Like I said, when I’m just a little bit of trouble people give me extra help because they think they can teach me how to help myself, which is always their hope, and mine too. All morning my new teacher, Mrs. Fabian, had us studying ancient Greek mythology by acting it out.

“This year we’ll live like the Greeks!” she declared with enthusiasm, and pointed to a map of Greece and a list of names and places she had tacked to the wall. She pointed out Mount Olympus, where all the gods and goddesses lived, and the dark underworld called Hades, and told us great stories about the Minotaur and Hercules and so much more ancient life. “We’ll eat, drink, and sleep Greek culture and mythology!”

I liked her right away because she was talking about having fun before we went over the list of class rules. Still, there was something bothering me that I needed to ask her, so I raised my hand.

“Yes, Joey?” she asked.

“Are we going to be tested on that?”

“Not yet,” she replied, and smiled widely. “We’re going to enjoy learning it first.”

“After we enjoy it,” I asked, “then will we be tested?”

“We’ll see,” she said.

“See a test?” I shot back.

“You are a clever boy,” she replied, trying to put the brakes on me. “Don’t stress out. Always remember that the more fun you have the better you’ll do on a test.”

“But all my life I’ve been tested and I do stress out a little bit,” I said with my heart pounding inside my chest like a fist punching its way out. “Because right now I’m repeating a whole year, which means I totally failed everything on last year’s test. You name it and I flunked it!”

By then I had everyone’s attention so I tried to be helpful and blurted, “Testing turns me into a stress-mess. Everyone else, too!”

“Well, in that case,” Mrs. Fabian swiftly cut in, “you need a fun job that can bring out the best-mess in you.” She snapped her fingers and right then and there gave me the job in class everyone else wanted. I became the Greek Oracle at Delphi and wore a Greek toga around my shoulders as I sat at her desk, and everyone lined up in front of me like troubled ancient Greeks with big problems. Instead of me being worried, it was their job to look worried, and then one by one they were to whisper their questions in my ear. My job was to listen, then “Greekishly” slap my palm up against my forehead, and roll my eyes inward, and moan like a ghostly wind, and then come up with a prediction. I liked this job because everyone always said I was a natural at being dramatic.

My first anguished Greek was Chuck Darts. “O Oracle,” he chanted in a wavering voice that Mrs. Fabian had first acted out. “What do you see in my future?”

He didn’t give me much to work with, plus he was my first troubled Greek and I hadn’t practiced my oracling yet. I have always been better at asking questions than at giving answers, so I hesitated as I twisted up my face into a question mark and scratched the side of my peanut head like a thinking monkey. Then suddenly I flicked my eyes open and in a whispery voice I told Chuck I had a vision of him on an ambulance stretcher after school. “You will stick your left hand into a baseball glove … and a black widow spider will bite you … and your hand will swell up so big not even Hercules can pull the glove off,” I added dramatically.

“Do I survive?” he asked with his voice fading away like someone falling off a cliff. He gaped at his hand in horror.

“Watch the TV news tonight,” I replied in my moaning, windy voice. “If you are not dead, then the Greek gods have spared you.”

I thought I did well, but he must have run off crying to Mrs. Fabian because she soon snuck up on me from behind and dropped her arms crossways over my chest like a seat belt, and then she tightened them.

“Remember,” she said softly into my ear, “your job is to make sure everyone has a good day.”

She lifted her arms and I took a breath.

“Well,” I said, looking straight up at her, “when am I going to have a good day?” It wasn’t that I was having a bad day, but if I had a chance to talk to a real oracle I’d want some answers about my missing meds, and how Mom was going to take care of Carter Junior and the dogs while I was at school.

“Well?” I repeated.

“Not every question gets an answer,” Mrs. Fabian replied as if she was the boss oracle.

“Why?” I asked. “What goes up must come down, so it figures that every question has an answer.”

“Not in this case,” she explained. “Some questions go up, up, and away—poof!” She snapped her fingers above my head.

“That sounds so negative,” I remarked, trying to stay a step ahead of her.

“It’s negative to waste your time thinking up questions that don’t have answers yet. Relax,” she advised.

I knew she was right, because my brain was built as upside down as an iceberg. All my millions of questions were gathered on the bottom of my brain and I only had a few sweaty little answers melting across the top.

