The Best School Year Ever

by Barbara Robinson

  “I thought you were scared to ride this bus,” Maxine told Imogene. “You said it was doomed.”

  “I didn’t say that,” Imogene told her. “You said that.” She climbed on the bus and walked up and down the aisle, picking out a seat next to some victim. “It looks all right to me.”

  Mrs. Yeagle was pretty mad at first, but she told my mother it wasn’t all bad to have the Herdmans on the bus. “They told everybody to shut up,” she said, “and everybody did.”

  Not for long, though. Claude and Leroy stole a bunch of baby turtles from the pet store and took them on the bus and put them down some kids’ shirts. Leroy said later that he was amazed at what happened. He thought the turtles were dead and he was going to take them back to the pet store and complain.

  The turtles weren’t dead. They probably saw who had them and decided to stay in their shells till they were big enough to bite back. But it was nice and warm inside the shirts, so they began to stick their heads out and crawl around.

  Of course nobody knew they had turtles down their backs. Nobody knew what they had down their backs, but Donald Cooper thought it was the big bugs, hungry and tired of peanut butter sandwiches. “I’ve got the big bugs on me!” he yelled, and right away all the other kids began to yell and scream and jump up and down and thrash around so Mrs. Yeagle had to stop the bus and get everybody settled down.

  It was another week before all the turtles came out from under the seats and behind the seat backs, so it was a good thing that they were little to begin with and didn’t grow very fast.

  Once the Herdmans had collected all the turtles, they got off the bus and never came back. “Don’t want to ride this dumb bus,” Ralph muttered, and I guess that was the real truth. They just wanted to get on the bus, take over the territory, wham a few kids, pick out the best lunch (Gwenda Malone’s, usually, because Gwenda always had two desserts and no healthy food), and then get off the bus and stay off, which they did.

  For once, though, they weren’t the only ones who got what they wanted. Lester’s baby teeth fell out like popcorn—“All those paper clips,” Mrs. Yeagle said—and his second teeth came in all crooked and sideways, so he had more braces and bigger braces and fancier braces than any body else in the Woodrow Wilson School, and maybe the whole world.

  Chapter 7

  When Louella McCluskey’s mother went to work part-time at the telephone company, she let Louella baby-sit her little brother, Howard, again during spring vacation.

  “Just don’t you let the Herdmans get him this time,” she said. “He’s got hair now so they can’t draw all over his head but I don’t know what else they might do.”

  Howard had hair all right, but it was no big improvement because it started way above his ears and grew straight up, like grass.

  “If it was up to me,” Louella said, “I’d shave his head and let him start all over.”

  “Just mention that to Leroy,” I said.

  Louella turned pale. “My mother would kill me, and I’d never get to watch television or go to the movies for the rest of my life.”

  Louella kept Howard out of sight for the whole time, but when school started again, the regular baby-sitter quit, so Mrs. McCluskey got special permission for Louella to bring Howard to school—“Just for a few days,” she said. “Just till I find someone else.”

  “Now what’ll I do?” Louella said. “I can’t learn compound fractions and watch out for Howard all the time, and he’ll be right there in the same room with Imogene Herdman!”

  She was really worried and you couldn’t blame her, so I wasn’t too surprised when she showed up with Howard on a leash.

  Miss Kemp was pretty surprised, though. “Is that necessary, Louella?” she asked. “After all, your little brother is our guest here in the sixth grade. Is that how we want to treat a guest, class?”

  Some kids said no, but a lot of kids said yes because they figured Howard was going to be a pain in the neck. So then Miss Kemp spent ten minutes talking about manners and hospitality, but I guess she figured Howard might be a pain in the neck too because she didn’t make Louella untie him.

  She did make her get a longer leash, though, because Howard got knocked on his bottom every time he tried to go somewhere.

  “He better learn not to do that,” Imogene Herdman said. “Claude had to learn not to do that.”

  Miss Kemp looked at her. “Not to do what?”

  “Not to go past the end of his leash.”

  “Why was Claude on a leash?”

