having the same problem as me.
great
george.
I couldn’t use the same word as George or people
would think I was copying him.
138
So I sat there for a while trying to think of
another good “G” word, but everyone was staring
at me and my mind just went blank.
Then Mrs. Libby chimed in to try and bail me out.
jolly
greg!
Everyone seemed pretty happy with that, even
though “Jolly” doesn’t start with the letter “G.”
And it makes you wonder about our education
system, especially since Mrs. Libby is the eighth-
grade honors English teacher.
I thought “Jolly Greg” was a TERRIBLE
nickname, but before I could come up with
something better, the person to my left went,
and it was too late.
139
So now I was stuck with a stupid nickname for
the rest of the night, and probably until I go
off to college.
After that, we played a game called “I Never
Told Anyone This Before,” where we had to tell
everyone a secret. Mrs. Carr said the game would
help us “bond” with one another, but I think the
REAL purpose was to let the chaperones know
who the troublemakers were.
HELLO
my name is
Jolly Greg
i was the one who
spray painted a bad
word on the front
of the school!
scribble
scribble
140
My theory was proven right later on when Teddy
Caldwell went down the hall to the bathroom and
a chaperone trailed him.
We played a few more icebreakers, but nobody
could concentrate, because every five seconds one
of the cell phones in the electronics bag would
start buzzing or ringing. Then Mr. Tanner would
fish through the bag and try to find the phone
that was ringing so he could shut it off.
buzz
ring
ring
boys
subject approaching
the corridor-three
boys’ bathroom.
141
Eventually he just gave up and locked the bag in
the teachers’ lounge.
After the games were over, we had a fifteen-
minute rest break before our next activity. A
few of us had brought snacks, but there was a
strict no-snack policy, and we had to eat them
undercover.
shake
shake
chew
chew
chew
chew
The chaperones seemed to know EXACTLY who
had the snacks, and they confiscated about 95%
of them. Mr. Farley even found my cherry sour
balls, which were hidden in my pillowcase.
We finally realized that a mole was ratting us out.
It was Justin Spitzer, and he was being paid off
with the snacks the adults collected.
142
The only kid who still had junk food was Jeffrey
Chang, who had a huge bag of cheese puffs. I
think Jeffrey knew it was just a matter of time
before he was caught, so he locked himself in the
boys’ bathroom and tried to enjoy his snack. But
the adults figured out what was going on, and
Jeffrey panicked and got rid of the evidence.
we know
you’re in
there!
pound
pound
shake
shake
143
After our break we got back into the circle, and
Mrs. Dean told us we were gonna play a new game
called “Guess Who?” Then she split us up into ten
teams. I was on Team Three with George Fleer,
Tyson Sanders, and a few other kids.
I was just glad I didn’t have to be on the same
team as Rowley, because that would’ve been totally
uncomfortable.
Here’s how the game worked: Each team had to
go into another room and take a picture of one of
its members. But the picture had to be a close-up,
like of an ear or a nose or a hand or something
like that. Then each team would bring their
picture to the library, and the other teams would
have to guess who was in the picture.
144
Then Mrs. Dean said the winning team would
get ice cream sandwiches from the freezer in the
cafeteria. I have to admit, it sounded like a fun
game. But when she handed out the cameras,
there was practically a riot, since it had been
almost two hours since any of us had access to any
kind of technology.
Then we found out they were those old-fashioned
instant cameras that develop your pictures right
away, and everyone was a little disappointed,
because those kinds don’t have a screen or anything.
insta-shot
145
Our team went down to the science lab, where we
could take our photo in private. The first thing
we had to do was figure out who was gonna be in
the picture.
George Fleer said we should take a picture of his
belly button. But everybody thought that would
be too obvious because George has a serious outie,
and all the other groups would know EXACTLY
who it was.
We tried taking pictures of different kids in our
group, but most of them were too obvious.
