Teddy Mars Book #3

by Molly B. Burnham

  Seeing all those kids makes me feel nervous. There are already so many, but Jake looks even more scared, so I grab our lunches and take Jake by the hand, and we climb out of the car together.

  Mom follows. “I know it’s a lot to ask, but try not to visit me at work.” She hugs Jake. “Aunt Ursula will pick you up. Oh, and don’t forget to have fun.” She gives us one last hug and runs off to her office.

  Jake and I run to Lonnie and Viva. Together again! We high-five each other, which is as unsuccessful as ever.

  Jake looks around. “Who’s the teacher?”

  Lonnie says, “She’s not here.”

  “No one knows why.” Viva shrugs. Viva’s mom stands off to the side talking on her phone. A couple of other parents stand close to her. I don’t know who she is calling, but if anyone can sort this out, Viva’s mom will. I don’t know what her job is, but it definitely has something to do with sorting out problems.

  Ny, Cornelio, the two Jasmines, Lewis, and Serena all rush over. Then they see Jake and they circle around him, asking loads of questions, like, “Where are the cans?” and “What should we call you?”

  “Jake,” he answers, which is so normal, it’s boring.

  When Viva’s mom finally comes over she doesn’t look happy. “I can’t find anyone who knows what is going on.”

  Jake frowns and grabs my hand tighter. And even though at first I didn’t want to do this project, the thought of it being canceled is not at all appealing. I’m tired of chores.

  Suddenly, there’s a honk behind us. We all look for Ms. Cecile, but it isn’t Ms. Cecile climbing out of the car. It’s someone way better. It’s Ms. Raffeli! And she’s wearing jean shorts and a T-shirt that says, “If you can read this, thank a teacher. If you can’t, go back to school!” She never wore clothes like that to school.

  Seeing Ms. Raffeli is like breaking the world record for being hit by a car eight times in two minutes and coming out of it without a Band-Aid.

  The relief is tremendous.

  TOGETHER AGAIN

  “Ms. Raffeli!” Viva runs over and gives her a big hug, and then the two Jasmines and Ny run over and I hug her, too. And then Jake squeezes in and hugs Ms. Raffeli.

  “Are you going to be our teacher?” Lonnie asks.

  “Your Jedi skills are, as always, excellent, Lonnie. And let me state for the record that this is not how I pictured my summer.” She pauses, looks around at all of us, and says, “But it could be worse.” A tiny smile creeps up the corner of her mouth as she opens the back of her car, which is full of notepads, pencils, paints, and brushes.

  “Do you have experience with painting a mural?” Viva’s mom asks.

  “Nope, none at all.”

  Viva’s mom looks a little rattled by this answer, but that’s Ms. Raffeli for you; she’s always honest.

  “I’m sure we’ll figure it out.”

  You can tell Viva’s mom isn’t sure about leaving, but she doesn’t have much choice; she’s got a job to go to. So she kisses Viva good-bye. “Call me if you need anything.”

  Viva shakes her head. “My mom is so embarrassing.”

  “I like how she pays attention,” I say.

  “She’s a lot like Aunt Ursula.” Jake smiles.

  “She’s got just about as many rules,” Viva agrees. “But she doesn’t make cupcakes.”

  “Come on.” Ms. Raffeli scoots us to her car. “Lots to do and we’re already late.”

  As we carry stuff out and over to the picnic table, Ms. Raffeli explains that Ms. Cecile just got a job in Puerto Toro, Chile.

  “Did you know that Puerto Toro, Chile, is the southernmost permanently inhabited place in the world? I know this because it is a record.”

  Ms. Raffeli hands me a box of brushes and says, “It’s day one of the mural project, could we please save world records until day four?”

  TOGETHER AGAIN PART 2

  After everything is unpacked Ms. Raffeli waves her hand to show us the outside wall we’ll be painting. It’s on one side of City Hall, next to a park and a parking lot. The parking lot isn’t very interesting, but the park has a couple of nice trees that make me think about Grumpy Pigeon Man’s advice about climbing a tree.

  As if Ms. Raffeli can read my mind, she says, “There will be no climbing of those trees. I don’t want a broken arm while you’re with me.”

