CHAPTER TWO
MY FIRST BIG MISTAKE

The first week at my new school, I didn't really make any friends. But at least everyone was more or less nice to me. That is, till I made my three big mistakes. The neat thing was, though, all these mistakes turned out to be good things in the long run. So maybe they weren't mistakes at all.

My first real big mistake at my new school was admitting I didn't like ice cream.

It happened during my second week at Brookside Elementary School. Up until then I'd been making pretty good progress at getting the other kids to like me. I made a point of only answering enough questions in class to satisfy my teacher, Mrs. Greenley, so the other kids wouldn't think I was showing off. When we were playing basketball in gym class, I would pass the ball to some other kid instead of making the shot myself. But I think my best idea had to be the day the school photographer came to take our pictures for the end of the school year. When my turn came, I posed nice and straight and put on my best smile. But just when I could tell the photographer was going to snap the picture, I crossed my eyes and stuck my tongue out of the corner of my mouth. The photographer got pretty mad at me for that, and Mrs. Greenley frowned at me, but I didn't care, because all the other kids in line behind me had a good laugh, and that's exactly what I wanted. It seemed to me that I was doing all the right things to get the other kids to like me, so I wouldn't have to spend the summer alone. Soon some of the other kids were saying 'hi' to me in the mornings, and I figured it was just a matter of time until one of them asked me to eat lunch with them.

Then came the terrible day the ice cream truck broke down.

There's this refrigerated truck, see, that brings the milk for lunch and recess to the school every morning around ten o'clock. I guess it also carries ice cream to the stores in the towns around here, because it had a load of ice cream bars the day it broke down pulling up to the school. The guy who drives the truck had to call the dairy and tell them that he'd never make his delivery in the next town before all the ice cream melted. He wanted them to send another truck to pick the shipment up, but they didn't have any to spare. Since they were going to lose the ice cream anyway, they told him to give it to the school.

The principal got on the P.A. and made this big announcement about how we were all going to get free ice cream for recess. The whole school went nuts. Every kid in my class, and in all the other classes up and down the halls, shouted at once. I tried to smile, but it was hard. I didn't like ice cream, and to me, it felt like a big gyp. They were all getting something they liked, and I was left out.

Mrs. Greenley picked a guy from our class to go down and get our share, and he came back just as the recess bell rang. Mrs. Greenley started handing out the ice cream bars and everybody lined up to get theirs. Except me. I just shoved my hands in my pockets and headed for the door.

Mrs. Greenley spotted me, and she called, "Islington! Don't you want your ice cream, dear?" She waved one in the air like it was made of gold and would sparkle in the sunlight or something.

"Oh, no thanks, Mrs. Greenley," I smiled. "I don't like ice cream."

I think I knew just about as soon as I heard it come out of my own mouth just how weird that sounded to everybody else. A kid who didn't like ice cream? A couple of kids gasped. I heard some snickers, and somebody pointed at me. I got this sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. When I saw a look of astonishment even on Mrs. Greenley's face, I knew I was finished.

"Well, that's fine, dear," she said, at last. "Go on outside and enjoy recess."

Tabitha Stillmeadow, the greediest girl in our class, yelled out, "Mrs. Greenley! Mrs. Greenley! I'll take Izly's ice cream if he doesn't want it!"

"No, I don't think so, Tabby," Mrs. Greenley told her. "We'll just send Izly's ice cream back to the cafeteria."

Tabby's chin dropped and she nodded sadly.

I was hoping everybody would be laughing so hard at Tabby that they'd forget about me and the dumb thing I said. As I stood there in the school yard, watching all those other kids shoveling their ice cream into their faces, I wondered why it had to be an ice cream truck that broke down. Why couldn't it have been a chocolate bar truck? I like chocolate bars at least.

It was then that I heard this squeal of pain, and I spun around to see what was going on. Across the playground, a large boy was twisting the arm of a smaller boy behind his back. I didn't know who the kid getting beaten up was, but the guy beating him up was Bruno. Bruno Basso, the meanest kid in school. Even the grade fives and some of the grade sixes were scared of him. Even though I didn't really have any friends in my new class yet, the kids had warned me about him -- it was just common courtesy, I guess. Bruno was supposed to be stupid and mean. Kids said he was flunked because he was so dumb, which meant he was older and bigger than all the other kids in grade four. I also heard that he had been suspended once for beating up another kid so bad that the kid had to stay home from school for a while. Different kids told different stories about it. Some said he broke the other kid's arm. Others said it was a leg. Somebody even told me he bit some kid's ear off, but I didn't believe that. Even so, when I saw him beating up this other boy, I knew Bruno was no one to mess around with.

