Still a Work in Progress (2 page)

“Take it out! All the way out!” the Tank hollers. Everyone jumps out of the way as Max wheels the trash and the stench to the front door of the school.

“You know where the cleaning supplies are,” the Tank says to Small Tyler, wiping his eyes. “Everyone else, Community Meeting!”

Small Tyler heads to the janitor’s closet while the rest of us walk down the hall to the Community Room. I turn back to see him standing at his open locker with a roll of paper towels and a spray bottle. I feel guilty for leaving him, but not enough to get any closer to that smell.

“Now you know why we keep telling you not to leave food in your locker!” the Tank says as he ushers us down the hall.

Lesson learned.

Community Meeting happens once a week. Everyone in the school has to go, including the teachers. The Community Room used to be the music room, but our town had budget cuts and they cut the music program. The walls are painted green, and old couches donated by various families line the walls so that if we’re all sitting on them, we form a circle/square. The problem is that there are more students than seats on the couches, so if you get to Community Meeting late, you’re stuck sitting on a beanbag or on the floor in front of the couch sitters. The beanbags are mysteriously sticky and smell like dirty sheets. The floor is cold and kind of gross because it doesn’t get washed very much. In either case, you have to sit in front of the people on the couch, which means you are close to their feet, which means, depending on who you end up in front of, you are probably going to have a miserable hour.

I look at my own feet and the locker-juice drip left on my sneaker. It’s shiny, and I bet sticky, too. I try to rub it off on the floor. This is another reason no one should sit there.

I find an open spot on the red couch next to Sasha Finnegan. I attempt to smile at her, and she surprises me by smiling back. She’s the cutest eighth-grader in the school. She’s also dating Max, so her smile is likely meaningless. I let myself have a split-second of hope anyway, then remember the locker juice on my shoe and hope it doesn’t smell.

Curly, the school cat, pokes her bald head out from behind the couch next to mine. She’s hairless and looks more like a little gremlin than a cat. Ms. Cliff, the principal, thinks having a school pet helps the students feel more calm and less stressed. A few years ago the school had a dog that was supposed to be hypoallergenic because he had hair instead of fur, but while he may have had a calming effect on the students, the students didn’t have one on him. He developed something called irritable bowel syndrome, and the parents complained that the students shouldn’t have to be cleaning up dog poo as part of their education. The principal insisted the school still needed a pet, so they finally settled on Curly.

It’s kind of a mystery how anyone could think that Curly could provide comfort and calm. She looks cold and stressed-out all the time, like she lost her coat and can’t find it. It seems like the students are the ones constantly trying to comfort the cat instead of the other way around.

Curly jumps on my lap and turns in careful circles. I pet her so she’ll settle down. Her skin reminds me of the stingray I got to pet at the New England Aquarium last year. Smooth, even though it looks like it should feel like sandpaper.

Today, Curly’s wearing a neon-green vest. Ms. Cliff, who is the art teacher as well as the principal, has a sewing unit in class, and students always make Curly vests for their projects. She needs them to stay warm. I don’t know how Curly feels about them, but she puts up with it.

Ms. Cliff motions for all of us to hurry up and settle down. The Tank brings the Suggestion Box over to the group of teachers all sitting on one couch. There’s the Tank, who teaches social studies; Ms. Cliff; Mrs. Phelps, the stinky-breath science teacher; Madame Estelle, who teaches French and math; and Mr. Marshall, who teaches English.

Mrs. Phelps reaches into the box and unfolds a slip of paper. “‘Please stop standing on the toilet seats,’” she reads.

She looks up and eyes us all suspiciously.

“Do we think this is referring to the boys’ room or the girls’ room?” she finally asks.

It drives me a little crazy when teachers say “we” as if all of us are one big unit who think the same thoughts and not individual people.

People answer “Boys’” and “Girls’” at the same time.

Mostly it sounds like all the boys said “Girls’” and all the girls said “Boys’.”

