Charlie Bumpers vs. the Teacher of the Year

by Bill Harley

  I’d rather quit school and go to work and try to get along with Mr. Grimaldi.

  9

  The Egg is Wrong

  Somehow I made it to Friday without dying.

  When I got to school that morning, I saw that Mrs. Burke had hung up a sign in the hallway with these words printed on it: “Our Favorite Books.”

  The day before, we had drawn pictures of scenes from our favorite books. Now all the pictures were taped to a long string hanging on the wall. It looked great stretching up and down the hall.

  My favorite book is Jeremy Thatcher, Dragon Hatcher, which I’ve read a million times.

  Or at least three.

  My picture of Jeremy Thatcher looking at the dragon egg was hanging right over our classroom door so everyone could see it when they walked in.

  Mrs. Burke was just inside the room, looking down at me. Up close she seemed even taller. “I liked your drawing very much, Charlie,” she said. “Good job.”

  I was speechless. Mrs. Burke had said something nice. About me!

  Some other kids told me they thought the picture was cool, too. Even Ellen Holmes, who can draw really good pictures, especially horses.

  Then Samantha Grunsky spoke up. “Your picture’s wrong,” she said.

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “I read the book. The egg is rainbow colored.”

  Samantha was even more annoying than that girl in the book who drove Jeremy Thatcher crazy. “I don’t care,” I said. I had colored it gold because my favorite pencil was gold colored.

  “It’s still wrong,” she sniffed, like she was the Queen of Books or something.

  I’d really liked the egg the way it was, but after Samantha said that, it started to bug me. Every time I walked past the door, there was my picture right overhead, with the egg the wrong color.

  When we lined up for recess, Mrs. Burke put me in the front of the line right next to Samantha Grunsky.

  “Your picture’s still wrong,” she whispered.

  “So’s your brain,” I said.

  “When everyone is through talking,” Mrs. Burke said, “we can go.”

  We all got quiet and followed her out to the playground. I spotted Tommy standing with some other kids by the fence. It looked like they were arguing about something.

  “Are you kidding?” Tommy said to Darren Thompson just as I came over. “Charlie can beat you by a mile!”

  Uh-oh. If only Tommy could learn to keep his big mouth shut once in a while.

  “Hey, Charlie,” Tommy said. “You’re still the fastest, aren’t you?”

  “I don’t know,” I muttered. I was the fastest last year at field day, but not by much. I’d barely beat out Darren. And Caitlyn Wang had almost beaten both of us. “I guess we’ll find out on field day,” I said.

  “No contest,” Darren said. “I’ll beat you by a mile this year.”

  “No, you won’t!” Tommy shouted. “Let’s have a race now!”

  I looked at Tommy like he was crazy. Why does he always blurt out stuff without thinking? Even if I did beat Darren, he’d probably just give me a wedgie again.

  By now other kids were all chanting, “Let’s have a race! Let’s have a race!”

  I didn’t feel like racing. I couldn’t stop thinking about dumb Samantha Grunsky and the wrong-colored dragon egg. “Not now,” I said, heading back toward the school. “I have to do something inside.”

  “Chicken!” Darren said.

  “That’s not it!” I yelled back.

  “Buck-buck-buck buck-aww!” Darren said, flapping his arms like chicken wings.

  “Come on, Charlie!” Tommy pleaded. “I know you can beat him!”

  I kept walking. That dragon egg picture was on my mind and I had to take care of it now.

  I was almost to the door when I heard someone on the playground yelling my name.

  I stopped.

  Brady, the first grader with the funny voice, was running toward me. “Charlie!” He was still yelling even though he was only a few feet away. “I can’t get my jacket unzipped!”

  I looked around. There were teachers all over the place. But Brady just stood there staring up at me with his big eyes. I got down on my knees and unzipped his jacket.

  “Wait,” I said as he turned to go. “Your shoelaces are untied again.”

  He glanced down at his shoes, then back at me.

