At that quiet moment, safe at home, it all sounded so simple to Cara Landry. But the test would come on Monday.
CHAPTER 6
TOP STRESS CAUSE FOR KIDS? ONE WORD: FEAR
AS CARA SAT in health class on Monday afternoon, she was sweating. She never sweated, not even during gym. But this wasn’t a hot sweat. It was a dry, sticky-mouthed sweat. A scared sweat.
It was also a mad-at-herself sweat. Cara hated feeling like a coward. She fumed at herself. “But that’s what I am: a big, fat coward.”
Her mom had dropped her off at school early that morning. Cara had wanted to be there before the other kids arrived. She wanted to give a note to Mr. Larson.
Cara had spent most of Sunday night working on the note. She had ripped up about twenty pieces of paper trying to get it right. She practically knew it by heart:
Dear Mr. Larson:
I want to say I’m sorry for the part of The Landry News that was about you. Maybe I should not have surprised you by just sticking it up on the wall like that for everyone else to read. It’s just that I like making newspapers. I try to print only what’s true, but I guess sometimes I don’t think enough about how that can make people feel.
I mean, I still think that what I said was pretty true, but I didn’t mean to make you mad like that. So, I’m sorry.
Sincerely yours,
Cara L. Landry
At seven-thirty that morning Cara had been on her way through the halls, her shoes squeaking on the newly waxed floors. Cara had the note in her hand. She turned the comer, and there he was, coming out of room 145. As he turned to go the other way, toward the teachers’ room, Cara wanted to call out, “Hey, Mr. Larson!” and then run right over, smile a little, and hand him the note. Instead she turned to stone, and her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth. She flattened up against the lockers, then backed around the comer, making sure her rubber soles didn’t squeak. She jammed the note into the pocket of her dress and ran out the nearest door to the playground.
All day long she had skulked around, making sure that wherever she was, Mr. Larson wasn’t. LeeAnn had come with Betsy Lowenstein and three other girls to sit with her at lunch, and Cara had hardly said three words, she was so mad at herself. She just sat there like an idiot, chewing on her lower lip, and nodding and smiling once in a while as LeeAnn went on and on about how mad Mr. Larson had been on Friday.
But in ten minutes, there would be no escape. Unless . . . no. If she went to the nurse, the nurse would call her mom at her office, so that wouldn’t work. And if she didn’t go to class, then Mr. Larson would know she was a coward, and Joey DeLucca and LeeAnn Ennis would know she was a coward. And worst of all, Cara thought, “I would know that I am the biggest, fattest, weakest, lamest, chickenest coward who ever lived.”
So when the bell rang, Cara Landry, the secret coward with the cold sweats, put on her bravest face and walked like a robot down the hall and into room 145.
CHAPTER 7
FANS BRACE FOR GRUDGE MATCH
AS THE BELL rang someone else was sweating. The tall man in the rumpled sport coat hunched lower in his chair, holding his newspaper a little higher than usual. He was staring at the batting averages, but he saw nothing except the image of a little girl in a brown plaid skirt, scared out of her wits, biting her lower lip. This was the same image he had seen all weekend long. And now that little girl would be in his classroom again, the room where he was supposed to be the teacher. Mr. Larson reached for his thermos for the tenth time that day and remembered for the tenth time that it contained nothing but last Friday’s coffee, as cold as the palms of his hands and as bitter as his churning stomach.
The kids came in and immediately began pulling the jumbled desks into rows. A room somehow feels safer with the desks all lined up. Everyone sat down. There was no goofing off, no loud talking like there had been at the start of class on Friday. It was the same teacher reading his newspaper, same kids, same room. But everything was different, and everyone knew it. And Cara Landry knew it best.
