Carter Avery's Tricky Fourth-Grade Year

1

Meet Your Teacher Day

We had this big thing at Bates Elementary called Meet Your Teacher Day. It happened at the end of the year, with everyone gathered outside on the blacktop behind the school. I had my fingers crossed, hoping not to see Ms. Krane, ’cause if she really was pregnant, then she wouldn’t be teaching come September and I could stop worrying. I don’t think a pregnant lady can teach fourth grade.

I should’ve crossed my toes too. She was there--and she sure didn’t look like she had a baby on the way. Stupid rumor. I bet Missy Gerber started it. I kicked the ground. Then I quick double crossed all my fingers on both hands ’cause I needed all the luck I could get so that I didn’t get stuck with Ms. Krane.

Every class from kindergarten all the way to fifth grade had a designated area where we sat and hung out while the teachers huddled in the middle--all except for Ms. Krane. She stood by herself, kinda like me whenever we had to choose partners for anything. Me and Ms. Krane weren’t the same, though. No way.

Ms. Krane stood by herself ’cause she was mean. She was the meanest and nastiest teacher to ever step foot in a classroom. She was pretty old, I think like thirty-five or forty. She taught somewhere else before coming to Bates last month. Everyone said she got fired from her old school for being so mean.

She’d been hiding in the library ever since getting here, working as Ms. Beecher’s assistant. Ms. Krane was rarely spotted, but now she was coming out of hiding ’cause next year she was getting her own classroom--and I wanted no part of it. No one did, ’cause not only was she mean, she was scary-looking. And that was the truth.

Ms. Krane had this giant reddish-purple mark that covered the left side of her face, all the way from her chin up past her eye. She reminded me of a raccoon, except her first name was Olivia and all the kids called her Owl-ivia--or the Owl, for short--’cause she could twist her head all the way around like an owl, which meant you could never do anything sneaky behind her back and get away with it. If you tried, she’d see you and then you were a goner.

I was sitting by myself at my lunch table when I overheard Kyle Pattie telling his buddies what happened after he tried shoving a book back on the shelf in the library where it didn’t belong--which was Ms. Beecher’s big no-no, but everyone did it.

“ ‘That’s not how we do things here,’ a voice behind me whispered all creepy. I could feel her hot breath on the back of my neck!” Kyle exclaimed. “I spun around and there she was, looming over me. I swear, she came out of nowhere, and when I looked up at her face, she made her purple eye narrow. Then she pulled my book out of the wrong spot and said, ‘I’ll take care of it this time--but not the next.’ And she made that sound like a warning,” Kyle finished.

His wasn’t the only story I heard. There were others. If Ms. Krane could make the library scary, her classroom was gonna be the worst. I crossed my fingers super tight.

Here’s how this meet-your-teacher thing worked: Starting with first grade, each teacher stepped forward and read off the student names on their new roster. When your name was called, you got up and went and stood in line with your new teacher. Then you walked to your next year’s classroom with your next year’s class and spent the last half hour of the day meeting your new teacher and classmates. The kindergarten teachers stayed behind with the fifth graders on the blacktop ’cause the preschoolers weren’t here yet and the fifth graders were moving on to the middle school. So fourth grade was second to last--and that stunk ’cause I wasn’t very good at waiting.

When it was finally our turn, Ms. Krane was the first teacher to step forward, and all of third grade got real quiet. I held my breath and crossed my arms and legs and eyes. I had to do everything I could for extra good luck.

I wasn’t supposed to have to wait long to find out if I was doomed or not, but then the Owl started with the end of the alphabet first. By the time she got to the As, my face had gone from red to blue. But breathing too early would’ve been bad luck, like breathing when you drive by a graveyard. You should never do that.

Little twinkly stars began popping up in front of me. I got wobbly--but I didn’t breathe. And then Ms. Krane read the final name on her list.

“Carter Avery,” she hooted.

The kids in Ms. Krane’s line groaned and the ones still sitting near me on the blacktop sighed.

Normally I moved real fast. I was real good at running everywhere. The harder thing was sitting still. But I felt light-headed and dizzy.

