a pirates field trip, ray rebmann [i love reading .txt] 📗

were the other inhabitants of

planet weird.

The action starts to pick up when Louis loses his cell phone. One of the mothers who’d

volunteered to come along find he’d typed “bitch” on the screen then texted it to the girls

sitting in the seats across from him. It’s one of the few words he’d learned how to spell right

since starting school. If the adults didn’t do something, he’d probably start sharing the rest of his

vocabulary knowledge with the girl any second.

I feel sort of sorry for the lady. She’s so flustered she can’t even talk. I guess she

never imagined that kids in her precious son’s grade knew such words. And just maybe her son

knows ‘em too.

She shows the evidence to Mr. J who doesn’t miss a beat. He puts the thing in his pocket,

stands next to Louis and without saying a word spins him around in his chair and with his

umbrella points to the front of the bus, the direction he expects Louis to be looking.

“I don’t have to listen to you.” Louis starts but something in the way Mr. J looks at

him makes Louis shut up.

“You can retrieve this from the principal’s office when we return to school. That will

give you ample time to come up with an excuse for having such a word on the screen.”

“It wasn’t me.” Louis says pathetically lame. Dewey and Huey eyeball him, figuring

he’d try to get them in trouble but Louis shuts up again.

Field Trip Pirates--39

“Meanwhile, think of all the better words you might have written to show off your

brilliance for the young ladies. And this time, keep them to yourself. Up here.” He points to his

head. “You can think can’t you? A mild uproar to be sure”

“Hey, isn’t that an oxymoron?” Louis asks, suddenly shocking himself that he actually

remembered something from one of his classes.

“Who you callin’ a moron?” Dewey shoots back, trying to take advantage of Louis being

in trouble, by egging him on to get in even more trouble.

The three musketeers I knew from reading stuck together through thick and thin.

“No,” Louis actually persists, “Ox…”

“Don’t even say it.” Dewey snaps and the pair wrestle in their seat until Huey rises in

his seat directly behind them and conks their two heads together.

“While Master Louis observation is clearly misunderstood by his peers, it’s gratifying for

a doddering old school teacher such as yours truly to learn that the youth of today is still

acquainted with the oxymoron.” Mr. J says.

“Now, I’d be terribly pleased beyond total unreasonable expectations if you boys stop

acting naturally, which can be pretty ugly and fill me with something more than sweet sorrow,

causing me to tear apart my weary soul with silent screams.”

“How many oxymorons did I just present? Can anyone provide an exact estimate?”

“Is this a quiz?” Dewey asks unhappily.

And then Mr. J turns back toward his seat, giving Dewey no chance for a comeback,

snappy or otherwise. It’s about this point that I begin to notice strange things about Mr j.

Like how his mustache had grown since the bus ride started. Mostly white, it had started

Field Trip Pirates--40

to thicken and darken and curl about the edges. His hair too, but that mustache was a real twirler,

you know, the kind you can grab at the ends and braid and make do all kinds of neat stuff.

“Pretty cool mustache, Mr j.” I finally have to say.

“Ah you’re an observant lad.” The old man answers. “Any idea what pieces of eight

are?”

Oops, I shouldn’t have encouraged him. Now he’s going to start talking to

me which for adults means asking a lot of foolish questions that no kid should possibly be able to

answer. That being what the adult wants since it gives the adult a chance to show how much

smarter he is than the kid.

“Actually I do.” I can’t help answering. “Spanish dollars. Silver. Worth 8 reales.

Actually used as currency in this country until 1857.”

“Smart lad.”

“Wikipedia.” I lie.

I’d done all the reading and then some. But I hate when teachers think I’m smart so

I try to get them to think I’m dumb by telling them I use the same short cuts as the rest of

the kids.

Mr. J knows better, like he sees right through that whole thing and isn’t letting me off

the hook for knowing my stuff. So I change the subject and ask him if the kid legend is true

about his son the monster in the attic.

“I do have a son. And he did sleep in the attic, by choice.” Mr. J says not vtoo happy

about the subject I chose. “But that was long, long ago.”

He doesn’t say anything else and even to a naturally nosey kid like, it’s obvious he isn’t

Field Trip Pirates--41

about to say any more.

“Anything else about pieces of eight?” he asks instead.

