by Adam Selzer
“But you still gave him pretty good odds?” asked Helen.
“Don’t tell the man how to do his job!” shouted Agnes. “He’s the expert, Helen! And get your chair away from the electrical outlet, or you’ll get electrigated!”
“Shut your mouth, Agnes! You’d just love to see me get electrigated!” shouted Helen. “Probably toast a marshmallow off me while I burned up, that’s what you’d do! Then you’d have this place all to yourself, and you could use my biscuit recipe and say it was your own!”
“Your biscuits taste like barf!” Agnes shouted. And she leaned her head back and spit out a loogey that landed in the spittoon, narrowly avoiding my head on the way. I should have known better than to stand in the line of fire. Helen handed her back the dollar.
“Nice shot, Agnes,” I said.
Agnes smiled. “Well then, Mr. Principal,” she said, “who will you be betting on?”
“Oh, you know I never place a bet on the bee,” I said. “It wouldn’t be appropriate.”
“Nonsense!” said Helen. “If a principal does something, that means it’s appropriate.”
“You weren’t thinking of spending a week watching the students, and then making a bet with inside information, were you?” asked Agnes. “Because that would be cheating, Mr. Principal. And you know what happens to cheaters!”
I gulped. In some gambling dens, they break your legs or your thumbs when they catch you cheating. Others just beat you senseless. At the Burger Baron, anyone caught cheating had to clean out the spit bucket.
Nobody, but nobody, ever tried to cheat Helen and Agnes.
“And we really, really think you should be placing a bet this year, Principal.”
When Helen and Agnes told you this, they meant that you didn’t have a choice. It was an order, and if you refused, they were going to call on you to pay any money that you owed them—and if you couldn’t pay, they’d make you go to work at the Burger Baron, washing dishes, until you were paid off.
“All right,” I said. “I’ll place a bet now.”
“Who will it be, then?” asked Helen.
I thought for a moment. My first instinct was to bet on Mutual Scrivener, but that was dangerous. Also, it could be very, very bad for the school if he won. How would it look if a student who had barely spent a day in school did better than students who had been in school their whole lives? No, it was important that Mutual Scrivener not win the bee.
I thought about betting on Jason Keyes, but if he won, people would be suspicious. Marianne had the best odds, but my instincts also told me that all the studying she did could cause her to burn out early. Jennifer seemed like the way to go.
“Van Den Berg,” I said. “I’ll bet on Jennifer Van Den Berg.”
“That’s a nice, safe choice,” said Agnes. “And goodness knows you need the money, Mr. Principal.”
“Because you know what will happen if you don’t pay us all the money you owe soon, Floren,” said Helen. And she and Agnes both laughed—there are few sounds in the world more terrifying than the sound of them laughing together.
I owed Helen and Agnes thousands of dollars. And if Jennifer lost the bee, or if I refused to make a bet, they would probably make me take a job as a dishwasher at the Burger Baron to pay them back. I might even have to resign as principal to be a full-time dishwasher.
When all the bets were laid, it looked as though Helen and Agnes stood to win the largest amount if Mutual won. I was sure that they would accuse me of cheating if he lost, so I very carefully filmed myself giving Mutual a word list, so it would look like I had actually HELPED the student they wanted to win. They would not have been able to see that the list was full of misspelled words in the recording. I regretted what I was doing to Mutual, of course, but I felt that it was a necessary action on my part. It was important to me, and the school, that Jennifer won, and that Helen and Agnes could not accuse me of cheating.
And that is the real story. My hand was forced.
Thank you, Chrissie, for taking my deposition. I welcome this investigation, because I believe the students have got to know whether their principal is a crook.
Well, I am not a crook.
In all my years as a public servant, I have always tried to do what was best for the school.
36
HARLAN
subligaria—noun. Latin word for underwear. When the wind blew Caesar’s toga around, Roman children would shout, “Clear the street! Clear the area! I see Caesar’s subligaria!”
Ah, it’s good to be a legend. I always knew it would be.
I can’t even describe how great that belch felt. It’s that feeling you get when you’ve worked really hard to get something, and then you finally get it, and it’s everything you thought it would be. And then, if that wasn’t a good enough feeling, the place went nuts. I’d even go so far as to say I got more applause than Johnny Dean did when he brought the purple dog onstage.
And right after the bee, people were crowding all around me, congratulating me and wanting me to teach them to burp. I might even have to start up a business giving private burping lessons.
After the crowd died down, one of the guys from the Good Times Gang even came up and started talking to me. He was writing a song about me, he said. Do you believe that? So now every kid at every school the Good Times Gang visits is going to know about me. And that’ll spread my fame far and wide for years, you know, because they don’t change their routine much at all. Maybe in a hundred or so years they can sing the song at my funeral. In fact, I’ll insist on it.
Anyway, I was so caught up in my belching plans that I barely even stopped to think that getting to the top five would take me to districts, too. Maybe I’ll even really try my best to come in first there! I let Jake have this one—he wanted it a LOT more than I did, and I’d already done what I planned to do. But who knows? I could probably even make it to nationals, if I study hard enough.
