Teacher's Pet (9 page)

I redo the math in the margin of my paper. Maybe he made a mistake.

12 + 37 = 49.

Nope. I flunked.

My stomach feels awful, like it has hamsters running around in it. It always feels like this when I get a bad grade. Not even one week of school has passed, and I've already dug myself into a hole.

There is a note written across the top of the paper: SEE ME AFTER CLASS.

Mr. Carlson stands in front of the board. “Most of you did quite well on the quiz,” he says. “Congratulations.”

The girl sitting next to me beams. I sneak a peek. She got a ninety-eight percent. I turn my quiz over so that she can't see it.

“Some of you had trouble,” Mr. Carlson continues. “I'll be meeting with you to discuss the quizzes later. If necessary, we can have a make-up class during study hall. I want to make sure you understand this information. Now”—he claps his hands together—“let's get to work! ”

He turns on the overhead projector. “Today we start the circulatory system. Everybody, please take out your notebooks and be ready to take notes.”

I dig out my notebook and slam it on my desk. Scout looks at me, but I don't care. I don't care about anything.

There is a drawing of the heart projected on the screen. “The heart is the muscle that drives the circulatory system,” Mr. Carlson says. “It has four chambers: the left ventricle and left auricle, and the right ventricle and right auricle. Blood flows to the right ventricle through two large veins. It is pumped away from the heart to the lungs via the pulmonary artery.”

The girl next to me writes all this down.

“Please draw this diagram of the heart,” Mr. Carlson says as he taps the projector. “Use your colored pencils to show the oxygenated blood and the nonoxygenated blood, just like in the picture.”

I cross my arms and slump low in my seat. He's like all the other teachers. He doesn't know what it's like for me. He doesn't care.

The rest of the class crawls by at a snail's pace. Mr. Carlson talks about blood and vessels and getting oxygen from the lungs. Some of this stuff I know from listening to Gran. Most of it I tune out. I'm only in seventh grade. Is it going to be like this all the way through high school? And what about college? I'm never going to get in with Ds and Fs. I can forget about vet school. You have to do a good job in college before they'll let you in there.

Scout snores gently under Mr. Carlson's desk. I watch the tip of his tail twitch every once in a while as if he's dreaming. He wakes up when the bell rings and walks over to join Mr. Carlson.

My classmates quickly gather their things and get up to leave. The girl next to me puts her colored pencils away, then flips through the pages of diagrams she drew and notes she took. My notebook is empty. I didn't write anything.

Who cares? It wouldn't matter if I drew the most beautiful heart in the world. I'd still screw up the next quiz. I grab my notebook and backpack and head for the door. I am going home.

“Maggie MacKenzie,” Mr. Carlson calls.

I hesitate. I could walk out, pretend I didn't hear him.

He turns off the projector and gathers the transparency sheets. The other kids from class file past me, chattering, joking, acting like life is fine. Part of me wants to follow them. But, no. I'm J.J. “No Fear” MacKenzie's granddaughter. I can't sneak out.

I turn around and walk back to my seat. Scout wags his tail happily.

“I'm here,” I say.

“I'll be with you in a minute.” Mr. Carlson shuffles the transparencies into a neat pile.

He pulls out the file drawer of his desk, feels the Braille labels on the file folders, and puts the transparencies into the right file. Then he and Scout walk down the aisle to where I'm sitting. Mr. Carlson sits in the desk next to me. Scout lies down in the aisle between us.

“Good boy,” Mr. Carlson says, ruffling the fur on the dog's head.

He is doing a good job of praising Scout, but I don't feel like telling him that.

“We need to talk,” he says.

“Yeah,” I answer. I pick at a hangnail on my left thumb.

“It's not just the quiz,” he continues. “You didn't take any notes in class today.”

“How do you know?” I exclaim.

“It was easy to tell that you weren't writing anything down or turning pages. And you didn't ask any questions. That's not like you.”

OK, so he's observant.

“You want to tell me what's up?” he asks quietly.

