Pig City

  Mr. Doyle stepped away from the board. Under the word DICTIONARY he had drawn a rectangle. Next to the rectangle he had written the number 2.

  “When I find out who’s been writing on the board,” he said, “I will put his or her name inside the box.” He looked directly at Laura. “That person will have to copy two dictionary pages; one for yesterday and one for today.”

  Laura smiled. You better make it three, she thought. There will be another one tomorrow.

  Mr. Doyle told everyone to take out a pencil and paper for the math test. The class groaned. He handed a pile of tests to Linzy and asked her to please pass them out.

  Laura opened her desk. She spotted the folded piece of paper with her name on it and smiled. She loved notes.

  She made sure Mr. Doyle wasn’t watching, then quickly unfolded it. Her smile disappeared.

  Hey Laura,

  I know all about Pig City. If you don’t kiss me I will tell the whole school. You have ugly hair.

  Your humble servant,

  Gabriel

  She read it three times, then glanced at Gabriel.

  He was looking at her and grinning from ear to ear. He touched his fist to his nose.

  She looked away.

  Linzy laid the math test on her desk.

  Laura tried to stay calm. She knew Gabriel might still be watching her, so she didn’t want to appear to be upset. She had to act like she was in control.

  She saw her pencil had been broken. She wondered if Gabriel did that, too.

  Since the test had already started, she couldn’t ask to borrow another pencil from anyone. She used the broken one; one half for writing and one half for erasing.

  The first question was a word problem: Question 1. Count Dracula drank 7 gallons of blood every 2 weeks. How many quarts of blood did he drink a day?

  Mr. Doyle always tried to make his test questions interesting. Laura usually appreciated his cleverness. This time, however, she had more important things on her mind.

  If he thinks I have ugly hair, why does he want to kiss me? And how does he know about Pig City? He can’t. It’s impossible! she fumed. Except she knew it wasn’t impossible, because he had written the note. He knew the secret salute, too. Okay, she thought, he probably saw me come out of the building yesterday morning, so he knows I wrote on the board. He must have seen me give the salute, too. And my cap says “Pig City,” so that’s how he knows the name of the club. Your humble servant???

  No matter what, she decided, there was no way she would kiss him! She hated him.

  She tried to concentrate on the test. I wish somebody would drink Gabriel’s blood – 3 gallons a day – until he shriveled up like a prune! She wrote “2 gallons” as the answer to the first problem.

  She couldn’t tell Tiffany or Allison about the note. She felt she was somehow to blame. If she was, then Allison and Tiffany would have to show her Declaration of Love to everybody in the school, including Mr. Doyle.

  Question 2. Mollie Morbid made many meatballs. From 1 lb. of meat she made nine meatballs. She had 4½ lbs. of meat. How many meatballs did Mollie Morbid make?

  But then if I don’t kiss him, he’ll tell everyone, and then Allison and Tiffany will show my Declaration of Love to Mr. Doyle, anyway. Pig City will be ruined, too. She shook her head. I can’t do that to Allison or Tiffany or Kristin, especially after the way we built it up to her. And what would we tell Debbie after school today? I have to kiss Gabriel. I have no choice.

  Gabriel’s a meatball! She divided 9 by 4½, and wrote 2 for her answer.

  Except even if I kiss him, how do I know he still won’t tell everybody about Pig City? He might tell everybody I kissed him, too.

  Question 3. 3x + 15 = 39. What is the value for x?

  What if I tell him I’ll kiss him only if he’ll give insurance? She laughed.

  “Do you find the test amusing, Laura?” asked Mr. Doyle.

  She looked up. She knew Mr. Doyle thought she had laughed at one of his questions. Even though Mr. Doyle wrote humorous word problems, you weren’t supposed to laugh at them. It was sort of a game between him and the class.

  But she hadn’t laughed at one of his questions. She had laughed at the thought of making Gabriel give her a pair of his underpants.

  “I was just thinking,” she said.

  “That’s good, Laura,” said Mr. Doyle. “You should think when you are taking a test. It sometimes helps.”

