A Tale of Two Tails (6 page)

It was sound of my digital clock going from six twenty-one to six twenty-two. I had been sitting at my desk for what seemed like a year and a half, and the fractions were not getting any easier. I was still on problem two, and that's only because problem one was the sample problem and the answer was already there. Every minute seemed like an hour and every problem seemed like a puzzle with no answer.

One half minus one third equals what? Hey, I wish I knew. And besides, one half of what? One half a cantaloupe minus one third of a cantaloupe leaves a slice of cantaloupe that's delicious with cottage cheese. End of story.

Maybe they mean one half of a baseball team, minus one third of a baseball team. You can't play with one third of a baseball team, so who cares, anyway? There's nobody in the outfield to catch the ball.

My digital clock went from six twenty-two to six twenty-three.

I got up and wandered into the living room, where my dad was watching the news. I flopped down in a chair, trying to look like a guy who was just about finished with his homework.

“Hey, Dad, what's happening in the world today?”

“What are you doing here, mister?”

“I'm taking a break before my mind breaks.”

“I assume you've completed your fractions worksheet,” he said.

“I'm this close,” I said, purposely not holding up my hand to indicate how close I was.

“Exactly how close is that?” my dad asked, knowing me so well.

“Dad, I have never been so close to close in my entire life.”

“In other words, you're nowhere near done,” he said.

“Progress is being made,” I said, “but I'm going to need to stop in a while because I do have this other important meeting in the basement on my other assignment.”

“Hank, the only meeting you're going to attend is the one where you introduce your butt to your desk chair, where it will remain until you're finished. Now go in your room and put your mind in gear.”

When my dad gets in a mood like that, there's no arguing with him. I sighed loudly to see if I could make him feel bad. That didn't work, either. He didn't take his eyes off the TV. The sigh was a little for myself, too, because I knew that no matter how long I sat at my desk, I was never going to understand fractions. I have trouble with whole things, let alone bits and pieces of stuff.

I went back into my room and plopped down on my desk chair. After another minute of staring at the paper, I found myself opening my desk drawer and staring at the green plastic organizer I keep my supplies in. Oh, no! All my paper clips had moved from the round compartment where I keep them into the long compartment where I keep my pencils. I couldn't have that. I may not be a fast learner, but I like organization. It makes me feel good when my pencils are sharpened and my paper-clip holder is full and my rubber bands are all together in their plastic baggy.

“Hank,” my mom said, opening the door a crack and sticking her head in.

Phew. I pushed the drawer closed just in time so she couldn't see that I wasn't concentrating. Actually, I was concentrating, just not on what I was supposed to be concentrating on. Why doesn't that count?

“Hey, Mom,” I said. “What's up?”

“Dinner is up,” she said. “And it's on the table.”

“Please, Mom, I can't come to the table tonight. I only have a little while left to finish this math homework, and I have to meet Frankie and Ashley at seven.”

“I'll bring your plate in here, honey,” she said, which will tell you just how great a mom she is.

“Thanks, Mom. I really appreciate that.”

She returned in a minute with a plate of brown rice and tofu with some broccoli trees mixed in.

“This will help you with your homework,” she said. “Everything on that plate is brain food.”

It certainly wasn't mouth and tongue food, I can tell you that. So now I had math problems I couldn't solve and food I couldn't eat. What else could possibly go wrong?

Clink.
My digital clock now said six fifty-one.

The phone rang and I picked it up.

“Hey, Zip,” Frankie said. “Ashweena and I are finished with our homework, so we're going down to the basement a little early. Can you meet us?”

“I'm almost done,” I said. “I'll be there in five minutes.”

I don't know why I just didn't tell Frankie the truth—that I was stuck on my math homework and making no progress. Actually, I do know why. Because I'm always the last to finish everything, and it gets really old being the slow one.

“Okay,” Frankie said. “And don't be late. We lugged the books home, but you've got to do some of the research. It's only fair.”

“Of course I'm going to be there,” I said, wanting to bite my tongue before the words were even out of my mouth. “Research is my middle name.”

“Really, dude? I thought your middle name was Daniel.”

Ordinarily, I would have laughed at Frankie's little joke, but I was already starting to feel bad that I hadn't told him what was really happening.

“Hey, the longer we talk, the longer it's going to take me,” I said to him. “So bye.”

“See you in five, Zip.”

I know what you're thinking. I still had nineteen more problems to go and only five minutes to do them in. I'd never be able to get them done.

And you know what? You're right.

It was ten minutes after eight when I finally walked into our clubhouse in the basement. And you don't have to be a genius to realize right off the bat that Frankie and Ashley were angry. I mean, steam was coming out of every hole in their faces.

“We've been calling you, Zip,” Frankie said.

“I know,” I answered.

“You were supposed to be here an hour and ten minutes ago,” Ashley said.

“I know.”

