My Teacher Is an Idiom Read online

  “What’s it taste like, anyway?” he went. He pulled the spoon out of his Fruit on the Bottom blueberry yogurt and scooped some soup out of my bowl.

  “Hey, cut it out!” I told him.

  “Weird,” he said. “It tastes like blueberry yogurt.”

  Ben leaned over to us and said, “Rule number two, Patrick. Don’t eat off other people’s plates. A, it’s against school rules because of allergies, and B, Richard might get what you’ve got.”

  “No, no, it’s okay,” Patrick told him. “My father and me, we do it all the time.” He tilted up his cup of yogurt and tapped the bottom, and what was left fell into his mouth. “You got any good ideas?” he asked Ben.

  “My idea is that Ben and I are going to sit somewhere else,” Aiden said, and they both stood up.

  Dawn Marie got up, too. “See you?” she asked Sophie.

  “I’m okay, thank you,” Sophie said, and she waved. “‘Okay’ is right to say?” she asked me.

  “Perfect,” I told her.

  “Why’d everybody go so fast?” Patrick asked.

  I stayed put. We had a report to do. Sophie peeled her banana. “You do not see why they leave?” she asked Patrick. “I do. It is as big as a house to me.” She took a bite of banana.

  “My mother would say it’s as plain as the nose on your face,” I told her, and she nodded.

  “Listen, what if I treat my part like a talk show?” Patrick said. “Second and third grades, that’s a lot of fans. I wish I could play my guitar. When I told my dad this report was about eating right, you know what he said? He said you always know you’re not eating right if you’ve got a pickle in one ear and a banana in the other. Get it?”

  “No,” Sophie said. “I do not.” I shrugged. I got it, but I decided to keep her company.

  “You are both dumb-heads,” Patrick said. “You’re about as sharp as marbles. Okay, Richie, we’ve gotta do three rules each. You do what you want to and I’ll do my thing. I get dibs on ‘Don’t Sneeze with Your Mouth Full’ because I saw you do it. I’ll do the ‘Magic Words’ one, too, about please and thank you. It’d be cheating to make that two rules, so I’ll do another one I’ve been thinking about. It’s one you’d never do, I promise. Okay?”

  It was okay with me. I just wanted it to be over.

  He stuffed the last of his turkey and tomato sandwich into his mouth and kept on chewing and talking. You could see mushed-up tomato and mustard and turkey between his teeth. “It doesn’t matter what you say,” he went on. “Nobody cares how you eat, anyway. Nobody but Mr. E.”

  He left his trash on the table and ran outside to the playground.

  Mr. E. wandered past, looking for trouble. Sophie gathered up Patrick’s leftovers. Then she nodded to Mr. E. with a serious face.

  “You want to go out and play foursquare?” I asked her.

  She looked at me weird, like I’d asked her if she wanted to go out and jump over houses.

  “It’s a game. I’ll show you how,” I said.

  She picked up her brown bag and banana peel and tossed them and Patrick’s trash into the big trash container. Then she turned to me. “‘Dumb-head’?” she asked. “Is this not the same thing as ‘stupid’?”

  —8—

  The Lunchroom Is No Place for That

  On Thursday morning before class started, Patrick announced that he was ready to go. “I practiced,” he said. “I’m good at this.”

  I was kind of ready, but my hands were shaking.

  Mrs. Zookey heard us talking. “You boys will do just fine,” she said. “The assembly starts at ten o’clock. Mr. E. will introduce you. The two of you will have ten minutes to tell the group what you know about good lunchroom manners. That shouldn’t be too hard. And this is serious. No funny stuff,” she told Patrick.

  He shook his head.

  “Do you have your reports written down?” she asked.

  I showed her my two pages. It looked short. When I held it up, my report shook, too.

  “I think Richard’s got butterflies in his stomach,” Dawn Marie told Sophie.

  “Flies made of butter?” Sophie asked.

  “Bigger than a fly,” Dawn Marie told her, flapping her arms like wings, “and not made out of butter. It’s a big flying bug.”

  “A bug in your stomach? You eat a bug?” Sophie asked me, like that was a really interesting thing to do.