I bite the hangnail. “No.”

Scout scratches at his neck with his hind foot and then shakes his coat. I glance at the bandage on his paw. It looks good.

“Don't you think Scout needs to go out?” I ask.

“No,” Mr. Carlson answers. “I took him out before your class started. He's fine. It's you I'm worried about.”

“Don't bother,” I say. I peel the hangnail back too far, and it bleeds a little. “Look up my grades from last year. I stink at school. No reason why your class should be any different.”

Mr. Carlson stretches out as far as he can in the cramped chair. “Well, yes, there is a reason. I don't let my students give up.”

“I didn't give up! I studied!”

“I believe you,” he answers calmly. “But you didn't study enough, or you didn't study the right way. And what you did today—not taking any notes, ignoring what was going on in class—that's the sign of a kid who has quit on herself.”

“I'm not a quitter!” I swallow hard. This hangnail really hurts. It's throbbing.

“You quit today. And you act like you've already given up on the rest of the year.”

“What do you care?” I ask angrily. “You don't know what it's like for me. I hate reading. I read a paragraph, and by the end of it, I can't remember a thing. I look at a test and I blank out. Elementary school was hard. Middle school is impossible. Everything has changed. I can't deal with it. The only thing I'm good at is taking care of dogs.”

I pause to wipe away the tear that trickles down my face. Stupid hangnail. It hurts so much I'm crying. I sniff. My nose is running, too.

Mr. Carlson gets up and walks to his desk, using his hands to lightly feel his way down the aisle. He leaves Scout with me. I sniff again. I hate feeling like this!

Scout creeps forward and puts a paw on my sneaker. He looks up at me with his trusting eyes, like he can see and understand everything I'm going through.

I'm losing it, big time. I blubber more—big boo-hoos and a rain of tears. How humiliating, crying like this in front of a teacher. I put my arms down on my desk and hide my face. I wish the earth would open up and swallow me.

Mr. Carlson taps my shoulder and hands me some tissues.

“Thanks,” I mumble.

He takes the seat again. “Scout, sit.”

I can hear Scout sitting up and the sound of buckles being unfastened.

“Go ahead, boy.”

And then a cold, wet nose presses against my cheek. Scout gives me a big kiss, licking away my tears. I wrap my arms around his neck with a sob, fresh tears spilling onto his fur. He holds still for a minute as I catch my breath, his tail beating against the floor to the rhythm of my heartbeat.

I finally take a deep breath and let go. I sit up and blow my nose.

Scout's guide-dog harness is on the floor. Mr. Carlson took it off so that the shepherd could comfort me. I try to swallow the large lump in my throat.

“Thanks,” I croak and dry my eyes. “I really needed that.”

“I thought so,” he says. “Good boy, Scout.”

Scout smiles, his tongue hanging out the side of his mouth. I reach out and scratch his chest. He closes his eyes.
That feels good,
he's saying. He turns his head and licks my hand.

I take a shaky breath and laugh. “OK, OK, I'm all right now. Enough kisses.”

“Feeling better?”

“Yeah,” I say hoarsely.

“Good. Let's start over. Tell me what's going on.”

“Do you have a couple of hours?” I try to joke.

“Take all the time you need.”

I pet Scout's back, and he leans against my knees. “Here goes.”

For the next hour, I talk. I tell Mr. Carlson everything—what I'm good at, what's hard. How school was fun when I was a little kid but got worse when I got older. How it makes Gran sad that I don't like to read, and how she worries about my grades. About the way Zoe flies through her homework and Sunita does extra credit for fun. How I got grounded from the clinic last year and about my tutor and all the work I put in to bring my grades up before the final report card last year.

Mr. Carlson listens carefully. He asks a few questions, but mostly he lets me ramble.

I talk about feeling lost in middle school and how everyone seems bigger and smarter than me—how they all have it together and I'm falling apart.

