Sophomores and Other Oxymorons (5 page)

We spent the rest of the period drawing our bottles, and seeing how they fit into a rectangle whose proportions Mr. Belman called the golden ratio. Then, the penultimate
end-of-period bell of the day rang. Finally, after eight periods of regurgitation, sweat, triumphs, averted disasters, and misunderstandings, it was time for English.

And hubris.

I
ran into Lee on the steps to the second floor. “I hope the teacher is good,” I said. “I can't imagine anybody topping Mr. Franka. Know anything about her?”

“Nope,” Lee said. “I mean, I've heard her name, and I think she's been here for a long time, but I have no idea what she's like.”

I shifted my bloated backpack—which had been fed a steady stream of textbooks—in an effort to find a more comfortable relationship between it and my shoulders.

“‘He walked heavily,'” Lee said in a deep voice.

“Huh?”

Lee gave me a funny look, and repeated the phrase.

“What are you talking about?” I asked.

“It's from
Of Mice and Men
,” she said. “Right near the opening. Lenny is described as walking like a bear. You
did
read it, right?”

“I read it twice,” I said.

“When?” she asked.

“Uh . . . toward the end of sixth grade. And the summer after seventh.” As I spoke, I realized how long ago that sounded. I'd piled a lot of books onto my “finished it” list since then. A whole lot of books. A mass of paragraphs. A slew of scenes. A heap of descriptions.

“Risky,” Lee said.

“I'll be fine,” I said.

“Of course you will. You seem to have a fair amount of Teflon on your surface,” she said. “From what you've told me, today seems to be no exception. You probably have nothing to worry about.”

“Yeah. It's not like she's going to slap us with a test the moment we walk in. I can skim the book tonight, to refresh my memory. It's a quick read.”

We'd reached the room. Something seemed familiar, but also strange. The school was pretty old. Most of the classrooms had gotten dry-erase boards to replace the chalkboards over the years. And many had SMART Boards. But not this room. It had chalkboards. And it had faded grammar and literature posters that looked like they were from half a century ago.

Mrs. Gilroy, who was dressed in black slacks and a white long-sleeved blouse that seemed a bit too large for her, reminded me of the sort of young grandparent you see on the tennis courts, or in the ads for active retirement villages.

“She's some kind of mythical creature that's half Lee,” I whispered, pointing to the black pants, “and half pirate.”

“Very amusing,” Lee said.

“Welcome to Sophomore Honors English,” Mrs. Gilroy said. “It should come as no surprise to you that we'll be immersing ourselves in literature this year. We'll devote much of our time to savoring the joy and magic of our language.”

That sounded perfect for me.

“Words are my passion. I hope you'll come to share that sentiment,” she said.

This will be great
, I thought as I settled into my seat.

“Who knows what
sophomore
means?” Mrs. Gilroy asked. She wrote the word on the board.

Wonderful. That's the sort of thing Mr. Franka would do, to make the class interesting, leading us somewhere by way of questions. And it was the sort of word he'd pick to make the lesson special. There was something very cool about sophomores discussing the meaning of
sophomore
.

While Mrs. Gilroy's back was turned, Josh Rosen said, “It means one year down, three to go.”

Mrs. Gilroy took her time turning back to the class. She shot Josh—who hadn't lost his stupid grin—a glare that pretty much said
Don't say another word for the rest of the period.
Josh slunk down in his seat. I felt a twinge of happiness as I realized that, unless she'd had Bobby in her class and held grudges, our teacher had already discovered her least-favorite student. Even
if she'd taught Bobby, I'd never be a candidate for problem student in English class. It was my best subject, by far. Still, it was a relief to see the position filled by a highly qualified candidate. Josh was a bit of an ass.

Mrs. Gilroy underlined the first four letters of
sophomore
. “Where else do we hear
soph
?”

“Sophisticated,” I said. This was definitely my kind of lecture.

“Softball?” Josh said, quietly enough so Mrs. Gilroy didn't hear him.

I tried to dredge up another example. A word danced in my mind, just out of reach.

“Philosophy!” Lee said, beating me to it.

Mrs. Gilroy snapped her fingers, then pointed at Lee. “
Philosophy
means . . . ?”

“Love of knowledge,” Lee said.

“Right,” Mrs. Gilroy said, awarding Lee a smile. “Let's break it apart. We know
philo
is love.”

