Ellray Jakes Walks the Plank (5 page)

That last part about Zip’s funeral wasn’t funny, but the rest of it was. Kind of.

It’s confusing how something can be sad and funny at the same time. Or funny and sad.

“Well,” Cynthia says, smoothing back her already-smooth hair. “Remind me never to ask you to take care of anything, EllRay Jakes.”

And Heather gives Cynthia an admiring grin. “Yeah,” she agrees.

“Like I
would
,” I say back to both of them.

But really, I don’t blame Cynthia and Heather for saying what they did.

Zip was my job.

I wouldn’t ask a mess-up like me to take care of anything, either.

It is still Monday, and we just had afternoon recess. But we have all been ready to go home for about two hours, even Ms. Sanchez. You can tell. Some of the hair that she usually wears pulled back in a shiny black bun is falling down, and there is a blue ink mark on her chin.

A couple of the girls put bunches of little flowers from the playground ice plant in front of Zip’s empty fish bowl after lunch—to honor him, I guess. But Zip didn’t know what flowers are. He was a fish. And those flowers aren’t helping our mood any, especially my mood.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” Ms. Sanchez says just as we are getting ready to take our dreaded weekly spelling quiz, the one that is repeated on Friday. “The first day back at school after a vacation is always hard, and today has been no exception to that
unwritten rule. It has also been a sad day for us all, for obvious reasons.”

Half the kids in our class look at Zip’s empty fish bowl and the purple ice plant flowers when she says this, and half the kids look at me. I don’t look anywhere.

“So I have decided to toss out our schedule for the rest of the afternoon,” Ms. Sanchez says, “and give us all a much-needed break. An extra little vacation—on
Treasure Island
.”

Okay. Ms. Sanchez has been reading us this great book called
Treasure Island
, by Robert Louis Stevenson, on Friday afternoons. “I think it’s the first pirate story for children there ever was,” she told us before she started. And even though this book was written more than a hundred years ago, it’s pretty cool.
VERY COOL
, in fact, although it is a hard book to read alone when you’re only eight years old. It has been hard for me, anyway. But the thing about books is that you can skip over the hard parts and still get the idea.

Time changes when Ms. Sanchez starts to read to us, and we change, too.

1. Emma and Annie Pat chew on their knuckles during the scary parts, which so far is most of the book.

2. Fiona bites her lip and draws pictures of whatever Ms. Sanchez is reading. Fiona is the shyest kid in our class, but she’s a really good artist.

3. Stanley closes his eyes, and Jared and Kevin look at nothing, but they tilt their heads like they are listening in on someone.

4. And even though some part of me notices the other kids, all I am really seeing is Jim Hawkins, the boy in the book.

I think Jim Hawkins is pretty much like me, only white. Well,
maybe
he’s white. And he’s a few years older than I am, and probably taller. Most kids are. But differences like that don’t matter, not with books.

I really like
Treasure Island
.

In fact, I like it so much that I took it home over spring break, because aboard the ship
Hispaniola
, Jim Hawkins had just overheard Long John Silver—who was supposed to be the ship’s cook—
say he was going to kill everyone on the ship who wasn’t a secret pirate. I couldn’t wait a whole week without knowing what was going to happen next, could I?

How was I supposed to sleep at night?

So I asked Ms. Sanchez in a quiet voice if I could borrow the book over vacation, and she said yes, which is why
Treasure Island
is now sitting on the chair next to my bed.

That’s right. I forgot to bring
Treasure Island
back to school today.

I was kind of busy with a couple of other things, remember?

“Let’s see. Where could that book be?” Ms. Sanchez says, thinking out loud as she searches her shelves.

Wriggling around, my class makes an excited rustling noise that sounds like the wind blowing through tree branches on a stormy day. Kids are silently high-fiving each other on this piece of surprise good luck: being read to on a Monday afternoon, instead of having to take a spelling test.

But of course I sit frozen in my seat.

“Where did I put that book?” Ms. Sanchez asks herself, tapping her chin with her solid gold pen.

And all of a sudden, she remembers. “Oh,” she says, and she slides a quick glance in my direction—then looks away.

