Pickle, p.3
Pickle, page 3
I shrugged. Bean stared me down.
“My little sister does a better job playing dumb. I know everything. Our mutual friend is willing to join forces—with conditions.” She crossed her arms, and we had some sort of silent standoff. I think she tried to tell me to chill out telepathically, but I wasn’t ready to give in. It could have been a bluff. She waited for me to slip up and tell her everything. I made a face that said I had no idea what she could possibly be talking about, but it only lasted about ten seconds.
“Fine. What kind of conditions does Frank have?” I said. Bean cracked her knuckles and smirked.
“Number one. If Frank’s in the club, your friend, Mr. Junior Principal, is not,” she said. “Actually, that one is mine.”
I could have told Bean that Hector wasn’t invited, but I didn’t like her bossing me around.
“Listen, Bean, I—”
“NUMBER TWO”—Bean held up her hand to shush me—“I, too, am interested in joining. You can have us both, or neither.” She stuck her chin out and stood tall, but she was still a foot shorter than me.
“No way,” I said. “I get to pick who’s in the club. Besides, he wasn’t supposed to tell anybody. He already broke the rules.”
“I’m not just anybody. And I am a crack-proof safe for secrets,” Bean said. “Plus, Principal Lebonsky and I aren’t exactly on the same side.”
“The, um, club is by invitation only. Sorry, Bean.” I was only sorry in a feeling-a-little-bit-guilty way. Not a regretful way.
“Okey dokey, artichokey. I’ll let Frank know that you’re not into it.” She skipped back toward the school. I felt relieved that she’d given up so easily. It started dawning on me that it might have been too easy, when she stopped and swiveled back around. “Too bad. We could have done a lot with the costumes.”
“What costumes?”
“The ones in my dad’s shop, silly. Lee’s Costume & Party? It could have been kind of super.”
So, then there were four of us.
10
A Cryptic Message
I checked my email in the morning. And then I called Oliver.
“Frank is like a super spy,” I said after Oliver let me have it for waking him up.
“What? Why?”
“He just emailed me! He’s never emailed me before. And I’ve never emailed him! I checked. How did he get my email address? Do you think he hacked my computer?”
“I think he used the roster they gave us at orientation,” Oliver said, and hung up. That bummed me out a little bit, but then I opened the email and it was in Japanese. I didn’t even know Frank knew Japanese, and I don’t know why he thought I did. I called Oliver again.
“It’s not even in English,” I said.
“What’s not in English?” Oliver said in a deep, slow voice.
“Did you fall back asleep?”
“Yes.”
“But we were just on the phone, like, a minute ago.”
“So?” he said. “I was up late rehearsing for Hello, Dolly! The spring play? I have the lead, you know.”
“You’re Dolly?”
“No! I’m Horace Vandergelder,” Oliver said.
“I don’t know what that means.”
“What do you want, Ben?”
“Well, I opened Frank’s email. It’s in Japanese or something. Why does he think I know Japanese?”
“That sounds like a question for Frank,” Oliver said. Then he hung up again.
I found the school roster in the junk drawer in the kitchen and called Frank up.
“Hello, Ben,” Frank answered. “You have questions about my message.”
“How did you know?” I said. I heard Frank yawn.
“What can I do for you?”
“Well, you know the email you sent? It looks like it’s in Japanese. I don’t really know Japanese, so I wondered if you could, like, send it in English?”
“I don’t know Japanese. Neither do you. Neither does Ms. Ruiz, Principal Lebonsky, or most anybody else in our school. In case your email has been compromised,” Frank said. While he talked my computer beeped and another email popped up from an Agent Fix-it with a link to an online email language translator and a note:
Next time it might be in Russian.
“Whoa. Who’s Agent Fix-it?” Maybe Frank had invited someone else into the club.
“That would be me,” he said, and hung up.
