Nikki and Deja Read online

  Mr. Blaggart nods at her.

  “Don’t bring toys to school!” she says, projecting her voice.

  “Right,” Mr. Blaggart says. “Otherwise they go in my special box”—he indicates a box on top of the file cabinet, one they’ve never seen before— “and then they go with me to Goodwill at the end of the day. I know there are some nice little kids who will be thrilled to get the toys you bring from home.”

  The bell for morning recess rings then, and everyone breathes a sigh of relief. They can finally get away from mean Mr. Blaggart.

  No one jumps up, though. They wait and wait.

  “Team Two! Line up!”

  Team Two sits stunned for a moment, as if they don’t know what to do.

  “Team Two!” Mr. Blaggart shouts.

  All the students on Team Two get up, push their chairs under their desks, and nearly tiptoe to the door leading to the schoolyard. They stand there ramrod-straight, mouths zipped, eyes big.

  “I like Team Two!” Mr. Blaggart says. He puts his hands on his hips. “Team Five!”

  Quietly, Team Five gets up. Following Team Two’s lead, they walk to the door with mouths closed and line up in a very orderly fashion behind Team Two. Next he chooses Team Three, then Team One, and last, Team Four.

  On the yard in the handball line, Deja overhears Ralph tell Carlos, “That teacher doesn’t scare me.”

  “He doesn’t scare me, either,” Carlos says.

  “Me, neither,” Willis chimes in. “Let’s do the book-dropping thing after recess.”

  Carlos doesn’t say anything.

  “What—are you scared?”

  “No, not really,” Carlos says, but he doesn’t sound as bold as he did earlier when he thought they’d be ganging up on Mr. Willow.

  “I’m not scared,” Willis declares. “I’ll go first, even. When the big hand gets on the six. Who goes after me?” He looks from Carlos to Ralph to Richard, and then back to Carlos.

  “I’ll go next,” Richard says. “And Carlos, you next, and then Ralph. We drop our books every five minutes.”

  Deja can’t help thinking, Oh, I wouldn’t do that if I were you. . . . But she stays out of it. She has to admit she’s almost looking forward to the trouble they’re going to bring on themselves.

  The second bell has rung and now all the students run to their lines to wait for their teachers. Across the yard, Deja sees Mr. Blaggart walking toward them. He’s wearing glasses he didn’t have on before. When he reaches their line, he says in a chilly voice, “I want everyone to make sure . . .” He stops and looks over his glasses at each of them, it seems. “. . . I want every student to get in the place assigned to you by your teacher.”

  At first, everyone remains in place. Some kids probably don’t want Mr. Blaggart to know that they’ve taken advantage of Ms. Shelby-Ortiz’s absence, Deja guesses. He looks down at his scary clipboard and then looks up at Keisha, who’s standing behind her best friend, Rosario. Sheepishly, she gets out of the line and then gets back in behind Beverly. Mr. Blaggart looks at Carlos, and Carlos moves back to his place at the end of the line. That starts up more kids getting out of the line and then getting back in at the right place. Soon all the students are where they should be. Mr. Blaggart leads the line to the classroom.

  Once the class is settled at their assigned desks, Mr. Blaggart points to the whiteboard. “Gavin, please read the assignment I’ve written there.”

  In a quiet voice, Gavin says, “Read the story on page forty-three in the anthology. Answer the questions on page fifty-four. Use complete sentences in your answers.”

  “Any questions?” Mr. Blaggart asks. He looks around the room, his eyes big and scary. Then he strides like a soldier to Ms. Shelby-Ortiz’s desk, sits down, and opens his newspaper. His face is hidden behind the paper, but Deja bets his hearing is as sharp as a dog’s.

  She looks around. Carlos is giving Willis a little nod. Deja looks at the clock. It’s twenty-five after ten. She remembers their silly plan. She opens her book to page forty-three.

  Deja has almost forgotten about their plan when she hears the first book drop. There’s a loud thud. Students look up from their desks. Mr. Blaggart looks over at Willis. Everyone quickly gets back to work. But Mr. Blaggart doesn’t take his eyes off Willis. In fact, he gives him a little smile. Willis looks puzzled. He picks up his book and, acting innocent, gets back to work.

