by Jim Murphy
This comment, of course, made everyone sitting in front of me—which meant the whole class, including you-know-who—turn to see what I was up to. Oh, yeah, and laugh. I touched my arm where the tattoo was, this time for moral support.
I was also kind of flustered, and my brain seemed to go into a fast spin cycle. I came within an inch of saying I like orange Jell-O better, in an attempt to make an awkward situation funny. But I managed to hold it in as I struggled to get myself into a sitting position. Naturally my knees came up hard and jammed tight under the desktop, and I would have tipped over if Vero hadn’t caught me and my desk before I hit the floor.
“Class, class,” Angelica called, shaking her head. She clapped her hands several times to get everyone’s attention. “Please, let’s not give the class clown an audience. Eyes forward, everyone.” As everyone was turning back to face her, she gave me a frosty look that would have iced a chrome car bumper until it shattered.
After this, I came up with another way to remain unseen. When Angelica walked to the right side of the room, I leaned slightly to the left—enough to be behind Joey Spano and out of her sight. When she went to the left, I leaned right. Back and forth, back and forth for the rest of the morning. It was exhausting work. Luckily, Joey is a pretty big kid and hard to see through, so I was able to get into a kind of rhythm.
The lunchtime meeting didn’t produce any new ideas, although Al the Second Grader was very enthusiastic about attempting to electrocute Angelica or arranging an accidental tumble down a flight of stairs. I thought these possibilities might be worth considering, but Mayor explained that we weren’t trying to injure or kill Sister Angelica. Al the Second Grader didn’t seem to hear. In fact, his eyes went all deep and scary-mysterious, as if he were thinking over a hundred painful ways to deal with Sister Angelica, and I really started to like the kid. On the plus side, Sister Regina stopped by our table while patrolling and was very happy to see that I was eating a simple, non-grease-slicked American cheese sandwich. “But James,” she whispered, leaning so close her crucifix clinked against the table, “maybe we should keep our hands above the table.” She glanced quickly down at her shoes, then smiled. “Just to be on the safe side.”
By two o’clock in the afternoon I was feeling confident that I might escape the day with only the cherry Jell-O incident added to my red folder. This got me wondering what had made her say cherry Jell-O instead of just Jell-O. Maybe she really liked cherry Jell-O and was thinking about it and hoping they had it for dinner in the convent that night. And this notion got me wondering what nuns really ate over there, or if they ate anything except our immortal souls.
Next I remembered—don’t ask, I don’t know why; it’s my brain’s fault—the night last summer when Mom served orange Jell-O with canned pineapple chunks in it for dessert. Dad took a scornful look at it and said, “Those are pineapple, right?” “Yes,” Mom answered. “You know I don’t like pineapple,” my dad stated, as if it had been written into the United States Constitution so we should all know it. “In any form.”
“I don’t neither,” I said.
“Either,” Mom corrected me. My brother snickered, and I felt as if everyone in class were looking at me again.
“Either or neither, I don’t like the stuff.”
“You will have a ‘no thank you’ portion, ” Mom told me firmly. She gave Dad a look that said See what you’ve done?— a look I’d gotten from nuns many times over the years.
It really wasn’t fair that Mom got to pull out the “ ‘no thank you portion’ ” line when I didn’t have any lines to pull out on any occasion . . .
Suddenly Sister Angelica’s voice broke into my thoughts: “Everyone, please take out your pencil and a piece of lined paper. In the time remaining before dismissal, we’ll have a pop quiz on last night’s history assignment.”
There were groans and grumbles from just about everyone. Even the good-smart kids. And a few cusses from the other guys in the back row. A pop quiz was simply unfair on the second day of school. I didn’t mumble a sound. I hadn’t read anything at all the night before, and I just knew I was cooked.
As directed, I wrote my name and the date on the top line. For some reason, I always dated my papers April 1, but I usually put down the correct year. I also put JMJ in bold letters at the top of the paper, hoping that having Jesus, Mary, and Joseph hovering up there would give me good luck. Probably wouldn’t, especially if you (meaning me) didn’t study, but it couldn’t hurt, right? You never know who might be gazing down upon you and feeling generous.
