CHAPTER SEVEN

After school the next day, Sandra takes me to Piedmont Hospital to visit my best friend, Joseph. Piedmont Hospital is where Teensy Baby Maggie was born, so I know all about it; plus I’ve visited Joseph before. I even have permission to visit Joseph without having a parent with me. Sandra drops me off at the front entrance and says she’ll be back in an hour.

I wave at the nurses in the Pediatric Ward. They wave back. When I get to room 512, I peek through the crack to see if Joseph’s mom is in there, and when she isn’t, I barge in and go, “Boo!”

Joseph jumps in his hospital bed and screams like a girl. Or a dolphin. They sound the same.

“Hi,” I say, grinning.

Joseph grins back. “Hi. Do it again.”

So I go, “Boo,” and he screams like a dolphin. We crack up.

And then we just talk. About gum-by-the-foot, about a mole on one of the nurse’s cheeks, about alligators and how they let their meat rot before eating it. Joseph reads a lot, so he knows all kinds of stuff.

I tell him about Lexie, and how she was mad at me, but how she isn’t anymore. He tells me his white blood cells are getting better, and I say, “That’s awesome.” I really want him to come back to school.

When it’s time for me to leave, he says, “You stink, by the way. Like, smelly-stink.”

I look down at myself. I sniff.

“It’s okay, though,” he says. “I don’t care.”

“I don’t care, either,” I say. I kind of do and kind of don’t. “I was supposed to take a bath last night, but I didn’t.”

“Cool.”

“I’m not going to take one tonight, either. I’m going for an Olympic record.”

He gives me a thumbs-up and lies back against his pillow. “Cool.”

• • •

I’m a man of my word and don’t take a bath that night, just like I said. Mom tells me to right after supper, but I hop into bed instead, and then ka-boom! I wake up and it’s Thursday, the day of our field trip! Sharks! Starfish! Beluga whales!

I wake up so excited, and then whoosh, my excitement gets sucked out of me, like someone sucked it out with a giant Dustbuster. Only not a fun Dustbuster.

First, I find out that Mom forgot to buy my Lunchable, and that I have to bring a juice box, an apple, chips, and a peanut butter and jelly sandwich in a stupid plastic grocery store bag. When I get mad, she says, “Ty, I hate to break it to you, but the world doesn’t always revolve around you.”

That makes me madder, and also hurts my feelings, because saying that is like saying I’m acting like a baby, when I’m not.

Then, at school, Lexie is back to being more friends with Breezie than with me. Breezie’s mom, Mrs. Hammerdorfer, is our chaperone, and Lexie wants to show off by being Breezie’s specialiest friend. That’s what I think.

Even so, I try to win her back.

“Hammerdorfer,” I whisper in her ear as Mrs. Webber has us line up by the door of our classroom. “Hammerdorfer.”

She pretends not to hear.

“Someone should only have that name if they smash things with hammers,” I whisper.

“Ty, hush,” she says, without whispering. “It’s not nice to make fun of people’s names.”

Mrs. Hammerdorfer pinches up her lips at me.

“‘Hammerdorfer’ is an old German name,” Breezie says prissily. “The Hammerdorfers come from great wealth. Do you come from great wealth, Ty?”

I stomp on her toe, only not really. I do pretend she’s a bug, and not the cute kind.

“Mmm-hmm,” she says, like she knew it all along.

The third bad thing is that the sand shark exhibit isn’t open, so we can’t pet the sharks, and the fourth bad thing is that the beluga whales stay in their special private area and don’t come out. I really wanted to see their giant, marshmallow bodies. I didn’t know how much until now.

“Can we stop and eat lunch?” Lexie asks after she, Breezie, Breezie’s mom, and I have walked around the aquarium for five thousand hours.

“I think that’s a fine idea,” Mrs. Hammerdorfer says.

There’s an eating area in the middle of the aquarium, with puffy green sofas and chairs, and we plop down and pull out our lunches. Lexie has a Mini Hot Dogs Lunchable, and each mini hot dog has its own mini bun. Breezie has a Grilled Chicken Wrap Lunchable with a special Lunchables Brigade trading card. She gets Abel the Super Inventor, the rarest trading card there is.

I eat my peanut butter and jelly sandwich and don’t even care.

Lexie whispers something to Breezie.

“Hey, Mom?” Breezie says. “Can we go to the gift store?”

My eyes fly to her, then to Lexie. Then to the gift store, which is across the way.

Breezie’s mom glances at the other kids scattered around the food court area. Most of them are still eating. She glances at her watch and says, “I suppose.”

I yelp.

“What’s wrong, Ty?” Lexie says. Her eyebrows go up innocently, but there is a glint in her eyeballs that says, You keep your mouth shut about Mrs. Webber and her stupid rules, mister.

I breathe through my nose, loudly and quickly.

“You sound like a bull,” Lexie says.

“Do not.”

“A bull shark,” Breezie says. “Also known as the Zambezi shark.”