That was true. Anyone who's lived in eastern Pennsylvania has learned that, thanks to constantly hearing how Philadelphia is the city of brotherly love.

“That leaves us with
soph
meaning what?” Mrs. Gilroy asked.

“Knowledge,” I said.

Mrs. Gilroy shifted her attention from Lee to me. “Technically,
wisdom
is more accurate,” she said. She underlined
the last four letters of
sophomore
, then scanned the class. “What about
more
?”

Josh held his hands out like Oliver Twist, cupping an imaginary bowl. “May I have more?”

“Moron,” I said.

Josh glared at me. “Not you,” I said. “I was answering the question.”

“Put it together,” Mrs. Gilroy said. “Soph . . . more . . .”

“Smart, stupid!” Julia said. “Cool. That's us.”

Heads nodded throughout the room in a moment of self-awareness.

“Not cool,” Josh said. “We're not stupid.”

“Nobody said you were,” Mrs. Gilroy said. “The fact is, sophomores do tend to be smart-stupid. A little learning is definitely a dangerous thing. Anyone can amass a head full of facts. It's more difficult to make use of them, or to put two separate concepts together to create a new idea. Let's see what wisdom you've gleaned from your summer reading. I hope you've been looking forward to this discussion as much as I have.”

As I got ready to discuss a great novel and impress Mrs. Gilroy with my grasp of literature by being all
soph
and no
more
, she added, “Before we begin our discussion, please take out a pencil and clear your desks.”

Lee shot me a worried look.

“I'll be fine,” I told her.

“I trust that most of you took the summer-reading
assignment seriously,” Mrs. Gilroy said. “For those of you who might have slacked, I am offering a one-time-only opportunity. You can take the test tomorrow.”

I felt the stress go out of my spine when she said that.

“There is one stipulation.” She paused to stare briefly at each row of us, then said, “No matter how high you score on tomorrow's test, you will not receive anything above a seventy-nine. Is anyone interested in this option?”

Nobody raised a hand. I figured I could score higher than a seventy-nine taking the test today, even if I hadn't read the book in a while.

Mrs. Gilroy handed stacks of tests to the kids at the front of the rows. They passed back the sheets. I looked at the first question.

How is Lenny described in Chapter One?

I flashed a grin in Lee's direction.

“Eyes on your own paper, Mr. Hudson.”

I looked down and wrote, “Like a bear.”

And that was the high point of my test. I could tell you what happened in the novel. I could narrate the entire plot about simple-minded Lenny and the dreamer, George. I could discuss and debate themes, voice, viewpoint, and all that jazz. I just couldn't dredge up the right details to answer the very specific questions on the test. I fudged my answers as well as I could, but I had a feeling I wasn't going to fool Mrs. Gilroy. At the moment, I was all Lenny and no George.

Thirty minutes later, when we passed up the tests, I realized that whatever first impression I'd made during the discussion of
sophomore
, I was going to make a very bad second impression with Mrs. Gilroy when she graded my test. But maybe I could bump the test to her third impression. With luck, we'd have some class discussion.

After Mrs. Gilroy stuck the tests in a folder, she said, “I hope all of you like to write. We are going to be doing a
lot
of writing this year.”

Okay. Now there was hope for me to redeem myself. If there was one thing I was getting pretty good at after working so hard last year on the school paper, it was writing. I'd make an extra effort to dazzle her when we did our first assignment.

As I was imagining her reaction to my creative efforts, she called up two students to pass out textbooks. As soon as I got mine, I flipped it open to the table of contents, and saw the usual gathering of plays, stories, poems, and essays, some of which were familiar. I was pleased to see one of my favorite Ray Bradbury stories among the selections, and a great Billy Collins poem.

We also got a booklet called “A Guide to Effective Writing.” I glanced at the first page. It started with a paragraph about picking active verbs and avoiding passive sentences. Definitely rookie advice aimed at kids who didn't inhale books and write for fun. That was followed by a section about making good word choices. Yeah, yeah. Blah, blah, blah. I cloistered the
booklet. No, wait. That was a terrible word choice. Let me try again. I stashed the booklet in my backpack. Yeah, much better choice. The writing tips were definitely aimed at babies. Maybe Sean could use them.

By that time, class was almost over. We started a discussion of our summer reading, but it only lasted five minutes. I didn't get a chance to dazzle Mrs. Gilroy with my insights.

