by Rachel Vail
He was scaring everybody else, instead.
And now because it is Mom and Dad’s anniversary, they are out to dinner and Elizabeth and I have been left home with Tania, our babysitter, who likes to braid hair and polish fingernails and text her friends on her cell phone.
So now I am stuck in here, in the war zone, otherwise known as my bed, wondering why Mom and Dad are not home yet.
If I had Superstars to give out, my parents would not get any tonight, and too bad if that would hurt their feelings on their anniversary.
September 20, Sunday
I’m on a soccer team again.
Dad is the coach. Again.
I don’t know where the man gets his hopefulness about my skills and their chances at improvement.
Obviously, not from reality.
September 21, Monday
Today at lunch I was sitting with Noah and Daisy and complaining just a little bit about Ms. Termini and her stupid Superstars. Daisy shrugged in a new kind of way and said, “We’re not in kindergarten anymore, Justin. The teachers are just treating us like big kids is all.”
Then she spent the rest of lunch talking with Montana C. and Montana B. about how cool it will be to learn cursive, and which letters they already know how to do, when we are not even supposed to know how to do any, yet.
Then they went out to the playground, just the three girls.
I hadn’t even unpacked my lunch. I turned to Noah, who was chomping dreamily on his tuna sandwich, and said, “She used to eat slower.”
“Ms. Burns?”
“No,” I said. “Daisy. Forget it.”
I opened my lunch. It was a cheddar cheese sandwich, a banana, pretzel sticks, and a bottle of water. The banana was all bruised and bashed up.
I knew just how it felt.
September 22, Tuesday
It’s officially autumn.
I’m officially one of the last five kids with no Superstars.
After school I went to hang around at our store. Most people think if your family owns a candy store you get to eat candy for every meal. It’s not true. But you do get good at sorting.
I am an expert malt ball bagger.
Elizabeth was there, too, bragging about how “absodoodley” wonderful Ms. Amara is. I went in the back room to help Dad. Elizabeth is too jumpy to bag malt balls. They end up all over the floor when she tries.
Dad asked me how third grade was going while we filled plastic bags with thirteen malt balls each. Thirteen is a baker’s dozen. Apparently it is also a candy store dozen. I told him, “You get Superstars for good behavior.”
“Well,” he said, “you’re an extremely well-behaved kid, so—”
“Yeah,” I interrupted. “Except nobody knows exactly what behavior is good enough to get a star.” I twisted a baggie tie tight around my first bag.
“A star?” Dad asked.
“Yes,” I told him. “A Superstar. That is the thing with Ms. Termini. From London, England.”
“She’s from England?” Dad asked.
“No, the Superstars are.”
“Superstars?” he asked.
“Grrr!” I growled, because that was so totally frustrating how he kept repeating me and getting it wrong when he had to just listen! “Yes, Superstars, which are what you get from Ms. Termini for good behavior! As I told you already! But what I am saying is that it’s totally unfair because some people get a star for nice sitting and other people who happened to be sitting just as nicely all day long didn’t get one single stupid Stuperstar!”
My arm swung out and knocked over the malt bar jar.
“Justin!” Dad yelled. All the malt balls were rolling in different directions, toward the edges of the table.
“I got it,” I said, trying to catch them as they fell. Unfortunately, I bumped into the table as I was catching them. That started an avalanche.
I lunged to scoop up all the malt balls in my arms before they hit the floor. During the lunge, I landed on a malt ball, which toppled me off balance.
I fell hard onto the floor. It really hurt my hip. That’s why I dropped the ones I’d caught so far.
Almost all the malt balls were rolling across the floor at that point but two had landed in my lap. I stood up, put the jar back where it belonged, and gently placed the two safe malt balls inside it.
“Maybe you should go see if Mom needs help up front,” Dad suggested, looking sadly around the malt-bally floor.
“Fine,” I said, and trudged to the front of the store.
I hate malt balls anyway.
September 23, Wednesday
I got a Superstar!
I worked nicely on my math sheet!
Ms. Termini peeled a big, shiny Superstar off the sheet and placed it right next to the N at the end of my name, and then she said, “Congratulations, Justin.”
“Thanks,” I whispered back. I am not a huge fan of talking too much in class.
“You are quite a mathematician, aren’t you?” she asked.
I wasn’t sure how to answer that kind of question so I shrugged.
Xavier Schwartz, who was moved to the seat in front of me, turned around and looked at me with growly eyes.
I didn’t even care.
September 24, Thursday
Four kids still have zero Superstars.
I am not one of them.
Phew.
September 25, Friday
Ms. Termini told us to “pack up, stack up.”
“Pack up, stack up” means put our lunch boxes and notebooks in our backpacks and stand them up beside our desks. Ms. Termini likes things to be neat. The backpacks all have to be on the left sides of the desks. We all have to sit up straight in our seats. When we were ready and quiet, she still waited a few seconds. I could feel myself starting to sweat again.
“I have something important to tell you, students.”
We waited. We sweated.
