Trouble Magnet Read online

  Mr. Purdy pointed toward the list of class rules on the wall near his desk. “Did anyone happen to read this?”

  The rules were written in big black letters on yellow poster board.

  Everyone laughed and turned to look at Rubin when they got to number ten. “I'm serious about that last one,” Mr. Purdy said. “I don't want to find dried-up boogies under your desks.”

  Rubin turned bright red.

  The class roared.

  “Okay,” Mr. Purdy said, rubbing his hands together. “I have a surprise for you today. In celebration of your first day in fourth-grade boot camp I'm treating you all to … lunch!”

  A cheer erupted. Everyone but me stomped on the floor. “Lunch! Lunch! Lunch!”

  I almost yelled, STOP! You might stomp on my centipede!

  “Woo-woo!” everyone shouted.

  Even the new kid joined in.

  “Settle down,” Mr. Purdy said, holding up his hand. “After long negotiations with Mrs. Leonard—that's your principal—I was granted permission to invite a good friend of mine over to cook for you. Uncle Scoop!”

  “Woo-oo-oo!”

  Uncle Scoop's Lucky Lunch truck was parked at the beach every weekend. Uncle Scoop served hamburgers, hot dogs, chicken and beef teriyaki, kalua pig and cabbage, tripe stew, malasada doughnuts, sweet juices, and big fat shave ice to cool us in the sun's burning heat. He sold all kinds of snacks, too: sweet whole plum, cracked seed, beef jerky, cuttlefish, dried squid, kimchee, and Maui chips.

  I was starving just thinking of it.

  “How do you know Uncle Scoop, Mr. Purdy?” Julio asked.

  “Scoop and I grew up here in Kailua. After high school we went into the army together.”

  “Tell us about the army, Mr. Purdy.”

  The lunch bell rang.

  “Looks like that'll have to wait, Julio. But we have all year. Right now it's time to eat.” Mr. Purdy gave Julio a full-on U.S. Army salute. “Line up!”

  I headed to the door, hunched over, looking one last time, thinking, Peedy, peedy.

  Nothing.

  But it was there.

  Somewhere.

  While everyone else at Kailua Elementary headed over to the cafeteria, we swaggered like lottery winners out to the parking lot and Uncle Scoop's Lucky Lunch. “Rock and roll!” Rubin shouted.

  “Hey, you!” somebody called from the crowd by the cafeteria. “Coco-dork!”

  I stopped to look back.

  “You!” Tito yelled again. “Coco-roach!”

  Julio bumped into me from behind. “Pretend you can't hear him.”

  Too late.

  Tito Sinbad Andrade came slouching over with some other sixth grader. Another new kid, but not haole, like Willy.

  My friends stood with me. The rest of Mr. Purdy's class continued on to Uncle Scoop's truck.

  “We meet again,” Tito said, smiling. He tapped his chest. “You like my new shirt?”

  It was a brand-new white World Wrestling Entertainment T-shirt. It said SMACKDOWN across the front. “Yeah, that's cool, Tito.”

  “My uncle got me um.” Tito hooked his thumb over his shoulder. “Frankie Diamond wants to meet you.”

  Frankie was as tall as Tito and had a silver chain around his neck. He had straight white teeth and green eyes. His thick hair was spiced with something that smelled like oranges.

  He crossed his arms and looked down on me.

  Tito snickered. “Frankie thinks Little Johnny Coconut's songs are stupit”

  “So?” I said.

  Frankie Diamond grinned.

  “Good answer,” he said. “You got guts.”

  “Pshh,” Tito spat. “What we doing with stupit fourth graders.”

  They slouched away.

  “You're the stupid ones!” Maya shouted. Frankie Diamond turned, surprised.

  Maya made a fist and held it up. Frankie threw back his head and laughed.

  Everyone lined up at the lunch truck. Uncle Scoop beamed down from behind the counter in a white apron and yellow ball cap that said CAVEMAN KITESURFING on the front.

  Mr. Purdy reached up to shake his hand, then turned and opened his arms. “Meet my new fourth-grade boot campers.”

  “Boot campers?” Uncle Scoop said. “Then you folks must be hungry!”

  “Yeah!” everyone said.

  “Step right up!”

  The line burst ahead, everyone pushing and shoving.

