by Gail Donovan
“Whatever,” said Payson.
Quickly Josh typed in “deformed frogs” and started moving through the links. He liked searching for information on the computer. It was like a treasure hunt.
Ben B. wandered over. “What’s up?”
“What’s up?” echoed Ben T.
“We’re trying to find out what happened to Josh’s frog!” said Michael.
“What happened to Josh’s frog?” asked Ben B.
“It died, stupid,” said Ben T.
“Bingo!” said Josh. “Check it out!”
On the screen was a frog that looked just like Gorfman, with three back legs. And another with only a single hind leg. And another with two legs in front and four in back.
“Cool!” said Ben B. and Ben T. in unison.
“What?” asked Kendra. She put down her book. “What’s it say?”
Reading over his shoulder, Charu answered. “Some scientists think the problem is parasites.”
“My little sister is a total parasite,” said Ben B.
“Shut up,” said Ben T. “I want to hear.”
Charu went on. “There’s a kind of parasite called trematodes.”
“Like toads?” asked Ben B.
“Trematodes,” said Charu. “T-r-e-m-a-t-o-d-e-s. They’re some kind of tiny parasite that gets into the tadpole and messes up their development. Either the legs don’t grow right or the tails don’t fall off. Stuff like that.”
“What else does it say?” asked Kendra.
Now almost the entire class was in the computer corner. Josh and Michael and Charu in front of the computer, the two Bens hovering behind them, and Kendra, Lisbet, and Mariah perched on desks. Even Payson had stuck around.
Josh scrolled down the screen to the next theory, and this time Michael read aloud. “Pesticides. It says there’s a pesticide used to kill mosquitoes—”
The smell of Lisbet’s Tootsie Roll lip gloss filled the air. “We have tons of mosquitoes around here!” she said.
Everyone started talking at once. Josh was silently reading ahead as fast as he could.
It looked like scientists had tried testing tadpoles exposed to pesticides, and tadpoles exposed to trematodes. But they didn’t always get deformed frogs. It didn’t always happen with just one bad thing or the other bad thing. So then they exposed the tadpoles to both, and those were way more likely to turn into frogs like Gorfman. It looked like both bad things together were too much for the tadpoles. That’s when they got messed up.
“So which is it?” asked Mariah. “Parasites or pesticides?”
“It’s—” began Josh, when the bell rang to mark the end of recess, and Ms. O’Reilly opened the classroom door.
“It is far too noisy in here!” she said. “Everyone, line up for lunch. Except you, Joshua. I’d like a word.”
“I’ll miss lunch!” he protested as the fifth grade trooped from the room without him.
“This will only take a minute.” Ms. O’Reilly slipped her glasses off her nose and let them dangle from the chain of sea glass. “I was sorry to hear about your frog, Josh. But we won’t be studying it anymore.”
“How come?” he protested. “Just because it’s dead?”
“No,” she said. “I don’t want my fifth graders coasting for the next three weeks. I want you to be learning right up until the day school lets out. If we start now, we have enough time to squeeze in another history unit.” She paused for effect, then announced, “Famous Mainers!”
“What famous Mainers?” cried Josh. “There aren’t any!”
“That sort of misconception is exactly why we need to do this unit.”
Josh tried to tell her what they had just discovered about parasites and pesticides, but Ms. O’Reilly held up her hand to silence him, while she went on about what a good idea this was. Finally she wrapped up her lecture.
“You better hurry if you don’t want to miss lunch,” she said. “And Josh, I really am sorry about your frog.”
Stunned, Josh headed downstairs. In the cafeteria, the teacher aides who had lunch duty were patrolling with grim faces. On rainy days, when the kids hadn’t gone outside for recess, lunch was extra zooey. Lunch duty after indoor recess was well known as the worst job in the school.
“Over here,” called Michael, waving. He had saved Josh a seat.
Usually boys sat at one end of the fifth-grade table and at the other end sat the girls who only talked to girls. The middle was sort of a neutral zone, filled with kids who usually talked to nobody—Michael—or who could talk to anybody—Charu.
