The Unteachables

by Gordon Korman

  “No way,” Barnstorm scoffs. “The tackler isn’t born who can catch me. I was changing a lightbulb in the bathroom and I slipped off the toilet seat.”

  I can see it coming, but I’m powerless to stop it. As Barnstorm plops himself down on the floor next to Aldo, one of his crutches whacks the red-haired boy in the side of the head.

  “Ow!” Enraged, Aldo sweeps the offending crutch aside, knocking it into the corner. The rubber tip clips the cover on the lizard terrarium, sending it skittering across the floor.

  “The Gorn!” Mateo exclaims.

  “Vladimir!” cry several of the seventh graders.

  The gecko is out of his home like a shot. He does a quick loop of the room and finds the door, posthaste.

  Mateo frowns. “Gorns are slow and plodding in Star Trek.”

  “I guess Star Trek isn’t that much like real life,” Parker observes.

  You can say that again. There’s nothing slow or lazy about Vladimir. By the time the first seventh graders reach the hall, their class pet is long gone.

  I’m kind of impressed by how calm Miss Fountain stays. She’s all business on the intercom with the office describing the escaped lizard.

  “Thank you for a very enjoyable—uh, Circle Time,” Mr. Kermit says formally. “We should probably say our goodbyes, though.”

  I doubt she even hears him.

  Back in room 117, I’m thinking now we’re really going to get it. But our teacher silently returns to his crossword puzzle, leaving us to the worksheets on our desks.

  Eight

  Mr. Kermit

  When breakfast is mustard on toast, that’s a sure sign that it’s time to go back to the grocery store. It means I’ve run out of butter and cream cheese and jam, and I’m digging into the condiment packs left over from my last McDonald’s run. Come to think of it, this is my last slice of bread too, and stale doesn’t begin to describe it.

  The apartment is a dump—clean enough, but definitely from a bygone era. I can afford much better, but I’m too disinterested to redecorate and too lazy to move. It’s the perfect place for a meal of mustard on toast—the breakfast of the disinterested and lazy. Not for the first time, I picture Fiona’s house, with its picket fence and oh-so-green lawn. It’s more vivid now, since I can imagine Emma growing up there, playing on the swings, riding her tricycle on the driveway, and playing with her first lizard. I don’t want to think about her last lizard, thanks to the Unteachables. God only knows what happened to Vladimir. He’s probably trapped in the walls of the school somewhere, starving to death. If he made it out of the building, he’s roadkill for sure.

  Eventually, I go down to the Coco Nerd and start it up in a cloud of burnt oil. I’m actually calling it that, thanks to Parker. For some reason, I can’t get it out of my head. Something else to lay at the feet of the Unteachables.

  June has never looked farther away.

  I’m not even a third of the way to school when the billboard looms up:

  COME SEE THE LARGEST INVENTORY OF

  NEW AND USED

  VEHICLES IN THE TRI-COUNTY AREA

  And there’s his face, grinning out through a flaming hoop like he’s some kind of circus performer and not the sleazy used-car dealer he was always meant to be. Jumping Jake Terranova, who will jump through hoops to get you a great deal on the perfect new or used car.

  Even though I pass this billboard every day, it’s always somehow a blow to see him up there. He doesn’t look much different than he did as a seventh grader. Always grinning, like he’s got it all figured out. And he’s still selling—cars and SUVs now, instead of stolen copies of the National Aptitude Test. He’s good at it too. Terranova Motors is the third-largest auto dealership in the state. That’s quite an accomplishment. Jumping Jake has come a long way since seventh grade, when his biggest accomplishment was ruining his teacher’s life.

  No, I remind myself, Dr. Thaddeus did that. Sure, the cheating thing was an ugly scandal, but it’s not as if I was in on the scam. All I was guilty of was trusting my students—and believing that their best-in-the-nation test score was an honest achievement.

  My real crime—the one I’ll never be forgiven for—was making Thaddeus look bad. The principal-turned-superintendent has been taking his revenge ever since. Jake Terranova was just the first tile that started the dominoes tumbling.