  “Come inside the truck,” Uncle Scoop said to Mr. Purdy. “Help me feed this crowd.”

  Everyone cheered when Mr. Purdy showed his face behind the counter. “Have what you want,” he said. “But choose wisely. I don't want your parents lecturing me on Monday.”

  “Yes, sir, Mr. Purdy, sir!”

  Julio ordered teri beef with rice and macaroni salad. Maya got two Spam musubi, which was Spam wrapped in sticky rice and seaweed. Rubin went for a plate of rice and spicy hot pickled cabbage called kimchee.

  I got one cone sushi and a bag of dried cuttlefish. Yum, so chewy and salty.

  Willy, the new kid, frowned at the long menu.

  Julio nudged me and whispered, “He doesn't know what all this food is.”

  “For real?”

  Willy ended up with a hot dog and Maui potato chips.

  “Hey, new kid,” I said. “You want to try some of this?” I held up the bag of cuttlefish. For sure he'd like that.

  “What is it?”

  “Cuttlefish. Try some. It's good.”

  “What's cuttlefish?”

  “Dried squid. It's chewy, like beef jerky.”

  Julio and Rubin crowded around us, Rubin working on his plate of stinky kimchee. I winced. “Back off with that stuff.”

  Rubin grinned, his mouth stuffed with food.

  I held the bag of cuttlefish out to Willy. He reached in and took some out. He looked at it, smelled it. “Fishy.”

  “Yeah, smells good, ah? What's your last name?”

  “Wolf.”

  “Wolf! Ho! Cool.”

  Julio nodded. “Yeah, that's a good name. Willy Wolf.”

  Willy stuck the cuttlefish into his mouth and started to chew. His look went from curious to anxious. He chewed some more.

  I studied his face. “Good, yeah?”

  Willy gulped the last little bit down. “Uh …”

  “Try some kimchee,” Rubin said, holding up his plate. It smelled like sulfur. I laughed, thinking Willy wouldn't get near it.

  But he actually tried it. Impressive. I couldn't stand the stuff.

  Willy let it sit in his mouth. He made a lemon face, then grabbed his throat. “Ack!” He coughed and spat it out.

  Rubin leaped back.

  Kimchee splattered all over our feet. Willy danced around, wiping his tongue off with his T-shirt. “Hot! Hot!”

  me, Julio, and Rubin, all of us speckled with pieces of food. “You four go get cleaned up. We're going to talk about this later.”

  We slunk away.

  “Move it!” Mr. Purdy shouted.

  We couldn't run unless we were on the playground, so we started fast-walking. I sped ahead, eager to escape Mr. Purdy's angry look.

  At the cafeteria, I zoomed around the corner and smacked right into something. “Ooof!” It felt like I'd run into a cow. Stars winked, my head spun.

  It was Tito Sinbad Andrade. He staggered back.

  He was holding a small box of grape juice and must have squeezed it when we hit. Purple juice was splattered all over his brand-new SmackDown T-shirt.

  “Oh, man,” Julio whispered. “You are so dead.”

  But Tito didn't notice his shirt yet. “Hey!” he spat. “Watch where you're going!”

  I felt a small lump rising on my forehead.

  Tito looked at the grape juice dripping off his hand.

  And all over his—

  “Haw!” He stepped back, looking down at his ruined T-shirt. His eyes bulged like golf balls. “My shirt!”

  “Sorry, I didn't mean—”

&nb
sp; Tito threw the juice box at my feet, stomped on it, and shoved me. Wham! “Look what you did!”

  He raised his fist. I ducked, but before he swung, Mr. Tanaka came out of the library.

  Tito held back, his fist shaking. He glared at me. “I get you after school,” he whispered through clenched teeth. “You going pay for this!” He shoved me again, but not too hard, because Mr. Tanaka was watching. “You ain't seen the last of this, no.”

  Tito glanced at Mr. Tanaka and waved, as if saying, Hey, everything's cool, heh-heh.

  Mr. Tanaka kept looking.

  Tito banged past, bumping me with his shoulder, trying to brush away the ugly purple stains.

  I groaned. In a single second I'd turned Tito's new T-shirt into his mom's next dust rag.

  “It was an accident,” I said to no one.

  Willy stood gawking, watching Tito walk away. “Who is that guy?”

