No Girls Allowed (Dogs Okay)

by Trudi Trueit

  The bus turns into the school parking lot.

  “Have a nice day,” Ms. Rigormortis says without emotion as we leave. “Have a nice day. Have a nice day. . . .”

  I don’t say anything back.

  After school I go to my sister’s fifth-grade classroom to pick up her homework. Mr. Corbett hands me a folder and Isabelle’s notebook. “I hope she’ll be back soon. Your sister is doing great in my class. Just great. I know it must have been a challenge to get moved up a grade this year.”

  “Not for Isabelle,” I say. Nothing is a challenge for my sister.

  “In my fourteen years of teaching she’s one of the brightest students I’ve ever had. You must be very proud.”

  “I guess,” I say. I hadn’t thought much about it before. I mean, Isabelle doesn’t need me to be proud of her. She’s got our parents, Uncle Ant, her teachers, and pretty much the entire population of Granite Falls. What difference does it make what I think?

  When I get outside, it’s raining. The first bus is pulling away from the curb. Oh, no! Mine is fourth in line, but the door is still open.

  “Wait for me! Wait, number eighteen! Ms. Rigor—” My toe finds a crack in the sidewalk. Splat! I go down. Isabelle’s homework folder lands upside down on the wet pavement. The wind scatters the pages. I scramble to my feet. I run, trying to scoop up papers as I go. My sister’s notebook is floating in a puddle. I grab it. The bus door hasn’t closed yet. I can make it. I can make it! Holding everything tightly to my chest, I run faster. I can see the edge of the sidewalk. Leap. Leap now! I launch myself off the curb. I am flying, flying, flying—Ker-chunk! My nose hits glass.

  OOEY GOOEY

  IN TEN HOURS OF CLEANING DESKS AND TABLES, I found:

  27 gum wads

  21 spit wads

  13 pens and pencils

  9 erasers

  4 Gummi bears

  2 broken rulers

  3 half-chewed Milk Duds!

  I slide down the bus door. I hear a crunching sound. I gag on engine fumes. I am a pile of bones on the ground when I hear it.

  Eeeeee-yoe.

  The door opens. Ms. Rigormortis is staring straight ahead. She doesn’t say anything. Her skeleton hands hold the wheel tightly. I stagger up the steps. I don’t want to sit behind her, but it’s the only seat left. My nose throbs. I think I broke my face.

  I lay out all the loose papers on the seat. I try to put them back in the right order. The folder is bent and dirty. I hope I got everything. I’m shaking the water out of my sister’s notebook when I see a big red X. The ink is runny, but I can still read what is written beneath the X:

  I hate the fifth grade. The fifth grade hates me.

  I hate the fifth grade. The fifth grade

  hates me. I hate the fifth

  grade. Everyone

  hates me.

  The red words are bleeding into one another. I slam my sister’s notebook shut. I wish I hadn’t read it. No, that’s not it. I wish the words she’d written weren’t true. But they are. Something inside me knows they are.

  What if I was wrong? What if getting moved up a grade has been a challenge for Isabelle? Not for her brain, I mean, but for her mind. And for her heart. Everything is starting to make sense now: my sister playing alone, my sister eating alone, my sister riding the bus alone. Isabelle is stuck. She’s trapped between the fourth grade she left behind and the fifth grade that won’t let her in. Doyle and I are puzzle pieces. We fit perfectly. But Isabelle doesn’t fit anymore with anyone. And what do I do? I come along with my stupid sister repellant and make everything worse.

  I clutch Isabelle’s notebook to my chest. Black zombie eyes are watching me in the rearview mirror. “Tough year,” says Ms. Rigormortis.

  This time, I nod.

  CHAPTER

  11

  A Bold Idea

  No, Mom. I’m not going—”

  “Isabelle, you have to go back to school sometime.”

  “Why? So Lewis and his friends can call me Smelly Isabelly? No, thanks.”

  I poke my head into my sister’s room. “Pretend Lewis is me, and zing him the way you’re always zinging me—”

  I get beaned in the head with a butterfly pillow.

  “Like that.”

  “Don’t talk to me, Pilobolus,” yells Isabelle. “Tell him not to talk to me, Mom.”

  “Isabelle Catherine, you have exactly fifteen minutes to get dressed and be downstairs,” says our mom. “I’m driving the two of you to school. Scab, is your essay ready?”