  The giant dealership looms up on the left. I can’t help it—I count how long it takes to pass the vast lots and showrooms. Fourteen full seconds at the speed of traffic. It isn’t enough that the Terranova kid got away with his seventh-grade shenanigans; obviously, they gave him the formula for getting rich. He’s rolling in money while the teacher he took down is living on bread and mustard and driving a Coco Nerd—although the main reason I haven’t replaced the car is that I blame all auto dealerships for Jake Terranova.

  I turn into the school lot where Parker’s pickup truck is sprawled across the last two open spaces. Sure, give a middle school kid a driver’s license. What could go wrong? Annoyed, I block the pickup in, making a mental note to keep the kid after school just long enough to beat him out here.

  I didn’t pack a lunch, but I remember buying a falafel a couple of days ago that I never got around to eating. It isn’t on the passenger seat, so I try the glove compartment. No luck. It must have fallen on the floor and rolled under the seat when the car went over a bump. The Coco Nerd doesn’t have much in the way of suspension.

  Bending over double, I reach around and pat the floor on the passenger side. Sure enough, I find the paper sack. But when I pull it out, there’s a hole in the bag, and the falafel is half-eaten and torn to shreds.

  I get on all fours and peer under the seat. It looks like somebody lost a leather wallet down there. Then it shifts, and two beady eyes peer out at me.

  I recoil in shock, slamming the back of my head against the dashboard. With a squeak of fear, the creature begins to scramble away, but I jam my hand in and grab it before it can escape through the hole in the floor.

  Breathing hard, I draw the little guy out and hold him against my chest. “Vladimir, I presume.”

  In answer, the gecko poops on my shirt. I sigh, unable to muster up any anger or even surprise. Vladimir is merely continuing a pattern of treatment that’s been going on for twenty-seven years. I brush the tiny pellets away.

  So the fugitive lizard did make it out of the building. Not only that, but he managed to find the one car in the parking lot with a hole in the floor and a falafel just waiting to be feasted on. And he’s been here for the past eighteen hours, safe and sound while the custodians scoured the school, listening to every wall with stethoscopes.

  Still toting the little beast, I get out of the car. I hold on pretty tight at first, but relax when I realize Vladimir isn’t going anywhere. Why should he? He’s eating the rest of my lunch as we enter the school.

  I’m actually looking forward to restoring Vladimir to his rightful owner. True, that’s dangerously close to caring. But Emma is almost like my daughter from an alternate universe, her being Fiona’s kid. The young teacher already thinks my class is a horde of barbarians—mostly because they are. This might get her to consider the possibility that I’m not to blame for it.

  As I approach room 115, her voice stops me in my tracks.

  “I know teachers get burned-out, Mom, but this is different. He’s barely even alive! I teach right next door to him. He doesn’t open his mouth all day! Those poor kids are going to learn nothing because nobody’s there to teach them! It’s such a shame . . .”

  I back up a step. She’s stalking around the room, updating her bulletin boards with gold stars, holding her phone to her ear with one hunched shoulder. What she’s saying hurts all the more because of who she’s saying it to.

  A surge of resentment. What does Emma Fountain know about being burned-out? She’s barely older than the students. She thinks giving middle schoolers gold stars and class pets and lecturing them about being bucket-fillers is educati
on. How long has she been teaching—ten minutes? The first time she tried to take on the Unteachables, they laid waste to her circle and released her lizard to the four winds.

  But Fiona’s never going to hear that side of the story.

  Emma adjusts a drooping nostril on Harvey the Hall Pass Hippo. “Okay, fine, he used to be a great teacher once. It’s now that counts! Honestly, I can’t believe you were actually engaged to that—”

  I tense up, giving the gecko a squeeze. A short, sharp squeak is torn from his little mouth.

  She wheels, and the phone drops from her ear.

  “Vladimir!” She grabs the lost pet from my arms and rains kisses down on his scaly head. “Where did you find him?”

  “Around,” I reply stiffly. I’m not in the mood for a conversation about the hole in the back of my car.

  She’s red in the face now. “How long have you been standing there, Mr. Kermit?”

