Lessons I Never Learned at Meadowbrook Academy (11 page)

That was it; the day was over.

I could hear kids' chatter, and laughter fill the hallways outside. At the sound of this noise, it was like something snapped in Thaddeus. He abruptly grabbed his backpack and headed for the door. I couldn't understand what was happening. Before leaving, he stopped and turned back around.

“You don't know me, and you have no idea what my life is like, okay?”

“I never said I did.”

“Just forget this, all of this.” He was getting angrier with each word.

“Thaddeus, I'm sorry if I—”

“I don't like you.”

My heart fell into my stomach.

“You're just some kind of freak, and I was messing with you because I thought I could feel your tits, okay? So do me a favor and leave me alone.”

I felt like I had been punched.

“And if you spread any rumors about me, if you tell anyone about this,” he pointed to his arm. “I swear to God, I'll ruin your life here; I'll make you miserable.”

My throat was collapsing with hurt. I was trying desperately not to cry, but one tear managed to force its way out of the corner of my eye, and I couldn't control what followed.

“Great,” he said. “Now you're crying. Find someone who cares.”

He turned and walked out, leaving me alone in the empty auditorium.
What had I done wrong?
I couldn't even begin to understand what had just happened. My gasps turned into heavy sobs, which turned into hysterics. My eyes were burning and my nose was running. I felt a type of pain that I can honestly say I had never felt before. The place between my heart and my stomach felt like it was on fire. My anger, hurt, and pain from the entire day poured out of me. There was no turning back.

“Roberta?”

I hadn't even heard anyone come in. It was Mervin.

“Roberta, are you okay?” He came over and sat down next to me, negotiating the bulk of his green backpack.

I didn't say anything. I couldn't. I could barely breathe. I was in complete and total shock. I went to rub my face with my sleeve, but it was already drowning in snot.

“Here, use this.” He handed me his multicolored magician's scarf.

And for some reason, that made me laugh. “I can't use your magician's scarf,” I said between sniffs. “It's your special scarf. I can't snot it all up.”

“Don't worry about it. I've got thousands.” He shoved the scarf in my face. Since I didn't have any other options, I took it and let out a big blow.

“Thanks,” I said.

Mervin took a deep breath and seemed to steady himself. With all the genuineness that could exist in someone's heart, he asked, “Are you upset because of the stuff that happens in your…vagina; you know, the monthly, womanly period thing?”

Poor Mervin. He looked like, by just saying the word vagina, he might possibly disintegrate. I gave him an
I don't think so
kind of look.

“Okay, okay! I don't want to know about the inner workings of your vagina, but I do care!”

Thaddeus's words came rushing back to me:
find someone who cares.
And there he was, sitting right next to me. All five foot two inches, braces, acne, brown-rimmed coke-bottle glasses, turquoise blue sweater with black leather elbow patches, backpack bigger than he was. There was Mervin, someone who cared.

“It's not about my vagina—”

“Okay. Good.”

I took one more blow, just to make sure I was all cleared out. I folded the scarf into a little square and put it in my pocket. “I promise I'll get it dry-cleaned.” I let out a pathetic whimper.

“Do you want to tell me what happened?” he asked.

I thought about it and started to cry again. “No.”

Mervin rubbed my shoulder. “It must be pretty bad, huh?”

We sat for a moment longer without saying anything.

Finally Mervin stopped rubbing my shoulder and adjusted his glasses. “I'm not overtly trying to be selfish here, but does this mean you don't want to go rafting anymore?”

I smiled wryly. “You think I want to miss my opportunity to travel the high seas?”

My sarcasm made us both laugh.

“Thank God, because I don't know if you've noticed, but Annie can be a little extreme,” he said.

“Oh, trust me, I've noticed.”

Mervin stood up and offered his hand. “I don't want to be stuck alone with her on an inflatable raft. It just doesn't sound safe.” I grabbed on to him, and he yanked me to standing. We headed toward the door. “Hey, Roberta…”

“Yeah?”

