A Month of Mondays Page 20

  The TV flickered blue-and-green in the dark room, lighting up Jess’s face, ghostlike. The shrill of the phone pierced the thick silence between us. I reached across her and grabbed the receiver. “Hello?”

  “Suze? What are you doing home?” Amanda asked.

  “Why do you always call and ask me why I’m here?”

  “I wanted to leave you a message saying I hoped it went well. Why aren’t you at the meeting?”

  “Yeah…that…I’m not going.”

  “What do you—” Her cell phone cut out for a second.

  “What?” I asked.

  “What do you mean you’re not going?”

  “I’m not doing it alone, that’s all.”

  “But you have to. You’ll be fine.”

  “I can’t do it without you.”

  “You have to,” she repeated. “What about Honors English?”

  “I don’t care.”

  “Yes, you do.”

  “No, I don’t. I wish everyone would quit telling me what I think.”

  “You don’t want to go back to regular English,” she said. “I know you don’t.”

  “Yeah, well, you should’ve thought of that before you went running around like an idiot breaking your finger.”

  “I didn’t do it on purpose, you know? Leigh and I were playing catch and I slipped in the mud.”

  There was no way girly-girl Leigh was playing catch. Amanda had been doing something stupid again and didn’t want to admit it. “Whatever.”

  “If you don’t care about yourself,” she said, “what about the custodians?”

  “Not my problem.”

  “What about Yoda?”

  Well, that wasn’t playing fair at all. I was really disappointed in Amanda. How could she throw Yoda into it? “He’s ready to retire anyway,” I mumbled.

  “Fine. Be that way. Just think about yourself and your own pathetic little life.”

  Dead silence on her end. She’d obviously hung up so I did the same thing. “Suze,” Jessica said, in a low voice.

  “Yeah?”

  “What about your insider info?”

  “Who cares about that?”

  The front door flew open.

  “Susan Jennifer Tamaki! Where the heck are you?” AJ stormed into the living room huffing and puffing. “I’ve been sitting in the parking lot for ten minutes and your phone’s been busy and you’re not answering your cell. I better have climbed these stairs for a very good reason. Like you better be dead.”

  “I’m not going.” It came out more squeaky than I’d intended.

  “Like hell you’re not. Get up.”

  “Amanda broke her finger,” I said. “And I’m not doing it alone.”

  “Get your stuff and let’s go.”

  I didn’t move. Jessica squirmed on the couch next to me.

  “I’m driving her,” said a soft, clear voice from the kitchen doorway.

  AJ swung around and faced Caroline. They took each other in slowly, checking out the damage of ten years on their bodies. AJ nodded curtly. “Caroline.”

  “Jenny.”

  Silence.

  “I’ll give Susan a ride,” Caroline said. “We were just leaving.”

  “As long as she gets her butt over there, I don’t give a damn how she does it,” AJ conceded. As she lumbered out of the room, she yelled back at me. “I’ll see you at the high school in ten minutes. Or else.”

  The door slammed behind her and I turned my attention back to the TV. “I’m still not going.”

  “Well, don’t you think you should at least call your dad at work?” Jessica asked.

  “Why?”

  “Wasn’t he going to pick up Yoda and take him to the meeting?”

  Oh. Dad. Hmmm. Yeah…. “What time is it?”

  “Ten to seven,” she said.

  “Really? He’s probably already there.”

  I knew what she was trying to do. She wanted me to jump into Caroline’s car and whiz over to the school and give my presentation. Well, nothing doing. Dad would figure it out for himself when I didn’t show. What did he care anyway? I doubt he would’ve even taken the time off from work if he hadn’t heard Caroline was going to be there. Not that he wanted to see her. He just didn’t want to be the slacker parent.

  That thought stirred something in my brain. Hadn’t my plan been to get my entire family in the same room? Wasn’t that one of the reasons I’d agreed to do it? Aside from the whole SuperUnderdog thing, making everyone proud of me might pull my family together. I wasn’t stupid enough to think we’d be a “happy little family” after the meeting, but maybe if I did it, we’d all go out for ice cream afterward like Amanda’s family always does. For good ice cream, though, not that gross green tea stuff.

  I got up and went to our bedroom, throwing the door open with a bang. Tracie jumped, startled. She was sitting at her desk, her textbooks piled in front of her, but none of them were open.

  I put my hands on my hips and gave her my best AJ laser-look. “If I do this thing tonight, are you coming along to cheer me on?” I asked.

  “What? Yeah. Of course. Are you going to do it after all?”

  I stood there, not answering, still trying to work it all out in my mind. Caroline was going to drive me, which meant she’d be in the audience. And AJ and Uncle Bill were probably already there with my dad.

  I nodded, more to myself than in response to Tracie’s question. And then I drew in a deep breath, steeling myself…calling up my Super Powers to get me through this. Because what I realized was Yoda wasn’t the only underdog around here. Tonight, doing this presentation all by myself, for what was probably already a lost cause, made me the biggest underdog in the room.

  “Well, get up and let’s go,” I told Tracie. “Or we’re gonna be late.”

