Pennybaker School Is Revolting Page 2

  I, however, liked keeping my feet on the ground. “No, no, of course not, Buster. I think the Plymouth Rock thing is a really good idea. You should ask Mr. Faboo about it.”

  I wondered what Mr. Faboo would look like duct-taped to the gym wall.

  “We’re introducing a new unit today, fellas,” Coach Abel said as we grunted and groaned over our calisthenics. “Don’t quit, now; nobody told you to stop. Thirteen, fourteen, good …” He walked through our squad lines, every so often pausing to straighten someone’s jumping-jack arms.

  “Basketball?” Buster yelled. He was already done with his calisthenics. Buster Tallwell was born done with his calisthenics.

  “Nope.”

  “Football?” Buckley Manor asked.

  “Nope.”

  “Handball?” Colton Wood said between grunts.

  “Nope.”

  “Cheerleading?” a voice asked. A very high, squeaky, non-boy voice. Samara Lee was standing just inside the gym door, her hands on her hips. Worse, the entire girls’ Four Square class was standing behind her.

  “Let me through, let me through.” There was some scuttling around in the crowd of girls, and then Miss Allegro, the teeny music teacher and high school dance team coach, popped out. She was holding a clipboard in one hand and a portable stereo in the other. “We’re here!” she announced in her teeny voice.

  We all glanced at one another.

  “Excellent!” Coach Abel clapped one time. “I was just getting ready to announce our new unit.” He turned to us. “Boys,” he said, sweeping his arm out wide toward the girls, “meet your new unit.”

  Nobody moved. Nobody spoke. Nobody breathed. Not even Chip Mason, who never missed an opportunity to chime in on an awkward situation.

  “Excuse me, Coach Abel, sir? I have a query-slash-declaration.”

  I was wrong. Of course Chip Mason was going to chime in.

  Coach patted the air with his hands. “You can’t have any questions yet. I haven’t even told you what the unit is.”

  “Yes, but—”

  “I think you fellas will like this unit. It’s a cooperative effort.”

  “But—”

  “It will give you a chance to get to know your fellow students better.”

  “Of course, but—”

  “It will stretch your boundaries.”

  “But—”

  “Take your learning to new heights.”

  “Sir—”

  “Teach you to grow and—oh, what is it, Chip?”

  Chip pushed his glasses up higher on his nose, then clasped his hands behind his back—his favorite lecturing posture—and paced in front of his squad line a few times. Finally he stopped, looked at Coach Abel, and said, “You do realize those are girls.”

  We all nodded and mumbled in agreement.

  “Sit down, Mr. Mason,” Coach said. “Of course I realize they’re girls. And that was not a question.”

  Chip held up one finger. “That’s why I said query-slash-declaration. You see, a quer—”

  Wesley elbowed Chip in the side of the knee. Chip lowered his finger, pushed his glasses up again, and pressed his lips together tightly.

  Coach Abel continued. “As I was saying, these fine young ladies are going to be joining you for a while.” All eyes, round and terrified, drifted over to the girls. “Miss Allegro has been kind enough to offer to teach the next unit, which will be … dance.”

  He said the last word really quickly. We traded confused glances.

  “Did you say ‘pants’?” Dawson Ethan asked.

  “France. I think we’re doing something French,” Colton said.

  “Ants?” someone asked from the back row.

  “Ooh, finally! An entomology unit!” Chip said, bouncing a little on his toes.

  “No, not ‘ants,’ you dummy. He said ‘trance.’ We’re going to learn how to hypnotize people. I bet you could do it, Thomas. Woo woo …” This from Julian Frood, who was wiggling his fingers at me.

  “For the thousandth time, Julian,” I said, “hypnosis is not magic, and I don’t hypnotize people.”

  “Actually,” Chip said, “magicians have used hypnosis for—”

  “Dance!” a voice yelled, cutting off Chip and making us all jump. Patrice Pillow was standing in the middle of the crowd of girls, wearing her all-black gym uniform (complete with black beret), her arms crossed, a scowl on her face. “He said ‘dance.’ Not ‘pants’ or ‘France’ or ‘ants’ or ‘trance.’ Dance. And we’re no happier about it than you are.”

