by Rachel Vail
“Yeah!” Xavier gave Cash a high five. “This is so awesome!”
“That could work,” Montana C said. “But, just … It’s definitely not mean to do this, right?”
“Definitely not,” Cash said. “It’s a joke!”
“It’s hilarious,” Xavier agreed.
Montana C. turned to me. “What do you think, Justin?”
“Well,” I said. “It definitely would be funny, but…”
“It will be the most awesome thing ever,” Xavier yelled.
“Are you kidding me?” Cash asked. “It’ll be better than that. Everybody in the school will wish they were in on it. People will probably lie and say they were! But we’ll know the truth. It’s not mean at all. It’s, picture it. It’s just, like, pure. Pure funny. It’s perfect. We’ll have pulled off the perfect—”
“Wow, Cash,” Montana C. said. “You want to marry it or what? It’s just a prank, right?”
“Yeah,” Cash said. “Of course. I was just saying. The perfect prank. Anyway, we already decided.”
“Okay,” said Montana C. “I know. Fine. I could ask my mom to bring me early. Do you guys need a ride?”
“Sure,” Xavier said.
“No, I walk,” Cash said. “I can get here by 7:45. How about you, Justin Case?”
They all looked at me.
I swallowed hard.
“No,” I said.
“What do you mean, no?” Cash asked. He looked confused. Probably nobody ever said the word no to him before, is why.
“You don’t need a ride?” Montana C. asked.
“It’s not that,” I said. I stood up and leaned against the tree.
“What is it?” Cash asked me. He stood up too and put his hands in his pockets. “What’s wrong? You said yourself it’ll be funny. Don’t you think it’s a great plan?”
“Yeah,” I said, of course. “It is. It’s a great plan.”
“The chair will just collapse!” Xavier said. “Should we get Gianni in on this too? Like Cash was saying, maybe more of us is better? Who else?”
“We can probably do it just us,” Montana C said.
“We’re good,” Cash smiled at me. “Just us four. Yeah. I keep picturing—kabloom! Chair pieces everywhere, right?”
“Yeah!” Xavier yelled. “Kabloom!”
“Kabloom?” Montana C laughed, saying it.
“Kaplooie,” Xavier said, pretending to sit on a chair and collapsing all over the ground.
“We’re set then,” Cash said. “Tomorrow, The Screwdriver Club strikes!”
“Yeah!” Xavier splatted onto Montana C.’s feet, which toppled her over.
“No,” I said.
They tilted their heads and squinched up their eyes at me. How did I just say no to Cash?
Twice?
“You think we should ask to do the project after lunch tomorrow instead? Come in early from lunch?” Cash asked me. “That actually might be a better idea. We could go in, like, midway into recess. Have more time.”
“Yeah,” Xavier yelled.
Cash nodded slowly. “Good thinking, Justin Case.”
“Yeah,” Montana C. said. “And Mr. Leonard always has a fresh cupful of coffee in the afternoons. So he’ll definitely have to go out to get that, and…”
“Exactly,” Cash said. “Awesome.”
“Kabloingo!” Xavier yelled. “I don’t care when we do it! The sooner the better! But whenever! Kafloopsie!” He threw himself up in the air and splattered down near my feet, where he flopped around like a dying Sloane’s viperfish.
“I don’t…” I said, untoppled. “I don’t think we should do it.”
“You mean, tomorrow morning before school?” Montana C. asked. “Or the after-lunch idea? Because I actually think your tomorrow-after-lunch idea is great.”
I took a deep slow breath. “I mean, at all,” I said. “I don’t think we should unscrew Noah’s chair screws.”
“But it will be awesome and hilarious!” Xavier yelled. “Best prank EVER!”
“It totally will,” Montana C. said. “It’s just a joke, Justin Case! Just a funny prank. Right?”
“It’ll be so Boss!” Xavier yelled, flinging himself around some more.
“And what else would a Screwdriver Club even do?” Cash asked. “Like, what would be the point of even having a Screwdriver Club?”
“I don’t know,” I said to my feet.
