Middle-School Cool Read online

  “But that’s what I wanted.” Victoria’s lip quivered. She sensed that she was losing the argument.

  “I know, sweetie, but you can’t always have what you want. You get what you get and you don’t get upset.”

  Victoria’s throat tightened. She couldn’t breathe. And suddenly, before she could do anything about it, tears burst from her eyes, spouting from her ducts like water from a broken sprinkler head. She could do nothing to stop it. Mrs. Lewinsky had to call Mrs. Zacarias and have her take Victoria home. Both women chalked it up to immaturity; after all, three is awfully young to be in kindergarten, regardless of how smart you are.

  But it didn’t stop. First grade. Second grade. Third grade. Victoria never grew out of it. By fourth grade she knew she was far beyond the age at which crying over minor disappointments would be considered appropriate. But she couldn’t control herself. As soon as somebody refused to give her what she wanted, or whenever she got the answer to a question wrong, on went the waterworks. Generally Victoria avoided making a scene by studying so hard that she simply got everything right. Her perfection intimidated people, and for that reason she always got her way. Problem solved.

  As time went on that strategy fell apart. Once her peers matured, they lost their sense of fear and awe. They challenged Victoria just to annoy her, and even though she knew they were only teasing, the result was the same. As soon as she felt that pressure building against her tear ducts, she had to manufacture some excuse and make a quick getaway. This disappearing act started to take its toll. Classmates spread rumors that the reason Victoria rushed out of the room was because she had an intestinal problem. That was almost worse than having a reputation as a crybaby. The situation was quickly becoming a disaster.

  After she finished fifth grade, Victoria’s parents decided to let her stay home the following year and take courses online. That worked for a while, but then Victoria’s parents got divorced. Now Mrs. Zacarias could no longer stay at home and monitor Victoria’s studies; she had to work full-time. She didn’t want her daughter spending the entire day in the house all by herself (or worse, spending the day running around the neighborhood), so she told Victoria she had to go back to school for seventh grade. They had both hoped that Kaboom Academy, with its progressive, experimental philosophy, might be the answer to Victoria’s problem, but here she was hiding in the bathroom, face damp as a wash-rag, eyes a blistering red, so apparently it wasn’t.

  A sudden noise interrupted Victoria’s reverie, the sharp creak of a hinge turning. Victoria spun around in time to see the bathroom door close. Great. Just great. She dragged herself to the sink to splash some water on her face and felt a twinge in her stomach. Ugh. These books were not sitting well.

  Her stomach lurched and the bitter taste of bile, oatmeal, tuna, and barbecue chicken—with a tinge of popcorn—hit her throat.

  She dove into one of the stalls and leaned over the toilet. The Hobbit, Moby-Dick, Huckleberry Finn, and A Christmas Carol, as well as some orange juice and Cheerios from breakfast, erupted from Victoria’s throat. She heaved again, and the last bits of plot, character, themes, and symbols from the four classics poured out of her.

  Victoria sighed and sat back on her heels, feeling much better. Thank goodness she’d gotten sick; it was the perfect excuse for her strange behavior. Victoria headed to the nurse’s office, a skip in her step.

  Problem solved.

  LESSON 2: THE FIVE Ws

  “Let’s get down to the nuts and bolts of writing a story.”

  Mr. Mister stood at the front of the classroom and wrote on the whiteboard. “Every news story has to answer five questions. Those questions are Who? What? When? Where? and Why? We call them the five Ws.” Standing back from the board where he had written the words, Mr. Mister pointed to each one as he went through them. “Who is the article about? What is the issue? When did it happen? Where did it happen? And finally, why did it happen?”

  Margo raised her hand. “Yes, Margo?”

  “What about Which?”

  “What about which what?”

  “Not which what, just Which?”

  “I’m not following.”

  “ ‘Which’ is a question word,” Margo explained.

  “They’re all question words. Which do you want to discuss?”

  “Exactly. ‘Which’ is the one I want to discuss.”

  Mr. Mister was starting to get a headache. “I think we’re talking in circles here, Margo. Which word do you want to talk about?”

  “ ‘Which.’ ”

  “Yes. Which?”