“But,” she said cheerfully, steering right around my negative thoughts, “when you are positive, then every day is a good day. Now, can I make a prediction just for you?” Mrs. Fabian asked.

“Go ahead,” I said. “Peek into my future—but watch out you don’t get poked in the eye.”

She held one hand over her eyes and rubbed her forehead. Then she leaned down and calmly said, “The key for you to have a sunny day is when you unlock all the good in the world, and not all the bad.”

“Is there a keyhole I can peek into and see all that good stuff that’s waiting for me?” I asked. “I don’t want to unlock any more bad stuff.”

“Just be positive,” she instructed, “and even the bad stuff will turn into good stuff.” Then she glanced up at the clock because someone had to go down to the cafeteria and get the classroom snack.

“Pos-i-tive,” I said, cutting the word into slices like a pizza.

“Now say it with the appropriate feeling,” she said, and encouraged me to brighten up my tone by making a face as perky as a sunflower.

“Pawz-i-tive,” I said softly, like I was gently petting Carter Junior’s head. “Pawz-i-tive,” I repeated, until after a few tries I made that word sound like it had an optimistic future. “I’m pawzzz-i-tive,” I said to Mrs. Fabian, and licked my lips because all those zzz’s tickled them.

“And I’m positive you are,” she replied. “Now be a ray of sunshine. Remember, your good day reward will be waiting for you once you make everyone feel less negative.”

Secretly I knew she really stressed the word positive because of my past, and even though she didn’t know a whole lot about my present, I could tell that someone had filled her in on me before I even walked through her door. I bet she had a file on me titled: JOEY PIGZA: TOP SECRET!

I told the next kid there was a dollar in lost change behind his couch cushions. That was positive.

“O Great Oracle,” a girl named Shirley asked, bowing toward me as she spoke, “what will my mother cook for dinner?”

“What’s your favorite food?” I moaned.

“Chicken under a brick,” she replied.

“That’s exactly what she is cooking,” I said, sounding a little astonished. In a million years I couldn’t have guessed that people would eat a poor chicken after they flattened it with a brick.

The next kid was missing his turtle and I said he’d find it in his bedroom slipper—his left one. Another kid wanted to know what was for her birthday. I told her the answer would show up in her wildest dreams just before her alarm clock went off.

By the time I finished with the whole class I was pretty good at being positive. The other kids even smiled at me as if I had been handing out candy. As a result I sat up smartly in my seat and tilted my head back. I closed my eyes. Now it was my turn to ask the Greek gods a question and receive my own special answer. I took a deep breath. “When will my mother feel better?” I dared to ask.

At that moment a stuttering, scratchy intercom voice came on over the classroom loudspeaker.

“Mrs. Fabian,” the sandpaper voice said. “Can you hear me?”

“Yes,” Mrs. Fabian replied loudly, glancing up at the speaker. So we all glanced up at the speaker, which at that moment looked like a round-faced oracle from Mount Olympus about to tell us something important.

As we waited for the office voice to return we heard some switches clicking back and forth, and then a worried, desperate voice came snaking through the speaker. “Only Joey can help me,” the voice said in a whispery way. “Only Joey.”

Everyone in class suddenly turned and looked at me. “Who was that?” asked a wide-eyed kid.

“A Greek goddess?” someone guessed.

But it wasn’t a god or goddess. It was my mother. But how could it be her? I must have been hearing voices. I shot a puzzled look at Mrs. Fabian, and she was staring right back at me.

Then the switches clicked back the other way and the secretary’s voice returned. “Sorry about that,” she said breathlessly, and quickly added, “Send Joey Pigza down to the office—immediately!” I knew it! Someone must have asked that radio oracle to name the first kid to get in trouble on the first day of school.

But why would the oracle sound like my mother?

Mrs. Fabian turned her eyes toward the door. Her nose was like a needle on a compass and I slowly sailed away. “Are they going to test me on something I know?” I asked over my shoulder, hoping they would test me on changing diapers and cleaning up baby puke because I’d done a lot of that this last while.

“I think they are just going to fill you in on something you don’t yet know,” she said. “Don’t worry. Skip on down there with your sunflower face held high. I predict it will be good news.”

I didn’t have to be an oracle to know it wasn’t good news and the only thing that skipped down the hall was my heart skipping a beat.