Chapter 37

I woke up realizing it was the last day before I had to return to school. As I got dressed for my chores, I reflected on the amazing week I’d had. Band practice and baseball were a blast. Planning automation for PASCO with Monique and Phyllis had been fun and rewarding too. Seeing my Philly family at Easter was wonderful too. Even chores with Willie had been great. When I thought about it, I realized that I had spent time with virtually all of my favorite people in the world this week. That thought put a big smile on my face.

Willie had almost beaten me again to the chickens this morning, so like yesterday, I let him take over with the eggs, while I went right up to Amber and started getting her ready to milk. Pretty soon, I had started just as Willie sat down on the stool next to Daisy.

“School tomorrow,” groused Willie.

“Yeah, but look on the bright side. You don’t have to go back to the Ledbetters.” I said, with a grin. “Besides, in two months we’re out for the summer.”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“Is everything going okay for you at school, Willie?”

“Not really. I’m passing my classes, but my grades ain’t up to much.”

I was surprised. Monique had told me that Willie was one of the smartest kids in his grade at Horton Elementary. Horton was one of the three elementary schools that fed the middle school (Meadow, Horton and Frazier). The school was on the outskirts of town, not too far from Carling. Carling was a suburb of the County seat and had a small to moderate black population (about twenty-five percent). Outside of David and his brother and sister, most of the black kids in our school system went to Horton.

“What’s happened?”

“I fell behind in my homework,” he admitted.

“When you were at the Ledbetters?” I asked.

He lowered his head, but still managed to nod.

“That’s strange. They always seemed to use homework as an excuse for you not to see Monique.”

“They had me doing chores a lot. I did all the lawn work and we had to do all the cleaning in the house. Between helping with the younger kids and all of the chores I fell behind.”

I was ripped, but knew that there was nothing we could do about it now. At least Willie was out of that situation and was turning his life around.

“I’ll talk to Mom about getting you a tutor and you can count on me for help too,” I said, as I patted my foster brother on his shoulder.

“Thanks, Tommy,” he smiled at me.

Willie was still going to Horton. He confessed that he didn’t have a lot of friends there. Since he still had a year left in school, I thought it would make sense for him to go to Meadow Elementary, as he now lived in that district. His three foster cousins, (Mike, Bridget and James), Emily Parker and Maggie Bridges all went there too. They all seemed to like Willie so I would suggest it to my parents. It really made sense because right now, he was being bussed out of district, so hopefully it would be easy to get him there for sixth grade in September.

When we finished the chores, we had a special breakfast. I was surprised to see my whole East Chilton family there and Aunt Sylvia! She, Grandma, Aunt June and Mom were working hard on special dishes like Eggs Benedict (a recipe that Grandma told me she got from Gran). Aside from that, there were egg dishes of all kinds, hash browns, bacon, Canadian bacon and Aunt June’s homemade sausages (made from hogs raised on their farm). It was truly a breakfast of champions. Yum! After we got cleaned up and dressed, we all caravanned to church in five vehicles.

We met Monique at church and I got to visit my old friends Karl, Axel and Johnny after the service. Johnny was pretty happy about their big win over divisional co-leaders, the Eagles. I decided that it had been too long since I last hung out with my friends and played Atari, so I inquired what their plans were after they left church.

“Why do you want to know?” asked Karl.

“Just curious. I miss you guys and was hoping we could hang out today.”

Axel grinned. “Well, to be honest, we have plans with our girlfriends later.”

“We figured that since you hang out with your girlfriends so much that we should start hanging out with ours on Sunday,” added Karl.

I just sighed. While it was true that my life was so much more full and interesting than it had been a couple of months ago, I was missing the simple fun me and my original two friends used to have. “Maybe we can get together one of these days. I really miss hanging out with you guys and your Mom’s grilled cheese sandwiches and her homemade tomato soup, Karl.”

“Yeah, they are special,” agreed Axel, which made Karl smile at the praise of his mom.

“I guess that would be okay. Axel and I spend most of our time with Angie and Dana these days. We rarely play Atari together anymore,” frowned Karl.

“Count me in. Hopefully the girls will understand,” agreed Axel.

I smiled. While I ate lunch with my friends every day and they were extended members of our group, we rarely talked much. I wanted to be sure not to lose my friends as I started making others due to my popular girlfriends.

I spent the afternoon practicing guitar (and showing Willie how to play a little, though he got bored), studying and doing afternoon chores. Supper was laid back as we had eaten a ton at breakfast. It was leftover chicken casserole from the other night, but still quite tasty.

That evening, I got an interesting call.

“Hello?” I said, reaching the phone first because I was walking by it after dinner on my way to my room.

“Is this Tommy?” asked the male voice.

“Yes, Sir.”

“Tommy, It’s Mr. Crane,” said my History teacher. “I’m sorry to bother you at home, but I was talking to Mrs. Douglas and Mr. Harris. Do you remember when I suggested getting you placed out of Freshman English, History and Algebra?” he asked

“Yes, Sir.”

“Well Mr. Harris had a better idea. He feels with all of the extra credit assignments you have done for him and the extra credit essays you’ve written for Mrs. Douglas that you could actually get class credit for that work. This way, you might even be able to graduate early if you complete an independent study or two within the next few years. How does that sound?”

“Great, Sir. What about your class?” I asked.

