The World's Greatest Underachiever and the Parent-Teacher Trouble Read online

  Table of 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 all children with challenges –

  learning might be hard,

  but you have greatness in you!

  And always, to Stacey – H.W.

  In memory of Paula Danziger – beloved friend,

  great writer, defender of children – L.O.

  “Students, there will be excitement in the classroom today,” my teacher Ms Adolf said. “Can you feel it?”

  I tried. Oh, boy, did I try. I even lifted my palms off the desk and stuck them straight out in the air to see if they would pick up the excitement vibration.

  Nothing. I felt nothing.

  I looked around to see if I could see anything unusual in the classroom. It looked like the same old fourth-grade room at PS 87 where I had spent the last eight months of my life. Same old pale green walls. Same old desks lined up in totally straight rows just like Ms Adolf likes them. Same old noticeboards displaying the work of the best students in the class. Oh, in case you’re wondering, mine wasn’t up there. Never has been and never will be. But, hey, a guy can dream, can’t he?

  So what could Ms Adolf be talking about? Excitement? In school? As far as I’m concerned, school and excitement just don’t go together.

  I flapped my arms around again, just to make sure I wasn’t missing anything.

  “Frankie,” I whispered to my best friend Frankie Townsend, who sits across the aisle from me. “Are you feeling the excitement?”

  “Zip, the only thing I’m feeling is the breeze coming out of your armpits,” he answered. “What’s with all the flapping?”

  “Excuse me, Henry,” Ms Adolf suddenly cut in. I looked up. She was staring at me over the top of her grey-rimmed glasses. “You seem to be in the midst of a conversation. I hope I’m not disturbing you.”

  “Oh, we’re almost finished, Ms Adolf,” I said. “We were just trying to feel the excitement that you said was in the room.”

  Everyone laughed. Correction. Everyone but Ms Adolf laughed. She gave me that stare. You know, the “one more wisecrack and you’re on your way to the head teacher’s office” stare. She’s good at that. In fact, I think she invented it.

  “Mr Zipzer,” Ms Adolf said, “I hope you’re not trying to be funny, because if there’s one thing that annoys me, it’s funny children having fun.”

  Ms Adolf walked over to my desk and stood so close that I could see a piece of fluff on her grey skirt, the one she wears every single day to school. For a second, I was tempted to reach out and pick it off, the way my mum is always picking bits of fluff and doughnut crumbs and other stuff off my clothes. There’s something about a little clump of fluff that screams, “Somebody remove me, please!” My hand was just starting to reach out for Ms Adolf’s skirt when my brain woke up and shouted at me: Hank Zipzer, get your hand back here right now. You don’t pick fluff from your fourth-grade teacher’s skirt region. That’s beyond icky.

  Fortunately, I pulled my hand back just in time. Another trip to Head Teacher Love’s office avoided!

  I wasn’t trying to get into trouble in class, but I’m going to tell you the truth because I feel I can trust you. It does feel really good to make thirty-one kids laugh, all at the same time. And when you’re doing that, you’re usually doing something that’s going to get you into trouble.

  Actually, on that particular Tuesday, it was only thirty kids that I made laugh. There was one, Nick the Tick McKelty, who definitely did not laugh. That was no surprise, though. Nick McKelty only laughs at his own jokes, which by the way, are not funny and are really, really mean.

  Like the other day, we were playing handball in the playground, and for no reason at all McKelty turned to Ryan Shimozato and said, “Hey, punk, you’re so short you should play handball on the kerb.” Then he laughed and belted out so much bad breath that everybody on the court gagged and ran for cover.

  “Henry, I recommend you close your mouth and open your ears,” Ms Adolf snarled as she walked back to the front of the room, “because what I’m about to say has particular significance to you.”

  “I’m all ears, Ms Adolf,” I said. And I was. I even stopped breathing for a minute so that there was nothing but wide-open space between her mouth and my eardrum.

  “There will be no school this coming Friday,” she announced without even cracking a smile. “It will be a day off for all of you.”

  “That definitely rocks, Ms Adolf,” I shouted.

  Whoops, I did it again. I was the only kid in class who had opened his big mouth. Everyone else had the good sense to just enjoy her announcement quietly. Not me. It’s like the minute something comes into my brain, it just slides right out of my mouth. I really have to have a mouth-cork made. I wonder if they make them kid-mouth sized.

  My other best friend, Ashley Wong, raised her hand.

  “Are we starting summer holidays early?” she asked. Frankie and I gave her a high five for the question.

  “Absolutely not, young lady,” Ms Adolf said. “The summer holidays are too long as it is. You fourth-graders have too much fun. There’s no need for excess fun.”

  I don’t even know how to comment on that, because I know you and I are thinking the same thing. Now I ask you: is there any such thing as summer holidays that are too long? Let’s answer that together:

  NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!

  “Who knows why there will be no school on Friday?” Ms Adolf asked.

  Heather Payne, who always knows the answer to everything, raised her hand and waved it in front of Ms Adolf’s face like she was trying to swat a fly off her nose.

  “It’s fourth-grade parent-teacher day,” Heather said in her Little Miss Perfect voice.

