The Waffler (9 page)

Monty felt lame. He couldn't decide what to say to Leo. He couldn't even decide on a name for his rat. He couldn't decide anything. Maybe he really was a waffler.

“Leo!” called Leo's mom again, and Monty's mom called, “Monty!” Which was when Leo started yelling, “I don't want to go!”

Monty didn't know if Leo meant he didn't want to go home right now, or he didn't want to go to New Jersey. Maybe both. But whatever Leo meant, he yelled it so loud that the rat freaked, because when Monty reached for the rat it just held on more tightly. Gently, he tried to pry the rat away, but the rat kept clinging to Leo.

Monty's dad's voice boomed up the stairwell. “Monty! Did you hear?”

“I heard!” shouted Monty. “We're coming!”

“I don't want to go!” wailed Leo.

Great, thought Monty. He had a freaked-out kid and a freaked-out rat. He needed to get the rat off Leo and get Leo downstairs. “How about I walk you home?” he asked. “Sound good?”

Leo sniffed but didn't scream. Thinking about it.

“And we'll ask your mom if you can come over tomorrow, okay?”

Leo sniffed again. “Okay,” he finally said.

“Monty,” barked his dad. “Downstairs, pronto!”

“We're coming,” shouted Monty, and with one final tug he plucked the rat from Leo's shoulder, lowered him into the cage, set the lid on top, and hurried downstairs.

“
O
f course I
put the cover on!” shouted Monty. “I always do!”

Monty was sure he'd put the cover on the rat's cage. He tried to think back. He'd been hanging out with Leo and the rat when it was time for Leo to go home. He had put the rat
in
the cage and the cover
on
the cage and then . . . had he put the dictionaries on top of the cover to weigh it down? He was sure he had. He always did. Except there were the dictionaries on his bureau. And the rat was gone. They were like little Houdinis, the guy at the pet store had said. They loved to escape.

“I'm sorry I asked that,” said his mom wearily. “Of course you did, and besides, it doesn't really matter now. But we've looked everywhere, and it's ten o'clock, and it's time for bed. We can keep looking in the morning.”

“He'll probably turn up,” said Bob.

“He's not like a toy!” shouted Monty. “He's not going to
turn up
. If he turns up, he'll probably be dead! We have to find him!”

One more time, they searched the house. Upstairs: Monty's room, Aisha and Sierra's room (Aisha sleeping, Sierra's bed empty), his mom and Bob's room. Downstairs: kitchen (still smelling like Thanksgiving dinner), dining room (the table still extra-big, covered with a white cloth), living room. He even opened the door to the room where his mom worked, and flicked on the light. The little skeleton spooked him. It was a miniature replica of a real skeleton that his mom had gotten to learn all the bones of the body. She'd kept it to teach people about what was inside them—what was hurting them, and why. With the skeleton dangling in the corner, Monty looked for the rat as quickly as he could, turned off the light, and closed the door.

“Monty, go to bed,” said his mom. “We'll keep looking in the morning.”

“Promise you'll wake me if you find him, okay?” demanded Monty.

“Promise,” said his mom.

Monty didn't know how many hours later it was when his mom woke him. She was sitting on the edge of his bed. The room was dark, except for a thin beam of light shining in from the hallway, and the house was so quiet that he heard the warning sound of the foghorn way out on the ocean. In the dark quiet his mom whispered, “Monty.”

He could tell from the sound of her voice that the rat was dead.

Suddenly Monty felt wide awake. “I told you so!” he accused her. “I
told
you he wouldn't just turn up. I
told
you he'd be dead.”

“I'm so sorry, Monty,” she said. She reached to hug him, but he pulled away.

Sorry was a funny word. Sometimes it meant a person was apologizing for hurting you. That made sense. But sometimes it meant they were sad that you'd gotten hurt, even though it wasn't their fault. For some reason, that kind of
sorry
made Monty mad. What good did it do? Just saying they were sorry didn't help!

“It's not your fault!” he said angrily.

“Not that kind of sorry,” she said. “I mean . . . I'm just sorry it happened.”

“Where is he?”

“Downstairs.”

Monty pushed away the covers, got out of bed, and followed his mom down the stairs and into the kitchen. She turned on the light, pointed to a towel in a laundry basket on the floor.

“I was up nursing Aisha,” she said, “and then afterward I came downstairs for a snack. The bathroom light was on so I went in to shut it off, and that's when I saw the rat. I don't know if he was trying to get a drink, or what, but I guess he climbed into the . . . um . . . toilet, and drowned.”

Monty crouched down on the floor. He reached into the basket and pulled back the towel. There was his rat. Stiff and wet and freezing cold. Dead. He started to cry. He
hated
crying! His mom tried to hug him, but he pulled away. He didn't want to feel better. His rat was dead, and it was his fault.