There were twenty questions on the quiz. Some true or false, most multiple-choice. Or in my case, multiple-guess. Sister Angelica said each question out loud, then wrote it down on the blackboard. She also said the possible multiple-choice answers and wrote them down too.
When the quiz was over, we passed our papers to the front, and she handed them out so that we could grade other kids’ answers. It was, as Vero whispered, an inspired way for her to avoid doing work.
I knew perfectly well that I wouldn’t get a very good grade. There was nothing new in that. But then she had the kids stand up and say the name of the person whose paper they had marked and the grade, which she wrote down in a book. More grumbles from the back row, since we knew what that would mean.
And so it began. Erin (Margaret) O’Connor was first to stand and read the score. “Roger Vandercleef Sutternhopf,” she said loudly. “Ninety-five percent.”
There were some “oohs” and “ahhs” at the near-perfect grade, and Roger looked around with a big grin on his face. I wasn’t thinking about Roger or his grade. I was thinking that Roger sat in the seventh row, just to my left, so maybe they wouldn’t get to my row for a while. And with sixty-two papers to go through, maybe the bell would ring to end the day, and I could escape. But which row had gotten my row’s papers?
Turned out to be the eighth and last row, over by the windows. The third person in that row, Carol Brent, stood and said, “James Murphy.” In a near whisper she quickly added, “Um, thirty.”
There were more “oohs” and “ahhs,” but they didn’t sound like the ones Roger got. Most times I scored a little better than that because I usually made a decent number of lucky guesses.
“Master Murphy.” Sister Angelica looked amazingly distressed and really unhappy, as if I’d run over a puppy with my bike. I mean, she seemed to take my grade as a direct insult aimed at her. “Did you read the assignment?”
I stood up slowly, trying to think of the best way to answer. I was kinda on trial here, since everyone in class was waiting to hear what I had to say, but I only noticed Kathy Gathers watching me. So I had to make this good. “Ah,” I began. To say I had read the assignment would be to admit that I was too stupid to remember any of it. My brain tumbled around some ideas for an excuse, but panic set in and made all rational thought impossible. I finally decided I didn’t have enough time to work out all the details. Instead, I said, “I meant to, Sister. Really, but . . . but . . . um . . .”
“Yes, I know,” she said, cutting me off with a disgusted shake of her head. “And the road to hell is paved with good intentions.” She shook her head again, her lips pursed as if she’d just sucked in the juice of twenty lemons. “Did you write down the assignments as I suggested yesterday?”
“Um . . .”
“And when you realized you hadn’t”—now she was really heating up—“did you call one of your”—and here her face twisted in this dismissive way—“friends to see what the assignment was?”
“Well, um . . . no.”
Sister Angelica’s face had turned an intense shade of purple-red. Which is not good to add on top of annoyed, distressed, and disgusted. “Is there anyone you could call in the future to be sure you know what is expected?”
“Well, I guess . . .” I didn’t offer any names, and none of my friends chimed in to volunteer. As I said before, sixth-grade guys just didn’t call each other to
chat about homework.
There was another one of those embarrassingly long, deep silences. I wasn’t sure what to say, so I didn’t say anything. Sister Angelica looked troubled but wasn’t offering a solution. Then a hand popped up a few seats in front of me.
“Sister?” a voice said.
Angelica located the raised hand. “Yes, Ellen?”
Ellen McDonald stood up. “He can call me to make sure he knows what the assignments are.”
There were a few more “oohs,” though these were different from the ones that came before because they were accompanied by some kissing sounds. Philip tossed in an “ooo-la-la” that didn’t need translation.
I could feel my face flush. I wanted to yell out that I didn’t want or need Ellen’s help. But my brain started to explain to me that I did need help remembering assignments, but wouldn’t it have been great if Kathy Gathers had been the one to volunteer.
