Just Like Jackie

by Lindsey Stoddard

  I slide my Dodgers hat back around over my face and press my ear closer to the door.

  Harold is asking, “If Charlie signs this, what exactly is he agreeing to?” And Ms. Gloria’s talking about how she pulls me out on Wednesdays for counseling already and something else I can’t hear. And something about anger, and my goals, and talking.

  And then it’s kind of quiet and I picture them all shaking their heads. Grandpa says he’s sorry again and Harold says thank you to everyone. And I quickly move back to the other chair so it doesn’t seem like I was spying.

  “Robinson, please come in here.” It’s Principal Wheeler’s voice. When I walk in, Grandpa can hardly look at me, which is fine because I still have my hat pulled down far.

  “Turn that hat around.” Ms. Gloria means business. She’ll wait me out, so I just do, but I make a big huff about it because I like my hat the way I like it.

  “We are all really worried about you, Robbie,” she says. I hate that crap. No one needs to worry about me but myself. “Your behavior is unacceptable. It’s troubling, we don’t like it, and it can’t happen anymore.” Ms. Gloria is using her no-nonsense voice. “We’re going to be watching you like a hawk and trying to get to the bottom of this. Ms. Meg’s going to be watching, Mr. Danny is, your grandpa will be too, and you know I’ll be watching you.”

  “Me too, Robbie.” Harold pats my shoulder. “I’ve got my eye on you too.”

  He’s trying to be all practice dad. And I want to tell everyone that the only one who needs to be watching me is Grandpa because I’m his and no one else’s.

  “So I’m not going to be suspended?”

  “No,” Principal Wheeler answers.

  They’re just going to make my life here crappier by being up in my business.

  “The first thing you’ll do is figure out a way to apologize to Alex. Consider it your weekend homework,” Ms. Gloria tells me.

  “You can’t be serious—”

  “Very serious, Robbie. Your actions were very serious and now we are all very serious.”

  “Are you going to make him apologize to Derek?”

  Then Grandpa reaches across the table and grabs my arm again, but not hard. Like he’s just holding me still for a minute. “You’ll apologize.” He takes a deep breath. “And you’ll do what . . .” And I can see Grandpa’s searching for his words and I hate the look on his face when that happens, like he’s wandered off and gotten lost and can’t find his way back to what he was saying.

  “. . . what Ms. Gloria says,” I finish. “I’ll do what Ms. Gloria says.” And it kills me to say that because I don’t want to do what Ms. Gloria says, but it kills me more to leave Grandpa hanging in the middle of his sentence with everyone watching.

  Ms. Gloria starts explaining about how I’m still going to be seeing her but with a small group of other kids, and I want to yell that there’s no way I’m doing that but Grandpa’s hand is there holding me still so I remember some stats until Ms. Gloria is done talking and Harold is shaking everyone’s hand again.

  “Let’s go,” Grandpa says. He keeps holding my arm as we walk out of the school like I might run if he lets go. And even though running fast and hard across the yard right now would make me feel better, I’d never run from Grandpa.

  Harold is walking a half step ahead of us, and it’s not until then that I realize they must have closed the garage because of me, and now there are going to be so many cars to catch up on. At least I can help with that.

  That’s when I hear the clicky heels approaching down the sidewalk. “It’s Alex’s mom,” I whisper to Harold, and I pull my hat back around to cover my face.

  “Mrs. Carter?” Harold reaches out for a handshake, but she doesn’t even look at Harold, she looks straight under the brim of my Dodgers hat with those grooves carving deep across her forehead.

  “I’m Haro—” he tries, but she cuts him off quick.

  “I thought I told you to keep your hands off Alex.”

  Grandpa gives my arm a squeeze. “What do you say, Robbie?”

  “Sorry,” I mutter. “He was bullying my friend, and I couldn’t let that happen.”

  “Don’t put this on him,” she spurts. “He has enough to deal with. Next time you go near him I will be pressing charges.” She clicks off into the school and down the hall toward the nurse’s office, where I’m sure Alex is playing his innocent-pretty-boy routine.