  Then she leads us into City Hall. I see a sign that points to Mom’s office, but I don’t say anything to Jake because I’m not sure what he’ll do, and Mom asked us not to bother her.

  Ms. Raffeli has us sit in the main entry on marble stairs that lead up to the second floor. It’s an old building with tall windows and a huge door. “We’ll decide on the theme for the mural later, although it will definitely have something to do with our city. But first we will draw.”

  Viva raises her hand. “I wish you had done a mystery bag.”

  Lewis says, “I was going to say that.”

  Ny covers her face in her hands.

  Lonnie says, “Mystery bag was genius, but Ms. Raffeli probably didn’t have time.”

  Jasmine B. smiles. “I think this is great.”

  “Me too,” Jasmine H. says. “And anyway, Lewis was the only one who guessed them.”

  In school, this would be about the time Ms. Raffeli’s eyebrows would rise up her forehead, but here she shrugs and says, “Sadly, as much as I also like mystery bag, Lonnie is correct. I wasn’t given enough notice. But now to the work ahead. We will begin by meeting outside every morning.”

  Angus hops over. “What if it’s raining?”

  “Then we’ll meet here. We don’t have a lot of time to make a mural, so we must stay focused.”

  Lonnie raises his hand. “I just want to say I’ve got a good feeling about this.”

  “I’m glad one of us does, Lonnie,” Ms. Raffeli says. “But no matter what happens, I’m sure it’s going to be interesting.”

  Jake looks at Ms. Raffeli like she’s the most powerful Jedi of them all and says, “Ms. Raffeli, if Princess Leia survived all those awesome adventures, you can survive this. I know you can.”

  LONGEST TIME

  We spread out in small groups with our pads and paper. My group is Lonnie, Viva, and of course Jake. We draw anything we want that we can see with our eyes.

  I’m drawing a trash can. Lonnie draws a door. Viva draws a bench. Jake draws a window and what he sees out the window, like a pigeon, which I wish I had picked to draw because drawing a trash can is boring. It’s also really hard to sit still. All I want to do is get up, move around, draw something else, or talk to Lonnie or Viva.

  But every time I feel like that, Ms. Raffeli happens to circle past. She says, “Good.” Or, “Nice shading.” Or, “Don’t give up.”

  At one point she says, “If you’re done with your picture, turn the paper over and draw the same thing again, from a different angle.”

  “Aggghh!” I moan.

  “You can do it. Notice what’s the same? What changes?”

  The weird thing is that the longer I sit and draw, the longer I feel like I can sit and draw, like my brain doesn’t squirm so much. And the coolest thing is that the longer I sit and draw, the more things about the trash can I see, like how there are scratches on one side, and a dent at the top.

  I can tell this isn’t just me. Jake is doing it.

  When Ms. Raffeli finally says, “Stop,” I’m amazed that I sat so long. Honestly, it feels like I broke a record.

  IT’S SO NORMAL, IT’S WEIRD

  After muraling, Aunt Ursula picks up Lonnie, Viva, Jake, and me. As soon as we arrive home, my stomach tightens. I don’t know why, since there’s a yummy smell of cake and nothing else out of control going on in our house.

  I mean, stuff is going on, but it’s not dangerous, loud, or out of place.

  Sharon sits in the kitchen with a cookbook in her face. I hear the sewing machine whirring away upstairs. Maggie walks in and washes her dirt-covered hands. Then I hear an odd tappin
g sound from Grace’s room.

  Aunt Ursula says, “I found an old typewriter for Grace. She seems to like it more than a computer or paper and pen.” She cuts us slices of the cake.

  Jake plunks down in front of his weaving.

  Lonnie looks at me. “There’s really something different about your family now that Aunt Ursula has moved in.”

  “It’s true.” Viva nods, taking a bite of cake. “But I can’t put my finger on it.”

  Lonnie takes one too, then says, “It’s so normal, it’s weird.”

  I nod because really, I couldn’t have said it better myself.

  IT’S SO NORMAL, IT’S WEIRD PART 2

  Aunt Ursula sends us to the backyard to rake up stray leaves from last fall. Dad is a big raker, mostly because Grumpy Pigeon Man yells at him about it, but even so, there is a surprisingly large amount of leaves that got left behind.