And I realize that there’s a lot of talk going around saying that Chrissie gave me the master word list, or at least showed it to me. But she didn’t. She told me she had it, but I never looked at it. Never even asked to. It would go against the code of the class clown. I live by the code, and, well, look where it got me!
After all, whenever someone tells me I should steal, or drink, or smoke, or take drugs, or cheat, all I have to do is the same thing I do when the gym teacher tells me to run a lap: Shrug my shoulders and say, “Hey. I don’t need to do that stuff. I’m a member of the Good Times Gang!”
37
JENNIFER
honorificabilitudinitatibus—noun. The condition of being worthy to receive honors. Known for being the longest word used by Shakespeare. At the end of Bee Day, the best word for the state that Jason, Harlan, Jake, and Mutual were in was honorificabilitudinitatibus.
I didn’t wait for the crowd to die down—the bee was over, and I was going home.
I didn’t want to wait around talking to reporters about my dad breaking into the school. I wanted to talk to Mutual a bit, but his parents hustled him into their car the second he was out of the auditorium. So I just started running. I ran all the way home, stopping only to jump into the occasional snowdrift. I hadn’t forgotten all my priorities.
Maybe I shouldn’t have lost the bee. I could have won—I know I could have. But I didn’t mind losing to Jake. He wanted it a lot more. I just hoped my parents would understand.
My mother, as usual, was waiting at the door.
“Jennifer!” she shouted when I opened up the door. “Thank goodness!”
“Hi, Mom,” I said. “I guess you saw the bee on TV.”
“It was brilliant of you,” she said. “I always knew you were a genius!”
“Um, Mom?” I asked. “You know I lost, right?”
“That was the brilliant part!” she said. “If you had come in first, when they played that tape showing that Principal Floren helped your dad break in, people would have thought that you were cheating. You proved them all wro
ng by missing that word—it was a stroke of genius!”
“Yeah,” I said. “That’s exactly what I had in mind.”
“Brilliant,” she said again. “Wait till I call Val and tell her!”
Of course that wasn’t really what I had in mind, but Mom didn’t need to know that.
“And Marianne got creamed!” Mom went on triumphantly. “This is absolutely the best thing that could have happened. You showed that you weren’t cheating, you get to go to districts, and Marianne doesn’t! Your father will be so proud. You did a very honorable job.”
“I’m just glad it’s over,” I said. “Can I have some hot chocolate? With marshmallow cream?”
“You, Jennifer, deserve all the hot chocolate you want. But it’s a long way from over. Districts are only a month away, and you have a lot of studying to do!”
“I suppose so,” I said. “And remember how you said that I could drop a couple of activities if I went to districts?”
“Yes.” She nodded.
“Well, I think I should probably take some time off from almost ALL of them. Like, everything but Shakespeare Club.”
Mom paused for a minute, and stared at me like I’d just said I was going to quit breathing, just to see what would happen. But then she exhaled, shrugged her shoulders, and tilted her head sideways.
“That may be wise, now that I think about it,” she said. “You’ll need that time for studying! I’ll talk to your father about it.”
“You think he’ll go for it?” I asked.
“No,” she said. “But I’m sure I can reason with him.”
“I was sort of afraid he was going to send me to military school if I didn’t make it to districts.”
Mom sighed. “He’s been going on about military school for years,” she said. “He even wanted to send Val there. He just wants what’s best for you guys, you know. His job isn’t really very good, and he wants you and Val to have better ones. Deep down, he knows there are more important things in life than spelling. The spelling bee just makes people go a bit crazy around here.”
That had to be the understatement of the year. But it was good to know that she knew Dad was nuts, too.
“You wouldn’t let him send me to military school, would you?” I asked.
“Of course not, silly,” said Mom. “There’s no way he could talk me into it now. Not now that I’ve seen just how good at sneaking into buildings military school REALLY made him.”
A minute later, she brought me a mug of hot chocolate topped with a whole mountain of marshmallow cream. Hot chocolate had never tasted so good.
Nobody in years to come will really remember who had won the bee—it was Harlan who had been the real winner. He had become a hero—twice in one day—and then thrown the bee to let Jake or Mutual have it. And then Mutual, I was sure, had missed on purpose as well. I wasn’t entirely sure why he had done that, but it was a really nice thing to do for Jake. And everyone knew that Harlan and Jason had a lot of guts, of course, but doing something like that was probably a huge thing for Mutual. If the rumors about his parents were true, he could probably be kicked out of his family for losing the bee.
I hoped they didn’t kick him out. I really wanted to study with him.
I was proud to have spelled with all those guys. And Jason and Brittany and everyone else, too. Everyone but Marianne, of course. But now that the whole thing was over, it was hard to keep feeling all that angry at her. In a weird way, I even felt a little bit sorry for her. But just a little bit.
The all-school bee was over. That was all that mattered to me right then.
