Rules, Tools, and Maybe a Bully Read online

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  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Notice

  Dedication

  Begin Reading

  Copyright

  To my dad, who loves as full-heartedly as he lives and laughs. Your little girl still thinks you hung the moon.—R.V.

  For Dean—M.C.

  September 1, Wednesday

  I figured it out before I even opened my eyes.

  I was half awake but still lying still, wondering why it felt like in my heart there was a kind of fighting.

  And then, suddenly, my eyes opened because I knew:

  September.

  It was back.

  September 2, Thursday

  In our family we have a lot of rules. Like Share. That’s a biggie.

  But now it turns out that Don’t take Dad’s stuff is an even bigger one.

  So after the yelling by Mom, I was not allowed to use Dad’s tools anymore. Even though I really needed to build a lock to keep my little sister, Elizabeth, out of my room while Cash was over. Boys who are going into fourth grade don’t need an almost first-grader barging in and saying we are playing too rough.

  Even if we are.

  Building something with a toolbox, I was thinking, might be a way to calm things down, for goodness sake, which is another rule in our family: Not so wild in the house.

  We also have the Please and Thank you thing going strong here, and you’re supposed to just remember to say them without even a hint. After you eat, you have to say May I be excused? and then clear your plate. Those are not rules in my second-best-friend Noah’s family. Noah can just leave his stuff on the table and get up whenever he’s done. I am not sure what the rule is in Cash’s family, because they just moved here from Tennessee in June and I didn’t even know we were such great friends during camp.

  The way I found out we were such great friends in camp was: He told his mom we were, and so he wanted to have a playdate with me, so she called my mom on the phone with the news. Nobody asked me if I wanted a playdate with Cash. My mom just said, Of course, how wonderful, we’d be happy to have him over, how about Thursday? so here he was. Today. Whacking my stuffties, even the olds and the fragiles, with my Nerf sword and smiling and saying what a great time we were having.

  I said the word yeah to that. Because everybody says yeah to Cash. You can’t help it.

  No matter what Wingnut and Snakey think.

  I wasn’t being mean about their whacked and crumpled states. It’s just impossible to disagree with Cash. Even when you actually do disagree.

  When Cash first got dropped off, he told my mom he was pleased to meet her and thanked her for having him over at our beautiful home. I don’t know if our home actually is beautiful or if that’s just what people from Tennessee say instead of hello. My friends from here barely say hi and bye to parents.

  Now probably some new rules are going to pop up in our family about what I have to say to people’s parents about if their homes are beautiful.

  September 3, Friday

  In our family you are not allowed to say the word hate even if you actually, you know, the-opposite-of-like something. You have to say no thank you. I am not sure why. Rules are not always explained in our family.

  Things I no, thank you:

  1. Trying on a billion new sneakers at the shoe store today and ending up with the shiny silver ones instead of the soft brown-without-laces ones.

  2. Rules.

  3. Rough stuff.

  4. Bananas that are starting to get freckles.

  September 4, Saturday

  What I should be doing today:

  Getting ready for school to start, which it is going to do on Wednesday even though it’s still Augusty hot.

  What I am doing instead:

  Going to the County Fair, where there will be pigs and pies and lumberjacks.

  I didn’t know we liked any of those things. I didn’t even know we had a County. I thought we had a Town.

  I am not a huge fan of surprises or the word hurry.

  Or pie. Pie is fruit and goo, ganging up together and pretending to be dessert.

  Dad showed me a newspaper article to prove how fun the County Fair would be. It said the lumberjacks throw axes.

  I am not sure why Dad wants his kids near flying axes, but I am now pretending to have a Good Attitude just in case Dad is secretly evil.

  September 5, Sunday

  Lumberjacks are awesome.

  The one Elizabeth and I decided to root for was Mike O’Sullivan. He came in second in sawing through a tree trunk (3.1 seconds) and first in chopping the top half of a log off the bottom half (7.3 seconds). He also got first prize in tossing an ax at a target to slice open the can of soda that is squooshed into the bull’s-eye.

  That is an actual event: throw an ax at a target and explode a soda.

  I am totally going to be a lumberjack when I grow up, or at least for Halloween. Cash is too. He was also there, also rooting for Mike O’Sullivan.

  I am still not a fan of pie.

  But it turns out I do like kettle corn, fried dough, foot-long hot dogs, watermelon wedges, and cotton candy. Also: County Fairs and newborn piglets.

  And, best of all, not puking.

  Elizabeth likes all the same stuff I do. Unfortunately, she did not get to enjoy the Not Puking part of the night.

  September 6, Monday

  Today is Labor Day. Usually we go to my grandparents’ condo at the beach for Labor Day. But this year Gingy and Poopsie went on a cruise. If they like it, we can go on a cruise with them next year, Poopsie promised. They called from their first night on the ship to say that Poopsie forgot to pack any pants.

  Which I guess means that for the whole five days, Poopsie has been running all around a boat in the middle of the ocean—in his underpants. I totally want to go on a cruise like that. Instead we went to the town pool.

