The Wednesday Wars Page 3

  That's how it is with people who are plotting something awful.

  October

  The Wednesdays of September passed in a cloudy haze of chalk dust.

  At 1:45, the bus arrived from Temple Beth-El to spring half of my class.

  At 1:55, the bus arrived from Saint Adelbert's to spring the other half—even Mai Thi, who had to go to Catechism since it was the Catholic Relief Agency that had brought her over from Vietnam, and I guess they figured that she owed them, even though she wasn't Catholic.

  Then Mrs. Baker and I sat. Alone. Facing each other. The classroom clock clicked off the minutes. She was probably considering what she could legally do to remind me how regrettable it was that my family was Presbyterian.

  "There's no point teaching you something new," she said. "You'd just hear it a second time tomorrow." So that first Wednesday I washed all the chalkboards. Then I straightened the Thorndike dictionaries. Then I washed all the chalkboards again since they were streaky. Then I went outside and pounded the erasers against the brick wall of Camillo Junior High until the white chalk dust spread up and around me, settling in my hair and in my eyes and up my nose and down my throat, so that I figured I was probably going to end up with some sort of lung disease that would kill me before the end of the school year. All because I happened to be Presbyterian.

  The second Wednesday of September, and the third, and the fourth, and Wednesdays on into October were pretty much the same. I got good at the chalkboards, so Mrs. Baker added putting up her bulletin boards with microscopic pins and leveling tools, and sweeping down the cobwebs from the asbestos tiles on the ceiling, and wiping the grime of sweaty hands off the lower half of the windows, then pushing them all up so that, as Mrs. Baker said, fresh air could circulate into the classroom.

  Which it really needed, since once air reached the Coat Room, it landed on all the stuff from all the lunches that had been chucked into the corners because they were too vile to eat even when they were fresh. Lunches like liverwurst sandwiches.

  So after I got good at the windows, Mrs. Baker got me cleaning out the Coat Room.

  But what I didn't clean out was the stash that Doug Swieteck was hiding to prepare for Number 166. So far, there was a box of tapioca pudding, a bag of marshmallows that had been smashed into a sticky pulp, a half-dozen ragged feathers, a bottle of red ink, and a plastic bag with something awful in it. Probably something dead. He had it all in a small box from the A&P, stuffed on the shelf above the coats.

  I didn't touch any of it.

  And do you think I complained about this? Do you think I complained about picking up old lunches that had fungus growing on them and sweeping asbestos tiles and straightening Thorndike dictionaries? No, I didn't. Not once. Not even when I looked out the clean lower windows as the afternoon light of autumn changed to mellow and full yellows, and the air turned so sweet and cool that you wanted to drink it, and as people began to burn leaves on the sides of the streets and the lovely smoke came into the back of your nose and told you it was autumn, and what were you doing smelling chalk dust and old liverwurst sandwiches instead?

  And why didn't I complain?

  Because after the first week in October, the Baker Sporting Emporium narrowed its architect choices down to two—Hoodhood and Associates, and Kowalski and Associates—and so every single night after supper but before Walter Cronkite began reporting, my father said to me, "So Holling, everything all right with Mrs. Baker?" and I answered, "Just swell."

  "Keep it that way," he'd say.

  So I didn't complain.

  Still, you would have thought that since all this was happening because I was a Presbyterian, God would have seen to it that the Yankees would have played in the World Series to pay me back for my persecution. But were they? Of course not. The world isn't fair that way. The Boston Red Sox were playing instead. And let me tell you, everyone knows that the Boston Red Sox are never going to win another World Series. Never. Not even if they have three Carl Yastrzemskis. Which they don't.

  Doug Swieteck's brother was still not back in school, and Doug Swieteck told us why: The ten days of observation had been pure delight for him, but when no one had found any behavior beyond his usual weirdness, he realized that he would be coming back to school again pretty soon. So the evening before he was to return, when he came to his classroom with Mrs. Swieteck to meet with his teacher, Doug Swieteck's brother walked up to the chalkboard and pounded the erasers against his head. Since Mr. Ludema didn't have someone like me around to pound them against the brick walls every Wednesday afternoon, Doug Swieteck's brother's hair turned white after about four poundings. Then he took two long pieces of chalk, stuck them into his mouth like fangs, and went howling and roaring and slobbering out into the hallway.