  “What’s pressing charges?” I ask.

  “Lawyers. Lawyers and big trouble,” Harold explains.

  And that shuts me up fast because I don’t need other people’s moms and teachers and definitely not lawyers sticking their noses in our business.

  “You’ve really done it this time,” Grandpa mumbles and nudges me down the street.

  Harold shakes Grandpa’s hand and tells me that we have a big talk coming. Then he turns toward the garage and Grandpa points the other way down the street toward home.

  “We’re not going to the garage?” I ask. But he doesn’t even answer me or tell me one crap thing about Jackie Robinson and how hard it was for him to stay calm when everyone was acting terrible. He just keeps holding my arm and walking as fast as his side-to-side legs can go.

  “I can help with all the extra cars from today—”

  “That’s enough, Robbie,” Grandpa cuts me off, and keeps on walking.

  When we get home and go up the steps Grandpa tries two keys that don’t fit, the one for the garage and the one for the truck. I don’t help him or say a word because I’m so mad we’re not at the garage sealing transmissions or replacing brake pads.

  When the right key finally slides in, Grandpa goes straight to his office, where the mail is piled up, brings out a piece of paper and pen, and tells me to sit at the kitchen table.

  “Write your apology to that boy.”

  “Alex? No way.” I shove the paper away. But Grandpa’s not even listening because he’s mad at me just like I’m mad at him.

  The door slams and Grandpa’s gone out in the yard. I can see him through the kitchen window, and I can’t believe he’s collecting sap in the jugs without me. And he’s putting the big pieces of wood on the stump chopping block by himself and swinging the ax up high and down hard to split them through the middle, and he does each piece in one fast swing. The two halves just break apart, easy as that.

  I crumple the blank paper and cross my arms over my chest. But I can hear each hard thwack of the ax and each “Ha!” that Grandpa grunts when he makes contact, and every one makes me grit my teeth harder because I want to check how many gallons we got and I want to throw the split pieces on the woodpile.

  And before I know it, dark is creeping up outside and I can’t hear him thwacking anymore. I’m looking out the window and I can’t see him at the chopping block or the sap buckets. I stand up and peer around to the woodpile, but he’s not there stacking either. All the split wood is just lying around the stump where it fell.

  I’m shoving my feet in my boots and not even zipping my jacket because something feels wrong. Grandpa never gets mad and he never leaves chopped wood scattered, and a bad feeling is sitting hard in my stomach.

  I swing open the door and yell, “Grandpa!” I can hear my voice echo off the sky through the woods. I run past the stump chopping block and our gallons of sap packed in the snow, following Grandpa’s side-to-side footprints right past the metal hanging buckets and dripping sap and into the woods. “Grandpa!” My breath is hanging in the dark, cold air. “Grandpa!”

  I’m wondering if he decided to go on our favorite hike on the Appalachian Trail that runs behind our yard and up to the hiker shelter, where we stop to eat lunch on summer weekends. But he wouldn’t go without me. And he wouldn’t go at night or in the winter. Without the first aid kit and without a headlamp.

  My heart is beating fast because maybe he forgot it was winter. Or maybe he forgot where the trail goes. Or maybe he’s that mad at me, and he’s running away.

  I hear a crunch o
f snow and I trudge after it, following his prints farther into the woods. “Grandpa!”

  And then he’s calling back out to me. “Robbie?” With that voice full of gravel. “Here!”

  And he’s just standing there, leaning against the trunk of a tree, and his eyes are big like when we catch a deer in the headlights of the truck. Like he’s scared.

  “Grandpa?”

  “I guess I just got a little turned around,” he says. “I thought we tapped some more maples back here, no?”

  “No, Grandpa.” I walk up to him slow like he really is a deer who might scare off easy and forever if I’m not careful. I take the ax from him and hold it head down and with two hands like he taught me. “Follow me,” I say and make him hold on to my shoulder as we tramp back through the woods toward the house until we get to the yard.