“We all got screwdrivers,” Cash said. “For what?”
“Somebody’s chair is getting unscrewed,” Xavier Schwartz said, suddenly standing still. “Definitely. Now it’s just a question of whose.”
They all stared at me.
That is exactly what I was afraid of. As bad as it was down at the lonely end of the table after the Penelope Ann Murphy kerfuffle, how much worse would it be to be the one on the exploded chair, all over the floor?
The answer to that horrible question:
Much worse.
Much, much, much worse.
The way to not be the one on the unscrewed, collapsing chair:
Smile and go along.
Say just kidding you guys! It was just a joke I was making!
Let’s do it!
Maybe I could even not unscrew Noah’s screws. I could just stand there and kazoo it—don’t do the violence but don’t let anybody hurt me, either.
I knew that was the right thing to do. The smart thing. Easiest thing in the world.
But I could not make my voice say, Yeah! Let’s do it!
Instead my voice said the horrible words of:
“No. Let’s not do it.”
“You mean you want to quit the club?” Montana C. asked.
“Not really,” I mumbled. “I just don’t…”
“If you quit,” Xavier Schwartz said, “you better not tell on us when we unscrew a chair tomorrow, whoever’s we unscrew.”
“I wouldn’t.”
“No?” Xavier Schwartz asked, his lips as tight as his fists. “Because sometimes you do tattle, Justin Case.”
“Or. Else.” Montana C. squinted her eyes at me.
“He won’t tell,” Cash said. “Come on, you guys.”
I wished for myself to say, Fine, fine, I’m in. Let’s do this! But myself did not say anything.
“You’re in or you’re out,” Cash said. “Come on, Justin Case. Don’t worry. We won’t get caught.”
“That’s not … that’s not the only worry I have of it,” I mumbled.
“He has a lot of worries,” Xavier Schwartz explained. “He really can’t help it.”
“It’ll be fine,” Cash said. He bumped me a little with his side. “We gotta all be in, though. So—okay? Stay late today? Or tomorrow morning early or tomorrow after lunch? Those are our choices.”
“I might have to go to the dentist today,” Xavier said. “But I’m not sure.”
“So lunch tomorrow is good,” said Montana C.
“Great,” Cash said. “Or how about this: we try coming in early tomorrow morning, and then if we don’t get it done, like, if Mr. Leonard skips his coffee or some other kid comes in early and is sitting there like a witness, we still have the come-in-early-from-lunch option.”
“Yeah,” said Montana C. “Great!”
“Yeah!” yelled Xavier Schwartz.
“No,” said me.
Mr. Calabrio blew the whistle. It was time to go back inside.
“No to tomorrow, or no to ever?” Cash was staring at me in a very serious, very hard way. “Last chance, Justin Case,” he said. “Are you in?”
Like a Tug-of-War rope, I waggled back and forth, feeling yanked. But then I shook my head and out of my mouth came that word again. “No.”
Cash shook his head too. “Then you’re out.”
He walked away from me. Montana C. and Xavier Schwartz followed him in. I had to walk the long way from the Upper Playground back into school all by myself.
December 22, Wednesday
Dad drove me to school early. �
��How are things with Noah these days?” he asked on our way.
“Fine,” I said. I watched the houses speed backward out of sight and imagined that I had a pet monkey who’d follow us along the drive to school and he would be my best friend. We could hang out together, me and the monkey, at recess.
“Justin?”
“What?”
“I was asking you … Never mind. You okay?”
“Mmm-hmm,” I said, and I got out of the car because we were at school. I went right up to 4-L, instead of waiting in the lunchroom with the other early kids. But nobody stopped me and asked what I thought I was doing, mister.
Mr. Leonard was in the classroom early, just like Cash had predicted. “Early today, eh, young man?”
I nodded and slumped down in the cozy corner, pretending to read my BOOOCH. I wasn’t really concentrating on the story even though it was a good book. I needed to pay attention.
I was there on the rug when Xavier Schwartz and Montana C. came in, a few minutes after Mr. Leonard left to get coffee. Cash came in five seconds later.
