The Wednesday Wars (7 page)

Mrs. Baker was already in her classroom. She was looking up at the ceiling when I came in, listening to the scrambling and pattering of feet scurrying across the asbestos tiles overhead. We listened together for a moment until the scurrying stopped.

"Not a word, Mr. Hoodhood," she said.

"Not a word," I said, and went to my desk.

"Did you finish
The Tempest
?" asked Mrs. Baker.

"Yes," I said.

"We'll see this afternoon," she said, and she turned back to a pile of essays on her desk, spreading a red plague over them with her pen.

Even though I didn't have the private place to practice that I wanted, I figured I could work on the Caliban curses to see if I could get them down just right in a pressure situation. So I whispered into my desk, "Strange stuff, the dropsy drown you"—which was cheating a little, because I put two together. But I thought it sounded right. I tried it again, thinking about Caliban and Sycorax—the rats, not the monsters in the play—because I wanted to make the "strange stuff" come out more like a hiss.

"Strange stuff, the dropsy drown you," I whispered.

"Is there something you have to say?" asked Mrs. Baker.

I sat up. "No," I said.

"Are you speaking to someone hiding in your desk?"

I shook my head.

She put her red pen down. "Since there are only two of us in the room—a situation which has become very familiar to us these past months—and since you were speaking, I assumed that you must be addressing me. What did you say?"

"Nothing."

"Mr. Hoodhood, what did you say?"

"'Strange stuff, the dropsy drown you.'"

Mrs. Baker considered me for a moment. "Was that what you said?"

"Yes."

"A curious line to recite, especially since the combination never occurs in the play. Are you trying to improve on Shakespeare?"

"I like the rhythm of it," I said.

"The rhythm of it."

"Yes."

Mrs. Baker considered this for a moment. Then she nodded. "So do I," she said, and turned back to spreading the red plague.

That had been close.

But I watched her with something like amazement.

She had known the curses! Both of them!

She had read the play!

And she had still let me read it!

Whatever she was plotting, it was a whole lot more devious than I had given her credit for.

I decided to ease into things more naturally, to let Caliban curses come where they might fit in without any fuss.

At lunch, I found that my mother had given me a bologna sandwich with no mayonnaise, a stalk of celery that had been wilting since the weekend, and a cookie with something growing on it that wasn't supposed to be there.

"Strange stuff," I whispered.

At lunch recess, Doug Swieteck's brother lurched across the field, sixth graders scurrying out of his way as if he was a southwest wind about to blister them all over.

"Thou jesting monkey thou," I said.

Not so that he could hear it.

Right after recess, I found that the eighth graders had filled the boys' restroom with smoke so thick you couldn't even smell the disinfectant.

"Apes with foreheads villainous low," I said.

Not so that they could hear it.

In Geography, Mr. Petrelli announced a unit project: "The Mississippi River and You." I raised my hand and told Mr. Petrelli that I had never been to the Mississippi River and had no plans to go soon. I didn't feel any kind of personal stake in it at all, so I didn't understand the "You" part.

"Must all history center around your own personal experience, Hoodhood?" Mr. Petrelli asked.

It did seem that since we were talking about the Mississippi River and You—or in this case, Me—one possible answer to his question would be yes. But in Camillo Junior High, and especially in Mr. Petrelli's class, the right answer is usually just shutting up.

"Your report," Mr. Petrelli continued to the class, "can be on..."

I whispered the "Toads, beetles, bats" one here and got it just right.

In Chorus, Miss Violet of the Very Spiky Heels—the "Very Spiky Heels" line isn't in Shakespeare, it's from Danny Hupfer—Miss Violet of the Very Spiky Heels figured we had way too many altos, and she told me to move forward to sing the melody with the sopranos.

"Me?" I said.

"You have a lovely, clear voice, Holling."

"I can't sing soprano."

"Of course you can," said Miss Violet. "Just reach for the high notes."

I gave my music—my tenor music—to Danny Hupfer. "You have a lovely, clear voice, Holling," he said.

"Pied ninny," I said.

