As if on cue, the bird lifted its little blue head and managed a fairly respectable warble.
Wiley raised an eyebrow. “Maybe he’s not going to die,” he said hopefully. “Maybe he’s going to live.”
“And get really strong,” added Jeff.
“He’ll be a professional wrestler,” Wiley agreed.
“With big muscular feathers!”
“He’ll use his superstrength to fight crime!”
“He’ll be elected president of the United States!”
Wiley cackled in triumph. “And then we’ll take him over to the old Gunhold place and show him to Cassandra!”
Laughing, they traded high fives over the basket.
Jeff grabbed his arm. “Come on. We’ll be late for school.”
They arrived just as the bell rang. There was a commotion in the halls. The school yard softball players were cheering and babbling. Ecstatic high fives flew in all directions.
A waving V-for-victory sign practically poked Jeff’s eyes out. He escaped into room 6B, running for his life.
“Hey, cut it out!”
“What’s going on?” Wiley added, mystified.
Peter burst in after them. “Where were you guys? You just missed the greatest moment in softball history!”
Raymond belched the word “Awesome!”
“If I didn’t see it with my own eyes,” added Christy, “I wouldn’t believe it!”
Wiley stared at them. “A game we have twice a day, every day! What could happen?”
Kelly gave the play-by-play. “We were down by three, two outs, bases loaded, with the bell about to ring. And who comes up to bat? The Iceman!”
“What Iceman?” asked Jeff. His jaw dropped. “Our Iceman? Mike Smith?”
He caught a wink and a leer from Charles.
“Now I know why they call him the Iceman,” Peter went on. “He’s got ice water in his veins! He hit that ball so hard it’s in China—the longest grand-slam home run in the history of OOPS! The Bright Lights carried him into 6A!”
“You see?” whispered Charles. “Iceman—it’s sticking like Krazy Glue.”
“One lucky swing.” Wiley shrugged.
“Are you trying to welch?” Charles demanded.
Jeff sighed. “Look, we admit that something weird is going on with Mike Smith. But that’s not the same as a true nickname—are you listening to me?”
Charles was leaning like the famous Tower of Pisa toward the classroom door. “Shhh!” he cautioned. “Do you hear that?”
Jeff frowned. “Hear what?”
Stealthy as a cat, Charles glided across the room and flattened himself against the wall beside the doorframe.
Wiley rolled his eyes. “He can’t even stop snooping long enough to argue about being Snoopy.”
Charles beckoned madly. “Get over here!” he hissed. “They’re talking about us in the hall!”
Wiley and Jeff joined him at his listening post.
Cassandra wandered over. “What’s up?”
“Our very first snoop,” Wiley wisecracked. “Now I know what it’s like to be Charles Rossi.”
She laughed, but fell suddenly silent when she heard a phrase that could only have come from one person—a hundred-and-ten percent. “It’s Mr. Huge,” she whispered.
Mr. Doncaster was the other speaker, and the principal did not sound friendly. “…Mr. Hughes, this is very serious. The State Reading Assessment is how we decide whether or not a sixth grader is ready for junior high. And your class did horribly on the practice exam.”
“They were all-stars!” they heard their teacher exclaim. “The league-leading, MVP, electrifying, Pro-Bowl, Hall of Fame—”
“Not now,” Mr. Doncaster interrupted impatiently.
“I’ve never seen number-two pencils fill in ovals like that!” Mr. Hughes insisted. “You could feel the effort in the room!”
“Effort, maybe, but no results,” Mr. Doncaster complained. “Your scores were nowhere near 6A’s. Many were below grade level; all were unacceptable.”
“I accept them,” came the firm voice of Mr. Hughes.
“Well, you’re the only one who does!” snapped the principal.
“If I thought that they weren’t trying,” the teacher said tersely, “I’d be the first one in there whipping butts into shape. But I’m not going to allow anybody to say my class isn’t first string when I know they’re giving a hundred-and-ten percent! Who cares about test scores?”
“Oh, nobody,” the principal’s voice dripped with sarcasm, “except maybe the Department of Education, the school board, the parents, and me! The real test is less than a month away. Get your class prepared.”
