Alton saw what Quint saw—a plain white business envelope, stuck under the big silver clip.
“So . . . ,” Alton said slowly, “it looks like we can stop trying to pretend that you’re not part of the maps recovery squad.”
Quint nodded. “Yeah, my cover’s blown . . . totally.”
Alton said, “Open it.”
Quint’s hands shook a little as he pulled the message from the envelope. They both read it silently.
Quint whispered, “You’ve gotta tell that to the principal? Ouch! How’re you gonna do it?”
Alton took the message and tucked it back in its envelope. “Not sure,” he said grimly. “But I’ll find a way . . . because I have to.”
Quint said, “This is prolly gonna sound sorta mean, dude . . . but listen, can I come with you to the principal’s office . . . and watch?”
Alton smiled. “Sure. I might need a witness in case she slams me over the head with her briefcase.”
“Cool! Count me in!”
But as the bell rang and he gathered up his things, Alton was pretty sure that tomorrow morning’s chat with Mrs. Buckley would not be cool.
At all.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
UNAVOIDABLE
I am starving!
But before Alton had taken two steps toward the kitchen, he caught himself. Because that was a huge exaggeration, and he hated exaggerations. He had never been starving—or anywhere even close to starving—not one day of his whole life.
There was a large glass bowl of cut-up oranges and apples and bananas in the fridge, and he could tell his mom had prepared the fruit within the past hour, because the bananas hadn’t started turning brown yet.
He had both hands around the bowl when Beth said, “Can you reach me down a blueberry yogurt?”
“Sure,” he said. He let go of the fruit, got the yogurt, and without being asked, he pulled the foil off the container and handed it to Beth with a smile.
“Thank you.”
“You are so welcome.”
Alton put the fruit on the table, grabbed a soup spoon from the drawer, sat down, peeled the plastic wrap off the bowl, and dug in—it was so good!
He was on his fifth mouthful when his mom walked in and said, “Guess what? I—” She stopped and stared. “Alton! Did you really think that entire bowl of fruit was just for you? Honestly—you’d think we lived in a cave somewhere. Get a cereal bowl, serve yourself a reasonable portion, and put the rest back in the refrigerator. Now.”
Alton said, “Oh—right. Sorry. It’s just that I was star—really hungry.”
Once he was sitting down again, his mom said, “I was just starting to tell you that I got a new phone today.”
Alton’s mouth dropped open, and he forgot all about the fruit—some of which was there in plain view, half chewed.
“I got a new a phone? A new phone?! That’s amazing! That’s—”
“Hold it,” his mom interrupted. “You didn’t hear me, Alton. I said I got a new phone. But it does mean that I now have an old phone, and your dad and I have decided that you can use it. And the woman at the phone store got it set up, so all you need to do is plug in the data card from the phone you have now. And immediately after you do that, you have to call Heather and Val and Christopher and tell each of them to stop sending texts to my number, all right?”
And she reached out and handed Alton the phone—her old one.
He took it and held it with both hands, as if she might suddenly change her mind and try to wrestle it away from him.
“This is so great, Mom! Really, this is perfect. . . . Thanks!” And he jumped out of his chair and gave her a hug—still holding the phone tightly.
Beth’s eyes got huge. “So . . . now I can have Alton’s old phone, right?”
Her mom shook her head. “No, dear—I’m sorry. Not until you’re in fourth grade. That’s our rule.”
“It’s a stupid rule!”
Alton had to smile, even though he felt a little sorry for Beth. Because he knew that the argument she had just started was going to last for at least two more years.
Alton gobbled the rest of his fruit, then left the kitchen, trotting up the stairs and into his room.
He already knew his mom’s phone inside and out—he was sure he understood it a lot better than she did. It was almost two years old, but it had a big, bright touch screen, good control buttons, and a decent GPS app, which was already installed and was almost as accurate as the handheld GPS unit he’d been using for geocaching over the two years—and the antenna on this phone pulled in satellite signals strong and clear.
