Auggie & Me (13 page)

I closed the door, looked both ways in a super-obvious way again, and sprinted back toward the sidewalk. By now, the rain was coming down really hard. I pulled my hood over my head.

“Trombone! Science paper! Gym shorts!” I shouted, not looking back at her. I started jogging up the sidewalk to the school entrance.

“Love you!” I heard her call out.

“Bye, Lisa!”

I made it inside just before first bell rang.

I kept looking at the clock all through science class. Then, about ten minutes before the bell, I asked for the bathroom pass. I ran over to the main office as fast as I could and asked Ms. Denis, the nice old lady behind the main desk, for the stuff my mother had dropped off.

“Sorry, Christopher,” she said. “Your mother hasn't dropped anything off.”

“What?” I said.

“Was she supposed to come at a certain time?” she asked, looking at her watch. “I've been here all morning. I'm sure I haven't missed her.”

She must have seen the expression on my face, because she waved me to come to the other side of her desk. She pointed to the phone. “Why don't you give her a call, honey?”

I called Mom's cell phone and got her voice mail.

“Hi, Mom. It's me and . . . um, you're not here and it's . . .” I looked at the big clock on the wall. “It's nine-fourteen. I'm totally screwed if you don't show up in the next ten minutes, so, yeah. Thanks a lot, Lisa.”

I hung up.

“I'm sure she'll be here any minute now,” said Ms. Denis. “There's a lot of traffic on the highway because of all the construction. And it's really pouring outside now . . .”

“Yeah.” I nodded and headed back to class.

At first, I thought maybe I'd gotten lucky. Mrs. Kastor didn't mention anything about the paper for the rest of the class. Then, just as the bell rang, she reminded us to drop off our science papers at her desk on the way out.

I waited until everyone else had left and walked over to her at the whiteboard.

“Um, Mrs. Kastor?” I said.

“Yes, Christopher?”

“Yeah, um, sorry, but I left my science paper at home this morning?”

She continued erasing the whiteboard.

“My mom's bringing it to school, but she got caught in the rain?” I said.

I don't know why, but when I talk to teachers and get a little nervous, my voice goes up at the end of every sentence.

“That's the fourth time this semester you've forgotten an assignment, Christopher,” she said.

“I know,” I answered. Then I raised my shoulders and smiled. “But I didn't know
you
knew! Ha.”

She didn't even crack a smile at my attempt at humor.

“I just meant I didn't know you were keeping track . . .” I started to say.

“It's five points off, Chris,” she said.

“Even if I get it to you next period?” I know I sounded whiny at this point.

“Rules are rules.”

“So unfair,” I muttered under my breath, shaking my head.

The second bell rang, and I ran to my next class before she could respond.

Mr. Wren, my music teacher, was just as annoyed at me for forgetting my trombone as Mrs. Kastor had been about my science paper. For one thing, I had told Mr. Wren that Katie McAnn, the first trombonist, could take my trombone home today to practice her solo for the spring concert on Wednesday night. Katie's trombone was getting repaired, and the only other spare trombone was so banged up, you couldn't even push the slide past fourth position. So not only was Mr. Wren angry, but Katie was, too. And Katie is the kind of girl you don't want getting mad at you. She's a head taller than everyone else, and she gives really scary dirty looks to people she's mad at.

Anyway, I told Katie that my mom was on her way back to school with my trombone, so she didn't give me the dirty look right away. Mr. Wren gave her the dented trombone to use during class, so she didn't even have to sit out of music. When people forget their instruments, Mr. Wren usually makes them sit quietly off to the side and watch the orchestra rehearse. You're not allowed to read anything, or do homework. You just have to sit and listen to the orchestra rehearse. Not exactly the most thrilling experience in the world. I, of course, did have to sit music out today, since there was no trombone left for me to play.

During break, I ran over to the main office to pick up the stuff Mom should have dropped off by now. But she still hadn't shown up.

“I'm sure she just got stuck in traffic,” offered Ms. Denis.

I shook my head. “No, I think I know what happened,” I answered grumpily.

It had occurred to me while I was watching the band rehearse.