• • •

When Monty woke up the next morning he lay in bed for a long time, because what was the point of getting up? Just like last night, he heard the moaning note of the foghorn. Then he heard the ding-dong note of the doorbell, and his mom called up the stairs that Leo was here.

Leo? Oh, no: Leo. Monty had forgotten all about inviting Leo over today. He hauled himself out of bed and went downstairs to the kitchen. There was a big pot of turkey bones simmering on the stove, and the laundry basket with the bundled-up towel on the floor. There was his mom, chopping vegetables, and Aisha in her bouncy seat. And there was Leo, who didn't waste any time.

“Can I hold Samuel Whiskers?”

Monty didn't know the right way to tell Leo, so he blurted out all at once, “He got out of his cage—and fell into the toilet—and drowned.”

“Drowned?”

Nodding, Monty pointed to the basket. “Drowned. Like, dead.”

Leo crumpled to the floor, like when all the air came out of a balloon. Monty plunked himself down beside him. Together they sat beside the basket. Finally Leo offered, “My grandpa died.”

“Mine, too,” said Monty.

“Are you gonna bury him?”

“I don't know,” said Monty. “I guess.”

“My grandpa got buried. They put his name on a stone.” Leo pointed to the basket. “Are you gonna put his name on a stone?”

“I guess,” repeated Monty. “Except—I don't know.”

“Don't know what?”

Monty felt bad all over again. He had tried a few names for the rat, but never settled on one. And now the rat was dead, without a real name. Because he was a waffler. “I don't know his name, for sure.”

Leo started listing all the names. “There was Mack.”

“Short for McIntosh,” agreed Monty.

“And Officer Rat,” remembered Leo.

Monty went down the list. “Scratcher,” he said.

“And Samuel Whiskers,” finished Leo. Giggling, he jumbled the names together: “Officer Samuel Scratcher McIntosh Whiskers.”

Monty grinned. Who cared if he couldn't decide on a name? Leo didn't! “I like it,” he said. “Officer Samuel Scratcher McIntosh Whiskers.”

“The third!” said Leo.

“Officer Samuel Scratcher McIntosh Whiskers the third,” agreed Monty. “Mack for short.” Monty felt better. He wanted to do something nice for Leo. “So, New Jersey,” he said. “That's where your dad lives, right? Leonard Schwarz Junior?”

Leo nodded glumly. “I'll miss the party.”

“The band is terrible,” said Monty, shrugging. “I'll probably quit soon.”

“How come?”

Monty hesitated. His mom was right there, chopping vegetables. But who cared if she heard? “I don't like the flute.”

Leo nodded, as if he understood. “Flute's stupid,” he said loyally.

“I want to play the trumpet,” added Monty.

“Trumpet's awesome!” said Leo.

Monty smiled. He was going to miss this kid. He pointed to the basket. “You want to see him one last time?”

Leo nodded yes.

Reaching into the basket, Monty put his hand on the towel, but then snatched it right back, screaming, “Aaah!”

Leo cried, “What, what, what?” and Aisha answered his scream with one of her own, and Monty's mom put down the carrot she was chopping and picked up the baby.

“Monty, what is it?”

“I felt something move,” said Monty.

Something was moving inside him, too. Fear and hope pushing at each other. Reaching over, he pulled open the towel.

The rat looked up at him. Eyes open. Whiskers wriggling.

“Whoa!”
said Monty. “He's not dead!
Whoa!
” he repeated.

“Whoa,”
echoed Leo.

Holding Aisha, Monty's mom peered down at the rat. “I've always heard rats could survive almost anything, and I guess it's true. He must have just seemed dead last night because he was so cold, and then he warmed up in the towel and he was okay! Do you think?”

What Leo must have thought was that he liked the sound of the word
whoa
.
“Whoa,”
he said again. And again.
“Whoa.”

What Monty thought was that this was the right time to take the turn he had missed yesterday. He stood up. “My name is Monty Greene,” he announced, “and I'm thankful that my rat—Officer Samuel Scratcher McIntosh Whiskers the third—is still alive.”

“
M
onty,” said Mrs.
Tuttle on Monday morning. “Come here, please.”

Monty walked slowly over to his teacher's desk, the way he used to when he still had to get the day's decision-aids put on. She might have stopped putting Band-Aids on him and ripping them off, but she was still a little scary, with her list of expectations as long as her long, black hair.

“Monty, Mrs. Calhoun has told me that Leo won't be in school anymore.”

“I know,” said Monty. “He's moving to New Jersey.”

The rest of the fourth grade was gathering around Mrs. Tuttle's desk, listening: Jasmine Raines, the Town Crier, with about a hundred rainbow clips in her hair; Lagu Luka, who didn't call Monty Waffles anymore, and orange-haired Tristan Thompson-Brown, who did, but who never got in trouble; Devin Hightower, with his glasses strapped around his head; Emma Robinson and Ella Bakunda, Monty's fellow flute players; Ethan Ho and the other kids.

