The Candy Smash (10 page)

 

 

Jessie stooped down and looked under Evan's desk. "Jessie, you're not eating candy, are you?" asked Mrs. Overton, still talking on the phone.

"No, Mrs. O. I'm just looking for trash." If something was on the floor, it was trash. Everybody knew that.

"Nobody eat anything. Take your seats. I'm going to collect the candy—"

There was a shout from the classroom. "No way!" called out Scott. "I'm not giving mine up!" Almost everyone in the class was against the idea of Mrs. Overton confiscating their Valentine treat.

"Jessie, it's private property, right?" asked Tessa. "Can a teacher take something that belongs to us? I mean, legally?"

At the beginning of the school year, Jessie had organized the entire class into a courtroom to put Scott Spencer on trial for the theft of two hundred and eight dollars. Whenever there was a question about the law, the kids in 4-O turned to Jessie.

Jessie shrugged. "We're kids." She'd learned the hard way that the legal system couldn't be counted on to fix the injustices of the world. "We're not even allowed to
own
property."

"Is that true, Mrs. Overton?" asked Paul.

"That stinks!" said Jack.

"You can take stuff from us?" said Ray. "That's not fair!"

"Look," said Mrs. Overton. "I just don't want anyone getting sick. We don't know where this candy is coming from."

"Nobody's gotten sick yet, and we've been eating these hearts all week," said David. "I'm pretty sure if they were poisoned, someone would have died by now."

The class agreed. When Mrs. Overton finally got everyone to quiet down, Megan raised her hand. "Maybe you could let us take them home and let our parents decide?"

Evan walked back in the room at that moment, but no one noticed except Jessie. She watched him hang the bathroom pass on its hook, then return to his seat. He still had that angry look on his face, but it wasn't quite as bad as when he'd left the room. And his hands were empty. Jessie wrote this fact in her notebook.

 

 

"Listen up!" said Mrs. Overton, taking charge again. "I'm going to collect the candy hearts and keep them until I've had a chance to talk with Mrs. Fletcher. If she gives the go-ahead to send them home, it's okay with me. She's in charge of the school, so whatever she says goes." Mrs. Overton scooped up the paper collection basket on her desk. "Everyone grab your candy hearts and line up for music. I'm going to collect your boxes as you file out."

Jessie was glad she wasn't line leader for the week. She hung at the back of the line, determined to be last. When she got in place, David, who was in the middle of the line, ducked out and came to the back to stand behind her.

"Why did you do that?" asked Jessie, annoyed. The line began to move forward.

"Do what?" asked David.

"Leave the line and go to the end."

"I didn't cut."

"I didn't say you did. I asked why you left the line." Jessie noticed that Evan was saying something to Mrs. Overton and that Mrs. Overton did not look happy.

David shrugged. "I wasn't really in line."

"Yes, you were," said Jessie, shaking her head and thinking that David Kirkorian was sometimes the most annoying kid in class.

"I'm allowed to stand where I want to. It's a free country." David folded his arms across his chest and stared straight over Jessie's head. He was about a foot taller than her, so he could do that without even trying.

When they reached the door, Jessie dropped her box of candy hearts into the basket. She didn't mind giving it up. Candy hearts had never been her favorite. She didn't like the way they scraped against her teeth.

Jessie waited until they were halfway down the hall before she said to Mrs. Overton, "I need to go back to the classroom for a second." Mrs. Overton was carrying the basket full of candy, and Jessie knew she was taking it to the office to consult with Mrs. Fletcher while the class was in music. There was no way Mrs. Overton was going to escort her back to the classroom. She was too distracted by the mystery of the candy hearts.

"Can it wait?" asked Mrs. Overton.

"No, it's something I really need. I'll be one second."

"Be quick. And then straight to music!" Mrs. Overton veered left and disappeared into the office as the line of students headed to the music room.

Jessie scooted past David, hurrying back to the classroom.

"I'll come with you," said David.

Jessie whirled around. "You will not!" The
last
thing she wanted was David Kirkorian witnessing what she was about to do. David practically jumped back and then stood there, with a look on his face that Jessie couldn't figure out—even if she'd had a million years to study it.

She ran down the hall, but before she got to her classroom, she stopped in front of the boys' bathroom. She wished her friend Maxwell were here. Not only was Maxwell a terrific spy, but he was also a boy. Which would have made this next part of her mission easier.

Still, if you're going to be an investigative reporter, you have to be willing to do the dirty work of investigating. As her grandmother said, it was time to break some eggs.

Jessie pushed open the door of the boys' bathroom and called out, "Anyone in here?" No one answered.

This bathroom was different from hers! What were those strange white sink things on the wall? Jessie stared and stared but couldn't figure them out.

