The Amazing Magnificent Stupendous Incredible Outstanding Unbeatable Exceptional (and Humble) Rubberband Boy

by Jonathan Neuman

  As he walked into the hall, Dave felt his shoe sticking to the ground. He picked up his leg to examine his sneaker. Stuck to the underside was the gum from the staircase by the old gym.

  Dave groaned.

  Wanting to start the year off with a bang, the school assigned first day Chemistry and Biology Laboratory to the two fifth grade classes. John’s class had Chemistry; the rival class had Biology. John was all too ready to start the year off with a “bang,” but was disappointed to find out that his class would not be dealing with volatile chemicals. Instead, they would be learning about simple mixtures and compounds.

  Due to recent budget cuts, both fifth grade classes had been assigned to the same laboratory at the same time. The Chemistry students were on one side of the lab and the Biology students were on the other. The Biology students were using microscopes to learn about the differences between plant cells and animal cells.

  When the instructor wasn’t looking, John went over to the chemical table and grabbed two bottles, one with a blue liquid and one with a green liquid. He was able to fill a test tube halfway with the blue liquid, and was about to fill up the rest with the green liquid, when the lab instructor suddenly appeared and grabbed the bottle away from him.

  “What a gyp,” John complained. “Mixing water and salt. It’s like we’re taking a cooking class.”

  Dave, who was intently observing his test tube as he shook it, perked up.

  “I wish they gave us a cooking class. I’d love to learn how to bake.”

  Dave carefully noted what had occurred inside his test tube, and made some sketches and notes inside his lab notebook. John, who was not paying any attention to his test tube as he casually shook it, looked at Dave with a raised eyebrow.

  “You want to learn how to cook?” John laughed. “We might as well get you a dress now.”

  John pulled out his notebook, and doodled a picture of Dave in a dress. The dress had frills around the collar and sleeves, and had a flower design.

  “Hey, that’s not fair. Lots of men cook. Plus cooking could come in handy later.”

  Dave grabbed John’s notebook and started to erase the picture.

  “When? Like the guitar lesson for your wedding? What happened to bring your own sandwich?”

  John grabbed Dave’s notebook and changed Dave’s notes to a picture of Dave in a wedding dress cooking a grilled cheese sandwich.

  “No, I’d still make them bring their own sandwiches. They’re coming to congratulate me. They should bring me food, not the other way around.”

  John made a face and was about to reply when Dave was hit in the back of his neck with some kind of wet, slimy plant.

  It was school custom that the two classes in every grade would become bitter rivals. For various reasons, these two fifth grade classes were particularly embittered toward one another, not the least of which was an incident in the third grade involving, what John had dubbed, chicken pox pickles. With the two classes in such close proximity to each other today, it was only a matter of time before something really bad happened. To this point, the lab instructors had been eyeing the children with guarded caution.

  Dave turned around and glared at the group of snickering Biology students. He grabbed some of the test tubes filled with salt water, and was about to charge at them when John put a hand on Dave’s shoulder and held him back.

  “No, Dave, don’t.”

  Dave was shocked and angry.

  “So what, we’re just going to let them get away with it?!”

  John flashed him a mischievous grin.

  “No, of course not. Did I say that? It’s just that there are more intricate ways.”

  John pulled out a dead cockroach from his pocket.

  “Eww, where’d you get that”? Dave asked, feeling his breakfast start to come back up.

  “I found it when we were in the staircase near the old gym. Like you said, you never know when something is going to come in handy.”

  Dave swallowed and tried not to look at the bug.

  “What were you going to do with it otherwise?”

  “Eh, make a little addition to someone’s lunch,” John said as he envisioned Principal Freeman biting down into his turkey sandwich only to find it a little crunchier than usual.

  John bided his time, and when the Biology students’ backs were turned, he quietly snuck over to their side of the lab. John carefully selected the microscope being used by Goldie, the annoying know-it-all student who also happened to be the Ohrno Elementary Student Choir’s opera singer. Dave tried his best to keep from laughing aloud and ruining everything as John replaced the plant in Goldie’s microscope with the dead cockroach.

