“What happened?” Darnell asks as soon as Richard walks through the bedroom door. Darnell has finished the dishes and is sitting at his own desk.
Richard rolls his eyes. He’s not going to give his brother a thrill recounting all the things that he’s not going to be able to do. He sits down at his desk and looks at that stupid math problem about the car. He could ask Darnell, but he doesn’t want Darnell to think he’s dumb.
Six
Life on the Beach
“So what’s going to happen?” Gavin asks on the way to school the next day. Richard has told him a little about the night before.
“My parents are coming in for a conference tomorrow. And I can’t do nothin’ for the next ten days.”
“Ten days from yesterday or ten days from today?”
Richard sighs. Only Gavin would ask that. “Ten days from yesterday,” he says.
“Well, you got one day over with.”
“And I really have to mind my p’s and q’s.”
“What are p’s and q’s?”
“That’s when you have to be real careful and do everything just right,” Richard explains.
“Oh, you can do that,” Gavin says.
“But I can’t go to the party on Saturday. And I had a big surprise that I’ve been working on.” Well, not the jumping-over-the-crate part, Richard thinks. Yet. “And I wanted everyone to see it.”
Gavin doesn’t seem to have an answer for that one.
“And I have to do the best I can on the spelling test tomorrow and get a hundred on next week’s test.”
“Wow,” Gavin says. “At least it’s not tomorrow’s test. At least you get to have some time to really study.”
“And my parents are giving me till next Friday to do that howler monkey thing, too.” Richard sighs, feeling weary already.
As soon as Richard enters the classroom, he walks over to Ms. Shelby-Ortiz and hands her the signed note along with the note of apology his mother made him write. Ms. Shelby-Ortiz opens the first note and nods. “What’s this?” she asks, holding up the second note.
“It’s an apology,” Richard says quietly.
Ms. Shelby-Ortiz brightens. “How nice of you, Richard. I’m looking forward to reading it and to talking to your parents tomorrow after school as well. I have a lot to go over with them.”
Can anything sound worse? wonders Richard as he reaches his table. His teacher has a lot to go over with his parents about him? She’s probably going to show them that grade book of hers. He can just imagine her flipping it open in front of his mother and father and running her finger down the page until she gets to his name. He can see her running her finger across the row of not-so-good grades, then turning the book toward his parents so they can get a look.
He slumps down in his seat just at the thought of it.
At recess, all the boys are talking about Gregory Johnson’s upcoming party, so Richard decides to sit on a bench and think. The only reason he got invited was because he’s Darnell’s little brother. Gavin was given a thumbs-up because Darnell asked Gregory Johnson if he could come. Now Gavin is going to the skateboard party and Richard isn’t. Somehow that doesn’t seem fair. If Gavin is a true friend, he’ll tell Richard that he has decided not to go. That he is going to come over to his house on Saturday instead and help him do the extra chores Richard’s mom has come up with to keep him busy.
But Gavin doesn’t offer anything, and now he runs over to the basketball court, not even really paying attention as Richard slinks over to the benches. No one seems to notice him. Calvin Vickers, who’s been benched most of the week, doesn’t even look over. Richard sits with his elbows propped on the table behind him and a glum look on his face while everyone is playing away as if he isn’t there.
Oh, no, he thinks. Here comes Harper. It’s just his luck that Harper is benched, too. Harper is a big bully in Darnell’s class and some say he repeated the fourth grade. Or was it the third grade? Whatever the case, he’s way bigger than everyone else, and he’s usually benched two or three days out of the week.
Harper plops down next to Richard—even though there are plenty of other places to sit.
“What’s with you? You benched, too?” he asks in his newly deepening voice. If he hadn’t been held back, he’d be in sixth grade—middle school.
“No,” Richard says.
“Why you sittin’ over here, then?”
“I don’t feel like playing basketball.”
“You could play something else,” he says.
“No, our area is basketball this week.”
