Fourth Grade Rats

  For Bill and Ginny

  and

  Michael, Leslie, and Lonnie

  and

  my own fourth grade teacher

  Elizabeth Coleman

  an angel among rats

  Title Page

  Dedication

  1. Rats Don’t

  2. Real Meat

  3. Number One

  4. Zippernose and Bubba

  5. You’re Not Funny

  6. Joey Becomes a Man

  7. Trashing Joey’s Room

  8. Training Camp

  9. You Want a Rat?

  10. No!

  11. What’s Wrong with Joey?

  12. Me and Judy Billings

  13. Confession

  14. Me and Dad

  About the Author

  Also by Jerry Spinelli

  Copyright

  “First grade babies!

  Second grade cats!

  Third grade angels!

  Fourth grade … RRRRRATS!”

  It was the first recess of the first day of school. A mob of third-graders had me and Joey Peterson backed up against the monkey bars.

  They were giving us the old chant. When they came to the word “rats,” they screamed it in our faces. Then they ran off laughing.

  “I wish I was still in third grade,” I said.

  “Why?” said Joey.

  “So I could still be an angel.”

  “Not me.” He climbed onto the first bar. “I waited three years to be a rat.” He climbed to the next bar.

  “And now I am a rat.”

  He climbed to the top bar. He shouted over the school yard: “And proud of it!”

  I started to climb. My sneaker slipped on a bar, and I went down instead of up. The first thing I landed on was my hand. My thumb got bent back, way back.

  Pain!

  I howled. As loud as I could.

  It still hurt.

  I kicked the ground, the monkey bars, the nearest tree. My thumb still hurt, and so did my foot.

  Only one thing left to do. I cried.

  Joey’s voice came down from the high monkey bar: “Rats don’t cry.”

  The bell rang to end recess.

  I jogged, sniffling, to the door. When I got there, Judy Billings was behind me. Like a miracle, the pain in my thumb disappeared.

  For me, there was no such thing as pain when Judy Billings was around. I loved her. I was sure that any day she would start to love me back. In the meantime, she mostly ignored me.

  But I kept trying. Judy was in the other fourth grade class, so I didn’t see too much of her. When I did, I figured I had to make the most of it.

  That’s why I held the door open for her. She went through. As usual, she ignored me. I didn’t care. For one second, she was inches away. Heaven was a trainload of those seconds.

  A little while later, during Silent Reading, a spider crawled onto Becky Hibble’s book. Becky screamed and flipped her book into the air. The book landed on the floor. The spider landed in my lap.

  Next thing I know, I’m on my desktop, tap dancing and yelling, “Get ’im off me! Get ’im off me!”

  On the way to lunch, Joey’s whisper came again: “Rats don’t get scared of spiders.”

  We sat together in the lunchroom, just like last year. And we both brought our lunches from home, just like last year.

  We sat at our usual table. I opened my lunch box. I was checking out my stuff when I heard Joey snickering. I looked up. He was wagging his head. His face was smirky.

  I looked around the lunchroom. “What’s funny?”

  “That,” he said. He was pointing at my lunch box.

  “What’s wrong with it?” I said.

  “Ain’t that the same one you had last year?”

  “Yeah. So what?”

  He snickered again. “Look at it.”

  I looked at it. “So?”

  “What do you see?”

  “I see a lunch box. What do you see, a Martian?”

  He flipped the cover down. “Look at it. What’s on it? All over it.”

  I looked again. “Elephants.”

  He broke out laughing. He pounded the table. His face was red. I had never known I could make him so happy. He tried to talk a couple of times — “What — What —” but he kept cracking up. Finally he slapped his hand over his eyes and got it out. “What are they doing?”

  “The elephants?”

  “Yeah, yeah.”

  “They’re flying.”

  This time I thought lunch would be over before he stopped laughing. Other kids were looking over. Gerald Willis, a sixth-grader and the school bully, threw a french fry at Joey, but that didn’t stop him.

  I unwrapped my sandwich. I didn’t have all day.

  At long last, he took a deep breath. He said, “Right. Flying elephants. Big flapping ears. Doing yo-yo’s with their trunks.”

  “Some of them,” I corrected him. “Other ones have fishing poles.”

  His cheeks bulged with laugh balls, but he swallowed them. “Morton —” He made himself serious. “Don’t you get it?”

  “Get what?”

  “Flying elephants on your lunch box, man. That’s little kid stuff.” He picked up his paper bag. He wagged it in my face. “This is what a rat brings his lunch in.”

  I took a bite of my sandwich. “What do I care?”

  “That’s just it, man. You oughtta care.” He opened his bag. “If you don’t care, who will? Your mom probably got you that box, right?”

  “Yeah, I guess.”

  “Right. Moms. They just want to keep you a baby all your life. Suds, I’m telling ya, you gotta put a stop to it now. If you leave it up to your mom, you’ll be going off to college with a flying-elephant lunch box.”

  I looked at my lunch box. I’d had it since first grade, when I was a baby and glad of it. Most of the other kids broke their lunch boxes, or lost them, so they got new ones every year. My lunch box just kept rolling on. The elephants were fading, and some were even starting to look like hippos.