  “Because we didn’t have a dog,” Imogene said.

  Miss Kemp frowned and sort of shook her head—the way you do when you’ve got water in your ears and everything sounds strange and faraway—but she didn’t ask to hear any more and you couldn’t blame her.

  Louella poked me. “If they wanted a dog,” she said, “they could just go to the Animal Rescue. That’s where we got our dog.”

  That might be okay for Louella, but I didn’t think the Animal Rescue people would give the Herdmans a rescued goldfish, let alone a whole dog, and the Herdmans probably knew it.

  Maybe they even went there and said, “We want a dog,” and the Animal Rescue said, “Not on your life.” So then, I guess, they just looked around and said, “Okay, Claude, you be the dog,” and then Claude was the dog till he got tired of it or they got tired of it.

  You had to wonder what he did when he was the dog—bite people, maybe, except they had Gladys to do that.

  Boomer Malone thought he might bark and guard the house.

  “From what?” I asked.

  Boomer shrugged. “I don’t know . . . robbers?”

  “Boomer, who are the main robbers around here?”

  “Oh, yeah.” He nodded. “They are.”

  Kids who didn’t have dogs thought he might come when somebody called him, or sit up and beg, or roll over, or fetch papers. Kids who did have dogs said their dogs barked to get in and barked to get out, and chased cars, and swiped food off the table, and tore up the neighbors’ trash, and all those things sounded more like Claude. You could see, though, how he would get tired of it.

  “He probably got tired of being on a leash,” Alice said. “Not like some people I know.” She meant Howard. Alice had already told Louella what she thought about Howard. “I tried to teach your little brother to read,” she’d said, “so he would be ready for kindergarten like I was. But I don’t think they’ll even let him in kindergarten. He’s pretty dumb.”

  “He’s too little to be dumb,” Louella grumbled. “If you want to teach him something, you could teach him to go to the bathroom.”

  Well, I knew that wouldn’t happen because Alice won’t even say the word bathroom. It’s a good thing you can just raise your hand to be excused, because if Alice had to say where she was going she would never go, and I don’t know what would happen to her.

  Dumb or not, Howard was okay for such a little kid stuck in the sixth grade. He had lots of paper and crayons, and little boxes of cereal to eat, and different people brought him different things to play with and look at. Alice showed up with great big pieces of cardboard that said A and B and C, but Howard didn’t like those much. He scribbled all over them, which, Alice said, just proved how dumb he was, that he didn’t even recognize the alphabet. “He’ll never get into kindergarten,” she said again. To hear Alice, you would think getting into kindergarten was better than getting into heaven, and a whole lot harder.

  “They’ll never let him in with that!” she said the first time she saw Howard’s blanket, and for once you had to think she might be right. Howard’s blanket was gross. Louella said it used to be blue and it used to have bunnies on it, but now it just looked like my father’s car-washing rag.

  “He has to have it,” Louella said. “If he didn’t have his blanket, Miss Kemp would probably have to throw him out. If he doesn’t have his blanket, he cries and yells and jumps up and down, and if he still doesn’t have his blanket, he holds his breath and turns purpl
e.”

  Right away Boomer Malone scooped up the blanket and sat on it, which would have caused a big argument except that everyone wanted to see Howard turn purple. It was recess and there was already a bunch of kids gathered around Howard at one end of the playground, and naturally more kids came to see what was going on, and by the time Howard quit hollering and began to hold his breath, half the Woodrow Wilson School was there, trying to see over and around people.

  “What’s he doing?” I heard someone say. “Is he purple yet?”

  He wasn’t, and I didn’t think he would live to be purple, with his eyes popping and all his little head veins standing out.

  “Louella,” I said, “do something . . . he’s going to explode!”

  “No, he won’t, she said. “He never does. You can’t explode from holding your breath. It’s a scientific fact. He won’t even pass out. You’ll see.”

  I didn’t want to see—what if Louella was wrong?—but it didn’t matter anyway because all of a sudden Imogene Herdman charged up, shoving kids out of the way right and left, and began to pound on Louella.

