Homework Hassles

by Abby Klein

  “Finally,” I said and sighed.

  “Just follow me, please,” she said.

  We followed her into an examining room, where she took my blood pressure and carefully unwrapped my arm to get a better look.

  “Dr. Carton will be here in a minute,” she said as she left the room.

  A few minutes later, Dr. Carton came in. “Well, hello there, cutie,” she said. “Let’s take a look at that arm. Now, tell me—how did this happen?”

  “I fell out of a tree,” I answered.

  “What were you doing in a tree in the middle of the night?”

  “Don’t ask,” my mom answered, rolling her eyes.

  “Well, it certainly looks broken to me, but we’re going to take an X-ray to be sure. Freddy and I will be back in a few minutes,” she said, smiling.

  She put me in a wheelchair and wheeled me down to the X-ray room. She lifted me onto a bed and told me to stay real still. Then she left the room, and I was alone in the dark.

  My stomach started to do flip-flops. I didn’t know what was going to happen. I’d never had an X-ray before.

  “All done,” she said when she came back into the room a minute later.

  “That’s it?” I asked.

  “Yep, that’s it.”

  “Is it broken?” I asked nervously.

  “It sure is. A nice, clean break. Let’s go tell your parents.”

  Do we have to? I thought. When this was all over, I was going to get the biggest punishment of my life.

  She wheeled me back to the room where Suzie and my parents were all anxiously waiting to hear the news.

  “Is it broken, Doctor?” my dad asked.

  “I’m afraid so.”

  “I knew it,” my mom said.

  “We’ll have to put it in a cast.”

  I suddenly felt sick.

  “A cast?” Suzie said. “You are so lucky, Freddy. Casts are so cool. All your friends can sign it, and you don’t have to do homework for a whole month!”

  Hey, maybe breaking my arm wouldn’t be so bad. I kind of liked that part about not having to do homework.

  “Oh, Suzie, don’t be ridiculous,” my mom said. “Breaking your arm is not so lucky.”

  “Freddy, what color would you like your cast to be?” Dr. Carton asked.

  “I thought casts were white,” my dad said.

  “Not anymore,” Dr. Carton said. “Now they come in designer colors.”

  “Can I have blue-gray?”

  “Blue-gray? Why blue-gray?” Dr. Carton asked, puzzled.

  “Because that’s my favorite color. It’s the color of thresher sharks.”

  “You’ll have to excuse him,” my dad said. “He’s a shark freak.”

  “Oh,” Dr. Carton said, smiling. “Well, I don’t have blue-gray, but I have a nice light blue color. How does that sound?”

  “Great!” I said.

  By the time Dr. Carton got done setting my cast, it was almost 4:00 A.M.

  I had stayed up all night after all.

  CHAPTER 6

  Not So Bad After All

  There were only two bad things about breaking my arm. One, my punishment: I couldn’t have a sleepover with Robbie for a whole month. Two, I had to wrap my cast in a plastic bag whenever I took a bath. Because I couldn’t get my cast wet, my mom didn’t let me play with my sharks in the tub. Otherwise, breaking my arm had its advantages. My parents and my sister had to do a lot of stuff for me.

  On Monday morning, my mom had to help me get dressed for school because it was hard for me to lift my arm over my head to put on my shark t-shirt.

  “Be careful, baby,” my mom said. “Lift your arm slowly. Are you OK?”

  “Yeah. But it’s still pretty sore, so I don’t think I can make my bed.”

  “Oh, don’t be silly, sweetheart. I don’t expect you to make your bed. Not with a broken arm. Dr. Carton told you to move it as little as possible.”

  Not make my bed! This was great! My mom was such a Neat Freak that I usually had to make my bed before I came down for breakfast. And she would do a bed check while I was eating to make sure I had really done it.

  “Where’s your backpack, honey?” my mom asked. “I’m going to carry it downstairs for you.”

  “I think I threw it in the closet.”

  “Freddy, you know I like you to hang it up on the hook, so it stays nice.”

