From Hero to Zero - Chris Tebbetts Read online

  That left me two options. One—I could stay down below with Mrs. Stricker and the driver, like a gigantic loser. Or two—I could go up with everyone else, where they could all see me sitting by myself with nobody to talk to… also like a gigantic loser.

  I figured I might as well be outside. At least then I’d get more of a view, more fresh air, and less Mrs. Stricker. I even snagged one of the good seats near the front—until I let Cedric and Olivia take it instead. I was still trying to do the whole nice thing, but they didn’t even thank me.

  Then, when Mrs. Stricker took roll call and got to my name, Miller just kept the yuks coming and answered for me. It was actually a half-decent imitation of my stupid, cracking voice—one-half “Here!” and one-half “HONK!”

  But I wasn’t laughing. Not like everyone else was.

  The good news is, things got a little better after that. It turns out that London’s a really cool city! Once we finally got rolling, we saw about eighteen different parks and this whole waterfront with all kinds of stuff to do along the River Thames (which sounds like “Tems” if you’re speaking British, by the way. You’d think since they invented English over here, they’d be better at pronouncing it right). It seemed like every time I turned around, I was looking at either the world’s oldest buildings or the newest skyscrapers on the planet. They have this one called the Gherkin that looks about one massive ignition away from liftoff.

  At first, I tried taking notes for my report, but it wasn’t so easy on a moving bus. I tried drawing, too, but it all came out looking like this:

  Yeah, that wasn’t going to win any contests! So I took out my phone and turned on the video instead.

  That was the way to go. I got some great shots of the Victoria and Albert Museum, and this giant store called Harrods, and Buckingham Palace—which, to be honest, I thought was going to look like a big castle but doesn’t.

  And here’s what I figured out pretty quick after that. When you’ve got no one to talk to, a video camera can be your best friend. Seriously. It totally gave me something to do besides sitting there feeling like I had a contagious disease.

  That was when I started getting really into it, too. I remember because when that bus turned into Green Park, I tried my first real movie move with the camera. I pointed my phone back at Buckingham Palace, then swooped it up toward the sky, turned around fast, and came down again, like we’d just landed in the park out of nowhere.

  Then I played it back for myself, and I’m not going to lie—it looked awesome! It was like I’d strapped the camera to some superhero’s head just before he made the world’s biggest leap.

  So I kept going.

  I panned around the park, up into the trees, down again, and then way in close on some black swans in the water. The way they were flapping their beaks, it looked like you could give them human voices in the video and do something funny with that. Probably with an English accent.

  I didn’t know how all this was going to fit into our Living-Learning Report yet, but I didn’t even care. I was finally having a good time.

  In fact, I started thinking maybe this was my new thing. Maybe instead of drawing all the time, I’d make videos instead. Cool videos. The kind that go mega-viral in a matter of seconds.

  And maybe… just maybe… after someone discovered me on YouTube, everything would take off. I’d be a real director then, working with big stars and making even bigger money. I’m talking about the kind of cash that buys you sharks that do tricks in your aquarium overlooking the Hollywood Hills, and private jets to Hawaii for breakfast, because sometimes you just have to have those pineapple pancakes at your favorite place—

  “What is he doing?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “He is so weird sometimes. It’s like he lives in his own world or something.”

  “I know, right?”

  Ooops. I was getting so into my video that I kind of forgot everyone else was there. It felt like the real world went away for a minute, and it was just me and my phone-camera, doing our thing.

  That was, until I heard those girls behind me. That brought me right back to Planet Earth. I recognized Sabra’s and Katrina’s voices, but I didn’t have the nerve to turn around.

  “I mean, he’s not so shrimpy anymore,” Katrina said.

  That was a good thing, right? They noticed I’d gotten taller. Maybe not tall. But taller. At least I wasn’t the shortest kid in the class anymore.

  “And he’s cuter than he was in sixth grade,” Sabra said.

