Chapter 24

THE OLD BALL AND CHAIN

When Marquis and I arrived at the cafeteria for breakfast, there was more good news.

“Hey, Phone Man!” Marquis elbowed me. “Pancakes!”

We stood and breathed in the sweet smell of syrup that filled the room. Marquis looked over. “If you look up the word origin of pancakes on your phone, you’re on your own.”

Marquis and I devoured the steamed miniature blueberry pancakes out of the clear plastic bags they were served in. You only got one ladle of syrup in a little white paper cup, so we tried to conserve our syrup by spacing out our pancake dips. There’d be no extra syrup. We didn’t even try it; we knew Mrs. O’Shansky would give a lecture and make you feel dumb in front of the whole line.

The news of the week pinged around in my head. Being back at Dad’s apartment was great because it meant I was riding the bus with Marquis again. This was also the bad news: My fantasy of running lines on the bus with Abhi had come to an end. And the terrifying and terrific news: The play is this Friday. I never noticed how the words terrific and terrifying are so close.

“Marquis, you’re going to want to hear this,” I said, perching my phone in front of me, ready to read.

“Did you find something else on that know-it-all phone to phonesplain to me?” Marquis grinned.

I smirked back. “Very funny. But think about the words terror and terrible. Both have negative connotations, right?”

“Zack, Mrs. Harrington would be so proud you used connotation when the one syllable word tone would have sufficed.” Marquis laughed. “It’s nice to know that you are using the time you’ve been ignoring me to learn. At least the time you spend lost in your phone screen hasn’t been wasted.”

“Back to my point.”

“Of course.” Marquis rolled his hands for me to continue. “Do proceed.”

“Anyway,” I took a breath. “It used to be that terrific did mean the same as terrible. As in, I had a terrific headache.” I glanced at an unimpressed Marquis. I started talking faster, so I could get to the cool stuff. “But around the end of the 1800s, terrific started to mean excellent.”

“You don’t say.” Marquis yawned.

It all made sense to me, because part of me was proud and happy to be the lead. Terrific! And part of me was just plain terrified.

Abhi walked by the table.

“Would you like to sit here with us, Abhi?” I asked, syrup dribbling out of the side of my mouth.

“Sure.” Abhi’s face lightened and she sat. “José is coming back tomorrow.”

I was glad, but I had this weird feeling that Mrs. Darling would give the Scrooge role back to El.

“But he still can’t be in the play.” Marquis sipped his milk.

“Yeah.” Abhi nodded, dipped, and chewed. “But I am going to visit him after rehearsal today.”

“Why?” I attempted to remove the syrup from my hands with a thin sandpaper napkin.

“He’s my friend, and I want him to know he’s still my friend, even if he’s not Scrooge. Besides, something just doesn’t feel right about him being suspended. He really loved being in the play.” Abhi dipped her pancake and let it drip. “I can’t believe he’d do anything to mess that up.”

“Sometimes people make bad choices,” Marquis said.

“Well,” Abhi said, “I’m going to ask him some questions because I don’t believe he clogged that toilet.” It sounded like Nancy Drew had a new mystery: The Secret of the Old Clog.

“Chewy saw him do it,” Marquis said.

Janie walked up. “What are y’all talking about?”

“Abhi wants to go see José after rehearsal today.” I wadded up my napkin, not sure how I felt about Abhi visiting El Pollo Loco alone.

“Sure!” Janie nodded. “I’d be glad to come along. He lives on my street.”

“That’d be great, Janie.” Abhi looked over to me. “Would you like to come?

Before I could answer, Marquis said, “Yes!” I nodded yes, too.

So it was official. After the rehearsal today, Abhi, Janie, Marquis, and I were going to go visit El Pollo Loco’s coop.

Later, after English, instead of walking to lunch with Marquis like I usually did, I walked with Abhi, so we could complete Operation Memorize. But since I’m working on it with Abhi, maybe it should be called Operation Mesmerize.

Sigh.

