The Class

by Frances O’Roark Dowell

  This wasn’t so bad, Ben thought as he settled himself into his chair and opened his book. When he got home he’d have to text Justin, give him the update on Willowland. As far as Ben could tell, things looked pretty much the same. They’d spent most of their time constructing walls out of gravel they’d taken from the walkway out front, and though none of the walls had survived, Ben saw gravel scattered here and there around the willow’s roots. Remnants of their kingdom.

  He checked his watch and saw that he had fifty-five minutes to go. No problem whatsoever. Wind howled through the night, he read in his book, carrying a scent that would change the world…

  “Pretty cool place to hang out.”

  Ben had to shake the story out of his head before he could even see who was speaking. Then he had to wonder what the heck Petra Wilde was doing here. She was wearing regular clothes instead of a bathing suit, so maybe she’d gotten tired of hanging out by the pool while everyone else was swimming.

  “Mind if I sit down?” Petra said, waving her hand to indicate she meant to sit down on the ground. Ben shrugged. Free country.

  “Why have a pool party when it’s almost October?” Petra asked once she’d settled herself on the ground. “Okay, it’s still sort of warm outside, but summer’s officially over. Why not have a Halloween party?”

  Ben didn’t reply. He felt strange sitting up high when Petra was down on the ground. He also felt weird because he could see her bra strap at the edge of her shirt’s neckband. Were you supposed to say something about that, the way you were when somebody had a piece of spinach stuck in their teeth? His mom said you should, even if it was embarrassing for the person. But no way was he telling Petra anything about her bra. He started tugging at the collar of his own shirt, hoping maybe she’d get the hint.

  “I wish we were doing world history instead of ancient history this year, don’t you?” Petra asked, scooping up a few pieces of gravel from the dirt. “In world history you get to study China. My dad travels to China a couple of times a year and says it’s super interesting.”

  Well, that wasn’t the direction Ben had expected this conversation to take. “I read some books about the dynasties last year,” he told Petra, happy to finally have something to say. “The Shang and the Zhou and a bunch of others.”

  “My dad’s obsessed with the Yuan,” Petra told him. “He’s in Beijing a lot on business, and I guess that’s where the Yuan were.”

  “Yeah, that was a pretty good dynasty,” Ben said, which was possible the stupidest thing that had ever come out of his mouth. “I mean, because of Kublai Khan and everything. Do you want to sit in my chair?”

  Petra smiled at him. “No, thanks. I like it down here. It reminds me of when I was little. My sister and I used to play in the dirt all the time. We made up magic fairylands, stupid stuff like that.”

  Not stupid at all, Ben wanted to say. He should tell Petra about Willowland, about how on rainy days he and Justin had spent hours at the Yangs’ kitchen table, drawing maps and writing descriptions of all the characters and making family trees showing who was related to who and how. Some days Willowland seemed more real to Ben than real life did. It definitely seemed more interesting.

  He almost started to say something, but then he remembered who he was talking to. Petra Wilde was one of them. One of the Muggles, as Justin would have put it. She was acting nice enough right now, but if he told her about Willowland, she’d run back to the pool and blab it to everybody. Ben didn’t care if they laughed at him about other things—being bad at sports, getting caught with a book in his lap when he was supposed to be listening to the teacher, being friends with Stefan. He didn’t care about that.

  But if they made fun of Willowland, it would be like a giant coming into the kingdom and crushing it under his foot. Ben would never be able to think about it again, and he liked thinking about Willowland every once in a while. He liked pretending that it was still there, that all he would have to do to bring it back to life was rebuild all those little gravel walls. He’d even written about it in his LA journal, and Mrs. Herrera had left a comment that said, The pebble in my special collection is from the land of Sylvania, which I discovered in my backyard when I was eight. I plan to return there one day.

  For a teacher, Mrs. Herrera wasn’t so bad, Ben thought now. Maybe he should bring her one of the pieces of Willowland gravel. He wondered if she’d put it in her special collection of special things.

  “You don’t talk very much, do you?” Petra asked him. “If you talked more, maybe people wouldn’t think you were so—well, geeky.”

