The Beast in Ms. Rooney's Room (3 page)

Loosen them up.

He reached into his mouth.

“Sucking your thumb?” Emily asked.

Richard pulled his fingers out of his mouth.

Mrs. Kettle, the strictest teacher in the whole
school, was walking up and down the aisle. She saw Emily with her feet up. She waved her finger at Emily's red sneakers.

Emily put her feet down. She left her elbow hanging on Richard's side of the seat.

Richard wondered what would happen if he gave her a good punch in the arm.

Instead, he began to push at his teeth with his tongue.

Twenty-five, twenty-six, twenty-seven, he counted to himself.

His tongue began to get tired. But his teeth didn't seem to be moving one little bit.

Behind him there was a lot of noise. He turned around to look.

It was his old class, marching into the auditorium.

Not boy-girl, boy-girl. That was for babies.

No. First there was a line of boys. Then a line of girls.

They marched right into the row behind him.

Quickly he turned his head around again. He looked at the blue curtain in front of the stage.

Mr. Mancina, the principal, turned out the lights.

In front of the auditorium the curtain opened.

A lady came out. “Today we're going to have
Hansel and Gretel
,” she said. “I know you're going ro love it.”

Richard didn't think he was going to love it. He had seen it last year at the library.

It was terrible.

The lady went back inside. Two puppets came floating down from the ceiling.

Hansel and Gretel.

In back of him Richard could hear Drake Evans talking with Kevin Klein.

He wondered if they knew he was sitting right in front of them. He kept his head straight so they couldn't see his face.

He wondered if they knew the back of his neck.

Hansel and Gretel were sprinkling bread crumbs all over the stage.

They were yelling as they sprinkled.

After a while Richard's neck started to feel stiff from keeping it so straight.

He was afraid to rub it.

Maybe they knew what his hand looked like.

He wished he had a pencil and a piece of paper. He wished he could draw a picture. He'd draw a picture of Saturday, when his father was home all day.

Drake and Kevin were laughing.

Maybe they were laughing at him.

Suddenly Emily turned around. “Shh,” she hissed at them.

Richard slid down in his seat.

For a moment Drake and Kevin were quiet.

Then Drake said, “Don't talk, Kevin. The babies want to watch
Hansel and GreteL”

Richard gulped.

“Richard wants to watch
Hansel and Gretel,”
Drake said. “Don't you?”

Richard stared at the stage. His mouth felt dry.

Emily put her feet up on the seat in front of her again.

Richard felt Drake giving him a little poke in the back. “Right, Richard?” Drake asked.

Up on the stage the witch was putting Hansel into some kind of cage thing. “Ha, ha, ha,” she was saying in a scratchy old voice.

“Richard likes this baby puppet show,” Drake said.

Richard swiveled around. He was going to hit Drake Evans. He was going to—

His elbow caught Emily's arm. Hard.

“Ouch,” she said.

“Who is that?” Mrs. Kettle whispered in a loud voice. She poked her head into Richard's aisle. “Is that you, Emily?”

Emily ducked her head.

“Get out here,” Mrs. Kettle said. “Stand against the wall.”

Slowly Emily stood up. Her face was all red.

It's my fault, Richard wanted to say. But all the kids in his old class were sitting right there, looking at them.

Emily didn't say anything. She squeezed past him. She marched over to the wall.

She looked as if she wanted to cry.

But she didn't cry. She took her white rubber horse with the horn out of her pocket and held it in her hand.

Emily was tough.

Tougher than he was.

Up on the stage Gretel was dancing around.

Richard sighed. He wished it were summertime again. He wished he were fishing with his father.

He wished at least it were Saturday.

Richard raised his hand.

Ms. Rooney was writing something up at her desk. She didn't look up.

He wiggled his hand around a little.

“Ms. Rooney,” he called in a loud whisper.

She looked up and frowned. “You're supposed to raise your hand,” she said.

“Can I sharpen my pencil?”

“How many times have you sharpened that pencil today?”

“There's one spot of wood on the pencil. I can't write with that side,” he said.

“How many times?” Ms. Rooney asked.

“Three, I think.”

“Four,” said Sherri Dent from the desk next to Richard.

“This is the last time,” said Ms. Rooney.

Richard went up to the pencil sharpener. He
stood there for a long time, looking out the window. It was a great day outside. Great for football.

Slowly he went back to his seat. He copied the last sentence of his board work.

It was a letter. A long one. Everyone in the class had to copy a thank-you to the P.T.A. for the puppet show they had seen the other day.

He put down his pencil and rubbed the side of his middle finger.

Then he looked at his letter. It was kind of a mess. Some parts were dark and some parts were light.

His pencil was terrible.

He looked up at the clock. The little hand was on the ten. The big hand was on the five.

Almost time for reading with Mrs. Paris.

He reached into his desk. He pulled out the pictures he had cut out of an old magazine the night before.

