Sidetracked Read online

  The class collapses in moans and groans, but Mrs. Fishbein bravely carries on. “In 1876 . . .”

  “Eighteen seventy-six?” whines Jordan Glazer. “Seriously?”

  “. . . Melvil Dewey invented our system to organize books. . .”

  Oddly enough, while the other kids find this Dewey Decimal thing hilarious or boring or hilariously boring, I think it’s kind of fascinating. Once you get past “F” for Fiction and “B” for Biography, books are organized with numbers, down to the last little detail. Science is in the 500s, animals are 590s, mammals are 599, and camels, deer, giraffes, and hippos have a number that’s just theirs: 599.73.

  I start wondering where I’d find toilet paper or peanut butter or killer bees. I try to figure out what number I’d have—if I’d be in the 900s for being from New York, the 400s for speaking English, the 500s for being a primate, or back in the 100s for going to the school psychologist. I wonder who decides which part of you is the most important, and if they’re always right.

  I picture myself scattered all around the library, a little bit of me here, a little bit there.

  The problem is, while I’m thinking about that, Mrs. Fishbein is explaining the exercise we’re about to do. That’s when the other kids somehow know to start listening. And that’s the part I always miss.

  So I’m not expecting it when Nicole Abruzzi sticks a pencil in my face, point first, just as I’m reaching for a worksheet that Patrick McCarthy is holding just out of my reach, so I just miss getting my eye poked out. Then Mrs. Fishbein plops a book in my lap. It’s called Get in Shape, Boys! A Teen Guide to Getting Strong, Being Fit, and Feeling Confident. It’s got pictures of all these buff-looking guys on the cover. One has his shirt open with all these muscles popping out, and two have pretty girlfriends smiling up at them.

  The exercise has something to do with the book’s Dewey Decimal number, but I’m not sure what. I have the pencil in one hand and the paper in the other, and this big, heavy book in my lap.

  Everybody around me is looking inside their book, scribbling away on their worksheet, and filling in the blanks, but I have three objects and two hands and I don’t have a clue what the assignment is. So I do what I do sometimes. I just sit there, wondering how everyone else doesn’t seem to have a problem, when I do.

  There’s always someone who calls attention to this habit of mine, and now it’s Nicole Abruzzi, who has her own habit of pulling down her stretchy top. She does that now and says, “Joseph is just sitting there.” Then everyone looks at me and at the book in my lap, and everybody laughs. And I swear, I’m not even moving, but somehow that’s when my rear loses its grip on the slippery gray chair and I land on the floor.

  I’m expecting Mrs. Fishbein to be mad because I wasn’t listening and because I’m on the floor, but instead she gives the class a sharp, warning look. They stop laughing. Out loud, anyway. She takes the pencil out of my right hand and takes the work sheet out of my left hand and heaves Get in Shape, Boys! A Teen Guide to Getting Strong, Being Fit, and Feeling Confident off my lap. Somehow she still has a hand left. She gently holds my wrist and leads me over to a table.

  Then she tells me what I have to do. The point is to write on the work sheet all the information about Get in Shape, Boys! A Teen Guide to Getting Strong, Being Fit, and Feeling Confident I would need if I had to find the book and use it in a research paper: the title, the author, the publisher, when and where it was published, and, of course, the Dewey Decimal number.

  She asks if I have any questions, and I don’t. Sitting at the table makes it much easier than having it all in my lap. If Mrs. T was here, she’d know that the spaces on the worksheet are way too small for my handwriting, especially with the title Get in Shape, Boys! A Teen Guide to Getting Strong, Being Fit, and Feeling Confident, and she’d give me a separate sheet of paper to write my answers on. But I do what I can, making a sharp right turn at the edge of the paper, writing down the side, and squashing it in at the bottom of the page.

  When the bell rings, Mrs. Fishbein tells the class to leave their books, worksheets, and pencils on their chairs, and they’re all out in the hall in about three seconds. I, on the other hand, watch my work sheet catch the breeze from the closing door and float away, while my pencil rolls off the table in the other direction.

  Mrs. Fishbein starts collecting the other kids’ work sheets. I’m reaching under a table to retrieve mine when I hear her say with a chuckle, “Maybe it is time for me to retire.”