“I find when someone makes you feel bad, they're often the a-hole, not you. Thaddeus hasn't earned the right to make you cry. That's reserved for family and really good friends. And besides, he's kind of dirty.”

I stopped walking and looked at him. “How did you know this was about him?”

“I've seen you look at him today. I mean, come on, I have to live vicariously through someone. And I also saw him leave the auditorium.” He threw his slight arm over my shoulder. “Never, ever trust anyone who appears to have personal hygiene on the bottom of their priority list.”

I put my arm around him as well. “I'll remember that. Thanks, Mervin. Thanks for caring.”

As Mervin and I walked out of the auditorium, we ran into an extremely agitated Annie.

“I've been looking for you guys everywhere! Did we or did we not say meet at our lockers immediately after the last bell?” Annie looked at me, scrutinizing my face. “Why are your eyes all red and puffy? Have you been crying?”

Mervin quickly answered. “No, allergy attack. That nasty pollen is just vicious this time of year.”

“You should really take something for that, Roberta. The red, puffy eye thing is not a good look for you,” Annie said.

“Thanks. I'll keep that in mind.”

Annie took out a crumpled piece of paper from her pocket. “Okay, now on to more important things. Let's go over the shopping list.”

Kids were meandering about with a lot less intensity now that the school day was over. Two girls dressed in Meadowbrook cheerleading outfits shared an orange as they walked past us.

Annie smoothed the paper over the palm of her hand while Mervin and I leaned in to read it. It said:

Things We Need

Raft (with oars)

Air pump

Pretzels

Hydration

Annie pointed to the list. “Is there anything else you think we might need?”

I shook my head. “I don't think so.”

“Awesome,” Annie said as she folded the paper back up.

“Are you sure this is going to work? I mean, won't the other kids in detention tell on me?” To be honest, the numb of what had just happened with Thaddeus was starting to thaw, and I wasn't really feeling into the big reservoir adventure anymore.

“I seriously doubt anybody else got detention on the first day—”

“That's not true,” Mervin said, tugging on his backpack straps. “Your brother did.”

“Oh shit, that's right, he'll be there,” I said, nervous that I would have to see him again.

Annie threw her hand up. “Hold on, hold on. Today are tryouts for the second-string varsity. There is no way in hell that he'll be in detention. This school operates on the hierarchy that sports are at the top of the food chain. Mr. Murphy is a fanatic when it comes to football…ten bucks ass-face won't be there.”

I took a deep breath. “Okay, fine. Let's say ‘ass-face' isn't there, but what if Mr. Wizard doesn't fall asleep?”

“Then we'll pull a fire alarm or something. Stop being so negative; it's all going to work out…I can feel it.” Annie smiled. “Come on, Mervin. We've got some shopping to do.” And she was off down the hallway, platinum American Express card in one hand, raft excursion shopping list in the other.

Mervin sighed. “I don't know why I give in to her peer pressure.”

From the other end of the hall, Annie screamed, “
Mervin!
”

“Have fun in detention. Try not to sit in the front row or you'll be wearing what Mr. Wizard had for lunch.” Mervin ran, backpack bouncing up and down off his back, toward Annie.

I remembered Twiggy saying that the detention room was around the corner from the cafeteria. I started walking in that direction. Just then, the beefy, no-neck jerk who was sitting at the football lunch table earlier turned the corner. He was wearing a purple-and-orange uniform, complete with helmet and knee guards.

I felt like I couldn't breathe. It would be far too obvious if I turned around and walked the other way. He moved closer and closer to me. I could feel his eyes burning a hole into my face.

I kept walking toward him. I mean, what was the worse thing that could happen? Then I realized he and I were completely alone in the hallway. He could kill me and no one would know. I swallowed hard. We were within a couple feet of each other, closer…closer until the moment of intersection. I defiantly looked straight ahead, not making eye contact with him.

And he walked right past me and didn't say a word. God, I was so grateful he didn't do anything because I was simply empty inside. If he had attacked me, I think I might have just broken apart into a million pieces.

