I Got a D in Salami #2 (3 page)

I wish she'd call me Hank. No one calls me Henry, except my mom when she's really mad, and Paula, the woman who makes appointments at my dentist's office. No one but Ms. Adolf, that is. I've told her a million times that all my friends call me Hank. She says she sees no need for that, because my real name is Henry. Besides, she's not my friend.

My heart started to beat faster. I looked over at Frankie, who gave me his famous smile we call The Big Dimple. He says a lot with that smile. This time, it said,
You can do it, Zip. Just breathe.

Frankie must tell me to breathe four times a day. As a matter of fact, he tells everyone to breathe if he thinks they are getting too tense about things.

Ms. Adolf gave Nick fifteen words to spell. As usual, he was all talk and no walk. Out of the fifteen words, he spelled seven right and missed eight. No
A
for him, that millipede.

All during his turn, I tried to review my words. My brain was swimming in letters. They were all over the place but not making themselves into any words I knew
. Breathe
, I said to myself. Y
ou can do this, Hank. Piece of cake.
I tried really hard to talk myself into believing my own words. But in my brain, right underneath those words, were the other more familiar words:
No way, Hank.

MS. ADOLF MUST have called my name, but I was concentrating so hard, I didn't hear her at first. All of a sudden, I saw her standing over me. The entire class was staring at me. Every eye was burning into my skin.

“Daydreaming, are we?” Ms. Adolf asked.

“No,” I answered. “Just practicing my words. I guess I can't spell and hear at the same time.”

The kids cracked up, and I had to smile. There it was, the old Zipzer attitude. I still had it. I didn't mean to be funny, but the sound of the kids enjoying my answer did feel good.

The feeling didn't last, however.

“Come with me, young man,” Ms. Adolf commanded. I walked up to the front of the room and turned toward the class.

As I looked out at all the faces, my ears stopped working for real. It was as if everything was moving in slow motion. I looked over at Ms. Adolf and saw her lips move, but I couldn't hear a thing.

Ms. Adolf repeated the word “rhythm.” I read her lips.
Come on Hank, breathe. You know this word
.

My body started working again.

“Rhythm,” I said. “R-H-Y-T-H-M, rhythm.” Without realizing it, I high-fived myself. The class laughed again.

“Quiet! This is not a laughing matter,” Ms. Adolph reminded them. “All right, Mr. Comedian. Try ‘receive'.”

“R-E-C…” I paused. So far, so good. Then my mind went totally blank.

“Well, Henry, there is more to the word receive than R-E-C,” Ms. Adolf said.

Oh, yeah, thank goodness—receive
!

“I know this; don't tell me,” I blurted out with confidence.

“Oh, trust me, I won't,” Ms. Adolf assured me.

“R-E-C-I-E-V-E, receive.”
Oh please, oh please, let that be right.

“I thought you said you knew it,” she said. “I'll give you one more chance. Try ‘neighbor.' ”

“Neighbor,” I said. “N-A . . .” W
here did it go?

Last night I knew every one of these words forward and backward. This morning, I'd lost them. From the time I left my apartment until the time I arrived in class, they must've fallen out of my head. Maybe I lost them on the street or in the hallway or the stairwell coming up to the classroom.

I started to hit my forehead. Maybe I could shake them loose from their hiding place in my brain.
How can this be happening?

“What are you doing, Henry?” asked Ms. Adolf.

“I'm trying to wake my brain up. Maybe the words are holding onto the sides of my brain and won't fall down into my mouth.” The class laughed again, but this time I really wasn't being funny.

“Try ‘separate,' ” Ms. Adolf said.

“Do I have to?”

“Try ‘separate' now.”

“I know it starts with an S.”

“Sit down, Henry.”

“But, Ms. Adolf, I studied these words. I know this.”

“I'm going to count to three, Henry. If you're not in your seat when I say three, you're going to Principal Love's office.”

“Ms. Adolf, you believe in second chances, don't you? Sure you do.” I was begging.

