The Trouble with Mark Hopper (5 page)

The bell sounded and the few students who had been talking abruptly became silent. Mark stood by the chair on which he'd almost sat, staring at Mrs. Frances with curiosity.

“Good morning!” Mrs. Frances sang. “Welcome back! I hope you had a nice summer. Eighth grade will be tough, but it will also be fun.”

All of the students—sixth graders—looked around anxiously as though trying to gauge the age of the others and determine if the mistake was hers or theirs. None were brave enough to ask. Mrs. Frances slowly turned her whole body to show each part of the classroom her broad smile. Her teeth were smeared with lipstick. “We are going to sit alphabetically. Please take a seat when I call your name.” She rotated with her smile once more before beginning: “Halpern, Julie.” Julie Halpern took the first seat. The list continued all through the
H
s, students filing into their seats one by one. The process took a long time because as each student sat down, Mrs. Frances personally welcomed him or her to the eighth grade.

When Mrs. Frances called Max Hooper, Mark Hopper thought it might be a mistake, and moved to sit down. But Max Hooper, a short, squat boy with sharply cut blond hair, stared at him with his eyebrows raised. “Are you Max Hooper?” Max asked.

“Oh, sorry,” said Mark Hopper. “I'm—”

“No problem, dude,” said Max Hooper. He sat in the seat.

All of the other students laughed, and Mark felt his ears turning red for the second time that morning. They must have thought he was stupid, not knowing his own name. But once Mrs. Frances called Mark Hopper, they would understand what the confusion was.

“Horace, Jasmina,” said Mrs. Frances.

Jasmina began to sit down in the seat behind Max Hooper.

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

Jasmina jumped up.

“Please skip that seat,” Mrs. Frances said calmly. “That student is currently working out his schedule trouble.”

“Sheesh,” Jasmina whispered. “She has got to stop doing that.”

Mark's mind was racing. Mrs. Frances had skipped him. In alphabetical order, Hopper should come between Hooper and Horace. He ran through the alphabet silently to make sure.

Mrs. Frances just finished calling out the names, all the way through Jacobson, Katherine, when the bell rang to end homeroom. Everyone rose from their newly assigned seats and started heading out. Except for Mark—he had not been assigned a seat at all. Jasmina smiled at him before leaving. “This lady's a kook,” she said. “She doesn't know what she's talking about.”

“I hope so,” said Mark. “I need my new schedule, too.”

“I'd better run,” said Jasmina. “But good luck and welcome to the eighth grade!”

Mark was too nervous to laugh. He approached Mrs. Frances's desk.

“Yes?” she said.

“Hi, um. You didn't call me. I'm Mark Hopper.”

Mrs. Frances looked at him cockeyed for a moment before smiling. “Of course,” she said. “How did it go?”

“What?” said Mark. Remembering his manners, he quickly corrected himself and said, “Excuse me?”

“With your schedule?”

“Um, that's what I came to ask you about. There was a mistake with my schedule and I need a new one.”

“Speak up, please. I can barely hear you.”

“There was a mistake with my schedule. I'm supposed to get a new one.”

“So why did you leave the office?”

“What?” Mark was more confused than ever. Even though his last name fit perfectly in room 140, maybe he had come to the wrong homeroom. “Am I supposed to be in this homeroom? You didn't call me.”

Mrs. Frances smiled. “I didn't call you because I knew you were in the office. But you are in this homeroom.” She took out the roster and pointed to the line that read “Hopper, Mark Geoffrey.”

Mark stared at the roster for a full ten seconds before Mrs. Frances said, “Off to first period, Mark. You only get three minutes to change classrooms.” Then she chuckled and shook her head. “Silly me; you know how middle school works. You are in eighth grade!”

“I want to talk to your supervisor!” Mark Hopper bellowed.

Ethel sat with her shoulders squared and her lips pursed. Her eyes glowered at Mark over her square reading glasses. “For the last time,” she said in a clipped voice. “You will speak to
me,
young man. And I will only listen if you speak calmly, not if you yell.”