Cara sat as close as she could to the door at the back of the room. She wasn’t really thinking about it, but somewhere on the edge of her mind she wanted to be ready for a quick getaway. She stared at her library book, reading the same paragraph over and over and over. When the bell rang, she jumped at the sound and quickly looked around to see if anyone had seen her jump. Joey DeLucca had been watching her, and he smiled and gave her a thumbs up. Cara tried to smile back but shivered instead, and forced her eyes back to the safety of the open book on her desk. Her note to Mr. Larson was tucked inside the front of the book. She gripped the cover tightly, as if trying to keep her apology trapped there, afraid it might leap out and throw itself into Mr. Larson’s hands.
Mr. Larson cleared his throat, noisily folded his paper, and stood up, still holding the rumpled sheets. Right away he wished he hadn’t stood up. He felt so tall, towering alone up at the front of the classroom. Some of the kids looked at him, but just as many kept their eyes elsewhere, and the little girl in the brown plaid skirt and the white-collared shirt stared at her book, her knuckles white. Mr. Larson noticed she was reading Incident at Hawk Hill, and his mind tried to recall the plot, searching for some hidden meaning in Cara’s choice of that particular book. He shook that thought away, like a pitcher shaking off a bad signal from a catcher.
Clearing his throat again, he said, “How many of you looked at a Sunday paper this weekend?” Timidly, almost all the kids raised their hands.
Without taking her eyes off her book, Cara raised her hand, too. She always read the Sunday Chicago Tribune, and the Sunday Sun Times. And if she could get her mom to pay for it at the newsstand on the way home from church, she read The New York Times, too. The Sunday papers were Cara’s favorite part of the weekend.
Mr. Larson said, “How many of you looked at the Chicago Tribune?”
Over half of the same hands went up again.
“Fine—hands down. Now, how many of you read a part of the Tribune other than the comics?”
That question thinned out the crowd. Only four kids kept their hands up: Cara and Joey and two other boys. Cara looked up from her book, just for a second, glancing at Mr. Larson. He wasn’t looking at her, but she could tell he had just looked away. And in that instant, Cara knew where these questions were heading.
Mr. Larson continued, “Now. How many of you read something other than the comics and the sports section in the Tribune?” Joey and the two other guys lowered their hands, and now only Cara had her hand up. Her face was pale, and her lips were pressed into a thin line, but she kept her hand up.
“You can put your hand down, Cara,” said Mr. Larson. “But tell me, can you remember any particular story you read in the Tribune?”
To the rest of the class, it seemed like an accident that Mr. Larson was talking to Cara now, having a normal student-to-teacher, question-and-answer session. But it wasn’t an accident at all. Mr. Larson knew that, and he knew from the expression on Cara’s face that she knew it, too.
Cara looked right at Mr. Larson now, and looking at him made her feel better. He wasn’t mad at her, Cara could tell. Mr. Larson wasn’t angry, and he was just as uncomfortable as she was, as scared as everyone in the class. It was as if the whole class had taken a deep breath and held it. And now they were starting to exhale, Cara first.
Lowering her hand, Cara spoke carefully, at first with a little tremor in her voice. “I remember all the stories I read in the Tribune. The lead story on page one was about the meeting on the Middle East crisis, the second lead story was about the murder rate in Chicago compared to New York City, and then there were about three other smaller stories, including one about the oldest horse on the Chicago police force.”
Mr. Larson raised his eyebrows, wrinkling his forehead. “You say you remember all the stories you read? Did you read the whole first section of the paper?”
Cara nodded.
“How about the Arts and Living section?”
r /> Another nod.
“Finance? . . . Travel?”
Cara nodded, then nodded again.
“So what you’re saying,” said Mr. Larson, “is that basically, you read the entire Chicago Tribune this Sunday?”
The kids in the class had been following this exchange like a crowd watching a tennis match, their eyes going from one player to the other. All eyes were on Cara. In a steady, clear voice she said, “Well, maybe not every word in the whole paper—but yes, I read the whole thing.”
With his eyes locked on hers, Mr. Larson said, “How about . . . the editorials?”
The whole class stopped breathing again. But Cara didn’t miss a beat. If Mr. Larson wanted to play twenty questions about the newspaper, she wasn’t going to back down and freeze up. “Editorials?” Cara said. “I always read the editorials. It’s the part of the paper I like the best, so I save it for last. Some people like to save . . . the sports section for last. But I like the editorials.”