  “Right.”

  “You have questions about which word?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay, just ask the question,” Mr. Mister said, losing his patience.

  “ ‘Which’ begins with a ‘W’—” Margo began.

  “They all do,” Mr. Mister interrupted. “That’s why they’re called the five Ws.”

  “But they could be six Ws, if you included Which?”

  “How am I supposed to know which?”

  “Well, How? is another one, Mr. Mister, that’s a very good point, though it doesn’t start with a ‘W.’ But I was talking about Which?”

  “I don’t know! I don’t know which! I wish you would tell me!” Mr. Mister was now looking forward to the cannon explosion that would mark the end of the class, but that wouldn’t happen for thirty-five minutes. Most of the students seemed to have fallen into a stupor, lost in their own personal daydreams. Ruben’s head was flung back, his mouth was open, and a loud snore was sawing through the conversation. Aliya and Taliya had started playing a card game. The only one paying any attention at all, besides Margo, was Abraham Lincoln, who nodded slowly, stroking his beard. The bright blue eyes peering out from under the stovepipe hat clued Mr. Mister to the fact that Abe Lincoln was, of course, Sam Blackmoore.

  “You. Sam, isn’t it?” Mr. Mister said.

  “I beg to differ, sir, but my name is Abraham Lincoln. You are addressing the seventeenth president of the United States.…”

  “Sixteenth,” growled Victoria.

  “Sixteenth. I’m not so good at sums and such.” Abe Lincoln chuckled.

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake,” snapped Victoria. “Do some research!”

  “I saved the Union,” Lincoln continued unperturbed, but he was interrupted by Mr. Mister.

  “Yes, yes, thank you for that. Do you know what she’s talking about?” Mr. Mister said, pointing at Margo.

  “Yes indeed, I do, sir,” Abe Lincoln said, rising to his feet and clearing his throat. “Four score and seven years ago, this young lady raised a question of great significance.…”

  “ ‘Four score and seven’ means ‘eighty-seven,’ you know,” Victoria muttered loudly enough for everyone to hear.

  Abe Lincoln continued unruffled. “This fine young lady sought to find out why the word ‘which’ was not included among the other W words for the purposes of writing a newspaper article. As you probably know, sir, the word ‘which’ is often used when asking the type of question where one must choose between two or more options, and it also begins with a ‘W,’ so it would fit in nicely with the other question words that begin with the letter ‘W.’ ” Mr. Lincoln smiled at the appreciative Margo and took his seat.

  “Thank you, Mr. President.”

  “It was my pleasure.”

  “So what’s the answer to the question?” Leo said.

  “I don’t really have a good answer,” Mr. Mister admitted. “But if you find reason to answer the question ‘which’ or even ‘how,’ for that matter, go right ahead and do it.”

  “Thank you!” Margo said gratefully. She turned to Abraham Lincoln. “And thank you for freeing the slaves!” For once Margo hadn’t made a complete fool of herself, and she had the sixteenth president of the United States to thank for that.

  RUBEN’S STORY

  Danger Ball

  By RUBEN CHAO

  Dodgeball: too dangerous or not dangerous e
nough? Over the past few years, the game of dodgeball has come under scrutiny. Many schools have banned it, fearing it has become just one more opportunity for bullies to target and pound weaker kids. Dr. Kaboom, “Hot Mustard” at Kaboom Academy, has a different belief.

  “It’s true that bullies have hijacked this wonderful game,” Coach Freeman said in an interview. “That is why Dr. Kaboom has taken the action out of the students’ hands and put it where it belongs: in the hands of the balls. Yes, I’m aware that balls don’t have hands, but that’s beside the point. Dr. Kaboom has designed a unique style of dodgeball that has revolutionized the game by making it evenly matched.” Seventh grader Riley Estabrook, the frequent target of bullies in the past, likes the new version of the game. “It’s harder to play but it’s more fair. It used to be that the weaker kids got slammed. Now everyone gets hurt.”