The girls’ room is like a mystery cave to the boys. All we know is that it smells like twenty kinds of body spray vying for air domination. You literally taste it when you walk by the door.

Poor Jem Thomas got the Bathroom Locker this year. That’s the one closest to the bathroom entrance. He says even his sandwiches taste like body spray.

“Why would people be standing on the toilets?” Ms. Cliff asks the group.

I glance over at Ryan, who is sitting on one of the beanbag chairs, trying to look innocent. Curly stands up and turns circles on my lap again, pricking my thighs with her tiny claws. Sometimes I think she senses our tension and gets all tense herself.

Sam raises his hand. “To talk to their neighbor?” he asks innocently.

“Gross!” Lily Smith says.

He blushes. “Just a guess.”

“Toilets are for sitting on,” Ms. Cliff says, all serious.

“Or standing in front of,” Ryan points out.

Everyone cracks up.

“We all know what they are
not
for, is the point,” says the Tank. “So whoever is standing on the toilets, for whatever reason, please stop. Some people
do
have to sit on them, Ryan, and there’s no telling where you all’s shoes have been.”

Someone makes a gagging noise.

I peer over my lap to inspect the locker juice on my shoe. This is just one more reason why my option to never use the school toilets unless death from holding it seems imminent is a sound one.

The Tank reaches in for another suggestion. “‘Please stop calling the Suggestion Box the Complaint Box,’” he reads.

“Yes,” Ms. Cliff says. “That is an excellent
suggestion.
The more you call it a Complaint Box, the more people will complain. We want ideas for making your experience here better.”

I’m pretty sure Ms. Cliff is the one who wrote
that
suggestion.

Curly finally settles back down on my lap while Ms. Cliff reads a bunch more complaints disguised as suggestions. Curly’s body is extremely warm. I try to pet her again, but her skin creeps me out too much, so I just kind of tap her gently. She closes her eyes and rests her head on my knee.

“Does anyone have any more comments about this week’s suggestions?” Ms. Cliff finally asks.

No one does.

After school, I wait on the steps for my ride. My mom is driving today, and I pray she doesn’t hop out of the car and wave to me when she gets here like she did on the first day. After that, whenever I got to school, everyone would do the Mom Wave when they saw me. I’m really glad that got boring after a while.

Harper Lewis jumps down the steps next to me and barely manages to land without falling. He stands and swivels to face me.

“Shotgun,” he says, grinning.

I roll my eyes. Like I want to sit in the front next to my mom?

Harper and his brother, Stu, live a few blocks from my house, and our parents take turns driving us to and from school. Hardly anyone takes the bus because it takes so long to get home. We only live about a ten-minute drive from school, but if I took the bus, it would be close to an hour because of the route. My dad says it would be good for us to ride the bus, but some high-school kid got beat up right under the bus driver’s nose last year, and now my mom insists on driving.

My mom picks us up, and then we head to the high school to get my sister and Stu. There, we wait in the long carpool line. As usual the students take their sweet time saying good-bye to their friends, as if they will never see them again. Emma has to hug everyone. I catch Harper looking at her dreamily. Everyone looks at Emma that way.

She finally saunters over to the car and climbs in next to me.

“How was your day, honey?” my mom asks cheerfully.

“Fine,” Emma says in the same tone. She reaches over and punches my arm. It’s how we say hi to each other. I punch her back.

Harper turns around from the front seat. “Hey, Emma,” he says hopefully.

She smiles. “Hey, Harper. Nice hat.”

He’s wearing a New England Patriots hat that says
GO, PATS
!

“Thanks,” he says. “Nice, um, sweaters.”

“Thanks.”