“Pirates love pieces of eight?”

“Exactly” the old guy smiles.

That’s when I notice his teeth. White for the most part and straight, the way you’d

expect a teacher’s teeth to look. Except that here and there, Mr J has a gold tooth and in the

center of each tooth, a diamond. It gives him a sparkling smile.

Mr. J doesn’t seem so bad for someone so old. I really don’t know too many old people.

Relatives like grand mom who show up at Christmas time, smelling funny, sort of musty

like they’d been locked in a basement all year waiting for a special event so they’d be let out for

the day. And they always make you sit and talk serious with them about stuff you’d never dream

about talking about… with them anyways.

‘What are you learning in school. Have you been a good boy. Do you have a girl friend.”

* * *


Field Trip Pirates--42

Mr J is happy just to talk about books.

“Thanks for the book.” I say, just to let him know I didn’t have short term memory

freeze and can still remember back to Halloween.

I hope that satisfies him and he’ll talk to the other grown ups the way they usually

stick together in a cluster on these things. All scared and worried that the kids might stage a

mutiny, take over the bus, and maroon them in the middle of the expressway.

“What did you think of Ichabod Crane?”

I forget he was a teacher.

I should have acted the way Huey would, get all uppity and blow him off, “dude it’s a

book. Just a bunch of words. I mean, who cares.” is what he would say. but then why would I

ever want to act like Huey?

So maybe I’d have some friends and I’d get to sit with lots of my friends instead of

having to talk to old old teachers….

“Remind you of any of your teachers?” Mr J interrupts my thinking.

I need something clever to say quick or he might just give me a test on the spot. Kid

legend has it that the J carries around a folder full of tests inside that big bag of tricks of his just

ready to be given for every occasion.

“I can’t imagine inviting a teacher home for dinner. Not with Huey’s table manners.”

He likes that. It not only shows that I read the book but I’m thinking about the way

teachers used to mooch off the families of their students back in ancient times.

He throws back his head and laughs. It isn’t one of those adult politely laughing at

something precocious the kid said phony laughs. It’s a really belly buster. It kind of

Field Trip Pirates-43

encourages me so I talk some more.

“Huey eats like such a pig that even the Headless Horseman would be afraid to come for

a snack.”

“What about that horseman? Think he was a ghost?” he suddenly whispers.

“There’s no such things as ghosts MrJ.”

He sits back, looking a little disappointed.

“Not nowadays anyway. Same as this field trip. Pirates and treasure…maybe when you

were a kid.”

“No ghosts? No pirates? I can’t imagine a world without them.”

There’s something about the way he says it that makes me like him even though he has

two strikes against him being ancient and a teacher. Then he gets back to grilling me about

pirate stuff from Treasure Island.

* * *


Field Trip Pirates--44

Traffic stops moving just as I’m answering Mr. J’s question that Davy Jones locker

was the place at the bottom of the sea where drowned sailors went to stay. Davy Jones was the

sailors’ version of the devil.

“Something happening at the bridge,” The driver explains. “Might be here for awhile.”

The museum is located on a small island in the river that passes through the big city. The

bridge is the only way on and off the island. If the bridge is closed, no museum trip.

Mr. J tells me that the museum used to be a prison before it was a museum and way

before that, it was a fort that guarded the river from invaders and even pirates that sometimes

raided up river and threatened the city.

Then he tells me there’s even a legend that treasure was once brought into the fort from a

captured pirate ship and was buried there.

“A lot of people dug but no one ever found it.” He says.

I’m looking at Mr. J, figuring his senility is getting to him. Pirates and buried treasure

near here? Sounds more like kid legend than something you’d read in a history book.

The natives are getting restless behind us and start chanting to the driver to turn the bus

around and he looks like he’d be only too happy to do that

Then Mr J does something strange. Saying he had to “stretch his legs”, he gets off the

bus.

Huey and his buds go ballistic. No one is supposed to get off the bus until we get to

where we’re supposed to be. That is field trip rule number one. Naturally Huey wants to

get off the bus to go with Mr j. As if he cares what the old man is up to.

“It isn’t fair. We have to sit here and he gets to get off.”

Field Trip Pirates --45

The parents sitting beside me don’t know what to say or do. Finally, Ms K comes from