“When I was seven years old, I climbed too high in the oak tree that grows in our backyard,” I say. “I slipped and caught hold of a branch. I hung there for ages, screaming my head off, worried that I would slip and fall. I could feel my fingers going numb. I was going to let go and fall. I knew I'd break a leg. That's what middle school feels like. I'm just barely hanging on, and I'm going to crash.”

Mr. Carlson strokes his beard. “I know exactly what that feels like. And a young friend convinced me to hold on tight, that things would get easier if I kept working. Remember the map you offered to make for me yesterday, the tactile map?”

I blush. “I'm sorry, I haven't had a chance—”

He cuts me off. “No, don't worry, I understand. It's just that I was thinking about maps. You need one. A map to get you through middle school.”

“You aren't talking about a map made out of toothpicks, are you?”

He shakes his head. “No, I'm talking about a plan. You need a plan, a map, customized for Maggie MacKenzie. You're right. Things are only going to get more complicated from here on out. Your teachers will expect you to do more work and do it faster. And I suspect you'll want some free time to work at the clinic and play sports.”

“You've got that right.”

Mr. Carlson picks up the guide-dog harness and slips it over Scout's head. “Some kids make the adjustment to middle school with no problems. They make it look easy. But most of the kids I know stumble over something. They lose friends, they get cut from a team, or they run up against a tough subject for the first time. There are all kinds of obstacles. You need some help learning to get around them.”

He buckles on the harness. Scout is back on the job.

“I' d like to meet with your grandmother and your guidance counselor,” he says. “You should be there, too. Together we can put together a map for you. We'll do whatever it takes—arrange for extra help during study hall, help you with study skills, test your reading skills. You aren't stupid, Maggie. You just need a guide.”

Scout wags his tail, brushing it against my leg. This is making sense.

“Let me ask you a question,” Mr. Carlson says as he stands. “What happened the day you dangled from the branch of the oak tree?”

I ball up the tissues in my hand. “Gran heard me. She ran out into the backyard and got there just as I let go of the branch. I wound up crashing into her instead of the ground.”

“She caught you?”

“She caught me,” I agree.

“We're here to catch you, Maggie. Your grandmother, me, Scout, your other teachers, your friends—we won't let you fall, or fail. But it's up to you, too. You have to make an effort. You can't quit.”

I look at him out of the corner of my eye. I toss the tissue ball at the wastebasket. It goes in. A good start.

“OK. I promise, I'll try.”

I
am sleepy when Gran drives me to school the next morning. Sleepy, but proud. I had a busy day yesterday.

Einstein, Galileo, and the rest of Carlson's Critters are stowed in a carrying crate in the back of the van. On my lap rests a poster board covered with a maze of toothpicks, a tactile map of the middle school. Zoe helped me with it after school yesterday. And hiding in my backpack are my notes about the circulatory system. Gran helped me write them up last night.

Gran slows the van to a crawl as we enter the fifteen-miles-per-hour zone in front of the middle school. A beige Mercedes passes illegally, then cuts in front of us. The driver is yapping into a cell phone and studying a notepad on his steering wheel.

“Look at that idiot! ” Gran exclaims. She blows her horn. “He's going to cause an accident! ”

The traffic light in front of the school turns yellow, then red. The Mercedes driver slams on his brakes and screeches to a halt. Gran stops behind him and honks her horn again. She rolls down the window and leans out. “Hang up the phone! she yells.

The bad driver glares at her in his rearview mirror. Gran glares back. The man looks away, but he keeps talking on the phone.

“I'll call the chief of police,” Gran mutters, drumming her fingers on the steering wheel. “He owes me a favor.” She turns to me. “We saved his toy poodle, remember?”

Gran doesn't mind pulling strings to stop bad things from happening.

“Hey,” I say, pointing to the corner. “There's Mr. Carlson and Scout.”

After stepping down from the bus idling on the other side of the intersection, Mr. Carlson and Scout pause at the crosswalk. Scout checks to make sure that all the cars are stopped, and Mr. Carlson listens carefully. The road is clear.