  I’m tempted to say, “Long enough,” or something else to make her feel bad, because she of all people should know that wasn’t a very bucket-filling conversation. But I hold my tongue.

  This used to be my favorite part of the day—when the students haven’t come yet to ruin it. It’s usually downhill from there.

  My dramatic exit is spoiled by a small mustard burp as breakfast climbs a little higher up the back of my throat.

  I need coffee. I cheer myself by picturing the Toilet Bowl on the shelf in the faculty lounge, dwarfing all the lesser mugs.

  Nine

  Parker Elias

  Back when Grandpa was alive, he and Grams ran the lunch counter at the bus station. I can still picture the LUNCHEONETTE sign, which always looked like ELECT THE NOUN to me. I don’t remember much about Grandpa except that he used to tell me it was a “ten-dollar word” and I’d be able to read it just fine when I got older. (We know how that worked out.)

  Grams would stand me up in front of the candy counter, which seemed like it was a mile high—although that was just because I was small. She’d say, “What’ll it be, kiddo?” and I could pick out whatever I wanted.

  In those days, I didn’t mind being “kiddo,” because she definitely knew my real name. “This handsome fellow is my grandson, Parker!” she’d announce whenever the regulars came by. You could just tell by the way she boomed it out that she was totally thrilled by the idea.

  I wonder if she knows that the guy who drives her every morning is the same little kid she used to brag about to her customers. It’s not her fault—when Grandpa died, she started forgetting a lot of stuff. But you’d think a grandson could be an exception to that—especially a grandson who’s supposed to be her favorite person in the whole world.

  Grams insists that the reason she can’t get her act together is she isn’t a morning person. This from a lady who gets up at four a.m. So we’ll be halfway to the senior center before I look down and notice that her shoes don’t match, or that instead of her purse, she brought a half loaf of Wonder bread. There are those red, yellow, and blue polka dots smiling up at me, along with the name, which looks like DOWNER.

  Today Mom’s driving because Grams has her semiannual conference with the social worker at the senior center. Mom calls it Meet the Teacher, since I guess it’s a lot like a parent conference at school.

  “Speaking of which,” she says to me, “how’s eighth grade going? I understand you’re in a different kind of program this year.”

  I almost reply, “Yeah, the Unteachables.” But that wouldn’t be a good idea. The minute she got through with Grams’s Meet the Teacher, she’d be stalking the middle school looking to meet my teacher. I picture my folks trying to hold a conversation with Ribbit, who never glances up from his crossword puzzle. Dad, especially, would have no patience for that. Fall is our busiest season on the farm, with so much harvesting still to do.

  So I tell her, “It’s going fine, like always.”

  She casts me a doubtful look. Like always might not have been the best choice of words. Mom signs my report cards. She knows better than anyone what like always probably means.

  I add, “Our teacher has a lot of experience.” He started out teaching stegosauruses and pterodactyls before moving on to Unteachables. Dinosaurs had no problem being in class with a guy who did crossword puzzles all day.

  Mom looks like she has more questions, but luckily, Grams is waiting outside her building—no mis-matched clothes or missing socks, no rubber gasket from the coffeemaker on her wrist instead of her medical-alert bracelet. She’s thrown a little to see me in the passenger seat instead of behind the wheel, so it takes some coaxing to get her into the truck. She has to sit on the hump between Mom and me, since the pickup has no back seat.

  “Of all the cars, you picked this one?” she asks Mom. “You’re crazy.”

  “It’s just for a couple of minutes,” my mother promises. “Once we drop Parker at school, you’ll have plenty of room.”

  “I’m Parker,” I put in quickly, since Grams is looking around the car in confusion.

  She beams at me. “Hiya, kiddo! Want breakfast?”

  “No time. We’re coming up on my stop.”

  Mom pulls up in front of the school and I get out.

  She waves. “Have fun.”

  Yeah, right. Fun—that’s the last word that comes to mind when I think of SCS-8. On the other hand, a sit-down with Grams and a social worker won’t be a party either. I’m probably getting the better deal.

