Help! Somebody Get Me Out of Fourth Grade (11 page)

IT WAS ABOUT TEN O'CLOCK in the morning, and I was sitting in my room, playing a great game of toe basketball. I was beating my own world record of eighteen baskets without leaving my desk chair.

Toe basketball is a game I invented way back in the second grade. You wad up pieces of lined loose-leaf paper and toss them all over your floor. Then you sit in your desk chair. It's better if the chair has wheels. You hold onto the bottom of the seat with your hands and scoop up the balls of paper with your toes and fling them into your wastepaper basket, which you can put anywhere you want.

I was on a hot streak. Or should I say, my toes were. Twenty-two baskets and only four misses. Sweet!

Suddenly, I heard this noise coming from out in the hallway. There was yelling, screaming, and banging so loud I thought the roof was caving in.

I admit it. I was scared. Our building is usually really quiet except when my friends and I are making noise. But the noise we make is regular kid noise—running back and forth to each other's apartments, using the back stairs, playing ball in the courtyard outside the basement laundry room. Stuff like that.

This noise didn't sound like it was being made by kids.

I jumped up and ran out into the living room. Emily arrived at the same time, with Katherine the Ugly riding on her back as usual. Katherine was hissing and snapping her gray tongue around like it was a whip. Papa Pete was in the kitchen, baking brownies, but he came out holding his wooden spoon to see what all the commotion was.

We opened the living room door and looked into the elevator hallway. I couldn't believe my eyes. My jaw dropped so low, it nearly hit the floor.

It was my parents, none other than Stan and Randi Zipzer. They were standing in the hallway of our apartment—swaying, singing, and tambourining, as if they were still in Philadelphia at the Stone Cold Rock concert.

My mom was wearing a black T-shirt with the band's faces on the front and the words “I'm Whacked Out Crazy for You” in hot pink on the back. She had sparkly glitter all mixed up in her hair. But it was my dad who was the most shocking.

He was wearing black leather pants, and let me just say this right now: They were tight black leather pants. My dad doesn't spend a lot of time at the gym, so those pants were tight in places where pants aren't supposed to be tight—especially the tummy area. He was wearing a black leather hat that made him look like a cross between Britney Spears and the leader of a tough motorcycle gang. And he was singing at the top of his lungs, banging a tambourine on his hip.

“Dad, where did you get those pants?” I said without losing a second.

“From Skeeter,” he answered, then slapped the tambourine hard on his other hip.

The door to Mrs. Fink's apartment flew open, and she stuck her head out. At first she looked scared, but when she saw it was just my parents, she stepped into the hall and started dancing with my dad. She was wearing her big pink bathrobe, and I guess she hadn't put her false teeth in yet, because when she smiled, she was all gums and no teeth. My dad twirled her around a few times. She looked like a big, pink polar bear I saw in a Disney cartoon once.

“Oh, did you kids have fun?” she asked my dad.

Of course we couldn't hear her over the tambourine banging, but I could read her lips through the open door. My dad didn't answer, he just grabbed onto her robe and spun her around again. She laughed, and I noticed that her gums matched her robe. I wonder if she planned it that way.

“We're home, kids,” my dad shouted when the song ended.

“Thank you, thank you, thank you, Hank,” my father kept saying over and over again.

“Kids, you would not believe your father,” my mom said as she almost skipped into our apartment. “At one point, the crowd picked him up and passed him around the audience . . . your dad!”

“But, Dad . . . I thought you didn't like rock music,” Emily said.

“It's different when you see it live,” my dad said, wiping some sweat off his forehead and arms. I guess those leather pants don't let a lot of cool air in. “I'm so glad you all convinced me to go. I really got my groove on.”

“And the band could not have been nicer on the bus ride home,” my mom said. “Turns out Skeeter, the drummer, is a crossword-puzzle whiz. And Stan the Man here challenged Skeeter—we call him Skeet—to a
New York Times
Triple Crossword contest.”

“Who won?” Emily asked.

“It was a tie,” my father answered as he rattled his new tambourine above his head and slammed it into his right hip again. “But I'm down with that!”

“Dad,” I said, trying to clear my ears to make sure I was hearing correctly. “Did you just say you're down with that?”

“No, Hank,” he answered, drumming out a beat on the coffee table. “I said I'm down wid dat. Skeet says you don't pronounce the
th
. I'm down
wid dat
.”

“This is the same Skeet whose pants you're wearing?”

“That's right,” my dad said. “We were on the bus coming home, and I leaned over to help Skeet with a clue. I think it was thirty-nine down. Or maybe it was forty-two across. Unless it was six down. That was a tricky one.”

“Dad, the pants? Remember?”

“Oh, right. Well, when I leaned over to help Skeet, wouldn't you know, I ripped my trousers right up the middle.”

“It was so funny, we all cracked up,” my mom said, cracking up again.

“So Skeet says to me, take my extra pants. And I did. They look pretty darn cool, don't they, son?”

My dad strutted over to Papa Pete and danced in a circle around him, shaking his butt as much as the tight leather pants would allow him. Papa Pete laughed and shook his butt right back at him. You can't out butt-shake Papa Pete.

“Hey, Papa Pete,” my dad laughed. “Let me see you shake that thang.”

Let me point out that he didn't say
thing
. He said
THANG
.