I really did hate this school. I mean, I
hated
it. I never wanted to come back. I thought about skipping out on everything and scrapping some coins together to try and find a non-Meadowbrook bus to take home. I checked my pockets for change and realized I had given all my coins to Mervin so he could show me a trick, but then he never gave them back.

Maybe if I sat down with my mother, no, my father, no, Anthony, who would go and tell my mother and father…
yes
. I would sit down with Anthony and pour my heart out to him. I definitely couldn't tell him what had happened with Thaddeus; that would be far too embarrassing, but I could tell him that the football captain called me a
Dirty Guinea Wop
. Surely Anthony would feel bad for me and convince my parents to send me back to West Orange High.

I thought about it.
No, that wasn't a good idea, either.
First of all, Anthony would probably kill Annie's brother and wind up in prison. Then the rest of his life he would be shoveling dirt in a ditch because I had to open my big mouth. Second of all, I know it would really hurt my dad to hear that phrase.

When I was younger, my dad told me this story once about when he was a little boy growing up in Newark, New Jersey. His dad, my grandpa, used to work at the local movie theatre doing odd jobs to make some extra money. When Grandpa was working, they would let my dad sit on the floor and watch the matinees for free. At the end of a long day of movies, the back of my dad's pants were soiled. Some kids from the neighborhood, who had enough money to sit in seats, took to calling him
Dirty Guinea Wop Romano
.

“Would that hurt your feelings, Daddy?” I asked as he tucked me into bed one night.

“No, Roberta.”

“Why not? It would hurt my feelings if someone called me that.”

“They didn't know me.”

“What if they knew you and called you that? Would that hurt your feelings?”

“Anyone who knows me would never call me that.”

My father always seemed invincible to me, but when he told me the
Dirty Guinea Wop Romano
story, I knew his heart was hurting. I think I knew because of how securely he tucked me in that night, how he made sure my blanket was fully wrapped around me. And when he kissed me on my forehead, I felt sad for him, sad because I couldn't protect him the way he had always protected me.

I reached the cafeteria and heard a girl's laugh coming from around the corner. I took a left down the hall and noticed that my shoelace was untied, so I bent down to fix it. As I got up, I saw him. There was Thaddeus and a really pretty red-haired girl, leaning up against some lockers.

The girl laughed and tossed her hair to one side, like she was in a field somewhere eating strawberries off the vine. Her long red curls cascaded down her back, and one leg was flirtatiously tucked behind the other. Her pleated, green, plaid skirt rested above her knees, and her crisp navy blue shirt was neatly tucked in. She was beautiful.

Thaddeus glanced over and saw me standing there. Without taking his eyes off me, he tucked the pretty girl's hair behind her right ear. Then he flirtatiously kissed her cheek. The girl giggled a little and bounced her one foot up and down a couple of times.

Without taking my eyes off him, I realized some things. He
was
dirty-looking, and his nose was huge. His hair was greasy, and although it registered as cute earlier, now it just looked unkempt. His backpack was ripped, his pants were uneven, and there was a button missing from the middle of his shirt.

He pulled away from the pretty girl, and she flipped her hair to the other side. I didn't feel like crying. I didn't fell like yelling. And to be honest, I didn't even feel angry because I was positive that I knew something that the pretty red-headed girl didn't
know. I knew about Thaddeus's scars, secretly hidden behind the sleeves of his shirt.

And that was enough for me to stand tall and walk right past them into detention.

Mr. Wizard stood alongside a small metal desk at the front of the room, taking out items wrapped in tinfoil from a blue canvas lunch bag that read:
Numbers are a Man's Best Friend
.
He carefully placed the items across the desk in the order of smallest to largest.

I was the only kid in the room so far. I was praying that Annie's brother wasn't going to show. I glanced at the clock on the wall; the little hand was on the three and the big hand was right between the three and the four. Well, technically the captain of the varsity football team was officially late.

Debating where to sit, I tried to estimate the best possible escape route, in the event Annie was right about Mr. Wizard's sleeping habits. I finally flopped down on a desk in the middle of the room because it had a direct path to the door.

