“Noted. But first, might you care for a Milky Way?”
She grunts past me.
I really gotta work on my water fountain sales pitch. A perfect rhyme, a catchy jingle: Now that your palette is refreshed, how about a Nestlé Crunch? So close.
* * *
Skipping Mrs. Q’s class due to banishment is one thing, but I never, ever—I mean ever (unless it’s on a Friday)—skip Mr. Morgan’s English class. Mr. Morgan isn’t like the other gods or goddesses of the school. He wears jeans, rarely shaves, and rocks aviator sunglasses even when we’re watching a movie in class with the lights out.
Mr. Morgan is more than the god of English. He is the supreme and unmerciful and omniscient god of English, or for short: S.U.O.G.E. I don’t call him S.U.O.G.E. or supreme and unmerciful and omniscient god of English to his face because that would be long-winded, ridiculous, and inappropriate. And he told me not to. Many times.
I’ve also tried calling him “hero and role model”—or for short, H.R.M., pronounced “Herm,” which would be perfect if his first name was Herm. Or Herman. But it’s not. When I asked him what his first name was, he said it started with an “M.”
“Michael?” I guessed. “Matthew? Mitchell? Marc? Manny? Marvin? Melvin?”
“Mister,” he said. “My first name is Mister.”
* * *
“Homey don’t play that,” it says above Mister Morgan’s chalkboard. He told our class he borrowed the line from some television show that he used to watch before we were born. Which makes him sound old. Because he sort of is. Older than Mrs. Q anyway, but unlike her, Mr. Morgan is a grizzled veteran, as grizzled as the grizzliest middle-aged grizzly bear in the grizzliest middle school forest in Grizzlyland. He said he was 138 years old, but nobody believed him. (I think he’s that minus 100.) He also said he was a ninja warrior sent back through time to save the human race from children who don’t do all their homework. I always know when he’s making a joke because we’re both skilled comedians and all skilled comedians know that timing is everything.
He tries sometimes to have good noncomedic timing by asking me after class how I’m doing, and if there’s anything he can do for me. “Eliminate homework. And all other work,” I’ve told him, “ban it forever.” Lately, I’ve been telling him that more than anything I want him to make me strong.
You see, the best part about Mr. Morgan is that he’s a strong dude. But he doesn’t like when you call him dude. (He is really very particular about nicknames.) Fortunately, he doesn’t mind that much if you tell him he looks strong. Or ripped. Or jacked. One time, he wore a red and black flannel shirt to school and looked like a lumberjack. Like Paul Bunyan. He even had Paul Bunyan’s beard. I was so excited to tell him he looked like a lumberjack that I handed him a piece of paper and a pen and said, “Wow, you cut down trees to make this paper. Can I have your autograph?” He didn’t sign the autograph. He understood the joke, but he just didn’t want to show off, which makes him a very humble lumberjack. Much humbler than Paul Bunyan, anyway.
Unfortunately, Mr. Morgan doesn’t call me “lumberjack” during second period. He doesn’t call me any nicknames. He calls me Denny, as in “Where’s your homework, Denny?” … “Write it in a planner, Denny” … “Do some work, Denny” … “Do you really want to get held back, Denny?” … “Do you like summer school, Denny?”
He has no problem putting people on full blast. Because of my mom, I don’t think he’s ever put me on full blast, but regular blast, or almost full blast, or a-second-away-from-full-turbo-blast … yes, I’ve been put on that. Always violating, that Mr. Morgan. I never said he was a pushover; I just said he was different from other gods and goddesses. And unlike the Natural Schmoozer back home, at least he doesn’t skirt the tough issues, doesn’t say, “Let’s talk when you’re finished with your homework.” Instead, he says, “DO IT! Do it NOW or I’ll give you triple homework and tell everyone you’ve got a crush on the school secretary. Write your homework in your planner! Now!”
He makes far too big of a deal out of writing the homework down in a planner. Sometimes he won’t let students leave until he sees everyone’s planner. “Nobody’s leaving until I see everyone’s planner!” Like that. And he gets real bent out of shape when students don’t do the homework, as if it’s some grave personal affront. “I’m shocked,” he’ll say, “floored, disappointed, wounded. You let me down.” This is all very confusing, though, because when a student says, “Mr. Morgan, I did your homework last night,” that just about makes him breathe fire. “You didn’t do MY homework,” he shouts, “you did YOUR homework!”
