Chapter 27

6:03 A.M.

Ding . . . ding . . . ding!

I would’ve practiced my lines last night if I had known Abhi wasn’t planning on texting me back till the next day. At least I hoped it was Abhi!

I felt around in my sheets and pillow for the phone. I found it under my pillow. 6:03 a.m.! I was stiff from falling asleep in the V pose, and so sleepy I could barely focus.

“Rise and shine, child of mine!” Mom pounded on my door. “Zack?” Mom tapped again, lightly. “Wakey! Wakey!”

I sprang from under the comforter to read my messages from Abhi. As I’d hoped, three messages. All from Abhi. All in a row.

The door creaked open, and Mom saw me sitting on the edge of my bed, smiling back at the smile emoji Abhi had sent. “It’s a miracle! He has risen!”

I yawned and stretched my arms, with my phone in one hand.

“Oh, I see,” Mom said, “so checking for phone messages is worth waking up for. I guess your ol’ Mom and Dad should’ve gotten you a phone years ago.”

“Yep.” I instinctively pulled my phone down, so Mom couldn’t see the screen.

“So is that how it’s going to be?” Mom laughed. “Who is she, Zack?”

“Nobody.” I shrugged. “I’ve got to get in the shower.”

“Yes, you do,” Mom agreed.

I dragged past her, rubbing my eyes.

“Hey, sleepyhead,” Mom teased. “Don’t take your phone in the shower.”

“Very funny, Mom.” I said. But I was so tired I might have. I kept nodding off while I stood in the shower. I rested my head on the cold tile as the hot water beat down on me, lulling me into shutting my eyes.

Dad had offered to drive me to school on his way to his job at the Instant Lube because Mom had to meet a client early Thursday morning. It was dress rehearsal/parent performance day. Both Mom and Dad were coming to support me at 5, so I wanted to do a good job.

Dad swigged his enormous Bill Miller travel mug of coffee, which was the size of the trashcan in our bachelor bathroom. Seriously.

“Does that coffee make you awake?” I asked.

Dad laughed. “I couldn’t make it through the morning without it.”

“Can I try some?” I asked, trying to sound only a little interested, so he’d let me.

“Sure.” Dad lifted the trashcan of coffee over to me.

Once he had his eyes on the road I guzzled as much as I could. After awhile, Dad looked over. “Take it easy, Z!”

Oh God, was it ever hot, but I couldn’t act like it’d scorched my throat. Sweat beaded on my forehead. I wiped it away with the sleeve of the flannel shirt I was wearing.

“How ’bout another swig, Daddy-O?”

“All right.” Dad handed the coffee over. “But be careful. Bill Miller makes it strong. This will be your last sip.”

“Okay.” I guzzled down the rest of the coffee as Dad had to deal with a tricky intersection. A minute later, I handed the empty container back to Dad.

“Hey!” Dad shook the mug. “This is empty!”

“Sorry, Dad!” I said. “I guess I got carried away.”

“Phttt!” Dad made that sound when he was mad.

I loosened my collar and rolled up my sleeves. Besides feeling hot, I didn’t really notice how different I felt until I leapt from the van like a spring.

“Zack?” Dad yelled after me. “You forgot to close the door!”

As I spun around, it was as if I became lighter, and in two steps I returned and slammed the door with a bang. I guess besides energy, coffee gives you superhuman strength. I liked this feeling. I was on. O-N. On. On. On. On. ON! I practically danced to class. Bill Miller did make strong coffee.

I smiled at Marquis and he smiled back, and for some reason, everything Janie did, instead of getting on my nerves, was hilarious. In math, Janie ghosted herself and tried to convince Mr. Gonzalez, “I’m dressed as a ghost so kids will know not to be scared of math. Ghost math, minus the BOO!” she shouted.

I burst out laughing. Only Marquis joined me.

Ignoring me, Mr. Gonzalez answered Janie algebraically, “X doesn’t equal Y.”

“Why not?”

“Not Why.” He wrote x ≠ y on the board. “The letter Y!”

“Math ruins everything.” Janie tried to sit, but her costume was too thick from being wrapped around her too many times. “Maybe I got carried away with the sheets today.”

“Humbug,” Marquis said.

I leaned toward Janie. “He’s saying what you said isn’t true.”

“Yeah, it doesn’t add up,” Marquis said.

“Extra credit for Marquis on math humor.” Mr. G. smiled.

“Wait?” My face squinted. “What?” I didn’t get the joke, but I was starting to get a headache. And I felt irritated, all of a sudden.

“What about my math humor?” Janie whined.

“Just me and my Alge-bros,” Marquis said.

José didn’t say a word. He just sat there and didn’t participate in the math humor. The new El was humorless.

“Oh, brother!” Abhi said.

“Oh, sis-TAH!” Marquis said.

“Marquis is on fire today,” Mr. Gonzalez said.

I racked my brain to find something funny to say, but my brain’s coffee battery was on low.

José put his head down, which looked like a pretty tempting thing to do.

I was worse by the end of math. My head throbbed. My energy left. And everything Janie did worked my nerves again. Janie whipped her sheet in the air, ready to ghost herself.

Chewy yanked the sheet out of her hands. “No way, Missy!” Talk about a Ghostbuster.

Blythe stood behind, observing, nodding approval, straightening her sweater, smiling. She caught me looking at her. “Zack, you don’t look so good.”

I tried to muster a comeback, but nothing came, except a burp.

After school, I dragged myself to dress rehearsal when I really just wanted to be in bed. But it was the final rehearsal before the parent performance tonight. I felt like I was only half awake, and I had to do two full performances.

