Niagara Falls, Or Does It? #1

by Winkler, Henry

  “But Dad, I remembered every fact I learned on our trip. I was writing it with my mouth. Like did you know that Niagara Falls is two thousand two hundred and twenty feet wide—and it’s one hundred and seventy-three feet high and ...”

  “Enough of this,” interrupted Principal Love. “We are here to decide on an appropriate punishment for what you’ve done.”

  At this moment I realized that the president of the United States was not going to be inviting me to the White House.

  “Detention for two weeks,” Principal Love said.

  “Grounded at home,” my father added. “Same length of time.”

  My brain froze. Two weeks! The magic show—oh no! The magic show was right in the middle of my punishment.

  I’m dead. I’m doomed. I’m out of the Magik 3.

  CHAPTER 15

  I LEFT PRINCIPAL LOVE’S office and headed downstairs to the lunchroom. A couple of first graders passed me on their way to the library.

  “I think that’s the boy who got in trouble,” one of them whispered loudly. They stared at me like I had just robbed a bank or something. I spilled a little water on the floor. Big deal. Okay, a lot of water. Okay, a whole lot of water.

  What does a guy do in this situation? I figured the only thing to do was wave. I went into my best Hank Zipzer strut.

  “Good to see you,” I said, grinning at them. “What’s up in show-and-tell today?”

  I think I scared them because they ran away. I continued downstairs. Some kids were already leaving the lunchroom and heading out to the yard. I passed Ryan and Gerald. Ryan held up his hand for a high five.

  “You’re a riot, man,” he said.

  “Truly,” said Justin and Ricky, who were following behind.

  “Your buddies are still eating lunch at your regular spot,” Ryan said, pointing in the general direction of our table.

  I went over to the table and slid in next to Ashley. She was in the middle of telling Frankie and Robert how she was going to spend her money from the magic show.

  “I already have nine dollars saved,” she was saying. “With the ten dollars we’ll each earn, I’ll have enough to get the dolphin, which will complete my crystal sea family.”

  “I’d hold off on that dolphin,” I said.

  “How bad was Principal Love?” Frankie asked. “Paint the picture, Zip.”

  “It was ugly,” I answered. “I didn’t get one word in. What I did get was two weeks of detention at school, and two weeks of being grounded at home.”

  “With or without TV?” asked Frankie.

  “That is without any electronic device known to mankind,” I said.

  Frankie grabbed his heart and fell to the ground. “Just the thought of it makes me stop breathing.”

  “Of course they’re going to let you out for the magic show,” Ashley said. She was twirling her ponytail in her fingers, which she does when she’s worried.

  “No,” I answered. I didn’t have the courage to look at her. “They said no exceptions.”

  “I can take his place,” Robert chimed in.

  “No, you can’t,” we answered together.

  If what was happening wasn’t bad enough, suddenly a dark cloud appeared. Its name was Nick McKelty.

  “Oh, poor thing, did Principal Love bust you hard?” the big creep said in this stupid baby voice. His teeth were looking especially snaggly.

  “Hank got two weeks detention,” Robert volunteered. As you’ve probably already noticed, Robert doesn’t know when to keep his mouth shut.

  “What are you going to do about your grandpa’s magic show at my dad’s bowling alley?” Nick said. “Sounds like it’s not happening.” He was really enjoying this.

  Before I had a chance to answer, he threw his big, slimy arm around me. He put his face up to mine, and there it was—the bad breath again. I didn’t breathe.

  “Hey don’t worry about it, Zipper man,” he said. “I got you covered.”

  “You?” I said, taking a breath and removing his arm from my shoulder. “What can you do, McKelty?”

  “I’ll put on a bowling show. I’ll knock down more pins than... than... than...” I could see him searching for something clever to say, but as usual, he came up empty.

  “I’ll knock down a whole lot of pins,” he finally spit out. “I just have to decide if I should use my left hand or my right hand.”

  “For your information,” said Ashley, “the bowling league doesn’t want to see bowling. They know how to do that. They want to see magic. That’s why they hired us.”