She smiled. “You are doing a wonderful job as third graders. I want to compliment you all. You are already working well together and individually. I can see you are ready for a challenge.”
I like to get compliments. But this one sounded a little bit like a criticism. I wasn’t sure. Next to me, Gianni Schicci was grinning. But I wasn’t. I thought something bad might happen.
I was right.
“We need to make a sign for our classroom door,” Ms. Termini said. “It must include all of our names and have a theme. That is your homework.”
What was our homework? Uh-oh. My heart started pounding. What were we supposed to do? Make a sign? Or just think of a theme? What?
Montana C. was raising her hand.
Ms. Termini called on her.
“What is our homework, Ms. Termini?” Montana C. asked.
Ms. Termini answered, “I’d like each of you to come in on Monday with a suggestion, written down on lined paper, for a theme for our classroom sign. You may also include a sketch of your idea. Be creative! Use your imagination! You’ll present your ideas to the class next week, and then we’ll have a vote.”
Present our ideas? Out loud? Oh, dread, I thought. I hate talking in front of everybody!
“But we’ll each vote for our own ideas!” Xavier Schwartz called out.
Ms. Termini frowned at him. He said, “Oops,” and then bashfully raised his hand.
Ms. Termini sighed and said, “Xavier Schwartz?”
“Yeah, um. What I already said,” he said.
“I expect,” Ms. Termini said, “that you are all mature enough to vote for the idea you honestly think is the best one. The student who comes up with the winning idea will receive three Superstars.”
“Three!” Xavier Schwartz yelled, and then raised his hand.
“We will have to work on the order of hand-raising and talking, too,” she said with a small smile.
Xavier nodded, his hand still up.
“Xavier?” Ms. Termini asked.
“Three Superstars! Wow!”
Ms. Termini sm
iled. “Have a great weekend,” she said. “And good luck!”
I stood up and lifted my backpack, thinking, I am going to win that contest. I am going to come up with the best idea ever for that poster, and then I am going to win the Superstar contest. I have to.
I have to.
September 26, Saturday
All through soccer I tried to think of a theme.
So far all I have is “getting hit with a soccer ball on your cheek is not good. Especially when your own father, who is the coach, says very unhelpful things like ‘shake it off.’ ”
I don’t think Ms. Termini will like that as a theme for our classroom sign.
So I have nothing, and the weekend is halfway done already.
September 27, Sunday
Montana C. is in the lead, with four Superstars. If I win the contest, I will be tied with her, and then all I’d need to do is behave really well and be quite a mathematician whenever we get math sheets and I could win!
An idea I had was a math theme. 22 kids in the class, 182 days in the school year, so how many days would our class go to school this year? People could figure it out, like a puzzle. I would do which is cool because it is the same backward and frontward, which is called a palindrome number.
10×182=1,820, then another
10× 182=1,820 again.
Then 2× 182= 364
And 1,820
+ 1,820
+ 364
———
4,004
I am totally going to win and maybe get an extra Superstar, it’s such a good idea.
September 28, Monday
Even before I woke up I realized that I had come up with possibly the stupidest ever idea for a theme for a classroom poster.
Any kids who liked math, like me and Montana C. and Xavier Schwartz, would just figure it out. Four thousand and four days. Wa-hoo. So what?
And kids who didn’t like math, like Gianni Schicci and Montana B., would just hate that theme. So it would lose.
And I would lose.
On the way to school, I got poked in the back. By Montana C. “What’s your idea?” she asked me immediately. Before I could make something up, she told me hers was seasons. Like for fall, we could each collect a leaf and paint our names on them. I didn’t say anything, so she explained, “For fall.”
That’s when my dumb sneaker got caught on the sidewalk and I tripped. Montana C. was laughing at me. I considered pretending I was dead.
“I get it,” Montana C. said, still laughing. “Fall? You are so funny, Justin!”
Luckily, my great sense of humor (or really, my terrible sense of balance) made her forget to keep asking me about my homework.
September 29, Tuesday
Only five kids had time to present their ideas yesterday.
I wasn’t one of them.
They were all better than my math idea.
I was slumping, trying to be invisible. The only thing in my head was Superstar, Superstar, and that’s when I had another idea. A word scramble of the word Superstar:
Rarest Pus.
Ms. Termini called Montana C. up to present her idea. I put a fresh paper silently on top of my math scribbles and wrote on it: Rarest Pus.
I asked myself, how is that a theme?
I waited, but myself did not answer.
Because Rarest Pus is not a theme.
It is just a disgusting-sounding word scramble.
I closed my eyes and prayed for invisibility.
When the bell rang, I realized I’d made it again. But also that tomorrow I was definitely going to have to present an idea, no matter what.
Unless the New Jersey thing could be arranged, fast.
September 30, Wednesday
“Justin Krzeszewski?” Ms. Termini called, except instead of saying it “She-shev-ski” like you are supposed to, she said it “Krez-ez-woochi.”
Everybody laughed, of course. That always happens, until teachers give up and say “Justin K.” like everybody else.