“One…”

“Just give me another minute. It takes a while for my brain to fire up. I'm like an old car—I just have to give it a little gas.”

“Two….”

“Please don't say three, Ms. Adolf. Just let me try one more word, because I'm feeling like I can….”

“Three.”

She said it. She said three.

I can't believe she said three.

AS I WALKED down the stairs to Principal Love's office, I felt like I had taken that walk a hundred times before. I felt that way because I had.

Principal Love and I have spent a whole lot of time together, having long talks. And I don't mean the “How about those Mets?” kind of talks, either. Nope, the kind of talks I have with Principal Love is listening to him tell me what I've done wrong, and according to him, that's pretty much everything.

I don't know how this happens. I try to behave in school. I'm not like Nick McKelty, who gets a kick out of being a jerk. And I'm certainly not like Luke Whitman, whose full-time job is getting into trouble. I try to follow the rules. I try hard, but somehow I always wind up doing face time with Principal Love.

For example, take the first day of fourth grade. Ms. Adolf said we had to write a five-paragraph essay describing what we did during summer vacation. It's really hard for me to write a five-paragraph essay, so I decided to create a living essay. Instead of writing about our visit to Niagara Falls, I made a model of Niagara Falls out of papier-mâché. I even hooked it up to the sink in our class so that real water could run through it. Was it my fault that the water overflowed and gushed all over the floor? Was it my fault that Ms. Adolf got blasted in the face by the water hose? Was it my fault that Principal Love stepped on a floating lunch bag and a tuna sandwich exploded in his face?

I reached the first floor and walked toward the office. Mrs. Crock was in the attendance office, and looked up when she saw me.

“Oh, no, Hank.” She sighed. “Not again.”

“Mrs. Crock,” I said. “Would you like to hear me spell ‘separate'?”

“Why, yes, dear, if you'd like to,” she answered.

“S-E-P-A-R-A-T-E,” I said.

“That's very lovely spelling, dear,” she said. “Have a seat on the bench, and I'll page Principal Love. He's in the cafeteria.”

I sat down on the bench in the hall.
Separate. There it was, just waiting on the tip of my tongue. I knew it was there all along. If only Ms. Adolf had given me another chance.

I heard footsteps approaching, but I knew it wasn't Principal Love. He always wears rubber-soled Velcro shoes that make a squeaking sound on the linoleum when he walks. These footsteps were clicking, not squeaking.

“Hank? Is that you?” a man's voice asked.

I looked up. It was Mr. Rock. Mr. Rock is the music teacher at PS 87. I met him at the beginning of the school year, when I did a week of detention in his classroom after school. We did the coolest things, like listen to music and talk about our all-time favorite cars. I was so embarrassed that he was seeing me in the principal's office.

“Ms. Adolf sent me to see Principal Love,” I told him, before he could ask.

“What's your crime?” He asked it like he was joking around.

“I wouldn't sit down during the spelling contest.”

“Forty lashes with a wet noodle for you.”

He smiled. He was joking around! Mr. Rock is the nicest teacher you could ever hope to meet.

Squeak, squeak, squeak
. Principal Love and his dancing Velcro feet were coming down the hall. I stood up and got nervous. Mr. Rock leaned over and whispered in my ear.

“Speak up for yourself in there, Hank,” he said. “You're a great kid.”

Then he gave me a high five and left.

When he saw me at his office door, Principal Love did not look happy. Neither did his mole.

Principal Love has this mole on his face that I swear looks like the Statue of Liberty without the torch. Ashley and Frankie disagree. Ashley thinks it looks like a cherry pit. Frankie says it looks like one of those crackers that's shaped like a goldfish. But I say my opinion goes, since I've spent way more time in Principal Love's office than both Frankie and Ashley combined. I've had a lot of mole-viewing time.