So cool. I translated the email that Frank sent, and it turned out to be a paragraph cut and pasted from the Board of Education website. It said that any student could form a club at school by telling the head office. If the office accepted the group as a legitimate organization and it had four or more members, it qualified for special funding from the Parent Teacher Association (P.T.A.).
We had a group of four students, but it’s not like we could go tell them that we wanted to cause trouble. We needed a cover. If we started a secret club and called it something else, something innocent and non-suspicious, we could meet at school and they’d give us money.
Double identities!
I opened a new email account under the name Agent Queso (my cheese love knows no bounds) and forwarded the email to Oliver (in Turkish), with the link to the translator.
Do you think we should start a club at school? Use the translator to respond.
Then I called him again.
“I just wanted to tell you that you have an email,” I said. “It’s from someone you know, but with a fake name.”
“Okay.”
“It’s from me.” He didn’t say anything. “Did you hear me, or did you doze off again? I sent you an email.”
“Cool. I’ll go read it.” Oliver yawned. “Anything else?”
“Nope, that’s it. I just wanted you to read your email,” I said.
“Okay, if I need to write you back it will just show up in your email and you can read it when you want to. I’m not going to call you or anything.”
“All right.”
I started to say how cool it would be to have double identities when I realized that he had hung up on me again. I went back to the computer to wait for his email. I think he went back to sleep again, because I didn’t get anything until lunchtime. Under “Do you think we should start a club at school?” Oliver had typed one word.
Sí.
He put the link to the translator on the bottom.
11
The Club
I stopped in the office after school to ask for the form for a new club.
“Are you starting a new group?” Pat said. She’s the school secretary and she looked as if a new club would make her day. I’m pretty sure she has more Fountain Point sweatshirts than anyone else at school. The office also has about a dozen beaver figurines on the windowsills. I don’t think they’re Principal Lebonsky’s.
“I think so,” I said. “I mean, I’m thinking about it.”
“Maybe someone’s already formed a group that matches your interests, Ben.” She gave me a bright orange sheet of paper with a list of all the student organizations already at Fountain Point. She smiled and nodded, so I smiled and nodded, too, but that was weird so I looked down at the form. She kept standing there, like she couldn’t wait to see my eyes sparkle with glee when I saw the perfect club met on Mondays or something. I read the list. Fountain Point Middle School has a lot of groups. They called them “Extracurricular Enrichment Opportunities.” Whatever. Basically, there are art- and gym-type things. Everything from chess club to rugby. Really. Jack MacDougal’s dad is from Scotland and he started a team. I don’t know who they play.
The most popular clubs on the list were the soccer team, dance squad, science club, the Beaver Band, and Oliver’s beloved drama club—those I already knew about. The graphic novel club sounded cool. There were a few wacky ones, like a lassoing team. We lived in the city, not the Wild Wild West. What did they lasso—pigeons? The list said they currently had eight members. Sounded fishy to me. Maybe they were some sort of secret club, too.
After a minute, when I didn’t jump up and down, Pat gave me the new club application form and another bunch of papers. Then she went back to her desk and took out a sack lunch.
The first two pages were the Fountain Point Middle School Group Code of Conduct Contract (F.P.M.S.G.C.C.C.). Pat told me I had to put my initials after each rule to show that I’d read it, and then sign the bottom. There were a lot of rules, in really small print. I didn’t read all of them, but I skimmed it. A couple of weird ones popped out, like the group couldn’t be about overthrowing the government. And each group needs a board with a president and stuff. The last rule said that Fountain Point had a zero-tolerance policy for any groups that Principal Lebonsky deemed “destructive, disobedient, or overly disruptive.”
I initialed everything and started on the application. I filled in the blanks as best I could with my name and stuff. Then I got to the “prospective group description.”
Maybe, if you started a club at school, you would have it be a Dog Appreciation Society or Happy Cookie Bakers or something. But I needed to come up with a club that other kids would not be interested in, but adults would believe that kids might find interesting. Tricky.
