by Lenore Look
Heads turned.
Shirts lifted.
“Baby fat?” cried Eli. “My mom says I have that too.”
“Oh no!” said Sam. “Me too!”
“BABY FAT???” Pinky screeched. “IS THAT WHAT I THINK IT IS???”
Books dropped.
Carts spun.
Decimals shifted.
“BOYS!” said the librarian.
“Waaaaaaaaaaaah!” cried the gang.
“I don’t want to have a baby!” Pinky howled.
“I don’t want my belly to burst!” Nhia sobbed.
“I don’t want to look like Alvin!” Hobson cried.
What’s wrong with looking like me?
“Waaaaaaaaaaaaah!” The gang hollered again. “Waaaaaaaaah!”
There was so much commotion in the library, we all would have been busted if it hadn’t been for the recess bell.
Once you get over the shock of being pregnant, which can take all of library hour and math class too, you have to make adjustments.
“ ‘Eating. right. is. the. first. step. to. giving. your. baby. a. healthy. start,’ ” Eli read from his book at lunch. “ ‘Do. not. skip. meals. Eating. frequently. is. the. best. way. to. have. a. well. nourished. baby.’ ”
“I can eat a cow,” said Pinky.
“I can eat a car,” said Nhia.
“I can eat a school bus,” said Hobson, who eats everything.
“Alvin can beat all of you,” said Sam. “He can eat a house.”
Eyes swiveled to my belly.
Did I look that big?
“ ‘Follow. your. cravings,’ ” Eli continued. “ ‘If. you. want. to. eat. something. eat. it. Your. body. knows. what. it. needs. Listen. to. your. body.’ ”
“I could eat an ice cream cone,” said Sam.
“I could eat three,” said Scooter.
“I could eat five,” said Hobson, who looks like he could eat more than that.
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah!”
So we got ice cream cones and heaped them in front of us.
“I could eat twelve and a half,” said Pinky. “In one minute flat.”
“Eeeeeeeuw!” said the girls at the next table. “That’s gross.”
That’s nothing.
I could beat them all. NO problem.
So it was a good thing I had my life savings with me or I never could have competed in the WICCC (World Ice Cream Cone Challenge) and found out who could eat more ice cream cones than anyone else.
And who could make the girls scream loudest.
the problem with eating six cones and a lick in one minute flat, even when you’re eating for two, is that you don’t feel so well afterwards. In fact, you feel quite hairy. And there’s something about growing hair on the backs of your hands that makes you want to scratch and howl.
Arrrrrrrruuuuuuuuuuu!
If I had been at home, it would have been a sad, wolfy cry at the moon. But I was at school, where I can’t make a sound no matter how hard I try. My mouth opened. My neck stuck out. But it was a silent, airless howl.
“Alvin?” said Miss P. “Are you okay?”
Miss P’s very nice. But she has a habit of calling on you when it’s a full moon.
I made no eye contact.
I kept my belly in plain sight.
“Fauntleroy?” said Miss P, using Pinky’s real name. “Are you okay?”
Buuuuurp! Pinky was pretty hairy too. He had had six cones in one minute flat, losing the world title to me by a lick.
And the rest of the gang … well, you could see the whites of their eyes, which in a normal town would be okay, but this is Concord, birthplace of the American Revolutionary War.
“Can anyone tell me which American Revolutionary War battle made famous the order ‘Don’t fire until you see the whites of their eyes’?” Miss P asked.
Silence.
“We talked about this yesterday,” Miss P said.
Silence.
“Does the Battle of Bunker Hill sound familiar?”
It was history class, which in a normal town, where nothing happened, might be very quiet, but in Concord, where everything happened and everyone buried explosives in their gardens and rolled howitzers about like baby carriages and guys firing muskets ran out of their homes at a moment’s notice, history is the liveliest class of all!
But not today.
“Did the battle actually take place on Bunker Hill?” Miss P continued.
Silence.
“Why were the colonials told not to fire at the Redcoats ‘until you see the whites of their eyes’?” Miss P asked.
Silence.
Miss P looked around. “What’s going on?” she asked. “Why is everyone so quiet?”
“The boys had too much lunch,” Flea said.
“They were eating for two, like Alvin,” Esha added.
Then the girls giggled.
“Oh,” said Miss P. “Well, let’s switch to current events and come back to history. You’ll all feel more awake after you give your current events reports.”
Reports?
What reports?
Sam and Nhia waddled to the front of the room.
“Our report is on the capture of Paul Revere,” Sam burped.
Miss P scratched her head with a pencil. “Is that current?” she asked. “Or is that history?”
The clock on the wall went tick, tick, tick.
No one breathed.
No one said a word.
No one wanted to be rude to Miss P. My dad said that it’s rude to correct a person, especially in front of others. I think it’s one of the rules of being a gentleman, but I can’t be sure. I don’t remember.
But someone ought to tell her that history in Concord repeats itself. Lots of things happened here a long time ago, and they always happen again. Most events are on a regular schedule, like Paul Revere’s dangerous bike ride and the start of the American Revolutionary War.
“What’s current?” Sam finally asked.
