Rules, Tools, and Maybe a Bully

by Rachel Vail

  I only believe one of them.

  Hint: It is not the one who probably made that thing up about giraffes too.

  September 27, Monday

  The bad news:

  The Recorder Test was today.

  The good news:

  We all had to play “Hot Cross Buns” together, not one at a time.

  The even better news:

  I didn’t fail.

  The reason I didn’t fail:

  Cash whispered to me right before we started, “Just kazoo it.”

  What that meant:

  “Pretend you’re playing but don’t really blow into it,” Cash explained. “Just hum the tune and move your fingers around.”

  What I did:

  kazooed it.

  My humming was the very quiet kind of humming, not the who-who-who humming I do on my actual kazoo. Our class did not sound great, but if you knew what tune we were supposed to be playing, you could sort of, a little, hear bits of it wandering around inside the goose-ish honking noise.

  “Wonderful,” Ms. Zhang said afterward, and clapped. Xavier Schwartz bowed. I just stood there holding on to my recorder while my belly kazooed its own new, original song.

  The title of the song my belly was playing:

  “Yeah, But That Kind of Not-Failing Is Also Maybe Called Cheating.”

  September 28, Tuesday

  Today Cash and I didn’t do our Colonial Times project.

  Again.

  I tried to discuss the situation with Mom and Dad at dinner, about what should you do if you are partners with somebody on a project and the partner keeps saying Don’t worry, we’ll get it done every time you say Maybe we should work on our project.

  But before I could ask the full question, Elizabeth interrupted to say, Oh, speaking of projects, do we have Poster Board because I have to make a project on the rain cycle and it’s due tomorrow.

  We didn’t clear our plates. Not even Mom. She and Dad were both too busy looking at their watches and grumbling and tilting their heads at each other to deal with dishes. We had to get in the car right away to go dashing all over town to find an open store to buy Poster Board.

  A new rule in our family is You Are Not Allowed to Say “Poster Board” after six P.M.

  My shiny white … thing that I am not allowed to say because it is night … and my new pack of markers they also got me (just me, the full eight-pack, no sharing) as a bonus are all ready for my Colonial Times project.

  Just in case Cash and I ever actually do our Colonial Times project.

  But he wasn’t over and we are supposed to work as a team, so I put my supplies upstairs in my room and went down to watch Mom and Dad help Elizabeth glue cotton balls to a big blue Poster Board for her project on clouds. Her clouds are cumulus, which is the opposite of rain clouds. Elizabeth kept getting distracted from making her poster because all she wanted to do was explain the rain cycle to us.

  “We know about the rain cycle,” Dad said. “It’s bedtime, sweetheart. Let’s try to get this done.”

  Elizabeth stood up and stomped on the glue bottle.

  “Elizabeth!” Mom yelled.

  “Oh, yeah?” Elizabeth shouted. “Do you know the song that goes ‘Precipitation, evaporation, condensation, begin again’?”

  “Yes,” we all said.

  I had the same first-grade teacher she has. Of course I know “Precipitation, evaporation, condensation, begin again.” It was my favorite song in first grade.

  She stomped up to her room to have a tantrum so Mom and Dad had to chase her while I went to my room to try not to listen to that whole disaster of cumulus clouds and glue and tantrums and then a dog who had his own ideas about a good project to do with glue and paint and cotton balls.

  September 29, Wednesday

  In Colonial Times, people rode horses, wore weird clothes, including shoes with buckles on them, and hated a fat king who lived in England and wanted to tax them with stamps.

  So next week we are going on a class trip.

  September 30, Thursday

  Cash came over after school to work on our project again. Luckily, it was raining out so we couldn’t spend the afternoon in the backyard with Qwerty. After some sword fights and snacks, we got down to business. Mom asked if we needed some help, but Cash said, “No, thank you, ma’am.”

  Mom blinked a couple of times at that. “Oh, um, okeydoke,” she said, and then, after a very shattering crash from the kitchen, she yelled, “Elizabeth! Stay very still and touch nothing!”

