The Wednesday Wars (8 page)

"I should need you to wash dishes? I have two good hands. They can wash dishes, too—and I don't have to pay them."

"I could sweep and clean up."

Mr. Goldman held up his two good hands.

I sighed. "You don't need anything done around here?"

"What I should really need," he said, "is a boy who knows Shakespeare. But is there a boy who knows Shakespeare these days? No. Not one. You would think that they should teach Shakespeare in school. But do they? No."

Okay, I'm not kidding here. Mr. Goldman really said that: "What I should really need is a boy who knows Shakespeare." Those words came right out of his mouth.

"I know Shakespeare," I said.

"Sure you do," Mr. Goldman said. "You still need two more dollars and eighty cents."

"I do."

Mr. Goldman put his hands on his hips. "Show me some Shakespeare, then."

I went back to
The Tempest,
and not just the Caliban curses, either—which is all that Mrs. Baker thought I knew. I spread my arms out wide.

Now does my project gather to a head.
My charms crack not, my spirits obey, and Time
Goes upright with his carriage. How's the day?

Mr. Goldman clapped his hands—really!—and then he leaped upon a stool behind the counter—and Mr. Goldman is not someone whose size encourages leaping. He clapped his hands again above his head, and a fine, light flouring flew into the air—sort of like chalk dust—and a haze shimmered about his face. His voice changed, and when he spoke, it was as though he was chanting a high and faraway music.

On the sixth hour, at which time, my lord,
You said our work should cease.

I spread my arms out even wider, and tried to imagine long robes with sleeves that flowed down along the arms of Prospero.

I did say so
When first I raised the tempest. Say, my spirit,
How fares the king and's followers?

The "and 's" is not easy to say, but it came off pretty well, with about as much spit as "beetles."

Mr. Goldman clapped his hands again, and another shimmering of flour fell.

Confined together
In the same fashion as you gave in charge,
Just as you left them.

Mr. Goldman climbed down from the stool and held out his still floury hand. His smile pushed his cheeks into round lumps.

And that was how I got to be part of the Long Island Shakespeare Company's Holiday Extravaganza, which was opening next month.

And how I got twenty-two cream puffs for two dollars and eighty cents less than I should have—plus two more free, since they come cheaper by the dozen.

And it was a good thing.

When Monday came and I walked into the classroom carrying a long box of cream puffs, it was pretty clear that Danny Hupfer and Meryl Lee and Doug Swieteck and Mai Thi would have been at me with daggers, looking for a pound of flesh, if I had failed them. I set the box on the shelf by the window and opened it up. Twenty-four cream puffs—brown, light, perfect cream puffs—waiting to be eaten after lunch.

Mrs. Baker didn't say anything. But all through
English for You and Me,
the buttery vanilla smell of the cream puffs wafted around the room with the circulating air, and even Mrs. Baker couldn't help but look at them. I saw her nostrils grow wide. Danny Hupfer kept turning around and grinning at me. Meryl Lee pretended like she didn't care much, but she's a terrible liar.

If lunchtime hadn't come when it did, we might have all gone wild. Even Mrs. Baker. But finally, finally,
finally
the school clock clicked to noon, and we crammed our sandwiches down our throats, and then Danny Hupfer stood up and approached the brown, light, perfect cream puffs sort of reverently.

"Not just yet, Mr. Hupfer," said Mrs. Baker.

Danny Hupfer looked at her like he'd just missed an easy goal.

Meryl Lee looked at me like it was my fault.

"If you are going to eat cream puffs," said Mrs. Baker, "you are going to do it on your own time. Go out for lunch recess and come back a few minutes early. Then you may gorge yourselves as you please."

"I bet she's going to take three for herself," whispered Doug Swieteck.

"No, Mr. Swieteck, she is not going to take three for herself," said Mrs. Baker. "She is going to Saint Adelbert's quickly to light a candle, and she will be back in time for your gorging. Now, out, all of you."

We went out.

It was, of course, a cold November day on Long Island, and everything was, of course, gray—the sky, the air, the grass, the drizzle misting down. Gray everywhere. We stood around in huddled groups, a little bit damp, and still hungry because we'd eaten so fast and there were twenty-four cream puffs waiting for everyone back in the classroom. Twenty-four brown, light, perfect cream puffs.

