The Squirting Donuts (2 page)

“And do you know what Mrs. Herman did?” Douglas asked.

Calvin shook his head. He didn't know.

“She hugged me and said she was sorry. And from then on, she made sure I never got a horse cookie for snack.”

“Now Mrs. Cakel is acting like that,” I say, “and it's not normal.”

“Maybe it's not really her,” Annie says. “Maybe she's her twin sister. Maybe the two of them are exactly the same but opposite. Maybe they're mirror twins.”

“No, it's her,” Douglas says. “She knows all our names. She knows all those things about George Washington, that his father's name was Augustine and his mother's was Mary. She knows all about his wife and his stepchildren. Only a real teacher knows that stuff.”

“I'm used to the old Mrs. Cakel,” I say. “We've got to get back our mean and nasty teacher.”

“Why?” Calvin asks.

“Yeah, why?” Annie says. “She's being nice. Teachers should be nice.”

I take another bite of my Calvin sandwich. I get mostly bread and marshmallow.

Annie chews her noisy celery.

“Maybe she'll suddenly explode,” Douglas says, spinning his apple on the table. “Maybe all this nice stuff will be too much for her.”

Calvin has a rice cake in a small plastic sandwich bag for dessert. He puts it flat on the table, punches it again and again until it's a bag of rice crumbs. Then he pours the crumbs into his mouth.

“You're right,” Annie says. “Something is wrong with Mrs. Cakel. Maybe we should help her, but not right now. First let's enjoy a vacation from mean.”

Calvin brushes rice cake crumbs off his shirt and pants.

“We could slouch, mumble, and send notes,” Douglas says, “but I still can't chew gum. My dentist says that's bad for my teeth.”

“It would be nice not to have so many rules,” I say, “but what will happen to her nickname ‘No, No, No Cakel'?”

“We could call her ‘Chew, Chew Cakel,' or ‘Mumble, Bumble Cakel,'” Calvin says. “We could call her whatever we want and she'll just say, ‘That's nice.'”

“No,” Annie says and shakes her head. “We've got to help that woman.”

“Yes!” Calvin says a bit too loud.

He stands, points to the cafeteria ceiling, and declares, “This calls for the Great Waffle!”

Douglas says, “I want mine with maple syrup.”

“I'm not joking,” Calvin says and sits down. “We can't help her until we find out what's wrong, and for that we'll have to do some spy work. And I'm the one who knows about spy work.”

He smiles.

“But before we help her,” Calvin says, “I'll have some fun. This afternoon I'm going to see how many of Cakel's No things I can get away with.”

On our way back to class, I try to talk Calvin out of his plan to send notes, mumble, chew gum, and whatever. But he just smiles and walks ahead.

When I get to class, Calvin is already there. He's walking about and mumbling. Mrs. Cakel is sitting by her desk and guess what? She's slouching.

I sit in my seat and watch the two of them.

Mrs. Cakel doesn't seem to notice Calvin. She doesn't seem to notice any of us.

Calvin sits in his seat and slouches.

Mrs. Cakel doesn't react.

Calvin stands on his seat and pretends to be chewing gum.

Mrs. Cakel still sits there.

Calvin tears paper from his spiral notebook, scribbles something on it, folds it into an airplane, and sends it to me.

I unfold the airplane.

“Who is that woman?” Calvin wrote.

I look at her. She has that blank stare look, you know, like she doesn't see anything even if it's right in front of her.

Something is wrong. Something is terribly wrong.

“Do you know where she lives?” Calvin asks on our way home.

Calvin and I live on the same block so we walk together to and from school.

I shake my head. I don't know where Mrs. Cakel lives.

“That won't stop us,” Calvin says. “We'll find her. My father taught me lots of spy tricks.”

Calvin says his father speaks lots of languages and that right now he is on a secret spy mission for our government. Calvin's mom told me his dad is a truck driver and one day he went across the state to deliver some furniture and never came back.

I asked Calvin if that was true.

“That's Dad's cover,” Calvin said. “We say he's a truck driver so no one will know what he really does.”

If his being a spy is such a secret, why did he tell me?

Calvin says, “We can look on the Internet for Mrs. Cakel's address.”

“She may not be listed.”

“We can ask the principal, Mr. Telfer. I don't think he likes her.”

“He won't give us a teacher's address.”

“Then I'll use a spy trick.” He leans close and whispers, “We'll put a tracking device in her book bag.”

I look around. There is no one nearby.

“Why are you whispering?”

“The trees have ears,” he whispers. This time his voice is even lower. “The sidewalk, street signs, and flowers have ears.”

That's a lot of ears.

“This would be a homemade device,” Calvin whispers. “We'll fill her book bag with tiny bread crumbs and poke a hole in the bottom of the bag. Then all we have to do is follow the crumby trail.”

I look at Calvin.

He's serious.

“That's a Hansel and Gretel device,” I say. “And anyway, she drives to school. There would be no trail. The crumbs would be on the floor of her car.”

“Oh.”

