Sophomores and Other Oxymorons

by David Lubar

  October 9

  Sean, my biology notebook is due tomorrow. This is a big part of our grade for the marking period. I spent three hours going over it tonight. I double-checked every fact against the textbook. And I checked everything against my class notes. It’s perfect. There isn’t a single thing I can lose points for. Even the grammar is perfect, not that Ms. Denton would care. If she’s at all fair about grading, she has to give me a hundred. Maybe that will get her off my back. After school tomorrow, I can take a break. Believe it or not, Lee allowed Wesley and me to convince her to go to the Columbus Day football game at school. I don’t think she’s ever been to a game. I hope she likes it.

  “Wow, look at all the little kids,” Wesley said.

  “Everyone looks little to you,” I said.

  “Where should we sit?” Lee asked.

  “Near the top,” I said. “We want to be able to see everything.”

  We threaded our way up the home team bleachers. A lot of people shifted when Wesley came near. I suspect more than a few of them had donated their lunch money to him during the years he was in school.

  “It’s going to be weird not covering the game.” I spotted the two freshmen from the newspaper, Teresa and Doug, standing right by the fence at the edge of the field. So far, they’d done a good job reporting on the games. Though they didn’t get very creative.

  “Think of it this way: You can relax and watch the game,” Lee said.

  “I’m not sure I know how to do that,” I said. “I spent all of last year trying not to miss anything important.”

  “Sounds stressful,” Lee said.

  “Nah. It was fun, once I got used to it.”

  The other team kicked off. One of our guys—I think it was Dominic Manzini—caught the ball just behind the five-yard line and started a run straight up the middle. Then, breaking a tackle, he cut to the left and plowed through an opening, right between two defenders.

  “Whoa,” Wesley said.

  “He’s going all the way!” I said as Dominic reached the fifty.

  By then, the whole crowd was standing and screaming. Dominic nearly got tackled on the twenty, but he shook that off, too, slipped past the last defender’s desperate dive near the ten, and cruised into the end zone.

  “Sweet,” I said.

  I looked at Lee. She’d stood, too. Her face was alive.

  “Fun?” I asked.

  “Fun,” she said.

  I couldn’t have wished for a better start to Lee’s first football game. “He broke through the defense like it was made of moonlight,” I said. I liked that phrase. It was a keeper. I reached for my pad to write a description of the run. I had no pad.

  “Is every play this exciting?” Lee asked.

  “Not exactly. But that’s part of the fun.”

  October 11

  You’re actually making human speech sounds, Sean. I thought it was babbling, but Mom said it’s called cooing because it all pretty much sounds like vowels right now. But that gives me hope we’ll be able to belt out parts of “Old MacDonald” together pretty soon. If people can teach parrots to recite the Gettysburg Address, I don’t see why I can’t teach you to go “E-I-E-I-O.”

  “If you are interested in running for class president or student council, pick up an information sheet at the front office,” the principal said during morning announcements on Tuesday.

  When I got to geometry, Lee said, “Running?”

  “Sitting,” I said.

  “As in sitting it out?” she asked.

  “Exactly.” I’d been on student council for a while last year, for all the wrong reasons. I’d seen enough to know it wasn’t something I’d enjoy doing again.

  “You might have a shot at president,” Lee said. “You’re not exactly unpopular.”

  You just want to be first lady.

  That was the joke that popped into my mind. Luckily, it didn’t all pop out of my mouth. I got as far as “You just want to be” when I realized that first lady implied a much more serious relationship than we currently had. I scrambled to think of a neutral way to finish the sentence.

  “Be what?” Lee asked.

  “A campaign manager,” I said.

  “Dream on.”

  And so I did. But I had something I wanted to ask her. I thought about it all through geometry and history, and all through lunch. There was a school dance the Friday after next.

  “Hey,” I said as we were getting up from the table.

  “What?” she asked.

  The words should have flowed. Six words. Six syllables. Eighteen letters. Want to go to the dance? Nothing flowed. The words had formed a logjam. Lee frowned. The silence grew.

  “What?” she asked again.

  I pointed at her tray. “You didn’t finish your fries.”

  “As usual,” she said.

  That was true. She rarely finished her fries. She tended to eat slowly, and as I’d mentioned, the fries tended to get exponentially less edible as they cooled.

  “Did you want them?” she asked.

  “Yeah. Sure.” What else could I say?

  “All yours.” She put the tray on the table in front of me. “Eat up.”

  “Thanks.” I took one of the cold, greasy fries and started to chew. It was like eating a buttered slab of congealed mayonnaise, wrapped in raw bacon.

  As I swallowed my clotted-starch treat, I thought about Ms. Denton’s class. This is a mistake. The single fry felt like it was expanding in my stomach. I could picture it sending tendrils throughout my digestive system. Or evacuation notices. Lee stared at me. I ate the rest of the fries.

  As if the barely edible fries weren’t enough of a burden on my gut, the dark look of glee Ms. Denton gave me when I walked into class was sufficient to make my stomach tighten. I was pretty sure she had something special waiting for me.

  SIXTEEN

  I hope you all like seafood,” Ms. Denton said after we’d been seated.

