Mr. Terupt Falls Again (2 page)

“Ahh, c’mon. You’re all right, Peter,” he said. “They’re just peanuts.”

Even with my injury, he made me smile. Of course everyone else thought it was hysterical, especially Lexie.

“Ohh, poor Peter’s peanuts,” she sang. “Hey, it’s a tongue twister. Poor Peter’s Peanuts. Poor Peter’s—”

“Okay, Lexie,” Mr. T said.

She thought it was a riot. She couldn’t stop laughing. And then she got to laughing so hard that she farted—right out loud! A real stinker! Served her right. Lexie turned bright red in the face. I wasn’t about to let her off easy by pretending nothing had happened.

“Oh my God!” I yelled.

“What now?” Mr. T asked, looking up from the box he had gone back to packing.

“Peter farted,” Lexie was quick to say.

“What! No way! That was you!” I was ready to wring her neck.

“That’s classic cover-up, Peter,” she said. “Blaming someone else.”

“Are you nuts?!”

“We
know
you hurt your peanuts,” she said. “We’re sorry.”

“That’s enough, you two,” Mr. T said. “Someone farted. I don’t care who, just don’t do it again. It stinks.” He covered his nose with his shirt and so did a laughing Ms. Newberry.

Lexie flashed me her devil smile.

“Better go check your underwear after that one,” I whispered. The only good thing about her fart was that it somehow made me forget about my privates hurting.

And so went my summer: watch out for Jeffrey, deal with Lexie, and hang with Mr. T. I had a good time.

S
ummer was pretty cool. The only bad part was that Mom was still waiting tables from noon to close every day, so she spent most mornings sleeping. So like, I was pretty much on my own. But no biggie—it’d been that way for a while now.

In the beginning, I rode my bike over to the school a lot and helped Teach with the classroom move. I liked doing that. Hanging with Teach was cool after spending all that time without him. I wasn’t the only one around. Jessica was gone to some writing thing and Luke was away, but Anna and Jeffrey were in the classroom a lot, and Danielle was busy on her farm but still came by often. Ms. Newberry was there every day, smiling and making Teach smile, and of course, there was also Peter. I loved teasing Peter. He’d try to give it back, but I always won. He was a good sport about it, though. It was all fun, not like mean-girl stuff. And I would
know. So for a while, that was what I did with my summer. I’d never complain about time spent with Teach. Not after what we all went through.

But then one day, when I was riding home from school, I heard some voices coming from the abandoned house on Old Woods Road. I rode past this house every day. I’d been in it before. It could be a pretty cool hangout spot, but it was kinda scary, too. Dust and cobwebs, cracked window glass, a creaky floor, falling-down boards, and rusty nails—the place was old. Real old, and probably not very safe. But like, I wanted to see who was in it.

After leaving my bike on the grass, I crossed the porch and crept into the front of the house where there was a doorway, but no door. I tried to walk softly as I snooped around, but the boards made noise under my feet. I didn’t hear them coming from behind me.

“Who’re you?”

“Ahh!” I screamed, scared out of my mind. I spun around fast and saw two faces.

“Sorry,” the first girl said.

“What’re you doin’ here, Little Brat?” the second girl said.

They were older. High school girls, I could tell. They were bigger than me for one, and like, they needed bras where I still had my flat chest.

“Stop, Reena,” the first girl said. “You’re gonna scare her.”

“I’m just jokin’. Gimme a break.” Reena looked at me. “Don’t worry. You can chill here, Little Brat.” She turned
and walked away. “I’ll be in the back,” she called over her shoulder.

“I’m Lisa,” the first girl said. “What’s your name?”

“Alexia, but my friends call me Lexie.”

“C’mon, Lexie.” She put her arm around me and gave me a tour of their hangout. The place wasn’t dirty and creepy anymore. They’d cleaned it up, the back room especially. They had put some old carpet pieces on the floor, which were a lot better than the creaky boards with rusty nails. There was a green couch and a brown armchair, and then some lawn furniture. In the middle of the room they had plywood laid across cinder blocks for a table. And they had a few blankets tacked over the windows for a little privacy—or secrecy.

Lisa was very pretty. She had dark hair with tight curls cropped close to her head. It looked good, especially with her dark maroon lipstick. She had a nice body that she showed off in short shorts and a tank top.

“Grab a seat, Lexie. You can chill with us,” Lisa said.

I accepted her invite, not wanting to be rude and not wanting to make them mad. I sat down in the brown armchair. Reena was already sitting on the couch, and something told me not to sit next to her. I stared at the floor because I wasn’t sure what else to do.

“Hey, you’re back,” Lisa said.

I looked up and saw her walk over to kiss the sweaty boy who’d just arrived.

“Who’s this?” he said, nodding at me.

“Alexia,” Lisa said, “but her friends call her Lexie.”

