The Curtain Went Up, My Trousers Fell Down Read online

  “So, you were about to tell me how I have a lot of natural resources?” I said to Ashley as we walked over to the handball courts.

  “Right idea, wrong words,” Ashley said. “Natural resources are things like coal and natural gas.”

  “I have that after I eat beans,” I answered, and we both laughed. It’s great to have friends who think you’re funny.

  But before Ashley could go on, a fourth-grader named Zoe Howe grabbed her hand and dragged her over to get in line for handball. So I followed Frankie, who was heading over to the equipment room to check out a ball.

  “I can’t believe you need to hear compliments, dude,” he said, taking a football from the bin. “Like you don’t know your good points.”

  “I’ll tell you what I know,” I answered him in all honesty. “I know that I’m the guy who always seems to screw up – in every subject except for lunch.”

  I could tell Frankie didn’t understand what I was saying. He’s so good at everything – school, sports, magic, electronics, even talking to girls – that people say positive things to him all the time. When you have learning difficulties like me, it can be a long time between positive comments from the outside world. Very looooooong. Dr Berger once explained that because of the way I feel about myself, sometimes I don’t even believe positive remarks when people say them right to me.

  “We’re losing valuable tutoring time, if you know what I mean,” I heard a bossy voice say.

  I whipped round and there was Her Tallness, Heather Payne. She was holding a stack of books so big, it looked like she had used up a whole year’s limit on her library card.

  “It’s break, Heather,” I said. “In case you don’t know what that means, it’s a time when kids have fun.”

  “Ms Adolf says that fun won’t make you a high achiever,” she said. I wondered how it was possible for a person so young to act so old.

  Frankie dropped the football.

  “Care to dribble, Zip?” he asked.

  “He can’t even think about dribbling,” Heather answered. “Break is the perfect time for us to work together. Should we start on decimals, Henry? No, I’ve got a great idea! Long division!”

  Her face lit up like fireworks on Independence Day. Wow, I didn’t know long division could be such a rush.

  “I’ve got a better idea, Heather,” I said. “You go and solve the division problems. I’ll dribble the football. And we’ll meet up later and compare notes.”

  “Or not,” Frankie chimed in.

  “An even better idea,” I agreed. “Not.”

  “Mr Love alert,” Frankie whispered to me. “Incoming at ten o’clock.”

  There he was walking right up to us – our headteacher, the one and only Leland Love, who has this weird knack of showing up at head-teacher-type moments, like when you’re in the corridor without permission or about to refuse to be peer tutored.

  “What’s this little gathering about?” he asked, giving Heather that special smile head teachers reserve for the straight-A students.

  “I was just trying to get my tutee to come with me to the hall so we can start our peer tutoring. We’re starting with long division.”

  “Outstanding idea,” Mr Love said in his tall-man (even though he’s a short man) voice. “There’s nothing like making long division your friend.”

  “I’m really looking forward to doing just that, Mr Love,” I stammered, “but my maths-problem-friend-making time during the day is usually from five past three to seven past three.”

  “That’s only two minutes,” Heather pointed out. Leave it to her to get all mathsy about it.

  “I find that I learn best in short bursts.”

  Even I had to pat myself on the back. That was an excellent comeback. A resourceful answer, if I do say so myself.

  Mr Love didn’t appreciate my resourcefulness. I could tell because the mole on his cheek, the one that’s shaped like the Statue of Liberty without the torch, started to twitch. She does that when he’s upset. Once when he stepped on a soggy sandwich and got super-moist tuna mayonnaise all over his brown shoes, he was so frustrated that the Statue of Liberty actually danced the Electric Slide.

  “Look at it this way, young man,” Mr Love began. “Heather is volunteering to give up her break to help you. And helping one another is vital in a society created on the basis of helpfulness. That is to say, helpfulness is essential in accomplishing what it is you wanted to be helpful with in the first place.”

  Huh?

  Leland Love has a way of speaking English so it sounds like a language you’ve never heard before. And this was a classic Mr Love-a-thon. We were all speechless, even Heather.

