Because of Mr. Terupt (3 page)

I
never ever had something in school excite me before, but the plant unit we did with Mr. T had me fired up. We grew these bean plants from seeds, and—once they got big enough—we started doing different tests with them. Variables, Mr. T called them. First we stuffed the plants in boxes, with just a little tiny hole in the side, and we waited to see what the plants would do after a few days in the dark.

Anna had a meltdown about it. “I don’t want to put mine in a box!” she cried. Mr. T had to take her out in the hall to calm her down. I was kind of shocked. Usually she doesn’t say anything. What a weirdo, I thought. It’s no wonder she doesn’t have any friends. It’s a good thing Danielle was her partner. She’s the patient kind. Anyone else would have been
fuming. My partner was Lexie, which was fine. She let me do what I wanted.

Next we put the plants on their side to see how they would grow. I couldn’t believe it. The plants bent and still grew up toward the ceiling. That was pretty cool. But the best part was what we got to do in the end.

Mr. T let us feed our plant any concoction we wanted to over the course of a week. There was just one rule: We couldn’t use an ingredient that would spoil and stink up the classroom, like milk, or something that wasn’t good for us to breathe, like gas.

There were some pretty wild concoctions. David and Nick used salad dressing because according to them, “Plants make salad, so the plant will like salad dressing.” Brenda and Heather used orange juice mixed with ketchup and Pepto-Bismol. I don’t know what they were thinking. Mine was the best, though.

I brought in cat litter (used), soda, and a little maple syrup. I did my best to mix it together and feed it to my plant. Lexie wasn’t real happy about my choice of ingredients. I didn’t tell her I had peed in my soda bottle some, too.

“Peter, you moron. This stuff is gonna kill our plant,” she whined.

“Shut up. You never cared about the plant before,” I said.

“Well, I care now,” she said.

“Lexie. Maple syrup comes from trees. I drink soda a lot, and I’m growing—and farmers put animal manure on their fields all the time. So zip it. It’s going to work.”

Our plant was dead in two days.

Danielle and Anna did the best. Danielle used some
natural ingredients her grandmother had taught her about. Something the old-time farmers really did use, I guess. Danielle lives on a farm, so she had a big advantage. Her concoction worked. Big-time! She and Anna were the only ones to come up with food that the plant liked.

Anna was all smiles until Lexie said, “Like, you’re just lucky Danielle was your partner. She did everything.” Then Lexie turned to me and added, “Even if she is fat.” I don’t think anyone else heard, but I laughed. I know I probably shouldn’t have. Anna’s smile disappeared, and she stared at the floor.

Poor old Luke sure tried. I think he put too much brainpower in it. And he’s got a lot of brainpower. He’s been the smartest kid in school since kindergarten. His partner was Jeffrey, but he never does anything. He just let Luke take charge. Maybe he should have helped.

“I’ve brought in a number of different ingredients,” Luke said, “and they’ll interact perfectly because of the electron balance and resulting bond formations.” He even said something about a periodic table, or some crazy thing.

Well, you’re never going to believe this, but Luke mixed his junk together and it started smoking. The next thing we knew, the stupid fire alarm was going off. The whole school had to go outside and even the fire department showed up. It was great!

Mr. T had to do some explaining, and after a while we were let back inside, but Luke wasn’t performing any more experiments for us.

Man, things were just so much fun with Mr. T.

W
e moved from cool math right into wicked science. The only thing I didn’t like about our science unit was that we had to have partners. I prefer to do my projects alone, but Mr. Terupt teamed us up. We were working with plants and he said we didn’t have enough space for everyone to have their own. Jeffrey was my partner, which—believe it or not—worked out great because he let me do whatever I wanted. He didn’t care. The only bad part was that he was always
grumpy
(dollar word).

We studied phototropisms by observing how our plant grew toward light after we stuffed it into a box that had only a tiny hole in its side. Then we studied geotropism by observing how our plant grew toward the ceiling, even after
we tipped the plant on its side for a few days. And then we were given the opportunity to study a variable on our own.

Mr. Terupt told us to manipulate the plant’s nourishment. “Feed it whatever you want,” he said. “Make your own concoctions.”

Jeffrey left me alone. He hated school and everything about it.

