The Trouble with Mark Hopper (3 page)

“Oh, man!” she said as Timmy dodged her mitt. “Too fast.” She threw the ball back to Mark, and Timmy, safe on the garbage lid, jumped up and down.

When Mark caught the ball he crossed his arms. “What was that, Jasmina?” he said angrily. “Timmy was
right there
.”

Jasmina raised her eyebrows and tightened her mouth. “He was, but he was just too fast, Mark.”

“You cheated,” said Mark.

“No. I. Didn't,” Jasmina said deliberately, her eyes glaring into Mark's.

The other kids looked around at one another anxiously.

“So you don't think letting someone get away on purpose is cheating? Last time I checked it was.”

Timmy looked at his older sister. “Did you let me get away?”

“Are you kidding?” Jasmina said. “I tried to tag you; you saw it. You were just too quick and nimble.”

“I bet you don't even know what
nimble
means,” Mark said.

Now Jasmina crossed her arms. “How could I have just used it if I don't know what it means?”

“What's
nimble
?” asked Timmy.

“Look it up,” said Mark.

“Come on, Mark,” said Jasmina. “Let's just get back to the game.”

“What's the point in playing if you're just going to let your little brother win? That's not fair to everybody else.”

The others looked at one another and started mumbling about Mark being right.

“CAR!” shouted Lou.

Mark moved to the sidewalk in front of his house. The other kids followed him. Timmy started toward that side, but Jasmina grabbed his hand and pulled him toward the opposite side of the street, to their house. “I think it's lunchtime,” she said to Timmy. “Go put my mitt inside?”

“SAFE!” shouted Lou.

Mark and the others moved back to position. Jasmina walked up to Mark's sewer. “Something is seriously wrong with you,” she said. “He's six years old. And this isn't the Olympics, for pete's sake.”

“Exactly. I don't know why you'd bother cheating for just a friendly game in the street. It just ruins it for everyone else.”

Jasmina knew Mark wasn't worth losing her temper over. But she was still fuming. “You are the biggest idiot on the planet,” she said. “No, in the whole solar system!”

Mark laughed. “If I'm the biggest idiot in the solar system, how come I'm in all honors classes next year? And how come I got a hundred on every single spelling test this year?”

Jasmina shook her head, swishing her hundreds of tiny black braids. “I'm going inside.”

“Okay. Come back when you're ready to play fairly,” he said.

Jasmina stomped into her house and slammed the door. Mark saw Timmy's face disappear from the front window. “Don't cheat,” Mark said to the others. “Or people won't want to be your friend.”

“Hey, smart guy!” Jasmina shouted from her window.

Mark looked at the others. “See, she's lonely already. What, Jasmina?”

“We got our schedules in the mail!”

Mark put the ball in someone's hand and sprinted toward his house. Even though he didn't have many friends to compare schedules with, he was excited to see who his teachers were and find out the scoop on them from Beth. And of course he wanted to make sure that it was all correct and that he was in all honors classes. He had a brief flash of himself opening his schedule and finding a letter saying that since he was so smart they were going to put him straight into the seventh grade. He knew that that probably wouldn't happen, but imagine how jealous everyone would be if it did!

Sure enough, in his mailbox was a big envelope from Ivy Road Middle School addressed to “the parent or guardian of Mark Geoffrey Hopper.” He tore it open and set aside various pieces of paper—a welcome letter from the principal, a list of important dates, information about buses—until he found his class schedule. First period, social studies 6H with Rocco. He scanned down. 6H, 6H, 6 . . . everything seemed to be sixth-grade classes. But maybe once they all got to see how smart he was, they would move him up. It seemed like a decent schedule—social studies and science and math in the morning; English, computers, gym, and art in the afternoon. Wait. “ART?!” Mark screamed.

Beth came down from her room holding her ears. “What are you yelling about?” she whined.

“They put me in
art,
” he said, pronouncing “art” as though it were a class on cleaning up after elephants.

Beth pointed at Mark and laughed. “I didn't realize I had an art-fart for a brother.”

