A Catastrophe of Nerdish Proportions

by Alan Lawrence Sitomer

  She set down her pizza, took the plate from my dad, and set that one down, too. I felt condor-size butterflies flapping around in my stomach.

  I hate family conferences, I thought as I sat down at the brown wooden table. But Marty didn’t sit. He continued to stand, his arms crossed, his eyes blazing.

  “That means you, mister,” Mom ordered, losing her patience with her sixteen-year-old son. Getting angry was pretty rare for Mom. I mean, usually, she was the most tolerant person I knew. “Now!” she demanded.

  Marty, realizing he had better not mess with her, uncrossed his arms, pulled out a chair, and turned to his left.

  “That would be, a conference for our family,” Marty said to our father, taking his seat, “as in, NOT including you.”

  “Marty!” bellowed Mom. “That is not how—”

  “No, no,” my dad said. “It’s okay.”

  He slowly reached for his coat, which was resting on the back of his chair. “There’s a lot of holes to fill,” he said. “And some are bigger than others.”

  “And some are unfillable, Daaaaad.” Marty spoke with a kind of sarcastic bite I’d never heard out of him before. He had the look of a hive of wasps.

  Whoa, does my brother have guts or what? I thought.

  My father didn’t reply. Instead, he just put on his jacket and quietly walked out of the house. Hadn’t touched his pizza, either. Hadn’t even said good-bye. Clearly, Marty’s words had hurt.

  As soon as the front door closed behind him, Marty spun around. “Why are you even seeing him, Mom?” he asked in an accusatory tone. “I don’t get it.”

  “It’s just, well…relationships are complicated, honey,” she answered. “Me and your father, we have, you know, a history together. And we have you.”

  Mom looked around the table at each of us and started to get teary.

  “And the three of you are the best thing that ever happened to me.”

  I could see wrinkles at the sides of her eyes, in spite of the cream she used every night. To me, she had always been really pretty, but she was now in her mid-forties, getting older. And a little flabbier, too. Plus, there were a few more brown specks on her hands and arms, like freckles. Those few specks, though, especially for women, add up.

  “Well, I think he’s cool,” Ashley said, offering her two cents. “And he wants to buy me a new computer.”

  “He’s trying to buy your love,” Marty said dismissively.

  “No,” Ashley replied. “He’s trying to buy me a new computer.

  And you should see the one he’s going to get me, Maureen,” she said, turning to me. “It’s like, totally awesome.”

  I half smiled.

  “You’re too young to understand,” Marty told her.

  “I’m old enough to understand that having a dad who wants to buy me a cool computer is better than not having a dad who wants to buy me a cool computer.”

  “Whatever,” said Marty.

  “Whatever to you, monkey butt.” Ashley hated being talked to like the baby of the family, even though she was the baby.

  “Keep it up and I’m going to feed your tongue to my fighting fish, Ash.”

  “Just stop it, both of you,” Mom said. She turned to me. “What do you think, Boo?”

  I stared at the pizza. The urge to eat suddenly returned. Not just a little, either. I felt like eating the whole pizza, box and all.

  “I dunno,” I answered.

  “You don’t know what?” Mom asked. Seeing the tears in her eyes made my eyes well up, too.

  “Anything,” I said. “I don’t know anything.”

  We sat there for a moment, lost in our own thoughts, as the pizza got cold.

  “Well, I only have two things to say,” Marty declared. “Number one, I don’t trust him.”

  He rose from his chair.

  “And number two…” We all looked up. “I never will.”

  With that, he stormed out of the room.

  The next day, as I sat at our usual table, waiting for Beanpole to unfold the day’s architectural lunch wonder—it looked like her mom had made something with columns and gargoyles for her to eat—Vice Principal Chambliss, dressed in a forest green pants suit, approached.

  “Okay, ladies…one more time,” she said, using her walkie-talkie antenna to point in the direction of the principal’s office.

  “But we didn’t do anything,” I protested. And it was the truth. We really hadn’t done anything. Other than work hard preparing for the Academic Septathlon, that is.

  That’s when it hit me: the ThreePees probably had.

  “Tell it to the judge,” Mrs. Chambliss said in an unsympathetic voice. “Let’s go.”