That day I hurried home and studied my periodic table. I had received a special chemistry set last Christmas. Hydrogen and oxygen make a special bond when they come together to form water, so I figured I should try to recreate that special bond with whatever
molecular
(dollar word) ingredients I chose. I looked through the chemicals in my set and picked the ones that would result in the same type of electron balance that occurred in the hydrogen-and-oxygen bond.

I took my ingredients to school and got ready to measure and mix. Jeffrey was slightly interested at this point. Mr. Terupt, on the other hand, appeared a little uneasy about the whole thing, but he never stopped me.

“Luke, sometimes when you mix chemicals it can cause a reaction, which then
explodes
(dollar word).”

“I know,” I said.

“Maybe we shouldn’t mix these in the classroom without knowing what’s going to happen,” he said. “It might not be safe.”

“All these potions came from my chemistry set at home. My mom saw it. It’s safe,” I said, trying my best to convince
Mr. Terupt. I didn’t tell Mom or Mr. Terupt about the few ingredients I got from Dad’s garage. I knew it would work.

“Hey, guys, come and look at all the stuff Luke’s mixing together,” Chris yelled.

I felt everyone gather behind me as I began mixing my substances together in a bowl, but before I could feed my plant, something happened. First the bowl started feeling warmer—then hot. The potion turned dark green—then gray. It started bubbling—first slowly, then rapidly. I knew this was bad.

“Back up! Everybody back up! Get away from it!” Mr. Terupt ordered.

Smoke started billowing from my concoction. Then the screech of the fire alarm pounded against my ears. The only other thing I heard was Peter laughing. “This is awesome!” he yelled. “Way to go, Lukester!”

“Outside! Everybody outside!” Mr. Terupt ordered.

I was done for. I was sure of it.

Wrong again.

Mr. Terupt spoke to Mrs. Williams and took the blame for everything. He even stood up to the fire marshal, who always walks through the building after an unannounced fire alarm. The marshal wanted our dollar-word posters taken off the hallway walls. He claimed they were a fire hazard. Jeffrey thought this confrontation was a big deal.

“Did you see Terupt say no to that guy?” he said. “He refused to take our posters down.”

“I saw,” I said. And I saw flashbacks of smoke pouring out of the bowl. I knew I wasn’t ever going to be a
botanist
(dollar word).

At least Jeffrey had gotten excited about something.

I wish Mr. Terupt hadn’t trusted us so much. Maybe it was because he was a first-year teacher and didn’t know better. But I don’t think that was it. I think it was a case of Mr. Terupt being a special teacher.

L
uke was tryin’ to feed our plant. I saw the smoke risin’. I knew what was gonna happen. Terupt did, too, ’cause I saw him go to the windows right away. Not fast enough, though. The alarm still went off. The whole school had to go outside ’cause of Luke.

When we came back in, some guy was walkin’ down the hall with our janitors, Mr. Lumas and Mr. Ruddy. Terupt sent us into the classroom, but he stayed in the hall. I hid by the door to listen.

“All of it!” the man yelled. “I want all of it off the walls!” He was pointing at our math posters.

Mr. Lumas looked at Terupt. “You heard him,” he said.

“I’m not taking them down,” Terupt said.

“Do you know who this is?” Mr. Ruddy said. “This is the fire marshal.”

Terupt said, “I don’t care who it is. I’m not taking them down.” He looked at the fire marshal and said, “You have no idea how hard my kids worked on these.”

He was pointing at our posters. He was pointing at my poster. It had one word on it,
stupid
, and it wasn’t even a dollar word. All of a sudden I felt bad ’cause I hadn’t tried on Terupt’s project.

There were some more words said, but then the fire marshal left. The posters stayed. I hope he felt stupid.

Terupt came back into the room. Peter was out of his seat. “Mr. T, you just told that guy off,” Peter said, dancing around. “That was awesome!”

“No, I didn’t,” Terupt said. “Get in your seat. You shouldn’t have seen that.”

But I saw it, and I heard it. Terupt stuck up for us. There’s always posters up in the school halls, and they’re never fire hazards. I think the fire marshal was just mad about our false alarm, and I think Terupt knew that, too. He wasn’t gonna get pushed around. Our hard work mattered to Terupt—even mine. I owed him now. I had to try, even if only a little.

