The Waffler

by Gail Donovan

  “That’s him!” shouted Monty, pointing. “See the little kid with the buzz cut? Leo, hey, Leo!” He was waving like crazy and shouting, but he didn’t think Leo could hear. Then a big, booming shout rang out.

  “Leo!” roared Monty’s dad. “Leo!”

  Leo turned, saw Monty, and waved. Monty waved back. He felt his dad put an arm around his shoulders and squeeze him close. Monty didn’t dare look up. He was pretty sure his dad was crying again.

  They watched the rest of the parade—a group of marchers waving flags with doves, a fire engine, and finally a police car—and then listened to some speeches. Monty didn’t feel mad at his dad anymore. He just felt afraid he might make his dad sad again. Monty had known forever that his grandfather was dead, but he’d never realized what that meant. Granddad was his dad’s dad. The way Monty felt, thinking about this stuff, made him understand why his dad never talked about his father.

  At the very end, after all the speeches, the trumpet player from the high school band played a song all by himself. The crowd was totally silent while the trumpet notes hung in the sky, and Monty knew what he would pick, if he could ever talk his parents into letting him switch instruments again. The trumpet.

  Did he dare ask his dad right now? Making an important request called for good timing. Was this a good time or not? Maybe not, because he’d practically made his dad cry. But maybe yes, because here they were. Together. Monty was hardly ever alone with his dad.

  “Dad,” began Monty.

  “Let’s get home,” said his dad, setting off through the crowd.

  “Dad,” tried Monty again, trotting to keep up with his dad’s long strides. The gray sky was starting to drizzle and the crowd was quickly thinning, people running to their cars. “Dad, you know the trumpet?”

  “What about it?”

  That sounded like grumpy-dad. Grumpy-dad walking home in the drizzle that was turning to rain. Maybe this wasn’t a good time.

  “What?” demanded his dad.

  Definitely not a good time. “Nothing,” he said.

  “What?” repeated his dad. “Spit it out, Monty.”

  “Could I play trumpet?” he asked. “Instead of flute?”

  “You want to switch instruments?” asked his dad. “Again?”

  “Kind of,” admitted Monty.

  The sky was spitting rain for real now.

  “I don’t know, Monty. I’d like you to stick with something for once.”

  “I want to stick with Band,” protested Monty. “But I never really wanted to play flute.”

  The rain was coming down faster and his dad was walking faster, too. “Switching instruments isn’t going to solve anything. Sometimes you just have to stick with something until you get better.”

  “I’m not trying to solve anything,” said Monty. “I just want to play trumpet!”

  “I don’t know,” repeated his dad. “Let me talk to your mom.”

  Monty didn’t bother saying anything else. Monty’s dad talking to Monty’s mom was code for no. They walked the rest of the way up the hill in silence. By the time they turned onto Atlantic Street it was pouring rain. Monty wished he had never brought up the trumpet subject. The feeling he had when his dad gave him a sideways hug was gone. Now he was mad at his dad again, and his dad was mad at him again, too.

  And his dad didn’t waste any time changing his mind to be in a good mood. They walked though the back door, and pronto, his dad called Sierra into the kitchen. It was time for the talk.

  “Your mom and I both think it might be good to try this flip-flop idea—you and Sierra getting a little break from each other—just for a little while. What do you two think?”

  Monty didn’t need to think. This wasn’t something he needed to make up his mind about, like choosing between two flavors of ice cream. It was more like the question, Do you like ice cream? Of course. Do you want to stay with your twin sister? Of course! Sometimes they fought. Who cared? Sometimes he got sick of grown-ups thinking of him as half of you two. He was him! But neither of those things meant he didn’t want to live with Sierra. What was the point of that? The whole best thing about having a twin was always having somebody around—somebody who understood exactly how annoying it felt to be half of you two.

  But before he could explain all that, Sierra answered, “I don’t care.” Those were her exact words. I don’t care.

  She didn’t care? If Sierra didn’t care about being with him, why should he care about being with her? He was so mad at his sister for agreeing to flip-flop that he suddenly agreed, too.