Another confusing thing about him is that even though he’s a goofy guy, he makes a big deal out of student laughter in class. It really bothers him. He only laughs when he wants to, which is confusing and unnerving and downright unfair. Plus, he laughed on the first day, which completely skewed our expectations. If he didn’t want us to laugh, he should’ve refused to smile or laugh until Christmas like the rest of my teachers.
I imagine Christmas for most teachers is one big laugh fest. A real “brouhaha,” as Mr. Morgan once said. I bet they all sit around an open fire roasting chestnuts, sipping eggnog. At first they talk about Christmas vacation and favorite students and least favorite students like Denny “Donuts” Murphy and that bag of a principal and teacher romances and a new super-duper online grading system that’s really “high-tech”—oh, and a new lunch spot near school whose spinach wraps are supposedly fabulous.
And then it happens. Someone laughs. Maybe it’s about the way Barry called that Web site “high-tech,” or maybe it’s the eggnog, but suddenly everything is so bellyachingly funny and everyone is laughing so hard they fall over themselves and knock over each other’s glasses. It’s not funny, not in the least bit—I mean, someone has to keep the place tidy—but it’s the funniest thing they’ve ever seen. Their laughter spills on the hardwood floors and they follow. Middle-aged bodies in blouses and sweaters sloshing around in eggnog. It looks like they’re swimming. One-handed. They clutch their stomachs because they’re laughing so hard it hurts.
Carolyn finally comes up for air, recapping all those classic classroom scenes she wanted to laugh at but couldn’t and now she finally can, thank you Lord, she finally can, which is even more hilarious because Carolyn now has eggnog in her nostrils. Someone suggests they make a movie called Eggnog in Carolyn’s Nostrils and everyone laughs so hard a few of them begin to worry about their health, which is a legitimate concern given Murray’s history of chest pains, but even that’s suddenly funny: “Murray’s chest pains, HA! He’s got some chest all right!”
Everyone agrees that it’s one of those classic evenings they’ll be talking about for weeks to come. But a few weeks later someone, probably Murray, realizes in the shower or wherever he does his best thinking that nothing, not a single thing that anyone said that Christmas night, was even the least bit funny.
Murray calls Carolyn who calls Barry because she needs to “talk about that night, that they all may have a very serious problem, and it’s high time they change strategies.”
Halloween, they promise. It’s a pact. Everyone must laugh by Halloween.
* * *
Mr. Morgan’s class isn’t like that Christmas eggnog scene. It is orderly and structured with clear limits and laws. We wait in lines inside and outside of the room. We are prisoners and he is the gatekeeper. For the most part, we’re willing prisoners, because, for the most part, he’s an effective gatekeeper. We’re not allowed to talk in line. Or laugh. Or roll our eyes. Or suck our teeth. No noise. No movement, especially once he’s greeted the class in the hall with a welcoming “Good morning, readers and writers” and a stern “Leave the hormones in the hallways.”
On our way in, we pick up a handout on which I plan to revise the “Life is good!” heading, especially if the class gets boring and once it’s clear he’s not collecting it. Inside, the desks are straight and the room smells like cleaning spray. Mr. Mor
gan stands at the front, sunglasses down, and proclaims today’s law: “We have a project.” Crap. “It is worth two hundred points.” Crap. “It is about a play.” Crap. “You must select a scene and perform it in a creative manner.” Okay. “It is a group project.” He might as well say it’s Christmas.
Group projects, gotta love ’em. You get to meet new people, learn new material, do no work, and get good grades. Plus, talking isn’t only allowed, it’s encouraged! Where do teachers come up with this stuff? Gods and goddesses, I’m telling you.
Mr. Morgan likes to choose books above our level because he claims he teaches a high school course. I think he’s in the wrong place, but nobody has enough nerve to tell him. We’re reading excerpts from Death of a Salesman, a real inspiring, uplifting play by Arthur Miller about an old salesman who kills himself. A real Sunday morning picker-upper. I sort of like it, though. I mean, Willy Loman, the salesman, gets frustrated by everyone around him, which reminds me of my dad, and not just because he’s a salesman. But unlike my dad, Willy Loman crashes his car on purpose so his son gets an insurance payout. I’m not saying I want my dad to crash our car for insurance money or anything. I’m just saying.