The bell rang. Lee and I headed for the hallway.

“Well, she sure shot down a big part of my identity,” I said.

“What do you mean?” Lee asked.

I parroted Mrs. Gilroy's words, “Anyone can amass a head full of facts.” I paused to admire the way I'd captured her tone, then said, “I guess knowing a bunch of facts doesn't mean anything.”

“But loving the knowledge does,” Lee said. “That's the first thing I noticed about you.”

“It wasn't my biceps?” I asked.

“I'm not even sure you have those,” she said.

“Of course I do.” I curled my right arm, pumping up my bicep. “Check it out.”

“Seriously? You want me to feel your muscles. I don't know. I'm afraid I'd swoon.”

I unflexed. School was over. But the best part of school was still ahead of me.

“Want to come to the newspaper meeting?” I asked Lee.

“No thanks, Jimmy Olsen,” she said.

“I'm not a cub reporter,” I said. “I have a whole year of experience.”

“Knock 'em dead,” she said. “Or am I supposed to say ‘Break a pen'?”

“Either will do, I guess.”

T
he conference room felt both familiar and strange. Last year's seniors had moved on, including editor Mandy. I'd had a minor crush on her last year, on top of the major crush I'd had for Julia. Crushes aren't like relationships. I don't think it's cheating to have more than one. It's probably self-destructive and delusional. But it's not cheating.

By the time the meeting started, nearly every seat around the room-length table was taken. I saw the other sophomores who'd joined the paper last year, including Richard and Edith. There were two boys and a girl who looked like they were freshmen. One of the boys had a stack of cartoons in front of him. I recognized him from middle school, but didn't know his name.

Just as we were about to get going, the door opened, and Hatboy from the bus raced in. He closed the door, pressed his back against it, and looked around with wild eyes, as if
trying to make sure he hadn't just leaped from a lion's den into a tiger's lair.

His eyes downshifted from terrified to merely fearful when he spotted me. “Hi. You're on my bus.”

“I'm aware of that.”

Before he could continue reminiscing about the good old days of this morning, the door flew open, pinning him to the wall behind it. A big guy—the kind who can't find shirts with collars that fit his neck—looked in from the hallway. Fortunately, he wasn't smart enough to check behind the door for his quarry.

“Anyone seen a little jerk with a big mouth?”

“It's mostly big jerks with little mouths in here,” I said.

Gargantua glared at me, but I guess he couldn't process anything that complex right then, while his mind was locked into search-and-destroy mode. He snorted and walked away. The door swung closed. Hatboy, with his back to us, looked a bit like a mounted butterfly. But as he unpeeled himself from the wall and turned around, I didn't see any blood, or jagged protrusions of fractured bone. He staggered toward the table and realigned his glasses to within ten degrees of their proper horizontal orientation.

“What did you do?” I asked the kid.

“I corrected his grammar,” he said.

“Some people don't appreciate that,” I said. From what I recalled, that was one of the things I'd covered in my survival manual.

“I'll say.” He pointed at us with both hands. “What's this? Some kind of club?”

“Newspaper meeting,” I said.

“That sounds safe.” He checked to make sure the door was shut all the way, then dropped into one of the two remaining empty seats—the one that happened to be right next to me. “Can I join?”

“Can you write?” I asked.

“I know grammar,” he said. “And I'm great at math.”

“Perfect,” I said. “We've been looking for someone who could number the pages correctly. We keep stumbling over the best way to divide primes.”

He started to reply, then laughed. “I get it! That's a good one. I told you that you were funny.” He held out his hand. “I'm Jeremy Danger.”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah. I know. Not a good fit. That's one of life's many jokes.
Disaster
would have been a better match.”

The hand remained extended. I shook it. His grip reminded me of times when I'd caught an undersized trout and had to hold it as gently as possible while I removed the hook. Jeremy was also the name of the main character in one of my favorite books,
Jeremy Thatcher, Dragon Hatcher,
but I didn't share that information. I wasn't planning on bonding with Master Danger.

“Coincidentally, Jeremy's a character in one of my favorite books,” he said, still enthusiastically pumping my hand.

The door opened again. Jeremy screamed and leaped for cover. Fortunately, he let go of my hand on the way down.

