The Trouble with Mark Hopper (18 page)

Mark froze.

“Quick!” Jonathan said.

“What do I do?” The juice carton was on the floor next to his open backpack, the straw was inside the locker, and a jar of fruit flies was in each of his hands.

“Hey, Jonathan,” said Becky. “What are you doing here so early?” She stopped and leaned against the wall by the stairwell. If she took three steps around the corner, she would be able to see Mark, fruit flies and all.

“Oh, hey. What are
you
doing here so early?” Jonathan took a step closer to Becky.

She took a step back. “My sister got early-morning detention, and my mom only wanted to drive here once, so it was either walk here in the freezing cold or come early and just hang out.”

“I didn't know you had a sister who goes here.”

Becky liked to talk—she frequently got in trouble for it during class—but even so, Mark knew he had no time to waste. He unscrewed the lids on the first jar of flies hastily . . . so hastily that he didn't have a chance to make sure the flies went into the locker. All but a few escaped and flew straight to the light on the ceiling. Whoops, Mark thought. By the time he stopped looking up at the light, all but two fruit flies had escaped into the hallway. He held the jar up to the slits and tapped on the bottom until the last two flew, reluctantly, into the dark locker. He quickly unscrewed the top on the second jar, and this time he held it right up against the locker. Still, about a quarter of the flies managed to squeeze their way out of the sides and into the hallway.

Mark heard Becky talking to Jonathan. “Well, it's seven twenty-five now, so I might as well go to my locker and just go to homeroom.”

“What homeroom are you in?” he heard Jonathan ask somewhat desperately.

Mark threw the empty jars into his backpack, grabbed it, and zipped down the hallway. He heard Becky say, “Ew! Flies!” right before he turned the corner.

Up on the third floor, on the opposite side of the building, he met Jonathan, who was flushed.

“You made it?” Jonathan asked quietly.

“Barely,” Mark whispered back. He grinned. “Way to hold up Becky!”

Jonathan laughed. “I just kept trying to keep her talking. Usually I can't wait for her to stop talking. It was really backward.”

“We're not done yet,” Mark said. He held up his backpack.

“Oh yeah,” said Jonathan. “I'll do it.”

“Nah,” Mark said. “I'll do it. I kind of want to see what's in there anyway.”

“Let's both do it, then,” Jonathan said.

“Okay.”

“One,” said Jonathan.

“Two,” said Mark.

“Three!” they both said. They pushed open the door to the girls' bathroom. It looked disappointingly like the boys' bathroom, except there were more stalls and no urinals.

“I thought there'd be blow-dryers and stuff,” said Mark.

“Me too!” Jonathan confessed. “Or at least flowers or something.”

 

In homeroom, Jasmina slipped Mark a note that said, “Code blue?” That was code for, “Did everything go smoothly?” Mark turned around and nodded. Jasmina smiled and her whole body seemed to relax. Then, once Mrs. Frances had gotten to the
J
names for attendance, Mark turned slightly in his chair to face Mark and raised his eyebrows. Mark responded with a hushed, “Code blue.” Mark said, “Me too,” and turned back around.

When Mrs. Frances looked back at the
H
s, she saw two boys in matching clothes and one girl in all black, one behind the other, with matching, unsuppressible grins.

When Mark saw a large ant crawling on Pete's binder in computers, he pointed and said as innocently as possible, “There's an ant on your binder.”

“Gah!” shouted Pete. He slapped his binder down on a desk. “What's with all these damn ants?”

The computers teacher reprimanded Pete for slamming his binder down and saying “damn,” and Pete said, “But there were ants all over my locker this morning!”

Mark stole another glance at the binder, and saw that there were little black dots of dead ants all over it. Inside, he was giving Pete his take-that look.

The computers teacher tried not to smile. “Perhaps you should try to keep your locker more sanitary.”

“Yeah, what do you
have
in there that it's infested with bugs?” Mark asked.

“Shut up, Hopper.”

“That is
so
disgusting,” said one girl to another.

