Story Time (8 page)

The man was tall and thin, with long brown hair and a straggly brown beard. He was dressed in a clash of styles and colors, as if his clothes were from a Goodwill store.

He and Pogo rummaged through her trash bin expertly, like they had done it many times before. They extracted aluminum cans and tossed them with perfect accuracy into a supermarket shopping cart parked below.

Kate waited for her turn to push her bin forward, but it never came.

Kate heard a now-familiar voice bellowing, "Get that disgusting cart out of my way! You're blocking the exit! I have things to do! Important things!" Cornelia Whittaker-Austin was leaning out the window of a red Hummer H2, revving the engine angrily.

The can man scrambled down to the ground and grabbed hold of his shopping cart. He tried to pull it back toward the loading dock to clear a path for the big vehicle. In his panic, though, he stumbled just as the Hummer roared forward. Cornelia slammed on the brakes, but the cart collided noisily with her left front fender and cans went flying everywhere.

The can man leaped to his feet and ran forward to retrieve the cart. Cornelia, enraged by the collision, hit the gas just as he gripped the cart's handle. The can man flew into the air, as lightly as one of his aluminum cans. He landed directly in front of the Hummer, and it rolled over his leg as if it were a skinny speed bump.

Cornelia hit the brakes again and turned off the engine, leaving the can man writhing in pain in the gap between the front and rear tires. She climbed out of the Hummer yelling, "This is not my fault!" She checked the damage done to the left front of the vehicle and then the damage done to the can man. Once she determined that he was alive, and likely to stay that way, she yelled down at him, "You do not belong here! Most of you people have gotten the message! Why do you keep coming back?" Cornelia turned and hurried into the building.

Pogo jumped up and down in front of Kate, waving her arms frantically, a look of desperation in her eyes. Kate took charge. "There was a phone in that Protein Lab, wasn't there?"

Pogo nodded, still bobbing crazily. Kate pointed to the writhing can man. "You stay with him. I'll go call nine-one-one."

Kate sprinted back through the hallway to the Protein Lab. She snatched the phone off the wall, dialed, pleaded for an ambulance, and ran back to the loading dock all inside of one minute.

Pogo was cradling the can man's head in her lap, rocking him back and forth. Kate watched from the vantage point of the loading dock, praying that the ambulance would arrive before any "help" from inside.

It turned out to be a tie. The ambulance rolled into the parking lot just as Dr. Cavendar emerged from the building with his medical bag. He gestured to Pogo to get out of the way. She lowered the can man's head onto the asphalt and ran up the side stairs of the loading dock. Dr. Cavendar then gestured to the paramedics to drive away, but they would not. Instead, they hopped out of the ambulance and ran toward the can man.

"His color is good," Dr. Cavendar announced to all. "He is making good, strong sounds. I do not believe he is injured at all. It is probably an insurance scam."

The paramedics rolled their eyes at each other. One of them said, "Nice to see you again, Dr. Cavendar." They brushed past him and loaded the can man onto a stretcher. They gently slid the stretcher into the ambulance, hopped inside, and drove away.

Dr. Cavendar shook his head, as if completely puzzled by their behavior. He then climbed into the seat of Cornelia's Hummer H2, pulled it slowly to her parking space, and walked back into the building.

Kate turned to Pogo for an explanation and got back another stare. But this stare was not merely curious. It was intense. As intense as the fire from a welding torch.

Pogo then spun away and jumped down from the loading dock, her black dress billowing outward. She began to collect aluminum cans, piling them first into a fold in her dress, and then into the battered shopping cart. Kate watched in silence for a moment. Then she jumped down, too, and started to pick up the far-flung cans.

Near the end of fourth period, Science 8 handed Kate a note instructing her to report for her after-school job as "personal assistant to Miss Heidi Whittaker Austin."

Before the watchful eyes of the boy with the big feet, she crumpled the note, popped it into her mouth, and chewed it slowly, like a belligerent cow. The boy's jaw opened and stayed open.

When the bell rang, Kate stood with the other students and gathered her belongings. The students filed out in order of their test scores, meaning that Kate left last. She took out the soggy wad of notepaper and tossed it across two rows, creating a wet thump in the trash can.