Anyway, Mr. Morgan starts every class with a Do-Now, which is what everyone is supposed to DO NOW (hence the creative name), RIGHT NOW, and today’s Do-Now is to pair up for our group project. Pairing up is the only bad part because my reputation for group projects is battered, bruised, and busted. Stay away, that’s the general feeling.
Quietly and orderly, in line with class laws, students stand up and arrange their partnerships. I also stand up, but there’s nowhere to go. I count: twenty-seven students, thirteen pairs, and me. Where are the Rockafellas when you need ’em? Come to think of it, even they wouldn’t pair up with me on a group project. Too much of a risk. Can’t say I blame ’em.
“Looks like I’m riding solo this time, Mr. Morgan!” I holler, so everyone can hear. Best to draw attention to yourself in times likes these. “I guess everyone forgot what an intellectual powerhouse I am at English!”
Mr. Morgan shakes his head.
“Why are you shaking your head, Mr. Morgan? You don’t think I’m an intellectual powerhouse?”
He shoots me a stare that says, “Homey don’t play that.” So I don’t play that.
“Denny, get started,” he says, even though he hasn’t finished giving directions. Turns out, I don’t need them because the door opens and in walks Sabrina, my poetess, of course with an excused late pass, and a grade point average that could batter mine in a fight, which is relevant to the scene at hand because after Mr. Morgan nods in my direction, Sabrina looks about ready to fight. “We’re partners!” I scream. “Welcome to partnership. Aren’t you so happy!”
Some people have a hard time displaying their happiness. “Mr. Morgan, you’ve got to be kidding me,” Sabrina counters.
“It’s a group project,” he says.
“Not with him as my partner. Mr. Morgan, he doesn’t even know what Death of a Salesman is about.”
This is my cue. “I beg your pardon! I do so know what it’s about.” I may know what it’s about, but Donuts the Entertainer doesn’t have a clue. “Death of a Salesman is a fine play about the Grim Reaper trying to convince people to die. He’s a salesman who goes door-to-door asking if anyone has had enough and wants to join him on the Dark Side. It’s a chilling play. So cold it belongs in the freezer.”
Again, Mr. Morgan’s stare. He knows I’m kidding because he knows everything. After all, he is the omniscient god of English. “Work with him, Sabrina,” he says.
“Yeah, work with me, Sabrina.”
“With him, not for him,” he says, but I wasn’t listening when he said that.
Sabrina sits down in a huff.
“Oh, and Denny,” Mr. Morgan adds, “your partnership will work better if you stop staring at her. She doesn’t like you.”
CHECKING IN
“Hello. This is Mary Quentin—Mrs. Q, Denny’s math teacher. I’m concerned about your son, Denny. He hasn’t come to my class in—a while now. I know he’s going through a lot. I was so sorry to hear of his—your wife’s passing. I’m hoping you could come in for a meeting as soon as possible. Perhaps this afternoon? That would be great.”
Beep. “You have no more messages.” Beep. “Message erased.” Beep.
No way I’m gonna let my dad hear that one. He’d have a heart attack and collapse right on the kitchen floor and I’d have to give him mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, which would be the first time I put my lips anywhere near his face since … well, I don’t remember the last time. Maybe at my first baseball game. One other time he kissed me in the ear. He had tried to peck me on the cheek after I gave him a birthday present but I moved at the last second, as if a bee were buzzing on my face. It was bad, but not as bad as it’ll be listening to Mrs. Q’s message and then having to bring my dad back to life. And unlike Willy Loman’s kids in Death of a Salesman, I don’t stand to benefit from his departure. And don’t want him to go anyway. So I erase it.
* * *
The next morning before the sun rises, with my backpack so stuffed and weighed down it feels like I’m carrying a hippopotamus, I arrive at school ready for Day Two of I.M.P. But with the hallways so empty, I definitely don’t feel like the hippest of hippopotami. Manny isn’t here. Isn’t anywhere. Despite the boulders on my shoulders, and my ability to rhyme about it and maybe become a professional poet who doesn’t have to sell candy to be liked, I peek down every hallway. No sign of Manny and it’s already sixteen minutes past our meeting time. I start going through my list of reasons he didn’t show: he overslept, his cousin Kenny lost his Costco card and he and Manny fought about it and Manny got beat up, he skipped town and joined up with pirates who liked his business savvy because it gave them reason to say “savvy,” he decided to keep all the candy profits and never show his face again, his mom took another break, Mr. Perfect came back from the grave and recruited Manny to go on tour … and that’s when I start hearing voices. Yikes, that sounded bad. I mean, from down the hall, and I realize Manny must not have gotten to his answering machine on time.
