The Last Holiday Concert

  Mr. Meinert turned and took three quick steps to his desk. He leaned over and pushed. The metal legs screeched on the floor as he slid the desk to the far right side of the room and then spun it around to face the wall. He walked back, rolled his chair over to the desk and sat down, his back to the class. He picked up his Music Educator magazine and began to read the article about teaching Bach.

  For the first time in more than a month, Mr. Meinert felt great.

  Seven

  THE VOICE OF THE PEOPLE

  Hart sat still, hands folded in front of him. But his eyes darted around the music room, looking for clues, watching for danger, trying to see what was coming next.

  The room was silent. Mr. Meinert had been reading at his desk for almost four minutes. Hart studied the back of the man’s head, looking for anger in his neck and shoulders, examining the way he held his magazine. If another storm was coming, Hart wanted to see it in time to duck for cover.

  Hart didn’t trust the quiet. Mr. Meinert was a funnel cloud. Any second now he might whip around and start ripping things apart. Hart wasn’t about to put himself in the path of another tornado. Yesterday’s direct hit had been plenty.

  Off to his right Hart heard a trickle of whispers.

  “What are we supposed to do?”

  “I don’t know. I guess just sit here.”

  “Is he serious?”

  “I … I think so.”

  “He said we can do anything we want. So can we?”

  “I don’t know. Now be quiet!”

  It got quiet again, but silent children are like a rising river. Sooner or later the water spills over the banks.

  More whispers. They grew louder, and then came the low talking.

  Still Mr. Meinert sat and read his magazine. He wanted to leap from his chair. The urge to take charge of his classroom was almost overpowering. But he forced himself to sit and read.

  As the low talking spread, a few kids kept saying, “Shhh … SHHHH,” but the shushing couldn’t hold back the flow.

  Then, on the other side of the room, someone must have said something funny. Two kids started laughing, and the flood broke loose.

  The noise level in the room rose so fast it took Mr. Meinert’s breath away. And as more kids talked and laughed, others had to talk still louder and louder in order to be heard above the rising clamor. For a moment Mr. Meinert was sure that the whole sixth grade was packed into the room. He wanted to spin his chair around and give the kids his most withering stare, but he made himself sit still, made himself keep reading.

  After three minutes the noise was deafening. The room wasn’t out of control, but it was close. Three or four guys had started playing baseball, with some wadded up paper for a ball and a music book for a bat. A cell phone tweedled, and a girl on one side of the room pulled it out of her purse, jammed it to her ear, and then spun around and waved at her friend who had called from thirty feet away. A few groups of kids had gone back to the windows to watch the snow come down. Four girls sat on the floor and began playing Rock, Paper, Scissors—dangerously close to the three guys kicking a Hacky Sack. Everyone else was just milling around, talking and laughing.

  Hart hadn’t budged from his chair. His desk was like his lifeboat, a safe place to watch from. Only four other kids besides Hart were still sitting at their desks. Two of them had begun doing homework, and the other two kids—Colleen and Ross—were arguing. Colleen Hester was almost yelling at Ross Eastman, and he was shaking his head and making a face back at her. Hart didn’t care much for either of them, especially Colleen. Too bossy. As Hart watched, Colleen and Ross stood up and walked down front to Mr. Meinert’s desk.

  It was too loud to hear anything, but Hart saw Colleen say something to Mr. Meinert. He looked up at Colleen, and also at Ross, and then Mr. Meinert smiled and nodded and shrugged his shoulders all at the same time. He turned back to his magazine.

  Colleen tugged on Ross’s shirt and pulled him with her until they stood next to the electric piano at the front of the room.

  “Hey everybody!” Colleen yelled. “Hey, listen. Please, everybody—listen—QUIET!”

  The room calmed down a little, and Colleen said, “Ross and I want to say something, okay? We just talked to Mr. Meinert, and he said if we wanted, we could be in charge of the concert. So we want to get started now, okay?”

  Janie Kingston didn’t care much for Colleen either. She stood up and said, “I don’t think that’s fair. How come you should be in charge? Just because you talked to Mr. Meinert first?”