Kate followed the Mushroom Children upstairs, but at the entranceway, she detoured and walked into the lobby. She spotted Heidi at a table in front of the library office. Heidi was dressed, as always, in a white crinoline dress with puffy sleeves. Her golden ringlets ran down both sides of her head like thick ropes.

Kate stood in front of the table while Heidi wrote in a notebook As she waited, Kate noticed an announcement taped to the office window: "Dr. Austin has decided that a Whittaker Magnet School student will read a scene from Cornelia Whittaker-Austin's classic children's book
Orchid the Orca
for the First Lady of the United States. Auditions to select that student will be held in the County Commission Room tomorrow at 4
P.M.
"

Heidi finally informed Kate, without looking up, "My mother, Mrs. Whittaker-Austin, has assigned you to me. As you will soon learn, I am three times busier than the average sixth-grade student. In addition to my schoolwork, I sing, dance, act, and serve as a goodwill ambassador for the Whittaker family."

She pointed to a stack of books with handwritten compositions sticking out of the sides. "Take those papers out and put them in a pile. Then put the books back on the shelves where they belong."

Kate stood in her place for a moment longer. Then she said, a bit louder than library volume, "Hey, look at me!"

Heidi looked up. Her eyes stretched open wide.

"I sing, dance, and act, too. In fact, I will be starring in the Lincoln Middle School production of
Peter Pan
this fall. I am busier than the average eighth-grade student. Maybe two and a half times busier. And I serve as a goodwill ambassador for the Peters family. There are only two of us left now, my dad and me. He's a teacher, in Asia. Good-bye."

Kate picked up the books, piled up the compositions, and set off toward the stacks. After a few minutes, she spotted a familiar figure walking across the lobby. She called out, "Mr. Kagoshima! Mr. Kagoshima! It's Kate Peters, from Lincoln! Remember? I was Minnie in
Annie Get Your Gun.
"

The young man looked around. He whispered, "Yes. Yes, I remember. But please do not shout out my name like that. I have agreed to be Math Six here, nothing else."

"I thought I saw you the other day, but I figured it couldn't be. Not with this"—she pointed to his clothing: a loose-fitting white suit, no shoes, a white-and-red headband—"this..." She finally gave up. "What is this called?"

"It is called a
gi.
It is a Japanese martial arts uniform."

"You're a martial arts instructor?"

Mr. Kagoshima smiled nervously. "Partly. I'm mostly a math instructor. That was my minor in college, you know." He leaned closer to Kate. "Just between you and me, I fake the martial arts stuff. Watch this." He waved past Kate to a pair of small children who were waiting nearby with their mother. The children were dressed just as he was. He bowed at them; they bowed back. "They're only six," he muttered to Kate. "What do they know?"

More parents approached from the entranceway, and the group of small children in
gis
quickly expanded to seven.

"What about music?" Kate asked. "Don't you teach them any music? They'd be perfect for that Suzuki violin thing, wouldn't they?"

Mr. Kagoshima said, "No. No violins. There are no musical instruments here at all. They got rid of them."

Suddenly, to Kate's surprise, he jumped into an awkward stance, like a frozen jumping jack, and yelled, "Ha! Position one!" The children nearby looked up at him; then they tried to imitate his stance. Kate turned and saw the reason for his abrupt change from Mr. Kagoshima to Math 6.

Dr. Austin was walking toward them, and he had George by the elbow.

Kate whispered, "Bye," and took off with her books.

Dr. Austin was telling George, "All local elementary school children are eligible to attend the Whittaker After-School Preparatory. They are divided into the Juku Warriors, grades one and two, and the Cram Crew, grades three through five. Members of the Cram Crew actually interact with their counterparts in Japan via instant messaging."

Dr. Austin clapped George on the back. "This is your after-school job. You will assist Math Six with the Juku Warriors. I'll leave you to it. You can start by passing out those worksheets." Dr. Austin pointed to a pile of papers and then walked away.

George nodded respectfully to Math 6, who was apparently performing martial arts stretching exercises with the Juku Warriors. He picked up the worksheets and waited for his chance to pass them out.

