The One and Only Zoe Lama (3 page)

“Hi,” I say, because his cuteness has temporarily blurred my thoughts.

“Zozers!” he says. If anyone other than Riley called me this, I’d thump them. But Riley gets extra-special privileges, for obvious reasons. “How much did you miss me?”

I hold up my finger and thumb real close together to show him I only missed him about a half inch, and he fake-dies a painful death, like I’ve stabbed him in the rugby shirt…which I’d never do on account of liking
both him and his shirt way too much.

Mrs. Patinkin raps a ruler against her desk. “Take your seats, people.”

I start to follow Riley inside, when Susannah grabs my arm and pulls me back. “There she is!” She’s pointing down the empty hallway.

“Who?”

“Devon Sweeney. Did you see her?”

I shake my head. “All I saw was a flash of glossy blond hair.”

Susannah nods. “Exactly.”

I
’m watching the clock in science class. It’s nearly 3:15 and I still haven’t gotten more than a glimpse of this Devon Sweeney from behind. Although, I’ve heard enough about her to rot me from the inside out:

Avery Buckner said, “Zoë, Devon’s like an angel!”

Sylvia Smye, after slipping the Bovine Balm into her bag, said, “Have you seen her legs, Zoë? They’re as long as a colt’s!”

And Riley, who’s never really approved of my chocaholicism, said, “She hasn’t eaten a speck of sugar in three years, Zoë. Can you imagine?
She’s your polar opposite!”

Polar opposite, my elbow. My legs may be shorter than a colt’s eyelashes, and I’d rather be ripped apart by wolverines than go off chocolate chips for even three days, but I’m definitely angelic. If you ask the right person.

It seems I’m doomed to just miss Devon. Every time I enter a classroom, gym, cafeteria, or stairwell, she’s just left. The only evidence of Devon Sweeney’s existence I came across all day was an efficient blond bob disappearing through a doorway, a dropped pencil with teeth marks in it (I’d
never
gnaw on an instrument of higher learning!), and an empty bag of veggie puffs in the cafeteria trash.

Wednesday morning
I’m sitting at my wobbly desk at the back of the class, trying desperately to ignore the vomitous haze of stink forming above Smartin’s wet boots on my left, and Alice Marriott’s prancing kitten barrettes and matching socks, which are soiling up the atmosphere on my right. It’s even less simple to ignore the crumbly stuff behind Avery’s ears, since he sits right in front of me. It’s something of a soap-scum biohazard and I’m finding it hard to look away.

Up at the front of the class, where the sun shines brighter and the air quality is better, Maisie and Brianna giggle over something in Brianna’s desk. Susannah and Laurel style each other’s hair. Riley shoots rubber bands into the trash can. And Tall Paul and Small Paul compare shoe sizes. Sigh. I miss my Frontie days.

A couple of months ago, I returned from hauling Smartin to the office for solitary confinement, and found a new
girl sitting at my desk. Maisie. It seemed she needed to sit right up front with Laurel, Susannah, and Riley. Something to do with her depth-perception problem. So, just like that, she took my place among the Fronties and I was cruelly shipped to the rear to fend for myself in the slimy underworld of the Backies.

So here I sit, tiny warrior that I am.

To take my mind off Avery’s ears, I stare at Sylvia. Dear sweet Sylvia, not quite a Frontie, not quite a Backie. Just sitting in the nether region of the middle—always without a complaint. She truly is my dream client. She works exclusively with my advice and almost never double-checks with her mother. She keeps her expectations realistic. Knows no amount of advice is going to turn her into Susannah Barnes. And, she doesn’t expect success to happen overnight.

Honestly,
I see Sylvia as a little bird who’s fallen out of the nest too early.
Her feathers still poke out in every which direction (cowlicks), her little wings make her practically defenseless (total lack of muscle tone), and every so often there’s a worm in her beak (lettuce in her braces).

I watch as she pecks hopelessly at something in her
binder. She pulls her hand away and accidentally yanks out her timetable, tearing the three little holes in the paper. For a moment, she stares at the shredded holes. She seems to slump, and her little beak tilts up toward the sky.

I dig through the office-supplies section of my desk. “Sylvia,” I whisper. She spins around and smiles. I toss her a small package of stick-’em hole-fixing thingies. I watch the plastic box sail through the air and realize, too late, that Sylvia’s holding her hands too far apart to catch it. The pack drops to the floor. It bursts open and tiny O’s scatter far and wide across the room.

Like tiny grubworms. Or maybe ringworms, because they’re round. Or tapeworms, because they’re sticky.

Just as Sylvia is picking them up, in walks Mrs. Patinkin with none other than Mr. Renzetti, our principal.

Mrs. Patinkin looks at the mess and blushes at Mr. Renzetti, who is pulling a sticky white ring from the bottom of his expensive-looking shoe. When Mrs. Patinkin sees this, her eyes bug. She says as calm as she can, “Sylvia Smye, I’ll ask you to keep your school supplies in your desk, not on the floor!”

“But they’re not—” chirps Sylvia.

“Sylvia,” the teacher says with a fake smile, “just pick them up.”

I put up my hand. “Actually, Mrs. Patinkin, it’s my fault. I threw them at Sylvia and the stupid box exploded, and then, like, ten thousand holey things flew out and—”

“Thank you for your candor and frankness, Zoë. After Mr. Renzetti leaves, I’ll ask you to write both of these qualities on the board and we’ll study them.” She looks at Mr. Renzetti. “I always like to reinforce vocabulary. If they can just learn to employ their verbiage in the real world, they’ll be that much better prepared—”

Mr. Renzetti looks up at the clock. “Can we get started here? I have a meeting in twenty minutes.”

Mrs. Patinkin practically bows. “Class, Mr. Renzetti has an announcement to make. Put down your pencils and listen.”