Josh dropped his tray on the table and squeezed in between Michael and Charu. That was normal. They were middle-of-the-table kids. What was weird was that Ben B. and Ben T. and Kendra were sitting across from him. The two Bens were definitely boys’-end kind of guys. And Kendra usually sat alone and read. Now she had her book open, but she wasn’t looking at the page. She was looking at Josh.
“What did Ms. O’Reilly say?” she asked.
Josh picked up his sandwich and tossed it back down. He was too mad to eat. “She says we’re not going to study amphibians anymore. She has something more important for us to study!”
“What?” asked Mariah, who was sitting next to Kendra.
From way down at the girls’ end of the table, Lisbet, who didn’t like to be left out of anything, called, “I can’t hear!”
The noise in the cafeteria was so loud that Josh had to shout to be heard. “Famous Mainers! ”
One of the lunch ladies, Mrs. Sturdevant, also known as Stoneface, walked by and gave Josh a warning look.
“Hey, Mrs. S.!” said Josh. He wasn’t scared of the lunch ladies.
“That’s ridiculous.” Charu opened up her chocolate milk and stuck in a straw. “Deformed frogs are way more important. It’s so obvious she’s just punishing Josh.”
“Totally,” agreed Michael, and the two Bens and Kendra nodded.
Everyone knew that Ms. O’Reilly hated taking kids out of the classroom, and she had taken the whole class outside on Friday, and Josh had non-cooperated. The result: end of unit.
“Besides,” Ben B. objected, “there are no famous Mainers!”
“Duh!” agreed Ben T.
“That’s what I said,” said Josh.
“You said ‘Duh’ to Ms. O’Reilly?” cried Ben T.
“No! I said there weren’t any famous Mainers.”
“Famous what?” called Lisbet.
Josh looked around. Half the fifth grade class was looking at him. Waiting for him to keep talking. They actually wanted him to talk.
He said angrily, “I told her there weren’t any famous Mainers, and she said that was stupid. She said she has to get us ready for middle school, and if we don’t know our local history we’ll be sorry when they give us the big statewide test. She doesn’t want to spend time studying frogs because they won’t be on the test.”
“Test?” Lisbet sounded like she was going to cry. “When? On what?”
Josh shouted, “The stupid test on stupid local history they give us in stupid middle school!”
That was as far as he got before Mrs. Sturdevant swooped over to the fifth-grade table and, skipping right over the usual warnings, went straight for the worst penalty there was: “SILENT LUNCH!”
The cafeteria hushed.
All you could hear now was biting and chewing and slobbering noises.
And grumbling.
And the low, murmured sound of the culprit’s name, the reason why every kid in Hollison Elementary had to endure Silent Lunch: Josh . . . Joshua . . . Joshua Hewitt.
Chapter 11
Power Failure
It rained all afternoon and evening. By the time supper was over it sounded like the wind was throwing the rain against the windows. Josh’s mom started washing dishes; his dad was scraping food out of serving bowls and into plastic containers. Josh and Cady took out their homework.
Josh looked at the numbers on the paper. Sixty-four divided by thirt
y-two. Eleven into one hundred and ninety-eight.
Josh stared dumbly at his worksheet, but he couldn’t concentrate. He began making a list of everyone who was mad at him, and why.
Ms. O’Reilly: Ruining her food-chain activity by talking instead of running.
Principal Gorman: Ditto Ms. O’Reilly. Talking.
Coach Bell: Talking back and punching Payson.
Payson: Punching Payson.
Mrs. Sturdevant: Talking too loud in the cafeteria.
Two hundred kids in Hollison Elementary: Silent Lunch.
Mom and Dad: Breaking the cabinet glass, talking too much, punching Payson. And they’d be mad about the Silent Lunch, too, if they knew about it.
“Mom,” said Cady. “What’s seventeen plus seven?”
“That’s easy!” snapped Josh.
“We’d be pretty worried if second-grade math wasn’t easy for you in fifth grade,” said Josh’s dad, rummaging in the refrigerator for room to put the leftovers. “What are you working on?”