But it wasn't a reappearance of the Incredible Dolt. It was just Mr. Franka, our adviser, and one of the best teachers I'd ever had. Like last year, he wore a beard, and a blue shirt with rolled sleeves.

“Welcome,” he said. He gave me a small nod after he'd scanned the room, barely blinking as Jeremy crawled out from under the table. Instead of taking a seat, Mr. Franka walked to the front of the room. “Let's get the bad news out of the way. Our state funds got cut again this year. Something had to go. Unfortunately, the newspaper, along with a cluster of other programs deemed inessential by those who should know better, is now a supplemental budget item. It's part of what they call ‘Question Two.' The voters—your parents and neighbors—have to approve it separately from the main budget issue. If the package doesn't get approved we'll lose our funding after the elections.”

Rumbles arose. Mr. Franka waved his hand for quiet. “I know. It's a terrible system. But it's the one we have to live with, unless one of you has an idea how we can turn newspaper writing and production into a popular spectator sport. For now, let's make an amazing paper—a paper everyone will love. People don't kill what they love.”

I cleared my throat the way people do when they have an obnoxious point to make. We'd read a great poem in Mr.
Franka's class last year, called “The Ballad of Reading Gaol,” by Oscar Wilde. It kept using the line, “Each man kills the thing he loves.”

I guess Mr. Franka realized what I was thinking. “Good point, Scott. Let's hope nobody goes Wilde with the paper.” He turned back to the group. “Okay, first piece of business, we need an editor in chief, because I am only here to advise. Who's up for the job?”

After the briefest flicker of ambition tickled my mind, sending a twinge into my shoulder that almost made me raise my hand, I sat back. I figured I could do an okay job as an editor, but I liked writing my own stuff a lot more than reading other people's articles or handing out assignments. And, traditionally, the editor was a senior. There were four seniors in the room. Lisa Athenos was new to the paper. Ben Sabin and Orlando Fry had joined last year. Sarah Klein had been on the paper since she was a freshman. It didn't take much discussion before Sarah rose to the top. Everyone seemed pleased with the choice.

We assigned other editorial positions, and then got to work figuring out the best department, or
beat
, as we journalists like to call it, for each reporter. Last year, I'd been dying to write book reviews. But, as much as I loved reading, I'd discovered that there was more pleasure in writing about things I'd observed than things I'd read. I figured I'd do sports again. But maybe it would be good for me to try something new. I hadn't
even wanted to do sports when I got stuck with it, but it turned out to be fun. I decided to sit back and see what Sarah gave me.

Richard got restaurant reviews, like last year. His parents had both gone to cooking school, so he knew all about food. Edith was doing movie reviews and concerts.

Dan, the freshman with the cartoons, showed us his stuff. We all liked it. We had a couple of cartoonists already, but we'd be able to fit in one more. The other two freshmen, Teresa Braxton and Doug Zolner, loved sports, so Sarah assigned that to both of them.

“You two figure out how to split it up,” she said.

I liked her approach. She was going to be a good editor-in-chief. While I waited for my assignment, everything got assigned. Finally, Sarah checked her notes, looked at me, and said, “What about doing some opinion pieces?”

“Sure. That could be fun,” I said.

“Keep an eye out for feature ideas, too,” she said. “I liked your stuff last year. It was very creative. I want to give you free rein and see what you come up with.”

“Thanks.”

“I'll let you kids carry on from here,” Mr. Franka said. “I have a staff meeting. We're dealing with possible cuts in several departments, too, if the increase in the main budget doesn't get approved.”

As he slipped out the door, Sarah said, “We really need to make the paper essential. Especially if it's up for a vote. What can
we add? How do we make everyone want to read it each week?”

“We could have a crossword puzzle,” Jeremy said.

“Those are hard to construct.” Back when I was in middle school, I'd tried to make a real one, like they have in the local paper, where the words are at least three letters long and the pattern is symmetrical. I eventually gave up, after determining that
claxbre, remeeev
, and
drlbuvo
weren't words in any known language. Nor were the nine or ten other linguistic monstrosities that had invaded my grid as I struggled to fill it with interesting words that crossed each other.

“I can do them,” Jeremy said. “They're almost trivial.”

I had a feeling his idea of a trivial puzzle would be most people's idea of a fight to the death against a killer dictionary.

“We'll think about it,” Sarah said. “They take up a lot of space when you add in the grid, all the clues, and the solution. Any other ideas?”

