The Wednesday Wars (14 page)

Then Spelling. The parts of the radiators that rust had worn down began to glow softly. They took on a color that you can usually see only in sunsets.

I kicked off my boots and one of the pairs of thick socks. (Danny was already barefoot.) It felt good to be able to move my toes again.

Then a short section on Roman numerals, and on to fractions. The room was now downright tropical. And I had on thermal underwear—thermal underwear that was supposed to keep me warm in minus-ten-degree temperatures. I was starting to sweat everywhere—even my fingernails—and I think that I was probably turning the color of the rusted radiators.

On to Imperfect Verb Forms—which I had down, let me tell you.

But I thought I was going to pass out. My fingers were sliding on my sharpened Number 2 pencil. And I could hardly see the little bubbles anymore. I think my eyes were sweating.

I raised my hand and asked Mrs. Baker if I could go to the boys' restroom.

She picked up the instruction booklet for the New York State Standardized Achievement Tests. "No student is permitted to leave his seat for any reason other than a dramatic health concern once a section of the achievement tests has begun. There are no exceptions." She set the instructions back on the desk and turned her face to the radiators, which by now were putting out so much heat that they were probably giving her a tan.

It seemed to me that we were in dramatic-health-concern territory, but you can't exactly raise your hand in class and announce that you have to go take off what I had to go take off.

When we got to Sentence Diagramming—a section that Mrs. Baker began without even giving anyone a chance for a moment of release—most of the water component of my body had been sucked into the little cotton compartments of my thermal underwear. Everything felt squishy, and the answer sheet for my test had turned soggy, sort of like how cornflakes left overnight in half a bowl of milk look, with about the same smell.

By 2:30, when we finally handed our answer sheets in, I was afraid that mine was going to dissolve into some sort of pulp.

Meryl Lee's answer sheet looked white and starched.

"That wasn't so bad, was it?" she said.

"Nope," said Danny. He was putting on his socks again.

"Not bad at all," said Doug Swieteck. Even Doug Swieteck!

"Are you all right?" asked Meryl Lee.

"Anyone who needs to, may now go to the restroom," said Mrs. Baker.

I was the first one out of the room. I squished my soggy self down the hall as fast as I could, glad that there weren't any radiators there. I ran the last twenty yards or so, even though running in the halls is one of the deadly sins at Camillo Junior High, right up there with pride, envy, wrath. I burst through the door into the boys' restroom, pulling at my top T-shirt, imagining the sensation of tearing off the thermal underwear.

The boys' restroom was filled with eighth graders. All smoking.

And Doug Swieteck's brother was leaning against one of the sinks.

"That's him," said one of the eighth graders. He was pointing at me.

"Him?" said Doug Swieteck's brother. He threw his cigarette to the floor and smashed it. I think he was trying to send me a message.

He walked over to me, stuck his finger out, and poked it into my thermal underweared chest. "Did you throw that snowball at me?"

"When?" I said. This is called a delaying tactic, and is sometimes more strategic than denial all by itself.

"You"—he poked his finger into me—"are"—he poked again—"dead"—he poked again. The he wiped his wet finger off on his shirt.

This is getting familiar, isn't it? Another death threat. I could sort of understand how it must have been for Banquo, and for a moment, in my heated, sweaty brain, I could almost see him there in the boys' restroom, covered with stab wounds, looking sort of lost and shaking his head like he wanted to warn me.

"Dead," said Doug Swieteck's brother again.

I backed out. Doug Swieteck's brother's little rat eyes followed me all the way.

I went back to Mrs. Baker's classroom and sat down squishily.

Toads, beetles, bats.

"Are you feeling better?" asked Meryl Lee.

"Just swell," I said.

Outside it was still snowing, but the temperature had come up, and the flakes that were coming down were the kind that really wanted to be rain but couldn't quite get there. When they hit the snow that had already fallen, they froze into a thin crust and coated everything in sight. Mrs. Baker was looking out the window and frowning, and I knew she was wondering how the school buses would ever drive on roads with a frozen crust, and snow beneath that, and ice beneath that.

She was probably also wondering how she would drive home herself on roads with a frozen crust, and snow beneath that, and ice beneath that.

