Fourth-Grade Disasters (9 page)

Maybe even from all around the country
.

Maybe even from all around the world
.

Mason put down his pencil. His fingers were sweaty from gripping it so tightly. He didn’t think he could stand writing any more today.

He heard Dunk’s voice. “My story’s long now!” Dunk was saying to Sheng, who sat next to him.

Dunk picked up his story and waved it in Sheng’s face. Even from where he was sitting, Mason could see that Dunk had three sheets of paper entirely covered with his messy writing.

“So?” Sheng asked.

“So, you can’t say it’s too short anymore.”

Sheng shrugged, as if to say that he hadn’t been lying awake at night worrying about the length of Dunk’s story. Sheng’s own story was about a B-52 bomber that won World War III practically all by itself; he had shared part of it with the class last week.

“Do you want to hear it?” Dunk asked Sheng.

“Not really.”

Despite this lack of encouragement, Dunk began to read:

“The Tigers won the toss and chose to receive, but their first possession resulted in a punt of Footie after going three and out. The Lions took the field for the first time, with Footie at their own twenty-seven-yard
line. The Lions put together a drive that went fifty-three yards and resulted in a thirty-eight-yard field goal by the kicker who kicked Footie.”

Sheng cut Dunk off before he could read any more. “So it’s long. Long isn’t the same thing as good.”

But Dunk’s story
was
good—maybe not good as a story, but good as a description of a football game.

“Wow, Dunk,” Brody said. “You should be a sportswriter for the
Plainfield Press
.”

Dunk beamed at Brody’s praise.

Mason looked over at Nora. He couldn’t tell what she was thinking. But he could tell that she was thinking something.

After school, Brody had soccer practice with Julio; Julio’s dad drove them. So Mason walked home alone.

If Nora was going to be a famous scientist or bridge builder, and Brody was going to be a famous bridge builder or singer, and even Dunk was going to be a famous sportswriter, what was Mason going to be?

Maybe he didn’t have to be a famous anything. His own parents weren’t famous, but they were happy, most of the time, give or take their worries about Mason’s attitude toward being in the Plainfield Platters.
Dog wasn’t a champion dog, entering national dog shows on TV, but he was still the best dog in the whole world. His full name was even D.O.G.—Dog of Greatness.

Mason quickened his steps as he turned up the front walk to his house, where Dog would be waiting. He felt sorry for people who didn’t have a dog to come home to. He felt sorry for people who didn’t have
this
Dog to come home to.

He pushed open the door and, sure enough, Dog came racing down the stairs to greet him, with something hanging from his mouth that looked like a green plush dragon tail.

It
was
a green plush dragon tail.

“Oh, Dog!” Mason wailed. “How
could
you?”

“Mom!” Mason bellowed from the front hallway. “Mom!”

She came running from the backyard, where she had been hanging out laundry on the clothesline.

Mason was trying to get Dog to drop Puff’s tail without making Dog think this was a game of tug-of-war, otherwise known as “let’s see if we can completely destroy Plainfield Elementary School’s twenty-year-old mascot.”

“Drop it, Dog,” Mason said in his authoritative fetch-game voice. But for some reason, Dog didn’t feel like dropping Puff’s tail. He seemed to know this was a prize far grander than a tossed stick or tennis ball.

Finally, Mason’s mother disappeared into the kitchen and returned with a can opener and a can of Dog’s favorite brand of dog food. Dog dropped Puff’s tail at Mason’s feet and sprang toward his reward.

Mason glared at his mother. “Mom, I told you to keep Puff where Dog couldn’t get at him!”

If Brody had been there, Mason would have glared at Brody, too:
Oh, Dog would never chew PUFF!

Mason’s mother had the grace to look guilt-stricken. “Mason, honey, I did keep the door of my office shut all day. But then the doorbell rang, and it was the FedEx truck, and I ran down to get my package,
and then I remembered the laundry that needed to come out of the washer.…”

Her voice trailed off.

“Well,” she said, “I guess we should go see what’s left of Puff.”

Mason trailed behind her as she slowly climbed the stairs. There was no point in running now.

On the floor in her office lay half of Puff. Unfortunately, it was the bottom half, minus Puff’s tail. Puff’s tail was in good enough condition, even after the tug-of-war, that Mason’s mother could have sewed it back on. But apparently Dog had eaten Puff’s head.

Doggy footsteps came padding up the stairs. Dog, contented now from a full can of dog food plus one stuffed dragon head, looked ready to lie down on the floor for an after-meal siesta.

“Dog!” Mason yelled.

He took Dog by the collar and dragged him over to where Puff’s headless, tailless body lay on the carpet. “Look what you did!”

Dog gave a whimper of shame and dropped his head on his paw, gazing up at Mason with pleading, bewildered eyes:
I didn’t know! I would never do anything to make my boy look at me that way!

Mason couldn’t stay angry at Dog. “Oh, Dog,” Mason said sadly, and stooped down to hug Dog tight.