Her mother looks at her like she’s a miracle. I look at her like she’s a Zambezi bug, and not the cute kind.

“Anyway, are you coming?” Lexie asks.

“I haven’t finished my chips.”

She gets up. So does Breezie. “Okay, bye,” they say, and they flounce off.

Mrs. Hammerdorfer pats her mouth with her napkin and folds her napkin into a small square. “I’m going to chat with Jordan’s mom for a bit,” she says, and she gets up and goes to another sofa with another mom on it.

So now it’s just me and my Fritos and the crusts of my sandwich. And a juice box. I’m not angry at the juice box, but I’m not happy at it, either.

I put a Frito in my mouth and chew chew chew while I watch Lexie and Breezie through the gift shop’s glass window. There are breakable things in there like glass whales, which I would like to hold and which they are holding. If they break one, they could get in big trouble. Our whole class could get in big trouble!

Nobody likes a tattletale, but Mrs. Webber needs to know what Lexie and Breezie are doing. I’ll just mention it, that’s all. I shove my lunch trash into my backpack. I peek at Lexie and Breezie—yep, still in the gift shop—then go to Mrs. Webber’s group.

“Excuse me, Mrs. Webber?”

“Hi, Ty,” Mrs. Webber says. “Are you having fun?”

“Uh-huh. But I need to tell you something.”

Hannah, Chase, and Taylor gaze at me. Taylor is always in Mrs. Webber’s group because none of the parent chaperones want him.

“Yes?” Mrs. Webber says.

“Well,” I start, “it’s just that Lexie and Breezie went to the gift store, and you said not to, and . . . well . . . yeah.”

“Oh dear,” Mrs. Webber says. She sounds annoyed, but not terribly annoyed. She glances toward the gift store. So do Hannah, Chase, and Taylor. So do I.

“Lexie’s about to do the claw game!” Taylor announces.

He’s right. Lexie and Breezie are over by the game where zillions of stuffed sea creatures live in a big glass case. To play it, you put in two quarters and use a joystick to move a steel claw around. You have twenty seconds, and then bam, the claw drops down and closes. If it grabs on to something and carries it all the way to the chute, then the stuffed animal drops through the chute and you get to keep it.

“My dad never lets me do that game,” Hannah says. “He says, ‘You’re just throwing your money away.’”

“I’m not allowed, either,” Chase says. “Even with my own allowance.”

“Because the claw never holds on to anything, even it if grabs it,” I say. “Nobody ever wins. Right, Mrs. Webber?”

“Should I go stop her?” Hannah says. Hannah likes stopping people.

In the gift shop, Lexie digs around in her pocket. I want Mrs. Webber to hurry and tell Hannah, “Yes, go stop her and tell her she’s in big trouble.”

But Mrs. Webber smiles a funny smile. “You know what? Let’s let the situation play out on its own.”

“Huh?” Hannah says.

“You kids are right,” she say. “Lexie and Breezie aren’t supposed to be over there. When they lose their money, maybe they’ll learn a lesson.”

Will they lose their money AND get in trouble? I want to ask. I want Mrs. Webber to give them a lecture and make them take a time-out.

Lexie slides her quarters into the machine. The claw starts moving. Lexie leans forward, working the joystick.

“She has one! She has one!” Hannah squeals when the claw closes around a black-and-white dolphin. I see Breezie bring her fists to her mouth. I bet she’s saying, “Eeeee!”

“She has two,” Chase says in awe.

I squint. The claw, when it goes up, is clutching the black-and-white dolphin and a fuzzy blue dolphin. Two dolphins. Two dolphins in one claw.

“She still has to get them to the drop-off spot,” I say. “She’ll never get them to the drop-off spot.”

She gets them to the drop-off spot. The claw sways, but holds tight.

“Oh, no,” Mrs. Webber murmurs.

“Come on,” Hannah says. She’s up and dashing toward Lexie. Chase and Taylor follow. The claw opens its metal fingers and both dolphins drop straight into the chute.

“Yes!” Lexie cries. I can hear her from the eating area. She tugs the dolphins out of the bin and does a victory dance. “Oh, yea-ah! Oh, yea-ah!”

My mouth hangs open. Something twists in my gut, like a snake. An ugly snake. A jealous snake.

“Oh, that’s just fantastic,” Mrs. Webber says, I think just to herself. “Nobody ever gets the toy. Nobody.”

The other kids in our class are hurrying over to Lexie.

“So much for natural consequences,” Mrs. Webber says. She glances at me. “I suppose it’s time to do some damage control, huh, Ty?”

I shrug. I don’t know what she means, and the snake inside of me is a mean snake, and anyway, Lexie won two dolphins. That’s not damage. Plus, it’s too late to control, because it already happened.

“You coming?” Mrs. Webber asks.

It’s the same question Lexie asked.

“No thanks,” I say. I sound like a robot. I feel like a robot. I feel like I’m not me.

When Mrs. Webber heads to the gift shop, I turn and walk the opposite way.