A Brand-New Me! (6 page)

I thought about that for a minute. The good thing about Mr. Rock is that he says things that make you think. But my thinking time was interrupted by a familiar, thick voice calling me from the doorway.

“Hey, Zipperbutt,” Nick McKelty shouted in. “I just wanted to see what a jerk doing community service after school looks like. And I was right. You look like a loser.”

He held up his hand in the shape of an L and waved it in front of me. The only thing was he waved the wrong hand, so the L was backward. Even someone with dyslexia like me could see that.

“Thanks for the visit, Nick,” Mr. Rock said. “And the next time you feel like visiting, I think you'll find it more constructive if you keep your negative thoughts to yourself.”

“That's exactly what I'm going to do,” the big lug said. Then, as he was leaving, he turned back and said, “By the way, I don't have that many negative thoughts.”

“That's because you don't have any thoughts at all,” I said, before I could stop myself.

“That goes for you, too, Hank,” Mr. Rock whispered. “Don't stoop to his level.”

Mr. Rock took me to the corner of the room where a whole bunch of leather cases were stacked up.

“There should be a violin and a bow inside each case,” he said.

“Cool. Are there arrows in there, too?”

We both laughed. Mr. Rock really gets my humor.

“Different kind of bow,” he said. “I'll bet you didn't know that a violin bow is made of horsehair, specifically from the tail of a white male horse.”

“Wow, I'm going to pull that fact out next time Robert Upchurch tries to show me up with one of his weird facts. Last night he told me that it's physically impossible for an astronaut to burp in space. Where does he come up with this stuff?”

“I need you to focus now, Hank. Back to business.”

“Focusing as you speak, sir. Hank to brain, zero in.”

Mr. Rock opened up a case and took out a violin and a bow.

“I want you to open these cases and record the number of each violin and each bow. You'll find the numbers on a white label somewhere on the instrument.”

“Can do,” I said.

Mr. Rock walked back to his desk, opened his briefcase, and pulled out a manila folder that was stuffed full of all kinds of papers—yellow pads, blue test booklets, white envelopes, pink post-its. It was so disorganized; it looked like a tornado hit it. He dumped all the papers out on top of his desk and started to put them in piles.

I picked up one of the violin cases and opened it. The violin and bow were tucked into their own purple velvet spaces. Without really thinking about what I was doing, I picked up the violin and tucked it under my chin. Then I picked up the bow to check out the horse tail hair. I held it to my ear to see if I could hear it whinny, but then I thought,
don't be silly, Hank. Tail hair doesn't whinny, even if it is on a horse.

I took the violin from under my chin, held it in front of me and looked closely at it. What a weird shape it had, when you really studied it. It kind of looked like a little person, with the neck and the head and the curvy body. If it looked that weird to me, I wondered what it would look like to an alien from the planet Zork. Before I knew it, my brain was off and running . . . with my mouth running alongside.

“Hello, my little friend,” I said to the violin. “I am Captain Lorch from the planet Zork. We come in peace. And speaking of peace, can I offer you a piece of our Zork candy? We call it Fudge-Ums. Here, pop one into your mouth. Oops, sorry you don't have a mouth. I don't suppose you'd want to pop one between your strings. Yes, I see. That could get very messy if it melted.”

I heard Mr. Rock chuckle from his desk. I have to admit, I really liked hearing that. For me, having someone enjoy what I'm saying is like gas for a car . . . it makes me keep going. So I did.

“Did I tell you that you look so much like my brother Gorch. He also has pegs for ears and a long neck. However, he isn't made of wood, he's made of something you humans call beets. He's very red which comes in handy in his line of work. He's a night watchman who glows in the dark. And did I mention, it's dark twenty-four hours a day on Zork.”

I was brought back to Earth from Zork when I saw two smiling faces standing in the doorway. It was Frankie and Ashley.

“Hey, Zip,” Frankie said. “We thought we'd check in on you and see what's up.”