“Carter Avery,” the Owl hooted again.

It wasn’t odd for teachers to call my name more than once, but I’d heard her the first time. I just needed a second to get air.

“Get in line, Carter,” Missy Gerber whined from her spot behind Ms. Krane.

With the Owl and Missy Gerber, I was getting a double dose of awful for fourth grade. “I’m coming!” I yelled. “And you’re not my boss.”

Controlling my outbursts was one of the things I was supposed to be working on. That and sitting still. I had a lot of improving left to do on both.

“Missy, would you please come to the front of the line,” Ms. Krane said.

I grinned. Now, that was unusual. Normally I was the one teachers called to the front. Missy glared at me and I stuck my tongue way out at her. That’s what she got for being a bossy pants.

I grabbed my bag and got in line. The kids ahead of me grumbled and complained, but I was used to hearing that stuff whenever I got stuck in a group.

So anyway, there we were, the teacher no kid wanted and the kid no teacher wanted. What a start.

2

Scarface

Ms. Krane puffed her chest and stood perfectly straight. Then she turned and marched us to her room. We walked single file and didn’t make a peep ’cause like I said, an owl can twist its head all the way around.

The fourth-grade classrooms were upstairs. They were the only ones there. You heard about them sometimes, but you never got to see them until you made it. Kinda like the Owl. I’d heard about her, but I’d never really seen her up close.

All that changed when she stopped outside our new room and spun around to stare at us. Ms. Krane was a taller, skinnier version of an owl with long hair. She wore these black pointy glasses that didn’t hide her purple scar, but they did give her scary triangle eyes, just like the great horned owl. She sized us up and got ready to give us our orders, but my words jumped out first.

“What happened to your face?” I blurted. Told you self-control was one of the things I was supposed to be working on. I was trying. Really. But I just couldn’t hold that in any longer.

Kids snickered. Missy Gerber gasped. “Carter!” she shrieked. “Ms. Krane, Carter doesn’t have a filter on his mouth. He’s sorry.”

“I appreciate your concern, Missy, but Carter can ask if he wants. I imagine he isn’t the only one wondering. He just happens to be the brave soul to speak it out loud.”

Ms. Krane zeroed her eyes back on me. “My face is covered by a birthmark called a port-wine stain,” she explained.

“I thought it was a scar,” I said, all confused. “That’s what I heard.”

“In many ways it is,” she replied.

That made my forehead wrinkle. “What do you mean?”

“My mark has made life challenging for me, Carter.”

“But what made it happen to you?”

“No rhyme, no reason. No one’s fault. I was just born with it.”

After she said that, I got quiet. I didn’t always understand everything teachers said, but I understood being born a certain way. Grams says I came out fidgety and full of life from the get-go. Only my mother could get me to settle down when I got upset. Grams says my mom had a way with me. But she’s gone now.

My parents died in a car crash when I was just a baby. Sometimes you’re born a certain way--and sometimes things just happen for no rhyme and no reason. I understood that too.

Since I finally stopped with my questions, Ms. Krane went ahead and gave us our orders. “When you enter, I’d like you to drop your bags by the door and take a seat. You may sit in any open chair.”

Teachers say I don’t do a good job of following directions, but if they did a better job of giving directions, then maybe I’d be better at doing exactly what they meant. I dropped my bag and raced to the chair I wanted.

“Carter, you can’t sit there!” Missy Gerber shouted.

I was ready to tell her to put a sock in it, ’cause I was still working on self-control, but the Owl beat me to it.

“Missy, I will be the teacher. You worry about you,” Ms. Krane scolded. “Mr. Avery has followed my directions to a T. He dropped his bag by the door and found an open seat. Perhaps you’re upset because he got that chair and not you?”

Boy, did that make me grin. But then Ms. Krane turned her pointy glasses on me and I shrank in her teacher chair. “It’s yours as long as you can handle sitting in it properly,” she said.

“Yes, ma’am,” I hollered, and saluted, sitting up tall again.

