Goodbye, Mr. Terupt, page 18
in making (gross!),
and in raising.
I see
my mom
and dad
join hands,
and my heart flies
almost out of my chest.
I see
that what I hope for
might be possible
again
in the future.
I see
that it’s time
for our head-shaving
grand finale
after I hear
Mr. Lee’s pronouncement,
the part you’ve all been waiting for.
After everyone in the place had their moment to be all sentimental and emotional over the girls, Principal Lee took the microphone and shook things up again.
“And now,” he bellowed, “the part you’ve all been waiting for!”
He did a badass mic drop and then he and T made a show and strutted like two gangsters over to Barber Joe’s stool. Next to Lexie, Lee had raised the most money, so we saved his head for the grand finale. And since T was the only other adult getting shaved, he joined Mr. Lee and went first.
Let me just say, those two had the crowd in a wild frenzy. After all, it’s not every day that you get to watch your principal and teacher get their heads shaved. Still, I didn’t care. I was done with T—but then something happened that cracked my shield and split me wide open.
Barber Joe’s razor fired up for one last round. Hair started falling and hoots and howls bounced off the walls. Barber Joe circled to his left, working his way around T’s head, and that was when I saw it—the scar. A scar that brought me all the way back to fifth grade.
When Terupt was done and stood and faced us, that was it. There was no hesitation. Peter ran across the floor and hugged him. Finally, we had the gang back the way it was supposed to be. The way it would always be.
I glanced at my friends, who all wore the same happy and relieved expressions. Together, we walked over and joined Peter and Terupt. The hoots and hollers and cheering quieted. The crowd must’ve been completely confused by what they were witnessing—all except for one group of students who definitely got it.
Principal Lee had made this an all-school event, which meant our class of students with special needs was also there. Back at Snow Hill School it was the Collaborative Classroom. I didn’t know what it was called at the junior high. I rarely saw these kids. But they were here now. And they were still clapping and cheering. And then one of the boys came and hugged us. No one had a bigger heart than my brother Michael, and this boy reminded me of him.
“You came around just in time,” I told Peter. “I know what we’re going to do for our bucket-list event.” The idea had come to me all at once—and it was perfect.
“What is it?” Luke asked, already eager for his next project.
“Yeah, what is it?” Peter echoed.
I was about to fill them in when the gym exploded with a final round of screams and shouts. I swear, I thought the roof was going to come off the place. We turned and looked. Principal Lee was now Principal Clean.
IF you’re patient and keep thinking, THEN eventually you will figure it out.
When all was said and done, and the gym had emptied and it was just Mr. Terupt and us, we took a minute to laugh with each other about our new looks, but only for a minute, because Jeffrey was excited to tell us his idea.
“We’re going to put together a wrestling event for kids with special needs. Peter and I will get our team involved so that we can hold a couple of practices to teach the kids the rules and a few basic moves. And then we’ll have a night when we host a special match, when each wrestler from our team will go against one of our special needs athletes, giving them a chance to show what they’ve learned and be the star.”
There was still a lot left to figure out, but we had the general idea—and we loved it! Jeffrey’s heart was on full display with this one.
On our way out of the gym, Peter summed it up perfectly.
“Well, Lukester, you can chalk today up as epic. Pretty sure this was a date that will be remembered forever.”
A date that will be remembered forever, I thought. That was it. Jeffrey wasn’t the only one to have his bucket-list idea take him by surprise. I thought of mine now too. Jeffrey and Peter’s wrestling event needed to happen first, but I knew what I was doing. And it was going to be exactly what we needed.
The bucket-list events had been everything we’d hoped for so far—important, memorable, and bigger than us—and I knew Jeffrey’s idea would be no different. But before we could tackle that project, there was something else we needed to do. And that something else was one of my favorite jobs.
One afternoon in early May, Mr. Terupt needed help from the Babysitters Gang. He was taking Mrs. Terupt to her routine checkup on Baby Terupt Number Two. I was excited to watch Hope again, but between Mrs. Terupt’s growing belly and all the moving boxes that seemed to have suddenly appeared throughout their house, the end was clearly in sight, and that had me feeling anything but excited—and, as I soon found out, I wasn’t the only one feeling that way. One look at our bald heads and Hope started crying.
“Holy smokes, we’re so ugly we scared her,” Peter quipped.
“Don’t take it personally,” Mr. Terupt said. “She did that when I first came home too.”
“It’s okay, Hope. It’s just us. Polar Bear, Polar Bear,” Jessica sang. “Remember?”
That did the trick. Hope stopped crying and smiled at Jessica with big eyes. Jessica took her from Mrs. Terupt and we followed them upstairs to our usual spot. Mr. and Mrs. Terupt used that chance to quietly slip away.
I helped Jessica get Hope settled on her play mat and then we sat beside her with a stack of books. It didn’t take long before Lexie broke the ice and I discovered Hope and I weren’t the only ones dealing with uneasy feelings.
“Do you guys think we’ll keep getting together like this after Teach is gone?” she asked.
“Don’t say gone,” Jessica objected. “Say moved away. Gone sounds too permanent.”
