Sophomores and Other Oxymorons (14 page)

“What about your job?” I couldn't imagine Zenger High without Mr. Franka.

“I'm in good shape,” he said. “English and math are mostly safe, since they're required by the state. At least, for now. But art, music, wood shop, all of that could be in danger.”

“That's just wrong,” I said. “That stuff is important.”

“We both know that. But some people feel differently. There are folks who think the schools should teach nothing except for the basics. There are even people who feel the government shouldn't be involved in providing an education.”

“That's just stupid,” I said.

“I agree. But the sad truth is that if fifty-one percent of the people who bother to show up at the polls vote for stupid, then stupid wins.”

• • •

“We're having a bake sale,” I told Mom when I got home. “Can you make some cookies?”

Her eyes glowed. “How many do you need?”

One of those super sped-up movie scenes flashed before my eyes, with Mom blurring around the kitchen, zipping from mixing bowl to oven to cooling racks, producing a growing mountain of cookies. “I don't know. Maybe a couple dozen. Is that doable?”

She was already pulling supplies out of the cabinet. “Piece of cake.”

I detected no irony in her voice.

It wasn't until she'd set the oven to preheat and started pouring ingredients into the bowl of the electric mixer that she asked, “What's the sale for?”

“The newspaper,” I said. “We lost the budget vote.”

“Oh . . . I'm sorry. I didn't get a chance to vote. Was it close?”

She sounded guilty. As much as I was sad she hadn't voted, I didn't want her to feel bad. “No. It wasn't close, at all.” That was the truth. The only people who voted were the ones who didn't want to pay for all the extra activities and programs. That made sense, in a sad way. People who didn't mind paying more had less incentive to vote than people who didn't want to pay more.

“Well, I'll certainly get you as many cookies as you want.”

“Thanks.”

I called Sarah to coordinate things, and she promised to get in touch with everyone else.

Zenger Zinger for November 4

Last week's answer:
“I deduce that we have to take the left fork of the trail,” John Peter said pathologically.

This week's puzzle:
“Stacked deck for a straight,” John Peter said
_________
.

November 5

I didn't work on my novel, Sean. I was too bummed out about the paper getting killed. And I had to help Mom make cookies. I still think I have a great idea for the plot. I don't want to tell you about it here. At least, not yet. I've heard that if you discuss your idea too soon, you can kill all your creative energy. I'm pretty sure Hemingway talked about that. I'll get to work on it tomorrow. There's still almost a whole month left. That's plenty of time.

We're pretty lucky Mom loves to bake. And I was lucky she was home last year. She was working when she and Dad met, but she took time off when Bobby was little, and again when I was little. The year before you were born, back when I was in eighth grade, the local economy got real bad. A bunch of places went out of business. Mom had a part-time job, but she
gave it up so one of the other workers, who's a single mother, could get more hours. She'll probably wait until you're at least a year old before going back to work. Then, she'll stick you in a day care with a cigar-smoking woman who's watching twenty flea-infested kids in her basement. You will scratch and cough quite a lot. I just realized that you won't even read this until you're way past that age, and well aware Mom doesn't do stuff like that. But at least I amused myself.

Thursday morning, I headed off to school with a large box of cookies, and dreams of a self-sufficient school paper. Actually, if we funded it ourselves, maybe it wouldn't even technically be a school paper. Which would mean we wouldn't be under the control of any school regulations.

I paused to absorb that thought. Total freedom. We could be like one of those great satirical newspapers from the past that poked fun at everything and fought for social justice.

Jeremy also carried a box. It was pink, wrapped with a white ribbon tied in a bow.

“Your mom didn't have to get fancy with the packaging,” I said. “We're selling the individual cookies.”

“That was a sexist assumption. My mom doesn't bake,” he said. “She's too busy analyzing the structures of complex proteins.”

“Okay, your dad, then. That's cool. My friend Patrick's
dad used to make these awesome funnel cakes for us. And he baked the best brownies ever. They moved last year.”

“My dad doesn't bake, either,” Jeremy said. “So he bought these for the sale.”

“Hey, however we raise the funds, I'm happy,” I said. “Thanks for bringing cookies.”

“Cookies?”

Several kids at the bus stop favored us with lean and hungry looks. I responded with a hands-off stare. It was early enough in the day that nobody was willing to engage in an actual battle for an overdose of sugar.

I noticed Julia had a box, too. “Selling something?” I asked.

“It's for the chess club,” she said. “We lost our funds. I wish my mom had voted.”

“Good luck,” I said. I wasn't worried about a bit of competition. There were more than enough snack-hungry sugar-craving students and teachers to support two bake sales.

But not two dozen.

When we got to school, it looked like we'd wandered into an indoor flea market. There were about ten tables crammed into the open area between the front entrance and the auditorium doors. I spotted other tables along the hallways on both sides.

