The Center of Everything - By Laura Moriarty Page 0,88
supposed to be a joke, and though Ray’s jokes are usually bad, this time it’s a little funny. But Mr. Sellers doesn’t laugh. He turns around and stares at Ray with his bug eyes until Ray looks back down at his desk.
He starts writing equations on the board. He doesn’t talk very much, and when he does, we can’t really hear what he’s saying because he is still facing the chalkboard, so we all just sit and watch.
Class goes on like this the next day, and the day after that. Since he never turns around, it’s like study hall, and we can do what we want. People talk, play hangman. Ray takes naps, his arms flat out in front of him as he drools on his desk. I do my homework, and so does Traci Carmichael. Twice, Travis gets up and walks out without Mr. Sellers’s noticing. Deena follows, and he doesn’t notice that either.
But after the first test that even I get a C on, people get mad. They are not mad because I got a C; they are mad because they are failing. Deena, who would have a hard time in algebra with a normal teacher, is terrified of Mr. Sellers. She tried raising her hand to ask a question once, but since he was facing the board, he didn’t see. She sat there with her long, thin arm raised for fifteen minutes, her hand hanging this way and then that, then slowly going back down, giving in to gravity until it fell on her desk with a thud.
Traci Carmichael is the one to finally say something. “Mr. Sellers?” she says one day, tapping on her desk with her pencil to get his attention. She has cut her braids off into a fluffy bob, and she wears glasses too now, gold-rimmed. They make her look smart, like a young journalist.
He turns around, startled, like he has forgotten we are there.
“Mr. Sellers, I don’t understand some of the things that are going to be on the test on Friday. I don’t know what we’re even working on right now.” She holds her hands up, gesturing at the rest of us, sitting silently around her. “No one knows what we’re working on right now.”
He turns completely around, looking just at her. This alone would be enough to make Deena cry, but Traci just gazes back at him with her blue-gray eyes. Already she has the face of a small adult, the voice of someone in charge.
Mr. Sellers licks his lips, squinting. “Did you do the assignments, dear?”
“Yes,” she says. “I mean, I did the ones I could.”
“Well then, if you’re reasonably intelligent, you shouldn’t have any trouble.” He brings the glass of water up to his lips, sucks in, spits out, and turns back to the chalkboard with a little laugh. “Numbers don’t change, after all. If it works once, it will work every time.”
Traci stares at the back of his head, her mouth slightly open.
Something is going to happen. I know, better than anyone, that Traci Carmichael may look like a princess, but she is also the kind of princess who hits back. Even if you are a teacher, you can’t say something like that to someone like her.
Before the end of the hour, there is a note moving around the room:
The first official meeting of S.O.S. (Sick of Sellers) will be held immediately after this class by the flagpole. We don’t have to put up with this! Our parents’ taxes pay his salary. And he sucks!!
I still don’t like Traci, but I remember her understanding of the power dynamic of the PTA, how it aided us in getting rid of Stella, the hated bus driver with the broomstick back in third grade. After class, I go to the flagpole.
“We need to get a petition together,” she tells us. I am amazed to see that she has somehow already obtained a clipboard for the petition, a pen tied to it with a string. She passes it around for us to sign. “My mother will call. She’s seen the homework, and she thinks it’s ridiculous. Everyone needs to get their parents to call. That’s the most important thing.”
I tell my mother this when I go home, while she is giving Samuel a bath. He’s three now, big enough so she needs help getting him in and out of the tub, but once we get him in, I move away and stand in the doorway, because he likes to splash. She