“Good old Mr. Huge!” whispered Cassandra. “He’s a total sweetheart!”
“Sweetheart?” repeated Charles. “He’s the craziest teacher in school!”
“He’s sure sticking up for us to Deer in Headlights,” commented Jeff. “Why doesn’t he just blame Mrs. Regan? She was our teacher until two weeks ago.”
“Maybe he thinks he can light up the Dim Bulbs,” snickered Peter.
“I hate that name,” Cassandra said sharply. “Mr. Huge is right. We should stop using it.”
“Mr. Huge is the whole problem,” Charles accused. “Who can read and answer questions with a six-foot-five maniac bouncing himself off the walls? That wasn’t a test. It was like—like feeding time at the zoo!”
“I think it’s kind of cool when Mr. Huge goes ballistic,” put in Wiley. “I’ve never had a teacher who cares so much about trying hard. You look at him sweating, and you can’t help doing your super-best.”
“He’s like our own personal cheerleader,” added Jeff. “Not even the Bright Lights have that.”
They heard the principal’s angry footsteps tapping down the hall, and scrambled to get back to their seats.
MIKE SMITH SNAPPED the lock on his bicycle, heaved his knapsack over his shoulder, and started across the playground.
Mentally, he began to count: one, two, three…
“Hey, Iceman!”
Well, that had to be a new record. It had taken only three seconds for someone to notice he was there. Until two weeks ago, it had taken eleven years before anyone noticed he was even alive.
“There he is! There’s the Iceman!” Kelly and Peter and the usual softball players hustled him over to the ballfield.
The two captains immediately began arguing.
“I’ve got the Iceman.’”
“No way, the Iceman’s on my team!”
“Stick with me, Iceman! Blow off this doofus!”
Mike still didn’t have the guts to come out and ask if he could play. Yet now it appeared that no one would even consider starting the game without him.
“Iceman,” said one of the 6A girls, “there’s a party at my house on Friday night.”
“Uh, that’s nice.” Had he just been invited somewhere?
“So what do you say, Iceman?” demanded one of the captains. “My team or his?”
“Uh—” Mike reflected that his new life was definitely a lot more fun than his old one. But choosing between so many friends had its stressful side.
Mr. Hughes bailed him out. “Huddle up, men—and…uh…et cetera! I mean—”
“Calling all Dim Bulbs!” finished Peter with a laugh.
The teacher silenced him with a stern look. “Calling all First-String, MVP, Superstar, Hall of Fame, Prime-Time Players! The pep rally starts in two minutes! Let’s show some hustle! Break!”
“Pep rally?” echoed one of Mike’s classmates. “For what?”
“For the spelling bee,” called Dinky as he jogged off with the rest of 6B.
“A pep rally for a spelling bee?” The boy stared at Mike. “I’m glad we’re not in that class, Iceman. Mr. Huge is a nut job!”
“It takes all kinds to make a world,” Mike ventured shyly.
The boy slapped him on the shoulder. “Iceman, you amaze me. You always see the big picture.”
r /> “Come on, Iceman.” The girl having the party was back. “We’re going to be making nachos.”
“Wow,” commented Mike. He really wished she would just come out and invite him. Mike hadn’t been to a lot of parties, so he wanted to make absolutely sure he was on the guest list.
She was thinking he was cooler than cool—showing interest, but never quite saying yes. Cool as ice, that Iceman.
Mr. Doncaster was hurrying past the gym when urgent whispering reached his ears. He looked around the hall in confusion. The classroom doors were shut, and the gym was empty and dark. All was quiet, except—
Just past the folded bleachers, a lone light shone in the equipment room. The principal rushed inside, expecting to shoo some of his older students back to their classes. Instead, he found four of his teachers hunkered down amid the mats and floor hockey sticks.
He cast the deer-in-headlights look at his staff. “Has the faculty room been relocated?”
Mrs. Chang, the librarian, chuckled. “Don’t worry, everything’s fine. We were just having a little unofficial meeting about your Mr. Hughes.”
“He’s crazy!” blurted Miss Hardaway. “He made us have a coin toss at the sixth-grade spelling bee!”
“No cheerleaders?” joked the principal.