  Me? Cuter? Really? I couldn’t believe it.

  “Ew! You think Rafe’s cute?” Katrina said.

  “I mean, just in a dorky kind of way,” Sabra said.

  “Well, I guess I can see that,” Katrina said, right before they both cracked up.

  And I thought, Yeah, that’s more like it.

  Welcome back to the real world.

  Tower Power

  Our first stop was the Tower of London. If you haven’t heard of it, it’s this thousand-year-old fort where a bunch of people got their heads chopped off back in the really, really old days.

  So yeah, most of us were pretty interested.

  Our tour guide was a guy named Gordon. He had this old-school uniform with a big hat and told us he was a “yeoman warder of the Tower.” They nicknamed those guys Beefeaters, because supposedly back when it was a real prison, the guards were allowed to eat all the best meat from the king’s fridge. I wanted to ask if you could be a vegetarian and still work there, but I decided to keep my mouth shut instead.

  Anyway, Gordon was pretty cool. He was also way funnier than you think someone could be, talking about things like the Bloody Tower and Traitors’ Gate and how they used a sword instead of an ax on Anne Boleyn’s head. That special treatment was because she was King Henry VIII’s wife, and also because “an ax can get a bit messy,” according to Gordon.

  “Some say London is the world’s most haunted city,” he told us, “and that this very tower is its most haunted building.”

  He winked when he said the last part, but it gave me the shivers. If Gordon was right, then all those executions happened right there, on the exact same ground where we were standing.

  So, just to be on the extra-safe side, I kept my camera running. I’m not saying I believe in ghosts, but if they were real, and I got a picture of one, can you imagine how fast we’d win that contest?

  So when Gordon said it was time to “queue up” (which means get in line) for the gems and jewels part of the tour, I was a little bummed. I wanted to stay outside and see more of the creepy, ghosty, prisony stuff. Visiting a bunch of jewelry in glass cases didn’t sound nearly as cool to me.

  And it wasn’t. In fact, what happened next was extremely not cool.

  And, of course, it was all my fault.

  Rules and Jewels

  The first thing we had to do before we went inside was hear about all the rules. They had more rules for seeing the Crown Jewels than Mrs. Stricker has for Hills Village Middle School.

  Actually, no, they didn’t. Nobody has more rules than Mrs. Stricker. But there were a lot, anyway.

  “Please maintain an orderly line, keep your voices down, respect the boundaries, do not touch the cases, keep moving, do not block access for others…,” Gordon recited, like he’d said it a hundred times before.

  I didn’t even catch all of it, but I got his drift. NO MESSING AROUND WITH THE JEWELS. And no video, either, so I had to put my camera away.

  Gordon said there were more than twenty-three thousand diamonds, emeralds, rubies, and sapphires in the vault, guarded every hour of every day of the year. I asked him how much it was all worth, but he just said the collection was priceless, which is like saying it cost infinity, give or take a couple of dollars.

  For me, the coolest part was the entrance. You walk in through these giant four-ton doors, like walking into a real bank vault.

  And then there were the people movers. Once we got inside, the way to see e
verything was to stand on these conveyor belts, like the electric sidewalks at the airport. Then you just kind of ride past the jewels without having to walk or anything.

  I’ll be honest. I thought it was kind of boring, like taking an hour to walk through a jewelry store. Ghosts and rolling heads beat diamonds and rubies, every time. Especially if they’re not even giving out free samples.

  But then I noticed Bobby. He had his notebook out and kept trying to get to the front where he could see better. I guess he wanted to write about those jewels for his part of the report.

  I didn’t mention this before, but Bobby’s one of the shortest kids in our class. Just like I used to be, which was just the worst. So I took a step back and made some room for him on the conveyor belt.

  “Go ahead,” I said.

  I didn’t want Bobby to think I was trying too hard to make friends, but I still wanted to do something nice for him. Especially something that had zero chance of making him throw up.