  Cash sat in the chair in front of the computer and clicked around. I stood beside him, watching. “How about this?” he asked me.

  He had found a game that kids played in Colonial Times. It was called Nine Men’s Morris and it seemed kind of complicated but kind of simple. Simple enough for us to make on the poster board, but a little complicated to play. In a good way.

  “It’s perfect!” Cash said. “Plus we’ll get to play it.”

  “Yeah,” I agreed.

  “Got a ruler?” he asked.

  An hour later we had the game all made. We decided to use beans for me and marshmallows for him, but then we ate the marshmallows. So we used some rocks from Elizabeth’s rock collection (In Our Family We Share). We played until Cash’s dad came to pick him up.

  It is the best project I ever made for school.

  After dinner I taught Mom, Dad, and Elizabeth how to play Nine Men’s Morris. They all liked it. Mom liked it way better than chess. Dad said Cash and I could make millions on it. Elizabeth said it was the best game ever.

  I was pretty famous in my family for a while tonight. It was very cool.

  We played the whole time until bedtime without even stopping to watch TV or have dessert. That’s how good this game is.

  I wonder if Noah made something cool too, and if he’s still mad at me.

  If he is, he could join forces with Elizabeth, who recognized her rocks after the third time she played.

  I had to make new ones out of Play-Doh, which didn’t exist in Colonial Times, but poopie diapers on me because it was bedtime. Hopefully Cash won’t be mad about that tomorrow.

  Now I can’t sleep because I keep thinking, Yeah, but he might be.

  Things I am good at getting:

  1. Friends mad at me.

  October 1, Friday

  “They’re great,” Cash said when I showed him the Play-Doh rock substitutes. “They look good. No worries.”

  Each team had two minutes to present their project. Mr. Leonard made a frowny face when Cash and I showed ours. But it wasn’t a sad type of frown. More like an impressed frown.

  We all spend a lot of time discussing what Mr. Leonard’s expressions mean. The fifth-graders told us at lunch yesterday that it takes at least until March, but we can’t wait that long.

  Noah and Bartholomew Wiggins made a diorama. Mr. Leonard tipped his head a little to the side. Nobody knows what that means.

  I wasn’t sure what the diorama showed. I think it was something to do with Colonial People making spices and how that did something to help win the Revolution. But I’m not sure. A cool thing was that you could open the baggies and smell the spices.

  Mr. Leonard says it’s important to come up with something positive to say about other people’s work. It’s called a feedback sandwich—something positive, something they could improve, and then for the other piece of bread, something else positive. Fourth grade is very complicated with rules of everything, including how to talk to one another.

  There was a big crowd around Nine Men’s Morris at recess. I decided to take a break from playing so other kids could get a turn. I wandered over to Noah and said, for the bottom piece of bread in my feedback sandwich, “I like how you can smell the spices in the baggies.”

  Noah didn’t hear me.

  So I tried again. I said, “Hey, Noah, it’s cool, that smelly element of your project.”

  Noah said, “Shut up.”

  Which you are not allowed to s
ay in my family or in school or probably even in Noah’s family, where there are very few rules.

  October 2, Saturday

  My favorite thing about soccer is after the game, you get to eat doughnuts.

  My second favorite thing is sometimes it rains and you don’t have to play.

  Unfortunately, today was sunny and warm. The only cloud was a cumulus, like on Elizabeth’s poster before Qwerty wrecked it. So, no rain would come no matter how much soccer kids might wish for it. Not from a cumulus that was floating all lazy and perfect right over the soccer field. It looked more like a bunch of cotton balls stuck together than the stuck-together cotton balls had. Dopey cumulus. I was just looking at it for one second.

  Unfortunately, that was the one second when Cash kicked the ball hard toward my cheek.

  I wasn’t crying. It was just eye wetness that the ball knocked loose, is all. Cash doesn’t know everything. He and Sam Pasternak think they are so great just because their feet get along well with soccer balls.

