Before the bell rang on Friday, Mr. Savage made an announcement to everyone. "Star is starting a club," he said, holding his arm out to me. I stood up and waved a little bit. "It meets after school on Wednesdays, in this room," he went on. "Star, why don't you tell everyone about your club? What's it called?"
I cleared my throat and said, "It's called the Trailer Park Club."
Someone coughed. It was one of the fourth-graders, I'm sure, because the eight of them sit in their own cluster by the door. I knew I should have run the name by Winter before announcing it.
Mr. Savage had his eyebrows halfway up his forehead. "The Trailer Park Club?" he asked, and I could tell that he was embarrassed just to say it.
"Yes," I said, "but even if you don't live in a trailer park, you can still come."
Behind me, someone snorted. Well, maybe I wouldn't let them join at all. I sat back down and heard people whispering all around. Pretending not to notice, I pulled out a piece of paper and started working on a flyer, with 3-D block letters that Winter had taught me how to make. I only got to TRA before the bell rang, since block letters are sort of time-consuming.
"Star," Mr. Savage said as everyone left the room, "may I speak with you for a second?"
On the fourth-grade end of the room, Jenny Withagee lingered, stuffing papers into her purple backpack and glancing at me every other second. I skip-walked over to Mr. Savage's desk, where he stood, his hands palms-down on his desk calendar.
"I think your club name may be a little off-putting," he told me. "Maybe if you changed it to something else …"
I didn't want to change the name. And I wished Mr. Savage would stop scratching his beard, which he was doing now; it made my face itch. I said nothing—another Winter tactic. She said it put the other person on the defensive, making them scramble for stuff to say, and then they looked so stupid that they just gave up.
"I just don't know if anyone's going to want to join," Mr. Savage said, and he didn't look stupid at all. He looked kind of sad … or like he was sad for me, which was even worse. I was about to abandon the whole silence plan and start pleading, when an airy voice called out, "I'll be there!"
Jenny appeared next to me, grinning so hard her eyes almost disappeared. I was on the verge of saying, "Fifth-graders only." Not because Jenny wears skirts to her ankles and has rub-on tattoos up and down her arms, which I don't even care about, but because I don't really know who she is, and I had this feeling that she wanted me to be happy that she'd just saved me from having my club taken away, even though she hadn't.
Then I saw Mr. Savage's face. I had no idea his eyebrows could go that high, but I was more angry at him for being so surprised than I was at Jenny for trying to be all heroic.
"See?" I told Mr. Savage. "One member already."
He apologized and said that of course I didn't have to change the name, and of course the Trailer Park Club was an excellent name. I smiled and walked out the door, glad that my club was saved but unglad that Jenny's footsteps were following mine.
"So," she said, once we were outside in the outdoor hallway, dodging the few other kids who'd gotten out a bit late, "it's on Wednesday? Should I bring anything?" Which bothered me, because I hadn't even thought about bringing stuff myself. But I was saved from answering by, of all people, Denny Libra, who came out from behind one of the cement pillars holding up the hallway roof and curled his fingers around Jenny's tattooed arm.
"Let's go," he said, and he started pulling her away, toward the playground. It was pretty obvious from the glare he was shooting me that he didn't want her talking to me, which I thought was kind of creepy. I grabbed Jenny's other arm and pulled her back, saying, "We're talking about club stuff, donut-brain."
"She's not joining your club!" Denny shouted, so loudly that I had to let go. "You're not joining her club," Denny said to her, and he dragged her away, and she didn't say anything, not one thing; she just followed him onto the blacktop.
I glanced back into the classroom to make sure Mr. Savage hadn't seen, because I wasn't sure he'd let me have my club if he knew the only member had just been yanked right out of it.
