EllRay Jakes Rocks the Holidays! (9 page)

It’s like the cherry on the sundae.

“And then Dad said he was pwoud of you,” Alfie says, thinking it over.

Proud
of me? For accidentally being named the emcee?

Listen. There’s tons of good stuff I’ve done that he doesn’t even know about!

But Dad’s proud of
this
? Me being named the emcee—almost by accident?

“He’s pwoud of me, too,” Alfie hurries to tell me. “All the time, not just on assembly day. And I’m coming to your Winter Wonderland show, by the way,” she adds, bouncing on to yet another topic.

“I don’t think so,” I say carefully. “You’ll probably be busy having too much fun over at Kreative Learning and—”

“I’m
coming
,” she informs me. “You may be the king of the show, EllWay. But I get to be the king’s sister.”

“Okay, good,” I say, scrambling to my feet. “That’s just fine. See you there, Alf. And it’s your bath time, by the way.”

“But you didn’t give me the five-minute warning,” Alfie tells me, shaking her head. “
Or
the one-minute warning.” And she busily switches a couple of Barbies around—so that the stuck-up, mean one is at the very end of the line.

Take
that
, Vanessa-Suzette.

“I’ll let Mom give you those two warnings,” I
say, feeling fed up and sad at the same time.

Because—Dad probably thinks that me being an emcee at the assembly will be good for the
community
. For everyone with brown skin. I just figured that out. And it makes me feel terrible! I can’t live up to that. I’m just an ordinary kid, with good parts and bad parts all scrambled together.

What if I accidentally mess up, like I did with Kevin’s friendship?

And what about what’s good for
me
?

11

“Hey, EllRay-dude,” Kevin says, coming up to me after lunch.

It is Wednesday, December seventeenth, and most of us ate outside—even though it is kind of cold, and the wind is blowing leaves and escaped sandwich bags around in circles, and puffy clouds are whizzing across the sky.

It’s actually great playing weather, though. We should get to stay outside the whole rest of the day, just flinging ourselves around. Most of us boys are allergic to sitting still, except when we’re playing video games.

And guys crashing into each other can be
awesome
.

“What, Kevin-dude?” I say, trying for a regular smile.

But I have been dreading this moment. What goofy thing is he going to come up with next for me to do?

“I got one,” Kevin tells me. “Your first challenge.” And a small crowd of guys quickly gathers around, as if they can somehow tell that something unusual—maybe even interesting!—is about to make their lunch break more lively.

Jared. Stanley. Even a worried-looking Corey.

“Wait.
Wait
,” I say. “I already agreed to be the emcee for the assembly. I thought that was my first challenge. How many are there gonna be? You can’t keep adding on,” I say, trying to act like I have a choice about doing them.

Which I don’t. Not if I want to make it up to Kevin so we can be friends again.

I really do owe him, even though it was an accident that I embarrassed him.

And with Kevin, once we’re even, it’ll be over.

Done with.

Forgotten.

Gone.

He’s cool that way.

“Three challenges,
not counting
being the emcee,” Kevin announces. “Because in books, everything happens in threes, doesn’t it? Three wishes. The three wise men.”

“But I think the wise men were from the Christmas story,” I say cautiously, not wanting to set him off again.

“Well,
that’s
in a book,” Kevin says.

No arguing with him there. “Okay,” I tell him in my most soothing voice. “What do I have to do?”

“Hang from the middle of the overhead ladder for a real long time,” Kevin says. “Until the buzzer sounds. Starting—
now
.”

And I try to hide my smile as our windblown posse heads toward the overhead ladder. Kevin’s first challenge will be an easy one for me! I’m really good at overhead ladder stuff.

I mean, I’ve never tried just hanging from it, but it
sounds
easy.

Oak Glen Primary School’s overhead ladder is metal, and it’s tall. There’s sand underneath. A couple of rungs on each side serve as steps. You climb up and then reach over to grab on to one of the top
rungs. Then you swing hand over hand across all the top rungs of the structure until you get to the other side.

It’s more fun than it sounds, which is true of most things us kids like to do.

But Kevin doesn’t want me to swing my way
across
the overhead ladder. He wants me to swing my way to the middle and then stay there, holding on like crazy. The only problem will be that other kids—mostly first- and second-graders—are already using it. So I get in the line and wait my turn to swing to the middle and hold on, no matter what.

Okay.
It’s my turn.

And—I’m up the side rungs.

I grab hold of the first top rung—it’s cold!—and start swinging toward the middle rung. I can almost taste the cold metal in my mouth, which is weird.

Swinging, swinging, swinging, swinging,
STOP
.

And—I’m hanging, holding on with my too-small, puny hands.

Little hamster paws, they feel like.

And that’s when the “hold on, no matter what” part turns out to be harder than I thought. Because once I’m hanging there, the little kids keep trying to swarm past me.

They don’t get it yet, that this is a big-deal, third grade challenge!

Meanwhile, down on the sand, Kevin, Corey, Jared, and Stanley are watching me. Corey looks like he’s counting under his breath. His lips are moving. And then up come Emma, Annie Pat, and Kry.

Oh, great, I think, as my hands start to sweat and burn at the same time, and as my head starts to feel like a water balloon about to explode.

Witnesses.

12

A-million-and-one.

A-million-and-two.

A-million-and three.

That’s what it seems like, anyway.

At least I don’t have to use the restroom!

And the second I think that, I
do
need to use the restroom. Why does that always happen?

Think of something else, I order myself.
Anything
else. Think about the broiling hot Anza-Borrego desert in the summer, or Christmas morning, or decorating cookies with a whole bottle of sprinkles—and then eating them. Think about being a superhero in the game of
Die, Creature, Die
, and about staying up late, and
no school.

Do not think about having to use the restroom.

Do not think of how much your hands hurt.

I already have calluses, sure. But they’re tiny, the size of Alfie’s fingernail clippings.

My arms feel hot and heavy, and my feet are numb. I’d kick them, just to get them back to normal, but then I’d fall to the ground for sure.

And so I just hang there.

A-million-and-twenty.

A-million-and-twenty-one.

Jared’s getting bored, I can tell. And then he gets this look on his face. “I wonder if EllRay’s ticklish?” he asks no one in particular.

But he asks it
loud.

And he shoves to the front of the little-kid-line, climbs up a rung, then grabs on to an overhead rung with both gigantic hands. He swings my way. “Here I come, EllRay,” he calls out. “Are you ticklish, dog?
TICKA, TICKA, TICKA
! And you’d better hang on, or your stupid, show-off trick—whatever it is—won’t count. And you’ll have to start
all over
.”

Start all over? No way! But I’m too worn out to argue.

Now Jared is hanging at my side. I can smell bologna on his breath.

He lets go of the rung with one hand and reaches his grimy fingers toward my poor, defenseless armpit.

Okay. I’m not gonna lie, I’m
extremely
ticklish. As in laugh-like-a-little-girl ticklish. I can’t help it! And that’s
all
I need, to laugh like a preschool girl in front of just about everyone.