Pennybaker School Is Revolting

by Jennifer Brown

  “Dinnertime!” Mrs. Mason called from over by the food tent, and everyone converged on it at once.

  “I can’t find him,” I whispered to Chip as we stood in the chow line.

  “Who?”

  “Mr. Faboo. I don’t see him anywhere.”

  “Oh. Yeah. Mr. Faboo. I forgot.”

  “What y’all whisperin’ about over there?” Bud asked, leaning toward us as he walked to a picnic table with an aluminum plate heaped with beans and hot dogs.

  “Do you know where Mr. Faboo is?” I asked.

  “Mr. Fa-who?” Bud squinted like he was thinking really hard.

  “Faboo. He’s …” I started to describe him, but realized it was impossible to describe someone if you’ve never really paid attention to what they looked like. “He wears a white wig sometimes?”

  “A white wig? No, I can’t say I’ve ever seen anyone like that, except maybe Old Tony over there.” He gestured toward a really old man with a mop of sweaty, snow-white hair flopping over one eye.

  “No, it’s not like that. It’s more …” I used my hands to indicate the poofiness of Mr. Faboo’s favorite wig.

  “He’s our teacher,” Chip said. “At Pennybaker School.”

  “Oh, that feller,” Bud said. “Sorry, boys, he is no more.”

  Chip gasped. “He’s dead?”

  “Dead? Oh, heavens no. Who said anything about dead? He just doesn’t do Civil War reenactment anymore. Something about the braces giving him a rash or some such. He was a good Union fighter, too. Knew everything there was to know about history.”

  “Do you have any idea where we might find him?” I asked.

  “Nope, can’t say I do. Sorry, fellers.”

  “Oh,” I said, but inside I was totally dashed. We’d come all this way and fought two hard battles for nothing.

  Mr. Faboo was still missing.

  TRICK #12

  DEALING DETENTION

  Chip was teaching another early-morning dance class, so I had Dad drive me to school extra early so I could polish the Heirmauser head and have it already shiny when Clover Prentice and her crossy-crossy arms got there.

  I had just come out of the custodian’s closet with my supplies when Chip, Wesley, Flea, and Owen entered the school. Chip said something, and they all laughed. They got to the bottom of the stairs, quickly bowed to the Heirmauser head, and then got up and huddled in a loose circle. One by one, they began an elaborate handshake, twisting their fingers, bumping their knuckles, flashing peace signs, and slapping and gripping and knocking their shoulders together. It took about five solid minutes to complete. I stopped and watched, dumbfounded.

  A few weeks earlier, Chip had asked if I wanted to create a special handshake with him. He’d proposed it at the lunch table, and all the guys had snickered so hard that someone—although nobody would confess to being the culprit—hacked a half-chewed cucumber onto the table.

  “Uh, right, that’s what babies do,” I had said, rolling my eyes really hard, even though I’d immediately thought of some handshake ideas that would look pretty great.

  “Oh,” Chip had said. He’d pushed up his glasses and let it go.

  Had I known the other guys were going to decide that fancy handshakes were actually really cool, I might have changed my mind about the babyishness of it. Of course, that was something my mom would have called “being a follower,” and “being a follower” almost always tended to “get a boy in trouble.” And then she would start talking about stuff they used to say in the old days when there must have been a lot more people jumping off bridges for fun than there are now.

  I cleared my throat loudly. Chip glanced at me, then finished his ritual before peeling away from the group.

  “Why are you here so early, Thomas?” he asked.

  “I have a job to do,” I said haughtily. I walked to the statue and took the cap off the polish. The real polish, not Chip’s nasty homemade licking polish.

  “Oh, I’ve got it,” he said, reaching for the rag.

  I snatched it back from him. “No. It’s my job.”

  “But I can do it,” he said, yanking on the other end of the rag. I refused to let go. The rag was pulled taut between us like a tug-of-war rope.

  “No. You. Can’t.” I jerked right back. He stumbled into the pedestal, making the head wobble in its spot. We both watched with fear, but it settled back into place.

  “I do it every day,” he said, yanking again. “When I didn’t do it, it didn’t get done.”