“So? You don’t have to play in your area.”
“I don’t want to get in trouble.”
Harper tsks and then chuckles. He looks over at Miss Campbell, the new yard lady. She’s the crossing guard, too. “She wouldn’t notice. She’s new and she hasn’t learned who’s who yet.”
“I don’t feel like playing anything today.”
“How come?” Harper looks puzzled.
“I just don’t.”
Harper stares at him for a moment. Then he gets up and moves over next to Calvin Vickers. Richard breathes a sigh of relief.
“Why were you sitting on the bench?” Gavin asks while they’re in line waiting for Ms. Shelby-Ortiz to lead them back to class.
“I didn’t feel like playing.”
“Why?”
“Cuz.”
Gavin shrugs and doesn’t ask anything more. He’s not pressing him for an explanation. Richard doesn’t like that. But then Ms. Shelby-Ortiz walks up and it’s time for everyone to stand like a soldier and keep their mouth closed.
As soon as they leave Carver Elementary School at the end of the day, Gavin says, “I’m getting me a new skateboard. I finally have enough saved. Wait until you see it at the skateboard party on . . .” His voice dies away and he looks embarrassed.
“Did you forget I’m on punishment?” Richard asks.
“Sorry.”
“You know you wouldn’t even be going if it wasn’t for me.”
“I know that.”
They are quiet for a while until Richard says, “So you’re still going?”
They’re nearing the point on Marin Street where they have to decide if they want to go to Mr. Delvecchio’s store for a snack or go straight to Fulton toward Richard’s house.
“You want to get some chips at Mr. D.’s?” Gavin asks.
“You didn’t answer my question.”
“I want to go,” Gavin says in a quiet voice.
“Well, go,” Richard says. “Nobody’s stopping you.” He keeps walking in the direction of his street, and Gavin follows. When Richard turns down Fulton and Gavin starts heading to Willow Avenue, Richard doesn’t say another word. He knows he should wave goodbye, but he doesn’t.
Richard takes the house key on a string from around his neck, unlocks the back door, and sees a note his mother left on the refrigerator as soon as he walks into the kitchen. His mom is at her volunteer job at the food bank downtown. She usually takes Thursdays off. The note reads:
Richard,
After you get your snack, take Miss Ida’s trash cans to the curb. She sprained her ankle. Then I want you to sweep out the garage and knock down the spider webs. Next, weed the vegetable garden and water it. Remember, NO TELEVISION or VIDEO GAMES! Darnell has Homework Club and Roland has basketball practice, but Jamal should be home on time. Have him call my cell as soon as he gets home. Tell Jamal to do his homework before doing anything else.
Richard inhales deeply and lets out the longest breath he can muster. He opens the refrigerator door and stares inside for a while. Nothing. Nothing he can just reach for and shove into his mouth. He goes to the cabinets above the counter, throws them open. Hmm . . . There are graham crackers and peanut butter. That will have to do.
Once Richard has fixed his snack and sat down to eat, Jamal pushes through the swinging door. He chuckles to himself when he sees Richard just about to take his first bite. “What’s
that?” he says, pointing toward the kitchen window.
Richard turns. “What?” he says. He sees nothing out the kitchen window but the old Chinese elm and the tire swing no one has used in a while. When he turns back around, Jamal has disappeared and so have his peanut butter graham crackers. Richard sighs and gets the peanut butter and crackers down and starts all over. He won’t fall for that trick again. At least not any time soon.
After he’s taken Miss Ida’s trash cans to the curb, swept the garage, knocked down the yucky spider webs, and weeded the garden, Richard uncoils the hose that’s hooked to the faucet on the side of the house and waters the vegetables way longer than necessary. He dreads going into the house, knowing that finishing his homework does not mean he can relax in front of the television or with a video game. His only option after homework and chores is just to fool around—whatever that means.