  We went with my second-best-friend, Noah, and his parents. Noah is a lot of fun, especially if you are interested in hearing about diseases.

  Xavier Schwartz and Gianni Schicci were already at the pool when we got there. They called out my name—well, not my actual name, which is Justin Krzeszewski, because nobody can pronounce that last name right, including most of the people who have it hanging off the back of their regular name. The name they called was “Justin Case.” Which is what everybody calls me. Well, everybody except grown-ups and Noah. Noah and grown-ups just call me Justin.

  “Justin Case!” Xavier yelled. He was in midair. A second later he slammed into the pool with a huge splashing cannonball.

  Gianni Schicci was waving both of his arms at me. “Justin Case! The Cannonball Champion of the World! Come on!”

  I was the gold-medal winner in one thing at camp and that one thing was Cannonball. Cannonball is not an Olympic sport yet, but maybe it will be by the time I’m old enough.

  I ran over and cannonballed into the pool. Me and Gianni and Xavier and then Cash, when he got there, all had a very splashy time until the lifeguard made us stop.

  We decided to go get Popsicles at the snack bar.

  Noah didn’t come with us. He was still dry, sitting on the lounge chair between the moms, covered in towels to keep from getting a sunburn. He said he wasn’t in the mood for Popsicles. So I said, “Okay,” and ran over to catch up with Cash, Xavier, and Gianni.

  It was the first time Noah ever
wasn’t in the mood for food.

  I hope he is not getting a disease.

  September 7, Tuesday

  School starts tomorrow. My pencils are sharpened. My hair is cut. My new sneakers are bought.

  So I guess I am ready.

  My new sneakers were so ready, they were practically glowing in the dark. That is why my dog, Qwerty, chewed them up. Because probably he thought they were dangerous bad-guy glow-in-the-dark aliens invading our house and he wanted to protect us from them. Mom didn’t get it. She had a very loud chat with him about inappropriate snacks.

  It was not the first Mom-Qwerty chat on that topic.

  Qwerty looked very sorry and ashamed.

  I took him out to the backyard and secretly thanked him. Those darn sneakers were too shiny, as shiny as Bartholomew Wiggins. Bartholomew Wiggins wears a jacket and tie and puts gel in his hair every first day of school. And sometimes on random Fridays or when there’s a class trip. He is the shiniest kid in my grade.

  It’s okay when first-graders look all shiny on the first day of school. But we are starting fourth grade, not first. Mom does not understand about sneakers looking better and more relaxed if they don’t shine. Maybe fourth grade was different way back when she was in it. They didn’t have computers or phones or music then either, I think, so maybe they had to make up for that by glowing in their sneakers.

  My grandfather, Poopsie, didn’t even have sneakers back when he was a kid. They weren’t invented. And he had to walk uphill five miles to get to school, and then five miles uphill coming home, in the snow all year long.

  Poopsie’s stories don’t always make a tremendous amount of sense. He says things were less settled back in The Day, which is when he grew up. That’s why he kept walking uphill in every direction, barefoot.

  He also had to play Stickball instead of normal games, and use a rock to get onto the Internet.

  Anyway, Qwerty got very excited about that secret that I told him about liking his improvement of my sneakers. We jumped around, both very happy, until one of us got knocked down and covered with drool, and the other of us couldn’t stop barking.

  Then we decided to come in and calm down for goodness sake.

  It is probably not that weird for a fourth-grader to be slightly worried before the first day of school. Even a little bit of worry can keep a person from falling asleep at bedtime. It doesn’t mean the fourth-grader is still a worried kid just because he needs to hold on to his stuffties and wish that the summer could last a little while longer.

  It probably doesn’t mean I am an evil bad guy if I wish that maybe an earthquake would swallow up the school (not hurting anybody because it could happen in the middle of the night when nobody is in the school) so there would have to be a summer vacation extension until they could pull the school out of that deep hole.

  Maybe using excavators and backhoes.

  That would be cool.

  Teachers probably get worried a little the night before the first day of school too. I think I heard about that as a fact somewhere. I bet from Noah. He knows billions of facts.

  Fourth-grade teachers who are taller than your dad and can move their eyebrows independently of each other in a way that is maybe a code that the students better learn right away so they don’t get in trouble, and who speak very quietly all the time and are named Mr. Leonard—even teachers like that might get a little worried the night before school starts.

  But probably not.

  Even my nicest stuffties like Wingnut and Really Giraffe don’t think Mr. Leonard is spending tonight wishing his mom would come sing him an extra lullaby and maybe bring him an ice pack so his hot pillow would cool the heck down.

  September 8, Wednesday

  I am officially a fourth-grader now.

  I sure hope Mr. Leonard was interested in hearing about lumberjacks as a writing sample.

  I am so used up, I can’t even think.

  September 9, Thursday

  There are a lot of transitions in fourth grade.

  Mr. Leonard expects us to cope with transitions smoothly.

  He calls us “young man” or “young lady” instead of our names. That’s a transition, I think. Okay, I am not actually 100 percent sure what a transition is. But teachers in the lower grades say your name.