We kicked around a variety of suggestions, but they all needed too much space. Still, I liked the idea of a puzzle. I thought about other things I'd written.

“Got it!” I explained about Tom Swifties. Mr. Franka had introduced us to them last year, so some of the staff were already familiar with the concept. I tossed out several simple examples for those who had never seen them.

“I have total control over my computer,” Tom said mousily.

“A softball is harder to pitch than a baseball,” Tom said underhandedly.

“I killed Dracula and the Wolfman,” Tom said demonstrably.

Jeremy got the idea right away, and shared a good one:

“
Learning handwriting makes me want to swear,” Tom said cursively.

“Good one,” I said.

“That's kind of funny,” Sarah said, “but how does that have anything to do with the paper?”

“Some of them are a lot trickier. We can make a puzzle by leaving off the last word. Everyone would want to see the next issue to find out if they'd guessed right, or to learn the answer if they couldn't figure it out.”

“If
he or she
had guessed right,” Jeremy said.

“What?”

“
Everyone
is singular,” Jeremy said.

“How have you managed to live this long?” I asked.

“Part luck, part panic-induced bursts of speed,” he said.

It was Sarah's turn to clear her throat. After she recaptured my attention, she said, “Give me an example of a good puzzle.”

I dredged up one of the trickier Swifties I'd written for fun last year.
“I am going out with a mermaid,” Tom said . . .

I left it hanging. Now, they were all staring. I realized I'd given them a pretty tough one. I tossed out a clue. “Where do mermaids live?”

Answers spilled out:

“Ocean . . .”

“Disney World . . .”

“Sea . . .”

I had a weird flash of not
déjà vu
but
deja who
? I didn't have a strange feeling I'd done this before. Instead, I felt I'd become Mrs. Gilroy, leading the class toward the meaning of
sophomore
. But better dressed and less cranky.

I dangled the second clue. “You go out on a . . . ?”

“Tangent . . .”

“Whim . . .”

“Date . . .”

“Limb . . .”

Jeremy got it first. “Sedately!”

“Yup,” I said. “See how it works as a puzzle? I've got a ton of them at home. I wrote a bunch for fun last year. I can make up more, if we run out. We can do seasonal ones, or tie them to school events. It would take up almost no space.”

“Let's do that.” Sarah jotted a note on her pad. “We can add other puzzles if we get more ideas.”

“Can I still do a crossword?” Jeremy asked.

“I think we should let the resident cruciverbalist go for it,” I said.

Jeremy stared at me as if I'd just plucked a vanished playing card from his shirt pocket.

“You're not the only one in the room in possession of extraneous vocabulary,” I said.

• • •

After the meeting, I figured I'd have to walk into town to catch a metro bus home. But Wesley was parked in the side lot of the school in his bagel truck. Asleep. I didn't want to disturb him, but he woke up when I got close. I doubt it's possible to sneak up on him.

“What are you doing here?” I asked.

“Figured you'd want a ride home.”

“Thanks.” I climbed in.

He glanced at his watch. “Don't tell me you finally did something worth getting detention.”

“Nope. Newspaper meeting,” I said. “So, you've been delivering bagels all day?”

“Mostly.” He handed me a paper bag that was sitting between the seats.

“What's this?” I asked.

“Extras.” He switched on the ignition and backed out of the space.

I opened the bag, grabbed a poppy-seed bagel, which seemed to be all there was, and took a small bite. I figured my stomach was far enough away from the memory of Splitty the Cat that I could keep my food down.

“Tasty.” I risked a larger bite. Bagels aren't designed for nibbling. I hadn't realized how starved I was. I'd spent most of the day with an empty stomach. I bit off another hunk before I'd even swallowed the previous one.

“Yeah. They're not bad. They spilled out when I was
unloading a delivery. But I brushed them off pretty good. We're supposed to throw them out if they touch the ground, but that seems like a waste.”

As those words penetrated my brain, I realized that poppy seeds weren't normally quite as crunchy and gritty as whatever it was I was chewing.

Wesley glanced over his shoulder. “That reminds me. I'm supposed to sweep out the back of the truck each day. Guess I'll do it later.”

I didn't join him in contemplating the space behind us. I decided I'd rather not know what the debris on the floor looked like—especially since I was in the process of grinding part of it between my molars.