  I can’t let the chopped wood stay all scattered in the snow. And seeing it like that makes me wish I could take it all back again. Like Grandpa could pull the ax out of those pieces he split, and put them back together, and I could pull back my shove from Alex’s shoulders and run back into the room with Ms. Gloria and just talk about my feelings because if I had then I wouldn’t have weighed down Grandpa’s engine like that, I wouldn’t have made his memory tired, and he wouldn’t have wandered off without me.

  Grandpa and I pick up the pieces and stack them with the rest, and I promise myself for real this time, I’ll be more like Jackie Robinson.

  chapter 8

  It’s Monday and I have a blank copy of the baseball diamond behavior plan so I can get around my bases by the end of the day, and I’m all ready to start fresh and let things roll right off and stay out of everyone’s face, especially Alex Carter’s, when Ms. Meg says we’re going to do a project about our family trees.

  She can forget about that right now, because I’m not doing it. No way.

  Alex starts whispering something to Ronald, and I bet it’s something mean. They’re laughing and Ms. Meg gives them a look, so they stop. But when she turns away Alex goes back to whispering and laughing and he’s rolling up tiny little paper balls and tossing them into Oscar’s dark curly hair in front of him. It’s making me all hot and mad because he doesn’t have some stupid baseball diamond plan out on his desk to help him not be a jerk.

  Already I regret writing him an apology this weekend, even though I wrote it as a haiku, which Ms. Meg told us is the earliest form of poetry. But that’s not why I chose it. I chose it because it’s short.

  Alex, I’m sorry.

  That is all I have to say.

  That was the last time.

  Ms. Meg also taught us that you can interpret poetry in lots of different ways, so while most people think the last line means I won’t hit him again, you could also interpret it to mean that I won’t apologize again.

  But watching him laughing now with Ronald I’m wishing I never crumpled the apology haiku and tossed it in his cubby this morning because he doesn’t deserve to read it and he isn’t sorry about anything at all. And neither am I.

  I ask to go to the bathroom and maybe when I come back I’ll have missed the whole project and everyone will be done and presenting their family trees to the class and Ms. Meg will say, It’s OK, Robinson, you don’t have to do it because we’re moving on to the next thing. Then we’ll just go on to a different project and I’ll keep on being cool and letting things roll right off like Jackie Robinson and I’ll get through the morning just fine and Ms. Meg will draw a smiley face on first base and send me off to recess with Mr. Danny.

  Even though I take extra long in the bathroom and make laps around the fifth-grade floor, peeking my head in other homerooms to see if they’re doing stupid family trees too, which I can’t tell, when I get back Ms. Meg is still just explaining the project.

  “You get to create your family tree however you want,” Ms. Meg tells us. Brittany and Chelsea are whispering about papier-mâché at the table behind me, and I picture sticking it across their mouths and letting it harden so all their stupid words are stuck inside their mouths forever and they can never giggle at Alex Carter again.

  “Today we’ll start by doing a little writing just to get some ideas flowing about our families.”

  Everyone is unzipping their book bags and taking out their notebooks like they’re excited to get started. Except me. Ms. Meg says my name and gives me a look like she’s trying to remind me that I’m only one strike away from serious trouble. I yank hard on the zipper of my book bag. My notebook is tucked in the pocket of my baseball glove, which makes me even more mad because I wish it were recess.

  Candace has her head down on the table again, which is weird because she doesn’t seem like the head-down-on-the-table type of kid. I guess this project is so stupid that even the good students like Candace don’t want to do it.

  Ms. Meg makes her way over and pats Candace on the back.

  She sits up fast and whispers, “Sorry.”

  Derek nudges my elbow. “Rob, you OK?” He’s really good at knowing when something’s wrong. “I can help you—”

  “I’m fine,” I say, because he can’t help. Not with this.

  Ms. Meg has her notebook projected up on the Smart Board. It says Family Tree: Quick Writes.

  Quick Writes are basically writing prompts Ms. Meg gives us. They’re usually not so bad because we never have to write too much or for too long, but these ones will be bad.