  Stays nice? Who was she kidding? No boy’s backpack stays nice. If it looks too clean, kids think you’re a geek. In fact, when she bought it, I stepped on it with my dirty shoes and dropped it in a mud puddle, just so it wouldn’t look brand-new.

  She found my backpack, and we went downstairs.

  “How’s it feel this morning, Sport?” my dad asked, looking up from his paper.

  “OK, I guess. But I think it would feel a lot better if I stayed home from school and rested.”

  “Maybe that’s not such a bad idea,” my mom said, caressing my head. “This is a rather serious injury. What do you think, Daniel? Should he stay home?”

  “What?!” Suzie said, choking on her cereal. “You’re going to let him stay home from school?! That’s not fair.”

  “Suzie, this is none of your business,” my dad said.

  “But,” Suzie whined, “you said we only stay home if we have a temperature, or if we’re throwing up, and Freddy isn’t hot, and he’s not tossing his cookies!”

  “Hey, Brat,” I said, wagging a finger from my left hand in her face. “You’re not my mother.”

  “Enough!” my dad barked. Then he turned to me. “Freddy, that was a good try, but you’re going to school. Dr. Carton said you did not have to miss any school. You’re just not allowed to run around at recess or climb the monkey bars.”

  Correction—there were three bad things about breaking my arm. “But recess is my favorite part of the day! What am I supposed to do while my friends play Sharks and Minnows? Sit on the bench?”

  “Maybe you could play in the playhouse with the girls,” Suzie said, smiling.

  I stuck my tongue out at her.

  “What’s wrong with that?” my mom asked. “I think that’s a great idea.”

  “I’ll tell you what’s wrong with that. I don’t want everyone to laugh at me.”

  “They won’t laugh,” my mom said.

  “Yes, they will. Especially Max—you know, the biggest bully in the whole first grade. He’ll laugh and laugh.”

  “Well, I think you’re being silly, but suit yourself. Hurry up and eat your cereal. I don’t want you to be late.”

  I picked up my spoon and dipped it in the bowl. I started to lift the spoon to my mouth, but my hand was shaking, and I hit my chin instead. Milk and cereal dribbled down my chin and plopped into my lap. “Oh great!” I cried.

  “Ha, ha, ha. That was hilarious!” Suzie squealed. “The milk stain makes it look like you peed in your pants!”

  “Thanks a lot.”

  “Suzie,” my dad said, “you could be a little nicer to your brother. He’s a righty, so he has to get used to doing things with his left hand. It’s not as easy as it looks.”

  “Yeah. I’d like to see you eat with your left hand,” I said.

  “I would, but the bus will be here any minute,” Suzie said, getting up from the table. “I don’t want to be late.”

  “Oh no!” my mom said. “I didn’t realize how late it was. Forget the cereal, Freddy. You can take a banana on the bus.”

  “You’d better hurry up!” Suzie called from the front hall. “I’m not going to wait for you.”

  “Oh yes you are!” my dad hollered back. “Suzie Marie Thresher, get back in here right now!”

  “What?” Suzie said, sticking her head through the kitchen doorway.

  “Not only are you going to wait for your brother, but you’re going to carry his backpack as well.”

  “What? You mean that ugly thing with the big fin on the back?”

  “Yep.”

  “You can’t be serious.
You’re joking, right? What am I? His slave?”

  “As a matter of fact, for the next few days, you are,” my dad said. “He needs all the help he can get.”

  “Boy, you can say that again,” Suzie mumbled as she grabbed my backpack and headed for the door.

  CHAPTER 7

  King of the World

  “Thanks, Suzie,” I said as she dropped my backpack at my classroom door and took off across the yard.

  “You’re not welcome!” she called over her shoulder.

  As soon as I walked into class, all the kids ran up to me and started asking me tons of questions.

  Jessie was the first. “Oh my gosh, Freddy! What happened?!”

  “Is it broken?” Chloe asked.

  “Duh,” said Max. “Of course it’s broken. Why do you think he has on a cast?”