"They better be good," said Meryl Lee.

"They'll be good," I said.

"They better be really good," said Danny Hupfer.

"They'll be really good," I said.

When there were only seven minutes left in recess, Danny Hupfer declared that we had served our time, and even if Mrs. Baker hadn't come back yet, we deserved our cream puffs. So like an unstoppable mob, like a tidal wave, like an avalanche, we rushed into Camillo Junior High, up two flights of stairs, and to the doorway of our classroom.

And stopped.

On the shelf, the long box of cream puffs lay ripped apart, and in the middle of the buttery, brown, light, perfect cream puffs stood Sycorax and Caliban, up on their hind legs, their paws holding shreds of crust to their mouths. Their faces were covered with yellow vanilla filling and powdered sugar. Their naked tails were thick with it. Their scabby skin was slathered with it.

Then Mrs. Baker came behind us and peered in. The rats opened their snouts and clacked their yellow teeth at her.

And Mrs. Baker screamed, "Strange stuff, the dropsy drown you! The red plague rid you, thrice double-ass!"

That last one I knew about, but I wasn't going to tell you I knew it, because of what you'd think of me.

Sycorax and Caliban understood the meaning of all those, I guess. They scurried out of the box, skidding in the vanilla cream, and leaped into the radiators. We heard them climb up inside the walls, then scamper across the asbestos tiles.

There was a long and absolute silence.

Then Meryl Lee turned to me. "You still owe us cream puffs," she said.

"Ten day," said Mai Thi.

"Ten days!" I said.

"We gave you three weeks already," said Danny Hupfer. "Now you have ten days."

"Ten days!" I said.

"Here is another situation where repetition is not a rhetorical virtue. Clean up the mess, Mr. Hoodhood," said Mrs. Baker.

And I did.

But I wasn't happy.

Usually, the last week before Thanksgiving was pretty easy. Everyone is thinking about two days off from school, grandparents coming for dinner, the Syosset-Farmingdale football rivalry, and all that.

But it wasn't an easy week this year. Not for me.

It was a long week.

First, it somehow became my fault that Sycorax and Caliban ate the cream puffs. I think this was because of Meryl Lee. For three days, things were whispered about me that I hope I never have to hear.

Then second, on Wednesday afternoon, when I went to get the script for the Long Island Shakespeare Company's Holiday Extravaganza from Mr. Goldman, I found out that I was going to play Ariel from
The Tempest.
Ariel is a fairy. A fairy! Let me tell you, it is not a good thing for a boy from Camillo Junior High to play a fairy. Especially a boy who has been singing soprano for Miss Violet of the Very Spiky Heels.

"I don't think I can play Ariel," I told Mr. Goldman.

"Here's your costume," he said, and handed me a pair of bright yellow tights with white feathers on the ... well, I'll let you guess what part the white feathers were attached to.

Third, now that I needed another set of cream puffs, I asked my father if he might ever, ever, ever imagine a three-week advance on my allowance, since he had clinched the deal with the Baker Sporting Emporium, and he just laughed out loud. "You ought to be a comedian," he said. "You and Bob Hope. You could travel to Saigon together and do troop shows."

"I wasn't trying to be funny," I said.

"You
must
have been trying to be funny, since no kid of mine in his right mind would ever ask for a three-week advance on his allowance," he said.

"I was trying to be funny," I said.

"I thought so," he said.

Fourth, when I told Meryl Lee that I might not be able to get the cream puffs by next Wednesday ("I wouldn't spread that around if I were you," she said) and that my father was a cheapskate since he'd just landed this big deal with the Baker Sporting Emporium and he wouldn't give me a dime, she started to cry.

Really.

"Meryl Lee," I said, "it's not all that bad. I'll find a way to get the cream puffs. I mean..."

"You jerk," said Meryl Lee, "you don't understand anything," and she wouldn't speak to me or anyone else the rest of the day.

Fifth, on the Tuesday before the Wednesday of the cream puffs deadline, Mr. Guareschi came in and asked Mrs. Baker if she knew what "pied ninny" meant. She asked him why he needed to know that, and he told her that Doug Swieteck's brother was in his office at that very moment for having called Mr. Ludema a pied ninny.