  The school was mostly deserted, so it really was just dumb luck that Mrs. Sidman, who had decided to leave her new post in the Main Administrative Office, had come into school that particular evening to clean out the last of her personal effects.

  I think her screams echoed up and down the halls of Camillo Junior High until dawn.

  That bought Doug Swieteck's brother another four weeks of medical observation. And it was pretty clear from Mrs. Baker's glares the next morning that, somehow, she thought this was all my fault. Which it wasn't. I didn't have a thing to do with it. But when someone hates your guts, truth, justice, and the American way don't mean all that much.

  On Wednesday, when we all stood up to go to Mr. Petrelli's geography class, Mrs. Baker stopped glaring. In fact, as we walked out with Geography for You and Me in our hands, she started to smile at me. Then I got worried. She looked like those evil geniuses who suddenly figure out a plan to conquer the world and can already imagine earth's population quivering in their grasp.

  It was all I could do not to sprint out of Mrs. Baker's classroom—even though we weren't supposed to run in the halls—to the safe world of junior high geography.

  Mr. Petrelli believed that no class was worth anything without a Study Question Data Sheet. He dittoed these off like a major publisher. His hands were always blue from the ink, mostly because he hauled the dittos out from the machine while they were still wet from the alcohol—the smell of which gave the room a tang.

  "Fill these out in pairs," he said. "You have forty-three minutes."

  Forty-three minutes. Teachers don't reckon time the way normal people do.

  When Meryl Lee came over to be my study partner, I was still wondering why Mrs. Baker had smiled.

  "Are you all right?" Meryl Lee asked.

  "Just swell."

  "You're holding your pen upside down."

  "Thanks for pointing that out, Detective Kowalski."

  "You're very welcome. Do you think you can figure out the answers while I write them down on the sheet?"

  "Why don't you figure out the answers while I write them down on the sheet?"

  "Because I know how to write. What's the first state?"

  "Delaware. Do you think Mrs. Baker looks like an evil genius?"

  "Not unless you're paranoid. What's the second state?"

  "I'm not paranoid. Pennsylvania. Mrs. Baker hates my guts."

  "Mrs. Baker doesn't hate your guts, and you are, too, paranoid. What's the third state?"

  "Well, thank you for your vote of confidence. New York."

  Meryl Lee looked over at Geography for You and Me. "New York wasn't the third state. It was New Jersey, not New York."

  "How do you know that?"

  "Everybody knows that," she said.

  Oh, out beyond Mr. Petrelli's not-so-clean lower windows it was one of those perfect blue autumn days, when the sun is warm and the grass is still green and the leaves are red and tipped with yellow. A few white clouds drifted high, teased along by a breeze as gentle as a breath.

  "What's the fourth state?" said Meryl Lee.

  That's pretty much how it went for Meryl Lee and me until recess, which had become a whole lot safer since Mrs. Baker's failed assassinat
ion plot. I figured that most of her would-be assassins had seen what had happened to Doug Swieteck's brother and were worried I might take them out, too. So when we left Mr. Petrelli and went back to Mrs. Baker's classroom, I believed I could actually run out into the perfect October day and hope to come back alive.

  I could feel the warm sun on my back already.

  But then I found out why Mrs. Baker had been smiling.

  "Mr. Hoodhood," she called from her desk as the school clock clicked to noon, "I have a quick job for you. Everyone else, enjoy your recess."

  I looked at Meryl Lee. "See?" I whispered.

  "You are paranoid," she said, and abandoned me.

  "Mr. Hoodhood," said Mrs. Baker, "there are some pastries that Mrs. Bigio has spent the morning baking for me that need to be brought up to this room. Would you go down to the kitchen and bring them here? And do not start any rumors. These are not for the class. They are for the Wives of Vietnam Soldiers' gathering at Saint Adelbert's this afternoon. Not for anyone else."

  "Is that all?" I said.

  "Don't look so suspicious," she said. "Suspicion is an unbecoming passion."

  I took my unbecoming passion and left to find Mrs. Bigio. This didn't seem like it would take too long, even though the seventh-grade classrooms were on the third floor and the kitchen was on the first floor, at the very end of the hallway—probably so that the wind could blow the fumes away. Sometimes that worked. And sometimes it didn't. When it didn't, the halls filled up with the scent of Hamburger-and-Pepper Surprise, a scent that lingered like the smell of a dead animal caught underneath the floorboards.

