by Bill Harley
“Charlie,” a voice said.
“Oh, hi, Mrs. L,” I said.
“Are you supposed to be in the hall?”
“I have something to deliver,” I said, holding up the paper.
“Well, you’d better do it. I’m sure Mrs. Burke wouldn’t be happy to hear you were disrupting my class.”
I turned and headed down the hallway.
I was almost to the office when Mr. Turchin came trundling down the hall, pushing a handcart. On top of it was a big plastic and metal thing.
“Hello there, Charlie,” he said.
“Hi,” I answered, then pointed at his cart. “What’s that?”
“A water cooler, you goofball,” he said. “What do you think? It’s a brand new one and it’s going to the teacher’s lounge. Hey, do you have time to come along and open the door for me?”
“Sure.” I was always happy to help Mr. Turchin. I walked down the hall with him and pushed open the door to the teacher’s lounge.
A couple of teachers were sitting at the table. Mr. Romano, my third-grade teacher, was making copies at the copy machine.
“Hi, Mr. Turchin,” Mr. Romano said. “Hi, Charlie.”
“Hi, Mr. Romano.”
Mr. Turchin unloaded the water cooler in the corner and headed out the door. “Be right back with the water jugs.”
“What are you doing, Charlie?” Mr. Romano asked. “Practicing to be a custodian?”
“No. Just helping. I’m the Master Messenger in Mrs. Burke’s Empire.”
“Good for you,” he said. “Just like Mercury.”
I had learned about Mercury in Mr. Romano’s class.
“Yep,” I said. “Just like Mercury. Only faster.”
Mr. Romano and I talked for a little while, then I told him goodbye and headed toward the office.
I loved being Master Messenger.
“Charlie, where have you been?” Mrs. Finch asked when I got to the office. “Mrs. Burke just called down, wondering where you were.”
“I had to help Mr. Turchin,” I said.
“Well, you’d better hurry back to class,” Mrs. Finch said, taking the paper. “It shouldn’t take you ten minutes to make one delivery.”
Ten minutes! How does time go by so fast? I nodded and walked out into the hall. Without thinking, I headed back the way I’d come, past the kindergarten, third-, and fifth-grade classes. I didn’t run.
Not until I was out of sight of the office.
Transformation!
I was no longer Charlie Bumpers. I was Buck Meson, rocket-powered superhero.
17
King Philip Elementary Honor Student
At first, I just walked really fast. Then I started to jog. When I reached the end of the kindergarten classrooms, I decided to speed up a little. I looked ahead to make sure no one was coming around the corner. I made the turn.
It was clear.
Time for takeoff! Buck Meson’s rockets engaged. I zoomed past the third-grade classes.
I made jet sounds, “KKKSSSHHHHHHH!” and switched to my space narrator voice: Speeding through the sky, delivering messages around the earth in the blink of an eye! No one can believe how fast he goes! How does he do it? No one knows! He—
Just as I reached the corner to the fourth- and fifth-grade wing, Mr. Turchin came around it, pushing a cart with two big jugs of water stacked on top. I was headed right toward him at full speed!
“Aaah!” I screamed.
“Whoa!” Mr. Turchin yelled. Even though he tried to steer the heavy cart out of the way, it veered right into my path.
I was about to change directions, but the door to a fifth-grade classroom opened up and someone came out.
A fifth-grade teacher. Mrs. Blumgarden.
Oh no!
I barreled into Mr. Turchin’s cart and one of the water jugs went flying. It bounced once on the floor and the cap on top popped off. Water shot up in the air.
I slammed into the cart, then went soaring across the hallway, like Buck Meson.
With no brakes.
I flew right into Mrs. Blumgarden, kept going, and hit the wall at full speed. Head first.
KA-BLAM!
The next thing I knew, I was lying on the floor on my back, staring at the ceiling. My head was throbbing. I lifted my head. Mrs. Blumgarden was getting up off the floor. The water jug was lying on its side, making a glugging sound. Water was gushing out onto the hallway floor. My shirt and pants were getting sopped.
