Pennybaker School Is Revolting

by Jennifer Brown

  I shifted to the side and dug my heels into the dirt to try to scramble away. But the skunk was faster than I thought it would be. And madder than I thought it would be. And more determined than I thought it would be. Every inch I moved, it hopped toward me another two inches, mouth open and chirping.

  And when I flopped over onto my belly to try to army-crawl out of there, the skunk saw its opportunity. It climbed over my back, leapt off my head, regarded me with its beady little eyes, and then promptly turned around, lifted its tail, and …

  TRICK #26

  TA-DA! A TEACHER APPEARS!

  Miss Munch made me wait in the parking lot while she called Dad to come get me. It was cold, and I smelled so bad, I couldn’t even stand to be around myself. Not to mention, I was pretty sure I’d been in mid-scream when it got me, and I needed some serious alone time with a bottle of mouthwash.

  “How on earth?” Dad said when he pulled up. He’d rolled down the passenger window, but when I got into the car, he rolled down all the others, too. “Oh, wow, pal. You reek.”

  “I know.”

  “What happened?”

  Where did I even begin? Did I tell Dad about Mr. Faboo going missing? Did I start with the detention or talk about the bull encounter or mention the failed cupie? Maybe I should start all the way back at the day I turned that penny silver and Mom made me come here in the first place. Maybe if I started talking about everything that had gone wrong with me since coming to Pennybaker School, he would understand and stop making me go.

  Of course, then I wouldn’t get to have lunch with Chip or talk about movies with Wesley or cheat off Owen’s fancy watch. I wouldn’t even know Mr. Faboo was missing, which would mean that I wouldn’t even know Mr. Faboo at all, and that was a really sad thought.

  “I was feeding it and it got mad,” was all I said.

  “Feeding a skunk? Why would you do that?”

  “Its eyes were cute, and I didn’t want to dance with Chip and Erma.”

  Dad gave me an exasperated look. “All this to get out of one silly dance?”

  “It’s not silly,” I said.

  “Just dance with the poor girl,” Dad said. “It won’t kill you.”

  “It might.” I crossed my arms and pouted.

  “You know what will kill me?” Dad said. “This smell, if we don’t get moving. Do me a favor and kind of hang out the window a little bit. Take the smell with you.”

  Even my own father was turning on me.

  We drove for a while, and then Dad steered the car toward town.

  “Where are we going?” I asked.

  “To the grocery store.”

  Panic welled up inside me. It was bad enough to smell like a skunk in front of the kids at Pennybaker, but they were used to odd things happening. It was quite another thing to stink in front of the whole world.

  “I can’t,” I said. “What if I run into someone from Boone Public?”

  “They’re still in school,” Dad answered.

  “What if they’re out sick?”

  “Then they won’t be at the store.”

  “What if they have to go to the store to get medicine?”

  Dad turned the wheel. “Thomas, I can’t take you home smelling like that. Your mother will have a fit. We need tomato juice to wash the skunk off you. You can stay in the car while I run inside, but we’re going to the store, and that’s that.”

  Dad was a pretty laid-back kind of guy. But when he said “and that’s that,” he really meant it.

  Times Dad Said “and That’s That” and Really Meant It

  To Mom: we are not taking a Christmas photo in matching Rudolph sweaters, and that’s that!

  To Erma: yes, you are going to clean that chewed gum off the back of your headboard, and that’s that!

  To me: plastic cups do not flush, and that’s that!

  To Grandma Jo: I will not distract my wife so you can parasail on Lake Jacomo, and that’s that! (Grandma Jo did not agree that that was that. And her parasail was awesome.)

  Dad parked right in front of the store and went inside. But it wasn’t long before I couldn’t stand the smell of myself. I got out of the car and sat on the hood, watching people come and go and counting how many of them fanned the air in front of their noses, and how many pinched their noses shut when they walked by (fifteen and nine, to be exact).