“I could give you some of next year’s course material for you to read. Then you could complete some essays and I could give you a final on the material. I’ve spoken to Gene Hardy, who teaches a couple of sections of freshman history. He and I are old friends. He told me that I could assign you the work and if you could pass his final exam for freshman history with at least an eighty and complete three essays, you could be given full credit for the course. Mr. Harris and Mrs. Douglas have done the same thing with their counterparts and Mr. Seiling and your guidance counselor have given their blessing. All that remains is to see if you are interested.”

I thought for a moment. Did I really want to graduate early from high school? My gut reaction was no. I had two girlfriends in my class and had a number of other close friends. Did I really want to leave them behind and leave a year early? That answer was ‘no’. Then I thought about the notion of getting to start my adult life early and I found that thought to be incredibly attractive. By graduating early, I would be able to go to college and graduate from there early too. In the end, I believed that my relationships could survive me being a year ahead.

“I’m very interested,” I said.

“Well, talk it over with your parents. If they have any questions, please feel free to have them contact me.”

He provided his phone number and we disconnected the call.

I spent the next hour talking to my parents. While they expressed some concerns, they were proud of me and we ultimately decided to move ahead with the plan. After that, my head hit my pillow and I slept until the rooster crowed.

After I awoke and got dressed, I was greeted by a cool, late April western Pennsylvania morning. Willie and I groused through our morning chores (as we both were not super enthusiastic about going back to school). Then I grabbed a quick Grandma breakfast before making my way to the bus stop.

“I hear you guys won again,” said Tim.

“You guys, too,” I smiled at my friend.

“What’s the matter, Dave? The zombies get you down?” grinned Tim.

David’s team, the Cheetahs lost to our next week’s opponent, McNeely’s Funeral Home Wolves in a squeaker (5-4). Tim seemed to enjoy referring to the Wolves as ‘Zombies’, because they had won all four of their games by just one run and like zombies they were hard to knock off.

“We should have won that game,” muttered David.

“Woulda, coulda, shoulda,” laughed Tim.

“Laughed it up Elk-boy. You guys have only won two games.”

Tim shut up because David was right. If anything, three of the Elks five losses were lost by only one run. If anything, they were the opposite of the zombies.

I heard Jacob Turner laugh, but I glared at him and he closed his mouth. He never played baseball beyond Little League, so he had nothing to add to our conversation.

The morning dragged, as English was tense. I guess the rumor mill must have worked its magic because Mrs. Douglas looked miserable. I wanted to talk to her after class, but instead, she whispered that she would call me tonight.

Mr. Crane took some time to talk to me after class, as I told him that we would go ahead with my academic advancement plan. He smiled and assigned me some text books to read and then wrote me a pass for my next class.

Later, I talked to Mr. Harris. I would have the least work to do to qualify to complete my ‘Algebra 1’ studies. All of the extra problems he had assigned me would go towards completing my classwork requirement. All I would need to do was to pass the final with an eighty or better and that would be a breeze for me.

Talking to Mr. Crane and Mr. Harris were the bright spots of the morning. Otherwise, I had heard lots of gossip from both kids and teachers about Mrs. Douglas in the corridors and even in one of my classes. By lunch time, I was already in a bad mood. I had heard a couple teachers gossiping in the hall about Mrs. Douglas and had barely been able to hold my tongue. When I saw Mrs. Hicks, the librarian talking to Mrs. Ramsey, who taught seventh grade math and who was on lunch duty, I carefully approached them.

“ ... and you should have seen the way Sarah Douglas fawned all over Mr. Thomas. No wonder her poor husband had to find comfort with Yolanda,” stated Mrs. Hicks, referring to my rather indifferent Spanish teacher.

I had another reason to dislike that woman. Sarah Douglas had told me about Miss Yolanda Perez’s affair with Mr. Douglas when she call me last week.

“I heard she and Joe Thomas had a little love nest in Pine Bluff,” replied Mrs. Ramsey.

I had heard enough. “Why don’t you ladies talk a little louder? I don’t think that everybody in the cafeteria heard you!” I yelled.

Mrs. Ramsey at least had the decency to look embarrassed, but Mrs. Hicks just looked angry. “Take your seat young man or you’ll be in detention,” she spat.

“You’re not on Cafeteria duty, Mrs. Hicks, so it is not your job to discipline me,” I spat back.

I saw her eyes grow wide and I continued. “Of course, if Mrs. Ramsey chooses to discipline me, I’ll have no choice but to go to Acting Principal Seiling and explain my outburst. I’m sure he’ll be happy to hear that his teachers are spreading gossip and lies about one of their colleagues!” I snarled, as I turned on my heel and walked back to my friends table.

“Damn!” whistled Billy, as he and a bunch of other students nearby saw my performance.

“Thanks, Tommy! I love Mrs. Douglas and could hear what they were saying all the way over here,” added Angie.

“She looked like she was going to cry in class today, and I got so mad!” I said, putting my face in my hands.

“Good job, Loverboy,” smiled Janie, as she and Jen rubbed my shoulders.

“No PDA!” I heard above me, as I removed my face from my hands and saw Mrs. Hicks glaring at me.

“We’ll stop rubbing his shoulders if you stop gossiping!” yelled Jennifer.

I saw Mrs. Hicks’ eyes get wide again.

“Yeah, why don’t you hop on your broom and fly back to the library,” laughed Janie.

Mrs. Hicks face turned bright red. “You’ve not heard the last about this!” she spat.