Pictures of things with short a's in them.

An apple. A turkey with some cranberry sauce next to it.

Cranberry. Craaan, he whispered to himself.
Right. He drew a circle around the cranberry sauce with his pencil.

A picture of a star. A cat eating from a bowl of cereal. A baby.

Baby. Baaaby. He looked at the picture for a second. No. He crumpled it up and shoved it back in his desk.

“Time for reading,” Ms. Rooney said.

Now he had only four pictures. He was supposed to have five.

If only he had brought the magazine with him. He could see it. Right on the hall table.

Ms. Rooney had a bunch of magazines on the shelf in the corner. Maybe he could—

“Reading,” Ms. Rooney said again.

Richard stood up. He followed Matthew up the aisle. Then he darted over to the shelf and reached for the magazine.

Ms. Rooney sighed. “Richard,” she said. “Tut that down. Mrs. Paris is waiting.”

Richard looked at the magazine for a moment.
There was a picture of a girl in a hat right on the front cover.

It was perfect.

“Richard …“Ms. Rooney began.

Richard put the magazine back in the pile. He raced out of the room after the rest of the kids.

He made sure he stayed behind Emily Arrow. He had tried not to look at her all morning. He didn't like to think about what had happened in the auditorium yesterday.

He wondered if Emily felt bad.

He wondered if she had told her father.

He passed the fifth-grade room. Holly's class. He went back and looked in the little window in the door. Holly's head was bent over her desk.

Her friend Joanne was sitting in front of her.

Up in the front of the classroom was the blue banner. Holly's class had won it for the week.

Lucky.

He caught up with Matthew just as they opened the door to Mrs. Paris's room.

Mrs. Paris was sitting at the table waiting for them.

He reached for a piece of drawing paper from the pile in the middle of the table.

While Emily was telling Mrs. Paris about what she wanted to be when she grew up, Richard tried to think of something interesting with an a in it. A short
a.
Something better than a hat. Something he could draw.

“You know,” Emily said. “A person who does somersaults. On a mat. In the Olympics.” She smiled. “Or maybe a runner. Like Uni.” She held up her rubber animal. “My unicorn.”

Richard bent his head over the paper and began to draw.

“Well, now,” Mrs. Paris said. She reached into the drawer under the table. “Dried figs,” she said. She put a bunch of them on the table in front of her. “Help yourself.”

They were little brown rolled-up things.

They probably tasted horrible.

Ordinarily Richard wouldn't have tried them.
But the morning was only half over, and he hadn't finished his cereal at breakfast.

He stuck a fig in his mouth and tried to chew it without tasting it.

“Who wants to show us a picture of short
aV
Mrs. Paris asked, her mouth full of fig.

Matthew held up a picture of an apple.

It was just like Richard's.

Matthew's mother probably got the same magazines as his mother.

Emily held up a picture of a cat.

Richard held up his picture of a star.

“Ah,” said Mrs. Paris. “Not exactly.”

“Bossy r,” said Emily in a loud voice.

“Right, Emily,” Mrs. Paris said.

Bossy
r
, Richard thought. What was that all about? It sounded familiar somehow. He looked at Emily out of the corner of his eye.

“Bossy
r
,” said Emily, “means that
r
changes the sound of the
a.
It doesn't sound like
a
, apple. It just sounds like r. Ar, star.” She raised her shoulders up in the air.

“Park,” said Alex.

“Terrific,” Mrs. Paris said. “Got it, Richard?”

Richard nodded. “I remember now.”

“It's all right to forget,” Mrs. Paris said. “I still haven't remembered to clean this room.”

Richard looked around. She was right. The room was still in a big mess. The bunnies and tulips were gone but the same old blue paper covered the bulletin board. It had five dark spots where the tulips and bunnies had been.

Mrs. Paris was looking at the rest of the pictures. All of them except the picture Richard had drawn.

Maybe she hadn't been counting. Maybe she didn't know that he had only four pictures and everyone else had five. Maybe she wouldn't ask.

But then he looked down at his drawing. He liked it.

He pushed it across the table. “I drew this,” he said.

“Neat,” said Mrs. Paris. “Really neat.”

Emily looked over Mrs. Paris's shoulder. “It's an-—” She stopped and grinned.

Matthew leaned across the table. “An arrow.”

“Aaaarrow. Emily Arrow,” Richard said. For the first time he looked at Emily. “It has an r. But it's not a bossy one.”

Mrs. Paris smiled. “There's always something to mix people up, isn't there? It's called an exception to the rule.”

Mrs. Paris held up his picture. “Let's hang this up. We'll stick it right in the middle of the bulletin board.” She reached back on her desk and handed Richard a thumbtack. “Go ahead.”

Richard marched up to the bulletin board. He stuck the arrow up over one of the dark spots.

The arrow looked good. But the rest of the bulletin board looked terrible.