The Perfect Score

by Rob Buyea

  We smiled that time.

  Woodchuck asked me to step into the hall.

  “Mr. Joseph, I heard about recess this afternoon. You do realize Mr. Mason has a black eye?”

  “It was an accident,” I said.

  “I see. Of course.”

  She let me keep talking. “I got confused about who was on my team.” I was searching for excuses again. “It was an honest mistake.”

  “Interesting that you’ve mentioned that word ‘mistake’ again,” Woodchuck said. “I don’t believe you, so I think you’ll spend tomorrow’s recess researching mistakes.”

  I hated this old woman. Hated her.

  “Was there anything you wanted to say?” she asked.

  I gritted my teeth and shook my head.

  “Mr. Joseph, I’m pleased to see you aren’t going to argue with me about your consequences. Perhaps you’re learning something about responsibility. You may go back in and take your seat.”

  I didn’t need to research mistakes. I knew all about them. Brian had been telling me my whole life that I was a mistake. The mailman dropped me off at the wrong house. Santa left me under the wrong tree. Mom and Dad were given the wrong kid. If I had come with a receipt, they would’ve returned me. Brian’s ten years older than me. My parents never even wanted another baby, and then I showed up.

  That’s why when Woodchuck told me to write about my goals and what I wanted to be when I was grown up, my paper was blank. It didn’t matter what I wanted. The only thing I’d ever be was a mistake.

  “What happened to your eye?” Mom asked the instant she saw me.

  “I hurt it playing football with my friends. I missed the throw and the ball hit me in the face. But don’t worry, Mom. It looks worse than it is.”

  “Oh, really? How many fingers am I holding up?”

  “Four,” I said. “Now stop.”

  “I’m four!” Mickey yelled from the backseat.

  “No, you’re three,” I reminded him.

  “Scott boo-boo.”

  “It’s okay, Mickey.”

  My little brother was quiet after that, but as soon as we got to Grandpa’s, he jumped in the front seat with me and touched my eye. He needed to see for himself. After he was satisfied, he hopped out of the car and ran inside.

  Mom didn’t let us watch much TV at home, but she let Mickey watch his shows at Grandpa’s because it kept him out of her hair while she was making dinner. Grandpa didn’t care because it kept Mickey from touching his things—and Grandpa didn’t want his stuff monkeyed with because he had everything just so. Mom and I never said anything because we didn’t want to get Grandpa upset, but the truth was he had so much junk in his house that he couldn’t remember what he did and didn’t have and he didn’t have a clue where stuff was anymore—but I had a plan to help. The last book I read in the library was called The Memory String, and it gave me an idea. When I got done making Grandpa’s memory string, he’d finally be able to throw out all the garbage that had built up in his house and still remember Grandma.

  Mom went into the living room to say hi and check on Grandpa before she got started making his dinner. This was her routine, and this was my chance. I had to move quick, because I knew Mom wouldn’t spend that much time chatting with Grandpa and I didn’t want her to know what I was up to. I also didn’t dare risk Grandpa finding out. He would’ve been ready to hang me if he discovered I was taking his things.

  First, I stuffed my backpack with the usual pile of his junk mail. When I was done with that, I raced to the bathroom. On the back of the toilet Grandpa had a dish of seashells. Really, it was Grandma’s dish. She had collected the shells from their trips to the beach. Grandma loved the beach, especially the ocean, so these were perfect for Grandpa’s memory string. I sifted through the dish and picked out a few of the ones with holes so I could slide them onto Grandpa’s string. In that book I read, the little girl only had buttons on her memory string, but I planned on making Grandpa’s a little different. I stuffed the shells in my pocket and then went out to the living room.

  I sat on the ottoman in front of Grandpa’s chair and moved the TV tray in between us. “You’re white today,” I said. “You move first.”

  Grandpa reached down and slid his pawn forward two squares. This was our afternoon routine. Mom thought it was great. Playing chess helped to exercise our brains, and it kept us quiet while she was getting dinner together. I was killing two birds with one stone—that’s how helpful I can be.

