The Night I Flunked My Field Trip #5 (2 page)

Ashley went over to McKelty's desk. Even though he's huge and she's little and wears glasses, Ashley's not afraid of McKelty. She says he's all hot air. Rotting food, bad-smelling hot air, I might add. Don't his parents encourage him to brush?

I'm not sure exactly what Ashley was planning to do, but Ms. Adolf didn't like the look of things and hurried over to settle the argument. That gave Frankie a chance to talk to me.

“Take a deep breath, Zip, and fill your brain with oxygen,” he said.

Frankie's mom is a yoga teacher. She's so flexible, she can touch the back of her head with the tips of her toes. She's been telling us since we were little that oxygen is brain food. I took a deep breath, in through my nose and out through my mouth, just like Frankie's mom had taught us.

“Now think, Zippola,” Frankie went on, “because your field trip future depends on this. What did you do with the permission slip?”

I played back the morning in my mind, like rewinding a tape from Blockbuster.

“I got out of bed and took a really long pee.”

“Nix the yucky details,” said Frankie.

“I got a pen. Got the permission slip from my three-ring binder.”

“Now you're talking,” Frankie nodded. “Then what?”

“Took the permission slip to my dad. Had him sign it. Put it on the hall table under the Chinese vase. Got dressed. Put on my green jacket. Kissed my mom good-bye. Grabbed my backpack. Ran out of the house.”

“And forgot the permission slip under the Chinese vase,” said Frankie.

Bingo!

There it was.

At least I knew the location of the permission slip. Now all I had to do was get it—immediately, if not sooner!

1. I could go to the office, get a new permission slip, and sign my father's name on the parent signature line.

2. Then I could go to jail for the rest of my life for doing that. I think maybe I'll cancel number one.

3. I'll teleport myself right into my living room, get the permission slip, and beam myself back to my seat before anyone knows I was gone.

4. Before I do that, I'll have to invent the Time Travel Teleportation Body Mover Machine.

5. I'll pretend to have a horrible stomach-ache so the school will call an ambulance to take me to the hospital. I'll ask the driver to swing by my apartment so I can pick up the slip.

6. I could call Permission Slips R Us. Hey, maybe it exists. You never know.

7. I could pretend to be Mr. Sicilian, the other fourth-grade teacher, and walk right out the teachers' entrance. Oops, I'd have to grow a mustache first.

8. I'll learn to talk dog talk, call Cheerio, and ask him to bring the permission slip to school.
Hey
,
boy
,
arf
,
arf
,
bow wow
,
ruff ruff
. Sounds right to me.

9. Hank, face it, you're not going. You're going to miss the best field trip of your entire childhood.

10. NO! I'm not giving up ... not yet, anyway.

IT TOOK MY VERY BEST TALKING, but I finally convinced Ms. Adolf to give me another hour to get my signed permission slip to her. Since my dad was in New Jersey for most of the day, my only hope was to call my mom at work and ask her to bring the permission slip to school. A lot of moms would get really mad about having to leave work and come to school for something like that, but I knew my mom wouldn't. She's used to me forgetting things. She knows it's not really my fault. It's the way my brain works, or doesn't work, in this case.

Ms. Adolf gave me permission to go to the office to use the phone. The office at PS 87 is down on the first floor, past the kindergarten rooms and all the way at the end of the hall. Ms. Adolf said I had to be back in five minutes because she had a surprise waiting for us. I had no choice but to run all the way to the office.

As I ran through the halls, I kept my ears open for the sound of Principal Love's footsteps. He walks around the halls wearing these black Velcro tennis shoes, and you can hear them squeaking on the linoleum when he walks. If Principal Love sees you running in the halls, he'll either give you detention or a big old safety lecture like, “Running can lead to hurting or breaking your body.” I don't know which is worse, detention or the lecture.

Luckily, the only grown-up I saw on the way to the office was Mr. Rock, who's our music teacher and maybe the coolest teacher I know. When he saw me speeding down the hall, all he said was, “Whoa, Hank, got a train to catch?”