  “My ball handling is magical,” McKelty said. He was really happy with that comeback. He reached over and in one swipe with his apelike hand, nabbed Robert’s Jell-O swirl and Ashley’s Nestle Crunch right off the table.

  “Don’t feel bad,” he said as he walked away. “There’s always next year.”

  We were silent. We didn’t feel bad. We felt horrible.

  “Hey, come on guys,” I said with fake cheer-fulness. “You can do the show without me!”

  “We can’t build the hat without you,” said Ashley. “You’re the one who knows how to do everything.”

  “Besides, who do you think is going to get Cheerio inside the hat?” asked Frankie. “Do you think that dog is going to listen to me? Not in this century.”

  I knew they were right. I had ruined everything for them.

  I told them I was sorry.

  But I don’t think it helped.

  CHAPTER 16

  THE BELL RANG at three o’clock. Everyone grabbed their backpacks and headed for the door. They were on their way to soccer practice or sax lessons or other fun after-school activities. But not me. Nope. I was about to start my first day of detention. It was going to be me in a chair and Ms. Adolf at her desk for the next fun-filled hour.

  I must have really sighed loudly.

  “Do you have something to say?” Ms. Adolf asked.

  I didn’t say a word. I made a sound. The human body does that sometimes.

  “Henry,” Ms. Adolf said. “I assume you want to use this time wisely.”

  “Yes, Ms. Adolf,” I answered. I couldn’t imagine Ms. Adolf having a first name. Maybe her friends just call her Ms. Adolf.

  “I’ve decided to have you write your composition under my supervision,” she said. “Using paper and pencil, Henry. No monkey business this time.”

  I don’t know why people always think monkey business is a bad thing. I love monkeys. They always seem to have such a good time, picking bugs off one another and eating them.

  I took out a piece of paper and stared at it. It was blank. So blank. Ms. Adolf sat down at her desk and began to write in her brand new roll book. Neither one of us made a sound. It was so quiet, I could hear her breathing.

  The clock on the wall clicked and the big hand jerked forward. One minute down, fifty-nine to go. Suddenly, the classroom door flew open and a messenger from the office came in. She handed Ms. Adolf a note and disappeared just as quickly. After Ms. Adolf read the note, she got her purse from the bottom drawer.

  “I have an emergency that I have to deal with,” she said. Her pet fire-breathing dragon must have gotten sick. “My husband’s car won’t start, and I have to pick him up from work.”

  Husband? Someone married her? No way. Do you think he kisses her goodnight?

  I must have wrinkled up my face, because Ms. Adolf said, “What’s the face for, Henry?”

  “Umm ... I was just thinking about... umm ... how it would feel for a raisin to try to lift up an elephant,” I said.

  “You would do better to keep your mind on your work, Henry, and not fill your head with silly thoughts.” Ms. Adolf put the roll book in the top drawer and locked it with her shiny key. She scribbled a note on a Post-it, and gave it to me.

  “The office has arranged for you to spend the rest of the hour in the music room with Mr. Rock, the music teacher. He’s on his way. Go there and give him this note. Sit quietly until he arrives.”

&
nbsp; The music room is in the basement. Even though it’s right next to the lunchroom, I don’t go there unless I have to. Being there makes me remember my second-grade chorus tryouts, which I’ve been trying to forget ever since they happened. That was when Mrs. Peacock, the music teacher, told me that if I wanted to be in the chorus, I couldn’t sing out loud. I was only allowed to mouth the words so I wouldn’t throw everyone else off key. Mrs. Peacock left last year to have a baby. I had never met Mr. Rock. He was new.

  The first things I noticed when I went in the music room were the posters all around the room. Most of them were of composers—Beethoven and Mozart and all those old guys. But there were other posters too—cool ones. Pink Floyd. A super-size photo of Manhattan from the air. An action shot of Michael Jordan going up for a tomahawk dunk. And my favorite, a picture of the coolest 1959 red-and-white Corvette you’ve ever seen.

  A whole bunch of instruments were spread out in the room. There were triangles and xylophones and a piano. I sat down in a chair facing a set of silver-and-burgundy drums. I realized that my leg was bouncing up and down, about a mile a minute. It does that sometimes when I’m supposed to be sitting still.

