by Michael Fry
argued.
“You made me come down here for that?
You’re pathetic! I’m leaving you in there!” she
yelled as she started to shut the locker door on me.
“Please!” I begged. “I can’t get detention! Just
get me out of here, and I swear I’ll come up with
a better plan.”
Molly just stared at me. Then she rolled her
eyes, turned around, and said, “Hop on.”
Hop on? I wasn’t going to let a girl give me
a piggyback ride. “No way,” I said. I mean, how
much humiliation can I take?
“Fine. Be late for class.”
I guess I can take a lot of humiliation. Which
is a good thing, because once I was on her back I
suddenly saw the world in a whole new way.
I could see EVERYTHING! I could see the
entire school. I could see every teacher, every
student, and every clique. I could see the OMGs.
And the Emogoths.
And the Unsociables.
And . . . trouble. We saw Roy and his pals,
The Future Inmates of America.
Roy and the FIA had Emily Dickinson Middle
School’s only single-member clique in their
sights. That’s when we stopped and hid.
We were just about to make a tiptoe escape,
when
I got a call from . . . KARL?
He asked, “Wanna hang out?”
“NOW?” I whispered a bit too loudly.
Roy and the FIA spotted us. Molly and I took
off down the hall. We rounded a corner into a
crowd of students. I got down on my hands and
knees and yanked Molly down with me. We
crawled into an empty classroom and hid behind
a projector. We waited. Nothing happened for a
minute or so. We thought we were safe. But we
weren’t.
That’s when things went from bad to worse . . .
to weird.
We were saved by the fire alarm. Normally,
we’re all in class for fire drills, and everyone
lines up single file to follow a teacher outside.
But no one was in class yet. So no one knew
where to go.
Except for Safety Patrolman Karl.
Karl did what he was trained to do: he
pointed to the exits. This was his first mistake.
His second mistake was thinking his Safety
Patrol belt was a real belt. Because somehow,
by the time we all got outside, Karl had gotten
separated from his pants.
Karl’s third mistake was wearing NanoNerd
underwear.
And his fourth and final mistake was letting
Roy find his pants before he did.
Everyone laughed and pointed as Roy made
Karl jump for his pants.
That’s when something inside me snapped.
I thought someone should do something. Then,
just as I decided that that someone should be me,
Molly decided it should be her.
Molly and I both rushed up to Roy at the same
time. When I got there, I was so pumped, I said
something really dumb:
Molly whispered to me, “Or else what?”
“I haven’t thought that far ahead,” I
whispered back.
Karl said, “I don’t think this is helping.”
That’s when Roy let go of Karl’s pants and
went after me.
Roy grabbed my leg
and lifted me upside
down. “This doesn’t look
very safe to me, Safety
Patrol Boy!” he laughed.
As I was hanging
there, I heard someone
yell something from
behind us. It didn’t sound like a kid. But it didn’t
sound like an adult either. I turned around to see
who it was, but there was no one there.
A kid yelled, “What?”
The same strange voice yelled again. I
couldn’t make it out. A different kid asked,
“Bring what? Bring the crazy?”
And I thought, Right. Like that’s going to
work.
But when Roy threatened to bust me like
a piñata, I decided
crazy was worth a
try.
So I started
barking like a seal
and flapping my
arms like a chicken.
Roy’s eyes got real wide. He started to look
confused. And maybe a little . . . scared?
And then he released me.
It was working. I decided to push it up a
notch. I . . .
Roy was backing off, but not fast enough. I
was just about to run out of crazy when Molly
joined in.
It took Karl a little longer to catch on. But
once he got going, he brought his own “special”
kind of crazy.
After Karl busted his ballet move, Roy just
stood there. He looked to the crowd of kids for
help. But everyone just stared back in silence.
Roy was alone. And maybe, for the first time, a
little afraid.
Then . . . he just took off.
That’s when the weirdest part of all
happened. The crowd started to cheer. And for
the very first time, they cheered with us, and not
against us.
Molly, Karl, and I all looked at each other.
Mr. Dupree was right: bringing the crazy
really worked. We felt good. Really, really good.
