The Reinvention of Moxie Roosevelt (7 page)

The piece we were discussing was one I’d been avoiding for two years. I had never seen any reason to try and master something that seemed so clearly out of my reach.

But suddenly I felt a little loose, a little crazy.

“I can’t believe I’m saying this, but yes. Yes, Mr. Tate. I’d like to give it a shot.”

Mr. Tate beamed.

“I am not one bit surprised,” he said. “We have our first regular lesson scheduled in”—he checked an appointment book on his desk—“in two days. Don’t think about it until then. And for heaven’s sake, put a nice cold can of Coca-Cola on that Gould recording, or use it as a bookmark, but don’t listen to it.”

I laughed. “I promise. No Gould.”

“Mahvelous,” he declared. “And now, I’m afraid I must run off. I’ve been charged with a very important duty, Miss Kippah, and that is to bring a potato salad to the Arts and Humanity faculty meeting this afternoon. Do you know the secret to an acceptable potato salad?”

I was not afraid to admit that I did not. I shook my head. Mr. Tate leaned forward with the air of someone about to impart extremely confidential and important information.

“A big blob of good mayonnaise,” he said.

I laughed again.

“You Yankees have no sense of what constitutes good mayonnaise,” he declared. “Fortunately, I make my own. I will see you in two days, Miss Kippah. I’m looking forward to working together.”

“Likewise,” I said.

I could have stayed in Mr.Tate’s office all morning. I could have listened to his thoughts on everything from harpsichords to what was lacking in Yankee mayonnaise. But that would have to wait. I stood up at the same time he did.

“Have a pleasant aftahnoon, Miss Kippah,” he drawled, leading me to the door.

Then he checked his watch.

“Pahdon me. Have a pleasant mawnin’.”

I skipped like a third grader all the way back to my dorm, and I didn’t even care who saw.

Though
Monday had technically been the first day of classes, they mostly consisted of our introducing ourselves and going over the syllabus. I was taking English lit, bio, French, American history, and algebra. I wasn’t overly worried about most of it, except for the math.

My attempt over the weekend to review basic mathematical processes had culminated in using my algebra textbook as a practice keyboard.Worse, my algebra teacher, Mrs. Feeny, had the smallest mouth I’d ever seen, and she talked a mile a minute in a soft, high voice. It was frankly a bit worrying to watch the other students nodding each time she asked if she was being clear. I had not retained a single thing she said after “My name is Mrs. Feeny.”

Today’s class had not gone much better. Mrs. Feeny started right in on algebra, explaining how we found x or y while everybody around me nodded and took notes. Did they really understand what she was talking about? Were they all geniuses? By the end of the forty-minute period, I didn’t think I could find an x or a y if they were painted in DayGlo pink on the broad side of a barn.

With math safely out of the way for another day, I walked across the quad to Dempsey Hall for my first and last Self-Confidence Through Comedy session, patting my pocket to make sure I had my Personality Log with me. I had been faithfully updating the log, and reviewed my notes for longer than I’d studied for my upcoming American history quiz.

I saw a familiar face coming toward me as I walked. It was Kate Southington, looking a little too thin in a “Live off the Grid” T-shirt. Something about her whole look seemed mismatched. Her jeans were ripped and looked genuinely grubby, but her boots looked expensive. She had a polyester NYPD ball cap on, but a pair of gold dangly earrings that looked real. We both slowed down as we approached each other, like two alpha male lions at a watering hole. I felt suddenly uncomfortable, for reasons I couldn’t pinpoint.

“Hey Kate,” I said, immediately deciding that her detachment called for some DUCKIness on my part. “How’s it going?”

“Is Spinky in her room?” she asked.

Good to hear it, Kate. Yes, thanks for asking, I’m fine as well.

“Um, no, she wasn’t a minute ago. Why?” I asked.

“I was thinking about heading into town to check out Vintage Tunage. I thought she might want to go.”

I, apparently, did not factor into this equation.

“Oh,” I said. “We actually went into town and checked out Vintage Tunage yesterday.”

Spinky had suggested we visit the used CD store, and even advised me on my first purchase as a non-ordinary person—a retrospective collection by someone named Iggy Pop.Which sounded to me like it involved slippery balloons.

“
You
went to Vintage Tunage with Spinky?” Kate asked. It sounded like an accusation.

“Well, yeah,” I said. I was trying to keep an even tone, but Kate was alarming me. “We signed out and got a bus pass and everything. Was there . . . I mean . . . um . . .”

“
We
were supposed to go,” Kate said. “Spinky and I.” She scowled at me. It was not a good look for her. Not a good look for me either.

“Oh,” I said. “She didn’t say anything. I mean, maybe she forgot. I mean, sorry.”

Kate’s scowl deepened.

“But we’ll definitely be going back,” I said quickly. “We could let you know when we—”

“Forget it,” Kate said abruptly. “I’ll talk to her myself.”

She walked off quickly, leaving me standing there with a bad feeling in my stomach. Though I hadn’t warmed at all to Kate, something told me she was not a person whose bad side you wanted to get on. And I had apparently just gotten on hers, by going to a CD store with my roommate.

Weird.

Well, it was not Detached or Unique or Coolly Knowing to stand there frozen like a sculpture, so I continued on toward Dempsey Hall, trying to put a spring in my step. When I had almost reached the door, I heard someone call my name. I looked around and saw a girl waving at me from the other side of the quad.

