Matt by three minutes and taller by two inches. And he never let him live that down. But if anyone else made fun of Matt, look out. Especially Matt’s lazy-eye patch. Jenny Hertzog somehow got away with “Pirate Parrot.” But if anyone else said it, Mike would simply beat them up.
Even fifth graders.
When Christopher got to homeroom, the chatter stopped, and all eyes were on him. Christopher sat down next to Special Ed, trying to blend into his desk. But the M&M’s hovered, asking what happened to Christopher when he went missing.
Christopher was normally very shy when kids talked to him, but the brothers were being so nice. So, as the class waited for Ms. Lasko to be her usual five minutes late, he told them the story. As he spoke, he noticed that no one else in the room was talking. All ears were on him.
Suddenly, Christopher felt a little more confident. So, he started to add details about the hospital and getting to stay up late and watch The Tonight Show, which was very impressive to everyone.
“You stayed up past midnight?! Holy shit,” Mike said.
“Holy shit,” Matt said, trying to be as tough as his brother.
Christopher was in the middle of the story of the old woman in the men’s room when he suddenly heard a voice.
“Shut up, faker.”
Christopher looked up and saw Brady Collins. He’d gotten a haircut in the two weeks Christopher was gone. He looked even meaner without bangs.
“You pretended to get lost. I know you met your boyfriend in the woods, you big faker. Now shut up,” Brady said.
Christopher’s face turned red. He immediately got quiet.
“He’s telling us a story, Brady,” Mike said.
“Yeah, he’s telling us a story,” Matt echoed.
“So, shut up,” Special Ed said with newfound bravado, knowing that Mike was there to back him up.
The room got pin-drop tense.
Christopher immediately tried to keep the peace. “It’s okay, guys. I’ll stop.”
“No, Chris. Screw him,” Mike said.
“Yeah. Screw him,” Special Ed said, beating Matt to the punch.
Mike finally smirked and whispered, “Sit your ass down, Brady, before I give it a new crack.”
Brady’s eyes narrowed to slits. He looked violent. Until the girl with the freckles laughed. And then, the geek with glasses laughed. And pretty soon, everyone was laughing. Except Brady. He looked angry and embarrassed and suddenly small. But he was still as dangerous as seventy-five pounds could be. Christopher had seen that kind of violence in someone’s eyes before. Jerry was just a lot bigger.
“So, what happened after the old woman?” Mike asked.
Christopher started to tell the story again, and he was so grateful for new friends that he did something daring. He did his impersonation of Leonardo di Pinchy from Bad Cat 3D.
“Were you going to finish that story?” he finished, switching to Bad Cat.
All the kids laughed. Story time was over when Ms. Lasko finally came into class with her thermos and bloodshot eyes. She fished out a couple of aspirin from a tin in her desk, then said the worst two words in the English language.
“Pop quiz.”
The kids groaned. Christopher’s heart fell. First period was math. Dreaded math.
“Come on now. We’ve spent the last two weeks working on addition. You can do this, boys and girls,” she said as she gave a small stack of quizzes to each kid in the front row. The tests moved back like a wave at a football game. Christopher sank in his chair. He felt Ms. Lasko’s manicure on his shoulder.
“Christopher, I don’t expect you to know how to do this. Just give it your best shot. You can always retake it. Okay?” she said.
Christopher nodded, but it wasn’t okay. He was always terrible at math, and now he was almost two weeks behind. He was going to fail, and his mom was going to have to say, “Don’t worry. Keep trying. You’ll get it.”
He wrote his name in the upper-right-hand corner with a big green pencil. Then, he looked up at the clock. The red seconds hand swooshed past the twelve, and it was exactly eight o’clock in the morning.
Christopher looked at the first problem.
2 + 7 = ____
Ms. Lasko always liked to start with a really easy one to give the kids confidence.
2 + 7 = 9
He was sure that was right. Christopher looked down at the test. Only six more problems. He was determined to get at least one more right. At least one more.
24 + 9 = _____
Christopher stopped. Normally nines were really tricky because it never got