  It was hard to even chew a soft doughnut after the game with my face still throbbing so much. But I toughed it out and ate two. Because I am tough. Even tough kids have eye wetness. That’s what keeps our eyeballs from popping out of our head like gum balls from a machine.

  October 3, Sunday

  My whole family got invited to Montana C.’s house for brunch before Elizabeth and Buckey’s soccer game. Elizabeth wore a ninja costume. When Mom suggested maybe she should wear something more brunch appropriate, Elizabeth explained that a ninja costume was appropriate because someday she might marry Buckey.

  Mom tried to argue with Elizabeth about that not making any sense as a reason to wear a ninja costume to brunch, but Mom’s weapon was Logic. Elizabeth’s weapon was Ninja Magic Superpower.

  Logic is a pretty weak weapon sometimes, it turns out.

  I should get some Ninja Magic Superpower. I tried to use the lesser-superpowers of Whining and Complaining and Explaining. No luck. I wanted to get left home alone to relax for goodness sake but my not-so-superpowers did not do the trick. If Cash is old enough to stay home alone, I am too. I had a long hard week of being with people, especially girls, which I no thank you, plus the cheek injury. And then brunch too? How much can one guy take?

  Mom countered with “Justin! In the car NOW.”

  There is no non-ninja defense against that.

  But here is the secret nobody can know: I had fun with Montana C. even though she is a girl, and even though she beat me at air hockey four out of the five times we played while we stayed at her house instead of going to the little kid soccer game.

  October 4, Monday

  Our desks got shuffled into groups and Montana C.’s ended up right next to mine.

  “Our next project will be for science,” Mr. Leonard said. “You’re going to map the floor of an imaginary ocean.”

  Then he kept talking. I don’t know what he said. I wasn’t listening because I had a lot of thoughts crashing around inside my head, like:

  How do you map the floor of an ocean that isn’t even real?

  How do you map? Is that a thing? Map can be a verb?

  Does it just mean Make a Map? Or is it a synonym for mop?

  And why didn’t anybody tell me before this that there is a floor in the ocean? It must be under a lot of sand because when I went in it this summer at Gingy and Poopsie’s beach condo, I sure didn’t feel any tiles or rugs or other floor things down there.

  I managed to not smile, imagining mopping the floor of the ocean, mopping up all the wet until there was just floor, and where would I dump the bucket of mopped-up ocean water?

  And right then, which I know because I was just wondering if Montana C.’s brother Buckey’s real name is Bucket, Montana C. leaned over and wrote on a page in the science section of my notebook:

  Partners?

  So I wrote back, under that:

  OK.

  Then she drew a smiley face.

  I drew hair on it.

  Then I felt Mr. Leonard looking at me, so I stopped that behavior before I could ask the question of Is your brother’s real name Bucket? But I still didn’t pay any attention to Mr. Leonard’s words. I think I might have been hypnotized into a trance or something because all I did was stare at the page of my notebook that had Montana C.’s ink on it.

  Nobody other than me or a teacher ever wrote in my notebook before, is maybe why I was all tranced-up.

  When I lifted my head, everybody was gathering their stuff to go home. Noah stood, hovering over my desk.

  “So?” he asked.

  “What?” I asked, making so what, but it doesn’t count when it happens like that, I am pretty sure.

  “So do you want to be partners on the science project? Or are you working with Cash again?”

  I swallowed hard. “Oh. No.”

  “Cool, because I was thinking we could—”

  “Um,” I interrupted. “Montana C.”

  Noah stared at me. “What about her?”

  “Is,” I said. “My.”

  “Montana C. is your what?” Noah asked, way too loudly.

  “Is the, I’m working,” I whispered. “I said I’d be partners with her.”

  “When?” he yelled. “When did you even have a chance to— Justin, I don’t believe…”

  “Sorry, Noah. I…”

  He kicked the leg of my chair and stormed away.

  October 5, Tuesday

  In gym we started a unit of Tug-of-War. There is no worse game than that.

  Even if you win, you end up on your butt with skinned palms.

  If you lose, you’re in a pile of losers with your nose smooshed onto the back of other really annoyed kids.