  “Sinbad,” Julio said.

  “His name is Sinbad?”

  “No, it's Tito,” Julio said. “Sinbad is his middle name and don't ever call him that. Stay away from him … if you can.”

  I closed my eyes, thinking, I won't even make it home. Tito will pick his teeth with my bones!

  We cleaned up in the boys’ bathroom and headed back to the parking lot. Uncle Scoop's truck was still there, but no kids.

  “Shoot. They went back to class.”

  We started back to Mr. Purdy's room.

  “Is Coconut really your last name?” Willy asked. “Or was Mr. Purdy joking?”

  “It's real now. My dad made it up.”

  “Why?” Willy asked.

  But I wasn't listening. I was thinking: Right now Tito and that Frankie guy are probably deciding where they're going to jump me.

  “Calvin?” Willy said.

  “Huh?”

  “Your name,” Julio said. “Tell Willy.”

  “Oh. Yeah. Sorry. See, my dad's a singer, and he changed his name. It used to be Novio. Italian.”

  “You don't look Italian.”

  “My dad's Italian. My mom is Filipino, Hawaiian, and Chinese.”

  “Cool,” Willy said.

  “Hey, look,” Julio said. “There's Uncle Scoop. We should, you know, apologize or something.”

  He was right. We messed up bad. “Yeah, let's do it.”

  So we went over and apologized.

  But Uncle Scoop wasn't nearly as angry as Mr. Purdy. “Thank you, boys. I appreciate your apology.” He shook his head and smiled. “I was in a few food fights myself, as a kid. And if you can keep a secret, so was your teacher.”

  Mr. Purdy!

  I still felt bad. We'd goofed up. “We won't do it again, Uncle Scoop.”

  Unbelievably, he gave each of us two coupons for a free shave ice. “That's for apologizing. Recognizing and admitting you're wrong takes courage. Come see me down at the beach and have a shave ice. You know where to find me.”

  Rubin's face lit up. “Ho! Thanks, Uncle Scoop.”

  Uncle Scoop tapped Rubin's shoulder and winked.

  “Wow,” Willy said as we headed back to class. “Uncle Scoop is a nice guy.”

  “For sure.”

  “But … what's a shave ice? Is it like snow cones?”

  We stopped and looked at Willy like, What?

  “A snow cone is crunched-up ice with fla-vory syrup on it.”

  I said, “Right. Shave ice!”

  Crazy, I thought. Willy never heard of that, or cuttlefish, or kimchee. He sure has a lot to learn. “Let me tell you about cracked seed,” I said. “And don't worry, it's not hot.”

  “Does it stink?”

  I laughed and slapped his back. He was okay, this haole kid. All he needed was a little education.

  And all I needed was a giant bodyguard.

  Back in class, I sat gazing out the window. Mr. Purdy had written a topic on the board and I was thinking.

  “Give me at least five complete sentences,” Mr. Purdy said. “And remember to punctuate.”

  I reread the topic. How I can be all that I can be. I liked that U.S. Army slogan. But all I could think of to write were a few words.

  Like,Study.

  Try hard.

  Don't pick my nose.

  I grinned. Mr. Purdy was funny.

  “Eeeeeee!” somebody shrieked.

  I jumped and whipped around. Doreen was climbing up on her chair, screeching like a hyena.

  “Eeeeeee! Eeeeeee!”

  Mr. Purdy hurried back to her.

  “A centipede!” Doreen cried. “It crawled over my foot! Eeeeeee!”

  “Calm down, calm down,” Mr. Purdy said. “It can't get you up there. Where did it go?”

  “I don't know! Get it!”

  Rubin dove under his desk, looking for the centipede.

  Maya pulled her feet up.

  Julio stood by the door, ready to run.

  Two girls sat on top of their desks, laughing.

  I grabbed my hair and pulled. This can't be happening!

  Everyone except Doreen was having a party. How cool was this? A centipede in class!

  Mr. Purdy got down on his knees. “Anybody see it?”

  I dove under my desk, calling the centipede in my mind: Here, peedy! Where are you, peedy, peedy?

  “There it is!” Maya shouted. “It's running for the door!”

  Mr. Purdy leaped up.

  I banged my head on Kai's desk again.