  I picked up my backpack and started telling myself there was no way I was going to clean locker-room grime off shower stalls just because those toads had gotten busted trying to stick it to us. I mean, that would have been just so like the ThreePees, too: get caught, lie, snitch on us, then set it up so that we’d be the ones to pay the price while they got away scot-free and laughed all the way to the makeup counter.

  Well, no way. My neck tense, my eyes starting to squinch, I marched my way to Principal Mazer’s office. By the time we’d arrived, I was in a full stomp.

  The ThreePees were already inside.

  “I just want to say before you even begin that we didn’t do anything,” I blurted out. “Not a thing.”

  Besides the ThreePees and Principal Mazer, Vice Principal Stone and Mr. Piddles were in the office.

  “Maureen, no one is…”

  “But you don’t understand,” I interrupted. “We really, really didn’t do anything. And it’s just not fair, because they keep getting us into trouble even though—”

  “We get you into trouble?” Kiki said, as if that were the most shocking thing she’d ever heard. “All you dorks ever do is talk about us behind our backs and try to figure out ways to—”

  “Who are you calling a dork, you snob?” I said.

  “Who are you calling a snob, ya nerd?” Brattany replied.

  “ENOUGH!” barked Principal Mazer. “Goodness gracious, enough, already.” He turned to my social studies teacher. “It seems you are correct, Mr. Piddles. They do not seem to be learning that which is most important in all of this at all. We’ll go with your suggestion.”

  “I do think it’s most just,” Mr. Piddles replied.

  “Uh, what suggestion?” I asked. The six of us exchanged confused looks.

  Principal Mazer rose from his desk to make an announcement. “We have a winner,” he declared.

  “A winner?” Brattany asked. “You mean for the competition?”

  “Yay!” Sofes clapped. “I didn’t even get any questions wrong, either. Percentageally speaking, that’s, like, a perfect score.”

  Kiki rolled her eyes, then addressed Mr. Mazer. “But how can we have a winner if we haven’t even had a contest yet?”

  “No, no, Mr. Piddles is correct,” Mr. Mazer replied. “You ladies haven’t learned a thing.”

  “With all due respect, sir, I’m not sure that’s true,” I countered. “At least our team’s learned a lot.” I turned to Beanpole in order to prove a point. “What’s the primary chemical compound used in table salt?”

  “May I have a definition, please?”

  Note to self: smash Beanpole in the shins later.

  “Congratulations, Lady Aardvarks. I know you’ll represent our school well.”

  We glanced around at one another with bewildered looks.

  “Grover Park Middle School will be sending just one team to compete this year, and that team is…” Mr. Mazer paused for dramatic effect.

  Kiki scowled at me. “Prepare to polish, nerdvark.”

  “Eat mud, snoot queen.”

  “All of you.”

  “Excuse me?” Brattany said.

  Yeah, what’d he mean by that? I thought.

  “That’s right,” Mr. Mazer explained. “You are all winners today. The six of you are go
ing to form one unified team.”

  “What?!” Kiki said.

  “Isn’t that exciting?” Mr. Mazer replied with an ear-to-ear smile.

  “No,” Kiki replied.

  “See, three students isn’t enough, anyway, but six—now that’s a team.” We looked at one another, shocked and horrified. “But do you really want to know why we’ve decided to go this route, ladies? Do you really want to know?”

  I looked at Mr. Piddles, and like magic, the answer came to me.

  “Because it’s just,” I replied.

  “That’s right, Miss Saunders. Because you deserve one another,” Mr. Mazer said. “You girls deserve one another more than soup deserves a spoon. More than cereal deserves milk. More than rhinoceroses deserve those tiny little birds that pick the unchewed food out of their teeth.”

  “That’s gross,” Beanpole said.

  “Rhinoceros horn is good for your estrogen levels,” Q replied.

  “Yep, you were born to be teammates,” Mr. Mazer informed us.

  “But…But…”

  “No buts,” he interjected. “My decision is final. From this moment forward, the six of you will be our Academic Aardvarks.” Mr. Mazer flexed his muscles and roared. “Aardvark power…Raaahhhh!”

