The Life of Ty: Penguin Problems (2 page)

B
y the time I get to Mrs. Webber's room, which is
my
class, I feel less stomach-jumpy than when I first got to school. I feel more like me. Even so, my hand gives Mrs. Webber a weird wave when I walk through the door. It does this without my permission, because I don't know the rule for saying hi to Mrs. Webber first thing in the morning.

Maybe there's not a rule?

“Good morning, Ty,” Mrs. Webber says. “How's your baby sister doing?”

She always asks this. Every day for the last three weeks, she's asked this.

“She's fine,” I tell her, which is what I always say. I think for a moment. “She spit up all over my mom's shirt this morning.”

“Oh dear. No fun.”

“Nope.”

Mrs. Webber clucks. Then she says the other thing she always says, which is, “Well, be sure to help out your mom as much as you can. Babies are precious, but
so
much work.”

“Babies aren't precious,” Lexie says, coming up next to me. “Babies are b-o-r-i-n-g
boring
. Does she have hair yet?”

“Nope,” I say. “Still bald.”

“Ha. Ugly baldie.” She grabs my arm. “Come on, let's go.”

I follow her to the beanbag corner of the room.
Teensy Baby Maggie isn't ugly,
I almost tell her as we sit down. But I don't, and I also don't tell her that she shouldn't make fun of bald people in general, which she pretty much is by saying “baldie.”

Joseph, who's my real best friend, is a baldie. A
temporary
baldie, because he has leukemia. He's going to be okay. But he's in the hospital for a little while. Not
forever,
just for a while.

But telling Lexie not to do something just makes her do it more, except when I'm trying on purpose to trick her. Then she doesn't fall for it. Like, if I say, “Don't give me your cheese puffs or I will be so mad,” she shrugs and says, “Okay.” And doesn't give me her cheese puffs.

Also, Lexie herself has really pretty hair. It's dark brown and shiny, and it swishes.

She bumps me with her shoulder and says, “Look what I learned to do. It's awesome.”

She wiggles a rubber band off her wrist. She's wearing zillions of them. She holds the rubber band in one hand, and with her other hand, she makes a gun shape.

“Lexie?” I say.

She loops the rubber band around her thumb and the tip of the pointed finger. The rubber band slips off, but she gets it back on. Then, with her other hand, she pulls down the bottom of the rubber band, stretches it tight, and uses the leftover fingers on her gun hand to lock it in place.

My stomach knots up like it did at morning drop-off. “Lexie . . .”

She lets go, and the rubber band sails off her finger and thwacks the wall.

“Sweet!” she says. “Wasn't that sweet? Tomorrow, you need to bring lots of rubber bands so we can have a war, 'kay?”

She pulls another rubber band off her wrist. This time she aims it at Taylor—a boy Taylor—but before she can do anything, Mrs. Webber rings her cowbell and calls, “Room break!”

My muscles relax. I like saving people. I don't like shooting them.

Some of the kids in our class don't like Lexie because she's wild. Like, sometimes she kicks them or pokes them with sharp pencils. Sometimes, she kicks and pokes
me
. Sometimes I have to use my stern voice and say, “Lexie, stop.”

But Lexie is big and loud. She does whatever she wants.

Sometimes—not
all
the time, but
some
times—I wonder if I should be wild. Or at least a little wild. Or at least a little . . . something that's more wild and less stomach-clenchy.

Right now, I'm glad it's time for morning meeting.

• • •

“All right, kids,” Mrs. Webber says once we're sitting crisscross applesauce on the floor in front of her. Taylor isn't allowed to sit next to Chase, but I can sit next to anybody, so I sit next to Lexie. Breezie sits next to Lexie, too. On Lexie's other side.

I
would
sit next to Joseph, but yeah . . . Joseph's in the hospital. I on purpose don't sit next to Taylor, because he's even wilder than Lexie, and he gets in trouble all the time. Also, he always wants to do puny-arm fights.

“On Thursday, we have our field trip to the Georgia Aquarium,” Mrs. Webber says.

Everyone claps and says, “Yay!”

I can't wait to go to the aquarium. We'll get to touch sharks and real live starfish and see two beluga whales who are friends and who drift like pale gigantoid marshmallows through the water. Mrs. Webber told us about them. That's how I know.

“Please bring in your permission slip if you haven't already,” Mrs. Webber says. “And a sack lunch, so we can throw our trash away when we're done.”

Lexie raises her hand. “Can we bring money for the gift shop?”

“You cannot bring money for the gift shop. That would be too complicated with the whole grade there.”

