The Wednesday Wars

by Gary D. Schmidt

  We thought about the cupcakes all day. We even smelled them baking, their beautiful and lovely cake-y aroma wafting down the halls. When the clock clicked to 1:05, Danny gently reminded Mrs. Baker about the cupcakes. He said that he hoped that she hadn't forgotten them.

  "Mr. Hupfer, has it been your experience that I have ever forgotten anything?" asked Mrs. Baker.

  Danny had to admit that she never forgot anything.

  Mrs. Baker looked at her watch. "I'm sure that Mrs. Bigio will have made a sufficient number." She went back to reading aloud a tragic love poem by Alfred, Lord Tennyson—who, I guess, couldn't figure out how to punctuate his own name.

  1:14. Still waiting for Mrs. Baker to send down a representative for the cupcakes. Up above the asbestos ceiling tiles, Caliban and Sycorax are stirring, probably since the smell of pink icing is now filling the hallways.

  1:17. Still waiting. The bulging asbestos ceiling tiles are vibrating.

  1:18. Mrs. Baker finally sends me down to Mrs. Bigio. Danny tells me to hurry, since he is always hungry.

  1:18½. I run in the hallways.

  Mrs. Bigio was waiting for me with the last tray of Valentine's Day cupcakes. She slid them along the kitchen table toward me, and then slid an envelope across as well.

  "Open it," she said. "You'll want it for tonight."

  I opened it. Inside were two tickets for Romeo and Juliet at the Festival Theater.

  "Mrs. Bigio," I said.

  "They're season tickets, and I won't be using them tonight. So they'll just go to waste if you don't take them—and the gossip I've picked up is that you can use them—unless you want to be known as a cheapskate."

  "Thank you," I said. "I can use them."

  That night, Mr. Kowalski drove Meryl Lee and me to the Festival Theater to see a production of Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare for Valentine's Day. We sat in two seats in the center of the third row. Meryl Lee held the red rose with a ribbon I had bought her. Mr. Goldman played Friar Laurence, and winked at me once from the stage. The poisoning and stabbing scene was okay, but I still think that Romeo is a jerk. They needed the ghost of Banquo up there to tell them to lay off the stabbing. Or maybe Caliban.

  But Meryl Lee loved it all. She was sobbing by the time it was over. "Wasn't it beautiful?" she said as the lights came up.

  "So tragic," I said.

  "That's just the word," she said.

  We walked through the evening light to Woolworth's, where we sat at the lunch counter and I ordered two Cokes.

  Let me tell you, it was just swell.

  We did the balcony scene together as nearly as we could—until the guy behind the counter began to look like he wanted us gone. So we ordered two more Cokes to make him happy—I still had $1.37 left, and I didn't want Meryl Lee to think I was a cheapskate.

  "Are you going to play a part in another Shakespeare play?" Meryl Lee asked.

  I thought of her sobbing at the end of Romeo and Juliet.

  "Of course," I said.

  That wasn't even a Presbyterian lie; it was a flat-out lie. But after doing the balcony scene with Meryl Lee, I wasn't going to tell her what a jerk Romeo was and how the only way I was going back onto the Festival Theater stage was—well, there wasn't any way.

  Meryl Lee looked at her watch. "My father will be here soon," she said. "I hope he remembers."

  I sipped my Coke. I hoped he forgot.

  "All he does is work on the model for the new junior high school. He goes over and over it. He moves a pillar here, then another one there. 'It's not classical enough,' he says. 'It needs to look like the Capitol building. Classical.'"

  When Meryl Lee imitated her father, her eyes got large, and her hands went up, and she spoke low. She should be on the Festival Theater stage.

  "Classical, classical, classical," said Meryl Lee. "There's hardly another word that comes out of his mouth."

  "My dad doesn't have any pillars," I said. "He's got his model all modern."

  "Modern."

