EllRay Jakes Rocks the Holidays! (7 page)

“Throwing shade?” I repeat.

I have heard this expression before. I just can’t remember what it means.

“You know,” Kevin says, shaking his head as we
pause near a “What Not to Bring to School” poster. “Pretending to give a kid a compliment, when you’re really dissing them. Like, ‘Oh, you’re so brave going out in public with that haircut!’”

Oh. Okay.

Kevin has a teenage sister who thinks she’s the expert on everything. Tania, I think her name is. She’s big into hip-hop, and most other kinds of dance, too.

And she talks like she’s on a reality TV show. “Throwing shade” must be coming from her.

“But I didn’t—”

“
Pretending
in front of everyone that you really wanted to clean desks with me?” Kevin interrupts, like he’s making this really obvious point. “Because we’re such good friends? Only you already had all these plans with Corey? You made me look bad in front of everyone—
on purpose
. You disrespected me, dog. I looked like a fool.”

This sounds like pure Tania to me. She got him all worked up.

We are deep into “The Land of Hurt Feelings,” as Mom calls it when she’s talking about Alfie and
her friends at Kreative Learning and Playtime Day Care. And hurt feelings mean Girl Land. In my opinion, anyway.

Not that I’m telling Kevin that.

“So, you’ll have to do whatever I say, so we can be even,” he tells me.

“What are you talking about?” I ask. “Can’t you just sock me one, and get it over with?”

“You embarrassed
me
,” Kevin says, ignoring what I just said as he spells it out. “So I get to embarrass
you
. That’ll make us
even
, and then we can be
friends
again. I figured it all out.”

He sounds so sure of himself! And he’s always been obsessed with things coming out even. Potato chips. Cookies. Taking turns playing a game. The number of pillows he has during a sleepover.

“But I’m
already
embarrassed,” I try to explain. “Especially lately. Just walking around, even. I stick out like a sore thumb! Can’t I just tell you I’m sorry?” I ask. “Or—how about if I apologize in front of everyone at lunch? That would make me suffer.”

“Not enough,” Kevin says. “Anyway, that would only make you look better and me look worse, EllRay.
And you know it! No, you gotta do a challenge. At
least
one. And I get to say what it is.”

“A
CHALLENGE
?” I say, echoing his words. “Is that like a dare? Because we’re not allowed to do dares. Remember? It’s against official Oak Glen Primary School rules.”

“A challenge is different from a dare,” Kevin says.

“I guess you’re right,” I say, thinking about it. Because you can challenge yourself, can’t you? To do better at something: a spelling test, jumping far, raising your score in a game. Or you can challenge a friend to do something as well as you can, like in a contest, or to do better at something than he did before. But throwing down a dare is trying to make someone do something he does not want to do.

“Of course I’m right,” Kevin says, looking prissy as he lifts his chin in the air.

His
brown
chin.

“Listen,” I tell him, inspired. “We gotta stick together, Kev—because of the
community
. Because we’re
linked
.”

I don’t really see it, not the way Dad means. At least not yet.

But hey. Anything’s worth a try.

“What are you talking about?” he says, looking madder than before, even.

“I
mean
, we both have brown skin,” I inform him—as if he didn’t already know.

“Oh, that,” Kevin says, shrugging. “I thought you were talking about us being friends.”

“We’re linked that way too,” I say, nodding.

“Well, we’re not linked like
anything
until you do my challenges,” Kevin announces. “You
must successfully complete them,” he adds, as if he has just been given magical wizard powers.

And did you notice? Now, it’s definitely more than one challenge!

“Whatever, dog,” I tell him, a hopeless feeling settling over me like a pile of too-heavy blankets on a hot night. “Just tell me what I have to do.”

“I’m not done thinking them up yet,” he says, chin still high in the air. “But I’ll let you know when I do. Now, let’s go, before Ms. Sanchez starts looking for us.”

And even though I’m the one holding the envelope, Kevin leads the way down the empty hall to Principal James’s office. And here’s me trotting along behind him, deeper down the rabbit hole.

Man, I think, struggling to keep my legs going.

This is going to be
one bad week
.

8

“Well, well, well. If it isn’t EllRay Jakes and the Kevinator,” Principal James says as we slink into his holiday-decorated office. “I’ve been wondering where you two were. I was about to send out a search party,” he adds, glancing at his watch.

Yes, he still wears a watch instead of just looking at his cell. So does my dad.

