Otis Spofford (2 page)

“George sure thinks he’s something,” said Stewy.

“Who does he think he is, giving us orders?” Otis wanted to know. He rubbed his ears where the burlap scratched him, and thought what a good joke it would be on George if he could think of a way to keep him from being the whole show.

“We ought to do something about him,” said Stewy.

“I’m thinking,” said Otis. The bull leaned against the backstop while the president of the P.T.A. welcomed the mothers. “Hey, I know what,” exclaimed Otis, and whispered to Stewy.

“That’s a super idea,” agreed Stewy. “Let’s go.”

The boys took off the top half of their costume and hid it under a pile of papers. Crouching low, they ran out from behind the backstop and around to some empty seats in the sixth-grade section. Everyone was listening to a member of the school board welcome the mothers, and no one paid any attention to Otis and Stewy, who were careful to sit very still.

They continued to sit still while the kindergarten did its Mexican cowboy dance. They scarcely breathed as they watched Mrs. Gitler go behind the backstop and look around for the missing bull. They slid down in their chairs and grinned at each other when their whole class stood up to look for them. Otis was especially pleased with George’s worried look. This ought to show him that without a bull to fight he didn’t amount to much.

When the audience became restless because of the delay, Otis and Stewy exchanged glances. “Now,” whispered Otis, and the two boys began to stamp their feet and clap their hands. The older boys around them joined in, while others began to whistle for the show to go on. Soon all the boys in the school were stamping, clapping, or whistling. Otis and Stewy exchanged satisfied looks. They had started even more noise than they expected.

“We’ll let them look a little longer,” said Otis.

“Quiet!” roared the principal into the microphone. When the noise subsided he said, “I am disappointed to learn that the boys of Rosemont School do not know how to behave like gentlemen.”

“Hey, look,” whispered Stewy. “They’re beginning without us.”

The class was moving toward the center of the playground. This was not part of the plan.

“We better get going,” Otis told Stewy as they started back where they belonged. They pulled out the top half of the bull costume and scrambled into it. They were not going to miss performing in the bull suit if they could help it.

“All right,” snapped Mrs. Gitler, when she saw them. “You boys get in place in a hurry. I’ll deal with you later.”

“Come on! Hurry up!” ordered George.

“Moo,” answered Otis.

When Mrs. Gitler started the phonograph, George swaggered onto the playground with the bull tagging along behind. The rest of the class followed and took positions on the circle painted on the cement. Then they began to dance. Partners faced each other, slid to the right, stamped their feet, and slid to the left. The girls jingled their tambourines and rattled their milk cartons in time to the music.

Through his peephole Otis could see George standing in the center, waving his cape. Suddenly he had a wonderful idea. It was so good he wondered why he hadn’t thought of it sooner. Now he would really stir up something. “Hey, Stewy,” he whispered. “We’re going to catch it anyway. Let’s have some fun.”

“Okay,” agreed Stewy.

Otis whispered his plan and Stewy snorted with laughter. “Let’s start with chasing our tail,” directed Otis. “I mean your tail,” he added, since the tail really belonged to Stewy.

As Otis and Stewy ran around in a circle, the audience began to laugh. Otis could see the class did not like having people laugh while they were dancing. Several got out of step and had to hop on one foot to get in step again. Now Otis and Stewy lay down on the cement. The audience laughed harder. George advanced, scowling and waving his cape. Otis gave the signal, and he and Stewy stood up and began to skip backward.

“Cut out the funny business,” said George. “My cape is supposed to make you mad.”

Otis lowered the bull’s head and charged. George stepped aside as the bull rushed through the cape. Then Otis turned sharply and poked George in the seat of the pants with his horns.

“Hey,” yelled George, and the audience howled. “You cut that out. You’re not supposed to do that.”

Enjoying himself thoroughly, Otis skipped merrily around the circle of dancers and prepared to charge again, while the girls, banging their tambourines and rattling their milk cartons, danced around their partners.

Boy, he’s really mad now, thought Otis, as he watched George through his peephole. This is really good.