  I nodded. "No pillars, no straight walls, so much glass that they'll need three Mr. Vendleris to keep it all clean. That kind of modern." I asked the guy behind the counter for his pencil—he hesitated a second, since I guess he wasn't so sure about us. But he handed it over and made me promise to give it back, and then I drew the glass domes over the main lobby and gym and the science and art classrooms, and the curved corners and walls, and the clusters of classrooms looking out into sunlit space, all over my white paper placemat. "No one's ever come up with that concept for a junior high school before," I said.

  Meryl Lee stared at my drawing, then went back to sipping her Coke. Her hair is auburn. Did I tell you that? In the lights of Woolworth's, it shimmered.

  Mr. Kowalski did remember to come. We finished our Cokes, and I handed back the pencil to the guy behind the counter, and Meryl Lee took my placemat as a souvenir, and we walked to the car, hand in hand. Mr. Kowalski dropped me off at my house, and I wasn't sure, sitting in the back seat, how to say goodbye to Meryl Lee. But she saved the day: "'Tis almost morning," she said. "I would have thee gone."

  "Sleep dwell upon thine eyes," I said.

  I didn't have to look at Mr. Kowalski to know that his eyes were rolling in his head.

  So that was Valentine's Day.

  The following week, the school board met to decide on the model for the new junior high school—which was probably why Mr. Kowalski had been spending all his time muttering "classical, classical, classical." The meeting was to be at four o'clock in the high school administration building. Mr. Kowalski would present his plan and model, and then my father would present his plan and model, and then the school board would meet in private session to decide whether Kowalski and Associates or Hoodhood and Associates would be the architect for the new junior high school.

  I know all of this because my father was making me come. It was time I started to learn the business, he said. I needed to see firsthand how competitive bidding worked. I needed to experience architectural presentations. I needed to see architecture as the blood sport that it truly was.

  Which makes architecture sound like a profession that Macbeth could have done pretty well in.

  The meeting was in the public conference room, and when I got there after school, the school board members were all sitting at the head table, studying the folders with the architectural bids. Mr. Kowalski and my father were sitting at two of the high school desks—which made the whole thing seem a little weirder than it needed to be. In front of them was a long table with the two models for the new junior high school, each one covered with a white sheet, like they were some sort of national secret.

  I sat behind my father.

  There was a whole lot of Preliminary Agenda stuff, and Old Business, and procedural decisions, and all that. My father sat through it coolly, occasionally looking at his watch or squaring the edges of his presentation notes. Mr. Kowalski was more nervous. I'm not sure that his cigarette was out of his mouth for more than three seconds at a time.

  "Mr. Kowalski, we're ready for your presentation now," said Mr. Bradbrook, who was the chairman of the school board. He sat at the head of the table, sort of like God would sit if God wore a suit. He was smoking, too, but he wasn't working at it as hard as Mr. Kowalski was. "You have eight minutes," he said.

  Mr. Kowalski picked up his presentation notes and angled out of his seat. He went up to the table with the models and stood there for a moment. Then he turned and looked at—no, not my father. At me!

  Really.

  My father looked at him. Then he turned and looked at me like I should know what was going on.

  But I didn't. I just shrugged.

  "Seven minutes," said Mr. Bradbrook.

  Mr. Kowalski cleared his throat. Twice. He looked at his design papers. He cleared his throat again. Then he looked back at me once more, and began.

  "Gentlemen," he said, "though this is irregular, I have made some significant design changes for the interior of the
new junior high since my original submission. In fact, the entire concept has changed markedly. So the plans that you studied for this afternoon's presentation have also changed. I have copies of the new interior plans, and ask the board's patience as I show you the concept. This may take slightly longer than the allotted time, but I'm sure that the Chamber of Commerce Businessman of 1967 won't begrudge Kowalski and Associates a few extra minutes in order to clarify the proposal, and to promote the general business atmosphere of the town."

  "This is irregular," said Mr. Bradbrook. "Has the new concept affected the cost estimates?"

  "Not significantly," said Mr. Kowalski.

  Mr. Bradbrook considered. "Well," he said, "if Mr. Hoodhood will agree, then I see nothing wrong with your presentation going slightly longer. Mr. Hoodhood?"