Miss Hardaway was not in a laughing mood. “He was the cheerleader,” she said feelingly. “And the halftime show. And fifty thousand screaming fans!”
“At least you don’t have the classroom right below him,” complained Mr. Richards, who taught third grade. “His footsteps are like thunderclaps! And when he gets riled up, he starts leaping around. Yesterday a huge chunk of plaster came off the ceiling and fell right in the fish tank. The algae eater will never be the same.”
“I still say it’s easier to listen to Mr. Hughes than to deal with him directly,” put in Mr. Cordis, the science teacher. “Every time he walks into the lab, I cringe. Because pretty soon he’s going to start cheering on somebody’s experiment. And before you know it, the kids are all worked up too. It’s only a matter of time before beakers are dropping, and acid is spilling, and somebody’s notebook has caught fire from the Bunsen burners. And there’s Mr. Hughes, galloping through the room, blowing his whistle—”
“That whistle!” interrupted Miss Hardaway in a haunted tone. “Sometimes I hear it in my sleep.”
The librarian faced her boss. “Look, we’ve got nothing against Ted Hughes, and he genuinely seems to love his class. But he just can’t leave his coaching on the football field.”
The principal nodded. “I’ve spoken to the man about it. He won’t even admit he has a problem.”
“I think he gets so excited that he doesn’t really notice how disruptive he is,” offered Mr. Cordis.
“Come off it,” scoffed Mr. Richards. “That would be like not noticing a train wreck.”
“A train wreck would be soft and soothing music compared with Ted Hughes at a spelling bee,” Miss Hardaway said honestly. “I didn’t have the nerve to ask him for two kids to take over Safety Patrol this afternoon. I just wanted him out of my class!”
Mr. Doncaster sighed. “I’ll look after that.” He dropped his voice to a whisper. “It’s possible that Mr. Hughes won’t be here forever. 6B did very badly on the practice test for the State Reading Assessment. Most of the students didn’t finish. I don’t think they can concentrate when he’s around.”
Miss Hardaway rolled her eyes. “I wonder why.”
Mrs. Chang nodded. “He belongs on a football field—big, open, outdoors. Face it, Ted Hughes is too loud for a small classroom!”
When Mr. Doncaster walked into room 6B at the end of the day, he found the teacher and his students crouched over in a tight circle.
“Mr. Hughes, what on earth are you doing? Did someone lose a contact lens?”
Mr. Hughes laughed. “We’re huddling. It’s a great way to pass out the homework and go over the game plan for tomorrow.”
The deer-in-headlights look was intense.
“I see,” said the principal. “Well, I have an announcement.”
“Sure. Huddle up,” Mr. Hughes invited. “Come on, men. Make room for Mr. Doncaster.”
“And girls,” added Cassandra as they shuffled.
“Uh—thank you, no,” said the principal.
Mr. Hughes seemed disappointed. “Okay, break.”
The huddle dissolved, and the students took their seats.
The deer-in-headlights eyes surveyed the room. “I wanted to let everyone know that the sixth-grade Thanksgiving party is going to be a Sadie Hawkins dance this year.” He added, “That means the girls invite the boys.”
“Actually, Mr. Doncaster,” put in Cassandra, “girls can ask guys out any time they want. In nature, there are many species where the female is in charge of the courting ritual.”
Peter reached over and nudged Jeff. “Hey, which one of you guys do you think Cassandra’s going to ask to the dance?”
Jeff looked surprised. “What makes you think she’ll ask one of us?” But before the question was out of his mouth, he knew the answer. She was new in town; he and Wiley were the only friends she’d made so far. Of course it would be one of them.
Jeff didn’t know how to dance. But Cassandra would probably make it kind of cool. She’d wear one of those wacked-out skirts of hers. And combat boots.
His brow clouded. Of course, she might ask Wiley….
“One more thing,” the principal was saying. “Miss Hardaway’s class will be at the botanical gardens this afternoon, so I’ll need two students to take over Safety Patrol.”
“No problem, sir.” Mr. Hughes glanced at the top of his class list. “Wiley Adamson and—”
“I’ll do it,” Cassandra piped up.
