EllRay Jakes Stands Tall (2 page)

3

REAL LIFE AT OAK GLEN PRIMARY SCHOOL

“It's a blustery day, so bundle up,” Mom tells me the next morning, Wednesday, after she has dropped off Alfie at Kreative Learning and Daycare and driven me to school. I'm backing out of the car behind-first, like a dung beetle. Emma McGraw told me this is something they do. She wants to be a nature scientist when she grows up, so she knows weird stuff like that.

“Dung” means “poop,” by the way. I am just reporting the facts.

“That jacket isn't only for show, honey-bun,” my mother calls out as I haul both it and my backpack from the car.

Mom humor.

“I know. Bye, Mom,” I say, glancing down the sidewalk. If Jared or Jared's sidekick Stanley
Washington hears her calling me “honey-bun,” that will be my new nickname for a solid week.

At least.

Like the time Ms. Sanchez goofed and called me “sweetie” before Christmas. I'm still recovering from that one. I feel my cheeks get hot just thinking about it.

“
Ooh, it's Sweetie. Smoochy-smooch
,” Stanley said to me for days, slobbering over his hand as he pretend-kissed it. Even Jared finally told him to give it a rest.

I stand tall, as tall as possible, anyway, and put on my jacket. I hoist my bulging backpack over one skinny shoulder, and I lurch toward the playground.

With any luck, there will be no basketballs being used this morning.

“Dude,” Corey calls out from the boys' picnic table, where he is eating a protein bar his mother packed—probably for his lunch. But lunch is many hours away.

Each picnic table is officially open to both boys
and girls, of course. But it doesn't work out that way in real life at Oak Glen Primary School.

I head toward Corey, who has close to three hundred freckles on his face. We tried to count them one rainy recess. I nod hi at Marco and Major as I pass.

“M and M,” Ms. Sanchez sometimes calls them, they are so tight. But like I said, Marco is friends with me now, too. They're on the grass, playing olden days—dragons and knights—with some plastic figures Marco sneaked to school. Not that we usually break school rules such as “No toys from home,” by the way. We only break the really goofy ones, the rules that make you start to wonder about the good ones—such as “No running in the halls,” which just makes sense.

Have you seen how big some sixth-graders are? A third-grader could get smooshed! Not to mention a kindergartner.

But here is an example of an Oak Glen rule that does not make any sense. We are allowed to run on the playground when we are playing kickball or basketball, but we are
not
supposed to run just for the fun of it—because they say we might get hurt.

See what I mean?

“Hey,” I tell Corey, giving him a friendly shove.

“Mmm,” Corey greets me, his cheeks bulging. “Bring something fun?” he mumbles through his early morning snack.

“Not today,” I tell him.

I was too busy getting mad about being short last night to figure out anything to bring. I would never sneak
Die, Creature, Die
to school, though. I could not risk having that confiscated—which means taken away from you by a grown-up. Maybe forever. Just the thought of everyone in the principal's office playing with my game makes me feel woozy.

I don't want them messing up my score, for one thing.

“What about playing rock-paper-scissors?” Corey asks after swallowing his mouthful of crumbs. “Best out of four. One, two, three,
go
.”

1. First game: Me, scissors. Corey, rock. Rock smashes scissors. Corey wins.

2. Second game: Me, paper. Corey, rock. Paper wraps rock. I win.

3. Third game: Me, rock. Corey, rock. Again. So that one's a tie. Next one is the decider.

4. Fourth game: Me, scissors. Corey, paper. Scissors cut paper! I'm the ultimate winner!

Now, all I need is about a dozen more games you can play sitting down. Because then, tallness doesn't matter.

“Good one, EllRay,” Corey says, smiling. He and Kry are the best sports in our third grade class.
Emma and her friend Annie Pat Masterson are tied for third place in that category. Most of us other kids either
pretend
to be good sports, which Mom says is a perfectly fine thing to do, or else we “get our grouch on,” as Ms. Sanchez sometimes says.

That means we get mad—and
stay
mad. For a while, anyway.

Girls stay mad the longest, in my opinion. It's like they have an extra gigabyte in their hard drives just for hurt feelings.

And speaking of Ms. Sanchez . . .

4

VOCABULARY BINGO

“Settle down, citizens,” our teacher calls out after taking attendance.