“That’s a very generous offer, Ellen. Very.” The second “very” suggested that Sister Angelica would never, ever in her life have made such a kind offer herself for someone like me. “Master Murphy. You will get Ellen’s phone number before you go home today, and be sure to call her tonight. At seven p.m. No more excuses for missed assignments. Am I clear?”
“Yes, Sister,” I said, sliding back down into my seat. “Very.”
6
Ken Gables Is Calling
BY THE TIME I got home, I was sweating bullets in my long-sleeved shirt. I went to change into a T-shirt and discovered that most of them had shrunk, maybe because I’d grown a few inches this year, and didn’t completely hide the tattoo. I had to hunt hard to find a short-sleeved shirt that barely covered it. If only Sister Anita had stabbed me higher up the arm.
Got downstairs just as Jerry came home to punch me hello. Mom came charging in a little later, ordered me to set the table, and started making meatballs and spaghetti sauce. I got forks and knives, plates, and napkins and began setting them out on the dining room table.
In our old house we ate in the kitchen most nights. But when we moved to this house, we started eating in the dining room. Not because we turned fancy or anything. Because of the big red Nazi swastika on the kitchen floor.
When we came to look at this house for the first time, there was a round wooden table in the kitchen with a nice rug underneath. The day we moved in, the table and rug were gone, and there it was—a red swastika made of square floor tiles. The swastika must have been six feet across.
Both Mom and Dad began sputtering when they saw it, making these embarrassing “but . . . but . . . but” gasping sounds.
“That’s weird,” Jerry said.
“Bizarro,” I added. “I have to tell Philip. He knows a lot about World War Two and stuff.”
“Don’t say a word to him. Or anybody else! They might think we put it there!” Dad barked. “Helen, go call Mr. Farina while I get something to cover this . . . this . . .” He pointed at it as if it were an extra-large bowl of orange Jell-O with pineapple chunks in it.
Mr. Farina was the real estate agent who had sold us the house. When he saw the swastika, he sputtered the way my parents had. And apologized, too. At first he tried to suggest that it might be some sort of symbol used by western Indians, but when my mom gave him “the look,” he dropped that line of reasoning. “They seemed like such a nice couple,” he said, referring to the elderly husband and wife who sold us the house. “Who would have guessed.”
I had to agree. The husband and wife were both short and very round, like cream-filled doughnuts. At one point while we were looking at the house, the wife had said with great fondness, “We’ve had such nice times here. During the war we had our club meetings right here in the kitchen.” Later I thought someone should have asked them what sort of club they hosted. I mean, Nazis in New Jersey! Who the heck knew?
Mr. Farina said he’d get the red tiles replaced with green ones that matched the rest of the floor. But the new tiles that arrived were a lot lighter than the old ones, and my parents decided that a fresh, minty green swastika was as bad as a blood-red one. So we still had the swastika, and now it looked as if the whole floor would have to be replaced to get rid of it. Until then, Dad refused to eat in the kitchen, period. He wouldn’t even drink his evening bottle of Pepsi-Cola in there.
Table setting was an oddly important procedure in our house. Once, I complained to my mom about the silly, complicated rules for where the forks, knives, spoons, glasses, etc., etc., had to be put. Who decided this? I wanted to know. And why? And why did we have to follow those rules anyway? It wasn’t as if the president would be coming for Mom’s meatball and spaghetti dinner.
Mom looked perplexed about my rebellious attitude, then quoted some expert on the subject who obviously loved the idea of utensil and glassware rules. “A properly set table,” Mom said in a serious voice, “is the canvas for a beautiful meal.”
My mom’s an artist. She cut out a piece of paper the same size as our place mats and drew in where everything was supposed to go, including which direction knife blades should face (toward the plate, in case you’re wondering) and the position of the water glasses.
I had memorized the paper plan and could put everything on the table automatically. I was halfway through the chore when my brother suddenly asked, “So who’s K.G.?”
