Sophomores and Other Oxymorons

by David Lubar

  This week’s puzzle: “The weapon was a lead pipe,” John Peter said _________.

  The next morning on the bus, Jeremy was grinning so hard, I was afraid his cheeks would rip.

  “What?” I asked.

  “You’ll see.”

  “Tell me.”

  “You have to wait until the meeting.”

  “I could dangle you out the window.”

  “You’re not a thug.”

  “I guess I’ll have to wait.”

  “It will be worth it.”

  TWENTY

  I have an idea.” Jeremy pulled a thick document from his backpack and dropped it on the table.

  “We should wait for Mr. Franka,” Sarah said.

  “He’s got a staff meeting,” I said. “He told me to tell everyone to go ahead without him.”

  “Okay.” Sarah pointed at the stack of paper in front of Jeremy. “What’s that?”

  “The school budget,” he said.

  “But the budget was defeated,” I said.

  “No. The discretionary items in the supplemental budget were defeated, as was the increase for the main budget. The school has to have a budget. They asked for more money for this year to cover increased expenses and a shortfall in state funds, which meant the voters would have to approve a rise in taxes. That got defeated, so the school has to get by on the same amount of money from the residents as last year. The district receives a specific amount of money from local taxes, along with state and federal contributions. All of those dollars are allocated by the school board into expenditures such as salaries, textbook purchases, building maintenance, and so on. That allocation becomes the budget. Get it?”

  I nodded, as did the others around the table. I didn’t totally get all the details, but I grasped the basic idea.

  Jeremy flipped to a page where one line was circled in black marker. “This is the section for clubs and activities.”

  “I thought all the clubs got killed,” Sarah said.

  “Not all. Some stayed in the main budget. Nobody is going to kill clubs or activities related to popular sports.” Jeremy pointed to the top of the page. “They still have the varsity-letter banquet, and funds for the cheerleaders to attend two out-of-state competitions. But check out what else is here.”

  I looked at the line he’d circled. “Latin Club? They don’t teach Latin here anymore. I don’t think they’ve taught it for years.”

  “Exactly,” Jeremy said. “But there are funds set aside for it. A lot of funds. I’ll bet, back in the old days, they went on some kind of expensive field trip.”

  Now I saw where he was going. “Since there’s no Latin Club to use the money, can we get it for the newspaper?” I asked.

  “No,” Jeremy said. “But we can get the money for the Latin Club.”

  “I’m not following this,” I said.

  “If we become the Latin Club, we have access to its funds. Since the club currently has no members, we can basically take it over. The club can publish a newsletter. There’s more than enough money to cover our costs. We can do anything we want, as long as our adviser approves.”

  “And that would be Mr. Franka?” Sarah asked.

  “Assuming he agrees with the plan,” Jeremy said. “Which I’m sure he will.”

  “I’ll track him down right after the meeting,” Sarah said.

  “So, we’re still publishing the Zenger Gazette, but we’re calling it the Latin Club newsletter?” I asked.

  “Yup. We can even still call it the Zenger Gazette, if we want. It doesn’t matter what we call it,” Jeremy said. “Or even what’s in it. All that matters is that it has to be published by the Latin Club.”

  Sarah leaped from her seat and threw Jeremy a hug. “That’s brilliant!” she said.

  I was afraid he’d get snapped in half, but when she stepped back, he seemed intact, though his face was slightly ruddier than usual. I had a feeling he was going to have sweet dreams tonight.

  I figured I’d surprise everyone and get things started, since I hadn’t made much of a contribution to the paper, so far. On the way out, I stopped by the office and got a copy of the form clubs used to apply for their budgeted funds. I filled it out for the Latin Club when I got home, listing Mr. Franka as the faculty adviser, and Sarah as the president. I knew how much the paper would cost to print, so I listed that for the newsletter. There really weren’t any other costs. I was tempted to ask for money for snacks, but I was afraid that if I got greedy, it would cause trouble. When I was finished, I signed the spot at the bottom where it asked who filled out the form.