  Just after the big hand clicks to the seven on the clock above the whiteboard, there’s another loud thud. Everyone looks over at Richard. He bends down to pick up his book. Deja checks Mr. Blaggart. This time he only glances up, looks over at Richard, and then back down at his newspaper.

  Deja and Nikki finish their work at the same time. Deja closes her book, raises her hand, and waves it until Mr. Blaggart looks up and nods.

  “Can I go to the puzzle table and work on our class puzzle?” Ms. Shelby-Ortiz always lets them work on the seven-hundred-piece puzzle of New York City if they finish their work before the rest of the class.

  They’d already finished an eight-hundred-piece rain forest puzzle earlier that year. Ms. Shelby-Ortiz got it framed, and now it hangs on the wall next to their class library.

  Deja loves working on a jigsaw puzzle. She finds it challenging and thrilling, and a great way to be able to talk quietly in class.

  “Bring your workbook up here and let me take a look,” Mr. Blaggart orders.

  Deja swallows hard. What if she hasn’t done her work correctly? Since she was in a hurry to finish first, her handwriting isn’t her best. She takes a deep breath and brings her workbook to Mr. Blaggart. She hands it over and watches him check her work very carefully.

  “I’m not liking this handwriting,” he says curtly. “Get some paper and rewrite these answers. This is unacceptable.” He goes back to his newspaper.

  Deja can’t believe it. Ms. Shelby-Ortiz has never had her rewrite her workbook answers. The class just goes over the answers when everyone is finished. Perfect handwriting is for their compositions, not their workbooks. It’s not fair.

  Just then there’s another loud thud. Deja turns around to see Carlos bending to pick up his book off the floor. She looks at Mr. Blaggart, but he’s still reading his newspaper. She takes her workbook and slinks back to her seat.

  “He’s making you write your answers again?” Nikki whispers.

  Deja looks over at Mr. Blaggart to make sure his head is still behind his newspaper.

  “All of them. He said my handwriting isn’t good enough.”

  Nikki, Beverly, and Erik look closely at their own handwriting. They start erasing and rewriting.

  8

  Benched

  Mr. Blaggart has posted the day’s schedule on the side of the whiteboard. Deja is happy to see that he’s following Ms. Shelby-Ortiz’s usual schedule. Today there’s P.E. after math. Deja loves P.E. because that’s when they have their team sports. She loves when it’s her turn to be captain and she can choose her team. This week the team sport is kickball. She’s good at rolling the ball for the kicker, and she’s really good at kicking the ball—far!

  In the afternoon, Deja can hardly get through math. She has to consult her multiplication fact sheet more than usual. She keeps looking at the clock, which seems to have slowed down. When she and most of the other students have placed their math papers in the in-box on Ms. Shelby-Ortiz’s desk and have taken out their Sustained Silent Reading books, Deja still can’t concentrate. She’s just looking at the pages with her mind on other things.

  Nikki coughs “the cough” to get Deja’s attention. Deja reaches into the box to take out the note Nikki put there for her. It reads:

  If you get to be captain, pick Rosario for your team. She kicks good.

  As Deja folds the note to put it in her desk, she looks up to see Mr. Blaggart staring right at her. He’s frowning and shaking his head slowly back and forth. Deja’s mouth goes dry. Her heart speeds up. She looks over at Nikki, but Nikki is busy with her SSR. Oh, no, D
eja thinks. But then she talks herself out of her fear. Maybe she’s just imagining things. Maybe that frown on his face means nothing. She looks down at her Sustained Silent Reading book and begins to read.

  Finally, Mr. Blaggart gets up and walks to the front of the class. “Put away your SSR books,” he says. He has a stack of papers in his hand: their completed math papers. “When I call your name, line up.” He looks at the papers in his hand and begins to call the names of those who’ve turned in their work.

  Deja is surprised. She turned her paper in, but he doesn’t call her name. Not hers or Nikki’s. He doesn’t call the names of Richard, Carlos, Ralph, and Willis, either. He doesn’t call Beverly and Ayanna. This is obviously because they dilly-dallied and didn’t complete their work. Actually, when have Beverly or Ayanna ever completed an assignment in a timely manner? Deja can see why their names weren’t called.

  Mr. Blaggart checks something on his clipboard.