Marquis stepped slowly past the table, not making eye contact. I thought he’d sit with us, so I didn’t ask him to, and you know what? He walked right past and sat at the table with Sophia, Cliché, and the blue-eye-shadow gang. I was too busy trying to remember the lines I was supposed to say to the Ghost of Christmas Present to think much about it. As I said the line correctly, the next thing I heard was not Abhi reading the line that followed mine, but another voice from behind.

“What?” Janie said her line, sounding like she was hooked up to a sound system. “Would you so soon snuff out, with your hands, the light I give?” she bellowed as the Ghost of Christmas Past. She was getting so into her role that she might actually become a ghost. If it were possible, Janie was almost there.

Everyone turned to see. The clatter of trays and voices were soaked up as if a huge white sponge were standing in the middle of the cafetorium. Janie wore her full costume to lunch: A combination of sheets wrapped her up like an overly toilet-papered house. Layer after layer, the sheer weight of her costume caused her to move sluggishly. Ghostly almost.

But Mrs. Gage wasn’t having any of it. Certainly not the bowling ball or the chain, at least one of which could easily be strictly prohibited by the student code of conduct. I’m guessing there’s no rule about bowling balls specifically, except what may fall under “general nuisance.” That basically meant anything that causes teachers or lunch monitors an annoying pain in the biscuit.

Yes. My mom, who puts the real into real estate agent, said, “A contract is a contract.” At the beginning of the year, she made me read the whole Davy Crockett Middle School Code of Student Conduct before I signed it. Seriously. Then she made me answer questions. “Is it okay to chew gum or bring any candy to school?”

If I answered like a smart aleck, which believe me, I did a few times, she’d make me take three more questions.

Anyway, when it comes to the code of student conduct, I broke the code part. The code wasn’t really anything all that mysterious. At school, you’re not supposed to do anything besides read, write, and listen. Everything else? A violation of the code of student conduct. Even “grooming that becomes a distraction.”

Mom had trouble explaining that one. Anyway, I was certain dragging a bowling ball behind you on a loud chain and coming close to people’s feet, causing the whole cafeteria to scream, is the definition of distraction: “a thing that prevents someone from giving full attention to something else.”

Mrs. Gage sent Janie to go unwrap her mummy sheets in the nurse’s office.

“She’ll be gone for a while,” Abhi said, and I nodded.

“I wonder if they’ll call her Mummy,” I joked. I searched around for Marquis to share a laugh, but he’d already gone.

Why was it so easy to remember the code of student conduct but not so easy to remember my lines? The play was this Friday, and I was having trouble memorizing my new Scrooge lines.

And today when I got to the bus circle after rehearsal, Marquis wasn’t smiling.

“What’s the matter?”

“Nothing.”

Even though I could tell something was up, I decided to take him at his word, and I told him all about lunch and the line running with Abhi.

He didn’t say anything.

“Are you sure everything’s okay?” I asked.

“Everything is just fine.” Marquis crossed his arms. I believed him until he went off on me a few seconds later. “I have no problem that you dropped me like a bowling ball on the hard cafeteria floor the minute you got a starring role. And when a girl named Abhi came along.” He stared at me for a second, and then Marquis turned away. “You’ve changed.”

“It’s just for the play.”

“I’m in the play!” Marquis said to the bus window.

“I know,” I said to the back of Marquis’s head.

“Do you?”

I wanted to tell him that when I got a new phone, I chose him to call first. I wanted to, but instead my mouth said, “You know what? Forget it!” I don’t know if it was the frustration with not being able to memorize my lines or what, but this whole thing was making me mad. Like Scrooge mad.

“Bah! humbug,” I mumbled.

Janie and Abhi walked up.

“You two ready to go visit José?” Abhi asked.

“Yes,” I said.

“I’m only going because you need a voice of reason,” Marquis announced.

Janie slowly put her costume back on as the buses pulled into the circle. “I thought this might cheer El up.” Janie smoothed her costume.

This bus driver, Ms. Frances, was nothing like Ms. Nancy. She didn’t even notice Abhi wasn’t on the right bus. I was pretty sure Ms. Frances was blind. She was always hitting curbs or parking the bus way far away from the curb, so you had to leap down. Anyway, I doubted she’d notice the ghost passenger.