Starring Jules (third grade debut)

by Beth Ain

  “I’m soooo tired!” Big Henry moans as my mom hoists him up farther onto her.

  “Can I have a playdate during sitcom practice tomorrow?” he asks. His voice is making me feel itchy.

  “Can I have a playdate instead of sitcom practice?” I ask, knowing that the answer will be no and knowing that even asking this question is going to drive my mom crazy.

  She just looks at me. “Neither one of you needs a playdate for tomorrow’s sitcom practice because tomorrow we are going for Jules’s checkup. Problem solved!” Her voice makes it sound like the problem isn’t solved at all, but I remember to get back to squinting so I am good and ready for my eye exam.

  When we finally get home, I open up my folder while my mom makes dinner. All I want is one of my dad’s homemade meatballs and a whole pile of spaghetti, but my mom is going to give me plain pasta and broccoli, I just know it. And that means Ugly Otis will get a very nutritious meal and I will go to bed thinking about ground-up steak.

  I hear another giant moan come out of Big Henry, and this time it is because he has homework to do. He is stuck on reading the word cat. CAT! I am sitting here doing about a hundred math problems and I still have to memorize my multiplication tables AND read for thirty whole minutes. I kick him under the table.

  “HEY!” he yells. Now I am really mad because now my mom is going to get mad at me and it’s all because of Big Henry I-Have-NOTHING-to-Moan-About Bloom.

  My mom turns around and stares at us from the stove. She asks a question with her eyebrows, and the answer is, “Jules kicked me!”

  “He was whining!” I yell. “And I have to concentrate.”

  “Go concentrate in your room,” she says. “Now. And take an apple with you. You’re probably hungry and tired. Dinner will be ready in fifteen minutes. And stop squinting!” she yells. “You’re going to need glasses if you keep that up.”

  I smile the whole way to my room. Yes! But the feeling goes away quickly because there is nothing worse than having to eat an apple when what you really want is a meatball. I plop down on my floor and take one bite before I put it carefully on the other side of our room-divider curtain. Now the once-bitten apple will live on Big Henry’s side of the room and he will have to do something about it at bedtime. I do all my work and it feels like it is going to be midnight before I finish, which doesn’t even count all the time I spend thinking about that behavior chart and Charlotte’s glasses and when, when, when Mr. Santorini will tell us what the wax museum is.

  I hear my mom raising her voice trying to get Hank to make his Cs a little nicer, and I wish life was kindergarten-simple again. I make really good Cs.

  I wake up in a better mood because Grandma Gilda calls first thing and Big Henry brings her to me under my covers.

  “Eddie,” she says into my ear.

  “George,” I say back. Ever since I came up with the idea to call her George, the nickname has stuck. It’s our thing.

  “I’m calling with some morning positive affirmations,” she says. Positive affirmations are Grandma Gilda’s thing. “Today is going to be a great third-grade day,” she says.

  “Today is going to be a great third-grade day,” I say, yawning.

  “Today is going to be a great Look at Us Now! day,” she says.

  “Today is going to be a great Look at Us Now! day,” I say.

  “Today I will change my name to Pickle,” she says.

  “Today I will change my name to …” I stop. “HEY!” I shout.

  Then I hear Big Henry outside of my covers. He is hysterically laughing. I throw off the covers and look at my brother.

  “I said it. I said I was going to change my name to Pickle,” he says. Then he sits down on the floor and rolls around in fake laughter.

  “You got Big Henry,” I tell Grandma Gilda. “But you did not get me, George.”

  “Almost, Eddie. Al-most,” she says.

  “You are too far away,” I say. “Next time you try to play a trick on me, come to New York City and do it.”

  “Okey doke!” she says.

  When I come into the kitchen my dad is getting a lick from Ugly Otis. “Why does Ugly Otis have broccoli breath?” he asks me.

  “Why don’t you go on a big-time reality cooking show?” I say back. This is a good distraction.