“Did I say it is giggle time?” Ms. Termini growled, and everybody gagged mid-giggle. “Justin, you may present your idea for our class poster,” she said.
“N-no,” I stammered. “I don’t, I wasn’t . . .”
“Your hand was raised so nicely, and you were waiting very patiently, Justin,” she said. “In fact, I think you earned a Superstar.”
She trudged toward my desk, peeling a Superstar off the waxy backing. I tried to think fast. The truth was, I wasn’t waiting patiently, and I wasn’t raising my hand nicely. I was twirling my hair. Sometimes I do that when I feel worried. Without realizing it.
Ms. Termini smoothed the Superstar on the other side of my name, before the J. Now it looked balanced. I slammed my hand down over my homework paper so she couldn’t read my awful ideas for the class poster.
“Okay, Justin,” she prompted. “Let’s hear your suggestion.” She trudged back up to the front of the classroom and picked up her blue pen. She uncapped it and lifted her hand up to number 18, ready to write down my suggestion.
I moved my two papers around, hoping maybe a new, good suggestion might magically appear on one of them. “I had, um, two ideas,” I said, stalling.
“Please choose one to share,” Ms. Termini said.
“I can’t . . . I just, I didn’t . . .”
“Justin,” she said as her smile melted away. “Please read your homework aloud. We are all waiting. I expect —”
“Rarest pus!” I blurted.
Everybody stared at me. Their eyebrows were all squinched together, their heads all tilted at odd angles.
“Excuse me?” Ms. Termini said.
My face was boiling hot and my heart was pounding so hard it felt like it was going to smash out of my ribs onto my desk.
“Rarest pus,” I repeated, quieter, thinking, Uh-oh. Now what?
Ms. Termini frowned. “Are you making a joke, Justin? Do you think third-grade homework is a joke?”
“No!” I yelled. “I think third-grade homework is torture! I worked really hard on it all weekend and the only ideas I came up with were a math problem and a thing with, you know, where you scramble the letters and it makes, you know, other words?”
“An anagram?” Montana C. suggested from the front row.
“Yes! I think. An anagram. Rarest Pus I know is not a good theme but it is an anagram of Superstar. And Rarest Pus is all I can think of!”
“All you think about is pus?” Xavier Schwartz asked.
“No!” I shouted. Xavier looked shocked, and maybe scared. I had never yelled in school before. I’d barely talked. I am a nice boy, a good boy, a well-behaved kid. No wonder he was scared. I was scaring myself, too.
“Settle down, please, Justin,” Ms. Termini warned. “This is not the kind of behavior —”
“Behavior! Behavior, behavior, behavior!”
Everybody looked scared by then. I realized, too late, that behavior is one of those words that starts to sound freaky if you say it more than once. But instead of feeling embarrassed or worried, I just felt angrier than ever that this crazy teacher had turned me into a screaming, babbling idiot, yelling “behavior, behavior” in front of the whole class.
I crumpled up both my papers and threw them on the floor.
“Behavior!” I yelled again. “That is all I can think about! I am trying so hard to have good behavior, I have no idea what else is going on! I can’t think of anything except behavior and Superstars! But I don’t know what behavior you want, exactly, Ms. Termini. I’m sorry, I can’t do it! So, fine. I lose. I am a big loser. I don’t care.”
I had stood up, apparently, and pushed my chair back. I sat down on it again and folded my hands in front of me on my desk. “That is my suggestion. Rarest Pus. Now please call on the next student.”
Nobody moved for a few seconds.
And then everybody did at once.
October 1, Thursday
Strangely enough, I did not get punished for getting sent to the pri
ncipal’s office.
In fact, Mom keeps saying, “Rarest Pus,” and cracking herself up all over again.
October 2, Friday
Xavier Schwartz won for the class theme. His idea was Third-Grade Superstars.
He grabbed me at recess and said he had voted for my idea. He thought Rarest Pus was an awesome theme. Then Gianni Schicci came over, yelled, “Justin K.! You rock!” and gave me a knuckle bump.
Suddenly I am all pop u lar with the kids who get sent to the principal’s office.
It’s weird.
Not good or bad, I guess.
Just weird.
Also, I’m sure, temporary.
October 3, Saturday
I realized two things during soccer today:
1. I might not be the worst on my team this year, because we have Bartholomew Wiggins to fill that slot. I never had a reason to like Bartholomew Wiggins before.
2. I haven’t figured out a costume for Halloween yet. I usually have that all figured out by August. Now I’m way behind.
Even though I spent the entire game working on an idea, I didn’t come up with anything good.
My creativity is not what it used to be.
October 4, Sunday
Gangs have begun to form.
About half the stuffties on my bed are uniting behind Snakey. The rest are following Bananas. It is impossible to get any sleep. Wingnut and I ended up on the floor last night.
Xavier Schwartz’s mom called my mom today to arrange a playdate for us. I told Mom to say that I am busy this year. Instead she said she would check her book and call back.
There is no way a playdate with Xavier Schwartz ends happy; this much I am sure of. I need to find somebody else to answer our phone from now on.