  She sounded like one friend giving advice to another. She sounded like she was trying to help him.

  Ben wasn’t falling for it.

  “If I talked more, people would think I was even more geeky,” he told her. “Because I am. But I don’t really care what people think.”

  He picked up his book and started reading.

  He thought he heard Petra sigh, but he refused to look at her. When he glanced up from his book a minute later, she was walking back across the yard. Only she wasn’t walking to the pool; she was headed for the side of the house. There was a good tree for climbing in the side yard, Ben could have told her. A beech tree. He thought about going after her and showing her how to pull herself up into the branches.

  But he didn’t. He turned the page. A ball of red flame sprang from his hand and flew toward the elf, fast as an arrow…

  He glanced up one more time, but Petra had disappeared. He hoped she was climbing the tree. He hoped she really didn’t think magic worlds were stupid. Because they weren’t. At least the real ones weren’t.

  * * *

  He’d escaped Lila’s party ten minutes early, dropping off Eragon in a big box covered in wrapping paper in the foyer. “Sorry you have to leave so soon, Ben!” Lila’s mom had called after him.

  “I have some friends coming over,” he’d lied as he opened the door. “But thanks for inviting me.”

  She hadn’t corrected him, hadn’t insisted that Lila had wanted to invite him. She’d just said, “Come over anytime, Ben!”

  He waited until he’d pulled the door closed behind him before he started laughing. Come over anytime!

  The evening opened up in front of him. Maybe they’d order pizza for dinner, and then Ben and his dad could play a couple of rounds of Star Wars Battlefront, Ben’s idea of a perfect night.

  He was just about to cross the street when he thought he heard someone call his name. But when he turned around, he didn’t see anyone. Still, there it was again: “Goodbye, Ben McPherson!”

  It was coming from the beech tree in Justin’s—Lila’s—side yard.

  He’d thought about calling goodbye back, but he didn’t.

  Thinking about it now, he sort of wished he had.

  Chapter Six

  Petra

  Monday, October 2

  Sitting in language arts on a Monday morning, Petra Wilde wondered if a person could die of boredom. If so, she was in trouble, because everything in the world bored her. Everything about everyone she knew bored her. She bored herself.

  This book they were reading—Wonder? Boring. Petra knew how it was going to turn out the minute she started. By the end of the book everyone would love the kid with the strange face. He was smart and funny and kind, and the kids who first didn’t want to be his friend because of his face would slowly change their minds as they got to know him. Petra didn’t know why she’d bothered finishing the book.

  Now if the author had wanted to make the book interesting, she would have made Auggie not that great on the inside. She would have made him really sarcastic, because that was how he protected himself from all the mean things people said. If Petra had had a disability that people made fun of, that was how she’d be. She’d make people scared to even look at her.

  Of course, a lot of people were already scared to look at Petra—or maybe they looked at her, but they were afraid to talk to her. “You look mean when you�
��re just sitting there,” Rosie had told her at the pool one day last summer. “Are you trying to look mean?”

  Petra had shrugged. “I’m not trying to do anything. I just look the way I look.”

  “Well, you’re just lucky you’re so pretty,” Rosie had said quickly, which was typical Rosie. She liked to criticize and then pretend she hadn’t. Or dress up her criticism so it seemed like she was worried about you. Oh, you look so pale today. Are you sick? Or maybe it’s the color of your shirt. It sort of washes you out. Are you sure you’re not sick?

  Did Ben McPherson think she looked mean? Talking to him at Lila’s party Saturday was the closest thing to an interesting conversation Petra had had in ages. He’d looked shocked when she’d started talking about Chinese dynasties, like he couldn’t believe someone like her was smart. She wondered what else they might have talked about if he hadn’t been his usual Ben McPherson geeky self and clammed up. Petra had all sorts of topics she’d like to discuss. Her mom was currently obsessed with climate change—did Ben think global warming was for real? If he could travel anywhere, where would he go? Petra thought she might like to go to Africa. Ben was half African American; had he ever wanted to go to Africa?