  She returned to the test. She subtracted 15 from 39 and multiplied by 3. x = 72.

  She had never kissed a boy before. She thought it was something she probably should do before next year. She didn’t want to go to junior high inexperienced.

  The thought of kissing Gabriel excited her a little bit. It also made her a little sick to her stomach.

  9

  Laura’s Reply

  Tiffany, Allison, and Laura planned Debbie’s insurance during lunch. Laura tried to look happy despite the sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach.

  “Okay, how’s this?” asked Tiffany. “We’ll tell her she has to call a boy up on the phone. Then we can tape the phone conversation on Laura’s tape recorder.”

  “That’s good,” said Allison. “And if Debbie tells anybody about Pig City, we’ll play the tape for the whole class to hear. She’ll have to tell the boy she loves him.”

  “Passionately,” Tiffany said with great emotion. “She’ll have to say she loves him passionately.”

  Allison laughed at the way Tiffany said that word.

  “She’ll have to disguise her voice,” said Laura, trying to get in on the fun. “So the boy won’t know who she is.”

  Tiffany and Allison continued to plan what Debbie would have to say to the boy, but Laura’s mind was elsewhere. When she returned to class, she tore a piece of paper out of her notebook. Using her broken pencil, she wrote:

  Hey Gabriel,

  I think you’re uglier than a two-headed frog. I’ll kiss you but only to save Pig City, not because I like you.

  Yours truly,

  Laura

  P.S. I’d rather kiss a rattlesnake!

  She gave up on the idea of asking him for insurance. He might make her give him insurance, instead. She’d just have to trust him. She frowned.

  She folded the note in half, then in half again, then one more time. On the outside she wrote:

  For Gabriel. Anybody else who reads this is a worm-nosed snail-eater.

  She passed it to the girl who sat next to her, who passed it to the boy next to her, who threw it at Gabriel.

  It bounced off the side of his head and landed on the floor.

  Gabriel grabbed for it.

  “Gabriel!” said Mr. Doyle. “Bring that here.”

  “What?” asked Gabriel as he tried to hide it under his chair.

  “You know what,” said Mr. Doyle. “Bring the note here and write your name on the blackboard under ‘Dictionary.’”

  Gabriel picked up the note and slowly walked down the aisle to the front of the room. He read the outside, but didn’t dare open it in front of the class.

  Laura was slowly dying. Mr. Doyle usually read all notes out loud to the class. Don’t read it, she prayed. Just throw it away. Please.

  Mr. Doyle held out his hand. Gabriel dropped the note into it.

  “Who’s it from?”

  Gabriel shrugged.

  Mr. Doyle read the outside of the note, first to himself, then out loud. “‘For Gabriel. Anybody else who reads this is a worm-nosed snail-eater.’”

  Everyone laughed.

  “Maybe I better not read it,” he joked.

  “Read it! Read it!” chorused the class.

  Don’t. Please don’t, Laura thought with all her might.

  Mr. Doyle slowly began to unfold the note.

  Laura stood up. “Don’t read it, Mr. Doyle,” she said. “I wrote it. Please don’t read it.”

  “Laura, I’m surprised at you,” said Mr. Doyle. “You know you’re not supposed to pass n
otes in class.”

  “I know. Please don’t read it.”

  “Read it!” shouted Sheila.

  Mr. Doyle looked at the note, still folded in half. “Come here, Laura,” he said.

  She walked to the front of the room next to Gabriel.

  “All right,” said Mr. Doyle. “I won’t read it.” He gave her back the note.

  “Oh, thank you, Mr. Doyle!” she said. “Thank you very much!”

  “You read it,” he said.

  She turned white.

  “Read it aloud to the class,” he told her. “If you can say it to Gabriel, then you can say it to everyone.”

  She swallowed, then slowly turned and faced the class. Her legs wobbled beneath her. She looked at Allison’s sympathetic face in the front row.

  “We’re waiting,” said Mr. Doyle.

  She took a deep breath. She couldn’t believe this was happening. She lifted her cap, brushed her hair off her face, and put the cap back on. She didn’t say a word.

