by Joel Ross
To the memory of my mother, who read an early draft and said, “So, nu? What’s my Bubbie/Blatt ratio?” 90/10, Mom.
—J. R.
To Mum and Dad, and especially Dyl
—N. M.
1
This is Blueberry Hill School, home of the Ladybugs. Look at the ordinary trees. Look at the ordinary buses.
Look at the ordinary kids.
Well, not that one.
Look at the ordinary clouds and crowds and flagpole.
Now zoom in.
My name is Alex Katz and I don’t make good choices.
At least, that’s what my parents and teachers say… if they catch me.
After I slide down the flagpole, I blend into a crowd of fourth graders heading for the front doors. I’m a sixth-grade shape-shifter, blending into the background.
Stealthy.
Hidden.
Invisible.
I’m home free!
Then I hear a laugh. A mean, mocking laugh.
It’s Cameron Sykes! He’s in the seventh grade. When he became a hall monitor, he turned into the King of the Snitches. These days, he spends all his time:
1) patrolling the hallways wearing a homemade #security badge.
2) marching around grunting, “Hut, hut, hut…”
3) ratting on anyone who brings a phone to school.
4) posting embarrassing pictures of late kids to the school website.
Also, he once threw a grapefruit at me for running in the hallway. On cold days, I can still feel the juice stinging my eye.
And now he’s picking on a little kid in a bunny suit. That’s not a huge surprise. Cameron is a bully, and everyone knows you can’t wear an adorable rabbit onesie to school unless it’s Wear an Adorable Rabbit Onesie to School Day.
Which, if you check the calendar, it never is.
So I pause for a second to explain that we shouldn’t pick on littler kids…
… and from across the yard, Principal Kugelmeyer yells, “Alley!”
Which is me, because nobody calls me Alex. How I got the nickname “Alley” Katz is a long story, though. You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.
“It’s only the third day of school,” Principal Kugelmeyer says, after dragging me into her office. “Why were you climbing the flagpole?”
“It’s a tradition,” I tell her. “Like the Hill Build.”
My school goes from kindergarten through eighth grade. Every year, the new third graders make a model of Blueberry Hill for the Hill Build Contest. For example, when I was a little kid, I convinced my class to slather blueberry jam onto a mound of helium balloons. It was awesome. Well, it didn’t look anything like the school… but three years later, you can still see the stains on the ceiling. I call that a win.
“Nobody ever climbed the flagpole before,” Principal Kugelmeyer tells me.
“That’s because it’s a new tradition,” I inform her.
“And I don’t want them to start now,” she continues, bulldozing over my excellent point. “You know the other kids copy you. Especially when you do something reckless like climbing the flagpole—which is not a tradition.”
“It could be. All traditions have to start somewhere.”
Think about it. A hundred years ago, some kids dressed in costumes FOR ABSOLUTELY NO REASON and pounded on a neighbor’s door, demanding candy.
The neighbor must’ve been like, “What art thou doing?” which is how they talked back then.
Then the kids said, “We art making a brande-new tradition called Halloween! Now hand over some Thrice Musketeers Bars, thou dorkfish, or with our TP shall we festoon thy house.”
I explain that to Principal Kugelmeyer, but she’s not interested in history. Honestly, I don’t know how these people keep their jobs.
“This is your one free pass,” she tells me, drumming her fingers on her desk. “In honor of the new school year.”
“Oh! Well, um, I hope you’re sitting down—”
“I am sitting down, Alley,” she says.
“—because I just thought of a way to honor the school year ten times more!”
“By giving you ten free passes?”
I gape at her. How did she guess?
“Alley,” she says.
“Here,” I report. “Present!”
“This is your only chance. After last year…” She shudders. “You’ve been warned.”
“I didn’t know the crickets would do that.”
She exhales. “Just remember what we said about making better choices.”
“I will,” I promise.
And I’ll keep that vow, because I have a…
Last year, I made a few bad choices (also, I learned that you can order thousands of live crickets online) and almost got expelled.
So this year, I’ll make lots of choices. Dozens and dozens of choices. That way, I’m sure to make some good ones, which will balance things out.
See? Foolproof!
Except Principal Kugelmeyer says, “I’m glad to hear that, Alley. And I’m calling your parents in for a talk, to make sure you don’t forget.”
That’s why my dad meets me after school, in the principal’s office. He’s holding his phone in front of him to show my mother what’s going on.
“What were you thinking?” Dad says.
“You could’ve fallen and broken your head!” Mom tells me.
“Worse,” Dad grumbles, “he could’ve broken the head of a kid who uses their head.”
Mom sighs. “Alley just isn’t a good fit with traditional education.”
“On the other hand,” I say, to make her feel better, “I’m great at Extreme Schooling.”
Weirdly, this does not cheer her up.
The principal and my dad take turns scolding me. My parents are too nice to punish me, though. I’ve given them tips, but they never learn.
So when they’re really mad, they threaten me with Grannie Blatt.
2
Maybe your grandmother is a sweet old lady who spoils you with all-you-can-eat pizza and Daily Cash Prizes. My other grandmother is like that, but Grannie Blatt is more of the “busted headphones” type: she pinches my ears and makes scary noises.
