Fourth Grade Rats

  By now, you could hardly see the floor. He stood in the middle, turning, nodding, smiling. “Yeah. Now it’s my room.”

  I just sat on the bed, stunned. Until then Joey Peterson’s room had been the neatest room I had ever seen.

  And he wasn’t done. We ordered a pizza, and when he got down to the crust of each slice, he tossed it over his shoulder. One landed in his underwear drawer. The pizza box he flipped like a Frisbee against the wall.

  After that, we had Fudgsicles and Peanut Chews. The wrappers — at least, his wrappers — went onto the floor. He took a wad of bubble gum from his mouth and winged it against his dresser mirror. It stuck.

  I guess he couldn’t think of anything else to do to his room, because he turned back to himself. He pulled something from his pocket. It looked like a little notepad.

  “What is it?” I asked him.

  He grinned. “Tattoos.”

  “Oh no.”

  Into the bathroom we went. He tore off four and wetted them. Pretty soon he was tattooed on the chest (skull and crossbones), both arms (a cobra and a mongoose), and rear end (“If You Can Read This, You’re Too Close”).

  “You know they’re not gonna last,” I told him.

  “They’ll last till I get a bath,” he said. “And I ain’t getting a bath ’cept once a month from now on.”

  I pinched my nose. “Oh, great, man. Do you have to smell like a rat too?”

  As we left the bathroom, we bumped into his mother. “I saw your room,” she said. “What are you doing in there, training elephants?”

  We laughed.

  “Well” — she looked at Joey — “as soon as Suds leaves tomorrow, you see that it gets cleaned up.”

  Uh-oh, I thought. This is it. Will he practice what he preaches?

  Joey slouched against the bathroom doorway. He looked off down the hall. “Nah, I don’t think so.”

  Mrs. Peterson blinked. “You don’t think what?”

  “I don’t think I’m gonna clean it up. I like it that way.”

  I took a step back. If Mrs. Peterson was about to get violent, I wanted to be out of range. Joey looked at the floor. I looked at Mrs. Peterson. Mrs. Peterson glared daggers at Joey. This lasted for about three hours.

  Then all of a sudden it was over. Mrs. Peterson gave a little shrug and a smile and said, “Okay,” and walked away.

  I gawked at Joey. Just on this one day, he had faced a bee and a mad mother, and here he was, alive and healthy as ever.

  He gave me the thumbs-up sign. “See? Nothin’ to it.”

  Then Joey told me to wait in his room. When he came back, he had a hammer, a jar of nails, a bag of cotton balls, a bottle of iodine, and some Band-Aids.

  I asked what all that was for.

  “Put a hole in my ear,” he said.

  I screeched. “You’re gonna wear an earring?”

  “Nope.”

  “So why are you putting a hole in your ear?”

  He grinned. “Pain.”

  If I didn’t already know he was looney, I knew it now.

  I told him, “The only thing about you that’s turning rat is your brain.”

  He ignored me. He cleared a space on his desk. He opened the jar of nails and dumped them out. He rooted through them until he found one he liked: a long, thin one.

  He handed the nail to me, along with the hammer. He got a felt-tip pen, went to his mirror, and put a dot in the middle of his right earlobe. He came back to the desk, knelt down beside it, real close, and flapped his lobe out so it sat like a tiny pancake on the top edge of the desk.

  I looked at the hammer and nail in my hands. “Oh no,” I said. I dumped them on the desk and took a seat on the bed. “You do it, if you’re crazy enough.”

  “I would,” he said, “but I can’t, not like this. C’mon. Just do it.”

  I didn’t move. “You mind if I ask you a stupid question? Like why you want to hammer a hole in your ear? What do you mean, pain?”

  He pulled his earlobe off the desk. He sat on the floor. “You gotta learn to take pain, that’s all. No more crybaby. You know, like the Indians used to do. You had to go through stuff, really painful, before you could become a man. You had to prove you could take it.”

  “I got news for you,” I told him. “You’re not an Indian.”