Suddenly, she heard a noise in the hall and remembered how much trouble she would be in if someone found her in the boys' bathroom. She hurried to the trash can, pushed open the flap door, and peeked inside.

There it was.

Evan's box of candy hearts. She tried to reach in to pluck it out, but her arm was nowhere near long enough. She tugged on the top of the trash can and after a minute, the top came off. It was heavier than she thought it would be, and when she put it down on the hard tile floor, it made a loud clanking noise that made her heart jump.

Jessie wasn't a lot taller than the trash can, so wrestling it over and laying it on its side wasn't easy. But she finally managed it, and this time she was careful not to let the metal trash can clang to the floor. She got down on her knees and peered inside, but the trash had resettled and now the candy box was nowhere in sight.

Without warning, the door to the bathroom swung open and two small boys walked in. They were so little that Jessie figured they must be
A.M.
kindergarteners. They had their arms around each other's shoulders, and they were singing a song.

But they stopped as soon as they saw Jessie.

"You're not supposed to be in here!" said one of the boys.

"Neither are you," said Jessie. It was a dumb thing to say, but it was all she could think of on the spot.

"Why not?" asked the other boy. The first boy's hand crept up to his face, and he started to suck his thumb.

"Because ... you have to go. Now!" The last word came out loud, like a fire alarm. Both boys jumped and then ran for the door.

Jessie knew she had about thirty seconds before a custodian or teacher came running into the bathroom to investigate. She began to pluck out wet and crumpled paper towels. Touching all those dirty, used, boy paper towels made her stomach heave, but she did it anyway.

There it was! She grabbed the cardboard box and ran out of the bathroom, looking behind her to see whether someone was coming after her. But nobody seemed to notice her at all.

When she got to her own cubby, she stopped and pretended to straighten her jacket as she examined the box she'd plucked from the trash can. The cardboard was smashed as if it had been stomped on by a herd of elephants, and the candy hearts inside were nothing more than crushed powder. But she found one piece of a heart that still had a few letters on it.

 

simile
(n) a comparison of one thing with another using "like" or "as"

 

Evan woke up on Saturday morning in a bad mood. It was the same mood he'd gone to bed with on Friday night. The same mood that had followed him all that day, hanging over his shoulders like a heavy, wet, stinky wool blanket.

But after he'd complained to his mother for ten solid minutes about the lack of milk in the house and then snapped at Jessie for leaving her shoes on the stairs right where he would trip over them, both his mother and Jessie declared that he was a beast and told him to get out of the house until he turned back into a human being.

He decided to grab his snowshoes and hike through the woods and into the cemetery. There were good trees for climbing there, and it was his favorite place to think. He went to the garage and started rummaging through the big plastic bin of outdoor stuff. About four inches of snow had fallen last night, and although he could have gone out in just his boots, it was more fun to wear snowshoes.

He started hunting through the shelves in the garage. Instead of finding his own snowshoes, though, he found his dad's. They were behind the pile of sleds, Boogie Boards, and Skim Disks, wedged between the wall and the shelving unit.

Evan scowled. Things that used to belong to his dad were always turning up. He'd be looking on the bookshelf for one of his old Calvin and Hobbes books, and he'd find a book on fly-fishing instead. Or he'd be reaching all the way to the back of the linen closet for a clean pillowcase, and there would be his dad's old Michigan Wolverines hat. Evan hated finding these reminders. He figured, what's done is done. There was no point in even thinking about the past.

But this time, he looked at the snowshoes and then at his own feet. He'd been growing a lot this year. He was the second tallest boy in his class. Maybe his dad's old snowshoes would fit him.

He sat down and adjusted the toe straps to their smallest setting. Then he jammed the toes of his boots into the straps and cinched the heel straps as tight as they would go. He stood up and took a few scratchy steps across the concrete garage floor. The snowshoes stayed on.

Out in the cemetery, the snow had drifted and banked so that some spots were several feet deep, but others were covered by no more than a dusting. Evan decided to circle the whole cemetery once, then do a double crisscross through the middle and end up at the Civil War monument, which was made from three old cannons welded together. That way he'd be hot and sweaty, and sitting on the cold metal would feel good.

When he finally dropped his snowshoes and started to haul himself to the top of the monument, he was glad he'd put on gloves. The cannons were freezing cold, and getting to the top was like shimmying up a giant black icicle. But Evan was good at climbing, and he made it to the top without too much slipping and sliding.

Once he was there, though, that feeling of power that usually came over him—the one that made him want to shout "I am the king of the world!"—didn't come. Instead, it was as if the heavy, wet blanket had followed him, and now it draped itself over his shoulders, just as before. What was the point of getting out of the house if you couldn't ditch your bad mood?