Rhyme Schemer (6 page)

Mrs. Little relaxed her cat-butt mouth

as she made me dust

the computers.

Your face is as white as a sheet, Kevin
, she said.

Are you quite well?

Mrs. Little is from England.

She hardly ever talks.

But when she does,

sometimes she talks with extra words.

I didn't say anything

in case I threw up on the computers

and then had to clean it.

So much for being

cold rock

that doesn't care.

It turns out the problem with

having been suspended

is that you are not just on

thin ice,

as they say,

you have been sucked into

zero tolerance

which is like

zero gravity

except instead of floating in space

suspended,

you are pinned against a wall.

Frozen.

One misstep

and you're done.

I told Paul about the zero tolerance

and how I can't hit Robin

for making copies of my notebook

even though Robin could use a swift kick in the butt.

Paul said it's my own fault.

He said Robin is protected from me

because of me.

I don't know what that means

other than that Paul is annoying.

Poetry boy.

You'd think they could come up with something

better.

Poetry boy! Poetry boy!

Who's so tough now?

Poetry boy! Poetry boy!

Where's your dress?

Poetry boy! Poetry boy!

Harry's out to get you now.

Why is
poetry boy
a bad thing

when everyone loves the pages I put on the

walls?

Isn't that like poetry, too?

Messing with sentences to make new ones?

I'm no boy. I'm an outlaw.

Peter Pan

I'm a poetry
bandit
.

Maybe I should tell my secret.

Spill the beans.

Except what about zero tolerance?

What about MAJOR CONSEQUENCES, MISTER?

It's all so dumb.

It doesn't bother me.

Poetry boy! Poetry boy!

Whatever.

Robin is their leader.

By the way.

He thinks I'm easy prey

as he leads the chants

with his juicy dog-bone face.

That I can't hit.

Anymore.

Robin says he'll tell on me.

He'll tell everyone I'm the one

who puts the marked-up pages on the walls

and I'll be in big trouble

because of the zero tolerance thing.

But

He'll keep my secret safe if I do one thing.

He wants me to mark up the pages

and then HE wants to put them on the walls.

HE wants to be the outlaw.

The Poetry Bandit.

Hmph.

I don't care.

I don't.

Really.

I told him he'll get in trouble.

He says no he won't.

I told him those are my bandit words.

He says not anymore.

I said I won't do it.

He says he'll make sure I get in trouble for it, then.

He'll make sure everyone sees my whole notebook, too.

All of it.

I'll be murdered by Petey

and then I'll be expelled.

This is a problem.

They all loved it, of course.

Well, except for the teachers.

But no one cares about them.

Now Robin wants me to “discover” him,

so he can be King of the School for real.

That made me laugh.

“King of the School” is not an actual thing.

(But it would be a good band name.)

I was just making fun of him.

Duh.

It's not really day 9,342.

But it feels like it.

Shelving books.

Poetry boy
.

Poetry boy
.

Shelving books.

Poetry boy
.

Poetry boy
.

Shelving books.

The days don't even separate anymore.

It is all just one long

never

end

ing

day.

The Cat Stranglers.

That should be Petey's band's name.

Or Cat Tornadoes

or Bleeding Ears

or Bleeding Cat Tornado Ears.

Something like that.

I don't know what they're doing in there

but it doesn't sound like music.

What they need is a real song,

real words

to scream

in that microphone.

We hate everybody!

We hate you!

We hate everybody!

Especially you!

We hate everybody!

We hate you!

We hate everybody!

We scream till we're blue!

See? That wasn't hard.

Metamorphosis.

We watched a movie about it in science.

It's when a caterpillar snuggles up in a chrysalis

like a backward mummy.