  Only one man seemed not to notice the smell at all. He was holding a grocery sack in each hand; had long, kind of poofy white hair; and was wearing pants that ended at his knees, a long coat, and pantyhose.

  Leggings. Whatever.

  I froze. White, poofy hair, a long coat, and leggings? I looked again.

  “Mr. Faboo?”

  The man turned, smiled, and held out the bags he was holding. “Thomas Fallgrout!”

  Before my brain could wrap itself around the severe uncoolness of what I was about to do, I slid off the car, lunged across the asphalt, and wrapped myself around his waist.

  I hugged a teacher.

  In public.

  As soon as my brain caught up, I let go. Mr. Faboo was standing there, still holding the bags, looking surprised. And kind of nauseated. His nose wrinkled.

  “Everything all right?” he asked. “You smell a little, um …”

  “No,” I said. “Mr. Smith wears brown all the time and makes us be quiet and read from the textbook, and he wants us to write a research paper and he doesn’t even let us dress up ever and he gave me and Chip detention for no reason.”

  Okay, so maybe that last part was stretching the truth the teeniest bit. And maybe I couldn’t believe I was saying that not wearing pantyhose was “wrong.” But the rest of it was all true, and I meant every word of it. I was probably just excited that I had finally found Mr. Faboo.

  I finally found him! All by myself! Sure, it was by total accident, and, sure, I was a little bit sad Chip wasn’t there to celebrate the moment with me, but still.

  For a few seconds, Mr. Faboo just stood there, the bags swaying slightly, his mouth hanging open while he tried to make sense of everything I’d just blurted out.

  “I see,” he finally said.

  “You see?”

  There was an awkward pause, and then he bumped my shoulder with one bag. “Well, buck up, little fella. I’m sure it will all get better with time. It was good to see you. Tell the guys I said hi. See you later.”

  He turned to leave, and now I was the one standing there with my mouth hanging open. He got at least ten steps away before I finally found words.

  “That’s it?” I asked. He stopped. “That’s it?” I repeated louder. “I have been shot at, bruised my tailbone, been humiliated in front of an entire crowd of high schoolers, and I’m still cleaning manure out of my ear, all to find you and get you back, and all you can say is ‘buck up, it will get better’?”

  “You have what in your ear?”

  “You have to come back,” I said, ignoring his question. “Like, tomorrow. We all miss you. We can’t take it anymore. We’ll … we’ll wear pantyhose every day.” I wasn’t sure if it was okay for me to speak for everyone like that, but I was desperate and saying anything that came to mind.

  “Pantyhose?” Mr. Faboo repeated, looking more confused than ever.

  “We’ll all dress up as Napoleon on December second.”

  “You remember the day he was crowned emperor?”

  I nodded. “Trust me, it’s as much of a surprise to me as it is to you, but yeah, I do. And we’ll be good. We won’t ever complain again about anything. Ever.”

  Mr. Faboo started to look really pained. He came back to me, set the bags on the hood of Dad’s car, and squatted down, his knickers rising to show his hairy knees under his tights. He rubbed his face. “I can’t come back, Thomas,” he said.

  “What? Why not? Of course you can. You can just tell Mr. Smith that he has to—”

  “No, no, I can’t. It’s not up to me.”

  “Sure it is.” My voice was getting small, though.<
br />
  He shook his head, and his eyes were all watery, like maybe he was going to cry. “I’m not allowed.” He sank onto his bottom so he was sitting in the middle of the sidewalk in front of the car.

  “What do you mean?” I asked. I was starting to have a squicky feeling. Something really weird was going on. Mr. Faboo wasn’t the kind of guy who just cried for no reason.

  He gave me a look, like maybe he felt a little sorry for me. Or maybe he was feeling a little sorry for himself and it came out wrong. “Oh, Thomas, you wouldn’t understand.”

  “Wouldn’t understand what?”

  His head hung a little lower—any farther and his wig would topple into his lap. “I have to take a test.”

  “What?”

  He leveled his gaze at me. “I have to take a test,” he said, louder.

  “Okay …?”