  And then Tim Miller climbed up on the seat of his desk and made a goofy face and said, “Hey, maybe I should be in charge—what d’ya think, guys?” And four of Tim’s friends started chanting, “WE WANT TIM! WE WANT TIM!”

  Ross raised his hands and shouted, “Guys, shut up! C’mon, shut up!”

  Tim yelled back, “No, you shut up!” and for fifteen seconds about forty kids yelled “Shut up!” at one another.

  The shouting burned out, and when it got a little quieter, Ross said, “Janie’s right, okay? Everything has to be fair. So first everyone’s got to sit down. Then we’ll have an election to see who runs the concert. You can vote for anyone—like for me, or Janie, or for Colleen.”

  “Hey!” yelled Tim. “What about me?” And his friends started chanting again, “TIM! TIM! TIM!”

  Ross grinned. “Sure. Tim too. But everyone has to sit down. And the person with the most votes wins.”

  Ross grabbed four or five pieces of paper from his notebook, ripped them into little squares, and started passing them out.

  As quickly as the room had gotten noisy, it got quiet again. Everyone took a ballot and began writing.

  Hart almost voted for Janie, but at the last minute he wrote Ross’s name. Ross was sort of a brainhead, but he was still a pretty good guy.

  Colleen took a small drum from a shelf at the front of the room, turned it upside down, and dropped her ballot in. Then she walked up and down the rows until everyone had put one ballot into the drum.

  She took the drum to a table at the front of the room and dumped it out. When she started to unfold the ballots, someone yelled, “Hey—no fair! Someone else should count!”

  And another kid yelled, “Yeah, Mr. Meinert should count.” Around the room, kids nodded and said, “Yeah! Mr. Meinert!” “Yeah, ’cause he won’t cheat!” “It should be Mr. Meinert!”

  Mr. Meinert, still reading his magazine, shook his head.

  Colleen walked over to him and said, “Please, Mr. Meinert? Everybody wants you to.”

  Mr. Meinert was actually relieved, glad to be taking charge of his classroom again. But he didn’t show it. He put down his magazine, slowly stood up, and rolled his desk chair over to the table. He sat down in front of the heap of ballots and began unfolding each one, sorting the different names into separate piles. The only sound in the room was crinkling paper.

  When the last ballot was unfolded and sorted, Mr. Meinert began counting. He counted the ballots in the first pile, and then counted them a second time. Then he pulled a pad of Post-it notes out of his pocket, wrote down a number, peeled off the note, and stuck it onto the pile. Then he started counting the second pile. There were almost seventy-five ballots, so it took him about ten minutes to count them all.

  When he was done, Mr. Meinert looked at the numbers he’d written on each pile of ballots. Then he picked up what looked like the biggest stack and counted them again. And then he counted the other big stack.

  Mr. Meinert stood up. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. He looked around the room, enjoying the silence, enjoying how completely he had everyone’s attention.

  Speaking slowly, he said, “First, I want to thank those few students who voted for me. It was a kind thought, but your votes were wasted. I’ve already told you that between now and Christmas vacation I will be in this room only as an observer. Therefore, it is now my duty to announce the results of this free and fair election. The new chorus director
for this year’s holiday concert is none other than our very own … Hart Evans.”

  Eight

  DIRECTOR

  After Mr. Meinert’s announcement the room was quiet, but only for a second.

  “No way!” Hart gripped the sides of his desk. He shook his head and looked around the room. “No way! I’m not gonna be the chorus director—I wasn’t even in this election—no way!”

  Colleen jumped to her feet and said, “I can be the director, okay? I know I can do it. And I’ll do a good job at it too.”

  Mr. Meinert said, “Colleen, please sit down.” Then, turning to Hart, he said, “You already are the new director, Hart. We all heard the rules. Ross said that the whole chorus could vote for anyone. That’s what he said. And you didn’t complain about that. And like everyone else, you went along with the rules. And you voted too, right?”