  “I’m happy about it,” Fiona Patada said. She did a quick spin and a curtsy.

  “That’s because you’re a dancing genius,” Wesley said. Fiona placed her hand over her heart and curtsied even lower. “Unlike the rest of us,” Wesley added.

  “Now, now,” Miss Allegro said, walking briskly to the front of the gym. She placed the stereo on a cart and plugged it in. “You don’t have to be a genius to dance. You just have to be willing.”

  “Well, that counts me out,” I said, expecting everyone to laugh. But nobody did. They were all too worried about what would come next.

  What they didn’t know was that I was completely serious. There’s a saying that people who can’t dance have two left feet. I was pretty sure I had two backward feet. In third grade, I got down and boogied at my cousin Peter’s wedding reception—which meant I flailed around and hoped to stay upright. Only during the Chicken Dance, I didn’t exactly stay upright. I flailed myself onto the ground, tripping the bride, who teetered into the groom, who lurched forward into his best man, who flung his dance partner into the cake, which splattered on the floor, causing Great-Aunt Ethel to slip and catch herself on the punch table, causing an avalanche of crashing glasses and pink, fizzy punch that ruined the bride’s shoes. I had a serious Staring at Mom’s Tonsils Because She Was Yelling So Hard Adventure all the way home, and I swore off dancing forever. Like, forever forever. Just thinking about dancing made my stomach gurgle.

  Miss Allegro clapped her hands three times, her heels together and her posture so good that even Mom would have nothing to complain about. “Everyone up!”

  Reluctantly, we all stood.

  “Good. Now girls, come join the boys.” The girls moved just as reluctantly as we had.

  “What kind of dance are we doing, Miss Allegro?” my friend Flea asked. Flea only came up to the shoulder of even the shortest girl.

  “Ballroom,” she said triumphantly. “We will learn basics in class that you will use to choreograph your own routines. And at the end of our unit, we will have a program to show your parents all you’ve learned. Isn’t that exciting?”

  About as exciting as pantyhose.

  There was a lot of grumbling going on, until finally Coach Abel held up his hand to silence us. It kind of worked, but ballroom dance—with girls—was really a two-hand-silence kind of job.

  “Miss Allegro and I will randomly select your partners. There will be no swapsies, no tradebacks, no refusals or returns. You get who you get, and we expect you all to be mature ladies and gentlemen about it. Let’s make two lines. Boys over here, girls over here; face one another and count off.”

  Everyone shuffled around, confused and irritated, as we all tried to pair up with just the right person to avoid maximum humiliation. I planted my eyes firmly on Patrice Pillow, trailing the line and counting carefully so I could be assigned to dance with her.

  There were many reasons to pair up with Patrice Pillow:

  She was the only person who’d believed in me when Helen Heirmauser’s head went missing.

  She was nice.

  She had four brothers, so she wasn’t afraid to sock you one if you made her mad. Because …

  She was not girly.

  And, most important:

  She definitely didn’t want to do this any more than I did.

  The lines eventually got settled, Coach Abel yelling at us to find our spots or he would find them for us, and I was thrilled to be stand
ing directly across from Patrice. Coach began counting off, and, one by one, couples found practicing space on the gym floor.

  He was only a dozen or so people away when Chip wriggled into line next to me.

  “Hey, Thomas. Took me forever to find my dance socks in my locker. Well, technically they’re square-dancing socks, but they’ll do in a pinch until I find my ballroom dancing socks at home tonight.”

  “You have ballroom dancing socks?”

  He nodded. “They’re a little worn, but Mom can darn them.”

  “You have … Why? How did you wear out ballroom dancing socks? … You know what? Never mind. I don’t want to know. You need to move, or I won’t get to be with Patrice.”

  Coach was getting closer. Chip pushed up his glasses somberly. “It’s supposed to be a random pairing. It can’t be random if you position yourself to get a particular person.”

  “That doesn’t matter. Just move.”

  “It very much matters, Thomas. You’re not supposed to work the system to your advantage.”

  “Nobody cares,” I hissed. “Just … switch places with me.”

  “I don’t think I should.”