None of them said hi to me and I didn’t say hi to them, either. They stood there looking around at one another and at me and at the open classroom door. They were all gripping their backpacks very tight.
“Wow,” Mr. Leonard said, in the doorway.
All three of them jumped a tiny bit.
“So many early birds this morning,” Mr. Leonard said. “Glad I’m not a worm.”
None of us laughed.
“Oh, sorry,” Mr. Leonard said. “I forgot. You wanted to do extra research on tortoises, right?”
“Yeah,” we all lied, and then had to look up tortoise facts together while everybody else came in.
When it was time to get the day started, I put my BOOOCH on my desk and I sat down.
My chair collapsed under me. I crashed onto the floor in a heap of chair pieces and clatter and me.
Kaplooie.
December 23, Thursday
“I didn’t do it,” Cash said for the billionth time. “I swear.”
“I believe you,” I said, also for the billionth. Ever since my chair collapsed, those guys weren’t ignoring me anymore. So that was a plus, at least. We were sitting in the backstage area, waiting for the third-graders to finish rehearsing their dance before it was our turn to practice.
“So who did unscrew Justin Case’s chair?” Xavier whispered, even though it was Ms. Zhang in charge of us and she didn’t care if we talked. “Somebody must have stayed late after school yesterday, right?”
“Definitely,” Montana C. said. “But who?”
“Well, it had to be one of us,” Xavier whispered. “Because, who else?”
“Obviously.” Montana C.’s eyes flicked over to Cash, then away.
“I didn’t do it,” Cash said for the billion and oneth time.
“Well, I didn’t do it,” Montana C. said.
“Me neither,” Xavier whispered. “Do you think Mr. Leonard has figured out who did it yet?”
Mr. Leonard had spoken to each of us privately, one at a time, during recess after lunch and all through the afternoon while Ms. Robitel from the office watched the rest of us pretend to read our BOOOCHes. The custodian brought me a spare chair from class 4-T to sit on when I wasn’t the one being asked questions by Mr. Leonard. After me, he called Cash into talk with him, and then Montana C. Everybody looked down at their BOOOCHes while the kid whose name got called walked across the front of the classroom and out to the hall with Mr. Leonard.
“He sure is talking to Noah for a long time,” Montana C. whispered. “Didn’t he talk to Noah yesterday?”
“Yup,” I said.
“Hey,” Cash said. “Do you think Noah somehow found out about our plan?”
“You think Noah is the one who stayed late yesterday afternoon and unscrewed Justin Case’s chair as revenge?” Xavier asked.
“Pre-revenge, you mean,” Montana C. said. “Because we didn’t … you know, and Justin didn’t even want to unscrew Noah’s, so why would Noah—”
Xavier interrupted, “Does Noah even have a screwdriver?”
“Beep boop beep,” Gianni Schicci said, pretending to be a robot. “Beep beep boop boop beep.”
The third-graders finished, so we all started getting up.
“What exactly happened?” Daisy asked. “I don’t get why your chair just—collapsed like that.”
“It lost all its screws,” I said. “Somehow.”
She laughed a little. “Just—lost its screws?”
“How could that happen?” Rozzie Constantine asked. “One screw loose, sure, but…”
“Somebody obviously stayed after school Tuesday to unscrew them,” Xavier Schwartz said.
Daisy gasped. “Why would somebody do that?”
“I know it wasn’t me,” Xavier answered. “Because I would have seen me there. And I didn’t.”
“Also you had a dentist’s appointment,” Montana C. said.
“Turns out, I didn’t,” he said.
“Aha!” Cash yelled, pointing at Xavier.
“Fourth-graders, please take your spots on the risers,” Ms. Zhang said.
“Justin’s arms were all up in the air like this,” Bartholomew Wiggins said, walking past us with his arms above his head.
Cash tipped his head and squinted at Bartholomew Wiggins.
“Nah,” Montana C. whispered. “No way.”