A couple of minutes later, I was sitting on my bed, sipping hot chocolate and changing into warm socks. Falstaff was curled up next to me, purring.
And I still had the Shakespeare Club meeting that night to look forward to.
It was going to be a good night.
38
MUTUAL
floccinaucinihilipilification—noun. The act of estimating something to be worthless. When it came to the outside world, Mutual’s parents were in the habit of floccinaucinihilipilification, but Mutual was seeing things very differently.
My parents were a little upset that Jake Wells had won the bee, but I told them that I just missed the last word because I was so nervous—I was not used to having so many people watching me, or having so many bright lights on me.
“That is what they do, all right,” Mother said, as she drove me home. “I know their tricks and manners! They try to intimidate the children who are not used to the outside world, so their favorite kids have an advantage. But it does not matter too much—you can still come in first in the district bee next month.”
The next morning, we drove clear into town so we could buy a local newspaper. The front page headline read FLOREN AUTHORIZED BREAK-IN!
The article said that evidence provided by Chrissie Woodward proved beyond reasonable doubt that Floren had bet that Jennifer Van Den Berg would win the bee, and it was thought that the eighteen minutes and twenty seconds of footage he had erased would have shown him arranging for her father to break in. Jennifer was not suspected of cheating, since she had not won the bee, anyway, and there was no evidence that she had actually had a copy of the word list.
The article also mentioned that Chrissie had provided the school board with a copy of the sloppy word list Floren had given me, which indicated that he had actually tried to sabotage me—it even had his signature to prove he had written it. So I was in no trouble. My parents were not upset—they only gave me an hour-long lecture to beware of Principal Floren’s tricks and manners.
Police officers had arrested the old ladies, Helen and Agnes, who, the paper said, attempted to spit on the officers as they were put into handcuffs. They had then raided the Burger Baron and found a whole den of gamblers in a hidden back room. My parents said that they always knew that the town was full of places like that.
The school board decided to let the results of the spelling bee stand, since it did not appear that any student had actually cheated, but they were launching an investigation into Principal Floren’s activities. We called from a telephone in a drugstore to arrange for me to give my deposition.
“I knew it,” said my mother. “Gambling! Sabotage! Corruption! What did I tell you, Mutual? The corruption at that school went all the way to the top! It is a wonder nobody was shot!”
“But at least I made it to the district bee,” I said. “So I will have to continue attending Gordon Liddy Community School until then.”
“Yes,” said Mother, scowling. “I suppose you will. But you will have to be a lot more careful. Do not talk to any teachers or even other students, if you can help it. Now you know their tricks and manners, too. I have half a mind to pull you out of there and put you in the Shaker Heights school.”
“No,” I said. “I would prefer to stay at Gordon Liddy. It would be easier than learning a whole new set of tricks and manners at another school.”
“I suppose that makes sense,” she said. “You have a lot of studying to do over the next month! You do not need to be all worried about starting over on top of that.”
I was more excited by this news than any other. I was happy that I would be competing in the district bee, and happy for Jake, since he had won, and happy that the results would not be contested. But mostly I was excited that I would still be able to attend Gordon Liddy. With Jason and Amber, who were teaching me headbanging skills. And both Jason and Harlan could teach me an awful lot of things that had nothing to do with spelling. And, most importantly, Jennifer was going to be teaching me her method of studying. I would get to spend more time with her. Perhaps just the two of us, alone.
I still had plenty of time to become a famous speller, like Umlaut Eddlebeck and Big John Comma. I was glad to be able to spend another month with Mrs. Boffin’s class.
I had a lot to learn.
39
CHRISSIE
Excerpt from notebook #96: The password to get into the
gambling den is “seafood platter.”
So there it is. The whole story of the bee, in black and white, as told by the people who lived it.
You no longer have an excuse not to fire Floren.
I still feel terrible about how many kids I got into trouble over nothing over the years. A lot of times, I gave information to the office just hoping that it would get someone some extra help, or a warning, and they ended up getting detention, or missing recess. And I was always a bit disappointed when that happened, but I figured that the people in the office knew best. They made the rules and the decisions, and I always trusted them.
Looking back, I can’t believe how stupid I was.
All that time, I was trusting in a low-down, dirty crook.
From now on, things are going to be different. I might still turn Harlan in every now and then, if he does something REALLY bad, but I’ve come to realize that my real job is to protect the students from the people who run the school.
And that’s what I’m going to do. I’m only going to be at Gordon Liddy Community School for a few more months, but in that time, I want to make sure no kid gets in more trouble than he or she deserves. I want to make sure that the place is fair and just to everyone. It sure won’t be easy.
But you, dear esteemed members of the school board, can take one easy step and make my job a whole lot easier by firing Principal Floren. I may have lost a lot of trust in your ability to do the right thing, but I still hope you can do it. Even though I still say you stink for not having done it already.
Thank you for your time.
Sincerely,
Chrissie Woodward
APPENDIX:
SELECTED SONGS OF
THE GOOD TIMES GANG
