My Homework Ate My Homework

by Patrick Jennings

  Wouldn’t a person just say, “a lot of popcorn”? Or even “a ton of popcorn”? How much is a hundred ninety-one thousand, three hundred and forty-nine kernels anyway? Did I eat that many?

  This is all Mr. O.’s fault. He’s so detail-oriented. I bet he counts every kernel as he fills his popper.

  I take out Wain’s homework notebook and start copying. I can’t simply copy the problems though. I have to make it look like I did them. So, technically, I’m not cheating. I’m acting. I write down random numbers, then pretend I made a mistake and erase them, then write new random numbers, and pretend they weren’t right and erase them, too. I do this till I’ve made a nice gray smudge. That’s what my actual work looks like: smudgy. I also doodle a lot, so I draw stars, some with five points, some with six, some with more, but the minimum is five. Less than five isn’t a star. It’s a square. Or a diamond.

  I’m trying to make a star with four points when my mother asks, “What are you doing?”

  I scream a bloodcurdling scream, my favorite kind. I don’t like them as much, though, when they’re real.

  “Stop sneaking up on me like that!” I yell, clutching my heart. “You almost killed me!”

  “What are you doing?” she asks again. She sounds suspicious.

  Oh, right—Wain’s homework is on the kitchen table in front of me next to mine. I stand up, blocking the evidence with my body.

  “What do you think?” I ask, pretending to be outraged as I reach back and try to slide Wain’s notebook under my textbook. “My math. Didn’t you say I had to?”

  She scrunches her face up like she doesn’t believe me.

  “Okay,” I say, slouching like I’m about to come clean. “You caught me. I was doodling.”

  “You’re copying Wain’s homework.”

  “What? How dare you? I’m insulted! I mean really!”

  She reaches around me and snatches Wain’s notebook, then she holds it up in my face so I can see the name WAIN WEXLER written on the front.

  I’m ready for this. “You think I’m copying his work? I’m not copying it. I’m consulting it. It’s something we do in Mr. O.’s class. When we need help, we consult another student who understands it. In my case, that’s usually Wain.”

  “Wain’s not here, Zaritza,” Mother says, and turns to leave—with Wain’s notebook! My ticket to the auditions!

  “Where are you going with that? Wain entrusted that notebook to me, not you.”

  She stops and slowly turns around. Mother can be a drama queen herself sometimes. You can’t live with my father and me without it rubbing off.

  “Do your homework, Zee. Your own homework.”

  “But I was consulting—”

  “You will come home directly from school tomorrow and work on it. You will do nothing in your free time except math until you have caught up. That means no movies. No Wain. No drama. Do you understand?”

  “But—”

  “Do you understand?”

  I plop down onto my chair as if all my bones have turned to jelly. I’m a jellyfish in a chair. “Yes.”

  “And you are never to copy the work of another student. It is wrong and you know it. If I ever catch you doing it again, I will take away all your theater privileges. That means no plays, no acting classes—”

  “What?” I shriek.

  “—for the rest of the school year. And you and I will need to sit down with your teacher and have a conversation. You could get suspended, you know—”

  “Okay, okay! I get it! Will you stop yelling?”

  I hate it when she gets so mad. It’s like homework. It makes it hard to breathe.

  She plops down onto the chair next to me, closes her eyes, brings her hand up to her forehead, like she’s taking her own temperature. I bet it’s over a hundred.

  Finally, she opens her eyes and looks at me. “So do you need help?”

  I give her a naughty puppy face. “Yes.”

  She leans over to look at my textbook. “Show me where you were before you started copying Wain’s work.”

  “Are you kidding? I have to go back?”

  It’s now Thursday night. I’ve done more math in the past three days than all the days in my whole life put together.

