Absolutely Almost (7 page)

M
ost nights Calista was the one who was there for bedtime. She always made sure I had my book and Norm the Bear, even though I didn't need a teddy bear. But I could tell she knew I liked having him anyway. Then she would say good night and close the door and go out to the living room to draw in her sketchbook.

That's what Calista always did at bedtime.

But when Mom was there for bedtime, she tucked me in, even though I was way too old for tucking. She almost always forgot about Norm the Bear, but that was okay. I didn't need a teddy bear anyway. But the thing she never forgot, not once, was that she would lean over and kiss my forehead and say, “I love you, Albie.”

“You do?” I would ask, every time, even though I knew the answer.

“Yep,” she'd say. “I do. You are caring and thoughtful and good.”

Caring and thoughtful and good.

I liked when Mom was there for bedtime.

A
lbie.”

When I looked up, Calista was holding my reading log from school. The way she'd said my name wasn't happy. More like the disappointed way of saying “Albie.”

I think I liked that way to say my name the least of any of them.

“What?” I asked, like I didn't know what she was about to say next, even though I was pretty sure I did.

“Why is your reading log empty this week?” Which, yep, was pretty much exactly what I'd thought she was going to say. “You told me you've been reading at bedtime. Did you forget to mark it down?”

I didn't even look at the paper. I already knew what was on there. Pretty much nothing, that's what was on there. Same as last week's—all blank, except at the top, where Mrs. Rouse had written, “What happened to all your great reading?”

“Albie . . . ,” Calista said slowly. Which I guess was supposed to make me want to start talking, but it didn't. “What's going on? Did you run out of Captain Underpants already? Should we go to the library again?”

I shook my head. “Captain Underpants is for babies,” I said at last.

Calista raised an eyebrow at that. “I thought you liked Captain Underpants,” she said.

I didn't answer.

“And last I checked,” she went on, “you're not a baby. Or . . .” She tapped her chin. “Wait, did you start wearing a diaper without telling me?” She stuck her nose down near the seat of the chair I was sitting in and pretended to take a big sniff. “Do you need to be changed, Albie?”

I scooched my chair away from Calista's nose. Dad was right. That girl was off her rocker.

“I'm not wearing a diaper,” I told her.

“So you're definitely not a baby, then,” she said like she was thinking things through. “And you
do
like Captain Underpants.” She tapped her chin again. “So one can only logically conclude”
—tap, tap, tap—“
that Captain Underpants is not for babies.”

I sighed and reached for my backpack. “Mom wants me to read this book,” I said, pulling out the stupid, long, boring book she'd given me. “But I tried, and the words don't make any sense.”

“Ah,” Calista said. She took the book and turned it over to look at the back. After a minute of reading, she said, “This looks awful.”

“It is,” I told her.

Calista thought while I buried my face on the table. I could tell she was thinking, because when she was done, she said, “Would your mom know if you didn't read this book? Why can't you go back to reading Captain Underpants? At least you like those books.”

That surprised me when Calista said that, because it sounded like she was saying I should be sneaky and not tell my mom about Captain Underpants. Which is what I wanted to do anyway, but I was surprised about a grown-up saying it. Grown-ups weren't supposed to be sneaky.

“She'd see it on my reading log,” I said. “And then she'd be mad all over again.” I pressed my face harder into the table. Mrs. Rouse was getting mad about the reading log, so I knew I had to start reading something. But if I tried to read
Johnny Treeface
again, it would probably kill me. And I definitely didn't want to be dead from a book.

I didn't know what to do.

“It'll be all right, Albie,” Calista said. “We'll figure something out. Now, why don't you go watch some TV?”

“But . . .” My fifteen minutes were already up. I was pretty sure Calista knew that, because she'd set the timer on the microwave herself.

“Albie,” Calista said, and her voice was very serious, “I
insist
that you watch fifteen more minutes of television right this very second. Unless . . .” She tapped her chin again. “Did I hear you say you wanted to clean the toilet?”

“TV!” I said, laughing. “I pick TV!” And I raced for the couch before Calista could realize she was off her rocker again.

• • •

As soon as the timer on the microwave went off, Calista walked into the living room. I snapped off the TV. Calista was holding something behind her back, and I could tell she was up to something. I just couldn't tell what it was.

“What's that?” I asked, trying to peek.

