Our school doesn’t tell us who our teacher is until the week before school starts. It’s one of the old rules that people follow even though it doesn’t make any sense. Denis hates it because he has anxiety and he really should know who his teacher is so he can mentally prepare for it.
My job during the summer is to keep Denis so busy he doesn’t think about what teacher he might get. We play a lot of BOT DUCK MAN.
June is a good month to walk around town and go to the big park and feed the ducks. It isn’t too hot and the tourists are in full bloom. They usually stop here to eat and shop between Amish farm and buggy outings and tours of the pretzel house on Main Street—America’s first pretzel bakery. We are also home to the longest-running Fourth of July celebration and the oldest American boarding school for girls, founded in 1746. We have horse parking all over town, so I guess that’s “charming,” as Mom would say. Actual signs read: HORSE PARKING ONLY.
If I was a tourist, I’d come here just for those signs.
July is mostly video games in the air-conditioning and playing in the creek at the small park. For Fourth of July, my whole family stays overnight at a cabin way out in the Pennsylvania forest reserve so Grandad doesn’t have to hear fireworks. This year we decide to stay for five whole days.
In August, Denis goes to summer camp for two weeks and I play Ultimate Detective, my favorite mystery video game, for twelve days in a row. Grandad sits and watches me play, so it’s not like I’m by myself in a dark room. Plus, Grandad and I are walkers—Sunday walks, morning walks, holiday walks, and in summer, a lot of night walks.
Once Denis comes home from camp with all his cool walking sticks and stories about campfires and hikes, it’s time to find out what teacher we got.
Denis asks me on the phone, “Are you scared?”
I answer, “No.”
I never mind what teacher I get, so long as I can read books when I want to, keep my desk messy because I like it that way, and pick projects and write reports on things that interest me.
My motto is: If it’s not interesting, I don’t care.
No teacher I’ve ever met has been okay with my motto, but I keep hoping.
Denis and I both get Ms. Sett for sixth grade. So does Marci Thompson.
The thing I say to Denis on the phone that day, while he’s panicking because Ms. Sett has a reputation for caring about posture and Denis is a chronic sloucher, is “Whatever happens this year, you’re going to be fine.”
“She’s going to bug me every day about that piece of my hair that sticks up in the back,” Denis stresses.
“Cowlicks are not illegal.”
“Neither is slouching … and I heard she makes kids sit with a board behind their back,” he says.
“She probably doesn’t,” I assure him. “Let’s go run around. You’ll feel better if you get some energy out.”
“I can’t even get out of bed,” Denis says.
“You went back to bed?”
“Yes.”
“Because of this?”
“Yes.”
“What if you’d gotten either of the other two teachers?” I ask.
“I would still be in bed,” Denis answers. So I walk to his house and we play BOT DUCK MAN on his bed for two hours.
That night I dream of a plywood torture device, and Denis is strapped inside. He sits so straight, his spine is fusing in a perfect ninety-degree angle to his legs. I have to save him.
In the dream, the only things that can save him are Cheetos and soda.