I looked around the office for a clue. Paper clips. Paper clip collectors? No. Fluorescent light lovers? Vintage copy machine appreciators? I tried to think of something, anything that would make a good club, while Pat picked the pickles out of her tuna salad sandwich. Copy machines might have potential. Hector and I tried to make copies of our squished faces once while we waited for his grandma. I forgot to close my eyes, and I couldn’t see anything but green blobs for three hours. The copies turned out kind of cool though. I still have them taped up on my closet door.
“Nobody likes pickles this much,” Pat said under her breath. I don’t like pickles much, either, so I gave her an I-heard-that look. She flicked pickle discs into the trash like tiny green Frisbees. I looked back down at the form. It became so clear what the club needed to be, it was as if the paper in my hands had turned green. I thought about it for another minute, but I couldn’t think of anything better. This would be perfect.
The League of Pickle Makers was born.
I knew kids wouldn’t try and join a club for pickles. Hector wouldn’t be interested, either. He’s hated pickles ever since he got sick from a bad egg salad sandwich.
I signed us up for a weekly meeting and put everybody’s name down under the board of directors.
PRESIDENT: Ben Diaz
VICE PRESIDENT: Frank Lenny
SECRETARY: Oliver Swanson
TREASURER: Bean Lee
I felt goofy putting myself down as president, but it made me kind of happy, too. I’d never tell Bean she was treasurer. Ever. I gave the form to Pat, and she looked it over.
“Oh, honey. I’m sorry I said people don’t like pickles.” She looked worried that I might be offended by her pickle dissing. “I should have offered them to you, but they had tuna juice anyway, and my husband just buys whatever is on sale. They weren’t made from scratch or anything.”
“That’s okay,” I said. “Pickles aren’t for everybody.”
She told me that someone would be getting in contact with me about the club, and that she would make a note that I was the pickle president.
I can think of a million things I’d rather be known as than the pickle president. And I don’t think Oliver, Frank, or Bean would call me president even if I held them down and moved their lips. But maybe the rest of the school would. I have more than two years left at Fountain Point. President Pickle is something that could stick with you all the way to high school. Maybe I should have started a weight lifting team.
I recognized this as the first test of my new, double identity. Did Clark Kent rip off his glasses and tell the world he was Superman? Did Bruce Wayne take the Batmobile to pick up groceries? No, they did not.
“The other kids won’t have to call you President Diaz or anything. It’s just for the form,” Pat said.
“‘President Diaz.’ I like the sound of that,” I said. “All right, just on the form, though. I think all of the pickle makers should be … equal.” It sounded kind of corny, but Pat looked proud. I left the office while the getting was good.
12
Service with a Smile
There were a lot of reservations that night at the restaurant, so my mom and dad both had to work. I asked if I could stay home and watch TV, but they said no. We all headed to Lupe’s together.
“We’d just rather have you here with us at night, m’ijo,” my mom said, and handed me a clean apron.
“It’s a lot of responsibility to be home alone at night,” my dad said. He left the kitchen, and I rolled my eyes at Diego. He stopped stirring the posole to raise his hands in surrender. He’ll listen when I gripe about my parents, but he won’t commiserate with me. Diego’s not the kind of guy to complain about his bosses. I went back out into the dining room to find my mom. She was talking to some customers in the front booth and waved me over when she saw me. I didn’t see who it was until I was there. Principal Lebonsky and two other principal-looking ladies.
“Good evening, Ben,” Principal Lebonsky said. “I was just asking your mother if it would be possible to have an order of more … traditional enchiladas.” My mom laughed like she does when the health inspector makes a bad knock-knock joke.
“You know, Betty, we’ve always made our enchiladas that way. It’s a custom I learned from my grandmother and tías. An old family recipe,” my mom said. She is a little sensitive about the food at the restaurant, and a lot sensitive about family. Our enchiladas come with green chile and a fried egg on top. It’s the way our family has always made them. And, by the way, they are perfection.