Emma is always cold, so she wears lots of layers. Sometimes she’ll wear a V-neck sweater over a crew-neck sweater and then sometimes even a cardigan sweater over that, all buttoned up. Then she makes these little slits in the cuffs so she can pull them down over her hands and she sticks her thumbs out through the holes so they’re like a sweater/fingerless-glove combo. For pants, she wears leggings in different colors. All those bulky sweaters make her legs look extra skinny. She’s like SpongeBob SquarePants, only she’s SpongeEmma SquareSweater. But I don’t tell her that. Even though she pretends not to care what people think, I know she does. Too much. My parents know this, too, but they are great at pretending it’s not true.

Stu finally shows up and pushes his way into the backseat so that Emma is squished between us. As soon as we hit the road, Stu and Harper start arguing about who’s going to make it to the Superbowl this year. I wish my mom would turn up the radio, but she loves to listen to carpool talk. She says it’s the only way she gets any information. Emma pops her earbuds in and moves her head slightly to the music. It sounds like some kind of reggae stuff, which I can’t stand. She doesn’t offer to share a bud, which is fine with me. I don’t know which is worse: her music, or Harper’s whining about the Patriots and the New York Giants. You’d think we were talking about some upcoming war, the way he talks.

Must be nice to have your biggest worry be about whether your favorite football team makes it to the Superbowl. But I wouldn’t know about that.

“Here’s what you need to know when a girl sits next to you,” Ryan tells me and Sam while we eat lunch a few days later. “The first time, it was probably a mistake.”

We’re sitting outside on the steps, just the three of us. It’s cold, but sometimes you need some fresh air. The locker-juice smell still lingers in the hall, even though it’s been three days since the incident.

“What if a girl sits next to you twice?” Sam asks. He takes a small bite of a potato chip. Sam is a dainty eater. He’s the only person I know who bites his chips instead of popping them in his mouth whole.

“Two times means she feels sorry for you,” Ryan explains. “Probably just trying to be nice. It’s a pity sit.”

I pick at the Tofurky sandwich my sister made. Emma is in charge of school lunches. I’m in charge of breakfasts. I would switch if I wasn’t so lazy. Emma became a vegan two years ago and refuses to make non-vegan lunches for me. She says it’s against her principles to handle meat and dairy products.

“What if a girl sits with you
three
times?” I ask.

Ryan takes a drink from his water bottle. “Then you’re in business.”

I don’t know where Ryan gets his information, but for the most part, he seems to know what he’s talking about.

“So, how many times has Molly sat next to you?” I ask.

“Four,” Ryan says, shaking his head.

“She must be
really
into you,” Sam says. He takes another tiny bite of his chip.

Ryan sighs and glances up at the sky. “But . . . why?” he asks it.

“Are you fishing for compliments?”

He shoves me. “No. I just don’t get it. I’m not her type, anyway.”

“How do you know?” Sam asks seriously.

“Look at her. I mean . . . she’s kind of . . . L.L.Bean catalog.”

“What does that mean?”

“You know, perfectly ironed, matching clothes. Conservative. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. It’s just not my style.”

“What catalog are you?” I ask.

“There is no catalog for me,” he says proudly.

“You think you’re so special,” Sam says.

“No, I don’t. I just . . . don’t want to be that predictable, you know?”

Sam finally finishes his chip and takes a sip from his milk carton. “Not really.”

“Figures a girl finally likes me and it has to be someone like Molly,” he says sadly.

“I think she’s nice,” Sam says.

Ryan looks miserable as we follow Sam back inside after lunch. Curly is waiting in the hallway and mews at us to give her our leftovers. Cheese is her favorite. It’s kind of a miracle that she’s not obese.

“All I have is fake turkey,” I tell her. “It would probably make you sick.”

“Don’t encourage her, Noah. She should only eat cat food,” Sam says.

“I wasn’t encouraging. I was explaining.”

“Curly, you shouldn’t eat food from other people’s lunch,” Sam tells her seriously. “You don’t know who touched it or where it came from or how unhealthy it could be for you.”

Curly stares up at Sam and mews sadly.

“You’re bumming her out,” Ryan tells him. He bends down and holds out his hand. She licks his thumb.