by Mary Amato
“I don’t have art. They gave me Computer Applications.”
He makes a face. “Your schedule sounds like it needs major surgery, Mr. Musgrove. Based on the drawings of yours that I have seen, I suggest you advocate for Summit Art. Tell Mr. Raye that you’d like him to consider letting you into both Summit Art and Summit Science. It’s never been done before, but that shouldn’t keep you from trying.”
“Sounded like rules are rules to me,” I say.
He nods. “Sometimes rules are rules. And sometimes rules get overruled.”
“You think I can get in?”
He shrugs. “Only one way to find out, Mr. Musgrove. Try. I will talk to Mr. Raye, but you should talk to him on your own. The purpose of the application process is to make sure that the students who get into the program are students who are motivated to be in it. If you want something badly enough, you owe it to yourself to try to get it.”
“I’m motivated. I just didn’t know about it.”
He nods. “Tell that to Mr. Raye.” He writes a pass and hands it to me. I’m almost out the door when he says, “Wait …” He opens up a mini fridge and gives me a small paper bag. “This mushroom is at the right stage to release its spores. Make a spore print and see if you can identify it.”
“You give out homework to kids even when they’re not in your class anymore?”
He raises his eyebrows and his eyes twinkle. “I think you’ll find it interesting.”
A question that’s been on my mind pops out. “I’ve been thinking about pod rot.… What stops a parasitic fungus from destroying everything that’s alive? Once it gets going, why doesn’t it destroy all the trees?”
“Ah.” He smiles. “That’s an interesting question. If a parasite kills its host—its primary means of survival—it no longer has food, so it essentially endangers itself. The ideal parasite doesn’t kill its host. It evolves.”
“What do you mean, it evolves?”
“It adapts in ways that won’t undermine its own survival.” He walks me to the door. “Discussion to be continued. You’re going to be later than late. Chapter three in the book! Read it. And, by the way, hope for some rain. A good soak will bring out more fungi.” He waves me off.
“I’m perambulating!” I say, and hear his leprechaunic laugh behind me.
Maybe I should beg Mr. Raye for major surgery on my schedule.
I get to P.E. and everybody is running laps, and the sight of Xander rips the positive mood right out of me. I stay away from him and run my laps and when I see a chance with Langley, I ask him to tell The Plague’s coach that I can’t be on the team.
“Why?” Langley asks.
I can’t tell him, so I just run on.
23.
JUAN
Nothing like babysitting after spending a humiliating day at school.
Mom is at the Fry Factory, frying fries. Michael and Tish are frying each other. Michael wants to draw another picture for Mom because he still wants her to buy him a stupid backpack, and Tish wants the crayon he’s using.
“Stop arguing. Just forget about the picture. We’re broke. It didn’t work last time. It’s not going to work this time.”
I’m looking in my backpack for a pen when I run across the paper bag that Mr. Ferguson gave me. There’s a mushroom in it with the instructions for making a spore print.
I cut off the stem, turn it over, and set it down on the paper. I don’t know if it’s going to work.
Tish tries to grab it.
“What is that?” Michael asks.
“It’s homework for a class I don’t even have.”
“That’s stupid.”
“Yeah. Well, don’t touch it.”
I put the paper and the mushroom on top of the refrigerator next to Mom’s orange shoe box and put a jelly jar over it.
That’s the total of my Friday night excitement.
On Saturday I have to go to the library and wait in the line to get a computer in order to do my homework for Computer Applications. It takes forever. I hate that class.
When I come back home, everybody is in a bad mood. Even Tish, who would rather walk around with a load in her pants the size of Montana than try to use the potty.
Mom wants us all to sit on the potty and smile so Tish gets the idea that it’s fun. I swear, this is what I’m being asked to do on Saturday night. I refuse, and Mom gets even more mad at me. It’s like we’re at war, only we’re not saying it out loud.