But after the stretching, Math 6 said, "Let me see one of those." He looked it over quickly and decided, "No. Not today for that one. We'll save that for another day."

Dr. Austin reappeared from behind a bookcase. His face looked troubled. "Why aren't these children doing the worksheets?" he demanded.

Math 6 explained, with professional pride, "It's good that I previewed those worksheets. They are not ready for pre-algebra. Their brains are not developed enough for the abstract reasoning required."

Dr. Austin eyed him as a cobra might eye a mongoose. He asked slowly, flatly, "Is that so?"

Mr. Kagoshima clearly did not pick up on Dr. Austin's tone. "The worksheets they did yesterday made them cry. That is why I decided to check more carefully today."

Dr. Austin bared his teeth and spoke through them. "I, at this moment, am on the short list for a presidential commission concerned with what our children
are
or
are not
capable of doing. You, at this moment, are an unemployed karate instructor. Leave immediately."

It took Mr. Kagoshima several seconds to figure out what had just happened to him. Not knowing what else to do, he bowed awkwardly and left.

Dr. Austin turned and addressed the startled parents. "Part of my job as headmaster is to fire those who would settle for less than the very best."

He turned to the Juku Warriors. "But enough grown-up talk! We are here to have fun, aren't we? To learn and to have fun." He selected a second stack of papers from the desk and handed them to George. "Perhaps we'll start with these, instead."

George passed out the worksheets to the children and helped them arrange themselves on the floor. Dr. Austin said, "Let's start with some Bubble Time. Do any of you know what Bubble Time is?"

None of the seven Juku Warriors replied. A helpful parent bent over and whispered to a little boy, who then shouted out, "Play with soap bubbles!"

This prompted a little girl to say, "Blow big bubbles!"

"No, nothing like that." Dr. Austin chuckled. "Much more fun than that." He reached into his suit coat, pulled out a handful of sharpened No. 2 pencils, and leaned into the crowd. "Now, everybody will need a pencil and an answer sheet. This is the good part. Take your pencil and bubble in one empty circle on each line. Just one now! One circle on each line."

Dr. Austin smiled benignly and backed away. He told George, "You take it from here. Have them fill in one circle, only one, in each of the twenty lines."

Then Dr. Austin disappeared. George looked at the Juku Warriors, and they looked back at him. He was utterly clueless as to what to do next. He tried to show a few of them how to fill in the circles, but he soon abandoned this idea as, one by one, they started to cry.

That night, over a meager dinner of frozen potpies, Kate had a desperate conversation with June. "We have to move to another school district! Or to another country, I don't care. But we have to move!"

June pushed down the crust in her pie. "We can't do that."

"Fine. Then can I move in with my father?"

"Yes. If you can find him."

"That's a mean thing to say," Kate snarled.

"No, Kate. That is the truth. George told you the truth the other night, and you didn't like it. Remember? He said, 'What's done is done.'"

"Great. Thanks for the reminder. I didn't know you were listening."

June sighed. "I am listening, Kate. I want you to talk to me. I want to talk to you."

Kate tried another approach. "All right. Talk to me about my father."

"What do you want to know?"

"Everything."

June set her fork down. "All right. Here is the story about your father: He wanted to get married; we got married. The minister gave us a Certificate of Marriage. He wanted to have a baby; we had you. The doctor gave us a Certificate of Live Birth. Then he wanted to get divorced; we got divorced. The lawyer gave me a Certificate of Dissolution of Marriage.

"I put the papers in a safe-deposit box at the King's County Savings and Loan. They all look basically the same."

After a long pause, Kate asked, "That's it? That's the story of my father?"

"Yes."

Kate exhaled a long breath of air. "I am going upstairs now. I am going to write a letter to my father asking for his help. I am also going to ask if I can go live with him."

"I understand why you might want to do that. And I wish you well."

"Do you?"

"Yes." Then June added, as kindly as she could, "But don't get your hopes up."

Kate laughed ruefully. "I don't think you need to worry about that."

By Thursday both Kate and George had established their positions in the Whittaker Magnet School student hierarchy. In each of their classes, George sat in the first seat in the first row, and Kate sat in the last seat in the last row.