Class Dismissed

by Allan Woodrow

  Should I answer the phone? What if it’s important? I can take a message or grab a teacher if it’s an emergency. It would be a good deed to answer the phone.

  Maybe I won’t get in trouble for destroying the pencil sharpener if I answer the phone.

  I pick up the receiver. I’m about to say something like “Liberty Falls Elementary, can I help you?” when a voice yells through the receiver. I recognize that angry bark at once.

  “This is Ms. Bryce. Tell Principal Klein that I am resigning. Effective immediately!”

  Before I can tell her that I’m Adam and she should hold on while I get someone else, she hangs up. The dial tone buzzes in my ear, so I put the receiver back on the base.

  I look around. No one has noticed.

  “Anyone have a wrench?” Principal Klein shouts from the teachers’ lounge as water continues to spray into the air.

  There are even more people standing around the sink now. Most of the adults seem to be dripping wet. The principal has his hands down the sink again, water continuing to drench him.

  Mrs. Wilson says urgently, “Please be careful. It was a wedding gift.” A couple of secretaries pat her on the shoulder.

  Principal Klein steps back, the sink makes a loud grinding noise, and then an even higher geyser of water fills the air. It’s like the mermaid fountain in the town pond, shooting water from her mouth.

  It looks like they will be busy for a while.

  So I decide to go back to class.

  The halls are still empty and I feel nervous about returning to our room without saying anything to anyone in the office.

  If you are sent to the office but no one knows you were sent to the office, does it really count as being sent to the office?

  I hope I don’t get into more trouble. Knowing my luck, I probably will.

  My sneakers squeak the entire way. For sneakers, they aren’t very sneaky.

  When I enter the classroom, no one is talking. An eerie silence covers the room. It stinks like vinegar. I hold my breath to keep from choking.

  I take my seat in the middle of class, between Lizzie and Eli. I tap Lizzie on the shoulder and hand her six lollipops. “They’re from the principal’s office,” I explain. “I wasn’t sure what flavor you liked.”

  She smiles at me with a big grin, her freckles shining like tiny bright fireworks on her cheeks. My heart skips a beat or two.

  She smiled! At me!

  I grab my pencil and begin drawing on the desk. I draw L + A in little hearts, and in big hearts, too. I draw about five of them when I realize—I’m drawing on the desk! I’ve been sent to the principal’s office ten times for drawing on the desk. I can’t help myself, though. The desk looks so clean.

  A clean desk is begging to be doodled on. Really.

  Still, I lick my thumb to rub over my drawings and erase them. I don’t want our teacher to yell at me.

  But then I stop and look down at a now half-erased, smudged heart.

  Ms. Bryce won’t yell. She’s not even here.

  She just quit.

  I can do anything—anything at all!—and no one will send me to the principal’s office.

  No more being screamed at. No more getting into trouble for no good reason.

  A feeling of happiness spreads over me. I feel free.

  I stand up. “Um, guys?” I say. Everyone stares at me, their eyes glaring loudly through the uncomfortable silence of the room. I clear my throat and shuffle from my right leg to my left. “I have some news.” The class continues their stares. The room is so quiet you can hear the lights humming from the ceiling. “Well. See. Ms. Bryce. She resigned.”

  “We already know that,” says Seth from the back.

  “Right. Sure.” I look at Lizzie, who starts to unwrap the grape-flavored lollipop I gave her. Then I look back at the rest of the class. “But. There’s something I know you don’t know.” The class continues to watch me, silently. “You see, I’m pretty sure no one knows she resigned—except us.”

  No one says anything. Not a student moves. I’m about to repeat what I said, thinking maybe no one quite understood what I meant, when Brian jumps up and yells, “No one knows we don’t have a teacher? Did you hear that? This is amazing! It’s party time!”

  Yow. Yow. Yow.

  Ms. Bryce is gone? Retired? Out the door and never coming back?

  I jump out of my seat and smack Brian’s raised hand with a powerful, high-speed, all-star high five.

  Brian returns my smack with one that’s even harder. His smack hurts.