  “I don’t care either,” he said. “We can flip-flop.”

  “You sure?” asked his dad. “Because if either of you don’t want to, we won’t. Even if it’s only for a little while, we need everybody on board. So, you’re sure you want to?”

  The truth was, Monty wasn’t sure. He’d only said he wanted to because he was mad. The truth was the exact opposite. The one thing he was sure of was that he didn’t want to.

  “I didn’t say I wanted to,” argued Monty. “I said I didn’t care, but if everybody else wants to, then, fine! Whatever!”

  Monty’s dad rubbed his smooth head, still shiny from the rain. “Now I’m totally confused,” he said. “But it sounds like you don’t like the idea. Maybe we should table it for a while.”

  “Table it?” asked Monty.

  “Wait and see,” explained his dad.

  Sierra groaned, “Maybe he should make up his mind once in a while!”

  “Sierra,” said their dad.

  “Dad,” said Sierra, mimicking the warning note in his voice.

  Monty was so sick of everybody being mad at him for changing his mind that he pretended he hadn’t. That he actually did want to flip-flop. “I made it up!” he blurted, pointing to his twin sister. “I don’t want to live with her.”

  When Monty’s class got to the satellite classroom the next morning he saw that Mrs. Calhoun had already changed the TODAY IS sign. Veterans Day had come and gone. Now the sign said THE NEXT HOLIDAY IS: THANKSGIVING. What Monty didn’t see was Leo.

  “I’m sorry, Monty,” said Mrs. Calhoun. “Leo is absent today.”

  Leo being absent meant that Reading Buddies was pretty boring. But Monty was psyched for circle time. Wednesday afternoon circle was for talking about the Hidden Treasures Expedition, and Monty figured he had discovered a pretty big piece of treasure: his Buddy was a Scout! How cool was that?

  “One two three,” sang Mrs. Tuttle after lunch as she clapped her hands three times, “eyes on me! Please come and sit criss-cross applesauce in our meeting circle.”

  Monty sat down cross-legged on the carpet between Lagu Luka and Devin Hightower, wondering if he could somehow get extra credit for his treasure.

  “Hi, Waffles,” said Devin.

  “Hi, Waffles!” echoed Lagu.

  Monty pasted a smile on his face. The smile was supposed to say, Ha-ha, no big deal. Except the smile was a total lie. He hated being called Waffles. Tristan Thompson-Brown had started it, and now everybody did it. The only person who didn’t was Jasmine. Maybe he’d go sit next to her. He started to get up and by mistake stepped on Lagu’s hand.

  “Ouch!” yelped Lagu.

  Monty got off Lagu’s hand quick as he could, but by mistake he bumped into Devin on the other side. That should have been no big deal except Devin made a big joke by shouting, “Get off me, Greene!” and scrambling away, bumping into Emma Robinson. Emma pulled away from Devin and knocked heads with Ella Bakunda. And Emma and Ella both shouted, “Monty, stop!”

  “Sorry,” said Monty, before he scooted around the circle and plopped down next to Jasmine.

  “Monty!” said Mrs. Tuttle. “What do you think you’re doing?”

  Monty couldn’t tell the whole truth—that he was getting away from kids calling him Waffles. He told
half the truth. “I wanted to sit somewhere else.”

  “You mean you picked a spot, and then changed your mind?”

  “I guess,” said Monty.

  “And do you see what happened?”

  “I moved?” he asked.

  “You hurt your classmates,” said Mrs. Tuttle.

  Monty thought that was taking it a little far. Yes, he’d stepped on Lagu’s hand, and he was sorry for that. But Devin had just been kidding around. And even though Emma and Ella hadn’t liked getting bumped into, he didn’t think they’d actually gotten hurt.

  “Monty, come here, please,” said Mrs. Tuttle, and off came decision-aid number one: Monty shouldn’t have changed his mind about where he was sitting.

