Help! Somebody Get Me Out of Fourth Grade (12 page)

I'm not sure what was in my mind at that very second, but I knew that I had to get to school, had to try to stop what was going to happen to me. I ran out of the clubhouse, down the hall, up the stairs to the ground floor, and out the door of our apartment building. I ran and ran and didn't stop until I reached the door of Ms. Adolf's classroom.

I STOOD THERE in the upstairs hall of PS 87 panting like a cheetah that had just chased an antelope all the way across the jungle. The door to Ms. Adolf's room was closed. A sign written in her handwriting said: “Do not disturb. Conference in progress.”

I leaned up against the door and pressed my ear to it really hard. I could hear voices in there, but I couldn't make out what they were saying. I heard Dr. Berger talking. At least she was there. Her voice sounded nice and calm. Then I heard Ms. Adolf interrupt her. I could tell it was her voice, because it sounded mean like a crow or maybe a rooster with an ingrown toe-nail. I didn't have to hear her words to know that she wasn't paying me a lot of compliments.

Then I heard my dad's voice. He was talking louder than the others, and I was pretty sure I could understand what he was saying.

“All righty, then. I'm down with that,” I heard him say.

I thought my ear was going to fly off my head and run into a cave and hide of embarrassment. My dad was still in his rock 'n' roll mode. Or as he would say . . . and this is very hard for me to repeat . . . he still had his groove mojoing. The only thing worse than being left back is having your dad hear about it while he's got his groove mojoing.

I hope this kind of thing never happens to you. But in case it does, I'm going to pause my story for a minute to give you a list of some things you should tell your dad never to say when he's meeting with your teacher.

Actually, he should never say these things when he's meeting with anyone.

Actually, he should never say them at all.

1. I'm down with that.

2. You rock my world.

3. Want to see me break-dance?

4. Shake that thang.

5. Let's get funky.

6. Come on, come on, come on, babe.

7. Show me some love.

8. Who's your daddy?

9. Rock on, dudes!

10. I got my mojo working.

Memorize this list and make your dad take a solemn oath that he will never say these things in your presence or around anyone you know or anyone you have ever met or may one day meet.

Okay, now we can go on with my story.

I GUESS I WAS SO BUSY making up the list that I missed the sound of footsteps, because when the door suddenly opened next to my ear, I was taken totally by surprise. I lost my balance, fell headfirst into the classroom, tripped over the wastebasket, stumbled across the floor, and slid on my butt right into my dad's feet.

“Who's your daddy?” my father said.

“No, Dad,” I whispered. “That's number eight on the list. You have to stop saying that! Now!”

“I'll try,” he said, “but don't count on it.”

I looked over to see who had opened the door to the hallway. It was Principal Leland Love, the head honcho at PS 87. Oh, boy, things must have been really bad to have the principal in my parent-teacher conference.

“Hello, Principal Love, sir,” I said, pulling myself to my feet.

“What are you doing lurking outside the door, young man?” he asked in his big, booming voice. Principal Love is a short man with a tall man's voice.

“I was listening, sir,” I said.

“And were you invited to listen?” he asked. Principal Love has this mole on his face that's shaped like the Statue of Liberty. When he's upset, his face twitches and the Statue of Liberty mole looks like it's doing the hula. She was dancing up a storm right then.

“No, sir,” I said.

“Then why were you listening?” he demanded to know.

“Because I wanted to,” I answered. “After all, they're talking about me.”

I know this was a disrespectful thing to say, but I figured that as long as I was going to have to repeat fourth grade, I might as well go down in flames.

“There are some things children should know,” Principal Love said, “and some things they should not know. Do you understand what I'm saying, Mr. Zipzer?”

“Not really, sir.”

“Well then, I'll say it again,” he said. “There are some things children should know and some things they should not know. Now do you understand?”

The truth was, I understood the words, but I really didn't know what he meant. I think if someone knows something about me, then I should know it too.

Principal Love is known for saying everything twice, but sometimes on special days, he's been known to say the same thing three times. In my state of mind, I didn't think I could survive that. So instead of arguing with him, I just nodded and said that now I understood everything clear as glass.

He left. We all listened to his rubber-soled Velcro tennis shoes squeak down the linoleum hall until we couldn't hear them anymore.