  “You’re at a real disadvantage, playing with only one eye today,” Grandpa said. “Maybe I should play with my eyes closed.”

  He was teasing me, because I’d never beaten him. “Funny,” I said.

  He chuckled. That was good—Mom said it was good for Grandpa to laugh.

  “How was your walk today?” I asked.

  “Hah?”

  “How was your walk?” I repeated.

  “Same as always, I suppose.” He moved his knight.

  “How come you do it every day if it’s always the same?”

  “It’s something your grandmother and I used to do together. Just got in the habit, I suppose.”

  “Mom says the walking is good for you because the mind and body work together. She says your walking helps keep your mind sharp, same as our chess matches do.”

  “Your mother’s a smart lady.” He slid his rook into position. “You want to know what else is good for me?”

  “What?” I said.

  “Your stories. They keep my heart young. Tell me more about those friends of yours.”

  Maybe Grandpa liked my stories, but I think what he liked most was having someone to talk to. It was a lot for Mom to do this every day, but it was important. When we weren’t there, Grandpa spent his time sitting in that same chair of his, staring out the window and talking to himself. His memory string was going to help him remember Grandma, but I still needed to find a way to help him with his loneliness. I wouldn’t give up. I’d figure something out.

  As promised, Woodchuck kept me in for recess. She had me sit at the computer and search “inventions by mistake.”

  “That one,” she said, pointing to the link she wanted me to choose.

  I clicked on it and the page opened.

  “Mistakes, Mr. Joseph. Sometimes they can turn out to be good things—when we learn from them, that is. Read through this website and give me a report on what you find.”

  Woodchuck waddled back to her desk, and I pretended to get to work. No way she’d be able to tell if I went to a different website. The old lady’s eyes weren’t that good. She was the one making a mistake by leaving me alone. I was going to skim through her stupid site so that I could give her a few words for my report, and then I was changing it to ESPN.

  That was my plan, but once I started reading about this stuff, I got interested. I wanted to stay mad and bored with her dumb assignment, but this was kinda cool. I never knew we had so many things in our world that came from mistakes.

  Did you know potato chips were a mistake? George Crum was the chef when some pain-in-the-neck customer kept sending his plate of fried potatoes back, complaining and asking for them to be thinner and fried longer. The jerk kept it up. It sounded like something I’d do to be a wise guy, but when I read this story, it didn’t sound so funny. George Crum didn’t find it funny, either. He got so mad that he sliced the potatoes super thin and fried them to a curly crisp and voilà—the customer asked for more, and the potato chip was born. How cool is that?

  When I got done with that story, I moved on to the next one, about penicillin. I’d taken that stuff before when I was sick. A long time ago this scientist, Alexander Fleming, left a stack of dirty petri dishes by his workstation. Supposedly he was in a hurry to leave on vacation. I wondered if he had a hot date, but probably not if he was some dorky scientist. It turns out, when this dude returned days later and began cleaning up his mess, he noticed that one of the petri dishes had colonies of staph bacteria everywhere except n
ear a spot of mold that had started growing in that same dish. He discovered that the mold stopped the bacteria and, from that, penicillin—one of the most widely used antibiotics—was born. Who would’ve thunk it?

  “Find anything interesting, Mr. Joseph?”

  I jumped. Man, Woodchuck had the sneak attack down pat.

  “I must walk on silent feet,” she said, “or else you were so engrossed in what you were reading that you didn’t hear me coming.” She raised her eyebrow.

  I didn’t say anything. I wasn’t about to tell her I thought this stuff was cool.

  “Interesting how things don’t always turn out as one might expect, isn’t it, Mr. Joseph? The same is true for people. The world is full of individuals who’ve achieved despite the odds, but there are also those who’ve wasted their talents and opportunities. You’re at the age when you need to begin asking yourself which you’re going to be, Mr. Joseph. A waster or an achiever? Because in the end it’s up to you. It doesn’t matter what anyone else has to say.”