  Petra wished for the millionth time that she was in a school where there were at least three people worth talking to. Was that so much to ask for? Last spring she’d applied to the Lakewood Friends School, the only private school her parents could afford, and had been put on a waiting list. Friends School had amazing classes like Spanish Through Spanish-Speaking Artists and Mythic Worlds: Stories and Wisdom from Past Cultures. If she’d gotten in, Petra had planned on cutting her hair super short and wearing glasses with clear lenses. Her new friends would tell her amazing things that she didn’t already know.

  Looking around the classroom, Petra wondered if there was one truly interesting person here. Carson Bennett was bent over his spelling workbook, chewing on a pencil. Carson was cute, and he could be funny, but interesting? Doubtful. She wondered if he realized Cammi Lovett was staring at him from across the room, her eyes all dreamy. He’s out of your league, Cammi, Petra wanted to call over to her, but Cammi, while no Ben McPherson, wasn’t stupid. Maybe not interesting, but definitely not dumb. She had to know that a boy like Carson would never go for her.

  Rogan was pretty smart and possibly interesting, but you’d probably have to dig pretty deep to get to the interesting parts. Cole Perun didn’t do anything but draw all the time, an unusual combo of interesting and totally boring, which wasn’t the combination Petra was looking for. That kid Sam, the one who moved a few weeks ago, might have had some hidden depths, now that Petra thought about it. Like new girl Ellie, he was big on taking notes. He seemed like he might have secrets. Secrets could make a person interesting, as long as they weren’t the sad sort of secrets that made you want to pretend you’d never heard them.

  Speaking of Ellie the new girl, what was her story? And why did Petra still think of Ellie as the new girl, but not Lila, who was new too? But Lila didn’t seem new. It was like there had been a spot just waiting for Lila to fill, but the same wasn’t true for Ellie. No one had put out a sign saying, WANTED FOR SIXTH GRADE: GIRL WITH FOUNTAIN PEN AND UNCONTROLLABLE CURLY HAIR WHO TRIES TO SNEAK-READ BOOKS IN HER LAP DURING SCIENCE AND MATH PERIODS. Nobody had put in a request for a girl who was either really quiet or sort of braggy about all the places she’d lived.

  Ellie Barker was probably an interesting person, Petra had to admit, but she was giving up on geeks after the Ben McPherson fail. So that meant Stefan and Bart were out too. As for Becca Hobbes—Petra looked around the room to see what Becca was doing right this minute. She’d be done with the spelling assignment, which meant she was probably dusting the books in the reading corner or watering Mrs. Herrera’s plants on the windowsill next to her desk. Yep, there she was, standing by the teacher’s desk, per usual.

  But wait a minute. Petra leaned forward, trying to get a better look. Mrs. Herrera was at the Editor’s Roundtable with Elizabeth Hernandez, her back to her desk. And Becca seemed to be pouring something from a baggie into Mrs. Herrera’s top desk drawer while nervously peeking around to see if anyone was looking. What was she pouring? Sugar? Petra sat back, trying to appear like she wasn’t watching. Now Becca slipped something out of her pocket, a little white jewelry box, and opened the lid. She turned the box upside down and tapped on it, like she was trying to get its contents to fall into the drawer. Then she tucked the box back into her pocket and pushed the drawer closed.

  “Becca, can I help you with something?” Mrs. Herrera called from the Editor’s Roundtable. “What are you looking for?”

  “I was checking to see if you had any spelling tests you needed me to grade,” Becca replied. Totally unconvincing, in Petra’s opinion, but Mrs. Herrera seemed to buy her lame explanation.

  “I’ll let you know if I need help, thanks,” Mrs. Herrera said. “Why don’t you find something to read if you’re done with your assignment.”

  “Can I go to the library?” Becca asked. “I finished Wonder.”

  Mrs. Herrera nodded. “Yes, but be back in ten minutes, please.”

  Petra raised her hand. “Can I go? I’m done too, and I need a new book.”

  “Of course,” Mrs. Herrera said. “Ask Mrs. Rosen for something challenging. I want you to push yourself a little harder, Petra.”

  That was the interesting thing about Mrs. Herrera—who was possibly the only interesting non-geek person other than Petra in that classroom: she seemed to think Petra was smart. Which Petra was, but she liked to hide it whenever possible.

