The Candy Smash Read online

  When she walked past him on her way back to her room, Evan grabbed her elbow and gave it a shake. "Jess," he said. "Don't do it again. Okay? 'Cause some things are just..." He waved in the general direction of his room, as if that one gesture gathered up everything that was his—all the bits and pieces of himself—in one grand sweep of his arm. "Some things are just private. You know?"

  Jessie nodded her head. But she didn't have a clue what he was talking about.

  Chapter 11

  The Silence Was a Bulldozer

  metaphor (n) a figure of speech that says that one thing is another different thing as a way to compare the two and note their similarities; for example: "my mother is a battleship" or "school was a rollercoaster"

  Mrs. Overton was sitting at her desk when the class filed in on Friday morning. Evan thought she looked really tired.

  "How's Langston?" asked Christopher, dropping his completed love poem in the In basket on Mrs. Overton's desk.

  "Better. He was very sick yesterday. We spent the whole day at the animal hospital. He has pneumonia, which is serious for a cat as old as Langston. But the vet gave him some medicine and said he's going to be fine."

  A bunch of kids were gathered around Mrs. Overton's desk to hear the latest on Langston's health and to hand in their love poems. Evan noticed another group, mostly girls, huddled around Jessie's desk. They wanted to know if Jessie had finished tallying the results of the survey, but Jessie wasn't giving anything away. Not yet.

  Slowly, Evan pulled a piece of paper out of his backpack. He wished the kids standing around the teacher's desk would go back to their seats. He watched as Adam casually dropped his poem into the basket, as if it were just another math assignment. Evan knew that Adam had written his poem about playing basketball and Paul had written about his family's sailboat. Malik had written a poem about a bug, which he had recited to everyone on the playground that morning:

  I dug a bug from under the rug.

  The bug said hi and looked me in the eye.

  I hugged my bug.

  Bad idea!

  Bye-bye bug.

  Evan didn't think it really counted as a love poem, but it was pretty funny. He ambled over to Mrs. Overton's desk, his poem held low against his thigh. He watched and waited for the right moment, then slipped his poem, face-down, into the basket just before Nina and Ben put their poems on top of his.

  All morning, he'd gone back and forth: Should he hand in the poem about his grandmother or the one about the tepee in the woods on his grandma's farm? His mom said both were good, but it was the one about Grandma that made his heart beat fast and his mouth go dry. At the last minute, he'd decided to play it safe and hand in the one about the tepee.

  Several of the kids were telling Mrs. Overton about the second mysterious appearance of the candy hearts when Salley interrupted. "Tell us the truth, Mrs. O. Are you the one who left the candy hearts?"

  "I am not," said Mrs. Overton solemnly.

  "Yeah, but that's what you'd say if you did leave the hearts," said Ryan, and several kids agreed.

  "That may be true, but I didn't leave them. And I'm glad there weren't any waiting on your desks this morning."

  Evan was glad, too. He did not want to get another box of hearts with the kind of message you could find at Wal-Mart. He decided that if any more mysterious candy hearts appeared, he would throw his box in the trash without even looking at it.

  "Morning Meeting, everyone," said Mrs. Overton, corralling them all to the rug. "Today, I have two poems in honor of my poor sick cat, who is now on the mend."

  "Two poems!" shouted Jessie. "Give me a break!"

  "I bet you're going to read us another poem by Langston Hughes," said David.

  "No, but I think you'll see why I chose this poem, instead," said Mrs. Overton. "It's called 'Fog.'" She turned the easel paper with a giant flourish of her arm, as if she were unveiling a statue in the center of town. Salley read the poem out loud, and Evan followed the words silently.

  FOG

  by Carl Sandburg

  The fog comes

  on little cat feet.

  It sits looking

  over harbor and city

  on silent haunches

  and then moves on.

  "It's a metaphor!" shouted Nina, pointing to the photo of Langston that said METAPHORS BE WITH YOU. Mrs. Overton had taught them how poets sometimes use one thing to mean something else.