I’m pretty sure my parents are as scared of her as I am. That’s why she’s such a good threat.
“If you don’t shape up,” Mom tells me on Dad’s phone, “we’ll let Grannie Blatt enroll you at Steggles Academy.”
I clutch my chest in horror. “Noooo!”
Before she retired, Grannie Blatt worked as a lunch lady. I usually like lunch ladies: they hand out food, not tests. What’s not to like?
But my grandmother is single-handedly responsible for banning soda from every school in town. That’s some pure, unsweetened evil. Also, she didn’t lady her lunches in a normal human cafeteria. No, she scooped the tuna at the other school in town: Steggles Academy.
Steggles isn’t a school so much as a factory that assembles pod-robots for the Alien Overlords. To the untrained eye, the kids there look 92 percent human… but they wear uniforms. I’m talking neckties and shiny black shoes. Let’s just say that everyone at Steggles would laugh at Bunny Boy, while Cameron Sykes would become class president.
“Your grandmother will pull some strings to get you in,” Dad tells me.
“Those aren’t strings,” I tell him. “They’re daggers. And she’s not pulling them, she’s stabbing them in my back!”
“And,” he continues, “you’ll have to stay at her apartment.”
I re-clutch my chest. “What? How? Why?”
“Our house isn’t in the right district for Steggles, Alley.”
“Because we’re not warp-droids from Nebula Six!”
“In order to transfer, you’ll need to officially live ac
ross town,” Principal Kugelmeyer tells me.
“With Grannie Blatt.” Dad gives a little shudder. “But only for a few days a week.”
“Your grandmother is eager to spend more time with you,” Mom says, and glances nervously at Dad from the phone.
“She thinks you’d thrive in a more structured environment,” Dad says, and glances back nervously at Mom on the phone.
See? They’re as scared of her as I am. Still, I’ll get in trouble if I mention that she’s a swamp creature, so I just moan, “Not Steggles.”
“It’s an excellent school,” the principal says.
“Yeah, they make the best androids in town.”
“If you shape up,” Mom tells me, “you can stay at Blueberry Hill. And if not… well, you take this school rivalry too seriously.”
“We’re not rivals. We’re enemies.”
* * *
Facts about Steggles Academy:
1) It’s built on a squirrel cemetery.
2) The school color is “robotic evil.”
3) The hallways smell like pickled boogers.
4) The baseball team is powered by android targeting systems.
5) The students are all artificial life-forms wearing pleated pants.
Those are the facts. And here is the proof:
1) The Steggles Stallions crush the Blueberry Hill Ladybugs every single game.
2) I have personally smelled the hallways.
3) I spotted an UNDEAD SQUIRREL on their lawn while biking past.
Speaking of which, there’s a rumor that some Absolute Legend from our school biked past last year, yelling, “Saint Eggles!” while hurling eggs.
That’s only a rumor, though.
3
For the next few days, my behavior is perfect. I don’t sprinkle glitter in the lockers. I don’t climb onto the roof. I don’t steal the earthworms from eighth-grade science class.
I’m an angel.
I’m a dream.
I’m so bored that pencil sharpening is my new favorite activity.
I need to do something fun… but not so fun that I get in trouble. Luckily, I remember my Foolproof Plan: make lots of choices, so some of them turn out to be good.
Which is why on Tuesday, when I’m choosing between belly-surfing the fan room stairs and balancing cafeteria trays on my head, I compromise by doing both.
Here’s what you need to know: the fan room isn’t a room. It’s a short hallway off the cafeteria, with an even shorter stairwell. It’s called the fan room for two reasons:
1) It’s where the school trophy case is kept—so “fan” like “sports fan.”
2) There’s a ceiling fan that never stops spinning. Nobody knows why.
The fan room is always empty, which means there’s no way I’ll get caught. Still, I don’t take any chances: I ask my friend to watch for teachers while I catch a tray-wave.
That’s Chowder. His real name is Charlie Howder, and he’s carrying those weeds because he falls in love twice a month. He thinks every day is Valentine’s Day, and if you ever hear him clear his throat, RUN. He’s about to recite a love poem.
“Dude,” Chowder says, peering around the stairwell. “So amazing.”
“I know.” I groan, under the heap of cafeteria trays. “But next time I’ll snowboard instead of belly-surfing.”
“What?” he says.
“What-what?” I groan.
“What-what-what?” he says.
I almost groan What-what-what-what? because I’m not a quitter. Then I realize that he’s not even looking at me.
He’s gazing dopily at Maya Roman, who is standing nearby, playing with her phone.
“What rhymes with ‘Maya’?” he asks me. “Other than ‘Hiya’?”
I groan again, but this time not from pain. This time because I’ve seen that expression on his face before. He’s composing a poem.
“ ‘Papaya’!” Chowder half closes his eyes. “She’s smarter than an apple, and sweeter than papaya.…”
“Huh?” Maya says.
“Chowder’s in love with you,” I tell her.
“Huh,” Maya repeats, and doesn’t look up from her phone.