  “That’s correct, Heather,” Ms Adolf said. “Well done for remembering.”

  “It’s easy to remember, because we have it marked on our family calendar at home,” Heather said. “It’s written on a square right between my dental X-ray appointment and my French horn lesson.”

  Ms Adolf smiled. “It makes me feel very warm inside when I see such excellent organizational skills,” she said.

  My family’s calendar would definitely not make old Ms Adolf feel all warm inside. That’s because it lives in a drawer in the kitchen, buried underneath boxes of silver foil and greaseproof paper and plastic bags. It used to be up on the kitchen wall at the beginning of the school year. My dad put it up with a yellow drawing pin. But whenever my mum wrote on it, the drawing pin would fall out, and the calendar would flop onto the kitchen floor. Then our dog, Cheerio, would attack it and try to tear the pages off with his teeth, which is why our calendar now lives in a drawer.

  “The purpose of this day is for me to go over your end-of-year reports with your parents,” Ms Adolf was saying. “I’m sending home permission slips for your parents. Have them pick a time slot. Please bring back the slips tomorrow.”

  Ms Adolf picked up a stack of pink permission sheets from her desk and walked around th
e classroom, handing one to each student. “I’ll be discussing your overall work with your parents,” she explained as she walked, “which will determine whether you continue your educational journey into the fifth grade.”

  After she passed my desk, Nick McKelty leaned over to me as far as he could without bumping his Neanderthal head into the back of mine.

  “In case you’re wondering, Zipperhead, your report is going to suck…as always.”

  I wanted to turn round and tell him to take his disgusting mouth and put it on a jet and send it to Outer Mongolia, but I had already blurted out once today, and I didn’t want to be sent to Head Teacher Love’s office, so I fought the urge.

  I felt McKelty’s hot breath in my ear. It’s a good thing it wasn’t any closer to me, because his breath would have melted the rubber off the top of my pencil.

  “Forget it, Hankie boy,” he whispered. “You won’t be seeing the fifth grade. Everyone knows you’re being kept back, sucker.”

  That did it. I spun round in my chair and stared into his wonky teeth, which were pointing at me from every direction.

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about, McKelty,” I said. “What everyone really knows is that you’re a liar.”

  Those are strong words, I know, but they’re the truth. McKelty exaggerates everything. Just take the truth and multiply it by one hundred, and you have what Frankie, Ashley and I call The McKelty Factor. Like he told us that he went to the opening Yankees baseball game, and they asked him to throw out the first pitch, but he said no because he thought they should ask the mayor of New York instead of him. Nick McKelty, President of the Fourth-Grade Bad Personality Club, didn’t want to hurt the mayor’s feelings. Right.

  “Hey, Zipperbutt, I happen to know something you don’t know,” McKelty whispered.

  I tried to ignore what he said. I tried, but I didn’t succeed. McKelty’s words started to buzz around in my head like a swarm of bees.

  It’s amazing to me how one kid can make you so mad. Who was he, Nick the Tick McKelty, to tell me that I was being kept back in fourth grade?

  He doesn’t know anything. That can’t be right. Of course not.

  Wait a minute. He might be right. I mean, I did get four Ds on my report. And I still can’t spell. And maths … well … enough said about that. I don’t even know my right from my left.

  Oh no! I’ll bet he is right.

  I’m going to be the only kid in my class repeating the fourth grade. That means I’m going to be in the same year as my sister and her geeky, fact-spewing, nose-blowing, allergic-to-chocolate-cake boyfriend, Robert Upchurch.

  This can’t be happening to me.

  I exploded out of my chair, my hand shooting up into the air.

  “Ms Adolf,” I shouted before she had even called on me. “Can I go to the library?”

  “The library? You?”

  “I have to find out how to dig a hole deep enough so that I can crawl into it and never be seen again!”

  Usually when the breaktime bell rings, Frankie and I are the first ones out of class and in line for tetherball. Frankie’s the tetherball champ of PS 87. No kidding. When they put tetherball into the Olympics, Frankie Townsend will get the gold medal, for sure. And while we’re discussing the Olympics, can anyone tell me why tetherball isn’t an Olympic sport and synchronized swimming is? Girls with nose plugs? Give me a break. They should give us a gold medal for watching them!

  Don’t tell anybody about this, but I once tried synchronized swimming in my bath. I put my legs up high in the air, lost my balance, fell over and caused a tidal wave so big that it flooded the bathroom. There was so much water on the floor and so few towels that I panicked. I jumped out of the bath and watched in horror as the water flowed under the door and into our hall. I flung open the door and bolted for the airing cupboard to get more towels. As I grabbed a stack of towels and headed for the bathroom, I ran smack into my nine-year-old sister, Emily. Towels flew everywhere. I was totally naked and she was totally screaming at the top of her lungs, which made me scream at the top of mine.

  That little scream fest made our dachshund, Cheerio, start spinning in circles, which he does when he gets really nervous. As he spun by me, I tripped over him and went sliding down the lino in the hall like a bowling ball, stopping just in time to wave hello to my mum, who was doing the washing-up.

  “Hank, why are you sliding around naked?” my mum asked.