  “But you’re not supposed to,” I said, pulling back—only this time I pulled with all my might, causing Chip to knock hard into the pedestal. Instead of just wobbling now, the statue wheeled, tipping, tipping. We both let go of the rag, letting it fall to the floor, and reached for the head.

  But we were too late.

  I watched as the bust left the pedestal and tumbled in slow motion down and down and down. It landed on the tile floor with a heavy crunching sound, and then rolled right onto a pair of feet. Mr. Smith’s feet, to be exact. It came to a stop on its back. There was a huge dent in its forehead, and the nose was gone.

  Mr. Smith studied the head as if he couldn’t figure out how it had gotten there, and then turned his angry, red face toward us.

  “Gentlemen.” He pointed sternly toward the office. “Come with me. Looks like we have a detention to schedule.”

  I didn’t speak to Chip all day. And Chip didn’t speak to me. When you started in Principal Rooster’s office getting detention, you knew you were going to be in for a long day, and it was a really, really long day. We were even silent on the ride home. All I could think about was how I was in trouble at school and would be in trouble at home, and how it was all Chip’s fault. If he had just stopped trying to steal my job—and my friends—none of this would have happened. Why did he have to be so perfect at everything? It made regular guys like me look really not perfect. And regular guys like me didn’t need any help in that department. Most of the time I was doing a perfect job of reminding the world how not perfect I was.

  I could hear arguing coming from the kitchen as soon as I walked through the front door. I dropped my backpack at the bottom of the stairs and loosened my bow tie.

  Erma was sitting on the bottom step, eating a bowl of ice cream.

  “What’s going on?” I asked. “Why are you eating here?”

  She didn’t look up; she just kept shoveling the ice cream into her mouth. “Mom sent me out of the kitchen,” she said, “on account of Grandma Jo’s tattoo.”

  “What tattoo? Grandma Jo has a tattoo?”

  Erma shrugged. “That’s pretty much what Mom said, too.” I pulled off my vest, dropped it on top of my backpack, and started toward the kitchen. “I wouldn’t go in there if I were you.”

  I snuck through the living room and peered into the kitchen. Mom was standing in front of Grandma Jo with her arms crossed, tapping her foot. She had that look that she always got when she was getting ready to go on a You Will Not Lie to Me, Young Man Adventure.

  Trust me—that was not a good adventure to go on.

  “You’ve had it all this time, and I just didn’t notice it, huh?” Mom was saying. “You’ve been my mother for my whole life, and I haven’t seen that tattoo.”

  “I guess not,” Grandma Jo said. The sleeve of her sweater was pushed up to reveal a brightly colored picture of what looked like a llama riding a motorcycle. That was definitely noticeable.

  “When did you get it? You haven’t left the house in days.”

  “Exactly! That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. How could I get a new tattoo when I’m here all the time?”

  Mom tapped her foot harder, and her eyebrows got closer together. Grandma Jo let her sleeve drop over the llama. I’d never seen Grandma Jo look nervous before. When you made Grandma Jo look nervous, you were being really scary.

  Mom shook her finger at Grandma Jo. “I’m watching you,” she said. “I will figure out what you’re doing. Mark my wor
ds!”

  Grandma Jo picked up a glass of iced tea and handed it to Mom. “You look awfully flushed, dear. Are you hot?”

  Mom grabbed the iced tea, huffed, and took a drink.

  This was definitely not the right time to tell her about the detention I’d just gotten.

  Normally, I was pretty much on Grandma Jo’s side when Mom was trying to baby her. I hated to be babied, too. But now I was certain Grandma Jo was the one opening my window at night.

  She thought she could fool me. But she wasn’t the only one who could be sneaky.

  I wasn’t sure I could solve the mystery of the missing Mr. Faboo. But I was pretty sure I could solve this one, if I just kept trying.