“I’ve just never seen them prepared in such a manner,” Principal Lebonsky said. She wasn’t saying it like it was cool that my mom did it like that, more like that Mom was wrong to do it differently from what the principal was used to. It was the same way she talked to the kids at school. I wanted to tell them to go eat somewhere else for dinner. Or I wanted my mom to refuse to serve her. Sure, it would be a little extreme, but it would also be totally aces. But, my mom just got her pad and pen out and smiled at them. I stood behind Principal Lebonsky and made a face, but my mom wouldn’t look at me.
Principal Lebonsky decided to go with a taco plate instead, and the other ladies ordered fajitas. My mom asked me to take their food out when it was ready. I started to say no, but she stopped me with a look and I nodded. It worked out better for me if they weren’t buddies. She said I could keep the tip, which made it better.
“Ben is one of my students at Fountain Point. He has promise, but disciplinary issues,” Principal Lebonsky told the other ladies when I cleared their plates. Like I wasn’t even there. And I don’t have “disciplinary issues.” The only time I’ve had detention is for The Graffiti Incident—and that doesn’t count because a) it wasn’t me, and b) it didn’t happen at school. I noticed my mom watching from the kitchen door, so I just put the bill down and walked away from the table.
“Don’t stay here too late, Ben. Remember, it’s a school night,” Principal Lebonsky said when she came up to the register to pay the bill.
“Oh, I’m going home soon,” I said. Then I thought she might offer to walk me back to the apartment. “I mean, after I help take out the trash and stuff. And I already did my homework for tomorrow.” I thought that would earn me some points. It didn’t. She only left me ten percent.
13
A Twist in the Plot that Could Not Have Been Foreseen
“Did you think I wouldn’t find out, Ben?”
The next day, Ms. Ruiz asked me to come back after school for a quick chat. “You have been up to something,” she said in a singsong voice.
I’d been a little jumpy ever since gym class. Rick gave Coach Capell the balls from the Pit of Stink to recycle in P.E. He told us to play dodgeball with them because it would be “mellower” with the little balls. It wasn’t so bad until he went to make a phone call. A couple of guys got tennis racquets out of the equipment room to lob the balls harder. There wasn’t anything mellow about the whizzing rainbow of pain. And I didn’t think the gym could smell any worse, but smacking those balls around really released the aroma. When Coach Capell came back he said we had creativity. I think he meant we had welts.
“So, Ben. I hear you want to create a special team,” Ms. Ruiz wiped off the whiteboard. Were we busted already? “I have to say, it’s not what I’d expect from you, but I’m intrigued. What a creative idea. Think of the possibilities.” Her eyes were sparkly and she looked a little breathless. Oh, man. She knew. She totally knew.
“Um, yeah, possibilities,” I said.
“What made you think of doing something like this? Have you been practicing at the restaurant?”
“No! I wouldn’t do anything like that in the restaurant.”
“I bet you’d have a lot to work with there. Your parents might be able to give you some ideas, too,” she said. I highly doubted it. I didn’t know how much she knew, or where she heard it from. Obviously, somebody talked. I took a shaky step backward and sat down in a chair.
“Who told?”
“The office told me what you were up to this morning,” she said.
“The office knows?” It felt like there was a blender in my chest. I ran my hands through my hair and tried to come up with an explanation.
“If you don’t mind, I have a request. I would like to be your faculty advisor.” She waited for me to respond. “For the League of Pickle Makers!”
“Oh! Oh! Great,” I said. They didn’t know anything! But, I might have underestimated pickle popularity.
“Don’t worry. I won’t interfere,” she said. “Too many cooks spoil the stew, right? Or should I say too many cloves ruin the brine!” She laughed. She laughed alone. “Do you have a preference for a day to meet?”
“Thursday, please. Sometimes I help in the restaurant other days, but Thursdays I always have off,” I said. She wrote something down on a sticky note.