Grabbing my mom, he launched into a chorus of another Stone Cold Rock song, “Rockin' All Night in the Meadow with You,” pounding the tambourine on his hip in time to the wild beat.

“Ow, that hurts,” he said, rubbing his hip when he had finished the song. “I have to find a new part of my body to play this with.”

Well, that did it. Emily and Papa Pete burst out laughing. And I did too.

“Hey, next time, use your butt,” I offered.

We all laughed. I think I even saw Katherine's scaly lip pull back into a smile. I never knew my dad could be so much fun.

“Well,” my mom said, “I hate to break up the party, but we have to hurry off now. We'll see you kids later.”

“Where are you going?” I asked, the smile still on my face from watching my dad's performance.

“To school, of course,” my mom said. “It's Parent-Teacher Conference Day. We have a one o'clock meeting with Ms. Adolf.”

Did I just say I had a smile on my face?

Correction.

Suddenly, there was no smile on my face. It had disappeared faster than you could say, “Redo.”

MY MOUTH WENT DRY, and my knees started to shake.

“But, Mom,” I said, “how did you know it was Parent-Teacher Conference Day?”

My mind raced. Maybe she had found the brown envelope that I had left stuffed in the bottom of my backpack under all the half-eaten granola bars. Maybe Frankie's mom had reminded her of the teacher conferences while they were doing the Downward Facing Dog or one of their other crazy positions in yoga class. Or maybe Ms. Adolf had implanted a communication device in my mom's head during Back to School Night and was sending secret messages to her. That had to be it.

“Ms. Adolf called to set up an appointment,” my mom said.

“Apparently, there was a pink sign-up slip that a certain someone was supposed to bring home,” my mom said, ruffling my hair with her hand. “And when you didn't return yours, Ms. Adolf called us directly.”

My face must have turned all colors of red, green, and blue, because my mom reached out and gave me a little kiss on the cheek.

“Don't worry about it, honey. I know how things slip your mind.”

“But I thought you'd be gone . . .”

“We wouldn't miss your teacher conference, Hank,” my dad said. “Not even for Filbert Funk.”

“Or Stone Cold Rock,” my mom added.

“Your education is very important to us,” my dad added. Uh-oh. He was starting to sound like himself again.

“But what about the band . . . and the fully stocked bus and everything?” was all I could manage to say.

“Oh, when we told Skeet and the boys that we had an appointment with your teacher, they didn't mind coming back to New York early,” my mom said. “They said they were down with that.”

“Ms. Adolf mentioned that we should bring a large brown envelope she sent home with you,” my mom said. “I assume that's stuffed in your backpack with all the other papers you always forget.”

The room was starting to spin. All my plans, going down the drain in front of my eyes. Before I could move, my mom was unzipping the large compartment of my backpack and pulling out the hideous brown envelope.

“Come on, Stanley. We'd better hurry.”

“Wait!” I said, desperate to stop them. “You can't go!”

“Why not, honey?”

“Because . . . because . . . well, look at Dad. He's wearing leather pants.”

“So? I think they look kind of cute on him.”

“So . . . um . . . my teacher will think you're a rock star, Dad, and then all the other teachers will swarm around you to get your autograph, and, well, you know how you feel about crowds and all.”

I looked over at Emily for help. She actually looked like she felt sorry for me.

My mom picked up her purse and headed for the door. “We're looking forward to talking to your teacher, Hank. I'm sure she'll have many lovely things to say about you.”

My dad gave me a soul-brother handshake.

“Keep it real, dude,” he said. “Later.”

And with that, he bopped out the door after my mom. As they were waiting for the elevator, I think I heard him say, “Ram dang diggety ram dang,” but I can't be totally sure.

I felt sick to my stomach. I ran to the phone and called Frankie.

“Townsend here. Talk to me,” he said. Frankie never just says hello.

“It's me. Bad news. They came back early.”

“What happened?” Frankie asked.

“It's a long story involving leather pants and a telephone,” I said. “The point is, they're on their way to school.”

“I'll get Ashley,” Frankie said. “We'll meet you downstairs in the clubhouse in five minutes.”

Our clubhouse is a storage room in the basement of our building. It's filled to the ceiling with boxes of winter clothes and Christmas dishes and silk pillows and other weird stuff the adults in our building have collected over the years. We have a couch and a chair, and Frankie, Ashley, and I have had some really fun times there.

This definitely wasn't one of those times.

“I have to face it,” I said as I stood in front of Frankie and Ashley five minutes later. “My plan has failed. I'm doomed.”

“You tried your best, Zip,” Frankie said.

“Here, I made this for you,” Ashley said. She handed me a three-ring notebook with the word “HANK” written on the front in bright red rhinestones. “You can use it next year, no matter what grade you're in.”

“Thanks, Ashweena. I'm going to miss you guys. Who will I talk to in class?”

“You can talk to me,” said a nasal voice from the hallway. “I'll be in class with you.”

I spun around and, sure enough, it was Robert Upchurch, my new classmate and best friend.

“It won't be so bad, Hank,” the little nerd said. “We'll hang out together in the yard. I know you like to play ball, and I don't participate in physical games, but I'm sure we'll enjoy good conversations about many topics, such as penguins, the internal-combustion engine, and nanobots. I can't believe how lucky I am.”