Summer School! What Genius Thought That Up? (5 page)

I looked in the container and noticed a little gray thing sticking out from under the wilted lettuce leaf on the bottom of the box.

“That's him? I thought it was a pebble.”

“For your information, rocks do not have eyes,” Emily said. “At least, not the rocks I know.”

She and Robert started to laugh, snorting in and out like a couple of rhinos with colds.

“So sue me,” I said. “I thought you took a magic marker and put two dots on a rock.”

“Hank, watch your tone of voice,” my mom said, shooting me the watch-your-tone-of-voice look that moms are so good at. Then she changed the subject, another mom specialty.

“So, how was everyone's day?” she asked cheerfully.

“Junior Explorers is so fun. Isn't it, Robert?” Emily said.

“Mrs. Zipzer, I was a total crack-up today,” Robert chimed in.

“I can't wait to hear this,” I said. “Please, Robert. Share it all.”

“Hank, what's your problem?” My dad raised one eyebrow at me, a thing he does when he's not mad yet but is just about to be. “Robert is our guest.”

I knew I was being grouchy, but I couldn't help myself. It was really hard to hear about their fun time in Junior Explorers, while all I did was watch it through my classroom window. I took a bite of my tofu taco and prepared to chew it really hard, then realized I didn't have to. My mom's tofu was soft and mushy.

“We learned the hula and the limbo,” Emily went on.

“I kept falling over backward under the limbo rod, so finally I got on my stomach and crawled under the bar like a salamander.” Robert started to laugh at the memory.

Emily burst out laughing, too. “You should have seen him. He was a perfect salamander.”

The two of them held their sides, and their snorty rhino laughter made a second appearance at the table.

“And guess what?” Emily said when she finally got control of herself. “This Friday we're having a luau extravaganza and a sleepover under the stars. Doesn't that sound so
magnifico
?”

“You guys get to sleep out on the playground?” I could hardly believe my ears. “Frankie and Ashley never told me that.”

“They probably didn't want to make you feel bad,” my dad said.

“Well, I do anyway.”

“I'll tell you all about it, Hank,” Robert said. “In fact, I'll even write down what each person does in the talent show.”

“There's a talent show, too?” This was almost too much for me.

Robert nodded.

“Robert and I are entering,” Emily said. “We're going to train Bruce to do his own version of the hula, and we're making a hula skirt for him out of wheatgrass.”

“Oh, wheatgrass is so healthy,” my mom said. “Of course, that's when you swallow it. I don't know if there are healthy benefits for wearing it.”

“The great thing is, he's so little that we only need four blades of grass,” Robert added.

“Congratulations,” I said. “You'll probably get in the Guinness Book of World Records for making the smallest hula skirt in history.”

“Great idea, Hank,” Robert said. “We'll have to take a picture of Bruce in his skirt and submit it to them.”

“News flash, Robert. I was kidding. As in joke.”

“Oh, right,” Robert said. “Smallest hula skirt in history. Pretty funny, huh, Emily?”

He and my sister hauled out their rhino snorts for the third time that night.

“What are the other children doing for the talent show?” my mom asked as she reached for another tofu taco. She likes her own cooking, which is an excellent thing because no one else in the family does.

“Heather Payne is going to sing ‘Home on the Range,' and Frankie and Ashley are doing a magic trick,” Emily said.

That did it! I dropped my tofu taco in my lap. Cheerio jumped up on his two back legs and gulped it down like the doggy vacuum cleaner he is.

“Frankie and Ashley are doing a magic trick?” I confess, I was practically crying. “That's not fair! They can't do magic without me. Our act is called Magik 3, not Magik 2.”

Frankie, Ashley, and I have a magic act. True, we hadn't performed in a while, not since my twin cousins' birthday party, when we made a bunch of three-year-olds cry by making their M&Ms disappear. But still, we're all part of Magik 3. And Frankie always says I'm the best magician's assistant he's ever had. I couldn't believe he would perform without me. I just couldn't believe it.

“I saw their names written down on the sign-up sheet,” Emily said. “It said
An Island Magic Trick by Frankie Townsend with the assistance of Miss Ashley Wong
.”

“That does it! I'm going to the luau, too,” I declared right then and there. “We'll just add my name to the sign-up sheet. Do we have to bring our own sleeping bags?”

“Not so fast, young man,” my dad piped up, swallowing a mouthful of Spanish rice. “This is a privilege you haven't earned yet.”

“But, Dad, they're getting to have so much fun. And all I get to do is a stupid report on a famous person I admire.”

“That sounds most interesting, Hank.”

“Oh, right! Mr. Rock tells me I should do a report on Albert Einstein, and I don't even have a clue who this guy is, so how can it be interesting to admire someone you don't even know?”

“Albert Einstein discovered the theory of relativity,” Robert the walking encyclopedia spewed out. “I'm so sorry I never got to discuss that with him in person.”

“I'll find out where he lives and you can go visit him,” I snapped.

“He's dead,” Emily said.

“I knew that.”

I got up from the table and headed for my room without even asking to be excused. I didn't need to be corrected by my little sister in front of Robert the Bony and Bruce the Invisible Gecko.

“Stanley,” my mom said, “don't you think if Hank shows us he's really trying, we could consider letting him attend the luau? I mean, he does try as hard as he can.”

I stopped dead in my tracks. Mothers. They can be so great, especially mine.

There was a long silence as my dad thought about her suggestion.

“Well, Randi,” he said at last, “I suppose we could consider it.”

Now is the time to strike, Hankster! Beg if you have to.

“I'll do anything, Dad. Anything. Just tell me what.”

“If you bring me a good grade on your Albert Einstein report, I'll let you go to the luau,” my dad said.