  “I’m sorry,” I say. “Am I that bad?”

  “Oh, Joseph, not you!” says Mrs. Fishbein. She sits down on one of those slippery chairs and pats the one beside her. “I just mean, after all these years, I still make so many mistakes. I didn’t mean to make the morning a bad one for you.”

  I hand her my work sheet, which has handwriting going in about six different directions. I sit down next to her, holding on this time, so I don’t slide too far. “It’s okay,” I say. “It wasn’t really any worse than usual.”

  “They offered me a nice retirement package,” she says. “But I didn’t feel ready.” Sometimes adults talk to me like I’m one of them. It’s kind of like when a funny-colored duck is rejected by its flock, and a kindly goose takes it in. “I didn’t feel finished yet. With what, I’m not sure. But I’ve always felt that there are possibilities in everything, if you don’t give up.” She glances at my work sheet and she doesn’t even look disappointed. Then she looks back at me. “But maybe I’m just old and outdated, like poor Melvil Dewey.”

  I’m about to tell her how much I like the Dewey Decimal system, but then the bell rings and she looks at the clock. “Oh, my!” she says, popping up. “Now I’ve made you late. Let me get you a late pass.”

  As she’s writing out a pass, I keep thinking about Get in Shape, Boys! A Teen Guide to Getting Strong, Being Fit, and Feeling Confident. I can feel those guys looking over at me, daring me to join them in their smiling, muscled confidence.

  “Um, Mrs. Fishbein?” I say.

  “Yes, Joseph.”

  “Can I um . . . borrow that book?”

  Her face lights up. “Of course! Of course you can! Bring it over here.” I go get it and plunk it on the desk and she takes the bar-code reader from its cradle. She wrinkles her nose at it. “Let’s see if this thing works. It was on the fritz yesterday . . .”

  She points the little red laser line at the book and flinches when it goes blip. I put the book in my backpack so no one can see it.

  Mrs. Fishbein hands me my late pass. “Have a good day, Joseph,” she says.

  “Thanks,” I say. “And, Mrs. Fishbein?”

  “Yes, Joseph?”

  “You shouldn’t retire. You’re a really good librarian and I like the Dewey Decimal system.”

  Mrs. Fishbein smiles at me. “Thank you, Joseph. Me, too.”

  I step out into the hall, my backpack now three times heavier. It’s only the second day of school, and I realize my next class is a total mystery to me.

  Instead of finding my schedule, I take a guess that it’s English, and since I’m late, the door is closed. When I open it, I’m staring at a bunch of eighth-graders who take one look at my shocked face and burst out laughing. I have to wonder, Don’t any of them ever make a mistake? Doesn’t anybody know what it feels like?

  I guess not, because even after the door closes behind me, I can hear the teacher banging on the desk to get their attention. In the hallway, I dig into my backpack and find my schedule, crumpled and squashed at the bottom. My next class is French. I hurry through the halls, but by the time I get there, class has already started. Madame Labelle is rattling happily away in a language I can’t even hope to understand.

  Chapter 7

  I try to be quiet and not interrupt Madame Labelle, so I put the late pass on her desk and slide into the first chair I see. It’s only after I sit down that I see Heather is next to me. I didn’t even know she was in my French class. She gives me a quick glance, but she’
s paying attention to Madame Labelle. I think she’s still mad. But then I think, Maybe she’s not mad, maybe she’s just a good student.

  Madame Labelle is speaking in French. She told us yesterday that the best way to learn a language is to hear it spoken, but that seems backward to me. It would make more sense for the learning part to come first. I admit, it sounds nice—kind of singsong, like the way you talk to a pet—but I doubt I’ll ever catch on to what any of it means.

  Heather is still paying attention, but every few seconds she looks down at her desk. I see that she’s drawing something. It’s in pencil. I watch her scritch and scratch on the pad, but I can’t make out what she’s sketching.

  Madame Labelle is tall and thin and she’s wearing a short, sleeveless dress, so you can see how muscly her arms and legs are. She has on green high heels, and they click on the checkered tan-and-brown tile. She does this thing where after every sentence she turns on one pointy heel and clicks off in a completely new direction. Usually she turns on a brown tile, but sometimes on a tan one. She clicks to the left. She clicks to the right.