  "Yes!" said Mrs. Overton. "What's the metaphor?" Almost half the class raised their hands.

  "The fog is a cat," answered Taffy.

  "That's just what fog is like," said Maddy. "It's like a cat, the way it creeps around." And Evan agreed. He had never thought about it before, but now he would always think of a cat when he saw fog creeping across his backyard.

  Jessie shook her head. "Fog is not like a cat. Not at all. Fog is vapor. It's drops of water in the air. A cat is an animal. It's a solid, and it's alive. The two are nothing alike."

  What Jessie said was true, and yet—Evan could see it. He could see the fog with its long tail curling around the corner of a house, arching its back as it rubbed up against a building and purred. He could imagine fog purring. How did the poet do that?

  "What about the second poem?" asked Megan.

  Everyone looked expectantly at Mrs. Overton, and Evan thought he saw her face turn just the slightest bit pink.

  "Well, the second poem is written by me, actually. I wrote it yesterday at the animal hospital."

  "You wrote a poem?" asked Adam. "But you're a teacher!"

  "Teachers can write poems," said Mrs. Overton. "Anyone can. I'm not saying mine is as good as Mr. Sandburg's, but it's mine, and I like it."

  Evan couldn't believe that Mrs. Overton had written a poem. He leaned forward and watched as she turned the easel paper and began reading.

  COUNTING RIBS

  your head

  too weak to lift I

  lay my own alongside

  yours and run my hand

  across the silky familiar side of you

  fingers feeling bone beneath

  one two three

  breathe

  four five six

  please

  seven eight nine

  breathe

  counting to keep my

  eyes from crying

  my heart from breaking

  out

  of its own ribbed cage

  breathe please breathe

  On the last word, Mrs. Overton's voice cracked, and Evan—who had been staring intently at the words on the page—turned quickly to look at his teacher's face. Her eyes were swimming with tears, and her lip trembled just the slightest bit. Horrified, Evan looked around the room. Everyone was staring at Mrs. Overton. No one knew what to do. Teachers were not supposed to cry.

  Megan was the first to respond. She jumped up from her spot on the rug and circled her arms around one of Mrs. Overton's arms. Then Maddy, Rachel, and Tessa clustered around her, too, laying their hands on her shoulders and arms, as if they were a protective fence that had sprung up out of nowhere. Most of the boys, including Evan, looked at their feet or the floor. The silence was a bulldozer, plowing them under.

  Until Jessie spoke up.

  "Why are you crying, Mrs. Overton?" she asked in a loud voice.

  Mrs. Overton looked right at Jessie, but her voice was high-pitched and broken. "Because he was so sick, and I was afraid I was going to have to let him go. I've had him practically my whole life." Megan patted Mrs. Overton on the shoulder, and Evan could see that she was starting to cry, too.

  "But that was yesterday," said Jessie. "You were sad yesterday. You said he's fine now. Aren't you happy now?"

  "Yes, Jessie. He's going to be fine. But I guess the poem just carried me back to that feeling. That terrible, hopeless feeling when I thought I might lose him. That's what poems do. Take a feeling and make it real, right in the moment."

  No one said anything as they thought about what Mrs.
Overton had just said. Then Evan spoke up in a clear voice. "It's a love poem," he said.

  Mrs. Overton nodded her head. "Yes, it very much is." Her eyes filled up again, and she looked like she was really going to start crying now, right there in front of the whole class. It was just awful.

  "And it's a good one," said Evan, pointing at the easel, "because of all those long e sounds. They sound like breathing, those long e's. Like when you're sick and wheezing." He made a breathing-in-and-out sound that sounded like the vowel e.

  "And it's got alliteration," said Salley. "See? 'Fingers' and 'feeling' and 'bone' and 'beneath.' That makes it good, too."

  So then the class went through the poem and found all the examples of alliteration and assonance and rhyme, and the girls all sat down again, and Mrs. Overton's face went back to what a teacher's face is supposed to look like when she's teaching her fourth-graders about poetry.