Don’t tell, don’t tell,
I think as hard as I can, hoping the words will somehow jump into Ms. Sanchez’s brain, because this would just be one bad thing too many for the kids in my class to forgive. Ever.

Even Kevin and Corey. They will be ashamed they know me.

Killing Zip, the class mascot,
and
messing up a surprise story time?

No way!

I feel like I am about to
WALK THE PLANK
.

I guess Ms. Sanchez gets my silent message, because she says, “Oh, dear. I must have left
Treasure Island
at home. Silly me. Sorry, everyone. I guess we’d better take that quiz after all. Just a short, fun version of it, though.”

Thank you, Ms. Sanchez
.

First, thanks for not telling anyone that Alfie killed Zip, and now, thanks for this.

“No, wait,” Cynthia Harbison says, her eyes getting skinny as she goes back in time inside her head. “
Treasure Island
can’t be at your house, Ms. Sanchez, because EllRay borrowed it. Don’t you remember? Right before vacation?”

Then Cynthia actually smiles like she expects to be congratulated.

And all my good feelings crash down around my feet—because Ms. Sanchez might be willing to pretend-forget something to keep a kid from
being embarrassed in class, but she’s not the type of person who would ever tell a lie. Not once someone else remembered the truth.

“Oh, yes,” Ms. Sanchez says, sighing. “Do you happen to have it with you, EllRay?”

“Nope,” I tell her—and everyone else. “Sorry.”

“Well, that’s okay,” Ms. Sanchez says in her nicest voice. “In fact, it’s perfectly understandable.
You had your hands full. Anyway, we’re running too short on time to do the book justice.”

“Yeah.
Now
we are,” Jared Matthews mumbles, giving me a dirty look.

“Oh, man,” Stanley says, looking like someone just stole his lunch.

Corey and Kevin stare at me, then look away, as if they are trying to remember why we are friends.

“But that means there’s no time for a spelling quiz, either,” Ms. Sanchez tells us, her voice bright. I guess by saying this, she thinks she’s sort of giving everyone an invisible present to keep them from hating me.

“The buzzer’s about to go off,” Annie Pat says, sounding gloomy, and she puts her hands over her ears in advance. Annie Pat has very sensitive ears.

“Any second now,” Ms. Sanchez agrees, aiming her tired-looking smile around the room. “So I want everyone to go home and get a good night’s sleep—because tomorrow is another day.
Thank goodness.
”

“Are you still mad at me, EllWay?” Alfie asks that night at home, a doll in each of her hands. I am supposed to be keeping her company while she picks up her room, but at the same time I am sitting on her rug playing
Die, Creature, Die
again. I am still trying to top my personal best—which is not very good.

“Only a little mad,” I tell her after pressing PAUSE, and I lean back against her bed. “Mostly I’m mad at
me
. You didn’t mean to do anything wrong, Alfie. You were trying to help, but you’re just four.”

“But why are you mad at
you
?” she asks, sinking down next to me.

“Because I should have made sure you fed him right,” I say.

“Yeah,” she says, nodding, and relief spreads across her round face like syrup on a pancake. “It
was your fault Swimmy died. You messed up, huh?”

“Yeah,” I say. “I messed up.”

“But I’m the one who got in trouble at day care today,” she says, staring at one of her dolls as she combs its bright yellow hair with her fingers.

“I heard,” I say.

Mom told me that Alfie got sent home with a note—which is
the
bad thing at her day care. Alfie got mad and told Suzette Monahan that she was going to die some day and maybe be buried in the
backyard in a plastic container. Or else flushed.

Alfie didn’t say whose backyard Suzette might be buried in, but it didn’t matter, Mom says. Suzette was already yelling for the day care teacher before Alfie even finished her sentence.

Suzette is sometimes Alfie’s friend and sometimes her enemy, and she is always a pain, in my opinion. She came over to our house once to play, and she even tried bossing my mom around about the snack. Big mistake, Suzette. Our mom is not a pushover.

“I guess I said something bad to Suzette,” Alfie admits, twisting the doll’s yellow hair.

“Why?” I ask.

“I don’t know,” Alfie says. “I was thinking about Swimmy, and then Suzette put torn-up pieces of paper in my hair and kids laughed, so the words just jumped out of my mouth. And now Suzette says she gets to be the cutest one in day care.”