It took him less than a minute to insert his SIM card and restart the phone. And there they were, all his contacts—which weren’t very many. But now it was official—this phone was his!
He was excited about the phone, and he had fun over the next half hour getting it set up just the way he wanted it. But tomorrow morning’s meeting with Mrs. Buckley hung there in his mind like a large gray cloud.
He opened up the Google Earth app on the phone and messed with the settings. Then he moved the image until it showed the view from high above the town of Harper’s Grove. Then he zeroed in on the roof of his school. He knew just where the principal’s office was, there at the front, near the driveway. When he had the image centered correctly, he wrote down the latitude and longitude on a yellow note card.
It was kind of a dumb thing to do, but seeing that familiar-looking set of numbers made him feel better. Now he knew exactly where he would be sitting right before homeroom tomorrow.
But he had no idea what he’d say. How do you tell somebody like Mrs. Buckley that she says “um” too much? It was an impossible assignment.
But then he had a good thought: How would Elena or her pals or anybody else ever know what he was saying to the principal? Yes, someone could tell if he talked with Mrs. Buckley just by looking into the office. But they’d never know what he’d actually said to her—not unless they were right there in the room!
Then a horrible thought hit, and it almost took his breath away: The only other kid who was going to be there inside the principal’s office was Quint—who had specifically asked if he could come along! So . . . was Quint in on this plot after all? Was he just a really fantastic liar? Was he the mastermind, putting together this huge practical joke and sharing it with all his friends?
Look at me! Alton thought. I’m going completely crazy about this! Quint’s a good guy—I’m sure he is!
But his doubts about Quint wouldn’t go away—not completely. And even having a smartphone of his very own didn’t make him feel better.
Unless he wanted to risk having his maps get loose and maybe hurt a lot of people’s feelings, he had to accept the idea that somehow the mapnapper would be able to check up on him, would somehow know whether he had talked with Mrs. Buckley about her “um”-ing.
Alton put down his phone and picked up the yellow note card from his desk. He stared at the GPS coordinates he had copied down.
The principal’s office was tomorrow morning’s special destination, and there was no way to avoid it.
CHAPTER TWELVE
UM . . . A MIRACLE?
Alton Ziegler wondered if all principals’ offices looked like Mrs. Buckley’s office. He had no idea. In his whole life, this was the only principal’s office he had ever seen.
And Alton suddenly wished that he was on a long car trip so that he could stop at every elementary school in every single city and town all across America. Because then he could take a picture of every principal’s office. And then he could map all the information . . . like, how many pictures or posters were hung on the walls, how many photos of kids or pets or husbands or wives sat on the desks. . . . And was there a state flag and a US flag displayed in all those other offices too?
He could count how many principals sat on leather chairs, on cloth chairs, on wooden chairs, or on fancy steel-and-plastic chairs, like the one behind Mrs. Buckley’s desk. And he coul
d count the number of extra chairs in each principal’s office—there were six here, all of them with square steel frames and worn cloth cushions . . . which reminded him that he had actually been hoping the chairs would have steel frames, because he had made a goofy geocaching plan with steel chairs in mind—all of which only distracted him from his observations for about five seconds.
He sat in the chair to the left of the principal’s desk, and Quint sat in the chair on the right, and then there were four more chairs around a small table over in a corner.
And looking at that corner, Alton decided that this office was a square—about fifteen feet on each side. If he got to visit all those other offices? He could see which ones were square and which ones were rectangular—maybe there were some other shapes out there, like circles or ovals, maybe even a hexagon or two.
He could also learn how many offices had solid walls and doors, and how many had glass walls and doors. Because Mrs. Buckley had windows facing outdoors and windows facing the office and windows facing the hallway. All that glass made her office feel like a fishbowl. And he and Quint had been sitting in that fishbowl in front of her desk for three minutes now, because that’s where the school secretary had told them to wait.