  I found Caroline and Jess sitting in the living room, whispering. No doubt about how to talk me into going to the meeting.

  I grabbed my coat off the back of the chair. “What are you guys waiting for? Christmas?” I asked. “Let’s get this show on the road.”

  Chapter 34

  Jessica and I stood in the doorway of the high-school auditorium.

  “Where is everyone?” I whispered to her. She shrugged.

  I guess I’d expected it to be full, so I was pretty surprised to see only a handful of adults in the first few rows. Surprised, but not disappointed. About halfway back sat the entire Honors English class, most of them texting on their phones. Baker gave them extra credit for coming. I wondered if I’d get extra credit too. Ha. I’d be lucky to get a passing grade.

  On the stage was a long table with seven or eight people seated behind it. On one side were Farbinger, Baker, and two empty chairs. I began the long walk down the aisle, knowing one of those empty seats was for me but wishing it wasn’t.

  Caroline was parking the car.

  Tracie had walked.

  Sometimes she’s just dumb.

  Baker saw us come in and waved me up onto the stage. Some of the parents turned to look, and I clutched Amanda’s computer to my chest so tight I’m surprised I didn’t crack the case. As I passed the front row, AJ reached out and squeezed my wrist presumably for good luck. Either that, or as a threat.

  The stairs were on one side and Baker was on the other, so I had to walk all the way across the stage behind the meeting to get to him. How totally embarrassing. I bet the whole Honors Class was whispering about my hair. Or lack thereof.

  “I’d just about given up on you,” Baker said in a low voice as I sat down. I could tell he was trying not to show me how shocked he was by my new look. “Where’s Amanda?”

  “She broke her finger playing catch.”

  “Oh, okay,” he said. “Well, you’re up next.”

  Great. Just great.

 
Amanda had shown me how to hook up the computer to the projector in Baker’s room, it was just a plug-in thing, so not a big deal. It was choosing the projector from the menu that worried me. What if I couldn’t figure that part out? I sat there sweating, my face burning, my scalp naked. And then Baker stood at the microphone, introducing me. Everyone clapped politely as I walked to the podium. What was I going to say? Here I was, standing in front of the whole world with a bald head, a laptop that wasn’t mine, and twice as much stuff to present as I’d practiced saying.

  I was steaming under my sweater and my tights made my legs prickle. Pretty soon I’d be a pile of clothing on the stage floor just like the Wicked Witch. Before I could melt into oblivion, which by now was my only goal, I’d finished plugging the cable in and miracle of miracles, I thought the projector was going to work, but then I looked behind me at the screen, and it was black.

  I really needed the Good Witch now. Or maybe my fairy godmother. Or that sorceress who made everyone go to sleep in Sleeping Beauty. That would be great.

  Something!

  I tried pushing a few buttons on the keyboard, but nothing happened. Everyone was waiting. I couldn’t stall forever. I’d have to do the talk without the visuals. I stepped up to the microphone. My mind whizzed around like a trapped fly. English. Baker. French. Exams. Cheating. Studying. AJ. Caroline. Tracie. Amanda. Dad. Jessica. Fried hair. No hair. Pretty much everything filled my brain except our project.

  I needed to concentrate. I needed to talk about janitors. No. Not janitors. Don’t call them janitors. Panic rose in me as I looked out over the sea of faces in the auditorium. Well, mostly it was a room full of empty seats, but there were still plenty of people to freak me out. I could hear a voice speaking, but I didn’t know who it was.

  “Custodians are an integral part of the school system.”

  Hey! It was me talking. And the speech part was going okay. In fact, I was starting to relax a little. And then I got to where we showed our first graph, but of course, the screen was blank. I tried to keep going, but it was totally stupid without it. I had to get the computer working, so I tried again, pushing a few keys here and there. Nothing happened. I looked out at the audience, hoping a tech geek would jump up and offer to help. No one did. I pushed another button. Forget the graph. I’d have to plough through anyway.

  “In this figure…” I said. “Well, if you could see the figure, you would see we did a poll at the grade school.”

  This was not working out. Hot tears welled up in my eyes. What was I going to do? Not only was I flunking English, but I was making a fool of myself too. Plus, I’m sure my family was so proud. Not.

  “I…ummm…I’m really sorry,” I said, turning to the school board. “My English partner, Amanda Whitmore…she broke her finger a few hours ago and she couldn’t be here. This is her computer and I don’t know how to make it work.”

  I knew my face was bright red and no bangs protected me from the crowd. I stood there bare-faced, hairless, lights shining in my eyes…nowhere to hide.

  A man at the school board table stood up. “Let me see if I can help,” he said. He pushed a couple of buttons and behind me, the screen lit up with our graph. My knight in shining armor! An old knight, but still.

  “Thanks,” I said, letting out a shuddery breath.

  “My pleasure.”

  Miraculously, even with the bad start, it all came flooding back to me. I got out all the info about the polls we took without too much trouble. That was my section, so I knew it pretty well. I couldn’t help glancing back at Farbinger when I mentioned how I’d tested the custodians to see if they noticed kids in the halls who shouldn’t be there, and he narrowed his beady little eyes at me, which almost made me laugh. When I got to the finances I was a little bit worried. I hoped I had the latest numbers. I took a deep breath and plunged in. I doubted anyone was going to check our info anyway.