  Hart gulped. “Well, yeah … sure, I voted. But I didn’t want to get elected.” Hart pointed toward Colleen and Ross. “One of them ought to do it. They’re the ones who want to.”

  Mr. Meinert shrugged. “Too late. They weren’t elected. You were, and that’s that.” He pulled his chair away from the table where the ballots were and began pushing it back toward his desk. “So have a very nice concert.” Mr. Meinert sat down, opened his magazine, and began to read again.

  Hart didn’t know what to do. All the kids were looking at him. He felt embarrassed.

  Colleen hurried over and stood in front of him. “What do you want us to do first? You heard Mr. Meinert. We only have twenty-three days. We have to get started.”

  Hart looked up at her. Colleen put her hands on her hips and said, “Well? What should we do?”

  Hart said, “You know that song ‘I’m a Little Teapot’? How about you walk down to the front of the room and sing that song for everybody. That would be a good start.”

  Hart’s wisecrack got a pretty big laugh, and around the room kids started whispering and talking.

  Colleen made a pinched face at him. “You think you’re so funny. Really—what are you going to do? We have to get started.”

  Hart ignored Colleen and stood up. Waiting for the room to get quiet, Hart thought, If Mr. Meinert wants to be all tough and make me do this, then I can play games too.

  Hart said, “Okay, listen everybody. As the new chorus director, I declare that this is a free period. And tomorrow will be a free period too. Chorus is now a free period.” And then Hart sat down.

  A spontaneous cheer filled the room. “Yaaay!” “Woo-woo!” “Awesome! This is great!” “Yeah—cool!”

  Still standing there in front of Hart with her hands on her hips, Colleen said, “You are so immature!” She turned and stomped back to her desk.

  In less than a minute the room was as loud as it had been before the election.

  Reading at his desk with his ears wide open, once again it took all Mr. Meinert’s will power to keep himself from leaping to his feet. He wanted to sweep his eyes across the crowd. He wanted to shout, Silence! and snap the room to order. But he thought, No, I’m not going to explode. I’m not going to rant and rave and look like an angry fool again. I’ll wait. I’ll wait until the noise and the disorder and the confusion overpowers them. A free period—hah! Nobody can stand chaos for long, not even sixth graders. It might take a day or two, but they’ll all get sick of it. Hart and his fan club, they think chorus is a big joke? Well, the joke’s on them!

  By the time these thoughts had run through his mind, Mr. Meinert was trying to keep from smiling, and what he really wanted to do was laugh out loud. Hart Evans, the Rubber Bandit—Hart was now in charge of the chorus, in charge of the big concert! It was too perfect.

  Mr. Meinert knew he was being petty and childish. He knew he was being unprofessional. But at that moment he didn’t care. Mr. Meinert was planning to enjoy himself. Soon would come the part where Hart and everyone else would be pleading, begging him to take charge of the chorus and organize the concert. And after they had groveled and whined long enough, he would slowly let himself be talked into it. It was going to be so much fun.

  There was only one small problem with this analysis: Mr. Meinert did not know Hart Evans as well as he thought he did.

  In fact, none of them knew Hart Evans as well as they thought they did—including Hart Evans himself.

  Nine

  DETENTION

  Palmer Intermediate, Mrs. Hood speaking. Will you please hold a moment?”

  It was a little before three o’clock. The hallways had gotten quiet, but the office was still jumping. Moms and dads had come to drop off notes or pick up kids, and a steady stream of teachers rushed in and out. The nurse went bustling through with a girl who had skinned her knee, and the school secretary was trying to help everyone while she juggled three phone calls.

  Hart trudged up to the counter and waited.

  Putting one hand over the telephone mouthpiece, the secretary raised her eyebrows. “Yes?”

  Hart whispered, “Um … I’m here for detention.”

  Mrs. Hood shook her head. “Talk louder, dear.”

  “Detention,” said Hart, his face turning pink. “I have to serve a detention.”

  She pushed a clipboard and a pen toward him. After Hart had written his name and the time, Mrs. Hood pointed toward the bench with one long red fingernail.