“How good? Like a C-plus good?”

He shook his head.

“B-minus?”

He shook it again.

“I think you're capable of getting an A,” he said.

That taco must have gone to his head and clogged up his memory.

“It's me, Dad. Hank. The not-A student. The not-even-B student. The C student if I'm really lucky and the teacher's in a good mood, but mostly the D student. Do you know how hard it would be for me to get an A?”

“You have to reach for the stars, young man. That's the only way you'll achieve. I want to make sure you live up to your potential.”

My dad pushed his chair back and put his napkin on the table. Something told me that this conversation was ending, whether I liked it or not.

I had to. There was no way I was going to let that talent show happen without me.

RIGHT AFTER DINNER, I called Frankie.

“Meet me in the clubhouse in five minutes,” I said. “And bring Ashweena.”

“I'm all over it,” Frankie said.

I took the elevator to the basement and walked down the hall as fast as I could to our clubhouse, which is through the second door on the right. Wait a minute. Did I say the second door on the right? Yes, I did. And guess what? It truly is the second door on the right! This is amazing. I, who don't know my right from my left, just told you how to get to our clubhouse. I'll see you there!

I was the first to arrive. I reached around the door and switched on the light before going in. It can get a little weird in there, because it's where everyone in our apartment building stores their stuff. A couple weeks ago, I forgot to turn on the light before I went in, and I nearly jumped out of my sneakers! There were two creepy red eyes glowing at me from behind the couch. With the light on, I realized it was the same old stuffed moose head that has been hanging there as long as I can remember. Welcome to Hank's brain. Sometimes it doesn't remember what it already knows.

While I was waiting in the clubhouse for Frankie and Ashley, I started pacing around in a circle like I do when I'm working on a problem. I paced double fast, because I had two problems to work out. First, there was good old Einstein, whoever he is. And then there was the going to the luau disaster—or should I say, the NOT going to the luau disaster.

It's a good thing Frankie and Ashley arrived right away, or I would have worn a hole in the concrete floor.

“Talk to me, Zip,” Frankie said, coming in and flopping down on Mrs. Park's old couch with the stuffing coming out of the arms. “What's wrong?”

“What makes you think something's wrong?”

“You're doing the circle walk,” Ashley said. “You don't do the circle walk when nothing's wrong.”

I opened my mouth and it all came pouring out like ketchup when you've tapped too hard on the bottom of the bottle.

“Okay, first I have to do a report on Albert Einstein, whoever he is. And if I don't get an A, I can't go to the luau, which would totally suck because—were you guys really not going to invite me to be part of the Magik 3 trick at the talent show?”

Frankie got up from the couch and grabbed me by the shoulders.

“Zip, I want you to take your arms, put them around you, and hold on to yourself,” he said. “You're freaking out.”

“But you guys didn't tell me there was a talent show.”

“Okay, maybe that was wrong,” Frankie said. “We should have told you.”

“And how come you didn't invite me?”

“You're always invited,” he said. “That's why it's called Magik 3, dumbo.”

An instant silence fell over the room. The only thing you could hear was the swish-swishing of the washing machine in the laundry room down the hall. Ashley shot Frankie a look, and he understood immediately.

“I take back the dumbo part,” he said. “You're not dumb, my man. It's just an expression. I lost my head.”

I really knew Frankie didn't mean to call me dumb, but if you're a guy like me who's always at the bottom of the class, and you feel bad about yourself sometimes, you do get extra sensitive. Know what I mean? Good. Frankie does too.

“So if I'm part of Magik 3, how come we walked all the way home from school together and no one mentioned a talent show?” I asked.

“We didn't want to rub it in,” Ashley said. “Because we didn't know if you could come or not. The talent show is supposed to be just for Junior Explorers.”

“But we don't care about that lame rule, right?” Frankie said. “We're Magik 3. I say we just give Principal Love the word that we can't do the act without you. And
zengawii
, you're there. No problemo.”

I felt better. Until I felt worse. I had forgotten about my father.

“Whoops, problemo,” I said. “The crossword-puzzle whiz who runs my life says I can't go unless I get an A on my Einstein report.”

“Ouch,” Frankie said. “Yup, that sounds like Stan the Man.”

“There's only one solution, Hank,” Ashley said, twirling her ponytail around her index finger like she does when she's thinking up a plan. “You'll just have to get an A.”

“If I could just point out one tiny, itsy-bitsy wrinkle,” I said. “The last A I got was in Plays Well with Others While Building Fire Trucks with Blocks.”

“Congratulations, man,” Frankie said, giving me a high five. “Fire trucks are cool.”

“Frankie, I was three.”

“In that case, you're due for an A,” Ashley said.

“Case closed,” Frankie said.

He stepped over to the light switch and flipped it up and down. The lights flickered like crazy.

“Lady and gentlemen,” he said, “it's the Magic Hour.”

Frankie is a terrific magician. Not only does he do the tricks really well, but he has a great flair for drama. Like flipping the lights on and off. Most guys would have just said, “It's time to plan our magic act.” But not Frankie Townsend. For him, it had to be Magic Hour.

“I have a concept for our act,” he whispered, pulling us in close. “Zip, I am going to transform you into the ancient Hawaiian king Kahuna Huna.”

“This is so cool,” Ashley said. “I love Hawaiian themes.”

“And you,” Frankie said, pointing to Ashley, “will be Princess Leilani.”

“I can see it now. I'll cover my costume with blue and green rhinestones like the ocean!”

“And for our trick, I am going to make King Kahuna Huna here appear out of the smoke from a steaming volcano.”

“Can you do that?”

“Zengawii,” Frankie said. “Behold.”

He went to the light switch and flicked it up and down again. For a minute, it looked like there was lightning in the room.