Lost in the Sun

  “Did you know,” she began—and I noticed that her voice was even sort of wrinkled—“that as your homeroom teacher I am also your sixth-grade adviser?”

  I didn’t answer that one. It didn’t really seem like a question that needed to be answered. I mean, who cared?

  She slapped a bunch of papers into an even stack on her stovetop desk. “We’ve come to midterm review,” she said. She tilted her head even farther to examine me—so far I worried her neck might snap (well, I wasn’t exactly worried, but you know). “And I have been reviewing you.”

  “Goody,” I said. I thought I said it quietly, but I guess not, because Ms. Emerson sniffed.

  “In most of your classes you seem to be doing well enough,” she told me. “Not wonderfully, but passing.” She looked up from the paper on the top of her stack. “Did you know that you do precisely enough homework in each class to earn exactly a B-minus?” She narrowed her eyes at me then, like she thought I was up to something fishy. It wasn’t anything fishy at all. If the teacher gave you a rubric at the beginning of the year and told you what you needed to do to earn an A, or a B, and so on, then it wasn’t too much of a trick to figure out exactly what would get you a B-minus. B-minuses, I knew from experience, were grades that weren’t too tough to make you want to die from homework overload, but were good enough that your parents wouldn’t nag you all the time about getting better ones.

  “B-minuses sounds pretty good,” I said with a shrug.

  Ms. Emerson kept her eyes narrowed at me for a long while, then said, “You are clearly too smart for B-minuses, Trent.” Then she turned back to her stack of papers. Flipped to one lower in the stack. “But perhaps that is a different matter. What I wanted to speak with you about today,” she went on, “is your physical education.”

  I couldn’t say I was too surprised about that one. Still, my heart thudded, right down into my stomach.

  “It has come to my attention,” Ms. Emerson told me—and was it just me, or was she really enjoying every minute of this? I swear she was even smiling a little bit—“that you have been failing to participate in your P.E. class.”

  “I show up,” I said. “Every day.”

  “But you fail to participate.”

  I shrugged. No use denying it.

  Ms. Emerson nodded at that. “Unfortunately that’s going to prove to be a bit of a problem for you, Trent.”

  I didn’t like how she was talking to me. Like she was so high and mighty, at her stovetop desk. Like she knew everything in the world.

  “P.E.’s not even a real class,” I said. “It’s P.E. Half the time we play dodgeball, which isn’t even a real sport.”

  “The state of California would disagree with you about P.E. being a real class,” the wrinkled old crone said. “According to the state of California, it is in fact very real, and very important. Which means that to Cedar Haven Middle School, it’s very important, too. If you don’t participate, you cannot pass your physical education class, and if you do not pass your physical education class, you will not pass sixth grade.”

  My chest was getting hot now. Not quite fire, but almost.

  “You mean, I could actually fail sixth grade because of not playing dodgeball?”

  Ms. Emerson raised an eyebrow. “It’s sounding more like a real class now, isn’t it?”

  I really hated that wrinkled old crone.

  “So I’m going to fail,” I said, getting up from my stupid oven station. “Thanks for letting me know. Can I go home now?”

  “Sit back down,” Ms. Emerson snapped at me.

  She was kind of scary when she snapped.

  I sat.

  The wrinkled old crone did not say anything. She just stared at my face, which was about as uncomfortable as you can imagine. I looked down at the missing knobs on the oven, but when I looked back up, she was still staring at me. It didn’t look like she was planning on talking any time soon, either.

  Kind of creepy.

  “Why do you have all these ovens in your class?” I asked. Just for something to say. So she’d stop creepy-staring at me in silence. “Are you going to, like, bake something?”

  When she answered, she didn’t even blink. So it didn’t really solve the creepy staring thing. But at least she was talking, which I suppose was an improvement. “Many years ago,” she said, “this was a home ec room. I was the home ec teacher.” She jerked her head back toward the large closet behind her without moving her eyes from my face. “There are sewing machines in the closet.”

