Trivia Queen, Third Grade Supreme

by Derrick D. Barnes

  “Ruby Booker, the one who gave herself the title Trivia Queen, is afraid of a little trivia contest?” Daddy had a surprised look on his face.

  “Daddy, I know I’m a trivia queen, but what if all this getting ready is still not enough?”

  “Come on now, Ruby. Don’t be so down on yourself. You’re the best trivia mind I know. And I’m not just saying that because you’re my daughter.”

  “Really, Daddy?”

  “Sure, Ruby. Nobody sings as well as you do, and nobody knows strange and crazy facts like you do. You have to believe in the things that you do well,” Daddy said.

  “You’re right, Daddy. I don’t know why I’m stressing,” I said. It seemed like a little light went off in my head. “But … just to make sure … would you mind?”

  I handed Daddy a stack of my trivia cards.

  “No problem, sweetheart. You know I’d help you anytime,” Daddy said with that big smile.

  Daddy shuffled the cards and was about to ask me a bunch of questions about sea animals when we heard four knocks at the door. It was Ro. I know his knocks. He always does four.

  “Can we help you?” I asked, because I knew he just wanted to start some trouble.

  “The question is … can I help you?” Ro said. And then he really shocked me and Daddy. He held out his hand for the cards and then asked, “Daddy, would you mind if I went over some questions with Ruby? I mean, I’ll probably go a little faster than you, especially with you being old and stuff,” Ro joked. Daddy picked Ro up and spun him around like a helicopter, then tossed him on the bed.

  “Can an old man do that, Roosevelt?” Daddy said. Ro bounced on my bed and laughed like crazy. I wasn’t laughing, though. Daddy knows I don’t like it when my bed gets rumpled.

  Daddy handed the cards to Ro. “Ruby, is that okay with you? Would you mind if Roosevelt took my place?”

  I crossed my arms, looked Ro up and down, and wondered what he was really up to. “I guess so. But don’t waste my time, boy,” I said, and I meant it.

  “I won’t waste your time. Promise,” Ro said.

  Daddy left, and Ro bounced off my bed and onto the floor. He began to ask me questions from the cards right away. “The most dolphins are found in what ocean?”

  “Wait! Wait! Wait!” I yelled. “One minute you want to help me by cheating, and the next minute you bust in here and want to help me the right way. Are you feeling okay, Ro?” I asked as I put a hand on his forehead to check his temperature.

  “Ruby, I was just thinking, I don’t want you to go into this contest and not give Ty Noodles, Big-Time Marcellus, and the rest of those kids a good match. If helping you go over a few questions is all it’s going to take, I can stomach it.”

  “Well, what happened to doing it the Ro way?” I asked.

  “Most of the time, doing things my way works. But I realized that the Ro way is not the Ruby way of doing things,” Ro explained. “All four of us do things differently, but what works for me might not work for you. What works for Ty might not work for Marcellus. And even though I mess with you sometimes, I still — I mean, you are my sister and everything,” Ro mumbled. This was the first time I had ever seen him try to really, really, really help me.

  “Cool beans. Thank you, Ro,” I said.

  I reached out to grab Ro’s hand with the cards in it. He let me hold his hand for a few seconds. That was my way of showing Ro how happy I was that he was helping me — the right way.

  Then Ro pulled his hand away and said, “Girl, do you want me to help you, or do you want to play patty-cake? The contest is three days away. Let’s do this.”

  “Okay, okay. I’m ready.” I winked at Ro. “Let’s do this.”

  “Maaaaaa! Come on! I’m not even in this stupid animal trivia thing. Why do I have to look nice?” Ro cried. Ma was buttoning up a starched white shirt for Ro and putting one of Daddy’s blue-and-white-striped ties on him. He actually looked good.

  Ma said, “Boy, stay still while I fork out these wild curls of yours. Doesn’t your brother look nice, Tyner? Marcellus?” Ma asked the other boys.

  “Yes, Ma,” Ty and Marcellus said like zombies as they pulled at their ties and jackets. Ty likes wearing bow ties. Marcellus is big enough to wear some of Daddy’s nice clothes now. To tell you the truth, they all looked nice — but not as together as I did.

  When I came in the room, I stole the show. Daddy introduced me like I was a TV star. “Ladies and gentlemen, introducing the third-grade representative in this year’s animal trivia contest, the one, the only … Miss Ruby Booker!!!”

