Venus is waiting for me at the front door.
“Excellent hat choice, Z. Molto retro.”
Told Maddie the fedora wasn’t weird … but V and I agree the coat is another story. I’m swishing so loud I sound like our washing machine.
The coat slows me down, but I do my best to keep up with Venus as we power walk to our lockers.
Running in the hallways is not allowed at HST. That’s Rule #2. However, none of the teachers realizes that power walking is really slow running. Venus and I always get to our lockers faster than anyone else.
Except today.
The Bashleys are there first.
Moltosuspicious, because usually they are in the girls’ bathroom combing their hair—which usually doesn’t have to be combed anyway.
The Bashleys never have to wear hats.
But as mysterious as The Bashleys not being in the bathroom is, here’s the real question: Why are people taking pictures of The Bashleys and their friends in front of our lockers?
Before I can fully investigate, Mrs. Temlock-Fields stops Venus and me by the library door.
Her finger is on her lips.
“Sotto voce.”
Italian for “keep quiet.” That also goes for noisy coats.
She opens a bakery box.
Cannoli!
Mrs. Temlock-Fields not only likes to speak Italian, she likes to eat Italian too.
Venus: Grazie.
Me: Grazie ditto.
Mrs. T-F points to the people down the hall.
“A magazine from New York is taking photographs. Shhhh.”
Besides knowing library stuff, Mrs. Temlock-Fields makes it her business to know all sorts of other business too.
We’ve never had magazine people at our school before. Last spring a newspaper did an article on Mr. Gasparinetti, the second-grade teacher, because he unicycled to work every day for a whole year.
I thought it was because he didn’t want to pollute and add to global warming, but now I’m wondering if it was just because he used to be in the circus.
(I’m leaning toward circus. His class uses an awful lot of paper.)
I take a bite of cannoli. “But why are magazine people in our hallway when it’s not even eight o’clock and nobody is supposed to be inside even on a freezing cold day except if you’re a fifth-grade safety patrol person like Venus and me?”
“Sotto voce, bambina!”
I whisper, “Scusami” (which is Italian for “Excuse me”). I try not to swish so much either. It’s not easy. The hallways at HST have acoustics bene.
“Mrs. Pappazian gave them permission weeks ago. The magazine is called U GrL. We have it in the periodical section of the Library.”
Lightbulb Momento: That’s probably why I don’t know anything about accessories. I’ve been reading National Geographics:
Capital of Burkina Faso: Ouagadougou
Mrs. Temlock-Fields keeps whispering.
(She’s one excellent whisperer. I think it’s because she’s had a lot of practice, being a librarian.)
“You should have been here five minutes earlier. See that fellow with red hair?”
Venus and I nod as we eat the cannoli.
“He saw Brittany, Ashley, and their friends Olivia and Jaclyn walking down the hall and asked if they would like to be in the photographs.”
Venus looks at me. “Cool.”
Very.
Having your picture taken for a magazine, even if it’s one that you’ve never heard of before, is extremely boing on the coolability meter.
Especially 181 days before sixth grade.
If only I hadn’t been slowed down by the poofy coat …
Venus wipes cream filling off her sweater.
“Mrs. T-F? Why do they want to take pictures at our school?”
“Oh, I believe Mrs. Pappazian said the magazine is doing some sort of article about schools named after presidents.”
I almost choke on my cannoli.
“Presidents? Presidents of the United States? I can tell them everything they want to know about presidents! I’ve got a whole book on them in my locker. I’m even doing an extra-credit report on William Howard Taft!”
“That’s right, she does,” says Venus. “She is. Zoey can even list them in order forward and backward, everyward. I’ve heard her. Really. Zoey knows all about them. Show her, Zoey. …”
“William Howard Taft was three hundred and thirty-two pounds. The teddy bear was named after Theodore Roosevelt. The S in Harry S. Truman stands for absolutely nothing.”
“Shhh! Girls. Yes, yes, yes, Zoey, you know all about the presidents. But knowing about William Howard Taft doesn’t have anything to do with the photographs the magazine is taking for this article.”
It doesn’t? …
Well, How much sEnsE does THat make?
How can people not want to know about William Howard Taft? Or Harry? Or Dwight D. and Silent Cal? Very odd, if you ask me (very, very odd).
Mrs. Temlock-Fields thinks giving us another cannoli will keep us quiet. She’s wrong.
Cannoli echo too.
Venus and I chew and crunch as we watch a bald guy with not even one speck of fuzz on his head (true) walk over and stand next to Ashley. She combs her hair as he holds up a long pole with a broken silver umbrella stuck on top.
Another man with a red ponytail and a tattoo on his arm muscle unravels fat wires that look like black spaghetti. (Technically, Mrs. T-F would call it bucatini made with squid ink. You don’t want to know what squid ink really is. Trust me.)
Lady in Black is talking to everybody else dressed in black (except for one lady who is wearing camouflage boots). Boot Lady is holding a camera while another camera hangs around her neck. A girl with long, blond, curly hair walks over to a big computer monitor.
