The Curtain Went Up, My Trousers Fell Down Read online

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  To Lin Oliver: A Writing Partner Sent from Heaven. And to Stacey always – H.W.

  For my sister, Pamela – with happy memories of our past and great expectations for the future – L.O.

  I FELL OUT OF MY CHAIR and rolled onto the lino floor. My ears felt like they were going to explode right off my head. They couldn’t have heard what they heard. Not the words that just came out of Dr Berger’s mouth. No, those words couldn’t be true.

  “Hank,” Dr Berger said, looking over the edge of her desk at the floor, where I was still flopping around like a fish with a stomach-ache. “I wish you’d get back into your chair.”

  “No way,” I answered. “Not until you tell me it’s not true.”

  “I can’t tell you that, Hank, because it is true. Would you want me to lie to you?”

  “Yes,” I said, without hesitation. “Yes until infinity.”

  “No, you wouldn’t,” she said. “I’ve made my decision and it’s final. I’ve signed you up for maths tutoring with a peer tutor. You start tomorrow.”

  Peer tutoring! Could anything be more embarrassing?

  “Did you say pear tutoring?” I asked hopefully, pulling myself to my knees and resting my chin on her desk. “Why would you want me to be tutored by a fruit?”

  “You know I said peer, not pear,” Dr Berger answered, a smile curling up at the corners of her mouth.

  “OK, I did know that,” I said. “I was just hoping it wasn’t true.”

  “Hank, we’ve had great success with our peer-tutoring programme, and I believe that being tutored by another student will make maths easier for you. So I have assigned you to Heather Payne.”

  “Heather Payne! I’m double triple hoping that’s not true!”

  “Well, it is.”

  That did it! I flopped back down onto the floor again. This was too much information for me to take in sitting up. Too much bad information.

  Heather Payne! Miss Perfect. Miss I’d-Love-To-Do-Homework-For-The-Rest-Of-My-Life. Miss How-Many-Extra-Credit-Problems-Can-I-Do? Miss I’ve-Never-Got-Anything-Lower-Than-An-A-With-Thirty-Three-Pluses. Oh no, this wasn’t happening.

  “Dr Berger, tell me you didn’t say Heather Payne,” I said, pulling myself up on to the speckled green plastic chair next to her desk.

  “Heather is an excellent maths student, Hank, and she has expressed a desire to help tutor a fellow classmate.”

  “Trust me, I’m not that classmate.”

  Heather Payne hates me. Well, maybe she doesn’t hate me, but she looks at me like I’m some kind of rodent with bugs riding on its back. Once, when I had just got a maths test back, she glanced at my paper and saw the C-minus written in red on the top. And do you know what she said? “I didn’t know they gave grades that low.” I had been thrilled out of my mind with that grade. A C-minus was a step up for me. I usually live in D-ville.

  Heather Payne is not only a perfect student herself, she’s never even hung out with someone who isn’t. She was the last person in the cosmos – or whatever is the furthest place from where you’re standing right now on planet Earth – that I would want tutoring me in maths. Or spelling. Or anything – even sandwich making. I bet she wears plastic gloves when making sandwiches so she doesn’t get peanut butter under her fingernails. She wouldn’t want to get her fingers sticky because that might reduce the speed at which they can fly across her calculator while she’s doing her fourth set of extra-credit maths problems. Problems that look like a foreign language to me.

  “Hank, I know this is a lot to absorb,” Dr Berger was saying. “Think it over and we’ll talk tomorrow to arrange a time for you and Heather to work together.”

  “In other words, ‘think it over’ means I’m stuck whether I like it or not,” I said with a sigh. I can talk that way with Dr Berger and she doesn’t get mad. She’s our school psychologist, and she believes kids should be able to express their real feelings as long as they’re not being rude.

  “I hear your frustration, Hank,” Dr Berger said. “But as I said, we have found that peer tutoring works quite well.”

  “It won’t with me.”

