Invisible Inkling

There Is No Partial Credit

At school, the good news is that Sasha Chin from downstairs is in my class. When she sees me come into the room, she bangs a rhythm on the table where she’s sitting.

Bam bam! Dada bam bam!

I’m hanging up my backpack, but I bang the same rhythm back on the wall behind my hook. Bam bam! Dada bam bam!

It’s a thing we do sometimes.

The bad news is that Locke, Linderman, and Daley are here, too. They’re these girls Chin likes to hang around with. Them being in our class means that more than half the time Chin will be in girlie land—and not with me.

They’re, like, her official friends.

I’m just the kid from her building she hangs out with.

Our teacher, Ms. Cherry, has complicated hair and wears very high heels. “Strangers are friends you haven’t gotten to know yet,” she announces, in one of those fake teacher voices, high and jolly. “That’s our motto for the start of this year. Friends are flowers in the garden of life. Let’s plant an imaginary friendship flower bed together, here in our classroom!”

I don’t think Ms. Cherry would understand about me and Chin being building friends but not official friends. Still, the day is going okay, for a first-ever school day without Wainscotting. We meet the new science teacher, who has a lab with frogs and giant hissing cockroaches. And we get to tell about our summer vacations.

I think my summer is going to sound boring, because all I did was hang out in Big Round Pumpkin week after week, but Linderman and Daley have lots of questions about the shop and how we make the ice cream. So I feel kinda good, knowing the answers.

Everything is really all right—until gym class.

I have never been able to pay attention in gym. No matter what we’re doing, my mind gets going with ideas that have nothing to do with sports. Today we’re starting a soccer unit, and when the teacher is talking about halfbacks and midfielders and wingers and strikers, I think about how Nadia told me that if I went in her room again, she’d scoop my eyeballs out with a teaspoon and flush them down the toilet.

I wonder if you can really truly do that kind of eyeball scooping, or whether eyeballs are actually difficult to remove from their sockets.

If they were easy to get out, wouldn’t eyeballs pop out by accident all the time? And sometimes you’d just see one lying on a counter in a public bathroom, or on the street, like you do candy wrappers?

That never happens. You never see eyeballs lying around.

So they must be hard to get out.

Kaminski, the gym teacher, takes us out into the big schoolyard. She divides us and kids from Mr. Hwang’s class into several teams. I’m on a team called the Pink Floyds. Our opposite team is the Foo Fighters.

“Scrimmage!” Kaminski yells, and blows her whistle.

We play.

I am being a midfielder or something like that. I don’t really know what’s going on, but I’m trying to fake it, running in the same direction as other kids who are Pink Floyds.

Suddenly, someone yells my name. “Hank! Go!”

A ball is flying through the air.

It’s coming at me.

Oh! I’ve got it.

I’ve actually got control of it.

I am going pretty fast. Down the court to the Pink Floyd goal.

A surge of joy spreads through me. I own that ball! People are cheering.

I kick the ball as hard as I can into the net.

Bam!

It’s in!

I’m breathing hard, but it feels great, making that goal. Amazing.

Kaminski blows her whistle. She has been blowing it for quite a while, I think, and with a rush I realize: Something is wrong.

The other kids are not cheering.

They are yelling.

Mean yelling.

“What was that?” A big kid called Gillicut looms over me. He’s in Mr. Hwang’s class.

“I made a goal,” I squeak.

Gillicut points at the net. “What goal is that?” he barks.

“Pink Floyd,” I say. “I mean, I know which is my team’s goal. I may not be a soccer dude, but I’m far from stupid.”

“Yeah, Spanky,” Gillicut sneers. “That is the Pink Floyd goal.”

“The name is Hank,” I say. “You are mispronouncing it, a little.”

“Pink Floyds put balls in the Foo Fighter goal,” says Gillicut. “Foo Fighters put balls in the Pink Floyd goal.”

Oh.

Drat.

“Sorry,” I say. And I really am. “But the ball did go straight in,” I add cheerfully. “Maybe our team could get partial credit?”

“There is no partial credit!” screams Gillicut. He sounds like he really, really cares about soccer. “You messed up the whole game.”

“Sorry,” I say again.

His huge Gillicut face is right on top of mine, and I’m scared he might actually murder me, he seems so mad.

Kaminski blows her whistle. “Break it up, boys. Sportsmanship, remember?”

Gillicut steps away. “Later, Spankitty Spankpants.”

“Later what?” I ask, my legs shaking.

“I. Will. See. You. Later,” he says.