  “Therefore,” Mr Love continued, very happy with the sound of his own voice, “I suggest you find your way to the hall, so Heather can get on with the business of being helpful.”

  Even though I didn’t understand a lot of what he’d said, there was one thing I did understand loud and clear.

  From now on, break was going to totally suck!

  I FOLLOWED HEATHER to the hall, walking as far behind her as I could. My feet wanted to go fast, but I kept telling them to slow down.

  “Do you always walk this slowly?” she asked me.

  “My feet are refusing to co-operate,” I answered. “I guess they don’t like long division any more than my brain does.”

  Looking around the empty hall, the only word that came to mind to describe it was “dungeon”. It was dark and cold and empty in there, with chairs stacked against the walls. It looked like the hold of an Egyptian ship I saw once in a movie. The men were chained to their oars and had to row for days with no food.

  I’ve had some good times in that hall. The Multi-Cultural Day lunch we had there last year was a lot of fun, especially when Ms Adolf ate something spicy and got the gas attack of the century. The awards ceremony for the School Olympiad, when I got my first and only gold medal for pitching on the winning softball team, took place right in that very room. And kindergarten graduation was a blast. We all wore caps and gowns made out of paper shopping bags. That was the day Frankie, Ashley and I swore to always be best friends.

  But as I stood there watching Heather set up two plastic chairs on either side of a long wooden table, those fun memories seemed to fade right out of my mind. The only thought in my head was, Help, somebody get me out of this dungeon right now!

  Heather sat down on one of the chairs and motioned for me to sit across the table from her.

  “Where should we start?” she said, pulling out our maths books from the huge stack of books she had carried in there. “We can either begin with Chapter Five and go back to Chapter One, or we can start at Chapter One and move right through to Chapter Five.”

  “Are those my only choices?” I asked.

  “Come on, Henry, this is your tutoring session too. I want you to have some say in this.”

  “Then my first choice is that you call me Hank.”

  “If that will help you learn, then Hank it is. You see how easy this is? We’ve already made a decision together. Now I’ll make one. Let’s start with Chapter One.”

  “Couldn’t we just study the cover for a while?” I asked, hoping to stall until the bell rang. “Let’s look at all the funny pictures. Like this number five with little yellow legs. Where do you think it’s running?”

  “Hank, this is off topic, if you know what I mean.”

  “Maybe it’s running a marathon,” I went on. “I know. Number five is determined to beat nine. Oh, wait, nine isn’t even in the race, because seven ate nine.”

  Man, I love that joke. I cracked myself up and let out a huge chuckle. Midway through my chuckle, though, I noticed that Heather wasn’t even close to chuckling. In fact, she had stood up, which took her a long time because she’s so tall, and put her hands on her hips.

  “Hank, are you going to be serious about this or what?”

  “I’m definitely going for the or what.”

  “OK, you can sit t
here cracking jokes with your D in maths or you can come with me as I lead you down the path to mathematical excellence.”

  “I’ve been down that path and there’s man-eating goats on it. I’d much rather go down the path to an excellent lunch.”

  I know, I know. I was giving poor Heather a really hard time. But it’s not because I was enjoying being a jerk. My real goal was to avoid even attempting a maths problem, because I didn’t want her to see how really, truly rotten I am at maths. My brain is just not maths-friendly. As a matter of fact, it absolutely doesn’t work in the number area. It’s not too hot in the letter area, either, but that’s another story.

  I’m not exaggerating about how much I stink at maths. Take the other day when I went to the chemist to get a packet of tropical fruit Life Savers. As I was opening the packet to search for the mango one, Peggy, who is the owner of the shop, handed me my change, but I couldn’t tell if the change in my hand was correct. I didn’t know how much I was supposed to get back in the first place. Luckily for me, Peggy is very honest, so I knew I was getting back the right amount. But still, it’s totally embarrassing not to be able to do what any second-grader can do.

