The Secret Sheriff of Sixth Grade Read online

  To the memory of John “Jack” Kunkle

  April 18, 1996–September 18, 2014

  Jack, you had the biggest heart in the smallest body, the kindest soul in the cruelest of situations, and the funniest sense of humor through the saddest of times. Above all, you were brave, to a degree I had never seen before I spent time with you. Thank you for showing me what a hero looks like.

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Why I Am the World’s Lamest Hero

  Before

  The First Lesson of Middle School

  Eggs on Toast, without the Eggs

  The Deadly Art of Locker Karate

  The Bird and The Bee

  The Trash Can Tango

  Or Rather, the Trash Can Ballet

  A Meeting with Mom

  Heroes and Hamsters

  How to Win Friends and Influence People

  When Goodness Doesn’t Rub Off

  What School Is For

  Not Your Usual Christmas Tree

  The Worst Kid in Day Care

  Out Behind the Cheese Tool Shed

  Hard Battles

  Things You Don’t Say

  Shattering the Star

  Stitches and Glue

  What Glue Doesn’t Fix

  The End of Heroes

  What Kindness Is For

  One More Little Meeting with The Bee

  About the Author

  Also by Jordan Sonnenblick

  Copyright

  Let me get a few things out of the way, right from the start.

  I can’t fly. I’m not even a particularly good jumper. Truthfully, I twisted my ankle so badly during the three-legged race at my third-grade field day that I ended up in the emergency room, along with my partner, Jamie Thompson. Well, most of her. Her two front teeth stayed behind, buried somewhere in the field.

  I must be the only superhero in history who’s allergic to his sidekick. That would be my trusty hamster companion, Freddy. I have to wash my hands after I hold him, or I break out in hives. In fact, Freddy makes me sneeze so much that I can’t even sleep in the same room with him. It’s pathetic.

  I am incredibly short, but not short enough for the shortness to qualify as a superpower. Like, I am small enough to get stuffed into a gym locker, but not small enough to slip back out through the little air slits. Trust me on this one.

  I don’t have a fancy costume. I wouldn’t look good in one of those clingy leotard things, because to be honest, the leotard wouldn’t have anything to cling to. I’d be the only hero whose skintight uniform was baggy. It would look like I was melting. Plus, costumes cost money, and having money is another thing that’s not one of my superpowers.

  Actually, it is totally possible that I have the secret ability to repel money, because for some reason, no cash ever seems to penetrate my anti-dollar force field.

  And don’t get me started on my weaknesses. The good news is that, as far as I know, I am probably immune to Kryptonite. But that doesn’t mean I should challenge Superman to a battle.

  Why?

  Because I have the worst weakness of all:

  I’m weak.

  The night before sixth grade, I came home from riding my bike and knew things were bad before I even got close. This was not because I had super-hearing, or ultra vision, or any kind of spooky sixth sense. Everyone could hear the shouting and the crying and the breaking glass. I mean, you couldn’t not hear it.

  My mom was having it out with her latest loser boyfriend, Johnny Something.

  I gulped, sped up, and padlocked my bike to the patio of our crummy apartment as fast as I could. Then I opened the back door and stepped into the living room, which looked like a hurricane had just passed through. Mom was sitting on the couch, looking down into her lap, clutching at her left eye, and sobbing. Johnny was leaning over her, shouting so loudly that I could see the spit flying out of his mouth into her hair. There was a bottle on the coffee table. It was three-quarters empty—of course.

  Johnny’s words were so awful that I started forgetting them even as they went into my ears. Anyway, I had seen this movie a bunch of times before in the years since I had lost my father. There had been a Glenn, a Dave, a Mike, and three Johnnies. My mom really liked mean guys named Johnny.

  For what felt like minutes, I tried to do something, or say something, or even make a noise. My heart pounded, every hair on my neck stood up, I could feel my face flush—but I couldn’t find the guts to move.

  Then my mom said, “Shut up, Johnny. Just shut up!”