  He looked at me, disgusted. He grabbed the hammer and held it out. “You gonna do it?”

  I shook my head no.

  He threw the hammer down. “Thanks, pal.”

  “Listen,” I said, “if it means that much to you, why don’t you just do some easier kind of pain? Something you don’t need a hammer and nail for.”

  “Like what?” he said.

  I thought about it. “Well … how about bending your finger back?”

  “Nah,” he said. “That’s dorky.”

  I thought some more. “How about kicking your door with your bare big toe?”

  He didn’t like that one either.

  “I got it!” I said. “I knuckle your head ten times.”

  “Forget it.”

  But now I didn’t want to forget it. I was getting into it. I rattled off some more: “Pull out a hair…. Sit the three thickest volumes of the encyclopedia on your tongue…. Sleep all night with erasers up your nose…. Wrap your mouth around the doorknob and slam it shut….”

  I was still going when the phone rang. It was pretty late, so we were both surprised when his mother called and said it was for him. He went out.

  When he came back, he looked innocent. Too innocent.

  “It was her, wasn’t it?” I said.

  “I told her not to call people so late.”

  I shoved him. “Traitor.”

  He shoved me back. “Listen, Morton, I didn’t call her. She called me.”

  “Took you long enough to hang up.”

  “Wha’d you want me to do, slam down the phone as soon as she said hello?”

  “Maybe I want you to lay off her.”

  He laughed. “I keep telling you, jerkface, I don’t care about her. I ain’t chasing her. She’s chasing me. You want her to chase you” — he threw the pad of tattoos in my face — “do something about it.”

  We glared at each other. He turned on the TV. We watched a couple horror movies. In silence. We went to bed.

  When we woke up Saturday morning, I said, “Okay.”

  He rubbed sleepies from his eyes. “Okay what?”

  “What do I do?”

  He sat up. “You’re ready to be a rat?”

  I shrugged. “I guess so. But I don’t think I know how. It doesn’t come natural to me.”

  “No sweat,” he said. “We just do what all beginners do.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Practice.”

  We headed for my house. Training camp.

  Joey was my coach.

  “First,” he said, “that crybaby stuff. Gotta go.”

  “How?” I said.

  “You still have your E.T., don’t you?”

  “Sure.” My parents had given me the videotape movie for my birthday.

  “I’ll bet you start bawling every time E.T. dies, don’t you?”

  “Well …”

  “Follow me.”

  We stuck my E.T. cassette in our VCR and ran it FAST FORWARD to where E.T. dies, or everybody thinks he dies.

  As usual, the waterworks came on. My eyes, my cheeks were like Niagara Falls.

  Joey punched REWIND, STOP, PLAY. E.T. died again. I cried again.

  So it went. Time after time.

  Until, on the twenty-second try, Joey ran his fingertip across my cheek and nodded. “Dry.” He turned on the light and got in my face like a doctor. “Your eyes are a little watery, but nothing’s falling out of them.”

  He held out his hand. “You’re on your way, rat.”

  I gave him five.

  Next was spiders.

  Joey found one, trapped it in a paper cup, and brought it to me. I was sweating and shaking.
>
  “Hold out your hand,” he said.

  “I can’t,” I told him.

  “You want Judy Billings to like you or not?”

  “W-what if it’s a b-black w-widow?” I shuddered.

  “It’s not.”

  “Or a tarantula?”

  “It’s a little white house spider. Hold out your hand.”

  “I can’t. It won’t move.”

  Joey made it move. He grabbed my hand and dumped the spider onto it.

  He was right. It was a little white house spider. But to me it looked like a tarantula. I screamed and flipped it away.

  When we got to the ninth little white house spider, I was still flipping, but I was doing it silently.

  Joey sighed. “Well, at least we got rid of that scream.”

  He clapped his hands. “Okay — up to the roof.”

  “No,” I said.

  “Move,” he said.

  I went upstairs like I was walking to the gallows. Even more than spiders, I’m scared of high places.