“I didn't sign up for it,” Mark said. “The stupid people in the office obviously screwed up.”

Beth agreed that the people in the office at Ivy Road were stupid. “The worst is Ethel,” she said. “She's old and vile. I'm so glad I'm out of that stupid school.”

Mark was already dialing the number for Ivy Road. “The line is busy,” he said, stamping his foot. “They must have messed up a lot of schedules to have so many people calling.”

Beth laughed and laughed. “I'm surprised Ethel knows how to use a telephone,” she said through her laughter.

Mark took his schedule, ran outside, and mounted his bicycle. He paused for a moment, then ran back in and grabbed his blue ribbon for spelling and his bassoon practice book, which had a “Good Job!” sticker on every exercise through page sixty-eight. Ribbon pinned on his shirt, schedule in his pocket, and bassoon book tucked under his helmet, he flicked his bike into speed ten and pedaled vigorously to Ivy Road.

Grandpa Murray was teaching Mark and Beth to play blackjack. “Hit me,” said Mark.

That's when it hit Beth. “Shouldn't you have gotten your class schedule by now, Mark?” she said.

Mark thought. After she called and found out that he was already registered, his mom had said that they would be mailing the schedules the end of the week. And Grandpa Murray had suddenly remembered that they had told him that when he had registered Mark as well. Mark shrugged. “I guess that means I can't go. Hit me.” He didn't see why Beth loved school so much. But he didn't really mind going, despite his jokes. It was just what he did five days a week. Though maybe if he did as well as Beth always did, he would like it more. He knew that no one expected him to be a genius like Beth, but he sometimes wished he was. “Oh, boo,” Mark said. “I'm over.”

“Why don't you call Ivy Road?” Beth suggested. “See what happened to your schedule. You don't want to show up the first day and not know what to do. Hit me.” Grandpa Murray gave her another card, and Beth said, “I'll stay.”

“I show up lots of places and don't know what to do,” said Grandpa Murray. “You meet nice people that way. I'm going to hit again.”

Mark laughed. “Well, I don't know if the people in the office will be the nicest on the first day. They'll probably be really busy. I'll tell Mom to call when she gets home.”

“Come on,” Beth said. “You're old enough to call yourself.”

Mark shrugged his skinny shoulders. He didn't like calling adults on the phone; he never knew what to say. He didn't even really like talking to adults in person. They always asked the same pointless questions, like what grade was he in and what was his favorite subject. He was talkative and funny around people his own age, and around Beth and his parents and his grandpa, but the moment he had to talk to an adult—even a teacher—it was like he'd forget how to form words. That was the main trouble with Mark Hopper. His mom was always suggesting ways to help him be less shy. And so was Beth, even though she always got quiet around adults, too, unless she was talking about earthworms. Last Thanksgiving, when they had gone all the way to Oregon to spend the holiday with a bunch of their dad's cousins they didn't know, Mark and Beth stood next to each other quietly, politely answering the cousins' questions until they could go into another room and play cards.

“What have you got?” Grandpa Murray asked Beth. She revealed a total of twenty. Grandpa Murray threw his cards in the air. “You win again,” he said. “I'm going to get this girl a fake ID and take her to Vegas.”

Beth blushed and muttered something about it following mathematical rules even though the odds were less than half. “Call the school, Mark,” Beth said, changing the subject.

Mark sighed. He would have to practice being more outgoing if he was going to make a good impression at Ivy Road. And his parents would be proud that he took care of something like this by himself. His mom would be especially proud, since she had a lot to do with getting the house in order and starting her job at the bank and didn't really have time to worry about calling Mark's school. He practiced what he should say a few times in his head. Then he got up and dialed the number for Ivy Road School that his mother had written on the whiteboard by the phone. He pressed the numbers at lightning speed; otherwise he knew he would chicken out mid-dial. “Hello,” he said in his best grown-up voice. “My name is Mark Hopper and I am going to be in sixth grade this year, but I haven't gotten my class schedule yet, and I was just wondering if you mailed them out already.”