Isabel.

Duh, of course! Daisy just died. Something else must have happened. Maybe something to do with Auggie. And Isabel called Mom. And Mom, like she always does, dropped whatever she was doing to go help the Pullmans.

For all I knew, she was probably at the Pullman house right now! I bet she'd been on her way back to school with my trombone, science paper, and gym shorts on the backseat of the car when Isabel called, and bam, Mom completely forgot about me. Duh, of course that's what happened! It wouldn't be the first time, either.

“You want to call her again?” said Ms. Denis sweetly, handing me the phone.

“No thanks,” I mumbled.

Katie came over to me when I got back to music class.

“Where's the trombone?” she said. Her eyebrows were practically touching in the middle of her forehead. “You said your mom was bringing it!”

“She's stuck in traffic?” I said apologetically. “She'll have it when she picks me up from school today, though?” I guess Katie made me as nervous as teachers did. “Can you meet me after school at five-thirty?”

“Why would I want to wait around till five-thirty?” she answered, making a clucking sound with her tongue. She gave me the same look she gave me when I accidentally emptied my spit valve in her Dixie cup a few weeks ago. “Gee, thanks, Chris! Now I'm going to totally mess up my solo at the spring concert. And it's totally going to be your fault!”

“It's not my fault?” I said. “My mother was supposed to bring me my stuff?”

“You're such a . . . moron,” she mumbled.

“No, you are” was my brilliant comeback.

“Your ears stick out.” She made both her hands into little fists and walked away with her arms straight at her sides.

“Ugh!” I answered her, rolling my eyes.

And for the rest of the class, she shot me the dirtiest looks you can imagine over her music stand. If looks really could kill, Katie McAnn would be a serial murderer.

All of this could have been avoided if Mom hadn't abandoned me today! I was so mad at her for that. Boy, was she going to be sorry tonight. I could picture it already, how she would pick me up after school and be all, “I'm so sorry, honey! I had to drive over to the Pullmans', because they needed help with yadda yadda yadda.”

And I would be like, “Yadda yadda yadda.”

And she would be like, “Come on, honey. You know they need our help sometimes.”

“Yadda! Yadda! Yadda!”

When Auggie turned five, someone gave him an astronaut helmet as a birthday present. I don't remember who. But Auggie started wearing that helmet all the time. Everywhere. Every day. I know people thought it was because he wanted to cover his face—and maybe part of it
was
that. But I think it was more because Auggie really loved outer space. Stars and planets. Black holes. Anything to do with the
Apollo
missions. He started telling everyone he was going to be an astronaut when he grew up. In the beginning, I didn't get why he was so obsessed with this stuff. But then one weekend, our moms took us to the planetarium at the natural history museum—and that's when I got sucked into it, too. That was the beginning of what we called our space phase.

Auggie and I had gone through a lot of phases by then. ZoobiePlushies. PopBopBots. Dinosaurs. Ninjas. Power Rangers (I'm embarrassed to say). But, until then, nothing had been as intense as our space phase. We watched every DVD we could find about the universe. Space videos. Picture books about the Milky Way. Making 3-D solar systems. Building model rocket ships. We would spend hours playing pretend games about missions to deep space, or landing on Pluto. That became our favorite planet to travel to. Pluto was our Tatooine.

We were still deep into our space phase when my sixth birthday rolled around, so my parents decided to have my party at the planetarium. Auggie and I were so excited! The new space show had just come out, and we hadn't seen it yet. I invited my entire first-grade class. And Zack and Alex, of course. I even invited Via, but she couldn't come because she had a different birthday party to go to that same day.

But then, the morning of my birthday, Isabel called Mom and told her that she and Nate had to take Auggie to the hospital. He had woken up with a high fever, and his eyelids were swollen shut. A few days before, he had had a “minor” surgery to correct a previous surgery to make his lower eyelids less droopy, and now it had become infected. So Auggie had to go to the hospital instead of going to my sixth birthday party.

I was so bummed! But I got even more bummed when Mom told me that Isabel had asked her if she would be able to drop Via off at the other birthday party before going to my party.