  Plus why would they want us to play stuff with “War” in it? Why can’t we just have Run Around Having Fun as our sport?

  October 6, Wednesday

  I went to Noah’s house for a playdate. Like always, we had cookies and milk at his kitchen counter with his mom, who asked how was our day. After we finished, we went up to Noah’s room for one round of Battleship and then played on Noah’s computer. He has his own and he gets unlimited screen time. He says it is not a proven scientific fact that too much screen time makes your brain rot. It is an old wives’ tale. Which means not true.

  After about an hour, our eyes were all googly, but our brains were supposedly not rotting and no old wives had said to stop.

  It was like old times.

  But then Noah asked if I wanted another snack, and I said sure because who doesn’t want another snack? So we went down to the kitchen to choose something, and he took out a big box of Rice Krispies Treats.

  “Awesome,” I said.

  “Oh, no,” he said. “I forgot. We can’t have these because I am saving them for some friends I have coming over tomorrow. We can have a plum.”

  He wouldn’t say which friends are coming over tomorrow. He made it sound like there was going to be a party. I don’t know why I was invited for the day before the party instead of for the party when there were going to be Rice Krispies Treats, which I actually really enjoy and Noah knows that.

  He knows that because we have been second-best friends for a very long time.

  When Dad picked me up, after the playdate, I was in a grumpy mood. I did not feel like talking about it. Anyway, it’s not the kind of thing Noah would get put in trouble for, giving me a plum for second snack. Even if he sort of should.

  I wish he would be put in trouble for a big long time, in fact.

  But he won’t. His mom calls him “angel face” and gives him anything he wants, like Rice Krispies Treats and unlimited screen time and parties when it isn’t even his birthday. So he isn’t likely to be put in trouble over what he did.

  Or ever.

  All I have to do is forget to make my bed and into trouble I go.

  October 7, Thursday

  Our field trip to a Colonial Farm is tomorrow. We have to bring our recorders because we will be playing them ther
e as if we were Colonial children. We are playing a Colonial tune called “Fife and Drum.” I hope somebody learned some of the notes, because I am definitely going to have to kazoo it again.

  If we all kazoo, we will just be a bunch of non-Colonial children holding recorders while humming. We will get in so much trouble if that happens.

  Cash said, “Don’t worry. The girls have been practicing.”

  Xavier Schwartz said, “Justin Case is the king of worrying.”

  “He can’t help it,” Gianni Schicci added.

  I concentrated on making the cardboard-and-tinfoil buckle I have to tape onto my sneakers for tomorrow instead of arguing about if I can or can’t help worrying. Within the minute, they were talking about the fact that Rozzie Constantine was absent because she has pinkeye and whether pinkeye is caused by somebody farting on your eye or not. Rozzie Constantine has, like, ten younger brothers who never stop running around except to be gross, so the chances of one of them farting on her eye is high.

  So now I wonder if that is actually the cause of pinkeye. I almost asked Noah, who would know if that is truly how you get it.

  But I don’t feel like it, honestly. I know he used his words instead of his fists at our playdate, but my belly still hurt all night afterward.

  October 8, Friday

  I have to ask Poopsie if he was a kid during Colonial Times. Colonial kids had chores all day long, and no screen time at all. They must’ve been so mad.

  On the other hand, we got to hammer a nail into a ring shape and keep it, smell disgusting spices, shake cream until it turned into butter, and watch a donkey pooping.

  Class trips are The Bomb.

  The Bomb means excellent in Cash’s language.

  Mr. Leonard is also The Bomb, because he let us play Tag on the field instead of doing a second round of performing on our recorders. Ms. Zhang looked disappointed, but the tour guides looked very delighted.

  October 9, Saturday

  I spent all morning working on Halloween costume ideas. Elizabeth said she wanted to go either as a Ninja or as our dog, Qwerty. She already goes to school most of the time this year as a Ninja, though, so nobody would even realize she was in a costume if she went as a Ninja. They would just think, Oh, there’s Elizabeth.