“I know,” the girl said back, curling her lip and staring at Pete. “Nasty.” The girls giggled.

Pete turned bright red.

“There's an ant on your arm,” said Mark.

 

“Miss Vilansky!” whined Nora Tristam during English. “All these flies are all around Frank, and they're coming onto my desk.”

All eyes, including Jonathan's, turned to Frank. Sure enough, there was a swarm of flies circling his head and his desk. A congregation of them seemed to be holding a meeting on the decal on the front of his sweatshirt. He tried to stay still and pretend they weren't there, but after a few seconds he had to try to swat them away.

“Yeah,” said the boy who sat in front of Frank. “He's like Pigpen from Charlie Brown.”

“You watch Charlie Brown?” Frank said. “What are you, five?”

“Ha!” said a boy in the next row. “He does look like Pigpen!”

Everyone laughed and started to talk. Jonathan included.

Miss Vilansky quieted them down and suggested Frank go freshen up in the restroom.

“If it doesn't work, can he sit somewhere else when he comes back?” Nora asked. “I can't concentrate with all of these flies.”

Though Frank and Pete were tormented by the bugs all day, it was Laurie and her locker neighbor who reported the matter to the main office. “My locker couldn't be cleaner,” Laurie said. “Someone planted these bugs. It's disgusting.”

Ethel called some custodians to clean out their lockers, and a crowd formed—among the crowd were Jasmina and Jonathan—in the hallway as they paraded to the scene with doctor's masks on their faces and buckets full of cleaning products in their hands. Even with the masks concealing their mouths, they seemed disgusted by the dried juice and infestation of mosquitoes. Shortly afterward, the principal, Mr. Haverty, made an announcement over the loudspeaker that anyone with information regarding the “sixth-grade insect incident,” or anyone who noticed suspicious behavior that morning or yesterday afternoon, to report to his office immediately. Mark and Mark tried not to look at each other in gym when they heard it, and they both silently prayed that their matching clothing would work according to plan.

It couldn't have worked better.

The boy who had seen Mark at Laurie's locker in the morning when he left the bathroom, anxious to get out of class, went down to the office and reported the suspicious behavior he'd witnessed. “I don't know if it's anything,” he said with a shrug, “but I never saw this guy by those lockers before. And it was where the bugs were.”

“Do you know who it was?” Mr. Haverty asked.

“I don't know his name,” the kid said. “But he was in khaki pants and a blue collared shirt, tucked in. And he had freckles.”

Mr. Haverty mumbled as he wrote it down. “Khaki pants, blue shirt tucked in, freckles. Anything else? Hair color? Eye color?”

“Brown hair. But I have no idea about the eyes. I don't normally gaze into boys' eyes.”

Becky Tummelstein also answered the announcement. “I was in school early because my sister got early-morning detention,” she explained to Mr. Haverty. “And my mom didn't want to drive here twice. And when I went into the hallway I saw, like, a swarm of flies up by the light.”

“Any clue who did it?”

“Well, I did see someone walking away. His back was to me, but it looked like Mark Hopper.”

“Mark Hopper . . .” the principal said as though he was trying to wrap the name around his tongue. “What does he look like?”

“Brown hair, freckles, usually wears khaki pants and his shirt tucked in.”

“Aha! Just wait here a minute, Miss Tummelstein.” Mr. Haverty went across to the main office. “Have you heard of Mark Hopper?” he asked the secretaries.

Their looks said it all. “Which one?” asked one woman.

“There are two?” Mr. Haverty asked.

“Oh yes.”

“Then the one with brown hair, freckles, khaki pants, and tucked-in shirt.”

“Oh,” said Mindy. “
That
Mark Hopper,” referring to the one who had stood bug-eyed and scared before her the first day of school.

“Ugh,” said Ethel, “
that
Mark Hopper,” referring to the Mark Hopper who had marched into the office with a music book and a blue ribbon over the summer.

“Call him down to my office immediately. He's probably responsible for this bug business.”

Ethel and Mindy looked at each other. The Mark Hoppers they were thinking of were troublesome, but they weren't trou blemakers. “Oh,” they both said. “You must mean the
other
Mark Hopper.”