  “Yep.”

  She turns to my sister. “Fifteen minutes.”

  In the car Isabelle draws a droopy flower in the steam on her window. She chews her lips the way she does when she is trying to keep from crying.

  “Isabelle, I—”

  “Don’t talk to me.”

  “I know what Pilo—”

  “You don’t know anything.” My sister covers her ears with her hands. Her window flower fades away.

  At school I go to the office. I have to give Mr. Huckabee my essay on responsibility. Mrs. Lipwart tells me to sit in the chair outside his office. I start kicking the leg of the chair. I snap my fingers while kicking the leg. I whistle while snapping my fingers while—

  “Scab McNally!”

  I stop.

  “How long you in for?” Doyle is beside me.

  I wave my paper. “Just dropping off.” I look him over. “You?”

  “It’s my turn to read the morning bulletin.”

  “Oh.”

  Doyle shoves his hands in his pockets.

  I go back to lightly kicking the leg of the chair.

  He digs his toe into the corner of a broken tile.

  This is crazy. “Doyle,” I burst out. “I’m sorry I didn’t give you your fair share of money. I’m sorry I said all that stuff. I’m sorry—”

  “Me, too.” He cuts me off.

  We both take a deep breath and grin. I put out my hand. He puts out his. We do our secret handshake. End of fight. Neither one of us likes fighting. Our longest argument lasted seven days, three hours, and ten minutes. I forget what it was about. I only remember it lasted forever.

  “Too bad about your spray,” says Doyle. “Maybe your next invention will—”

  “My parents shut down my lab.”

  “For good?”

  “Nah, but long enough. Two weeks.”

  Doyle winces. “Sorry.”

  “The worst part is . . .” I swallow hard. I can’t say it out loud. I can’t.

  Mrs. Lipwart is waving a piece of paper. “Mr. Ferguson, the bell is about to ring.”

  My best friend starts to shuffle away. He spins. “Scab, you want to walk Oscar with me after school?”

  “Okay.” I smile.

  It’s good to have someone who knows you from the bones out.

  Doyle takes the bulletin from Mrs. Lipwart. He goes into the tiny TV studio next to the copy room. It has a small window. I can see him adjusting the video camera. Everything at River Rock stops for the morning news announcements. Maybe I should join the AV club. Imagine having everybody’s attention all at once. Wouldn’t it be cool to have every single teacher and every single student listening to every single word you say—

  I bolt up. I’ve got an idea.

  Doyle is clipping on his microphone. The first bell rings.

  My hands are sweaty. My heart speeds up.

  If I’m going to do this, I have to do it now. When Mrs. Lipwart answers the phone, I slide my essay under Mr. Huckabee’s door. I sure hope he understands. If not, I’ll be scraping Milk Duds off the bottoms of desks until I go to middle school.

  She’s worth it.

  DAREDEVIL BOYS’

  SECRET HANDSHAKE

  STEP ONE: Clasp thumbs.

  STEP TWO: Wiggle fingers.

  STEP THREE: Slap palms.

  STEP FOUR: Knock knuckles.

  STEP FIVE: Bang your chest with your fist.

  STEP SIX: Burp ’em if
you got ’em.

  CHAPTER

  12

  Off Wiener Sand

  See that red light on the camera?” asks Doyle. “When it goes on, you’re on.”

  “Got it.” I sound like a frog. I’m thirsty. And I really gotta pee. I hop up and down. I am a frog.

  The red light blinks. I stare at it.

  “Scab? You’re on!”

  “Oh . . . hi, everybody out there at River Rock. Um . . . I’m . . . uh . . . Snab McScally—I mean, Scab McSnally. Oh, bug spit! You all know me. I’m Scab. Uh . . . I’d like to say I’m sorry for stinking up the school last week. I’m even sorrier—is that a word? My sister would know. She’s the person I’m sorrier to, if that’s a word. Izzy, you were right. I am a Pilobolus. That’s a fungus that grows on cow poop, everyone. I read all about it in a science book I checked out of the library. See, it shoots out these tiny spores and they fly like little rockets right over the cows. They blast off at something like thirty-five miles per hour and can scatter something like eight feet. Wicked, huh?”