  There’s no complaining or whining in fourth grade. There is just Clean up your stuff and Get in line. Single file. Not a boys’ line and a girls’ line. We are too grown up for that, Mr. Leonard thinks. I am not sure he is correct on that one. But I didn’t raise my hand to say, Mr. Leonard, I am not sure you are correct about that one.

  No way. And neither did anybody else.

  Mr. Leonard’s voice is quiet and his face is very serious. Nobody looks out windows or falls off chairs while he talks, not even Xavier Schwartz, who is King of Falling Off Chairs.

  And nobody says, You’re wrong, Mr. Leonard. I bet ever. Probably not even his mom says that.

  It is so weird to think maybe teachers have moms somewhere.

  “Move silently through the corridors like a shark,” Mr. Leonard was saying. Sharks are predators, I thought. I imagined myself as a shark chasing after a school (hahahaha) of little screaming kindergarteners.

  But I wasn’t a shark hunting anything. I was just Justin, sitting in my seat, smiling about eating kindergarteners with my multiple rows of shark teeth, while Mr. Leonard waited, looking at me.

  I stopped smiling. I stopped imagining myself as a shark closing in on crying but cute, scared kindergartener-goldfish. I started concentrating on not crying like a scared kindergartener myself.

  When I could listen again, Mr. Leonard was saying, “We have a lot to get through this year, including standardized fourth-grade tests.” Fourth-grade tests count, Mr. Leonard explained. So there is no time to waste on rough transitions.

  September 10, Friday

  Elizabeth loves first grade.

  I like fourth grade.

  Even if we have to use transition words in fourth grade, which, it turns out, almost nobody knew what they were before today. Xavier Schwartz raised his hand and asked if transition words were words like cars and trains.

  Mr. Leonard smiled. “I think we’d call those transportation words, right, young man?”

  Xavier nodded and stayed in his chair. In third grade he definitely would have been splattered all over the floor from that.

  Mr. Leonard asked who could define transition words for the class. Montana C. could. She said they are just stuff like for example, sometimes, also, and another thing and however. She counted them out on her five right-hand fingers.

  Everybody had to write those good transition words down in our notebooks. “They are tools in our toolbox,” Mr. Leonard said.

  Tools in our toolbox, I was thinking. So if Dad tries to say for example, for example, I can say, Hey, Dad—no taking other people’s tools out of their toolboxes!

  I was smiling, thinking that. Elizabeth better never say also ever again, because no taking other people’s tools!

  Then I looked up, and Mr. Leonard was watching me. I stopped smiling very fast. Again. Only the third day of school and already I was Looked At by the Teacher. TWICE.

  For smiling. Both times.

  All you could hear for a while was the scritch of new pencils on new notebook paper. When everybody finished writing down our transition words, Mr. Leonard said we should use those good new tools in sentences tonight, with underlines, for our homework.

  Sometimes I really no thank you Montana C.

  Also tools.

  I am supposedly doing my homework now, sitting at my new desk that Dad put together for me with the actual tools from his toolbox. I am a fourth-grader now, he said, so I need my own desk to sit at and concentrate.

  What I am doing instead of concentrating on homework while I sit here, though, is thinking about, What if Mr. Leonard has this same desk in his room at his house and what if a screw needs tightening in Mr. Leonard’s desk because his is a little
wobbly like mine is and what if he tried to tighten the screw with a sometimes?

  Hahahaha. But I have to practice not smiling.

  Justin K., 4-L Homework (3 Sentences about Fourth-Grade Positives)

  1. Some things I like about fourth grade include for example: We have recess on the Upper Playground and also we have responsibility for the aquatic animals in the science lab. (Two transition words in that one!)

  2. Another thing I enjoy is that instead of Chorus, we get recorders.

  3. Even though I do not know however to play that squeaky thing.

  September 11, Saturday

  I was waiting in line for my soccer jersey, trying to think of a good name for our team to go with our red-and-white striped jerseys. The players always get to vote on a team name, and I wanted to be the one with a good idea this year, for a change.

  The Raspberry Swirls?

  The Peppermint Sticks?

  Urgh, all my ideas were so terrible.

  The Blobs of Jam Swirled into Yogurts?

  Yeah, all the other teams would really fear us.

  I heard Justin Case! Justin Case? like it was coming from far away. When I looked up, Cash was signaling to me to come toward the front of the line where he was.

  “I don’t…” I started to answer.

  The mom with the clipboard planted herself right in front of me and said right in my face: Shhh! Like I was rowdy or a troublemaker. When all I said was I don’t … after Cash had been yelling out my name so many times. I looked down quietly at my still slightly shiny sneakers.

  But after a minute, when the Clipboard Mom walked to the front to see if there were any larger size shirts because Sam Pasternak grew a lot over the summer, Cash started calling my name again.

  This time instead of starting to say, I don’t think I should come to where you are because that would be cutting the line, I dashed up to where he was. He let me have the spot ahead of him.

  And nobody put me in trouble for that.