“Do you have lunch money?” she asked, the same question five days a week.
“Always.”
“And your homework is complete?”
“It’s perfect, Mom.”
“And I’ll see you when?”
“I’ll stop by the office after school.” Theo stopped by the office every day after school, without fail, but Mrs. Boone always asked.
“Be careful,” she said. “And remember to smile.”
“I’m smiling, Mom.”
“Love you, Teddy.”
“Love you back.”
Theo stepped outside and said good-bye to Judge, who would ride in the car with Mrs. Boone to the office where he would spend his day sleeping and eating and worrying about nothing. Theo jumped on his bike and sped away, once again wishing he could be a dog for the next four days.
Chapter 2
At 8:40 the bell rang and Mr. Mount called his troops to order. Usually, on Mondays, they were fairly rowdy and gabbing nonstop over whatever happened during the weekend. Today, though, they were more subdued. The truth was that everyone in the eighth grade, from the kids to the teachers to the administrators, maybe even the secretaries and janitors, was dreading the week to come.
Woody raised his hand and said, “Say, Mr. Mount, I have an idea. Since I don’t want to be on the Honors track, and since I’m far too smart for the slow track, why can’t I just take a pass and be normal and skip all these tests?”
Mr. Mount smiled and said, “Because the school says you have to take the tests. It’s one way of making sure our school is doing well.”
“Our school is in the top ten percent in the state, or at least that’s what we’re told all the time around here,” Woody replied. “Of course we’re doing well. We have great teachers, brilliant students, the works.”
“Sorry. Look, guys, I’m not crazy about these tests myself, but I’m not making the rules.”
Woody was on a roll. “Okay, but just look around the room. We know that Chase and Joey and Aaron and maybe Theo will score high and make Honors. We also know that the slow ones — Justin and Darren and, of course, Edward — will end up in the slow group. Why can’t the rest of us just admit that we’re normal and skip the tests?”
Amid the hissing, Edward said, “Speak for yourself, you idiot.”
“My IQ is much higher than yours,” Darren shot from across the room.
“You almost flunked phys ed,” Justin yelled from the back.
“Okay, okay,” Mr. Mount said, holding up both hands. “That’s enough for now.”
“I think I’m going to puke,” Woody said. “I’m really getting sick.”
“Knock it off. First period will be with Ms. Garman to review math. Next will be language arts with Ms. Eberlee, then a fifteen-minute break. I know you guys are excited. Let’s go.”
They moaned and groaned and trudged out of the room, as if headed for a firing squad.
After three hours of torture, the students were especially happy to gather in the cafeteria for a thirty-minute lunch break. Theo wanted to get away from the boys and happened to see April Finnemore sitting alone. He took his tray of spaghetti and salad and eased into the chair next to her. “Having any fun?” he asked.
“Hello, Theo,” she said quietly. They were close friends, nothing romantic or anything like that, though Woody and the others often teased Theo about his weird girlfriend. April was different, not weird. She was serious, often moody, and often misunderstood by her classmates. She dressed more like a boy than a girl, wore her hair very short, and had no interest in fashion and teen gossip and social media and all the other stuff she deemed trivial. She loved art and wanted to be a painter, in Paris or Santa Fe, somewhere far from home because home was not a happy place. Her parents were nuts. Her older brother and sister had already fled. She was often alone and left to fend for herself.
Theo was about the only kid in the eighth grade who tried to understand her. “Are you as bored as I am?” he asked.
“Totally. I can’t wait until Friday afternoon and these tests are behind us.”
“Are you nervous?” he asked as he shoveled in a load of spaghetti.
“Yes, very. I have to make the Honors track, Theo, because it offers more art programs. I don’t care about anything else. The art classes are small, and the best teachers are in Honors.” She spoke softly as she pushed some salad around her plate. She had the appetite of a bird. She hadn’t touched her roll, and Theo had his eye on it.
“You’ll do fine, April. You could make straight A’s if you wanted to.” She didn’t, because neither parent pushed her at home. She was absent more than any other student, and when she was in class she was often unprepared. She made perfect grades in French and Spanish but was uninterested in everything else. Except art.
“How are things at home?” he asked, glancing around. It was a loaded question because the answer could be anything. The Finnemores lived in a rental house in a lesser part of town, and April kept her other friends away from the house. But Theo understood.
“Okay, I guess. About the same. I just stay in my room, do art, and read books.”
“I’m glad things are okay.”
“Thanks, Theo. You’re going to do fine on the tests.”
“I don’t really care.”
“Yes, you do. You’re a good student and you’re competitive. You want to be at the top of every class, including law school. Don’t tell me you don’t care.”
“Okay, maybe a little. But law school seems like a long way off.”
“It is. Let’s get through high school first.”
“Deal.”
A boy named Pete approached them from the other side of the cafeteria and looked as if he wanted to say something. He was an eighth grader from another section, a kid Theo hardly knew. His hands were empty; he had no lunch tray, no brown bag. Slowly, he sat down and glanced nervously at April, then at Theo. “Hi, Pete,” Theo said.
“Can I talk to you?” he said timidly, as if April had suddenly vanished.
“Uh, sure. What’s up?”
“Can we talk, just the two of us?”
“Just finishing up here,” April said as she grabbed her tray and stood. “See you later, Theo.”
“Sorry,” Pete said after she was gone. “I didn’t mean to interrupt.”
Well, you sure did a fine job of it, Theo thought, but said nothing. The kid had a bruise on his cheek and looked frightened. “Can we go outside?” he asked.
“Have you eaten?” Theo asked.
He nodded slightly, as if he wasn’t sure. “Yes.”
Theo stuffed his mouth with as much spaghetti as possible and took his tray to the counter. They stepped outside onto the playground and walked around the edge, far from the other kids. They walked and walked and Pete seemed unable to speak, so Theo finally broke the ice with, “What happened to your cheek?”
“You know all about lawyers and stuff, right?”
“I guess. Both of my parents are lawyers. I’ve sort of absorbed a lot. What’s going on?”
“My dad drinks a lot, does some drugs. He came home late Saturday night drunk, and he and my mom got into a big fight. He smacked her around, busted a lip, there was some blood. I’m the oldest kid, two younger sisters, and I tried to help my mom. He slapped me a few times. My sister Sharon, she’s ten, called 911 and the police came. They arrested my dad and took him away. It was terrible, just terrible. He’s in jail, and now my mom, and me and my sisters, too, are really afraid of what will happen when he gets out.”
Theo listened carefully as they continued walking. “Has this happened before?”
“Yes, but he’s never hit me. A few months back, my mom threatened to call the police and he settled down. He said he would kill her if she ever told anyone. But if she tells the police now, then he’ll just go to jail and lose his job. We don’t have much money, Theo. My mom works two part-time jobs, and, well, I guess we’re just in big trouble. What’s my mom supposed to do? Keep it quiet and keep getting beat up until he kills her, or tell the police everything and put him away in jail? We don’t know what to do, Theo.”