  Doyle is making a circle in the air with his finger. I don’t know what that means, so I just keep going. “Anyway, I’m really sorry to everyone, especially Isabelle, for being such a Pilobolus. And I guess that’s pretty much all I wanted to say, so . . . uh, I guess I’ll just say off wiener sand. That means ‘good-bye’ in German, right, Isabelle? Oh, and Miss Sweeten, it looks like I’m going to be tardy again. . . . Are we still on the air?”

  A lunch tray lands across from me. A sesame-seed bun slips off the top of a sloppy joe sandwich.

  “It’s pronounced ‘owf vee-der-zay-in,’ you fruit bat, not ‘off wiener sand.’”

  Not exactly what I was going for, but at least my sister is talking to me.

  Isabelle slides into the seat next to Doyle. “I can’t believe you let him go on TV like that.”

  Doyle shrugs as if to say, “It seemed like a good idea.”

  Isabelle takes a cautious look around the cafeteria. “Kids are never going to stop teasing me now.”

  Sitting next to me, Will jumps in. “He was only trying—”

  “I know, I know.” Isabelle’s eyes look red and tired.

  I don’t know what to say. I have made things worse again. Bug spit!

  “Isabelle?”

  I turn my neck. Jenna Lucas and Libby Miles are standing behind me. Posing, is more like it. The fifth graders in Isabelle’s class want to be models. How do I know this? Because they are always putting on fashion shows at recess. They pretend the courtyard is a runway. They line up and strut around the square like supermodels. You may hurl chunks now.

  “Are you okay?” Jenna is asking my sister.

  “Uh . . . yeah.” Isabelle is covering her mouth as she tries to swallow a bite of sloppy joe.

  “You poor, poor thing,” sighs Jenna. She gives me a frosty look. “It’s bad enough that you made that nasty spray, but then to go on TV and embarrass your sister all over again. . . .”

  “I didn’t mean—”

  “The nightmare that is Scab continues.” Libby pops her gum.

  “Brothers are such a pain,” says Jenna. “I have two of them, so I know what you’re going through.”

  “We should sell our brothers to the zoo or the circus or something,” adds Libby. I chuckle at her joke. But she isn’t laughing.

  “Tell me about it,” my sister mutters under her breath. “It’s all right,” she says to the girls. “I’ll be all right.”

  “You are an absolute rainbow,” says Jenna. “Isn’t she a rainbow, Libby?”

  CRACKING THE GIRL CODE

  WHAT A GIRL SAYS

  WHAT A GIRL REALLY MEANS

  I don’t have a pen you can borrow.

  I DO NOT want your slimy, disgusting boy germs on my cute, fuzzy, turquoise troll pen.

  Did Miss Sweeten say you could do that?

  I’m tattling on you right now!

  I got chosen to be a library helper.

  You are a big, hairy butt wart.

  I got an A++ on my social studies test.

  You are still a big, hairy butt wart.

  Stop bugging me and read the directions.

  Stop bugging me and read the directions.

  Libby nods, folding another stick of gum into her mouth. Boy, can that girl chew cud. “Scab, you’re lucky to have such a nice sister.”

  “I know,” I say seriously. I smile at Isabelle.

  My sister’s lips turn up at the corners. Just a sliver. But it’s enough.

  “If it had been me,” Libby spits, “I would have turned you into onion rings at exactly eight fifty-five this morning.” Still, no laughter. I slowly scoot myself and my lunch tray the other way.

  Libby whispers something to Jenna, who whispers something back. They go back and forth a few times, before Jenna says, “Let’s just ask Isabelle and see—”

  “Ask me what?” my sister chimes in.

  Is that spit on the side of her mouth? Is my sister drooling?

  Libby stops chomping. “I know this is probably not your thing, but . . . I mean, we were thinking that if you weren’t busy helping Mr. Corbett tutor the slow kids at recess that maybe you’d like to . . .”

  Isabelle leans forward. “Yes?”

  Yep, that’s slobber, all right.

  “Do you want to be in our fashion show?” blurts out Jenna. “You’re probably not even into clothes—”

  “Are you kidding?” she squeals. “I love clothes.”

  “You do? Really?”

  Clearly, Jenna is surprised that Isabelle would have room in that superpowered brain of hers for something so totally stupid. Never fear. She does.