Nicky Wood wanted the picture to be of him, but
he’s totally covered in freckles and we couldn’t
find a single part of him that wouldn’t be a dead
giveaway.
146
We took a picture of Christopher Brownfield’s
back, but we caught one of the Team Four kids
spying on us and we had to pick someone else.
HEY!
We took a bunch of pictures of Tyson Sanders,
but the best one was of his bent arm.
FLASH
147
You couldn’t even tell what the picture was of, so
that’s the one we went with.
When all the teams got back together in the
library, we put our picture up on the wall with
everybody else’s. And as soon as we saw the other
pictures, we knew we were gonna win.
SMACK
Some of the pictures were so easy to identify that
it was actually kind of pathetic.
148
In fact, don’t even ask me what the people on
Rowley’s team were thinking.
We were eager to get on with the guessing part
of the game, since we knew nobody would be able to
figure out who was in our picture. But Mr. Tanner
just stood there looking at our photograph.
hmm…
149
Then Mr. Tanner said that he didn’t appreciate
Team Three’s “juvenile stunt” and that we were
disqualified from the competition.
We all looked at one another, trying to figure
out what the heck Mr. Tanner was talking about.
But Mrs. Dean was mad, too. She said it was
completely inappropriate to take a picture of
someone’s “posterior.”
No one on my team knew what “posterior” meant,
but luckily we were in the library, so we looked
it up in the dictionary. And you’ll never believe
this, but it means “butt.” In fact, we found out
that there are about a million OTHER words for
“butt,” too.
hee hee hee hee!
150
But the teachers were MAD. They actually
thought we took a picture of somebody’s butt, and
I guess if you held the picture at a certain angle,
you could see how a person could make a mistake
like that.
Mr. Tanner said he was gonna call our parents
and tell them to come take us home, and he said
that the kid whose butt was in the picture was
gonna be in REALLY big trouble.
I knew that if Mr. Tanner called my parents
at 11:00 at night, they were not gonna be
happy, and I could tell a lot of the other kids
on my team were thinking the same thing. Then
George Fleer made a run for it, which kind of put
everyone into a panic.
151
So the rest of us ran, too.
It was every man for himself, and I ended up
hiding in the music room with Tyson Sanders. We
shut the lights off so nobody would come looking
for us there.
hey!
152
Tyson was really worried that the teachers were
gonna do a butt lineup to try and match the
picture to the right kid. But I told Tyson he
didn’t have anything to worry about, because he
pulls his pants all the way down when he uses the
urinal, so everyone already knows what his butt
looks like.
Me and Tyson were in the music room for a long
time, but we were finally caught by a couple of
teachers who used Justin Spitzer to sniff us out.
The chaperones brought us down to the library,
where all the other Team Three members were
already rounded up.
153
Well, everyone except Christopher Brownfield,
who for all I know is still hiding behind the soda
machine on the second floor.
Tyson told Mr. Tanner that the picture was of
his arm. Luckily, there’s a mole near Tyson’s elbow
that matched up with the one in the picture, or
I don’t think Mr. Tanner would’ve believed him.
After Mr. Tanner looked at the picture and
Tyson’s arm a few more times, he said he had made
an “innocent mistake” and that any “reasonable
person” would have done the same thing. It
seemed like a pretty lame apology to me, but I
was just glad he wasn’t still talking about calling
our parents.
154
After that, the party games were over, and the
adults said it was time for us to turn in for the
night. I think everyone who went to the Lock-
In was planning on staying up all night, but at
this point I was glad to go to sleep if it meant
the night might go by quicker.
I went to the auditorium to get into my sleeping
bag, which was parked right next to Jennifer
Houseman, who is actually not that bad-looking.
But the grown-ups said the girls needed to take
their stuff and move down the hall to the library
media room and the boys had to stay in the
auditorium.
I was hoping I could get some rest, but a lot
of the guys started horsing around, and it was
impossible to sleep.
155
At one point George Fleer started chasing people
around with his outie, which was pretty terrifying.
