Shoebag Returns (3 page)

“Why weren’t you singing, Stanley Sweetsong?”

“I am not a girl. I could not sing that I am one, when I am the only boy.”

“True,” said Miss Rattray frowning, her head held high as always. Stanley stood next to her like a little bird towered over by a long-legged crane.

Stanley wore the royal blue blazer with the gold buttons, the white shirt, blue tie, and white pants.

“We will have to change the song,” said Miss Rattray, “even though we have sung that song for one hundred and fifty years.”

Just then a Better passed by and Miss Rattray caught her arm. “Patsy Southgate,” she said, “please tell the Betters that we need a better song … We need a song that includes Stanley Sweetsong here.”

“Yes, ma’am,” said Patsy Southgate, the only Better from the Lower School. “The Betters will write a better song.”

“The Betters,” said Miss Rattray to Stanley, “can do
anything.
That’s why they’re better.”

“Could I ever be better?” Stanley asked her.

Both Miss Rattray and Patsy Southgate shook their heads doubtfully.

Both said, at the same time, “Oh, dear, I doubt that!”

This made Stanley Sweetsong very angry, for he had never in his entire life been told it was doubtful he could be better.

He always thought he was the best.

He had always been told he was.

He had been told he was the best by his mother, by his father, by his tutor, and by Tattle, the chauffeur.

His first class that day was science.

“As you know,” said Mr. Longo, “the Science Club is the only other club at Miss Rattray’s.”

Stanley raised his hand.

He said, “How would I know that?”

“Because I am telling you! There are only two clubs in this school. The Better Club and the Science Club.”

“Can I
join
the Science Club?”

“You
may
if you win a prize. … Look up here at the two prizewinners from last year.”

Mr. Longo had a mustache that drooped above his upper lip. He was bald, plump, and he carried a pointer.

He pointed at two tanks in the front of the room.

“In this one we have the snake,” he said. “A king. … And in this one,” he pointed to the second tank, “we have an African frog, who has buried himself in the mud.”

“Why are they prizewinners?” Stanley asked.

“Because they have been captured, and put into environments similar to their own.”

“Similar to their own?” Stanley said. “But the snake cannot unfurl, the tank is so small … and the frog has no sun, the way an African frog probably has.”

Some of the girls giggled — not at Stanley’s remark, though he didn’t know that — but at the very idea of speaking up that way to Mr. Longo. No one ever answered Mr. Longo back.

Then a voice rang out, “Stanley’s right!”

It was a familiar voice.

It was a familiar face at the back of the room, with familiar freckles and familiar red hair.

“If Stanley’s right,” Mr. Longo asked Josephine Jiminez, “what does that make me?”

“Wrong?” she asked.

Mr. Longo smiled so very sweetly, and he purred at the girl, “I beg your pardon, Josephine. Did I hear you say that I was wrong?”

“No, sir,” she backed down. “I did not say you were. I asked if you were.”

“Stanley Sweetsong, answer Josephine Jiminez. Am I wrong?” Mr. Longo’s mustache quivered. His eyes were fixed like little black beads on Stanley’s face.

A hush fell over the room.

“It looks that way to me,” Stanley Sweetsong answered.

And Mr. Longo asked, “Do you know how your chances of ever getting into the Science Club look to
me,
Stanley Sweetsong?”

“Not very good?” Stanley suggested.

“Not good at all,” Mr. Longo replied.

On my first day of school,
Stanley wrote in his diary that night,
I did not do good at all, but at least I am not imprisoned in a tank. At least I have sunlight.

Then while he was saying his prayers beside his bed (“Please, Lord, get me out of here!”) he saw a small roach by his right knee and he reached for one of his Doc Martens to swat it.

Hand raised, the sole of the shoe ready to come down on the tiny critter, Stanley could not kill it.

“Just go
away!
” he told it.

He must have been very tired, and possibly only half-awake, for that was when the mind played tricks.

“If you want me to, I’ll be your pal,” he heard a voice say.

Now, it wasn’t God’s voice. It was too small and shaky to come from the Almighty, too much like Stanley’s own voice when he’d prayed to the Lord to get him out of there!

And Stanley Sweetsong had never heard of such a thing as a talking roach. Even though there was not one single roach in residence at Castle Sweet, he knew none could speak.