In every other class at Camillo Junior High, the last half-hour after a day of the New York State Standardized Achievement Tests was Free Reading Time or Snacks or Story Hour or something. A lot of teachers brought in brown, light, perfect cream puffs for their classes.

But Mrs. Baker—the holiday-hating Mrs. Baker—had us open
English for You and Me
and start in on a new unit: "Strong Verb Systems." It was hard to concentrate, fresh from Doug Swieteck's brother's rat eyes and sitting in squishy thermal underwear. But Mrs. Baker never called on me. Not even when I raised my hand. Not even when I hollered out that I could tell her why "to write" was a strong verb.

And so the clock clicked down to the end of the school day.

I headed outside, watching, watching, watching for Doug Swieteck's brother, his words hovering like the snow in the air: "You ... are ... dead." Nowhere in the halls. I left through the main lobby doors, under a picture of Ariel that Mr. Vendleri hadn't reached. Looking up at it, I felt again the thrill of the venger. But I kept looking for the vengee. Still nowhere in sight. And now the cold air struck me, and I held my coat open to it, and down below my two T-shirts, my thermal underwear suddenly chilled, and I felt the temperature of my body drop and my face cool.

"Are you all right?" asked Danny Hupfer.

"Just swell," I said, and I really meant it.

I crossed the schoolyard—Doug Swieteck's brother must have already gone—and came out onto Lee Avenue, where the school buses were spinning their wheels on the ice while Mr. Guareschi stood by the fence with his arms crossed—I suppose to prevent the state penitentiary crowd from riding the bumpers. But none of them were in sight, either.

Which I'm sure that Mr. Guareschi was glad for, since on the other side of the street a
Home Town Chronicle
photographer was taking pictures of the buses turning onto the ice, finding a little traction for a moment, and then losing it and sliding sideways, flinging down snow from their yellow roofs.

By the time I got to the corner opposite Camillo Junior High, one of the buses was gunning its engine frantically, trying to get some momentum and, at the same time, trying to ease around Mrs. Baker's very, very slowly moving car. And that's what made the rest of what happened happen.

It took only about three seconds.

And I didn't see much of it, since the wet flakes were coming down hard again.

But here's what happened, as near as I can tell:

When I got to the corner, Doug Swieteck's brother and the state penitentiary crowd were waiting for me on the other side. They stood in line like a platoon, and each one lifted up his left arm and pointed at me. In their right hands they held snowballs as big as bowling balls. The streetlights were already on in the gray darkness, and their light glittered yellow off the snowballs' icy coating.

At least, I hoped that's why the snowballs looked yellow.

I needed about a second to take that in, I guess.

In the next second, the school bus gunned its ancient engine and then started to slide across the intersection—slide sideways, that is, and through the red light. I watched as the bus's back end went by me, moving in a couple of different directions. I could see Danny's face out the back window. He was looking kind of startled but happy. The next day, he told me that he'd never heard a school-bus driver scream that way before.

Which I can vouch for. I heard her, too.

And that leaves the third second, when I started to turn back from the bus to see what Doug Swieteck's brother and the penitentiary crowd were going to do when the bus slid across the intersection and onto their corner, but I never got to them. Because walking across Lee Avenue, in the middle of the road, her head down and her scarf pulled over her ears because she didn't want the wet snow to dampen her southern California hair, was my sister.

Walking back home an hour late because of the New York State Standardized Achievement Tests.

I took off.

I remember hearing the air brakes, and someone yelling "Mr. Hoodhood," and the "Oh" that came out of my sister when I hit her just ahead of the sliding school bus.

I remember seeing her rolling out of the way and into a snowbank by the curb—which I saw from a sort of aerial view, because the right rear bumper of the bus caught me where I had worn my white feathers, and so I was crossing the rest of the Lee Avenue intersection at a height of about five feet.

I landed in the snowbank by Goldman's Best Bakery.

When I opened my eyes, my sister was looking down at me. Mr. Goldman was looking down at me. Doug Swieteck's brother and the state penitentiary crowd were looking down at me. The bus driver was looking down at me. Danny was looking down at me. Mr. Guareschi was looking down at me. And Mrs. Baker was holding my head in her hands.

"Holling," she said, "are you hurt?"

"Not the part you're holding," I said.

My sister was crying.

Really.

"Holling," she said, "you saved my life."