  “You’re changing the subject,” he says, smiling. I wish I could reverse the days so this part happens last. It would be so much better if my dad could help me with multiplication and shine his bright smile on us when the sun is going down and I have no more energy. But now that BLOOM is open, I only see him in the morning because he spends every night at work.

  “Well, why don’t you?” I ask. “We could be like the Summers family if you win!”

  “Yeah!” Big Henry says, and his voice is still annoying to me even this morning after all that sleep.

  “Do you really want to be like the Summers family?” he asks. “Aren’t the parents never, ever home?”

  “Uncle Ike is home. He takes care of them,” Big Henry says. Big Henry is a Look at Us Now! expert.

  “I have an idea,” I say. “Uncle Michael could take care of us!”

  “Yeah!” Hank cheers. Uncle Michael is like a rock star. He shows up with his guitar and we sing and dance and make videos on his computer and he pushes us way too high on the swing at Hippo Playground and he makes you feel like you’re on vacation when you haven’t even gone anywhere different.

  “Oh, right,” my mom says. “I’d like to see that. You’d be eating takeout every night and playing video games till three a.m.”

  “That’s why it would be fun,” I say.

  “And that’s why Daddy isn’t trying out for any big-time TV cooking shows,” my mom says.

  “And also because I have a restaurant to run. Remember?” my dad asks. “Some people don’t just go on TV and become stars, Jules Bloom. Some people do things the old-fashioned way.”

  “Did you have phones in the old-fashioned time?” Hank asks.

  “Did you have roads in the old-fashioned time?” I ask, squinting. I’m trying to squint as much as possible before today’s doctor’s appointment. My dad shakes his spatula at us and Big Henry and I crack up. George’s positive affirmations are working already!

  Outside, it is raining, but I don’t get mad. At least it isn’t hot and sticky, for once. It is going to be a great third-grade day, I think. We hustle across Broadway and my foot lands smack in the middle of slimy sidewalk-corner water. It is going to be a great third-grade day, I think again. Then my mom’s umbrella turns inside out, and we miss the bus by about one half of a second. I look at my mom and her broken umbrella and her wet self and I think that she is going to explode. Since I am the one who usually explodes and she is the one who puts me back together, I decide to help. “Today I will change my name to Pickle,” I say.

  My mom just looks at me like I’m nutso and smiles. “Thanks, Pickle,” she says. And just like that, another bus arrives.

  Today, Mr. Santorini tells us to take our seats extra quick. Then he hands out bandanas to everyone. “Line up at the door and tie ’em over your eyes, sailors! No jumping jacks this morning. No jogging, either. Today’s for something different.” I think it’s funny that he doesn’t think jumping jacks and jogging aren’t something different, but I don’t think about that for too long.

  Elinor and I look at each other before we tie our bandanas on. She mouths What on earth? to me and I smile-squint big at her. We put them on and we are then led in a line down the hallway, hands on each other’s shoulders, to a dark room. I know it’s dark because the lights are off, not because of a blackout or something, but my legs shake anyway. I can’t teach my legs not to shake when it gets dark all of a sudden. They don’t know something amazing is about to happen. Something amazing like music in the dark at school. A voice tells us to take off our bandanas. When we do, we’re in the cafetorium, and there is Avery on the stage and all these flashing lights and she is dressed up with sunglass
es, leading all three third-grade teachers in a rap.

  And the rap goes like this:

  This is the moment you are waiting for….

  Want to be Roosevelt, El-ea-nor?

  Do you like hockey and bas-ket-ball?

  Do you wanna be a scientist like Jane Goodall?

  Maybe you are more of an acting type,

  Or maybe Wilbur or Orville Wright?!

  Do you like politics or history?

  Want to learn about John F. Kennedy?

  Want to see what made Julie Andrews sing,

  Or everything about Dr. Martin Luther King?

  Whoever it is, whatever you be-a

  We can’t wait to see who plays

  Sacagawea, Sac-Sac-a-ga-wea!

  So we’ll start today because you have to meet ’em.