  “You said he would turn purple!” she said. “Look at him, he’s not purple. I can’t stand around here all day waiting for him to turn purple. Here, kid.” She threw Howard his blanket and Howard let out this big loud shuddery sob. Then he went on sobbing and hiccuping and hugging his blanket while Imogene stalked off and the whole big crowd of kids grumbled at Louella as if it was her fault.

  “I should just take his blanket away right now,” Louella said, “and let everybody look at him and that would be that. But as far as I know he never had to hold his breath two times so close together and I don’t know what that would do to him.”

  I thought it would probably kill him, so I was glad she didn’t do it, but I knew plenty of kids would do it if they got the chance.

  My mother said it better not be me or Charlie if we knew what was good for us. “That poor child has been scribbled on and scrubbed with scouring powder. He’s been bald and shiny-headed and now what hair he’s got looks as if someone planted it. Isn’t that enough for one little boy?”

  Either Imogene agreed with my mother or else she had plans to exhibit Howard at some later date (“See the Amazing Purple Baby! 25 cents”) and didn’t want him used up. From then on she kept one eye on Howard and the other eye on his blanket, and when Wesley Potter tried to snatch Howard’s blanket, he never knew what hit him.

  Imogene smacked Wesley flat and then stood him up and held him up by the ears and said, “You leave that blanket alone and you leave that kid alone or I’ll wrap your whole head in chewing gum so tight they’ll have to peel it off along with all your hair and your eyebrows and your lip skin and everything!”

  That took care of Wesley and everybody else who heard it, but it made Louella nervous.

  “Why is she being nice to Howard?” Louella said. “Why did she get his blanket back? That’s twice she’s gotten Howard’s blanket back. Why?”

  I didn’t know why but I knew she wouldn’t have to do it again because nobody wants to go through life wrapped in gum or skinned bald, and that would be your choice.

  “Maybe she likes him,” I said.

  “Why would she like him?” Louella said. “I don’t even like him and he’s my own brother.”

  “But that’s normal,” I said. “I’m not crazy about Charlie either. If Howard was somebody else’s brother you’d like him. I like him. There’s nothing not to like unless he is your brother and you have to bring him to school and watch out for him and keep him on a leash and all.”

  “Keep him on a leash . . .” Louella repeated. “Remember what Imogene said? They kept Claude on a leash because they didn’t have a dog?”

  “So?”

  “Well, they still don’t have a dog, and here’s Howard already on a leash . . . O-o-h!” Louella squealed. “Imogene is going to make him be their dog and my mother will kill me!”

  “Come on, Louella,” I said. “You can’t make a person be a dog. They could pretend Howard is their dog, but. . .

  “Just look at Howard,” Louella said. “He’ll pretend anything Imogene wants him to.”

  This was true. Howard was hugging his blanket and feeling his one favorite corner (which was even rattier than the whole rest of the blanket) and looking at Imogene the way you would look at the tooth fairy, handing out ten dollars a tooth.

  “She’ll feed him dog biscuits and teach him to bite!” Louella moaned.

  “Maybe he’ll bite Gladys,” I said, “and there’s nothing wrong with dog biscuits. Everybody eats dog biscuits at least once to see what they taste like.”

  I personally didn’t care for them, but when Charlie was little he was crazy about this one brand called Puppy Pleasers. I once asked him how they tasted and he knew exactly.

  “If you take a chocolate bar to the beach,” he said, and put it in the sand and let it melt and then pick up the melted chocolate bar and the sand and stick it all in the freezer, and when it’s frozen bust it up into little pieces, is how Puppy Pleasers taste.”

  At the time I thought Charlie would either die of grit or slowly turn to sand from the feet up and I didn’t know what we would do with him—stand him up in the backyard, maybe, and plant flowers around him.

  I didn’t know what the Herdmans would do with their dog, Howard, either. Whenever Charlie and I asked for a dog, my mother always said, “What are you going to do with him?” and we never knew what to say. We thought the dog would do it all and we would just hang around and watch.