  But I loved my lunch box. It was like a brother to me. Now that I thought about it, I wasn’t even sure I could each lunch at school without it. And as for my lunch box going off to college with me someday — well, to tell you the truth, I didn’t see anything so bad about that.

  I looked at Joey. He was wagging his head and smirking again.

  Uh-oh, I thought, it’s not just the lunch box.

  “Okay,” I said, “now what?”

  He pointed. “That.”

  “My sandwich?”

  “You gonna eat peanut butter and jelly all your life?”

  “Why not?” I said. “I like it.” I took another bite.

  He sneered. “Yeah, right. I can see it now. You’re in this big fancy restaurant with all these fancy, big-shot business people, and everybody orders their dinners, and the waitress comes to you and you go, ‘Duh, I’ll have the peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich, please.’ Right, Morton. They’re really gonna be impressed.”

  “So what am I supposed to be eating?”

  He laid his sandwich on the table. He opened it up.

  “Baloney?”

  “Meat, Morton, meat.”

  “I eat meat,” I told him.

  “Real meat, Morton? Ever eat a steak?”

  I thought about it. “I don’t know. Maybe once.”

  “Ever eat a pork chop? A roast beef? A liver?”

  I put my sandwich down. “You’re ruining my lunch.”

  He looked proud. “I ate a bite of liver last night.”

  “You’re lying.”

  “Swear to God.”

  “You didn’t get sick?”

  “Nope.”

  “How’d it taste?” I shuddered at
the thought.

  He made a face. “Terrible.”

  “Terrible? So why’d you eat it? You’re stupider than I thought.”

  “Not as stupid as wanting to be an angel baby all my life. You wanna grow up, you gotta eat stuff you don’t like. And I’ll tell you something else.” He leaned across the table, getting real serious. “It’s an idea of mine. The worse it tastes, the faster you grow up.”

  Now it was my turn to laugh. “Yeah, right, Peterson. All I gotta do is go find a dead skunk and eat it and, poof, I’ll be thirty years old.”

  He slapped his sandwich back together and took a chomp out of it. “Forget it, man. You wanna be a baby, go be a baby.” He went on chomping.

  I didn’t feel like having a fight. I said, “Okay, maybe I’ll ask my mom to make me a baloney sandwich one of these days.”

  “I don’t care.” He shrugged.

  “Say,” I said, “where does baloney come from, anyway?” I was trying to picture herds of balonies roaming around on ranches.

  I never got an answer. The bell rang.

  We packed up our lunches. We didn’t even get to eat most of them. As we headed out, I wondered if anybody was looking at my lunch box.

  At the door we bumped into Mrs. Simms. She was my third-grade teacher. I really liked her. She never exactly said so, but I think I was her favorite student. I hadn’t seen her since school ended, back in June.

  “Suds Morton!” she went. “How’s my big fourth-grader?” She held out her arms.

  One thing about Mrs. Simms — she gets physical. If she decides she wants to hug you, there’s not much you can do about it. So I just walked into those arms and let them wrap around me.

  “How are they treating you up there?” she said.

  “Well, the teacher’s okay,” I said.

  She backed off. She looked at me. “You mean something’s not okay?”

  I felt squirmy. “Well, it’s not as much fun being a rat.”

  At first she didn’t understand. Then she got a big smile. “Now, don’t be so glum. Before you know it, fourth grade will be over, and you’ll be a — what’s fifth grade?”

  “Monkeys,” I told her.

  “Of course, monkeys. You’ll be a monkey.” She hugged me again. She whispered, “And don’t forget, you’ll always be an angel to me.”

  She laughed and sent me on my way.

  In the hallway, I felt a hand on top of my head. Was Mrs. Simms following me? I turned. It was Gerald Willis, who was born a rat. His lips were puckered. They were making kissy noises at me. “Ouuu, little Sudsie, my little teacher’s pet. Where’s my apple? Didn’t you bring me an apple today?”

  Before I could do anything, he swiped at my lunch box. The cover sprang open and everything fell to the floor — my half-eaten peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich, my pack of pretzels, my cupcake, and … my apple.

  I scrambled after the stuff on my hands and knees. Kids’ feet were everywhere. Somebody crunched my pretzels. As I reached down for the apple, a big dirty sneaker kicked it down the hallway. Above me, Gerald Willis was howling.

  I was the last one back to the room. I stashed my lunch box and sat down. A note was waiting for me. From Joey. It said: “Swings after school.”

  I looked over at him. I nodded.

  Our school yard has two tire swings. The tires hang on ropes from a bar. You just plunk your rear end on a tire and swing. Or just sit, if you want.

  The tires hang almost to the ground. That’s so the littlest kids in school can climb onto them.

  And that’s the situation me and Joey walked into after school. We were going to powwow at the tire swings, but two little kids were already there. They looked like first-graders.

  “Guess we’ll have to find another place,” I said to Joey.

  “Guess they’ll have to find another place,” Joey said.

  He lifted one of the first-graders out of his tire, plunked him on the ground, and sat in the tire himself.

  The first-grader’s face got red. His ears got red. “You rat!” he yelled.

