Help! Somebody Get Me Out of Fourth Grade (8 page)

“Soup's on,” my mom called out. “Everyone come and get it.”

Emily came galloping out of her room, carrying Katherine on her back like she was taking the lizard on some kind of crazed piggyback ride. Katherine must have smelled the soup, because as she got closer to the table, her nostrils got really big, and she started to hiss.

“Oh, look, Kathy seems upset,” Emily said. “Maybe some nice music would calm her down.”

“Why don't I put on a CD?” I suggested, like I just had the best idea my brain had ever come up with.

“That's a very good idea, honey,” my mom said.

Emily took her place at the table, with Katherine the Ugly still draped across her back. Then she looked over at me and winked—Emily, that is. Katherine isn't what you'd call a winker. I flashed Emily a little smile. I have to admit, the girl may be the oddball of the western world, but for once, she was really taking my side in a very cool, sisterly way.

As my mom dished the soup into four bowls and put one at each of our places, I raced into my room to get the Stone Cold Rock CD. I held it behind my back as I came into the dining room and casually strolled over to the CD player we keep on the bookshelf near the table.

“I hope you didn't pick anything too loud,” my dad said. “Dinner music should be easy on the nerves.”

“No problem, Dad,” I answered as I slipped the disc in and cranked up the volume. I could hear the disc start to whir, gaining speed.

I slid into my chair and took a whiff of the soup. I nearly passed out.

“Smells really interesting, Mom,” I said as I crumbled up a handful of crackers into the brownish-greenish-pinkish liquid. My dad was just putting the first spoonful of soup into his mouth when the music started to play Stone Cold Rock's classic hit, “Whacked Out Crazy for You.”

Wang . . . dang . . . wang-a-danga . . . . . . whoop-wop . . . . . .

The bass guitar belted out a thumping beat that exploded into our dining room like a bomber diving into the soup bowl. I thought my dad was going to jump out of his skin. His spoon went flying out of his hands and sailed across the table.

Wang . . . dang . . . wang-a-danga . . . . . . whoop-wop . . . . . .

As the spoon flew over the table, the soup that had once been in it splattered in all directions—little clumps of it landing on the table, the walls, and my mom's pink sweater. It looked like it was raining brownish-greenish-pinkish mud.

Thunk! The spoon landed with a thud, right on the end of Katherine's hissing snout.

“Careful, Dad, Kathy has a very sensitive face!” Emily shouted.

“What about my ears?” my dad yelled back over the blasting music. “They're sensitive too.”

The beat was great. Our whole dining area was thumping with the bass. Then the lead singer let out a wild shriek and launched into the first lines of the song that are so catchy you just have to sing along. Cheerio, who had been sleeping under my dad's feet, suddenly jumped out from under the table and started to spin in a circle, howling in a high, screechy voice that made him sound like a girl dog with hot feet.

I looked at my dad, and his eyes were really big like he had just seen a ghost. But he wasn't looking at Cheerio or even at the soup on the walls. He was staring at my mom.

She had jumped up out of her seat and had started to sing. And I don't mean the tra-la-la kind of singing, either. She was rocking out in a major kind of way.

And she was dancing too. And I don't mean the hold-your-partner-and-twirl slow dance, either. All the parts of her body were shaking, and at different times, too.

Because I love my mom and don't want to embarrass her totally in case she ever reads this, I think I'll just describe the way she looked this way: Imagine your favorite rock song, then imagine your mom singing it at the top of her lungs. Then imagine her dancing to it with all her heart and soul. You have that picture in your mind? Good. Now multiply that times twenty. Better yet, times fifty. No, times one hundred. Okay, that's close to the way my mom was singing and dancing to “Whacked Out Crazy for You.”

Let's just say it was loud and nuts and very un-mom-like.

“Come on, Stan,” my mom giggled. “Get up and dance with me.”

My dad didn't move. He just sat there with his mouth open so wide, I could see the silver fillings in his back teeth. My mom grabbed Emily and started to dance with her. To my surprise, Emily got into it, shaking her bony butt in a really scary kind of way.

Good old Katherine freaked out. I guess in iguana land where she comes from, they don't boogie down. When Emily started to shake her butt, Katherine hung onto her back for dear life. Finally, the shaking got too much for her lizardy self, and she dove headfirst down the back of Emily's shirt. Her back claws clutched onto Emily's shoulders, and her tail stuck straight up above Emily's head like a feather. The two of them together looked like a whacked-out version of Pocahontas doing a twenty-first century rain dance.

As I watched my mom and Emily dancing around the room, singing the words to Stone Cold Rock's “Whacked Out Crazy for You,” I knew I had my dad in the palm of my hand. There was absolutely no way he could say that he wasn't going to take my mom to Philadelphia to see their concert. She was just having too much fun.

But parents are full of surprises, aren't they?

I was wrong about my dad. Totally, completely, absolutely, entirely wrong.

Even after I told my mom all about how I won the concert. Even after I played another Stone Cold Rock song. Even after I gagged down all my soup and told my mom how delicious it was. Even after all that, my dad still said he didn't want to go to Philadelphia.

“It's silly to go all the way to another city on a weekday just to see some young men who need haircuts play instruments,” he said.

“But, Dad, they're Mom's favorite band,” I argued.

“And here they are,” he said, holding up the CD. “All packed up inside this nice, shiny disc. She can listen to them right here in the comfort of her own home.”

“Mom!” I said, turning to her. “Aren't you going to tell him how much you want to go?”

“Marriage is all about give-and-take,” my mom said. “If it makes your dad uncomfortable to go, then how much fun would it be for me?”