On Sunday Michael demands that I check my “snore print,” which I’ve forgotten about. I stand on a chair and look on top of the fridge. The mushroom is just sitting there. The paper around it is clean. Doesn’t look like anything happened.
I take off the glass and lift the mushroom off.
Chocolate-brown spores have fallen straight down to make a pattern on the paper that matches the way the spores were on the gills of the mushroom. You can’t see individual spores because they’re too small. It’s like the way a computer image is really made up of pixels.
I lift the print down carefully and set it on the table.
Michael forgets his bad mood for a brief moment to be in awe.
“It’s called a spore print.”
I’m going to press it in my Identification Notebook and show it to Mr. Ferguson on Monday. I don’t know why. But I really like the fact that it worked.
After dinner there’s a knock on the door. It’s Juan. He’s real shy and won’t come in all the way.
Mom is sitting at the table circling job possibilities in the newspaper, and Michael and Tish are “helping” by drawing scribbles all over it.
“I think you should try out for the Toilers,” Juan says, and he holds out a pair of cleats. “They’re my cousin’s. Too big for me. Too small for him.” He shrugs. “I’m trying out.”
“Is this the school team?” Mom asks.
Juan nods.
“Trevor, if you can be back by four forty-five so I can get to the Fry Factory, then that’s fine,” she says. “In fact, I think it’s great. See, Trevor?” She shoots me a look. “I don’t say no to everything you want.”
She thinks being on the Toilets is just as good as being on The Plague. She has no clue. I want to tell her what Langley and Xander said about the Toilets, but I don’t because I don’t want to burst Juan’s bubble.
He backs into the hallway with a shrug. “I figure if you play on it, maybe we’d win. See you tomorrow.”
“Thanks.”
I close the door and try on a cleat. Not bad.
Maybe I should try out. But Xander said only the dregs are on the school team.
“Mom,” I say. “What exactly does ‘dreg’ mean?”
She rips a page out of the newspaper. “Bottom of the barrel. The junk nobody wants. Why?”
“Just something I heard.”
24.
BEGGING
Before first period, I hustle to the art hallway and work up the courage to enter Mr. Raye’s room.
The door is open, there’s reggae music playing, and a big huge dude with a head full of thick, twisted locks is tearing a giant piece of paper off a gigantic roll. It’s like Jamaica’s Paul Bunyan went to art school and became a teacher.
“What’s up?” he asks.
I step in, but I’m momentarily occupied with my nostrils. There’s that great smell, like the air is painted with primary colors. But I’m not here to fill up my smell bank, I’m here to beg.
“I’m Trevor Musgrove.” Mr. Trevor Motivated Musgrove.
He sets the giant paper on a giant table and begins pulling another sheet off the giant roll. I go on, “I’m hoping you could do some major surgery on my schedule.”
Okay, I stole the line, but it works. He looks up with a smile.
“I want to take Summit Art instead of Computer Applications and Mr. Ferguson’s Summit Science Class instead of regular science. I just want you to know: I’m motivated. I am more motivated than anybody has ever been motivated in the history of mo
tivation. Even my molecules have motivity.”
He laughs. “Mr. Ferguson mentioned that you might be coming in.”
He asks me a bunch of questions about where I went to school before and I try to be motivated and charming, and then he tells me that it isn’t easy to get around the Summit application guidelines and that he’ll have to get back to me.
The waiting game.
25.
NEWS
For a whole week it’s like I’m walking on the edge of a cliff, wondering if I’ll get the chance to switch my classes, wondering if I should try out for the Toilets, trying to avoid Xander and Diamond. On the weekend, it’s more time at the library waiting in line to use the computer.
On Monday, while we’re waiting for the bus, Juan is reminding me that Toilets tryouts are tomorrow when Diamond comes marching out dressed like a wannabe diva in makeup and a top with sequins on it. “If you love me, baby, set me free,” she sings. “Stars Show tryouts are today, so everybody here has to wish us luck.”
“Luck? You need a miracle,” Markus says.
Celine comes out next, looking like she’s headed for death row.
