The Trouble with Mark Hopper (4 page)

Mrs. Hopper was taken aback. She couldn't imagine Mark speaking to anybody in an office of his own accord, and she certainly could not picture him being anything but polite. “I think you're mistaking my son for someone else,” she said. Mark looked up at her.

“I think
you're
mistaking your son for someone else,” Ethel said curtly.

Mrs. Hopper was becoming angry. “My son would never speak to anybody disrespectfully. He is a very sweet and caring boy. And
smart,
” she added, smiling down at Mark.

“Oh yes, he made sure we knew
that,
” Ethel said. And then, without saying anything else, she did something very impolite herself: she hung up.

Mark Hopper and Mark Hopper both got to school early on the first day; they both wanted to make a good impression on their teachers and demonstrate that they belonged in all honors classes.

Mark packed his backpack the night before, placing six different colored binders, with matching folders, in his backpack. Each contained the note that he had printed out on labels: PROPERTY OF MARK GEOFFREY HOPPER. PRIVATE AND NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS. He didn't want anyone copying his notes or stealing his homework and auctioning off the answers.

Mark also packed his backpack the night before, though its contents were only a pad of paper, a folder, a blue pen, a black pen, and two pencils. One of the pencils said PROPERTY OF MARK GEOFFREY HOPPER. Grandpa Murray had had those printed up and gave them to Mark when he started kindergarten. Mark was always lending them out, so he had only one left, and he considered it his lucky pencil. He had also written MARK HOPPER nice and big in permanent marker all over his folder. Beth had suggested he put his name on it so someone could return it to him in case it got lost. When Mark proudly showed her how he'd made his name stretch the whole folder, she stifled laughter and said that that wasn't quite what she had in mind, but it definitely could not be mistaken for anybody else's.

Mark Hopper got to school so early that there was hardly anybody else in the hallway. Only a few students were hanging out by the front doors, looking at their watches and checking their outfits and waiting for their friends to arrive. Mark passed a few kids he knew from elementary school on his way to his locker. “Hey, Steve-o,” he said to Steve Dobbs, whom he hadn't spoken to since second grade. “Don't have time to compare schedules, but don't worry. We might be in some classes together if you're in all honors.” He slapped Steve on the back and continued on, looking for locker 322. He found it on the first floor, right near a girls' bathroom. He stuck out his tongue in concentration while turning the combination. “Thirty-six . . .” he mumbled. “Turn right two times . . . four . . . turn left to eighteen . . . and . . . presto!” The lock opened with a satisfying
click.
“Bam!” Mark shouted. A girl with long black hair who was at a locker down the hall turned and gave him a strange look. “How's yours coming? I got mine on the first try, so if you need help just let me know,” Mark shouted down at her.

She stared at him as though he was from Neptune, then turned back to her locker.

Mark knelt down and unzipped his backpack. He took out a box that contained special locker shelves he had had his mother purchase. By the time he had fitted the shelves and placed his afternoon binders on them, a few more students were arriving and chatting. He looked around for Jasmina, who had locker 326, but didn't see her. He did see Frank Stucco, however, and he looked like he'd put on some weight over the summer. Not wanting Frank to see him, Mark closed up his locker and sauntered in the other direction. He passed the dark-haired girl, who was now leaning against a closed locker and chatting to a few other girls. “How'd it go with your locker?” Mark asked.

All of the girls looked at him blankly.

“I'm Mark Hopper,” he said.

The girls looked at one another, each wondering which of them knew him. Finally, one of them spoke. “I'm Laurie,” she said between bites on her nails.

“Do you have homeroom now?” asked the dark-haired girl, who decided to try to be friendly.

“Duh,” Mark said. He gave her his why-would-you-bother-saying-something-so-useless expression that he practiced on his sister daily. “Are you guys in all honors classes?”

Laurie nearly choked on the fingernail she was chewing. “What? Who cares?” she asked. The other girls crossed their arms and gave one another looks. One of them rolled her eyes and became very involved in looking through her book bag.

“Well, I am,” Mark said. “See you around.” As he walked away, he heard the girls laughing, and he could have sworn he heard one of them say something about meeting all the freaks. Well, he didn't want to be friends with people who weren't open to meeting new people anyway.

In the meantime, Mark Hopper arrived at Ivy Road with his eyes wide as ever. The school was so big, and the hallways were wide and crowded with students who were hugging and talking and comparing summer stories. He wished he had Sammy by his side, at least to help him find his locker and sit with at lunch. Reminding himself that most the sixth graders knew hardly anyone helped him feel a bit more confident. He hoped his teachers wouldn't be harsh about people being late; looking around the maze of hallways, he was sure it would take him at least a week to get used to where to go. A big kid in an Ivy Road Roadrunners jacket bumped into him. “Watch it, little guy,” he said. Mark apologized and stared after him, unsure of what to do. He turned in a complete circle, watching students open their lockers and put their jackets and some notebooks inside. That was it: he should find his locker. He took out a crumpled piece of paper from his pocket. Locker 322. He tried to get a look at the number on a locker nearby but his view was obstructed by a passing group of girls in matching cheerleader outfits: short skirts and tight tops with the letters
I
and
R
printed across them. He looked at the place on his wrist where a watch should have been. Did he have time to try to find his locker, or should he just try to find his homeroom? Maybe he should ask someone for the time. A girl who looked about his age was consulting a sheet of paper right near him. She had her long black hair in hundreds of tiny braids. “Excuse me,” Mark said.