As I watched, Bruno got whatever it was out of the other kid and let him go, shoving him to the ground. All these other big dumb tough guys -- Bruno's gang, I supposed -- cheered and started chanting Bruno's name. The other kid just lay there, crying, and I felt sorry for him and wanted to help him, but I was afraid of what Bruno might do to me if I did. So I didn't go to help him at all. And neither did anyone else.

Just then I felt something slam into me hard, in the back. I was scared it was my turn or something, but then I realized it was just a stray soccer ball that some of the guys were playing with.

"Hey, kid! Kick it back!" I looked and saw Teddy Whitetip waving at me. Teddy was in my class, but for some reason he would never call me by my name, just 'hey kid'. That bothered me. But I thought that this might be my chance to make Teddy my friend. Instead of just kicking the ball back, I picked it up and carried it over to where the other guys were waiting.

"Hey, Teddy," I said, "can I play?

Teddy smiled and he glanced over his shoulder at the other guys in a way I didn't think was friendly. "Naw, I don't think so," he told me, and grabbed the ball out of my hands, without even saying thanks. "We already got enough guys on both teams."

"Oh, okay," I mumbled. I wanted them to think I didn't care, but I know they could tell I did.

Another boy from the other grade four class called, "We don't want any Martians playing soccer with us!"

All the guys laughed at me. Another one yelled, "Yeah! Only a space freak doesn't like ice cream!"

I sighed and left the field before they could insult me any more. I spotted this big oak tree at the edge of the school grounds that reminded me of one we used to play in at my old school, and I headed towards it. It was an easy tree to climb and pretty soon I was up in the sturdy branches, sitting back, thinking about the guys back home. It made me real sad, thinking of all the fun they were having without me. Did they miss me as much as I missed them? I doubted it.

"Hey, kid!"

There it was again. 'Kid'. I was getting sick of being called that. "My name's Islington," I growled. When I looked down, I was wishing I'd kept my mouth shut. There were two big kids, grade six kids it looked like, at the foot of the tree, staring at me. They didn't look happy.

"I don't care if your name's Queen Bea," one of them joked, and the other one laughed. "This is the sixers' part of the schoolyard. Get back with the twos where you belong."

"I'm in grade four," I said, meekly. I started climbing down the tree just the same.

"Whatever," the other boy said. "Wherever you belong, it isn't here. So get out of our tree and get lost."

"I'm going, I'm going," I assured them. I climbed carefully down the trunk of the tree. But I guess I wasn't going fast enough for those guys, 'cause one of them grabbed my tail and yanked me out of the tree. I hit the ground hard and make this grunting noise when I landed. I couldn't believe it. I just stared up at them.

The bell to end recess rang, and the two guys looked over at the door where the kids were starting to line up. Then they looked back at me. "Don't let us catch you over here again," one of them said.

"Yeah, not for another two years," the other added.

"Or three years if you're as dumb as you look and they flunk you," the first one summed up, and then laughing, they walked away from me.

Finally I picked myself up and brushed the grass and dirt off my pants. There had been no need for them to be so rough with me. I was doing what they told me. They had probably never climbed that tree and never would. They just wanted to push me around 'cause they were bigger than me.

I saw my classmates lining up to go back to class, and I headed off to join them, even though it was the last thing in the world I really wanted to do.

When we all got back into class, I heard all these titters and giggles. I looked at the blackboard and my blood just turned to ice. Somebody had made this bad drawing of me. It showed me using my great big tail like a slingshot to shoot sloppy globs of ice cream across the blackboard. Whoever had drawn it had taken the opportunity to make fun of my name, too. Written under the drawing was "I-sling-tons of ice cream away because I am a geek!"

I just stood there, shaking a little, and I couldn't believe it. I felt like I was naked or something, and everyone was looking at me. Everyone was laughing. Or that's how it seemed.

Mrs. Greenley came into the room and she started to say something when the stuff on the blackboard caught her eye. She just blinked at it for a moment, with her mouth open. Then she stepped up to the board and with this stiff, impatient motion, she wiped the board clean. All the giggling ceased. Mrs. Greenley turned to the class and said, "Whoever drew that should be deeply ashamed. I can't remember when I've ever been so disappointed in a class of mine. Islington is our newest classmate and you should all be doing your best to make him feel welcome -- not to make fun of him. Now I don't ever want to see anything like that again. Do you all understand me?"

"Yes, Mrs. Greenley," they all said at once.

I felt just like a wad of gum stuck under a desk. And then Mrs. Greenley looked at me with this crushing pity in her eyes. "I'm sorry, Izly," she said. I think that was the worst part of all.

"Alright, then," Mrs. Greenley said. "Take out your math books and open them to page 128, please."

The kids pulled out their math books and the math lesson began. There was a while there when I was afraid I was going to start crying, but I managed not to. Big kids don't cry. And besides, I knew that if I let the other kids see me cry, that would be the worst thing I could possibly do.