Mr. Turchin was scratching his head, trying to figure out what had happened.
“What do you think you were doing?” Mrs. Blumgarden yelled, straightening her blouse. Trick question! No good answer.
“Flying down the hall like Buck Meson” was definitely not a good answer.
But the truth was, I couldn’t answer. My head was all woozy, and when I tried to get up, I felt really wobbly and sat back down. I put my head between my legs and then felt my forehead. Ouch! There was already a huge bump over my right eye.
Meanwhile, water kept glugging out of the jug.
Mrs. Blumgarden and Mr. Turchin were standing over me, looking down.
“Are you all right?” Mrs. Blumgarden asked.
“I think so,” I said, trying to act like I was.
But I wasn’t.
“Here,” Mr. Turchin said, reaching down his hand to help me up. “I think we’d better get you down to the nurse’s office.”
“I’ll take him, Mr. Turchin,” she said.
“I’ll get the mop,” he said, turning the water jug right side up.
“What’s your name?” she asked me.
“Charlie. Charlie Bumpers.”
“Bumpers. Are you Matt’s brother?”
“Uh-huh.” I was still feeling pretty woozy.
“This is what happens when you run in the hall,” she said in the way grown-ups talk when they want to teach you a lesson.
I had never heard of anyone else knocking themselves out running into a water jug, but I guess she was right.
Mrs. Blumgarden walked with me down the hallway, her fingers wrapped tightly around my arm. It might have been to make sure I didn’t fall. It might have been to make sure I couldn’t escape.
By the time she got me to the nurse’s office, I was feeling a little better. She left me there with Mrs. Veazie, the school nurse, who sat me in a chair and put an ice pack on my head.
“It looks like you’ve got an egg growing out of your forehead,” she said. “That’s quite a bump. And your clothes are all wet. What happened?”
“I’m not sure,” I said.
“Really?” she asked, sounding concerned. “You don’t remember?”
“I think I ran into a wall,” I said. “And also a teacher.”
“Okay, that’s good,” she said and smiled.
I didn’t know what she meant by “good.” I guess she thought it was good I remembered what had happened.
My disaster.
My catastrophe.
I was sitting there on the edge of the cot when the door opened and someone walked in.
Mrs. Burke.
Complete disastrophe.
I waited for her to yell, but she didn’t.
“What happened?” she asked.
“He got a bump on his head,” said Mrs. Veazie. Which was almost a perfect answer, since it didn’t say what really happened.
“It sounds like more than that,” Mrs. Burke said, giving me a meaningful look. “Are you going to be all right?”
“I think so,” I said.
“Okay then,” she said, “I’m sure Mrs. Veazie will take good care of you.” Then she left. It felt like there was a lot more to say. And a lot of it I didn’t want to say or hear.
Mrs. Veazie did a bunch of tests. She shone a light in my eyes and asked me to follow her finger as she moved it back and forth in front of my face. Then she asked me what my name was and a few other things about where I lived. After I’d answered all her questions, she said, “Well,
I think you’re fine. Except for that bump on the noggin. You’ll probably have a headache. You’ll need to stay here until I can call your parents.”
“I’m really okay,” I said. I didn’t want to have to explain to Mom and Dad what had happened.
“We always notify the parents in cases like this. And just to be safe, we will have to keep an eye on you for a while.”
She found a T-shirt and a pair of pants and some underwear for me to wear. I guess she kept extra clothes in case someone threw up all over themselves.
Or maybe in case someone knocked over a water jug and a teacher and hit a wall with his head.
The T-shirt she gave me said “King Philip Elementary Honor Student” on the front.
I don’t think I deserved that.
Mrs. Finch stayed with me while Mrs. Veazie made the call.
When she came back, Mrs. Veazie said she’d talked to my mom.
“Is she mad?’ I asked.
“Worried,” she answered.