As Cara said “the sports section,” Mr. Larson almost flinched. Phew—this one doesn’t miss a thing! he thought to himself. Out loud he said, “And why do you like the editorials so much, Cara?”
Cara was all set to say, “Because an editor can speak right up and tell the world if someone is being lazy or stupid or crooked or mean”. Those biting words were already forming in her mouth. But then she remembered what her mom had said on Friday night—about always telling the truth but adding some mercy.
And in that heartbeat of a moment between the thought and the spoken word, it struck Cara that Mr. Larson didn’t have to be doing or saying any of this. He could have just walked into class, poured himself a cup of coffee, and hidden behind his newspaper all afternoon. Why was he asking her all these questions? And then Cara saw it. Mr. Larson was being a teacher. He was telling her that her editorial had been correct—truthful. And now Mr. Larson was giving Cara a chance to add a little mercy, if she wanted to.
Mr. Larson prompted her, “You like the editorials because . . . why?”
Cara took another few seconds, choosing her words with great care. “Because it’s where the newspaper can say the things that are hard to say, and it’s where the newspaper apologizes if it makes a mistake. It’s where you get to see the heart of the newspaper.”
Mr. Larson smiled, and his pale eyebrows went up as he said, “The heart of the newspaper? I didn’t know newspapers had hearts.”
Cara couldn’t help smiling a little herself, and she said, “Only the good newspapers have hearts.”
“Hmmm.” That’s all Mr. Larson said. Just, “Hmmm,” and their conversation was over.
Mr. Larson took three steps back, and bending over a little, he patted the stack of newspapers beside his desk. “These old papers aren’t good for much, so I want each of you to take one or two of them, and find the editorials. Clip them out, read them, pass them around, compare them. And then see what kind of . . . what kind of a heart you think the Sun Times or the Tribune has. Write down what you think, and then maybe the class can talk about it in a couple of days.”
And with that, Mr. Larson sat down in his chair and opened up his paper. With his eyes on the sports page, he reached for his thermos, and poured some of Friday’s cold coffee into a cup. He wasn’t planning on drinking any of it, but he wanted things to look and feel normal again.
A line formed as some of the kids came up to get old newspapers. The tension in the classroom was gone, and the familiar hum of noise returned, increasing rapidly. Cara immediately stood up, dragged a desk into her back corner, and pulled the map tripod over behind her. She sat down in her makeshift office, her heart racing.
And she smiled. Mr. Larson wasn’t mad at her, and she had gotten to apologize to him, sort of. She also smiled because the whole class had an assignment, the first real assignment Mr. Larson had given since school started.
But it was more than that. Cara smiled because she had just gotten an idea, a new idea for her editorial in the next edition of The Landry News.
CHAPTER 8
VOLUNTEERS LINE UP FOR DANGER
IF THE PRINCIPAL had walked past Mr. Larson’s doorway on that Monday, he would have thought it was just another out-of-control afternoon in Larsonland. But in fact, the room was filled with focused activity. It looked like chaos, but the kids were doing an assignment. Sprawled on the floor, standing around in small groups, or sitting on desktops, they were leafing through old newspapers, looking for the editorial pages. And as they flipped through the wide sheets of newsprint, kids kept finding all the other odds and ends that fill up a big city newspaper.
LeeAnn called out, “Hey Sharon, I just found a story about a lady in Cicero who died and left her house to her Siamese cat—I’m not kidding—to her cat. Look . . . there’s a picture. This cat owns a house!”
Steven had been reading an article about some new animals being added to the Brookfield Zoo, and now he was arguing with Alan about which was more dangerous: a lion or a black rhinoceros.
Phil was reading the obituaries, and every few minutes he discovered a person who had the same last name as a kid in the class. Then he’d call out things like, “Hey, Tommy. Did you have a relative named Kasimir who owned a bakery in Glen Ellyn? The guy died in a car crash on Saturday.”