  I just knew she was going to bring out a preserved shark and give me the honor of making the first cut. What she didn’t know was that I’d been fishing for most of my life. And one of the first things my dad insisted on was that if you were going to catch and eat a fish, you had to know how to clean it. So, while I was definitely not eager to explore mammalian anatomy, I was okay with the piscine sort. A shark, or a perch, or a trout would have been just fine with me. I could cut one open.

  It turned out to be a different branch of sea life.

  We each got an oyster. That was fine, too. I’d helped chop clams up for bait when I’d gone deep-sea fishing with my dad and my uncles.

  “You going to be okay?” Lee asked when Ms. Denton plopped my oyster in front of me.

  “I’m looking forward to this,” I said, loudly enough so the teacher would hear.

  “Now, I’m worried about you,” Lee said.

  We got to work. The fries still exerted some pressure, but it wasn’t anything I couldn’t control.

  “I found a pearl!” Lee said after she began cutting.

  “I found ooze,” I said.

  But I felt I’d turned a corner in this class. I was doing good work, participating, taking pages and pages of notes, and studying hard for each test. The only casualties in the room right now were the oysters. No matter how much Ms. Denton had it out for me, I could cross biology class off my list of problems. And that left just English standing in the way of an enjoyable sophomore year and a decent grade-point average.

  Ms. Denton handed back our biology notebooks about five minutes before the class ended. When she gave mine to me, she smiled that same dark smile.

  The oyster, it seemed, was a red herring. The notebook was her dark surprise.

  I looked at the cover page. A sixty?

  What the heck . . . ?

  Under that, in
red marker, she’d written, “Where are the illustrations?”

  Illustrations?

  I turned to Lee and spoke that word.

  “Yeah. Of course. It’s a biology notebook. It’s sort of useless without drawings.” She flipped hers open, but not before I spotted the ninety-seven on the cover. She thumbed to a page, revealing several neatly labeled drawings. She flipped past other pages, all heavily illustrated.

  “I didn’t know . . . ,” I said.

  “How could you not?” Lee said. “That was one of the first things she told us.”

  “When was that?” I asked.

  “The first day.”

  “Probably at the same time I was taking the mop and bucket back to the janitor’s closet,” I said.

  “After you puked.”

  “Thanks for reminding me.”

  Would there be any point in asking for a second chance? There wasn’t any way I could do all the drawings. Maybe I could get her to show me a bit of mercy. It hadn’t been my fault I was out of the room when she mentioned that requirement.

  I walked up to the front table.

  “No,” she said.

  “No to what?” I asked.

  “Anything you are about to ask,” she said. “Just no.”

  “But I was out of the room when you told the class there had to be illustrations,” I said.

  “It was also at the back of the guidelines,” she said.

  That put an end to my plea. I remembered getting the guidelines, glancing at them, and tossing them on my desk back home. As I returned to my seat, I spotted Ike’s notebook. He’d also been out of the room. He had an eighty-five. I was pretty sure Chelsea had illustrations, too. I was the only unwise sophomore in the room.

  Zenger Zinger for October 14

  Last week’s answer: “Edgar Allan wrote some less serious works,” John Peter said politely.

  This week’s puzzle: “Fee, foe, fum,” John Peter said _________.

  Wednesday, in English, we got our short stories back. This was the first time I’d had a chance to write fiction for Mrs. Gilroy. I didn’t have high hopes that she’d like my story, but when she dropped it on my desk, I saw that even my lowest hopes weren’t depressed enough to match reality. I’d gotten a seventy-five.

  I was so used to getting shot down by her that I didn’t even let out a moan. But I was curious which obscure, obsolete, or arbitrary rule I’d broken this time. Nothing was circled on the first page. Nothing on the second or third. I turned to the last page. Scrawled in red across the final paragraph were three words: “deus ex machina.”

  Huh? I wasn’t even sure how to pronounce that.

  When I got to the newspaper meeting, I showed Mr. Franka that page. He glanced at it, then said, “God from a machine. In ancient Greek performances, the actors would get themselves into a mess. Then one of the gods would come down from above, lowered with ropes in a basket, and save the day.”

  “That sounds sort of cool.” I guess the ancient Greek stage-crew guys were pretty strong.

  “It probably was, way back then,” he said. “But, these days, when your story problems are solved by someone who just shows up, or by some other sort of miracle, that’s deus ex machina. And that’s not a good thing.”

  “Is it bad enough to earn a seventy-five?” I asked.

  “Do you think you’ll ever make that mistake again?” he asked.

  “No way.”

  “Then I think the grade served its purpose.”

  • • •

  Two days later, I got called down to the guidance office.

  Mr. Tivelli looked at the open folder in front of him as if it were an AP Bio cat. “Hmmmm.” Then he looked up from the file and stared across the desk at me. “You’re nearly failing both biology and English. How do you feel about your grades?”

  “I feel bad,” I said.

  “Badly,” he said.

  He was wrong. Bad was correct. I wanted to stand up for myself. He was giving me a character test, and he wasn’t even aware of it. If I corrected him, he’d get angry, and he’d probably find some way to make me suffer. Or maybe he’d write something really terrible in my records. Guidance counselors had a lot of power.