  “Gavin, you and Antonia are team captains. You may choose your teams.”

  Teams are chosen, and Mr. Blaggart has them line up at the door. “Carlos, Richard, Willis, and Ralph. All of you are benched for not being able to work without playing.” Ralph starts to protest. Mr. Blaggart raises his furry eyebrows, and that stops Ralph cold.

  “Ayanna and Beverly, you can do the work you didn’t finish on the bench, so bring out your pencils and workbooks. And Nikki and Deja, you’re benched for passing notes.”

  Deja’s mouth drops open. She wants to say something, but she can’t think of anything. She looks over at Nikki. Nikki’s looking down with her mouth downturned as well, as if she might cry. Nikki’s so sensitive, Deja thinks.

  Nikki and Deja get in the back of the line and follow their classmates to the yard. While most of the students run to the kickball diamond, they walk to the lunch benches. With the slowpokes and the knuckleheads.

  Deja doesn’t mean to pay attention to the game, but it’s exciting, with close scores, and it’s something to do. Nikki watches forlornly, with her lower lip poked out. She never gets in trouble. This is probably a new experience for her.

  Deja looks over at Mr. Blaggart. He’s watching the game with a scowl on his face and his eternal clipboard in his hand. Every once in a while, over the least little squabble or disagreement about the score or who’s out or who’s going to roll the ball, he blasts his whistle and threatens to take them all back to the classroom for more math. Everyone gets it together then and the squabbles die down.

  “It was one little note,” Deja protests—again—as they walk home from school.

  Nikki is silent. Then she says, “I’m just glad he didn’t send us to the office.”

  “Nikki, nobody’s going to be sent to the office for passing a note.” Deja is surprised that Nikki doesn’t know that. Nikki always takes things too much to heart.

  “Can we walk Ms. P. again when we get home?” she asks, brightening.

  Deja smiles. Just the mention of her new dog gives her a good feeling. “Probably,” she says.

  Auntie Dee is doing a twisty thing on her yoga mat when Deja walks in the front door. Deja drops her backpack by the staircase and waits. Then Auntie Dee switches and twists to the other side. Deja sighs. It’s so hard to wait while Auntie Dee takes her time. She’s been doing yoga at home with a DVD since she had to drop her yoga class to save money, but recently there has been a bit of good news. Auntie Dee might get her job back soon. That’s put her in a super-good mood. Nevertheless, she doesn’t like to be interrupted while she’s doing her yoga or meditating.

  Deja goes into the kitchen, washes her hands, and then digs into a box of cookies while Auntie Dee’s attention is elsewhere. Suddenly she hears little Ms. P. in the backyard barking and running toward the house. Deja stuffs her mouth full of cookie and opens the back door.

  “There you are,” Deja says. “There’s Ms. P.!” She squats down to stroke the top of Ms. P.’s head and nuzzle her under her chin. Then she gives the little dog a big hug.

  By the time Deja goes back inside, Auntie Dee is putting away her yoga mat.

  “Can I take Ms. P. for a walk?”

  “Sure. I didn’t get a chance to walk her today.”

  Deja meets Nikki on the sidewalk out front. They take a new route this afternoon, but one that still takes them by Delvecchio’s, this time for hot chips. Ms. P. trots along happily. They go toward Maynard and then up Ashby toward Marin. When they pass the cleaners, they see Mr. Blaggart coming out with a bunch of shirts on hangers and a few blouses in plastic.

  “Mr. Blaggart,” Nikki says in a whisper, as if someone can hear them.

  “He must have a wife, or a daughter.”

  “Mr. Blaggart with a daughter?”

  They watch him approach a blue sedan in the parking lot next to the cleaners. He hangs up the shirts and blouses on that hook thing above the rear driver window. Then he gets in his car and starts up the motor. They watch him drive away. It’s so strange. . . . First they see Mr. Willow with a dog, then they see Mr. Blaggart picking up his dry cleaning. And once, they saw their beloved teacher, Ms. Shelby-Ortiz, in Food Barn buying regular stuff like yogurt and toothpaste.

  It’s weird to think of teachers having to go to the supermarket or to the cleaners. Or even having a dog.