  Everyone was shrieking with delight, except Doreen, who was shrieking with tears. I grabbed the jar out of my backpack and sprinted after the speedy peedy. Ho, man! This one was a rocket!

  “Get it!” Doreen screeched. “Kill it!”

  Mr. Purdy blocked the door. The centipede ran toward him. Mr. Purdy raised his foot.

  “Don't, Mr. Purdy! Don't kill it!”

  Mr. Purdy looked at me. He looked at the empty jar. “I see,” he said, slowly lowering his foot. The centipede stopped and stood its ground. “You want to catch it for us, Calvin?”

  I crawled up to the centipede and clamped the jar down over it. Trapped. It slithered up inside the glass. I flipped the jar right-side up and slammed the lid down.

  I slumped back on the floor, catching my breath.

  The whole class whooped and cheered and clapped.

  Mr. Purdy stood looking down on me. He reached out and waggled his fingers.

  I handed him the jar.

  Mr. Purdy inspected the centipede. He held it up for Doreen to see. “Got him. No need to stay up there on your chair.”

  Doreen didn't budge.

  Julio crept back to his seat.

  I looked up at Mr. Purdy.

  “You,” he said. “Come with me.”

  I stood and brushed myself off.

  “Oooo,” the class taunted as I followed Mr. Purdy to his desk.

  “Sssssss,” Mr. Purdy hissed.

  “Sssssss,” the class hissed back, then fell silent.

  “All right,” Mr. Purdy said. “The rest of you can go back to writing your paragraphs.”

  At his desk, Mr. Purdy admired the centipede, turning the jar in his hand. “Sure is a big one.” He put the jar on his desk. With a screwdriver, he punched three holes in the lid. “Give the poor guy some air. He's had a hard day.”

  Not as hard as me, I thought. “What do they eat, Mr. Purdy?”

  “Bugs. However, he can go for days without eating. But let's talk about you.”

  “Me?”

  “What am I going to do with you? It's only the first day, Calvin.”

  I shrugged and looked at the centipede. It seemed to be saying, This is all your fault, Coco-fool. Get me out of here.

  Mr. Purdy tapped his fingers on his desk. “How many times have you messed up today?”

  I shrugged.

  Mr. Purdy sighed. “Do I have to send you to the principal's office?”

  “No, sir.”

  Silence.

  “Tell you what. Next time, that's where you'll go. For now, I have something
else for you. All this month, you're going to be our classroom greeter.”

  No, no, Mr. Purdy, I pleaded in my head. Not classroom greeter, please, no, because classroom greeters had to stand at the door and shake hands with everyone and say “Welcome to class,” even the girls.

  But I kept my mouth shut. It was better than going to the principal's office, where sometimes they called your mom.

  “Go back to your seat, Calvin. See if you can write one simple paragraph without burning down the school.”

  “Yes, Mr. Purdy.”

  I slumped down in my chair and picked up my yellow pencil. I smelled the eraser, then stuck the pencil between my teeth and looked out the window.

  When Tito popped back into my head, I bit down and snapped the pencil in half. I spat out slivers of wood and yellow paint.

  How will I make it home alive?

  At the end of the day, everyone grabbed their stuff and lined up at the door. Except me. I stayed at my desk. Trapped. Like the centipede.

  “Is something wrong, Calvin?” Mr. Purdy asked.

  “No, sir.” I dragged myself up and got in line.

  “See you on Monday!” Mr. Purdy said.

  The class burst out like ants from an ant hole.

  I crept up to the door and peeked out.

  No giant bodyguard, but Julio was there, waiting for me.

  “You see Tito?”

  “No.”

  “Quick,” I said. “I got to get out of sight.”

  Rubin was waiting for us by the chain-link fence behind the school. On the other side of the fence was a grassy field. I had to cross it. Then I had to make it past the intermediate school, where Tito had a lot of scary friends. After that, there were long, bushy, hiding-place streets all the way to our neighborhood.

  We started across the field.

  Julio grabbed my arm. “Hey! You forgot your centipede!”

  “Forget it. We can give it a name and make it the class pet.”

  “Fang,” Rubin said.

  I shook my head. “Not Fang, Stanley.”

  “Stanley,” Julio said. “Why Stanley?”

  “I like Stanley. Manly Stanley.”

  “That's cool, too,” Rubin agreed.