CHAPTER ONE
Right Before the Trouble Started
Brandon’s trouble started months ago. In fact, it all started on the night of his Third Grade Open House. It was the big night. Parents, grandparents, and kids swarmed through the normally empty evening hallways to check out all of the projects and lessons the kids had learned over the course of a year. But on the night where kids normally were happy, it was that night where things turned sour—and not just like a sour gummy worm from 7-11, but sour like curdling milk that your mom has forgotten to throw away.
Brandon had just finished a great year with his third grade teacher, Mr. Davenport. Mr. Davenport was a cool teacher who gave out candy sticks and showed movies for class parties. But he was really smart, too. He knew a lot about volcanoes, presidents, and taught Brandon some good tricks to learn multiplication tables. He even made some funny jokes about a pretend kid.
One day when Brandon was having a hard time practicing his cursive letters Mr. Davenport said, “Oh, poor Eugene Biggbottom. He has it a lot worse than you, Brandon.”
“What do you mean?” Brandon asked.
“He has a hard life. He doesn’t even know how to make a cursive p.”
“Well I can’t make an e.”
“Yup, but imagine if you couldn’t pee.”
All the kids giggled when they overheard it, and somehow that made it easier for Brandon to make that little loop with his cursive e.
But now that Open House was nearing, Mr. Davenport started acting differently.
It seemed the day of Open House there was no time for cursive, multiplication or Eugene Bigbottom jokes. Brandon and his friends spent nearly every moment cleaning and scrubbing the classroom. Brandon and his best friend Kamal were given the task to cover all of Mr. Davenport’s odds and ends with old bed sheets.
“Parents don’t need to look at all of these things,” Mr. Davenport explained to his students as he pulled a pink and yellow flowered sheet from the cupboard. “Clara and Jasmine, you two girls go clean the sink with those towels. Mark and Jonah you can dust off the computers. Everyone else clean out your desks while I get more sheets. I need more sheets! How did this classroom get so messy?”
Brandon thought it was funny seeing an adult run around trying to clean before the parents came to inspect. Brandon knew the feeling. Every Saturday before Brandon could go out and play ball, his room was inspected by his mom. Brandon supposed Open House was the same as his Saturday Morning Inspection at his house. Not that Mr. Davenport had anything to worry about; his classroom was one of the coolest.
Brandon went to his desk and pulled out all of his books and papers. As he did so, he saw Patti walk toward him. Patti was the snootiest girl in the whole school. She wore her typical frilly lavender dress with sparkles and glitter all over it. Her auburn hair was tied up in a pony tail with a giant bow atop her head.
“Well, well Brandon,” Patti droned as she leaned on his desk blocking him from getting into it.
“What is it now, Patsi-Watsi?” Brandon knew Patti hated being called that.
“Hmf,” she coughed and moved to the side so Brandon could work on his desk, “I was just wondering what time you were planning on coming tonight?”
“What does it matter to you?” Brandon shot back at her as he wiped out the inside of his desk.
“Well, as the daughter of the PTA President, these things concern me. I wanted to know if your mother was going to come to vote at the big meeting tonight. It will determine if we can get brownies back on the lunch menu.”
“I don’t know if we’ll make it to that. Besides, I pack a lunch everyday.”
“Oh, you are one of those brown bag kids. Well, you better tell her to be there.”
“Don’t you have something you should be doing right now?” Brandon asked.
“I am doing something, Brandon,” she stuck her nose in the air, “Official PTA business. My mommy says I am the key to passing this Brownie Initiative.”
Patti huffed and moved on to another kid.
Brandon sighed. Maybe next year he’d be able to escape Patti.
He placed his books back in his desk then gently set a painting of the Amazon Rainforest on top.
He heard Patti snicker, “An elephant could have done better than that.”
Brandon glared at her. He had taken a long time on his painting.
“Sorry, if you’d vote I’d be nicer to you.”
“That’s not how it’s supposed to work.”
“Too bad for you, Elephant boy”
As Patti sauntered away, Brandon’s best friend Marcus strolled over with a stack of work to pass back to the students. He stood the same height as Brandon and had dark chocolate colored skin. He wore his favorite New York Mets t-shirt and a pair of basketball shoes.
“Ugh. What was she doing over here?” Marcus shook his head and set the stack on Brandon’s desk.
“Something about bringing brownies back to school lunches next year.”
“I told my parents to vote against it.”
“Why? I thought you liked brownies?” Brandon asked.
“I do. But I don’t like Patsi-Watsi. She’s always nagging me.”
Both of the boys laughed.
“Kids?” Mr. Davenport announced getting everyone’s attention, “Stop what you’re doing and put your eyes on me.” The whole class stopped and looked to their teacher who was holding up a stack of manila folders. “Tonight is Open House, so when you come to our classroom make sure you show them all of the great projects around the room. After you’ve finished sharing your work you may want to check out the fourth grade classrooms on the upper campus. Next year you’ll be fourth graders so you’ll be moving to the upper playground and you’ll be on the other end of the school.”
Typically, Brandon liked meeting his new teachers. Most of his teachers had been really nice, but Brandon didn’t know anything about the upper grade campus. And though he didn’t know it yet, Brandon would have been better off not taking Mr. Davenport’s advice.
No comments:
Post a Comment