  Johnny pulled his right hand way, way back, like a ping-pong player getting ready to hit a slow-moving ball.

  He was only a couple of feet away from me. I had time, and he hadn’t seen me. I could have picked up a chair and hit him with it. I could have yelled. I could have cleared my throat or whistled.

  I could have done something.

  His hand whipped through the air and cracked across my mother’s face so hard her head smashed against the couch cushion and bounced forward again. She barely avoided crashing her face into the table. On the rebound, she looked past Johnny and saw me. He whirled, and his eyes locked on mine.

  He smirked and asked, “What are you looking at?” Then he stormed out of the room. A moment later, I heard another sound I recognized from all the other nights like this one: He was throwing his belongings into a suitcase.

  My mom wouldn’t even look at me again until he was gone, which was all right, because I couldn’t face her, either. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t do anything.

  Johnny had said, “What are you looking at?” But that wasn’t what he had meant. He had really been saying, “What are you going to do about it?”

  The answer was the same as it had been every other time, with two other Johnnies, a Glenn, a Dave, and a Mike:

  Nothing.

  After Johnny left, I wrapped up some ice in a dish towel for my mother’s face—her nose and left eye were already pretty badly swollen—and helped her wash up. Then she staggered off to bed with the homemade ice pack. I listened from the hallway until she started to snore, then went back to check out the situation in the living room.

  Other than the glass shards, cigarette butts, and ashes scattered everywhere, the place looked like it always did . . . which was pretty awful. I desperately wanted to go and try to sleep in the tiny second bedroom I called my own, but I was afraid my mother would get up for a drink in the middle of the night and slice up one of her feet on the broken glass, so I got to work. First, I picked up the biggest chunks of glass by hand. Next, I swept the medium ones into a little handheld dustpan. Finally, I vacuumed the entire room twice to get the small shards and all the bits of cigarette. It’s a good thing Mom can sleep through anything, because the glass really clinked around as it shot up into the vacuum.

  When I was finished, I was too pumped up to sleep, so I turned on the TV, which had suddenly shown up in our living room one miraculous night when my mom said it had “fallen off a truck.” I put the first Captain America movie into our ancient DVD player. I watched the whole thing, followed by the original Spider-Man. I loved both of those so much, because they’re about wimpy little guys who transform into superpowered crime fighters, and then battle for justice.

  As for me, I’d have settled for transforming into a guy who could actually make a sound in the face of evil. Or a guy who could reach the kitchen faucet without a step stool.

  When I climbed into bed, I couldn’t shut my mind off. I kept picturing Johnny’s face and hearing his words. He wouldn’t have talked to me like that if my father had still been alive.

  Of course, if my father had been alive, I wouldn’t have ever had to worry
about my mom’s long string of losers. Or my mom’s drinking. Or our money issues. Or anything. As far as I could figure it, anybody with two parents had nothing in the world to complain about. It was a little hard to be sure, though. I hadn’t had a father since I was three. All I even had to remember him by was a cheap little plastic sheriff’s star he had bought me at a beachside souvenir shop on the last day I had ever spent with him. I vaguely remembered that I had been angry about something, and he’d gotten me the star to cheer me up.

  I was sick of all of my problems. But mostly I was sick of feeling afraid. Spider-Man hadn’t been afraid after he got his powers. Captain America had been fearless even when he was a weakling—that’s why he was chosen for the super-soldier treatment that made him a superhero.

  Maybe it was the stress of the evening. Maybe it was the fact that sixth grade seemed like a chance for a new start. Maybe I was just going nuts. But I came up with a wacky idea: I was going to be like Spider-Man and Captain America. I was going to do good deeds, right wrongs, stand up against evil, and protect anybody who was smaller or weaker than I was.

  Assuming I could find anybody smaller or weaker than I was.

  I didn’t fall asleep until around three a.m., and then my hamster woke me at six by shuffling around his glass tank and munching on seeds. He basically functioned as an organic alarm clock—and it was a good thing, because my mom was certainly not a morning person. I actually kept Freddy in her room, because she wasn’t allergic to him like I was, but he never woke her up. Meanwhile, I could always hear Freddy, no matter where I was in the apartment. I forced myself out of bed, went into Mom’s room, and sprinkled some seed mix into Freddy’s bowl. Mom never stopped snoring.