  I stayed quiet.

  “Tell you what, Mr. Joseph, why don’t we hold off on that preliminary report of yours”—she pointed at the few words I had written—“until you’ve had time to do more thorough research and can provide a more detailed summation.”

  “You’re telling me I’ve got to miss more recess?”

  “No. Not unless you earn that consequence for some future transgression, of course.”

  “So does that mean I’ll do more of this work during class?”

  “Perhaps. Would you be okay with that?”

  “Sure. Fine. If I have to, I mean.” I didn’t want to sound excited, but I was definitely cool with that.

  “Good,” Woodchuck said. “You can return to your desk now. Your classmates should be coming in from recess any minute.”

  A waster or an achiever?

  When we got to the library this afternoon, first thing Scott said was “This room is lonely, like my grandpa. We should have a party and invite a bunch of little kids so the room has company. My grandpa likes it when he has company.”

  This wasn’t one of Scott’s brilliant stupid ideas. This one actually made some sense.

  “What a wonderful idea!” Magenta cheered. “A party! It’ll be like our grand reopening. Okay, team, let’s do it.”

  “So what’s that mean for today?” I asked, slowing her down a bit and moving us past that team talk.

  “Well, it means we’ve got a party to plan, but I was also wondering if one of you could add something more to that area over there.”

  She pointed to the reading nook. Several beautiful pictures of book covers and storybook characters had been painted on our new yellow walls.

  “Gavin’s really good at drawing,” Randi said. “He should be the one to add something.”

  I shrugged. “I wouldn’t know what.”

  “How about a picture of your favorite book?” Magenta suggested.

  “I don’t have one,” I said. I don’t know any children’s books, is what I really meant.

  “Do The Very Hungry Caterpillar,” Scott said. “Every kid knows that one.”

  I didn’t, but I didn’t say so.

  “That’s another wonderful idea,” Magenta agreed. I wanted to tell her Scott never ran out of wonderful ideas, but I bit my tongue. “Girls, why don’t you find a spot and start making plans for our party, and I’ll get Gavin set up with his Hungry Caterpillar project.” She didn’t say anything to Scott, ’cause he already had his nose buried in a different book. Must be she figured it was best to leave him there. That was a wonderful idea.

  I sat down and read The Very Hungry Caterpillar. It took me a little bit to get through it, but I didn’t feel dumb looking at it, ’cause I had to in order to do my drawing. I could see why Scott picked this book. That caterpillar liked sweets about as much as he did. It was a good story, a perfect example of things needing to get ugly before getting better.

  Mrs. Magenta had given me a bunch of different brushes and markers. I grabbed a black Sharpie and got started drawing my caterpillar. After getting it outlined, I began adding color to his fat body and happy face. About that time, Magenta came over to check on my progress.

  “Randi was right,” she said. “You’re an excellent artist, Gavin.”

  “Thank you.”

  She stood there watching me for a minute. “I looked in the system and couldn’t find your name,” she said, “so I went ahead and added your information and got you a library card. Now you can check out books whenever you’d like. I hope that was okay.”

  “Thanks,” I said to be polite. I knew I’d probably never use that card.

  “In fact, I’ve already checked something out for you,” she continued. “I hope that was okay, too.”

  “Really?” I stopped coloring and turned around.

  “Yes. I noticed you always have that football with you, so I wanted to give you this story. It’s called Crash, written by Jerry Spinelli.” She handed it to me. “This is the audiobook. Instead of reading the story, you can listen to it.”

  “I didn’t know they did that with books.”

  “Oh yes. And they’re wonderful. It was your teacher’s idea.”

  “You mean, Mrs. Woods?”

  “Yes. She put a note in my mailbox at school asking me to find you an audiobook.”

  “She gave you a note? She didn’t just ask you?”

  “It’s complicated.”

  “Oh.”

  “Don’t worry about that. I know you’ll enjoy the story. One of the main characters loves football, just like you.”