It lasted about twelve seconds.
Still, it was twelve seconds I wouldn’t give
back.
As we all started filing back into the school,
I spotted Mr. Dupree and yelled, “Thanks for
reminding me to bring the crazy.”
Mr. Dupree shook his head. “I just walked out
here.”
“If it wasn’t you, then who was it?” I said.
Mr. Dupree eyes got really wide. “Emmmily . . .”
He trembled.
Karl gasped. “She exists!”
Mr. Dupree nodded. “And she’s been busy,
because I think she set the fire alarm off, too.”
I rolled my eyes as Molly said, “He’s just
messing with you, Karl. There’s no such thing as
Emily.”
“That voice was probably just someone who
heard Mr. Dupree bring the crazy in the hallway
yesterday,” I said. “And the office just got the
time wrong on a fire drill.”
“Wait? What happened yesterday?” asked
Molly.
“It doesn’t matter,” I said. “The important
thing is that after today, I won’t ever get stuffed
in a locker again.”
Mr. Dupree smiled. “Expectation is the root of
all heartache.”
Molly and Karl looked confused. I shook my
head. “Don’t ask.”
Mr. Dupree said, “Tomorrow morning. Seven
thirty. In the basement.”
“Why? What’s happening then?” I asked.
Chapter 9
The next morning, Molly, Karl, and I stood in
the school basement.
Alone.
Mr. Dupree was nowhere to be found in the
mess of janitorial supplies and school junk from
dinosaur days when they watched movies by
hand.
We were just about to leave when we heard a
voice say, “Welcome to Safety Patrol.
”
We looked up and found Mr.
Dupree sitting on a bucket—like
he’d been there the whole time.
He was wearing a weird-looking
hat. He looked serious. Which
was hard to do in that hat.
Karl raised his hand. “Can I
be captain?”
“Let’s figure what you want to accomplish
first,” said Mr. Dupree. “What’s your goal?”
We looked at one another, then did what we
always do when we don’t know what’ll happen if
we give the wrong answer: we shrugged.
Mr. Dupree shook his
head. “First rule of Safety
Patrol: no shrugging!”
That seemed extreme.
“Tell me, why are you
here?” he said.
Karl raised his hand
again. “I thought there’d be doughnuts.”
“We want to make the school safe from
bullies!” interrupted Molly.
I looked at Molly and said, “We do?”
“Yesterday, everyone was on our side. It was
the first time I felt like I fit in,” said Molly. “Like
I was popular. Bullies don’t pick on popular
kids.”
I said, “So?”
“If everyone fits in, no one will get bullied! We
need to help everyone fit in!”
“Even Karl?” I asked.
Molly nodded.
“Even Karl.”
As we talked, Mr.
Dupree smiled that
grown-up smile that
should come with its
own thought balloon.
Mr. Dupree said,
“You won a point. You
didn’t win the match.
And you don’t win
the match by making
friends. You win by
taking from the other
side the thing they’re
trying to take from you.”
“Their pants.” Karl nodded.
Mr. Dupree shook his head. “Have you ever
heard the story about the man in India who went
to live in the jungle with the tigers?”
We all shook our heads no.
“The man thought
all creatures could live
together in harmony. He
believed that he could live
with tigers. He thought
they would accept him as
one of their own. He lived and played among
them for weeks.”
Karl smiled. “Nice tigers.”
“One day, the man brought one of the tigers
a banana to eat. The tiger looked at the banana
and then at the man. You know what happened
next?”
Karl raised his hand. “The tiger gave him a
hug?”
“The tiger ate him.”
Karl looked at his shoes. “I don’t like this
story.”
Mr. Dupree leaned forward and whispered,
“Tigers don’t fit in. They don’t have to. Be the
tiger, not the stupid man.”
Molly and Karl were a little freaked out, but I
had heard Mr. Dupree’s stories before.
“That sounds like another one of your ‘lies
that tell the truth,’” I said.
Molly said, “Wait. How can a lie tell the
truth?”
“Exactly.” I nodded. I turned to Mr. Dupree
and said, “How can a lie tell the truth?”