Well, there I was inside the classroom during a parent-teacher conference. Now what? I looked at the group sitting around Ms. Adolf's desk. I searched my mom's face to see any signs of bad news. She seemed tired. I looked at my dad, but he was busy looking over a stack of papers that looked like they were in my handwriting. I recognized my handwriting because it looked like it was written in Chinese except it was English.

Ms. Adolf was holding a report and making marks on it with a red pencil. She was probably correcting her own report. She can't stop correcting papers, even when they're her own. She loves that red pencil.

The only one who looked like she was interested in me was Dr. Berger. She was holding another one of her favorite coffee mugs. This one said: “Children are our future.” That made me smile. She noticed and smiled back.

“Hello, Hank,” she said. “Would you like to sit down?”

“Excuse me, Dr. Berger,” Ms. Adolf said, “but that's against the rules. This is a parent-teacher conference, not a child-teacher conference.”

“If it's all the same to you, Fanny, I think Hank made a very good point to Principal Love,” Dr. Berger said. “He has a right to know what we're talking about. After all, it's his future we're discussing.”

I had completely forgotten that Fanny was Ms. Adolf's first name. You never think of your teachers as having first names. I always just assumed that everyone calls her Ms. Adolf. Even her husband. I can hear him now:

Ordinarily, the “Fanny” word would have made me laugh my head off, but I was too scared to laugh. Not at a time like this. Not at a time when my whole fifth-grade life was at stake. I suddenly became aware of the fact that my heart was beating really fast, and I was starting to sweat.

Dr. Berger pulled up a chair for me, but I didn't sit down. It looked like it was tilted. I looked at Ms. Adolf's desk, and it seemed tilted too. As a matter of fact, the whole room looked like it was on an angle. I wondered how all the adults were sitting upright in their chairs and not sliding into the wall when the room was almost sideways.

“Sit down,” I heard Ms. Adolf say, but, boy, did her voice sound weird. It sounded like her words were trying to push through thick, gooey maple syrup to get to my ear. Like the way the mutant moth sounded in
The Moth That Ate Toledo
just after he swallowed the potion that made him turn into his baby larva state inside the furry cocoon. In case you haven't seen
The Moth That Ate Toledo
, let me just tell you, that is the scariest part, and you may want to cover your eyes when it comes on.

Everyone was waiting for me to sit down and say something.

“If you don't mind, I'll stand,” I said. My voice sounded weird to me, too, like it was coming out of a loudspeaker at Shea Stadium, where the Mets play.

What's going on with me?
I was seeing funny, hearing funny, and my heart was beating a mile a minute like it does when I'm really scared on a roller coaster.

My father got up, pushed the chair under me, and said, “Chill, little dude. Take a load off your soles.”

Dr. Berger was looking at me over the top of her glasses. Her glasses have lavender lenses, so you're not sure if they're sunglasses or real glasses. She says she likes them because they smooth the rough edges from the world. I don't know if that's true or not, but it sure sounds great.

“Hank,” Dr. Berger said. Thank goodness her voice was starting to sound normal. I noticed I was holding my breath, waiting for the rest of her sentence to come out. I heard Frankie in my mind saying, “Breathe, Zip, breathe,” but I absolutely couldn't. “Do you have something you'd like to ask us?” she said.

“Just one question,” I said. “And only one.”

Suddenly, it came blurting out of my mouth. I had to say it fast and get it over with.

“Am I going to be left back?” I asked.

IT SEEMED LIKE FOREVER until somebody finally said something. Why wasn't anybody answering me? It was obvious. They didn't know how to break the bad news.

“Please,” I heard myself saying. “I'm begging you. Don't do it. It would be horrible. I'd be so embarrassed, I couldn't show up for school ever again. Everybody would be talking about me. Hank, the stupid loser. The moron. The kid who'll never get out of fourth grade. I really do try. I did well on that test about the Hopi Indians. Doesn't that count for anything? I'll try harder. I promise. I'll make my brain do what it doesn't want to do. Honestly.”

Suddenly, I felt my mom's arms around me. Normally, I don't allow public displays of affection, but this felt awfully good.

“It's okay, honey,” my mom said. “We haven't decided to hold you back.”

“You haven't?”

“Even though holding you back is not the worst idea in the world,” Ms. Adolf said, “we are thinking about recommending that you go to summer school instead.”