Seventh Grade in the Life of Me, Penelope

by Alison Pollet

  “Don’t say hi or anything,” Stacy teased.

  “Yeah, your royal rudeness.” Vicki laughed.

  “Sorry,” murmured Penelope. She punched D4 for 3 Musketeers.

  “Did your homeroom teacher give you a lecture about The Pledge?” asked Vicki. “What a joke. Like they’ll ever get the copy of it. Pia’s got the only one.” Flump went the 3 Musketeers as it hit the metal bottom of the machine.

  “Whoever confesses is moronic. There’s no point. Nothing’s going to happen to us.”

  On the way back to the library, Penelope ate the chocolate bar. It was gone in four swift chomps, and before she was pushing open the library’s heavy wood door, the wrapper was crumpled up in her front jeans pocket.

  Back in the library. Ten more minutes. She could memorize three equations in that time, she was sure she could. If X times Y equals Z, then Z divided by Y equals X. She placed her palm over the equation and tried to recite it back silently in her head. If X times Y equals Z, then Z divided by Y equals X. Or was it If X times Y equals Z, then Z divided by X equals Y ?

  The clock stared at her. Two minutes to go. Two minutes! How had she wasted eight whole minutes? She’d wasted the free period! She couldn’t even remember eating the chocolate bar! It hadn’t been worth eating. If she hadn’t gone to get it, she wouldn’t have had to talk to Vicki and Stacy. Because they just made her feel stupid! Stupider!

  One minute. She put her Algebra textbook and her notebook in her backpack, her head brimming with Xs and Ys and Zs and guys named Mario, trout, streams, her mother, Fred Something, Tillie, Stacy, Vicki … She ran out of the library, blasted out of the building, and cut across the field, and somewhere between the bleachers and Gritzfield Hall, fell into a daze. It was like the daze that overcame her in Algebra sometimes, but even more intense. It was the stuffed-in-the-head feeling you got when you had a cold, only without the cold.

  I can’t feel this way. Not now! I don’t have time. I can’t afford it. I have to concentrate.

  But by the time she got to Bobkin’s class, she had a head full of mayonnaise. And even worse, she’d lost her pencil. She had to borrow one from Ben. It was red, and in gold lettering said: LUTKIN, SCHWARTZ, AND WHITE.

  Question #1. Not so hard. Question #2. Not so bad, either. Question #3. She didn’t even understand it.

  Lutkin, Schwartz, and White. Lutkin, Schwartz, and White.

  Skipped Question #4. Would come back to it later. Tried #5. Got through half. Filled in an answer for #6. Maybe he’d give points for trying. Went back to #3. Ack, still didn’t understand.

  Lutkin, Schwartz, and White. Lutkin, Schwartz, and White.

  “Fifteen minutes!” shouted Bobkin.

  There was some new graffiti on the desk: LIFE SUX, someone had written. AND THEN YOU DIE, someone else had added. LAURA K. = FUNNIEST SENIOR was scratched inside a big red heart. IGNORANCE IS BLISS was in giant green bubble letters.

  Ack! Why am I reading graffiti?

  “Ten minutes!” shouted Bobkin.

  Then, Penelope was scribbling numbers that weren’t in equations, and subtracting Xs from problems that had only Zs and Ys.

  “Pencils down!” the teacher shouted.

  Penelope handed the pencil back to Ben, who told her to keep it. It was from his dad’s law firm and he had a million. Woozily, she slipped the pencil into the front pouch of her backpack. “Hey,” Ben said. “That test was hard, but are you okay? You look kinda weird.”

  She didn’t answer.

  “Oh, I get it. You don’t talk to me anymore. See I noticed that, but I thought you were just shy. Now I know you’re a Pledge person. Too great to talk to new kids? Well, I never would have figured you for a snot like that, but fine, be that way.”

  “I did terribly. No way you did as badly as I did,” contended Stacy. They were on the school bus going home. The window wouldn’t shut all the way, and Penelope zipped her blue sweatshirt high around her neck. “I failed. I just know I did.”

  Secretly, Stacy had to know she hadn’t, but she sure looked like she believed it. Her lip jutted out, and her eyelids drooped, and she blinked super slowly. Penelope thought maybe somewhere Stacy really thought she’d gotten an F. She almost felt bad for her, but only for a second.