  As I sat there, it hit me that I had two whole weeks of misery in front of me. It didn’t seem fair. I was being punished for trying to do my best.

  Thoughts started coming from every corner of my brain. I wished Principal Love had let me finish just one sentence. I wished my parents had given me a chance to tell them how much I know about Niagara Falls. I wished I were as smart as my sister. She can do anything. She just toilet trained her parakeet. My parents are always so proud of her.

  I picked up one of the drumsticks and tapped the big drum. It felt good. I liked the sound. I hit it again, a little louder. Then I picked up the other stick, and looked around to make sure I was still alone. Bam! I hit the drum, first with one stick, then the other. Bam, bam, bam. The drums were starting to sound like I felt.

  Bam. I wish I didn’t always forget my backpack.

  Bam. I wish I could do long division.

  Bam. I wish I didn’t feel so stupid all the time.

  Before I knew it, I was hitting the drums so fast I could hardly see my hands. The cymbal was right in front of me. Why not? I hit it. Clash. The sound vibrated all around the room. I smacked it again. Now back to the drums. Bam, clash, boom!

  “That’s for detention!” I shouted.

  Clash, boom, bam!

  “That’s for always getting into trouble!” My voice rang out.

  Bam, bam, bammitty bam!

  “That’s five, one for each paragraph I can’t write!”

  Bam, boom, bam, boom, bam, boom, boom!

  “And that’s for my stupid brain!” I yelled.

  From behind me, I heard a man’s voice say, “I’ll bet your brain isn’t stupid.”

  I froze, then slowly turned around. The man in the doorway had a young face but a head full of curly, silver hair. He was wearing a blue denim shirt and a tie with musical notes on it.

  “Mr. Rock?” I asked.

  “That’s me,” he answered. “Does your band have a CD out yet?”

  “I’m really sorry,” I said. “I know I wasn’t supposed to touch these, but—”

  “They’re instruments,” Mr. Rock said. “They’re here to play. Sounds like they helped you express yourself.”

  “I had a bad day,” I said.

  “Because of your stupid brain?” he asked.

  “Yeah. How did you know?”

  “Because you just said it,” he said with a smile. “It was hard to miss.”

  I handed Mr. Rock the note from Ms. Adolf. He read it, then pulled up a chair and sat down backward on it. I assumed he was going to ask me why I was on detention, but he didn’t.

  “So, your name is Henry Zipzer?” he said.

  “My friends call me Hank.”

  “Hank, that’s a good name,” he said. “Ever heard of Hank Aaron?”

  “April eighth, 1974,” I answered. “The day Hammerin’ Hank beat Babe Ruth’s home-run record.”

  “I’m a baseball fan, too,” he said. “I don’t suppose you know what number home run Hank Aaron hit on that day.”

  “Seven hundred fifteen. Do you want to know a weird Hank Aaron fact?”

  “Sure,” said Mr. Rock.

  “In four of his twenty-three seasons in baseball, Hank Aaron hit exactly forty-four homeruns, which was his uniform number. Pretty amazing, huh?”

  “Seems to me,” said Mr. Rock, “that your brain isn’t as stupid as you think. It’s got plenty of good information tucked inside it.”

  “I don’t have a problem remembering interesting facts,” I explained. “I just can’t do a lot with them. Like writing essays and spelling are tough—stuff that’s easy for everyone else.”

  “Everybody learns differently,” he said. “Your brain is your brain. You just have to figure out the right way to feed it.”

  “I gave it a lot of Cocoa Puffs this morning,” I said.

  “How about music?” he laughed. “Do you ever feed it music?”

  He actually waited for an answer.

  “No,” I said.

  Mr. Rock rubbed his hands together as though he was about to eat something delicious.

  “I’ll make a deal with you,” he said. “Ms. Adolf’s note says you’re supposed to work on your essay. We’ve got forty-five minutes of detention left. Let’s take a few minutes and listen to some music. It might put you in the writing mood. What do you like?”

  “Well, my essay is supposed to be about Niagara Falls.”