“Who’s there?” Stanley scrunched down and peered under his bed. Nothing there but some dust balls.

“My name is Stuart Bagg.”

“Where are you, Stuart Bagg?”

“Hold your horses! First tell me if you need a pal.”

“I do. I need one badly.”

“Then you’ll be seeing me,” said the voice.

But he did not say when, or where he was, and he did not speak again that night.

C
OOK HATED ONE THING
at Miss Rattray’s School for Girls.

Cook hated the new computer.

It sat on a table right around the corner from the kitchen, near the Changing Room, which led into the swimming pool. It was a gift from the family of Josephine Jiminez.

Cook was a giant of a woman with frizzy yellow hair, the same color as the cat who slept by the rag mop. Both of them had green eyes, too. Though both of them had names, probably, no one called them by their names. The cook was Cook, and the cat was Cat.

This morning Cook was complaining about the computer to the only one within earshot: Cat.

“Ask me why I need a computer, and I will tell you I need a computer for the same reason a fish needs a bicycle. What am I to do with a computer?”

Now, Cat did not like questions. Questions woke him up. Questions needed answers and Cat had none. Cat put a paw across his eyes and tried to get back to the dream he had of his other paw holding down a rat.

Cook was imitating the lilting tones of Miss Rattray when she had shown Cook the computer.

“Now you will be able to plan healthy meals, Cook, and keep track of when you served which one. Now you will have all your wonderful recipes right in front of you. Now you will know exactly how much fiber is in every meal, and how much protein, fat, and carbohydrates!”

Cook punctuated her imitation of the headmistress with a curse word.

The cat’s tail swished angrily, for the cat could not bear profanity.

When Cook let loose more nasty words in a venomous tone which the cat had never before heard, the cat sat up.

He would have to give up his spot by the rag mop, and go elsewhere to rest.

It was then that the cat saw the roach.

The cat had seen him before, for he was a hungry pest, always foraging for food in the kitchen. Sometimes he was accompanied by his wife, who waited for him to toss her a few leftover crumbs.

Now, however, the roach was headed around the corner, to the room where the computer was.

“Ah! You see something!” Cook cried out. “What do you see, Cat?”

Cook watched the cat crouch down and slowly move away from the rag mop.

Then Cook saw what the cat saw.

“A cockroach! Eat him!”

But the roach was too fast. Out of the kitchen it went. Up one table leg it went. And into the computer.

“Good!” the cook said to the disappearing critter. “Go make a nest in there! Invite all your six-legged friends to join you! Have babies in there! Make yourself right at home!”

It was a hot autumn morning, and Cook was perspiring from the weather, her work at the stove, and her anger at the computer.

She struggled out of the T-shirt she was wearing over her sleeveless blouse. It was an old Hootie & The Blowfish T-shirt, a rock group whose music the cat did not enjoy. Mozart was more to the cat’s taste: Bach, Beethoven.

Cook giggled as she put the T-shirt over the computer.

“I’ll just cover it up!” she said. “Then I don’t have to look at the thing!”

But the cat decided to keep looking at the computer, even though Hootie & The Blowfish stared back at him.

The cat believed that eventually the roach would reappear. Even though Cat was finicky about what he ate, as all cats are, he liked to bat roaches around. And Cat wouldn’t mind having something real under his paw, instead of a rat in a dream.

A
FTER CHURCH, AND BEFORE
Sunday dinner, the students at Miss Rattray’s were allowed to make phone calls.

“How is everything going?” Mrs. Sweetsong asked.

“Not great,” Stanley said. “There are only two clubs here and it looks like I won’t be asked to join either one.”

“You already belong to the best clubs anywhere,” said his mother. “The Bucks County Country Club and the Red Fox Hunt Club. They are the best clubs.”

“There is one here that is better.”

“Better than the best?” said Mr. Sweetsong, who was on one of the twelve extension phones at Castle Sweet. “There is no such thing as better than the best.”

“There is, though, and they even have buttons that say
WE’RE BETTER
.”

“Oh, dear, dear, dear,” Mrs. Sweetsong sighed. “The Better Club. I had forgotten all about that wicked club! I once wanted to be a Better very, very badly, too!”