Diamond yells, “Where’s your top, Celine? You’re supposed to wear your purple top.”
“I’m not doing it,” Celine says.
“Uh-oh.” Markus holds up his hands. “Everybody back up, because the Krakatoa volcanoa is about to blowa.”
Diamond’s eyes go hard. “You can’t just not do it, Celine. Tryouts are today.”
Celine lays it down. “I’m not doing it, Diamond. I told you I’d chicken out.”
“What am I supposed to do?”
“Do it without me.”
“It’s a duet, Celine. I can’t sing your part and my part at the same time. And what about the moves? What am I supposed to do when I’m doing that lunge and you’re doing your part?”
“Just do that lunge.”
“That’s boring! It won’t look right. Come on, you promised.” Diamond looks at me. “Don’t you think she has to do it?”
I don’t say a word. Ever since she messed up Xander’s locker she’s been trying to get back on my good side, but I’m like those dead presidents on Mount Rushmore. My face is a rock.
Markus steps in. “Celine has done abandoned you, Diamond. Get over it.”
Diamond and Celine fight all the way to school. After my second class, I get called to see Ms. Beitz again.
Finally some news.
“Well, Trevor. Mr. Raye and Mr. Ferguson and I enjoyed a long discussion this morning.” She drums her fingernails on her desk. Today, each nail has a fire-engine red background with black-yellow-and-orange sunburst designs painted on top. “Mr. Raye is willing to consider a special, late application to the Summit Program. He said you have to turn in something called …” She plucks a yellow sticky note from her desk and hands it to me.
Kingdom of Fungi
Identification Notebook
“Do you know what this is?” she asks.
I nod.
“The decision will be based on the drawings and notes in your notebook, as well as your grades from last year and a short essay that you need to write. Everything is explained here on this sheet. I’ve pulled last year’s report card from your file and attached a copy of that. Fill out this form completely, attach the essay, and turn it in with your notebook to Mr. Raye or Mr. Ferguson by Monday. They will review it and make their decision based on the quality of your work.”
“Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.”
She holds out the form but grips it when I try to take it. “He didn’t say yes, Trevor. He said they would consider it based on the quality of your work.”
“I know. Thank you.”
“Mr. Raye is bending the rules like this based on what Mr. Ferguson said about your potential, so I think you owe Mr. Ferguson a thank-you regardless of the outcome.”
“I’ll give him a huge thank-you.”
She releases the form.
“And by the way, Ms. Beitz,” I say in all sincerity, “I think each of your fingernails is like a little work of art.”
Get ready for this … Ms. Beitz actually smiles.
I got it. I got it. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I got it.
Mr. Trevor Finesse Musgrove is back!
I got it. I got it. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I got it.
She writes me a pass.
I got it. I got it. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I got it.
As I’m walking to my next class, I glance at last year’s grades. Not great. But my notebook can make up for that. I’ll do another entry or two. Put in some quality drawings and observations. I’m right near Mr. Ferguson’s room, so I stop in.
He’s standing on a chair, lifting a bagful of mushrooms off a ceiling hook.
“I just heard that I can apply.”
Over his glasses he gives me one of his looks. “I’m sticking my neck out for you, Mr. Musgrove,” he says. “I expect you to come through.”
“I will. Thank you, Mr. Fungus.”
It just pops out.
“Uh—I meant Mr. Ferguson.”
He raises his eyebrows as he gets down.
“It’s a compliment, Mr. Ferguson. I mean that.”
He smiles. “You may perambulate to the egress, Mr. Mushroom.”
During lunch, I sit with Juan and make another entry in my notebook. Langley stops by and says hey to both of us and cracks a joke. It’s what you call a nice gesture, because basically Langley is a nice guy. Ever since the thing with Xander’s locker, I haven’t even tried sitting at the Summit table. Langley doesn’t say anything about that, but his stopping by says a lot.