  “I can’t do it,” he said.

  “What do you mean you can’t do it?”

  He gripped the front of his shirt, his eyes wide. “I’m not good at tests, Thomas. I’ve never been good at them. I get all …” He waved his hands around. “Panicky.”

  “But you graduated college, right?”

  “Well …” He raised one shoulder and winced.

  “You didn’t graduate college? But you’re a teacher.”

  “Pennybaker School is a unique school. It always has been. When I was a student there—”

  “You were a student at Pennybaker?”

  He gave me a surprised look. “Of course.”

  “What was your gift?”

  “Well, naturally, it was history.” To be fair, nothing at Pennybaker was naturally anything. For all I knew, Mr. Faboo’s unique gift was dentistry. “Anyway, when I was a student there, we had a principal named Mr. Flockerbit. He was a wonderful principal, and he took me under his wing. So when I graduated, he sort of … bent the rules. He let me teach because he knew I already knew everything there was to know about history. American, world, modern, ancient, you name it.”

  “So he gave you a job.”

  Mr. Faboo nodded, his eyes getting watery again. “He did. And when he left, and Principal Rooster came along … Well, he never questioned it. I started wearing a lot of costumes so I would look older. Well, and also because I really like costumes. Anyway, it went on for so long, I almost forgot I wasn’t a real teacher myself.”

  “So what happened?”

  “Someone in the superintendent’s office decided to organize our files, and they realized my file was missing some things.”

  “So they fired you? That’s not fair.”

  “No, they talked to the state and worked out a deal. If I pass this teaching test, they’ll let me get a certificate.”

  “Well, that’s easy,” I said. “Take the test so you can come back.”

  He stood and brushed off the back of his pants. “It’s not that easy, Thomas,” he said. “Like I said, I’m no good at tests. Why do you think I don’t give them to you guys? I haven’t taken one since I graduated from Pennybaker School myself. That’s a long, long time, Thomas. I know I’ll fail. So I’ll just find another job instead. I hear they’re looking for someone to run the gift shop at the museum.”

  I tried to imagine Mr. Faboo standing behind a cash register in regular clothes, punching buttons and dropping pencils and plastic statues into bags. I couldn’t do it. Mr. Faboo belonged in front of a classroom. Until now, this had been about me, about how Mr. Smith was boring and mean and driving me crazy with textbooks and research papers and detentions. But now it was about more than that. It was about getting Mr. Faboo back into the job that made him who he was.

  I stood up, too. “We’ll help you,” I said.

  “Oh, no, no,” he said, dejectedly turning away.

  I grabbed his wrist. “Yes. We’ll help you. All of us. We’ll figure out a way.”

  He patted my hand, then pulled it off his wrist and dropped it. “That’s very nice of you, Thomas, but I’m afraid it just won’t work. It was good seeing you.” He picked up his bags and started to plod away.

  I scurried around him to block his path. “It will work. I promise,” I said. “It will work, and you will pass the test with flying colors, and the superintendent will have to let you come back.”

  He squinched up his nose. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but you sort of smell a little skunky.”

  “Never mind that,” I said. “We can do this, Mr. Faboo. You belong in the classroom. Who else could just walk into a classroom and start teaching history? You aren’t just gifted at history. You’re gifted at teaching, too.”

  He raised his eyebrows as if startled to hear such a thing, and then a slow smile spread across his face. “Huh. I never thought about it that way, but maybe I am. Maybe I have two unique gifts.” He rubbed his chin. “I suppose it’s possible.”

  “It’s definite,” I said. “Chip and I will help you. We’ll get all the gang. Meet us at the picnic table right outside Pennybaker tomorrow after school, okay?”

  “I don’t know …” he started, but then he gave a weak shrug. “What other choice do I have? I don’t even like museums. They’re creepy.”

  “Great!” I said, launching toward him and giving him another hug. His arms stiffened at his sides.

  “Oof. Yes. Definitely skunk,” he said.

