The Trouble with Mark Hopper (10 page)

“He really has more wrinkles,” Mark said. “But I'm going to leave them out.”

“Yeah, my godmother has really big teeth. So if I end up doing her, I'll probably make them smaller.”

“What if you do Superman?” Mark asked as he put away the sketchbook.

“Then I'll make his muscles extra big, so if I ever get to show it to him, he'll like it.”

“Maybe you can make your godmother's muscles extra big, too, if you end up painting her,” Mark said.

“And make her wearing a Superman outfit!” Jonathan added. “The best of both!”

“It's a bird, it's a plane, no, it's . . .” the other Mark chimed in.

“Super Godmother!” said Jonathan.

“Godmotherman!” said Mark at the same time.

Through his laughter, Mark wondered if the other Mark would finish his portrait in time for his plan to work. But then he decided not to think about the plan. “The godmother of steel!” he said.

“Just call on Godmotherman!” Jonathan continued in the tone of a television announcer. “Her perfume is so strong it will send the bad guys running!”

“Or at least they'll have to stop hurting you to hold their nose!”

“Beware, bad guys! Her big teeth will reflect the light into your eyes and blind you!”

“And then while you're blinded, she'll whack you with her pocketbook!”

“And when she goes into the phone booth to change back into a regular godmother, she'll make a call and never come out.”

“Rise and shine, Mark-fart!”

Mark gasped and sat straight up. Someone only woke him up if he overslept. He looked at his clock: 6:15 A.M. He didn't need to get up for a half hour. “What's going on?” he asked as he focused his eyes.

“It's time to get up,” Beth said.

“Not for me.”

“It's not?”

“No.”

Beth slapped her forehead. “Oh, whoops! I was thinking you had school at the same time as me.” She started out sincere, but by the end she couldn't help but smirk.

Mark's eyes narrowed. “You knew I didn't have to get up and did it on purpose!” he shouted.

Beth shrugged, her mouth in a tight sneer. Mark hurled his pillow at her. Beth screamed. “Mom! Mark threw a pillow at me!”

“She deserves it!” Mark screamed. “She woke me up just to be mean!”

“Knock it off!” their mother screamed back.

Mark searched for something else to throw. He contemplated his lamp but settled for the heaviest book on his nightstand. He held it above his head with both hands. Beth screeched and ran into the hallway as he let go. The book hit the door frame and slid down.

Beth peeked her head in and chirped, “I'm off to school! Sorry to wake you up too early! Have a
great
day, baby brother!”

Mark hurled his second-heaviest book at her, and Beth ducked. “Now, now,” she said like a teacher, waving her finger at him. “No need to get upset, Marky.”

Mark was seething with anger. Beth stuck out her tongue at him and left, whistling.

Mark looked at his clock again: 6:17. He was too worked up to go back to sleep. And anyway, his pillow was in the hallway. He threw both legs out from under the covers and stomped into the hall. His books were sprawled open and down on the floor, the pages crinkled and torn. He picked them up so harshly that they closed with the pages folded, which only made him angrier, so he threw them across the room.

“What is going on up there?” shouted Mark's mother.

“Nothing!” Mark shouted back. But he heard his mother stomping up the stairs. He picked up his books and smoothed them out before placing them back on his nightstand.

“What happened?” his mother asked. It wasn't even six-thirty in the morning and she looked worn out from her day.

“Your
daughter,
” Mark said, “woke me up a half hour early just to be mean.” He thought he saw his mom trying not to smile. “It's not funny,” he hissed. “Why did you have to have her? You should have just gone straight to having me.”

“Now come on,” she said. “Beth makes things more interesting around here.”

“Interesting in a bad way.”

“So you're getting an early start on the day. Make the most of it. Practice your bassoon or something.”

“I already know all of the songs for the winter concert, and it's only October. They're all baby songs. I could have played them in second grade.”

“You didn't learn to play the bassoon until third grade.”

“Exactly.”

“You have such an ear for music. You'd think in eleven years we could find something you weren't good at.”

Mark puffed out his chest. “My soccer team won in gym class the other day. And everyone chanted my name on the way to the locker room.”

“You told me. You're our little prodigy. I'm sure you'll find some way to make use of this extra half hour.”

“It's actually only twenty minutes now, I guess.”

Mrs. Hopper checked her watch. “Oh, cripes. You're going to make me late for work.” She gave Mark a frustrated look and hurried out of his room. “And get your pillow out of my hallway!” she shouted. “Don't be such a slob!”

After that short talk with his mother, Mark grumbled, stomped, and thrashed through his morning routine. He scrubbed himself so roughly in the shower that he turned his skin red. He brushed his teeth so violently that he bent the toothbrush bristles. Then he gelled his hair so forcefully that it came out looking and feeling like a helmet. He did not know how he was going to be friendly to Mark today, and today mattered extra because it was a Wednesday.

Mark left for school early, not waiting for Jasmina or even going by her house. While he sorted his books at his locker, Frank Stucco passed by and closed the locker door on him, making Mark whirl around and call, “Why are you here so early, Frank? Morning detention?” He then used some of his extra time to figure out which homeroom was Frank's and tell his homeroom teacher on him. The other Mark said “good morning” to him in Mrs. Frances's room, with his usual dumb, half-frightened stare and goofy half smile, and Mark couldn't help but bark, “Maybe for you.”

 

In social studies, Mark was leaning far back in his chair, not even bothering to sit up straight when he raised his hand to answer every question (or to grumble when Mr. Rocco didn't call on him), when Mr. Rocco said something that made him perk up instantly. “What I am about to pass around now,” Mr. Rocco said, “is information and application forms for this year's Mastermind tournament.”