They were all bake sales. There was one for the Academic Challenge team, another for the history club, the poetry club, the debate team, and so on. Even if my cookies were the best
ones on the planet, they had little value in this crowded market.

“Back to the drawing board,” Jeremy said.

“Definitely not back to the baking sheet,” I said. “Or the cake pan.”

I shared the cookies with the kids in homeroom.

November 6

My perfect idea fizzled out after three pages, Sean. It had seemed so great, until I tried to make it work on paper. It's kind of like playing chess. (Which I will teach you as soon as you are old enough not to choke on a pawn.) You reach out to make a move, and then you think about what moves that will lead to, and everything seems great as you look ahead a move or two. But then you get to the third or fourth move out, and all of a sudden, your whole strategy falls apart. The next thing you know, you're down two pawns and a knight. I'm going to take enough time to come up with a good idea that doesn't fall apart after three or four moves, and then I'll really think it through, all the way to the checkmate (to extend the metaphor).

I see now that it was a mistake to dive right in. That's okay for an essay or a story. But a novel takes a lot of planning. I don't want to write my way to the middle just to discover I have no idea how to finish it. I'll give my novel plenty of thought tonight and
tomorrow, and then start writing on Saturday. Yeah. That'll work. There are still a ton of days in the month.

“The football team's budget never gets cut,” Lee said as we made our way up the bleachers for the Friday-evening game.

“And it never will,” I said. The only thing more sacred than football around here was wrestling.

“Maybe you should tap into their budget. Let the football team fund the newspaper,” she said.

“I think that would be a bit tough,” I said.

We grabbed seats and watched the kickoff. The ball hit just inside the five-yard line. Our kick returner let the ball bounce into the end zone.

“He didn't catch it and run,” Lee said.

“He played it safe,” I said.

“Last time, he ran with the first kickoff,” she said. “I was looking forward to that.”

“It's different every time,” I said. “That's the beauty of it. You never know what will happen.”

“Imagine if stage plays were like that,” she said.

“I think that's called improv,” I said.

“Oh, yeah. You're right. Maybe scripts are a good thing.”

We failed to score during that possession. But five minutes later, we recovered a fumble. Two plays after that, we scored from the fifteen with a perfect pass, rifled between a pair of defenders. I could tell Lee was enjoying the game.

“I can't believe you're turning me into a sports fan,” she said. “Next thing I know, you'll be asking me to the senior prom.” She laughed.

I didn't.

November 8

All my ideas suck.

I think I need to let things jell in my brain. November's barely begun. I can do some serious brainstorming this weekend, and then get going on the novel on Monday.

After grappling with my guidance counselor's suggestion for a while, I decided to take a shot at wrestling. Tryouts were after school on Monday. The gym was packed. Mr. Cravutto had pulled in the other three gym teachers to help, and set up four mats. I beat the first kid I went against, but not by much. The next round, I found myself face to sneer with Kyle.

“You're going down,” he said.

“Like last time?” I asked.

“No trash talk,” the coach said. He blew his whistle.

Kyle came at me hard. I should have tried to deflect him, but I met him full force. Our heads were jammed close together as we fought for an advantage.

He whispered a threat. “I'll tell my dad you tried to kiss my sister.”

“Even you wouldn't sink that low,” I said. Kyle's sister was in sixth grade. A kid my age would have to be a total predator to try to kiss her. He'd never go through with that threat. And nobody would ever believe it. But the thought broke my concentration.

I was briefly in the air.

And then, briefly, on my back.

I didn't bother trying to win my next two matches. Even if I was good enough to make the cut, there was no way I wanted to spend a season on a team with Kyle.

Later, in the locker room, I couldn't help myself. “You wouldn't do that,” I said to Kyle.

Instead of answering directly, he leered and said, “You always did suck at poker.”

So, yeah, he'd bluffed me. But it was a rotten bluff.

Zenger Zinger for November 11

Last week's answer:
“Stacked deck for a straight,” John Peter said tenaciously.

This week's puzzle:
“The weapon was a lead pipe,” John Peter said
_________
.

The next morning on the bus, Jeremy was grinning so hard, I was afraid his cheeks would rip.

“What?” I asked.

“You'll see.”

“Tell me.”

“You have to wait until the meeting.”

“I could dangle you out the window.”

“You're not a thug.”

“I guess I'll have to wait.”

“It will be worth it.”

I
have an idea.” Jeremy pulled a thick document from his backpack and dropped it on the table.

“We should wait for Mr. Franka,” Sarah said.

“He's got a staff meeting,” I said. “He told me to tell everyone to go ahead without him.”

“Okay.” Sarah pointed at the stack of paper in front of Jeremy. “What's that?”

“The school budget,” he said.

“But the budget was defeated,” I said.

