lip from either of you. Not a word.â
âSo what do we-we-we do next?â Julian asked.
âIâll think of a tiebreaker tonight,â I said, âand Iâll announce it in the morning.â
That night I worked on Miss Noelleâs homework assignment and didnât make up the final test until we were all walking to school the next morning.
âHere is the final test,â I announced. âAs we all know, staying out of trouble at school is the sign of true genius. So, I want each of you to spend the whole day at school without ever going to class and without ever being sent to the principalâs office. You will have to use all your genius skills to both avoid being absent while never being present.â
âI donât get it,â Julian said. âYou want us to be-be-be invisible?â
âInvisible, but present at the same time,â I replied.
âI think I get it,â Pete said. âYou just hang out in the hall around the front office and if anyone asks what you are doing, you just say you are waiting for the secretary to call your mom because you have head lice.â
âYeah,â I said. âSomething like that.â
âIt would be better,â Julian said, âto just tell-tell-tell everyone you are a substitute custodian and push a broom around.â
âWhy donât you just hang out in the bathroom all day and if a teacher comes in tell them you have a contagious kidney infection,â I suggested.
âIâm psyched for this test,â Julian said, rubbing his hands together.
âPiece of cake,â Pete said.
âOne final thought,â I added. âRemember, Einstein said, âImagination is more important than knowledge.ââ
After we walked through the front door of the school they scattered.
During the day I received permission to go to the bathroom twelve times, but never spotted them. I sneaked out to the courtyard and climbed up into the replica of the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse. They were not there. And they were not hunkered down inside the model of the Wright brothersâ first airplane. I volunteered to take a note from Miss Noelle to the front office and didnât see them there. They did not come out for morning recess, or lunch, or they were hiding behind
the shelves in the library when I went there for more bird migration research. There was only a half-hour left in the day when suddenly the fire alarm went off.
âOkay,â Miss Noelle directed. âYou know what to do. Drop everything and follow me.â
We did. All eighteen of us marched down the hall and joined the lines of other kids streaming out of classrooms. I stood on my tiptoes and searched for Pete and Julian. But I didnât see them. We all gathered on the back playground. There was a funeral and kids rushed the fence to get a good look. I kept moving through the crowd, looking for Julian and Pete. What if the school is on fire? I said to myself. What if there is a gas leak and itâs going to blow up? What if a giant tidal wave is coming our way? I should tell someone, I thought. I turned and walked toward the open door.
âJack Henry,â Miss Noelle shouted. âGet over here with our class.â
I trotted over to her. âWhat if someone is trapped in there?â I asked.
âItâs a false alarm,â she said. âSome pinhead pulled the switch in the cafeteria. The janitor told me. If it were a real fire, the heat would have set off the sprinkler sensor.â
âAre you sure?â I asked.
âYeah,â she said.
Then it occurred to me that one of them might have
gotten hungry and this would be a way to sneak into the kitchen and get some food. But that seemed impossible. Pulling a fire alarm when there was no fire was the stupidest thing in the world. Neither of them was a genius, but they werenât that dumb either.
Soon the fire trucks came, and five minutes later
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