“Then how could you forget it?” Stanley asked.

“Time heals all wounds, dear. Often what was important long ago, is not even remembered later on.”

Stanley said, “But it’s not later on yet, for
me. …
And even if I could find some creature to collect for the Science Room, I would never get in
that
club. I told Mr. Longo he was wrong.”

“Never tell a teacher he is wrong, even if he is,” said Mrs. Sweetsong. “Teachers don’t like to hear that they are wrong.”

“I learned that,” said Stanley sadly.

“Before I married your mother, I didn’t belong to any club,” said Mr. Sweetsong. “It didn’t bother
me!”

“It didn’t bother you because there were no clubs in your school,” said Stanley’s mother.

“There was a Drama Club.”

“That’s not the same thing. Anyone could be in the Drama Club.”

“I was not a club type, anyway,” said Stanley’s father. “I was not a snob until I married your mother.”

“You are still not much of a snob,” she said. Then she said, “But we didn’t send Stanley off to school to be in clubs. We sent him there to learn to be a gentleman and a scholar … and to make friends.”

“Do you have any friends?” asked his father.

Stanley decided not to say anything about the voice he had heard offering to be his pal. What had it said its name was? Something with “bag” in it. … Probably he had imagined it, anyway. Possibly being the only boy in an all-girl school was stressing him out.

He said, “I’ve made one friend named Josephine Jiminez.”

She was standing just outside the phone booth, which was just outside the dining room. She had swiped a roll from a large tray being carried into the dining room by a waiter in a white coat.

Ever since they had sung “This Is the Feast of the Lord,” in church, Josephine had begun to complain that she was hungry. …
Again. …
She was
always
hungry.

“Is she any relation to General Jiminez?” Mrs. Sweetsong asked.

“She is his daughter.”

“Pedro Jiminez, hero of the Gulf War!” said Mr. Sweetsong.

“She calls herself an Army brat,” said Stanley. He watched Josephine grab a butter ball from another passing tray.

Then the gong bonged for lunch:
ONE TWO THREE
.

Instantly Stanley heard the thunder of Miss Rattray’s feet marching down the hall,
Plonk, Plonk, Plonk.
He saw the high-held head, the large black frame spectacles, the long and sturdy body. Behind her, children from the Lower School followed. Behind them, the Upper School girls.

And, of course, scattered among them were the Betters in their red and white socks, wearing their red and white buttons!

“I must go,” Stanley shouted into the phone.

“Good-bye, sweetie!” his mother said. “Remember, time
does
really heal all wounds.”

“And time flies very fast,” said his father, “because so many people are trying to kill it! … Good-bye, son!”

Stanley called to Josephine Jiminez, “Look out! Hide the roll! Hide the butter!”

Josephine thrust the roll into the pocket of her blazer with one hand, the other held the butter.

“Happy Sunday morning, Josephine,” Miss Rattray called out. Patsy Southgate, the Lower School Better, trailed behind her, pulling up her one red sock, looking smug, ignoring Josephine and Stanley. The Betters could look right through you, Stanley thought to himself. Nobody had attitude like a Better.

Miss Rattray stuck out one of her large hands as she approached Josephine. Quickly, Josephine slipped the butter ball to Stanley.

“Happy Sunday morning,” Josephine sang out and shook the outstretched hand.

Miss Rattray let go of Josephine’s hand, noticed something on her own hand, but carried on bravely with a handshake for Stanley. “Happy Sunday morning, Stanley.”

“Happy Sunday morning,” he answered, feeling her large fingers squash the ball of butter.

“What … on … earth?” Miss Rattray pulled her buttered hand back and stared down at it. “What … is
this!”

“Butter,” Josephine said. And then she giggled. “We’re butter.”

But it was not a joke Miss Rattray appreciated. Her face was dour. Her sticky hands fluttered as the Betters pulled Kleenex from their pockets to offer to her. “You two are grounded,” Miss Rattray told Josephine and Stanley, “until further notice. Immediately after you finish eating, go to your rooms!”

“D
OES YOUR SMILE SMELL
?” a young boy on television asked. He wore dark glasses, and his teeth were very white.

Everyone in the recreation room of the Lower School shouted back at him.