  “Just practising my synchronized swimming, Mum. Got to go.”

  Wait a minute. Where was I? Oh yeah, I was telling you about how I like to be first in line for tetherball. I lose focus sometimes. Your mind wanders a lot when you have learning difficulties like I do. My dad always says, “Stay focused.” Hey, that’s not as easy as it sounds.

  The point here is that when the breaktime bell rang, I couldn’t bolt out of my chair for the playground like I usually do. My legs felt like each one weighed about a thousand pounds.

  “Let’s go,” Frankie said to me. “What are you waiting for?”

  “I have more important things than tetherball on my mind,” I answered.

  “What could be more important than that?”

  “Being kept back,” I said. The thought was so scary, I was barely able to say the words. “I think McKelty was right.”

  “Hank,” Ashley said, putting on her red baseball cap, which she had decorated with a rhinestone smiley face. “Nick McKelty hasn’t been right about anything since the brontosaurus walked the earth.”

  “McKelty said that he knows for sure that I’m going to have to repeat fourth grade,” I said.

  “Zip, my man, the only person who knows that info for sure is Ms Adolfopolis, the flesh-eating tyrannosaurus of the fourth grade,” Frankie chimed in.

  That’s why Frankie is my best friend. Even at my lowest, he can make me laugh.

  “Hank, you’re not going to be kept back,” Ashley said. “You’ve got to relax. Do what Frankie always says. Breathe.”

  “Yeah,” Frankie said. “Enjoy that air shooting into your lungs.”

  Frankie’s mum, who is a yoga teacher, has taught him all about what she calls Power Breathing. You take a deep breath in through your nose and blow it really slowly out of your mouth, letting all your worries float out into the universe. I tried taking a power breath, but halfway through it, I kind of choked. My worries did not want to go into the universe – they wanted to stay right there, somewhere between my left nostril and my throat.

  “Listen, guys. I can’t breathe,” I whispered. “I can’t eat. I can’t play tetherball. I can’t think about anything else until I know for sure.”

  Ms Adolf was putting on her grey jumper to get ready to go out for break duty. She stood up behind her desk and looked at us over her grey glasses.

  “What are you children doing still inside?” she asked. “Mr Zipzer, it isn’t like you to be doing work for extra marks.”

  Ashley poked me in the ribs.

  “Go and ask her,” she whispered. “Or do you want me to?”

  “I’ll do it,” I said. “It’s my future.”

  How hard could this be? I’d just look Ms Adolf right in the eyes and say, “I’m sure Nick McKelty was just messing around, but I want to make sure that you’re not going to make me repeat the fourth grade.” It was a simple sentence in the English language, which I happen to have been speaking since I was two years old. I could do this. No problem.

  I walked up to Ms Adolf’s desk. The walk from my desk to hers seemed like a hundred million miles. I looked at her and swallowed hard.

  “Ms Adolf,” I began, “I have a very important question to ask you. It’s about the fifth grade.”

  “Yes,” she said. “Don’t just stand there, Henry. I don’t have all day.”

  “Am I—”

  Suddenly, the door to our classroom flew open and a sixth-grader rushed in. “Ms Adolf,” he said. “They told me to come and get you immediately. Mr Sicilian was called to Head Teacher Love’
s office, so there’s no teacher on playground duty.”

  “I’m right in the middle of something, young man,” she said.

  “This can’t wait. Robert Upchurch has got his tie caught on the seesaw and he can’t get off. He says he’s getting nauseous and he’s about to throw up his string cheese.”

  “Oh my, this is an emergency,” Ms Adolf said. Without even looking at me, she ran out the door.

  “I can’t believe it,” I said, pacing back and forth in front of the desk. “Robert Upchurch screws everything up again. I’m right in the middle of the most important question of…”

  My tongue froze mid-sentence. That’s because my eyeballs landed on something that I wish they hadn’t seen.

  “Hey, guys, come here,” I whispered. “Look at this. Ms Adolf left her register out of the drawer.”

  This was definitely a first. Ms Adolf keeps her register locked in her top drawer at all times, except when she’s listing attendance or entering marks. She wears the silver key to that drawer on a cord round her neck. It spends its entire life bouncing around her chest, like it’s stuck on some icky rollercoaster ride.

  I looked at the dark blue register sitting there on top of her desk. The answer to my fifth-grade future was calling to me from inside its cover. Just one peek inside would tell me if I was going to be a fourth-grader again, or if I could move on like all my friends.

  “Hank,” Ashley whispered. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking you’re thinking?”

  “I think so,” I answered.

  “You can’t do it,” Ashley said.

  “I’ll just look at my name. Zipzer. It’s the last one. I know exactly where it is. I won’t let my eyes wander to anyone else’s name.”

  “What if she comes back and sees you?” Frankie said.

  “She’s not coming back right away,” I whispered. “She’s in the playground with Robert, untying his tie.”

  “That’s her register, dude,” Frankie said. “She catches you with your hands on that, she’s going to send you all the way back to nursery. If you’re not careful, you’re going to be singing ‘Wheels on the Bus’ with a bunch of ankle-biters spitting up all over your Mets T-shirt.”