Some kids had actually found the editorial pages and were now hunting around the classroom, searching for scissors and tape and glue and construction paper.
Cara wasn’t doing the assignment. She was going to, of course, just not right now. She was working on something more important: the second edition of The Landry News. A spiral notebook was open on the desk in front of her, and she was making a list of possible lead stories.
Joey tapped at the bulletin board behind Cara as if it were the door to a room. “Knock, knock,” he said. “Anybody here?”
The sound startled Cara. She swung around in her chair, annoyed at the interruption, but when she saw it was Joey, her mind went almost blank for a moment. Then Cara smiled and said, “Sure, I’m here.”
Joey grinned and leaned one shoulder up against the wall. “So what do you think?” he asked, his voice lowered. “What’s up with Larson? Is he crazy or what? I thought he would still be mad.”
Cara nodded. “So did I, but he really wasn’t. It’s kind of weird, because now he knows that we’re all thinking about what kind of a teacher he is. I think he’s just trying to figure out what to do next. And did you notice that we all have an assignment—a real assignment?”
Joey rolled his eyes and wrinkled his nose. “Yeah, I noticed—everybody noticed. Thanks a lot, little miss newspaper girl.” Then with a devilish grin Joey said, “And Mr. Larson didn’t say a thing about The Landry News—like ‘You’d better not say anything else about me,’ or ‘You can just forget about making another newspaper.’ So are you going to?”
Cara looked at Joey like he was crazy. “Make another one? Did you think I wasn’t going to? Of course I’m going to make another edition!”
Joey pushed off the wall and held up his hands as if Cara had jumped toward his throat. “Hey, hey—just asking, that’s all. I figured you would. Everyone’s gonna be watching for it, and not just the kids in this class, either. You know Ted Barrett on the red team? Well, I told him about what happened on Friday, and he said for me to be sure to tell him when your next paper comes out.”
Cara was flattered, but her smile turned to a frown. She said, “But I only make one copy of the newspaper, and I’m going to put it up on the wall in here, and we’re on the blue team—so how’s Ted even going to see it?”
“Duh—,” said Joey. “Ever hear of something called a computer?” He pointed to the two computer workstations on the other side of the classroom. Ellen Rogers was using the encyclopedia on one of them, and David Fox sat at the other, headphones clamped on his head, playing some sort of geography game. Joey said, “You make your newspaper on a computer, and then you can print up as many copies as you want. Simple.”
“
I . . . I don’t really know how to use a computer,” stammered Cara, blushing. “At least not well enough for something like this. We . . . I don’t have one at home, and the school where I used to live only had a couple of computers, and no one ever let me get near them. I think I had a . . . a bad reputation there.”
“A bad reputation?” Joey grinned. “You? Hmmm. Let me guess . . . could that have had something to do with making newspapers?” Then he went on seriously, “But really, it’s not hard to use a computer. I talked with Ed, and we want to be on your staff, you know, like work for the newspaper. You can do your writing right here in the classroom, or anywhere. Ed and me, we’re really good with the computers down in the resource center—those are the newest ones in the school. And as long as a teacher says it’s okay, Ms. Steinert will let us use the whole setup—printers, paper, everything. What do you think?”
Cara hesitated. She wasn’t expecting this. The Landry News was her newspaper, something she did all by herself. Still, this offer was something to think about. If she kept on making just one copy by hand, yes, she could keep total control of it. But with only one copy, not many kids would ever get to read the News. And as Mr. Larson had proved, making only one copy means that it only takes one angry reader to shut off the whole circulation instantly.
Cara thought about what she had said to her mom. It was true. She wasn’t making The Landry News now because she was angry. She was making it because she was good at it, because she liked being a reporter and a newswriter. She was determined to be a good journalist, and every good journalist knows that circulation is important.
And besides all that, it was Joey DeLucca standing here smiling at her, offering to help. So Cara made a decision.
She smiled at Joey and stood up. She said, “Sounds good. Let’s ask Mr. Larson if we can go and talk to Ms. Steinert right now.”