  Three weeks to go until the wax mu-se-um!

  We all cheer our heads off, and clap and hoot and holler and something tells me this rap thing was all Avery’s idea. Rap and tapas. That’s just her thing. I feel the best kind of butterflies in my stomach — not the nervous, going-to-throw-up kind, but the excited, how-did-I-ever-live-before-this-news kind. When we finally settle down, we are told that each class will get a special library session today to look at biographies and decide who we will want to be in the wax museum project. Then we will research every little thing about the person we choose and we will write reports on them and make a timeline and then — and this is the BEST part of all — on the day of the wax museum, we get to dress up like them and stand in a room like a real wax museum! I don’t even know what a real wax museum is, but it sounds AMAZING and interesting and it is my absolute favorite thing that has ever happened since the second-grade hoedown.

  And now I finally have some exciting things to write about this school year that have nothing to do with jumping jacks or glasses. And the best news is, I feel like writing a list! I can’t wait to tell Jordana.

  I love blindfolds.

  I love the wax museum.

  I love third grade.

  On our way back to the classroom, I finally see Avery — er, Ms. Kaplan — in the hallway, and she sticks out her tongue at me when no one is looking. I stick mine out VERY quickly and stick it back in again. Then we go back to being our school-time selves.

  I think I spend the entire next forty-five minutes bouncing my knee because that is how long it takes before it is time for Mr. Santorini’s third-grade class to get our turn in the library. I love the library because it smells like old books, which is not a gross and dusty smell but the pretty smell other people’s hands leave behind when they flip pages of books they love. And because there is a corner where I sit when I make my book selection each week and it is cozy and I could stay there all afternoon reading, especially if it is an Amber Brown since Amber Brown just seems like someone who would do handstands with Elinor and me all afternoon (and then worry about third grade with just me all evening). But mostly I love the library because Mrs. Noone — whose name makes me think of noon, as in lunch, and as in a bright and cheerful break smack in the middle of a long school day — is the librarian. She helps me find books that I will like even if they don’t have Amber Brown in them. (As in, she knows I will read just about anything that has to do with the stars and the moon and astronauts.)

  “Who are you going to choose, Jules?” Elinor asks after Mrs. Noone gives us all kinds of books to look at. “So far I like Amelia Earhart and the Queen of England, or maybe Serena Williams,” she says. She sounds so excited.

  “Oooh, the Queen of England is a good one,” Charlotte says. This sounds like a compliment, which makes me very suspicious. “Let me know if you don’t choose her.”

  “Okay,” Elinor says, looking at me and crinkling her eyebrows. I shrug back. “I’m probably not going to choose her. That would be too obvious.”

  “Well, I’m going with da Vinci,” Teddy says.

  “Da Vinci the artist?” Charlotte asks.

  “Yep,” he says.

  “The one who painted the Mona Lisa?” she asks.

  “Yes,” he says.

  “You, Teddy Lichtenstein, are choosing an artist?” she asks. “I don’t get it.” There’s the old Charlotte.

  “He was a scientist, Stinkytown. What’s to get?” Teddy shakes his head at her and puts his hands out like Big Henry does when he hand-talks like a grown-up. And Elinor and I burst out laughing because he actually called her Stinkytown to her face and it is very funny, but I also feel kind of terrible about it.

  “My name is Pinkerton, Charlotte Pinkerton,” she says, and now this reminds all of us of Mr. Santorini calling us all by our last names first and we all burst out laughing, even Charlotte, until Mrs. Bright-as-the-Sunshine-at-Noone comes over to shush us.

  “Have you decided, Jules?” she asks.

  “Amber Brown?” I ask, squinting. I’m getting so used to squinting, I forget I’m doing it.