  I think that Mrs. Bigio couldn't smell the scents, either because she wore a cotton mask over her face all the time or because she had worked in the kitchen of Camillo Junior High for so long that she could no longer smell.

  But I didn't have a mask and I could smell, so when I reached the kitchen, I got ready to take a deep breath before I walked in. But then I realized I didn't need to. There were no fumes. There was only the delicious, extravagant, warm, tasty scent of buttery baking crust, and of vanilla cream, and of powdered sugar, still drifting in the heated air. And stretched out on the long tables, far from Whatever Surprise was being fed to Camillo Junior High for lunch that day, were a dozen trays of cream puffs—brown, light, perfect cream puffs.

  "Mrs. Baker send you?" said Mrs. Bigio.

  I nodded.

  "You can start with that one," she said, pointing.

  I thought, Shouldn't Mrs. Bigio be grateful for my willingness to help? Wouldn't any human being with a beating heart hand me one of the brown, light, perfect cream puffs? Was that so unlikely?

  Yes. It was unlikely.

  "Now would be a good time to start," said Mrs. Bigio. "And don't drop any."

  I won't drop any, I thought, and you're very welcome.

  I picked up a tray in each hand.

  "One tray at a time," said Mrs. Bigio.

  I looked at her. "That will take me twelve trips to the third floor," I said.

  "So, Mr. Samowitz is teaching you some arithmetic after all. Don't drop any."

  It took me the rest of lunch recess to carry the trays—one at a time—up to the classroom. Mrs. Baker smiled sweetly as I brought each one in. "Place them on the shelf by the windows. The cool air will keep them from getting soggy."

  I thought of my father and the future of Hoodhood and Associates. I did not complain. Even when Mrs. Baker asked me to open the windows a little wider and I had to move all the trays—one at a time—so that I could reach over the shelf and jerk all the windows open a little wider, I did not complain.

  "Thank you," said Mrs. Baker, as the school clock clicked to 12:30 and the classroom began to fill and Danny Hupfer came to punch me on the shoulder because he thought the cream puffs might be for us, which they weren't. He figured that out when Mrs. Baker told us to take our Mathematics for You and Me books, line up by the door, and then head to Mr. Samowitz's class.

  Let me tell you, it is hard to care much about set theory when there are twelve trays of brown, light, perfect cream puffs cooling deliciously on a shelf back in your own classroom. Twelve sets of cream puffs divided by twenty-three kids plus Mrs. Baker meant half a set of cream puffs for every person in that room. And don't think we weren't all figuring out that same equation. And don't think we weren't all worrying that Mr. Samowitz's homeroom class, who had walked past us with English for You and Me in their hands, was trying to get those same hands on our cream puffs.

  But they didn't, and when we came back in after set theory, the cream puffs were still there, cooling in the circulating air coming in beneath the clean lower windows. But Mrs. Baker acted like the cream puffs weren't there at all. And I suppose that in the end it didn't really matter that they were there. They may as well have been over with the Wives of Vietnam Soldiers at Saint Adelbert's already, for all the chance we had of getting one.

  When 1:45 came, half the class left, and Danny Hupfer whispered, "If she gives you a cream puff after we leave, I'm going to kill you"—which was not something that someone headed off to prepare for his bar mitzvah should be thinking.

  When 1:55 came and the other half of the class left, Meryl Lee whispered, "If she gives you one after we leave, I'm going to do Number 408 to you." I didn't remember what Number 408 was, but it was probably pretty close to what Danny Hupfer had promised.

  Even Mai Thi looked at me with narrowed eyes and said, "I know your home." Which sounded pretty ominous.

  But I knew I was safe. It was just as likely that President Lyndon B. Johnson himself would walk into the classroom as Mrs. Baker would give me a cream puff.

  Actually, though, someone did come to the door after everyone had left. It wasn't President Johnson. It was a fifth grader from Camillo Elementary. He was carrying a box.

  "There you are, Charles," said Mrs. Baker. "Did you get them all?"

  "I think so."

  "From Mr. Petrelli's class? And Mr. Samowitz?"

  Charles nodded.

  "And did you remember Mrs. Harknett downstairs?"

  "Yes."

  "And Mr. Ludema?"

  "I got them all," Charles said.