“No, but I'm going to miss my boat if I don't hurry,” I said as I whizzed past him.

Mr. Rock looked a little confused, but I didn't have time to explain.

Finally, I reached the office. Mrs. Crock, the attendance person, was at her desk eating a green salad. She always eats salad, even for breakfast. She says it's because she's on a diet, although I don't know why. I think she looks nice just the way she is.

“Hello, Hank,” she said. “Have you been sent to see Principal Love again?”

“Not this time,” I answered proudly.

It's not like I get sent to the principal's office every day. Let's just say I get sent there often enough that Mrs. Crock knows my parents' phone number by heart. At the beginning of fourth grade, I was sent to Principal Love's office so many times that the chair in his office was actually starting to take on the shape of my butt. But then our school psychologist Dr. Berger figured out that I have learning challenges and started giving me some special help. Now I don't get sent to the principal's office nearly as much.

“How can I help you?” Mrs. Crock asked with a smile.

I noticed that there was a leafy green piece of lettuce stuck between her front teeth. It was hard not to notice, since it covered one whole tooth and half of the other one. It's tough to decide whether you should tell a grown-up that they have something stuck in their teeth. Papa Pete, my grandfather, has a big, fluffy mustache that he calls his handlebars. We have a deal that I always have to tell him when there's anything hanging off of it. On Saturday mornings, he likes to have crumb doughnuts with his coffee and, boy, do those things leave a trail in his mustache. Trust me, crumb doughnuts aren't called “crumb” for nothing.

I decided I didn't really know Mrs. Crock well enough to bring up the lettuce in her teeth.

“Can I use the telephone to call my mom?” I asked Mrs. Crock.

“Of course, honey,” she said, smiling again. I just couldn't keep my eyes away from her lettuce ... I mean ... tooth. It was just smiling out at me, leafier and greener than before. I thought I saw it wave hello.

She handed me the phone and I dialed my mom's number. My mom runs the Crunchy Pickle, which is our deli on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. Papa Pete started it a long time ago, and recently turned it over to my mom when he retired. It has the best sandwiches in New York City, except (and I mean this in the nicest way) for the food my mom makes. She's always trying to invent a new kind of healthy deli food. Yummy treats like tofu-salami and chickenless chicken salad. Her food experiments may be healthy, but they have a long way to go in the taste department.

“Buenas dias, the Crunchy Pickle,” said a voice on the other end of the phone. It was Carlos, my mom's number one sandwich-maker. He's my pal. Sometimes after work, we go to the park and he teaches me how to throw a curveball.

“Hi, Carlos,” I said. “Is my mom there?”

“Hankito,” he answered. “How's my little man?”

“I'm good,” I said, “but I need to talk to my mom in a hurry.”

“Oh, Hankito, she's not in the house.”

“Carlos, I gotta talk to her. Can you find her?”

“No can do, little man. She's in Queens doing Mrs. Gristediano's birthday party. Three kinds of sandwiches. Roast beef, tuna, and liverwurst. She's trying to sneak in her potato free potato salad made with mung beans, but I don't think it's going to fly.”

“Excuse me, Carlos.” I hoped it wasn't rude to interrupt him, but by the time he finished with the menu, Ms. Adolf would have crossed me off the field trip list forever. “This is an emergency,” I explained.

“An emergency!” Carlos said, sounding concerned. “You stay right where you are. I'm there and I'm taking you to the doc.”

“No, Carlos. It's not a hospital kind of an emergency. It's a permission slip kind of emergency.”

“Wow, that's way better,” said Carlos. “Your mamacita, she can take care of that when she gets back. She'll be here at three o'clock. Well, knowing her, maybe four.”

This was bad news. I only had an hour to turn in my permission slip. After that, it was over. Finito, as Carlos would say.

