ISBN: 9781483508962
“Help–I can’t breathe–let me out. Somebody help…”
I pounded the inside of the musty supply closet until my knuckles turned blue. Did anybody even have the key?
What if they don’t come? What if I’m trapped here all night?
I could hear loud voices and laughing, so I knew Kyle Canfield and one of his friends from the basketball team were there, waiting to see if I would cave in and plead for mercy.
The bell blared. Classes changed. Kids stampeded through the halls. Then, silence.
Finally I heard someone shout, “I’ve got the key, Doc.”
“Thanks, Duke,” Doc Greely, the assistant principal, said to Mr. Boardly, the man who’d sprung me loose.
Mr. Boardly, the head custodian, better known as Duke, offered me his arm, and I stumbled out of the closet. He was as thin as his mop handle, but all muscle–no flab like me. A scruffy white beard covered half his face.
He slammed the closet door shut and bolted the lock. “One of the hall guards reported noise coming from this area. We came as soon as we heard.”
Duke patted my shoulder. “Let me know if I can help, Elliot.” I could hear his keys clanging as he walked down the hall humming “Duke of Earl,” that old sixties song he loved. That’s where he got his nickname.
“Up to their old tricks again, Elliot?” Doc asked on the way to his office.
I figured it was a dumb question, so I looked at the ground like I always do when an adult says something stupid.
Doc walked beside me, babbling nonstop. “As I said when they pelted you with those mini pizzas in the cafeteria, ‘I’ll do everything I can, but I can’t be there every minute.’”
The kids at Ralph Bunche High School make fun of Doc because he has a belly that flops over his belt and makes him look like he’s about to have a baby. They call him “Beer Gut Greely” behind his back.
Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Kyle Canfield and his buddy Derek Parker smiling. “Fat Loser,” one of them whispered. That was their favorite name for me, but they loved to call me “2K,” meaning two tons, so the teachers wouldn’t have a clue about what they were up to.
Doc spun around to where they were standing. He enjoyed what he called “catching culprits in the act,” but it was too late. Kyle and Derek had already made a mad dash down the hall.
Doc barked into his walkie-talkie to Officer Grady, the school cop. “Pick up Canfield and Parker in homeroom. Have the dean give them in-school suspension for three days. Looks like they didn’t learn much from those detentions we gave them last time.”
“You got it, boss,” Grady shouted over the phone static.
I followed Doc to his office and sank into the butt aching folding chair he reserved for kids who talked back, cursed out teachers, or cut class. Doc leaned back in his swivel chair and tapped the tips of his fingers together.
I read in Psychology Today how body language can tell you what’s going on in people’s heads. Steepling your fingers shows you think you’re better than everybody. Doc thinks he has all the answers, especially when it comes to my “harassment issues.”
When I thought Doc would tumble over in his chair, he braced his hands on the desk and straightened up like he had a broomstick up his butt. He pointed his finger so close to my face that I thought he’d gouge out my eye and I’d have to roam the earth like a Cyclops for the rest of my life.
He leaned toward me, and I could smell the stinky salami and provolone sandwich he usually ate for lunch. “You know who can help you?”
I shrugged, knowing what his answer would be.
“You can help you,” he said, like he was giving me the secret of the universe.
I looked at him like he was an alien, but he didn’t catch it.
“What do you have to say about all this, Elliot?”
I shrugged my shoulders. What did he expect me to say, that I was the big fat loser those guys always called me?
By now the whole school knew because they’d scribbled that name (and a few others I won’t mention) on the bathroom wall.
Doc squinted at me with his muddy hazel eyes. He hated it when you didn’t answer right away.
I shifted in my seat. “For one thing, I’m not a loser like they say. Slightly unpopular maybe, but not a loser.”
The fat part bothered me most. It’s not that I haven’t tried to control my appetite, but I live with my Dad, who has a terminal weight problem, and my grandmother’s force-fed me since birth.
If I don’t eat, she says, “You want to grow up to be a big hulk like your father or a puny runt like the other side of the family?” (She means the Kravitz side, of which my mom’s a main member.)