  She could have countered with: “Yeah, well, I really failed. I left out the last four questions. I scribbled whatever came into my head.” It might have felt good to shock Stacy — she might have even felt proud, having won the battle of “Who can really fail?”

  But all she said was: “I’m sure you did fine.”

  “Hey, space cadet!” Stacy shouted, when five minutes had gone by and they hadn’t exchanged a word. “I forgot to tell you that Vicki and I figured out who’s writing the nasty stuff about The Pledge. You’re not gonna believe it and you have to not tell anyone till Vicki finds out for sure. Are you ready?”

  Penelope just stared out the window.

  “Yoo hoo. I said, ‘Are you ready?’ ”

  Penelope stayed blank.

  “Seriously, you don’t want to know? Well, fine, then, I won’t tell you.” She folded her arms around her chest in exasperation. “I guess you’re being smart. If you don’t know, there’s no risk of your telling anyone. What’s that expression? ‘Ignorance is bliss’? Still, I’m surprised you’re being so disciplined. It’s not like you. Oh, hey, my mom said you called Saturday night. She told you I was at Vicki’s, right? Why didn’t you call me there?”

  Penelope didn’t answer. The familiar words were floating through her brain, as if they were spelled out on a banner attached to the tail of an airplane halfhidden by clouds: We don’t match.

  “Hey, how many word problems were on your test? I bet there weren’t half as many as on ours. You know, Bobkin is supposed to be the hardest Algebra teacher ever to be at Elston Prep. Just my luck, right?”

  Penelope said nothing. She didn’t remember how many word problems they’d had. She could barely remember the test at all. If she could, she might recall that just before time was up, she’d put down her pencil, taken a ballpoint pen from her pocket, and then, in tiny blue block letters, written on the desk: PENELOPE B. SCHWARTZBAUM WAS HERE.

  “God, Penelope! Are you in a coma or what?”

  “BLT, you gotta be

  The sammy for me

  Made by Jenny!

  I’ll eat you with my feet

  My toes and with my nose

  The way you crunch

  I gotta hunch

  You’ll be my breakfast, dinner,

  and my lunch

  For eternity!”

  Ever since Bea Levin had called Nathaniel talented, he’d been on a singing rampage. “Do you think you could shut up this century?” asked Penelope, who was doing her Fundamental Languages homework. They’d recently switched to French.

  “You’re just jealous ’cause I’m the next Dole Quarter,” spat Nathaniel, dipping the last bite of his BLT into a pool of ketchup and chomping.

  “You mean Dole PORTER, dope.”

  Jenny waited for Nathaniel to stop chewing, then removed the dirty plates from the table. “I believe you both mean Cole Porter. Nathaniel, wipe your mouth. All that ketchup makes you look like a vampire with a big, bloody mouth.”

  “AHHHHHHHHHHH!” Nathaniel yelled, opening his mouth to reveal mushed-up bacon and ketchup. “I’ve got fangs!”

  “Uch,” growled Penelope. “You are gross.”

  “I’m a talent!” shouted Nathaniel.

  “On what planet?” asked Penelope.

  “This planet! My planet! Planet Nathaniel!”

  Jenny returned to the table with mugs of hot chocolate and a bag of marshmallows. “On Planet Nathaniel they wipe their dirty faces before getting hot chocolate.” She handed him a wet paper towel and waited for him to slosh it across his mouth.

  “Ooh, hot!” he yelped, putting his lips to the mug.

  “Duh,” said Penelope. “You have to wait a minute.”

  “Blow on i
t,” suggested Jenny.

  Instead, Nathaniel sang:

  “Count Chocula

  I’d like to talk to ya

  I got ketchup on me

  Can’t ya see”

  “Jenny, do you think I’m the next Cole Quarter?”

  “If you wanna be, Natty. Personally, I’d rather you be the next Elvis Costello. Want me to put him on while you eat your dessert?” She sliced them each a piece of pound cake, and put the tape on. Penelope was getting better at understanding the words, but she still didn’t know what they meant.

  “What’s he singing about?” she asked Jenny.

  “Honestly, I’m not always sure. Lots of different stuff. It’s like a puzzle, trying to figure him out. Like a good book, you know?”