“Yeah, we feel bad you're staying after school every day,” Ashley added, “so we brought you some chocolate chip cookies we saved from lunch.”

“I may look like Hank Zipzer to you, earth lings, but in fact, I am Captain Lorch from the planet Zork. I will accept your cookies in good fellowship as a symbol of intergalactic peace between our worlds.”

Frankie and Ashley are used to me, so they just jumped right in without blinking an eye.

“Captain Lorch,” Frankie said. “How will you eat these cookies? Are they not a strange foodstuff to you?”

“Not after you've eaten some of the goop my mother makes.”

Ashley and Frankie cracked up so hard, I thought they couldn't catch their breath. It must have been contagious, because Mr. Rock started to laugh really hard, too.

I walked over to Ashley, doing my funny alien walk which I sometimes practice in my room in front of my mirror instead of doing multiplication tables. I reached out, took the cookies and the plastic bag they were in, and stuffed them in my mouth.

“Your earth cookies look like chocolate, but have no taste.”

“On our planet, we think it's more enjoyable if you unwrap the cookies first,” Ashley said, her eyes watering like she was crying, only the tears came from laughing.

“On Zork, we eat through our bellybuttons,” I said. “I will demonstrate.”

I held the cookies over my bellybutton and tugged on my earlobe.

“This is the on switch that starts the process,” I said. Then I made a noise like a vacuum cleaner and spun around three times, stuffing the cookies in my jeans pocket as I was spinning. When I came to a stop, I said, “Those discs with chocolate specs were delicious. We have nothing like that on Zork. They would be excellent with a glass of milkum.”

I could hardly finish the sentence because Frankie and Ashley and I were all laughing so hard. Before I knew it, I felt Mr. Rock's hand on my shoulder.

“We have to talk about this, Hank,” he said.

“I'm sorry, Mr. Rock,” I said, trying to get control of myself. “I guess I got too carried away.”

“He does that a lot,” Frankie said. “Once his imagination gets going, it takes off like a rocket.”

“Yeah,” Ashley agreed. “Hank is the king of getting carried away. Don't get mad at him. He can't help it.”

“I'm not angry at all,” Mr. Rock said. “What I am is amazed. I've always known you are clever and verbal and funny, Hank. But what I've watched you do over the last two days shows me that you have a unique gift. Your ability to create characters and voices and to improvise . . . it's quite extraordinary.”

“Something tells me I'd appreciate what you're saying a whole lot more, Mr. Rock, if I knew what improvise meant.”

“When you improvise, it means you make something up on the spot. You reach inside yourself and pull out a performance without a script or written music. It's what the great jazz musicians do.”

“Like my dad's favorite trumpet player, Miles Davis,” Frankie chimed in.

“Your dad has good taste,” Mr. Rock said.

“I don't think I could be a trumpet player,” I said, shaking my head. “I'm supposed to get braces next year, and it would really hurt my lips to press the trumpet up against my braces, metal to metal.”

“Hank, I want you to come with me right away,” Mr. Rock said. “Frankie and Ashley, will you excuse us, please? Hank and I have something very important to do.”

Mr. Rock was almost out the door before he had finished the sentence. I grabbed my backpack, shrugged my shoulders and followed him. He was in a big hurry to take me someplace.

I wished I knew where.

Mr. Rock was practically running down the hall, and I had to really hustle to keep up.

“Slow down, Mr. Rock. There's no running in the hall.”

“If we were ever going to break the rules, Hank, this is the perfect occasion,” he yelled over his shoulder. “We're on a mission—Project Hank. We're about to launch you into your future.”

“I wish I had worn my space helmet.”

Mr. Rock was in such a hurry, he didn't even stop to laugh. We raced down the stairs and across the hall to the counselor's office where I meet with Dr. Lynn Berger once a week. On the glass window in the door there was a sign that said, “If it's urgent, you can find me in the gym.”

Without even stopping to catch his breath, Mr. Rock was off again, climbing up the stairwell to the gym, taking two steps at a time. Another rule broken. Wow, it's a good thing I was with a teacher, because if it had been during school and one of the hall monitors caught me running like that, I'd be in detention for nine months.