“I believe we did mail them out, hon,” said the woman on the other end. “But it's my first day here, so let me make sure.”

“Okay, thank you.” Mark blushed at being called “hon.”

“Yes, we mailed them out over a week ago. You should have gotten it by now, hon. What did you say your name was?”

“Mark Hopper. We just moved, so—”

“Oh, you moved? Well, that must be the problem, because I'm sure we mailed them all. Give me your address and I'll change it in the computer.”

What was their new address? “Um . . .” How embarrassing to not know his own address! He had just written it in an e-mail to his friend Sammy, who promised to mail him some baseball cards. “Seven forty-three Crown Road.”

“All right, hon. I changed it and I'll mail it out right now. Should arrive tomorrow.”

It did arrive the next day, and Mark could not believe what was on it. After all of the trouble his mother had gone through, they had him in band instead of art. But even more surprising was that he was in all honors classes. Every one of them, down the line—6H, 6H, 6H—except for lunch, which Mark figured probably wasn't grouped by ability. Too bad, he thought, since he was good at eating and talking and finishing up the homework that was due after lunch.

“Good job, kiddo!” said Grandpa Murray, who was looking over his shoulder. “Those
H
s mean you'll be with all the nerds, right?”

Beth crossed her arms. “People in honors classes aren't nerds, Grandpa.”

Mark stared at his schedule with his eyes as round as full moons. After he took the fifth-grade standardized tests, his teacher told him and his parents that he would not make it into any advanced classes in sixth grade, but if he worked hard he could get moved up. “Maybe my old school sent over your grades instead of mine,” he said to Beth.

“Maybe they just have different standards in Maryland,” Beth said gently. “But good job, Mark.”

A smile began to play on Mark's lips. Pretty soon it was as wide as his eyes. “Look at me,” he said.

He called up his dad at work and told him the news. “Look at you, Mark!” Mr. Hopper said. “When I'm down this weekend, we'll all celebrate.”

Mark thought all day about how he was going to be in all honors classes in middle school. He pictured himself making even the toughest teachers smile by answering their hardest questions, and reading four-hundred-page books in one night—for fun. Maybe he and Beth could enter some sort of competition for smart brothers and sisters, and they could win lots of money. He was picturing himself and Beth being presented with a four-foot-long check on TV when he collided with his mother and her bags of groceries. “Mark—” she said with a sigh.

“Wait!” said Mark before he could get in trouble. “My schedule came today. You have to look at it.” He took it out of his pocket, where he'd been holding on to it so Granpda Murray wouldn't put it somewhere where they'd never find it again, and took the groceries out of her hands so she could look at it. He wanted to see her expression, but instead he rushed out to the car and got the rest of the groceries and carried them inside in one trip. When he came back in and placed them on the counter, his mother was on the phone with the school.

“I think there might be a mistake with my son's schedule,” she said.

“Mom!” Mark said. He felt very hot behind his eyes. “I can do it,” he whispered. “Can I at least try?”

Mrs. Hopper gave him a puzzled look and lifted her finger to signal for him to wait. “Yes, his name is Mark Hopper, and you put him in band instead of art.”

Mark rushed up and wrapped his arms around her waist. She hugged him back and bent down to kiss him on the forehead, but froze midway there. “No, I called last week and we went through this. He definitely wants art.”

Ethel was on the other end of the phone. She had been there the day Mark Hopper came barging into the office, red-faced and panting, with a bicycle helmet hanging off the back of his neck and a bassoon practice book clutched in his sweaty hand. “He's changed his mind again,” she murmured to Mindy, covering the mouthpiece of the phone with her hand, “and he's having his mother call to change it back.” Mindy rolled her eyes and nodded knowingly, and Ethel returned to her call with Mrs. Hopper. “I will change it back to art, but this is the last time,” she said. “He will get his new schedule in homeroom on the first day of school. And, Mrs. Hopper, please tell your son that the next time he takes it upon himself to speak to us in the office, he should do so politely.”