  Brian’s big—he’s even bigger than me. A hand slap from Brian is worth about five slaps from anyone else.

  But he could smash my hand a hundred times and this would still be the greatest day in the history of greatest days.

  We’re going to talk loudly. Chew gum. And do anything we want, whenever we want.

  We’ll toss spit wads and topple chairs.

  We’ll play games and pull girls’ hairs.

  At least until we get a new teacher.

  I think of a few more rhymes, which is something I like to sometimes do, although I don’t tell Brian and Seth about it. They would say only girls like poetry and think I was a sissy. Anyway, here are the rhymes that I think:

  Playing is great and candy is nice,

  But best thing of all? No more Ms. Bryce!

  And also:

  Slap my hand, we’re all enthusiastic.

  Ms. Bryce is gone! And that’s fantastic.

  Seth is behind me, palm up and ready for a jam-packed hand slap. His palm meets mine. CRACK! Seth is the same size as me, so it doesn’t hurt as much as Brian’s slap.

  Yes, this is the greatest of days.

  Yow. Yow. Yow.

  Last night something happened that was pretty awesome, too. While Mom was changing my baby brother AJ’s diapers, I saw a letter sticking out of her purse. I couldn’t help reading it since it was sticking out and all. Letters that stick out of things demand to be read.

  It was from the accounting company where Mom works. She was offered a promotion. Which means maybe we could move into a bigger apartment. We’ve been stuck in the same one ever since Dad left. Even with one less person it’s awfully cramped with the five of us kids.

  When I asked Mom when she’d start her new position, she gave me a lecture about going through her stuff. And then she said that she didn’t know if she would accept the promotion.

  Which is crazy, right? Of course she should accept it!

  But you know what’s even crazier? Having school without having a teacher. This might even be better than Mom’s letter.

  Brian and Seth are still jumping up and down and hooting. I hoot, too. We stomp our feet. We pound our desks.

  But not everyone hops and hollers and desk-pounds. Maggie, in the front row, wears a strange frown. She’s whispering to Lacey, who frowns, too.

  They look disappointed about our awesome news.

  I guess that makes sense, though. Ms. Bryce didn’t like anyone, but she never punished any of those front-row-seat-sitting, glasses-wearing, know-it-all girls.

  Only the class brains sit in the front row, and teachers always like the class brains.

  “We should tell someone, right?” asks Gavin.

  Brian, Seth, and I stop jumping.

  Tell someone?

  Brian pounds the table. His voice is low and threatening. “No way. We keep quiet.” He cracks his knuckles. “It’ll be the most amazing fifth-grade secret ever.”

  Yow. Yow. Yow.

  We won’t have a teacher for the rest of the entire year? Is that even possible?

  I want to slap everyone’s hand, even Soda’s paw. Soda, our classroom hamster, sits in the corner of his cage, watching us. His little golden ears prick up, and his nose twitches. I bet you that he can tell something exciting is happening.

  He’s smart, for a hamster.

  “But how are we going to learn?” asks Maggie, raising her voice. I turn away from Soda to look
at her. “We go to school to learn, remember?”

  “I want to learn,” says Paige, standing on one side of Maggie.

  “Me too,” says Lacey. She stands on Maggie’s other side.

  Lacey and Paige and Maggie don’t really look alike, but they all wear the same thick, round glasses. They look like three owls. Three smart owls.

  Of course the owls want to learn. Learning comes easy to them. But what about the rest of us?

  What about me?

  See you, science. Good-bye, reading. Math, go away!

  The only things we want to learn are new games to play.

  I step forward. “We’re not here to learn,” I insist. “We go to school because our parents want us out of the house for a few hours.”

  “I know mine do,” agrees Seth.

  “We have to go to school,” snaps Maggie. “It’s the law.”

  “But it’s not the law to learn,” I argue. “Who says we can’t have fun instead?”

  “Let’s have fun!” shouts Brian. He and Seth bang their fists on their desks. Brian lets loose a loud, “Booyah!”