  "Thank you. You may put them here on the desk."

  Charles put the box on Mrs. Baker's desk. He looked once at me—kind of sadly, I thought—then left, brushing his hands off.

  Chalk dust fell from them.

  "Mr. Hoodhood," said Mrs. Baker, "recent events have led the junior high school teachers to conclude that we need to be keeping our chalkboard erasers much cleaner. So I asked Charles to gather them from the classrooms and bring them here each Wednesday." She gestured toward the box on her desk. "Would you take care of them, please?"

  If there ever was a time to complain, this was it. I walked over and looked into the box. There must have been thirty erasers in there. White with six weeks' worth of chalk.

  This was really the time to complain.

  But I thought of the future of Hoodhood and Associates.

  I picked up the box of erasers.

  "I'll be in the ditto room," said Mrs. Baker.

  Just swell, I thought.

  But then Mrs. Baker said something that made the world spin backward. "If we both finish in time, you may have one of the cream puffs."

  I think I must have gone white.

  "You needn't look so shocked," she said.

  But I was shocked. She had offered the hope of a cream puff. A brown, light, perfect cream puff. It was as if Mrs. Baker had suddenly become not Mrs. Baker. It was like I had had another vision, only this one was real.

  So before the vision could fade, I carried the box of erasers down the hall, down two flights of steps, and outside.

  The day was still a perfect blue October day, as if it had been waiting for me since I'd missed it at lunch recess. It smelled of baseball, and the last cut of grass, and leaves drying out but still holding on. And for a while I could smell all of it.

  But the cloud
of white chalk that comes out of thirty erasers is pretty impressive, let me tell you. I pounded and pounded them against the wall. And the chalk dust that didn't get into my lungs flew and twisted with the breeze that curled against the first-floor classrooms, coating all the windows—the teachers had learned to close them on Wednesday afternoons now.

  A cream puff. At the end of a long school day. Brown, light, and perfect. And no one—not Danny Hupfer, not Meryl Lee, not Mai Thi—no one needed to know.

  The cloud of chalk dust wafted higher. It flew up to the second-floor windows—all closed.

  Maybe Mrs. Baker would give me two. After all, there were twelve trays of the things. Maybe two.

  The chalk dust wafted with the swirling breeze—past the second-floor windows and then up to the third-floor windows.

  Maybe she would give me a third cream puff to take home.

  The chalk dust gathered by the seventh-grade windows.

  Windows someone had left open so the air could circulate.

  Mrs. Baker's windows.

  Open next to the brown, light, perfect cream puffs so that they wouldn't get soggy!

  I ran up desperately, lugging the box of thirty erasers, twenty-three of which had sent their chalk dust toward Mrs. Baker's windows.

  But I was too late.

  The cloud of chalk dust had drifted in, and then gravity had taken over. The chalk had fallen gently upon each one of the cream puffs. They looked like Mrs. Bigio had spread an extra-thick layer of powdered sugar on top.

  "Are you picking out the one you would like?" Mrs. Baker came back into the room with a pile of blue dittos.

  "Not really," I said.

  "Choose quickly, then," she said, "and we'll carry the trays down to my car."

  I picked one up off the tray. It felt a little gritty.

  Then I helped Mrs. Baker carry all the trays down to her car—one at a time—hoping that the Wives of Vietnam Soldiers would not notice the chalk dust all that much.

  Between trips, I threw my own cream puff into the Coat Room, beside the moldering lunches.

  You know how a story gets told in a small town, and how every time someone tells it, it gets bigger and bigger, until it's a flat-out lie? That's what happened to the story of the cream puffs at Saint Adelbert's that afternoon. By the time the story got back to my father—which took only sixteen hours, since he heard it the moment he arrived at Hoodhood and Associates Thursday morning—it said that every single one of the Wives of Vietnam Soldiers had nearly choked to death while eating cream puffs—which had to have been an exaggeration. At first, according to the story, they had turned on Mrs. Baker, but when they realized that Mrs. Baker could not even imagine pulling a practical joke, they had turned on Mrs. Bigio, who was also one of the Wives of Vietnam Soldiers. When Mrs. Bigio assured them that there must have been something wrong with the powdered sugar and she would be sure to write the company to complain, they decided that they would not expel her from the Wives of Vietnam Soldiers. However, she would never again be their Official Cook. Never.