  Fourth period, physical education, more commonly known as PE. The students had changed into shorts, T-shirts, and athletic shoes. The girls stood on one side of the gym, the boys on the other. They might have mingled when they were in fifth grade, or maybe even sixth, but now that they were in seventh grade, the girls had become very self-conscious, and none of them was looking forward to exercising in front of the boys. The majority only cared about how they looked, and had spent a considerable amount of time in front of a mirror getting ready for school that morning. Forty-five minutes of running around and sweating would certainly ruin their hard work.

  The boys, on the other hand, barely noticed what they looked like when they left the house. More than once some boy had come to school wearing two different socks. One even arrived with his pajama bottoms on under his jeans. The only boy who did care what he looked like was Sam. Today he looked like a pirate.

  Coach Freeman entered the gym carrying a large net bag filled with red rubber balls. “Hello, everyone, good morning,” he said brightly. The students returned the greeting.

  “Coach Freeman, why do guys and girls have to take PE at the same time?” complained Edie as she collected her strawberry-blond hair into a ponytail and wrapped it in an elastic band.

  “Because the school is so new there are only twenty seventh graders,” Coach Freeman explained. “Ten boys and ten girls. There aren’t enough students to fill out two teams.”

  “What about basketball?” Ruben suggested. “There are five people on each team. You could make two boy teams and two girl teams.”

  “I don’t know how to play basketball,” admitted Coach Freeman.

  “There’s also volleyball,” Ruben spoke up again, “with six people on each team, but you can easily play with five.”

  “I don’t know how to play volleyball either,” said the coach.

  “How about calisthenics?” Leo suggested. “You know, jumping jacks, push-ups, stomach crunches.” Everyone groaned.

  “Belay that idea, ye bilge rat!” growled the pirate. Ruben seconded that motion with a hard shove to Leo’s shoulder, sending Leo stumbling into the bleachers.

  Leo didn’t like calisthenics either, but it was practically the only athletic activity he could do. For him team sports were a disaster. Having a legally blind person on your team was a huge liability. But it didn’t matter; the coach rejected Leo’s suggestion as well.

  “I don’t know how to do calisthenics,” confessed Coach Freeman.

  “Are you a real coach or do you just play one on TV?” Ruben joked, though there was an element of seriousness to the question. His classmates dutifully laughed anyway, some going a little overboard, wiping tears from their eyes and slapping their knees.

  “I’m not a real coach,” Coach Freeman answered. “I’m your bus driver, Ivan. I guess you haven’t recognized me with the coach’s cap and the whistle.”

  Now that he had mentioned it, the students did recognize Ivan. It wasn’t that the cap and whistle made him look that much different, it was just that in all the excitement of starting a new school, none of them had thought to take a good look at the bus driver.

  “So what can we possibly play together?” Victoria said. “The guys are going to be too rough no matter what sport we choose.”

  “Shiver me timbers, lassie! Not all these scurvy dogs be rough,” growled the pirate, waving the hook that replaced his hand. “Ye be making sweeping generalizations.”

  “You’re an idiot. You do know that, don’t you?” countered Victoria.

  “Arrrgh,” the pirate said sadly.

  “I may not be a real coach,” Coach Freeman said, “but I have been trained to teach you a brand-new game: dodgeball!”

  “All right! Yeah!” Ruben crowed. Dodgeball was Ruben’s favorite. He was an expert at hurling balls with the accuracy of a sharpshooter, knocking weaker, awkward kids down like bowling pins.

  “Dodgeball isn’t …,” Aliya began.

  “… a new game,” Taliya said, finishing the scoff. “It’s been around …”

  “… since cavemen threw …”

  “… rocks at each other.” The two sisters tittered at their drawn-out joke.

  “It’s not the game that’s new, it’s the Kaboom Method of playing the game,” Coach Freeman announced.

  “Well, I guess we have to break up into teams,” Margo said with a shrug. “What’s it going to be, boys against the girls or girls against the boys?” Everyone just looked at her. Margo could’ve sworn she heard the distinct sound of somebody slapping their forehead in disbelief. She knew it was Victoria.

  “Let’s pick captains!” Ruben suggested. “I’ll be one, and …” He looked around to see who he would least want on his team. It came down to Leo or Margo. Leo couldn’t see anything, but Margo would probably throw the ball at her own teammates. “Margo, you can be the other one.”