  TRICK #27

  THE PLAN PATTER

  The tomato juice only helped a little. Grandma Jo wore nose plugs at breakfast, and Erma kept making gagging noises in the car.

  “Bet you won’t be tangling with any more skunks, huh, pal?” Dad said into the rearview mirror.

  “Definitely not,” I said, but I was too excited about the possibility of getting Mr. Faboo back to be sulky about a little body odor.

  “That’s what he gets for avoiding certain things,” Erma said. We turned onto the long driveway that led up to the slightly leaning school building. We all tilted our heads without even realizing it, just like always.

  “Avoiding what things? Is there a problem, pal?” Dad was glancing at me in the rearview mirror again, but this time I could see worry in his eyes.

  “He’s avoideeg ballroob danceeg,” Erma said before I could respond. She was pinching her nose shut. “He’s afraid of Sissy Cork.”

  “I am not,” I said. I kicked the back of Erma’s seat. She squeaked dramatically, because everything Erma did was dramatic. “I was trying to find my friend Reap.”

  “Who is also avoiding ballroom dancing,” Erma said, then realized she wasn’t plugging her nose and made a gagging noise before pinching it shut again.

  “Surely it can’t be that awful,” Dad said. “Have you given it a try at all?”

  Was it possible that he had forgotten the wedding incident? “A litt—” I started to say, but Erma shouted over me.

  “No! And Sissy Cork is really mad about it, and he better hope she doesn’t decide to arm wrestle him into a shoe box and ship him off to another country.”

  “If that country doesn’t have ballroom dancing, I’d be okay with it,” I said under my breath.

  “What, pal?” Dad asked.

  “I just haven’t had time is all,” I said. “What with all these chapters to read for History and the research paper to write and whatnot.”

  “ ‘Whatnot’ is code for detention,” Erma said. “And he’s probably going to get it again for stinking up the school. Smellyhead.”

  “Be quiet, Erma,” I said, but part of me was worried that she was a little bit right.

  “Whatever you say, Smellyhead. I wouldn’t want you to put your smelly head on me. Smellyhead.”

  “Dad,” I pleaded.

  “That’s enough, Erma.”

  We rolled up the driveway, and I had the door opened and one leg out of the car before we had even fully stopped.

  “Whoa, pal,” Dad said, reaching over the back seat like he was going to hold me inside. “What’s the rush?”

  “Dance lessons,” I said as I scooted the rest of the way o
ut of the car.

  “That’s the spirit,” Dad said.

  I glanced over my shoulder just in time to see Erma’s skeptical, scowling face.

  Everyone pretty much would have agreed with Erma’s nickname for me, as they all stumbled backward when I walked through the hallways. They scrunched up their faces and waved their hands in front of their noses and made whew sounds. Even Mrs. Codex suggested I work on some independent study out in the hallway, which everyone knew was code for “Get that stench out of my classroom.”

  I caught Babette Prattle as she walked by, tossing a plastic hall pass into the air and catching it. From what I could tell, Babette’s unique gift was gossip. She knew things about people before they even knew them about themselves. If you wanted news spread, you contacted the Babette Announcement System.

  “Hey, Babs,” I said.

  She stutter-stepped, a look of revulsion crossing her face. She missed her catch, and the pass dropped to the floor. “What?” she asked warily.

  I waved, smiled, and acted like nothing was wrong.

  “Why are you out here?”

  “Special assignment,” I said. “On account of I’m so ahead of everyone else.”

  “Oh,” she said, nodding. “Mrs. Codex made you leave because you reek like a wild animal.” She thought about it, her head tipping to one side. “A dead one.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “Nah, I’m just working on putting together this meeting.”

  She took a step toward me, narrowing her eyes. She looked intrigued. “What kind of meeting?”

  “A meeting about Mr. Faboo,” I said, then slapped my hand over my mouth like I hadn’t meant to let it slip.

  “What about Mr. Faboo?” she whispered.

  I leaned forward over my desk. She leaned toward me, suddenly forgetting how foul I smelled. “Just between you and me.”