  “Forget it. We’ll polish,” Kiki said.

  “Sorry, Miss Masters, that deal is off the table. Seems someone has a father who’s a lawyer, and he threatened to sue this school all the way to Singapore if his daughter touched even one bottle of glass cleaner,” Mr. Mazer said, gazing at Brattany.

  She slinked down in her chair.

  “So, you’re all winners today,” he continued. “It’s the Academic Septathlon or else.”

  “Fine, I’ll take the or else,” Kiki said disrespectfully. She turned to Brattany. “I mean, if he can’t make us polish, then—”

  “—Then you are going to be suspended from school for two weeks with an inquiry into expulsion from the district,” Mr. Mazer answered, completing her sentence in a voice that was one hundred percent serious.

  Kiki whipped her head around. “What? Why? You can’t do that!”

  “Destroying campus property. Trespassing in the art room. Incurring expensive overtime costs for noncertified personnel. Should I go on?” he asked. “If you’d like, I can have my secretary type up a list of potentially criminal infractions.”

  None of us replied.

  “Ah, the sound of student silence. It’s so rare on this campus. Makes me think we’re all done here. Mr. Piddles, anything you’d like to add?”

  “Feels just to me,” he responded.

  Is that the Declaration of Independence on his tie?

  “And you, Mr. Stone. Anything you’d like to add before I send these ladies on their way?”

  “My last stupid year,” Mr. Stone mumbled.

  “You’ll find that your new Academic Septathlon coach is quite the inspirational leader,” Mr. Mazer said.

  Our coach?

  “I mean, any man who draws a school paycheck should do the job he’s assigned, to its utmost, wouldn’t you say, ladies?”

  Mr. Stone shifted in his seat and groused some more. Clearly, our principal and our vice principal had some stuff going on between them that we were getting caught in the middle of.

  “May the wind be at your backs, Lady Aardvarks. I look forward to seeing your performance. And, oh yeah,” he added, “if you don’t finish in at least fourth place, we’re going to revisit the idea of stern consequences.”

  Fourth place? Why?

  “There will be no ‘phoning it in,’” Mr. Mazer explained. “You will genuinely try to excel or you will genuinely pay the price.”

  The six of us exited the principal’s office in a stupor, not quite sure what to say. Awkward silence filled the air.

  Until it was broken by perk.

  “I think it’s a great idea!”

  “No, it’s not, Beanpole,” I said. “It’s the worst idea ever. I’d rather polish.”

  “So not fair,” Q said. “We were gonna cream them, anyway.”

  “Were not,” Kiki said.

  “Were too,” I told her.

  “Were not,” Brattany insisted.

  “Stop!” Beanpole shouted. “Am I the only one who is sick of all this fighting?”

  “I am,” Sofes said meekly. Everyone turned to look at her. “Sick of all the fighting, I mean,” she added sheepishly.

  Kiki threw Sofes a glare filled with daggers.

  “We can be a team,” Beanpole argued. “We’ll be unified. We’ll be, like, the six Aardvark-e-teers, one for all and all for one.”

  She started to chant our school cheer.

  “We’re the Aardvarks,

  The mighty, mighty, Aardvarks!

  We’re the Aardvarks,

  The mighty, mighty, Aardvarks!”

  “How ’bout it?” Beanpole asked, a serving of extra perk on top.

  We paused and slowly looked at one another. Kiki was the first to speak.

  “Suck lemons, Beanpole. Skinny-chubby’s right. This is a disaster.” Kiki turned to her two pet ding-a-lings. “Come on, girls, we are outee.”

  And with that, the ThreePees marched off.

  On Saturday, we sat at a rectangular brown table near the back of the library, waiting to have our first study session with the Wicked Witches of the West.

  They were late. Of course.

  “So, you gonna text him back?” Beanpole asked as I looked at my phone.

  “Dee-leet,” I replied, pushing a button.

  “Mo, isn’t this whole dee-leet thing with your dad getting a little old?” she asked.

  “Not to me,” I said. “But if he stops sending me messages, I promise I’ll stop deleting them.”

  “Ssshh…here they come,” Q said, interrupting us. “Quick, look intimidating.”

  “Intimidating?”