  Then I got ready for school alone in the dark.

  I didn’t really mind. I was used to it, and when you’re alone, at least nobody is bothering you. The only bummer was when I looked in the fridge for food and realized Mom hadn’t gotten any. Apparently, her last check had been spent on other things.

  Way in the back of the very top kitchen cabinet (which I could reach only by climbing on top of the peeling Formica countertop), I found an ancient tube of crackers.

  Was it any wonder I didn’t grow? I was pretty sure that at that very moment, in the rich-kid mansions across town, my archenemy, Bowen Gregory Strack, and his travel-soccer-playing minions were all washing down their third bowls of sugary cereal with fresh berries and cream.

  I had heard of fresh berries and cream. Fresh berries and cream sounded awesome. Fresh anything sounded awesome. We never had fresh food in our house. Or even cooked food. The only time my mom lit a stove burner was when she ran out of matches and needed to fire up a cigarette.

  I must have started to doze off a couple of times while I was doing my bathroom stuff, because the next thing I knew, it was time to run out and catch the school bus. I grabbed my backpack with the two patched-up holes in one side where pencils had stabbed through, shoved on my worn-out Goodwill sneakers, and headed for the door.

  At the last minute, something made me run back to my room, grab my dad’s sheriff’s star, and shove it down into the left front pocket of my jeans.

  In the bright sunlight at the bus stop, I noticed that my jeans had a big stain on one leg from kneeling in ashes, but I didn’t have time to run back and change. Come to think of it, I didn’t have another pair, anyway. Thank goodness it was only going to be a half day, because I was a sleepy, stained wreck.

  As soon as we got to school, the entire sixth grade was herded into the auditorium by a bunch of teachers with bullhorns. Because nothing says “Welcome to your new school!” like a bunch of people frantically shouting at you and driving you into an enclosed space. I had seen enough TV documentaries about cattle drives to know that these kinds of scenes didn’t usually end well.

  Inside the auditorium, which smelled like moldy old socks, there was complete chaos, as every homeroom teacher was reading as loudly as humanly possible from a list of names in order to separate us by class. I was wondering what super genius had devised this so-called system when I suddenly heard an ancient, bent-over old lady croak my name: “Maverick Falconer! Maverick Falconer!” I got in line in front of her. After a few minutes, when the whole grade had basically been sorted out, a booming, rumbly voice from the front ordered us to follow our teachers and be seated. Then, as soon as every butt was in a chair, the guy onstage (who was a blur to me, because I was in desperate need of eyeglasses) started reaming us out.

  “Sixth graders, that is NOT how we enter an auditorium at Montvale West Middle School.”

  I was like, Well, umm . . . apparently, that is exactly how we enter an auditorium at Montvale West Middle School.

  “At Montvale West, we enter quietly.”

  Except for all the people with the bullhorns.

  “We find a seat quickly.”

  Right after our teachers finish sorting all four hundred of us into groups of thirty-four by reading their class lists aloud all at once.

  “And then we show proper respect to our assistant principal!”

  Well, sure. If we knew who the heck that was.

  “Because I am your assistant principal! My name is Mr. Thomas Overbye. You may not call me The Bee, so don’t even think about it. You may call me Mr. Overbye or Sir.”

  I had heard of this man. Everyone knew The Bee. In all three of the district’s elementary schools, students whispered his name and then fainted in abject terror. Mothers used his name to frighten small children into doing their chores. Wherever evil assistant principals met and mingled, his name was whispered in awed, worshipful tones.

  “Your teachers will go over the school rules and expectations with you in class. But here is what they won’t say, because they shouldn’t have to: We run on a system of honesty, respect, and order. If you are honest, treat others with respect, and behave in an orderly manner, you won’t have to deal with me.