  “Keep an open mind. It might turn out to be a great experience.”

  I’ve found that when adults, even a cool one like Dr Berger, tell you to keep an open mind, there’s absolutely nothing more to say. Anything you say is going to sound like your mind is closed, gone fishing, boarded up. So I gave Dr Berger my best Hank Zipzer smile, the one that says, “You win for now, but the real Hank will be back with an outstanding Plan B.” Then I left her pumpkin-orange office, trying to put a bounce in my step. My grandfather Papa Pete says it’s important to put a bounce in your step when you’re feeling bounceless inside.

  Wouldn’t you know that the first person I saw when I went out into the corridor was Heather Payne, who was delivering the attendance registers to the office.

  Boy, if seeing her doesn’t de-bounce you, I don’t know what will.

  AT THE FIRST SIGHT of Heather, I flattened myself against the mint-green wall, hoping my skin would turn the same green and I’d blend in like one of those chameleon lizards that camouflage themselves when snakes are chasing them.

  Please don’t see me, Heather Payne. Please don’t talk to me, either. Not now. Not later. Not ever.

  “Hello, Henry,” she said.

  Well, I guess that wish didn’t work.

  I have to tell you, only one other person in the world calls me Henry, and that person is my fifth-grade teacher, Ms Adolf. No matter how many times I’ve asked her, begged her, pleaded with her to call me Hank, she refuses. She says she doesn’t believe in nicknames. They’re too personal. And since Heather Payne loves Ms Adolf as much as I love the Mets baseball team and pepperoni pizza, she imitates everything that Ms Adolf does. Like calling me Henry.

  “It’s Hank,” I snapped at Heather, trying to slither down the corridor. But that girl is not only smart, she’s tall. She placed her five-foot-something body in front of my four-foot-something body to block me from taking another step.

  “So,” Heather went on, “I hear you’re going to be my little pet project. I enjoy accomplishing the impossible.”

  Well, there it was. Heather Payne’s first sentence to me, and already I had shrunk from four-feet-something to three-feet-something in a matter of ten words. Her pet project? I felt like a hamster.

  “Oh, Dr Berger did mention we might work together on something, I don’t remember what,” I answered in my cool-guy voice.

  “I’m going to be your peer tutor, if you know what I mean.”

  Peer tutor. The words sounded so horrible, she might as well have said, “I’m going to give you a booster shot,” or “You have doggy breath.”

  “Of course I know what you mean,” I snapped. “I happen to be excellent at knowing what people mean. But to tell you the truth, Heather,” I continued in the cool-guy voice, “it just doesn’t work out with my schedule. I’ve got football games to watch, a table tennis tournament to attend, an iguana to ba
bysit while my sister has a sleepover with her Girl Scout troop. My schedule these days is chock-full. But hey, thanks, anyway.”

  I tried to pass her, but she took one giant step sideways and loomed in front of me again.

  “But, Henry,” she said. “I’ve already committed to working with you. I even told Dr Berger that I would step down as the vice president of the Future Physicists of America club to make sure we have enough time together.”

  “Oh, wow! Heather, I couldn’t let you do that, so let’s just forget the whole thing. You go and play with your calculator and I’ll be on my merry way.”

  I went left this time, trying to get around her from the other side. At least, I think it was left, since I’m not too good at telling left from right. But she put her arm up like a point guard on a championship basketball team and blocked me again.

  “I’m getting community service points for peer tutoring,” she said, “and you will look very good on my university application, if you know what I mean.”

  University! She wasn’t even eleven years old yet, and she was already thinking about university! Me, I’m just praying I make it to sixth grade.

  “I’m not your community service project,” I answered. “Try picking up some litter. Or painting the rubbish bins with happy faces. I hear they give triple points for that … if you know what I mean.”

  This time, I bolted for the stairs at the end of the corridor. I was done with this conversation, and I wasn’t going to let her block me again.