Once more George flapped his cape. The bull ran past it, and Otis started to poke the toreador again. But this time George was too quick. He pulled his sword out of his belt and gave the back end of the bull a good hard swat with the side of the wooden blade.

“Yow!” came a voice from the middle of the bull.

The toreador swatted again.

“Yow!” yelled the middle of the bull again. The audience screamed with laughter. By this time every one of the dancers was out of step.

“Hey, Otis,” said Stewy. “Let’s cut this out. That hurt.”

“Too late now,” answered Otis, lowering the head for another charge. He was having too much fun to stop now. There was nothing for Stewy to do but follow.

This time Otis managed to poke the toreador again. George grabbed the bull by the tail and swatted with his sword.

“Ouch,” yelled Stewy. “Otis Spofford, you cut this out.”

“Hang on,” ordered Otis. “We’ll get him this time.”

“I’ll get
you
for this,” retorted Stewy. “Just because you’re the front end…”

The bull jerked its tail out of the toreador’s hands and charged so fast that George did not have a chance to get out of the way.

George tripped, Otis pushed so hard that he bent the bull’s horns, and the toreador lay flat on the cement. Otis planted his right foot in the middle of the toreador’s green sash, while the audience clapped and shouted. Delighted with the commotion he was causing, Otis made the bull bow to the right and to the left. He felt George struggling to get up, so he pushed his foot down harder as he bowed once more to the audience.

The class gave up trying to dance. Everyone stopped to watch the victorious bull. “Aren’t we supposed to throw our flowers?” asked one of the girls.

“You let me up!” George wiggled under the bull’s foot.

“You just wait,” muttered Stewy, inside the burlap behind Otis.

The girls pulled the flowers out of their hair and tossed them at the bull.

“Otis Spofford!” hissed Mrs. Gitler.

Otis could not resist one more bow. Then he took his foot off the toreador and the bull trotted out of the ring in a shower of petals. George got up and angrily brushed himself off.

Mrs. Gitler was waiting for Otis and Stewy. She snatched off the top of their costume. “Now you boys sit on those two chairs and don’t you dare move until the program is over,” she said grimly.

Otis was not worried. He knew that Mrs. Gitler never stayed cross with him very long. Satisfied with the excitement he had caused, he took a deep breath of fresh air. It had been hot and stuffy inside the bull.

“It was all his idea,” growled Stewy, rubbing the seat of his pants.

“I’ll get him for that,” said George.

“Quiet!” ordered Mrs. Gitler. “Otis Spofford, one of these days you are going to go too far.”

“Who, me?” asked Otis innocently.

“Yes, you,” said his teacher. “Some day, Otis, you are going to get your comeuppance.”

“What’s ‘comeuppance’?” asked Otis.

“You’ll find out,” answered Mrs. Gitler.

“That old Otis Spofford, spoiling our dance!” said Ellen, as she slid past him to sit down.

Otis knew he was safe for a while. There was nothing the two boys could do but glower at him for the rest of the program. Stewy did manage a couple of sideways kicks, but that was all.

Otis decided he might as well leave as soon as the program ended. There was really no reason why he should stay around for punch and cookies. But when the time came, the three boys and their teacher were surrounded by smiling mothers.

Now I’ll catch it, thought Otis. Oh, well, it was worth it. The way things had turned out, it had been even more fun than a ball game.

“What a clever act you planned,” exclaimed one of the mothers to Mrs. Gitler.

“And so original, having the bull win,” added another.

Mrs. Gitler looked startled. She opened her mouth to say something, but no words came out.

Well, how do you like that? thought Otis, laughing to himself. They think that was the way the bullfight was supposed to be. Boy, oh, boy, is this a good joke!

“We enjoyed it so much,” murmured some more mothers.

This time Mrs. Gitler managed to smile as she said, “Why…uh…thank you.”

“I don’t know when I’ve laughed so hard,” said another mother.

“I am so glad you enjoyed our program,” Mrs. Gitler responded graciously.

