The New Kid (6 page)

“Yes. You guessed it.

“Yes, I’m fine.”

She hung up. “Brother!” She straightened her suit jacket and tucked her hair behind her ear.

“Mrs. Crabbly?” said Eva quietly. “I know what might make you feel a little better.”

“What?”

“Take your glasses off the top of your head. They’re pinching you and creating stress. And …”

“And what?”

“And maybe comb your hair a little bit. And touch up your lipstick. Just a suggestion!”

“Eva? This is not a salon. Get to business! I mean it!”

Mrs. Crabbly meant business. Everyone worked quietly.

Carson heard twelve tiny beeps. He snuck a peek to see if the beak opened.

It did!

The lunch bell rang.

Tri-tip time!

Outside, the clouds were dark, but there were patches of blue. The gusty wind was damp; it blew Carson’s collar up. He looked for his lunch.

Huh?

It was gone.

There was a small blue plastic packet of Eskimo Ice sitting near Nancy’s
MONTEREY BAY AQUARIUM
bag, and that was it.

Carson looked around. There on the ground was what was left of—what?

His sandwich?

A circle of kids had gathered around.

His empty paper bag was floating across the ground,
carried away by the wind. The foil drink was speared. Guava juice had leaked onto the ground. There was nothing left in the plastic sandwich bag. One thin piece of tri-tip was hanging in a bush, a slice of bread in the dirt below it.

Crumbled oatmeal cookies were scattered.

All of his colorful sugar-free all-natural organic gummy bears made with real juice extract were thrown across the asphalt.

They sparkled in the sunshine like a rainbow of rubber jewels.

Don’t cry
, he told himself.

“I’ll get Mrs. Crabbly,” said Nancy quietly.

Soon Mrs. Crabbly hurried out. She stared at the mess. “Unbelievable. The principal and I will deal with the individual responsible for this. Any witnesses?”

The children said nothing.

Many left for the cafeteria. Others wandered off, lunches in hand.

Mrs. Crabbly sighed. “What. Next.”

Nancy, Eva, Luciana, Oswaldo, and Patrick waited with Carson. Chloe and Zoe stood a few feet away.

“I’ll share my lunch with you,” Eva told Carson. “Do you like cold linguine with pesto?”

“Yes.”

“Do you like ham and cheese on rye?” asked Patrick.

“Yes.”

“Do you like leftover lasagna?” asked Shelly.

“Yes.”

“Do you like freeze-dried, fried, pickled persimmon pudding?” asked Nancy. “With chocolate duck-billed platypus noses on top? Only kidding.”

“Thanks, kids,” Mrs. Crabbly told everyone. “But I’ll arrange for a lunch for Carson in the cafeteria.”

Mrs. Crabbly walked over and picked up her gold pen.

She clicked it a few times.

“Hmmmm,” she muttered, “brand-new free pen I get from a seminar mysteriously goes missing from my desk. Discovered outside in the dirt with point broken. Lunch bag impaled and contents scattered. Put two and two together and what do you get?”

“Weston Walker,” said Chloe and Zoe.

They walked away.

Patrick patted Carson on the back. “Don’t feel bad. It’s just Wes being Wes. Don’t take it personally.”

Oswaldo added, “Wes gets to fooling around and doesn’t know when to quit.”

“Sure you don’t want half a ham sandwich?” Patrick asked.

“Nah, it’s all right.”

“Okay. See you on the field,” Oswaldo told Carson. “Hang in there.” He offered his fist for Carson to bump.

Mrs. Crabbly stepped back into the lab to call the office.

“It’ll be okay,” Nancy reassured Carson. “I think it’s pizza day, and pizza’s not bad here. I’d give it … mmmmm. Maybe a C-plus.”

She smiled a little at Carson, which cheered him up.

Mrs. Crabbly came out carrying a wastebasket. On her way down the step, she slipped off the edge of one clog and almost fell over. “Mrs. Crabbly?” said Eva. “Those clogs are unsafe. For you, and those around you. You trampled on Wes’s shoelace and could have tripped him. Plus, they look like gigantic licorice jelly beans.”

She paused.

“And … did I hear you say a bad word?”

“Absolutely not. ‘Dagnabbit’ is not a bad word, and besides, I almost broke my ankle. Now run along, Eva. I’ve had enough style tips for one day.”

“Fine, but I think you’d be safer wearing flats and not jelly beans.”

“I heard you.”

“Or maybe some heels—not too high. Really, they’d look better—with that skirt. And maybe lose the cuckoo accent pin.”