  November 12

  I got sidetracked, Sean. But I still trust my subconscious to give me a great idea for my novel. And I have more than half a month left. I think as long as I start by Saturday, and really crank out the words, I’ll be fine.

  “I hope this works,” I told Jeremy when I got to the bus stop.

  “It has to,” he said. “The money is there. We have an adviser. There won’t be any problems.”

  When we got to school, I took the form to the office and handed it to the secretary.

  “Latin Club?” she said. “We haven’t had one in years.”

  “Latin is getting really popular again,” I said. “I think it’s because of that show set in ancient Rome.”

  She shrugged, and put the form in a basket.

  • • •

  We’d be getting our first report card of the year on Friday morning. And for the first time in ages, I was dreading that moment. The card itself was actually a slip of paper. And we didn’t have to get it signed. My parents might not even ask to see mine. Bobby had pretty much scalded their eyes with his report cards, on those rare times when they managed to get their hands on one. In comparison, my usual B grades, spiced with a sprinkle of As, made them happy.

  It was pretty much as I’d feared. I got decent grades in most classes, but a seventy-one in biology, and a sixty-eight in English. It didn’t bother me as much as I’d thought it would. I knew I should have cared. I mean, yeah, it’s good to care about grades. But not when the playing field isn’t level. Mrs. Gilroy wanted me to fail, and Ms. Denton wanted me to suffer. All I wanted was to get through sophomore year.

  “Bad?” Lee asked when I took my seat in geometry, where I’d earned a solid B.

  “I never thought my gym grade would be one of the high points of my report card. I aced that class. And history.” I had a feeling Mr. Cravutto, who was still a-courtin’ his female counterpart with vigor, had taken it easy on everybody.

  Lee held out her hand. “Let me see.”

  I gave her the card. She read it, winced, and said, “Poor baby. You need to heal your wounds with ice cream.”

  “It’s November,” I said.

  “It’s ice cream,” she said, as if those two words ended all arguments. Which, of course, they did.

  TWENTY-ONE

  Saturday afternoon, I was in my room, wondering whether it would set a bad precedent if I got out of bed before 11:00 A.M. Sean had been more quiet than usual during the night, so I’d gotten some uninterrupted high-quality sleep. Dad was in the garage. Mom was midway between us, in the living room, when the phone rang.

  Mom’s shriek brought both ambulatory males running at full speed. I grabbed my baseball bat on my way out of the room. Dad was a bit closer, but I had gravity on my side as far as clearing the stairs, so we reached the living room at about the same time. Upon arrival, we both slid to a stop and contemplated my mom/his wife sitting there with a huge smile on her face and a phone in her hand. Based on the scream, I’d have anticipated the presence, at the very least, of an enormous spider, or a deeply evil person wearing a hockey mask and brandishing some form of bloodstained cutting tool. The fact that Dad was clutching a hammer provided one more bit of evidence that we were a lot alike on the inside.
/>   Mom spoke, nodded, spoke, squealed, then finally noticed the hovering protectors.

  “Bobby’s engaged!” she said. She immediately returned her attention to the phone.

  “Bobby’s dating someone?” I asked.

  “Apparently,” Dad said.

  He put a hand on my shoulder and backed me away from the couch. “We’ll both go crazy if we try to pick up the facts from one end of the conversation. She’ll fill us in soon enough.”

  “I can wait,” I said.

  “Me, too,” Dad said. “But it is exciting.”

  “Uh, yeah.” I doubted it. I’d been to only one wedding, back when I was in third grade. It was my aunt Zelda’s second marriage. Pretty much all I remembered was that you could get as much food as you wanted, and that cherry punch doesn’t do much to make vomit look any less nauseating.

  “Want to hang out in the garage?” Dad asked. “This could take a while.”