  John chose Goldie for three reasons. First, he just didn’t like her. Second, her powerful lungs were about to create some delightful mischief. Third, Goldie was mortal enemies with Caroline, and since Caroline was on John’s bus, John felt obligated to stick up for her. Dave had once made fun that John liked Caroline. John responded by packing Dave’s pants with wet mud and earthworms. He couldn’t like Caroline. The thought of John liking a girl made him shudder. After all, every boy knows that girls have cooties, and John had no intention of ever contracting cooties.

  John crept back to his lab station, and he and Dave pretended to go back to work on their test tubes. A few seconds later, a high-pitched shriek filled the room. Many of the test tubes cracked, their contents spilling all over a number of very surprised Chemistry students. John and Dave had already carefully put their test tubes to the side.

  John and Dave howled with gleeful delight as they watched Goldie recoil and jump back into Violet. A surprised Violet threw her right arm out and smacked Leon in the back of the head. Leon fell forward and knocked into Peter, who accidentally tossed his frog into the air. Leon’s frog landed on Julia’s head, and its arms and legs dangled over her forehead and landed in front of her eyes. Julia shrieked and flailed wildly, accidentally toppling into Mike, who then tripped over his untied shoelaces and knocked over a jar containing live bees sitting on a table to the side.

  The students all watched as the jar fell to the ground in slow motion and shattered into a million pieces. Pandemonium ensued as the angry bees swarmed around the room, chasing after the frantic, screaming children. Wet plants and dead frog parts flew across the room, while on the other side, beakers of chemicals were grabbed off of the shelves and hurled at the oncoming army of bees. Duh grabbed the metal pole holding the model skeleton in the corner of the room, and waved it at the bees, yelling “Duuuh, en garde!” John grabbed a bunch of frogs and danced around the room, throwing them up in the air and yelling “Merry Christmas!” in his best Santa imitation. Dave was being chased around the room by one lone bee that apparently had a bone to pick to with him.

  The Chemistry Lab Instructor was hiding under his station, trying to swat the bees with his folder. He peered out from underneath the table to see how the children were faring.

  “No, students, please don’t throw the beakers, they are very expensive and the chemicals could be very dangerous …”

  The sound of shattering glass drowned out his voice. A shower of chemicals rained down on the Biology Lab Instructor, who angrily threw his stack of papers up into the air, curled into a ball on the floor, and began crying. Amidst the falling papers and chemical torrents, one of the students managed to make it to the door, but upon opening it, the bees swarmed out of the laboratory and into the halls. Subsequent yelps and shrill screams radiated from the other classrooms, and the halls rapidly filled up with students and teachers running for their lives. In the ensuing commotion, somebody set off the fire alarm, which activated all of the school’s fire sprinklers and automatically initiated the school’s fire drill. The students were evacuated to the front of the school, and the building was put into lockdown.

  It took fifteen minutes before the fire trucks showed up and determined that it was safe to go back inside. The teachers were utterly befuddled. They tried to get their student
s’ attention, but the soaking wet kids were in no rush to go back to class. They were too busy laughing and throwing wet socks at each other. Other students were having contests, seeing who could slide the farthest on the wet grass. John and Dave huddled together near the bushes, apart from the other students, as water continued to seep out from the windows of the upper floors.

  “That was awesome!” John exclaimed as he gave Dave a high-five.

  Dave was trying to wring out his shirt. His wet hair drooped across his face, but he was pretty sure that it was only water from the fire sprinklers. His clothes, on the other hand, he wasn’t so sure about.

  “Yeah, but I think I got some of the chemicals on me.”

  John squeezed out his shirt as well.

  “Who cares, I definitely got some chemicals on me, but it was so worth it!”

  John stopped smiling for a moment. “It’s weird, though, because I’m pretty sure that when I ran out of the room I wasn’t wet, but I guess with all of those flying papers and frogs, who could tell what was going on? Anyway, I’m sure all the chemicals are harmless.”