  “Thanks,” I said again. But this time I wasn’t just being polite.

  She smiled. “I’ll let you get back to work now.”

  Boy, Woods was sure holding up her end of the bargain. She was meeting with me every day about my reading. We’d gone over how to track the words, and she’d gone out of her way to get me large-print copies of what we were reading in class, and now she was trying to help me with these audiobooks. Maybe I only nodded when she asked if I understood that I was gonna have to work at this, but to Woods that musta been as good as my word. I had to do my part now.

  “Mrs. Magenta,” I called, stopping her before she got too far away.

  She turned around. “Yes?”

  “Can I get a copy of Crash to follow along in while listening to it?”

  “Yes, of course,” she said.

  “And can I also check out this one?” I held up The Very Hungry Caterpillar. “I’d like to read it to my little sister.”

  “Absolutely,” she said, taking the book from me.

  “Thanks,” I said again. Then I went back to coloring.

  Even though she was my pain-in-the-butt sister, I was kinda excited to read that caterpillar story to her. It’d be more practice for me, but I also knew Meggie was gonna like it. Maybe she didn’t have to miss out on bedtime stories like I had.

  What’re you supposed to do when somebody asks you a question? You can ignore them, if you’re a snob. I’m not. Talking to her didn’t mean I liked her. We were just chitchatting while making plans for the grand reopening of the children’s room. We were just passing the time.

  “Why don’t you play football with the boys at recess?” Natalie asked me. “You’re better than most of them. I’ve seen the way you pass the ball with Gavin.”

  “Coach Jane doesn’t want me to,” I said. “She doesn’t want me to get hurt, because I’ve got gymnastics that I need to be ready for. I’ve got a big Halloween competition coming up.”

  “That makes sense.”

  “Yeah.” I sighed.

  Natalie looked at me in a way that made me feel like she was seeing through me. “Good luck at that game,” she said.

  I chuckled at the way she called my meet a game, but I didn’t correct her. “Thanks,” I said. “I think I’ll go check on Gavin now to see how he’s coming along with his drawing.” Natalie and I already had a craft planned, and we were just ab
out done making our flyer on the computer. We just had to save and print.

  “Okay,” she said. “No problem.”

  I knew I wasn’t supposed to like Natalie, because Gavin didn’t, but I was finding that difficult. She really wasn’t that bad. Maybe if she had told me it wasn’t okay, or that I couldn’t take a break, or that I wasn’t doing a good job of helping, then I could’ve found a reason to dislike her, but that wasn’t the case. The girl was nice. I’d just never gotten to know her before.

  “Gav, that looks great!” I said. I wasn’t surprised. He didn’t like to show his drawings, but I’d seen some before. I knew he was good.

  “Howdoya like working with what’s-her-face?” he said.

  What was I supposed to say? I couldn’t tell him it wasn’t that bad. “I’m just ignoring her.”

  “Good idea. Whatever you do, don’t trust her.”

  I wanted to ask why, but I held it in. I changed the subject. “Who did these other pictures?” I stepped closer to the wall. “They’re really good.”

  “I don’t know,” he said.

  “The colors are so vibrant. Is that someone’s name?” I pointed to the spot I was talking about.

  Gavin glanced over at it and shrugged. “Maybe.”

  “Artists put their name next to their work,” Mrs. Magenta said, spooking us with her reminder. We hadn’t realized she was standing there. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you,” she added.

  I looked at Mrs. Magenta and then back at the name on the wall. It was hard to read because of the way it was written, but suddenly I knew what it said. “Mrs. Magenta, are these your paintings?”

  She nodded and gave us a sheepish smile.

  “Wow! They’re amazing!” I said.

  “Thank you.”

  “Randi’s right. They’re incredible,” Gavin agreed. “You should be selling your stuff.”

  “I dreamed of doing that once, but I’m afraid I’m not good enough.”

  “Says who?” Gavin asked.

  “Yeah, it all depends on who’s judging,” I said. “And believe me, I know a thing or two about judges.”