Diamond stops by, too, and tells me she wants me to draw a logo on her arm so she has good luck at auditions after school. She waves a five-dollar bill in my face. “Come on, Trevor. I’m gonna need it without Celine.”
I tell her I’m busy.
26.
THE BIG DAY BEGINS
All last night I went back and forth in my mind about whether to try out or not. This morning, the sky is cluttered up with clouds like it has a lot on its mind, too. Mr. Ferguson is probably hoping it rains, but I bet everybody who is trying out for soccer is hoping it doesn’t.
By the time I get to the bus stop, Juan is already there, sitting on the fence, his leg jiggling like there’s a motor in it.
“You decide about tryouts?” he asks.
I show him the cleats in my backpack.
He’s not a slap-on-the-back, jump-up-and-down, shout-out kind of guy. But in his quiet way, he looks like I just gave him a Christmas present.
Markus shuffles up and asks what’s happening, and Juan tells him we’re both trying out for soccer.
“Go Go, Toilets,” Markus says. “Flush them babies down.”
“Good luck,” Diamond says, which makes me feel kind of bad because she sounds like she means it, and I didn’t say anything to her yesterday. Then she adds, “You’ll make it. I probably didn’t even make the Stars Show.”
“Stop saying that,” Celine yells. “You’re just trying to make me feel bad.”
“Catfight!” Markus yells, and they both go after him.
As soon as we get to school, Juan begs me to come to the cafeteria so he can tell Javier that I’m trying out for the Toilets.
Javier shakes my hand. “Good decision, man. I’m the iron curtain. And we got the striker here and the roadrunner.” He points to Juan. “Hey, we should get Langley. No way I want Xander. He’s a ball hog, but Langley would be sweet.”
“I figured it out,” Juan says. “The coach said twenty is the max he wants on the team. There are ten eighth graders from last year who have to make it and six really good new eighth graders. So that leaves four spaces for seventh graders. If Langley and Xander try out, I won’t make it.”
“Xander’s too good for the Toilets,” Javier says. “Besides, you’re fast, Juan. You run faster than the roadrunner, man. Beep-beep.”
After breakfast, we catch Langley
by his locker.
“Musgrove is trying out for the team,” Javier says.
Langley looks at me.
I smile. “Toilets, here I come.”
“Me and Trevor and Juan are all trying out. Come on, McCloud,” Javier says.
We look at each other. Langley. Javier. Juan. And me.
I make the sound of a flush and swish my butt around like it’s the water going around the bowl. Everybody cracks up. “It’s our victory dance.”
“The way I look at it, the more soccer the better.” Langley does the victory dance, and we shake.
27.
NERVES
Everybody is nervous and jumpy. The people who tried out yesterday for the talent show are all gossiping about when the list of acts that made it will get posted. And all the people trying out for the soccer team keep talking about who’s going to show up and who isn’t. It’s like the air today is invisibly threaded with electricity and we’re all plugged in.
Diamond passes me a note in math class: RU still mad about Xander’s locker? What can I do to make it up to u?
I throw it away.
At the end of the day, she sees me on the way to P.E. “Hey, Trevor, wait!” she calls out. “I got you something.”
I pretend I don’t hear and run ahead.
Langley is talking to Javier and Juan in the doorway to the gym. Juan looks like he’s going to throw up.
“What’s wrong?”
“I’m never going to make it now,” Juan says. “Xander’s trying out.”
Langley shrugs. “I told him I was going to try out, and the next thing I know he’s calling home to say he’s going to stay after and try out, too.”
“I knew it,” Juan says.
Xander appears so we shut up and head in like it’s just a regular day.
“I bet he won’t come,” I whisper to Juan.
28.
UNEXPECTED BLOW
After school, everybody who is trying out for soccer has to meet on the field. I dump my backpack in the pile of backpacks by the bleachers and jog over to where Coach Stevins is marking down names on a clipboard. It would be nice if he smiled, like he’s happy I showed up, but he’s into his refrigerator state, not giving up anything for anybody.