  I twirled into the room in a nice jean jumper Ma had made, a pretty angel-white shirt, white bracelets on both wrists, and a pair of cute white jingly earrings. The earrings were clip-ons, but that was okay with me. Plus, my jumper had fancy orange paw prints on it. I couldn’t stop looking at myself in the mirror.

  We went downstairs and had a quick breakfast. Tyner read over a few animal-fact cards. Ro kept pulling at his necktie. Marcellus popped hard-boiled eggs into his mouth like they were marshmallows.

  “Son, if you don’t stop, you’ll regret it later on today,” Daddy told Marcellus. After about five eggs, Marcellus gulped a glass of buttermilk, then we all piled into Daddy’s van. Ma didn’t want us to walk. She knows how fast we get dirty.

  Ma and Daddy dropped us off at school. “We’ll be up as soon as the contest begins,” Daddy said. Ma blew us all a kiss.

  Before Daddy drove off, Ma called out to Ro and said, “Baby, keep that tie on all day. You look so handsome. Doesn’t he, Ruby?” she asked.

  “He sure does, Ma,” I agreed. Then we walked into school and hurried to our classrooms.

  When I opened the door of Pluto-3, everybody jumped up and screamed, “GO GET ’EM, RUBY! WIN US THOSE FREE PASSES!” And it wasn’t just my classmates. Mr. Littlejohn’s third-grade class was there, too.

  “Go get ’em, Ruby. Win it for the third grade!” cheered Lenny, one of the boys I clobbered at ball tag.

  “Yeah, Ruby, if you can beat us, I know you’ll do great in this contest,” said Mikey, the other boy I beat from Mr. Littlejohn’s class.

  “Thanks, guys,” I answered.

  Miss Fuqua had the room decorated with banners, signs, and balloons. “We are so proud of you, Ruby Booker,” she said.

  “This is so nice, guys.” I clutched my guitar book bag like a teddy bear. Everything was so nice. Everyone was looking at me, even Miss Fuqua and Mr. Littlejohn, like they were waiting for me to say something important.

  “Well … I’ll do my best for everyone in the third grade. You, too, Miss Fuqua and Mr. Littlejohn.” They broke out into cheers and clapped again. All of that attention made me feel good, but now I felt more pressure to win.

  The office secretary, Miss Funkhouser, came around to the classrooms to pick up the five kids who were in the contest: me for the third grade, a fifth-grade girl named Sunshine Winfrey, of course Ty for the sixth grade, Marcellus for the seventh, and an eighth-grade boy everybody calls J.W.

  Miss Funkhouser took us to the auditorium before any of the other students were there. The TV crew was hooking up cameras and microphones. We were seated in the front row, and the stage looked really big to me. There were five microphones already placed on the stage. Just by looking at them, I could tell that the shortest one was mine.

  Ty was on one side of me, and he still looked nice. Marcellus was on the other side of me. His clothes were still neat, but his face had a weird expression on it.

  “Are you okay, Marcellus?” I asked as I grabbed his hand. His other hand was over his tummy.

  “It’s just a little … rumbling in my belly. I’m cool,” he said. But I could tell something was bothering him. Maybe he was as nervous as I was, or more.

  Ty was ready, though. He stared straight ahead at the stage and didn’t speak to anyone. He was serious.

  Soon the auditorium started to fill up with kids, teachers, and parents. Each grade level sat in their own part
of the auditorium and carried signs to cheer on the person representing them. Everyone wanted to win those free year-round passes to the Bellow Rock City Zoo.

  When we got onstage and stood in front of our microphones, I saw a big board that stood to the side. It had the titles of every category in the contest. That’s when a gigantic bullfrog got stuck in my throat, and my head felt like a ball on a Ping-Pong table. And for a second, my tummy started to rock back and forth like a little boat lost in the ocean. There were a few things on that board that I just didn’t know too much about:

  Kangaroo life

  Snake facts

  Birds, birds, birds

  Types of tigers

  The truth about rhinos

  There were at least ten of those titles that I was clueless about. Maybe I knew some stuff, but just a little. I took a lot of deep breaths. Ty noticed my heavy breathing. He finally said to me, “Rube, don’t look so worried. You’re going to do great. It looks like we have some easy questions coming our way.” He smiled.

  Easy questions? Those titles on the board didn’t look easy to me.