Meryl Lee made room for me on her music stand. "You didn't know you could sing like a girl, did you?" she said.

"Blind mole, a wicked dew from unwholesome fen drop you," I said. I was getting good at making combinations.

Meryl Lee grabbed my arm. "What did you say?"

Miss Violet of the Very Spiky Heels tapped her baton for silence. Then she raised her hands and waved them grandly, and we began a medley of American folk songs—which are supposed to make your heart swell patriotically. I tried to look like I cared a whole lot about reaching for the high notes, of which there were more than enough.

Meryl Lee still held my arm. "What did you say?" she asked again.

"
I'm just a poor wayfaring stranger...
"

"That's not what you said," she said.

"
A-trav'ling through this world of woe...
"

Meryl Lee moved her hand up toward my throat.

Then Miss Violet of the Very Spiky Heels tapped her baton again.

Everyone went quiet.

"Meryl Lee?" Miss Violet said.

Meryl Lee dropped her hand and looked at Miss Violet. Her cheeks flushed into a color you only see in television cartoons.

"Meryl Lee," said Miss Violet, "I didn't send Holling up there so that you could flirt with him."

Well, the look that came over Meryl Lee's face was the look you'd have if you wanted the earth to open up so that you could jump in and no one would see you again forever and ever. Her mouth opened, and her eyes opened, and her nostrils opened. Even the freckles across her nose got a whole lot bigger.

Miss Violet tapped the baton again, and we started to sing.

"
Yes, we're all dodging, dodging, dodging, dodging,
Yes, we're all dodging a way through the world.
"

I tried not to show anything when Meryl Lee put her foot on top of mine and pushed down as hard as she could, which, let me tell you, teaches you something about a world of woe, and dodging, too.

The next hour was Gym, where we ran laps around the track along with the eighth-grade class, who all smelled smoky—especially Doug Swieteck's brother.

"Hoodhood," called Coach Quatrini, "you call that running?"

The quality of mercy doesn't drop much from Gym teachers.

The reason I wasn't running well was because Meryl Lee had kept pushing down on my foot for all of "Goin' Down the Road Feeling Bad" and almost all of "Worried Man Blues," and if it's possible for there to be internal bleeding in a foot, then that's what mine was doing.

"Pied ninny," I said, not loud enough for Coach Quatrini to hear me.

But loud enough for Doug Swieteck's brother, who was running just behind me, to hear.

"What does that mean?" he said, coming up beside me.

"What?"

He slowed down to match my limp. " 'Pied ninny.' What does that mean?"

"Uh..."

"C'mon," said Doug Swieteck's brother.

"It means ... uh..."

"You don't know."

"It means someone who's so stupid that he's eaten all these pies and gotten really sick—sick like he's going to throw up all over himself. That sick."

It was the best I could do while limping along with internal bleeding.

"That's it?" he said.

"That's it," I said.

"Thanks," he said, and ran ahead, the scent of cigarette smoke lingering in the air.

That afternoon, after everyone had left for Temple Beth-El or Saint Adelbert's, Mrs. Baker handed me a 150-question test on
The Tempest.
One hundred and fifty questions! Let me tell you, Shakespeare himself couldn't have answered half of these questions.

"Show me what you've read and understood," said Mrs. Baker.

I sat down at my desk and picked up my pencil.

"And Mr. Hoodhood," she said, "there isn't a single question there about Caliban's curses—presuming, as I do, that you have mastered those already."

That's the Teacher Gene at work, giving its bearer an extra sense. It's a little frightening. Maybe that's how people decide to become teachers. They have that extra sense, and once they have it, and know that they have it, they don't have any choice except to become a teacher.

I got down to work. Overhead, the scurrying sounds of Caliban and Sycorax across the asbestos tiles accompanied the scratching of my pencil.

I handed the test in five minutes before the end of the day. Mrs. Baker took it calmly, then reached into her bottom drawer for an enormous red pen with a wide felt tip. "Stand here and we'll see how you've done," she said, which is sort of like a dentist handing you a mirror and saying, "Sit here and watch while I drill a hole in your tooth." The first four were wrong, and she slashed through my answers with a broad swathe of bright red ink. It looked like my test was bleeding to death.