It wasn’t Dog’s fault that Puff had gotten chewed. It was his mother’s fault, and Brody’s fault—and most of all, Puff’s fault, for existing in the first place. Mason had never liked Puff, anyway, and thought that nobody really did, except for Brody, and Mrs. Morengo, and the school secretary, and the principal, who were paid to like him. Nonetheless, it wasn’t a pleasant thought that he would have to go into school tomorrow and tell everyone what had happened.

In his head he could hear the principal’s voice during morning announcements:
It is my sad duty to
inform you that three days before his scheduled appearance on television, Puff the Plainfield Dragon suffered a terrible misfortune. His head was eaten off by Mason Dixon’s dog, Dog
.

“What are we going to do?” Mason asked his mother.

She stood up straight, shoulders back, tummy tucked, as if ready to start singing “America!”

“I’m the one to blame for this, Mason. So I’m the one who’s going to have to take care of it. I think I have a plan.”

“What kind of plan?”

Her face had brightened. She obviously thought her plan was pretty terrific.

“Trust me on this one, Mason. I’m going to call Mrs. Morengo right now.”

After supper—Pakistani lamb curry for his parents, a plain hamburger patty and plain green beans for Mason—Mason did some homework, trying hard not to think about Puff’s demolition, Dog’s disgrace, or his mother’s conversation with Mrs. Morengo. His mom hadn’t said anything about voice lessons to him during the meal, but a mysterious smile had played
ominously around the corners of her mouth.

He finished writing the full draft of his story. The music teacher in the story, whom he was calling Mrs. Borengo, signaled to the piano-playing parent, Mr. Biffith, to begin the opening chords of the first song of the concert. It had taken a while for Mason to come up with the song for Pedro to refuse to play, but he finally settled on “You’re a Grand Old Flag.”

The story would have been more satisfying if Pedro could have said this out loud to everybody and they would have finally understood. It was too
bad that they had to think Pedro was just a junky, broken-down piano instead of a piano with a strong sense of his own dignity and the spirit to stand up for himself. But under the influence of Nora’s realism, Mason had made Pedro a piano that didn’t talk.

Finally, in the story, Mr. Biffith gave up and sadly walked away. The students sang their song a cappella, which means without accompaniment. It all turned out okay.

Then, at the end of the concert, the custodian wheeled Pedro away to a pleasant storage room where he could spend the rest of his days with a saxophone and a violin that also didn’t like to play in front of other people. But sometimes, late at night, they did play, all by themselves. People walking by the school at midnight said the school was haunted, but nobody believed them.

In big letters at the bottom of the last page, Mason wrote:
THE END
.

At the start of Platters practice the next morning, Mrs. Morengo made an announcement.

“For our concert, we are going to have three of our fabulous fifth graders announce our songs. Todd, Ella,
and Zia, I’d like each of you to come up to the microphone during the concert and read the short speech I’ve prepared for you.”

Mason sent a silent prayer heavenward:
Thank you, God, that I am not a fifth grader!
Speaking into the microphone at a televised Platters concert would be infinitely worse than leading the Pledge of Allegiance during morning announcements. It would be worse than singing in the concert, too, and that was going to be bad enough.

If only Mason could catch Mrs. Morengo after practice and ask her about being stage crew. The concert was now just two days away.

The three fifth graders who had been selected looked pleased as Mrs. Morengo handed them each an index card. Mason sent up a second prayer of gratitude that this time, as a lowly fourth grader, he had been safe from such a hideous possibility.

“Aren’t the fourth graders going to get to do anything?” Brody’s friend Julio asked.

“Yes!” Mrs. Morengo beamed.

Mason’s prayers had been sent too soon.

“I’ve decided that one fourth grader is going to be dressed in a special Puff costume! For our concert on
television, we should have a
live
Puff mascot, instead of just a stuffed toy.”

Mason had never before heard Puff referred to so dismissively, as “just a stuffed toy” rather than “our beloved Puff who inspires us all.”

“Do we
have
a Puff costume?” Emma Averill asked.

“Yes!” Mrs. Morengo said. “Or we will, by tomorrow. One of our very talented Platters parent helpers is sewing it today. Mason Dixon’s mother has offered to use her sewing skills to make a Puff costume for us!”

She paused, as if expecting the students to begin applauding. When they didn’t, she started them off with a few brisk
clap-clap
s of her own, and they joined in. Mason clapped, too, but his palms felt sweaty.

This must be his mother’s brilliant plan. He didn’t know if she had confessed to Mrs. Morengo her reason for suggesting it. Mason hadn’t even told Brody yet what had happened to Puff; he couldn’t bear it.

“Who’s going to be the mascot?” another kid asked.

Mrs. Morengo’s eyes swept over the assembled fourth graders as if searching for inspiration.

“I’ve decided that our Puff mascot will also sing
a ‘Puff’ solo. Puff will start us off by singing the first verse and chorus of ‘Puff the Plainfield Dragon,’ wearing that adorable Puff costume, and then the rest of us will join in.”

She smiled at Mason.

The smile slashed at his already-pounding heart.

No.

This couldn’t be happening.

Even though Mrs. Morengo had made such a big fuss about his lovely voice. Even though she had said that she wanted him to sing a solo at a Platters concert sometime.