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Authors: Sally Warner

EllRay Jakes Is Not a Chicken (3 page)

BOOK: EllRay Jakes Is Not a Chicken
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It made me feel good when everyone laughed, even Emma, and it kind of erased the memory of Jared and Stanley grinding my ribs and giving me “two for flinching” at recess.
That's why I did it.
“But listen, son,” my dad says, leaning forward. “You cannot joke around if it's going to disrupt the class. The good of the class always comes first.”
He's a teacher, so of course he thinks that.
“I know,” I mumble.
“But it will be hard to change the way you behave at school,” my father says. “So I'm going to make it interesting for you, son.”
I look at him and wonder what he is up to. “Interesting, like how?” I ask.
“Interesting, like Disneyland, next Saturday,” he tells me, smiling. He loosens his tie—yes, my father almost always wears a tie—as if he's about to get on a ride this very minute.
Disneyland!
We went once with relatives, when I was four, and then we tried to go again two years ago, but my little sister got an earache during the drive to Anaheim, which ruined everything. We had to turn around and drive back home, and my dad has been too busy to go again since.
But added to my father's busyness is the fact that he is not the type of person who likes to have fun. Not
regular people
fun.
“Do you think you can keep your nose clean for an entire week, EllRay?” my dad asks. “With no more bad news during telephone conferences?”
“
Keeping my nose clean
” means not messing up.
“Mmm-hmm,” I say, nodding. I am pinching my lips together in case I accidentally say something that needs improvement. I don't want my dad to change his mind—because I really, really, really want to go to Disneyland.
I am already choosing what ride I want to go on first. Alfie can go on the baby rides, but I want to go on the scary ones.
I
sort of
want to, anyway.
“Mmm-hmm,” I say again, humming my agreement.
Dad laughs. “Well, okay, then,” he says, rubbing my head with the flat of his big hand. “We'll see if you can behave well at school the rest of this week. And that will be the new Ellray Jakes from now on.”
The new EllRay Jakes
. I guess he's tired of the old one.
But I have a feeling Jared and Stanley will probably hate me even more if I act perfect for a whole week.
Then
what will happen?
Or
And then I'll lose my temper, and Ms. Sanchez will find out, and she'll tattle to my parents, and bye-bye Disneyland.
I cannot let that happen.
4
WHO'S THE BOSS?
“Play dolls with me,
EllWay
,” my little sister says a few minutes later, popping her head out of her room as I walk down the hall. She pronounces some words a little bit wrong, but that's okay, because she's only four years old.
“No way, Alfie,” I say. “But me and my video game will keep you company.” And I go get
Die, Creature, Die
, which my mom thinks is too violent, but it's not.
Last summer, when I was still trying to be nice about playing dolls, mostly to keep Alfie out of my room, a doll head came off in my hand for no reason, and she freaked, like I'd done it on purpose. And I was just trying to be nice.
So, no more playing dolls.
Alfie is very cute. Everyone says so, especially her, but she probably only says that because she hears it so much. She is golden brown like an acorn, and she wears her hair in three little puffy braids with matching hair-things on the ends. One braid is on top of her head, and there is one on each side.
I can't really describe girls' hair right.
The only trouble with Alfie is the same thing that is the trouble with me: our names. See, “EllRay” is short for “L-period-Ray,” which is short for “Lancelot Raymond.” And “Alfie” is short for “Alfleta,” which means “beautiful elf” in some language from the olden days. Saxon, I think Mom said.
My mom wants to be a fantasy writer some day, that's why we got such goofy names.
My dad should have told her no. Not about wanting to be a writer, of course, but about the names. It's too late now, though.
We have to live with these names
forever
.
“I'm back,” I tell Alfie, who is sitting on her rug. She has just finished piling up a stack of doll clothes.
“Which is cuter?” she asks, holding up two little dresses.
“I dunno,” I say, trying to settle into my game. “The red one, I guess.”
“Okay,” she says, and she starts putting the yellow dress on her bare-naked doll.
“How come you even asked me which one is cuter?” I say, feeling a little mad at her, even though I don't really care about the dresses, of course. “So you could do the exact opposite?”
“Nuh-uh,” Alfie says, shaking her head as she tries to cram her doll's skinny arm through a sleeve. “I just like to hear you talk, that's all.”
“Oh,” I say, feeling a little better.
“Because nobody talks to me at day care anymore,” she says sadly.
“Oh, c'mon, Alfie. That's not true,” I tell her—because if there's one thing about my little sister, it's that she has a lot of friends.
Friends are very important to girls, I have noticed. They even keep score about them: how many they have, what their ranking is. Friends are like a girl's very own personal sports team.
It's different for boys, or at least for me. Sure, I want to have at least one or two friends so there will be someone to hang out with and watch my back, especially lately, but I don't get all bent out of shape about it.
“Suzette told the other girls not to talk to me,” Alfie says, still looking down at her doll.
Suzette is this bossy little girl in my sister's day care who likes to keep all the other little girls scared about whether or not she likes them. Big deal.
“She told
everyone
that?” I ask, hating Suzette for one hot second.
“Well, she told Maya and Joelle not to,” Alfie tells me. “And Suzette's the boss of our day care, so that's that.”
“Aren't your teachers the boss of day care?” I ask her. “I think you should tell them what Suzette is doing, Alfie, and then maybe she'd stop.”
“But she might think of something worse,” Alfie says, picking up two little doll jackets. “Which one is cuter?” she asks me.
The blue one is cuter, but I don't tell Alfie that. “The orange one,” I say, and sure enough, she starts putting the blue one one her doll.
I smile and start playing my handheld video game again.
“Who's the boss of the world?” Alfie asks me, holding her doll up to admire it.
I sigh and press Pause. “No one, I guess,” I tell her. “I mean, the world is all divided up, and there are different bosses for different places. The little places, too. Even Oak Glen has a boss, you know.”
“Huh,” Alfie says, not asking who that boss is—which is a good thing, because I don't know his or her name. I don't get to vote yet, that's why. “Well,” she asks after a couple of minutes, “who's the boss of our family, at least? I vote for Mommy.”
And I can't help but laugh, this is such a crazy conversation. “Why not Dad?” I ask her.
“Because whenever we go to Target and Mommy wants something, Daddy says, ‘You're the boss, Louise.' ”
“I think he's just kidding,” I tell her.
“So
Daddy's
the boss?” Alfie asks me.
“No,” I say. “I mean, they're both the boss of
us
. Not of each other, I don't think.”
“But you're not the boss of me, EllWay,” Alfie says, scowling.
“That's okay,” I tell her. “Because I don't even
wanna
be the boss of you. It'd be too much work.”
Alfie thinks about this for a minute. “Well,” she finally asks, “who's the boss of the third grade at school? In your class? Not counting your teacher.”
BOOK: EllRay Jakes Is Not a Chicken
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