  “Throw it away,” said Mr. Doyle.

  She didn’t have to be told twice. She tore the note to shreds and dropped it in the trash.

  “Let this be a lesson,” said Mr. Doyle. “Never put anything in a letter that you wouldn’t want published on the front page of a newspaper. A word to the wise. Now go write your name on the board.”

  Laura gladly wrote her name on the blackboard under the word DICTIONARY, under the rectangle.

  “You, too, Gabriel,” said Mr. Doyle.

  “Why me?” he protested. “I didn’t write it. I didn’t even get to read it.”

  Several kids laughed.

  Mr. Doyle glared at him.

  He walked behind Laura and waited for her to finish writing her name.

  Their fingers touched as she handed him the piece of chalk.

  10

  Maybe. Maybe Not.

  School was almost over, and the tips of Gabriel’s fingers still tingled. For the first time in his life he was looking forward to copying a dictionary page. Laura would be there, too. He would have given anything to know what was in her note.

  Maybe she’ll tell me, he hoped. Maybe she’ll tell me all about Pig City. Maybe she likes me. Please maybe … His mind ran wild with maybes.

  Laura looked at the clock. In five minutes she’d be alone with Gabriel. She’d have to say yes to his face. No more notes.

  Mr. Doyle never stayed after with kids when they had to copy dictionary pages. “Why should I have to stay after school because you got in trouble?” he always said. “I have better things to do than play nursemaid to you.”

  Laura knew that, in his own way, Mr. Doyle was really saying, “Even though you got in trouble, I still trust you enough to leave you alone in the room.” Normally, she liked that. Not today. She was afraid Gabriel would try to kiss her in the classroom.

  When the final bell rang, her friends crowded around her desk.

  “Wha’d the note say?” asked Tiffany.

  They were all dying to know.

  “I told him I thought he was uglier than a two-headed frog,” she told them. It wasn’t a lie.

  Allison laughed.

  “What’s wrong with that?” asked Tiffany. “I would have read that out loud.”

  “I don’t think Gabriel’s ugly,” said Kristin. “He’s cute.”

  “I hate him,” said Laura.

  “Do you girls want to copy dictionary pages, too?” asked Mr. Doyle.

  “No,” said Allison.

  They turned to go. “We won’t tell Debbie anything until you get there,” Allison told Laura. Mr. Doyle followed them out through the yellow curtain.

  Laura watched Gabriel get up from his desk and walk to the metal closet. That was where Mr. Doyle kept the dictionaries. He had about fifty old paperback dictionaries. They were used just for punishment. There was a large hardcover dictionary that was used for normal dictionary purposes.

  She watched Gabriel thumb through a dictionary, obviously waiting for her. I’m not going to kiss him here in school, she thought. I’ll do it in the Dog House.

  She stood up, lifted her cap, wiped her hair back, and pulled the cap back down. She walked up beside him and grabbed one of the paperback dictionaries.

  “Pick a page with a picture,” he said.

  She nearly jumped out of her skin. “What?”

  “Pick a picture page,” he repeated. “If you pick a page with a picture, then you won’t have to copy as much. You don’t have to copy the picture.”

  She looked at him as though he were crazy. “Have you told anyone about Pig City?” she asked.

  “No. I told you I wouldn’t.”

  “Yes, I know what you told me,” said Laura.

  “I meant it,” said Gabriel. He smiled.

  She couldn’t bear to look at his smiling face. She detested him. “Okay,” she said firmly. “But not here in school. Can you come over to my house after dinner?”

  “Sure!”

  “Okay, then,” said Laura.

  “Okay,” said Gabriel. He tore a page with a picture out of his dictionary and returned with it to his seat. Maybe!

  Laura ripped a page out of her dictionary. She brought it back to her desk and slowly and carefully copied everything on it, still using her broken pencil.

  A half an hour later, she looked up to see Gabriel drop his completed pages on Mr. Doyle’s desk. “You’re through?” she asked hatefully. She was only a little more than halfway done with hers.