  Joey nodded and smirked. “You got that right, kid.”

  All eyes swung to me. Would I do the same as Joey?

  The kid on the other tire looked feistier than her pal. From the look in her eyes, you might have thought she was a ten-foot cat and I was a mouse.

  Nobody got a chance to see what I would do, because suddenly the kid bolted. Tore out of there and left the tire swaying on the rope. I realized she may have looked feisty, but she was scared.

  The other kid took off too. But not before he yelled, “Rat!” and spit at me. Missed by a mile. First-graders are not good spitters.

  “Sit down,” said Joey.

  I sat on the tire. “I don’t feel right about that,” I said.

  “About what?”

  “About kicking those little kids out.”

  I kept seeing the girl’s eyes as she ran. It was the first time anyone had ever been afraid of me. I couldn’t figure out how I felt about it.

  “Suds,” Joey said, “remember the Fourth of July? At the park?”

  “What about it?” I said.

  “The talent show?”

  “Yeah.”

  “The bench?”

  “Huh?”

  Joey got off his tire. He stood in front of me. “The bench we were sitting on to watch the talent show? That we didn’t sit on for very long?”

  “Oh, yeah …” It was coming back to me. “Some kids kicked us off it.”

  “Fourth-graders,” he said. “They dumped us off. They lifted one end of the bench — real high — so you and me slid off, onto the ground.”

  I laughed, picturing Joey and me zooming down the bench like it was a sliding board. “Man, I forgot all about that.”

  “I didn’t,” said Joey. He wasn’t laughing.

  “So,” I said, “now that I’m a fourth-grade rat, I’m supposed to go around dumping little kids off benches. Is that it?”

  “There’s more to it than that,” he said.

  I started swinging. “I’m all ears.”

  Joey got back on his tire. He matched his swinging to mine.

  “Suds,” he said, “you’re in fourth grade now. That makes you a rat. Stop fighting it. It’s nature’s way.”

  “I can fight it if I want.”

  “Yeah? How?”

  I thought for a minute. “I’ll do rotten in school. I’ll do so rotten, they’ll have to flunk me back to third grade.”

  “Forget it, dude. You can’t go backwards. Time marches on.”

  “I liked being an angel.”

  Joey stopped his swing. He reached over and stopped mine. “Suds, you ant brain. Angels finish last. What did you ever get out of it, huh? Did anybody ever say, ‘Oh, thank you, Suds. You’re so nice. You’re such an angel.’ Huh? Anybody ever say that?”

  “Not exactly,” I had to admit.

  “Your mother ever say, ‘Oh, Suds, you’re such an angel, you don’t have to clean your room anymore’?”

  “Guess not.”

  “Are you allowed to stay up late?”

  “No.”

  “Are you allowed to go anywhere you want by yourself?”

  “No.”

  “Are you allowed to say no to your mom?”

  “’Course not.”

  He poked my tire. “See. That’s what I’m talking about.”

  “I’m glad you know what you’re talking about,” I said, “because I sure don’t.”

  “I’m talking about growing up,” he said. “I’m talking about not being an angel baby anymore. I’m talking about taking care of Number One for a change.”

  I felt stupid, but I had to ask. “Who’s this Number One?”

  He pointed. “You, dude. You’re Number One, for you. I’m Number One for me.”

  Number One. That sounded good. Maybe there was something to this rat business, after all.

  “But what about crying?” I said. “Why can’t I cry or be scared of spiders?
”

  He got off his tire. He faced me. He was dead serious. “Because real men don’t cry.”

  “What’s men got to do with it? Before, you said it’s rats that don’t cry.”

  “That’s right,” he said. “That’s the whole point. Being a rat is the next step up to being a man. You want to be a man, don’t you?”

  “Sure,” I said. “I guess so.”

  “Well,” he said, “you can’t be a man without being a rat first.” He poked me in the chest. “That’s what fourth grade is all about.”

  Except for us, the school yard was empty. Parents were calling their kids in to dinner.

  We headed home. As I walked up the driveway to my house, Joey said, “See ya, rat.”

  “See ya,” I said.

  Before I reached the door, he rushed back. He grabbed my arm. “Don’t forget,” he whispered. “Say no to your mom.”

  I’m no good at hiding my feelings. My mother says I would never make a good poker player, whatever that means.

  “Bad first day?” she said as soon as she spotted me.

  I slumped on the sofa. “Worst first day ever.”

  She whistled. “That is bad. What happened?”

  “I don’t know. Lots. It’s hard to explain.”

  She sat down beside me. She patted my knee. “Give it a try.”

  I took a deep breath. “Well, it’s all about being in fourth grade now. You know, a rat? Third grade angels, fourth grade rats? So I’m not an angel anymore.”

  She snapped her fingers. “Well, golly gee, you coulda fooled me.”

  “You’re not funny, Mom.”

  “That’s your opinion. I happen to think I am quite funny.”

  I glared at her. “Yeah? Well, you wouldn’t think it was so funny if you were in fourth grade and everybody was giving you a hard time. Life isn’t as simple as it was in the old days, you know. I got problems.”