Before even checking with me first, Mom had said, “Yes, of course, whatever we can do to help!” Even though that meant that she might end up being a little late to
my
birthday party!

“But why can't Nate drop Via off at the other party?” I asked Mom.

“Because he's driving Auggie to the hospital, along with Isabel,” Mom answered. “It's not a big deal, Chris. I'll take Via in a taxi and then hop on a train.”

“But can't someone else take Via? Why does it have to be you?”

“Isabel doesn't have the time to start calling other moms, Chris! So if we don't take Via, she'll have to just go with them to the hospital. Poor Via is always missing out—”

“Mommy!” I interrupted. “I don't care about Via! I don't want you to be late to my birthday party!”

“Chris, what do you want me to say?” Mom answered. “They're our friends. Isabel is my good friend, just like Auggie is your good friend. And when good friends need us, we do what we can to help them, right? We can't just be friends when it's convenient. Good friendships are worth a little extra effort!”

When I didn't say anything, she kissed my hand.

“I promise I'll only be a few minutes late,” she said.

But she wasn't just a few minutes late. She ended up being more than an hour late.

“I'm so sorry, honey . . . The A train was out of service . . . No taxis anywhere . . . So sorry . . .”

I knew she felt terrible. But I was so angry. I remember even Dad was annoyed.

She was so late, she even missed the space show.

The rest of the day ended up being pretty much as bad as the beginning of the day. I had to sit out of gym, because I didn't have my gym shorts and I didn't have a spare set in my locker. Katie McAnn's entire table kept shooting me dirty looks at lunch. I don't even remember my other classes. Then math was the last class of the day. I knew we were having a big math test tomorrow, which I hadn't studied for over the weekend like I was supposed to. But it wasn't until Ms. Medina started going over the material for tomorrow's test that I realized I was in deep trouble. I didn't understand what the heck we were doing. I mean, seriously, it was like Ms. Medina was suddenly talking in a made-up language that everyone else in class seemed to understand but me.
Gadda badda quotient. Patta beeboo divisor.
At the end of class, she offered to meet with any kids who needed a little extra help studying right after school.
Um, that would be me, thank you!
But I had band practice then, so I couldn't go.

I raced down to the auditorium right after dismissal. The after-school rock band meets every Monday and Tuesday afternoon. I had only joined a few months ago, at the beginning of the spring semester, but I was really into it. I'd been taking guitar lessons since last summer, and my dad, who's a really good guitar player, had been teaching me all these great guitar licks. So when
Santa
gave me an electric guitar for Christmas, I figured I was ready to join the after-school rock band. I was a little nervous in the beginning. I knew the three guys who were already in the band were really good musicians. But then I found out there was a fourth grader named John who was also joining the band in the spring semester, so I knew I wouldn't be the only new kid. John played guitar, too. He wore John Lennon glasses.

The other three guys in the band were Ennio, who plays the drums and is considered to be this prodigy drummer, Harry on lead guitar, and Elijah on bass guitar. Elijah's also the lead singer, and he's kind of the leader of the band. The three of them are all in the sixth grade. They've been in the after-school rock band since they were in the fourth grade, so they're a pretty tight group.

I can't say they were thrilled when John and I first joined the band. Not that they weren't
nice
, but they weren't
nice
nice. They didn't treat us like we were equal members of the band. It was pretty obvious that they didn't think we played as well as they did—and, to be truthful, we really didn't. But still, we were trying really hard to get better.

“So, Mr. B,” Elijah said after we had all jammed on our own a bit. “We're thinking we want to play ‘Seven Nation Army' for the spring concert on Wednesday.”

Mr. Bowles was the after-school rock band adviser. He had gray hair that he kept in a ponytail, and had been a member of a famous folk-rock band in the '80s that my dad, for one, had never heard of. But Mr. Bowles was super nice, and he was always trying to get the other guys to include me and John. This, of course, just got the other guys even more annoyed at us. And it also made them really dislike Mr. Bowles. They made fun of the way he sometimes talked with his eyes closed. They made fun of his ponytail and his taste in music.