  “I’m working on a novel,” I said.

  “How’s it going?”

  “Slowly.”

  Dad tilted his head toward the garage. “Sometimes, it’s good to take a break and give your mind a rest.”

  “You’re right.” I followed him to the garage. “It won’t hurt to take a breather.” Maybe a change of scenery would inspire me. Maybe I could set the novel in a garage. That was worth thinking about. There could be an evil car. Yeah! A car that tries to kill people. No. Crap. Stephen King did that one already.

  When Mom got off the phone, she tracked us down and shared all the details. “Her name is Amala Alverenga. He’s actually known her for several years. She works as a publicist for small bands.”

  And that’s all we knew.

  “Bobby’s kind of young to get married,” I said.

  “It might be good for him.” Dad said. “Your mom and I got married pretty young, and that seems to be working out okay.”

  “Good point.”

  November 15

  Bobby’s engaged. That means we’ll have a sister-in-law. If he actually goes through with the wedding. He doesn’t have the best track record when it comes to finishing what he started, or establishing long-term relationships. Except with music. Even there, he needs a push sometimes. But he’s a really good guitarist. He’s starting to make a living with it, which is pretty cool.

  Time flies. Or, as they say in Latin, tempus fugit. The weekend fugited away, and I was once again sitting in homeroom.

  • • •

  “Scott Hudson, please report to the office.”

  First, I’ll report that sophomores are not mature enough to resist spouting variations of “Ooooohhhh. Someone’s in truhhhh-bullllll. . . .” when the target of that announcement is within earshot. And eyeshot. And, I guess, mouthshot.

  When I got to the office, the secretary told me to go see the principal. He wasn’t alone. A middle-aged guy sat in a chair on the left side of the desk, wearing a suit and tie. He looked like he’d just eaten a lemon.

  “This is Mr. Sherman,” the principal said. “He is the head of the school board.”

  “Hi,” I said. I’d never met him, but I knew who he was. Everyone in town knew his name. You could see Sherman Construction signs all around this part of Pennsylvania.

  Mr. Sherman didn’t bother to return the greeting. Instead, he waved the Latin Club application in my face. “Is this some kind of joke?”

  “No,” I said. “We want to make the club more active.”

  “They don’t teach Latin here. We eliminated it years ago. You don’t speak Latin.” He smirked like he’d just caught a three-year-old in a lie. “Go ahead, say something.”

  As my brain started to slip into panic mode, I remembered the phrase I’d memorized. “Aedificare in tuo proprio solo non licet quod alteri noceat,” I said, letting the words from Lee’s needlepoint gift for her father roll off my tongue. I had a feeling I could have just as easily mouthed a string of gibberish for Mr. Sherman, and he wouldn’t have known the difference. But Principal Hedges would probably be able to tell if I was faking it. There was a diploma on the wall behind him from Montclair State for his bachelor’s degree, and one next to it from Temple for his Master’s in Education. Even if he hadn’t studied Latin, he’d have been exposed to enough of it to recognize the real thing.

  Mr. Sherman glared at me. “That’s a pretty hefty budget for a newsletter,” he said.

  “It’s within the amount allowed for the club. I broke down the expenses,” I said. “Everything’s been properly allocated.”

  “A weekly newsletter?” he said. “What’s the point of that?”

  “There’s a lot to discuss. And we want to share the news. The more we tell people about the club, the more members we can get. We’re very enthusiastic about keeping a dead language alive.”

  His frown deepened. From what I’d heard about him after the election, he really didn’t like education. He didn’t like knowledge. But I guess he realized, whether he liked what I was doing or not, I was within my rights. He tossed the application on the principal’s desk, and said, “I’ll be keeping my eye on you.”

  I appreciate that, sir. I kept my sarcasm to myself.

  “We’re finished,” Principal Hedges said. “Good luck with the club.”

  “Thanks.”

  As I left the room, I heard the principal say to Mr. Sherman, “It could be a good thing.”