  “No, no, no. You don’t understand,” Coach Freeman interrupted. “You are all on the same team. Instead of battling against each other, you will be helping each other.”

  “Against who?” the kids said in unison.

  “The balls.”

  Coach Freeman opened the neck of the net bag, grabbing the bottom to shake out the balls, which rolled onto the floor. All together there were twelve. They looked like traditional red kickballs, but looks can be deceiving.

  “Wow, these balls have bounce!” Ruben remarked. Indeed, the balls seemed to bounce higher than might be expected of balls that had just been released from a bag. In fact, the height and intensity of the bounces seemed to increase with every impact, defying the laws of physics. Then, in an astonishing move, the balls started to coordinate with each other, creating patterns like synchronized swimmers or a marching band. First they formed a circle, then a star, then a line of twelve, then two lines of six. They bounced in a syncopated beat with the precision of bongo drummers. Dancing balls! All the students gaped in awe. In their entire lives they had never seen anything like this.

  “So how do we play?” Ruben asked eagerly, remembering the point of the demonstration.

  “It’s a very easy game,” Coach Freeman answered. “These are the rules. Number one, you must stay in the gym. Number two, when the balls come at you, dodge them or catch them. Any ball you catch you can put back in the bag, and that ball is out. Number three, if you get hit, you’re out, and you have to go to the prison, which is the bleachers. Number four, the only way you can get out of prison is if somebody makes it to the bleachers without getting hit. Then you can stage a prison break, and everyone who is in prison can come back onto the floor of the gym. Got it?”

  The students shrugged. The rules did seem pretty easy.

  “Can’t we just watch the balls dance?” Everyone’s favorite target, Margo did not care for dodgeball.

  “No, the balls really aren’t dancers,” Coach Freeman said. “They brought their game face; let’s see you bring yours. Okay! Are you guys ready?”

  The students readied themselves, feeling a little foolish.

  “Are you ready, balls?”

  At this, the balls did something quite frightening. They immedia
tely stopped bouncing and scooted into a straight line.

  “Okay, one, two, three … dodgeball!” cried Coach Freeman, tweeting his whistle.

  With each count the balls had bounced in unison, higher and higher and higher. ONE bounce. TWO BOUNCE. THREE B O U N C E. At the end of the count, the balls dive-bombed the students. The kids scattered, shouting and screaming. Those with quick reflexes succeeded in dodging the red rubber missiles by leaping out of the way or flattening themselves on the floor. Leo couldn’t see the ball coming and was pounded squarely in the back. He hadn’t expected to last very long, so he had stationed himself near the bleachers. Now that he was out, he nonchalantly climbed into the prison, sitting on the third-row bench.

  What Leo hadn’t expected was the purple ball. As soon as he sat down it appeared from underneath the seats, bouncing softly behind him on the fourth-row bench.

  “Hey, Coach Freeman, what’s this purple ball for—” Leo began, but before he could get to the question mark in his sentence, the ball leaped up and slammed him in the back of the head.

  “Ow!”

  “That’s the prison guard.”

  “Prison guard? Why is there a prison guard?”

  “It’s a pretty feeble prison that doesn’t have a prison guard.” Coach Freeman chuckled. The purple ball slammed into Leo’s head again.

  “Ouch! Can you tell it to stop?”

  “Don’t be a poor sport, Leo, it’s part of the game. It’s just trying to get you to behave and sit quietly, with your hands in your lap.”

  “So if I sit quietly with my hands in my lap, I can get out early on good behavior?” The purple ball answered that question with a third slam to Leo’s head.

  Meanwhile, a war was raging on the floor of the gym. Balls zoomed through the air, chasing down their targets. Sometimes they worked in tandem: while one ball came from the front, the other came from the back, sweeping the unaware teen’s feet out from under him. Aliya and Taliya made a very large target as they ran arm in arm around the gym. Two balls took them out at the same time, whamming the twins in their backs. The girls picked themselves up off the highly polished floor, turning just in time to see the balls celebrate by bouncing against each other in the air before heading off to look for other prey.