  “Yeah, make them fear the nerd herd.” Q lowered her chin, squinted, and flashed her best Don’t mess with me face. I watched as she contorted her body into all kinds of angles.

  “Downright menacing,” I said. “I’ll be surprised if they even have the nerve to sit down.”

  She reached for her scuba tank. Wheeesh-whooosh. Wheeesh-whooosh.

  “Oh yeah. That helps, too.”

  Kiki, leading the way, bounded into a chair and tossed down her backpack. Brattany and Sofes, flanking her, took seats as well—one on Kiki’s left, one on Kiki’s right—and tossed down their backpacks, too. It was three of us on one side of the table and three of them on the other, with about three feet of desktop space in the middle separating us.

  “First rule: no phones,” Kiki said, looking at Beanpole firmly gripping her cellie.

  “Number one,” I answered. “You don’t make the rules. And number two, you’re late.”

  “What are you talking about? It’s quarter after two, just like we said,” Brattany responded.

  Q raised her wrist and read the digits on her calculator watch. “The current time is 2:17 and 36, 37, 38”—Wheeesh-whooosh. Wheeesh-whooosh—“41, 42, 43 seconds.”

  Kiki stared at Q with a puzzled, semimortified look. Beanpole, always the peacemaker, tried to explain nicely.

  “Accurate statistics are important to her.”

  “Is any of that,” Brattany said, pointing at Q, “contagious? ’Cause, like, if I catch something, my dad’s a lawyer.”

  “I’d rather have her on my team than you,” I shot back.

  “And I’d rather not have any of you on my team,” Kiki said.

  “So we agree there. But our principal, Mr. Moron, has us backed into a corner, so let’s just get to it so we can get it over with, okay?” She flipped though her nine-thousand-page binder. “I’ve already decided that the best way to do this, since we only have about three weeks, is to just split it up. We’ll study Art, Theater, and Music; you take Science, Math, Language Arts, and History.”

  “No way,” I replied. “Why should you get all the easy subjec
ts while we do the hard ones?”

  “She didn’t say moo-sic, skinny-chubby. Like, of course, if food was a category, we’d let you take it,” Brattany said to me.

  Kiki laughed. “Double-double nice-nice,” she said as she and Brattany high-fived.

  “Come on, you guys,” Beanpole pleaded. “We need to be a team.”

  “That’s right,” Sofes said. “Just like there’s no shimmer in your hair if there’s no H without the p.”

  The entire table stopped.

  “Huh?”

  “You know, healthy hair? It’s pH-balanced,” Sofes explained. “You can’t just have the H.” She flipped her notebook open to a blank page. “Like, duh,” she added, as if her point were so obvious.

  “Sofes, do you know about anything other than hair?” Kiki inquired in a condescending tone.

  “Hmm…let’s see.” Sofes looked up. “Do the physics of jet propulsion count?”

  “You know about the physics of jet propulsion?” Beanpole asked, impressed.

  “No, I was just wondering if that would have counted.” Sofes and Beanpole paused, looked at one another, and then, at the same exact time, smiled.

  “Hee-hee, I’d give you credit,” Beanpole said.

  “Wow, propulsion,” Sofes replied. “I can’t believe I knew such a sophisticationed word.”

  The two of them giggled some more as Brattany glanced at Kiki with an I knew this was going to happen look on her face.

  “You know, there ought to be a rule that punishes your parents for the damage they’re causing to society,” Kiki said to Sofes.

  Rule? Q pricked up her ears, and I could see the little hamster wheel spinning in her head.

  “Academic Septathlon bylaws state that each team must operate in a system whereby the distribution of”—Wheeesh-whooosh. Wheeeh-whooosh—“questions is evenly split between all contestants, meaning an order must be established, and that order cannot be altered or deviate at any juncture of the competition.”

  “Like, what is wrong with the allergy freak?” Brattany asked.

  “Yeah, do we need to put her in a plastic bag or something?” Kiki wondered. “Of course, we’d poke holes in it so she could breathe.”

  “Tiny ones,” Brattany added with a smile.

  “She’s talking about the rules, snobwads,” I said. “We have to go in a specific, predetermined order; otherwise we forfeit.”