I couldn't call my mom and ask her to leave the party. Why should Mrs. Gristediano have her whole birthday messed up just because I'm the king of the forgetters?

“Thanks anyway, Carlos,” I said.

“Call back, three o'clock. Maybe four.”

That was going to be too late. It looked like the boat was sailing without me.

I GOT BACK TO CLASS JUST IN TIME to hear Ms. Adolf say my least favorite sentence in the English language.

“Pupils, take out a piece of paper and number it from one to ten.”

In my experience, nothing fun ever comes after that sentence. Was I ever right, because the next thing out of her mouth went a little something like this:

“You are about to take a social studies pop quiz.”

So that was the surprise Ms. Adolf had prepared for us. Wow, does she know how to have fun or what?

“For this quiz, I will read ten words out loud,” Ms. Adolf droned on. “You will write the correct definition for each. Spelling counts. The first word is
dinghy
.”

We had been studying nautical vocabulary to get ready for our field trip to the ship. Nautical vocabulary includes only words that have to do with ships and sailing and the seas and stuff like that. Ms. Adolf said that when we go on
The Pilgrim Spirit
, the captain and crew were going to talk to us like we were real sailors. We have to know the nautical vocabulary if we want to understand them and talk back.

“Dinghy,” she repeated.

Dinghy. Think
,
Hank.

I remember reviewing that word, but I couldn't remember what it meant. All I could think about was that sometimes I'm a little
dingy
when I forget to focus. Man, did I not like my brain right now.

Come on
,
brainster. Do something.

My brain wasn't cooperating. It was thinking that everyone else was going on the field trip except me.

I was pretty sure that wasn't the right definition, so I left number one blank.

“Aft,” she said.

Yes! I knew that! Sailors don't talk about the
front
or
back
of a ship, they say
fore
and
aft.

I wrote my definition. “The rear end of a ship.” Ordinarily, I might have laughed at the words “rear end” because they remind me of a human butt. But I was feeling so bad about the permission slip that the idea of laughing was very far from my mind.

“Starboard,” Ms. Adolf said, continuing on with the quiz.

Okay, I sort of knew that. I remembered that sailors call one side of the ship the
starboard
side and the opposite side is called
port.
But which one was the left side and which one was the right? Oh, boy. I have trouble telling left from right, no matter what you call them. You could call them
flibbery-do
and
flibbery-dee,
and I'd still be confused. Dr. Berger has told me kids with learning challenges sometimes have a hard time telling left from right—that makes me feel better. The only way I can tell for sure is to check my fingers, because the pinky finger on my left hand is a little shorter than the one on my right.

“Starboard,” Ms. Adolf repeated.

I looked down at my hands. Which pinky finger was the starboard one? I didn't know.

I was so relieved when the quiz was over and the recess bell rang. Ashley and Frankie were all over me before I even had time to get my jacket on.

“Hank, what are you going to do?” Ashley asked as we headed down the stairs to the school yard. “You absolutely positively have to go on this field trip.”

“She's right,” Frankie agreed. “I've heard that it's more awesome than awesome.”

“Rub it in,” I said as we ran down the stairs.

Nick McKelty pushed past us, almost knocking both Frankie and me into the railing.

“Watch it, McKelty,” said Frankie. “Stay out of my house.”

“Got to get by,” said Nick the Tick. “Can't you see the girls are expecting me to walk with them?”

Katie Sperling and Kim Paulson, only the two most beautiful girls in the fourth grade, were a few stairs ahead of us. I'm sure the last thing they wanted was to have Mr. Bad Breath panting along next to them.

“Watch,” said Ashley. “As soon as they get a whiff of him, they're going to duck into the girls' bathroom.”

McKelty shoved his way up to Katie and Kim and gave them a big smile. I couldn't hear what he said, but I could see both of them back away from his fishy breath. I bet the smell fried the ends of their hair. Just as Ashley predicted, when Katie and Kim got to the hall, they immediately ducked into the girls' bathroom.