“How much? It would be totally fun!”

“Hank,” my mom said. “I'm fine not going to the concert. Why is it so important to you, anyway?”

Why? For once, the words were right there, ready.

But I didn't say any of that.

Instead, I just shrugged my shoulders and sighed and said, “No reason.”

THE NEXT MORNING on the walk to school, I told Ashley and Frankie that the trip to Philadelphia was absolutely, definitely off. We were waiting outside King Pin Donuts on Columbus Avenue while Frankie's dad went in to buy us each a glazed chocolate twist. I had told Dr. Townsend that I hadn't slept much the night before because I had some worries on my mind.

“I find that a glazed chocolate twist can be a balm for the despairing soul,” he said, giving me one of his extra-hard shoulder squeezes.

Dr. Townsend teaches African-American history at Columbia University, and he uses more big words in one sentence than I've used in my whole lifetime. He's really nice, though, and he has great taste in donuts.

“You mean your dad just said no, I won't go?” Ashley asked as we continued down Columbus Avenue munching on our donuts. Ashley can untwist the braided part of the donut with her tongue without using any hands at all. She's amazing.

“Yep,” I said, licking the chocolate frosting off the top of my donut, which is my preferred way to eat it.

“It's too bad there isn't a crossword-puzzle tournament there,” Frankie said. “Silent Stan wouldn't be able to resist that.”

Dr. Townsend dropped us off on the corner of 78th Street where our school is, and we headed down to the middle of the block where Mr. Baker, the crossing guard, was waiting for us.

“You kids are getting so big, pretty soon you'll be helping me cross the street,” he said as he held up his red stop sign. “Couple more weeks, and you'll be in fifth grade. Fifth grade, Hank, I don't believe it.”

Ms. Adolf started the day by collecting the pink sign-up slips from our parents. Luke Whitman and I were the only ones who didn't return the slip.

“I forgot,” I said when Ms. Adolf asked me where mine was.

“Today is Wednesday, Henry,” Ms. Adolf said, making some kind of note in her roll book. “There is only one more day before conference day.”

“I'll try to remember it tomorrow,” I told her, which wasn't really a lie. I would
try
to remember. And then I'd forget.

I couldn't concentrate at all that morning in class. Not that I'm the king of concentration, but this was even worse than usual. Katie Sperling was giving a report on careers and which one she was going to choose when she grew up. She said she was either going to be a makeup artist for the movies or an astronomer. Either way, she'd get to be around stars.

Luke Whitman gave his report next, and he said when he grew up, he wanted to look for frogs. Ms. Adolf told him that was not a career, so he told her he wanted to look for snails.

“That is not a career either, young man,” Ms. Adolf said. Her foot was starting to tap inside her gray shoe.

“What about slugs?” Luke asked her. “Or cockroaches? I wouldn't mind looking for cockroaches.”

“Hear me well, young man,” she told him. “Picking up bugs from the ground is not a career. Do you understand?”

I felt bad for Luke. He should be able to talk to someone who really understands him, someone like Dr. Berger.

Dr. Berger! Suddenly, I realized that I had an appointment with her. I had forgotten that she had changed our meeting to Wednesday. I looked at the clock. It was only ten o'clock, and my appointment wasn't until eleven. But I felt like if I sat in my seat one more minute listening to Luke and Ms. Adolf, I'd explode. Lucky for me, Ms. Adolf was so busy being annoyed with Luke that she actually gave me a hall pass without noticing that I was an hour early for my appointment. On my way out of class, McKelty stuck his big foot into the aisle and tripped me.

“Did you have a nice trip, Hankerchief?” he said, laughing so hard that I could see his pink gums above his moldy teeth.

I didn't say anything, just gave him this smile I have that says, “I truly think you're a moron, and I'm not.” Then I strutted back to my desk, stepping right smack dab on his big, size-twelve Nike that held his smelly, size-thirteen foot.

“Oowww!” he screamed. “You're stepping on my foot.”

“So sorry, big guy,” I said. “Your foot's so big, it's taking up the whole aisle.”

Frankie high-fived me, and so did about ten other kids. Everybody loves it when McKelty gets a little taste of what he dishes out.

I headed for Dr. Berger's office. I've been working with her since the beginning of the fourth grade, when they found out that I have learning challenges. Maybe I could try talking to her about my fifth-grade future. She'd be much easier to talk to than Ms. Adolf. Come to think of it, a moon rock would be easier to talk to than Ms. Adolf.

I don't know exactly why, but I never just walk calmly into Dr. Berger's office. She says it's because being calm is not part of my personality. And maybe she's right, because as soon as I left Ms. Adolf's class, I shot down the hall and hit the stairs, taking them two at a time, even though we're not supposed to. It's a Principal Love rule. One at a time will get you there. Two at a time will get you a visit to the nurse or worse.

Thank goodness Dr. Berger's door was wide open, because I tripped and slid into her office as if it were first base on a ball field.

“Well, hello, Hank,” Mrs. Crock, the office assistant, said as she leaned over her desk to see if I was okay. “You always make a grand entrance, I must say.”

“Is the doctor in?” I asked. I was pretty much out of breath.

“Breathe,” Mrs. Crock suggested.

“Hey, are you friends with Frankie?” I asked. “Because you sound just like him.”

Before Mrs. Crock could answer, Dr. Berger appeared at the door.

“Come in, Hank,” she said. She always smiles when she sees me, which is a really special thing. It's amazing how many people don't smile at kids, like the grumpy guy who works at the video arcade around the corner from my apartment. If you even ask him for change, he frowns and says, “No change. You leave now.” Personally, I think that's very bad for business.