I take cover, and by “take cover” I mean that I scrunch myself into as small a ball as possible in the corner of the hallway, perpendicular—as Mrs. Q would say—to the oncoming voices.
“Thank you for coming in so early, Ms. Templeton. I’m Mrs. Tice, the school social worker.”
Mrs. Tice’s soothing voice gives me comfort and stresses me out. Always has. She helped me talk about my mom at the beginning, but then I didn’t want to talk about her anymore.
“It’s not like I had a choice,” Manny’s mom says. “This was the only time I could come in.”
“Well, thank you, and nice to see you, Manny.”
“Look, I don’t know what to tell you, Mrs. Tice. My son Manny just lies around the house doing nothing. I don’t know why he doesn’t come to school more often. He says he doesn’t feel well, but who knows? He stays at home all day long. A bum, that’s what he is, like his father.”
“Let’s step into my office, shall we, Ms. Templeton? It’s down the hall but it’s private. We can talk more there.”
As I peek around the corner with one eye, my body as crouched as humanly or hippopotamus-ly possible, Manny comes into sight. He looks smaller and shorter and skinnier than usual. With each step he takes toward me, it looks like he’s shrinking, leaking his body weight on the cold hallway floors. Or maybe his backpack is just that much bigger than he is. When he sees me, his face drops, like it, too, is losing fluid, but then instead of running away or shielding himself from view, his eyes go big. He mouths a few words to me that I don’t understand. So I mouth back, Huh? What? He gives me a thumbs-up with one hand, and with the other, he points to the merchandise on his back. Still a go, he mouths. Still on.
“Look, I don’t need to sit down or anything. I don’t need to stay long. I gotta get back to work, you know? I mean, I know Manny’s
got nothing to do, but I gotta work. Gotta pay the bills. Somebody’s gotta do some work, you know?”
Manny’s mom, skinnier even than her son, is walking faster than anyone, her arms in full swing, her face full of makeup twitching with every rapid step she takes.
“I really can’t stay, Mrs. Tice. I wouldn’t even be here in the first place if the school hadn’t threatened to call the Administration for Children’s Services, or ACS, or whatever you people call it. Like I don’t have enough to worry about. I can’t take much more of this. I got a heart problem, you know? This isn’t good for me. I just want to go to work. I’m sick of this. I feel like washing my hands of him, you know?”
“I know you’re frustrated, Ms. Templeton, but let’s talk in private in my office, if you don’t mind.”
“Look, I really gotta go to work. They make the schedule when you get there. They got some people working overtime on one day, and other people working overtime other days. There’s no consistency. And the traffic on the turnpike … you gotta be kidding me. Twenty minutes to drive one mile! I could walk a mile in less time, not that I would, given my heart problem.”
“I understand. It’ll be quick, I promise. Let’s just get into my office and—”
“I’m trying to be nice here, I really am, but I gotta go to work, you know? And Manny’s gotta—well, he’s gotta whole lot of nothing to do today, so he’s got some catching up to do…”
That’s the last thing I hear, as their voices fade down the hall. The last thing I see is Manny turning around with a thumbs-up, a silent laugh, and a wide cartoonish smile that I know from plenty of personal experience he’s faking.
HUNGRY PEOPLE
“This morning never happened,” Manny says to me, wiping his eyes on the way to lunch. I understand him not wanting to talk about it, so I don’t say anything.
“It is just—” he starts, “she is not like your mom,” and now I don’t want to talk about it. Don’t want to hear him talk again about how he misses my mom and how she was a better mother than his and how lucky I was, still am, and how he’s still sad, too, and how we need to distract ourselves with our candy scheme. Instead of answering his comparison of our moms, I get missile-straight to the fund-raising operation when we enter the lunchroom by telling him, “The mission is a go.” He doesn’t say “Roger that” like I want him to, but at least he nods, takes off his backpack, and gets down to business.
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