  Grandpa Rudy had a black cloth that he called his floating cloth. He used it whenever he wanted to hide something from the audience. Sometimes that would be something small, like a ball or Bill the rabbit. Sometimes it would be something big, like his assistant, Irene. Irene was great at getting lost. So great that one time Grandpa Rudy made her disappear in a show and she never came back, just like Bill the rabbit. But Grandma Jo said that had a lot more to do with Irene’s “poor work ethic” than Grandpa Rudy’s magic skills. I wasn’t sure exactly what that meant. But once when I was at the grocery store with Grandma Jo we ran into Irene, so I knew she wasn’t floating out in a parallel universe or something.

  Grandpa Rudy’s cloth smelled like his aftershave. Probably because he used to like to wipe the sweat off the back of his neck with it. Every so often, when I was feeling lonely, I would get out Grandpa Rudy’s floating cloth and smell it, remembering sitting on Grandpa Rudy’s lap while he practiced card tricks.

  Tonight, though, my trick wasn’t so much magical as it was sneaky. After dinner—a very cold, uncomfortable dinner, where Mom stared at Grandma Jo’s llama and Dad stared at Mom, and I opened my mouth a hundred times to tell them about my detention and never could make it come out—I tiptoed into the garage and pulled an armload of empty cans out of the recycling bin. Quietly, I took them upstairs and lined them up along my window ledge. Then I hung the black cloth over the cans and secured it to the top of the window.

  My work done, I turned off the light and stepped back. It looked like a dark night outside, not a cloth hiding a booby trap. It was perfect. I could hardly wait to get to bed so I could catch Grandma Jo in the act.

  I could see my breath when I woke. I sat up, and five cans, which had been lined up along the edge of my blanket, clattered against one another as they fell to the floor.

  What I didn’t see anywhere was the black cloth.

  Or Grandma Jo.

  TRICK #13

  THE PARTY PINCH

  Dad was fidgeting with the thermostat when I got out of the bathroom. I’d made my morning shower hot and steamy to try to thaw out my nose.

  “I don’t think this thing is working,” he said, tapping the numbers on the front. “Does it feel chilly in here to you, pal?”

  I shrugged. “I guess.”

  He pulled off the cover, peered at the mechanical guts, and then blew into them. Dad’s method of fixing everything from a smashed finger to a broken dishwasher started with blowing on it. Basically, Dad wasn’t very good at fixing things at all. His method went like this:

  Blow on it and murmur something about dust.

  Scratch head, wondering aloud, “What could have possibly happened? It was just working yesterday.”

  Search in the garage for a tool, get sidetracked, and end up washing the driveway instead.

  Get really red and shiny when Mom yells about the thing never being fixed.

  Blow on it again.

  Tap it a few times with a tool—any tool will do.

  Say, “Must have been the kids,” and then pretend to hurt finger/toe/elbow/shoulder/ankle in the repair effort.

  Call someone professional to come fix it.

  Sometimes Mom would mess up his system by pushing him out of the way. Mom’s method of fixing things:

  Say, “I have to do everything myself.”

  Push Dad out of the way.

  Stare at the broken thing.

  Call someone professional to come fix it.

  Mom’s method was a little more streamlined than Dad’s.

  “Are we sure there’s not a window left open somewhere?” Dad yelled, closing one eye and leaning in really close to stare at the thermostat.

  “I checked all the windows!” Mom hollered back. Good thing I closed mine before getting in the shower.

  “Well, I guess I’d better go find a tool,” Dad said, putting the cover back on.

  “Dad,” I said. “I need to tell you something.” I didn’t want to come clean about my detention, but I sort of had to.

  “Can it wait, pal? You know your mother hates it when I get sidetracked from fixing something.”

  “No … I mean, yes. Sure.” I sighed as I watched Dad walk to the garage. I was such a chicken.

  I headed to the kitchen. Saturday was the only day of the week that Mom didn’t make breakfast—which meant we could eat toaster waffles with loads of syrup and whipped cream and butter and sprinkles and chocolate chips, and she wouldn’t do anything about it.

  That was exactly what Grandma Jo was eating when I got to the kitchen.

  “Good morning,” she said around a mouthful of waffle.

  “Hey,” I said, eyeing her carefully. “Are you cold?” I asked casually.

  She pointed at her waffle with her fork. “Warm and toasty,” she said. “You should get yourself a nice, hot waffle, too.” She patted her belly. “Warms you from the inside out.”