“I’m your teacher, not your drill sergeant, so please don’t salute me. And I’m much too young to be called ma’am, so please don’t do that again either.”

“But you’re old,” I countered, unable to stop myself.

“Old enough to know better, but definitely not old,” she said.

That made my forehead wrinkle again and Missy Gerber snickered. I wanted to tell Missy to shut up, but I did a smart thing and slapped my hand over my mouth before those words jumped out. If Ms. Krane was getting mad at me for saluting her and calling her ma’am, we were in for a long year together.

3

Two Truths and One Lie

The Owl began swooping around the classroom, passing out paper and pencils. I stuck both hands in my pockets and played with my marbles. What I really wanted to do was spin in Ms. Krane’s chair but then I’d probly lose my seat. Fidgeting with things sometimes helped me sit still--sorta. Sitting still was really hard for me. Even harder than keeping quiet. Maybe.

“What’re we supposed to do with this?” I blurted after Ms. Krane dropped a piece of blank computer paper in front of me. My hands were too busy with my marbles to cover my mouth and stop those words.

“For starters, I’d like you to print your name at the top,” Ms. Krane answered. “And please make it legible.”

“What’s that mean?” I bellowed, letting more words jump free. At least I wasn’t spinning.

“Legible means make it neat so that we can read it,” Ms. Krane explained.

“Nothing about Carter is neat,” Missy Gerber groaned.

You know something, that girl hadn’t been in my class since first grade and I didn’t miss her. Even if she wasn’t trying to be funny, she got laughs.

“Missy, if you don’t have something kind to say, then please keep your comments to yourself,” Ms. Krane scolded.

Boy, that made me sit still--and I didn’t even need my marbles. I’d never had a teacher stick up for me--and Ms. Krane had done it twice already. Yup, she was mean. Real mean. But since she was being mean to Missy Gerber, I liked it.

“Now for the fun part,” Ms. Krane continued, confusing me again. There wasn’t supposed to be any fun in her room. “I’d like each of you to write down three things about yourself. But . . . listen carefully. Two of your statements must be true, and one must be a lie. You can list them in any order you’d like, the lie first, second, or third, but you must have two truths and one lie. Once you’ve finished, we’ll begin sharing and try to guess which are the truths and which is the lie about our classmates.”

Yes, I blurted out stuff I probly shouldn’t say sometimes, but it was always the truth. I never lied. Never. But Ms. Krane was giving us permission to lie now. She was asking us to do it. This was gonna be fun. I had my three things right away, but getting them written down was gonna take me a while ’cause I wasn’t very good at writing. It was hard for me to make the letters. And doing it that legerble way that the Owl wanted made it even harder.

“Do I have any volunteers to share first?” Ms. Krane asked.

“Me!” I shouted, remembering to raise my hand. I waved my arm in the air, but Ms. Krane said I needed to have my statements written down before I could go. Told you she was mean. So annoying Missy Gerber went instead ’cause she was a fast writer and a know-it-all.

This is what she said:

1. I’ve had perfect attendance my whole life. (I knew that was true ’cause she bragged about it every chance she got.)

2. I’ve never received a grade below an A. (I also knew that was true ’cause she bragged about it every time we got report cards.)

3. I’ve read the Mr. Terupt series six times.

“No, you haven’t!” I yelled. “That’s a lie.”

“You’re right,” Missy giggled. “I’ve only read it five times. But I’m on number six now.”

If I had to write my truth about that girl, I woulda said Missy Gerber is annoying--with all capital letters.

Kyle Pattie was the next to go. We guessed his lie too. He loved sports and tried saying he’d met Tom Brady. He only wished that was true. Mary Fergus went after that and we guessed that she hadn’t been to all fifty states, but she had been to thirty-one. And Vanessa Tucker didn’t own a horse.

One of the coolest parts of Ms. Krane’s game was how I learned something new about my classmates--even from their lies. I learned Kyle’s favorite football player was Tom Brady, and Mary liked traveling, and Vanessa, besides wanting a horse, loved animals, same as me. And Missy Gerber was super annoying--but I already knew that.