  “I like your shirt,” Becca said as they walked out into the hallway. “What would you call that color? Periwinkle?”

  “I’d call it blue,” Petra informed her. “So what were you putting in Mrs. Herrera’s drawer?”

  Becca went pale. “Um, what? I wasn’t putting anything in her drawer. I was looking for spelling tests to grade. Mrs. Herrera lets me grade our practice tests sometimes.”

  Petra rolled her eyes. What a simpleton. “We got our practice tests back Friday afternoon, remember? Besides, I saw you pouring something. Was it sugar? And what was in the box?”

  Becca’s hands started to tremble, and Petra decided to try a different approach. “Come on, Becca, everybody knows you’re Mrs. H’s favorite. You guys probably play practical jokes on each other all the time. That’s what friends do, right? Play practical jokes, have fun?”

  To Petra’s surprise, Becca’s expression turned angry. “I’m definitely not her favorite. I’m more like her unfavorite.”

  Interesting. So Mrs. Herrera hadn’t fallen for Becca’s brownnosing routine. Every year Becca Hobbes was held up by teachers as this kind of saint, but any kid—or any adult who couldn’t be bought with a few cookies and a dozen compliments a day—could see right through her. Petra should have known that Mrs. Herrera was the sort of teacher who wouldn’t be impressed by Becca’s campaign to be teacher’s pet.

  “Sounds like she did something to make you mad,” Petra said. “Sounds like maybe you’re trying to get back at her.” She moved in closer, put her hand on Becca’s shoulder. “You can tell me. Everyone thinks Mrs. Herrera is so great, but I guess she’s not fooling either of us.”

  Becca shook her head. “No way. She’s an awful person.”

  “She really is,” Petra said in a soothing voice. “So what did you do?”

  Becca looked to her left and to her right, making sure no one else was around. She leaned toward Petra and whispered, “I poured sugar in her drawer, and then I dumped some ants from our yard in there. I’m hoping they’ll decide her drawer is a great place to live and call all their friends.”

  Or wander around and leave, having no idea where they are, Petra thought. What an idiot.

  “Don’t you think that’s a great idea?” Becca giggled, sounding worried at the same time. “Don’t you think that will drive her crazy?”

  “I think you’re brilliant,” Petr
a said. Actually, that was the opposite of what she thought, but who cared? Because even if Becca was incredibly dumb for someone who got straight As, and even if she wasn’t interesting as a person, she might possibly be interesting as a project. Could Petra transform Miss Goody Two-shoes of the sixth grade into an eleven-year-old juvenile delinquent? Yes, Petra thought. She believed she could. Maybe she could convince Becca to steal one of Mrs. Herrera’s special things from her special collection. If Becca was so down on their teacher, it might be easy to convince her the best revenge would be to nab those fancy little sugar cubes. Talk about your ant bait!

  “You don’t want to eat lunch with me tomorrow, do you?” Petra said. “Because I’d really like to get your advice on something.”

  Becca’s eyes widened until Petra thought they were going to pop out of her head. “I’d—I’d love to.”

  “Great,” Petra said. “Now I guess we better go check out some books—unless you want to do something else instead?”

  They were standing outside the art room. The door was wide open, but the room was empty, and Petra made a quick inventory of ways to send Becca over to the dark side. Splash paint on the artwork hanging on the walls? Write mean things on the whiteboard about Mrs. Lamprey, the art teacher? Take Mrs. Lamprey’s scissors—the fancy ones that only the teacher was allowed to use—and cut up… what? What could they cut up?

  Petra looked at Becca, who was staring at her wide-eyed, her expression full of expectation. Becca’s hair—which was pretty, Petra had to admit—was pulled back in a long ponytail.

  “You’ve got great hair,” she said, and Becca’s cheeks flushed red. “Have you ever thought about cutting it? I could definitely see you with a shorter cut. Something kind of punky and rebellious.”

  Becca looked uncertain, but Petra took her by the hand and pulled her into the art room. “You need to show people you’re not the Becca Hobbes you used to be. You don’t care what other people think! Especially not Mrs. Herrera. She needs to know she’s dealing with a new you.”