  “Sure,” he said with a shrug. He walked back to her desk and watched her write. “You should have picked a page with a picture.”

  She ignored him.

  “You’re writing too neatly, also. You should write fast and sloppy. You’ll get done quicker, and it makes it harder for Mr. Doyle to see if you made any mistakes.” He was an expert at copying dictionary pages.

  Laura continued to write at her own pace.

  “Well, see you later.”

  She cringed.

  When she finally finished, she had used both sides of two pieces of notebook paper plus half a side of another page. She stapled it to the dictionary page and put it on Mr. Doyle’s desk.

  On the blackboard, she wrote:

  PIGS FLY HIGH!

  11

  Howard

  When Laura got home, she found Tiffany, Allison, and Debbie waiting inside her house in the kitchen. They were eating licorice sticks and finishing off the last of the frozen pepperoni pizza that Laura’s mother had microwaved for them. Each girl had a glass of grape juice in front of her.

  They all said, “Hi.” Tiffany and Allison didn’t salute, not with Debbie there.

  Allison went to the Dog House and got the tape recorder.

  Tiffany went into the living room to get more licorice. It was kept in a jar on the coffee table. The first time she came over to Laura’s house, she couldn’t believe she could take as much as she wanted. “You mean I don’t even have to ask your mother? She won’t care?” She had never heard of such a thing.

  They started down the hall toward Laura’s room. Pictures of Laura’s family, from her great-grandparents to her nephew, lined the walls.

  “Laura, you’re home,” her mother said, going the other way. “What happened?”

  “I had some work to do for Mr. Doyle,” she explained. “I needed to use the dictionary.”

  She led her friends into her room and closed the door. She had her own phone, with her own private number. She took the phone off the top of her dresser and placed it on the thickly carpeted floor. Everyone sat around it. Allison got the tape recorder ready.

  “Before we tell you anything,” said Laura, “we need insurance.”

  “What kind of insurance?”

  “You have to call up a boy in our class and tell him that you’re secretly in love with him,” said Allison.

  “Passionately,” said Tiffany.

  “We’ll tape the whole thing,” said Laura. “Then if you tell anybody our secret, we’l
l play the tape in front of Mr. Doyle’s class.”

  “What secret?”

  “We’ll tell you after you call up the boy.”

  “Disguise your voice, and don’t tell him who you are,” said Tiffany. “He’ll never know, unless you break your vow of secrecy.”

  “What boy?” asked Debbie.

  Laura looked at Tiffany and Allison. They hadn’t picked the boy.

  “How about Gabriel?” suggested Allison.

  “No!” Laura shouted.

  Tiffany and Allison looked at her strangely.

  “Okay, who?” asked Debbie.

  “How about Howard?” Laura suggested.

  Everyone laughed.

  It was because of Howard that clubs were no longer allowed at school. Howard’s mother had called and complained that none of the clubs would let Howard join.

  Tiffany looked up Howard’s number in the phone book and called it out. Debbie pushed the buttons on Laura’s phone. Allison turned on the tape recorder. She held the microphone next to Debbie’s mouth.

  “Hello,” Debbie said in a husky whisper. “May I talk to Howard, please?”

  She turned to the others. “I think that was his mother.”

  They laughed.

  “Howard?” said Debbie. She hammed it up. “Oh, Howard, is it really you? This is … your secret admirer. I love you, Howard. You’re so handsome.”

  “Passionately,” Tiffany whispered.

  “I love you passionately,” Debbie said with feeling.

  “Who is this?” asked Howard.

  “I can’t tell you,” said Debbie. “I’m afraid you’ll break my heart.” She hung up.

  Everyone laughed.

  Allison spoke into the microphone. “That was Debbie. She just called Howard and told him she loved him passionately, didn’t you, Debbie?” She handed her the microphone.

  “Yes,” said Debbie. “That was me. I’m Debbie. I disguised my voice because I love Howard so much, and I’m afraid he won’t love me back.”

  They all laughed. Allison switched off the tape recorder.

  “Welcome to Pig City,” said Laura, fist at nose.

  12

  The Kiss