The office reeked of glue and fluid for the old crank-up copy machine. I don’t usually mind those smells very much. As a matter of fact, I really like them. But in that office, especially on that day, they got me feeling pretty sick. The office lady turned from her typewriter. “May I help you?”
I squeezed the folded-up note tightly in my fist. “Yes, Miss Cooper. I’m here to see Mr. Peale.”
She gave me that oh-you-poor-kid look and said, “Just have a seat. Mr. Peale is due back in the office very soon.”
I hope he forgets to come back, I prayed.
The red second hand did laps around the wall clock. The minute hand jerked into place each time the second hand hit twelve, for a grand total of twenty-seven minutes. I sat there with my stomach jumping around like a fish on the bottom of the boat while Miss Cooper typed on little blue cards and answered phone calls. I watched her file her nails, drink coffee and fold two origami birds. Then she polished her nails. Smudged them. Polished them again—and again. At that point, the office smelled of glue, copy machine fluid, and enough Maybelline nail polish to put your head in a spin.
Suddenly, a large gray blur appeared through the frosted glass door. My heart and stomach felt like they were trading places. It’s The Elephant. Prepare . . . to . . . die.
THE ELEPHANT NEVER FORGETS
Mr. Peale has two suits, a dark grey one and a light grey one. By afternoon, his clothes get awfully rumpled, and that would be reason enough to call him “The Elephant”. Then one day in the cafeteria, Joey Kaplan from 6B whispered, “Peale is Hebrew for elephant. Pass it on.” So everybody fired the message around from one table to the next until the whole cafeteria was buzzing and snickering.
I followed The Elephant into his office. Leather. Cigar. Vitalis hair goop. I’d been there so many times that even blindfolded I’d have known where I was.
He motioned for me to sit in the old wooden armchair facing his desk. “Are you aware, Miss Glayzier, that this is your third visit to my office this month?”
“Yes, Mr. Peale.”
“And do you recall that twice it was for coming to school late?”
“Y-yes.”
“Unfortunately, Miss Glayzier, I never forget these things. Now, before we go on, I’ll take this opportunity to remind you again that one more late arrival will mean big trouble for you. Is . . . that . . . clear?”
“Yes, Mr. Peale.”
“Now, tell me, what brings you here this time?”
“I wrote a note.”
“You wrote . . . a note,” he said, making it sound like a snappy little poem. He stood in front of his big swivel chair then just let himself plop down into it. His chair squawked like a seagull as he swung himself from side to side. He plunked his elbows on the desk and unfolded his glasses. “May I see your note?”
I handed it to him and prayed for a miracle. Please make the ink disappear right this second.
He squinted and brought his eyebrows together as he read. Then he exploded. “This—is a disgrace!”
“I know, I know,” I said. “I’m awfully sorry. Really. I promise I won’t ever . . .”
“You’re to stay out of trouble for the rest of the school year, Miss Glayzier! Do . . . you . . . understand?” He sprang forward in his chair, crumpled my note and dropped it into his wastebasket.
I jumped up. “Oh! Mr. Peale. I have to bring the note back to my teacher. Signed.”
He fumbled around in the wastebasket to find my crunched-up note, smoothed it out on the desk as well as he could and wrote his initials on it.
At that point, his necktie was sort of hanging off to one side, so I couldn’t help but notice how his buttons were struggling to keep the two sides of his shirt together. One sneeze and those buttons would have popped right off and hit the back wall. Even worse, right between the third and fourth buttons, you could actually see the hair on his stomach. Believe me, nobody ever needs to see something like that. Most of the time I don’t really mind seeing somebody’s gorilla hair . . . like, maybe on some guy playing soccer on Fletcher’s Field or an old geezer goofing around in the “Y” pool. Don’t go thinking I’m narrow-minded or anything, because I’m just as curious as the next kid about teachers and principals. Sure, I wouldn’t mind knowing more stuff about them . . . like where they live, if they have kids, or even what they do on the weekends. But nobody ever needs to know that the school principal has a hairy stomach. The whole thing’s just too disgusting, so don’t even get me started on that.
I dreaded going back to my class, embarrassed to death that Mrs. Shevarek and The Elephant had actually read my horrible note.
The janitor was at the far end of the hall, near the library. He had just started up the big twirly-brush machine for waxing the floors. I stepped carefully along the tiles leading to my classroom. White tiles only—no stepping on the cracks. I stopped at my locker, unfolded my note and read:
Yes, Deena. I’ll go with you to Waverly Gifts. I hate this blasted history class and can’t wait till it’s over! That creepy old Shipwreck–Shevarek bores me to death. Her dress is ugly with a capital “U” and right this second she has gooey white spit stuck in the corner of her mouth. Yuck!
–VVN
The classroom door was open. Everyone was gone—everyone, except Mrs. Shevarek.
I handed her my note. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Shevarek. I’m very sorry about this.”
“You may leave now,” she said, turning to clean the blackboard. I watched the jelly of her upper arm flap and jiggle as she washed away her history notes and the remainder of Mr. Byers’ math equations. Still facing the blackboard, she said, “I certainly hope you feel remorse, Vivian.”
I zipped up my jacket and stacked my books. “I do feel morose,” I said.
The damp cloth stopped making circles on the blackboard. Mrs. Shevarek turned to face me and practically squeaked—“Morose?”
The classroom door clicked shut behind me. What a numbskull! I knew I’d have to look up “morose” in the dictionary as soon as I got home. Morose. I was sure that’s what she’d said, but if it wasn’t, I had to know what it meant—in case it was something stupid or rude. Even so, it was too late to do anything about it.
I always look up stuff in the dictionary, even though most of the time I end up forgetting what the meanings are. I forget because as soon as I get the dictionary down off the shelf, the whole deal ends up like a snowball rolling down a hill. Like the day I looked up the word “phobia”. (I don’t even remember why I had to look that one up.) First off, I couldn’t find it in the Fs, so I checked for it in the Phs. I admit that I’m no great shakes in school and all, but I’m smart enough to figure out stuff like that. The dictionary said “phobia” meant “an illogical fear”. So then I had to look up “illogical”. The dictionary showed the meaning as “devoid of logic”. So naturally, I had to flip back to the Ds. By the time I finished, getting dragged from one page
