Antsy Does Time

that undermined him every step of the way. Everyone called it “The Magic Comb-over.” Because if you were looking at him straight-on—the way he might see himself in a mirror—he actually appeared to have hair. But when viewed from any other angle, it became clear that he had only twelve extremely long strands woven strategically back and forth over a scalp that had suffered its own human dust bowl.

It was even harder to take him seriously today, because as I stepped into his office I could see his tie was flipped over his shoulder. There’s only one reason a guy has his tie flipped over his shoulder. If you haven’t figured it out, you don’t deserve to be told.

So I’m sitting there, trying to decide which is worse: pointing out that his tie is over his shoulder and embarrassing him, or not saying anything, which would make it even more embarrassing once he realized it for himself. Either way he’d take it out on me, so this was a lose-lose situation. What made it worse is that I couldn’t stop smirking about it.

He poured himself a glass of sparkling water, offering me some, but I just shook my head.

“Mr. Bonano,” he said in his serious administrative voice, “do you know why I’ve called you in?”

I couldn’t take my eyes off his tie. I snickered and tried to disguise it as a cough. I sensed myself about to launch into a full-on giggle fit, and I prayed for a light fixture to fall from the ceiling and knock me unconscious before I could—because then I’d become sympathetic.

“I said, do you know why I called you in?”

I nodded.

“Good. Now let’s talk about this situation with Gunnar Umlaut.”

“Your tie’s over your shoulder,” I said.

There was a brief moment where I could tell he was thinking, Should I just leave it there, and insist it’s there for a reason? But in the end, he sighed, and flipped the tie down ... right into the glass of sparkling water.

By now, my eyes are tearing from holding back the laughter—and then he says, “I never liked this tie anyway,” so he takes it off, and drops it in the trash.

That’s when I lost it. Not a giggle fit. No—this was an all-out raging guffaw fest; the kind that leaves your insides hurting and your limbs quivering when you’re done.

“Hahahahahahahahal’msorry,” I squealed. “Hahahahahahaha can’thelpithahahahahaha.”

“I’ll wait,” said the man who had the power to expel me.

I tried to stop by tensing all my muscles, but that didn’t work. Finally I made myself imagine the look on my mother’s face when she found out I was expelled from the New York City Public School System for laughing at my principal, and that image drowned my laughter just as effectively as the sparkling water had drowned his tie.

“Are you done?”

I took a deep breath. “Yes, I think so.”

He waited until the last of my convulsions faded, pouring the glass of sparkling water into a bonsai at the edge of his desk. “What’s life if we can’t laugh at ourselves?” he said. Oddly, I found myself respecting him all of a sudden, for the way he kept his cool.

“How many hours?” I asked, not wanting to draw this out any longer than necessary.

“I’m not sure I understand the question?”

“I got detention, right? Because of the stuff with Gunnar. I just want to know how many hours? Does it include Saturday school? Do my parents have to know, or can we keep this between you and me?”

“I don’t think you understand, Anthony.” And then he smiled. It’s not a good thing when principals smile.

“So . . . I’m suspended? C’mon, it’s not like I hurt anybody—it’s only pieces of paper—I was trying to make the guy feel better about dying and all. How many days?”

“You’re not in trouble,” said Principal Sinclair. “I called you in because I wanted to donate a month of my own.”

I just stared at him. Now it was his turn to laugh at me, but he didn’t bust up laughing like I did, he just chuckled. “Actually,” he said, “I’m impressed by what you’ve started. It shows a level of compassion I rarely see around here.”

“So ... you want me to write you up a contract?”

“For me, and for the secretaries in the front office—and for Mr. Bale.”

“The security guard wants to give a month, too?”

“You’ve started a schoolwide phenomenon, Anthony. That poor boy is lucky to have a friend like you.”

He gave me a list of names to write contracts up for, and I was a little too shell-shocked to say much more. Then, just before I left, I looked into the trash can. “Keep that tie,” I told him. “Throw away the yellow paisley one. That’s the one everyone makes fun of.”

He looked at me like I had just given him an early Christmas gift. “Thank you, Anthony! Thank you for letting me know.”

I left with a list of five names, and the strange, unearthly feeling that comes from knowing your principal doesn’t hate your guts.

Following up on his schoolwide-phenomenon speech to me, Principal Sinclair insisted that I go on Morning Announcements, to make the whole donated-month thing legitimate school business.

Morning Announcements are kind of a joke at our school. I mean, we got all this video equipment, right, but no one knows how to use it. There’s an anchor girl who reads cue cards like she’s still stuck in the second level of Hooked on Phonics. And let’s not forget the kid who has the nervous habit of adjusting himself on-air whenever he’s nervous—which is whenever he’s on-air. Occasionally Ira would submit a funny video, but lately there hasn’t been much worth watching.

“Just read your lines off the cue cards,” the video techie told me, but like I said, public speaking ranks right up there with being eaten alive by ants on my list of unpleasant activities.

After doing my own morning announcement, I now know firsthand why those other kids look like idiots on TV, and I have new respect for Crotch Boy and Phonics Girl.

“Hello, I’m Anthony Bonano with news for you. As many of you know, our friend Gunnar Umlaut has been diagnosed with PMS, which is a rare life-threatening disease, pause, so I’m asking you, point at camera, to open up your hearts and donate a month of your life as a symbolic gesture, to show Gunnar that we really care. And in return, you’ll get a T-shirt that says ?Gunnar’s Time Warriors.’ Really? There’s a T-shirt? Cool! Our goal is to collect as much time as possible. Remember, ?Don’t be a dunth. Donate a month.’ Now excuse me while I go beat the crap out of whoever wrote that. Did I just say crap on live TV?”

Crotch Boy, Phonics Girl, and now the Blithering Wonder.

***

It began even before I went to my next class. I was grabbed in the hallway by people who didn’t seem to care how moronic I looked on TV. They all wanted to make time donations. Everyone had their own reason for it. One guy did it to impress his girlfriend. One girl hoped it would get her into the popular crowd. Although I didn’t want to spend all my free time at my computer printing out time contracts, I couldn’t just walk away from what I had started, could I? Besides—there was a kind of power to being the go-to guy. The Master of Time. I even felt like I should start dressing for the part, you know? Like wearing a shirt and tie, the way the basketball team does on the day of a big game. So I found this tie covered with weird melting clocks designed by some dead artist named Dolly. Okay, I admit it, this was really starting to go to my head—like when Wendell Tiggor said he wanted to donate some time.

“You can’t,” I told him, “on account of Gunnar needs life, not wastes-of-life.”

The thing is, Tiggor’s famous for having really lame comeback lines, like, “Oh yeah? If I’m a waste of life, then you’re a stupid stupidhead.” (Sometimes the person he was insulting would have to feed him a decent comeback line out of pity.)

This time, however, Tiggor didn’t even try. He just pouted and slumped away. Why? Because the Master of Time had spoken, and he was deemed unworthy.

What happened next, well, I guess I could blame it on Skaterdud, but it’s not his fault—not really. I blame it on Restless Recipe syndrome. That’s something my father once taught me.