“Quiet, please,” Mr. Leonard said, loping down the auditorium aisle with Noah trudging behind him. “Sorry for the delay. Let’s all get to our proper places now. This is our last run-through before the concert tomorrow.”
I heard Gianni grumble to Xavier, “Can’t believe I have to be in the other class and miss everything good.”
“Best prank ever,” Xavier Schwartz whispered back. “Whoever did it is a genius.”
“Young man!” Mr. Leonard said, with one eyebrow up in Xavier Schwartz’s direction. Then we all sang again about how much we wanted peace, peace, peace.
On our way back to 4-L in one silent line, Noah whispered to me, “I bet you anything Cash did that to you, the prank with your chair collapsing. And I told Mr. Leonard all my theories about it.”
I just shrugged, partly because we were supposed to be silent as sharks.
December 24, Friday
At the Holiday Concert, the first-graders were supposed to throw their paper snowflakes into the audience of parents and teachers and other kids at the end of their song “No School Cuz It Snowed.”
But most of them wanted to keep their snowflakes. There was a whole kerfuffle about it, with the teachers yelling, “Throw them!” and the kids yelling back, “No!” and “I’m keeping mine!”
Elizabeth yelled the loudest.
Fourth grade was second to last, right before the kindergartners. We sang pretty okay, I think, and some of the kids in our grade had actually learned how to play their recorders. Not me. Kazooed it the whole way through.
At lunch Noah sat down next to me. Before he even unwrapped his hugie sandwich, he picked up an Oreo. “Want it?” he asked me.
“But you only have three,” I said.
He shrugged and held it out to me. I took it. “Thanks, Noah,” I said.
I ate it before I took out any of my own lunch. I had just unwrapped my sandwich when Cash said, “Let’s go,” to me. It’s lucky I was full of cookie.
On our way to the playground, Xavier Schwartz asked me, “So, Noah’s your buddy again?”
I shrugged. “Sure.”
“Yeah, true,” Xavier Schwartz said. “Gianni Schicci is my best friend, and he thinks he’s a robot.”
“What are you gonna do?” Cash asked.
“Yeah,” Montana C. said, throwing her arms across my shoulders and Cash’s. “What are you gonna do?”
Cash’s cheeks turned a little pink.
And then, even weirder than that, when we got in, we had no math test, no spelling test—just a dance party, with cookies Mr. Leonar
d made himself. All afternoon until 3:10, when we all said the hilarious joke of “See you next year” to each other and packed up our stuff because it was the best word: VACATION.
December 25, Saturday
Elizabeth and I woke up early and tried to guess what was in all those packages. We started with pretty good guesses, but after a few minutes we were guessing that small rectangular book-shaped packages were camels and watermelons.
“First grade is more complicated than I expected,” she whispered.
“Wait ’til fourth grade,” I whispered back.
“I sure hope one of these things is a time machine,” she said. “Because sometimes I want to be in some other when than now.”
“Seriously,” I agreed.
After present-opening, we had a full-family wrapping-paper fight, with wrapping-paper snowballs. Qwerty won. Then Elizabeth and I got started on building our own time machine with the art supplies we both got.
December 26, Sunday
It was so quiet when I woke up, I thought it was still night. But no, it was way too bright in my room. Maybe the world ended, I thought. Or maybe the time machine worked and I was transported to some other when, all alone.
Tiptoeing downstairs, I realized that, more likely, I was just the first in our family to wake up. I was getting happy about that idea because then I could sneak over to the no-money-required gum-ball machine we got as a family gift and have as many gum balls as I wanted, and work on my awesome gum-chewing skills.
But no all to those ideas.
Mom was standing at the back door, holding her coffee mug, looking out into the yard, where everything was glittery white. The snow was falling in fist-size flakes.
I stood next to her and watched too. First snow of the whole year.
She put her arm around me, so I leaned against her. She didn’t ask, How’s everything going? or Did anything weird happen at school this week? We just stood there in the quiet and watched the snow come down, together.
Soon Dad and Qwerty came back from their walk, and Elizabeth came down from her room where she had built an awesome ninja princess fort addition for our time machine.