  Bobby didn’t say anything. He just moved around to get a better view, while I got out of his way.

  For about half a second.

  It’s pretty dark in that vault, so I didn’t see exactly what happened. All I know is that when I stepped out of Bobby’s way, someone else’s foot got tangled up with mine. And the last thing I saw before everything went kerflooey was Jared McCall looking down at me… smiling.

  The next thing I knew, I spun around and fell right into one of those big jewelry cases—right before I ricocheted off it and hit the floor. All I left behind was a noseprint and two streaks where my hands slid down the glass.

  That conveyor belt was still going, too. A second later, I got spat out onto the carpet while a bunch of people jumped out of the way, trying not to get knocked over like bowling pins.

  Three words: Major. Security. Disaster.

  A bunch of guards came running over, along with Mrs. Stricker. All the lights clicked on. Everyone stopped what they were doing. And I was wondering how this could have gone so bad, so fast. AGAIN.

  “Do NOT touch the glass!”

  “No horseplay will be tolerated in here!”

  “Young man, get off the ground!”

  “What is going on here?” Mrs. Stricker yelled.

  “Rafe tried to push Bobby,” someone said.

  Wha? I looked over, and it was Jared’s best friend, Colin, who’d said it. Jared was just standing there, staring at me. And he was still smiling.

  But then Bobby spoke up next.

  “It wasn’t Rafe’s fault,” Bobby said.

  And I was like—huh???

  “He was just trying to get out of my way,” he said. “That’s all. It was an accident.”

  I guess Bobby knew I was trying to do him a favor. And maybe he’d even started to figure out that I was never trying to make him spew on that plane in the first place.

  So even though all those guards were looking for someone to blame, and Jared had probably just tripped me on purpose (even though I couldn’t prove it), and I still had Mrs. Stricker hating me, it was also kind of cool, too. Like maybe, finally, being nice had started to pay off, just a tiny bit.

  With Bobby, I mean. I still had everyone else to deal with.

  Starting with Mrs. Stricker.

  Thin Ice

  When everyone went outside to get fish and chips for lunch, Mrs. Stricker made me stay back for another talking-to.

  “Mrs. Stricker,” I told her, “I know how that looked, but it’s like Bobby said—”

  “What I know, Rafe, is that trouble seems to follow you wherever you go,” she said. “Whether it’s your fault or not.”

  “But—,” I said.

  “I don’t want to hear about your but,” she told me. “Do you understand? Not one more but out of you. As far as I’m concerned, that was your last but.”

  I honestly didn’t mean to laugh, but come on! You would have, too, right? You can only listen to a grown-up say butt so many times in a row without busting up.

  “Is something funny?” Mrs. Stricker barked.

  “No!” I said, and then I tried to think about the saddest things I could, to keep from cracking another smile while Mrs. Stricker finished yelling at me.

  The good news was, I didn’t get in any more trouble. Mrs. Stricker didn’t cut off my head or put me in a time-out or whatever you do for detention when the detention room is on the other side of the ocean.

  The bad news was, she told me I was “back on thin ice.” If I didn’t “watch myself” and “fly right” for the rest of the trip, I was headed straight for that automatic F. Which meant staying in middle school another whole year.

  In other words, the pressure was still on. More than ever. I needed to figure out this Editor in Chief business, ASAP (that’s how editors say “as soon as possible”). And there was only one person I could think of who might help me with it.

  The trick was going to be getting her to talk to me.

  A Little Help? Anyone?

  Once Mrs. Stricker let me go, I went outside, where everyone was having lunch by the river. I skipped the fish and chips and went looking for Jeanne instead.

  When I found her, she was eating with Morgan and Alison, which didn’t help. The two of them looked like they wanted to strap some chum to my arms, throw me in the river, and hope some sort of river shark came swimming along.

  At least Jared wasn’t there, because I had enough on my mind already. Most of all right now, I had to worry about Jeanne.