  I tied the laces and gave them a double knot.

  “Thanks, Charlie,” he said in his croaky little voice and ran off.

  It’s a good thing Brady’s head was stuck on permanently. If it wasn’t, he’d probably lose it.

  I went back inside and headed down the hallway to my classroom.

  10

  Aaaaaaaaaaaah!

  I reached up to pull down my drawing, but it was a little too high. Then I noticed a desk and chair sitting right outside Ms. Lewis’s room. I dragged the chair over, climbed up onto the seat, and pulled on my drawing. Mrs. Burke had stapled it to the string. It wouldn’t come off.

  I jumped down and raced into our classroom to get my colored pencils. They were way in the back of my desk, so I had to take everything else out to get to them. I stuck the pencils I needed in my pocket and ran back to the chair. Everything was still quiet. Recess wouldn’t be over for a few more minutes.

  I stood on the chair again. I could reach the picture, but I wasn’t high enough to color it. I just needed to be a few inches higher.

  I looked over at the desk.

  I KNOW you’re not supposed to stand on a desk. I’m not a bozo.

  But there was nobody around, and I figured I’d be done with standing on it and fixing the egg before anyone else came back.

  It wasn’t easy, but I pushed the desk in front of the door, right under my picture. I balanced myself on top, pulled the pencils from my pocket, and started to color the first rainbow stripe on the gold egg.

  That was when things began to go wrong.

  One leg of the desk was a little wobbly and the desk shifted under my feet. I put my hands up on the wall to balance myself, but I hit the string holding up the pictures.

  The tape holding one end of the string came loose and the pictures began to fall. I tried to hold them up, but they flapped and fluttered and the string fell across my shoulders. I still had the colored pencils in one hand, so I tried to hold up the string of pictures with my other hand.

  Then the other end of the string came loose. Pictures were wrapping around me. I couldn’t see.

  My foot slipped off the edge of the desk.

  I reached out for anything to keep me from falling and got one hand on the top of the door. It started to swing away from me, so I grabbed hold with the other hand, too. The door swung around until it hit the wall.

  There I was, hanging on the door with all the pictures the class had drawn of their favorite books strangling me and stretching down the hallway.

  “Help!” I squeaked, hoping someone could hear me.

  Then the door started to swing back toward the doorframe. My fingers were going to be smashed!

  Just in time, I kicked at the wall and the door went flying back the other way. When it slammed against the hallway wall, the board on the door that held all of Mrs. Burke’s messages fell off and the magnets scattered all over the floor. Then I started to swing back again.

  “Aaaaaaaaaaaah!” I yelled.

  I kicked and kicked, trying to get a foothold on the desk again. Instead I knocked over the desk and the chair. It made a big noise. My fingers started to slip.

  That was when Mrs. Burke led the class up the hallway from recess. She stopped and stared at me hanging there.

  “What are you doing?” she asked. She wasn’t exactly shouting, but sometimes the way grown-ups say something makes it seem like they are.

  I let go and fell to the floor. All the pictures were hanging on me, with my drawing of the dragon and the gold egg right under my chin. The magnets were spread out all over the hallway. The desk
and chair were lying on their sides.

  The egg was still the wrong color.

  As soon as I realized that I hadn’t broken my legs or anything, I started unwinding the string from my head and shoulders. Everyone was very quiet.

  Then I heard someone giggle. I felt a laugh coming up in my throat, too. I was scared and laughing at the same time. It’s a horrible thing when you’re really in trouble and you can’t help laughing.

  Just then Mrs. Diaz and her first-grade class walked down the hall toward us.

  Guess who was first in line?

  Right. The Squid.

  When she saw me sitting on the floor with the pictures wrapped around me, she put her hand over her mouth. I waved at her.

  “Hey, Mabel, it’s your brother!” a kid said. “He’s so funny!”

  All the other first graders shrieked like this was the funniest thing they’d ever seen. Then the kids in my class started laughing, too.

