The Waffler (3 page)

M
onty had no
idea how long it would take to prove to Mrs. Tuttle that he didn't need any decision-aids on his arm, and to prove to Principal Edwards that he didn't need to sit at the nut-free table. But he did know how long it would take him to live down his new nickname. Forever.

Back in the fourth-grade room after lunch, the guys got started teasing right away. Tristan Thompson-Brown asked Ethan Ho what he'd had for breakfast. Ethan said waffles and asked Tristan what he'd had. Waffles, declared Tristan. Waffles were his
fave
. Waffles, waffles, waffles, added Devin High-tower, joining the fun. Everybody loves waffles! Even super quiet Lagu Luka, who had just moved here from Sudan, smiled as he learned a great new word.

“Waffles!” he repeated. “I like waffles, too.”

“Quit it, you guys,” said Monty.

“Quit what?” demanded Tristan.

Tristan Thompson-Brown had the word brown in his name, but his hair wasn't brown. It was orange—the same bright orange as the hats people wore in the woods during hunting season, so nobody would accidentally mistake them for a deer or a moose. It was like his whole head was saying, not me!

“Quit calling me Waffles,” said Monty.

“Okay, Waffles,” said Tristan.

It was going to be a long day, thought Monty. It was going to be a long year.

“One two three, eyes on me,” said Mrs. Tuttle as she grabbed a marker and printed HIDDEN TREASURES on the whiteboard in big block letters. It was the name of their new Learning Expedition. They were going to be discovering some treasures hidden “right in plain sight!” And on Wednesday they would kick off their expedition with a field trip.

Monty wondered if Mrs. Tuttle did the slow pull or the fast pull when she took off a Band-Aid? And how was he supposed to prove to the principal that he wasn't a waffler and could sit wherever he wanted at lunch? He had a lot of questions. Unfortunately, so did Mrs. Tuttle.

“What sort of behavior will I be looking for on Wednesday?”

Ella Bakunda and Emma Robinson both shot their hands up in the air.

Mrs. Tuttle called on Monty. “Monty,” she said. “Are you listening?”

The truth was that Monty had been so busy worrying about the waffler thing that he hadn't been listening. But he'd heard the behavior lecture before so many times he couldn't count. He averaged
not this time
together with
a million times
.

“Sort of,” he said.

“And what did I just say?”

Emma Robinson had her hand in the air again, but Mrs. Tuttle still wasn't calling on her. She wasn't going to let Monty off that easy. “Monty?”

He could feel the class tuning in. A mini-battle between him and Mrs. Tuttle was more interesting than the usual school stuff.

“Monty? What did I just say about what sort of behavior I expect?”

Why didn't he just give up and admit that he wasn't listening? Because he didn't want Mrs. Tuttle to win! Besides, field trip behavior was a no-brainer.

“Our best?” he tried.

Lagu Luka cracked up, laughing. “Our best behavior!” he blurted.

Mrs. Tuttle fixed a stare of disapproval on Lagu for laughing at Monty's joke, and then on Monty for making it. “Monty, I'd like you to make up your mind to be on your best behavior for the rest of the day, please,” she said, and without waiting for him to say anything, she asked everyone to go over to the window and look outside.

“What can you see from our window, right in plain sight?”

From up here on the second floor, Monty could see a lot. The spot where he always hung out at recess, by the chain-link fence. The new “satellite classrooms” stuck on the playground because there wasn't enough room for all the kids this year. The Eastern Promenade, which was the last street before the ocean. Bright orange sumac on the hill that sloped from the Eastern Promenade down to the water. At the bottom of the hill, the huge dome shapes of the sewage-treatment plant. Then the ocean. And out on the ocean, islands. That would be cool, if the field trip was to one of the islands.

Kids were raising their hands and calling out answers to Mrs. Tuttle's question.

“Swings!”

“Trees!”

“There goes a car!”

“The ocean.”

Lagu came up beside Monty. “She's
strict
!” he whispered.

Monty didn't want to talk about Mrs. Tuttle. He wanted to make Lagu laugh again. He pointed to the big domes of the sewage-treatment plant. “Maybe our field trip will be there,” he whispered. “Hidden Treasures from your toilet!”

“Hidden Treasures!” echoed Lagu with a yelp. “From your toilet!” He clapped his hand to his mouth to hide his laugh.

Tristan Thompson-Brown asked, “Hidden Treasures from
where
?”

A hundred yellow smiley-face barrettes turned toward him. Jasmine Raines was listening.