  Dave wasn’t quite as optimistic.

  “But what if they have some weird effect and they mutate us into some sort of hideous creatures, like a swamp thing or a boogey man?”

  John’s face brightened and his eyes widened.

  “That would be even more awesome! Think about all of the stuff that we could do if we had powers. No more school, no more homework, no more chores. We could go anywhere and do anything and nobody would be able to stop us!”

  “Yeah, but couldn’t it be dangerous? Maybe we should go to the nurse and get checked out.”

  “Dave, Dave, Dave, trust me, they wouldn’t let us near any dangerous chemicals. Especially not me. Plus, in the comics, the good guys always get their powers from chemicals falling on them, and nothing bad ever happens to them.” John winked at Dave. “But if you want to be chased with a rolling pin again, I’m not going to stop you.”

  Dave was not relieved.

  “But still …”

  Just then John noticed some of the kids from the Biology class talking to an infuriated Principal Freeman and pointing in his direction. With his back still turned to Dave, John blindly tried to tap Dave on the shoulder as he frantically whispered “Dave, Dave,” but instead, accidentally stuck his finger up Dave’s nose. John didn’t even notice.

  “Hey! What are you doing?!” Dave yelled, pushing John’s hand away.

  “Dave, we have to get out of here. NOW.”

  Dave looked over John’s shoulder and his face turned white as Principal Freeman began walking over. The two boys turned around to make a mad dash, but two big, hairy arms clamped down on their shoulders. Principal Freeman dragged them by their collars all the way to his office. For a long moment Principal Freeman just stood with his back facing the boys as he stared out the window overseeing his garden. His face was bright red, almost the same shade that Captain Cayden One Eyed Willy Nickname Cyclops Sir’s had been earlier that morning. John remembered about the lollypops, and tried as quietly as he could to reach over Principal Freeman’s desk and see if they were in the open drawer.

  Hearing, the creaking of the chair, Principal Freeman wheeled around and stared down at John. John smiled sheepishly back at him. Principal Freeman did not say a word. John grimaced and slowly sat back down. Principal Freeman still said nothing. John decided to break the silence.

  “I must say, that’s an excellent shade on you, Mr. Principal—”

  “QUIET!”

  John closed his mouth and took a big gulp.

  “What is it with you two?! Why can’t I ever go a day without the two of you evacuating the whole school?!”

  “Well, actually, there was that day two years ago when I had the flu, and—” John started to say.

  “SILENCE! This is not a discussion. This is me asking questions to which I want no answers.”

  “Then why ask them?”

  “AAAAAAARGH! It’s called a rhetorical question you childish nincompoop! It involves a skill called rhetoric, to make you feel guilty about what you’ve done!”

  “Ohhhhhhh. Yeah, I see that.” John leaned back in his chair and stretched out his arms behind his head. “Well, I feel plenty guilty, so I guess I’ll be seeing you.”

  John began to get up toward the door when Principal Freeman leaned over and pushed him back down into his seat. A big smile was spread across his face, which John thought was odd because Principal Freeman looked far from happy.

  “Yes, you most definitely will be seeing me. Both of you will. You,” he said pointing violently at John. “And you,” he said, pointing a little less violently at Dave. “Both of you have detention every day for the rest of the year!”

  John looked shocked.

  “Even Martin Luther King Day?”

  “GET OUT!!!”

  John stood and saluted.

  “Yes sir, maam, sir.”

  “TWO YEARS DETENTION!”

  “Not a baker’s dozen?”

  “THREE YEARS DETENTION!!!”

  Dave grabbed John and pulled him out of the office, making sure to cover John’s face so that Principal Freeman couldn’t see John grinning. When they were sufficiently away from the office, Dave finally removed his hand. John was still smiling very contently.

  “Oh yeah, definitely worth it.”

  Dave groaned.