  The door closed before I could hear the reply, but I was pretty sure it wasn’t enthusiastic. Mr. Sherman was a real grump.

  First period had started, so I headed for geometry. I was tempted to open the door, fall on the floor, and drag myself to my chair like a kid who’d just been beaten close to death. But I decided that it probably wouldn’t be as funny as I thought. And I didn’t want to mess up the good relationship I had with Mr. Stockman. So I settled for walking in, taking my seat, and offering a shrug to the inquiring eyes of those who’d heard me being summoned to the office.

  I waited until lunch to tell Lee how her needlepoint had saved the day.

  “You’re being very altruistic,” she said.

  “What are you talking about?” I knew Lee didn’t misuse words, but altruism is when you make a sacrifice to help others. I was doing all of this as much for myself as for the rest of the staff.

  “Aren’t you—” She cut off whatever she was going to say next, and glanced away.

  “What?” I asked.

  “Did you look at your report card?”

  “Sure. I looked at it, and it sucked. So I looked away. What’s the problem?”

  “Take a closer look.”

  I still had the report card in my backpack. I pulled it out and scanned the various numbers and letters scattered across the sheet. My eyes locked onto something I hadn’t even noticed before. A single word at the bottom of the slip had snagged me and slain me.

  Ineligible.

  “That means . . .” I said.

  “No clubs, sports, or activities for this marking period,” Lee said.

  I swore and ripped the report card in half. “That’s not fair.”

  “Agreed,” Lee said.

  “I’m still going to the meeting Wednesday,” I said.

  “Good luck,” Lee said.

  I told Jeremy the same thing during the ride home. “Maybe they won’t even know,” I said.

  “I’m sure there’s a list,” he said.

  Zenger Zinger for November 18

  Last week’s answer: “The weapon was a lead pipe,” John Peter said bluntly.

  This week’s puzzle: “It’s a shame to burn the steak,” John Peter said _________.

  TWENTY-TWO

  I expected an alarm to go off when I walked into the meeting and took my seat. Or maybe everyone would leap to their feet and scream, “Unclean!”

  Nobody seemed surpr
ised to see me.

  “Hi, Scott,” Mr. Franka said.

  I heard giggling next to me. I looked over at Jeremy, whose face had been conquered by smugness. “What?” I asked.

  “I was right. There was a list. Club presidents get it. So do club advisers.”

  “So why haven’t I been kicked out?” I asked.

  “I looked up the club rules,” he said. “Any student can sit in on a session of any club. Nothing is secret or private. And the specific definition of ineligible only mentions club membership.”

  “So I’m not here as a member. But I can sit in.”

  “And participate in discussions,” Jeremy said.

  “Can I write articles?” I asked.

  “No. Sorry,” Mr. Franka said. “That’s clearly out while you’re ineligible.”

  “What about the Zenger Zingers?” I asked. “They’re anonymous.”

  “We can’t take that chance,” Mr. Franka said. “We violate rules, we might get shut down. We can’t risk that. Besides, it’s just for one marking period. Right?”

  “I hope so,” I said. “Look, if someone else wants to write the Zingers right now, that’s okay with me.”

  Nobody wanted to step in. I was glad everyone felt it was okay to wait until I could come back.

  Later, when Mr. Franka headed out, I followed him. “Got a minute?” I asked.

  “Sure.”

  “Do you have to go to college to be a writer?”

  “No. You don’t have to go to college for that. But if you plan to be a writer, you should go to college to study something. It’s not just about knowledge. It’s about experience.”

  “A lot of writers got their experience out in the world,” I said.

  “True. Some of them by choice. Some of them because they never had the opportunity to do otherwise. It really depends on the type of writer you want to be.”

  “I want to be a good one,” I said.

  “Then expose yourself to every experience you can find or afford. That definitely includes college, if possible. And it is almost always possible.”

  “Thanks.”