“I am speaking calmly!” Mark yelled. “And since you won't listen, then I'll speak to someone above you. The principal!”

Ethel looked right past him. “Next student, please. What can I help you with?”

Mark took a loud step aside and stood by the corner of Ethel's desk. His breathing was heavy and his face was hot. The schedule with art on it was clutched between his sweaty fingers. He told himself to calm down; he would get what he wanted only if he was thinking clearly enough to present his points. After a few deep breaths he felt more collected. But he didn't want Ethel to think he wasn't still angry or, worse, that she had won. So he glared at her with his most intense, I'm-going-to-make-you-sorry-you-ever-crossed-me glare that he occasionally practiced in front of the mirror at night.

Mark Hopper entered the office and took a place in the line. He saw the boy who had rushed past him and Jasmina earlier, shouting about his schedule—the one Jasmina knew—simmering by the front and staring at the secretary with a face so fierce it could be emitting invisible but deadly laser beams. Mark was amazed. He wondered what the problem with his schedule was. It must be something really serious if it had gotten him so worked up.

The other students spoke to the secretary one by one while Mark stood off to the side, making a show of his impatience. Twice, he looked at his wrist to signal that he had been waiting a long time, but the effect was weakened by the fact that he wasn't wearing a watch.

Mark Hopper didn't mind waiting about five minutes for his turn; it gave him time to plan out and practice what he was going to say. When he finally stepped forward, the angry kid crossed in front of Ethel and protested. “I've been waiting a really long time now,” he said.

“Yes, thank you for your patience,” said Ethel sweetly. “Just let me help this young man and then it will be your turn.”

Mark let out a long, loud sigh but stepped aside once more.

Mark Hopper approached the desk cautiously. “Sorry,” he said to Mark. “This shouldn't take too long.”

Mark responded with a sneer that Mark interpreted as an attempt at a smile.

“I need to talk to you about my schedule,” he said, trying to remember the way he had practiced it in his head. “My name is Mark Hopper.”

“What?” said Ethel.

“What?” said Mark.

“What?” said Mark. “I mean, excuse me?”

“Is this a joke?” said Ethel, crossing her arms.

Mark crossed his arms, too.

Mark became very nervous. “No,” he said, forgetting everything he had planned in an instant. “There was, um, a problem with my schedule, and um . . .”

Ethel placed her hands on her desk and looked at both Marks over her glasses. “This is not funny, boys,” she said severely.

“Me?” shouted Mark Hopper, his five minutes of calming himself down flying out the window in under one second. “Who put you up to this?” he snapped to Mark.

“I really don't know what you're talking about,” Mark said quietly.

Mark Hopper began pacing the room, waving the sweat-covered, crumpled schedule. “Ha-ha. Mark Hopper has a schedule problem and needs to go to the office. Wouldn't it be funny if someone went to pretend to be him to make fun of him?”

Mark looked at Mark with round eyes. He would have been afraid if he hadn't been so confused.

“Who put you up to this?” Mark said in a low voice. “Frank Stucco? Pete Dale?”

“No,” said Mark.

“Was it my sister?” Mark asked, his voice rising.

Ethel cleared her throat. “I don't want to have to send both of you boys to the principal on the first day of school,” she said, though her tone of voice suggested that she did. “Is there really even a problem with your schedule at all?”

“Yes,” said both Marks at the same time, though one much louder than the other.

“My schedule has art on it instead of band. Again.”

“My schedule should have art, but it's all wrong. I was supposed to get a new one in homeroom.”

“All right,” said Ethel. “I remember speaking with your mother,” she said to the irate Mark, “and she told me that you were one hundred percent sure that you wanted art.”

The wide-eyed Mark became even wider-eyed. “My mom spoke to someone and said that
I
definitely wanted art, too.”

“So your mom is in on this, too?” shouted Mark. “Let's all make fun of Mark Hopper.”

“But I am Mark Hopper.”

Mark huffed.