  But not every kid looks convinced. Jade and Eli frown. The twins, Danny and Jasmine, have confused, faraway stares, as if they don’t know whether to applaud or run into the halls screaming for a teacher.

  “Let’s vote,” I suggest. “We’ll decide as a class if we should tell the principal our teacher quit, or keep quiet.”

  A few students shout their agreement. Others keep their uncertain gazes. Brian yells, “Vote! Vote! Vote!” and then he adds, “And you better vote for keeping your mouths shut.”

  Maggie clears her throat and steps forward so she’s standing in front of the whiteboard. She faces us, removes her glasses, wipes her lenses on her shirt, and then puts her glasses back on. “My fellow students,” she says, her chin up as if she’s running for president of the United States or something. “Let me remind you of the importance of our education. How can we expect to do well at Liberty Falls Middle School next year? Or graduate as high school valedictorians? And go to college, without a solid education? The short answer: We won’t!”

  “I don’t want to be a valedictorian!” Brian hoots, and then he adds, quieter, “Whatever that is.”

  “Can I still become a stylist?” asks Emmy. “I want to work in my mom’s hair salon when I’m older.”

  “No!” says Maggie, forming a fist and pounding on her open palm, like a hammer to a nail. “Without an education, we are all doomed to lives of failure. My parents say that brains are like babies. Just like a baby needs food and love to grow big and healthy, our brains need reading and studying. Brains don’t grow from shouting and jumping around, but from learning and homework and tests.”

  “Tests?” says Brian. “Are you crazy?” Seth joins him in a chorus of hisses aimed at Maggie.

  I give Maggie credit, though. She doesn’t budge. Instead she purses her lips.

  Maggie raises her voice even louder to shout over the boos raining from Brian and Seth. “I know that teachers have super-easy jobs. I know that it seems like playing games all day would be fun. But without homework, our futures are doomed.”

  “Boo!” I call. “Boo to homework!”

  Surprisingly, Madelyn boos, too, and so does Jade. They usually participate in class. They always raise their hands.

  I guess people can surprise you sometimes.

  The boos are contagious. They start to spread like the flu, until half the class is shouting them.

  Trevor says to Maggie, “Sit down, Miss Bossy.”

  “Vote! Vote! Vote!” yells Brian.

  Maggie frowns and opens her mouth to speak, but the boos drown out whatever she says.

  Suddenly, I realize how loud we’re being. “Keep it down, or the other classes will hear!” I warn.

  Whoops. I shouldn’t have screamed that.

  But the class quiets. The walls are thick. I just don’t know how thick. “Who wants to tell the principal we need a teacher?” I ask. “Raise your hand if you want to blab and ruin everything.”

  Maggie raises her hand immediately, but no one else joins her. Hers is the lone raised arm until she glares at Lacey and Paige. They slowly lift their hands, too. Neither looks happy about it.

  Even the brains aren’t convinced we should talk.

  Some other kids half raise their arms, but Brian snaps a pencil in two and looks around the room. The message is clear: Raise your hand at your own risk.

  No other arm rises.

  “And who thinks we should keep quiet?” I ask.

  Brian and Seth lift their arms as if they’ve been shot out of two cannons. Just about everyone else in class follows their lead.

  A few kids don’t vote, and Brian cracks his knuckles again. Three more hands shoot into the air. I think one kid didn’t vote, but it’s pretty clear which side has won.

  It’s not even close.

  “It looks like we’re keeping quiet,” I say.

  “But we can’t—” says Maggie.

  “Stop acting like a third grader,” snaps Trevor. A couple of kids laugh. Maggie sits down. She folds her arms and frowns, but doesn’t say a word.

  “So we can’t tell anyone. Anyone,” I say. “Agreed? Not your parents. Not your brother or sister. And not even your best friend. Our secret can’t leave this room.”

  “Swear on the Smelly Sock!” orders Brian. He reaches into his backpack and pulls out an old white tube sock that’s stiff and crusty with mud, bird poop, and who knows what else.

  The room gasps.

