We had two days to go before spring break officially started. No one was in the mood to be in school, including Mrs. Greely. She didn’t even say settle down after the morning bell rang, and we definitely needed to settle down. Frank, Nicholas, and I huddled around Frank’s desk talking about everything we wanted to do over our week off. Our big plans included proving Mr. Schneider was an alien kidnapper, finding the boy from Mayson, solving the Bermuda Triangle mystery, and collecting our reward. Also, there was a rumor that Star Wars might be coming back to the Picture Palace, and this time, we’d be sure to get there super early. Even alien hunters needed a break now and again.
After a few minutes, Mrs. Greely announced, “I’ve arranged some extra library time this morning so you can all work on your presidents project before break.”
Eugene Barone raised his hand.
“Yes, Eugene?” Mrs. Greely asked.
“But it’s Thursday. We always have science and math in the mornings on Thursdays.”
Joey Simone fake-coughed “Nerd” and the entire class laughed, including me. Yeah, I knew it was wrong. And I started to feel bad. I cleared my throat and brushed pretend lint off my sleeve while everyone else continued.
“I thought going to the library would be a better use of our time,” said Mrs. Greely. “We can pick up math and science after the break.”
“What about tomorrow?” Eugene asked, this time without raising his hand.
“It’s a half day. I had planned on showing a movie, but only if you’re all well behaved today. Let’s try to do better, shall we?”
Maria Martona was next to raise her hand.
Mrs. Greely looked exhausted, and it wasn’t even 9:30 in the morning. “No, Maria,” she said, without even letting her ask her question. “You can’t work in pairs when you get to the library. You may sit together at tables, but as I’ve told you several times already, this is an independent project.”
“This is so great,” Nicholas whispered as we headed down the hallway toward the library. “Mrs. Greely might as well have given us indoor recess all morning. It’s pretty much the same thing.”
“It’s better,” Frank said. “Mrs. Greely hardly ever sticks around during library time. That’s probably why she gave it to us, so she could go hang out in the teacher’s lounge while we’re there.”
“You know the plan, right?” Nicholas asked.
I nodded.
The plan was to get the table. The one buried deep in the back corner behind the shelf with the boring poetry books that nobody ever wanted to read. It was also the table that was as far away from Mrs. Milo’s desk as possible. She was the school librarian and was a thousand years old. Her glasses reminded me of the magnifying glass Dad bought me to go with my spy book. They were that thick, and they made her eyes huge too. She also always shouted when she spoke, which I thought was funny since she worked in the library where everyone was supposed to be quiet. Mom said it was because she had trouble hearing. I didn’t believe that, though, ’cause even if we were all the way in the back of the room and trying to keep our voices low, she yelled at us to keep it down. Still, the farther away you were from her, the better.
As soon as we got to the library, the three of us raced to the back of the room. Frank threw his notebook on the table, but he threw it so fast that it slid right off. When he bent down to pick it up, Bobby pulled out a chair and sat down.
“Hey, I was here first,” Frank said, standing back up.
“No, I was,” Bobby insisted.
Joey and Vincent sat down at the table with him.
“That’s not true,” I said. I knew it wasn’t going to end well as soon as I opened my mouth. But it was too late. I was mad—and not just about the table. “Frank put his notebook down first. It just fell off, that’s all. This is our table.” I hoped Mrs. Greely or Mrs. Milo would step in, but I didn’t see either of them in the room.
Joey stood up and scowled at Frank. “So you’ve got Matzah Boy doing your dirty work? Makes perfect sense, since he’s dirty just like his father.”
“You take that back!” I yelled, getting right up into his face. I stood on my tiptoes and everything.
“Danny, come on.” Nicholas pulled on my sleeve. “He’s not worth it.”
“No,” I said, not budging. “He needs to take it back.”
“You need to step away,” Joey said, staring me down.
Frank pulled at my other sleeve so hard I stumbled backward. “Let’s go,” he said to Nicholas and me. “We didn’t want to sit here anyway.”
“He shouldn’t have said that.” My heart raced, thumping so loudly that I could barely hear my own words. I began to walk away but turned around once more to see Joey spit on the spot where I’d been standing. Then he traced an imaginary cross on his body with his hands: forehead to chest, then shoulder to shoulder.
We sat at a table as far away from them as possible. It wasn’t our original plan, but in my mind, it was an even better plan.
“Why did he do that?” I asked. “Why did Joey spit and make that cross?”
“You don’t want to know,” Frank said.
“I asked the question, didn’t I?”
Frank glanced at Nicholas, then back at me. “My grandma—Nonna—she does that whenever she thinks something or someone is cursed.”
“So they think I’m cursed?” I asked.
“They think a lot of stupid things,” Nicholas said.
“Here’s what I think,” I told them, my anger building up. “I think I’m going to start telling Mr. Schneider about Joey, Bobby, and Vincent. Talk them up, you know? Maybe he’ll zap them into his white van alien spacecraft. They’re the ones who should go live on Mars, not some innocent little kid from Mayson.” I stopped, partly ’cause it sounded ridiculous and partly ’cause it actually wasn’t a half-bad idea. Then I started laughing. I started laughing so hard I couldn’t stop, even though I knew it was mean. Frank and Nicholas started laughing too.
“Boys!” Mrs. Milo walked into the room and cracked her ruler across her desk. Oh, sure, now she was around.
“Sorry,” I said, clamping my hand over my mouth. I lowered my voice back down to my quietest whisper. “You’re coming over later, right? To my backyard? I feel like something big is gonna happen tonight.”
“Yeah, I’ll be there,” Frank said. “Hey, do you think I can just leave my telescope this time? It’s kind of heavy to lug back and forth. My parents won’t care. As long as we bring it inside when we’re done.”
“It’s fine with me,” I said. “What about you?” I asked Nicholas.
“I don’t know,” he said hesitantly.
“You don’t know if Frank should leave his telescope, or you don’t know if you’re coming over?”
“The second part,” he said. “I want to, but my mom was asking a lot of questions when I got home yesterday about where I’d been. It made me real nervous.”
“Do you think she knows?” I asked.
He shrugged. “Maybe.”
Mrs. Milo cracked her ruler again even though we were barely making any noise. We opened our notebooks and pretended to write.
“Don’t worry,” Nicholas whispered. “I’ll figure something out.” He shook his head and said, “It’s not right.”
I agreed, but it didn’t make me feel any better.