Doc raised his bushy eyebrows and shook his head like he did the other times Kyle and his boys bugged me—like he thought I was hopeless. Then he wrote a hall pass and sent me back to homeroom.
I didn’t hurry because I consider homeroom the absolute worst period of the day. I say that because homeroom’s nothing more than a group of kids banded together only by their last names. I’m stuck with the C’s, the biggest pains in the school, Kyle Canfield being a prime example.
In the fall, Kyle transferred here from Morgan Academy, a school for preppy kids. Not long after, Duke spotted the graffiti on the bathroom wall. Doc rounded up Kyle and his friends and made them scrub the red marker away until the wall was dingy gray again. It took hours, but they got to miss gym and health, my least favorite subjects, so it didn’t seem like much of a punishment to me.
I knew Kyle must be planning something new because when I passed him on the way to my desk, he flashed me his smug smile and went back to texting his friends.
Not that I’m paranoid, but I’d seen that look before, and it always meant trouble.
But his smile faded fast. Grady, the cop, breezed in and stood cross-armed at his desk. “We meet again, Canfield.”
Now I was really in for it. Anytime Kyle got in trouble, he gave me twice as much back.
To my surprise, it looked like Kyle had decided to keep a low profile after coming off suspension, except for a few muffled 2k’s when he passed me in the halls.
Maybe the threat of getting thrown off the basketball team had stopped him from coming after me. But I wasn’t going to let my guard down because you never knew with him.
I didn’t really have time to think about Kyle because during the next few days I had chorus rehearsals during lunch. We were working on show tunes for a parents’ night concert, and Ms. Cooper, the choir director, had given me a solo for the third time this year.
The lyrics of the song I’d sing, “This is the Moment,” from the Broadway show, “Jekyll and Hyde,” hit me like a blast of sunshine.
The words made me think things might eventually work out even though it might not seem that way now. But was I kidding myself? All I knew was that when I sang, nothing else seemed to matter.
After the kids left practice and we were alone, Ms. Cooper said, “I’m going to introduce you to one of the top singing teachers in Philly. That voice is going to take you places.”
A few days after the concert, I brought my lunch tray to a corner table far from Kyle and his friends. No sooner had I sunk my fork into a plate of mushy Shepherd’s Pie when splat, a clump of squishy mustard landed on my head.
Kyle and a couple of teammates surrounded my table, and using those packets you get with hot dogs and fries, aimed rounds of mustard, followed by ketchup, at every part of my anatomy.
When I tried to make a run for it, Kyle stuck his immense foot in my path. The kids around me couldn’t see because his friends were blocking me. Not that most of them would have done anything to stop it.
Red and yellow dripped from my arms, legs, and hair, making me look like a jumbo Ronald McDonald.
I guess somebody finally noticed because before long Doc appeared on the scene with Officer Grady.
Doc nodded toward Kyle and his friends, who had almost made it to the cafeteria entrance. “Tell the dean I want them suspended, no in-school suspension this time. We’ll need to see a parent before we let them back in.”
“Sure thing, boss,” Officer Grady said, running to catch up with them.
I dumped the plate of Shepherd’s Pie in the trash. It smelled like throw up and looked like the slop they feed inmates.
Doc turned to me. “Any idea what brought this one on?”
“Maybe they were pissed because they’d lost the game to Calvin Coolidge High, and they needed to take it out on somebody–does it really matter?”
Doc rubbed his forehead. “I guess there’s never a reason, one that counts anyway. The important thing is what to do about it.”
I wiped my head and arms with my sleeve but the mustard and ketchup clung to me like paint.
“I’ll do what I can from my end,” Doc said. “Do you have any ideas about how to stop this?”
He peered at the kids at a nearby table who had started to stare, and they turned away.
“Let’s go talk in my office,” Doc said, and I followed him down the hall.
Did he really expect an answer? Nobody in the school could make them stop, so what made him think I would know what to do? But I didn’t want to be stuck in Doc’s dingy office all day, so I had to say something.