  Joey steered me to my bedroom window. He made me open it. “Out,” he said.

  “No,” I said.

  Outside my window is the roof of our front porch.

  “No way,” I said. I sat on my bed.

  I finally agreed to do it under two conditions: (1) I take off my shoes and socks to get a better grip on the roof, (2) we tie me to a rope. We tied one end of the rope to the bed. The other end, good and tight, went around my chest, under my arms.

  I climbed out. I sat on my windowsill.

  “Out,” he said. “To the edge.”

  I lowered myself from the sill. I sat on the roof. I dug my fingers and toes and rear end into the pebbly shingles. I inched forward. My heart felt like an exploding football in my chest.

  I was halfway to the edge when the sidewalk below started to get wavy. Then the bushes got fuzzy. Then everything was turning around like the inside of a clothes dryer….

  Next thing I knew, I was hanging off the edge of the porch roof, swinging in the air above the front steps.

  Just then Zippernose came out. The look on her face said: I’m imagining I see my brother hanging from the roof. I’m having a hallucination.

  “Call somebody!” I told her. “Get me down from here!”

  She half turned, ready to obey me for the first time in her life. Then she spotted my feet. My bare feet. This time the look on her face said: I may never get this chance again as long as I live.

  She rushed me. She grabbed my legs in a bear hug and started tickling the bottoms of my feet.

  We — the Mortons — are a ticklish family. Extremely. By the time my mother finally came out and chased Zippernose off and got me down, I was about dead from laughing.

  For my next test, Joey led me to the little kids’ playground at the park.

  “What are we doing here?” I asked him.

  “You’ll see,” he said.

  We waited, watching the little kids.

  After a while, Joey said, “You hungry?”

  “A little,” I said.

  “For a Twinkie?”

  “Yeah!”

  Spongy cake. Creamy inside. I love them.

  “Go for it,” said Joey.

  He pointed to a little kid. He was eating a Twinkie with one hand. The other hand held another Twinkie.

  “He don’t need two,” Joey whispered.

  “I can’t,” I said.

  “Take care of Number One.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Judy Billings … Judy Billllllll-ings …”

  The kid was passing us. I reached out. I snatched the uneaten Twinkie. The kid howled bloody murder. I shoved the Twinkie back in his hand and took off.

  Last test.

  Last chance.

  We hung around my room, waiting for my mother to ask me to do something. “When she does,” Joey said, “you know what to say.”

  Sure enough, pretty soon my mom showed up. She said, “Suds, will you excuse yourself from Joey long enough to empty your wastebasket, please.”

  Silence. Joey waiting. My mother waiting. Judy Billings waiting. The world waiting.

  I couldn’t stand it. Maybe if she hadn’t smiled. Maybe if she hadn’t said please.

  I said, “Okay, Mom.”

  As soon as my mother left the room, Joey gave a disgusted grunt. He pointed to my one-eyed teddy bear. “I guess you’re not gonna throw that baby thing away either, are you?”

  I looked at the bear, at him, in shock.

  “Nah, I didn’t think so,” he sneered. “Better forget it, Morton. You’ll never hack it as a rat.” He got up and left.

  I emptied my basket. I figured he was right. I figured I was dumping my chances with Judy Billings out with my trash.

  But I didn’t figure on what happened Monday at school.

  It was lunchtime. I took my tray through the food line. As usual, I waited for Joey.

  As I was waiting, I saw a sight that made my eyes pop. Judy Billings was sitting a couple tables away — by herself. Usually she was surrounded by girlfriends.

  Judy Billings. Alone. I couldn’t believe it.

  And I couldn’t pass up the chance.

  Walking over to her table was as scary as walking on the roof. But I did it.

  I sat down next to her. “Hi,” I said. “Mind if I sit here?”

  She kept looking at her grilled cheese sandwich. “Yes,” she said.

  I giggled. I grinned. I was thrilled. Yes. It was the first word she ever spoke to me. I’d remember it forever. Yes. Yes. Yes.