  “‘Butterflies in your stomach’ just means you’re scared,” I told her. “And I am. A little. All those kids looking at me.”

  “I’m not scared at all,” Patrick said, but I bet he had butterflies, too.

  “Wings in the stomach. I like the idiom,” Sophie said. “It turns words into something else. It is magic.”

  The bell rang and we stood up for the Pledge of Allegiance. Ben was Mrs. Zookey’s Teacher’s Pet for the day. Kids like to be Teacher’s Pet. You get to do good stuff. First he got to lead the Pledge. Sophie got a lot of the words wrong. Then he got to take lunch count. There was chicken noodle soup. I raised my hand for it.

  Next was what Mrs. Zookey calls Yummies. Kids tell about good things like learning to dive without making a belly flop. You could also tell a Yucky, a bad thing like skinning your elbow. Dawn Marie had a Yummy. It was the chocolate cake her mom was making for her birthday party. She didn’t say anything about cicadas in banana bread.

  My Yucky was that I had to say two pages of manners stuff to the second and third graders and I was scared. I didn’t raise my hand, though. My butterflies might not like it.

  At five minutes to ten, Mrs. Zookey led us down to the big room the teachers call the Gymatorium because it’s got a stage. The kids just call it the gym. The third graders were already there, sitting on the floor crisscross applesauce.

  At ten o’clock on the nose, all the third graders stood up and the music teacher, Mrs. Mortimer, rapped her stick on the music stand. They sang “This Land Is Your Land,” some song about miles and miles of smiles, and a few I didn’t listen to, and finally they ended with “She’ll Be Comin’ ’Round the Mountain.” They threw their arms in the air whenever they sang it. The second graders clapped like crazy.

  Then the ten kids who’d been caught spitting seeds and pits climbed the steps up to the stage.

  Mr. E. stood on the stage, too. Even without a microphone, his voice boomed. He said, “As you all know, this is Mind Your Manners Month at Sumac School. I hope you know that good manners are important all year round. They show our respect for other people. These third graders are going to sing a song they wrote themselves about good manners in the lunchroom.”

  The third graders onstage looked at each other like they weren’t sure when to begin. One kid poked the guy next to him. That guy started to sing, and then the rest did, too.

  They kind of swayed from side to side and went, “The more we eat together, together, together, the more we eat together, the neater we’ll be. We’ll chew with our mouths shut, we’ll do all the nice stuff. The more we eat together, the neater we’ll be.”

  And like that. They did five verses. In one of the verses they rhymed “food” with “good.” A few kids giggled and groaned. When they were finished, the seed spitters and pit blowers bowed. The other third graders clapped like crazy. The second graders did, too.

  One kid stepped forward. I heard he was the kid who brought the watermelon to school. I bet he was the chief seed spitter, too. Mr. E. must have thought so, because he was the kid who had to give a talk all by himself.

  “Uh, I’m Evan,” he said. “I just want to say, I mean, about watermelon seeds, there’s only one time it’s okay to spit them straight out. That’s when you’re outside and on the grass and like that and there’s a contest to see who can spit them the farthest. I mean, the lunchroom is no place for that. In the lunchroom, what you do is, you put watermelon seeds and cherry pits, too, in a paper napkin. Then you put the napkin in the trash. When third graders do stuff like that, we are good role models to you second graders. Thank y
ou for listening.”

  The third graders clapped again, the second graders not so much. We thought our manners were every bit as good as theirs. Maybe better. We didn’t spit seeds.

  Patrick and I were next. My butterflies started flapping their wings even faster, like if I threw up, they could escape.

  “Thank you for your efforts, third graders,” Mr. E. said.

  I hoped he’d do a magic trick next. It could be about good manners. He could have whipped a big red napkin out of thin air or he might’ve found ten little rainbow ones in his sleeve, but he didn’t. He kept on talking. “Now, two of our second graders, Richard and Patrick, want to share their thoughts on how to behave well in the lunchroom.” He didn’t say how I’d sprayed his shirt with bat blood. That was good, at least.

  Patrick gave me a high-five.

  As we climbed up the steps to the stage, some second graders started clapping. Ben did. So did Dawn Marie and Sophie. I almost felt okay.