  I forgot Brian still had the Smelly Sock. It’s really disgusting. There’s a whole story about it—a whole, really gross, practically vomit-worthy story about it.

  Two years ago, we found the sock in the bushes outside school. It might have been hiding there for years. We kept it and we formed a Smelly Sock Club. You had to declare allegiance to the Smelly Sock and kiss it. If you didn’t, it meant you hated socks, and if you hated socks, it meant your feet smelled like a smelly sock.

  I’m not sure if that made sense, but it seemed to at the time. Only one kid refused to pucker up.

  His family moved away last year, and I’m pretty sure it’s because everyone in school called him Smelly Sock Scott. (I don’t even think his name was Scott.)

  Looking back, I feel sort of bad about what we did. Brian likes to pick on some of the kids, and sometimes it’s fun to join in. But I don’t know. Other times it just feels sort of … not right.

  Brian waves the sock in the air and the entire class swears on it, including Maggie and the other brains and the one non-voting kid—

  He’s a scrawny, quiet kid with short rust-colored hair. I usually forget he’s even there. I think his name is Eric.

  “This is going to be awesome!” says Seth.

  We won’t tell a soul, no way, no how.

  We’ll all keep our secret. Yow. Yow. Yow!

  Brian puts the sock back into his backpack, crammed between his notebooks and pencil case. I can’t believe he carries that thing around with him every day.

  I’ll have to avoid his backpack. It must smell really, really horrible.

  The class grows quiet and watches me, as if they expect me to start assigning homework or something.

  But this isn’t about homework. It’s about not homework.

  “What do we do now?” asks Madelyn. She’s tall and thin, and her voice reminds me of a helium balloon.

  “Play!” yells Brian, chucking an eraser at me.

  I sit on my chair watching the class celebrate. The Big Goofs—that’s what I call Kyle, Brian, and Seth—chuck erasers at one another. Other kids huddle in groups talking loudly about who knows what, or jumping around like they have jumping beans in their shoes. I sit by myself, watching them.

  I was the only kid who didn’t vote on whether we should tell the principal our incredible news. And I stuck out like a giant nose pimple, one giant unpopped nose pimple. I should have voted. I should have raised my hand high and vo
ted for keeping quiet.

  It’s funny. I hate raising my hand because I don’t like being noticed. But this time I was noticed because I didn’t raise my hand. That’s called irony.

  Irony is when the opposite of what you expected to have happen ends up happening, anyway. Like when the teacher asks a question and you try to slink low in your chair so she doesn’t see you, but then she calls on you simply because she saw you slink low in your chair.

  There’s a thin line between not being noticed and being noticed for trying not to be noticed. It’s an art to blend in, keep quiet, and keep your head down, while avoiding obvious eye-catching and unintended ironic slinking.

  Kyle chucks erasers at just about everyone, although mostly Brian and Seth. That’s the good thing about blending in. No one thinks to chuck erasers at you.

  Still, I worry about our class secret. I see nothing but potential problems.

  Who will sit in on our parent-teacher conferences next month? Who will give us grades and report cards? Who will line us up for lunch?

  Our principal—and if not him, then someone—is going to discover our secret, and when he does, we’ll all be in a giant mountain of mess.

  We’re going to get caught. We’re going to get in trouble. We’re going to be punished.

  Man oh man, are we going to be punished.

  We’ll get detention for a year. Be kicked out of school. Be forced to eat beef nachos every day for lunch, a food I’ve never actually eaten but looks frightening in the cafeteria lunch line. I bet even the lunch ladies have never tried it. I think some crabby old man lurks in the back of the cafeteria inventing the worst foods he can imagine and then serves them to us kids, with beef nachos his crowning achievement.

  I’ve heard rumors that the beef in the beef nachos is made from frog meat. That’s probably not true, but I’m not taking any chances.

  I should write a story about the beef nachos. It would be a horror story.

  An eraser hits Jade on the shoulder. Madelyn sings. Cooper looks through the supply cabinet, probably searching for our teacher’s secret supply of snacks. I take out my notebook to write a story.