He smiled. “Patience. Though she be a tired
mare, yet she will plod.”
I had no idea what that meant. I turned to
Molly, but she just shrugged. And Karl was . . .
well . . . you know . . .
By the time Molly and I pried Karl out of that
desk, Mr. Dupree was gone. In his place on the
mop bucket were two brand-new Safety Patrol
badges.
Molly said, “We don’t need badges.”
Karl was disappointed. “We don’t?”
Molly shook her head. “Mr. Dupree is wrong:
we definitely need to fit in. Those badges will just
make us stick out. We can’t help other kids fit in
if we don’t fit in.”
“How are we going to help other kids fit in?” I
asked.
“We get the popular kids to accept them or
else—”
“We bring more crazy.” I nodded.
“But what about the tigers?” asked Karl.
Molly turned to Karl. “There aren’t any tigers,
Karl!”
“You’re sure?” asked Karl as he chewed on his
fingernails. “I really don’t want to get eaten.”
“No one’s going to eat you, Karl,” I said.
I shook my head and thought, Welcome to
Safety Patrol.
Chapter 10
Tigers are not our friends.
Mr. Dupree was right. Molly was wrong. And
what I got for trying to upset the natural order
was another case of zombie butt.
What went wrong? What didn’t go wrong?
Our plan was for each of us to help one
unpopular kid fit in.
Karl picked Warren Pickles. Warren is the
only kid in school who doesn’t move away when
Karl sits down for lunch.
Warren has
a problem with
personal space: he
doesn’t believe in it.
Karl’s mission
was to get Warren
accepted by the Unsociables. Which sounds like
it would be easy. Strange attracts stranger.
Right? Wrong.
It turns out that even the socially lame have
boundaries. Warren bulldozed right past those
and made himself at home.
The result? The Unsociables
hung Karl and Warren up by
their shorts. It took a block
and pulley and twenty minutes
taking turns, but they did it.
While Karl waited for rescue, Molly tried
to get the OMGs to embrace Emily Dickinson
Middle School’s resident wallflower, Alice
Frektner. Molly figured the OMGs would leap at
such a tempting makeover challenge. But they
didn’t leap. They just sort of stood there and
stared.
The problem was that Alice is what Memaw
would call “plain.” As in, plain hard to see. She’s
just sort of not there. Which made her kind of
difficult to introduce.
The OMGs thought Molly was crazy. And not
“bring the crazy” crazy. More like “get back, we
don’t want to catch your crazy” kind of crazy.
My mission was the hardest. And the most
dangerous. I decided I was going to go epic or go
home.
I decided to recruit Roy to the human race.
What I imagined would happen is I’d walk up
to Roy and be all . . .
What actually happened was I walked up to
him and said, “Dude!”
Roy immediately turned to me, and for just a
second, he looked just
a little scared.
And then he didn’t.
I said, “We’re cool, right?”
As soon as I said right, I knew nothing
was right. Roy’s black-hole eyes narrowed. He
growled. Then snarled. And I think he snorted
once or twice.
I panicked.
I brought the crazy.
Nothing happened. Roy just s
at there. Mr.
Dupree never mentioned there was an expiration
date on bringing the crazy.
The entire cafetorium was watching. I quickly
looked around, searching for help—but there
wasn’t any.
When I turned back, I came face to face with
Roy’s gut. I leaned back and slowly looked up. . . .
You don’t want Jell-O-Meat dumped on you.
Jell-O-Meat stains. Jell-O-Meat stains skin. Like
a tattoo. Only light-years less
cool.
I screamed. I ducked. I dove.
I ran.
And hid.
Like I said, Roy can’t stuff
me in my locker if I’m already
in it. It’s not so bad.
Except for the zombie butt.
Chapter 11
A fter school, Molly, Karl, and I met near the
buses. Molly and I agreed we were done with
Safety Patrol. Karl wasn’t so sure. On the one
hand, fire exits don’t point out themselves; but
on the other hand, due to constant wedgies, he
was running out of underwear.
We were right back where we started. Only
worse. It was like we had never stood up to Roy,
and the other kids had never cheered, and we
were never popular for a whole twelve seconds.