  “Well, you don’t have to be so mean,” Chloe said, sticking out her tongue. “I was just asking.”

  Max turned back to me. “So, what happened? Did you fall off your bike with training wheels?” he snickered.

  “No, for your information, I fell out of a tree. A very high tree.”

  “Oh yeah. How high?” Max asked.

  “Oh, I bet I was at least twenty feet off the ground.” I glanced over in Robbie’s direction and gave him a please just back me up kind of look.

  “Oh yeah, at least twenty feet,” Robbie chimed in.

  “Yep. I was doing some fancy tricks on a branch, and the branch broke.”

  “Yeah, he was hanging upside down by his knees,” said Robbie.

  “No way!” Max said in disbelief. “I didn’t think you even knew how to climb a tree.”

  “Oh yeah, I do it all the time,” I said, trying to sound tough.

  Jessie gently touched my cast. “Does it hurt a lot, Freddy?”

  “It did at first, but not much anymore.”

  “Caramba! You’re so brave.”

  “Well, Freddy,” said Mrs. Wushy, “that must have been scary. I’m glad you’re OK. I see you broke your right hand, so you’ll have to be a lefty for a few weeks. You just let me know if you need any extra help with your work. It might be tough to cut with your left hand.”

  “Thanks,” I said, smiling.

  “Can we sign your cast?” Jessie asked.

  “Sure.”

  “That’s a great idea, Jessie,” Mrs. Wushy said. “I bet that would make Freddy feel a lot better. I’ll go get some permanent markers.”

  Mrs. Wushy went to get the markers, and I sat down at a table to rest my arm. Robbie came to sit next to me.

  “Thanks for playing along back there,” I whispered.

  “What are friends for?” he whispered back and smiled.

  “You know, you’re the best friend a guy could have.”

  “So you’re not mad at me for all that happened?” Robbie asked.

  “Naw. It’s not your fault. I was the one who climbed the tree.”

  Just then Mrs. Wushy came back. “OK, everyone, let’s line up, and you can take turns signing Freddy’s cast.”

  Max, of course, pushed and shoved his way to the front of the line and then wrote his name on it really HUGE. Too bad the markers were permanent.

  “The rest of you need to write a little smaller,” said Mrs. Wushy, “so that everyone’s name will fit.”

  Chloe bragged, “I know how to write my name in cursive,” and then she wrote her name all swirly and fancy. I guess I was supposed to be impressed, but I wasn’t.

  Jessie signed her name and then drew a little red heart next to it. My stomach did a flip-flop.

  When it was Robbie’s turn, he wrote, “Best friends forever, Robbie.”

  After all the kids were finished, Mrs. Wushy drew a big happy face and wrote, “Feel better soon! Love, Mrs. Wushy.”

  I looked at my cast and smiled. “Thanks, everybody. This looks really, really cool.”

  It was so great being the center of attention. I felt like I was king of the world.

  Then Mrs. Wushy brought me back down to earth.

  As everyone went to sit on the rug, she said, “Now remember, boys and girls, your nocturnal animal reports are due tomorrow. I hope everyone worked hard on them over the weekend.”

  Oh no! The report. I had forgotten all about it. I still hadn’t picked an animal. But why was I worrying? Mrs. Wushy wouldn’t make me do it with a broken arm. I raised my hand.

  “Yes, Freddy.”

  “Mrs. Wushy, you don’t expect me to do the report with a broken arm, do you?”

  “You’re lucky, Freddy, because this is not a written report. It’s an oral report, so you can still do it. It doesn’t involve any writing. All you have to do is talk, so I know you’ll do just fine.”

  The king of the world just became king of the mud!

  CHAPTER 8

  The Report

  That afternoon after school, I begged my mom to let me go over to Robbie’s house to do some research for my report. He has his own computer in his room, and he’s like a whiz with that thing. He’s better than my dad! He said he could help me find information about my animal on the Internet.

  “Hey, guys,” Robbie’s mom said as she came into his room. “I didn’t even hear you come in. Sorry about what happened, Freddy. How’s your arm feeling?”