Mr. Wizard had his grey suit coat neatly hanging around the back of a wooden swivel chair. He took out a paper towel and spread it across the desk. He then unwrapped the first item to reveal six baby carrots, which he also arranged in order according to size on the paper towel.

He moved behind the desk, pulled the swivel chair out, and sat down. Looking at a piece of paper, he cleared his throat and called out, “Roberta Romano?”

I raised my hand. “Here.”

He made a check next to my name. “Zachary Walker?”

I waited. Mr. Wizard waited. And obnoxious Zachary Walker never showed up.
Awesome!
Mr. Wizard put the attendance sheet inside a manila folder. He adjusted himself in his chair so that he was sitting very close to the edge of the desk. Then he took out a white napkin, tucked it into the collar of his shirt like a bib, and began meticulously eating baby carrot number one. Each tick of the clock and crunch of the baby carrots made me want to scream.
Tick, tick, crunch, tick, crunch, tick, tick, tick, CRUNCH
! When he was done with the carrots, he revealed the next item: mini bagels with lox and cream cheese. I watched, completely grossed out, as the pieces of slippery fish crept out of the corners of his large, rubbery mouth.

Between chews, Mr. Wizard looked up and caught me staring at him. He swallowed the mouthful. “You can start your homework,” he said.

“I don't have any.”

“Why not?”

I shrugged. “It's the first day of school?”

Mr. Wizard wiped his mouth with a neatly squared paper napkin. “Well, you need to do something. You can't just stare at me for the next hour.” He folded the leftover tinfoil from the baby carrots and the mini bagels in perfect triangles, which he then put back inside his
Numbers are a Man's Best Friend
bag.

I drummed my fingers across the desk, making a
tap, tap, tap
sound. I noticed a hangnail on my left pinky, so I stopped the drumming and saw that Mr. Wizard was still staring at me.

“Please don't do that,” he said.

“Do what?”

“The tapping…your fingers. It's disruptive.”

Disruptive?
I looked around the empty room.
Disruptive of what?
I tucked my feet up under my butt on the chair and watched Mr. Wizard move on to the next item; it looked like a bowl of cottage cheese and berries. He used a white plastic spoon to scoop the milky substance into his mouth. I just couldn't stop staring as the cottage cheese dribbled onto his napkin bib and the berries stained his lips.

“You're staring at me again,” he said.

“Yes—”

“No, that wasn't a question. It was a statement.” He grabbed a piece of notebook paper and a pencil. “Here, come get this.”

I got up and took the paper and pencil and sat back down. “What do you want me to do?”

“That is for you to decide. Draw a picture, write a story, just
do
something.”

Trying to think up something to do, propping my chin up with my hand, I tapped the tip of the eraser on the desk.
Tap, tap, tap, tap.
I could feel Mr. Wizard staring at me, and then I realized I was doing the “tapping” thing again. I stopped immediately.

“Sorry,” I said.

Mr. Wizard let out a sigh so big it was like a car tire being deflated. He closed up his cottage cheese container and put the rest of his wrapped items back into his
Numbers are a Man's Best Friend
bag. He threw his napkin bib into the wastebasket and folded his hands.

“You didn't have to stop eating because of me,” I offered.

“Oh yes, yes I did.”

Silence.

“Do you want me to close my eyes so you can finish?” I genuinely asked.

“No.””Do you want me to—”

“Could you be quiet?”I thought about it for a second. “Yes.”

“That's what I'd like you to do.
Just be quiet
.”

“Okay.”

He sighed again and wiped the corners of his mouth with the tip of his thumb. I took the pencil and paper he gave me and started to doodle, making a fish that had wings, who was driving a car. Bored again, I looked up at Mr. Wizard. He was reading
Forbes Fortune 500: Men of Power
.

“The answer to that problem was x equals 10,” I said.

Mr. Wizard dipped down his magazine just below his eyes. “Excuse me?”

“I said, the answer to that problem was x equals 10.”

“What problem?”

“From first period Algebra…I'm in that class.”