  I grabbed his shoulders and tried to maneuver him, but Chip could make himself extra heavy when he wanted to. “Go.”

  “No.”

  “Go.”

  “No. Oh, that tickles, Thomas.” He giggled.

  I tried to come up with a plan—maybe one of the girls down the line wouldn’t mind moving up—but Coach was too fast for me.

  “Eighteen,” he said, touching the top of my head with the palm of his hand.

  With his other hand, he pointed at Sissy Cork, who trudged forward, holding out her hand.

  “Come on, you,” she said angrily. Sissy Cork’s unique talent was arm wrestling, and I had seen her make at least three boys cry. If anyone should’ve been paired up with Buster Tallwell, it was her. I was a little afraid of having her anywhere near my arms.

  “I don’t have all day, you know,” she said. She walked in front of me through the gym until we found a spot. Sissy Cork and I had absolutely nothing in common.

  I looked back at the line. Chip Mason was walking proudly to an empty spot with Patrice’s arm hooked through his. He caught my eye and brightened, giving me a wave.

  I turned around and didn’t wave back.

  Forget the cracker guy. Chip should have been Benedict Arnold.

  TRICK #3

  A TEACHER APPEARS

  I wasn’t sure how somebody named Philadelphus Philadelphia would talk. Jacob Meyer was actually born in America, so while all my classmates were running around trying on their British and Scottish and German accents in preparation for Act After the Fact, I was pretty much just talking normally.

  “Top o’ the day to ya, laddy,” Wesley said, coming up behind me as I walked to class. I knew Wesley’s Irish accent well; it was one of his favorites. He was wearing a billowy pair of pants stuffed into knee-high boots. He had on a fancy-looking coat and a round hat with a feather sticking out of it.

  “Hey, where are your pantyhose?” I asked, pointing to his legs.

  “I believe you mean leggings,” he said.

  “Whatever. You’re wearing pants.”

  He stopped, brought one arm across his chest, and tipped his chin up importantly. “That is because I am in character.” His tone was lofty, his Irish accent gone.

  “We’re all in character. What gives?”

  “I am a character within a character.”

  “Huh?”

  He went slack and gave me a frustrated grunt. “I’m Lewis Hallam. I, along with my brother William, created the very first acting troupe in America. We opened with The Merchant of Venice. That’s Shakespeare.” Again with the arm across the chest, only this time Wesley bowed low. “I am in costume.” He had now adopted an English accent. “Thus, I am playing a character who is playing a character.” He straightened and grinned. “Pretty cool, huh?”

  “Anything is cool if you don’t have to wear pantyhose.”

  “Leggings,” Dawson Ethan said as he passed by.

  “Whatever,” I said.

  “Who do you think Mr. Faboo will be this year?” Owen asked, coming up on my other side. “Man, these things itch.”

  “Tell me about it. Who are you?”

  “Thomas Godfrey, inventor of the octant.”

  “What’s an octant?” Wesley and I said at the same time.

  Owen pulled out an odd-looking triangular contraption. “It measures for navigation.” He shrugged. “It’s cool if you like gadgets.”

  Nobody liked gadgets more than Owen. He liked gadgets so much that he wore a metal spaghetti strainer on his head because he thought it gave him a better wireless signal.

  “So who do you think Faboo will be?” Owen repeated.

  “Benjamin Franklin?” I guessed.

  “Not unknown.”

  “George Washington?”

  “You’re not even trying. Last year he was some guy who made a turtle submarine. Bushes somebody or other.”

  “David Bushnell,” Flea said, joining us. “The year before that, he was Henry Knox, who was this really fat general who died from eating a chicken bone. Mr. Faboo carried a live chicken with him all day.”

  “To pay homage,” Wesley said. He said “homage” like HO-MAWJ. “To the chicken, that is.”

  “Whoever he is, you know it’ll be g—”

  We rounded the corner into the classroom doorway and stopped, two other kids slamming into us from behind.