  After talking about the poem, Evan was quick to get back to his seat, but it was Carly Brownell who reached inside her desk first and found something unexpected.

  "Hey!" she shouted, raising her hand above her head and rattling the small box she held. "More candy hearts!"

  Chapter 12

  Breaking News

  breaking news (n) a news story that is unfolding at the moment that reporters are reporting it

  There was a mad scramble as all the kids in 4-O ran to their desks to look for boxes of candy hearts. Jessie's desk was very neat, so it took her no time to find hers. But other kids had to pull out crumpled papers and notebooks and pencil cases before they uncovered the familiar pink and red box with the little cellophane window. Everyone started rattling the boxes, and soon the room sounded like a maraca band in full swing.

  "Mine says CAPTAIN JACK," shouted Jack Bagdasarian, and he growled like a pirate to show that he deserved the name.

  "Look at mine!" said Michael Mahoney. "FLY HIGH!" Michael's dad was a commercial pilot, and Michael took lots of trips on airplanes.

  Jessie carefully removed one of the hearts from her box and read the message. GOOD IDEAS. Where had she heard that before? She tried to think, but Mrs. Overton shouted out in a near panic, "Do not eat any of this candy!" and Jessie's attention switched to her teacher. Mrs. Overton looked like the cartoon character Wile E. Coyote when he realizes he's about to drop one thousand feet into a canyon. Jessie pulled out her reporter's notebook. This was breaking news, and she didn't want to miss anything.

  "Where is this candy coming from?" asked Mrs. Overton.

  "Can I please go to the bathroom?" asked Evan in a loud voice.

  "Not right this second, Evan," said Mrs. Overton, rubbing a hand across her forehead.

  "I need to go now!" Evan nearly shouted. Jessie stared at her brother. Was he about to pee in his pants? But his face didn't have that kind of look on it. Instead, he looked like he was ready to rip someone's head off. What could Evan be mad about?

  "Yes, go. But come straight back. We've got to figure out..." Mrs. Overton didn't even seem to know how to finish her sentence.

  Jessie watched as Evan grabbed the big wooden bathroom pass from the hook by the door, then stormed out of the room. There was something red in his hand. She made a note of this in her notebook.

  A lot of the kids were circulating around the classroom, comparing candy-heart messages. Mrs. Overton stood with her hands on her hips for a moment, then made a beeline for the classroom phone. Meanwhile, Jessie meandered over to Evan's desk and took a quick peek inside. As expected, it was an atrocious mess, but there was no box of candy hearts.

  Jessie stooped down and looked under Evan's desk. "Jessie, you're not eating candy, are you?" asked Mrs. Overton, still talking on the phone.

  "No, Mrs. O. I'm just looking for trash." If something was on the floor, it was trash. Everybody knew that.

  "Nobody eat anything. Take your seats. I'm going to collect the candy—"

  There was a shout from the classroom. "No way!" called out Scott. "I'm not giving mine up!" Almost everyone in the class was against the idea of Mrs. Overton confiscating their Valentine treat.

  "Jessie, it's private property, right?" asked Tessa. "Can a teacher take something that belongs to us? I mean, legally?"

  At the beginning of the school year, Jessie had organized the entire class into a courtroom to put Scott Spencer on trial for the theft of two hundred and eight dollars. Whenever there was a question about the law, the kids in 4-O turned to Jessie.

  Jessie shrugged. "We're kids." She'd learned the hard way that the legal system couldn't be counted on to fix the injustices of the world. "We're not even allowed to own property."

  "Is that true, Mrs. Overton?" asked Paul.

  "That stinks!" said Jack.

  "You can take stuff from us?" said Ray. "That's not fair!"

  "Look," said Mrs. Overton. "I just don't want anyone getting sick. We don't know where this candy is coming from."

  "Nobody's gotten sick yet, and we've been eating these hearts all week," said David. "I'm pretty sure if they were poisoned, someone would have died by now."

  The class agreed. When Mrs. Overton finally got everyone to quiet down, Megan raised her hand. "Maybe you could let us take them home and let our parents decide?"