  I took a big gulp and then looked out into the audience and saw Ma and Daddy! Ma had her camera. She was taking pictures before anything even started. I could hear her saying, “Those are my babies. One. Two. Three. I’ve got three of my babies up there. Hey, Ruby, Tyner, Marcellus!”

  Mrs. Tuma from the zoo walked out onto the stage and welcomed everyone in the audience. “I’ll be the one asking the questions,” she said. “Are you ready to begin?”

  The TV cameras were on us, the microphones were on, and so were we.

  The wait was over. And just like that, the annual Hope Road Academy animal trivia contest began.

  One of the five contestants was going to win, and win big.

  The eighth-grader, J.W., was the first one up.

  Mrs. Tuma began the questions. “The Bengal tiger is from which country?”

  I knew this one! The answer was India. But it wasn’t my turn so I had to keep quiet.

  J.W. answered slowly. “China?”

  “I’m sorry, J.W.,” Mrs. Tuma said. “That’s not correct.”

  J.W. threw his head back.

  “The correct answer is India,” Mrs. Tuma said.

  J.W. shook his head as he left the stage. I heard him say quietly, “I knew it was India.”

  The eighth-graders in the audience booed him. So J.W. was gone. It was sad how his classmates booed him, but the contest kept rolling.

  Next up was the fifth-grade girl, Sunshine Winfrey.

  Mrs. Tuma asked, “Which continent is the only one on the planet that doesn’t have snakes?”

  Mrs. Tuma gave Sunshine three choices: a) Africa, b) Asia, and c) Antarctica.

  “Asia,” Sunshine answered, all proud, like she was certain. I don’t know what books Sunshine had been reading, but the only continent without snakes is Antarctica. I knew that answer two years ago. So Sunshine Winfrey was gone.

  The only ones left in the contest were us Bookers. Ma was going bonkers. She snatched a sign from one of my classmates and held up another with Ty’s and Marcellus’s names on it.

  “THOSE ARE MY BABIES! ZOOM IN, CAMERAMAN. ZOOM IN!” Ma yelled. She was so proud.

  “We’re down to three contestants. Am I correct in understanding that you three are related?” Mrs. Tuma asked.

  Ty was our unofficial spokes-Booker. “Yes, ma’am, we are.” Ty looked over at me. “This is my baby sis, Ruby.” Then he looked at Marcellus. “And that’s my older brother, Marcellus.”

  “Hi, everybody.” Marcellus moaned, holding his queasy tummy. The seventh-graders hollered and screamed.

  “Marcellus! Marcellus!” Some called him by his nickname, “Go, Big-Time!”

  It was my turn to say hello to the crowd. I stepped up to the microphone. As soon as I opened my mouth, my mic let out a loud screeching noise. It sounded like an angry witch. Everyone covered their ears. The screech stopped, but then my microphone didn’t work. I spoke into it, but no one could hear me. “Hello? Mic check — one, two, one, three.” I couldn’t answer any questions. Mrs. Tuma looked at me and shrugged her shoulders. There was nothing she could do.

  All of a sudden, Marcellus shoved his microphone toward me and said, “Here, ladybug, you can have mine.” He turned completely green, put both hands over his mouth, and then ran off the stage, down the main aisle of the auditorium, and out the door. Daddy jumped up and ran after him. I knew those eggs were not going to treat him so well. Poor Marcellus. I guess the good thing for him was that he didn’t really lose the contest. It was his stomach that lost its breakfast!

  It was down to Ty and me. I was beginning to worry about my chances of winning. Mrs. Tuma started with Ty. “Mr. Booker, true or false? Tarantulas spin big webs.”

  Ty snapped his fingers. “That’s a piece of cake, Mrs. Tuma. The answer is false. Tarantulas do not spin webs.”

  “That’s correct, Mr. Booker. That entitles you to another question.”

  The other sixth-graders clapped and clapped for Ty. Ty licked his lips. He was so ready for the next question.

  Mrs. Tuma asked, “What’s the name of a baby kangaroo?”

  I knew this one, too! I mouthed the answer as Ty said it into the microphone. “A joey.”

  Mrs. Tuma paused. She looked out over the audience. Everyone waited …

  “Right,” Mrs. Tuma said. “A baby kangaroo is called a joey.”

  Big cheers for Ty. Even I wanted to cheer for him. But according to the rules, it was my turn now, even though Ty had answered two questions in a row.