I really think that somebody should know that President Truman was number thirty-three, came from Missouri, and liked to play the piano. And why aren’t The Bashleys, Olivia, or Jaclyn even holding an official HST Elementary School notebook? Scusami, but if you’re taking a picture of somebody from a school named after a president, then somebody should be holding a picture of that president. Or something!
Lady in Black moves Ashley and Brittany this way. Then Olivia and Jacyln that way. And I still don’t see anything about President Truman.
And then (because, like I said, the acoustics are so bene),
I hear Lady in Black say, “Does anyone have something interesting in their locker that we can use in the photographs?” …
“I Doo ooooooOOO OOOO”
Even I didn’t know the hallway could echo like that.
Seven
Lady in Black turns around.
Ponytail guy turns around.
Boot Lady turns around.
The Bashleys & Friends of The Bashleys turn around.
Lady in Black waves at Venus and me.
“Excellent! Come on over and help us. Show me what you’ve got.”
Venus and I power walk over to my locker. There’s a lot of swishing, so I try to take off my poofy coat. It gets tangled in my safety patrol belt.
Lady in Black, whose name is Jazz, helps me off with the coat.
“Grabowski’s Tool and Die?” she says as I turn around to face my locker.
“It’s a bowling shirt,” I say as I spin the combination in record time. “My aunt says it’s vintage and retro.”
“Hmm … interesting. So … Ray, what have you got in that locker of yours?”
“Oh, her name isn’t Ray,” interrupts Venus. “It’s Zoey.”
“It’s my great-grandfather’s shirt; he actually voted for President Truman the year everyone thought he lost. But he really won. It’s a totally excellent story. Here—it’s all in this book.”
I open my locker.
There is a slight
(My locker is sort of like my room.)
4 books
on the presidents of the United States a thesaurus pix of Harrison history bo
ok piccolo crossword puzzles
Louisa May Alcott
LITTLE WOMEN (Who doesn’t want to be Jo?)
2 owl-puke pellets
a book on
King Tut (the original celebritini)
Everything You Always Wanted to Know about Geography BUT Were Afraid to Ask (Someday Venus and I will visit the Leaning Tower of Pisa and measure how far it really leans.)
3 tennis balls colored markers tube of green paint half-eaten apple sheet music and, of course, a roll of orange duct tape
Jazz to Boot Lady: “Fun! Get all of this, Maya.”
President Truman?
Click Click
Click WHT? Click Tut?
Click Click Big Ben?
Click Click Click
my Chucks? Click owl pellets?
Click fedora?
The Bashleys laugh. Click Me?
The Friends of The Bashleys laugh.
Click Venus and I look at each other.
Click Click Click
We laugh too! Click
Click.
Jazz snaps her fingers.
Lights switch off.
Ponytail Guy disconnects the bucatini.
Blond lady packs up the computers.
Bald guy collapses the silver umbrella.
“That’s a wrap, guys,” says Jazz. “Thanks for helping us out with these last couple of shots, Ray. You and the stuff from your locker were a big help. We’ll get all the permissions and paperwork from you girls signed later. I’ll send proof copies to the school when we get them. Gotta scoot. Remember—Go U GrL!”
The Bashleys and Friends of The Bashleys shriek and giggle as they head into Mrs. Helferich’s room. I try to cram my poofy coat into my locker, and down the hall, Jazz turns and waves.
“That hat’s a keeper, Ray!”
The bell rings.
8:00
Arrivederci, Jazz.
Eight
Venus and I are still stuffing the poofy coat into my locker when suddenly (that’s right) Mrs. Pappazian swoops in from around the corner.
“Zoey Zinevich! Off with that HAT!”
It’s called a fedora.
The Lunchroom Life
of
Zoey Zinevich
Part 2
ACT 1: Scene 1 (later that day)
11:37 a.m.
Hot-Lunch Lunch Line
Sent to the principal’s office at 11:23, at which time she had to turn in her fedora, Zoey now enters the Lunchroom slash All-Purpose Room slash Gym and is, once again, last in the Harry S. Hot-Lunch Lunch Line.
Mrs. Pappazian was not interested in hearing what Jazz told Zoey.
Not one little bit.
(See previous chapter: “That hat’s a keeper, Ray.”)
Now, besides all the turkey sandwiches with or without mayo (no tomato) already gone and one incredible bedhead, Zoey also has one incredible hathead. Even Mrs. Salerno, with the mustache that stops HST Hot-Lunch Lunch Line traffic, is left grumbleless when she sees Zoey and her hair pass by.
The spoon known simply as Super Salerno, filled with a jellied Medley of the Unknown Green Vegetables, misses the plate.
And then …
ACT 1: Scene 2
Zoey sees Ashley.
Ashley sees Zoey.
Their eyes meet as they both reach for the last chocolate chip cookie.
ZOEY:
You can have it. I’m really more a chewy oatmeal raisin person.
Ashley doesn’t speak.
She only stares, but she does take the cookie.
ACT 1: Scene 3
The two pass the official LUNCH LIST NAME CHECKER checkpoint.
