Exam Day

A couple days later, Dewey reassured Clara up and down that he and Wolfie had searched the place, also up and down, and seen neither hide nor hair of that critter. Still Clara wouldn’t return.

“I’m sorry, sir. I just can’t,” she lamented.

Clara had gone through Bryan’s recordings at home, though, and edited out the parts that didn’t seem of interest or helpful, and she emailed Dewey a clean copy of the “best (and the worst) of” Mrs. Décorder’s class.

It turned out Dewey’s dad wasn’t the only one who used his hair as a pencil case. Bryan also found it convenient to stick pencils there, especially on test days. Since his hair only had soft waves, not the tighter curls of Dewey’s dad, though, he had to twist and twirl the pencils around a bit to get them to hold. His hair stuck up, wild thick twisted snakes curling their way around number two pencils.

“Ohh,” observed Mrs. Décorder, tilting her head sideways and pausing to look at him. “Now, there’s something you don’t see every day, Ryanandbryan.” When Mrs. Décorder spoke, her words had that gooey quality as if she had a caramel in the back of her throat.

The other kids began to laugh now, noticing how Bryan looked like some sort of screw-horned antelope.

“When I was a girl,” she recalled, twirling her fire-red hair in her fingers, “I used to curl my hair like you do, Ryanandbryan. I made bee-yoo-tiful pin curls.” She drawled long on the vowels making the word “beautiful” thick and quaggy as she spoke.

Bryan just stared stone-like at her not sure what to say. He had quickly shoved a couple pencils in his hair on his way from his locker to class so as not to have to lug his binder. What was all this talk about hair?

She held the exams in her hands and sat down on her stool. “It’s best, of course to start with damp hair. Do you find that as well, Ryanandbryan?”

“Huh?” the pen recorder taped his reply.

“Well, it’s easier to work with that way,” she told the class. “Next come the sections. Yes, that’s right. Is that right, Ryanandbryan? Sections come next, of course, that’s right.”

Bryan looked at Ryan and slowly slid the pencils out of his hair hoping that might somehow save him from whatever came next. He looked at the clock. She was using up their test time. Maybe they wouldn’t have to take the exam!

Mrs. Décorder stood up. “Pinch and roll, pinch and roll. I’d pinch and roll each sectioned strand of hair, and of course bobby pin it close to my head. Oh, Ryanandbryan, you do bring back memories.

“The bobby pin,” she continued, “is a fine little scientific invention, is it not?” she asked the class. “Who would like to guess where we get the name?”

The class, only too happy to try to delay the exam attempted a round of guessing the origins of the name bobby pin.

“His son was named Bobby?” asked AJ.

“No. Good guess, though,” Mrs. Décorder drawled.

Sadly, though they had no more guesses. The name Bobby meant nothing to them. They didn’t know any Bobbys. So the brainstorming stalled.

“For the hair bob!” she sang.

“Who’s he?” asked Katie.

“Not who, what! The hair bob of the 1920s. The bobby pin was very useful for that particular hairdo and was invented during that era.”

“Ryanandbryan seems to prefer pencils over bobby pins. I’m sorry we don’t have more time to hear about your choice today. Ryanandbryan, you understand, we have an exam to take. Don’t you?” He just stared at her.

“I would like to hear more about how you twist your hair. I always thought you had to roll not twist. Twisting makes for a fuzzy coiffure.”

Bryan gave her a big closed mouth smile, and Mrs. Décorder went back to handing out the exams face down. They only had fifteen minutes left to take their tests.

“Roll not twist?” Ryan baited him.

“I have no idea what she’s talking about.” Bryan whispered back.

“Now, Ryanandbryan, no talking,” she drawled. “Go ahead and turn over your tests, class.”

Bryan finished his test easily before the bell. There sat Mrs. Décorder at her desk, grading a stack of papers and unaware of how many eyes wandered to others’ exams. The projector sat right next to the turn-in basket.

He dropped his test in the basket and stood quietly in front of the room.

These were just the moments that got him into trouble. Bryan felt the sudden temptation to throw an image of Medusa up on the SMART Board with Mrs. Décorder’s face. All it would take would be a few clicks, and all those pin-curl snakes would be hers!

Later, Bryan couldn’t be sure if it was the bell that saved him, or his own self-control, but he ended up leaving the class. At least for today, no one would be turned to stone.

🏫

“Okay,” Dewey laid out to Bryan when they met again after he’d had a chance to review the recordings over the weekend.

“Here’s what we’re going to do: you gotta learn to make nice more. I don’t think we’re going to make her less, um, eccentric. So you gotta play to her soft spot. Bring her an apple. Clean her SMART Board for her. Make her a lunch. Start making nice!”

“Seriously? I mean, she’s not a bad person. It just seems weird, I guess, to be nice to someone who is making you miserable.”

“Well, try it out for the week, then come back and let me know how it’s going. Don’t come on too strong at first. Save the big ones like making her lunch for when you really mess up big,” directed Dewey.

“Okay. I’ll come sooner if I get stuck. Otherwise, next week.” Bryan looked around for any signs of some cookies that might be coming his way. Nothing.

Shoot! Thought Dewey. I forgot to take cookies out of the freezer!

“Frozen cookie?” offered Dewey.

“Yeah, why not,” nodded Bryan, never one to turn down a cookie of any sort.

Dewey went to the freezer and found a plastic bag with some standby chocolate chip cookies. Clara always thought of everything, even when he did not.

“Here you go,” he offered Bryan three to make up for forgetting to defrost them.

“Thanks!” accepted Bryan.

With that, Bryan left with a boost up from the Gator Electric.

“I think we’re on to something, Clara,” Dewey spoke to the four walls to break the silence after Bryan left. “I think we’ve got this one! I just gotta figure out how to get you back again,” he sighed, and, chewing on a frozen chocolate chip cookie, he sat down at his desk to think.