  “Because you. Do. Not. Want. To. Deal. With. Me!

  “Oh, and one other thing: Our goal is to turn you into self-motivated, lifelong learners who can think for yourselves. But that can only happen if you listen to your elders, do exactly as you’re told, and work hard to pass your statewide tests each year.”

  Right. So in order to become lifelong thinkers, all we have to do is stop thinking for ourselves for the next three years. I’m feeling better and better about this place by the minute.

  Once we were all thoroughly horrified and depressed, The Bee ordered our teachers to march us to homeroom. The last thing he said to our whole grade was that each of us should do our very best to stay out of his office for the next three years.

  I tried to follow The Bee’s command. Honestly. But somehow, I missed by two years, three hundred sixty-four days, twenty-three hours, and forty-six minutes.

  On the way out of the auditorium I was pretty nervous, so I tried to calm myself down by thinking about the one thing I did have going for me in this hard, cruel world: a walking, talking “Get Out of Jail Free” card. Her name is Catherine, but I just call her Aunt Cat. She’s my dad’s younger sister, and she is also the only person in the world I can totally depend on.

  I don’t get to see my aunt super often, because she and my mom haven’t gotten along since one day two years ago, when my mom did something really bad. Still, when I do see Aunt Cat, it’s great. Usually, she swings by my apartment to pick me up when my mom is at work. I’ve never exactly been able to figure out how, but Aunt Cat always seems to know what shift my mother is working. That is a very good thing as far as I’m concerned, because the less I have to stand around and watch my only two adult relatives square off and hiss at each other, the better.

  Anyway, my aunt is good at almost everything. She has a tiny, bright yellow, two-seater stick-shift car with an incredibly great stereo, and she can drive it in traffic at, like, seventy miles per hour while she talks on the phone, eats a muffin, drinks coffee, and changes radio stations. She’s a hairstylist, and I have seen her dy
e one person’s hair, give another person a wash and cut, and answer the phone, while supervising a new employee at the same time. My mom once told me that Aunt Cat has been living on her own since she was seventeen. She’s incredibly hyper, but she never messes anything up.

  Well, except for anything involving food preparation. If I happen to be at her apartment during mealtime, she will always ask me what I want. So I will ask her what she has. Then she will say, “How about a ham and cheese sandwich?”

  But when she starts looking in her fridge, she will add, “But . . . um . . . the vegetarian kind?”

  Or she will offer me her famous specialty: eggs on toast, without the eggs. Once, when her bread turned out to be moldy, we were left with eggs on toast, without the eggs or the toast. Which meant our dinner was peanut butter straight out of the jar, licked directly from our spoons.

  Actually, the fact that she had two clean spoons kind of impressed me.

  But the dining aspects of our relationship don’t really matter. What does matter to me, more than anything, is what Aunt Cat said to me at the end of the disastrous summer incident two years ago. She was about to get in her car in front of my apartment after my mom had screamed and yelled at her to go away. I was crying so hard I could barely get a breath, but I managed to ask, “Will I still see you?”

  Aunt Cat knelt down so her face was level with mine, grabbed both of my shoulders, stared into my eyes, and said, “Maverick, buddy, if you need me, call me. I don’t care what’s happening. I don’t care what kind of trouble you’re in. I don’t care what I have going on. I will drop everything and come to you.”

  As I arrived at the doorway of my first class, I told myself I wasn’t going to need Aunt Cat anytime soon. I was like, How hard can this be? What kind of terrible situation can I possibly get myself into on the first half day of school?

  Besides, the class was homeroom. Who gets in trouble in homeroom?

  This guy.

  My homeroom teacher’s name, which I hadn’t caught during the assembly, was Mrs. Sakofsky. She called each student up to her desk individually, handed us a little paper with our locker combination printed on it, and told us to go out in the hallway and open up our locker a few times, until we got the hang of it. When I got out there and found my locker, I couldn’t believe my luck: I was right between Jamie Thompson and Bowen Gregory Strack. Perfect! My two greatest foes in one convenient location!