  Penelope wasn’t sure she did. On the record, Elvis Costello sang: “Isn’t this the greatest thing? Isn’t this the greatest thing?”

  “What’s the greatest thing?”

  “I think he’s talking about marriage.”

  “Marriage is the greatest thing?”

  “He’s being sarcastic, but I think that’s maybe what he means, yeah.”

  “And what does he mean when he says ‘punch the clock’?” As Penelope asked this, her eyes strayed toward the Sunburst Clock Fred Something had given her mother.

  “I think it’s a reference to having a job where you have to ‘punch in.’ You put a little card in a machine so it can record your hours.”

  “Like Fred Flintstone does!” shouted Nathaniel.

  “Yes, exactly. And jobs you have to punch in for aren’t always the most exciting. But he’s saying it’s okay, because he’s in love and that’s the greatest thing.” Jenny looked thoughtful for a moment. “Either that, or punching the clock is a metaphor. Do you know what a metaphor is?”

  Penelope nodded, even though she didn’t know what a metaphor was.

  “Well, maybe punching the clock is a metaphor for how relationships can go stale, and how sometimes you’re just sleepwalking through them.”

  They drank second cups of hot chocolate and listened to the rest of side one without talking.

  “My belly’s full of marshmallow, playing Elvis Costello,” crooned Nathaniel when it was over.

  Later that evening, Cass called on the phone. Penelope knew it was Cass the second she picked up, because she could hear Sylvia Hempel barking in the background. Cass announced that she had a tip.

  “A tip” sounded like detective lingo, and Penelope accused Cass of thinking she was Harriet the Spy. Immediately after saying it, she felt dumb. Cass talked about books for adults like Agatha Christie’s and here she was bringing up a book Nathaniel would be reading in the fourth grade.

  “First of all, we’re being detectives, not spies. Second of all, you act like being Harriet the Spy would be a bad thing. That’s, like, the greatest book of all time. I promise we’re not going to read anything better in high school. Maybe as good, but not better. Fourth of all … or was I at third of all?”

  Penelope told her she’d been at third of all, but Cass had forgotten what she was going to say. “So where do you go at school?” Penelope asked her.

  That got a hoot out of Cass. “What do you care? You wouldn’t hang out with me. I heard about The Pledge in homeroom.”

  Penelope tried to sound as offended as possible. “How do you know I signed The Pledge?” she asked.

  “Ha!” said Cass, as if that said it all.

  “You can’t know for sure,” said Penelope in an attempt to sound mysterious.

  Cass ignored her. “Hey, what’s that music in the background?” she asked. “It sounds pretty cool.”

  “Some guy named Elvis Costello,” said Penelope, who could hear a key in the door. Her mother was home. “I gotta go,” she told Cass.

  “Hey!” shouted Cass. “I never told you why I was calling. I never told you the tip. So, Bea doesn’t like to gossip, but that doesn’t mean she can stop people from telling her stuff. Anyway, this artist who Fred Something works with told her that Fred is — get this — ‘embarking on a new affair.’ And guess what? Bea’s friend called the woman ‘Fred’s age-inappropriate paramour.’ ”

  Penelope didn’t know what that meant.

  “That it’s your mother!” shouted Cass. “I mean, what? He’s twenty-nine and she’s, like, forty? Well, that’s a whole lot older. Sounds ‘age inappropriate’ to me!”

  Penelope thought for the rest of the night about what Cass said. Especially as she listened to her mother talk about the charity event she and Fred Something were planning together and how fabulous it was going to be, but how much work it was going to take, and how she wasn’t going to be home a lot, but thankfully Jenny could do more hours. She was counting on Penelope to mind Jenny and to keep an eye on Nathaniel herself. He was so little and this was especially unfair to him, not having his parents around enough. It just broke her heart.

  And then Mr. Schwartzbaum came home, but he went straight to his bedroom because he was taking the red-eye to California, a flight that went overnight, en route to Singapore. He’d be leaving in a matter of hours.

  “Red-eye? You didn’t tell me you were taking the red-eye!” complained Mrs. Schwartzbaum as she followed him to the bedroom. She slammed the door behind her, and they continued to argue while he packed.

  November turned to December, and the winds whipped and snarled along West End Avenue. Seventh graders retired their down vests for ski jackets, their cashmere sweaters for ragg wool ones ordered over the phone from L.L. Bean.