Black hair . . . black hair . . . calling something about a score . . .

“YanKEES!” I yelled, giving her the thumbs-up.

Guadalupe, if that was her name, returned my thumbs-up and mimed whipping an imaginary baseball at me.

“What about that thing at third base last night?” she called.

Having not actually watched or read about the game, I went for an oblique hand gesture that might have meant “nuts” or “hit in the head with a ball” or “I can’t hear you,” then dashed inside.

I didn’t even have to check the Personality Log, I thought, pleased. I was on top of my facts, if nothing else. But I wasn’t so sure about the Hale and Hearty Sports Enthusiast in general. I still loved the idea of having a team, especially since there were so many matching collectibles—T-shirts, mugs, Beanie Babies in ball caps, all with team logo.The only problem was I didn’t like watching baseball all that much. Maybe I should try out for field hockey instead. Or soccer. The uniforms were awfully cute. But that meant after-school games and meets, which would cut into my practice time. My first lesson with Mr. Tate had been intense and occasionally hilarious, and left me more determined than ever to struggle through Variation 28. That meant plenty of time at the keyboard.

It was very quiet inside Dempsey Hall. The marble floors gleamed in the soft yellow light, as if they had been polished that very morning. I climbed a wide wooden staircase to the second floor and walked down the hallway, scanning the doors for the number 212. It was the last room on the left. The door was standing open, so I walked right in.

There was no one there. The room had high ceilings, white walls, and a large blackboard built into the front wall, on which someone had drawn a picture of two large cats walking upright. Desks were positioned in a circle around the room. I walked over to one of the tall windows that overlooked the inner campus. I hated that I was the first one there.

I stared out the window, mentally rehearsing what I would say to the teacher. I decided that as soon as she came in I’d go over to her so that we could speak privately. I didn’t want to offend the other people in the EE, after all. Presumably they had all chosen Self-Confidence Through Comedy because they thought it sounded great. It was a nightmare only to me.

Where
were
the other kids, anyway? I looked at my watch. EE was supposed to start at 3:30, and according to my Timex it was 3:29. I pulled a folded piece of paper out of my pocket, where I’d written down the information for my EE. Dempsey 212. I was in the right room. Unless they’d made a typo on the sheet . . . Was I in the wrong place? How could everyone else have known to find the right room?

I was on the verge of panic when another girl walked into the room. A tiny girl. If I hadn’t known EE was only for freshmen, I’d have guessed she was still in middle school based solely on her height. So when she spoke, she gave me a shock.

“Moxie Kipper? I’m Ms. Hay.”

Ms. Hay? This elfin creature was a teacher? And how did she know I was Moxie?

“Hey,” I said, then winced. It sounded like I was making fun of her name.

She smiled. She had a very wide mouth, or maybe it was normal sized but just looked wide because her head was so small. She had light brown hair in a pageboy, and small brown eyes. Her nose was slightly flat, and one nostril was bigger than the other. She was wearing a shirt woven with some kind of glittery thread, and black bell bottom jeans. Everything about her looked like a mistake. I tried not to stare.

“Welcome to Release Your Inner Stand-Up: Self-Confidence Through Comedy,” Ms. Hay said, standing in the center of the classroom.

“Yes, right,” I said. “I was hoping to talk to you about that before everyone else gets here.”

“Actually, I think you
are
everybody,” she said, glancing at her clipboard. She held it up to show me. “Yep.You’re it, Moxie Kipper.”

I stared at the clipboard. The wind suddenly left my sails. Because there, as plain as day, was my signature. All theories of clerical errors evaporated.

Good grief. I had signed the wrong clipboard.

Ms. Hay watched me patiently. Here I was, her only taker. It was one thing to complain that the school had made a mistake. But the mistake was mine. I was the only person in the whole school who had signed up for her EE. How could I now tell her that I didn’t want to take the class after all? There was no way for me to know if she’d even let me switch, or if Green You had any room left. The last thing I needed was to make a teacher mad at me this early in the school year.

“Moxie? Did you say you wanted to talk to me about something?”

Tell her
, demanded an inner voice.
No! You CAN’T tell her
, yelled a second inner voice.
Say something!
cried both voices.

“Um . . . well . . .” I murmured, buying myself a little time.

Ms. Hay gave me an encouraging smile, which, I’m embarrassed to say, only made her look stranger than she already did. I suddenly felt terrible for Ms. Hay. She couldn’t be more than four foot ten. Her eyes were too small and her nose looked squashed down and her clothes were . . . not so good either. Nobody was interested in her class but me, and even I wasn’t interested.

“Well, it’s just that actually, Ms. Hay . . . I’m not very funny.”

Ms. Hay grinned at me. She looked like one of those hobbits from
The Lord of the Rings
.

“Well now, Moxie Kipper, you just take a seat and let me worry about that.”

What could I do? I wasn’t the kind of person to just walk out and leave her alone with no one enrolled.

So I sat down.

Ms. Hay closed the classroom door and went to the desk by the blackboard. Instead of sitting down behind it, though, she got up on top of it and sat with her legs pulled up under her, ankles crossed and knees pointing out.

“First of all, Moxie, given the—shall we say—exclusive size of the class, maybe you’d like to consider choosing a different seat.”