  I start right when I get home from school and have to sit in the dining room so that my mother can check that I’m not cheating or fooling around. There is nothing in the dining room but a table, some chairs, my homework, and me. Mother keeps Abalina and Wormy out and periodically brings me “brain food,” which sounds like something you feed brains, not people. It’s actually carrots, walnuts, apples, and ants-on-a-log (raisins on peanut butter on celery sticks). I don’t eat ants. I’m not an anteater. I don’t eat logs. What am I, a beaver? I flick off the raisins and lick out the peanut butter. She also brings me water, but not too much. She doesn’t want me “rushing off to the bathroom every other minute,” as she puts it.

  In other words, I’m in math prison. Mother is the warden. She even sends me out to the backyard for five minutes of exercise. I’m not allowed to call anyone or have visitors. I’m dying of boredom and loneliness. And math. I’m dying of math. Math is killing me. Math should be in prison, not me.

  I miss Wain. I miss Abby. I miss fun. I miss movies. I miss Father. I even miss Wormy. That’s how desperate I am. And lonely. I hate being alone. There’s no drama when you’re alone.

  There’s just math.

  I did math with Eden during lunch and recess. She’s pretty patient. I would never put up with someone as fidgety and complainy as me. I tried a million ways to get her to do the work for me, but she saw through all of them. She’s pretty clever. I kind of wonder if the shy thing is an act. Let’s face it, we all act, especially when we want something.

  Eden’s technique is to suddenly look you straight in the eye and not look away or blink till you do what she wants. Because she usually avoids looking you in the eye, this technique is especially effective. When you try to get her to look at you, forget it, but then—voom!—her black eyes turn on you and freeze. They pin you like a butterfly collector pins a butterfly to whatever it is that they pin butterflies to. Butterfly boards. (Butterfly collectors are warped.)

  “I want you to do this problem,” she said today, pointing her long, dainty finger at a problem that wasn’t assigned. It was even, and I only have to do odds.

  “I don’t have to do that one. I’m not doing extra.”

  She pinned me with her eyes. “I want you to do it without a pencil. I want you to do it in your head, then tell me the answer.”

  “Why?”

  “So you can see how good you’ve gotten at this.”

  I agreed, but only so she’d stop staring. It made me uncomfortable.

  I added the numbers, carried, then answered, “Forty-eight thousand, eight hundred and twenty-one.”

  “Remember how hard problems like that used to be for you?”

  “You mean yesterday?”

  She smiled real big. Her teeth are really straight and white, and I bet they’re not whitened, like Ms. Tsots’s.

  I have to give the girl credit: she’s good. I wonder if she’s ever acted on the stage. She’d be good as a best-friend sort of character. If she weren’t so shy, she could audition for the play.

  “Are you working, or daydreaming?” my mother asks, peeking into the dining room.

  I snap back to the dining room. To my prison cell.

  “I’m working, warden,” I say.

  “We should celebrate!” Father shouts at the breakfast table.

  “No shouting at the breakfast table,” Mother says, looking at him like he’s crazy.

  He is crazy.

  I love crazy.

  “You want to celebrate her catching up on her long overdue homework? And after I caught her cheating?” Mother asks, then suddenly bends over and snaps at Wormy, “No begging! There’s food for you in your dish!”

  Wormy gloomily robot-walks away. Even “dogs” are actors.

>   “Could we have a movie night?” I suggest to Father while Mother’s distracted. “How about a double feature: Calamity Jane and Calamity Jane. I really need to study it.”

  “I’ll whip up the popcorn, pardner!” Father says in a cowpoke drawl.

  “No movie till today’s homework is done,” Mother growls.

  What a grump she is this morning. I bet Abby kept her up. I wouldn’t know. I can sleep through a tornado.

  “Did you keep Mommy up last night?” I ask Abby.

  My mother doesn’t like this. I get the feeling she wouldn’t like anything this morning.

  “It’s Friday, Mother,” I remind her. “We don’t get homework on Fridays.”

  “We better get going, Zaritza,” Father interrupts, setting his half-empty coffee cup into his bowl of half-eaten oatmeal. He never eats all of anything. Maybe that’s why he’s so skinny.

  He puts his dishes in the sink, then lifts Abby up into the air. She’s wearing her onesie with the pictures of ice cream cones all over it. No wonder she can’t sleep. The kid loves ice cream.