I sat in the nurse’s office for an hour, wondering what my parents were going to say.
Mr. Turchin came by to see if I was alive.
“You made a heck of a mess, Charlie,” he said.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“There’s no use crying over spilt water,” he said, chuckling to himself. I was glad he wasn’t mad. I knew Mrs. Blumgarden was.
I wished I could go back to class. I didn’t want to miss lunch and recess.
Just when I thought I couldn’t stand it anymore, Dad walked in.
“Hey,” he said. “Are you okay?”
How come he was here instead of Mom? Did they let him out of work to come get me?
Then I remembered. Dad didn’t have a job anymore. But right then, I didn’t care. I was just glad to see him. I could almost feel myself wanting to cry, but I held it in.
“You must be Mr. Bumpers,” said Mrs. Veazie. “I’m Vicky Veazie, the school nurse.”
“Yes, nice to meet you. I think I’ll take Charlie home for the rest of the day, if it’s all right.”
“I’m sorry you had to leave work,” Mrs. Veazie said.
“No problem,” my dad answered.
“Just sign him out at the office,” she said. “Keep an eye on him, and don’t let him take a nap until bedtime. If you notice any problems, you should call your doctor.”
I stayed in the nurse’s office while my dad went down to the classroom and got my backpack and homework assignments from Mrs. Burke. We said goodbye to Mrs. Finch and Mrs. Rotelli, and Dad put his arm around me and led me out the door to our car.
I was going to miss Ellen’s mom talking about web pages, but I was kind of relieved we were going home. That way I wouldn’t have kids asking me again about my dad being president of the company and how many calculators they were going to get.
That afternoon I was glad that my dad wasn’t the president of anything. For a little while, he could just be my dad.
18
The Kid Who Knocked Over Mrs. Blumgarden
When Tommy got on the bus the next morning, a smile spread across his face. He plopped down on the seat next to me.
“How are you?” he asked.
I pulled my hair back and showed him the bump on my head. It was red and swollen and the skin above my eye was turning purple.
“Gross,” he said. “But awesome. Everybody’s talking about it!”
“Talking about the bump on my head?”
“No. About how you knocked over Mrs. Blumgarden and Mr. Turchin’s cart and spilled a hundred gallons of water in the hallway. All the kids in her class saw it!”
“I don’t think it was a hundred gallons,” I said.
“Whatever.” Tommy shrugged. “You’re famous! The kid who knocked over Mrs. Blumgarden. You’ll go down in school history!”
I put my head in my hands. This was turning into the worst week of my life. Every teacher in school was going to hate me.
“You’d better hope that you don’t get Mrs. Blumgarden next year. This is worse than hitting somebody in the head with a sneaker.”
“Thanks for reminding me.” I had hit Mrs. Burke in the head with a sneaker in third grade. Totally by accident. And this was worse.
At school, the kids in the hallway all stared at me.
When I got to my classroom, it was quiet, and kids were doing their morning work. Mrs. Burke, the Ruler of the Empire, was at her desk.
“Are you all right, Charlie?” Hector whispered as I sat down.
“Yeah.” I showed him the bump on my forehead.
“It’s what you get for running in the hall,” said Samantha Grunsky, the most annoying human ever.
“How do you know I was running?” I asked, even though I knew she always knew everything.
“Because you knocked over Mrs. Blumgarden.”
Just then Mrs. Burke called out, “Mr. Bumpers, come up here, will you?”
Uh-oh.
I walked up to her desk. She put her pen down and looked at me. “How’s your head?” she asked.
“Okay,” I said. “It’s still sore.”
“Mrs. Blumgarden told me about your little accident,” she said.
“Uh-huh,” I said.
I figured Mrs. Burke had a lot more to say, but she wasn’t saying it. She seemed to be waiting for me to speak up.
“I was late getting back from the office,” I said. “I was kind of running.”
“I thought so.”
“I’m sorry,” I mumbled.