  Hart sat down and dug a novel out of his backpack, flipped it open to his bookmark, leaned against the wall, and began to read. The noisy office and the school with all its clocks disappeared.

  The moment Carson knew something was wrong, it was already too late. First came a muffled explosion, then the screech of tires. The small car bucked and shuddered as he fought to get it back under control. The left fender scraped the tunnel wall and sparks splashed the windshield, almost blinding him. Too fast, too fast! But the brake pedal had turned to mush! Carson struggled against the steering wheel, struggled to keep the car from veering into an oncoming truck. It was no use. As if a giant hand had taken hold….

  “Well. It’s Mr. Evans.”

  Hart looked up from his book and blinked. Mr. Meinert stood there in front of him, smiling. “You seem very relaxed. I thought I’d find you madly preparing for your big concert. With so much responsibility hanging over my head, I usually get pretty anxious, all tied up in knots. But this year I think I’m really going to enjoy the holidays.”

  Mr. Meinert turned away and walked over to the wall of teacher mailboxes. He pulled a stack of papers out of his cubbyhole, and as he riffled through them he began humming “Frosty the Snowman.”

  Hart tried to get back into his book, but Mr. Meinert’s humming was distracting. Annoying, too. And the guy was taking his time at the mailboxes, carefully looking over every piece of mail, every memo, every note.

  Finally the music teacher turned to go, and as he started out the door he smiled at Hart and said, “I’m looking forward to chorus tomorrow.”

  It was the combination of the smile and Mr. Meinert’s tone of voice. It reminded Hart of his sister Sarah, and that little comment made him feel like he’d just been poked in the ribs.

  Hart suddenly felt brave—which can be dangerous for a kid serving detention in the office. He smiled back at Mr. Meinert and said, “Chorus? Oh, you mean free period. I’m looking forward to free period, too.”

  Mr. Meinert stopped. He came over and stood in front of Hart. “That free period business? That’s not a good idea, Hart.”

  Still feeling much too brave, Hart said, “Well… me being the chorus director? That’s not a good idea either. Someone else should do it.” Hart paused a second and then said, “You should do it. You’re the real director.”

  Mr. Meinert suddenly liked the way this conversation was going. He said, “How about this: If you can convince the class tomorrow that I should be in charge again, then we’ll get back to work. Just tell everybody that the job is too big for a kid to handle. That should do it. Of course, they might still want chorus to be a free period. But th
at’s your problem. Fair enough?”

  Hart nodded. “Sure.” It sounded like an easy way out. He said, “That’s what I’ll do.”

  “All right then,” said Mr. Meinert. “See you tomorrow.” And he left the office.

  As Mr. Meinert walked away Hart could hear him whistling a melody—“Deck the halls with boughs of holly, fa la la la la, la la la la.”

  Hart felt relieved, but not quite as jolly as Mr. Meinert did. Hart still had plenty of detention left.

  He tucked his book away, rested his elbows on his knees, and put his chin in his hands. He sat there looking down at the green and brown speckles of the office carpet, thinking and thinking. And the more he thought, the more he liked the idea of Mr. Meinert taking charge of the concert again. Any other solution would just lead to trouble—probably more detentions, too.

  But the feeling that he’d been poked in the ribs wouldn’t go away. It almost felt like Mr. Meinert had tricked him. But how? Hart couldn’t figure it out.

  The idea that everything would just go back to normal in chorus—that part of the deal seemed fine. Better than fine … wonderful. Hart knew he did not want to be in charge of this concert. Or any concert, ever. No way. He wanted to hide in the back row of the chorus and mumble through the songs like he always did.

  And all he had to do was stand up in class tomorrow and tell everyone that organizing the concert was impossible. And then ask Mr. Meinert to take charge again. Not so bad. He knew he could do that, and he knew he could get the class to go along, too. But something still didn’t feel quite right to Hart. His thoughts went round and round.

  Thinking back to the class period, Hart remembered what had happened after he said Colleen or Ross should be the director. Mr. Meinert had said, “They weren’t elected. You were.”