  With Carlos’s encouragement, Penelope and Nathaniel stopped waiting for the school bus on the sidewalk and moved inside. They sank into the lobby’s hulking brown leather couch, huddled in their new down coats, and watched the morning’s activities: The old lady from the fifteenth floor — a famous poet, according to Carlos — returning from her morning walk, her long, woolly hair held captive by her coat’s giant hood; Mr. Pearl in his striped suit waddling off the elevator, a thermos of coffee in one hand, the New York Times in the other, humming a Broadway show tune.

  Carlos wore a black wool coat with gold buttons, since he spent so much time outside hailing cabs for tenants in the building. His cheeks went from red-from-cold to red-from-heat, and he kept a stack of white ironed handkerchiefs in his coat pocket to blot his perpetually running nose.

  After two weeks of absence, Tillie Warner returned to Elston Prep, still wheezing, but looking slightly less measly than she had the day Penelope saw her at the Guggenheim. She had a brand-new haircut, so short that it was impossible to pull at. The back and sides were soft yet bristly like the fur on an orange tabby cat, and on the top of her head was a giant puff that reminded Penelope of a squirrel’s tail.

  “I thought you were sick, Tillie,” remarked Stacy on Tillie’s first morning back. They’d taken to hanging out in the cafeteria before homeroom.

  “I was,” Tillie told her. “I had horrible asthma.” Tillie took a pink inhaler from her pocket and waved it in the air as proof.

  “But you had time to go to La Coupe?” Stacy asked with a purposeful sip of coffee. It was a new habit she and Vicki had adopted, drinking coffee with half-and-half and Sweet’n Low in the morning. They served it in the cafeteria, much to the chagrin of Shirley Commack, who was threatening to call and protest.

  “Actually, the guy from La Coupe came to us,” said Tillie. “My mom didn’t want to leave the house, you know, ’cause …” Her nervous hands — less scaly but still dry — uncoiled the metal spiral of her Earth Science notebook as she talked. By the time she was done, the metal stuck straight out — like a weapon.

  “Well, I think your hair looks good,” Penelope said, because no one else had.

  “And it’s practical,” added Stacy. “You know, you can’t pull on it.”

  Penelope wondered if she’d intended for that to come out as mean as it had.

  “Nice earrings, Stace!” giggled Annabella Blumberg, taking a seat between Stacy and Vicki on the bench
outside the cafeteria.

  “Nice earrings, Annabella!” giggled Stacy.

  Penelope wasn’t sure how it had happened, but the fight about the feather earrings had become a joke between Annabella and Stacy. An inside joke. They said it every time they saw each other in the halls, and it never ceased to crack either of them up.

  When someone who didn’t know the joke asked what they were talking about, one of them would answer: “Inside joke, you wouldn’t get it.” Or: “It’s just a dumb private joke, not worth getting into.” Then they’d laugh some more.

  “Did you hear about Tillie Warner?” interrupted Pia, who didn’t like it when anybody other than she had anything inside or private with Annabella.

  And, indeed they had. Word of Tillie’s confession to Dr. Alvin about signing The Pledge — the first of any No-Newker — had spread through the grade by lunch period. Stacy and Vicki begged Penelope to relay any and all details of the confession — she was in Tillie’s homeroom, after all — but she didn’t know any.

  Stacy wanted to know why Penelope hadn’t waited outside homeroom for Tillie while she was talking to Dr. Alvin.

  “Yeah,” Vicki added, if not slightly suspiciously. Wasn’t Penelope even a little curious as to what Tillie and the teacher were talking about? Could it be, they asked, that Penelope already knew what Tillie was going to do?

  They interpreted the confusion on Penelope’s face as ignorance.

  “It’s a question of character, if you ask me,” said Pia. Not that anyone had asked her. “Tillie’s a bad friend.”

  Vicki jumped in. Well, how did everyone think it made her feel? Tillie had been her best friend for four years, which was shorter than Stacy and Penelope but longer than Annabella and Pia.

  They looked at her consolingly. Stacy put her arm around Vicki’s shoulder. “I think this proves it,” she said softly.

  “Proves what?” scowled Pia, who didn’t like feeling in the dark.