Mrs. Crabbly made her eyes big at Eva. “Okay, okay—I get it!” she told her. “One trip to Italy and I’ve suddenly got a self-appointed fashion cop on my hands.”

“I’ve been to Italy twice. Once with family and once with my aunt Liz.”

“Fine. Ciao! It’s lunchtime.”

“We also went to Paris.”

“Fine. Au revoir. That’s French for scram.”

She stooped down and picked up the empty sandwich bag and most of the gummy bears. “Just how I wanted to spend my lunch hour,” she mumbled to herself. “Conducting an investigation of sandwich vandalization.”

“Come on, Carson,” said Nancy. She dragged Carson away by his sleeve. Luciana caught up to them and grabbed the other sleeve, and they towed him toward the cafeteria.

Carson sat with a bunch of other kids on a long table in the noisy cafeteria and ate cheese pizza and apple slices. He drank his carton of milk and ate three small fig bars. It wasn’t barbecued tri-tip, but it was good!

But after lunch, he didn’t feel like playing on the field.

He went outside and sat on a bench under the tall pine tree, alone. He missed Gavin and Case. What were they doing right now?

He missed Rainbow Ridge Montessori and everything about it.

He didn’t understand why Wes would want to trash his lunch. What had he done to Wes?

Carson blinked back tears. He scooted over and moved into a patch of sunshine. It disappeared. Clouds were building on the horizon, and they looked like big gray bags of rain.

Pretty soon he saw Ms. Pierson heading his way
with Wes in tow. “Carson?” she called. “Wes has a note for you.”

“Don’t look at me,” Wes called to Carson. “ ’Cause I didn’t do it.” He looked over at Ms. Pierson. “I didn’t pierce anybody’s lunch. And there are no witnesses and no proof!”

Ms. Pierson folded her arms on her chest and shook her head. “Whatever you say, Wes. Just give him the note.”

Carson unfolded it.
Hey, New Kid
had been written and erased and changed to
Hey, Carson
. Then
I’ve just been told that somebody trashed your lunch but it wasn’t me, it wasn’t. From, Weston
.

Carson handed the note back to Wes.

“It was the sixth graders that did it,” Wes said. “Bet you anything. Because just before I went up to the office, just as I was leaving the lab, out of the corner of my eye, I saw two sixth-grade girls stop in the yard and stare. This is how they looked. Like this.”

Wes cupped his hand over his eyes, curled his upper lip back, bit his bottom lip with his front teeth, and wrinkled his nose like a rabbit.

It was so silly that if the situation hadn’t been so serious, Carson would have laughed.

Ms. Pierson said, “I’m a busy woman, Wes. Too busy for nonsense. Back to the office you go!”

“Wait!” said Wes. He walked closer to Carson and unzipped his lunch bag. “Want half?”

“What is it?”

“A jam sandwich.” Wes glanced at Ms. Pierson and whispered behind his hand, “And orange soda! Want a swig?”

“I already ate pizza and drank milk,” said Carson.

He paused.

“What kind of jam is it?”

“Strawberry. Actually, it’s strawberry ice cream topping. Same difference.”

“Are we allowed to have orange soda in our lunches at this school?” Carson quietly asked.

“Not
bottles
or
cans
of orange soda,” Wes whispered. “But my orange soda is in an aluminum water container. And it’s a small amount. A limited amount. And it’s flat! No bubbles anymore, so it’s not really soda. Do you want to come to my whole birthday party on Saturday the twenty-second at the demolition derby? My grandma is giving it for me. She has a pit pass.”

A pit pass?

Wow!

So he wasn’t telling a whopper about his grandma after all!

At this point, there was no actual proof that Wes had trashed Carson’s lunch. It could have been someone else. It could have been sixth-grade girls. They were definitely persons of interest, under this particular set of circumstances. Since a birthday party at a car race was involved, Carson decided to give Wes the benefit of the doubt. He said, “I’ll ask my dad.”

“Tell him: six o’clock, twenty-second, Atlas Speedway. Bring the Porsche.”

“Wes!” yelled Ms. Pierson. “Move it!”

Wes dug into his lunch bag, found his sandwich at the bottom, unwrapped the plastic wrap, pulled the sandwich in half, and gave half to Carson. Wes squeezed his half into a ball and stuffed it into his mouth. “Don’t forget,” he said with his mouth full. “The twenty-second!”

“Hop to it!” called Ms. Pierson.

Wes turned and stuck his tongue out in her direction.