  So, I think you can understand why I wasn’t exactly excited about showing Heather Payne my maths skills. Cracking jokes came much easier. If only making up jokes was a subject in school, I know I’d get an A.

  “Hank, you just refuse to take anything seriously,” Heather said. “I enjoy taking things seriously. That’s because I am a serious person!”

  “And an impassioned one too!” came a man’s deep voice from the other side of the hall. “I like to see the spark of anger in the eyes. Anger is fuel for the soul.”

  “Huh?” said Heather, almost before she could help herself.

  It was the first time I had seen her speechless. I had no idea who this man with the big voice was, but I liked him straight away. Anyone who could shut Heather Payne up was my new best friend.

  The man walked across the hall to our table. Well, I guess you could call it walking. It was more like floating. You hardly saw his legs move. It was like his shoes had wheels. He was wearing a black cape that flew out behind him, almost like Superman’s, except there was no S on it. He had shiny black hair and a black goatee. He looked like one of the Three Musketeers. That’s a really hard book that my sister Emily is reading at the moment. I can’t read it, but I love to look at the pictures. I like guys with capes and swords and cool hats with feathers sticking out of the top. Those guys look like they can take care of business.

  The Musketeer walked over to us, and I noticed he was being followed by Mrs Crock, who works in our school attendance office. She’s really nice. She’s so nice that I don’t even let myself laugh when she has a big wad of green lettuce stuck in her teeth, which is pretty much all the time. Mrs Crock likes salads.

  “Well, hello there, Hank and Heather,” Mrs Crock said with a smile.

  Yippee. No lettuce.

  “I’d like you children to meet Devore,” she went on. “Or is it Mr Devore?”

  “Simply Devore,” the Musketeer said.

  “Children, Simply Devore is going to direct our winter musical.”

  “No, my dear Mrs Crock,” he said. “It is merely Devore.”

  “Oh, so sorry,” she said. “Merely Devore is going to direct our winter musical. He’ll be working with us for three weeks. Aren’t we lucky?”

  “Mrs Crock,” he said, his deep voice echoing around the hall like one of those Swiss yodellers on TV. “Repeat after me. Devore. Full stop. Devore and nothing else. Just one name.”

  “Oooohhh,” she said, looking a little embarrassed. “I get it now. My brother-in-law works with a fellow at the toothbrush factory that has a younger brother who only has one name, which, if my memory serves me correctly, is Sampson.”

  “Wow,” I said. “What part of the toothbrush does he work on? The bristles or the handle?”

  Heather shot me an annoyed look, but Merely Devore didn’t.

  “This boy has a curious mind,” he said, waving his cape at me. “Curiosity is the key that unlocks drama. What is your name, young man?”

  “Hank Zipzer. With two Z’s.”

  “And you’re a speller, too! I love a linguist!”

  “Well, I really wouldn’t go that far. My spelling goes downhill after my name.”

  “Mr Devore,” Heather said. “I mean Devore. We only have a few minutes left, and Hank and I are working to improve his maths skills. He is my tutee, if you know what I mean.”

  “Could you please not call me that in public?” I whispered, trying not to move my lips.

  Devore turned to her, his cape sweeping in a circle behind him. “How perfect,” he said. “You have the instincts of a teacher. Just like Anna in my musical.”

  “Devore is directing Anna and the King of Siam as our winter musical,” Mrs Crock said. “He wrote a special script just for the school, based on the book.”

  “Oh, I read the entire book over the summer,” Heather said. “Twice.”

  “Very impressive,” Devore said. “How did you know over the summer that Anna and the King of Siam was to be the subject of our winter musical?”

  “It was listed in the school master calendar,” Heather said. “Both online and on the hard copy. I study the calendar carefully, so I’ll be prepared for each and every event.”

  I watched Devore’s eyebrows shoot up so high they almost touched his shiny black hair. He was getting his first blast of Miss Perfect.

  “Well, you certainly seem like a competent young lady,” he said. “Very much as Anna is, in the play.”

  “That’s why I’m trying out for the part,” Heather said. “I think I could play Anna. I’m told my leadership qualities are superior.”

