CHAPTER 17

My spurt of happiness kept right on going for the next month.

Ms. Adolf’s rumba injury was still keeping her home in bed, so she wasn’t around to make us participate in her usual fun activities like pop quizzes and mini-tests and end-of-chapter questions and extra homework assignments.

It was great to have Mr. Rock for a substitute teacher. He told at least one joke every day in class. And if you messed up on a test, he gave you a chance to study harder and take it again. Using his system, I got two B’s and a C-plus. Those grades actually got my dad to look up from his online crossword puzzle and say, “Much improved, Hank. Keep it up.” And coming from him, that’s a major compliment.

Tuesday quickly became my favorite day of the week. After school, Frankie and Ashley would change into their gis and go into the gym for Tae Kwon Do. Zoe and I would meet in the library for Reading Gym. We were partners, helping each other put together our autobiographies.

I decided to make mine a scrapbook type of thing, because writing a really long essay was totally impossible for me. I brought in cool stuff from home, like photos and my drawing doodles and tickets from Mets games and the first poem I ever wrote. Mr. Rock said it was okay to make a scrapbook, as long as I used everything that was there to practice my reading and spelling skills.

Being a drummer, Zoe decided to do a multimedia presentation. She wrote about her life in words that sounded like song lyrics. After each piece of writing, she made a tape of her favorite music from that time. She actually recorded herself singing “Wheels on the Bus” like a three-year-old and “Itsy Bitsy Spider” like a five-year-old. When she presented her autobiography to the class, she was going to keep time with the music using her drumsticks.

Now that’s a creative person, wouldn’t you agree?

The only problem in this otherwise very perfect month was that there were a few glitches in my plan not to tell my dad that I had switched out of Tae Kwon Do. Don’t worry, he didn’t find out, because Emily kept her mouth shut (although she did get an extra week of bed-making out of me). But I had a lot of close calls because when you’re keeping something from your mom or dad, you can easily get caught. Trust me on that.

Like every Tuesday, I had to switch into my gi before I got home from school, so it looked like I had been in martial arts. Usually, I changed clothes in the gym bathroom, but one day I forgot. I walked home, rode up the elevator, and was about to put the key into our apartment door when I realized I was still in my regular school clothes and my gi was in my backpack.

I couldn’t go back down to Frankie or Ashley’s to change, because their parents were already home and they’d wonder why I was changing in their apartment. I couldn’t go into the elevator to change, because what if it stopped on another floor and when the door opened I was standing there with no clothes on. Try explaining that to Mrs. Park on the fourth floor!

So I did the only thing a person could do. I decided to change right there in the hall. I was going to have to be quick, because one thing you don’t want to do in the hall of your apartment building is stand around half naked. It’s considered bad manners.

I took my gi out of my backpack and laid it out in front of me on the floor. My plan was to take my jeans off first and replace them with the gi pants. Then I’d do the top part. That way, if the worst happened and someone saw me, at least I’d always be half covered.

I took a deep breath, so I could concentrate with all my might. Then, like a track star coming off the blocks, I pulled off my jeans and jumped into the gi pants. I did pull off one shoe in the process, but all in all, I was pretty pleased with how quickly my bottoms went on. Now all I had to do was get the top part changed, and I was home free.

I took another deep breath, yanked off my sweatshirt and my T-shirt, and tossed them on the floor. Brrr, it was freezing cold. But before I could even reach for my gi top, the door across the hall opened and little Tyler King stepped out. He’s five, and was wearing his Spiderman pajamas like he always does.

“Hi, Tyler,” I said, trying to sound really casual, as though hanging around in the hall with no shirt on in the middle of a snowy February day was something I did all the time.

“Why are you naked, Hank?” he asked.

“I’m not naked, Tyler. I’m just not wearing a shirt.”

“That’s fun. I’m going to take my shirt off, too,” he said, pulling off his Spiderman pajama top.

“No, Tyler,” I said. “It’s cold. You have to put your shirt on.”

“But you don’t have one on.”

“That’s because I’m a big boy,” I said.

Okay, I know it was a lame answer, but I was under a lot of pressure.

I reached out and picked up his pajama top.

“Come on, let’s put this on,” I said. “Arms up.”

“No!” he said.

“Look up there, Tyler,” I said, pointing to the ceiling. “It’s Spiderman!”

He looked up and I took the opportunity to slip his pajama top over his head.

“I don’t see Spidey, Hank!”

“That’s because he’s over there now,” I said, pointing to the elevator. “Can you wave to him?”

Tyler waved, and while his arm was out, I slid the pajama arm over his arm. One down, one to go.

“Now he’s over there, on the other side. Wave to Spiderman, Tyler. Say ‘hi, Spidey’!”

Tyler waved, and I managed to get the pajamas over his other arm. At least he was dressed, but now he was sad.

“I didn’t see him, Hank! Did Spidey leave?”

“I think he went into your apartment, Tyler. Back inside the TV where he lives.”

“I’m coming, Spiderman!” Tyler yelled. “Be right there.”

He turned around, ran back inside his apartment, and slammed the door.

Phew! That was hard. And cold. I took a second to recover, still with no top on, when I saw the other apartment door on our floor open just a crack.

“What’s going on out here?” Mrs. Fink said, peeking out from her door. “Hank, is that you? Where’s your shirt? You’ll freeze out there!”

“Sshhhhhhhh,” I whispered to Mrs. Fink. She’s not known for speaking quietly, and the last thing I wanted was for my dad to hear her and come outside.

“What’s with the ‘sshhhhhhhh’? You have a secret?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“Tell me,” she said. “I love secrets.”

I heard footsteps in my apartment, coming toward the door. I had two seconds, maximum, before they reached me. I had to come up with something. And quick!