  We sneak out a copy of The Guinness Book of World Records with us. Every time we walk past it, we turn a page and read. That’s how we find the “most pull-ups in one minute” record (43).

  And after we finish the raking we try. I haven’t hung off the monkey bars on our old play set in a long time. Last time I had to jump for them, and this time my knees practically touch the ground. But that’s not why we can’t beat it. We can’t beat it because after twelve pull-ups my arms turn to noodles, and the same is true for Lonnie and Viva.

  “How about something using chopsticks?” Viva suggests.

  “As long as it doesn’t use any muscles,” I say, “I’ll do it.”

  So we sneak into the house and grab some. As it turns out we don’t need to sneak, because Aunt Ursula is napping, and my sisters are busy. Not even Jake asks what we’re doing. There used to be a time when we couldn’t get rid of him! Now he doesn’t even care.

  I look at his weaving. “Can I try?” I ask.

  Lonnie and Viva look at me like I’m crazy. I admit, even I’m surprised.

  But he nods and shows me what to do. “No,” he corrects. “Under, then over.” I try again. “Stop, Teddy. You’re destroying it.” He pushes me out of the way and sighs very loudly.

  STORM CLOUDS APPROACHING

  “Is this a real record?” I ask. We’re all lying on the grass with our chopsticks, trying to pick as many blades of grass in one minute as we can.

  “I don’t think so,” Viva says. “I just thought it would be cool.”

  I have to say, she’s right.

  Lonnie says, “I’m up to nine blades, how about you?”

  “I’m up to twelve.” Viva smiles.

  I ask, “Did anyone set the timer?”

  “We’re practicing and then I’ll turn it on,” Viva says.

  “If we get really good at chopsticks we should try to break a whole bunch of records with them,” Lonnie says.

  I nod happily.

  Out of nowhere Aunt Ursula’s foot appears right in the middle of the patch of grass we’re all trying to pick from. “What’s going on here?”

  We stop and look up. She’s looking down.

  Strange but true, the longest uninterrupted live TV weather report lasted 34 hours. There must have been lots of different weather conditions moving through during that time. Aunt Ursula only looks like the storm clouds.

  BAD WEATHER HITS

  “I thought I made my feelings understood,” Aunt Ursula says.

  Viva says, “Technically, we are mowing the lawn.”

  Lonnie and I nod in agreement. I am impressed by Viva’s quick thinking.

  “I understand that in the past you have not been asked to uphold rules of childhood behavior, but that is what I am asking of you. To be clear, breaking world records is not one of the rules.”

  Before Aunt Ursula says any more, the back door opens and Jake yells, “Peanut wants you.”

  Peanut springs out the door and sprints right past Aunt Ursula, running straight for the fence closest to the pigeons, where he lies down, and rolls over on his back. The pigeons coo at him.

  As weird as this is, I can’t think about it because all I know is that Lonnie, Viva, and I are not supposed to try to break a world record ever again.

  RULES ABOUT PIGEONS

  After Aunt Ursula lays down the law about world records, Lonnie, Viva, and I are not in the mood for much. So they head home and I head for the aviary.

  If the pigeons were to write down a list of rules for themselves I think this is what it would say:

  1. Always flutter around Teddy when he walks in.

  2. Always crowd around when Teddy serves food.

  3. Always take a moment to sit on Teddy’s knee, shoulder, or top of head.

  4. If the opportunity arises, always poo on Teddy. He clearly loves it.

  MILK-SHAKE HAPPINESS

  I come straight in and take a shower. When I’m done Aunt Ursula asks if I will take out the recycling. I do. She doesn’t say a single thing more about Lonnie, Viva, and me breaking world records. I plan to talk to Mom and Dad about it, but when they get home, they look stressed out, and keep having whispered conversations by the sink, where all I can hear is Mom saying, “I’m trying everything I can, but it’s a law.”

  And Dad whispering, “I’m sure there’s some way around it.”