  What could the Chamber of Commerce Businessman of 1967 do? He shrugged and nodded. But the back of his neck grew as red as boiling sin, and I knew he did begrudge the extra time. He begrudged it a whole lot.

  Mr. Kowalski pulled off the sheet from his model of the new junior high school. He cleared his throat again. "As you can see, gentlemen," said Mr. Kowalski, "the design is quite classical, in the best traditions of our national architecture, for a time when our children desperately need to be reminded of our great American traditions."

  And it was. It looked like the Capitol in Washington, D.C. Wide steps swooped up past a line of pillars and up to the central doors. Above that rose a steep dome, with thin windows cut all around it. On either side of the dome, the building spread graceful wings—all with thin windows again—and behind, the long gymnasium formed the tail, whose rows of bright windows faced south and north to let in as much light as any gymnasium could ever have.

  "But we live in 1968, gentlemen," Mr. Kowalski said. "Just as our children need to be reminded of our great traditions, so, too, do they need to enjoy the advantages of contemporary technology. I think you'll find the new interior design both modern and innovative, a perfect blend of where we have been and where we are going as a nation." He handed out copies of the plans for the new design to all the school board members, keeping his back to my father and me the whole time. Then he took us all through the new interior. Slowly.

  No pillars, no straight walls. The roof a series of glass plates above the science and art rooms. The central dome three stories high over the main lobby and clusters of classrooms all looking out into the sunlit space. All as modern as could be.

  "I don't believe that anyone has ever come up with this blended concept for a junior high school before," said Mr. Kowalski. Then he sat back down. He did not look over at us. Instead, he lit another cigarette and began pulling at it. He shuffled all of his papers into a folder.

  The school board was astounded. Three of them applauded—not Mr. Bradbrook, since God doesn't applaud.

  My father turned and looked at me again. His face was very red, and I could tell he was fighting for some kind of control. "Holling, there's something you should have told me, isn't there?" he whispered slowly.

  I looked at him.

  "Do you think this is a game? This is the future of Hoodhood and Associates. Everything rides on this. My future and your future. So what did you do?"

  He used the kind of voice that, in my family, means that a voice a whole lot louder is about to come along in a minute or two, so you'd better start preparing.

  But let me tell you, I didn't really care all that much about what he would say or how loudly he would say it. I really didn't.

  Because suddenly I knew something a whole lot worse.

  Romeo was a genius compared to me.

  I hadn't seen at all what Meryl Lee was doing on Valentine's Day, while we were sipping Cokes at the lunch counter at Woolworth's. I hadn't realized how easily she had gotten what she wanted from me: my father's design for the new junior high.

  Run me on the dashing rocks and hand me a vial of poison. I'm such a jerk, I'd probably drink it. I'm a bigger jerk even than Mickey Mantle.

  I got up before I began to bawl like a first grader.

  "Holling," warned my father—a slightly louder slow whisper.

  I left the conference room.

  My red father never did tell me what he did for his presentation. Probably it began with him demanding to see Mr. Kowalski's plans, and then suggesting that he took these from Hoodhood and Associates—not saying it outright, but just suggesting it, like he knew it was the truth but wouldn't say it—and then arguing that Mr. Kowalski should withdraw his proposal because it wasn't the same one he had submitted and that's not how honest businessmen worked. It would have been something like that, with him getting redder and redder all the time.

  I bet if you were watching it, you sure would have seen that architecture is a blood sport, and Macbeth couldn't have played it any bloodier than my father.

  February is a can't-decide-what-it-wants-to-be month on Long Island. What's left of any snow has melted into brown slush and runs in dirty ridges alongside the street gutters. The grass is dank and dark. Everything is damp, as if the whole island had been dipped under dark water and is only starting to dry out. Mornings are always gray and cold.

  That's what it was like between Meryl Lee and me the next day at school. Slushy, damp, dirty, dark, gray, and cold. We didn't look at each other. At lunch, we ate about as far away from each other as we could, and she went outside early—even though Meryl Lee hardly ever went outside. She didn't come to Chorus, so I sang the soprano part for Miss Violet of the Very Spiky Heels alone at our stand. When Mrs. Baker asked if I'd like to partner with Meryl Lee on the sentence diagramming exercise in the afternoon, I told her I'd rather do it with Doug Swieteck.