  Sometimes Monty couldn’t believe grown-ups. How come they blamed you for something that wasn’t your fault? He wouldn’t have stepped on Lagu’s hand in the first place if Lagu and Devin hadn’t called him Waffles. And they wouldn’t have called him Waffles if Principal Edwards hadn’t called him a waffler. And Principal Edwards would never have called him a waffler if Mrs. Tuttle hadn’t made Monty go to the office just because he threw a pencil. It was so messed up!

  It was so messed up that Monty decided to make an even bigger mess. When Mrs. Tuttle asked if anybody had anything to share about their Buddy, he raised his hand. “I saw my Buddy march in the parade yesterday. And I have three more Buddies,” he announced.

  Mrs. Tuttle gave him a funny look. “Everyone has one Buddy,” she corrected.

  “Yeah but I’m, like, really popular,” said Monty. “All the kindergartners want to be my Buddy.”

  The other kids laughed, and Mrs. Tuttle put her hand to her mouth and turned an imaginary key, which meant everybody was supposed to keep their mouths closed with their words inside. Nobody was supposed to talk except her.

  “Monty, your Little Buddy is Leo Schwarz. You can’t decide to change Buddies. That’s not your decision to make.”

  “I didn’t change,” he said. “He’s still my Buddy. I just added more Buddies.”

  “Monty,” said Mrs. Tuttle. She paused, so he would know that what she was about to say was extra important. “We need cooperators in our classroom. Can you be a cooperator?”

  “I am!” said Monty. “This is like being extra cooperative! Because the name of the Expedition is Hidden Treasures, not Hidden Treasure, right? So the more Little Buddies I have the more I’m finding Hidden Treasures!”

  Jasmine spoke up, “It wasn’t really fair, ’cause some of the kids didn’t get Big Buddies, and they really wanted one!”

  Then Tristan Thompson-Brown said that it wasn’t fair for some kids to have more than one Buddy, so he wanted another one, too. Then more kids started talking out of turn. Mrs. Tuttle raised her hand in the air to signal for silence. She didn’t get silence, so she rose and walked to her desk and rang her special mallet on her special xylophone.

  A chime sounded through the room. Gong. A few kids quieted down. She rang it again—gong—and a few more kids stopped talking. After the third gong, the room was silent. So everybody heard when Mrs. Tuttle asked Monty to come to her desk and plucked off the second Band-Aid for changing his mind about his Kindergarten Buddy. Monty was about to point out that that wasn’t fair—he hadn’t changed his mind about Leo—when Mrs. Tuttle did something even more unfair. She yanked off the third Band-Aid for changing his mind about being a cooperator.

  “That’s not fair!” he objected. “You’re taking two Band-Aids for the same thing, and it isn’t even wrong!”

  Mrs. Tuttle shook her head, as if she was truly sad that Monty was such an uncooperative, indecisive kid. “Monty, I do not have time for this. You may go down to the office and tell Mrs. Tracy that you need to speak with the social worker.” She pointed to the door.

  Monty stepped out of the classroom and into the hallway. Before and after school the hall was jammed with kids and their backpacks, but not now. Now it was empty. It felt strange, being in the hallway all by himself. Walking slowly—because the last thing he wanted to do was talk with the social worker—he passed the fifth graders’ yellow lockers and the fourth graders’ green lockers and the third graders’ orange lockers. At the top of the stairs he stopped by the big window that overlooked the playground. The rain yesterday had ripped the last leaves from the branches, and all the trees stood bare and brown, like stick figures in a drawing. This is a tree. This is a person. This is a house.

  Some kids got to say, “Let’s play at my house,” and it meant only one thing. They had one house. One home. One family. They didn’t know how good they had it! Home used to be the house where Monty lived with his mom and his dad and Sierra. Then there were two different houses. Mom’s house and dad’s house. There were two different families. The Mom-Bob-Aisha-Sierra family and the Dad-Beth-Audrey-Sierra family. The only thing that stayed the same was Sierra. Who didn’t even care about keeping things the same!

  “Monty! Hey, wait up!”

  It was Lagu, holding a block of wood painted blue—the hallway bathroom pass.

  “What do you want?” demanded Monty. “To make fun of me some more?”

  “I didn’t know!” said Lagu.