“But, Mrs. Gitler,” protested George, “I was supposed to…”

“Never mind now, George,” said Mrs. Gitler. “We’ll talk about it later.”

“But…” said George.

“I said
never mind
,” repeated Mrs. Gitler.

“You heard what the teacher said,” Otis put in.

“I guess you think you’re pretty smart,” muttered George.

“Well, aren’t I?” asked Otis cockily.

“You just wait,” said Stewy.

Otis saw his mother coming through the crowd. She put her arm around him and said, “You performed beautifully. I was proud of my boy.”

Otis grinned at the other two boys, who glared back.

“I must hurry or I’ll be late for my ballet class,” Mrs. Spofford said. “Be a good boy and go right home.”

“Sure,” answered Otis, thinking his mother would be surprised if she knew just how quickly he planned to go home.

When Mrs. Spofford left, Otis felt there was no reason to hang around any longer. He ducked out of the crowd and headed for home as fast as he could run.

Two pairs of feet came pounding down the sidewalk after him. “You just wait,” yelled Stewy and George.

“Toreador-a,”
sang Otis at the top of his voice. After all, he had a good head start.

O
tis did not know what it was about Friday morning that made him feel he had to stir up some excitement. Maybe it was the crispness of the air. Maybe it was knowing the next day was Saturday. Or maybe it was because Mrs. Brewster had kept her eye on him for such a long time the afternoon before.

First of all, Otis decided to go to school by way of Tillamook Street. When he saw Ellen Tebbits come out of her house, he chased her all the way to school. This made her hot and cross. “You…stop…chasing me, Otis…Spofford,” she panted, when she was safe on the school grounds.

“You…stop…chasing me,” mimicked Otis.

Ellen stamped her foot.

After the first bell rang, Otis saw Austine Allen come running down the street as fast as she could go. Her face was red and both her hair ribbons had come untied. When she had caught her breath, she said crossly to Ellen, “You said you were coming by for me this morning. I waited and waited until I was almost tardy.”

“I couldn’t,” said Ellen. “That old Otis chased me.” Both girls glared at Otis as they hurried into the classroom.

Otis did not go in with the others. Instead, he stood just outside the door of Room Eleven to wait for the tardy bell to ring. He knew this worried everyone in the class, because they were anxious to be one hundred percent on time. When the bell buzzed through the halls, he waited two and seven-eighths seconds before he stepped into the room. His timing was perfect. The bell stopped ringing just as he came through the door.

Mrs. Gitler looked at Otis. “Remember what I said about comeuppance,” she warned, and went on writing arithmetic problems on the blackboard.

Otis knew that when he wanted to be he was the smartest boy in arithmetic in Mrs. Gitler’s room. This morning he decided he wanted to be. He worked his problems quickly, not because he cared about finishing first, but because he wanted Mrs. Gitler to scold him for not working. Then he planned to drop a sheet of perfect problems on her desk and wait for her look of amazement when she saw that he had not only completed his work but had not made a single mistake.

As soon as Otis finished his problems he looked around for a good way to waste time. Maybe there was something interesting in his pockets. Besides a tangle of string, rubber bands, and bent paper clips, he found a rabbit’s foot with most of the fur worn off, a couple of old milk-bottle caps he carried in case he wanted to start a collection some day, a yo-yo with a tangled string, and a clove of garlic he had picked up from the drain board at home for no reason at all.

Otis studied the clove of garlic, but he could not think of anything to do with it, so he put it back in his pocket. Then he tried to unsnarl the yo-yo string but soon lost interest. Wishing he could think of something more interesting, he tore off a corner of his arithmetic paper, put it in his mouth, and chewed it. Then he blew it out and watched it turn and twist as it floated through the air and landed on the back of Stewy’s neck. Otis quickly bent over his work before Stewy turned around.

“Stewart, have you finished your problems?” asked the teacher.

“No, Mrs. Gitler.” Stewy wiped the back of his neck with his hand.

“Then turn around in your seat,” she said.

“Something hit me on the back of the neck.” Stewy looked suspiciously at Otis, who was chewing the end of his pencil and staring at the ceiling as if he were thinking hard.