  “Has to be a real person,” she says. “Maybe Judy Garland or Katharine Hepburn for you,” she says. “Old-fashioned Hollywood actresses!” Her eyes get wide when she says this, and even though those ladies sound very interesting and important, when I look at their biographies, I just don’t think they’re very me. And this makes me think that actresses are something else. Something glamorous and elegant and talented — talented in a different way than the cast of Look at Us Now! Talented like the people who hold up trophies on awards shows and say lovely things in speeches. I think if I were ever talented like that, and someone decided to give me an award for it, I’d probably trip up the stairs and then forget what I was going to say when I got to the microphone.

  I shake my head at her.

  “Well, selections need to be in by Friday, and then you’ll have two more weeks to do your research, make your timeline, and design your costumes,” she says. “Come to me if you need more ideas.” I look around at Teddy, who is bursting with excitement over da Vinci; at Elinor, who likes so many different people she’s practically jumping up and down; and at Charlotte, who probably knows exactly who she will choose and who will probably have the absolutely best costume, since her mom is an actual costume designer. I go from feeling very excited to feeling very lost. Right now, I wish I had the writers from Look at Us Now! working for me. Then, in parentheses, the script would say, (Jules chooses_____________) and I would know exactly what to do next.

  By the time the end of the day comes, my head is so tired from thinking about the wax museum and my eyes are so tired from fake-squinting that I think I might need a doctor for real, which is a good thing, since that’s where we’re going.

  The good news is, the rain has gone away and it has turned into a cooler day. I am excited to be wearing a corduroy skirt (finally!) with argyle tights and turquoise rain boots. There are even some leaves blowing up around us and I feel like fall is on its way. I zip up while we wait for the bus.

  I tell my mom all about the wax museum and the rap and she asks who I’m going to be.

  I shrug.

  “Want me to help you think of someone?” she asks.

  “Maybe,” I say, but I want to change the subject. The bus comes just in time. “Will there be shots?” I ask my mom once we’re seated.

  “I honestly don’t know,” she says.

  I stare out the window feeling nervous and wondering why I pushed for a doctor’s appointment anyway. I mean, I have to miss Look at Us Now! rehearsal. But then I picture Charlotte and her polka-dot glasses and I remember. She just looks so different and so smart and so … different. I picture myself walking into school tomorrow with glasses — Turquoise with stripes? Argyle, like my favorite socks? — and I feel like squealing. Between that and the wax museum, this really would be the best school year ever. I almost forget all about the possible shots until I picture a nurse coming at me with a big smile and a syringe. I feel my knees start to shake, so I try to distract myself with a list.

  The Good Things About Missing Rehearsal:

  I was so frustrated yesterda
y I thought I might explode, so a little tiny shot might be better than a full-body explosion.

  I still don’t know how to be a ventriloquist’s dummy since acting like a real dummy means acting like a doll and not like a human person and I barely know how to act like a human person in the first place.

  Big Henry got his playdate after all. He went home with a new kindergarten friend named Marco, which means that he is not here to drive me crazy and it also means that he has a friend.

  We hop off the bus and head down the street to the doctor’s office. I play a game of dodging all the black gum marks on the sidewalk and think about how the mayor once went on TV to tell everyone not to toss their gum on the sidewalk and now every time I look at those marks I think that it was gum and that it was once inside someone’s mouth and so I absolutely cannot touch even the sole of my shoe to something that was once inside someone else’s mouth.

  And right after they weigh me, and measure me, and check my reflexes with the rubber hammer, the big moment arrives. They guide me to two plastic footprints on the floor and I put my feet on top of them. I say a little prayer inside my head before I look up from my feet. Please let the letters be blurry. Pretty, pretty please.

  “Let’s go, Julesie,” my mom says. “Show off your twenty-twenty vision.”

  I look at the chart while my mom goes on and on to the nurse about how we come from a long line of perfect vision. No glasses in sight. Ha, ha, ha. My stomach drops down to the footprints on the floor. The letters aren’t even a little bit blurry. I think for one whole minute about pretending I can’t see them just so I can go shopping for glasses with my mom and without Big Henry, and just so I can make that big entrance at school. But as I stare at the big E, I know I can’t. I know I will never need glasses, and I know this means third grade will never be as perfect as I wanted it to be.