Mark shot his hand straight into the air. “When is the tournament this year? And when is everything due?” he asked.

“I believe the tournament's in December, and everything's due in November,” Mr. Rocco said impatiently.

“November what?” He wanted to know exactly how much time he had to prepare, and how many more weeks he had of being friendly to Mark Hopper before putting his plan into action. With a rough estimate of six weeks until Thanksgiving, he figured it was still too early to start the plan that afternoon at his and Mark's study session.

“I'm not sure, Mark. All of the information is in the packet I am about to distribute.” He took a pile of papers from his desk into his arms. “The Mastermind tournament—”

Mark raised his hand again. “Do you still need report cards, an essay, a public speech, an interview, and evidence of artistic and-slash-or athletic talent?”

The class snickered and whispered. Mr. Rocco raised his eyebrows. “Yes, Mark, that's mostly right. I'm glad you're so interested in the tournament. If you'll please let me speak for a few minutes, some other students who might be interested can learn about it, too.”

He continued to give the class an overview of the tournament and its requirements, but Mark was stuck on the words
mostly right.
What was
mostly
right about what he'd said? He had studied the tournament rules through and through. He had dreamed about them more than one night. Could the rules have changed? Maybe Mr. Rocco was just saying Mark was only
mostly
right so as not to appear as though he knew less than one of his students. But what if the rules had changed? Maybe they now only wanted one piece of evidence of artistic talent! Mark raised his hand. “Mr. Rocco,” he said without waiting to be called on, “have the rules changed since last year?”

Mr. Rocco sighed. “Yes, Mark, as I was saying, there is a new element of the competition this year in place of the public speech. The committee thought that the tournament did not emphasize teamwork and collaboration as much as they'd like, and so this year, they are going to have the entrants work as a team during the final round. These pamphlets will give you more details, but the idea is that the winner should be not only a strong individual, but someone others enjoy working with.”

A short, stocky boy who sat in the back of the room raised his hand. “When you say a strong individual, do you mean like someone who can rip a phone book in half with his bare hands?”

Mark didn't sneer or comment or even give Mr. Rocco his what's-wrong-with-kids-these-days look. He was stuck on the new rules. The Mastermind tournament was about being the best. That meant competing with the other contestants, not working with them as a team. How could they change the rules to something that involved collaboration? That meant changing the whole point of the tournament. And more importantly, how could they change the rules on
him
? This day could not get any worse.

“Yes, Mark?”

“I didn't say anything,” Mark snapped, wondering if he had been thinking aloud.

“That's why I called on the other Mark,” said Mr. Rocco. “Go ahead, Mark.”

“Can anybody enter?”

“Yes, anyone in middle school can enter. There are no requirements about age or grades or activities. It's open to all. And I encourage you all to give it a try.”

“Is there a cash prize?” asked the boy who wanted to rip a phone book in half with his bare hands.

“No, no cash, unfortunately. But there's a big trophy. And lots of bragging rights. This tournament has been around for almost one hundred and fifty years, and it is very prestigious. You can read about the history of the tournament when I pass around the information.”

Mr. Rocco passed around the pamphlets just as the bell rang. Mark put the pamphlet in his folder and went up to Mr. Rocco's desk. “Mr. Rocco,” he said, “why did they change the rules?”

Mr. Rocco talked while he straightened up his desk. “I told you, Mark. They wanted the competition to include more teamwork.”

“But the contest is about one person winning. One person.”

“Are you thinking of entering?” Mr. Rocco asked casually.

“Thinking?” Mark scoffed. “I've been preparing for over a year now. And I've been planning for longer than that. My dad won the Mastermind tournament every year he was in middle school. We have the trophies in my house to prove it.” He didn't care that this was a lie; it was none of Mr. Rocco's business that his dad had left and so had the trophies.

“That's great,” Mr. Rocco said. “Good luck.”

“But don't you see the problem?” Mark asked. “I have been preparing with the old rules. Now all my hard work was for nothing”—he threw his hands in the air—“and it's not fair! Why would they change the rules anyway?”

Mr. Rocco looked at Mark and sighed. “I am not on the tournament committee, Mark.”

“How can I contact someone who is?”

Mr. Rocco tried not to smile. “Well, there must be some contact information on the pamphlet I handed out. But I think it's a little late for them to change the rules for this year.”

Mark tightened his mouth. He didn't say it, but he knew Mr. Rocco was probably right.

“Think of it this way, Mark,” Mr. Rocco tried. “Everyone has the same rules, and no one knows what to expect from these new ones. So everyone who enters is in the same boat. And if anyone else had been preparing like you had—they'd probably be your primary competition, right?—they are in your exact situation right now. Besides, a little teamwork never hurt anybody.”

“It's not that I'm not good at it,” Mark said quickly. He thought of the soccer game in gym and his conversation with Mark and Jonathan at lunch the day before and wondered if he really was good at teamwork. “It's that it's not fair.”

“Well, at least look over the new rules before you contact the committee. That's my free good-sport tip of the day.”

Mark turned to leave.

“And Mark,” Mr. Rocco called after him, “when someone answers a question or gives you some advice, it's nice to say thank you or at least good-bye before you leave.”

“Good-bye,” Mark mumbled. Thanks for nothing, he thought.

“What are you looking at?” Mark asked, his wide eyes peering over Mark's backpack to see.

“None of your beeswax,” Mark snapped. “Just do some problems on your own or something for a few minutes.”

Mark shrugged and turned to the math. He had paid very close attention that day when Miss Payley went over how to convert mixed numbers into improper fractions, but of course now that he was looking at a page of problems, he had no idea what to do. It had something to do with adding and multiplying . . . or was it subtracting and dividing? “So you . . . add and then divide?” he asked the other Mark cautiously.