As we approached the gym, I could hear music blaring through the double doors. It was a rock-and-roll song I'd never heard before, but it sounded like the weird disco stuff my parents dance to every year on their anniversary. Boy, you haven't lived until you've seen Stanley Zipzer doing his special step. It looks like he's actually mashing potatoes with his feet. And funnily enough, the step is called the Mashed Potato. I tell you, adults are weird.

Mr. Rock opened the gym door, and what I saw made my eyes spin backward in my head. There they all were in front of me—Mrs. Crock, Dr. Berger, Principal Love, Mr. Sicilian, and Ms. Adolf, wearing different exercise outfits and dancing, if you want to call it that, to the music. They were all hooting and hollering and waving their arms up in the air.

“Mr. Rock, what exactly are they doing?” I asked. “Are they rehearsing for a play, because if they are, they should stop selling tickets right away.”

“It's the faculty and staff exercise class,” Mr. Rock whispered back to me. “They work out three times a week after school.”

“Oh,” I nodded. “They're working out. Is that what you call it?”

“Wait here. I'm going in to get Dr. Berger.”

As I stood there at the door watching the workout session, I noticed that poor Principal Love was trying his hardest to keep up with everybody else. His mind said yes, but his legs said no. Even the Statue of Liberty mole on his cheek was moving a lot smoother than he was. He was wearing his gee, the outfit which he uses to teach Tae Kwon Do after school. The only problem was that the legs and arms were too short for him, so he looked like a turtle wearing a marshmallow. Trust me, it wasn't pretty.

And speaking of not pretty, you should have seen Ms. Adolf. She was wearing a gray leotard and gray tennis shoes and whooping like a crane. I don't mean a baby crane. She was whooping like it was the last whoop left in the universe. She must have had too much candy before they started, because she looked like she was on what my mom calls a sugar high. I tried to hide behind the door, but her eyes caught me before I was out of sight.

“Come exercise, Henry,” she called. “It stimulates your nerve endings which in turn might improve your spelling.”

I slid down the door onto the floor. Can you imagine me, dancercising with Ms. Adolf, having to duck most of the time to avoid being splashed by her gray sweat? I'm sorry I said that. I now have to find some soap and wash that thought out of my brain.

Thank goodness for Mr. Rock. He came out into the hall with Dr. Berger following right behind him. She was out of breath, and dabbing her forehead with her dancercise towel.

“Yes, gentlemen,” she panted. “What is so important that it can't wait until I'm finished?”

“Hank's future, that's what,” Mr. Rock said.

Dr. Berger raised her eyebrows. “That got my attention,” she said.

“For the last several days,” Mr. Rock began, “I've had the opportunity to witness firsthand Hank's extraordinary talent at portraying characters and creating situations that he makes up on the spot and performs flawlessly.”

“Really? You did?” I asked. “Is that what I was doing?”

“This young man has real talent and I don't think sending him to a school without a theater arts program would benefit him. There's got to be another alternative.”

“Well, there is the Professional Performing Arts School,” Dr. Berger answered.

I'd heard of that school before. My cousin Amanda went there, but she was a really talented ballet dancer. I think my mom said she's with the big deal ballet company of Paris. Or maybe Shanghai. Or maybe Denver. It's one of those, I can't remember.

“Wow. That school's for super-talented kids. Would they take me?”

“You'd have to audition, Hank,” Dr. Berger explained. “So they can see your talent.”

My heart started to beat fast. The possibility of going to that school was really exciting. I mean, wow.

“Great,” Mr. Rock said. “Let's try to set up the audition.”

“Unfortunately, the audition process ended several months ago,” Dr. Berger said. “I believe it's much too late.”

I knew it was too good to be true.

“However,” Dr. Berger said, putting her hand on my shoulder. “I'm very willing to make a phone call to find out if they make exceptions.”

“Great,” I said. “You don't happen to have your cell phone on you, do you?”