One of Mr. Renzetti’s shoes makes a sticky noise as he walks to the front of the room, but he pretends not to notice. He smiles. “Good morning, everybody. I’ve got some good news and some better news. What would you like to hear first?”

About a hundred hands shoot up in the air and everyone says, “Ooh, ooh, ooh!” Small Paul is practically bouncing out of his seat and Smartin’s hand is stretched so far out, his fingertips are officially Fronties.

“The better news!” grunts Smartin.

“No!” Avery spins around. “The
good
news always comes first!”

“You wouldn’t know good news if it bit you in the lip,” whispers Smartin. “You’d never see it coming through those greasy glasses!”

“Boys,”
says Mrs. Patinkin. She’s glaring.

“How about we have a rock, paper, scissors contest?” asks Alice. “Starting with me and Zoë. Winner fights Martin. And that winner fights Avery. And that winner chooses the news.”

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again.
It’s a moron colony back here.

“Thank you, Alice,” says Mr. Renzetti. “But, in the interest of saving time, I’ll just go ahead with the good news.”

Avery clenches his dirty fist and hisses,
“Yes!”

Mr. Renzetti looks toward the door like he’s planning his escape. “Mrs. Peebles, one of our sixth-grade teachers, is leaving the school. She and her family will be moving to Oregon next week, where she will finally achieve her lifelong dream of becoming principal of a very prominent private school. Allencroft Middle School couldn’t be more proud of our very own Mrs. Peebles.” He pauses a moment
to make sure we look proud enough, but we pretty much look like our usual selves. So he continues, “Unfortunately, this means that her triplets, Dara, Lara, and Melanie, will no longer be part of our sixth-grade community. And when a school our size loses its very favorite set of triplets, it creates something of a numerical imbalance.”

Mrs. Patinkin hurries and writes
numerical,
then
imbalance,
on the blackboard for us to torture ourselves over later. Great.

As Mr. Renzetti continues, a bunch of scraping and rustling comes from the hallway. “Now we get to the better part. Half of Mrs. Peebles’s class will be absorbed by the other sixth-grade class.”

Harrison Huxtable’s hand shoots up.

“Yes, Harrison?”

“When you say they’re absorbing the kids, do you mean it subliminally? Like when a commercial flashes Cokes at you zillions of times and I can’t figure out why I’m thirsty?”

The class giggles and snorts.

“Shut up!” I cough a classwide warning into my hand. Harrison might be bulkier than the rest of us, pound for pound, but that just means he deserves
more
respect, not less.

Mrs. Patinkin writes
subliminally
on the board and
Mr. Renzetti smiles. “No. It means
half of the sixth-grade class will move into the other sixth-grade class.
Effective today.”

Up goes Laurel’s hand. Quickly, I pour chocolate chips onto my desk to reward her. She got “satisfactory” for class participation on her last report card, so any kind of effort deserves to be noticed. Laurel asks, “What happens to the other half of Mrs. Peebles class? Are they going to Oregon, too?”

Mr. Renzetti smiles. “No. They’re being absorbed by another class. A seventh-grade class with very small numbers…”

“Ooh, ooh!” Brianna says, her hand waggling in the air.

Renzetti looks about ready to retire. “Yes, Brianna?”

“What about the empty classroom? Has anyone decided what to use it for? Because some schools in California have meditation rooms.”

“I’m afraid we haven’t begun to plan—”

Lame Wizard Richard looks up from his hobgoblin GameWizard like he’s just noticed there are humans on the planet, and says, “Maybe it could be a video-game room. Like a social gathering place.”

“As I mentioned,” Mr. Renzetti continued, “we haven’t yet allocated our extra space.”

“So then where are the leftover kids going?” asks Harrison Huxtable.

“Right here,” says Mr. Renzetti with his chest all puffed up.
“As of this minute, you’re officially a six/ seven split class.”

“Your
face
is a six/seven split class,” mumbles Smartin.

Mr. Renzetti looks around, confused. “Did somebody say something?”

Everyone looks at Smartin, then the door flies open. A bunch of Sixers file in, each one pushing a grubby metal desk and chair. Mrs. Patinkin claps her hands and shouts, “Will my Sevens from the back of the class please slide your desks up into the empty spaces between the front desks?”

You don’t have to ask me twice. Before the words are out of her mouth, I’ve got my backpack and chair piled on top of my desk and I’m shoving the whole thing up front. I don’t stop until I’m settled right between Susannah and Laurel and directly in front of Riley, so he can’t get me out of his mind.

This is shaping up to be the very best Wednesday ever.
My Frontie status has
finally
been restored! At the exact same time, Susannah and Laurel give me our secret punch for joy. It’s rarely used because the level of joy I’m feeling after my chicken-pox exile
and
Backie exile doesn’t come around too often. This punch involves the heel of the hand and a dainty whoop sound. But that’s all I’m at liberty to say.

We turn around and watch the Sixers, all of whom are depressingly taller than me, slide their desks to the back, where they belong. One Sixer burps out a hello—and I pray I’m mistaken, but it sounded like a girl—and a couple of Sixer boys snort and scratch themselves like baboons.

Ugh.

At recess, I’ll have to issue these immature vulgarians a couple of rules. Starting with
Unwritten Rule # 17,
which I’m just this minute inventing.
Words Made of Churning Bubbles of Intestinal Gases Are Not Words. They’re Sewage.

After Mr. Renzetti leaves, Mrs. Patinkin gets the vulgarians settled then makes a big deal about stapling together the two class lists. So now we have to sit through double the number of lousy names after announcements. She reads our names first, as she should, and when she flips her page
and starts calling the Sixer names, we all giggle and look at one another. What were these Sixer parents thinking?