  As soon as they enter Delvecchio’s, they see Richard and Willis from their class. Both are at the counter paying for sodas and chips. Willis is too busy talking to Richard to even notice Nikki and Deja. He’s got more plots to set into motion. They’re discussing the chair-scraping tactic. Apparently that’s on the agenda for the next day, and a coughing fit, too.

  “We’ll do the chair-scraping before recess and the coughing thing after recess,” Willis says.

  “Yeah,” Richard agrees. “That’s going to be fun.”

  On the way home, Nikki announces, “We should write a letter to Mr. Blaggart and tell him that there’s a whole bunch of stuff going on right under his nose. Stuff from kids who need to be benched for a month.”

  Deja thinks about this. She remembers how she got in trouble trying to get that Post-it note off Mr. Willow’s jacket. She needs to think about Nikki’s suggestion a little bit more. It could backfire. She digs her hand into her hot-chip bag and almost gives one to Ms. P. Then she thinks better of it. A dog probably wouldn’t like a hot chip. She pushes a handful into her own mouth instead. She knows Auntie wouldn’t like her eating all those artificial ingredients and that red dye in the hot chips. But they’re so delicious.

  She remembers the time Auntie pointed out the list of ingredients, asking her which ones she thought were real food.

  “That stuff can’t be good for you,” Auntie Dee had declared.

  But it sure tasted good, Deja had thought. Of course, she hadn’t said it.

  9

  Come Back, Ms. Shelby-Ortiz

  The days go by in regimented fashion. On Thursday, the boys pull their chair-scraping routine, but it fizzles. Mr. Blaggart barely looks up. He just benches all the participants, with little explanation. “I don’t have to tell you why you’re being benched, now, do I?” he says. The glare in his eyes stops all protest.

  Every morning, Mr. Blaggart marches to the line, leads the students to the lunch benches, and yells, “Listen up! Drop those backpacks and give me five laps.” Everyone starts out in a big bunch. Soon, Beverly and a few resistant students, who don’t see why they have to start each morning running around the schoolyard, lag behind. Some try to get away with a half-run, half-walk trot type of thing, but then there’s a blast from Mr. Blaggart’s whistle and they speed it up.

  After the fifth lap, he blows his whistle again and tells everyone to line up at the door of the building and get ready to work, work, work.

  On Friday, the morning-journal topic is Why Work Is Good!

  There’s a little groan from someone, then Beverly whispers, “How come we never get to have open topics like with Ms. Shelby-Ortiz?”

  Deja gives a tiny shrug in respon
se. She’s too afraid to do more. But then she whispers, all the while keeping her eyes on Mr. Blaggart, “Because he’s not Ms. Shelby-Ortiz.”

  “I can’t wait until she comes back,” Beverly says, a little too loudly for Deja’s taste.

  Deja says nothing but quickly looks over at Mr. Blaggart. Then she gets to work. She writes:

  Work is good because it can be hard, and doing hard stuff can make you strong. My Auntie Dee loves to work. Right now she has to work at home because where she used to work they ran out of money and they had to let her go. When I grow up I want to work. But I want to have kids too, so I want to do both. I want to be a decorator. I want to go into people’s houses and tell them what they did wrong with their decorating like if they have colors that clash or old fashioned furniture or if they keep their rooms too dark like a lot of old people. I have a neighbor. She’s old and you have to turn on the lights in the daytime at her house and

  Deja looks at Mr. Blaggart. He’s gotten up from Ms. Shelby-Ortiz’s desk and has started walking slowly around the room. Like Mr. Willow, he’s got one of those thermal-cup things in his hand. Something Ms. Shelby-Ortiz would never do, Deja thinks disapprovingly.

  Mr. Blaggart winds his way over to Willis. He looks down at him and smiles. But it isn’t a real smile, Deja feels. There’s a threat somewhere in there. Mr. Blaggart takes a sip of his coffee and moves on.

  About forty seconds later, while Deja is busy reading over what she’s written and trying to think of more, she hears the loud, squeaky scrape of a chair. It’s Ralph. He looks horrified, as if he’s afraid that accidental scrape might seem as if it was done on purpose. He looks over at Mr. Blaggart, who acts as if he hasn’t heard anything. He’s back at Ms. Shelby-Ortiz’s desk, reading his newspaper.