  “Bye, Baby Abby,” he says, and burrows his pointy face into her flabby neck. Abby giggles like a maniac.

  “Bye, Duh!” she squeals.

  I bus my dishes, too. “I ate all my food,” I say to the room. “I’m a growing girl.”

  “You are indeed,” Duh says. “You’ll be as tall as your mother in no time.

  Really? I like the thought of that. Heh, heh.

  “Did you put the permission slip in your backpack?” she asks.

  She means the permission slip for the play next week. We had to get permission to miss normal classes so we could participate. Did I pack it?

  “Of course I packed it!”

  I leave the kitchen and scoop up the permission slip from the dining room table where she put it out for me.

  “You didn’t remember,” my mother says from the kitchen. How does she do that? “Do you have your math?”

  My math! How could she think I could possibly forget the homework I labored over for days?

  “It’s in my backpack,” I yell.

  I get my backpack, unzip it, and rummage around for my math notebook. I don’t find it, so I dump the contents of the bag onto the floor.

  “Check your room,” Mother calls from the kitchen.

  I rush to my room. It’s not on my desk, the beanbag chair, or the bed. It’s not under it, either. I don’t see it. I start to panic.

  “Mother!” I scream. “Where’s my math?”

  There’s no answer. She enjoys it when I can’t find what I’m looking for. She loves crossing her arms and giving me the if-you-ever-put-things-away-where-they-belong-this-wouldn’t-happen look. I’m glad she’s in the kitchen.

  Except that I need her help.

  “MOTHER!”

  Abby crawls into the room.

  “Have you seen my math notebook, Abby?” Yeah, I’m asking the baby for help. I’m that desperate.

  She turns her head and stares into space. She looks like she’s thinking.

  “You have, haven’t you? Where is it, Abby? Where’s Zuzza’s notebook?”

  Her eyes wander back to me. Slowly. Tell me this kid isn’t a drama princess.

  “Wum,” she says.

  “WHAT?!”

  My scream is so loud it tips her over onto her back.

  “Where is he, Abby? Where’s … Wormy?”

  She looks toward the door.

  I leap over her and run into my mother. Literally.

  “Where’s Wormy?” I yell.

  “Slow down …”

  I dodge my mother and run down the hall. “Wormy! Wormy! Where are you, you little cyber-dog!” I’m starting to cry. For real.

  I collide with my father in the dining room.

  “No rugby in the ’ouse, mate,” he says in a passable Cockney accent. Cockney is not one of his best.

  “Must … find … ‘dog’!” I pant. I’m totally freaking out, but I do the finger quotes.

  “ ’E’s in the sitting room, dearie. Your mother banished ’im, poor widdle f’ing.”

  A wave of complete and utter terror washes over me. Wormy doesn’t like being scolded by Mother. (I know how he feels.) I remember he even walked right past his food bowl.

  I race to the living room and find him under the coffee table with what is left of my math notebook in his tiny, machinelike jaws. A new word, wormicide, flashes in my red-hot brain.

  “Give it to me, dog!” This time I skip the finger quotes.

  He growls and scoots back away.

  “GIVE … IT!”

  He yelps at the sheer power of my voice, and the notebook drops from his mouth. He runs away. I lift the tattered remains of my hard labor.

  It’s now truly true: My “dog” ate my homework.

  Mr. O. will never believe me.

  “Catch him!” I scream as I run through the house. “Catch him! I want that ‘dog’!” I’m hysterical, furious, crazed, but I finger-quote.

  My mother is yelling, “Calm down!”

  My father is yelling, “Let’s go!”

  Abby is yelling, “WAAAAAAAH!”

  I outyell them all: “ME … KILL … WORMY!”

  It sounds bad, I know, but all I can think of are those long, boring hours, adding and taking away, multiplying and dividing, carrying and borrowing, and how in a matter of minutes that hideous … THING … ripped it all to shreds. Which means I won’t get a passing grade. Which means I CAN’T BE IN THE PLAY!

  I don’t care how it sounds. I’m going to kill me a Maltipoo.