“Something that happened recently,” Miss P said. “It may have occurred last week, or last year, or even a few years ago, but people are still dealing with it today.”
“The capture of Paul Revere is so current, it hasn’t happened yet!” Nhia said.
Miss P looked puzzled.
“You see, Sam and I were riding our bikes along the Battle Road Trail,” Nhia continued, “and we stopped at the place where Paul Revere is going to be captured during his midnight bike ride. And he was rehearsing for his capture, so we watched and took pictures.”
“The two guys that were riding with him were younger and faster and got away,” said Sam. “They had mountain bikes,” Nhia added. “But Paul was an old guy on a rickety bike. It’s no wonder he gets busted!”
Miss P’s glasses slipped on her nose. She looked at the photographs. Then she looked at Sam and Nhia. Then she sat down. She didn’t look so well, but that’s what happens when you’re new to teaching, or new to Concord, my dad says. You have to get adjusted.
Then Flea hopped up from her chair next to me. “Psst. C’mon, Alvin,” she said. “It’s our turn.”
Our turn?
Since when did I do a report with Flea? If I had known that I was assigned to do a project with a girl, I would have died of Embarrassment Syndrome and stayed home from school!
“Our report is on the earthquake in Haiti,” Flea said in her loud voice, which goes in your ears and sits there like a sofa.
“The earthquake was scary, but the devastation was SCARIER,” said Flea, making a large sweeping motion with her arms. I ducked.
“It happened a few years ago, but it still looks like the disaster struck yesterday,” she said. She clicked the control button and a bright light shot out of the projector.
Everyone gasp
ed.
I was the whiteboard. Earthquake rubble spread across my belly.
“Nearly all of the schools collapsed,” Flea continued. “Fortunately, most of the children had already gone home.”
I stood very still.
“People lost their homes,” Flea said. “Many died. Many were badly injured.”
Flea stopped. She blinked. She caught her breath.
But her breath caught her too, like a net sweeping up a butterfly. Her mouth opened, but her next words floated silently away.
A tear slipped from Flea’s one good eye and rolled down her cheek.
“Thousands of children became orphans,” she whispered. Another tear leaked out of Flea’s eye. Her chin wrinkled. Then she began to really cry.
Oh no.
I had nothing to do with it. But it sure looked like I did. I was standing next to her and I was a boy. And boys, as everyone knows, are guilty, just like that.
Miss P gave her a tissue and a hug. “You’re very brave to tell us about the tragedy,” she said to Flea.
Then Miss P asked, “Do you have anything to add, Alvin?”
Miss P’s very nice. She knows I can’t talk in school, but she always gives me a chance. If she ignored me once in a while it would be okay, especially when I’m TFOIC (Too Full of Ice Cream) and standing next to a weepy girl.
Flea wiped her eye. “My mom said we can help the children by sending them money to buy books and rebuild their schools.”
“What a thoughtful idea,” said Miss P. “Our school could take up a collection … in fact, we can start it right here in our class.”
Flea nodded. Her one good eye began to move again. It was not a good sign. I needed an escape plan—fast! I bent down past my belly to get it from my PDK.
Then Flea’s eye stopped.
I didn’t actually see her eye stop, but I could feel it. Her glare was fixed like a blade of sun through a magnifying glass.
“Maybe we can use Alvin’s PDK to hold our donations,” said Flea, sounding like her cheerful self again. “It could be our Personal Donations Kit—our PDK!”
Our WHAAAT?
I looked down. There in my PDK was my entire life savings (minus the ice cream money that was in my pockets), sparkling and twinkling at me, with some green bills among the shiny coins—like pirates’ loot!
Miss P gasped. “Why, Alvin,” she cried. “Is that why you brought all your money to school? You’ve already started the collection!”
Flea beamed.
“I’m so proud of you!” said Miss P. She clasped her hands over her heart. Then she reached for her purse. “Please allow me to be the first from our class to add to your funds.”
Then she dropped a TWENTY-DOLLAR bill into my PDK.
Flea said, “I have something I can give!” She pulled a dollar from her pocket and threw it into my PDK.
Before I knew it, everyone was throwing in what they had—quarters, dimes, nickels and pennies rained into my PDK.
Normally, I’d be jumping for joy to get so much money!
But this was not normal.
My money was mixed up with everyone else’s. I couldn’t tell what belonged to me and what was a donation to help the earthquake victims. My PDK, which was supposed to help me survive disasters, was a disaster!
Worse, my PDK looked happy as a Personal Donations Kit. It was kicking butt!
What do you do when that happens?
Nothing.
A gentleman never takes back his gift. It’s one of the rules, I think.
And Miss P was right.
I was no longer in a food coma from lunch.
But I wished I were.
i cried all the way home.
I cried all the way up our driveway.
I cried all the way into our kitchen for my afternoon snack with GungGung and Anibelly. But Calvin went straight to our room and skipped the snack, saying he’d had enough of my wailing.
I even cried extra for Lucy to kiss me.
I cried so long and so hard that I kind of nearly forgot why I was crying, until Anibelly reminded me.
“Where’s your PDK?” she asked.
“PDK?