  I darted past the noticeboard, past the trophy cases, past the collection of the kindergarten classes’ autumn leaf drawings that had been on display for the last month. I took the stairs to the second floor two at a time, pulling myself along by the red handrails. I didn’t stop until I reached the third door on the left. That’s Ms Adolf’s classroom, better known to those of us who have been at this school for quite a while as the Torture Chamber.

  I pushed open the door, which was decorated with … well … with nothing. Ms Adolf doesn’t believe in decorations, just like she doesn’t believe in nicknames. According to her, they both fall under Adolf’s Rule Number One, which is “School is for learning, not for fun. If you want fun, go to a playground.”

  “Oh, Henry,” Ms Adolf said. She looked at me over the top of her grey glasses. Everything she wears is grey, including her face, which unfortunately she wears every day. “Dawdle, did we?”

  “No, Ms Adolf. I came directly here.”

  “Unfortunately for you, I have done my own research,” Ms Adolf said, looking at her grey watch. “And I know from personal experience that it takes two point three minutes to travel by foot from Dr Berger’s office to my classroom.”

  “That’s providing you don’t meet Heather Payne in the corridor,” I answered. “She insisted on having a long conversation.”

  “Hey, Zipperbutt, sounds like you and Heather got something going on,” a voice shouted from the back row. “That’s a laugh! The geek and the geekette.”

  It was Nick McKelty’s voice. He’s the school loudmouth who lives to make my life miserable.

  “What’s that stuck between your two front teeth, McKelty?” I fired back. “Is that already-been-chewed porridge or have you been gnawing on your maths book again and page six got stuck there?”

  Everybody burst out laughing. Everybody, that is, but Ms Adolf, who doesn’t believe laughter belongs in the fifth-grade classroom. That’s Adolf’s Rule Number Two.

  “That will be quite enough, Mr Comedian,” she snapped at me. “Have you forgotten my Rule Number Seven?”

  “Not at all,” I answered, full of confidence. “Always write your name and the date legibly in the upper right-hand corner of your paper.”

  “Typical, Henry.” She frowned. “That is Rule Number Six.”

  “You know me, Ms Adolf. I’m not so great at getting things in exactly the right order, but at least I knew the rule.”

  “Rule Number Seven is that we don’t make fun of fellow classmates.”

  “But McKelty started it. He called me Zipperbutt.”

  “Henry, if you spent more time on your studies and less time defending yourself—”

  Before she could finish her sentence, the door to the room swung open and Heather Payne rushed in. It was just like her to rush in after delivering the register to the office. Every normal fifth-grader would take a water break, a bathroom break and an apple or muesli bar break, if they could fit them in. Good old Heather was in a hurry to get back to class, so she wouldn’t miss a single solitary minute of her time with Ms Adolf.

  “My, my, my, Heather,” Ms Adolf said. “You were gone longer than usual.”

  “I’m so sorry, Ms Adolf,” Heather said. “But I ran into Hank, and we had to discuss the arrangements for his peer tutoring.”

  I thought my ears were going to explode off my head again, right then and there.

  Peer tutoring! She said it! In front of the whole class! As if me needing peer tutoring isn’t the most embarrassing thing you could say other than, “Oh, Hank, you’ve just wet your pants.”

  I think all the colour drained from my face. Well, something drained from my face, because I felt like I was going to fall over onto the floor. Out of the corner of my eye, I glanced at Katie Sperling, who is the second most beautiful girl in our class after Kim Paulson. She put her hand over her mouth so I couldn’t see her giggling. But I could tell by the way her shoulders were shaking that there was a giggle under there. I noticed Kim Paulson’s shoulders were shaking too.

  “Heather,” I whispered. “Pleeease. Could we talk about this somewhere else or at another time? Like, say a deserted cave in Central Park at midnight?”

  “There’s no shame in needing help, Henry,” Ms Adolf said. Was her voice especially loud or were my ears just on fire? It sounded to me like she was speaking over the school public address system.

  “Shhhh,” I whispered to her. But there was no stopping her. She was on a roll.