  When she starts clicking my way, I realize I’m in trouble.

  Madame Labelle is looking at me and she’s waiting for me to say something. After a few seconds, she taps her ear and says a word that sounds like Ay cootay and then she turns to a boy named Gregory, who says something like “Germ lapel Gregory.”

  Then she turns to Heather, who is hiding her notepad on her lap, under the desk. Heather says, “Germ lapel Heather.”

  So then Madame Labelle looks back at me and even I can figure out what I’m supposed to do. “Germ lapel Joseph,” I say. Madame Labelle gives me one of those warning smiles that aren’t really smiles at all, and clicks off to the front of the room, where she turns her back to us and starts to write on the whiteboard.

  I start to copy what she’s writing, but it’s hard when the letters seem randomly lined up and apostrophes are flying all over the place. Then I hear a thunk and I look down to see that Heather’s notepad has slid off her lap. It lands in the aisle between us. Madame Labelle hardly even glances over her shoulder. Since it’s coming from my general direction, she probably assumes it’s just me being my usual clumsy self.

  When I lean over to pick up the notepad, I see what Heather’s been drawing. It’s Madame Labelle, but she’s a frog, with long muscly legs and high heels. I try not to laugh as I hand it back to Heather. She takes it without looking at me, puts it back on her lap, and gets back to copying down what Madame Labelle is writing: “Je m’appelle . . .” and then, “Comment t’appelles-tu?” I copy it as well as I can. My mom took French, and she works at Maison, which is a French name, so I figure I can ask her what it means later.

  The rest of the period goes by in a blur of gargled “r”s and puckered “ooh”s, and when the bell rings, I run after Heather.

  “Heather, wait up,” I call out, trying to sound like we’re old friends.

  She stops and turns.

  “You draw really well,” I add.

  Heather shrugs. “I got in the habit at my old school,” she explains, “when I got bored in class.”

  “Yeah, I know what you mean,” I say, even though boredom isn’t really my main problem. “You should draw Mr. Tompkins. The principal. He looks like a walrus.”

  “He might be more manatee than walrus,” she says. “You can’t jump to conclusions. You have to study someone to know for sure.”

  As she’s talking, I feel like she’s studying me that way. I wonder if she notices how my backpack is riding low on my back, weighted down with Get in Shape, Boys! Or how my sweatshirt doesn’t have buttons or a zipper, because I only wear buttons or a zipper if I absolutely have to. I wonder what animal she’d draw me as. After this morning, probably some annoying insect or a monkey. I hope I’m not a monkey.

  Maybe it’s not too late to change her mind. “I’m sorry about before,” I say. “About not believing you. I bet she’s a really good athlete. That girl you told me about. I mean, she’d have to be, right? If she won a medal?”

  “A gold medal,” she says.

  “Right,” I say. “I thought you were tricking me. A lot of people do that here.”

  “That’s mean,” she says. “To trick somebody.”

  “That’s why they do it,” I say.

  She’s studying me even harder now. She stares at me for what seems like a whole minute, then she gets a kind of half smile on her face, like she’s made up her mind. Like she’s decided that I’m some kind of furry, harmless creature. A gerbil, maybe. Or a hamster.

  “We had a walrus type in Cherryfield,” she says. “Mr. Sammell. I drew every teacher like ten times. Cherryfield is pretty small.”

  “Smaller than Lakeview?”

  “Way smaller. My mom grew up there. She was Blueberry Princess three years in a row.” I can’t tell if she’s proud of that or not. It sounds more like one of those things you’ve heard your parents say a million times and now it’s just annoying.

  “There isn’t an anything princess here, is there?” she asks me.

  “No.”

  “And Lakeview isn’t the anything capital of the world?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  She nods. Then she says, “So, you going to the track meeting later?”

  “Um, yeah. Sure,” I answer, trying to sound like it was never in doubt.

  “Okay. See you there,” she says, starting down the hallway.

  “Wait,” I call after her. “What was her name again? The Olympics person?”