“What PDK?
“Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!”
Then it all came pouring out—how I was a clever boy to take all my money to school, how I didn’t spend it all on ice cream, how I didn’t gamble it away in the boys’ room.
“Hmmm,” said GungGung, nodding and looking at me over his bowl of stinky tofu. “Mmmm … errrr … aaah … mmmm.”
That’s the problem with stinky tofu. It’s so yummy, it’s hard to get your words out.
Fortunately, it’s not hard to understand my gunggung. He and I can practically read each other’s minds! And it sure sounded like he was going to take me straight back to school and explain everything to Miss P and have her return my PDK, or else!
My gunggung’s the best. I can tell him anything and he always understands.
“Fhanks, GrrrGrrr!” I said, after stuffing the last bite into my mouth. Then I wrapped my arms around my gunggung like a pair of chopsticks around a piece of tofu.
“A donation is a wonderful gift,” said GungGung. “I’m really proud of you.”
Then GungGung wiped his damp forehead and headed to the sofa in the living room.
“I hope you’ll consider making more donations in the future,” he said, lying down and closing his eyes.
I didn’t know what to say.
GungGung had given me most of that money. He always gives us hung baus on holidays and birthdays. So I was shocked to hear that he didn’t want to help me get it back.
ZZZZZzzzzzzzzzz. My gunggung snored. ZZZZzzzzzzz.
The trouble with my gunggung is that he can fall asleep just like that, especially after his afternoon snack.
But not me. I ran back into the kitchen, where I grabbed a couple of sticky donuts—one for my mouth and another for my hand. Then I hurried upstairs. Anibelly and Lucy followed close behind.
“Caalviiin!” I cried, bursting into my room.
Silence.
“Calvin?”
I bit the donut.
Then POW!
I bit the carpet.
Something had knocked me smack in the back of my head.
And I was down for the count.
“Oops,” I heard Calvin say. “It wasn’t supposed to work that way. He was supposed to turn around and take it on the chin.”
“Is he dead?” Anibelly asked. Her soft breaths tickled the back of my neck.
“He looks much more than dead,” said Calvin. “But I was aiming to stun, not kill.”
Calvin and Anibelly rolled me over.
Lucy kissed the crumbs off my face.
I cracked open an eye.
Calvin was holding the spring-loaded boxing glove we’d gotten from Uncle Dennis last Christmas.
I rubbed the back of my head.
“Ouch,” I said. “That wasn’t very nice.”
“I was testing my trap for the burglar,” said Calvin.
“What trap?” I asked.
“That trap,” said Calvin, pointing to a contraption he’d rigged over the door to our room. It included both our plastic samurai swords, a broom, a hamster wheel (from our hamster who died), a hamster water bottle, spoons, marbles, balls, books, baseball cards, an umbrella, a flyswatter, sneakers, an old bike tire, strings, rope, underwear, an alarm clock, our old karaoke machine, my Tahitian drum and a couple of Lucy’s chew bones. It was fantastic!
“It’s a Rube Goldberg device,” Calvin said. “We’re learning about them in school.”
“What’s Ruby’s Gold Bird advice?” Anibelly asked.
“It’s the most extraordinary invention your imagination can think of—to do a simple task in the most complicated way possible,” Calvin said. “You have to be a genius to come up
with one.”
If anyone’s a genius in our house, it’s Calvin, that’s for sure. He knows something about practically everything, and if he hasn’t read about it online, he’ll invent it on the spot, just like that.
“The only problem,” Calvin continued, “is attaching the boxing glove in a way that doesn’t kill him.”
“Why don’t you want to kill him if he’s broken into our house?” I asked.
“Because a dead body is hard to move,” said Calvin. “If I can’t move it, I’ll end up in prison!”
“Oh,” I said. It’s a good thing Calvin thought of that. I wouldn’t mind so much if he had to go to prison on account of I would get to play with his stuff while he’s gone, but having a dead body in my room would freak me out!
“Cal?” I said.
“Mmm,” said Calvin.
“Can guys have babies?”
Calvin stopped. “What does that have to do with catching the thief?” he asked.
“Can they?” I asked.
“Of course,” said Calvin. “I know kids who have two daddies.”
“Oh.” It was not good news.
“Alvin has a baby in his tummy,” Anibelly blurted. “Just like Mom.”
Calvin’s mouth fell open.
“Mom says I’m simply pathetic pregnant,” I said glumly.
“I’ve heard of that,” said Calvin. He ran to the computer.
“What’s going to happen to me?” I sobbed. “How long is this going to last?”
I took another bite of donut.
Calvin clicked and scrolled.
“Listen to this,” said Calvin. “Did you know that the lowest penalty for driving above the speed limit in Massachusetts is a hundred-dollar fine?”
I shook my head no.
“I’m never going to drive above the speed limit, that’s for sure,” said Calvin. “Except in an emergency.”
When Calvin’s not reading the encyclopedia online, he’s reading and rereading the Massachusetts drivers’ manual, which is bookmarked so he can get to it with just one click. He’s not old enough to drive without getting busted, but he said there’s no law against knowing the rules, just in case.