  Mrs. Tuma turned to me. I wiped my sweaty hands on my jumper. Mrs. Tuma pulled out a question card.

  “Ruby, what kind of bird is a cockatoo: a) parrot, b) type of pigeon, or c) a member of the goose family?”

  I shook my hands free of their sweat. This was one of the facts I’d learned from Daddy. Ty’s eyes never left me.

  “A cockatoo is a kind of parrot,” I said.

  Mrs. Tuma smiled. “That’s correct, Ruby.”

  I did a little dance. I knew I was right. Now it was the third-graders cheering loudest. Even that quiet kid, Low-Low, was cheering.

  “Next question,” Mrs. Tuma said. Everyone settled down. “How does a whale breathe?”

  First I had to remember to breathe. Then I answered. “Through a blowhole at the top of its head.”

  “Correct, Ruby,” Mrs. Tuma said.

  “Yes!” I stomped my foot. The whole auditorium was cheering now. The heat was on big-time.

  Mrs. Tuma cleared her throat and said, “Now that you’ve both answered two questions correctly, we will go back and forth with the questions. We have a good match going on at Hope Road Academy.” That’s when the auditorium cheered way loud. Mrs. Tuma explained, “At this point in the contest, the format changes a little. If you answer a question incorrectly, you won’t be out unless your opponent answers the next question correctly.” Then Mrs. Tuma grabbed another question card and asked me, “Rhinos are in the same family as: a) elephants, b) seals, or c) horses?”

  I eased up to the microphone but paused. Suddenly, my brain went blank. I looked out toward my classmates, but they couldn’t help me. I had no idea what the answer was. Finally, I opened my mouth and said, “Is it … elephants?”

  Mrs. Tuma looked at Ty, looked at me, looked out into the audience, and then said, “I’m sorry, Ruby.” My shoulders slumped and my classmates moaned. I felt like it was all over. But in order for Ty to win, he had to answer the next question correctly.

  “Okay, sixth-grade rep, if you answer this one, you will win free year-round passes to the Bellow Rock City Zoo for everyone in the sixth grade.” She asked Ty, “Would you like to answer that question or a new one?”

  For some reason he said, “I’ll take a new one.”

  I was still onstage, because if Ty got the next question wrong, I would have another turn.

  “I’m ready, Mrs. Tuma,” Ty said politely.


  “How many minutes can a green iguana stay underwater: a) ten minutes, b) an hour, or c) twenty-eight minutes?”

  And for the first time ever, Ty froze. It looked like his brain had hit a wall. “Umm … ummm,” he looked trapped. “Ummmm … ten minutes?” He said it like he wasn’t really sure. It seemed like he didn’t really think about his answer.

  Mrs. Tuma looked at me. She turned her eyes to Ty, then for a long minute watched the audience. “I’m sorry, Ty, that’s not correct,” she finally said.

  When she said that, my eyes lit up like I was a lamp and somebody flipped on the switch. Iguanas are my favorite subject. Because of Lady Love, I know everything about them. Before it was too late, I held my hand up and asked Mrs. Tuma, “Would it be okay if I answered that question?”

  Mrs. Tuma glanced at the trivia card again. “Sure,” she said. I had to keep from jumping up and down! “I’ll read the question again. How many minutes can a green iguana stay underwater?”

  Before I could answer, I heard Ma say, “You got it, baby! I know you can answer this one!” And you know what? She was right. Before I answered, I thought about what Ma had told me on Saturday. She said that everything I needed to win was already in my head — and she was right!

  “Mrs. Tuma … I believe the correct answer is,” I eased up to the microphone and paused for just a second. “C. Twenty-eight minutes.”

  Mrs. Tuma looked at the correct answer on the back of her card and then said, “Ladies and gentlemen, the winner of the Hope Road Academy animal trivia contest, and the recipient of free Bellow Rock City Zoo passes for a year, is the third grade!” My section, the two third-grade classes, went crazy. Even Miss Fuqua and Mr. Littlejohn gave each other a high five.

  Ty looked over to me and said, “Congratulations, Rube. I knew you could do it.” And you know what? He was right.

  Ms. Cherrybaum came out and gave me a big trophy, a ribbon, and an envelope filled with free passes to the zoo for all of the third-graders. “Congrats, Miss Booker. You’ve made Hope Road Academy very proud,” she said. I represented my class, my grade, and my family the best way I knew how — Ruby-style.