“Citizens?”
Ms. Sanchez is in a funny mood for a Wednesday!

“We're going to be trying something new today for Language Arts,” she says, passing out pieces of poster board and plastic bags full of little squares with words pasted on them. “Cynthia's mother, Mrs. Harbison, made these for us,” Ms. Sanchez says, making sure every kid gets one piece of poster board and one bag of words.

Cynthia wriggles in her seat and smirks, looking important.

Great, I think, hiding a sigh. All this class needs is one more thing for Cynthia to brag about at recess and lunch.

I examine what's in front of me. Hey, I think, smiling. This looks kind of like a game! The poster board is divided by marker lines into little squares, five rows down and five across. There's a spot marked “Free” in the middle. Each little square has a word on it, and a tiny piece of Velcro glued to it.

The little words in the bag have dabs of Velcro on their backs, too. I guess we're supposed to match words and stick them onto the poster board.

Alfie is gonna hate this Velcro game, if it's still around when she gets to Oak Glen Primary School. She will probably ask for a shoelace game instead.

“We're playing Vocabulary Bingo,” Ms. Sanchez says, perching on the edge of her desk. “I will randomly choose some vocabulary words from our last few lists. You will match the words in your bags to the words on the poster board. The first one to get a straight line up and down or across calls out ‘
bingo
.' And he or she wins a prize.”

“Is the prize food?” Corey asks, setting his words out on his desk with the precision of a Vocabulary Bingo master. He can be very neat when it counts, and food makes it count for him. It's his thing.

“Raise your hand before speaking, Corey,” Ms. Sanchez reminds him. “This is a classroom, not some free-for-all. No, the prize is not food,” she continues, answering his question. “It's something little but fun. A trinket, let's say.”

“Trinkets are girl-toys,” Jared mumbles to Stanley, but I think he's wrong about that. And I can tell he wants to win it anyway.

Jared Matthews is not that hard to figure out.

Heather's hand shoots up in the air like there's a cartoon bird attached to her wrist. “Is bingo the same as gambling?” she asks, looking pretend-worried, and as important as her friend Cynthia did a couple of minutes ago. The long skinny braid Heather wears for decoration swings across her face like a hairy exclamation mark. “Because I'm pretty sure gambling is against my religion,” she informs us, bustling in her seat.

“We're not playing for money, Heather,” Ms. Sanchez says, her foot swinging.

She wears really cute shoes, the girls all say. They vote on their favorites. “Don't you worry,” our teacher assures Heather. “This is a religion-free vocabulary word game. Now, let's get started.”

“Okay,” Heather says, half under her breath. “I
guess.
”

And we begin. “
Eight,
” Ms. Sanchez says, loud and clear, after choosing a word from a sparkly decorated box Fiona gave her last Christmas. “As in, ‘Some of you are still eight years old,'” she explains. “Pay attention, Marco,” she adds.

I guess she doesn't want us to get the word
“eight” mixed up with “ate,” which is also a good word. Just ask always-hungry Corey.

We all look down at our poster board squares, trying to find a word match.

“Bingo!”
Jason calls out, super excited. He has buzz-cut hair, ears that stick out a little, and a chunky body that he claims is mostly muscle. He is also the closest thing we have to a class clown. But he's serious now.

Ms. Sanchez is shaking her head. “Five words down or across, Jason. In a
straight line
,” she adds, as if guessing a future problem in advance.

“Dummy,” Nate says, laughing.

“And that's name-calling,” Ms. Sanchez says, smooth as can be. “Which means you will sit this game out, Mr. Marshall. I'm sorry about that. But please put your words away for now. Second word, everyone else—
light.
As in, ‘Turn off the light.'”

And on we go.

This is surprisingly fun, I think, wrinkling my forehead so I don't miss any words. I don't even care that they're trying to trick us into learning stuff!

I feel kind of sorry for Nate, though. His red
rooster crest of hair is drooping, he's so miserable at being left out of the fun.

See, our class mostly looks out for each other. Nate forgot the rules for a second, that's all. He's still a good guy. Even Ms. Sanchez knows that—and Nate knows she still likes him as much as always.

And I'll share my trinket with him if I win—unless it's the temporary tattoo I spied on Ms. Sanchez's desk.

Because half a temporary tattoo would look pretty lame, wouldn't it?