  Almost everybody.

  Mrs. Burke just shook her head and frowned.

  I unwound myself from the pictures and stood up. “I was trying to fix my picture,” I said. “The egg was the wrong color.”

  “So you decided to pull everyone else’s pictures down, too?” she asked.

  I wanted to explain, but I couldn’t think how to start.

  She folded her arms and waited for me to confess. Everybody was watching and waiting to see what happened.

  While everybody else in my class was just standing there waiting to see my life end, Hector the New Kid started gathering up all the pictures. He piled them all up neatly and handed them to Mrs. Burke.

  She looked at him and smiled. “Thank you, Hector,” she said.

  When Hector gave her the pictures, it took Mrs. Burke’s mind off of me for just a second and probably saved my life. She took the pictures from him, with the strings dangling down, and put them under one arm. Then Hector started to pick up the magnets. Pretty soon two or three other kids were helping him. I picked up a couple, too.

  “Back in the room, everyone,” she said. The class started to file in. I got in line and tried to sneak by.

  Mrs. Burke put her hand on my shoulder.

  I looked up at her.

  “Is that your desk?”

  I looked across the room. All of my things were spread out on my desk and on the floor around it from when I’d been looking for my pencils. I’d meant to put everything back, but I hadn’t had a chance.

  I nodded. Of course it was my desk.

  “What happened?” she said.

  “I was looking for my colored pencils,” I said. “Samantha said the picture was wrong and it was bugging me and I couldn’t stop thinking about it and I thought if I could just make the egg rainbow colored it would be all right but I couldn’t get it down or reach it and—”

  Mrs. Burke let out a long breath. “I’m not happy right now,” she said. “What am I going to do with you?”

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  “Go clean up your desk and sit down, Charlie,” she said, pointing to my seat. “I’d hate to have to call the superintendent.”

  Call the superintendent? The superintendent was like the king of all the schools! Call the superintendent? For pulling down pictures by accident? Was she crazy?

  But I went to my desk and started to pick things up. Hector came over to help.

  I looked at him. He smiled. I tried to smile back. After all, he had saved my life.

  Then I noticed his hands. He had black marker all over his fingers.

  I looked down at his new sneakers.

  Yesterday they had been white, but now they were black.

  “Why did you color your shoes?” I asked him.

  He shrugged. “I wanted to.”

  11

  Thanks to the Squid

  “I can’t believe you did that!” Tommy said when I told him about the great picture disaster in the hallway. He bonked me on the shoulder with his backpack.

  “I didn’t mean to!” I said. “It was Samantha Grunsky’s fault.”

  “You should’ve stayed out at recess,” Tommy said, climbing onto the bus. “Darren just kept talking about how you were a big chicken, and how slow you were.”

  “What a bozo,” I said.

  “Don’t worry,” Tommy said proudly. “I told him you were going to completely destroy him in the race. I told him you’d definitely race him tomorrow and you’d beat him by a mile.”

  “What did he say?”

  “He said to just wait and see what was going to happen. I told him he was nuts.”

  I could already feel the wedgie Darren was going to give me. “Great,” I said. “Thanks a lot.”

  “No problem.” Tommy grinned.

  If Mrs. Burke didn’t kill me first, Darren would make my life miserable. Still, it would be nice to beat him. I was tired of Darren’s bragging. I wanted someone to beat him, and I guessed it would have to be me. I wondered if I could.

  “I just hope Mrs. Burke doesn’t call my parents about the great picture disaster.”

  “Me, too,” Tommy said. “If she does, it’ll be the Great Charlie Bumpers Disaster.”

  Mrs. Burke didn’t call my parents. But they still found out.

  Thanks to the Squid.

  As soon as we sat down for dinner, she blurted out the whole story of my hallway catastrophe. I didn’t even have time to shut her up. I tried to explain to my parents, but the more I explained, the worse it sounded.

  “I just wanted to fix the dragon’s egg,” I said.