“
Wah,
” Lexie says.

Taylor raises his hand.

“Yes, Taylor?” Mrs. Webber says.

“I have a question,” Taylor says.

“Does your question have to do with our field trip?”

“Yes.”

“Then go ahead. But stay on topic.”

“Well, it's just that the only black shirt I have is ripped, and so I can't wear it, and so I can't dress up as my favorite fish, the black phantom.”

“Taylor? Did I at any point say that you should dress up as your favorite fish for our field trip?”

“I had a black phantom once in my aquarium. Then I got a kissing fish, and the kissing fish ate it.”

Everyone laughs.

“Taylor . . .” Mrs. Webber starts.

“The kissing fish kissed it to death!” Lexie says.

“It happened on vacation,” Taylor says. “I forgot to put food in the fish tank, and—”

“
Taylor
.”

“—and when we came back, the kissing fish was still there. But the black phantom was just a skeleton!”

“Ewww!” the girls say.

“Cool!” the boys say.

I think it's ewww
and
cool. I feel bad for the dead black phantom, though.

“Just a fishy fish skeleton, floating in the water,” Taylor says.

“Taylor, you're off topic,” Mrs. Webber says. “Now on Thursday, I'm going to put you into groups with parent volunteers, so—”

“But
can
we dress up as our favorite fish?” Taylor asks. “If we want
to?”

“
No
.” Mrs. Webber looks hard at Taylor. Then smiles at the rest of us. Or tries to. “So if any of you have a preference for whose group you're in, let me know. I can't guarantee anything, but I'll do my best.”

Taylor's hand shoots up.

“Let me know in private,” Mrs. Webber says.

“But—”

“Moving on,” Mrs. Webber says. “Can someone repeat back to me what you need to do before Thursday?”

I can. I put up my hand.

“Yes, Ty?”

“Bring our permission slip,” I say. “Bring a Lunchable.”

“It doesn't have to be a Lunchable. But yes, you need to be able to throw your trash away afterward, so no Tupperware containers or thermoses or lunch boxes.”

I'm going to tell Mom it has to be a Lunchable, because I like Lunchables. Especially the Nachos Supreme with a Capri Sun.

“And . . . ?” Mrs. Webber says.

“Oh!” I say. “And if we want to be in someone's group, tell you.”

“Beautiful, Ty. Excellent listening.”

I feel warm. I fold my lips over to hide my smile.

“Tell Mrs. Webber to put you with Breezie's mom,” Lexie says. “So we can be in the same group.”

“Breezie's mom?”

“Unless your mom's chaperoning. Is she?”

Maybe she could. I didn't ask her. Or maybe I did, and she said no. But if I ask again, maybe she'll say yes.

Before Teensy Baby Maggie, Mom used to chaperone all the time. She went with us to the Atlanta Zoo and bought everyone in our group popcorn, which we shared with the howler monkeys.

“All right, morning meeting's over,” Mrs. Webber says. “Head to your desks and get started on your reading work sessions.”

Kids untangle their legs and push their hands against the carpet as they stand up. I get up, too, but
without
hands. I can do that, even from crisscross applesauce. I practiced and practiced, and now it's easy.

No one notices, but I don't care. Some things I'm good at just for me.

S
andra has track after school and Winnie is off with her friends, so I get Mom all to myself. She's pretty and she smells good, and we snuggle on the sofa and watch
Tom and Jerry,
just the two of us.

Teensy Baby Maggie is taking her nap.

“So how was your day, Ty-bug?” Mom asks. We can talk and watch the cartoon, because Tom and Jerry never say anything. There's just music as Jerry runs around inside the piano.

“Good,” I say. “And we're going to the Georgia Aquarium on Thursday. I'm supposed to bring a Lunchable. Also, Mrs. Webber needs more chaperones. Can you be one? Please?”

“Sweetie . . .”

I frown. I hate that “sweetie,” that sad sweetie that says
you know I can't, and I'm sorry, but also you shouldn't have even asked, because now I have to use my sad sweetie voice.

“You could bring Teensy Baby Maggie. She could be in her stroller.”

“Mrs. Webber doesn't allow siblings. You know that.”

“Then put her in her sling. You could say the sling was your purse.”

Mom laughs. I don't want her to laugh. I want her to say, “What a good idea!”

“Anyway, she's not even a sibling. Not really.” Because she's so teensy is why. “
Sss
oon she'll be a
sss
ibling, but right now she's just a
sss
. A
suh
!”

Mom roughs up my hair with her knuckles. “Sorry, bub. But you know what? You'll have a great time anyway.”