  By the time John and Dave got back to their classroom, the next class was already coming to an end. It was the boys’ second straight year with Mr. Levis, the school’s oddest math teacher. His glasses were about as thick as the length of his nose, and his long grey hair stuck straight out of his head as if he had just stuck his finger into an electrical socket. Mr. Levis had a tendency to blurt out odd made-up words in response to students, and often went off on tangents about his love of motorcycles and his fear of flying. So it wasn’t surprising that as John and Dave entered the room, a rambunctious discussion was taking place about little green men from Mars and their infiltration of the Earth.

  “… These little green men are everywhere. Policemen, lawyers, bankers – every profession is overwrought with these extraterrestrials.”

  A hand went up.

  “Duuuh, what about candlestick makers?”

  “I said bankers, not bakers. But bakers are the worst of them all. Bakers are the ones who manufacture the weapons that these aliens are going to use to overthrow humans as rulers of Earth: apple strudel.”

  John winked at Dave and whispered, “They’ll be overthrowing squirrels, not humans.”

  “I wish I could make apple strudel,” Dave whispered back.

  Another hand went up.

  “What about people who shovel dung in barns?”

  “Yes of course, them too. Aliens siphon off nutrients from the dung and use it to power their spaceships. Have you ever seen your parents putting white powder on the grass in front of your house? Do you know what that is? It’s dung. Delicious, nutrient-filled dung. Your parents are helping the aliens and they don’t even know it!”

  “Do the green men have to do with why you don’t like airplanes?”

  Mr. Levis’ eyes grew dark and he nodded intensely.

  “It’s the stewardesses. They are secretly green men in disguise and they are the ones who are most vital to the aliens’ eventual conquest of our planet. No human would ever be able to put up with nonstop baby crying, requests for peanuts, and those horrible in-flight movies. No, the stewardesses are green men who analyze and document how our machines fly so that the aliens will be able to know how to attack us from the air. Our planet will never be able to fend off the air attack. Or the water attack. Our only hope is going to be on the ground.”

  “So technically there are little green women as well as little green men,” John called out.

  “Yes, yes. Men and women.”

  “And children? Are any of us little green men?”

  Mr. Levis frowned at some of the children and l
ooked at them suspiciously.

  “Asubuzero!” he shouted, pointing at John with his index finger.

  Some of the kids who had begun to doze off snapped to attention. Duh picked his head up off his desk.

  “Duuuh, Asubuzero?” asked a confused and tired Duh.

  Mr. Levis pointed at Duh.

  “Ashapleeth! Eeyeeyee! Asubuzero!”

  Duh rubbed his eyes.

  “Duuuh, I’m so confused.”

  Mr. Levis started to shake, eyeing the children nervously. He began biting his fingernails, some of which broke off and soared into the faces of the students in the front row. John gave Dave a half-smile. He figured he better get this back on track before Mr. Levis had a nervous breakdown.

  “So then how come you like motorcycles? Aren’t motorcycle mechanics just little green men in disguise?”

  Mr. Levis glowered and slammed his hands on his desk.

  “HOW DARE YOU?! Motorcycle mechanics are our planet’s last line of defense! They know that we don’t have a chance of surviving in the air or water and that our only hope is going to be to win the battle on the ground. Motorcycle mechanics are the only ones preparing for the inevitable strike while the rest of you are in your kitchens baking vanilla cookies with chocolate chip sprinkles!”

  The kids in the class looked at one another, perplexed. Dave quickly pulled out a pink notebook and began furiously scribbling down his plans to learn how to make vanilla cookies with chocolate chip sprinkles. The move did not escape John, who whispered “frilly dress” to Dave. Mr. Levis, not paying any attention, continued his rant.

  “When all is said and done, it is going to be motorcycle people who emerge unscathed from the coming battle, not you airplane-loving children! And you better get ready, because they’re coming tonight.”

  “Tonight?!” a couple of the students repeated in a hushed gasp.

  “Yes, tonight, during the total blackness of a lunar eclipse!” Mr. Levis said ominously.

  “Eclipse? Isn’t that a type of doughnut?” asked one of the kids.

  “That’s an eggclair,” responded Dave.