I think Principal James is joking about the search party. But if there was one, I can imagine what the flyers he would hand out might say.

“I’m sorry we’re late,” I tell him. “It was—the hall.”

“Yeah. Sorry. The hall,” Kevin—the Kevinator?—echoes.

“The other class representatives have come and gone,” Principal James says, ignoring our lame excuse. “May I have the envelope, please?”

I hand it over, knowing what’s inside.

Principal James reads the two pieces of paper that were inside the envelope as Kevin and I edge toward the door, hoping to make our getaway. But no such luck.

“Have a seat, boys,” he tells us, still reading. “Hmm. I like both these ideas. I’ll give Ms. Sanchez a jingle so she doesn’t worry, because I’d like you to stick around for a moment,” he adds, reaching for the phone on his desk.

Cool!
Maybe
.

Principal Harry James—which I secretly spell Principal
Hairy
James, because of the beard on his face—is okay for such a big, scary guy.

Well, he’s only scary because you have to go to his office for a talking-to if you get in trouble.
But most of the time, he’s nice. He stands on the school’s front steps every morning, greeting each of us by name. I think he must study flash cards at home. And he’s there when school lets out, too, to say good-bye. Alfie calls him the “hello and good-bye man.”

She’ll learn how important he is soon enough. Next year, in fact.

Watch out, Oak Glen Primary School!

The principal murmurs into the phone for a few seconds, then perches his skinny rear end on his desk and faces Kevin and me.

“Relax,” he says, smiling through his beard as he rearranges a couple of the snow globes on his desk. “You’re not in any trouble, guys. But you came all this way down that
hall
,” he says, fake-shuddering.

Wait. Is he making fun of my lame excuse for being late to his office?

“So, you might as well stay so we can talk about Friday’s assembly,” he continues. “Because planning it this year has been a real headache, let me tell you. But your class has saved the day. We’ll call it
An Oak Glen Winter Wonderland
, just to
make it our own. That has a real ring to it, don’t you think?”

He isn’t worried by the fact that there isn’t anything very Winter Wonderland-y at all about Oak Glen in the winter. Sometimes the weather pours down rain and wrecks people’s outside decorations. Sometimes there’s a Santa Ana windstorm, and pitiful dried-up old Christmas trees roll around in the gutters, making Alfie want to adopt them and take them home, even though Christmas is over. Sometimes it gets strangely cold, and plants keel over and die.

That’s about it.

FA LA LA LA LA
.

“I was thinking of dividing the morning up into two assemblies,” Principal James tells us. “That way, we’ll have enough room in the back of the auditorium for your families to be comfortably seated. So the first assembly will be kindergarten through third grade, and the second will be fourth through sixth grades. Good idea, right?”

Kevin gives me a blank look.

“Sure,” I tell the principal. “And each assembly will be shorter, too. So that makes it a
great
idea.”

“And here’s where you two come into the picture,” Principal James says, springing it on us. “Since the third graders will be top dogs in the first assembly, I thought I’d ask one of you two boys to be the emcee.”

“What’s an emcee?” Kevin asks, sounding suspicious.

“It stands for M. C., ‘Master of Ceremonies,’” Principal James tells us. “That means you welcome everyone to the show, introduce each act, then say good-bye at the end of our Winter Wonderland assembly.”

“Kevin would be
great
at that,” I say, hoping that this act of generosity will convince Kevin that we’re friends again.

Not to mention that being emcee of anything is the last thing I’d ever want to do.

Being an emcee is almost the
definition
of sticking out. Of not blending in.

So, “win-win,” as my dad sometimes says.

“Yeah, I
would
be great,” Kevin agrees. “Only I think EllRay should do it.”

What?

“And he really wants to do it, too,” Kevin continues, sliding me an evil grin. “Don’t you, EllRay?”

“I—I—”

“
Don’t
you?” Kevin asks again, giving me another look.

A look that says,
This is one of your challenges, dude. And you have to do it
.

“I guess so,” I tell Principal Hairy James. “I mean, sure. I’ll do it.”

“And you’ll do a terrific job, too, EllRay,” our
principal informs me, unaware of the fainting, the hurling, or the other body calamities that might happen once I’m up there on the stage.

HO, HO, HO
.

“So, good,” Principal James says. “
That’s
settled. Now, I think it’s about time for you two boys to get back to class, don’t you? And watch out for that
hall
,” he pretend-warns.