War and Watermelon

Mrs. Wilkey spends the first hour of school deciding where people should sit. Mostly she bases it on height (I’m not the shortest boy, but it’s close, so I get the second seat in the second row), but she also says she wants the “wise guys” near the front. She doesn’t know any of us, but I guess after a hundred years of teaching seventh graders she can quickly identify the troublemakers.

They apparently include Magrini and Finken, who she places in the first and second seats in the row in front of her desk.

We have to take our seats as soon as they’re assigned to us so she can mull over the people who are still standing. I turn to the girl in the seat next to me. She appears to be amused about the seating ritual.

“I’m Diane,” she says.

I’ve never seen her before, but that’s true of a lot of the kids who went to Lincoln.

“You?” she asks.

“Brody. Winslow. I went to Euclid.”

“I figured that.” She has longish dark hair. She smiles as if she’s sure of who she is, not like some of these other good-looking girls who just stare right past me, looking for a guy with status to help prop up their egos. She’s cute.

Very cute.

“Good class,” she says. “Should be fun.”

Mrs. Wilkey stops what she’s doing and points at her. “Miss?”

“Diane.”

“Diane, in this classroom, you only speak when called upon.”

“So are you calling on me now?”

“No, I am not. I’m telling you to be quiet.”

Mrs. Wilkey goes back to the seating assignments. Diane crosses her arms and leans back in her chair. When Mrs. Wilkey has her back turned, she sticks her tongue out at her. Then she smiles again, right at me.

I point my finger at her and carefully and deliberately mouth those same words. “I’m telling you to be quiet.”

This time she sticks her tongue out at me.

Seventh grade seems to be off to a good start.

We get hauled up to the auditorium after a while so the principal can hit us with the rules. The auditorium is on the third floor, and only two classes at a time are allowed up there. Technically, the auditorium isn’t quite condemned, but the roof leaks and there’s some question about how solid the floor is. So a room built for a couple of hundred people isn’t supposed to hold more than fifty now.

The principal seems cross and sort of confused. He repeats things. At first I thought it was for emphasis, but the third time he tells us about not running in the halls, somebody from the other class raises his hand.

The kid’s from Lincoln, so I don’t know him. He stands and says, “Are we allowed to run in the halls?”

Everybody laughs. The principal says, “No, you are not.”

That class’s teacher—Mr. Enright—walks to the end of the aisle and motions to the kid with his finger. The kid gets up and shuffles over. The teacher makes him sit way in the back by himself.

I’m sitting next to Finken. He leans toward me and says, “That’s Danny Pellegrini. That whole class is a bunch of yap-yaps. They barely got out of Lincoln.”

“Yeah. Same with the Euclid kids. That was funny, though.”

“Oh, he’s hilarious, just not very bright.”

When we get back to the classroom, Finken calls me over to his desk. He opens the lid and points to one of the many names carved into the underside.

“You know this guy?” he asks.

It says Ryan Winslow.

“That’s my brother.”

“Cool. When was that?”

“Six years ago.”

Mrs. Wilkey is the last one into the room. She fires me a look and says, “Take your seat, young man.”

I walk over. Diane is looking at me. When she’s sure Mrs. Wilkey isn’t watching, she mouths “young man” at me with a stern look. Then she laughs.

We have to hustle home after school so we can suit up and get to practice by four.

“How’d it go?” Tony asks me.

“Pretty good. Good class.”

“Mine stinks,” he says. “How did I wind up in the smart class?”

“Beats me,” I say. “Somebody made a mistake.”

“Ha-ha. You know what I mean. We got all the straight-A students. What fun is that?”

“You must have been left over or something. You know, all the classes were even except the smart one, so they just threw the last guy in there.”

“I come way before you in the alphabet,” he says. “You should be in Mr. Blaine’s class.”

“Because I’m smart?”

“No, because your name starts with W.”

“You’ll be all right,” I say. “You’ll just have to study a couple of extra hours every night. It’ll be fun.”

“Sure it will.”

“You got homework already?”

“Tons of it,” he says. “We have to read like ten pages in social studies and do a page of math problems.”

“We just have to cover our books.”

“We gotta do that, too. It’s insane.”

We walk past Euclid. Tony could stay with me for another block, but it’s quicker for him if he turns here.

“How’s the girl situation?” he asks.

“Where?”

“In your class.”

“I don’t know. Regular.”

“Regular.” He snorts. “Any prospects?”

“What do you care? What about Janet?”

“What about her? I ain’t limiting myself.”

“I’m not either.”

I’m not saying a word to him about anybody in my classroom. Blaine’s room is right across the hall, so Tony will see the situation. I don’t want his help. He was no help at all with the other one.

He leaves, so I walk the last block alone. I’m feeling good. I started the day feeling intimidated, but something shifted. I felt like I fit in. There’s power in numbers, I think. And we aren’t little kids anymore.