“Fine. Whatever,” Lexie huffed. “Do you think we’ll keep getting together like this after he’s moved away?”
“Oh, no,” Peter balked. “No you don’t. That’s exactly what I was saying all along and you guys were giving me grief. And now that I’ve come to terms with it, you’re trying to drag me back there. No way.”
“But will we?” Lexie persisted, voicing all of our fears. “And like, how do we know?”
“We don’t,” Jeffrey answered. “There are no guarantees in life. We’ve all seen that. Diabetes. Cancer. You just never know. But if sticking together is truly important to us, then we’ll make it happen.”
“We’re going to make it happen,” Luke said. “Don’t worry.” He sounded so confident, but offered no explanation on how we were going to do it.
“This is when faith and prayer become important,” Danielle reasoned.
“Yeah, you say that, but like, how in the world am I supposed to know if God is listening or tuning me out?” Lexie asked.
“That’s the faith part,” Danielle replied. “God answers in mysterious ways. You have to believe in that, but you can’t spend all of your time worrying about it. We need to live in the present and enjoy it while we’ve got it. At least, that’s what Grandma says.”
“Your grandma’s awesome!” Peter exclaimed. “She had that loudmouth seventh-grader crapping his pants. That was so funny.”
“Grandma Roberts is the best,” I agreed.
“Yeah,” Peter continued. “So, like she says, we need to enjoy today and have some fun instead of sitting around and holding a pout party.”
“Okay, Mr. Let’s Have a Good Time, what do you suggest?” Jeffrey challenged.
Peter took a second to glance around the room. “I’ve got it,” he said, and grinned.
“Uh-oh,” Luke replied.
“Uh-oh is right,” Lexie agreed. “Whenever you have one of your sudden brilliant ideas it’s usually the opposite, totally dumb. Like when you thought peeing on my leg was going to be the answer.”
“That wasn’t dumb, that was romantic,” Peter argued.
“Ohmigod,” Lexie shrieked, throwing the couch pillow at him.
Peter ducked and Hope squealed.
“You two better stop. You’re scaring Hope,” Jeffrey said.
“She’s not scared, she’s entertained,” Peter claimed.
“She’s gonna be entertained when she watches me kick your butt,” Lexie said.
“Will you let me share my idea, and then you can decide if it’s dumb or not?” Peter asked.
“Yes, please tell us so we can move past this banter,” Jessica pleaded.
Hope squealed again.
Peter smirked and then he filled us in. “I think we should hide seven different prizes in random moving boxes. One prize from each of us, and the prizes can be anything we want. When T and his darling bride are unpacking in their new home, they’ll discover whatever we’ve left for them and smile—or yell,” Peter added, and snickered.
We sat in silence because his idea wasn’t dumb—at all. In fact, it was wonderful, but we were afraid to tell Peter that because then his head might not fit in the house anymore.
“Told you it was good,” he bragged, strutting like a rooster after no one had objected.
“So what’s your prize?” Jeffrey asked.
“Don’t know yet,” Peter admitted, “but I’ll come up with something.”
“Maybe we should leave artifacts?” Luke wondered.
“Artifacts? I like that,” Jessica mused.
“Prizes or artifacts, whatever,” Peter replied. “Just hide something.”
“It doesn’t need to be much,” Jessica said. “A simple note or poem—”
“Or sketch,” Danielle added.
“You guys can do that artifact stuff,” Peter said. “I’m gonna try to come up with something else.”
“Uh-oh,” Luke replied.
“Uh-oh,” Hope repeated, and we all laughed.
But uh-oh was right. Peter still had the potential to turn his wonderful idea into a disaster. Regardless, I was too excited about my artifact to worry about Peter.
I dug through my bag and found the spare thumb drive I was hoping for. Then I grabbed my computer, which I had with me because I hadn’t been home since school let out, and then I sat down near Hope because we couldn’t leave her all alone. I got busy sorting through all the photos I had saved on my computer, picking my best shots of the gang and Hope to copy to the thumb drive—my artifact. I folded a piece of paper into a makeshift envelope and stuck my artifact inside. On the outside, I wrote, Pictures can be worth 1,000 words. I taped the envelope closed and buried it inside one of the boxes.
I wasn’t sure what anyone else decided to do, but this might’ve been Peter’s best idea ever. I didn’t want Mr. Terupt to move, but I smiled thinking about him opening these moving boxes and discovering our random artifacts—assuming they were all something nice, like I had done.
Peter? He was the big unknown.
Mrs. Writeman gave Anna and me a ride home after we babysat Hope. It wasn’t dinnertime yet, but we found Mom and Grandma sitting at the table with Terri and Charlie when we walked into the house. They were waiting for us.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, feeling their eyes on us the second we stepped through the door. “Where are Dad and Grandpa?”
“Everything’s fine,” Mom replied. “Your father and Grandpa—”
“Are doing chores,” Grandma barked. “Charlie and Terri have something to tell us, but they wouldn’t spill the beans until you two got home. ’Bout time. I was beginning to think I’d be in the ground before you decided to show up.”