  “Let me see if I can find some water music,” he said. “What does Niagara Falls sound like?”

  “It sounded like thunder when I was there.”

  He shuffled through some CDs and picked one out.

  “This is part of the Grand Canyon Suite,” he said. “It’s called Cloud Burst.” He put it on, then turned it up loud. It really felt as though it were raining right there in the basement of PS 87. I’m not kidding.

  Papa Pete says that you never know where good luck is going to come from. In my case, it came from Big Harry’s Auto and Body Shop, which took the entire week to fix Mr. Adolf’s car. Ms. Adolf had to leave early every day to pick up her husband, so I got to spend one whole week of detention with Mr. Rock.

  He taught me how to play “Hey Jude” on the xylophone. We looked at magazine pictures of our favorite cars. I picked the Ferrari F-50 convertible, and he picked a 1947 Ford woody with a surfboard on top. He put me in total charge of trimming the dead leaves off his indoor plants. I liked that job.

  We worked on my essay, too. When I got stuck, which was every other second of every other minute, he’d ask me questions like “How did the falls make you feel?” or “What did you like best about the trip?” That really helped me focus.

  The best part was when we listened to music. He’d put on a CD and then we’d just sit back and let music fill the room.

  It felt so good, I couldn’t believe I was in school.

  CHAPTER 17

  “WHAT’S A NINE-LETTER French word for eggplant?” my father shouted to no one in particular.

  I was sitting at the other end of the dining room table, doodling in my math workbook. As part of my punishment, my parents took away my privacy privileges. I wasn’t allowed to do my homework in my bedroom. The worst part was having to listen to my father’s crossword puzzle questions. I don’t get it. What’s the point of doing crossword puzzles if you have to ask everyone else for the answers?

  Emily walked out of her bedroom with Katherine on her shoulder. Her long tongue was darting in and out of her mouth—Katherine’s tongue, that is, not Emily’s.

  “Has anyone seen Katherine’s bag of dinner pellets?” Emily asked.

  “I put them in the cookie jar, honey,” Mom called from the kitchen.

  “Mom!” I yelled. “I ate those for my snack this afternoon. I thought they were one of your new healthy treats.”


  Emily laughed. Katherine jiggled up and down on her shoulder.

  “It’s not funny,” I said. “Now I’ll probably grow a long, disgusting iguana tongue.”

  As I was rinsing my mouth out at the kitchen sink, the doorbell rang.

  “I’ll get it,” I yelled.

  “Remember to look through the peephole first,” Mom reminded me.

  If I stand on my toes, I can just barely get my eye up to the peephole. I looked out but didn’t see anyone.

  “Who is it?” I shouted through the door.

  “It’s us,” Frankie whispered. “Open up, Zip.”

  I pressed my face up against the crack in the door. “I’m grounded,” I whispered back. “You know I can’t play.”

  “We’re not here to see you,” Frankie said. “We’re here to talk to your dad.”

  I opened the door. Frankie and Ashley marched right by me, with Robert bringing up the rear.

  “Good evening, Mr. Z,” Frankie said, going right up to my father.

  “We’ve come to discuss a very important business matter,” added Ashley.

  My father looked up from his crossword puzzle.

  “You kids aren’t supposed to be here,” he said. “Hank is still grounded for another week.”

  “This matter can’t wait,” said Ashley.

  “Aubergine,” said Robert, looking at the newspaper in my father’s hand.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” snapped Frankie.

  “It means eggplant in French,” said Robert, pointing to the blank spaces on my father’s crossword puzzle. “Thirteen across is aubergine.”

  “Sometimes you scare me,” Frankie said to Robert.

  “Come on, boys, let’s not forget why we’re here,” Ashley said. She turned to my father, with her no-nonsense face on. “Mr. Zipzer, as you know, Magik 3 has a contract with Papa Pete to put on a fantastical magic show this weekend at McKelty’s Roll ’N Bowl. We’ve tried all week to build the special hat we need for the grand finale. But our hat looks like a couch.”

  “We’re begging you, Mr. Z.,” said Frankie. “We’re pleading with you. Free Hank. We can’t build the hat without him.”