The girl turned and smiled at him. Her braids swished. “You look lost,” she said.

“I'm new,” Mark said. He felt himself turning red.

“Me too. All the sixth graders are.” She said it kindly. “Have you found your locker yet?”

“No. Do you have any idea where number 322 might be?”

The girl's smile became a grin. “I think it should be right near mine. I'm 326. I'm Jasmina,” she said. “Let's go this way.”

Mark walked alongside her. “Thanks,” Mark said. “My name's Mark.”

“Huh,” said Jasmina. “There's another kid named Mark whose locker is right near ours, too. I think he's number 322.”

“I'm 322,” Mark said.

“Oh yeah,” said Jasmina. “Maybe he's 323 or something. Hey! All right. Here it is. Well, here's 326 anyway. Three twenty-two must be close.”

Mark thanked her and went one panel over to locker 322. He knelt down and entered the combination: 36-4-18. The lock opened without a problem and Mark let out a grateful sigh, even though he didn't really have anything to put in it. When he pulled open the door, however, his mouth dropped open. His locker was equipped with fancy shelves. He looked around to see if anybody else had shelves, but he couldn't tell. On the shelves, however, were three binders, each a different color. He didn't remember anything saying he had to share a locker. Could they have mistakenly assigned this locker to two people? Though he felt like he was snooping around someone's room, he reached for one of the binders. “Holy . . .” he muttered. On the cover was a printed sticker that said PROPERTY OF MARK GEOFFREY HOPPER. PRIVATE AND NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS. Was this a joke? He tried to look around to see if anybody else had binders labeled especially for them in their lockers. He wanted to ask someone, but what if giving students personalized binders on the first day was standard ritual at Ivy Road? Though his were awfully mean-spirited. And if no one else
did
find personalized binders in their lockers, then he'd really sound weird. If they were there on purpose, then that meant he'd need them for class, and he should put some in his backpack. But if it was some sort of mistake, then he should probably leave them there. But they did say his name on them—his
full
name, with his middle name spelled correctly and everything. Who else's could they be? He carefully took the black one off its shelf and stuck it in his backpack.

“Hey!”

Mark, startled, slammed his locker door closed and whirled around.

Jasmina laughed. “Sorry,” she said. “I didn't mean to scare you. What homeroom are you in?”

“Um,” Mark said, still trying to figure out the binder mystery and recover from being jolted out of his thought process.

“I figured that since our lockers are close we might have the same homeroom. I'm in room 140.”

Mark took out the crumpled schedule from his pocket. Sure enough, he was in room 140 as well.

“Cool!” said his new friend. “Want to compare the rest of our schedules?”

“We could,” Mark said, “but it'd kind of be a waste. They messed up my schedule, so I'm getting a new one in homeroom. It'll probably be all different.”

“Oh, well, let's compare once you get your new one, then. But come on, homeroom's almost starting.”

Mark felt his ears turning red as he walked alongside Jasmina toward homeroom.

In the meantime, Mark Hopper had found his homeroom, room 140, and introduced himself to the teacher, Mrs. Frances. Mrs. Frances had bright orange hair, crunchy-looking red lipstick, and drawn-on eyebrows. When Mark introduced himself and shook her hand, Mrs. Frances handed him Mark Hopper's new schedule.

“What is this?” Mark asked.

“There was a mistake with your schedule, and this is your new one. That's what the office told me.”

Mark looked at it through tight eyelids. His face grew red and his breath heavy. “Art?” he said through gritted teeth. “They put me back in art?”

“Is there a problem?” Mrs. Frances asked. Her smiling red lips angered Mark even more.

“Yes, there's a problem,” he said. “I need to go to the office and correct this.”

Mrs. Frances wrote him a pass.

Mark stormed away, barreling through the students entering the room and knocking one of them into the door frame.

“Whoa, hey!” the boy said.

“Get over it,” Mark shot back. He passed Jasmina and Mark Hopper. “Where are you going?” Jasmina called.

“They screwed up my schedule again!” Mark called back.

Jasmina shook her head. “I know him,” she told the Mark next to her. “He's always like that.”

“Really?” said Mark, his eyes round as usual.

“Always.”

The two walked into Mrs. Frances's room. About twenty students were there, standing near desks. A few were talking quietly, but most of them were just looking around. Mark and Jasmina went to neighboring desks and started to sit down.

“Don't sit down!” yelled Mrs. Frances.

Mark and Jasmina stopped themselves mid-sit. She had said it with such urgency that Mark was glad he hadn't sat yet—maybe the chair would have collapsed.

“I'm going to assign you seats,” Mrs. Frances said more calmly.

“Sheesh,” whispered Jasmina. “I thought the seats were covered in slime or something.”