  On Friday, things were still slushy, damp, dirty, dark, and cold. Meryl Lee wore sunglasses to school, even though it was gray like always. When Mrs. Baker asked her to remove them for class, she said that her doctor had asked her to keep them on. That she was supposed to keep them on for, maybe, the rest of the school year.

  I was the only one in class who didn't laugh at that.

  I looked out the window.

  For the next Wednesday, I wrote an essay for Mrs. Baker about what Shakespeare wanted to express about being a human being in Romeo and Juliet. Here is the first sentence in my essay:

  What Shakespeare wanted to express about being a human being in Romeo and Juliet is that you better be careful who you trust.

  Here is the last sentence:

  If Romeo had never met Juliet, he would have been all right. But because he was star-crossed, he did meet her, and because she came up with all sorts of plans that she didn't bother telling him about, he ended up taking poison and dying, which is an important lesson for us to learn in life.

  I had Meryl Lee to thank for this, you know. If she hadn't done what she did, I never would have figured out what Shakespeare was trying to express in Romeo and Juliet about what it means to be a human being.

  When I handed the essay in, Mrs. Baker read it through. Twice. "So," she said slowly, "do you think Juliet was right to stab herself at the end of the play?"

  "Yes," I said.

  "I see," she said, and she put the essay in a manila folder and left it on top of her desk.

  But unlike Juliet, Meryl Lee didn't stab herself. In fact, that afternoon she was waiting for me outside the gates of Camillo Junior High, standing beside a ridge of crusted snow that she had stamped down flat.

  "It wasn't my fault," she said.

  "Aren't you supposed to be at Saint Adelbert's?"

  "I just showed him your drawing, because it was so good. I didn't know he would use the same design."

  "Sure, Meryl Lee."

  "It's true," she said.

  "All right, it's true. Whatever you say, Meryl Lee. You told him everything about my father's design. Everything. And then a few days later, he draws up new plans so that the inside of his school is just like the inside of my father's school. You had nothing to do with it."

  "I didn't say I had nothi
ng to do with it," said Meryl Lee. "I said I didn't know he would use the same design."

  "I'd keep the dark glasses on, Meryl Lee. It's easier to lie to someone if they can't see your eyes."

  A long moment went by. Then Meryl Lee took off the glasses and threw them past my head.

  I think she was trying to throw them at my head.

  Then she turned and walked away—but not before I saw why she'd been wearing them.

  I picked up the glasses and put them in my pocket.

  That night, I saw those glasses flying past my head again and again and again. And I saw Meryl Lee's red eyes. Again and again and again.

  Meryl Lee wasn't in school the next day. I kept looking over at her empty desk.

  At lunch recess, I wrote a new Romeo and Juliet essay in the library. Here is the first sentence of the essay:

  What Shakespeare wanted to express about being a human being in Romeo and Juliet is that it's hard to care about two things at the same time—like caring about the Montague family and caring about Juliet, too.

  Here is the last sentence:

  If Romeo had never met Juliet, maybe they both would have still been alive, but what would they have been alive for is the question that Shakespeare wants us to answer.

  I handed the essay in to Mrs. Baker at the end of the day. She read it through. Twice. Then she took my old essay out of the manila folder—which was still on top of her desk—and put in the new essay. She dropped the old essay into the trash, put the folder with the new essay into her desk, and then she looked up at me. "So what will you do now?" she said.

  That night, with 79 cents left over from Valentine's Day and $1 from Monday's allowance, I bought two Cokes and a rose with a ribbon. I took them over to Meryl Lee's house and rang the doorbell. Mr. Kowalski answered it.

  "You're the Hoodhood boy," he said.

  "Is Meryl Lee home?" I said.

  He opened the door further and I came in. He hesitated. Then, "Her room is the one at the top of the stairs," he said.

  I went up the stairs slowly. I felt his eyes on my back, but I didn't want to turn around to let him know that I felt his eyes on my back.