  Mother said that’s exactly what she thought we thought. “When you find a dog that’s smart enough to take care of itself and let itself in and out of the house and answer the phone, let me know,” she said.

  Louella said we would have to watch Imogene, “Or else she’ll try to run off with Howard and take him home and name him some dog name, like Rover or Spot.”

  Luckily, she never got the chance. Mrs. McCluskey got her wires crossed at the telephone company and shut down the whole system for half an hour. She never knew a thing like that could happen, she said, and it made her so nervous that she just quit her job, right on the spot. And after that Louella didn’t have to bring Howard to school anymore.

  This was a big relief to Louella and you could tell it made Miss Kemp happy too, but she gave a little speech anyway, about how we would miss Howard and how he would be a big part of our sixth-grade experience and how we would always remember him.

  “Sounds like he died,” Imogene muttered. She was mad, I thought, because of wasting all her good deeds—getting Howard’s blanket back and making kids leave him alone— and then not getting anything for it, like a substitute dog, if that was what she wanted.

  “There is one thing,” Miss Kemp went on. “It seems Howard went off without his blanket. Has anyone seen Howard’s blanket?”

  No one had. Or else no one would admit they had, not with Imogene sitting there blowing this huge bubble of gum out and in and out and in, ready to park it on anyone who looked guilty. It’s too bad you can’t study bubble gum and get graded for it, because Imogene would get straight A’s. Her bubbles were so big and so thin you could see her whole face through the bubble, like looking at somebody through their own skin.

  “What if we can’t find it?” I asked Louella.

  “We better find it,” she said, “or else Howard will go crazy because all he does is sob and cry and hold his breath and hiccup.”

  He had also turned purple, she said, and he had almost passed out, so you had to figure that if somebody didn’t turn up with Howard’s blanket soon he would never make it to next week, let alone kindergarten.

  We looked for the blanket off and on the rest of that day, although Alice said it would be better if we didn’t find it. “It’s old and horrible and full of germs,” she said, and she told Louella, “You should be glad it’s lost. Howard will thank you someday.”

  This is what your mother says when she makes you wear ugly s
hoes. She says, “This will give your toes room to grow and you’ll thank me someday.” Hearing Alice say things like this makes you want to squirt her with canned cheese. Even Miss Kemp does, I think, because she said, “Alice, I can assure you that by the time Howard gets to ‘someday,’ he won’t even remember this blanket.”

  Somebody muttered, “Don’t be too sure”—Imogene.

  There was good news the next day— Howard had lived through the night without going crazy or purple—and even better news when Imogene showed up with his blanket. She said she found it at the bus stop underneath a bush.

  Nobody believed this. The Herdmans stole everything that wasn’t nailed down, just out of habit. Why not Howard’s blanket? “But so what?” Louella said, as long as Imogene brought it back.

  The next day the art teacher, Miss Harrison, stopped Louella in the hall and gave her a bunch of stubby crayons for Howard. “I just heard about your little brother’s blanket,” she said. “Louella, you aren’t going to find it because I threw it away. The last time we had art I used it to wipe the pastels off the chalkboard and then I just threw it away. I’m really sorry, but I didn’t know it was Howard’s blanket. It looked like my car-washing rag.”

  Louella shook her head. “We found Howard’s blanket.”

  Miss Harrison shook her head. “You’re just saying that to make me feel better. No, as soon as I heard it was missing, I knew what I’d done and where it was—gone, in the trash.”

  “She’s wrong,” Louella said.

  “Maybe you’re wrong,” I said.

  Louella thought for a minute. “Well, Howard wouldn’t be wrong and he thinks it’s his blanket. You can’t get it away from him.”

  We did get it away from him but we had to wait till he was asleep. Then we had to unfasten his fingers and quickly give him this old worn-out bathrobe of Louella’s.

  “See?” said Louella. “It’s the same blanket.”

  It certainly looked like the same blanket— old, faded, sort of dirty gray, with one corner that was especially old and faded and dirty gray. There was something else too—a capital H, scribbled and wobbly and almost faded out.