"High drama does not help us right now," said Mrs. Baker. "Hold his head out of the snow, and I'll get my car."

I shifted myself around. I was starting to get cold, since the sweat in the little cotton compartments of my thermal underwear was turning to ice. "I think I'm all right," I said.

"You'll have to go to the emergency room," said Mr. Guareschi. "Mrs. Baker is going to drive us. Can you move your toes?"

Of course I couldn't move my toes. I still had on my thick socks. "No. But I think I'm really all right."

Mrs. Baker pulled up in her car. "Help him in," she said to Doug Swieteck's brother. "And you help, too," she said to the state penitentiary crowd.

They gathered around me.

"Mrs. Baker," I said.

"Be quiet," she said. And Doug Swieteck's brother and the state penitentiary crowd lifted me up out of the snowbank and hefted me across the icy crust and handed me into Mrs. Baker's back seat. Mr. Guareschi got in beside me and held my head still—though that wasn't the part of me that was hurting. My sister got in the front seat, and we careened down Lee Avenue, stopping only to let my sister off at our house so that she could tell my mother where we were going. Mrs. Baker held her hand down on the horn at every intersection, fishtailed through most of her turns, and pretty much hit the entrance to the emergency room in one long sideways slide.

When we got inside—I was limping a little, but Mr. Guareschi held on to my right arm the whole way—Mrs. Baker couldn't find the word she needed to describe the location of the injury. Shakespeare doesn't give you everything. She finally settled on "his buttocks," which the nurse understood.

"Are you his father?" the nurse asked Mr. Guareschi.

"His principal."

"Then you must be his mother," said the nurse.

"I am his teacher," said Mrs. Baker. "Perhaps a diagnostic hip x-ray would be in order."

"I'll inform the doctor of your intended procedure," said the nurse, which was a nurse joke, which is worse than a teacher joke. "I'll need to speak to one of the boy's parents before we do anything."

Mr. Guareschi helped me back to the waiting room, and Mrs. Baker made me lie down on three of the chairs—"Stay on your side and be still"—while she called my father. Mr. Guareschi took off my boots so that I could move my toes, and then found a blanket—who knows where—to stretch over me.

When Mrs. Baker came back, her face was set and hard. "Your father has spoken over the phone with the nurse at the front desk. He has given approval for any necessary procedure, and says that, since everything seems under control, he will be along as soon as may be convenient." She adjusted the blanket, and sat down next to Mr. Guareschi.

We waited, and waited, and waited, since apparently being hit on the buttocks isn't that big a deal in this emergency room. Outside it grew dark, and still we waited. A nurse came in to turn on a portable television in the corner, and after a few horizontal blips, there was Robert Kennedy confirming that he was considering a run against President Johnson because of the government's war policy, and then Walter Cronkite looking about as serious as a human being can look and reporting the news from Vietnam. There were pictures of soldiers cutting through a jungle path. There were pictures of soldiers capturing a Vietcong POW. There were pictures of soldiers standing around supply caches.

It was warm in the waiting room, and close, and the blanket was heavy, and my thermal underwear had thawed and was starting to heat up again. I yawned. "I think I could fall asleep," I said to Mrs. Baker.

But she didn't answer. When I turned to see why—and this wasn't easy, since I was still lying down and wasn't supposed to move my buttocks—she was standing with her hands up to her face, watching the pictures from Vietnam like she was watching for someone she knew.

Actually, like she was watching for someone she was worrying about.

Someone she loved.

Mr. Guareschi and I left her alone.

The nurse came for me soon afterward, and my buttocks were x-rayed—and let me tell you, it's embarrassing to hold your buttocks the way I had to hold my buttocks so that they could be x-rayed. Then we waited again until the doctor came out and told us everything was fine, that I would be sore for a week or so and have a bruise that would turn purple and green, but it didn't matter since it was where it was. Then Mrs. Baker signed some papers while Mr. Guareschi put my boots back on and helped me outside to the car and settled me in the back seat—he took the blanket with us so I would be warm. When Mrs. Baker came, he got in the front seat with her, and Mrs. Baker drove me to the Perfect House. Together they walked me to the door—"Thank you so much for bringing him home on such a terrible night to drive," said my mother—and I limped out to the kitchen to eat supper standing.