“Mrs. Calhoun and I have talked this over,” said Mrs. Tuttle, “and we have an idea.” She sounded hopeful.

Mrs. Tuttle's hopeful voice did not make Monty feel full of hope. Her last big idea for Monty had been the decision-aids.

“Due to this unusual situation,” she said, “we've decided to let you partner with one of the kindergartners who didn't get a Buddy.” She beamed at Monty, as if she'd just given him a wonderful gift and couldn't wait to hear his reaction.

It seemed like Mrs. Tuttle was actually trying to be nice. So how come she couldn't see why picking a new Buddy was the opposite of nice? Which kid would he pick? Kieran from the nut-free table? Lagu's little sister, Winnie? Or Finn? They
all
felt like his Little Buddy.

“But I told you, I have three extra Buddies! I can't ask just one of them!”

“Of course not,” said Mrs. Tuttle, nodding. “We wouldn't ask
you
to make that decision. We're just offering you the chance to have a new Buddy. Mrs. Calhoun and I can decide who that will be.”

“But you can't do that!” he protested. “You can't pick just one! That would still leave two kids out!”

“That could hurt somebody's
feelings
!” cried Jasmine, and Emma Robinson and Ella Bakunda agreed that hurting feelings was
wrong
. Everybody knew that.

Mrs. Tuttle's beaming smile was gone. Wearing the same I'm-being-patient look on her face that Monty's dad sometimes did, she launched into a long explanation of how nobody was being left out. The Hidden Treasures Culminating Event was to show all parents of students in Mrs. Calhoun's kindergarten and Mrs. Tuttle's fourth grade what they had learned this fall. Reading Buddies would show the books they had read together, and the other kindergartners would simply show what they had been working on in their special services. So Monty didn't need to worry. Everyone would be at the Culminating Event. Nobody would be left out. All he needed to do was say if he wanted to accept Mrs. Calhoun's offer to let him partner with one of her students.

Monty thought about the offer. Leo was gone. Monty could say yes to a new Buddy. But saying yes meant that one little kid was going to be happy and two little kids were going to be totally bummed. That wasn't fair! Monty didn't want to say yes, but he didn't want to say no, either.

“Why can't they all be my Buddy?”

By now Mrs. Tuttle's patient face was gone, too. “Because,” she said, “everybody else has one. People don't get everything they want just because they can't make up their mind! You can make up your mind to have one Buddy”—she picked up her special mallet—“or no Buddy.” She tapped the mallet on the xylophone, and a note rang through the room: this conversation was over.

Mrs. Tuttle's words stuck in his head, like a song.
One Buddy or no Buddy. One Buddy or no Buddy.
Then he thought how “no Buddy” sounded like “nobody,” so Monty added that to the song.
One Buddy or no Buddy, and no Buddy means nobody.

Monty still had the song stuck in his head when it was time for band.

“Good morning, musicians!” cried Mr. Carlson, the band teacher. He always started off super cheerfully, but by the end of the period he always looked as if he had a headache. Today he was wearing a white shirt and a red tie dotted with tiny musical notes.

He made the official band teacher signal for silence, tapping his baton against his music stand. “Does everybody see what I am wearing?” he asked, and answered his own question. “I am wearing dress clothes! Why? To show you appropriate concert attire! Our performance for the Hidden Treasures Culminating Event is the
day after tomorrow
! So, musicians, please take out your sheet music for ‘Merrily We Roll Along.'”

Mr. Carlson held his baton aloft, the signal for them to get their instruments into playing position. Monty put his flute to his mouth, and on either side of him, Ella Bakunda and Emma Robinson picked up their flutes. There weren't enough music stands to go around, so the two girls shared with him.

When they started playing “Merrily We Roll Along,” Monty still couldn't get the ditty out of his head:
one Buddy or no Buddy, and no Buddy means nobody
. After a few bars, Mr. Carlson shouted, “Flutes!
Flutes!
”

Most grown-ups used your whole name when you were in trouble. Mr. Carlson was different. If he was happy with you, he used your real name: Monty Greene. If he called you by the name of your instrument, he was
not
happy.

“Flutes!” he roared again.

Monty and Ella and Emma put their flutes in their laps and looked up at Mr. Carlson, his hand in a tight fist around his baton.

“I am conducting ‘Merrily We Roll Along'! Is that what you are playing?”

That was one of those questions they weren't really supposed to answer, because it wasn't the real question. What Mr. Carlson really meant was: why do you flutes sound so awful?

Monty knew the answer. The flutes weren't all awful.
He
was, because his brain was singing the
Nobody
song stuck in his head. He started to say, “Sorry,” when Emma Robinson interrupted.