Before our first rehearsal, I hid in the wings and tried to get myself pumped up. I was even willing to try those confidence stances mom taught me. I spread my arms up in a V, high to the sky, hoping my confidence and energy would rise. About a minute into my power pose, Chewy walked up, but Blythe lingered behind him like a fart. I held my stance. I needed all that I could get. Sure, it was embarrassing, but this is my last chance to be off script, to fix everything, to become Scrooge, and not make a fool of myself in front of a huge audience tonight. And I’d just have to think about tomorrow tomorrow.

Blythe shoved Chewy toward me.

“I don’t know if that warm-up stance is sanctioned,” Chewy said. His voice squeaked on the last word.

Blythe was a puppeteer, pulling Chewy’s strings, like some mob boss lying low, controlling things from the jail of the dark wings of the cafetorium stage.

“Sanctioned?” My jaw dropped, but I kept my arms up high and my chin tilted back. If anybody had walked up, it would’ve appeared as if I was being arrested. “I don’t even know what that means.”

“What?” Chewy asked, turning toward Blythe, fidgeting.

“C’mon, Chewy. You said it. What does the word sanctioned mean?” I pressed him because I had figured out what was going down.

Just as I’d predicted, Chewy shuffled over to Blythe, who tried motioning him away with her sweater stumps, but Chewy skittered straight to her. Maybe Abhi was right. Maybe Blythe was some behind-the-scenes puppeteer getting Chewy to do whatever she wanted. Could she be behind the frame-up? Was there even a frame-up?

“But I need some information to complete the order you gave me!” Chewy explained. Blythe walked around the whole back of the stage, trying to escape Chewy, but she couldn’t.

Obviously, Blythe had enlisted Chewy to be the cop she couldn’t be.

I held my stance, arms spread in a V for victory for the entire two minutes, ready to get my Scrooge on. As the final dress rehearsal dragged on, my ragged nerves from the coffee crash made me more and more crotchety, and the crash was unexpectedly working like a charm, if the charm had nasty coffee breath.

“By Jove, whatever you’ve done, Zack, keep doing it,” Mrs. Darling cheered between scenes.

What had I done?

No sleep. Check.

A trash can of coffee. Check.

Oh, and I almost forgot—my victory pose.

I was now a worn-out, crotchety old man. I was Scrooge.

When we finished, Mrs. Darling walked down the center of the cafetorium toward the stage. “Brava! And Bravo!”

“What does that mean?” I asked.

“In the thea-TUH, when a performance by a woman is as fantastic as I have just now witnessed, then we say ‘Brava.’” She motioned toward Abhi, Cliché, and Janie. Then she motioned toward Marquis and me. “And for the young men, I say ‘Bravo.’”

“That’s like the male and female word endings in Spanish too, Mrs. Darling,” Janie said.

Now I knew exactly how to prepare for the big day tomorrow. I just had to figure out how I’d get the coffee I needed. Mom would never let me have coffee, so I had to real-world problem-solve like in math.

The parent performance of the show went well, too. I got all my lines. I didn’t ask for a line one time. Mom, Dad, and some of the other parents who came gave us a standing ovation. Mrs. Darling had trained us to do our bows. It felt great getting clapped for, but inside my brain was on full grouch.

“Hey, Zack DelaSCROOGE,” José walked up with his hand out. “Good show! He shook my hand and looked me in the eyes. “I can’t think of anyone who I’d want to take over my role than you. You were awesome. I mean it.”

And he did. I believed him.

“So nice to see you two getting along.” Janie walked up and smiled. “It’s a Christmas miracle. ‘He puzzled and puzzled till his puzzler was sore. Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn’t before. Maybe Christmas, he thought . . . doesn’t come from a store. Maybe Christmas, perhaps . . . means a little bit more!’ from How the Grinch Stole Christmas, nineteen sixty-six, narrated by Boris Karloff.”

Again, José had no comment. He just yawned.

Mom walked up in her Century 21 gold jacket, holding a tray of orange sections. “Good show, Actin’ Alamos.”

Dad stood a few feet behind her. “Yeah, guys. Good show!” He stepped forward and gave me the hard and stiff man handshake. “You made me so proud.”

“We’ve got quite the actor,” Mom said, placing the tray of oranges on a table. “Here are some refreshments for all of your hard work. Y’all were all great. I can’t believe this is middle school and not Broadway.”

Like a bunch of vultures, the cast and crew surrounded the tray of oranges and devoured everything there. José even sucked on the paper towel that had lined the plate.

“I’m getting all the orange juice that’s left,” José said, talking with a paper towel in his mouth. At least sugar brought him back to the surface, if only for a little while.

“Glad you liked them,” Mom said. Our eyes met, and I knew she knew this had to be El Pollo Loco. José offered to return the paper towel when he was finished, but Mom just turned away like she didn’t notice.

“Thank you, Ms. Murray,” Abhi said. She didn’t say Mrs. Delacruz. I had only told her my Mom’s last name once. I wouldn’t have expected her to remember—unless maybe I was important to her.

Marquis side-hugged my mom. “Thanks for the oranges.”

“I like Marquis getting his vitamin C.” Ma, Marquis’s grandma, said as she approached slowly.

The other kids thanked Mom, too—after Mrs. Darling told them to.

Dad stood back, like he was shy, like he didn’t know what to do. I knew he was proud, and I was glad the performance had gone so well. I needed to remember that sometimes trying new things turns out good, even when you’re not sure they will.