“Okay,” said the principal, exasperated. “Call the
other
Mark Hopper down immediately, then.” He walked back to his own office, where Becky was waiting. “Which Mark Hopper did you see this morning?” he asked her.

Becky cocked her head. “There are two?” she asked.

 

When Mr. Haverty interrogated Mark Hopper, Mark sat quietly in the large leather chair. His hands were folded neatly in his lap, his ankles were crossed in his khaki pants, and his eyes were wide with fear of the principal. “I had nothing to do with it,” he said. “Honest. I'm a good kid. You can ask any of my teachers!” He sighed. “You probably want the other Mark Hopper. I think his sister likes pulling pranks.”

When Mr. Haverty interrogated Mark Hopper, Mark sat at the edge of the large leather chair. His arms were crossed angrily in front of his blue collared shirt, and his eyes were fixed on the principal's face. “I had nothing to do with it,” he said. “I can't even believe you would accuse me of such a thing. I am a straight-A student. I am above playing stupid pranks. You can ask any of my teachers.” He gave him his I-am-sick-of-people-mixing-me-up-with-that-moron look. He rolled his eyes. “You probably want the other Mark Hopper. I think his sister has access to bugs.”

After school, Mr. Haverty spoke with a number of Mark's teachers, who all said that Mark was sweet and shy, and they didn't think he was the type to pull pranks. “But doesn't he have a sister who pulled pranks here?” the principal asked.

“I think you're thinking of the other Mark Hopper,” they said.

Then he spoke with a number of Mark's teachers, who all said that Mark was outspoken though getting nicer, and they didn't think he was the type to pull pranks.

“But didn't his sister used to pull pranks? Or does she have access to bugs?”

Most of the teachers scratched their heads, and then said politely, “Maybe you're thinking of the other Mark Hopper.”

His last hopes were the teachers who had them both in class at the same time. He explained the situation to Mrs. Frances, their homeroom teacher, first. “One has brown hair, and the other has slightly browner hair. But they don't really look alike, see? One is about this tall, and the other's about . . . well, also about this tall. But one of them has a sister who likes bugs, and one of them has a sister who pulled pranks. Or maybe one has both sisters. Or maybe they're the same sister . . . So do you know which one of them might be responsible?”

“I'm not sure, but maybe the one who sits there,” Mrs. Frances said slowly, pointing to Mark's seat.

“Okay. Which one is that?”

“He has brown hair,” she said, pointing to the principal and nodding. “And freckles, I think.”

“So the one with the sister who pulls pranks?”

“Is he the one who usually wears collared shirts?”

“They both do.”

“I think the boy I'm thinking of is named . . . Mark Hopper!” declared Mrs. Frances.

Mr. Haverty threw up his hands. “They're both named Mark Hopper!”

Mrs. Frances squinted and rubbed her chin. “You mean there's more than one?” she asked.

The principal gave up.

Mark floated on air throughout Thanksgiving weekend. Operation: Bug Dump had gone better than they ever could have hoped, he got an A on a big art project, he got a seventy-eight on a really tough math test, and he and his mom and Beth and Grandpa Murray all flew up to their old town in Massachusetts to spend the long weekend with his dad. Mark spent Friday with Sammy, playing video games and trading comic books and talking about sixth grade. Mark told Sammy all about Jonathan and Jasmina and a lot about the other Mark Geoffrey Hopper, but mostly he talked about Operation: Bug Dump. Beth and Mark begged their dad to tell them what his big surprise was all weekend, and when he refused to budge, they tried to trick him into telling them. They said things like “When's the moving truck arriving, Dad?” And he'd say something mysterious like, “As soon as I call them and arrange it.” Mark thought that meant he was all ready to move but hadn't called the truck yet, but Beth warned that it might mean that he didn't yet have a reason to call them. Even so, Mark was so happy all weekend that he returned to Greenburgh feeling like he could conquer just about anything. That Mastermind tournament was in the bag.