“We had the wrong music,” she said, which wasn't true. “Sorry, Mr. C.”

Ella Bakunda joined in the not-truth. She grabbed the sheet music and pretended to stuff it in her music folder, then took the same sheet back out again and put it on the stand, as if she had the correct song now.

“‘Merrily We Roll Along,'” she said. “Right?”

“That is right,” said Mr. Carlson wearily. “Thank you, Miss Bakunda.” He tapped his baton again, and in a voice halfway between beginning-of-the-class cheerful and end-of-the-class headache, cried, “Let's take it from the top!”

At recess the
No Buddy means nobody, no Buddy means nobody
song was still running in circles around his brain as Monty ran to his usual spot at the edge of the field, and tagged the chain-link fence. On the other side of the fence the bare branches of the sumac trees stuck up into the blue sky at crazy angles. The branches made Monty think of the little skeleton hanging in his mom's workroom. Bones were hidden inside a body, like tree branches hidden underneath leaves in the summer. It'd be weird if you could see the bones inside somebody, the same way you saw tree branches in the wintertime.

It was weird that some people could already see inside him sometimes. Like Sierra, who knew that the Culminating Event was a big deal, and who had stuck up for him at Thanksgiving dinner, even though it meant she got scolded. And who was now making a beeline across the playground in her red high-tops, trailed by a pack of girls. She was breathing hard from running when she reached him.

“What are you going to do now?” she demanded.

“About what?”

“The Culminating Event!” she said.

Jasmine was right behind his sister. “I told her what Mrs. Tuttle said,” she announced, with a proud look on her face, as if she'd done a good deed. “About how you could get a new Buddy, but you said you have three Buddies!”

Sierra grinned at Monty. She didn't have to say the words out loud for Monty to know what she was thinking:
what did you expect from the Town Crier?
Monty grinned back:
no kidding
. Of course Jasmine had told Sierra. He didn't even care. Because what difference did it make? Mrs. Tuttle wasn't going to budge.

Ella and Emma spoke next.

“Hey, you owe me,” Emma pointed out.

“Me, too,” echoed Ella. “We covered for you in Band.”

“I know,” said Monty, bouncing lightly against the chain-link fence. “How come?”

Ella shrugged. “'Cause it's not fair.”

Monty nodded. In a way, it didn't make sense. Mr. Carlson didn't have anything to do with Mrs. Tuttle's one-Buddy rule. But in another way it made perfect sense. Teachers were on the same team, and kids were on the same team. Emma and Ella were on his side, and that meant covering for Monty when he messed up in Band.

“Thanks,” said Monty. “I owe you guys.”

“We know that,” said Ella.

“So what are you going to do?” asked Emma.

“I don't know!” said Monty.

How come people expected him to
do
something, anyway? Overhead, a bunch of crows were zigging and zagging across the blue sky, and on the playground, more kids were racing toward Monty's spot by the chain-link fence. Monty was glad to see Lagu heading over. He only felt medium-glad about Devin Hightower. Devin didn't call him Waffles all the time, more like whenever he seemed to remember. Which was usually whenever Tristan Thompson-Brown was around. Which was why Monty wasn't at all glad to see Tristan arrive.

“Hey, Waffles!” said Tristan. He was wearing a winter hat so you couldn't see his bright orange not-me hair. “How come you're not babysitting today?”

“They're not babies,” said Monty.

“They're mini-waffles!” cried Tristan. “Get it? Waffles and his mini-waffles?”

Monty bounced harder against the chain-link fence. So what if he had a few friends in kindergarten? At least they never called him Waffles. Half of Monty wanted to tell Tristan off, but half of him didn't dare. The two halves started having a fight inside his head.

Tell him to quit it.

No way. Then he'll know it bothers you.

Way. Otherwise he'll never stop.

He never will stop.

Make him.

How?

Monty kept bouncing against the chain-link fence. Tristan was calling him a name about not being able to make up his mind, and he couldn't even make up his mind to tell him off! Monty was going through the argument with himself again, when the worst possible thing happened.

Sierra stepped forward. Planting her red sneakers in the grass, his sister said, “Quit it, Tristan.”

“What?” asked Tristan.

“Quit calling Monty Waffles.”

“Why?”

“He doesn't like it,” said Sierra.

“He doesn't care,” said Tristan. “It's just a joke. Right, Waffles?”

Everyone was waiting to hear Monty's answer. Sierra and Jasmine. Ella and Emma. Devin and Lagu. Monty was waiting, too. What should he say? He felt his heart doing the alarm clock pound.
Hurry up, hurry up!
Then, like a real alarm clock, the bell rang to mark the end of recess, and all the kids lit off across the playground to get in line for lunch.
Too late! Too late!
He hadn't made up his mind what to say to Tristan. And now Tristan would never stop calling him Waffles. Because that's what he was. A waffler.