“Never mind, Stewart. Go on with your work.” Mrs. Gitler also glanced at Otis, before she returned to the attendance report she was working on.

That was pretty good, thought Otis, as he tore off a margin of his arithmetic workbook and chewed it into a wet ball. Then he looked around for a target.

Across the aisle he saw Ellen working feverishly on her problems. Otis knew Ellen always had trouble with arithmetic and now he watched her counting on her fingers under her desk. She wrote an answer, erased it, counted on her fingers again, and wrote another answer. Then she tugged at a lock of hair to make it grow faster. Otis could not see why Ellen was so anxious to have pigtails. What was the good of a bunch of hair flapping around all the time, anyway?

As Ellen turned a page, Otis took aim and hit her square on the cheek. Ellen gasped, and put her hand to the spot just the way he had expected her to. She, too, looked at Otis.

“Ellen,” said Mrs. Gitler.

“Somebody hit me on the face with a spitball,” Ellen complained.

“Otis, did you hit Ellen with a spitball?” Mrs. Gitler demanded.

“Who, me?” Otis asked.

“Otis, you are not cooperating,” said Mrs. Gitler. “Let me see your arithmetic.”

This was just what Otis was waiting for. Now the class would see the look of astonishment on Mrs. Gitler’s face as he handed her the sheet of completed problems.

Mrs. Gitler took his paper, glanced at it, and put it on the corner of her desk. “You may get a library book to read until the others finish,” she said, as she returned to the attendance report.

How do you like that? thought Otis. He almost felt as if Mrs. Gitler was not playing fair.

He was even more disappointed when he hit Austine on the back of the neck with a ball of wet paper. All she did was turn around and stick her tongue out at him. There must be some way to make spitballs interesting. With a juicy wad in his hand, Otis looked around the room. He watched Linda Mulford walk to the teacher’s desk for help on her problems. Linda was always going to Mrs. Gitler for help. As he watched Mrs. Gitler talking to Linda, an idea came to him. Boy, oh, boy, he thought, this really ought to make something happen.

Closing one eye, Otis carefully aimed at a spot one inch from Mrs. Gitler’s left ear. Then he let the soggy wad fly. It whizzed through the air exactly the way he wanted it to, skimming close to Mrs. Gitler’s ear without actually touching it and hitting the blackboard with a
splop
.

There! thought Otis. That ought to get results.

It did. Mrs. Gitler put down her pencil and looked at the class. Then she turned and looked at the wet spot on the blackboard. She looked at the class again and waited for complete quiet before she spoke. “Otis, you have been disturbing this class all morning.”

“Who, me?” asked Otis innocently.

“Yes, you,” answered Mrs. Gitler shortly. “Otis Spofford, if you throw one more spitball, I’ll do something that will make you wish you’d never thought of spitballs.” Then she turned back to Linda and her problems.

Otis stared at her in surprise.

“I guess you better look out,” said Stewy.

“Aw, be quiet,” answered Otis. Something had gone wrong. This was not what he expected. Mrs. Gitler was supposed to tell him to sit on a chair by her desk where she could keep her eye on him. She wasn’t supposed to leave him wondering what she would do if he threw another spitball.

And Otis did wonder. So did the rest of the class.

“What do you suppose she’ll do?” George whispered.

“I bet it’s something awful,” said Ellen.

Otis thought and thought. He fingered a piece of paper and tried to think what Mrs. Gitler could do to make him wish he had never thought of spitballs. He was so busy thinking that he forgot to be troublesome.

What could Mrs. Gitler mean? Would she send him to the principal’s office? No, that couldn’t be it. Boys were usually sent to the office for tripping people or fighting in the halls and, anyway, nothing very bad happened there. The principal just talked to you. Otis knew. He had been there several times.

Maybe Mrs. Gitler would send a note home to his mother. Otis considered this possibility but decided against it. Because spitballs didn’t really do any damage, he did not think Mrs. Gitler would ask his mother to come to school, the way she had the time he discovered he could make smoke by rubbing his ruler hard and fast against the edge of his desk. This had been hard on both the ruler and the desk, which, as Mrs. Gitler explained, did not belong to Otis but to the taxpayers of the State of Oregon.