“I don’t think I’m the one you should be apologizing to. Why don’t you go down the hall and talk to Mrs. Blumgarden?”
I really didn’t want to, but Mrs. Burke just sat there looking at me with those teacher eyes you cannot escape.
“Go right now before classes start,” she said. “And do not run.”
I walked down the hall to Mrs. Blumgarden’s room. The door was open, so I went in. All the fifth graders looked up and saw me. Mrs. Blumgarden was writing an assignment on the board.
“Um, excuse me …” I wasn’t sure what to say next.
She led me out the door into the hallway. At least I didn’t have to apologize in front of her whole class. That would be almost as bad as going to the bathroom in the desert in front of two busloads of people.
“How is your head?” she asked me.
“Not too bad,” I said. “It still kind of hurts, though.”
“I’m sure it does,” she said. “You hit the wall pretty hard.”
“I’m really sorry I knocked you over, Mrs. Blumgarden,” I said. “I shouldn’t have been running. I was hurrying to get back to class.”
“I accept your apology,” she said. “Let’s not let it happen again, all right?”
“Okay,” I said. “Are you all right?”
“I was just very surprised,” she said. “It was like a rocket hit me.”
I nodded. It was a rocket. But I didn’t say that.
When I got back to class, Mrs. Burke called me to her desk again.
“One more thing, Charlie,” she said. “Because of what happened, I’m afraid you’re going to lose your job as Messenger. We’ll have to let someone else do it for the rest of the week.”
“But, Mrs. Burke—”
“No buts, Charlie.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
My dad and I had both been fired!
I headed back to my seat, trying not to look at the big smile on Samantha’s face.
That afternoon Mrs. Burke asked Dashawn to take over as Master Messenger. Then she sent him to the office to bring Tricia’s dad back to our classroom.
Everybody saw I wasn’t the Messenger anymore. I felt sick inside.
“I knew this would happen,” said Samantha.
“It’s okay, Charlie,” Hector whispered.
Tricia’s dad came in carrying a big box. We all knew he worked for a company that made sports equipment, so we were eager to find out what was in it.
Mr. Davidoff told
us that his job was to convince stores and websites to sell the things his company made. He set up a slide show and showed pictures of him shaking hands with all these different sports stars—football, basketball, baseball, hockey, tennis—everything. There was even a picture of Tricia standing next to a soccer player who had played on the Olympic team. The kids were so excited they couldn’t stay in their seats.
Until Mrs. Burke snapped her fingers. POW!
As Mr. Davidoff’s presentation went on and on, I felt sicker and sicker. My dad hadn’t met any sports stars. He’d never introduced me to anyone famous. And all the time, everybody kept asking what was in the box, and Mr. Davidoff kept saying to wait.
Finally, when it was almost time for the last bell, he opened the box.
“Now, I’ve got a little something I asked my company to make for you.” He reached into a big plastic bag and pulled out a cloth stretchy thing.
It was a bright blue headband.
“Awesome!” Alex yelled. He was the first kid to get one. “Look what it says!”
Embroidered across the front of the band were the words, Mrs. Burke’s Empire.
Everybody put one on. Even Mrs. Burke, which looked pretty funny.
“What do we say to Mr. Davidoff?” Mrs. Burke asked as Tricia’s dad headed out the door.
“Thank you!” everyone yelled.
“Wait until tomorrow,” Alex said. “Charlie’s dad will be here with his calculators!”
“I never said that!” I shouted. But no one heard me. They were all cheering. Hector looked at me. I just shook my head.
Maybe I could find a way to stay home sick tomorrow. I sure felt sick right then.
19
An Ignoramus the Size of Mount Everest
When the Squid and I got home from school, I walked Ginger and then went up to my room. Mom had to work late and wouldn’t be home in time for supper.
I must have been in really bad shape because I did my homework right away.
I hardly ever do that.
Then I lay on my bed and tried to read a book. I couldn’t pay attention to what I was reading, so I just stared at the ceiling.
