Mrs. Evans was now so big that the children had to rearrange their desks to make the center aisle wide enough for her to pass through. Martin thought it had more to do with the increasing amount of Nilla wafers she ate while the students did their sustained silent reading than her pregnancy. He brought up the subject again on Monday afternoon during recess, which, due to the icy weather conditions, the children were having in the gym. “She’s eating so many it’s enough to make a line item in the Evanses’ family budget,” Martin told Thomas, kicking back the basketball George repeatedly let slip from his fingers to sail in their direction.
At Thomas’s father’s suggestion, Martin’s parents had introduced him to the concept of budgeting to see if his counting could be turned into a useful skill.
“How long has it been?” Thomas asked, stopping the basketball once again and trapping it under his foot.
Though it had been some time since he’d asked, Martin knew exactly what Thomas was talking about. “Hours? Minutes?”
“Days. Hours.” Thomas hesitated. “Minutes, but not seconds.”
“Throw me the basketball, turd,” George called.
“Thirteen days, twenty-three hours, and seventeen minutes.”
“How long can you be outside in freezing temperatures before you—” Thomas could not finish the sentence.
Dave poked Thomas with his proboscis. He was not pleased.
Thomas had never asked Martin this question before, but he suspected his friend had done the math.
“There are too many variables. I can’t give you an accurate answer.”
Thomas stared at Martin. Why was it so easy to look him in the eyes, Thomas wondered. Because they were best friends? Or because when Martin looked back, Thomas knew he wasn’t searching for the usual things that everyone else seemed to be searching for—like how Thomas was holding up.
“I said give me that basketball. I signed out number twelve. It’s mine.” George was advancing.
“Be conservative,” Thomas said. “In hours, please.” Thomas picked up the ball. He turned it so that he could see the number 12 on it.
“Seventeen.”
“Are you deaf? I’ll tell Mrs. Evans if you don’t hand it over.”
“George Panagopoulos has a broken nose?” Mr. Moran was sitting in Mrs. Evans’s classroom across the desk from Thomas’s teacher and Principal Bowen. Both he and Mrs. Templeton had been called in after school to discuss the incident at recess.
“His glasses certainly,” Mrs. Evans said. “They won’t know about his nose until they see the specialist this afternoon.”
“It was just a bad pass,” Martin said. “Thomas didn’t mean to hit him in the face.”
“It serves George right.” Mrs. Templeton slapped her gloves on Mrs. Evans’s desk. “I can say that privately, can’t I, Principal Bowen? George Panagopoulos is a bully. He’s always picking on Martin.”
Principal Bowen did not respond to Mrs. Templeton. Instead, she turned to Thomas: “Did you intend to hurt George when you returned his ball?”
This, of course, was the million-dollar question.
“I…don’t know. It just…happened.”
“That is not an acceptable answer, Thomas,” Mr. Moran said. “You either did or you didn’t.”
“I think we should ask George why the ball was in Thomas’s possession in the first place,” Mrs. Templeton said. “Martin, were you and Thomas playing basketball with George?”
Martin shook his head. “No. And I think George was—” He broke off and glanced at Thomas. “George was playing dodgeball.”
“With a basketball? I see. Did George try to hit you with the ball?”
“Yes.”
“How many times?”
“Seven.”
“Seven times before the incident occurred. Why is it, I wonder, that George’s behavior went unnoticed, Mrs. Evans?”
Mrs. Evans explained patiently that due to the icy conditions, they had held indoor recess in the gymnasium with just one monitor for twenty-eight children. It was impossible to track each and every movement.
“Well, there you have it.” Sitting back and making a clucking noise with her tongue, Mrs. Templeton got ready to rest her case. “If the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior and Thomas and Martin have never lifted a finger against anyone in the classroom and George’s record is populated with skirmishes, then I see no need to question Thomas further.”
Thomas’s father had been holding up his hand since the beginning of Mrs. Templeton’s speech, and when she finished, he said: “If you please, Theresa, I’d like to get to the bottom of this.”
“You really are quite clueless, aren’t you, Brian?” Martin’s mother replied. “Do you have any idea what happens here at school? Do you know, for example, that Helen forgot to add sugar to the cupcakes she baked for Thomas’s birthday last April and that George called Thomas, Son of the Space Cadet?”
Mrs. Templeton took a deep breath as if gathering energy to continue her speech.
“That’s quite enough for one day, Theresa. Thank you,” Principal Bowen said. She stood up, indicating that the meeting was over. “I will tell Mrs. Panagopoulos that, after speaking with you and the boys, I’ve determined the incident was an accident. Since Thomas has already apologized, we will consider the matter closed.”
“You can tell Mrs. Panagopoulos from me that if George so much as approaches Martin or Thomas to tease or belittle them—”
“Mom.” Martin tugged on his mother’s sleeve. Mrs. Templeton was wound up like an eight-day clock, as Aunt Sadie liked to say.
Brushing at her eye with one hand and placing the other on Thomas’s head, she took a deep breath to calm down. “I’m sorry, Thomas. I just don’t want to see you hurt anymore, sweetie.”
“Thank you for your concern, Theresa, but it’s misplaced.” Mr. Moran took Martin’s hand and stood up. “We’re doing fine.”
The rest of the room waited for him to realize that he’d grabbed the wrong boy.
Dropping Martin’s hand, Mr. Moran said with emphasis: “Thomas and I are doing fine.”