"Not such a good beginning," she said.

"The quality of mercy is not strained," I said.

She looked up at me and almost smiled a real smile. Not a teacher smile. Think of it! Mrs. Baker almost smiling a real smile.

"Nothing so much as a pound of flesh is at stake."

You could have fooled me.

Maybe it was mercy, or maybe I just needed to get into the rhythm of the thing, but after the first four wrong, the rest went pretty well, and the gushing blood slowed to a trickle, and then, for the last thirty questions in a row, a complete stop.

"You've coagulated, Mr. Hoodhood," Mrs. Baker said, which I think is a Caliban curse that I missed. "For next week, we'll review what you missed. And read
The Tempest
again."

"Read
The Tempest
again?" I said. I mean, you can understand reading
Treasure Island
four times, but no matter how good a Shakespeare play is, no one reads it twice.

"You'll find that there is a lot more to
The Tempest
than a list of colorful curses."

"Read
The Tempest
again?" I said.

"Repetition is not always a rhetorical virtue," said Mrs. Baker. "Yes, read it again. From the start."

So.

It had turned out to be an all-right Wednesday afternoon after all. Except for the internal bleeding. And except for the 150-question test. And except for having to read
The Tempest
again. From the start.

But as I limped on home, I figured that if I read an act that night, and another on Thursday, and Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday, I could have it all finished pretty painlessly. And each one would probably go a lot quicker, since I had already read them all once.

Life got brighter, and somehow, the world suddenly got brighter, too. You know how this is? You're walking along, and then the sun comes out from behind a cloud, and the birds start to sing, and the air is suddenly warm, and it's like the whole world is happy because you're happy.

It's a great feeling.

But never trust it. Especially in November on Long Island.

Because as I limped past Goldman's Best Bakery, the front window was filled with cream puffs. Brown, light, perfect cream puffs. And I remembered the death threats hanging over me like Shylock's knife hanging over Antonio's chest.

I decided that to be safe I'd better get the cream puffs—even if it meant asking for an advance on my allowance.

Which I had about as much chance of getting as Shylock had of getting his ducats back.

Still, I thought I might have a little chance when Dad got home that evening and let out the great news: Hoodhood and Associates had won the Baker Sporting Emporium contract! They were going to design a new main store and redesign every single one of the chain stores—and there were plenty of them, one in almost every town on Long Island. He grabbed my mother and twirled her around, and they danced beneath the newly plastered ceiling of the living room. Can you believe it? They went into the Perfect Living Room! Then they danced through the kitchen, back into the Perfect Living Room, out onto the front stoop, down the stairs, and past the embarrassed azaleas.

Let me tell you, when Presbyterians start to dance on the front stoop, you know that something big has happened.

"We got the contract, we got the contract, we got the contract, we got the contract," my father sang. It sounded like he was waiting for a full string orchestra to come in, something out of
The Sound of Music.

When he swept back inside, pirouetting my mother, it seemed the perfect moment to ask.

"Dad, could I have an advance on my allowance next week?"

"We got the contract, we got the contract, not on your sweet life, we got the contract."

That night, I dreamed that Caliban sat at the foot of my bed, looking a lot like Danny Hupfer and telling me how I was going to end up all scurvy and blistered if I didn't get the cream puffs next week—the end of the three weeks I had promised. "Beware, beware," he said, and I decided I should.

So on Friday, I went to Goldman's Best Bakery and put two dollars and forty-five cents on the counter—all the money I had in the world.

"Two dollars and forty-five cents can buy a great deal," said Mr. Goldman. "So what is it you want to buy?"

"Twenty-two cream puffs," I said.

Mr. Goldman added up twenty-two cream puffs in his head.

"For that you need two more dollars and eighty cents."

"I need the cream puffs by next week."

"You still need two more dollars and eighty cents."

"I can work. I can wash dishes and stuff?."