The class finished the arithmetic lesson and turned to their readers. Still Otis wondered. He hardly listened to the boys and girls reciting from the
From Here to There
reader. Without really thinking, he tore off a piece of paper and rolled it with his fingers.

“Go on,” urged Stewy. “Make a spitball.”

Otis looked at the paper. There was only one way to find out what Mrs. Gitler would do.

“You’ll be sor-ree,” warned Tommy.

Austine was watching. “Scaredy cat,” she wrote on a piece of paper and held it where Otis could see it.

Otis ignored her. He looked at Mrs. Gitler, who was writing on the blackboard a list of words hard to remember.
“Though, through, thought,”
she wrote.

Otis rolled the paper into a smaller and smaller ball. Finally, just before it was time for the noon bell, he could stand it no longer. He had to find out. Quickly he put the ball of paper in his mouth. Then, as everyone in the room but Mrs. Gitler watched, he carefully aimed at a spot one inch from her right ear. Just as the bell rang, the spitball whizzed through the air and smacked against the blackboard.

Without saying a word, Mrs. Gitler opened the door into the hall. Otis was baffled. He was sure she had seen the spitball. It wasn’t like Mrs. Gitler to say she would do something and then not do it.

“But, Mrs. Gitler,” said Linda, when nearly everyone had left the room, “Otis threw a spitball.”

“I know he did, Linda,” she answered.

“But you said you would do something to him if he threw another spitball.”

“Yes, Linda, but never mind about it now.” Mrs. Gitler smiled at Linda. Then she smiled at Otis.

Otis began to be uneasy.

In the cafeteria, some of the boys who had left the room ahead of him dropped out of the line at the food counter to gather around Otis. “What did she do?” they wanted to know.

“She didn’t do anything,” Otis boasted. “She’s scared to. She knows she can’t make me stop throwing spitballs if I don’t want to.”

“That old Otis Spofford,” he heard Ellen say, as she took her place in line. “Mrs. Gitler lets him do anything he wants to.”

“It isn’t fair,” agreed Austine. “He’s so awful and I think she likes him better than anybody in the room.”

Otis was not so sure. There was something funny about the way Mrs. Gitler had smiled at him. Maybe he really was going to get his comeuppance.

When the class returned to their seats after lunch, Mrs. Gitler said quietly, “Otis, I want you to do something for me.”

“Yes, Mrs. Gitler,” said Otis, thinking she had forgotten about the spitball and wanted him to clap erasers or run an errand for her.

Mrs. Gitler said, “I want you to throw spitballs for me.”

The class gasped. Throw spitballs! Whoever heard of a teacher asking someone to throw spitballs?

Even Otis was startled. He didn’t know what to think, but he wasn’t going to let anyone know he was taken off guard. “Sure,” he said. “Any special place you want me to throw them?”

“Into the wastebasket,” answered Mrs. Gitler. “I want you to sit on a chair and throw spitballs into the basket.”

Otis grinned. The idea of sitting in front of the class to shoot spitballs into the wastebasket pleased him.

But Mrs. Gitler said, “Take your paper, the chair, and the basket to the back of the room.”

Otis took his time about moving the chair and the wastebasket.

“Quickly, Otis,” said the teacher.

“Spitball Spofford,” whispered Stewy.

Otis settled himself on the chair and tore off a piece of paper. After chewing it, he threw it into the wastebasket with enough force to make a noise. He was pleased when the whole class turned around to look at him.

“All right, people. There is no need to watch Otis. We all know what he looks like,” said Mrs. Gitler, as she took her pitch pipe out of her desk and the class got out its music books.

Otis chewed and threw. At first, the boys and girls peeked over their shoulders at him, but Mrs. Gitler started the singing lesson with a song about a barnyard. The class had so much fun imitating the sounds of different animals that they all lost interest in Otis.