  “Although it may seem as if the school district would save money,” I read from Amanda’s cards, “it is not likely the projected numbers are correct. For one thing, eight of the custodians who would be replaced are actually eligible for retirement, which means they will continue to cost the district money but they won’t be working.

  “Also, the proposed company the board would subcontract with would provide cleaning people, but not trained workers capable of maintaining the older buildings. They would be unfamiliar with past repairs and procedures.”

  I put up a few more figures on the screen and then rattled off some numbers Amanda had calculated herself. I hoped they were remotely close. The slideshow followed, and as far as Baker knew, that was the end of the presentation. But I had one more thing up my sleeve.

  I took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

  “I want to wrap up this presentation with a video I made.”

  I slipped the thumb drive into the USB slot and clicked the file open. On the screen, the video started with a scene of me standing in front of the curtain in AJ’s living room. The camera zoomed in on my face. “What you are about to see are true facts,” I said. “The person providing this information must remain anonymous to protect her job, family, and future.”

  I was exaggerating a little about the family part. It’s not like the school district would knock off any of Trina’s kids. At least, I didn’t think they would. The camera panned back again showing someone (it was actually AJ) silhouetted behind the sheer drape.

  “What can you tell me about the custodian situation in your school district?” I asked the shadowy figure.

  “Overall, since the replacement of custodians by the subcontracted janitors, the schools are becoming visibly worn down.” AJ read from Mrs. Blevins’ notes. “The halls have not been painted in three years. That was something they did every summer in the past. Lockers are jamming, and no one can get them open, which is causing a shortage of locker space. And rain gutters are literally falling off the buildings.”

  “Were the custodians replaced by the same number of janitors?”

  “No. Not even close,” AJ continued. “On average we now have one of the subcontracted janitors for every four former custodians.”

  “One janitor is doing the job of four custodians?”

  “Yes, and no. That’s the problem. There’s only one janitor, and not only is he not physically capable of doing the job of four, he also isn’t trained at all in maintenance.”

  “So, you’re saying no one does the maintenance anymore?”

  “Exactly.”

  I watched myself up on the big screen. I looked pretty good. Of course, that was before I was a pixie. “If no one’s doing maintenance, what happens when there are serious problems?”

  “Well, for the big stuff, they hire professionals. The real issues are what would normally be considered small problems. For example, last autumn no one knew how to turn the boiler on, so we didn’t have any heat. They had to send all the students and staff home until they could hire a furnace service to come and turn it on.”

  “What about the school grounds?” I asked her.

  AJ and I had written the script based on the notes we’d “found” in the mailbox so I was sort of leading her on, like a big time TV reporter. It was cool.

  “Parents and volunteers are taking care of the school grounds now. If they don’t, then the grass and weeds get out of control.”

  I asked a few more pertinent questions, which my “source” answered. I was aware every now and then of some murmuring in the audience when she said stuff that was so ridiculous it was sad. It was very exciting for me. When the video was over I stepped up to the microphone for my final point.

  “According to Webster’s New World College Dictionary, a custodian is a person with the responsibility for the care and maintenance of a building. Responsibility. Care. Maintenance. That’s what our custodians provide the Maywood School District.”

  The applaus
e was deafening. Well, it was in my head. In reality it was pretty solid. Okay, a little scattered. But people definitely clapped. At least they were awake. I slid into my seat next to Baker, exhausted and exhilarated at the same time.

  SuperUnderdog to the rescue!

  Chapter 35

  I sat there in English class, my bangs draped over my face, covering me, protecting me. Sleeping. Dreaming.

  “Suze,” Baker said in my ear.

  I snapped to attention.

  I was still on the stage. The school board was discussing something, but I had no idea what. Once I had sat down next to Baker, all the exhaustion of my day had wrapped itself around me like a blanket. The stage lights felt warm and soothing, instead of cold and harsh, and I guess I’d zoned out. “What?” I said. “I’m awake.”

  “They’re going to decide,” Baker said.

  My knight was in charge. “How do you vote?” he asked each member.

  “After careful consideration of the facts,” said a woman in a green suit. “I vote in favor of replacing the custodians with subcontractors.”

  After careful consideration? Was she paying attention to anything I’d said? What about Amanda’s numbers? My knight asked the next man in the navy pinstripe suit. And then the woman with long red hair. And every one of them voted to get rid of the custodians.

  “Well then,” the man—no longer my knight—said. “We’ve reached an agreement.”

  “Wait!” I yelled jumping up from my seat. “Are you all crazy? Weren’t you listening?”

  “Young lady,” he said. “I’ll have to ask you to sit down.”

  Baker put a hand on my shoulder. “Suze.”

  “No. I won’t sit down,” I said. “This is insane. Didn’t you hear what my source told you? Don’t you realize everything she said is true? I didn’t make up any of this stuff.”

  “Young lady—”

  “Sit down,” Farbinger hissed at me.