Trouble Magnet (7 page)

me, Julio, and Rubin, all of us speckled with pieces of food. “You four go get cleaned up. We're going to talk about this later.”

We slunk away.

“Move it!” Mr. Purdy shouted.

We couldn't run unless we were on the playground, so we started fast-walking. I sped ahead, eager to escape Mr. Purdy's angry look.

At the cafeteria, I zoomed around the corner and smacked right into something. “Ooof!” It felt like I'd run into a cow. Stars winked, my head spun.

It was Tito Sinbad Andrade. He staggered back.

He was holding a small box of grape juice and must have squeezed it when we hit. Purple juice was splattered all over his brand-new
SmackDown
T-shirt.

“Oh, man,” Julio whispered. “You are so dead.”

B
ut Tito didn't notice his shirt yet.
“Hey!”
he spat. “Watch where you're going!”

I felt a small lump rising on my forehead.

Tito looked at the grape juice dripping off his hand.

And all over his—

“Haw!” He stepped back, looking down at
his ruined T-shirt. His eyes bulged like golf balls. “My shirt!”

“Sorry, I didn't mean—”

Tito threw the juice box at my feet, stomped on it, and shoved me.
Wham!
“Look what you did!”

He raised his fist. I ducked, but before he swung, Mr. Tanaka came out of the library.

Tito held back, his fist shaking. He glared at me. “I get you after school,” he whispered through clenched teeth. “You going pay for this!” He shoved me again, but not too hard, because Mr. Tanaka was watching. “You ain't seen the last of this, no.”

Tito glanced at Mr. Tanaka and waved, as if saying, Hey, everything's cool, heh-heh.

Mr. Tanaka kept looking.

Tito banged past, bumping me with his shoulder, trying to brush away the ugly purple stains.

I groaned. In a single second I'd turned Tito's new T-shirt into his mom's next dust rag.

“It was an accident,” I said to no one.

Willy stood gawking, watching Tito walk away. “Who is that guy?”

“Sinbad,” Julio said.

“His name is Sinbad?”

“No, it's Tito,” Julio said. “Sinbad is his middle name and don't ever call him that. Stay away from him … if you can.”

I closed my eyes, thinking, I won't even make it home. Tito will pick his teeth with my bones!

We cleaned up in the boys’ bathroom and headed back to the parking lot. Uncle Scoop's truck was still there, but no kids.

“Shoot. They went back to class.”

We started back to Mr. Purdy's room.

“Is Coconut
really
your last name?” Willy asked. “Or was Mr. Purdy joking?”

“It's real now. My dad made it up.”

“Why?” Willy asked.

But I wasn't listening. I was thinking: Right now Tito and that Frankie guy are probably deciding where they're going to jump me.

“Calvin?” Willy said.

“Huh?”

“Your name,” Julio said. “Tell Willy.”

“Oh. Yeah. Sorry. See, my dad's a singer, and he changed his name. It used to be Novio. Italian.”

“You don't look Italian.”

“My dad's Italian. My mom is Filipino, Hawaiian, and Chinese.”

“Cool,” Willy said.

“Hey, look,” Julio said. “There's Uncle Scoop. We should, you know, apologize or something.”

He was right. We messed up bad. “Yeah, let's do it.”

So we went over and apologized.

But Uncle Scoop wasn't nearly as angry as Mr. Purdy. “Thank you, boys. I appreciate your apology.” He shook his head and smiled. “I was in a few food fights myself, as a kid. And if you can keep a secret, so was your teacher.”

Mr. Purdy!

I still felt bad. We'd goofed up. “We won't do it again, Uncle Scoop.”

Unbelievably, he gave each of us two coupons for a free shave ice. “That's for apologizing. Recognizing and admitting you're wrong takes courage. Come see me down at the beach and have a shave ice. You know where to find me.”

Rubin's face lit up. “Ho! Thanks, Uncle Scoop.”

Uncle Scoop tapped Rubin's shoulder and winked.

“Wow,” Willy said as we headed back to class. “Uncle Scoop is a nice guy.”

“For sure.”

“But … what's a shave ice? Is it like snow cones?”

We stopped and looked at Willy like, What?

“A snow cone is crunched-up ice with fla-vory syrup on it.”

I said, “Right. Shave ice!”

Crazy, I thought. Willy never heard of that, or cuttlefish, or kimchee. He sure has a lot to learn. “Let me tell you about cracked seed,” I said. “And don't worry, it's not hot.”

“Does it stink?”

I laughed and slapped his back. He was okay, this haole kid. All he needed was a little education.

And all I needed was a giant bodyguard.

B
ack in class, I sat gazing out the window. Mr. Purdy had written a topic on the board and I was thinking.

“Give me at least five complete sentences,” Mr. Purdy said. “And remember to punctuate.”

I reread the topic.
How I can be all that I can be.
I liked that U.S. Army slogan. But all I could think of to write were a few words.

Like,
Study.

Try hard.

Don't pick my nose.

I grinned. Mr. Purdy was funny.

“Eeeeeee!”
somebody shrieked.

I jumped and whipped around. Doreen was climbing up on her chair, screeching like a hyena.

“Eeeeeee! Eeeeeee!”

Mr. Purdy hurried back to her.

“A
centipede!”
Doreen cried. “It crawled over my
foot! Eeeeeee!”

“Calm down, calm down,” Mr. Purdy said. “It can't get you up there. Where did it go?”

“I don't know! Get it!”

Rubin dove under his desk, looking for the centipede.

Maya pulled her feet up.

Julio stood by the door, ready to run.

Two girls sat on top of their desks, laughing.

I grabbed my hair and pulled. This can't be happening!

Everyone except Doreen was having a party. How cool was this? A centipede in class!

Mr. Purdy got down on his knees. “Anybody see it?”

I dove under my desk, calling the centipede in my mind: Here, peedy! Where are you, peedy, peedy?

“There it is!” Maya shouted. “It's running for the door!”

Mr. Purdy leaped up.

I banged my head on Kai's desk again.

Everyone was shrieking with delight, except Doreen, who was shrieking
with tears. I grabbed the jar out of my backpack and sprinted after the speedy peedy. Ho, man! This one was a rocket!