He squinted and thought about it. “Yes…you sat in the back of the room.” He closed his magazine and put it down. “That's correct. The answer is x equals 10.”

“I know,” I said smugly.

He leaned back a little in his swivel chair, crossing his hands over his belly. “Did you think about that problem all day?”

I could sense by answering
yes
to this question, Mr. Wizard would probably feel really good, like I had been pondering Algebra II for hours.

“No, I knew the answer right away.”

Mr. Wizard sat back up in his chair. “If that's true, why didn't you raise your hand in class?”

I shrugged. “I don't know.”

He pressed his fingers up to his mouth for a moment. “That was a pretty difficult problem.”

“Not really.”

“Do you think you could figure another one out?”

“With my eyes closed,” I said.

“Hmm, we'll see about that.” Mr. Wizard got up and wrote an equation on the whiteboard that was behind him. I took the pencil and paper, scribbled a few notes, and called out, “X equals 5.”

Somewhat surprised, he said, “Good, that's good. Try this one.” He put another problem on the board.

I smiled. “X equals 5 again. Are you trying to trick me?”

Mr. Wizard erased the first two equations on the board. “Do you think you can do a harder one?”

“Like I said, with my eyes closed.”

Equation after equation after equation, I got them all right. He couldn't think up problems fast enough for me to solve. It was fantastic. We did everything: division, exponents, logarithms, polynomials, and even the Quadratic Formula just for fun. My head felt tingly and my palms were sweaty, in a good way.

Mr. Wizard backed away from the board. “Hold on. I've got to sit down for a second. I tire easily these days. And I'm not used to such excitement.” He smiled and sat down. Rubbing his chin, he asked, “How do you know all of this, Roberta?”

I started to feel guilty, like I had somehow done something wrong. “I don't know.”

“Did somebody
teach
you?”

“No. I've just sort of taught myself, I guess. I mean, I took Algebra I last year, and there's this cable TV show I love to watch when no one is around. It's called
Number Time
. It's on every night at five. There's a guy dressed up like Einstein and he teaches math. But mostly, it's like my brain knows what to do and it just does it.”

“Yes, I'm quite familiar with
Number Time
. It's wonderful programming. Let me ask you something. Does anyone else know you're capable of this kind of work?”

I blurted out a sound somewhere between a squeal, a snort, and a giggle. “God, no! I'd be tortured if people knew I liked math.”

Mr. Wizard straightened his tie. “Roberta, I have never met anyone your age that is capable of comprehending algebraic theorems in this way. There is no doubt in my mind you have a gift. I don't want to say this lightly, but you might be a math prodigy.”

I crinkled my nose up in disbelief. There was no way that I was a math prodigy. I was just some Italian girl from Jersey. Prodigies were people that drank pink lemonade on verandas in between their polo lessons. Prodigies were people who came from highly astute and educated families. Prodigies were people who had the right to take up space in this world, and that just wasn't me.

“A prodigy?” I asked, suspicious.

“I think we should get you in for some appropriate testing and see what we find. What do you think about that?” Mr. Wizard blinked hard a few times; his eyes looked heavy.

I didn't say anything and I felt weird.

“Roberta, I have been teaching for twenty-two years. Believe me when I say this: you have something special.” He yawned and instantly excused himself.

I looked down at the piece of paper that had all my computations as well as the winged fish driving the car. It looked like complete chaos, but every number, every chicken scratch, had meaning for me. I started to feel a slight tinge that maybe, just maybe, Mr. Wizard was right. Could it be possible that I was born with some weird math gene that made me a prodigy?
I'm a math prodigy
. I said it over and over in my head.

And when I looked back up, just as Annie predicted, Mr. Wizard was sound asleep, head tilted back, hands crossed over belly, and mouth wide open. My mentor was sound asleep in the presence of my greatness. My mentor had lox, cottage cheese, and berries encrusted on his lips. I wondered if Yoda fell asleep on Luke when he was training to be a Jedi.

I'm a prodigy
.
I'm a math prodigy
. I really did like the sound of it.