Alton caught a glimpse of himself reflected in the window behind the big desk. His gray T-shirt had a plain front—no map. Elena or one of her gang was probably waiting outside homeroom to check and be sure he was obeying her order. He clenched his teeth so hard, his jaw hurt.
That girl is going to wish she’d never started this!
And then Alton remembered—he was the one who had started this when he couldn’t resist showing that map to Quint.
“Yo,” Quint whispered, “I think this tagalong was a big mistake. Maybe I should disappear, huh?”
Alton looked sideways at him. That question actually made him happy, because it proved Quint wasn’t part of some scheme to hear what he said to the principal.
“If you want to leave, sure. No sense in both of us getting in trouble. You can go.”
Quint never got the chance.
“Good morning, boys.”
Mrs. Buckley swept in, dropped a hat and gloves on the desk, and sat down in her chair. She swayed backward and then forward as she leaned onto her desk and smiled at Quint and then at Alton. She still had on her coat.
“Mrs. Ashton said you needed to talk with me. I’ve got only a minute before the last bus arrives, but I’ll try to help. What’s this about?”
Alton gulped, and then said, “Um, I wanted to ask you a question, Mrs. Buckley.”
Faster than the speed of light, in that tiny fraction of a second after the sentence left his mouth, Alton panicked.
I’m here to ask her why she says um so much, and what’s the first word I just said? Um!
But even faster, an idea took hold.
He gulped again and said, “Um, I wanted to ask you something, and it’s sort of a weird question. Because, um, sometimes when I have to talk, and when I kind of get stuck? I say ‘um.’ And I noticed that . . . um, during the announcements in the morning? Um . . . you say it too. And . . . I was wondering if you know why you do that . . . um, why you say ‘um’ a lot?”
Mrs. Buckley’s face turned bright red, so red that for a second Alton thought she was going to yell at him so loud that all the windows around them would shatter and collapse into glittering heaps.
But then he saw it. She wasn’t mad—she was embarrassed.
Mrs. Buckley cleared her throat. “Well . . . that’s a very perceptive question, Alton. And, um . . . all I can tell you is that I’ve been aware of this . . . problem for many years, and . . . I’m getting better at . . . keeping my words flowing . . . without feeling like I need to fill . . . every single second. And . . . what I mean by that is . . . it’s all right to have short . . . pauses in what you say . . . without always feeling like you have to . . . fill them up with little words like ‘um.’ Does that answer your question?”
“Um, yes. Thanks.”
And that’s when Alton should have stood up, said thanks again, and hurried out of that office.
But he didn’t.
He said, “Except . . . um, I noticed that you say ‘um’ . . . more on some days than others. You say it most on Thursdays, usually about seven times during the announcements. On a Thursday morning.”
Mrs. Buckley pressed her lips together, and she leaned farther forward, her eyes wide with disbelief. “You’ve been counting how many times I say that word—is that what you’re telling me? Have you been keeping some kind of a list, or making a graph or something?”
“Um . . . well, yes.”
Now it was Alton’s face that got red. And he noticed that Mrs. Buckley didn’t say “um” once as she shot that question at him. He also became aware that Quint was sitting so still in his chair that he could have been a statue—a statue of a very frightened boy.
Looking into Mrs. Buckley’s eyes, Alton felt a wave of pure terror trying to sweep him under. But he fought the fear, and for the second time in less than two minutes, an idea burst into his mind. And this one was perfectly clear—four simple words: Tell her the truth!
And immediately Alton heard himself saying, “Except, I put all the data I gathered onto a kind of map. Because that’s my favorite way of presenting information. And, um . . . I think I’d better warn you that this map, the one that shows how many times you say ‘um’ on different days during the announcements? It’s . . . it’s missing, and somebody might spread it around the school somehow. And . . . um, I want to say I’m sorry, just in case that happens. Really sorry. Just in case.”
As Mrs. Buckley stared at him, the glass-walled office seemed to slide into a pocket of total stillness, like the eye of a killer hurricane. Alton wasn’t sure if his heart was beating. He knew he wasn’t breathing—and neither was Quint.