  “It’s OK, Mrs. Jackson.”

  “I still don’t know what the two of you were doing in the backyard in the middle of the night. But I do know one thing for sure. It won’t ever happen again! Right, Robbie?”

  “Right, Mom.”

  Robbie’s mom stood in the doorway, shaking her head. “Hanging upside down in a tree in the middle of the night. What do you think you are, Freddy? A little bat?”

  A bat! That’s it! I ran over to Robbie’s mom and gave her a big hug. “Thanks, Mrs. Jackson.”

  “For what?”

  “You just gave me a great idea!”

  “I did?”

  “Yeah. I didn’t know which nocturnal animal to pick for my report. But now I know. A bat!”

  “Great idea. Let me know if you boys need any help.”

  “OK. Thanks, Mom,” Robbie said as his mom turned and left. “All right, Freddy. Let’s see what we can find.”

  His fingers started flying over the keys. “Oh, here’s a great site for bats. It tells you all kinds of interesting information.” He started reading some of it to me. Even though he’s in first grade, he reads better than a fourth grader!

  “Most bats eat either fruit or insects.”

  “Fruit sounds good, but once I ate a cricket, and it made me vomit,” I said.

  “Thank you for sharing,” Robbie said, making a face.

  “Anytime,” I answered, smiling.

  “The largest bat is the flying fox.”

  “Holy cow!” I said. “Look at that thing. It’s huge! I sure hope they don’t live around here.”

  “Don’t worry. It says here that they live in Asia.”

  “That’s good, because just looking at that thing could give you nightmares. Yuck!” I said, sticking out my tongue.

  “Oh, here’s something really cool,” Robbie continued. “You can put this in your report. Bats have sort of a sixth sense, called echolocation, that they use to help them move around in the dark.”

  “Echolo-what?”

  “Echolocation. Insect-eating bats send out high-pitched sound, and then the sound bounces off objects around them and comes back to their ears. This is how they sense if there is a tree they are about to fly into, or if there is an insect near them to eat.”

  “Hey, I wish I had that sense when I get up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night. I’m always smacking my face right into the bathroom door!”

  “Oh, so that explains why your face looks like that.”

  “Very funny,” I said. “What does it say about hanging upside down?”

  “Let’s see. It says that bats hang upside down when they are resting, and they wrap their wings around themselves like blankets to
keep warm. When a mother bat gives birth, she hangs by her thumb claws with her head up and makes a basket with her body. The baby slides down into it.”

  “But if there’s no nest, then doesn’t the egg just fall to the ground and crack when it comes out of the mom?” I asked.

  “Bats don’t lay eggs.”

  “They don’t?”

  “No. Even though they fly, they are not birds. They are mammals.”

  “What’s a mammal?”

  “You’re a mammal.”

  “And you’re crazy.”

  “No, really, Freddy. A mammal means that you are born alive, not from an egg, your body has hair, and you drink your mother’s milk.”

  “Oh, I get it. Geez. You sure know about a lot of stuff, Robbie.”

  “Bat babies are born alive from their moms, and the mom catches them with her body when they come out, so they don’t fall to the ground.”

  “Wow. Bats are pretty interesting. I’m glad I picked them. Can you print that stuff out for me, Robbie?”

  “Sure. Just promise me one thing.”

  “What?”

  “You don’t go on any night flights tonight.”

  CHAPTER 9

  Help!

  After I got home from Robbie’s, my mom was helping me organize my report when Suzie walked in.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I’m trying to practice my report. I have to do it tomorrow.”

  “What’s your stupid report about?” Suzie asked.

  “Bats.”

  “Eww. Gross. Bats suck your blood.”

  “That’s what I used to think, but they’re actually really gentle animals. Only the vampire bat drinks blood, and it rarely bites humans. It mostly laps up the blood of big animals, like cows. It doesn’t live in North America.”

  “Wow. I think you’re spending too much time around Robbie,” Suzie said. “His geekiness is rubbing off on you. You totally sounded just like him.”