  Isabelle’s head has turned to rubber. It’s bouncing all over the place. “Really. I love modeling, too. I watch all the modeling reality shows on TV.”

  Jenna strikes a new pose. “Fa-bu. You’re in the show. Meet us at the courtyard when the bell rings.”

  “I can’t make it,” I say, waggling my fingers. “I’m having my nails done. Then I’m going to be a rainbow. Will and Doyle, do you want to be rainbows too?”

  Doyle burps.

  “I’d rather be a butterfly,” says Will.

  Our laughter is interrupted by the whack of Libby’s backpack strap against my neck. The sting sends goose bumps up my arms.

  “We’re going to go remind Perri and Kayla,” says Jenna. “So we’ll see you in about twenty minutes?”

  Isabelle’s mouth breaks into a full grin. “Fa-bu.” Suddenly Libby is very close to my left ear. I smell watermelon. She cracks her gum. It echoes through my skull. I shiver. “Tomorrow,” she hisses, “she’s eating with us. Got it?”

  SCAB’S TIP #14

  NEVER MESS WITH A GIRL who can shove her whole fist in her mouth. Or yours.

  “Got it.” I rub the rising welt on the back of my neck. I’m not scared of much in this world, except swimming where I can’t touch the bottom, automatic sliding doors, and food that’s folded. You may now add one more thing to that list: Libby Miles, Boy Hater.

  The girls walk away practicing their runway strut. It’s enough to make a guy lose his lunch. But Isabelle is happy. I know because she doesn’t lose that goofy grin even after I cram two carrot sticks up my nose and try to blow them out.

  “Wuh-oh,” says Doyle.

  Isabelle and I follow his gaze. Lewis Pigford is dancing this way.

  “Wuh-oh,” I say.

  “Let’s go,” says Doyle. Isabelle, Will, and I start throwing stuff on our trays. But it’s too late.

  Lewis is already singing. “Hey, hey, what’s that smell?”

  Isabelle is shrinking behind her sloppy joe and salad.

  “Hey, hey, it’s Isabelle!” Lewis has got his arms up in the air and is swinging his hips like a belly dancer.

  “Cut it out, Lewis,” I say. “Izzy, don’t pay any attention to him.”

  “I’m fine,” croaks Isabelle. But her hair is in her eyes and the smile is gone. Isabelle tosses her n
apkin on her tray. “I’d better get ready for the fashion show—”

  “Smelly Isabelly. Smelly Isabelly . . .”

  My sister untangles herself from the bench. She stands up.

  I try again. “Don’t go, Izzy—”

  “Smelly Isabelly. Smelly Isabelly.”

  Isabelle grabs her tray.

  “Izzy, you shouldn’t let him—”

  “Smelly Isa—”

  “Smell this, Lewis.” My sister swings around. She pushes her tray straight into Lewis Pigford’s chest. Lewis freezes. Kids gasp. The tray falls to the floor with a ear-splitting clatter. The room goes deathly still. Lewis’s light blue T-shirt is now a sliding collage of gooey hamburger meat, barbecue sauce, and bits of lettuce and tomato.

  Is that ranch dressing or blue cheese on his neck? Hard to tell. Lewis’s jaw drops. His arms hang in the air. His hip is still jutted out to one side, mid–hula dance. He can’t believe it. None of us can. This is Isabelle. Straight-A+, teacher’s pet, spelling bee champ, first-chair violin Isabelle. I have never been prouder.

  SCAB NEWS

  BY ISABELLE C. MCNALLY

  (FIRST-CHAIR VIOLIN)

  7:37 a.m.: Scab put salt in my orange juice. Again!

  8:29 a.m.: Scab picked the dirt out of his belly button all the way to school and made a giant lint ball. GROSS!

  8:52 a.m.: Scab told me he was sorry for naming his stinky spray Isabelle’s Smell, which was pretty cool. Unfortunately, he said it on TV in front of the entire school, which wasn’t so cool. Talk about embarrassing!! I was about to drop out of school for good, but then Jenna and Libby talked to me. They actually spoke to me at 12:06 p.m. today! I have been waiting all year for this miracle. They said they understood what it was like to have an irritating brother. Jenna has two of them!! I guess it took a lot of guts for Scab to apologize to me on TV. Did I just write that? Did I just write that Scab did something without thinking of himself first? Another miracle! That’s two in one day.