I
didn’t want my plant to die. I didn’t want to put it in the box. Everybody was staring at me. I started crying.

Mr. Terupt took me out into the hall. “Anna, what’s wrong?”

“I don’t want to kill my plant,” I blurted out. My back slid down the wall and I put my head in my hands.

“We’re not going to kill your plant.” Mr. Terupt knelt down in front of me.

“Yes, you are,” I said. “If we put it in the box, it’s going to kill it.”

“We’ll take it out before it dies,” he promised.

“No. I don’t want to hurt it.”

“Tell you what, Anna. Let’s do the experiments that are
lined up for your plant. We have to, because Danielle is your partner and she needs to do the science, too. Then, when we’re all done, I’ll let you take
my
plant. Our control. The one we don’t do anything to.”

I still didn’t like the idea of hurting my plant, but I liked the idea of getting the control. I think he saw my hesitation.

“Plus, since you’re working with Danielle, I have a feeling that your plant is actually going to be just fine.”

I don’t know Danielle that well. She’s never been in my class before. She seems nice. I like her. Sometimes she’s friends with Alexia. I don’t know why. I’m glad I’m partners with Danielle and not Alexia. I’ve never been in Alexia’s class, but I can tell she’s mean. All the girls listen to her, though. Katie, Emily, Heather, Natalie—all of them. Not me. I stay away from her.

My mom has warned me not to get involved in that popularity stuff. She was ostracized once. That means nobody wanted to be friends with her. My mom told me it was like there was a big group of people holding hands in a circle, and she was never let in. She always had to stand outside the circle. Mom doesn’t ever want that to happen to me. It was when she was sixteen and pregnant with me. I can tell that she still hurts inside from all of it. Even her own parents shunned her. That’s why she quit school shortly after I was born, and moved out. She tried to move in with my dad (I’ve never met him), but that didn’t work out—he left. Mom says we can talk about my dad and the whole situation when I’m older. All I know is that she says he’s a nice man. My grandma and grandpa (I’ve never met them, either) still
don’t want anything to do with us. They moved far away after my mom moved out. My mom might be young, but she’s still a great mom. She’s my best friend, and I love her. If you love someone, you don’t quit on them just because they make a mistake.

Mr. Terupt helped me stand up. “Trust me on this one,” he said. “Be positive.”

We headed back into the classroom. My plant went into the box and came out a few days later, a little yellow and without a lot of new growth. But it was alive! Turning it on its side wasn’t harmful, so I was okay with that test, and then it was our chance to feed it whatever we wanted.

Mr. Terupt was right. Danielle knew what she was doing. “Here’s a list of things we could mix together,” Danielle said.

I read the list. I didn’t know everything on it. How did she?

“My grandmother helped me with it,” she said. “She’s always been good at growing things. She’s the reason we have successful crops on the farm.”

Both of us brought in some of the ingredients. We mixed them together and fed our plant. Ours was the only one to survive! It turned really green, and grew and grew and grew.

I took the control home, but Danielle and I decided to leave our plant in school. We kept feeding it and everyone watched it grow. It grew almost to the ceiling, wrapping itself around the cord to the blinds, all the way up. Then one day it was knocked over. Somehow our super-duper plant fell off the windowsill. Nobody knows how it happened. I have a pretty good idea, though. I bet Alexia did it, because it happened when she was being nasty to Danielle. I’m thankful
that Mr. Terupt let me take the control home. I didn’t want her to hurt that one, too.

I liked being Danielle’s partner. I wonder now if Mr. Terupt knew what he was starting between me and Danielle. I wonder.

A
ct 2, Scene 1

My daily routine included lunch with Alexia and the girls, minus Danielle and Anna—they sat alone—and then recess. Alexia found it funny to see how upset Danielle would get.

Right about this same time, I was finishing the book
Belle Teal
. I loved Belle. I wanted her to be my friend. She was honest and courageous. What would Belle do in my shoes? That was easy. She would do the right thing. And doing the right thing meant giving someone a chance. Danielle didn’t seem anything like Alexia made her out to be. I decided it was time to talk to Danielle and find out for myself.