Suddenly, Mrs. Buckley smiled. Then she started laughing, and between the snorts and chortles, she said, “A map? Of how many times I say ‘um’? That is wonderfully silly—it’s hilarious!” She wiped her eyes and stood up, and with a wide smile, she said, “Don’t worry about your map getting spread around, Alton. Every single person in this school already knows I say ‘um’ too much! But if you find that map? I’d really like to see it. Now, you both need to get to homeroom, and—um—I’ve got to go meet the kindergarten bus!”
The principal was still chuckling as she grabbed her hat and gloves and hurried out.
The boys left the office. Neither of them said a word until they were halfway down the sixth-grade hall.
Then Quint said, “Dude, seriously—that was genius! You know that, right? Genius, like . . . totally! She could have been so mad, and instead you got her laughing! Like, if she’d been eating yogurt, it would have shot right out her nose! That was a miracle!”
Alton nodded and grinned. “Yeah,” he said. “A miracle.”
But that wasn’t what Alton was thinking.
Because during that moment of pure terror in the principal’s office, when he’d suddenly seen what he should say to Mrs. Buckley? He had caught a glimpse of something else, too.
And now he was certain of it.
What had just happened with Mrs. Buckley was not some kind of miracle. It was something else.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
SORRY IN ADVANCE
You did what?” Emma Wilson glared down at Alton like he was a stinkbug.
He wanted to look friendly. And harmless. But he tried not to smile, because that might seem disrespectful. And he was worried that all this thinking about controlling his face was making him look like a robot, or maybe some dopey character from an animated movie.
But Alton pushed all that out of his head, took a deep breath, and then repeated himself as sincerely as possible.
“I said, I put your name on a map that I made about the heights of the kids in sixth grade. And . . . I called you Mount Wilson. Because the map is like one of those trail guides with contour lines for different el
evations. And since you’re the tallest kid, I used your name to mark the high point. And I was never going to show this map to anybody, because it was more like an experiment. Except now the map is missing, and somebody might spread it around the school. So I wanted to warn you about that, and say that I’m sorry . . . in advance. In case that happens.”
Still glaring, Emma snapped, “As if I care! Do you think you’re the first stupid boy who’s made fun of how tall I am?”
“Oh, it wasn’t like that,” said Alton quickly. “I . . . I wasn’t making fun of you, honest. I think it’d be great to be as tall as you are. It’s just . . . It’s a fact, that’s all. And I used that fact on my map, and I wanted to tell you about it. And tell you that I wasn’t making fun of you . . . not on purpose.”
“Oh, right,” she sneered. “So you thought somebody would see ‘Mount Wilson’ on your map and think it wasn’t funny at all, is that it?”
“Well . . . okay,” Alton said slowly. “I did want it to be sort of funny. . . . And it is sort of funny, don’t you think? I mean . . . if somebody made a picture of me? And put a globe on my shoulders instead of my head? I could smile about that—I mean, I think I could. Because it’s kind of funny. Alton Ziegler is a total globe-head, and everybody knows it.”
The thunderclouds surrounding Mount Wilson suddenly gave way to a glimmer of sunshine. But Emma’s tiny smile vanished just as fast.
“I’ve got to go to my bus. Thanks for the warning about Mount Wilson. . . . I guess you’re not a total creep after all.”
The dance some guys do in the end zone after a touchdown? That’s how Alton felt when Emma said he wasn’t a total creep.
• • •
The talk with Emma was Alton’s fifth apology of the day, and her microscopic smile was one of the better moments. The best moment had been during the day’s first apology—Mrs. Buckley’s laughing fit before school.
And as he and Quint had walked to homeroom from her office, Alton had realized that the principal’s reaction hadn’t been a miracle. Mrs. Buckley had forgiven him because he’d told her the truth. And he had done it in three simple steps: he’d explained about the map he’d made; he’d warned her that the map might become public; and then he’d told her he was sorry if this was going to cause her any embarrassment—truly sorry—in advance.