  —9—

  I’m Not Late, Am I?

  I was going first. The table and chair I needed for my talk were already on the stage. I pushed them forward and took a deep breath. I was just about to start talking when I heard this funny voice. I looked up. When Patrick heard it, he put his arms over his head and hid behind the stage curtain.

  It was a high, squeaky, grown-up voice. It was a voice I’d heard before. It was the voice of Patrick’s father, Mr. Olimpia. He was standing just inside the gym door. “Is this where the assembly is gonna be?” he asked. He was loud. “Is this where my kid is gonna perform? I’m not late, am I?”

  Mrs. Zookey was sitting on a folding chair near the stage. She jumped up and headed to the gym door.

  “Tell me the truth, now, it’s okay that I’m here, right?” he asked her. “I’m big on tellin’ the truth, sayin’ it like it is.”

  “Parents are always welcome,” she told him. She shook his hand. “I’m Mrs. Zookey, his teacher.”

  “Oh, I know you. Met you at the open house. I spoke up. I bet you remember me. I wore this same Yankees jacket.”

  She nodded, then she whispered in his ear and led him back to her chair.

  He did not sit down. “Listen, I’m wondering,” he went on in his loud voice, “what did these boys do that was so bad? You know, they’re just a couple of scamps trying to get a laugh.”

  Mrs. Zookey held her finger to her lips and went, “Shhhhh.”

  He laughed and clamped his hands over his mouth. Mr. E. walked over to join them.

  The kids all started talking. I could hear them asking who that guy was in the Yankees jacket. Mr. E. heard them, too. He raised his arm up high. That means stop talking. The whole room got quiet. He turned and pointed to the stage.

  Everybody looked. Everybody looked at me. Patrick was still behind the curtain.

  My knees felt like noodles, so I sat down in the chair. On the table I had a bowl, a spoon, and a little can of tomato juice. But that was for later.

  Mrs. Zookey nodded at me and smiled like everything was just fine. I cleared my throat. She had told me to talk loud because the microphone wasn’t working, so I did.

  “Good manners are important,” I read from my notes. “I will tell you three rules to follow in the lunchroom. Rule number one: Wash your hands before you eat. A lot of germs stick to your hands. You can’t see them, but they’re there. They can make you so sick you have to go to the emergency room at the hospital. Also, use the wipes on the lunchroom tables. This is good manners because giving somebody a disease is bad manners.”

  I looked up. So far, so good. I took a deep breath.

  “I know this kid,” I heard Patrick’s father say. “He lives across the street from me. But just you wait till you get a load of my kid.”

  I looked at Patrick standing behind the curtain. He must have heard, too.

  “Rule number two,” I went on, loud and fast. I figured the faster I talked, the sooner I’d be done. “If you do something bad or gross”—and I looked over at Mr. E.—“you’re supposed to say you’re sorry right away and stop doing that thing. Bad stuff could be eating off somebody else’s plate or chewing with your mouth open. Also, you shouldn’t try to see how many soup noodles you can stuff in your mouth without swallowing or having any of them fall out.”

  Patrick’s father was slapping his knee and chuckling. Maybe he’d never seen noodle stuffing. Patrick does it at school. It’s gross. Mrs. Zookey was not laughing. Neither was Mr. E.

  I took another deep breath. I had to keep going. The last rule was the hardest. It was my mom’s idea. “Showing is better than telling,” she said. She thought it was such a good idea, she made me call Patrick so he wouldn’t do it, too. He wasn’t there, so his father took the message.

  “The third rule is about soup,” I read. “Almost every day the lunchroom has soup. There is a right way to eat it and there is a wrong way. Part of this rule is, don’t slurp your soup.” Kids laughed. Maybe “slurp” is a funny word.

  I pulled the tab off the little tomato juice can and poured all the juice into the bowl. It was hard to read my report and show how to eat the soup at the same time, so I stopped reading.

  “One of the manners books says you’re not supposed to fill your spoon any more than”—I checked my report—“seventy-five percent full. I don’t know how much that is, but maybe this much.” I scooped some up. “And also, you don’t put the whole spoon in your mouth.”