Mrs. Baker stared straight at me.

And sixth, when Wednesday morning came around and I walked in with a bag of five cream puffs—which was as far as a one-week allowance stretches—it was pretty clear that I was doomed. With five cream puffs, almost everyone could have one quarter of a cream puff, I pointed out. It was better than nothing.

Meryl Lee shook her head.

"You're dead," said Danny Hupfer.

And I supposed I was. At least I wouldn't have to wear the yellow tights with the white feathers attached you can guess where.

But you know that stuff about the darkest nights turning into the brightest dawns? That can sometimes come true. Even when you least expect it.

Because when we came back in from recess, on the shelf was a long box from Goldman's Best Bakery ... filled with twenty-four cream puffs! Twenty-four brown, light, perfect cream puffs! Twenty-four buttery vanilla cream puffs!

"Mr. Hoodhood was simply playing a joke on you all," said Mrs. Baker. "Now, enjoy."

And we did.

That afternoon, Mrs. Baker asked me if I thought that the ending to
The Tempest
was happy or not. Maybe because I had just had my own happy ending, I told her that I figured it was.

"How about for Caliban?" she asked. "Does he deserve a happy ending?"

"No. He's the monster. If there's going to be a happy ending, it means he has to be defeated. You can't end
Godzilla
without killing Godzilla. And you can't end
The Tempest
without Caliban getting..."

"Getting what, Mr. Hoodhood?"

"He can't win."

"No, he can't win. But sometimes I wonder if perhaps Shakespeare might have let something happen that would at least have allowed a happy ending even for a monster—some way for him to grow beyond what Prospero thought of him. There is a part of us that can be so awful. And Shakespeare shows it to us in Caliban. But there's another part of us, too—a part that uses defeat to grow. I wish we could have seen that by the end of the play." She closed her book.

"Defeat doesn't help you to grow," I said. "It's just defeat."

Mrs. Baker smiled. "Two weeks ago, the Saturn V lunar rocket passed its first flight test. It's been less than ten months since we lost three astronauts, but we're still testing the next rocket, so that some day we can go to the moon and make our world a great deal bigger." She held her hands up to her face. "Wouldn't Shakespeare have admired that happy ending?" she whispered.

Then she put the book away in her lower desk drawer.

It was quiet and still in the room. You could hear the soft rain on the windows.

"Thank you for the cream puffs," I said.

"The quality of mercy is not strained," she said.

Mrs. Baker looked up and almost smiled a real smile. Again.

And that was when Mrs. Bigio came into the classroom. Actually, she didn't quite come in. She opened the door and stood leaning against the doorway, one hand up to her mouth, the other trembling on the doorknob.

Mrs. Baker stood. "Oh, Edna, did they find him?"

Mrs. Bigio nodded.

"And is he..."

Mrs. Bigio opened her mouth, but the only sounds that came out were the sounds of sadness. I can't tell you what they sounded like. But you know them when you hear them.

Mrs. Baker sprinted out from behind her desk and gathered Mrs. Bigio in her arms. She helped Mrs. Bigio to her own chair, where she slumped down like someone who had nothing left in her.

"Mr. Hoodhood, you may go home now," Mrs. Baker said.

I did.

But I will never forget those sounds.

***

I found out the next day that Mrs. Bigio's husband had died on a small hill with no name, in a small part of Vietnam. He had died at night, on a reconnaissance mission. Afterward, the army decided the hill was not a significant military target, and abandoned it.

Three weeks later, the body of First Sergeant Anthony Bigio of the United States Marine Corps was brought back home and buried in the cemetery beside Saint Adelbert's, the church he had been christened and married in. The
Home Town Chronicle
showed a picture of Mrs. Bigio on the front page, holding in one hand the American flag that had been draped over his casket, now folded into a triangle. The other hand was over her face.

Two nights after that, the
Home Town Chronicle
showed a different picture—the home of the Catholic Relief Agency where Mai Thi lived, which had been attacked by unknown vandals. Across its front was scrawled these words in broad black letters:
GO HOME VIET CONG
.