  Well. I guess that explained that.

  “Do you wish you were still teaching home ec?” I asked. “That sounds way more fun than social studies.”

  “Trent Zimmerman,” Ms. Emerson said with a grand sigh. I could tell she was not about to fall for changing the subject. “I know you were seeing a counselor last year at the elementary school.” She glanced down at her stack of papers. “Miss . . .”

  “Eveline,” I said, gripping my hands into fists at my sides. “Miss Eveline.”

  The wrinkled old crone looked up at me again. I wished she wouldn’t. “Did you find speaking to her helpful?”

  I shrugged.

  She nodded at that, like that’s what she’d been expecting—a shrug. “Unfortunately,” she went on, “because of budget cuts, the middle school no longer has its own counselor. But you are welcome to speak to any of our other instructors, anyone you trust.” She started the creepy staring thing again, grilling me with her eyeballs, and I swear, if she’d suggested that I come talk to her like I talked to Miss Eveline, I would’ve laughed right in her face.

  But she didn’t. She just stared.

  “Okay,” I said at last. “Can I go now?”

  “No.”

  I really wished that I could go. Fallon was probably waiting at the front of the school for me to go to Movie Club. She’d probably been waiting there since the bell rang. She was probably getting mad.

  “You are required to receive a physical education,” Ms. Emerson said, still staring down her old-crone nose at me. “But seeing as how you refuse to participate in your physical education class, Mr. Gorman has come up with two alternatives for you.”

  “What if I couldn’t participate in P.E.?” I asked. “What if I had a note from my doctor? What if I broke my arm?”

  Ms. Emerson pursed her wrinkled old-crone lips. “Are you planning on breaking your arm?” she asked.

  I thought about it. “No,” I muttered at last.

  “No,” she repeated. “Because that would be a fairly dimwitted idea, wouldn’t it?”

  “I don’t think you’re supposed to call your students dimwits.”

  “Do you want to hear Mr. Gorman’s alternatives,” she asked me, “or do you want to fail?”

  It wasn’t a real question.

  “Mr. Gorman has suggested,” she went on after a brief pause of more creepy staring at my face, “that you might make up your poor grade by joining a sport. He generously offered to let you into intramural baseball, although it started several weeks ago. He said he would make an exception for you.”

  I gripped my fists tighter.

  “What’s the other alternative?” I asked.

  “You don’t like baseball?” she said.

  I creepy-stared at her until she started talking again.

  Ms. Emerson sighed a deep sigh and dug another paper out from her stack. She glanced at it, then pushed it toward me.

  “There’s a community program starting up this year,” she said, “on Saturdays. A basketball program, to get the younger elementary school kids who might not be the best athletes interested in sports at an early age. They are looking for older volunteers.”

  I got up from my seat and walked around the oven station to take the flyer. I read it. Volunteering to help uncoordinated babies every Saturday for the rest of t
ime. Wonderful.

  “Is Mr. Gorman in charge of it?” I asked. Because I was sensing a trap.

  “To the best of my knowledge, he has no involvement.”

  “I’ll do this one,” I said. And I scooped my backpack off the floor and unzipped it, stuffing the flyer inside. “Can I go now?”

  “You may. And Trent?” I turned around, already at the door. “There are plenty of teachers at this school who’d be happy to speak with you, when you feel like talking.”

  “Are you going to call my mom?” I asked. “And tell her? About P.E., I mean?”

  “Of course,” Ms. Emerson said.

  There was a new plant, in a pot, right on the shelf by the door, at my elbow. I wanted to break it. I wanted to break it so badly.

  I slammed the door hard, but the plant didn’t fall off the shelf.

  • • •

  Fallon was waiting for me outside the school, just like I thought.

  “What took you so long?” she asked.

  I didn’t answer. The fire was still licking at the neck of my T-shirt, and I was having enough trouble pushing it down. Talking about it wouldn’t help.

  “What movie do you want to watch today?” Fallon asked as we walked. I wheeled my bike next to her.

  I shrugged again.