  “We shall all find that out at the auditions tomorrow,” Devore said. “But your confidence inspires me.”

  I think Heather Payne blushed. No! Does Heather Payne blush? Not possible. It was probably just because it was cold in the room. My mum’s cheeks get rosy when she walks in Central Park in the winter.

  “And you, Mr Double Z,” he asked, turning to me. “Can I expect to see your smiling face at the auditions?”

  “No, I’m not the drama type,” I said, which was code for what I really wanted to say, which was, “There’s no way I could read a script out loud in front of the other kids.”

  “Oh, Hank, you have a wonderful personality,” Mrs Crock said. “I think you’d make an adorable King of Siam.”

  “I don’t even know where Siam is,” I answered.

  “It’s in southeast Asia, and borders Myamar, Laos, Cambodia and Malaysia,” Heather, Miss Encyclopedia, piped up. “Approximately the size of France, with a capital city of Bangkok, today it is known as Thailand.”

  “I love Thai food,” I said.

  “You see, young man,” Devore said. “You are already connected to the material.”

  “Wow, I didn’t know prawn toast made me an actor.”

  “Well then, I expect to see you at the auditions,” Devore said.

  I shrugged.

  “Perhaps you could prepare a scene with Mr Double Z,” he suggested to Heather. “What do you say?” he said, turning back to me. “Am I awakening the inner actor who lives inside you?”

  Fortunately, the bell rang before I had to give him an answer. I grabbed my rucksack and my inner actor and I ran off to class.

  I RAN ALL THE WAY from the hall to Ms Adolf’s class. I bolted into the room, jumped into my seat, folded my hands on my desk and looked straight ahead.

  Hank Zipzer, reporting for class.

  Then I looked around. I noticed that all the desks were completely empty.

  “Henry,” Ms Adolf said. “Once again, you haven’t looked at your timetable. You are supposed to be in a music lesson with Mr Rock.”

  “I knew that, Ms Adolf,” I said. “I just thought I’d stop by to see how you were doing. Gosh, you look rested. So, I guess I’ll be going now. Bye
.”

  I grabbed my rucksack, and my inner actor and I ran off to the music lesson.

  MR ROCK’S MUSIC LESSON happens twice a week straight after break. At least, I think it’s twice a week. I’d have to check my timetable to let you know for sure. As soon as I find it, that is.

  By the time I got there, everyone was in their seat and Mr Rock was already talking. The thing that’s so cool about Mr Rock is that he didn’t stop the lesson and embarrass me by wanting to know why I was late. He just said, “Take a seat, Hank. Good to see you.”

  What a relief it always is to be in Mr Rock’s lesson. First of all, it’s great to have a teacher who really and truly is glad to see you. Second of all, he puts interesting things all over the wall for you to look at in case your attention wanders, which mine has been known to do. Like the poster of a cherry-red vintage Corvette over his desk. And weird instruments, like a fish-skin talking drum from Africa and a yak jawbone that they use as a flute in Mongolia. And third of all, you don’t have to sit in rows. He has the chairs arranged in a horseshoe, which he says makes for better communication.

  Frankie had saved the seat next to him for me. As I sat down, I noticed that on the other side of me was Heather Payne. I wondered if she was like a human magnet, pulling me towards her like two asteroids on a collision course. No, the solar system wouldn’t do that to me. It’s my friend.

  “So, Hank,” Mr Rock said, “I was just telling the class that today I’m going to show you guys an excerpt from a movie called The King and I, which was a Broadway play before it was a movie. The movie and the play are based on a book called Anna and the King of Siam.”

  “Excuse me, Mr Rock,” I interrupted, “but isn’t Siam what we call Thailand today?”

  Heather shot me a look that said, “Who are you kidding, buddy? I just told you that five seconds ago.” I looked the other way. This was no time to make eye contact with her.

  “Very impressive, dude,” Frankie whispered to me while Mr Rock was putting the videotape in the machine. “When did you become a geography whizz?”