“Mr. Kalman,” I say, but he turns away.
“It wasn’t on my driveway this morning.”
I tap him on the shoulder. He doesn’t turn around.
“Well, could you at least send a patrol car around tomorrow morning at, say, five thirty? Patrol car is a deterrent to this sort of crime.”
“Mr. Kalman!” I say again, jumping up and down and waving the plastic-wrapped newspaper at him.
He gives the dispatcher his address. “Otsego with two Os, beginning and end. It’s a Native American word meaning ‘rock,’ or ‘place of rendezvous.’ Thank you for providing good value for my tax dollars.”
Then he hangs up and turns around.
And sees what I’m holding in my hands.
“You’re the thief who stole my LA Times?”
“I didn’t steal it. I got it out of the gutter. Thought I’d save you from bending over.”
“You’re worse than a thief, then. A murderer.”
“How so?”
“Deprive a man of his daily exercise and you shave years off his life.”
“I was only trying to—”
“I don’t need any help.”
“Fine!” I say. “I’ll put it back where I found it.”
I haul back and hurl the paper onto the driveway. It skids into the gutter right where the delivery boy left it.
Man, that felt good!
I step off the creaky old porch of this cranky old man. He calls after me.
“What are you doing home anyway? You’re a school-age boy who’s supposed to be in school.”
“I got suspended.”
“No kidding. What for?”
“Refusing to do homework.”
He puts a hand to his forehead. It’s got nothing to do with a headache. Just his way of thinking.
“They give you a hearing?”
“A what?”
“A hearing. Did they inform you of the charges and give you an opportunity to respond?”
“No. They just threw me out.”
“Go back to school tomorrow.”
“I can’t. I told you, I’m suspended. Not allowed back for the rest of the week.”
“If they didn’t give you a hearing, it’s unconstitutional. Goss v. Lopez. Look it up.”
4
How to Annoy a Big Sister
I consider myself a pretty good reader. I’ve read all the Diary of a Wimpy Kid books, half of Harry Potter, and Shiloh, book 1. I’m partway through Black Ships Before Troy: The Story of the Iliad, even though the long words are making me dizzy and the violence is making me sick. I never miss an issue of Mad magazine, and I score in the 80th percentile on the reading part of the CAASPP. Not bad for a kid who’d rather be playing piano.
But this Goss v. Lopez business is way over my head. I download and print a PDF of the case and try to read it: The State is constrained to recognize a student’s legitimate entitlement to a public education as a property interest which is protected by the Due Process Clause and which may not be taken away for misconduct without adherence to the minimum procedures required by that Clause.
You could score in the 90th percentile and still not get what it means.
But if you scored in the 99.5th . . .
Sadie spends most of her time in her room. According to Bernice, teenagers naturally withdraw from the family. It’s how they practice being independent.
Her dirty dishes spend a lot of time in there, too. If I were an insect or a rodent, I would definitely live in Sadie’s room. For furniture it’s got plates with bits of cheese stuck to them and crusts of half-eaten sandwiches hanging off the edge. If you get thirsty, there’s always the last sip of coffee sludge at the bottom of the mug. And if you feel like taking a nap, there’s a mound of stinky laundry you can snuggle into. The perfect habitat for anything with a tail.
I, however, am never allowed in her room.
But I used to be. When I was younger, she would leave the door open for me. Sometimes she’d even let me sleep on her floor. In the morning, she’d lift her blanket and we’d snuggle under the covers. We’d make up stories one sentence at a time, and when we had them all worked out, we’d take down the box of Playmobil and turn our stories into stop-motion movies. They always had a boy trapped in a flood, stuck in a tree, or riding his bike too close to a cliff.
After I turned six and Sadie turned twelve, her door closed. A sign went up: NO SIBLINGS ALLOWED. PREMISES UNDER SURVEILLANCE.
With words like that on her door, Sadie’s bound to understand Goss v. Lopez, right?
I take a deep breath, make my hand into a fist, and tap. You couldn’t hear that knock if you had a stethoscope pressed to the other side of the door.
I do a second knock, followed by a harder one, then one more soft one as if to say, Sorry if that was too loud.
The door swings open. I stand there pinned by my big sister’s eyes.
“Can you translate something for me?”
“What’s the source language?”
“English.”
“What’s the target language?”
“English I can understand.”
She puts out a hand. Note, she does not invite me in.
I give her the printout of Goss v. Lopez. She looks at it, then at me.
“What is this?”
“Supreme Court decision. Mr. Kalman told me to look it up.”
“Why don’t you get him to translate it for you?”
“I can’t afford him.”
“I don’t have time for this,” she says. “I’ve got two hundred fifty pages to read for AP English, the SAT to retake on Saturday, a mock trial to prepare for, my Common App essay to write, and a boyfriend I haven’t even had time to kiss!”
Which might explain the door that just slammed in my face.
If there’s one thing I, Samuel Ellis Warren, am good at, it’s turning a “no” into a “yes.” Want a later bedtime? Tell your parents you can’t fall asleep because you’re scared you won’t wake up. Even a hint of your untimely death will buy you a half-hour of cuddling. Outraged by the tiny portion of dessert