There are two reasons for this:
One, she knows Chowder. He falls in love like rain falls in puddles.
Two, she started a game of Realm Ruler in fifth grade and spent the last year building a medieval queendom. She’s fought wars, fed peasants, and built castles. She’s one of the few kids brave enough to use her phone during school hours, because she cares more about that game than anything in the real world. Including one lovesick Chowder.
“Can we sit together at lunch?” Chowder asks her.
“You’ll distract me.”
“I’ll bring you a burrito! And I’ll help with your game.”
“Well, I am kind of stuck,” Maya says. “A goblin horde is marching across the Forgotten Mountains.”
“Which mountains?” I cleverly ask, from beneath the pile of trays.
“Why can’t your army beat them?” Chowder asks, as they head toward the cafeteria.
I push a few trays away, and a piping voice says, “Ooh, fun! My turn!”
When I peer upward, the sight chills my blood.
Icicles form in my veins and penguins waddle along my spine. Because a bunch of kindergarteners are at the top of the stairs, clutching cafeteria trays. They’re about to hurl themselves down.
4
Now, I don’t know if you’ve ever found yourself half-buried by cafeteria trays while a mob of rug monkeys prepare to throw themselves to their doom. Maybe you have, and maybe you haven’t.
It’s a little… what’s the word? Oh, right: terrifying. I mean, it’s one thing for a sixth grader to bodysurf downstairs, but it’s not safe for knee-high mini-humans.
So I spring into action.
Well, first there’s a moment when, for some reason, I remember Principal Kugelmeyer saying, The other kids copy you, the other kids copy you…
Then I spring. Or, at least, I bellow, “STOP! DON’T DO THAT, YOU BUG-EYED TATER TOTS!”
The kindergarteners pause mid-hurl. The ringleader, a girl with a frizzy ponytail, squints at me. “But you did it.”
“Aha!” I shamble to my feet. “That’s where you’re wrong!”
“We all saw you,” she says.
“Did you?” I ask, attempting to confuse her. “Did you really?”
“Yes,” she says, extremely unconfused.
“Well, well!” I rub my sore elbow. “I guess there’s no telling either way.”
“Here goes!” the girl says.
She’s about to launch when a new voice pipes up: “Emulating Alley’s uncontrolled descent strikes me as profoundly unwise.”
I’m not sure what half those words mean, but I get the overall gist.
So I snap, “Don’t encourage them!”
“That was not my intent,” the bunny-suited kid says, and the girl steps forward.
She grips her tray like a snowboarder on a mountain peak. She’s two seconds from liftoff and honestly, I’m impressed. I expect great things from this kid, if she survives kindergarten.
Which seems unlikely at the moment. So I dash up the stairs, bellowing again: “HAVE YOU EVER PLAYED BONKY ROLL?”
“Muh?” she asks, pausing.
“The game, Bonky Roll. I just invented it. Have you ever played?”
“Um, no.”
I snatch a slightly chewed lunch roll from one of her friends. “Okay, everyone get ready! The goal is to keep the roll in the air, using nothing but your tray.”
I toss the roll at the ringleader girl.
She whacks it with her tray, a nice high lob. She’s a natural.
A second kid bonks the roll, and a third smacks it against the wall and a fourth kid misses the ricochet. Everyone groans, and they start again.
They swing, they spin, they cheer—they totally forget about tray-surfing. The fan room is not strewn with broken kindergarteners,
and even better, I didn’t get caught!
I pause for a moment to enjoy the happy bonk of bread roll against cafeteria tray, and a voice squeals, “Watch out!”
The roll is whipping toward the kid in the bunny suit. Now personally, I like getting pelted by a welcoming muffin or thwacked by a cheerful bun. It’s a friendly way to greet a buddy.
But that Bunny Boy might not agree, so I snatch the tray from his hands and knock the roll away.
I save the kid. I save the day. I win!
Except for one teensy problem:
There was a burrito on his tray.
A burrito that launched into the air when I swung.
A burrito that smacked into the ceiling fan.
So, in other words, the burrito just hit the fan.
For an instant, the world stands still… then a blizzard of beans pelts me.
Three seconds later, I am more guacamole than human and the fan room looks like an explosion in a salsa factory.
And as I hunch there with shredded cheese in my hair, I hear a noise.
A sort of army chant. Getting louder. Coming closer: “Hut, hut, hut…”
It’s Cameron Sykes. He marches in, looking for someone to rat on—and records me with his phone.
5
Principal Kugelmeyer likes me. I know that because I once heard her say, “He has the heart of a lion and the brain of a baked potato.”
Lions? Awesome.
Baked potatoes? Delicious!
Also, she said, “Alley would throw himself in front of a train to save you—the wrong train, but still.”
However, right now she doesn’t look so friendly. She’s sitting behind her desk without saying anything. Staring at me.
I squirm in my chair. I can’t defend myself, because Cameron Sykes already posted the video to the school website. I had one last chance, and I blew it. My parents are going to make me spend half the week with Grannie Blatt and the whole week at Steggles “Androids ‘R’ Us” Academy.