  “I don’t feel good about them,” I said. I came dangerously close to saying, “I don’t feel goodly,” to point out why badly was wrong. But that wouldn’t have been good, either. Or goodly. The moment of crisis ended as he moved on from the impromptu grammar lesson.

  “What do you think we should do about these grades?” he asked.

  “Try harder?” I guessed.

  “That would be a good start.” He closed the folder with the triumphant finality of someone who has just solved a massive engineering problem. “Look at this as an opportunity to do better, Mr. Hudson.”

  “I’ll do my bestly,” I said. But I said it very quietly, after I left his office.

  • • •

  Painfully participating in the political process by producing poorly phrased passages and plodding poetry, people proposed platforms and pled for patronage. I survived the candidates’ student-council speeches we sat through in the assembly on Monday. Later that day, in English, Mrs. Gilroy touched on paroemion, a term for excessive alliteration. The technique did not get her approval.

  October 21

  The first school dance is on Friday. I don’t know what to do. I’d like to go with Lee. I want to ask her. I already tried, once. But I chickened out. Actually, I French-fried out. It’s kind of like a minefield with her, when it comes to social stuff. She made fun of dances last year. But then we ended up going to one. And it was an amazing night. There’s no way I’ll ever capture that magic exactly the same way. And I’m not trying to. But I’d like to dance with her again. And I think she’d like to dance with me. I keep thinking of that hug she gave me last month. A hug is like a very short dance. Without music. I want a longer dance.

  Zenger Zinger for October 21

  Last week’s answer: “Fee, foe, fum,” John Peter said defiantly.

  This week’s puzzle: “I love channel surfing from my couch,” John Peter said _________.

  “Who wants to cover the dance?” Sarah asked.

  I realized that if I was covering the dance for the paper, I could tell Lee I had to go, and ask her to come along to keep me company. By the time I’d explored that thought and envisioned several outcomes, five hands had gone up. Including Jeremy’s.

  “You don’t want to do that,” I said.

  “Why?”

  “Imagine an adhesive bandage being ripped off your arm. You know what that feels like?”

  “Sure.”

  “Now, imagine a thousand bandages.”

  “Ouch.”

  “Yeah.”

  I sat back as Richard and Edith decided to split the assignment, and write the article from two perspectives. I had to admit that was a pretty good idea.

  Dear Mouth,

  I’m glad you’re feeling better. Sorry it took me a while to write back to you. I’ve been pretty busy. Things are good here. My mom had the baby. Sean isn’t scary. Unless you’re terrified of moisture and stench. I’m on the paper. I haven’t written much yet. But I’m going to be doing opinion pieces and news features. I don’t have a girlfriend. Lee and I are friends. Do you remember her? She had a lot of piercings and wore dark and gory shirts. You know who I mean. They all called her “Weirdly” when she got here. But she’s not weird. She’s really smart. She reads a lot. She likes the stuff I like. Except for slot cars. (Though I think she might like them, too.) So we have a lot in common. Her father scares me. But I think that’s his job. I have to get going. I’m glad you wrote to me. It was a nice surprise.

  From equally far away,

  Scott Hudson

  SEVENTEEN

  Thursday night, right after din
ner, the doorbell rang. I opened the door, and experienced that weird jolt you get when you see someone unexpectedly. I knew the face well, but never imagined I’d encounter it on my porch this year.

  “Hi, Scott,” Kyle’s father said. “Haven’t seen you in a while.”

  “Guess not. . . .”

  “Kyle’s been pretty involved with his wrestler friends.” He poked my shoulder. “You’re a strong kid. You should go out for the team.”

  “I’m not much of a wrestler,” I said. I guess Kyle was as enthusiastic about sharing social updates or upheavals with his parents as I was.

  “You never know until you try. Hey, I don’t want to hold you up. I’m sure you’ve got stuff to do. I’m meeting your dad. Can you let him know I’m here?”

  “Uh, yeah. Come in. Have a seat. I’ll get him. He’s in the garage.”

  “That’s just like him. Can’t keep his hands off cars.”

  I went to the garage. “Dad, Mr. Bartock is here.”

  “Thanks, Scott.” Dad grabbed a rag and wiped his hands. He stepped away from the car with a wistful look. I think, in a perfect world, he’d just fix cars right here in our garage.

  “He’s your partner?” I asked.

  “Yeah. You don’t hang out with Kyle anymore, do you?”

  “We drifted apart,” I said. Like the shell of a hand grenade.

  “It happens. Who knows? Maybe you’ll drift together. Especially if I’m in business with his dad. You boys could become good friends again.”

  “Anything could happen, I guess.”

  It wasn’t impossible, but it sure wasn’t likely. Until the deal was done, and the contracts signed, Kyle could threaten to make trouble. He could tell his dad anything. I just didn’t trust Kyle anymore, especially when he had some sort of power over me. As I headed up to my room, I thought about things that were more probable than a happy reunion with him. When I got upstairs, I jotted down my list.

  Things That Will Happen Before Kyle and I Are Friends Again

  1. Mr. Cravutto replaces laps around the track with poetry readings.