  More kids laughed. “I mean the spoon part of the spoon,” I told them. “I will show you how to do it.”

  “Wait, wait,” I heard Patrick’s father tell Mrs. Zookey. “There’s a killer punch line.”

  Did I have a punch line? I started talking faster. “You’re supposed to sip soup,” I said, and I sipped some tomato juice. It wasn’t too hot and it wasn’t too cold. It also wasn’t just right, so I made a face, like “Blech!” Was that a killer punch line?

  Kids might have laughed, but Patrick came on the stage with me. He wasn’t supposed to do that. He was supposed to wait behind the curtain till I was finished. When he stepped out, his father clapped. No one else did.

  Patrick was breathing down my neck. I turned and told him to cut it out.

  I was about to say my very last soup part, the part about not banging your spoon on the bottom of the bowl, when I looked down. I couldn’t believe my eyes. I yelped. I stood up. I spilled the spoon of tomato juice.

  A big black ant was floating in the middle of my bowl!

  “Patrick!” I yelled. “What’s that ant doing in my soup?” It was one of my plastic ants. Patrick took it off the rope and put it there! Nobody else could have.

  “But wait, there’s more,” Patrick’s father went in that high, squeaky voice.

  “What’s that ant doing in Richard’s soup?” Patrick asked. He looked out at his father and said, extra loud, “It’s doing the backstroke.”

  The kids laughed. They laughed their heads off. And Patrick’s father almost doubled over, he was laughing so hard.

  When he straightened up, he shouted out, “Don’t tell them that! Then everybody will want one.”

  I was just standing there. Everybody was laughing at me. Patrick and his father had both made me look dumb. I felt these big, fat tears in my eyes. I wiped them away with my fists so nobody could see.

  Mr. E. put his arm in the air, but nobody got quiet.

  “Patrick!” Mrs. Zookey’s voice sounded big and mad. “Did you just drop something into Richard’s bowl of soup?”

  He couldn’t say no.

  “It was just a joke, Mrs. Zookey,” Patrick said. “We’re trying to make good manners fun.” He turned to Mr. E. “It was kind of like a magic trick,” he told him. “I knew Richard wouldn’t eat it. Besides, it’s part of our report. Richard knew about it all the time.”

  “No way!” I shouted.

  The kids laughed like I’d said something super funny. Mr. E. held his arm up again and waved it back and forth until they stopped. Mostly.
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br />   Mrs. Zookey could see how things had gone wrong. She smiled at me to make me feel better.

  Then she stepped forward. “I think Richard’s given us three good, useful rules,” she said. “Let’s give him a big Power Clap!” She used her loudest teacher voice. A Power Clap is one big clap. It’s what we always do at the end of reports. Everybody clapped. Once. All together. They clapped, but they were still laughing. At me.

  —10—

  They Eat What?

  I climbed down the steps. Up on the stage, Patrick was waving, like the Power Clap was for him. “You can clean up later,” he called to me. “It’s my turn now.” The ant trick was mean. And I’d thought we were a team.

  When I got off the stage, I sat right down in the front row next to Ben and the Table Two girls. “He really got you this time,” Ben said.

  Patrick kept waving.

  “That’s my boy,” Patrick’s father told Mrs. Zookey. “Always on the ball.” Mrs. Zookey put her finger to her lips. This time she frowned when she went, “Shhhhh.”

  “Welcome to ‘Good Manners Can Be Fun,’ part two,” Patrick said in a big voice. He wasn’t reading. His hands were shaking, though. He knew he got away with the joke just because his father was there.

  The kids were listening hard. They didn’t expect this to be funny.

  “Rule number four,” Patrick said, “is to always cover your mouth if you have to sneeze, especially if your mouth is already full of a whole lot of stuff, like, say, Jell-O.” He grinned. “That one’s for you, Richie.”

  Nobody laughed. Most kids hadn’t heard about my Mosquito sneeze. Nobody else had seen it but Sophie.

  Mr. E. didn’t crack a smile.

  Patrick’s voice got louder. “Rule number five: Always remember to use the magic words. You know them. What are they? Everybody?”