The Table Bashley in all its coolness is only steps away. …
ZOEY:
Taking those photographs this morning with you and Brittany for the magazine was fun.
ASHLEY:
With you and your geeky sneakers, freaky bowling shirt, owl pellets, frog pictures, weird hat, and Louisa May whoever?
… You thought.
You probably ruined all of our chances to have our pictures in the magazine. You better not be in any of our pictures … RAY.
Not to be continued.
THE END.
Nine
Table Ten.
“If you want, you can use my hat, Zoey,” says Walter Colson.
I take it.
But I can only wear it when the All-Purpose Room is the slash Gym and not the slash Lunchroom. Unfortunately, that’s not today.
We don’t have phys ed.
I know.
This is a short one.
Makes up for number two.
(I’m calling it chapter averaging.)
z.z.
This is sort of a brain break from all the drama.
(I know. It’s getting very intense.)
When my grandparents take me to see a play in New York City and it’s the end of Act 1, all of a sudden the orchestra goes
and the curtain comes down, the lights go up, and then everybody goes to the bathroom or gets a candy bar. (Just so you know—you don’t have much of a chance of doing either in New York, because the lines are like forever.
But you can do whatever you want here.)
You can also think of this as the seventh-inning stretch—which, incidentally, was started by President Taft, who one time stood up after the top half of the seventh inning during a baseball game to stretch his legs, and everybody else did the same thing.
So … stretch.
(It’s amazing what you can find out by doing extra credit.)
And now …
back to the story.
Ten
157 days to you-know-what.
No you-know-who.
I know. You’re probably asking,
“What happened to all of those days in between?”
Nothing.
Do you know how sometimes when you’re reading a book, you come to the middle or after the middle, and you say to yourself, “Huh?” or “Boring,” or “Snooze. Nothing is happening”?
This is one of those parts.
But if you really want to read boring stuff, well, okay. Here it is.
CAUTION: The following may cause drowsiness. Read at your own risk. Permission to skip ahead.
1. I tried hair gel.
It was a fiasco.
fi • as • co
pronunciation: fE-as-kO
: a complete failure
2. Luckily, Mrs. Pappazian returned the fedora.
3. Alex Shemtob said he loved me …
when my hair was gelled!
(I know—I know—I know.)
He told me in science class as we were dissecting an owl pellet. Our yellow plastic tweezers, technically called forceps, touched as we discovered a mouse tibia at the same time.
Then he gave me a green HB pencil.
My stomach felt all icky and my face got hot. I didn’t know if it was because of the owl pellet, discovering a mouse bone, or Alex.
My mother said when I get older (and I’m pretty sure she means older than eleven), I will remember it as romantic and sweet. (Yes, she really said that.)
TMI.
I don’t want to think about that right now when I’m only ten and seven-eighths.
But HBs are the best, so … I’m keeping the pencil.
4. A very strange thing is happening to my body.
My earlobes are growing.
Do you know what my mother said?
… Here’s what my mother said:
“What an imagination you have, Zoey.”
… Oh really?
My Auntie Barbara has earlobes that are so long, they swing back and forth. On her, earrings are dangerous weapons. A mosquito buzzing around her head is a goner.
5. Jazz sent the school the photographs that are in the magazine. There are pictures of The Bashleys and the Friends of The Bashleys. (They are sort of out of focus, and the hallway and lockers are more in focus.)
There are also
pictures of Harry, WHT, Big Ben, Harrison, and my bowling shirt (back and front pocket), fedora feather, one sneaker, and a close-up of my braces.
The Bashleys think that is funny in the extreme. And … not cool or chic (noun or adjective).
6. No sign of a fairy godmother. My idea of having one of those has been a fiasco (see number one).
(Told you. Snoozerama. Don’t have time for the toe story. Maybe later.)
Eleven
Beeeeeeee-eeeee-eeeeeep.
ATTENTION, PLEASE.
… Zoey Zinevich,
report to the
principal’s office.
Me? That Zoey Zinevich?
To the principal’s office?
Sixteen pairs of eyeballs—not counting the ones belonging to Mrs. Helferich—are eyeballing the person in desk five, row three.
Me.
This is all curiouser and more curiouser, because I have never been called to the principal’s office on the loudspeaker. …
Not even when I had to turn in the fedora.
(That was only a Hall Call.)
Mrs. Helferich is stunned by this surprising, ugly turn of events too. She hands me the hall pass, because if you don’t have a hall pass and you’re caught in the hall without having a hall pass, you’re going to have big trouble.
You have broken Rule #8:
You MUST Have a Hall Pass.
Since I’m already called over the loudspeaker, I don’t need any more trouble. I hold on to the hall pass and power walk to Mrs. Pappazian’s office. Does a hall pass work like a …
Get-out-of-Jail-Free Card?
Or does it mean …
Go Directly to the Office.
Do Not Pass Go.
Do Not Go to the Bathroom.
Is a fifth grader allowed in a second-grade girls’ bathroom … ?
Mrs. Katterman, the school secretary, is on the phone as I walk into the Main Office.
Geek Chic Page 3