  “Pupils,” she said. “Henry is going to be tutored in mathematics. Heather Payne, one of your classmates, will be his tutor. This is how we help one another. One extraordinary student reaching out to help another less fortunate student.”

  I mean, why doesn’t she just hold a big sign over my head that says HANK ZIPZER IS A LOSER!

  I had no idea what to do, so the old Hank Zipzer attitude kicked in. I took a deep bow, as if I had just won the biggest football trophy in the history of the sport. McKelty made a farting sound with his hand under his armpit.

  “Hank Zipzer has gas in his brain,” he shouted.

  Everyone burst out laughing. Kim Paulson and Katie Sperling’s shoulders shook again. Even more this time.

  Holy enchilada! Could this get any worse?

  TEN WAYS IT COULD GET WORSE

  1. My trousers could fall down around my ankles.

  2. When they did, everyone would see that I have a rash on my inner thighs from the new washing powder my mum tried out.

  3. I could start foaming at the mouth for no apparent reason.

  4. The foam from my mouth could dribble down my shirt, past the rash on my thighs and land in a puddle on the floor.

  5. I could slip on the saliva puddle on the floor and fall down, knocking myself unconscious in front of everyone.

  6. While I was unconscious, my tongue could fall out of my mouth, showing everyone the mushy cream-cheese-and-jam-on-toast breakfast that has moulded itself, McKelty-style, into every little crevice on my otherwise pink tongue.

  7. They could call the paramedics, who would come and refuse to give me mouth-to-mouth resuscitation when they saw the cream cheese and jam on toast.

  8. Then I would die right there in front of everyone in my class.

  9. Which is what I wanted to do, anyway, when Ms Adolf made her announcement, so the answer is…

  10. No, it couldn’t have got any worse.

  I COULDN’T WAIT FOR BREAK. When the bell finally rang, I bolted from my chair like a baby z
ebra heading to the watering hole for a refreshing dip. After Ms Adolf’s public announcement about my learning difficulties, I needed a refreshing something, that was for sure.

  “Tough morning, huh, dude?” my best friend Frankie Townsend said as we rushed down the stairs towards the playground. “Adolfosaurus must have got up on the wrong side of the bed. And stepped on a pin when she did.”

  “Yeah, how about the way she just blurted out that I have learning difficulties?” I said. “Next, she’ll be telling everyone about my rash.” Frankie shot me a look. “Not that I have one,” I added quickly. Sometimes you can gross out even your best friend.

  “Hey, guys, wait up!” It was Ashley Wong, our other best friend. “What’s the big rush?”

  “Zip needs to get outside and blow off some steam,” Frankie said. “He’s still stinging from the Adolfosaurus attack.”

  “I don’t know why you always get so embarrassed, Hank,” Ashley said, falling in step with us. “So you’ve got learning difficulties. You’re extremely resourceful.”

  “Definition, please, Ashweena. Remember me? Hank Zipzer? Mr Limited Vocabulary.”

  “Resourceful. It means you come up with creative solutions to problems other people can’t figure out.”

  “I do? Can you give me an example?”

  We had reached the bottom of the stairs where the big glass double doors led to the playground. Everyone was squishing their way through, trying to be first to get outside. I smelled something yucky, like old banana peels and sour milk. Only one person I know smells that bad – Nick McKelty.

  “Out of my way, dummy,” he said, shoving his way around me. “You’re as slow on your feet as you are in maths.”

  As McKelty pushed his hulking frame out of the door, he tripped over his own size sixty-two shoes and went down on his rump.

  “Don’t worry, man,” Frankie said. “We won’t tell anyone that you can’t walk and talk at the same time, will we, Zip?”

  “Especially not Katie Sperling and Kim Paulson,” I said, really loudly as Katie and Kim passed right by us.

  Katie and Kim laughed as they stepped around McKelty. That did give me a little satisfaction. OK, a lot of satisfaction.