  We ended up watching Iron Man, which was one of my favorites, but I couldn’t concentrate. I kept thinking about Fallon’s dad, in the kitchen reading his tablet. I wondered if the reason he always had his eyes on us was that he thought I was a screw-up. I wondered when the wrinkled old crone was going to call my mom and tell her what a screw-up I was. I wondered if she was calling her right then.

  “I have to go,” I told Fallon, standing up suddenly, right in the middle of the movie. “I don’t feel good.”

  “You okay?” she said, squinting at me.

  “I don’t feel good,” I said again. Because I didn’t. I felt like a screw-up.

  “My dad can drive you home,” Fallon told me. Sure enough, her father was already getting up from the kitchen table, grabbing his keys.

  The last thing I needed was a ride from Fallon’s dad. A cop and a screw-up in a car together—that could go wrong fast. “I’ll be okay,” I said. “I promise.”

  Fallon squinted at me even harder. “You sure?”

  I nodded.

  “Okay,” she said. “Um, see you tomorrow?”

  I nodded again.

  • • •

  I didn’t know what I was planning to do when I got to Kitch’N’Thingz. Telling Mom about P.E., maybe, before the wrinkled old crone could get to her. Grabbing a snack from the back room and doing some homework, so I could look like a not total screw-up, and Mom wouldn’t hate me and we could listen to Game 5 of the World Series together.

  I didn’t do any of those things.

  I saw them through the window as I was chaining my bike up out front. I saw them. No one else was in the store but Mom and Ray, and I guess they didn’t think anyone could see them through the window, but they were wrong, because I did.

  Ray kissed her. My mom. Not on the mouth, but on her neck. Slowly, and kindly, and Mom smiled when he did it.

  It didn’t look like the first time it had happened, either.

  Four things I knew, right then, in that one split second through the window:

  Ray liked my mom. A lot.

  My mom liked Ray. Just as much.

  If they weren’t officially dating, then they were going to be, one day soon. And probably for a long time.

  They had decided not to tell me.

  It all made sense, really, I thought as I quick stuffed my bike chain back into my backpack and sped on down the block. One through three, those things all made sense. My mom was great, and Ray, he was pretty great, too. He loved the Dodgers more than anybody. I was glad they’d found each other. I was glad they seemed so happy.

  But number four, that one didn’t make so much sense. Why wouldn’t they want to tell me? Had they told Aaron and Doug already? Did they think I would care?

  The fire coursed all through me as I pedaled back to the house, wondering why my mom would decide not to tell me something so important.

  Wondering if it had anything to do with me being such a screw-up.

  FOURTEEN

  I didn’t tell Mom I knew about her and Ray. I was going to. I was going to tell her that it was great, I didn’t care, I was happy for her, only why hadn’t she told me? But by the time she got home, after Game 5 was well over and the stupid Orioles were the stupid World Series champs, she wasn’t exactly in the mood to talk to me.

  That’s what she said to me as soon as she walked through the door and I opened my mouth to tell her I knew. “I’m not exactly in the mood to talk to you, Trent,” she said to me. “Do you know who I got a phone call from at work today? Your teacher,” she said, like I couldn’t guess. “Ms. Emerson. Why didn’t you tell me you were failing P.E.?”

  Why didn’t you tell me you were kissing your boss? That’s what I wanted to say. But I didn’t. I can be smart sometimes.

  So I stood there, and I listened to her yell at me. Listened to her tell me that there was no way a smart kid like me was going to fail sixth grade. That she’d drag me to that basketball program kicking and screaming every Saturday if she had to. That wasn’t I lucky I had such wonderful teachers who cared about me as much as Ms. Emerson and Mr. Gorman, that they’d go to all that trouble to find a makeup program for me when I couldn’t even be bothered to get my rear end off the bleachers and play dodgeball?

  I listened to it all. Didn’t say a word, because I wasn’t supposed to. Then I went to my room, because Mom was too mad to look at me. And when Aaron and Doug got back from dinner with Dad, I didn’t much feel like looking at either of them, so I stayed in my room.