Calista didn't answer. “You know,” she said, “I started reading
Johnny Tremain,
and it turns out it's actually not so awful. Maybe you should try it again.”

I wrinkled my nose. Is
that
what she was being sneaky about? “No, thanks,” I said.

“All right,” she said with a shrug. “It's up to you. But I think you might want to give it a shot. It looks like there are cartoons in it.” And she tossed the book next to me on the couch and went back to the kitchen.

My head shot up. Cartoons? How come I hadn't noticed before that
Johnny Treeface
had cartoons in it? I turned to look at the book on the couch.

It wasn't
Johnny Treeface.
It was
Captain Underpants and the Perilous Plot of Professor Poopypants,
the same one I'd been reading before. Only Calista had made a new title for it, with construction paper and markers, and taped it to the front.

JOHNNY TREMAIN

by Esther Forbes

That's what it said on the front.

“Calista?” I called into the kitchen. I was staring at the book. “How come—?”

“After you're done reading,” she called back, “be sure you spell the title right in your reading log, okay, Albie?
Johnny Tremain.
Just the one
e.
”

I looked down at the book.

Johnny Tremain,
that's what it said.

I smiled.

Then I opened the book, and I started to read.

N
ormally we didn't have quizzes in math club, because it was a club not a class, but on Monday we had one. Mr. Clifton called it a “whiz quiz,” to try to trick us into thinking it might be more fun than a regular quiz, I bet, but I was not tricked. It was all about multiplication, and I got almost all the answers wrong.

After math club was over, I stayed behind to tell Mr. Clifton something when nobody else was in the room.

“I don't think I should be in math club anymore,” I told him.

Mr. Clifton set down the stack of papers he was holding. “Albie?” he said, like my name was a question. “Why would you want to drop out?”

“I just . . .” I scuffed my foot along the carpet. “I'm not very good at math. I think I . . .” I scuffed my foot some more, harder. “I don't think I should do any math anymore.”

“Albie.” That time my name was not a question.

Mr. Clifton didn't say anything after that, and I figured maybe he was waiting for me to look at him instead of at my shoes. So finally I did. Even though my shoes were more interesting.

“I want to show you something.” That's what he said.

Mr. Clifton walked around behind his desk and pointed to something on the wall—a small blue piece of paper in a square black frame. I followed him so I could look at it more closely. I stood on my tiptoes and stuck my nose right close to the glass.

It was a report card.

“That's
yours
?” I asked, settling down from my tiptoes.

“Yep,” Mr. Clifton said.

“Mr. Clifton,” I told him, very seriously, “you should probably take that down. Because otherwise someone might find out that you got an F in math.”

Mr. Clifton just laughed at that, a real guffaw. “I keep it there on purpose,” he said.

My eyes went wide. “You
do
?” That sounded crazy to me. Because why would anyone ever want to hang up an F report card, in a frame and everything? The worst report card I'd ever gotten from Mountford Prep had three U's for Unsatisfactory, and I threw that one down the garbage chute. I definitely didn't
frame
it.

“You can't get where you're going without being where you've been.”

That's what Mr. Clifton said while I was still staring at his F report card.

“Huh?” That's what I said.

“My grandmother always used to tell me that,” Mr. Clifton explained. “When I was a boy.”

“Oh,” I said.

I wonder if Mr. Clifton's grandmother ever saw that F report card.

“When I was a kid,” Mr. Clifton said, “I hated math.
Hated
it. Because I was bad at it, and because I thought it didn't make any sense.”

I nodded at that, because it was true. Math
didn't
make any sense.

“So that's why I decided to become a math teacher.”

I stopped nodding when Mr. Clifton said that last part. Because
that
was a thing that didn't make any sense.

“What?” I said. “Why?”

He shrugged. “I figured if math didn't make any sense to me, it probably didn't make sense to lots of other people. So I promised myself that if I ever
did
figure it out, I'd become a math teacher so I could help other people who'd had trouble, just like me.” He reached up and straightened the report card in its frame so it was exactly even to the ground. “It took a lot of hard work, but I'm glad every day that I made that decision and didn't end up with some super-easy profession, like neurosurgeon.”

I just stared at him. Because I knew that Mr. Clifton liked to tell bad jokes, but this time I couldn't tell if he was joking. Who would actually
want
to be a math teacher?

“So I can't drop out of math club, then?” I asked.

“Not even a little,” Mr. Clifton told me.