“Your toilet,” said Monty. “I heard our field trip is to the sewage-treatment plant.”

“It is not!” objected Jasmine.

Tristan agreed with Jasmine. “No way!”

“Way,” said Monty. “Go ahead. Ask.”

Monty didn't think Tristan would really do it. Tristan wasn't a get-in-trouble kid. He was the kind of kid teachers sent on errands, like delivering a message to the office. But Tristan called out, “Mrs. Tuttle! Mrs. Tuttle! Is it true our field trip is to the sewage-treatment plant?”

Mrs. Tuttle made a perplexed face. “No,” she said. “Who told you that?”

Jasmine Raines raised her hand. “Monty!” she answered. “He said it!”

Tristan explained, “He said it was Hidden Treasures from your toilet!”

“Tristan,” said Mrs. Tuttle, raising her voice over the laughter of the entire fourth grade, “that was
not
appropriate. And Monty, did you change your mind again?”

Monty was confused. He didn't think so. “No?” he tried.

She crossed her arms. “Really? You didn't change your mind about being on your best behavior for the afternoon?”

How could he change his mind since he hadn't made it up in the first place? She was the one who had said he should be on his best behavior. That wasn't his decision. He shook his head. No.

“No?” she asked. “Then you didn't make that inappropriate remark?”

“Yes,” he admitted, “I did. But”—he stopped, confused. It was true that he'd
made up
the remark, but Tristan was the one who
made
the remark—said it loud enough for everyone to hear. Except somehow teachers looked at Tristan and thought,
not him
. Trouble wasn't his fault. It had to be somebody else's fault. In this case, Monty's. Which seemed totally unfair, but Monty didn't know how to explain all that and besides, he knew it wouldn't matter. Mrs. Tuttle had made up
her
mind that he had changed
his
mind.

“And how are we going to remind you that you've changed your mind
unnecessarily
?” asked Mrs. Tuttle.

Monty hated it when grown-ups asked a question just to make a kid say the answer out loud. He might have to answer, but he wasn't going to say what she wanted him to say. He just held out his arm, and Mrs. Tuttle yanked off a Band-Aid and dropped it in the trash can.

Monty's arm stung a little. One down, two to go. What would happen if Mrs. Tuttle ever pulled off all three? It was like a grown-up counting:
One . . . two . . .
They didn't really want to get to three. They just wanted you to do whatever it was they wanted.
Or else.

Or else
what
?

“
M
onty, my friend!”
crowed Mr. Milkovich, the bus driver. “How is your day?”

Mr. Milkovich's big hands gripped the steering wheel. He had a big head, too—“for my big brain!” he always said, and then roared with laughter. Monty always tried to sit right behind the driver's seat so he could talk to him. The bus ride was the second best part of his day, with recess coming in first and actual school coming in last.

Monty slid into his usual spot. Somehow he had managed to get through the afternoon without finding out what happened after
or else
. He didn't want to tell Mr. Milkovich about
that
, though. He didn't want to tell Mr. Milkovich about the principal learning exactly who he was, either. Basically, he didn't want to talk about anything that had happened today.

“I got a rat!” he said.

The bus filled up with kids, and Mr. Milkovich pulled out of the bus circle. “Rats?” he asked, heading along the Eastern Promenade. “You got rats?”

“Not
rats
!” explained Monty. “Not like, rats you don't want! Just one rat. He's a pet, and he's totally friendly and nice. He can balance on my shoulder when I walk around. And he has whiskers!”

“Hmm,” said Mr. Milkovich, making a thinking-about-it noise. “Does he like apples?”

Mr. Milkovich used to have an apple orchard in the country he came from, before he moved to the United States. Anyone who liked apples was okay in his book.

“I don't know,” said Monty. “I'll check it out when I get home.”

“Okay,” said Mr. Milkovich as he slowed the bus and pulled over to the curb. At the same time, he pushed a button, and the red stop signs on the sides of the bus swung out and its red stoplights started flashing. Monty loved how Mr. Milkovich could stop traffic. Everybody had to stop for a stopped school bus, or else they might get a ticket. Sitting way up high in the driver's seat, Mr. Milkovich was like a king on a throne. King of the road.

A few kids trooped down the aisle and climbed down the big steps and off the bus. A little third grader turned and waved good-bye. “Bye, Mr. Milk,” she said, which was what lots of kids called Mr. Milkovich.

“Good-bye!” boomed Mr. Milkovich. “See you tomorrow!”