  “I said I mind,” she said.

  “Oh,” I said.

  What should I do? I was in too deep to back out now.

  “Okay,” I said. I got up and sat down on the other side of her. “This better?”

  “No.”

  She kept speaking to the grilled cheese sandwich. Did she think I was the sandwich?

  I felt my chair move. I looked up — into the face of Gerald Willis. He was pulling my chair backwards. When it was away from the table, he tipped it forward. I slid off to the floor.

  It was the bench at the talent show all over again. Only worse.

  I got up. I slunk away. Kids were laughing. One of them was a third grade angel, eating a piece of chocolate cake. I didn’t take the cake from the angel’s hand. I just shoved his hand, cake and all, into his face. Then I mashed them around.

  The whole joint was howling.

  As I walked out of school that day, Judy Billings happened to be right behind me. This time I didn’t hold the door open for her. I let it shut in her face.

  I went straight home and up to my room. With one swipe of my hand, I sent my whole Matchbox car collection flying from the top of my bookcase. I probably would have destroyed my room right then if I hadn’t headed for the bathtub.

  No tugboat and dinosaur this time. Just me and the water. I didn’t turn it off till it was up past my belly button. I sank into it as deep as I could. I wanted to pull it over me like a blanket. I wanted to forget the day. I wanted to forget fourth grade.

  By the time I got out, I thought I was feeling better. I was wrong. As soon as I got back to my room, I punched Winky, my bear.

  At dinner, Zippernose smirked and sneered and snickered until my mother finally said, “What is it?”

  “I can’t tell,” giggled Zippernose. “I’ll get in trouble.”

  “If you don’t stop that carrying on, you’ll be in trouble.”

  “Okay, I’ll tell.”

  My mother looked at me. “I’m not sure I even want to know now. I’ll let Suds tell me later if he wants to.”

  “No!” screeched Zippernose. “I wanna tell!”

  And before anyone could stop her, she told. About Gerald Willis and the chair. About the third-grader and the cake in the face. About the whole place laughing.

  Bubba was going into spasms over the cake scene. My parents just stared at me. My mother looked hurt. “That doesn’t sound like you, Suds
,” she said.

  “They were laughing,” I reminded her.

  “Are you going to attack everybody who laughs at you the rest of your life?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Maybe I will.”

  I got up from the table and stomped off.

  “Take a bath,” my mother called.

  “I did.”

  “Take another.”

  I took another. Didn’t do any more good than the first.

  I decided to go to bed early. Get myself unconscious as quick as possible. I put on my PJs, turned out the light, and got under the covers. I felt something with my foot. What could be under there? It felt like wood … it felt like … SNAP!

  “EEEEEYYYYOWWWWWWWLLLLLLLL!!!”

  Suddenly I was on the floor, and the mousetrap was on my big toe. I pried it off. I went to the door, yanked it open. I heaved the trap down the hallway. I screamed: “Okay, you want a rat, you got a rat!”

  For the next two days, I went on a rampage.

  If I saw a little kid with a Twinkie I wanted, I snatched it from him.

  If I saw a little kid on a swing, I pushed him off, whether I wanted to use it or not.

  I laughed in class during Silent Reading. The teacher told me to stop. I kept laughing. She gave me a detention after school. My first-ever detention. I laughed all through it.

  Instead of putting candy wrappers in my pocket, I threw them in the street.

  I walked across people’s front lawns.

  I rang doorbells and ran.

  My mother put a new box of Klondike bars in the freezer. I ate them all.

  I stuck chewing gum on my bedpost.

  I left my dirty clothes on the floor.

  The next time Bubba bared his fangs and went, “Wat — wat — wat,” I said, “That’s my name, badness is my game.” And I tied him to the bathroom doorknob.

  I snuck up on Zippernose. She was in her room, lying on her stomach on the floor, reading, wearing socks. I pounced. I plunked myself smack on the backs of her legs. In a second I had her socks off.