K.G.? What was he . . . Then I remembered my tattoo. “Ah, nobody.”
“Does my little brother have a girlfriend?”
“No, no.” I glanced down where the tattoo was and saw that my sleeve had ridden up. In a panic, I swiped it down to cover the black and red marks. “It’s nothing. It’s a baseball player’s initials.” My mind did a freaky fast search of baseball player names and came up with, “It’s Ken Gables. He was a pitcher.” This was one hundred percent true, but I couldn’t remember who he played for or if he was any good.
“Yeah, right,” Jerry said. “So why the red heart?”
Red heart? I picked up the sleeve and realized that in trying to wash off the red, I had dragged some of the ink down, so it did kinda look like a heart. A blurry one, but definitely a heart. I covered the tattoo up again.
“And not just a red heart,” my brother added, “but a red ‘I love you’ heart.”
“Shut up,” I hissed. Panic was closely followed by brain sizzle and made any other reply impossible. I just stared at him and tried to gulp in air.
“So who exactly is this K.G.?”
“I told you already . . .”
Just then the phone in the kitchen rang, interrupting Jerry’s interrogation. I thought I’d never heard a more welcome sound. Saved by the bell, I thought. Or whatever sound the phone made. Mom was rolling meatballs and asked Jerry to answer the phone. Jerry gave me a look that said Yeah, right, and left the dining room. I started tossing forks, knives, and spoons onto the table, thinking I’d finish up fast and flee to my room to hide until dinner was ready.
Of course I should have known better, considering the way my luck had been running lately. I was putting down the last spoons when my brother called from the kitchen. “Oh, Jim-mee,” he said in this drawn-out, singsongy, annoying voice. “It’s for you-ooo.” There was a pause. “It’s a girl.”
I hustled into the kitchen to get the phone from him before he did any more damage. Mom said, “A girl?” in a somewhat concerned tone. Maybe she was worried that I’d taken up story writing again.
“It’s okay, Mom,” I said. “It’s about homework.”
I grabbed the phone from Jerry, grunted angrily at him, and put my hand over the receiver. As my brother strolled past, he whispered, “Ken Gables my ass.”
When Jerry was out of the room, I grumbled and said “Yeah” into the receiver a little more sternly than I’d wanted. “I mean, hello.”
“You were supposed to call at seven,” Ellen said crisply. “You told Sister Angelica you would.”
“I forgot,” I said, which was true enough. “I was setting the table for dinner,” I added
lamely.
“You need to remember to call. And if you have to do something else first, you should call and let me know.”
I didn’t say anything.
“Okay?”
“Sure.” I took the phone to the stairs leading to the basement and sat down. I had no idea why Ellen wanted to help me, of all people, but it was clear this was going to be just one of many long calls.
“So,” Ellen began, “do you know what we’re supposed to do for spelling?”
Now I had her! I had actually jotted down the spelling assignment, and even got Philip to fill me in on what else we had to do for homework. I figured that if I could show Ellen I had the assignments under control, she’d go away and not bother me anymore. “Yeah, take the ten words on the list and put them in a sentence. I wrote that down.”
“Good. But you have to spell them correctly and you have to punctuate correctly, too. Have you done them yet?”
“I will. Don’t worry.”
“And for math . . .”
“I know what to do,” I said confidently. And I told her what it was.
Only it wasn’t. Angelica had assigned fifteen specific problems from the text, but Philip had copied some of the numbers down wrong. Even if I got the answers right, I’d still fail. As Ellen told me the correct problems to do, I realized I should probably tell Philip. This might violate the rule about sixth-grade guys talking about homework, but it seemed only fair.
The rest of the conversation went pretty much the same way, and I had a sinking feeling I wouldn’t be getting rid of Ellen and her phone calls anytime soon. We ended with her saying we’d meet before school so she could go over my homework. Trust me, I tried to tell her this wasn’t necessary, but Ellen could be very . . . I’m not sure how to put this . . . she could be very persistent.
