think I know your name.”

  “I don’t think so either,” Elaine rumbles back.

  Miss Fountain turns questioningly to Mr. Kermit, who gives her a blank shrug.

  “That’s Elaine!” I exclaim. We’ve been in class with him for two weeks. Doesn’t he know any of us?

  A few whispered murmurs of “rhymes with pain” come from our class and the seventh graders.

  A voice sounds in the hall. “Where’d everybody go?” A moment later, Barnstorm swings into the doorway on his crutches, fresh from his meeting with the football team. “I was wondering where you guys—hey, check it out! Circle Time!”

  “Join our circle,” Miss Fountain invites. “Why don’t you share how you hurt your leg? I’m guessing it was a football injury.”