EllRay Jakes is Magic!

1
KEEPING AN OPEN MIND
“Settle down, captive children,” Ms. Sanchez says with a smile. It is after lunch on a Friday in April, but it feels like summer in here. Even though we’re in a stuffy classroom, you can almost smell the chlorine in the air.
Our teacher’s joke lately is to call us “captive children,” because she knows we want to be outside playing, not stuck in our chairs like lumps of Play-Doh.
We take our seats in slow motion, not wanting to let go of the good time we just had during recess. All us third grade boys played hard, after cramming down our food as fast as we could. We played King of the Mountain, our latest fun thing, even though there aren’t any mountains-or even pointy hills on our playground. But there is a sloping lawn near where we eat lunch, so we make that work.
“Move it, swim boy,” Jared Matthews says, hip-checking Corey Robinson for no reason.
Big mistake. Corey–one of my one-and-a-half best friends–ended up being King of the Mountain the longest today. He’s quick. He’s probably going to be an Olympic swimmer some day, which is pretty cool.
Corey turns around fast, and after some invisible, mysterious move, gigantic Jared is staggering backward. “Oops. Sorry, dude,” Corey says, eyes wide and hands up to show his innocence.
And Jared doesn’t say a word. In fact, I think he just learned something: to stay out of Corey’s way.
My half-best friend is Kevin McKinley. He is the only boy in our class with brown skin like mine, but sometimes he hangs out with Jared and Stanley Washington now instead of Corey and me. That’s new. It stinks.
The girls mostly huddled in the shade after lunch, because it was hot out. Girls don’t like to sweat, in my opinion. They whisper and giggle and do whatever it is girls do when they’re together. But Kry Rodriguez and Fiona McNutly joined in the game for a while, even though Fiona often claims she has weak ankles.
Kry can do whatever she wants, even boy stuff, and no one says anything bad about her. I don’t know how she pulls that off, because a couple girls in our third grade class–Cynthia Harbison and her personal assistant Heather Patton, to be exact–can be pretty strict about what is boy stuff and what is girl stuff. Kry has long, shiny black bangs that hang past her eyebrows in a perfect straight line, but she can still see.
Cynthia used to be the girl-boss of our class, but now I think Kry is, even though Kry doesn’t act like she cares about stuff like that. I think Fiona was just copying Kry when she tried to play King of the Mountain with us, like maybe she thought some of Kry’s popularity might rub off on her.
Emma McGraw and Annie Pat Masterson are the nicest girls in our third grade class, but don’t tell them I said so. It might sound weird.
I think girls are confusing.
“It’s time for you to listen,” Ms. Sanchez tells us as we accept our fate and slump into our chairs. “I have an important announcement to make, and I want you to keep an open mind about it.”
Keep an open mind about it? This does not sound good. When grown-ups say “Keep an open mind,” they’re usually about to tell you something you don’t want to hear.
Besides, a couple of kids in our class-namely Jared and Stanley, the closest guys I have to enemies around here already have minds that are so “open” they’re almost empty, in my opinion. For example, Stanley says there’s only one squirrel in Oak Glen, California, which is where we live. He swears that this lonely squirrel follows him around-and likes him. I think Stanley believes it because ever since he was three, his mom has said, “There’s your little squirrel friend!” whenever they see one. I’ve heard her do it.
Meanwhile, back here in class, Heather raises her hand and speaks at the same time. “Well, what ever the announcement is, I’m not doing anything that’s against my religion,” she says, sliding a glance at the rest of us-especially Cynthia-to see how we are taking this news.
Since Heather has been yapping about it so much lately, I happen to know that she and her fam ily started going to a new church three weeks ago.
“Nobody would dream of asking you to,” Ms. Sanchez says, her voice calm as always. “And please wait for me to call on you after you raise your hand. You know better than simply to blurt out whatever pops into your head, Miss Patton.”
My name is EllRay Jakes, but I’m “Mr. Jakes” when I mess up in class. That’s one of Ms. Sanchez’s things, to get more polite the worse we act. But we usually don’t act too bad, because we like Ms. Sanchez so much. Also, she’s the prettiest teacher at Oak Glen Primary School.
And she’s going to get married really soon! I feel funny thinking about it, but that sounds weird, too. All the parents are giving her a wedding shower late next week. They are arguing by email and phone-tree about what her present should be, and who owes what. I think they should just give Ms. Sanchez a sack of money. That’s what I’d like if I were her.
My real name is Lancelot Raymond Jakes, but everyone calls me EllRay. My mom named me Lancelot Raymond because she writes romance stories for grown-up ladies, and she liked those two fancy names. But my name got changed to L period-Ray for short, as soon as I got a vote, and then it turned into EllRay.
“So, here’s what’s up,” Ms. Sanchez says. “Our principal has decided that Oak Glen Primary School should have its very own talent show next week, during Friday’s assembly, which will be at two in the afternoon. He says that will help all the grades get to know each other better.”
Emma raises her hand. “But it’s already April,” she says when Ms. Sanchez calls on her. “Why do we have to get to know each other better now?”
Annie Pat nods.
“I don’t know,” Ms. Sanchez says, sighing as she sneaks a peek at her sparkly engagement ring which is her hobby, I think. “Maybe he thought that things were getting a little dull around here and you kids needed something fun to grab your attention. The point is, all grade levels have to take part in the show.”
“I’m pretty sure talent shows are against my religion,” Heather says, shaking her head like that’s that, she’s out of this thing free and clear.
“And we’re going to need at least five volunteers from this very class for the talent show tryouts. Five,” Ms. Sanchez continues, as if Heather hasn’t said a word.
Okay. Keeping an open mind about this is gonna be hard.
“Corey can swim for everyone,” Jared says, cracking himself up.
“Or Kry could do mental math,” Kevin jokes trying to impress Jared, I guess.
“And that’s about it for talent in this class,” Emma finishes, sounding sad.
“Oh, I don’t know about that,” Ms. Sanchez says, her brown eyes sparkling. “I’m sure some of you are taking music lessons or gymnastics. Or how about a martial arts demonstration? Anyone?”
We all CLAMP our mouths shut and shake our heads.
“Listen, people,” Ms. Sanchez says. “Cheer up. It’ll be fun! And the third grade has to participate. We can give it a try, at least. Remember, trying out doesn’t mean you’ll get in the show.”
“Really?” Fiona peeps.
“Really,” Ms. Sanchez says. “But I’ll tell you what. If you want, you may sort this out among yourselves. Just remember, we need five volunteers on Monday, because that’s when the tryouts are.
“And now on to math and rounding money amounts,” she announces, pulling some worksheets out of a bright green folder. “This is something you can all be good at, talented or not. Also, it’s a useful, real-life skill to master. Let’s proceed.”