“Hey, Alexia,” the boy said. “I’m Brandon.” He nodded toward the couch. “And that’s Reena over there.”

“They’ve already met,” Lisa said.

“Brandon’s a big bad football player and wrestler,” Reena teased.

He made a face at her. “That’s right,” he said. “I am. I just got done with a run.” He looked at me now. “I’m starting my training.”

“Oh,” I said. He sure seemed big and bad.

When I looked over at Reena she had her lips curled around a cigarette. She was as pretty as Lisa, but she made me nervous.

“Hey, Lexie. Want one?” Reena said, holding out another cigarette. “Or are you a little Goody Two-shoes?”

F
ADE IN: LONG SHOT (LS) of JESSICA sitting in a classroom with a bunch of other kids. Kids we’ve never seen before, some older, some the same age. It’s obvious this is a classroom devoted to writing. There are books all along the walls, plenty of computers, and an assortment of papers, pencils, pens, and highlighters. All the students are working. Some of them are drafting, others editing, and one is conferencing with the instructor
.

FADE OUT
.

F
or me, a few things stood out from the summer. My mom still worked a few days a week at her school, doing library stuff and helping with the summer programs, but I got to spend a lot of time with her. Mom was also spending time with Charlie, and she was very happy. It made me feel good. I liked Charlie too. Mom also kept busy with her artwork. She entered one of her pieces in a show in New York City. We got to go down there for a few days, which was a lot of fun. I even visited with Jessica. She was in some sort of writing camp taking place at Columbia University. The four of us, our moms and me and Jessica, had lunch in some fancy little café.

I also saw Danielle over the summer. Mom and I would go to the farm and visit—Charlie didn’t just come to our house. Danielle’s mom and dad were more accepting of me
and Mom now, so it wasn’t that big a deal for us to go over to their place. Her grandma and grandpa still never spoke to us, however. But the farm was great! My favorite part was helping Charlie and Danielle with the nighttime milking. My first time doing it, Charlie said, “Anna, come take a look at this.” He was sitting beside one of the cows, getting ready to put the machine on her. When I bent closer to look, he squeezed her teat and milk shot into my face.

“You just fell for the oldest trick in the book,” Danielle said, laughing.

The other thing I did over the summer was help Mr. Terupt move our classroom down to the sixth-grade annex. I did this on those days Mom had to work, though Mom even came to help a few times. Peter helped too, or tried to. Somehow his good intentions often turned into mess-ups, but I had fun with him. Most of the time I was laughing. Like the day he crammed all he could into one box. I tried to warn him, but he didn’t want to listen. When it was time to lift the box, Peter grunted and groaned. He turned all red in the face just getting it off the ground. As soon as he stood up, the bottom of the box fell out. Stuff crashed to the floor and scattered everywhere. I tried not to laugh, but that was hard.

Then Peter tried carrying more than one box, but he hurt himself (in the bad spot) because he couldn’t see where he was going. As if that wasn’t bad enough, the next thing he did was let loose a terrible-smelling fart. Then he tried to blame Lexie for it. Imagine her farting—please!

Next he decided he was going to carry a tower of books
to our new room. He said he’d had enough of boxes, and figured he could carry more as a tower anyway. Those chapter books can have slippery covers. I tried telling him, but no.

“Peter, they’re not LEGOs,” I said.

“Ta-da!” He stood up with his tower, his bottom hand by his knees, his top hand above his eyes. He took a few steps and then it happened. The middle book sprang free, setting off a domino effect of books shooting out of his tower like bullets. After the frenzy, Peter stood there with one book in his hands.

“Maybe you should try a different approach,” Mr. Terupt said, chuckling—again.

“I wanted to see if it would work,” Peter said.

“Well, now you know,” Mr. Terupt said. “But that’s good. You were experimenting. That’s science. I like that.”

Peter looked at me and shrugged. I smiled and shook my head.

Despite his mess-ups, Peter showed up every day to help. As long as his mess-ups didn’t turn into an accident like last year, I was fine with his good intentions.

The annex was a little complex separate from the main school building. It looked just like the main school, same red brick and windows, but it wasn’t attached.

“Mr. Terupt, why do we even have an annex?” I asked. We were carrying boxes down to our new room. “I’ve never seen another school with one.”

“Well, my best guess is that at some point, the town must have decided they needed more space for all the students,
so the annex was constructed. It was probably the wisest solution.”

The annex wasn’t far from the main building, just a short distance down the sidewalk out the side door, but it was still a lot of work to move. We had to box up all of Mr. Terupt’s things, move them, and then unpack them and get the stuff put away. That’s the part I liked, the putting-away part. I liked it because then I got to decide how to arrange our new classroom, and I liked it because I got to do it with Ms. Newberry. She was also there every day.