See, this is the kind of thing I can’t stand about
boys my age. When it comes down to it, they’re
just a bunch of wild animals.
When George started chasing people around, I
excused myself to go to the bathroom so I could
brush my teeth. The bathroom is in the back of
the auditorium, and the lights were off, so it was
really dark back there.
screeeam!
156
I heard this weird noise, and I got a little
freaked out for a second, because our school has a
problem with rodents. But it turned out to just be
Fregley playing by himself in the ball pit.
Around midnight Mr. Palmero, the school guidance
counselor, told everyone to get into their sleeping
bags and settle down. Then he said there was no
talking for the rest of the night and he didn’t
want to hear a peep out of anyone.
Every once in a while, somebody would cut the
cheese, and that made Mr. Palmero really mad
because he couldn’t figure out who was doing it.
Activity
Center
Boys
swish
swish
Ball Pit
157
After what happened earlier with the pictures,
I think the grown-ups were just really sensitive
about anything having to do with butts.
Mr. Palmero said that if anyone needed to “pass
gas,” they had to go behind the curtain on the
stage to do it.
So then a lot of the boys started taking turns
telling Mr. Palmero they needed to go behind the
curtain, and then they’d make the most obnoxious
noises you can imagine.
toot!
hee hee
hee!
158
its peak when David Rosenburg went down to the
music room and brought back a tuba.
I don’t know if it was a coincidence or not,
but right about that time the heat went off in
the auditorium.
frbbbbbt!
ha ha
ha!
BLARP!
159
In fact, I think someone turned the air
conditioner on. All I know is that everyone
stayed in their sleeping bags after that.
After a while Mr. Palmero fell asleep, but all the
boys were still awake. Some guys were saying this
was like prison, and people were talking about
busting out of there and going home.
The problem was that all the exits were padlocked.
I guess we should’ve known what we were getting
into when they called this thing a “Lock-In.”
shiver
shiver
shiver
chatter
chatter
chatter
chatter
160
Albert Sandy said he’d seen a movie where some
guy busted out of prison with a spoon, and a lot
of people got pretty excited about that idea.
But it turns out that was just a bunch of
Hollywood baloney, because we got some spoons
from the kitchen and we couldn’t even make a
DENT in the linoleum floor.
dink
dink
dink
dink
dink
dink
dink dink
161
At about 1:30 in the morning, someone noticed
flashing lights coming from outside, so we all went
to the back of the auditorium to see what was
going on.
There was a guy from the tow truck company,
and he was walking around Mr. Palmero’s car,
which was parked in a handicapped spot.
We tried to get the towing guy’s attention so he
could break us out of the school.
help
162
But the guy never heard us, and he towed Mr.
Palmero’s car. I thought about waking Mr.
Palmero up to tell him, but I figured we should
just let him get his rest.
By this time it was so cold in the auditorium that
us boys packed ourselves together like sardines to
preserve body heat.
I figured it was probably nice and toasty in the
library media room, and I was seriously thinking
about going back there and joining the girls.
shiver
shiver
shiver
shiver
shiver
163
But I figured I’d get caught and I’d just be
back where I started.
I think I probably fell asleep around 2:30. Then
at 3:00 there was a pounding on the back door
that woke everybody up. Mr. Palmero unlocked the
door, and there was a bunch of angry parents
standing outside.
Apparently, they’d been trying to call their
kids to make sure everything was OK, but the
kids weren’t answering, because Mr. Tanner took
everyone’s cell phones. So then the parents called
one another and everyone got all in a panic.
To make a long story short, the parents who
came to the school took their kids home with
them. And that left the only two kids who didn’t
have their own cell phones: me and Rowley. So
that was pretty awkward.
Something tells me this whole Lock-In idea was
just a scheme set up by the parents and teachers
to turn us kids off to boy-girl parties. And if
that’s true, then mission accomplished.
Activity
Ball Pit
165
Monday