  “Stephanie Brown Trafton,” she calls back, “Beijing 2008 Summer Olympics, gold medal in discus, two hundred and twelve feet, five inches.” Then she breaks into a trot, and just like on the track this morning, she’s gone.

  Chapter 8

  After school, as I’m gathering my stuff at my locker, I realize that Grandpa is probably home. I really want to hear about how prison was in Atlantic City, but now I’ve promised Mrs. T and Heather that I’ll go to the track meeting. There’s no way I’m going to disappoint them both, so I go to Room D-5. There’s a sign on the door:

  Track/Cross Country Meeting:

  Lower Field Track

  I run down the hall, out the back door, and across the upper field. It’s not a good sign that I’m already out of breath. When I reach the old concrete stairs, I use this morning’s technique. I grab the railing and wobble down to the track, where a group of kids is waiting.

  There are four boys and five girls. I know their names, but the only ones I’ve ever spoken to are Sanjit and Erica from the Resource Room. And Heather. Three of the boys are standing around whacking the ground with their heels, and the girls are comparing shoelaces. Except for Heather. She’s standing on the outside of the crowd.

  “I’m late,” I tell her. I’m not quite sure why. It’s not like she’s in charge.

  “Coach isn’t here yet,” she says with a shrug. I like the way she says “Coach,” like she’s done this before. Like she’s called somebody “Coach” and knows what it feels like.

  “Do you know who it is?” asks a kid named Sammy Small. He is, as a matter of fact, small, and he’s hanging from a branch of a big maple tree, trying to shake the leaves off. Sammy seems to have a little bit of an energy problem. I wonder if he should be in the Resource Room.

  “Who who is?” answers Heather.

  “The coach.”

  “No,” she says, and Sammy drops down and runs back to the boys’ group.

  “I bet it’s DeSalvo,” says a boy named Wes. He has a lot of curly hair that droops down just below his eyebrows.

  “No way. DeSalvo does soccer,” Sammy says.

  “O’Mara?”

  “Nah. He’s girls’ tennis,” says Sanjit.

  “Ugh, don’t mention girls’ tennis,” says a girl named Victoria. She’s standing with her friend Teresa, which is not surprising. They’ve been inseparable since elementary school. I remember seeing them practice cartwheels at recess, a
nd sometimes I hear them talking to each other in Spanish.

  “Why?” asks Sanjit.

  “We joined the rec squad last year,” says Teresa. “We were on the bench the entire time.”

  “If you haven’t taken lessons since you were, like, four, forget it,” adds Victoria.

  “I got cut from travel soccer three years in a row,” says a girl named Brianne.

  “Little League,” says a kid named Mark, “I got bumped down to the minors.”

  I’m starting to see a pattern here.

  “I wonder if there are cuts in track,” says Sanjit.

  “I don’t know, but my older brother says in high school they make you run till you throw up,” says Wes.

  “Sweet,” says Sammy.

  I hear a grinding sound coming from the direction of the gym. It reminds me of the noise a garbage truck makes when it chews up trash. When I look over, I see that it’s Mr. Papasian clearing his throat. For one horrible second, I think maybe he’s our coach, but then I see the football players behind him.

  “Let’s go, gentlemen,” he’s saying in his scratchy voice. “Get your lazy a—” Then there’s a pause. “We’re not out here to admire nature’s bounty.”

  “Nature’s what?” says Sammy.

  “Bounty,” Teresa says. “Leaves and stuff.”

  “He has to watch how he talks,” explains Wes. “He had to go to anger management, so he can’t yell or use bad language.”

  “I heard he threw a brick at a kid,” says Brianne.

  “It was just a Lego. My sister was there,” says Victoria.

  As they discuss Coach Papasian, I see what’s slowing the football players down. Charlie Kastner and Zachary are having a spitting contest. It seems like Zachary is winning the contest, but then Charlie stops mid spit-launch when he sees something way more entertaining: us.

  His eyes get big and he starts to smile, looking us over like we’re a box of doughnuts he just opened and every single one is frosted or cream-filled.

  “Look!” calls Charlie. “Look. Are they . . . some kind of team?” Zachary shrugs. “Friedman! Are you joining a girls’ team or something? What sport is it, Friedman? Knitting?”