“Grandma, patience makes the world go round,” I teased.
“And dead is permanent,” she retorted, “so don’t give me your hogwash. Now sit your rears in those chairs so we can finally hear what it is your brother and Terri have to say.”
Grandma’s sass had Anna and me giggling, but I did wonder what they could have to tell us that was so important. Everyone in the family already knew they were having a baby.
“Okay, what is it?” Grandma demanded once Anna and I sat down with them. She was long past having any patience.
“Charlie and I aren’t having a baby,” Terri said. “We’re having three of them.”
My eyes popped.
“Three!” Grandma hollered. “Holy cow!”
“Triplets?” Anna sputtered.
Terri and Charlie nodded.
“The Lord had better plan on keeping me around a while longer, ’cause you’re gonna need lots of help with three,” Grandma said.
Mom got up and hugged Terri and then Charlie.
“The Babysitters Gang lives on,” Anna whispered.
I smiled. Exactly what I was thinking. The chances of having triplets had to be extremely rare, but the Lord works in mysterious ways.
IF Mr. Terupt is involved, THEN things don’t slow down at the end of the school year.
It never failed: when the end of the year drew closer, things got busier with Mr. Terupt. There was always important work to be done—and this year, like every year before it, felt like the most important yet.
If you’ve ever wondered what it means to go full circle, Jeffrey and Peter’s wrestling idea was it. Our first interaction with students having special needs took place way back in the beginning, when Mr. Terupt had us visiting the Collaborative Classroom in fifth grade. And boy, did we learn a lot—about each other and ourselves. Now here we were as our time with Mr. Terupt continued winding down, finishing up with a project that highlighted students with special needs from the junior high school. That’s going full circle. That was what made this another perfect bucket-list event. This endeavor showed just how much we’d grown and changed—because of Mr. Terupt.
By this stage in the game, we were a well-oiled machine when it came to organizing and running one of our bucket-list events. We were like a cell, each of us acting as an organelle, carrying out a vital function, but we also helped one another along the way.
Danielle was responsible for designing T-shirts. All the participants would get one, but we still didn’t need that many, so we all pitched in a few dollars and placed the order. Anna was in charge of taking photographs at the event, but she also assisted Jessica and Lexie with the advertising and social media stuff. In addition, the girls needed to hand out medals to the participants after each of their matches. Again, we didn’t need that many medals, so Mr. Terupt took care of ordering those. I was the emcee or play-by-play announcer. The guy with the microphone, in other words. Peter and Jeffrey and Mr. Terupt were the coaches. And Jeffrey and Peter were also participants.
To prepare for the event, the wrestling team held three practices after school. At those practices Jeffrey and Peter had each wrestler partner up with one special-needs athlete. Each athlete was taught a takedown, a turn from the top position, and an escape from the bottom. Jeffrey and Peter took time explaining and going over all the starting positions and rules. Everything was always reviewed at the next practice. I knew all this because I attended the practices to prepare for my role as emcee. I had a lot to learn as well if I expected to call a move by its correct name and understand the scoring.
By the time the big night rolled around, I knew it was going to be another event of epic proportions. And I was right. The stands were full with parents of special needs students along with members of the student body and school faculty and staff, all excited for the sixteen matches in our lineup. Wrestle’Lympics, as we decided to call it, was a night that gave you all the feels.
Obviously, it was different wrestling against Richie than it was against all of my other opponents. I was going to let him—even help him—execute the moves I’d shown him. Either I was a better coach than I realized or Richie knew something about having a game face, because he hit his double-leg harder than he ever had at practice. He buried his shoulder in my stomach and tackled me to the mat.
“There’s a beautiful double-leg by Richie!” Luke yelled into his microphone.
The gym erupted with celebratory whistles and shouts. I was proud as heck and might’ve even smiled, but Richie had knocked the wind out of me—at both ends, if you know what I mean.
Richie heard it. And then he smelled it. And then he forgot all about having a game face and going for his moves. He jumped off of me and started laughing and pointing. “Peter farted!” he yelled, plugging his nose. He turned and waved his hand back and forth behind his butt.
At this point everyone in the bleachers roared with laughter. My face burned with embarrassment.
“It appears Peter has farted,” Luke, our brilliant play-by-play man, announced.
I glared and showed him my fist in warning. I wanted to run and hide, but there was no chance for that, because when I wasn’t looking, Richie tackled me with another double. The place went bananas.
“There’s another beautiful takedown for Richie!” Luke yelled.
The crowd cheered wildly and I smiled because they were done laughing at me and were rooting for Richie. And Richie didn’t stop. He went right to work putting on the half-nelson I’d taught him and he pushed me over onto my back. I put on a show by bridging my shoulders off the mat, but Richie kept working, and eventually he got my back flat on the mat and the referee called the pin.
Richie sprang to his feet and raised his arms in victory. The boy had the biggest smile on his face I’d ever seen. Then he turned and gave me his hand and helped me up. He pulled me into a monster-sized hug. “I love you, Peter,” he yelled into my ear.