“Knock it off,” she called.

“I’m catching raindrops.”

“It’s not even raining!”

“Yes it is! See all the black spots on the asphalt?”

Carson sat back down and watched Wes and Ms. Pierson walk back to the office.

He ate his half of the jam sandwich.

Squishy white bread.

Mmm-mm!

A crow swooped down from the branches above and landed on the ground on one scaly, spindly leg. It flapped its wings at Carson and opened its black beak and squawked again. Then it flew onto the roof.

Looking up at the gutter, Carson saw the head of the crow, then the tail of the crow, then the head of the crow, then the tail of the crow.

He got up and wandered away.

Carson strolled around the yard.

The lunch bell rang. Carson and the kids filed into the classroom and sat down.

“Where’s Wes?” asked Mr. Lipman.

“In the office.”

“Again? What this time?”

“Well … let’s just say there was an issue,” said Chloe. “Involving Carson’s lunch.”

“And Mrs. Crabbly’s lost gold pen,” Zoe added. “Put two and two together and …”

Mr. Lipman put his hands on his hips and frowned. “Good gravy. Are you serious?”

Chloe and Zoe both closed their eyes and slowly nodded their heads.

“Carson got pizza, though,” said Luciana. “We escorted him to the cafeteria.”

“How was the pizza, Carson?”

“Good.”

Carson was happy when school was over and his dad pulled up.

Genevieve was in the front seat! She slobbered a few kisses on Carson’s neck and ear as he climbed into the back, and then she looked through the windshield and softly woofed at a crow flapping in a treetop.

“How did it go today?” Carson’s dad asked as Carson buckled up.

“Great!”

Carson’s dad began slowly driving out of the parking lot. “How was your lunch?”

“Fine! I had a double lunch. My original lunch got trashed.”

“Your lunch got trashed? By who!”

“Not sure. Two sixth-grade girls are persons of interest. They were seen in the area looking suspicious. Like this. Look in the rearview mirror.”

Carson shaded his eyes, scrunched up his nose, and bit his bottom lip.

“It took me twenty minutes to make that lunch!”

“Well, I got free pizza from some friendly ladies with nets on their heads in the cafeteria, and also Wes shared his sandwich with me.”

“That was nice of him.”

“And guess what. He invited us to his birthday party!”

“Really? A party invitation for the new kid on the block? Terrific!”

“It’s a demolition-derby party. The whole thing is at Atlas Speedway. Six o’clock on the twenty-second.”

His dad put on the brakes. “That’s this Saturday! Let me get this straight: for this kid Wes’s birthday party, his parents think I’m going to drag you out to a dilapidated old speedway?”

“His grandma does.”

“His grandma is hosting this event? And this
woman thinks we’re going to sit on rickety old bleachers? And watch a bunch of wrecked-up cars roar around a track in the mud? With their tires flat and their radiators belching steam? It’s supposed to rain this weekend!”

“Can we, Dad?” said Carson.

“Are you kidding me?” He looked at Carson in the rearview mirror. “Of course!”

In the morning, Carson woke up, got dressed, ate breakfast, brushed his teeth, packed his pack, and played with Genevieve.

Carson loved playing with Genevieve but was hoping for some two-legged friends in the near future.

He was making some headway in the friendship department at school.

It was slow going, but he was beginning to feel more a part of things. Patrick and Oswaldo invited him into their games, and that helped.

And Nancy was always friendly.

He could depend on Nancy to be nice.

Luciana, Shelly, Sydney, Matthew, Zach, and the others were welcoming.

They waved hi and bye.

Maybe someone would invite him over to their house someday after school or on a weekend.

If it was Wes, Carson would say he was busy.

The next morning, right after the bell rang, Mrs. Crabbly appeared in the doorway of the class. She looked over the top of her glasses at the class and then at Mr. Lipman. “I’m sorry for the interruption.”

A mouse head came out of her Swiss cheese pin and squeaked eight times.

“But I have an announcement.” She turned to Wes. “First, I apologize to you, Weston, on behalf of myself and Ms. Pierson.”

She turned back to the class.

“Thanks to the keen observations of two sixth-grade girls, we have now concluded that Carson’s lunch was not, in fact, ripped to shreds by an individual wielding a gold pen.”

She paused.

“The lunch was annihilated by a large black crow with a bent beak. A Nuisance Bird has been identified. We believe it is the same shabby individual who wintered here several years ago and went by the name
of Bob. The sixth graders recognized Bob from when they were in kindergarten.