“I probably shouldn’t sit by myself in the lunchroom if I don’t want to be an open target. The problem is my friend Roy practices with the track team, so he can’t always be here.”
Doc gave me a look. “I guess you’ll have to make more friends then.”
“I don’t have time. I’m too busy with honors classes, Mathletes, and chorus.”
Had I confirmed Doc’s suspicion that I was a genuine geek and loser like Kyle and his friends thought?
Doc took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. “That kind of attitude will get you nowhere. I’m not saying you have be part of a crowd, but maybe you can meet more kids, do things together.”
“I’ll think about it,” I said, hoping he’d stop yapping.
Doc reached for his phone. “I’ll call your mother and father, tell them we need to talk.”
“My parents are divorced. I live with my dad and grandmother. Mom lives in California.”
“It will have to be Dad then.” Doc never gave up.
“Dad probably won’t be able to make it. He’s a funeral director and works 24/7.”
Doc ignored me and dialed our number.
Dad answered on the first ring. His voice boomed out past the receiver. Doc jerked the phone away from his ear. “Carnucci Home for Funerals. Andrew speaking. How may I help you?”
When they finished talking, Doc let out a little laugh, which is rare for him. “Your father told me more than I needed to know. He said his main assistant’s at a convention, so he has to do the embalming. To top that off, Maizie, his make-up artist, called in sick, and his hairdresser’s in Las Vegas marrying his third wife, so he’s stuck doing everything. There’s no way he can come in today.”
Doc smiled at me like everything was going to be okay. “He’ll send your grandmother instead.“
I swallowed hard. My face must have turned red because Doc rested his chin on his palm and studied me.
“Is something wrong, Elliot?”
“No–well, you’ll find out when she gets here.”
Doc pointed to his private bathroom. “Go clean up. We can’t have you roaming through the halls looking like a Picasso painting. And make it fast. I want you here for that meeting.”
I was glad I took my time because when I got back, Nonna (that’s Italian for grandmother) still wasn’t there. Doc was peering in the mirror, combing a wild strand of hair over his bald spot. When he saw me, he waddled back to his desk and pretended to fumble through some papers.
Nonna took forever to get to school because she had to take a bus, and the schedule’s always messed up when it rains. She charged into the office in her yellow flowered housedress and plastic rain bonnet and shook her soggy umbrella in Doc’s face.
“What kind of school do you run here, mister?” she asked, her black eyes popping out of their sockets. “I leave my grandson in your care, and he ends up looking like a wiener and fries.”
Doc’s lips shifted like he was going to crack up when she said wiener, but Nonna jabbed his ribs with her umbrella, so I guess he changed his mind.
He crossed his fingers in front of him like she was a vampire. “You need to calm down, Mrs. Carnucci.”
Her voice sounded like a fingernail across a chalkboard. “And you need to do your job.”
I felt like running out of there.
Doc rubbed his chin. “What happened to your grandson is wrong, but it’s commonplace in today’s schools. It’s not like in our day when the worst thing we did was throw spit balls and hide thumb tacks on chairs.”
He rested his hand on Nonna’s arm, but she yanked it away.
“We’ll do our best to ensure it doesn’t happen again,” he said.
Nonna gave him an evil look. “You bet your shiny, bald head it won’t. If it does, you’ll have to answer to me and my lawyer.”
I don’t think Doc realized the full impact of her threat. He hadn’t seen Nonna bound into Aldo’s Bar and Grill at midnight and order the 7th Street motorcycle club (beefy guys with tobacco breath and tattoos) to stop all the racket or she’d take care of them herself.
Nonna reached for my arm, but I broke free. “Let’s go, Elliot. I’ve heard enough of this baloney.”
She shook her finger at Doc. “You haven’t heard the last of me. I’m holding you personally responsible for my grandson’s safety.”
Doc jumped from his seat to open the door. He looked at Nonna like he hadn’t heard what she’d said. “We’ll talk soon, Mrs. Carnucci. Thanks for stopping by.”
“You’re not welcome,” she said, fastening the tie on her rain bonnet.
She stormed out of his office, and I had no choice but to follow her.