“I know,” I say. But I might or I might not.
I
get to choose. “I'll probably be put in Breezie's mom's group.”

“Well, that's good.”

“No.”

“Will Lexie be with you and Breezie?”

“Maybe.”

“Then
that's
good, isn't it?”

I think about Lexie's rubber-band gun. During math, when we were doing take-aways, Lexie shot a kitten. Not a real kitten, a kitten on a poster. The kitten was clinging to a tree.
HANG IN THERE!
it said underneath.

If the kitten had been real, it would have fallen. Instead of
five take away three,
Lexie would have taken away that kitten.

I think more about Lexie, like how she didn't eat her healthy crackers at snack time. She said they were gross. So I told her about Teensy Baby Maggie's gross crackers, which are called “teething biscuits” even though they're not biscuits and even though Maggie doesn't have a single tooth. And even though Teensy Baby Maggie can't even eat them yet! A lady gave them to Mom at her baby shower, and now they're just sitting in our pantry. I tried one for the fun of it, only it wasn't fun.

“Why are they called teething biscuits if they're not for people with teeth?” Lexie said. “That's dumb.”

Then she crushed one of her gross crackers to smithereens and said, “I don't want a baby sister, ever. If I saw someone without teeth, I would run and scream. And why do you have to call her Teensy Baby Maggie every single day of your life?”

“I don't have to. I just do.” I pulled my eyebrows together. “Everyone does.”

“Well, I think it's stupid,” she said. She scattered her gross cracker crumbs on my shoe. “Were you Teensy Baby Ty when you were a baby? Or were you Stupid Baby Ty?”

I decide to stop thinking about Lexie.

“It's only half-good that I'll be in her group,” I tell Mom. “Sometimes Lexie is annoying.”

“Ah,” Mom says. “And that is why it's all-the-way good that I got
you
as my son. I'm glad you're my Tyster.”

“And I'm glad you're my Momster.”

“A monster? You think I'm a
monster
?!”

I giggle.

She tickles me, and I giggle more.

“I can't believe you just called me a monster!” she says. “My own dearest, darlingest son!”

“
Mom
ster! Not
monster
!”

From the baby monitor on the kitchen counter, I hear a noise.

A bad noise. A worse-than-the-noise-Price-made-on-the-playground noise.

“Did you hear that?” Mom says.

I grab the remote and turn up the volume on the TV. “I love this part. The piano lid is going to slam down on Tom's head, see?”

“Ty, put that on mute, would you? I think I heard Baby Maggie.”

If I had an extendable arm, I'd reach over to the baby monitor and put
it
on mute.

Mom tries to rise. I cling to her like a howler monkey.

“Ty, please.”

She attempts to pry me off her. I don't let her. Every time she unlocks one part of me, I lock on with another. It's funny.

“When you were a baby, I went to you when you cried,” she says. She stands up, and I slide down her body so that I'm wrapped around her leg.

“Ty, stop. It's
not
funny.”

I let go. My cheeks get hot.

On the TV, the piano lid flattens Tom, and his paws and whiskers and tail stick out like a pancake. Mom is missing the good part, and she doesn't even care.

“I'll bring Maggie down here,” Mom says. “I'll keep watching Bugs Bunny while I feed her.”

It's not Bugs Bunny. It's Tom and Jerry! And Tom is so silly, and Jerry is so cute and little, and—

Never mind. Jerry's not cute, and I don't even like him. I
never
liked him. I grab the remote and turn off the TV.

From the baby monitor, I hear Mom get closer and closer to Teensy Baby Maggie's room. Then she's in there for real. I hear her say, “Hey there, Teense. How's my baby? How's my teensy bitsy Maggie-pie?”

Next come crinkle-sheet sounds, which mean Mom's lifting Maggie out of her crib. “Come on, bug. That's my good girl.”

My chest goes up and down.
I'm
her bug. She's only supposed to call
me
“bug.” And I don't like how Mom has to run run run to Maggie the very second she cries, either.

Also, Maggie's not as bitsy as everyone thinks. Spiders are bitsy, like the itsy-bitsy spider. Flies are bitsy. Jerry from
Tom and Jerry
is bitsy, but Maggie doesn't even know who Tom and Jerry are. She doesn't even know what cartoons are—and she made Mom miss the best piano-slamming part!

If someone made me miss the best part, I'd be mad and call that person a meanie-head.

So maybe Lexie's right. Maybe we shouldn't call Teensy Baby Maggie “Teensy Baby Maggie” anymore.

We should call her Big Fat Meanie Baby instead.