Alton Ziegler wondered if all principals’ offices looked like Mrs. Buckley’s office. He had no idea. In his whole life, this was the only principal’s office he had ever seen.
And Alton suddenly wished that he was on a long car trip so that he could stop at every elementary school in every single city and town all across America. Because then he could take a picture of every principal’s office. And then he could map all the information . . . like, how many pictures or posters were hung on the walls, how many photos of kids or pets or husbands or wives sat on the desks. . . . And was there a state flag and a US flag displayed in all those other offices too?
He could count how many principals sat on leather chairs, on cloth chairs, on wooden chairs, or on fancy steel-and-plastic chairs, like the one behind Mrs. Buckley’s desk. And he could count the number of extra chairs in each principal’s office—there were six here, all of them with square steel frames and worn cloth cushions . . . which reminded him that he had actually been hoping the chairs would have steel frames, because he had made a goofy geocaching plan with steel chairs in mind—all of which only distracted him from his observations for about five seconds.
He sat in the chair to the left of the principal’s desk, and Quint sat in the chair on the right, and then there were four more chairs around a small table over in a corner.
And looking at that corner, Alton decided that this office was a square—about fifteen feet on each side. If he got to visit all those other offices? He could see which ones were square and which ones were rectangular—maybe there were some other shapes out there, like circles or ovals, maybe even a hexagon or two.
He could also learn how many offices had solid walls and doors, and how many had glass walls and doors. Because Mrs. Buckley had windows facing outdoors and windows facing the office and windows facing the hallway. All that glass made her office feel like a fishbowl. And he and Quint had been sitting in that fishbowl in front of her desk for three minutes now, because that’s where the school secretary had told them to wait.
Alton caught a glimpse of himself reflected in the window behind the big desk. His gray T-shirt had a plain front—no map. Elena or one of her gang was probably waiting outside homeroom to check and be sure he was obeying her order. He clenched his teeth so hard, his jaw hurt.
That girl is going to wish she’d never started this!
And then Alton remembered—he was the one who had started this when he couldn’t resist showing that map to Quint.
“Yo,” Quint whispered, “I think this tagalong was a big mistake. Maybe I should disappear, huh?”
Alton looked sideways at him. That question actually made him happy, because it proved Quint wasn’t part of some scheme to hear what he said to the principal.
“If you want to leave, sure. No sense in both of us getting in trouble. You can go.”
Quint never got the chance.
“Good morning, boys.”
Mrs. Buckley swept in, dropped a hat and gloves on the desk, and sat down in her chair. She swayed backward and then forward as she leaned onto her desk and smiled at Quint and then at Alton. She still had on her coat.
“Mrs. Ashton said you needed to talk with me. I’ve got only a minute before the last bus arrives, but I’ll try to help. What’s this about?”
Alton gulped, and then said, “Um, I wanted to ask you a question, Mrs. Buckley.”
Faster than the speed of light, in that tiny fraction of a second after the sentence left his mouth, Alton panicked.
I’m here to ask her why she says um so much, and what’s the first word I just said? Um!
But even faster, an idea took hold.
He gulped again and said, “Um, I wanted to ask you something, and it’s sort of a weird question. Because, um, sometimes when I have to talk, and when I kind of get stuck? I say ‘um.’ And I noticed that . . . um, during the announcements in the morning? Um . . . you say it too. And . . . I was wondering if you know why you do that . . . um, why you say ‘um’ a lot?”
Mrs. Buckley’s face turned bright red, so red that for a second Alton thought she was going to yell at him so loud that all the windows around them would shatter and collapse into glittering heaps.
But then he saw it. She wasn’t mad—she was embarrassed.
Mrs. Buckley cleared her throat. “Well . . . that’s a very perceptive question, Alton. And, um . . . all I can tell you is that I’ve been aware of this . . . problem for many years, and . . . I’m getting better at . . . keeping my words flowing . . . without feeling like I need to fill . . . every single second. And . . . what I mean by that is . . . it’s all right to have short . . . pauses in what you say . . . without always feeling like you have to . . . fill them up with little words like ‘um.’ Does that answer your question?”
“Um, yes. Thanks.”
And that’s when Alton should have stood up, said thanks again, and hurried out of that office.
But he didn’t.
He said, “Except . . . um, I noticed that you say ‘um’ . . . more on some days than others. You say it most on Thursdays, usually about seven times during the announcements. On a Thursday morning.”
Mrs. Buckley pressed her lips together, and she leaned farther forward, her eyes wide with disbelief. “You’ve been counting how many times I say that word—is that what you’re telling me? Have you been keeping some kind of a list, or making a graph or something?”
“Um . . . well, yes.”
Now it was Alton’s face that got red. And he noticed that Mrs. Buckley didn’t say “um” once as she shot that question at him. He also became aware that Quint was sitting so still in his chair that he could have been a statue—a statue of a very frightened boy.
Looking into Mrs. Buckley’s eyes, Alton felt a wave of pure terror trying to sweep him under. But he fought the fear, and for the second time in less than two minutes, an idea burst into his mind. And this one was perfectly clear—four simple words: Tell her the truth!
And immediately Alton heard himself saying, “Except, I put all the data I gathered onto a kind of map. Because that’s my favorite way of presenting information. And, um . . . I think I’d better warn you that this map, the one that shows how many times you say ‘um’ on different days during the announcements? It’s . . . it’s missing, and somebody might spread it around the school somehow. And . . . um, I want to say I’m sorry, just in case that happens. Really sorry. Just in case.”
As Mrs. Buckley stared at him, the glass-walled office seemed to slide into a pocket of total stillness, like the eye of a killer hurricane. Alton wasn’t sure if his heart was beating. He knew he wasn’t breathing—and neither was Quint.
Suddenly, Mrs. Buckley smiled. Then she started laughing, and between the snorts and chortles, she said, “A map? Of how many times I say ‘um’? That is wonderfully silly—it’s hilarious!” She wiped her eyes and stood up, and with a wide smile, she said, “Don’t worry about your map getting spread around, Alton. Every single person in this school already knows I say ‘um’ too much! But if you find that map? I’d really like to see it. Now, you both need to get to homeroom, and—um—I’ve got to go meet the kindergarten bus!”
The principal was still chuckling as she grabbed her hat and gloves and hurried out.
The boys left the office. Neither of them said a word until they were halfway down the sixth-grade hall.
Then Quint said, “Dude, seriously—that was genius! You know that, right? Genius, like . . . totally! She could have been so mad, and instead you got her laughing! Like, if she’d been eating yogurt, it would have shot right out her nose! That was a miracle!”
Alton nodded and grinned. “Yeah,” he said. “A miracle.”
But that wasn’t what Alton was thinking.
Because during that moment of pure terror in the principal’s office, when he’d suddenly seen what he should say to Mrs. Buckley? He had caught a glimpse of something else, too.
And now he was certain of it.
What had just happened with Mrs. Buckley was not some kind of miracle. It was something else.