Chapter 5

TRAPPED

Later, in math class, while we were supposed to be subtracting integers, I laid my head down. Even though I knew I couldn’t audition for Scrooge, I couldn’t stop thinking about it either: I regretted not speaking up. How would my life have changed or turned out better if I had spoken up? And Marquis auditioning for Scrooge had gotten under my skin. He is supposed to be my best friend. I mean, sure, he didn’t know I wanted the role. And I don’t want it. But he always does things before me, like we’re in a competition. And I was losing. Big-time.

“What are you doing?” Marquis whispered, interrupting my nap.

“I’m resting my eyes for a minute,” I whispered back without lifting my head.

“Those math problems aren’t going to answer themselves.”

“And why not?” I yawned. “I think it’s time for math to grow up and solve its own problems.”

“Okay,” Marquis snickered. “That was a good one.”

And I knew it was. But what I didn’t know was what to do next. My mind spun like a garbage disposal, breaking my thoughts into little bits that kept getting rinsed down the drain. I took a deep breath. Whenever I’m worried about school, Mom has always calmed me down by asking, “What are the facts as we know them?” I was desperate, so I tried it.

Fact 1: I wasn’t trying out for Scrooge.

Fact 2: Part of me still wanted to audition for Scrooge.

The two facts argued with each other. Afraid to mess up or miss out, I felt like I was caught in one of those bamboo finger traps we had gotten in science a few weeks ago on Science Friday—the day science becomes fun with real-world experiments and thinking. Usually it’s a dud, but this one was memorable.

Each of us got our own finger trap, but Mr. Stankowitz called them bamboo finger puzzles instead, because he’s a teacher. The finger puzzles were colorful bamboo strips woven into skinny tubes about the length of an empty toilet paper roll, but only as wide as your index finger.

Whatever you call them, they were cool, because they weren’t even science at all. They were a magic trick! Once you stick your index fingers into both ends of the tube, you’re trapped. And the puzzle begins. You try to pull your fingers free, but the more you pull, the tighter the tube becomes.

In class that day, Mr. Stankowitz had said, “That’s traction. Does that help you solve the puzzle?”

We all struggled for a minute or two when suddenly Chewy leapt up from his seat, knocking his chair over. “Get me out of this thing!” He yanked his hands apart so hard that the tube got longer and thinner.

“Chewy, calm down,” Mr. Stankowitz warned, stepping toward him. But he was too late. Chewy had ripped the finger puzzle to shreds.

“Yoooouch!” Chewy screamed, shaking both hands, running for the door. “I’m telling my mom!” He grabbed the bathroom pass, which was an actual toilet seat, the part you sit on. It’s very embarrassing to carry a gross old toilet seat through the hallways, announcing that you’re going to the bathroom, so nobody ever uses it. Except Chewy. The rest of us just went during passing period, if at all. That’s a whole other story.

Mr. Stankowitz explained his reasoning on the first day of school, which immediately earned him the nickname Mr. Stanko-WIZ. Only someone who really had to go would carry that disgusting thing down the hall. And the way Chewy ripped apart his finger puzzle and slammed the door, carrying the toilet seat was the least of his worries.

Puzzled, we all looked at Mr. Stankowitz for our next move. None of us wanted to be a Chewy.

“There’s an easier way than that to solve the puzzle.” Mr. Stankowitz motioned his head at the door.

Seconds later, Marquis the Magician’s tube dropped to his desk.

“So how’d you get your fingers free, Marquis?” Mr. Stankowitz asked, smiling.

“I don’t know.” Marquis smiled and shrugged. “It’s like instead of pulling, I just gave up and pushed my fingers together and then they slid right out.” Right after Marquis’s revelation, finger traps began dropping on desks and bouncing on the floor. Everybody oohed and ahhed.

“I already knew that,” Blythe said, dropping her finger puzzle in the garbage can. But we all knew she hadn’t.