  “Know what?”

  “I didn’t know you didn’t like Waffles,” said Lagu. “I thought it was okay ’cause those guys are your friends.”

  “That’s pretty stupid,” said Monty. “How would you like it if I called you Pancake?” he demanded. “Or French Toast?”

  Lagu made a serious face, as if he was seriously trying to think about how being called Pancake would make him feel. He held it until suddenly Monty burst out laughing, and then Lagu began laughing, and for a minute they both had a wicked bad fit of the giggles. Then, quickly, before somebody heard and came to investigate, they both pulled it together. They were alone in the hallway, which they shouldn’t be. Lagu was supposed to be in the bathroom, and Monty was supposed to be in the office.

  Except Monty suddenly decided he wasn’t going to the office. He didn’t want to find out what happened after the third Band-Aid came off. He wasn’t going to talk to the social worker. He had somewhere else to go.

  “Hey, Lagu,” he said. “Want to do me a favor?”

  “Sure!” agreed Lagu. “Like what?”

  Monty told Lagu his idea. They would go downstairs. Lagu would go into the office and get Mrs. Tracy’s attention so she would have her eye on Lagu, not on the window that overlooked the lobby. Not on Monty, sneaking out.

  “You’re leaving?” asked Lagu, a note of awe in his voice. Kids never left school during the day. Not by themselves.

  “I’m leaving,” said Monty.

  “Wow,” said Lagu. “You’re going to be in so much trouble!”

  “I’m already in trouble,” said Monty. “You in?”

  Nodding, Lagu whispered, “I’m in.”

  They tiptoed down the big stairwell to the front lobby, which was empty. Lagu hurried into the office and started waving his arms around, getting Mrs. Tracy’s attention so her back was to the big glass window. Now!

  Monty pushed against the big, heavy doors, feeling every second as if a troll was going to come rushing out and shout, “You can’t cross over my bridge!”

  But no shout came.

  Outside, the air felt washed clean after yesterday’s rain. The sky was bright blue, as if it had been scrubbed. Monty started walking away. He couldn’t believe how easy it was to leave! How come kids didn’t walk out all the time? He kept going, past the playground, past the weedy, jungly place between where the playground ended and the houses began, and on down North Street. He was home free!

  He wasn’t home free.

  Or, he was home free for about an hour.

  “Monty,” said Mrs. Schwarz when she answered his knock on the door. “Is school out already? Down, Noodle!” she said, holding onto the golden ret
riever’s collar so it wouldn’t jump on Monty. She had the same golden red hair as the dog. “Come on in. Leo will be so happy to see you.”

  “Is he sick?”

  “Not exactly.” Lowering her voice, she started to explain, “We just got some big news this morning, and Leo was kind of upset—” when Leo’s voice drowned out his mom’s.

  “You saw me!” Leo came bounding down the stairs and wrapped his arms around Monty’s waist. “You saw me! You saw me! You saw me!”

  “I saw you, Scout guy.”

  “I’m a Lion Cub!”

  “Totally,” agreed Monty. “I totally saw you being a Lion Cub Scout.”

  “That was so sweet of you, Monty,” said Mrs. Schwarz with a big smile. Still smiling, she looked down at the watch on her wrist. When she looked up again, she wasn’t smiling anymore, but all she said was, “Why don’t you two play while I make you a snack? Nachos sound good?”

  Monty checked out Leo’s room and read Leo a story, and then the nachos were ready. Monty had just put the last cheesy chip in his mouth when there was a knock on the door, and Mrs. Schwarz went to answer it. Monty’s hour of freedom was over.

  “Thank you so much for calling,” said his dad in a grim voice.

  “Monty!” said his mom.

  And the policewoman got on her radio. “Dispatch? This is twenty-five sixteen. My forty is 267 North Street. I’ve got the missing boy.”

  “Monty,” said his mom, “what are you doing here?”

  “I”—began Monty, but couldn’t finish his answer because his parents kept lobbing questions at him.

  “What made you think you could just walk out of school?” demanded his dad. “Do you know how much trouble you caused?”