Seven
And There Will Be Consequences
Richard isn’t happy to see Friday come. Not only is it the day of his parents’ conference with his teacher, but Friday is next to Saturday, so it reminds him that he won’t be going to Gregory Johnson’s skateboard party. He notices that Gavin is careful not to say a word about it. When some of the bigger boys invade their basketball court at recess and start talking about the party, Gavin doesn’t join in. It seems as if he’s being quiet for Richard’s sake.
As they put their lunches in their cubbies, Gavin tells him about a movie he saw the night before on television. But then he stops suddenly, probably remembering that Richard is on TV punishment. They part ways to go to their separate tables. The air feels somber.
Since the parent conference is scheduled for right after dismissal, Richard wishes the school day could go on forever, but he’d also like to get the horrible meeting over with at the same time. During math, while everyone is studying for the multiplication-facts quiz (sixes, sevens, and eights), he glances up from his facts sheet and looks around. He wishes he were someone else. He’d even be Calvin Vickers right about now. Calvin’s been benched for five days for being caught with mancala pieces in his pocket.
It was Carlos who’d accused him during a ten-minute free-time period right before dismissal on Tuesday. Ms. Shelby-Ortiz sometimes lets kids who have finished all of their work have a little bit of free time at the end of the school day.
“Ms. Shelby-Ortiz, how come we don’t have half of the mancala pieces?” Chi Chi had called out, without raising her hand and waiting to be recognized. Ms. Shelby-Ortiz left her desk and went over to the game table to investigate.
“Hmm,” she said, frowning.
“I know what’s been happening,” Carlos announced. “I saw Calvin Vickers putting some in his pocket this morning when we were at the game table working on our skit.”
Ms. Shelby-Ortiz had been so impressed with Mr. Beaumont’s idea to have his students write skits that she was having her class do the same.
“You know you should not make accusations lightly, Carlos.”
Carlos had just stared at Ms. Shelby-Ortiz, probably trying to decide what that meant.
“I saw him, too, Ms. Shelby-Ortiz,” Ralph called out. “They’re in his pockets. Check his pockets.”
Ms. Shelby-Ortiz looked as if she didn’t really want to, but she called Calvin over to her desk and asked him to turn his pockets inside out.
Calvin stood there before her as if he didn’t know what to do. “But I didn’t take no mancala pieces,” he said, in a guilty voice. Ms. Shelby-Ortiz didn’t say anything. She just waited.
Finally, Calvin reached into his pocket and pulled out three shiny glass pieces, each with a swirl of color inside. He dropped them into her waiting hand. “Is that all?” Ms. Shelby-Ortiz asked.
He reached into his other pocket, pulled out two pieces, and dropped them into her hand. She looked at the five pieces. “That’s all, Ms. Shelby-Ortiz. For real,” Calvin said.
She meted out his consequences then—benched for the next five days—and told him to return to his seat.
Richard looks over at Calvin now, wondering what makes people take things that don’t belong to them. What are they thinking while they’re doing something like that? Still, right then, he wouldn’t mind trading places with Calvin Vickers—at least until the day is over.
“Come in, come in,” Ms. Shelby-Ortiz tells Richard’s mother and father. He’d spotted them waiting in the hall through the classroom door’s window. They hadn’t been saying anything to each other. They were just standing there.
“Please, sit down,” Ms. Shelby-Ortiz says. She’s put three chairs in front of her desk. A chair for each of them. “Richard, you sit down as well.”
If only he could run away. He takes the seat between his parents and looks down. Ms. Shelby-Ortiz begins by telling them what a nice, polite boy Richard is. And though she feels he hasn’t been applying himself, she had still been surprised that he “blew off” his rainforest project.
Richard doesn’t like her use of the term “blew off.” It makes him sound extra irresponsible. When she says it, both his mother and his father turn to look at him. He feels himself shrink down to the size of a puppy.
“What happened, Richard?” his mother asks.