The finger trap of auditioning for the play had me pulling Fact 1 and Fact 2 away from each other. Maybe I just needed to relax and let the trap fall to the floor. I thought about it. If I kept pulling so hard, I might tear the trap—or the facts, or me—in half. I didn’t want to be a Chewy. I wanted to solve my problem calmly and easily, like Marquis. You know, it’s really hard when your best friend is always besting you. But I could be calm and logical like Marquis, so back to the facts.

Fact 3: Marquis and José had already said they were auditioning for Scrooge, and I hadn’t said a word.

Outdone again. By José and Marquis. On that day, like every day, I had felt proud Marquis was my friend. But today, I thought he was kind of a know-it-all. Like he had to be first at everything, like he was competing with me. That day he was in my way, like José. Marquis and José were yet another finger trap, forcing me to pull away from both sides.

Fact 4: Both of them had beaten me to the punch, announcing their plans before I had a chance to.

My mind yanked even harder at both ends of that audition finger puzzle. On one end, Abhi wanted me to audition for Ebenezer Scrooge, and I wanted to show her I could do it. But on the other end of the trap, I didn’t know if I could. Plus José and Marquis were pulling at me too. It would look like I was just doing what they did. Still a follower. What do you do when all your fingers have bamboo traps on them?

If I audition for Ebenezer Scrooge against my best friend, is that pulling at the finger trap or pushing in?

“You better get working on those integers.” Marquis pushed on my shoulder.

A know-it-all bossy betrayer.

Wait.

Marquis hadn’t done anything. Plus I didn’t even want the part. I half lifted my head up from my math book. Luckily, Mr. Gonzalez was busy grading our weekly assessments—too busy to notice what we were or weren’t doing.

“Get started, Nap Delacruz!” Marquis warned, scratching down numbers.

“Five more minutes,” I yawned, resting my head back down.

“The bell is ringing in five minutes!” Marquis said.

In my head, I told myself I could do whatever I wanted. Marquis was not the boss of me. But would he be mad if I went out for Scrooge too? I was afraid of so many things—even Marquis. Instead of talking to him about what was going on, I was sneaking naps and daydreaming about finger traps. I was still a little afraid of everything and everyone. But Mom reminded me the other day that most of the stuff I worried about never happened. Worrying was kind of like a finger trap—pulling at it only made things worse.

Marquis poked me again with the eraser end of his trusty mechanical pencil.

I sat up, and my squinting eyes landed on one of Mr. Gonzalez’s laminated motivational posters:

You have to be ODD to be number one.

—Anonymous

This motivational message seemed to be from a poster god named Anonymous. Have you ever noticed how many quotes are from this Anonymous person? Or Albert Einstein? There were a lot of those, too.

Anyway, maybe I could decide what to do. I mean, the letter I kind of looked like the numeral one. Maybe trying out for the lead role would be an odd thing for me to do. So maybe I just needed to do the opposite of what I want to do, so I could see what number one feels like.

The little voice in my head, which was sometimes my friend and sometimes my foe, taunted me. What makes you think you can do this?

“Well, evil foe, so far this year, I’ve rescued the school chocolate bar sale, helped get sixth grade into the dance, and saved Abhi from a runaway train. So . . . ”

“Who are you talking to, Zack?” Marquis asked.

“Nobody.” I hadn’t realized I’d said that out loud. However, talking to yourself is definitely odd, so I guessed I was on the right track.

So? The foe voice in my head answered.

I gazed at the slobber spot on problem 46. Mr. G. wouldn’t like that. But Mr. G. would be happy I had problem-solved the entire period. And I came up with four ways to solve the problem.

1. Take the easy way as usual and go with whatever backstage role Mrs. Darling assigns me.

2. Or, I could do the odd thing and try out for Ebenezer Scrooge, and maybe have a chance to be number 1 (Number Poster Wisdom).

3. Or, I could end up looking like a stupid fool no matter what I did, so what have I got to lose?

4. Ask a friend for advice.

I started thinking about who I would become, not who I’d been. And the next odd thing that popped in my head was: Ask Abhi for advice. I figured once I did that, I’d know what to do about the audition.

It just so happens this was a week I was at Mom’s and took the bus with Abhi. What are the odds of that, huh? That’s right, Mr. G. I used math in a real-world situation.