  I found a waffle in the freezer—the last one in the box—and dropped it into the toaster. “So … what did you do last night?”

  “Why do you ask?”

  “Just curious,” I said. I kept my back to her. “Don’t know if you watched a good show or played a game of solitaire or, you know, got another new tattoo.”

  When I turned around, she was grinning at me, a dollop of whipped cream on her chin like a tiny beard. “I’m afraid my tattoo days are a thing of the past,” she said. “I’m an old lady, you know.”

  I squinted at her. “You didn’t have that tattoo a week ago.”

  She squinted back. “But you’re not one hundred percent sure, are you?” she said. “Part of you thinks it’s possible that I might have gotten it a few months or even a few years ago. After all, I wear a lot of sweaters. As an old, tired, frail lady should.”

  The thing about Grandma Jo was that she probably had a rock concert T-shirt on under that sweater, but you would never know it, because she was a good actor when she wanted to be. So good, in fact, that part of me started to think maybe she did have the llama motorcycle tattoo all along. She was right—I couldn’t be 100 percent certain.

  My waffle popped up, making me jump. Grandma Jo chuckled.

  “Besides,” she said as soon as I turned my back, “your mother would never have let me out of the house for something like that.”

  “That wouldn’t stop you from sneaking out,” I said. I smeared peanut butter across my waffle.

  This time she laughed hard. “Oh, Thomas, you sure have a heck of an imagination. Me, sneaking out.”

  “It’s true,” I said, drowning my waffle with syrup. “That’s why it’s been so cold in here. Because you’ve been leaving my window open.”

  She laughed harder. “I’m climbing in and out of windows now? I can barely get up off the floor.” We both knew that wasn’t true. We both knew that Grandma Jo could practically jump up off the floor onto her toes if that was what she wanted to do. “You really need to read more books, Tommy. Engage that imagination of yours with something worthwhile, rather than silly theories. And besides—”

  She was interrupted by the doorbell.

  “You finish making your waffle,” she said, holding out a hand to stop me from moving toward the door. “I’m done. I’ll get it.” She scooted her chair back, dabbed at the corners of her mouth with her napki
n, stuffed it into her sweater pocket, and then was off.

  She was out of the room before I realized that the napkin she’d used was black. And looked an awful lot like Grandpa Rudy’s floating cloth.

  When Grandma Jo came back, she was followed by Chip, even though I’d told her a billion times never to let him come inside without asking me first. He was a good friend and all, but letting him inside was like letting in a cloud of flies—into everything and impossible to get rid of.

  “Thomas!” Chip cried. “Salutations on this fine Saturday. The air is crisp! The sun is fulgent! The day is unfurling into something quite dandy! Don’t you agree?”

  My eye twitched. “What is the sun full of?”

  “Fulgent! Bright! Brilliant! Daaazzling!” He danced in a circle, accidentally bumping into the edge of my plate and sending my waffle flying through the air. It splatted on his shoe. “Drat. Right on my carousing socks.”

  “That was our last waffle, Chip.”

  “Oh,” he said. He pushed his glasses up on his nose, looking very serious as he shook the waffle off his foot. He brightened. “Not to worry. You’re welcome to partake of my mom’s homemade organic, gluten-free, vegan sweet-potato muffins. Come on, I’ll take you.” He reached out to grab my arm, but I leaned away.

  “Gross, no. And I’ve told you a thousand times to stop saying ‘partake.’ You sound like an old-timey novel. And a sweet-potato muffin is not a substitute for a waffle.” My stomach growled, as if even it was angry with Chip. “Besides,” I said, bending to pick my breakfast up off the floor, “I’m still mad at you.”

  “For what? Oh, for that little mishap with the broken bust? Don’t worry, Thomas, detention isn’t—”

  “Shhh!” I said, slapping my hand over his mouth, but it was too late. Mom, whose supersonic hearing could pick up words like “broken” and “detention” from a thousand miles away, yelled, “What detention?” from the living room.

  I sighed, listening as her footsteps got closer to the kitchen. “What detention?” she repeated. Dad trailed in behind her.