He drove through the neighborhood, stopping and dropping off kids. At the corner of Washington and Monument Streets he pulled to a stop and a couple of fifth graders shuffled up from the back of the bus. Before they got off, one of them turned to Monty.

“Bye, Waffles!”

“Bye, Waffles,” echoed the other kid. “And remember, Waffles, no peanut butter for you!”

Laughing, they sprang off the bus.

Mr. Milkovich turned off the red flashers, pulled in the red stop signs, and kept going on his route. Looking into the big mirror that showed everybody behind him, he asked Monty, “What is it, this
waffles
?”

Monty felt like a flat tire. He was dead. Those kids weren't even in the half of the school he had lunch/recess with. Which meant the entire school had heard what happened.

“It's kind of my new nickname,” he explained. “Because the principal called me a waffler.”

“The principal is calling you this food of breakfast? Waffles is something you eat, no?”

“Waffles are what you eat, yeah. But
waffler
means somebody who changes their mind too much. She said I shouldn't be a waffler.”

From inside Mr. Milkovich came a noise that sounded like the bus was breaking down. “Waff-ler,” he grumbled slowly, shaking his big head back and forth. “So this is a bad thing, no?”

“Yep,” admitted Monty. “Waffles are good to eat. But being a waffler is not a good thing. It's bad.”

Luckily, Monty's stop was next. Because no matter how much he liked Mr. Milkovich, he didn't want to talk anymore about the meaning of waffler. The bus stop signs swung out, and on the street all the cars slowed down and came to a stop, as if somebody had commanded,
In the name of the king, halt!
When all the traffic had halted, Mr. Milkovich opened the bus door. Monty stood and slung his backpack over his shoulder.

“Mr. Milkovich, my friend,” he said, “see you tomorrow.”

Mr. Milkovich roared with laughter. “See you tomorrow, my friend.”

Monty hopped onto the curb and the bus pulled away. He headed up Atlantic Street, going in and out of the sun as he passed beneath the maple trees' bright orange leaves. Their roots made the brick sidewalk all lumpy and bumpy.

The first thing Monty always did when he got to his dad's house was check out the pumpkin. His dad had planted the seedling right in the compost pile, and now the vine clambered halfway across the backyard, and the pumpkin was bigger than a basketball. Bigger than a beach ball. It reminded Monty of the story of Jack and the Beanstalk, where the bean plant grew right up into the sky. Just like he always tagged the fence at recess, Monty touched the big orange pumpkin. He was home.

The driveway was empty. No cars. That meant his dad and Beth were still at work. Sierra was at soccer practice. Big A wasn't there, either. Good. He went inside, grabbed an apple, and ran up the stairs.

There was the little guy in his cage. Through the glass, the rat looked at him, and Monty looked back at the rat, with its white fur and brown patches, munching its ratty food. It was so cool the way the rat's paws worked. He could pick up the tiniest seed and hold it while he nibbled. After a while the rat stood up on its hind legs, stretching its whiskery nose toward the cage lid. The guy from the Pet Emporium had given Monty a long lecture about proper animal care, going on and on about how rats were like little Houdinis. They loved to escape from their cage.

Monty unclipped the lid from the cage and lifted out the rat. He bit off a tiny piece of sweet, crunchy apple and held it out. Would the rat eat from his hand? He held perfectly still while the rat looked at the apple, then looked up at Monty. Looked at the apple again and sniffed. And then—yes!—the rat reached out its tiny paws to take the piece of fruit! Victory!

Monty didn't want to make a mistake on something as important as a name—like naming a boy Montana—but he couldn't just keep calling his pet “the rat,” either. The rat liked apples. Maybe
apple
? No, that wasn't quite right. How about
McIntosh
?
Mack
for short.

When the apple was all gone the rat—Mack—scritch-scratched his way up Monty's arm, scrambled down his other arm, and came to the two Band-Aids. He sniffed them and looked up at Monty, as if he was asking,
what are these things?

Monty was glad he didn't have to explain the decision-aids to Mack. He ripped them off—one, ouch! two, ouch!—and threw them on the floor so he wouldn't have to explain them to his dad, either. Unless Sierra told. Or unless Mrs. Tuttle called home. He wondered which house she'd call, if she did call. His dad's or his mom's?

Which reminded him of something he didn't want to think about. Today was Monday. That meant two days to go until Wednesday. Wednesday was Switch Day, when he and Sierra would go to their mom's house. The house where there were already enough creatures, according to his mom.

Monty picked up the rat. “Mack,” he said. “We're in trouble, my friend.”