Zack got so excited telling me about what he was going to play at preschool that he drenched me with his bowl of Banana-O’s the next morning. Nick had to go on ahead to school while I changed my clothes. I hoped Mr. Allen wouldn’t say anything about our issue of the Spark before I got there. I wanted to hear every word of his rave review firsthand.
Nick and I had talked about our issue of the class magazine for hours on Sunday afternoon while we chalked new and better roads for Brambletown. We couldn’t wait to see Mr. Allen’s face when he saw the cover, and the editorial, too.
“He’s going to be impressed,” I’d ventured.
“He’s going to be amazed! Poor Gordon. Mr. Allen will probably put you back in charge right away.”
But I knew Nick’s last comment had probably been a bit optimistic, since there was still the little matter of me mopping the lunchroom floor during today’s editorial meeting, and Tuesday’s, too.
I got to school in record time. On my way into the building, I picked up my copy of the Spark from the pile next to the office door. I smiled down to my toes. If I had to say so myself, the cover was a masterpiece. The solar system stood out against a beautiful blue-green wash. And there in the center was our teacher holding up the Earth on an open science book, like he was giving it to us on a platter. Just in case anyone was too dense to get it, I’d changed the title to The Springville Spark: Mr. Allen Brings New Life to the Solar System!
I strode into the classroom and risked a quick grin at Nick. But he was slumped in his seat staring straight ahead, his chin on his fists.
Although Mr. Allen wasn’t in the room, lots of other kids were sitting at their desks, writing or drawing something. That was normal for Gordon, but not for everybody else. I had expected the classroom to be buzzing about the new Spark issue.
Jess and Alima had their heads together, and they were giggling like mad. I peered over their shoulders. I didn’t get it.
They were making changes to my drawing of Mr. Allen, and the changes were not at all complimentary. Mr. Allen now had what looked like four green trumpets coming out of his head. His eyebrows stretched up over his head in big black points, and his sneakers had turned into giant purple paws.
“Why are you wrecking it?” I cried.
“What?” Alima looked at me like I was the one doing something stupid. At the next table, Max’s Spark cover was a different version of the same horrible joke. So was everyone else’s in his group, except Gordon’s. Oddly, Gordon seemed to be the only person not drawing that morning besides Nick. I ran to the next group, and then to mine. Lacey was just finishing her cover.
“How could you?” I yelled at her.
“I’m just going along with the joke,” she said. She tugged on her bangs, looking a little confused.
I turned to Nick. “Why aren’t you doing anything? They’re ruining all our work!”
He folded his arms across his chest and stared straight through me like I wasn’t even there.
I heard a scraping sound from the back of the room. Owen had dragged over a chair, and he was pinning his own messy masterpiece high on the bulletin board. Some other kids raced back and handed theirs up to him.
“Stop it!” I shouted. “Don’t!” I ran over to the bulletin board. Owen hopped down and knocked the chair away. I jumped up as high as I could, but I couldn’t reach those pictures. I grabbed for the chair. Owen pulled it back in a crazy tug-of-war. Kids ran toward us. Desks crashed and books toppled.
“ROOM TWENTY, FREEZE!”
We froze. One of the ruined Spark covers detached from the bulletin board and floated gently down like a falling leaf. I snatched it out of the air and stuffed it in my pocket.
“Return to your seats,” said Mr. Allen sternly. “This behavior is extremely disappointing.”
We slunk back to our desks. Nick didn’t look up. How had everything gone so wrong? I covered my face with my hands.
“Nadie and Nick, I’ll see you both out in the hall,” our teacher said. “I expect the rest of you to spend the time putting our classroom back in order. In silence!”
“I’ve just come from Mrs. Winger’s office,” Mr. Allen began. “Apparently this cover of yours has created quite a sensation in other classrooms as well. There have been many creative additions to the cover, including some very unflattering drawings of other teachers. I must say, Nadie, I would have expected you to come up with something more suitable for this particular issue of the Spark. You too, Nick. Satire has its place, but it isn’t always appropriate, especially in a school magazine that goes out to younger students, as well as teachers, parents, the principal—”
“S-satire?” I stammered.
“Yes, that was satire. Making fun of something in a sarcastic way.”
“But Mr. Allen, it wasn’t—”
He held up his hand. “It was a poor choice, and one that wouldn’t have been made if we had worked on the issue together as we should have. I take responsibility for that, and I told Mrs. Winger as much. I assured her that I wouldn’t let anything like this happen again. If it does, we’ll lose the privilege of publishing our magazine.”
I knew that Mr. Allen was speaking to us in his usual exact manner. He was using the English language. So why couldn’t I understand a word of what he was saying? Satire? Poor choice? Lose the Spark? I felt as if I’d been transported into some kind of weird parallel universe.
Mr. Allen spoke again. “I’d like the two of you to go down to the media center computers and work on a note of explanation and apology to Mrs. Winger. We will go over it together after school. I’m sorry,” he added, “but as of now you are both relieved of your duties on the Spark.”
Nick took off down the hall. He was practically running.
“Nick, wait!”
I caught up with him at the door of the media center and grabbed his arm, but he shook me off and went inside. He sat down at a computer in the far corner. I pulled up a chair and sat beside him.
“Thanks a lot!” Nick’s face was flushed. He was really angry.
“Thanks for what? What’s going on here? We didn’t do satire! You never do anything sarcastic!”
“But you do,” Nick shot back. “I can’t believe you changed our title to that!”
“Shhhh!” A fifth-grade boy at the next computer glared at us.
I leaned in close to Nick. “What do you mean, you can’t believe I changed it to that?” I hissed. “It’s a great title.”
“I can’t even talk to you,” Nick said.
I exploded. “What is going on, Nick? What’s wrong with Mr. Allen Brings New Life to the Solar System?”
Nick stared at me. “That’s not what it says,” he said evenly. “And you know it.” He clamped his mouth shut in a thin line. He turned away from me and opened a blank file on the computer.
I snatched the crumpled cover out of my pocket and looked at the title. What I saw hit me like a punch in the stomach. My title for the issue didn’t say: Mr. Allen Brings New Life to the Solar System! It said: Mr. Alien Brings New Life to the Solar System!
“But—but I didn’t write that,” I sputtered. I pulled my chair in closer and tried to calm my shaky voice. “I wrote Mr. Allen.”
“You were mad at Mr. Allen the whole time we were working on this issue—making fun of him, even. But I can’t believe you’d do this to the Spark.”
“I—I must have typed it wrong. I didn’t mean to write ‘alien’!”
“Well,”—Nick’s ears were bright red—“then you made a really stupid mistake.”
That did it. “You’re the editor!” I shouted. “It’s your job to check the issue for mistakes, and you didn’t!”
“I would have if you’d showed me the cover before you sent it!”
“Could you take your lovers’ quarrel somewhere else?” the fifth grader said with a smirk.
I bumped my chair away from Nick’s. “I’m going to write my own note to Mrs. Winger,” I told him. “I’m not working with you.”
“Fine.”
“Fine.” I moved to a different computer and glared at the monitor. A skier tumbled down a mountain in a giant snowball screen saver. I knew just how that skier felt.