  “Hey, Jeanne, can I talk to you?” I said. “Like, maybe in private?” Except, of course, it came out like this:

  I think my voice hates me. Either that or I have the worst luck in the history of hormones.

  Jeanne didn’t laugh, though, unlike her friends. Which was nice. I couldn’t tell what she was thinking, but she did get up and follow me away from Morgan and Alison, so I could finish embarrassing myself in private.

  “What’s up?” she asked me.

  I tried to swallow, but my throat was like one big piece of dried leather.

  Now that we were alone, I couldn’t stop thinking about what Leo had told me the night before. It was like he was right there, coming in loud and clear.

  Finally, I got it out.

  “The truth is, I need to ask you a favor,” I told her. “But I also want to say that I’m really sorry about the whole Editor in Chief thing. I never asked for that job. I swear.”

  “It’s okay, Rafe,” Jeanne said. “I know.”

  “You do?”

  “Yeah,” she said. “I mean, come on. This is me you’re talking to. We’re not exactly strangers.”

  I wasn’t really sure what that meant. I mean, I understood the words, but I didn’t know what Jeanne was trying to say.

  “You seemed kind of upset about it this morning,” I said.

  “I was,” Jeanne said. “But I think I was mostly embarrassed.”

  “Why should you be embarrassed?” I asked. “You didn’t do anything.”

  “I know,” she said. “It’s just that I’m used to being in charge with that kind of stuff. And now… well… you’re in charge.”

  “Ohhh,” I said. I was starting to figure it out. “So, are you saying you were embarrassed because you didn’t get to be Editor? Or because I did?”

  “Neither,” Jeanne said. “I don’t mean it like that. It’s just… I really wanted us to win that contest,” Jeanne said.

  I’m not going to lie. That hurt my feelings. A lot.

  Which is stupid. I mean, it’s not like I thought I could do a better job than Jeanne. I didn’t think I could do it at all. So why should it matter if Jeanne thought so too?

  But here’s the thing. It did matter.

  “This is coming out all wrong,” Jeanne said. “Please don’t be mad, Rafe.”

  “I’m not,” I said.

  “Yes you are,” she said.

  Yes. I was. Sure, she was right about us probably losing the contest because of me, but it was super-confusin
g, too. I mean, trying to be mad at Jeanne is like trying to be mad at chocolate cake. How are you supposed to do that?

  Meanwhile, my heart was pumping, my face was hot, and I felt like I’d just run a mile in concrete socks.

  “I’ve got to go,” I said.

  “Rafe, come back!” Jeanne said. “Didn’t you say you wanted to ask me a favor?”

  But it was too late. I couldn’t stop walking away now. So I just kept going—as far away from Jeanne as I could get.

  And that many steps closer to that automatic F.

  History and Mystery

  After dinner that night, I spent a long time in the Learning Center at the hotel. That was like a classroom they had set up for us, with tables and computers and stuff.

  First, we had a team meeting. That’s what Mrs. Stricker called it. All the topic leaders were there, including Jeanne, of course. Also Ms. Donatello, Mr. Rourke, Mrs. Stricker, and me.

  And yeah, the whole thing was about as comfortable as a sandpaper straitjacket. Jeanne kept looking at me across the table, and I spent most of the time saying stuff like “Uh-huh,” and “Okay,” and “That sounds good,” because everyone had better ideas than me.

  When Mrs. Stricker asked what I thought the theme for our report should be, I said, “Um… London?”

  People actually thought it was a joke. But the truth is, that’s the best I could come up with on the spot. Everyone kept looking at me like they were wondering what I was doing there, and the whole idea of winning that contest was feeling more and more like climbing Mount Everest blindfolded during a snowstorm.

  After I finished coming up with exactly zero good ideas for our theme, Mrs. Stricker said we should organize what we had so far by topic and start posting it online. But then I said I’d do that part myself.