  If I could’ve stayed in there for the rest of time, I would’ve. But even screw-ups have to leave their rooms sometime.

  • • •

  The next day was Halloween, and I think Mom really wanted to “ground the living tar” out of me, but since she wasn’t going to be home, she decided to drag me with her to the store to hand out candy. I wasn’t complaining. It was pretty much the world’s best grounding.

  Cedar Haven, California, didn’t have a whole lot going for it 364 days of the year. But Halloween, that one it did right. All of Main Street shut down to traffic, from about four o’clock on. Not a single car was allowed through, only people. And all of the shop owners stayed open late, handing out candy to trick-or-treaters. Not the cheap kind of candy, either—Blow Pops and cracked peppermints with their wrappers half melted off. No, every single one of the shops handed out real candy, the good kind. Snickers. Kit Kats. Twix. Skittles. M&M’s. A kid could make out like a bandit on Halloween in Cedar Haven. I was too old to go trick-or-treating anymore, but I got to keep one piece of candy for every twenty I gave away, that was Mom’s rule, so I still made out like a bandit.

  This year I was the only one helping Mom because Aaron was out with Clarisse (even if he still kept trying to insist they weren’t dating), and Doug had decided he wasn’t too old for trick-or-treating, and was out with his two favorite girls in the entire world, Annie and Rebecca.

  I thought I was in for an evening of handing out candy and pretending I didn’t know about Mom and Ray, because it didn’t exactly seem like the right time to bring it up, what with Mom practically wanting to murder me and all. But just about six o’clock, after I’d handed one kid ten whole pieces of candy just so I could eat a mini Twix, Fallon showed up.

  “Hi, Mrs. Zimmerman!” she said to my mom, and my mom let her squeeze past the trick-or-treaters into the store.

  “Hello, dear,” my mom said, smiling big like she really was thrilled to see her. Fallon had been right—moms did love her. “It’s nice to see you.”

  “What are y
ou supposed to be?” I asked her. “A hippie?” She was wearing a big flowy skirt, and a dark green flowery top, with a woven leather belt at her waist. She even had bells in her hair, with braids.

  “These are just my clothes,” Fallon told me. But she didn’t look upset about me thinking it was a costume.

  I didn’t understand girl fashion at all.

  “Anyway,” Fallon said, “I’m glad you’re here.” She was standing right behind where Mom and I were handing out candy in the doorway, and started digging through my plastic pumpkin for candy bars, totally interrupting my trick-or-treat flow. I slapped her hand away. “I wanted to see if you’d go to the scary movie with me,” she said, unwrapping the mini Snickers she’d snagged and taking a big bite.

  The movie theater showed a free scary movie every year on Halloween, except it was only scary if you were two. They were usually from about a million years ago, and almost always in black-and-white. I hadn’t gone in years.

  Still, getting away from the Angriest Mom on the Planet didn’t sound like the worst idea. I craned my neck around the gaggle of kids currently begging me for candy, until I could see the marquee across the street.

  “I Was a Teenage Werewolf,” I read.

  “Yeah,” Fallon said. “I already watched the trailer online. It looks terrible!” I’d never seen anyone so excited about going to a terrible movie before. “With, like, the worst special effects. And wait till you hear this tagline.” She shifted her shoulders back, stood up a little straighter, and put on her best movie-trailer voice. “‘You’ll fall flat on your face’”—she paused for dramatic effect, and her eyes went huge on either side of her scar—“‘with terror!’ Seriously, doesn’t that sound amazing?”

  I couldn’t help it. I laughed.

  “Can I go, Mom?” I asked. I wasn’t super hopeful about it, but I figured if anyone could convince her, it was Fallon.

  Sure enough, Fallon jumped up and down and said, “Please, pretty please, Mrs. Zimmerman?” She swept the back of her hand up to her forehead like she was a swoony lady in an old-fashioned movie. “If I don’t go, I just might die.”