Respecting Mr. Ravi

CHAPTER SIX: The Fair Assignment

“A-lex got in trou-ble,” Rudy Jerqson shouted. Laughter exploded around the room. The scraggly-haired, freckle-faced boy turned and pointed.

Alex unzipped his pencil case and pulled out a pen. Taking a deep breath, he placed the pen neatly on his desk, rolling it back and forth with his finger. The roar of students releasing the nerves and anxiety of sitting in Mrs. Oxford’s class all day bounced gently off of him. Instead, Mr. Gordon’s voice entered Alex’s head, repeating the same words over and over

again: You don’t want to end up like Mr. Ravi. You don’t want to end up like Mr. Ravi.

“Now, class, it’s time to settle,” Mrs. Oxford exclaimed. “Alex has learned his lesson. We don’t need this type of behaviour.” Her delicate yet stern voice brought little authority to the room until she tapped her foot on the floor with her high heels and placed her hands on her hips. The class knew then, she meant business, with the possibility of being sent to Gordon.

“That’s okay, Miss,” Alex said, clicking the end of his pen. “They can laugh all they want. I don’t care. They missed out on an awesome afternoon.”

A snicker surged out of Rudy’s mouth, two rows over from Alex. “Sounds like you know what you want to be when you grow up already?”

“What are you talking about?” Alex asked.

Mrs. Oxford picked up a pile of sheets from her desk and began handing them out to everyone.

Rudy leaned back in his chair. “Looks like you’ll make a great custodian one day. Are you going to be Ravi’s apprentice?”

The boys near the back giggled, cowering below the desks.

Alex shook his head and tucked himself behind Henry’s goliath back. A piece of paper landed in front of him as Mrs. Oxford trotted past. On the top of the page, it read Assignment: Multicultural Fair.

Since September, the students have learned about their own cultures. They researched their backgrounds and developed family trees using whatever multi-media platform they wanted. Alex learned from his parents that most of his family was from England. He wasn’t surprised, considering the bland food and over-cooked meat he had each night for dinner.

“I’d like you to take a couple of minutes and quietly read over the assignment.” Mrs. Oxford returned to the front and leaned up against the whiteboard. She propped her leg up on the recycling bin and pulled up her stockings. “Your job is to choose any country that interests you.”

“Can we work with a partner?” A girl named Lisa Weatherly raised her hand, flapping it about over her head.

Alex nudged Henry on the back. “Yes, you can,” Mrs. Oxford replied. “If you read the bottom of page two, you will see you are required to work in a group of three. There are several parts to this project, and it is important to build on the group skills we have been working on in class.”

Alex flipped to the second sheet. Near the top, a list of topics spilled down the page; location, population, history, climate, entertainment, sports, food and most importantly, culture.

“Can we work with anyone we want?” Lisa looked over to Maya Cabowski and Samantha Jerqson.

“Yes,” Mrs. Oxford said. “Choose your group wisely. And think carefully about which country you want to research. You’re going to embrace this new culture for a whole week.”

The students turned to one another, pointing and calling their friends to sit with them. Alex reached out to Henry and held onto his arm. “I got an idea already.”

Henry turned his desk around and faced Alex, stretching his legs out into the aisle. “I’ll do whatever. I’m easy, dude.” “Promise?” Alex asked.

“Yeah, sure, wadda ya have in mind?” The smell of fresh lemons drifted into the air. Alex read the last part of the assignment page. He picked up his pen, hovering it over the space, indicating what country the group was choosing to research.

“Trust me on this, Henry, okay?” Alex said.

“I trust you.”

Alex smiled and put his pen to the page. I-N-D-I-A. India.

The final minutes of the day ended with the bell, screaming out into the halls. Alex folded up the assignment page, tucked it into his binder, and hustled to his locker with Henry. He peered over the heads of the little third and fourth graders out toward the custodial office.

“So, why India? What’s your plan?” Henry asked. Little primary students still gawked at him when he trudged through the school. It didn’t matter how many weeks of school had gone by. Kids had never seen such a huge boy before.

Alex chucked his binder into his school bag and turned to Henry. “Okay, I’m going to test you.”

“Okay.” Henry raised his brow. “What person in this school gets walked on by pretty much every student and every tea…”

“Mr. Ravi,” Henry blurted. “Mr. Ravi gets treated like trash around here.”

“Exactly,” Alex said. “Which is why we’re going to do our Multicultural fair assignment on him. He can teach us how to play with crickets, and we can learn all about his life.”

“But it’s supposed to be on a country.” “I know. Ours is going to be unique. Trust me. But we can’t say anything to him. We should keep it a secret. I want it to be a surprise.” Alex pulled his lunch bag from the top shelf and jammed it into his bag. “You’ll have to come over this weekend. Maybe we can ride our bikes over to his house and interview him. He would never think we would be doing any school work on a Saturday.”

Rudy Jerquson elbowed Alex, followed by light punches on his shoulder. “Hey there, Mr. Caretaker, found a third person yet for your project?” Splashes of spit sprayed out of his mouth.

Alex looked at Henry. His eyes widened. Clearing his throat, Alex turned back to Rudy. “Yup. We’re good, sorry, we got someone already.”

“Who?” Rudy opened up a can of cream soda from his locker and took a swig. “I can’t tell you,” Alex replied. “That’s cuz you don’t have anyone yet. I can be in your group then, right?” “Um.”

“Satbir is working with Garth and Ryan, so I guess you’re stuck with me.” Rudy wrapped his arm around Alex, displaying the gap between his two crooked front teeth.

Students from up the hall piled out of the classrooms, making their way down to the locker bay. “Sorry, Rudy, like Alex, said, we already have somebody.” Henry pulled his sleeves down to his wrists, stretching the fabric of his undersized shirt. Rudy took another swig. “Who?” “My step-sister, Daisy Darlington.” “Daisy?” Alex dropped his running shoes onto the floor. A flood of warm air brushed over his face. Tingles slithered up and down his neck. “Um, yes. Daisy is in our group.” Alex’s knees weakened. Patches of white blotted his vision.

Rudy shook his head and tossed his cream soda can into an open locker next to the garbage bin. “Gotta go to the lady’s room.”

Alex rubbed his eyes for a second. “Dai—Daisy?”

Henry nodded. “Yeah, man. She’s crazy smart. She works like a machine.”

“But she’s not in our class.” Alex checked to make sure Rudy had left the locker bay.

“No problem.” Henry patted Alex’s back. “I’ll go talk to Mrs. Oxford right now, and you talk to my sister when she gets to her locker.” He straightened his sleeves again and turned around, disappearing down the hall. “I’ll be right back.”

“U—uh—okay. Great. Yeah. Great.” Alex reached down and picked up his gym shoes. His hands trembled. “This isn’t great. Not even close. I can’t do this now. I haven’t had time to—prepare.”

Through the tidal wave of sixth-graders pouring out of Mrs. Rutherford’s class, Daisy appeared, with her arms wrapped around a pink binder. Like a storm blowing through and touching down on a quiet, peaceful village, the locker bay was now packed with every junior class, pushing past each other in a race to get home.

“See ya later there, Slick.” Rudy Jerqson strutted out of the washroom and slapped Alex’s locker. “Enjoy working with your girlfriend. Don’t forget to clean your shirt!”

“Funny,” Alex mumbled.

He rubbed his front teeth with his finger and took a big breath. He stuffed his nose into his shirt for a second and sniffed. “Okay, I can do this—I think.”

To Be Continued: Tuesday, February 9