  Evan walked back in the room at that moment, but no one noticed except Jessie. She watched him hang the bathroom pass on its hook, then return to his seat. He still had that angry look on his face, but it wasn't quite as bad as when he'd left the room. And his hands were empty. Jessie wrote this fact in her notebook.

  "Listen up!" said Mrs. Overton, taking charge again. "I'm going to collect the candy hearts and keep them until I've had a chance to talk with Mrs. Fletcher. If she gives the go-ahead to send them home, it's okay with me. She's in charge of the school, so whatever she says goes." Mrs. Overton scooped up the paper collection basket on her desk. "Everyone grab your candy hearts and line up for music. I'm going to collect your boxes as you file out."

  Jessie was glad she wasn't line leader for the week. She hung at the back of the line, determined to be last. When she got in place, David, who was in the middle of the line, ducked out and came to the back to stand behind her.

  "Why did you do that?" asked Jessie, annoyed. The line began to move forward.

  "Do what?" asked David.

  "Leave the line and go to the end."

  "I didn't cut."

  "I didn't say you did. I asked why you left the line." Jessie noticed that Evan was saying something to Mrs. Overton and that Mrs. Overton did not look happy.

  David shrugged. "I wasn't really in line."

  "Yes, you were," said Jessie, shaking her head and thinking that David Kirkorian was sometimes the most annoying kid in class.

  "I'm allowed to stand where I want to. It's a free country." David folded his arms across his chest and stared straight over Jessie's head. He was about a foot taller than her, so he could do that without even trying.

  When they reached the door, Jessie dropped her box of candy hearts into the basket. She didn't mind giving it up. Candy hearts had never been her favorite. She didn't like the way they scraped against her teeth.

  Jessie waited until they were halfway down the hall before she said to Mrs. Overton, "I need to go back to the classroom for a second." Mrs. Overton was carrying the basket full of candy, and Jessie knew she was taking it to the office to consult with Mrs. Fletcher while the class was in music. There was no way Mrs. Overton was going to escort her back to the classroom. She was too distracted by the mystery of the candy hearts.

  "Can it wait?" asked Mrs. Overton.

  "No, it's something I really need. I'll be one second."

  "Be quick. And then straight to music!" Mrs. Overton veered left and disappeared into the office as the line of students headed to the music room.

  Jessie scooted past David, hurrying back to the classroom.

  "I'll come with you," said David.

  Jessie whirled around. "You will not!" The last thing she wanted was
David Kirkorian witnessing what she was about to do. David practically jumped back and then stood there, with a look on his face that Jessie couldn't figure out—even if she'd had a million years to study it.

  She ran down the hall, but before she got to her classroom, she stopped in front of the boys' bathroom. She wished her friend Maxwell were here. Not only was Maxwell a terrific spy, but he was also a boy. Which would have made this next part of her mission easier.

  Still, if you're going to be an investigative reporter, you have to be willing to do the dirty work of investigating. As her grandmother said, it was time to break some eggs.

  Jessie pushed open the door of the boys' bathroom and called out, "Anyone in here?" No one answered.

  This bathroom was different from hers! What were those strange white sink things on the wall? Jessie stared and stared but couldn't figure them out.

  Suddenly, she heard a noise in the hall and remembered how much trouble she would be in if someone found her in the boys' bathroom. She hurried to the trash can, pushed open the flap door, and peeked inside.

  There it was.

  Evan's box of candy hearts. She tried to reach in to pluck it out, but her arm was nowhere near long enough. She tugged on the top of the trash can and after a minute, the top came off. It was heavier than she thought it would be, and when she put it down on the hard tile floor, it made a loud clanking noise that made her heart jump.

  Jessie wasn't a lot taller than the trash can, so wrestling it over and laying it on its side wasn't easy. But she finally managed it, and this time she was careful not to let the metal trash can clang to the floor. She got down on her knees and peered inside, but the trash had resettled and now the candy box was nowhere in sight.