  Matt started to open his mouth. I knew he was going to say something to make me mad.

  “Matt Bumpers,” my mom warned. “Don’t make this worse.”

  “I couldn’t help it!” I said.

  Dad just shook his head at me. “You’re going to have to do better than that, Charlie,” he said.

  I was dying to ask him how he was doing with Mr. Grimaldi, but it seemed like a bad idea.

  The next day before recess I decided to ask to borrow a ball from General Shuler, Intergalactic Supreme Commander of Soccer Balls.

  Mr. Shuler wasn’t in the gym, but there was a new soccer ball lying right outside his office. I knew I shouldn’t take it without letting him know. I found a piece of paper and a pen on his desk and left him a note:

  The fourth graders have borrowed your soccer ball.

  I will bring it back at the end of recess.

  Yours truly,

  Charlie Bumpers

  Then I picked up the ball and ran out to the playground. Darren was already there with Tommy and some other kids, waiting for me.

  “Ready for the race?” he asked, smiling his I’m-gonna-give-you-a-wedgie smile.

  Boogers. I’d forgotten about the race.

  “Wouldn’t you rather play soccer?” I asked.

  Darren wasn’t very good at soccer, but I thought it was worth a try.

  “Nope. Tommy said you were going to kill me in a race. So let’s see you do it.”

  Just then, someone blew a whistle. We all turned and looked.

  It was the Intergalactic Supreme Commander of Soccer Balls.

  Mr. Shuler was marching straight toward me, and he didn’t look happy. I wondered what he wanted—I’d left him a note about the soccer ball.

  Everybody was watching us.

  “Give me the ball, son,” he said.

  I handed it to him.

  “Are you Charlie Bumpers?” he asked, looking at the note in his hand.

  “Yes, sir,” I said.

  “Mr. Bumpers, weren’t you the one I talked to the other day about borrowing gym equipment?”

  I nodded.

  “And did you not remember that I specifically told you to get permission first?”

  “I remembered,” I said. “But when I went to ask your permission, I couldn’t find you. So I left that note on your desk.”

  “That’s not good enough,” he said. “I want you to ask me in person.”

  “But�
��”

  “No buts.” He held up his big finger, which was attached to his big hand, attached to his big arm, attached to his big body. “If anyone borrows gym equipment again without permission, they’re going to have to deal with me. And believe me, they won’t like it.”

  Mr. Shuler squeezed the soccer ball with one hand. I imagined him squeezing my head until my brains came out of my ears. “Do we understand each other?” he asked.

  “Yes, sir,” I said, looking at the ground.

  “Look at me, son,” he said.

  I looked up at him.

  “Let’s not have any more problems. Would you like to borrow the ball?”

  “No thanks,” I said. I didn’t feel like playing soccer anymore. I didn’t think anyone else did, either.

  “Okay, then. I’ll see you kids later in gym class.” He turned and walked over to where Mrs. Burke was standing.

  Before I knew it, Darren was at my side again. “How about racing now?”

  I looked at him.

  He was never going to give up.

  “Okay,” I finally agreed. I just hoped I could beat him.

  Then I saw Hector the New Kid watching us and I got an idea.

  12

  Fastest Runner in Fourth Grade

  “If we’re going to have a race,” I said, “we need some more runners.”

  “Like who?” Darren said.

  “Caitlyn’s fast. And so is Hector.”

  “Caitlyn’s out sick today,” Darren announced. “Who’s Hector?”

  I pointed at the new kid and everyone turned to look at him.

  “We don’t need him,” said Darren. “This race is between you and me.”

  “Come on, Charlie,” said Tommy. “I know you can beat him. I told everyone you were going to race!”

  “Okay,” I said. “One race. But Hector races, too.”

  “All right. Here’s the starting line,” Tommy announced, setting down two rocks. “You stand here and I’ll run down to the finish line.”

  I took my place between the two starting-line rocks and so did Darren.