When Nonna and I got home, Dad was standing in the reposing room (that’s where they lay out the dead bodies) admiring his hair and make-up job on his latest customer.
I moved close to the casket and peered in. “Didn’t Mr. Luisi have white hair?”
Nonna frowned. “White, black–he’s dead now. He doesn’t know the difference.”
Dad looked like he was in a trance. He slid Mr. Luisi’s trifocals down low on his nose, like he wore them when he read the sports page on his front porch, and straightened his plaid bow tie.
“Looks like he’s about to pop up and dance the Tarantella like he did at his daughter’s wedding,” Dad said to himself.
Nonna poked Dad’s shoulder with her bony finger. His head spun around like Linda Blair in that movie, “The Exorcist.”
Dad looked at me all teary eyed. I didn’t know if he’d gotten emotional because of what he’d heard happened at school or if he was thrilled with the job he’d done on Mr. Luisi.
“Are you okay, Son?”
Nonna slammed her head with the palm of her hand.
“If you call being abused by a pack of punks okay, he’s fine.”
“I’ll live,” I said.
She motioned for me to follow her upstairs. Dad peeled off his rubber gloves and trudged up after us.
“Sit down,” Nonna said, offering me a plate of oatmeal raisin cookies. “Pour yourself a glass of milk. You’ll feel better.”
Nonna gave my arm a little punch. “You’ll need to stand up to those guys before they give you the full treatment. Today a wiener and fries, tomorrow–stromboli.”
I bit into a cookie and spit out the raisins. “It’s not that easy. I’m no match for Canfield and his boys.”
“Don’t be a wimp. I taught you better. Act as if they don’t get to you, and maybe they’ll stop.”
I pushed the plate of cookies away. “I’m not going to listen to this. You’re always telling me what to do.”
“Somebody has to,” Nonna said.
Dad rummaged through the fridge, grabbed a stick of pepperoni and washed it down with diet ginger ale.
“Listen to Nonna. I did, and look how I turned out.”
I let out an ear-busting burp. I knew that would get to them.
Dad settled into the kitchen chair, which was way too small for him, and mopped the sweat off his face with Nonna’s fancy dishrag.
“Your mother called–something about one of her commercials she wants you to watch on TV.”
Nonna groaned. “Never ‘How are you? How’s the family?’ Only how wonderful she is and how producers are banging down her door to make commercials.”
Dad gave her a look. “She’s Elliot’s mother, Ma. Show some respect.”
“Like the respect she showed you when she bailed out on you four years ago?”
Dad shook his head and sighed.
I hated when Nonna bad-mouthed Mom, but Mom said stuff about her too, like how frumpy she dressed and how her stomach stuck out, so I guess they were even.
Ever since Mom and Dad divorced, it’s been like World War III with the Kravitz’s and Carnuncci’s always going at it. Nobody wins, but like most adults, they’re too stupid to know that.
The divorce was pretty dumb too, if you ask me. “Do you ever think about anything but work?” was Mom’s line to Dad, and Dad’s was “You don’t know how great you have it, Rayna. Most women would die to have your kind of life.”
“True,” she’d say. “They’d be in the perfect place with all the other corpses.”
Now Dad and Mom have joint custody, which means I’m supposed to live with both of them equal time. But since Mom’s on the road a lot with her job, they agreed it would be best for me to stay with Dad and spend time with her when she’s in town.
Thinking about the divorce always got to me, so I couldn’t wait to call my friend Roy. His real name is Epifanio Arroyo. We’ve been friends since third grade when he moved here from San Juan, Puerto Rico. The kids at school used to tease him because he speaks with an accent. Sometimes they still do. But not as much as they bug me.
Roy answered on the first ring.
I whispered into my cell phone so Nonna wouldn’t hear. She loved to listen in on my conversations. Once I heard her tell her friend, Mrs. O’Reilly, that I was madly in love with Rosalie Giordano. I was, but that was none of their business.
“Why are you whispering, El?” Roy asked. “I thought you lived with dead people. They’ll never tell your secrets.”