“Double-digit division,” said Josh. “And I know addition is easy now. But how come they couldn’t just wait and teach addition when it would be easy? Like in fifth grade?”
“What about division?” asked his dad.
“We could do that next year!”
His dad asked, “How could you really know how easy it would be for you to learn addition in fifth grade, since you already learned it in second?”
“They should do an experiment,” said Josh excitedly. “Like what if they took half the kids in Cady’s class and taught them addition now, in second grade, and then waited and taught the other half in fifth grade? And see which kids learned it quicker? You know it’d be the older kids! Then with all the time they’d save, they could do something interesting.”
“Recess!” suggested Cady.
“Double recess,” agreed Josh, grinning at his sister. “Or what would be really cool was if you could have two of the exact same kid! Like one copy of Cady would learn addition in second grade, and one of her would learn it in fifth grade. Then see which one learns it easier. I bet it would take her about five minutes to learn seventeen plus seven in fifth grade.”
“Interesting,” said Josh’s dad. “But I don’t think we’ll give you permission to clone Cady.”
“No, clone me!” cried Cady. “Then I’d have an identical twin.”
Josh started to explain, “Not really,” but his mother interrupted.
“Hold it,” she said. “This fascinating discussion about the best way to learn math is not helping Josh actually get his math homework done. Stop asking him questions, David. You know how he is.”
Josh burst out, “You know how he is. Why don’t you just come right out and say that you hate me?”
For a minute everything was quiet except for the sound of the rain on the roof and windows. His mom and dad looked at each other, and then his mom sat down beside Josh. “Just because I want you to do your homework doesn’t mean that I hate you,” she said. “How can you think such a thing?”
“Because whenever I try to say anything you say I shouldn’t talk so much. Everybody does. I can’t say anything without getting in trouble. If I try to tell you something, all you say is Don’t talk back. First obey and then we can talk. You know how he is. I’m not nice and quiet like Cady and you and Dad. I’m like—”
Thunder boomed so loudly that Josh didn’t finish his sentence. He didn’t finish saying that he was like Matt and Lacey, the bio-grands. And probably like Jonathan, his birth dad.
“Wow!” shouted Cady as a flash of lightning followed the thunder.
Josh’s mom put her hand on his arm. “I don’t hate you,” she said softly. “I never have and I never will. And I’m sorry you’ve been having such a hard time lately. Did something happen at school today?”
Was this some sort of trick question? Did she know about the Silent Lunch? Maybe the principal had called to complain. Or had Cady told? Josh glanced sharply at his sister, but she was making an I-don’t-know face, and Josh figured she was innocent. Then his dad said, “Uh . . . Josh?”
He was standing beside the open freezer door and peering into a wrinkled paper bag.
Busted. Could this day get any worse?
“Why is there a dead frog in here?”
“Because I put it there?”
The wind threw more rain against the windows.
Josh’s dad took a big trying-to-be-patient breath. “You know what I meant. Why are you keeping your frog in the freezer?”
Josh’s mom said, “I thought you took it to Matt and Lacey’s to bury.”
“I decided not to. I might need it.”
His mom had a strange look on her face, like Josh was talking in a language she couldn’t understand. “Need it for . . .?”
“To show somebody.”
“Didn’t you show everybody at school already?”
“Not everybody,” interrupted Cady. “Only the fifth graders got to see it. The kids in my class want to see it, too.”
“They do?” asked Josh, surprised. “You didn’t tell me that.”
Cady nodded. “I told them about it during morning meeting.”
Just then the lights flickered off and on, then off again. Then on. Then off.
Then nothing but darkness and silence, waiting to see if the lights would come on again. As long as nobody else was talking, Josh figured he might as well. “Mom, this is really important. There’s like a hundred tadpoles in that pool in the woods, and they could all get messed up, too! But there’s scientists trying to figure out whether it’s pollution or parasites. Gorfman could be a valuable piece of scientific evidence.”
“Gorfman?”
“It’s frogman, backwards. Sort of.”
“Never mind that,” said Josh’s mom. “Why can’t you just take some pictures?”
“Could we finish this discussion later?” asked Josh’s dad. “Like when the lights are back on? Where’s the flashlight?”