Ethel looked from Mark Hopper to Mark Hopper and back to Mark Hopper. A few of the other secretaries and office staff had stopped working or emerged from the back of the office to watch the scene. “He seems like the real Mark Hopper to me,” one whispered to another, who shook her head and whispered that she thought the opposite.

Mindy, who'd been listening from her desk nearby, got up and stood by Ethel. She logged in to the computer and brought up Mark's information. “Mark Geoffrey Hopper,” she said.

“Yes,” said Mark.

“Hi,” said Mark.

“How do you spell Geoffrey?” Mindy said.

While Mark said,
“G-E-O-F-F-R-E-Y,”
Mark said, “The dumb way, with a
G
.”

“Which of you has a sister named Beth?” tried Mindy, smiling at her genius.

“Me,” said Mark, sticking his nose in the air.

“I do,” said Mark, amazed that they knew his sister's name.

“Do you guys have ID? A driver's license?” asked Mindy, becoming exasperated.

“I'm eleven,” said Mark. He gave her his I'm-much-smarter-than-you'll-ever-be look that he practiced every time someone said something stupid.

“I assume you both live on Crown Road?” said Ethel, squinting at the computer screen.

“I live on Crown Road,” said Mark.

Everyone waited in silence for Mark to say that he did, too. But he finally said, “I don't live on Crown Road.”

“Aha!” said Ethel. Then her smiled faded. She wasn't sure what she had proved.

Mindy looked at the computer. “When is your birthday?” she asked the Mark who lived on Crown Road. The file said March 10.

“April fourth,” replied Mark.

Mindy sighed.

“My birthday is March tenth!” yelled the Mark who did not live on Crown Road.

“Aha!” said Mindy. Then she and Ethel looked at each other. They were even more confused.

“Look,” said Mark. He waved his arms to get everyone's attention. “I think you are all the dumbest people alive. Either this guy is playing a really big joke on all of us, or we are both named Mark Geoffrey Hopper.”

Mark's eyes became round as he realized that that actually made sense. That would explain why band was on his schedule and why binders with his name on them were in his locker. The binders! He opened his backpack and took out the folder on which he'd written his name in big, sprawling letters. “This is mine,” he said. Then he took out one of the binders he had taken from his locker that said PROPERTY OF MARK GEOFFREY HOPPER. PRIVATE AND NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS. “Is this yours?” he asked Mark.

“Yeah!” said Mark. He grabbed it and examined it for damage. Then he took out a matching one from his backpack and showed it to the office staff. “We're both Mark Hopper,” Mark said to the staff in his most uppity voice. “But you only have one Mark Hopper registered.” He shook his head and muttered, “Morons.”

The other Mark felt his ears turn red at his namesake's rudeness. “I'm sorry,” he stammered. Then he faced Mark with his eyes wide and round. He said, “I can't believe we have the exact same name.”

Mark huffed. He said, “I can't believe you stole my binder.”

“This other Mark Hopper is ruining my reputation,” Mark said to his sister that night.

Beth snorted. She took a piece of the gum she was chewing and stretched it out from her mouth, twirling it around and around her finger. “How can he be ruining your reputation when he just got there?” she asked as she twirled.

“People already think I'm stupid for getting so worked up about a schedule that didn't even belong to me.”

“People think you're stupid anyway,” Beth said.

“Shut up,” said Mark. “People know
I'm
not stupid. But who knows about this other Mark? He's probably really stupid. He'll probably fail all of his classes and then people will say, ‘Oh, Mark Hopper is pretty dumb,' and other people will think they're talking about me.”

Beth shook her gum-covered finger at her brother. “You're always thinking of yourself,” she scolded. “Think about this poor other guy named Mark Hopper. People are probably saying, ‘Mark Hopper is really ugly,' and other people will they think they mean him!”

Mark lifted a corner of his mouth. “Ha. Ha.”

“Yes,” continued Beth, examining the gum and looking under the couch for a place to put it. “I think I like this other Mark.”