“No. The discretionary items in the supplemental budget were defeated, as was the increase for the main budget. The school has to have a budget. They asked for more money for this year to cover increased expenses and a shortfall in state funds, which meant the voters would have to approve a rise in taxes. That got defeated, so the school has to get by on the same amount of money from the residents as last year. The district receives a specific amount of money from local taxes,
along with state and federal contributions. All of those dollars are allocated by the school board into expenditures such as salaries, textbook purchases, building maintenance, and so on. That allocation becomes the budget. Get it?”

I nodded, as did the others around the table. I didn't totally get all the details, but I grasped the basic idea.

Jeremy flipped to a page where one line was circled in black marker. “This is the section for clubs and activities.”

“I thought all the clubs got killed,” Sarah said.

“Not all. Some stayed in the main budget. Nobody is going to kill clubs or activities related to popular sports.” Jeremy pointed to the top of the page. “They still have the varsity-letter banquet, and funds for the cheerleaders to attend two out-of-state competitions. But check out what else is here.”

I looked at the line he'd circled. “Latin Club? They don't teach Latin here anymore. I don't think they've taught it for years.”

“Exactly,” Jeremy said. “But there are funds set aside for it. A lot of funds. I'll bet, back in the old days, they went on some kind of expensive field trip.”

Now I saw where he was going. “Since there's no Latin Club to use the money, can we get it for the newspaper?” I asked.

“No,” Jeremy said. “But we can get the money for the Latin Club.”

“I'm not following this,” I said.

“If we
become
the Latin Club, we have access to its funds. Since the club currently has no members, we can basically take it over. The club can publish a newsletter. There's more than enough money to cover our costs. We can do anything we want, as long as our adviser approves.”

“And that would be Mr. Franka?” Sarah asked.

“Assuming he agrees with the plan,” Jeremy said. “Which I'm sure he will.”

“I'll track him down right after the meeting,” Sarah said.

“So, we're still publishing the
Zenger Gazette
, but we're calling it the Latin Club newsletter?” I asked.

“Yup. We can even still call it the
Zenger Gazette
, if we want. It doesn't matter what we call it,” Jeremy said. “Or even what's in it. All that matters is that it has to be published by the Latin Club.”

Sarah leaped from her seat and threw Jeremy a hug. “That's brilliant!” she said.

I was afraid he'd get snapped in half, but when she stepped back, he seemed intact, though his face was slightly ruddier than usual. I had a feeling he was going to have sweet dreams tonight.

I figured I'd surprise everyone and get things started, since I hadn't made much of a contribution to the paper, so far. On the way out, I stopped by the office and got a copy of the form clubs used to apply for their budgeted funds. I filled it out for the Latin Club when I got home, listing Mr. Franka as the
faculty adviser, and Sarah as the president. I knew how much the paper would cost to print, so I listed that for the newsletter. There really weren't any other costs. I was tempted to ask for money for snacks, but I was afraid that if I got greedy, it would cause trouble. When I was finished, I signed the spot at the bottom where it asked who filled out the form.

November 12

I got sidetracked, Sean. But I still trust my subconscious to give me a great idea for my novel. And I have more than half a month left. I think as long as I start by Saturday, and really crank out the words, I'll be fine.

“I hope this works,” I told Jeremy when I got to the bus stop.

“It has to,” he said. “The money is there. We have an adviser. There won't be any problems.”

When we got to school, I took the form to the office and handed it to the secretary.

“Latin Club?” she said. “We haven't had one in years.”

“Latin is getting really popular again,” I said. “I think it's because of that show set in ancient Rome.”

She shrugged, and put the form in a basket.

• • •

We'd be getting our first report card of the year on Friday morning. And for the first time in ages, I was dreading that
moment. The card itself was actually a slip of paper. And we didn't have to get it signed. My parents might not even ask to see mine. Bobby had pretty much scalded their eyes with his report cards, on those rare times when they managed to get their hands on one. In comparison, my usual B grades, spiced with a sprinkle of As, made them happy.

It was pretty much as I'd feared. I got decent grades in most classes, but a seventy-one in biology, and a sixty-eight in English. It didn't bother me as much as I'd thought it would. I knew I should have cared. I mean, yeah, it's good to care about grades. But not when the playing field isn't level. Mrs. Gilroy wanted me to fail, and Ms. Denton wanted me to suffer. All I wanted was to get through sophomore year.

“Bad?” Lee asked when I took my seat in geometry, where I'd earned a solid B.

“I never thought my gym grade would be one of the high points of my report card. I aced that class. And history.” I had a feeling Mr. Cravutto, who was still a-courtin' his female counterpart with vigor, had taken it easy on everybody.

Lee held out her hand. “Let me see.”

I gave her the card. She read it, winced, and said, “Poor baby. You need to heal your wounds with ice cream.”

“It's November,” I said.

“It's
ice cream
,” she said, as if those two words ended all arguments. Which, of course, they did.