“Fine. Wiley and Cassandra.”
On Safety Patrol, Cassandra Levy was an amazmg sight. Her bright orange fluorescent vest almost perfectly matched her brilliant red hair, and she had added a pair of glittery rhinestone sunglasses. Her long skirt depicted a field of daffodils with a gold sequin for the head of each flower. She had switched her boots for Rollerblades. As she glided back and forth across Main Street, guiding the OOPS students, she sparkled like a starburst on wheels.
Jeff watched from behind the flagpole. He had a stomachache. Not the Alka Seltzer variety. This was the kind that came from being left out.
Left out of what? Safety Patrol? He and Wiley had always made fun of the kids who volunteered, nicknaming them Stop Cops because of the signs they carried.
Cassandra’s sharp green eyes locked in on him. “Hi, Jeff! Need any help crossing the street?” she joked.
Grinning, he marched down to the curb. “Too bad you got drafted for Stop Cops,” he told Wiley sympathetically.
Instead of complaining, Wiley held up his sign and hauled Jeff out into the crosswalk.
Jeff shook himself free. “I’m not ready to go home yet.”
Wiley stared at him. “It’s three-thirty. What are you staying for—the laser light show?”
The stomachache was getting worse. “Maybe you guys need some help.”
“Oh, no thanks,” replied Wiley blandly.
Cassandra executed a spinning jump in the road.
“It’s no problem,” Jeff persisted. “Here, let me hold your sign for a while.”
“No!” snapped Wiley. Then, in his normal voice, “I mean, you’re not wearing a vest. It’s against the traffic laws for you to have a sign.”
“I’d better stay,” Jeff decided. “You know—just in case it gets busy again.”
Cassandra wheeled by in a backward figure eight. “Everybody’s gone,” she reported.
“I’ll stay anyway,” said Jeff through clenched teeth.
“It’s not necessary,” insisted Wiley.
“Yes, it is.”
“No, it’s not.”
They were still arguing this point when Mr. Doncaster pulled out of the parking lot, and rolled down his window to send them home.
&nbs
p; “It’s crooked,” said Donald Briscoe.
“It’s perfectly straight,” Lisa insisted. “Start hammering.”
Donald began to pound the nail into the wood-paneled wall of the Adamsons’ family room.
Wiley wandered in to investigate the noise. He watched his sister’s boyfriend hang up the Old Orchard High School football team picture.
“It’s crooked,” Wiley commented.
“No, it isn’t,” Lisa insisted.
“I knew it!” Donald exclaimed. “It’s tilted to the left.”
Wiley frowned. “I think it’s tilted to the right.”
Lisa rolled her eyes. “Let’s ask Jeff. Where is he?”
Wiley shrugged. “How should I know?”
Lisa was surprised. “You mean he’s not here?”
Wiley stuck his jaw out stubbornly. “Why should he be?”
“Because he’s here more than I am!” Lisa snapped.
“Mom saw him out by the shed feeding D. D.,” Wiley reported. “He’s sulking because he didn’t get to be on Safety Patrol with me.”
“Safety Patrol?” Lisa repeated. “You’ve never volunteered for anything since the day you were born. And neither has Jeff.”
Donald stepped back from the picture. “Hey, Wiley, can you pick out which one is me? I’ll give you a hint: I’m two helmets behind the backup punter.”
Wiley examined the photograph. “Where’s Mr. Huge?”
“Oh, he quit,” Donald replied. “He said he couldn’t give a hundred-and-ten percent to the team without shortchanging his class. Didn’t he tell you?”
“Maybe he just told Jeff.” Lisa smirked. “And Jeff gave the news to D.D. and said ‘pass it on.’”
But Wiley had already left the room with his hands over his ears.
MR. DONCASTER WAS washing his hands in the downstairs boys’ bathroom when Mr. Richards entered. The principal cast the deer-in-headlights look at the wire fishnet the third-grade teacher held in his hand. In the mesh lay an unmoving gray form.
“My algae eater,” the teacher explained mournfully. “He died of complications from when Hughes rained half my ceiling into the fish tank. I’m giving him a burial at sea.” He stepped into the corner stall and emerged a moment later with an empty net.