  Derek nudges me again and looks at me like he wants to know if I’m really OK, and I shake him off because I’m trying my best not to be mad at him just because his family tree will probably be easy to make and have lots of branches.

  “Number one. I want you to write a list of three people who are important in your family,” Ms. Meg says.

  I clench down hard on my back teeth and try to remember as many baseball stats as I can. Career leader, stolen bases: Rickey Henderson, 1,406. Single-season leader, home runs: Barry Bonds, 73, 2001. But Ms. Meg is giving me that look, so I start writing really slow:

  Important People in My Family:

  Grandpa

  “I have seven so far,” someone whispers. And I’m trying to let it roll right off. I can see Derek’s list growing longer and longer in my peripheral vision, like I’m a pitcher and he’s got a good lead off first base.

  “Next question,” Ms. Meg announces finally. “This time we’ll write for two minutes without stopping.” Kids moan, not because they only have one family member, but because they don’t want to write for two minutes straight.

  “Number two,” she says. “Jot down any details you know of your birth. What have your family members told you about the day you were born? Ready? Set. Write.” And she starts the timer for two minutes.

  Most career ejections of a MLB manager: Bobby Cox, 158. But it doesn’t work because before I know it I’m standing up and about to turn the whole table over because this is such crap and I’m not making some stupid family tree project. And everyone is biting their pencils and writing their stories and sketching these gigantic trees with moms and dads and cousins and branches sticking out everywhere and I wish I had Grandpa’s ax, because I’d raise it up high over my head and chop them all down in one big swing.

  “Robbie.” Derek’s tugging on my arm, trying to get me to sit back down before I do something stupid.

  But then the door creaks open and everyone looks and it’s Ms. Gloria, and it’s the first time I’m hoping she takes me, because if she doesn’t I’m going to break something.

  “Robinson,” she says calm and low. “You look ready.” I’m thinking, Perfect timing, when she calls out, “Also, Candace, Oscar, and Alex. You’ll be coming with us too.”

  chapter 9

  This has to be some kind of joke. Like a really bad, unfunny joke.

  We’re all sitting around Ms. Gloria’s table in her little room. Alex is across from me. Kicking distance. Candace is next to me, and across from her is Oscar. His hair is still full of those little balled-up pieces of paper that
Alex was throwing at him in Ms. Meg’s room. Ms. Gloria sits at the head of the table.

  “You can’t keep me in here with her.” Alex pouts and points at me. He has a Band-Aid across his nose.

  “Scared?” I ask.

  Ms. Gloria’s giving us that look that tells us to cut the crap. “You done?”

  Alex and I both cross our arms and slump back in our chairs. Ms. Gloria gives me the sign to turn my hat backward, so I jerk it around hard.

  “Good,” Ms. Gloria says, all no-nonsense. “Then we can start.”

  She holds a wand in front of her that has purple and silver glitter floating slowly from the top to the bottom, then she turns it back over and the glitter starts falling again slowly, top to bottom. “This wand holds a lot of power,” she tells us.

  I’m waiting for someone to break through the door and say they’ve made a mistake and that I don’t have to sit across from Alex Carter ever again in my life and that Ms. Gloria is not about to put a spell on us with some stupid sparkly wand.

  “All the students who have ever participated in Group Guidance have held this wand when they speak up and share their feelings in the conversation,” she explains. “That’s why it’s so powerful. There are a lot of words and emotions and bravery captured in here.”

  “Group Guidance?” I scoff.

  Ms. Gloria tells us how we’ll be meeting in this group at least three times a week and how the wand is the talking wand and no one speaks unless they are holding it. I want to grab it from her so I can say, Is this for real? You put me in a group with Alex?

  Ms. Gloria can make me sit here, but there is no way I’m sharing any words or emotions or bravery or whatever else. If I just stay shut and refuse, maybe they’ll rethink my suspension so I can go do something worthwhile like help Grandpa in the garage.

  Ms. Gloria rips off a piece of chart paper and uncaps a black marker. I can smell its licorice from here. I hate licorice. “Before we begin, we have to make some rules together. Then once we make the rules, we have to promise to stick to them.”