“My grandmother is totally alive, in case you haven’t noticed, and it’s her life’s mission to know all my secrets.”
Roy didn’t think twice about blurting things out. “Hey, I heard what happened with the ketchup and mustard. Those guys tried that once with me, but I was lucky enough to escape.”
“I’m not a track star like you. I can’t shake them as fast.”
“Yeah, but it’s not enough to make them stop bugging me,” Roy said.
“I wish we could come up with something to make them stop bothering both of us.”
“Don’t count on it,” Roy said. “The fact is they don’t like either of us. Me because I talk and look different from them…”
“And me because they think I’m totally weird.”
He laughed. “Like the way you dress.”
“What do you mean?”
“For one thing, that purple shirt with the discount store pants you wore today don’t do anything for you, if you want the truth.” Roy could really pile it on when he wanted to.
“I look that bad?”
“Seriously, you need to stop putting yourself down. You’re doing a lot of good stuff–honor society, Mathletes, singing.”
“Yeah, but to them I’m a fat geek who lives in a funeral home.”
He almost broke my eardrum with his nutty laugh. “And I’m the Cookie Monster.”
Besides the fact that Roy is about 6’8 and so lanky a flimsy breeze would toss him into a somersault, the kids tease him because of his deep hoarse voice that sounds like the Sesame Street character.
“I have to tell you, El, your out-of-control hair and those thick black glasses don’t help your image.”
My face burned hotter than a chili pepper. I felt like hanging up on him. “Are you my friend or what?”
“What do you think?”
I didn’t say anything back, and neither did he.
“Look, you had this problem back in grade school and things got better,” Roy finally said.
“It didn’t help that my parents gave me a goofy last name like Kravitz-Carnucci.”
Roy laughed. “I remember when the teacher called roll, the kids turned around to stare at you, like they looked at me when they heard Epifanio. If you don’t mind my asking, why did they call you that anyway?”
It seemed like I was always explaining stuff my parents did. “If you must know, Mom wanted people to know that I was Jewish and Italian. When she found out the kids made fun of me, she told the teacher my name was Elliot K. Carnucci and nobody had better call me anything else, or Dad would stick them in a casket and close the lid forever.”
“That is a little strange,” Roy said. “But I guess all parents are strange in their own way.” Then he got quiet for a minute. “I hate to be the one to tell you, but I was talking to your dream girl Rosalie. She said those guys are planning something big for you, and it won’t be pretty.”
How could she know that if she wasn’t friends with them? Maybe she’d overheard them talking.
“Do you think she’s in on it?”
“Probably not–are you still thinking of asking her out?”
“Every guy in the school likes her. You think she’d go out with me?”
“You want the truth?”
I felt like smacking him. “I can always count on you to make me feel good.”
“No offense, but I don’t think you’re her type.”
Sometimes it was better to ignore what he said, so I changed the subject. “I’ve been thinking–you’re a hot dresser. Want to help me do one of those makeovers like they do on TV? Maybe I’ll have a chance with her.”
“If you do it, do it because you want to, not for anybody else.”
“I am doing it for me–so she’ll like me.”
Roy laughed. “Why not? That’s as good a reason as any. Let’s go for it.”
Would a makeover help, or was I totally hopeless? My black curly hair fell down on my face, and my gut stuck out like an inner tube from eating Nonna’s rigatoni.
I put my ear against the door. “Wait, Roy. I think I hear something.”
“A dead body coming to life? I don’t know how you can live there. See who it is.”
I threw open the door. Nonna let out a shriek like an ax murderer was attacking her.
Roy laughed his head off. “What’s going on? Should I call 911?”
Like everybody else, the funeral home fascinated him, but I wasn’t about to give him any satisfaction.
“Gotta go. We’ll talk tomorrow,” I said and slammed down the phone.
Nonna charged into my room. “You nearly gave me a heart attack startling me like that. I came out of my bubble bath and passed by your room. I heard you talking and wondered who you’d be chatting with this late.”
“It wasn’t a girl, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
She crossed her arms and made a face. “And if it was, you wouldn’t tell me, would you?”