  Aunt Ursula is as nice to me as always for the rest of the night, and in the morning when Mom, Jake, and I leave, she makes a special effort to tell me to have a good day.

  Now that world records are off-limits, the mural is all I have.

  Today Ms. Raffeli has us draw some buildings in our sketchbooks. We’re sitting in front of the town hall looking out at the street. Tall brick and concrete buildings surround us.

  “Notice the space in between the buildings as much as the buildings themselves,” she says.

  “How do I draw space?” I ask.

  Viva says, “Start with your foot, and draw everything that is around your foot, or everything that is not your foot.”

  “That makes my head hurt,” I say.

  Lonnie puts down his pencil. “Like Yoda says, ‘you must unlearn what you have learned.’”

  “You are not helping.” I hit him on the head with my pencil.

  Lonnie holds up his hand, spreading his fingers out. “Can you see the V?”

  I nod.

  “That’s what you want to draw.”

  I decide to draw a tree, or should I say, everything that is not the tree. It turns out that everything that is not the tree are shapes, like triangles and rectangles and shapes with no names.

  And when I finally finish, I hold up my picture to show Lonnie and Viva, and that’s when Jake grabs the picture out of my hand.

  “Hey, give it back!” He’s spent so many years destroying my things; it’s impossible to trust him.

  But all he does is run over to Ms. Raffeli and show her.

  “That is good,” she says.

  Lonnie and Viva agree.

  I’m pretty sure I haven’t felt this happy since I read about Gary Bashaw Jr., who broke the record for most milk shake dispensed through his nose, which means he made a milk shake in his mouth, shot it out of his nose, and got it to land into a glass.

  That record always makes me happy.

  JULY FOURTH

  July Fourth is a holiday, so there’s no work for Mom or Dad, and no mural class. Instead our whole family gets ready for the annual city picnic and fireworks show.

  Sharon and Aunt Ursula have been cooking all day. Caitlin and Casey sewed red, white, and blue napkins and a tablecloth. Maggie brings in lettuce from her garden, her first crop. Grace has written a poem, which she will recite at our picnic. And Jake wove straw plates for everyone to use.

  I don’t have anything to share but have done a terrific job cleaning up after everyone!

  We all pile into the van and head to the city park. It’s already teeming with people. Aunt Ursula asks me to carry a lot of the stuff because her arms are full with Peanut. We’re meeting Lonnie and his family, and Viva and her family. We s
pot them right away because Viva’s dad is holding up a flag with their family name on it. I laugh. My family would never have a flag.

  Viva shrugs. “Dad wanted to be sure I could always find them if I ever get lost.”

  “Makes sense,” Lonnie says.

  Viva shakes her head. “It made sense when I was five; now it’s just embarrassing.”

  Peanut starts barking madly because Grumpy Pigeon Man arrives. Peanut squirms out of Aunt Ursula’s arms, runs to him, and rolls over.

  “Peanut,” Aunt Ursula says. “Mummy is here.”

  But Peanut keeps licking Grumpy Pigeon Man. It’s clear to all of us that Peanut has decided he likes Grumpy Pigeon Man, but none of us say a word.

  I make room for him on our blanket. “I didn’t know you were coming.”

  “Your mother called. Said I should.” He jerks his head to Aunt Ursula and whispers, “Didn’t know she’d be here, though.”

  I can tell he’s thinking about leaving, but Mom dumps a pile of food on his plate and says, “Have you thought about what I said?”

  Grumpy Pigeon Man shakes his head.

  I wonder what they would need to talk about. But I don’t think about it for long because Lonnie and Viva jump up with a beach ball and the three of us bat it around. Not to break a record but for fun.

  Finally, the fireworks begin. It’s a crazy combination of exciting, beautiful, and extremely loud.

  When they’re done Grace stands up to read her poem. “If we know ourselves—” But she doesn’t get any further because Peanut cuts her off.

  “Rrar! Rrar-rrar-rar.”

  Grace crosses her arms and says, “Everyone’s a critic.” And cracks up at her own joke. We all laugh, too, because what else can we do?

  BECAUSE

  Because Ms. Raffeli said we should all start brainstorming images for the mural, Lonnie and Viva go straight home to work on ideas.