  As the pickup roars off, I hear a crunching sound. A crushed vuvuzela lies on the pavement, the plastic busted by the weight of the truck. It seems like there are more of them around every day as we get closer to Spirit Week. And these are just leftovers from last year. The word is that Principal Vargas just placed this giant order of new ones for 2019. They’re going to be bright yellow—our school color—and say Go, Go, Golden Eagles on the side. It doesn’t make much sense to me that you can get a detention for chewing gum, but blasting away on a horn as loud as an air raid siren is considered school spirit.

  Instead of being late like most other mornings, I’ve got the opposite problem. I’m early. The buses haven’t started arriving yet. I wander down to room 117, but nobody’s there. The kids of SCS-8 dribble in ten seconds before the late bell, and at that, we’re usually ahead of Mr. Kermit. The only signs of life are coming from the room next door: 115.

  Miss Fountain is in her classroom, rearranging the Velcro smiley faces on her job boards. There’s already a Hershey’s Kiss sitting in the middle of each desk. You know what Mr. Kermit gives us every morning? Nothing—if you don’t count the dirty looks.

  She spots me standing there in the doorway. “Good morning, Parker. You’re early today. Come have a kiss.”

  I stare at her for a long time before I realize she’s talking about the candy. “Uh—thanks.” The chocolate is sweet in my mouth. When you spend all your time in SCS-8, you almost forget there’s another way to live.

  My eyes find the lizard terrarium. “Hey,” I say suddenly. “Vladimir’s back!”

  She beams. “Mr. Kermit found him for me.”

  “Really?” That doesn’t sound like the Ribbit I know—the one who wouldn’t give anybody the skin off a grape.

  Suddenly, I experience an almost irresistible desire to drop to the floor and sit cross-legged on the taped circle. I know Miss Fountain’s teaching style is too babyish for our age, but Circle Time that day might have been the most comfortable I’ve ever felt in middle school. When you’re in that circle, nobody’s going to ask you to read something that’s written in Unbreakable Code. Maybe Aldo can’t come up with any nice things to say, but I’m willing to go with it. If it means no reading, I’ll even say nice things about Elaine.

  A couple of the seventh graders show up, and there’s an emotional reunion with Vladimir. I join in for a while, but eventually one of them notices I’m there.

  “You’re not in this class,” he comments meaningfully.

  That’s right, I reflect with a sigh. I’m
not. I shoulder my backpack and head next door, even though it’s still early.

  Kiana crouches in the hall outside SCS-8, a look of intense concentration on her face.

  “What’s going on?” I ask.

  “Shhh!” She presses a finger to her lips and points inside the classroom.

  Mr. Kermit is talking, and at first I think he’s chewing someone out. His voice is a lot sharper than his usual half-sleepy drone. Then I hear the reply—tinny and very close. It’s coming from the intercom, right on the other side of the door. Principal Vargas.

  “I’d think you’d be happy about this, Zachary,” the principal is saying. “It’s no secret that the sound of those vuvuzelas drives you over the edge.”

  Zachary. Mr. Kermit’s name is Zachary.

  “That’s not the point,” our teacher replies. “You’ve already separated my class from everybody else in the building. Maybe you have your reasons for that. But you can’t exclude them from the activities for Spirit Week. That’s punishing them for something they haven’t done yet.”

  “You loathe Spirit Week,” Mrs. Vargas accuses.

  “We’re not talking about me. We’re talking about my students. As happy as I’d be to ignore the whole thing, I’m their only teacher. Who’s going to stick up for them if I don’t?”

  Beside me, Kiana pumps a fist and whispers, “Go, Ribbit!”

  “Think of who we’re talking about here,” the principal insists. “Think of the disruption they’re capable of. Now picture them with vuvuzelas in their hands.”

  “Let that be my problem,” Mr. Kermit says stubbornly.

  “It’s not going to be anybody’s problem,” Mrs. Vargas insists. “It’s a done deal, Zachary. Your kids are out.”

  We hear a click as the office breaks the connection. On the other side of the door, Mr. Kermit mutters something I can’t make out.

  “Did you hear that?” Kiana breathes. “Mr. Kermit cares about us!”

  “I didn’t hear anything about caring,” I retort. “That was all about vuvuzelas—which we’re not getting anyway.”