  “Where ARE you, you coward!” I yell.

  “Zaritza,” my father says, approaching me with the notebook in his hands. He’s cradling it like a baby to keep it from snowing confetti on the carpet. “I’ll go with you to talk to Mr. O. I’ll explain that you truly did do your homework, and that Wormy did in fact feast on the fruits of your labor. We’ll show him the mangled mess.” He holds it up. “Mr O. will understand. Your work won’t have been in vain. You learned, and that’s the important thing.” Then he sets his hand heavily on my shoulder, gazes deeply into my eyes, and adds, “Wormy doesn’t have to die.”

  A funny sound bursts out of my mouth, part grunt, part guffaw. He got me on that one. It’s amazing how laughter can put out anger, like water on a fire.

  My mother steps between us. “Go! You’re late!” She’s holding Abby, who’s still bawling.

  “Mother, you don’t look well,” I say. “Try to get some rest today.”

  She growls like a mad dog. Which only makes her look worse.

  “What’s wrong with Mother anyway?” I ask my father in the car on the way to school.

  “I think she’s tired of being at home. She wants to get back to doctoring.”

  “So why doesn’t she?”

  “We don’t want to send Abby to day care just yet.”

  “Did you act grouchy like that when you stayed home with me?”

  “Absolutely not. But to be safe, you should get a second opinion. Ask Mother.”

  “You guys should have stopped when you were ahead. Abby causes nothing but problems.”

  “I agree. Mother and I want to return her, but we can’t find the receipt.”

  “You could get rid of Wormy. That would definitely make life less stressful.…”

  And I get an idea. What if I were to bring Bandito home again, and what if I left the cage door open again, and what if Wormy was in my room at the time, and what if my door was closed and he couldn’t get out.…

  I’m still mad at Wormy.

  Father did smooth things out with Mr. O. The homework counts. I will get a passing grade. I get to star in the play!

  The troupe arrives on Monday, three days from now, and they will be here all week, every day, preparing us for the performances. That means five days of acting class instead of normal class. I’m so happy about it I can’t stand it. Or sit still. Mr. O. keeps telling me to, but I can’t. I’m way too exc
ited.

  Finally, he sends me to the library. Bad kids have to be escorted down the halls at our school by good kids, so he sends Eden with me.

  “Congratulations on finishing your math homework,” Eden whispers in the hall. “I knew you could do it.”

  “Yeah,” I say in a normal voice. I figure I don’t have to whisper, being the bad kid. “I couldn’t have done it without you, though.”

  “Of course you could have,” she says even more quietly. She’s trying to turn my volume down.

  “The best part is I get to play Calamity Jane in the play.” I’m talking even louder than before. No one turns me down.

  “Can you be quieter in the halls, please?” a voice from behind us says. We turn and see a teacher poking her head out of her classroom.

  “We’re very sorry,” Eden says, assuming, I guess, she gets to speak for both of us

  “Sorry, ma’am,” I say with a Calam twang. “ ’Spect I’m feelin’ plum rambunctious! Ah’ll try to keep my big yap shut.” And I give a big exaggerated nod.

  The teacher frowns and pulls her head back into her classroom. Eden crumples up like someone has pulled out her spine.

  “See what I mean?” I say proudly. “I’m a natural Calamity.”

  “Yes, I do see that,” she says.

  “Fur!” Abalina says when Father and I carry in the cage. She’s thrilled.

  Mother isn’t.

  “Are you crazy? After what happened last time?”

  Why did I bring Bandito home again, even though he kept me up for two weeks with his chattering and his stench, even though he ate my homework? Was it for revenge—so I could sic him on Wormy? That’s what gave me the idea, but that wasn’t why. The real reason was that I felt bad for him having to spend the weekend at school all day by himself. He liked it at my house. He liked Father. Abby liked him. Maybe I was starting to as well.

  “I couldn’t help it.” I say. “He loves me.”

  “In our defense, we did call,” Father says, sounding like Mother is his mother, “but it went to voice mail.”

  “I was napping with Abby.”