“I see we meet again, Mr. Zipzer,” Principal Love said in his big-man voice. Even though he's not much taller than I am, Principal Love has a really loud voice. He always sounds like he's on the loudspeaker system, even though he isn't.

I followed him into his office.

“Sit down, young man,” he said, pointing to the chair across from his desk. “You're spending so much time here, I believe that seat is starting to take the shape of your rear end.”

I laughed. He didn't.

“I'll let you know when something funny happens,” he said. “Until then, keep your laughter to yourself.”

He read over the note Ms. Adolf sent with me, rubbing his chin as he read. He was dangerously close to touching his mole. I wonder if when he touches it, he screams, “Ick!” I know I would.

“I read here that Ms. Adolf asked you to sit down and you did not,” he said.

I cleared my throat and tried to speak. Something came out, but it wasn't words. It was mostly air, with a croaking froggy sound mixed in. Principal Love makes you nervous, even if you're trying not to be nervous.

“Speak up, young man,” he said.

I tried again, and a few words came out this time. “I wasn't finished spelling, sir.”

“But your directions were to sit down,” he said. “Were they not?”

I didn't answer, but everyone at PS 87 knows that when Leland Love asks a question, he likes to answer it himself.

“Yes, they were,” he said, proving my point.

“I'm going to tell you something, Mr. Zipzer,” he said, “and I want you to carry this thought with you for the rest of your school years. It may be the best single piece of advice you ever get.”

Wow
. I was ready for that. I scooted up on the edge of my chair.
Lay it on me
, I thought.

Principal Love cleared his throat.

“Following directions will get you where you need to be, no matter where you are,” he said.

If that is the best piece of advice I'll ever get, I hope I never hear the worst.

“It just so happens that you have caught me in a very good mood,” said Principal Love, “and so I'm going to let you off with a warning.” He reached down and loosened one of the Velcro straps on his shoes. “Do you know why I'm in a good mood, Mr. Zipzer?”

“Because you really, really love your Velcro shoes?” I asked.

“That's one reason,” he said. “They are so convenient. But the second reason is that today is fish day in the cafeteria, and I am about to go and enjoy a fine piece of halibut. Just for the halibut, that is.”

He threw his head back and laughed so loud it gave me the creeps. “Something funny just happened,” he said. “You may laugh now, Mr. Zipzer.”

He laughed again, and the Statue of Liberty mole wiggled back and forth as if it was doing the hula.
It must like fish, too
, I thought.

THE ONLY DECENT thing about the spelling contest was that Ashley won. She is such a good friend that her winning almost made up for the fact that my spelling was a total disaster.

“Cheer up, Zip,” Frankie said to me, as we sat down at our table in the lunchroom. “So, you're not a speller. Big deal.”

“I'm also not an adder or a subtracter or a reader or a writer,” I said. “Let's face it, Frankie. I'm a school flop.”

I was feeling pretty terrible. First, I messed up the spelling contest, for no good reason that I could understand. Then I got sent to the principal's office. And if those things hadn't made the day horrible enough, the halibut made the entire lunchroom smell like toxic waste.

“There's more to life than school,” said Frankie, pulling out his peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich. “Don't get down on yourself.”

That's easy for Frankie to say. He's one of those kids who's good at everything. He reads like a grown-up—even the newspaper. He actually
reads
the sports section every day. Not me. I have to watch ESPN for my updates. He's also totally funny, a phenomenal magician, and all the girls like him, too.

“What's up, Frankie?” asked Katie Sperling and Kim Paulson as they walked by with their trays.

See what I mean?
The two most beautiful girls in the fourth grade weren't asking, “What's up, Hank?”

My father always says that Frankie Townsend is going to be the first African-American president of the United States. Of course, he also says that Emily is going to be a rocket scientist, as though that's ever going to happen. I can see it now: Emily cruising around Mission Control with Katherine—flashing her sticky tongue at all the astronauts—on her shoulder.
Houston, we have a problem. We have an ugly iguana loose on the launchpad with its tongue stuck to the windshield.