Scab for Treasurer? Read online

  When the final bell rings at 3:12 p.m., kids run for the buses. I don’t run anywhere. My stomach is making odd noises. My throat is sore. My tongue throbs. I may stay home tomorrow. Call it a stunt recovery day. I zip up my backpack and heave it onto my shoulder. It feels twice as heavy as it usually does.

  “Scab,” Miss Sweeten calls as I shuffle past. “Will you stop by the staff room and take home your dead artwork?

  “Sure.”

  “Mrs. Lippman will let you in.”

  “Did I get an A?”

  “Will you take it home today?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “You got an A.”

  Sweet! I walk out the door and bump smack into Isabelle.

  “How’d it go?” she asks.

  “I’m not class president.”

  “Awwwwww.” She puts an arm around my shoulders. “How are you holding up?”

  “I’m okay,” I say, but my sister isn’t listening. She starts walking me down the hall like she is the mom and I am the three-year-old who did a face plant off the seesaw.

  “That’s too bad, Scab. But you’ve got to put more effort into it if you want to win.”

  “I know.”

  “You can’t have a lazy attitude.”

  “I know.”

  “You’ve got to take every vote seriously.”

  “I know.”

  “If people think you don’t care, they won’t elect you—”

  “Oh, I got elected, all right.”

  * DID YOU EVER WONDER . . . *

  WHO CAME UP WITH THE FREAKY SCHOOL TIME schedule? Our first recess starts at 10:07 a.m., lunch ends at 12:33 p.m., and school lets out at 3:12 p.m. Doyle says teachers do this to mess with our heads.

  “But you said—”

  “I didn’t get elected president.”

  “What?”

  I throw my arms open wide. “I got elected treasurer.”

  She gulps. “Treasurer?”

  “He’s going to regret it,” says Cloey, sailing past us.

  I laugh. I’m not worried. I can handle the job. After all, I ate one of the hottest peppers on Earth and I’m still here, right?

  “Moooooooom,” cries Cloey, “look what Scab did to my sweater!”

  I decide it’s a good time to escape. “Meet you on the bus, Izzy. I have to pick up my dead art.” I spin on my heels. I wonder if I am the first student to ever see inside the faculty room. I wonder if it’s as big as I’ve pictured it—the Teacher Torture Board, I mean.

  I hear my sister calling after me. “Dead art?”

  CHAPTER

  13

  It’s Friday. Again. Ugh.

  Scab, please remove the paperclips from your earlobes,” says Miss Sweetandsour. “You know what to do.”

  I know what to do, all right. I just don’t want to do it.

  I sigh. I have no choice but to obey my teacher. I pull three small paperclips off my right earlobe and four off my left. I get to my feet. I stand to the left of my desk. Never Missy stands to the right. We are playing Fly Around the World. Again. Never Missy has already beaten me once today and is back to whip my butt again.

  Leaning back, I find Doyle across the room.

  He raises his fist. Don’t give up.

  I raise mine. I won’t.

  Doyle says even though I blew the stunt, I would have won the election anyway. Maybe. Maybe not. He says I ought to run for class president again next year. I might. If I do, it’ll be because I want the job. I think I’ll see how being treasurer goes first.

  “Scab? Missy?” Miss Sweetandsour straightens her deck of flash cards. “Are you ready?”

  Missy flips her bangs out of her eyes. “Ready,” she says.

  “Ready,” I say.

  My heart picks up speed. My mouth is dry. I wipe my hands on the sides of my jeans. Why do I always get so nervous? This time I am going to beat her. I know, I know, I say it every Friday afternoon, but today—

  The card comes up.

  I see white. And a division sign. Sixty-three divided by seven is—

  “Nine!”

  “Correct,” says Miss Sweetandsour.

  My head drops.

  The class starts clapping and stomping their feet. Wait a second. Was that—?

  Did I—?

  Yes! That was me. I have done it. I have beat the unbeatable Never Missy Malone.

  “Wahoo!” shouts Will. “Way to go, Scab.”

  Cloey pounds her palms on her desk. Doyle’s shrill whistle floats across the room.

  Miss Sweetandsour is writing my name on her notepad. I can see her making the letters. S-C-A-B. She has never written my name on that pad before. I usually get the pink one. It feels good.

  I glance at Never Missy.

  She pulls her arms up into her purple jacket. “You can say it.”

  Oh, yeah! Vroom, vroom sorry. Vroom, vroom, sorreeeeee.

  The words have been festering like an infected splinter under my thumbnail. Finally, it’s my chance to shout them out the way Never Missy always does. I want to. But for some reason, I don’t. I can’t say why. I just don’t.

  Never Missy slides into my seat. It’s weird to see her sitting there, in my desk, twirling one of her alien antennae. Weird in a good way.

  I don’t move. Not a muscle. I am waiting, waiting, waiting . . .

  “Scab,” Miss Sweetandsour says gently, her lips curving upward, “you may fly on.”