He’d known she was going to ask that. “I don’t know,” he says. Because right then he really doesn’t know.
“That’s not an answer,” his father says.
Richard feels himself shrink down to the size of a mouse.
Ms. Shelby-Ortiz opens her grade book then and angles it so they can get a good look while she runs her finger along his row of grades. Now Richard is the size of a ladybug.
All the way to the car, Richard has to hear his mother say, “I don’t believe it! What are you doing in that class? I’m mortified!”
“We’re going to get to the bottom of this,” his father says. “And there will be consequences.”
More consequences? wonders Richard.
On the way home, as if she can’t bear to wait until they get there, his mother lists the new consequences tacked on to the old.
1. Richard has to mind his p’s and q’s and still can’t do everything they discussed previously: watch TV, play video games, go to Gregory Johnson’s skateboard party on Saturday. He must get 100 percent on his spelling test next Friday. Plus, he has to complete his part of the rainforest project and present it to the class next Friday.
2. Richard is to show his homework journal to his mother every evening. Ms. Shelby-Ortiz has promised to occasionally email his assignments to his mother, so everything had better match. He will be benched from recess through the next week so he can keep on top of all of his assignments.
3. Even when he gets off TV and video game punishment, Richard must read one chapter in a book of his choosing and summarize the chapter in complete sentences and legible handwriting every night.
This is a nightmare, he thinks.
And that’s just for starters. There might be some more stuff she can think up. Richard knows his father’s onboard because he keeps nodding slowly the whole time his mother is talking.
As soon as Richard walks into the house, Darnell sidles over to him. “What happened?” he asks, looking a little too excited for Richard’s liking. Richard just walks past him, up the stairs to get started on his homework—and to think about his woes.
Later, after dinner, Richard has to sit up in his room while his father and his three brothers are whooping and hollering over the basketball game on television. Soon it’s halftime and Jamal, Darnell, Roland, and his dad go out to the driveway to shoot hoops. Richard lies on his bed and tosses his balled socks up in the air—something he learned from Gavin. It’s not so bad—tossing and catching, tossing and catching.
He stops when he hears a knock on the door. “Come in,” he says.
It’s his mother with a slice of pie on a plate. “I thought you might want this last piece of apple pie,” she says, and he knows she’s feeling a bit sorry for him.
“Thanks,�
� he says. He doesn’t dare mention the no-dessert consequence.
She looks at his book, Henry Huggins, lying open and face-down on the floor beside his bed. “Don’t forget what I said about reading a chapter a day,” she says before she turns and closes the door behind her.
Richard sighs and picks up the book. He’s read only three pages so far.
Eight
Skateboard Party
Richard’s dreaming of a marching-band guy banging on one of those big drums he has strapped to his chest. Richard hears it banging right in his ear. He opens one eye. Darnell is still asleep. Why do I always wake up before any of my brothers, Richard wonders. He’s always up and raring to go way before anyone else. It can be lonely.
Suddenly there’s a big crack of thunder and a flash of lightning that brightens the room. He jumps and looks over at Darnell. Darnell hasn’t stirred. What’s wrong with that guy?
Richard eases out of bed and goes to the window just as rain begins to pour from the sky. It’s the most beautiful sight he’s ever seen. It’s a full rainstorm. Not just a drizzle. Awesome!
“Oh, no,” Darnell says, sitting up in bed and looking out the window. “Oh, no. That can’t be rain.”
Richard tries not to smile. He has to pull in his lips to avoid breaking out in a huge grin.
“Bet you’re happy,” Darnell says with a sneer.
Later in the morning, while Richard is loading the dishwasher with the breakfast dishes and still trying to keep from grinning, the phone rings. He can hear a little bit of his mother’s side of the conversation because she’s standing in the hall. He turns the water off and tiptoes to the kitchen door. “Uh-huh. Oh . . . I so understand.” As soon as she hangs up, Richard hurries back to the sink.
Skateboard Party Page 4