  Mr. Faboo wasn’t there. On his favorite day of the year. Act After the Fact Month was like Christmas to Mr. Faboo, and all he could talk about for the past three weeks was how excited he was to see everyone’s costumes. He should have been standing in front of the classroom in an elaborate Revolutionary War getup. Instead, some bald guy with frizzy tufts of hair over his ears stood by the teacher’s desk. He was wearing a suit. A brown suit. With a brown shirt. And a brown tie. Pennybaker brown. No wig. No spatterdashes. Not even a cravat.

  “Come in, students,” the sub said when he saw us jammed together in the doorway. He waved his hands. “Don’t just stand there. You’re a fire hazard.”

  “Who are you?” Owen asked.

  “I am Mr. Smith. Now, come in or you’ll all be tardy. I would hate to give a detention on my first day. Take a reading packet on the way to your seats.”

  Slowly we inched to our seats, each picking up a heavy packet of photocopied papers, everyone looking at everyone else with questions in their eyes. Mr. Faboo was definitely not a photocopied-papers kind of teacher. Mr. Smith? Flea mouthed to me. I shrugged.

  “Excuse me, Mr. Smith?” Clara Willis said, waving and wiggling her hand high.

  “Yes?” Mr. Smith already looked weary.

  “Where is Mr. Faboo? Is he getting into his costume?”

  “I’m afraid not,” Mr. Smith said. “Mr. Faboo has taken a leave of absence.”

  “Leave of absence?” Patrice Pillow repeated. “You mean, like, gone for a long time?”

  “Maybe forever,” Mr. Smith said. We all gasped. “Now, if you’ll pay attention to the first page of … Yes?”

  Clara had raised her hand again. “Why?”

  He pointed to the packet in front of him. “Because we’re going to read from it.”

  “No, I mean, why isn’t he coming back?”

  Mr. Smith smooshed his lips together, making his brown mustache crunch up to his nose. “That, I’m afraid, I am not privileged to share with you. Now, if you—”

  “Is he sick?” Clara asked, interrupting him.

  “I don’t think so. Page one—”

  “Is he dead?” Patrice Pillow interjected, her pencil poised over her notebook. Patrice had been writing a horror novel since she was three. She was always looking for interesting corpses to add.

  “No, of course n—”

  The questions started coming fast and furious.

  “Did he move away?”<
br />
  “Get married?”

  “Have a baby?”

  “Is he in jail?”

  “Is he on the run from police?”

  “Did he get a better job?”

  “Perhaps he is on sabbatical in someplace exciting and ancient, such as Ephesus or Teotihuacan, delving into the honorable pursuit of philology.” This from Chip. Of course.

  “Phil-what-ogy?” Clara asked.

  “Philology. The study of the historical development of language. He being a history devotee, as it were.”

  “Teoblahblahtican sounds made up,” Buckley said.

  “No, it’s a real place,” Chip said. “It’s in Mexico. Ephesus is in Turkey. Funny thing about Turkey: my mom put my Turkish socks into the dryer and—”

  “I like turkey,” Colton said. “Now I’m hungry.”

  “You already had Meat and Greet. You can’t be that hun—”

  “Enough!” Mr. Smith shouted, making us all jump. “Mr. Faboo is absent. He won’t be back anytime soon. Probably not ever. Why is nobody’s business but his. We are not discussing Turkey or socks or philology. Now, please direct your attention to page one. We are starting the Civil War.”

  More confused glances were exchanged.

  “Um …” Clara had raised her hand again.

  Mr. Smith seemed to wilt a little bit, trying to decide whether to call on her. “Yes,” he said wearily. “What is it?”

  “We’re actually in the colonial period,” she said. “Late sixteen hundreds to early eighteen hundreds. We have costumes.” She gestured to the dress she was wearing.

  “It’s Act After the Fact Month,” Wesley said. We all nodded.

  “Not anymore,” Mr. Smith said. He pointed to Owen, who was scratching his leg determinedly under his desk. “These costumes are a distraction. And they’re silly. Tomorrow I want you all back in your regular uniforms.”

  “No pantyhose?” I asked, the words blurting out of me before I could stop them.

  “They’re leggings,” half the class said in unison.

  “Whatever,” I mumbled.

  “No to anything that isn’t part of the usual Pennybaker School uniform,” Mr. Smith said.

  “Mr. Smith?” Clara again.