Cady jumped up. “I know!” She started crashing around the kitchen in the dark.
“Pictures aren’t the same,” said Josh. “What if they need the body? You can’t dissect a photograph.”
“I’m all for science,” said his mom. “But my refrigerator is not a laboratory. I don’t want to come across dead animals when I’m looking for chicken broth. What’s that dripping noise?”
“Rain?” suggested Josh, trying to be helpful. Because even though she didn’t want the frog in the fridge, at least she was still talking to him. Usually once one of them came down on his talking, the other one closed ranks. But apparently telling her that he felt like she hated him was a good way to break through their defense.
“Mom,” he pressed on. “I promise Gorfman won’t be in the way.”
“Enough with the frog, Josh,” warned his dad.
“Found it!” sang Cady, turning on the flashlight.
“The ceiling!” shrieked Josh’s mom.
Cady was aiming the flashlight straight up at the source of the dripping noise—rain leaking through the ceiling. A big brown stain was blooming where the drops were falling thickest. The whole ceiling was starting to sag.
Josh’s parents sprang into action. His dad grabbed a hand drill from the everything-drawer, stood on a chair, and drilled a hole in the ceiling, and his mom held a pot up in the air to catch the water that came sluicing out. When the water finally slowed to a trickle, she set the pot on a chair underneath the leak to catch any last drips. Sitting down at the kitchen table, she let her head rest in her hands.
Josh’s dad lit a candle. He put the drill on the table, next to the paper bag. “I almost forgot,” he said, sighing. “What do we do with this?”
In the light of the flickering candle, Josh’s mom lifted her head and held up her crossing-guard hands. “Well, it’s not going back in a freezer that isn’t working. A frozen frog is bad enough. A defrosted dead frog is going to stink.”
Crossing-guard hands meant t
hat this conversation was over. The leak in the ceiling had pushed his mom over the edge. Josh needed an idea. Fast. He grabbed the flashlight and shone it around the kitchen, searching for inspiration. He saw the answer.
“I’ll put it in my lunchbox. It keeps stuff cold, right?” Opening the freezer, he grabbed an ice pack and put it, with Gorfman, into his lunchbox. “This will be like a miniature cooler. It’ll be fine. It won’t smell at all, Mom.”
His mom was shaking her head, but she was smiling. She reached out and rumpled his hair. That meant yes!
“Thanks, Mom. You won’t regret this.”
Josh zipped up his lunchbox with Gorfman inside. The tadpoles weren’t going to end up like Gorfman. Not if he could help it.
Chapter 12
Xandra Screams
When the bell rang for recess the next day, kids started scrambling from their desks. Hot-lunch kids got in line right away. Cold-lunch kids got their lunch-boxes out of their cubbies so they wouldn’t have to come back up to the classroom between recess and lunch.
Some kids always got hot lunch. Some kids always brought lunch from home. And some kids, like Josh, did both. If it was hamburger or pizza, he bought hot lunch. If it was something gross, he carried. Today was chop suey, so Josh had brought a bagel.
He’d also brought Gorfman. The rain had stopped in the night and the wind died down, but there was still no power at their house. He couldn’t put Gorfman back in the freezer, and he wasn’t a hundred percent sure that his mom wouldn’t change her mind and get rid of him.
Grabbing his lunchbox, Josh went to the end of the line and trooped downstairs. Outside, it was hot and sunny, as if yesterday’s storm had never happened, except that kids were splashing through the puddles dotting the playground. Cady came running up with Becca and a bunch of kids from the lower grades.
“Becca wants to see Gorfman!”
“Yeah!” agreed Becca. “Can I see him?”
“Me, too,” said a girl named Trina.
“Me, too,” said a third grader Josh didn’t know, who had a buzz cut and sticky-out ears.
“Okay, okay,” agreed Josh. “Take it easy.” He led the way to a puny little maple tree that was trying to grow in the middle of the big grassy area, sat down, and opened up his lunchbox. Cady, Becca, Trina, the buzz cut kid, and a bunch of other kids peered in.