We are already on our block, just a few houses away from Calvin's.

“Why don't we just ask my sister where Mrs. Cakel lives? Karen knows lots of personal stuff about our teachers.”

Calvin's mom is standing in front of his house. At first she just waves to us. Then she jumps and waves.

She's really skinny and has long, curly red hair that is flying up and down. Her pants and shirt have lots of colored stripes and dots. When she jumps, all those colors mix and she looks like a broken kaleidoscope.

“Hurry! Hurry!” she shouts. “I have something to tell you.”

We hurry to Calvin's front walk.

“What do I love more than anything?” Calvin's mother asks.

“Me,” Calvin answers.

“Sure. But what do I love to do more than anything?”

“Word scrambles.”

“Yeah. Here's a good one. V-F-W-A-L-L-I-N-F-A-C-E. What's that? And what's N-O-A-N-Y-C-H-E-N-D?”

She talks real slow now and loud and spells out those wacky words letter by letter.

Calvin and I shake our heads. We don't know what V-F-W-A-L-L-I-N-F-A-C-E and N-O-A-N-Y-C-H-E-N-D are.

Mrs. Waffle laughs and says, “That's you! I just mixed the letters in your names, Calvin Waffle and Danny Cohen. I'm surprised you didn't know that. You're both so young, and it's usually old people who forget their names, like the old man I was once sitting next to in a hotel lobby. I knew his name because it was on his luggage. Someone called out that his room was ready, and he just sat there. ‘Don't you know your own name?' I asked him. ‘My name? I don't even know your name,' he said.”

“Mom,” Calvin says. “You have something to tell me.”

“Yes, when you get old, you should have a bracelet with your name on it so if you forget who you are, you can look at it and know.”

“Mom, you were waving and jumping because you have something to tell me and I don't think it's to wear a bracelet.”

“Was I waving? Oh, yes I was. I wanted to tell you about my new job at the bakery. You know I love to bake. I'll be baking bread and cake, and the best thing is I'll be using the hypodermic.”

“The what?”

“You know, the needle. I'll be the one injecting donuts with jelly. I promise I'll bring some home for both of you with extra shots of jelly.”

I love the jelly in those donuts. When I eat one, I always look for the side with the small hole. That's where most of the jelly is.

“That's great, Mom.”

Calvin gives his mother his schoolbooks and tells her he's going to my house.

As we walk, I say, “Your mother is really lucky to have a job doing something she likes.”

“She hasn't started,” Calvin says. “Tomorrow she might come home covered with jelly and flour and complain that it's too hot with all those ovens on.”

We're by my house. Calvin holds my books while I get my key out.

“She might say her boss is too grumpy or too bossy. Old people like my mother complain a lot. It's too hot. It's too cold. There's too much traffic. Prices keep going up. Their backs and legs hurt.”

My mom and dad don't complain about all that stuff, and they certainly don't complain about their jobs. Dad actually says he likes what he does, and he sells plumbing supplies. How can anyone like selling pipes and plungers?

I open the door. Calvin gives me back my books and we walk in. Karen is in the kitchen having a snack. She has strange eating habits. She says, “You are what you eat,” and right now she's a low-fat Greek yogurt.

Karen's school starts earlier in the morning and ends earlier in the afternoon than mine so that's why she's already home. She's in the eighth grade. That's almost high school.

“Something is going on with Dad,” she says. “He came home a few minutes ago, went to his and Mom's room, and closed the door.”

Dad is never home from work this early.

“And Mom called. She wants us to set the table and prepare dinner. We're eating at six.”

Something is definitely going on. Mom almost never asks us to make dinner.

“I'll make salad,” Karen says. “You'll make spaghetti, and we'll open a can of sauce.”

Karen once filled a bowl with beans, chopped pickles and onions and tomato chunks, and called it a Health Salad. Well, it didn't do any good for my health. I didn't eat it and I don't think I'll eat the one she makes today. I'll just eat spaghetti.

I tell her about Mrs. Cakel.

“Are you sure it was her? Were you in the right room?”

“It was her,” Calvin says, “and she was really nice. I don't think it's a problem but your brother is worried.”

“Yeah, that's my brother. Danny is a real worrier.”

“Do you know where she lives?” I ask.

“Sure. Clover Street. I'm not sure of the number but it's a small blue house.”

I pass Clover Street on the way to the library. It's just a few blocks away.

“We'll go later,” I tell Calvin, “after we do our homework.”

First I have to find the homework that got mixed up with the gardener's bill and put it in my book bag. Tomorrow I have to show it to Mrs. Cakel. She may no longer be in a lovey-dovey mood.

My homework is on the small table in the hall. My lunch is there too. I take the gardener's bill and the bag with Mom's lipstick, mineral body lotion, face powder, and eyeliner and put in on the table. I put the homework in my book bag.

Then I deal with my lunch.

I put my sandwich and apple in the refrigerator. I open the small bag of pretzels and share them with Calvin. Then we sit together by the kitchen table and do our homework.