“You were supposed to help with the research.”

“I know.”

“But now we've done it all, and you did exactly nothing. Nada. Zippo.”

“I know, I know, I know. But I can explain.”

“You know what, Zip,” Frankie said, closing up the books that were open on the couch and standing up. “After a while, the explanations don't really matter. What matters is that we counted on you to be part of a team, and you weren't here, which means . . .”

“I know what it means,” I said in frustration. “That you and Ashweena did all the work.”

“Not to mention that we spent an hour in the library looking for just the right books,” Ashley added. “Plus we had to convince the librarian that we could check out more than the limit, and then we carried a two-ton pile of books all the way here.”

“And then you're a no-show,” Frankie said, finishing me off entirely. “What kind of a team is that?”

“I think it's just a fraction of a team,” I said, and for a second, I was very grateful to my math worksheet.

There was a lot of silence in our clubhouse. I looked around at all the shelves, loaded with cardboard boxes that people stored stuff in because there wasn't enough closet space in their apartment. I tried to read all the labels written on the boxes, just to stop thinking about how bad I felt.
Beach hats and towels. Vinyl records, 1968-1978. Grandma's quilts.
I wished I could throw one of Grandma's quilts over my head and disappear.

From down the hall, we could hear the washing machine in the laundry room groan to a halt. Somebody would be down soon to move their clothes into the dryer.

“Hey, I've got a great idea,” I said, trying to make it sound like I really did have a great idea. “I'll go upstairs, get Cheerio, bring him down, and we can start teaching him a new trick right this second.”

“I can't,” Frankie said. “I have to go upstairs and finish my history note cards.”

“And I promised my grandmother I would read her a chapter of this new book we're reading together,” Ashley said.

I guess they could see my disappointment, because Frankie put his hand on my shoulder and looked me straight in the eye.

“When you're on a team, Zip, you make a commitment. You have to be there when it counts, when your team members are there. Otherwise, you let people down.”

“All of us know that Frankie and I can handle the research ourselves,” Ashley added, “but that's not the point. If we make a commitment to do it together, that's the way it's got to be. Sorry, Hank. I have to go now.”

She gathered up half the books, Frankie took the other half, and they hurried out the door. They walked down the hall to the elevator, and I stood in the clubhouse by myself.

All I could say was, “I know. I know.”

But there was no one there to hear me.

Most days, I have breakfast (whether I want to or not) with my sister Emily. I usually have cereal, because I like to construct things out of the cornflakes in my bowl before they get too soggy, like a bridge to Brooklyn or even the Empire State Building.

My sister Emily, on the other hand, doesn't build anything with her cereal. Instead, she reads science magazines and talks nonstop about the stuff she's reading. Like right in the middle of her Fruit Loops, she'll just start reading out loud about how the call of the humpback whale can be heard from over five hundred miles away. And then, if I dare to interrupt her with a question like, “How do they make the sound?” she'll say, “That's for us science lovers to know, and for you to look up.”

So I wasn't too upset when Emily didn't show up for breakfast the next morning. My mom told me she had gone to school early to help the kindergarten teacher, Mrs. McMurray, clean out the hamster cages. Me, I wouldn't clean a hamster cage with
your
hands, let alone
my
hands. And if I was forced to do it, I'd wear at least fifteen pairs of rubber gloves and a gas mask.

My mom was getting dressed to go to her pregnant-lady exercise class, so it was just me and Cheerio in the kitchen. I thought I'd use the time to get in a little extra training with him. In between each bite of cereal, I tried to teach him to sit on his hind legs at attention. I was thinking that if I could get him to sit at attention, then I could teach him to salute with his front paw, and that trick would absolutely win him Mascot of the Year.

But Cheerio had other ideas.

“Sit up tall,” I commanded him, holding my cereal spoon filled with cornflakes just above his nose.

He jumped up, grabbed the spoon out of my hand, and left the kitchen. When he came back, he had a cornflake stuck to his upper lip.

I got another spoon from the drawer, held it above his nose, and repeated the command.

“Concentrate, Cheerio. Now sit up tall.”

Just then, the refrigerator started to hum. Even though he's heard that sound a million times, Cheerio stopped concentrating, ran to the refrigerator, and started barking at it like it was a robber.

“Cheerio!” I said. “You're never going to get the title unless you focus. What does it take to get you to settle down? Now come here and put your butt on the floor and your mind in gear.”

Boy, was I ever sounding like my dad again.

Cheerio didn't care who I was sounding like. I hadn't even finished my sentence and he was on his way to the living room to roll on his back and scratch himself on the rug.

“Okay,” I called to him. “If you want to be an underachiever, go right ahead.”

Fine. If he didn't care that I was lecturing him like Stanley Zipzer, then I didn't care, either. I'd go right ahead and do it. Actually, it felt kind of good to let out all my frustration with him.