Schooled

Things seem to be going well for Capricorn. He has been using a memory technique that Rain had taught him to memorize the names of students. Additionally, Sophie has been relatively nice to him lately, which he attributes to her upcoming driver’s test and the bangle he sent her in the mail. His favorite part of being eighth grade president is being able to make people happy by writing them a check. He looks forward to Mr. Kasigi coming back from his conference so he can show him all the good he has done with the checks he was given. Capricorn is sure Kasigi will be impressed.

Meanwhile, Zach and Hugh have come up with a plan to knock Capricorn down a peg. The entire school is holding a pep rally during lunch, and Hugh ushers Capricorn into the locker room, handing him a football uniform, since Capricorn is “going to be out there with the team” (131). Capricorn objects, since he does not know anything about football, but Hugh convinces him that the eighth grade president just needs to show his support. What Hugh does not tell him is that he has dressed Capricorn in the uniform of Claverage Middle School’s biggest rival, Rhinecliff. With a helmet covering his signature hair, no one can tell that it’s Capricorn when he walks out onto the football field and faces the entire Claverage football team.

When Capricorn steps out onto the field, Zach, the captain of the football team, yells, “Get him!” (133). The entire team runs for Capricorn, but it is Darryl who gets to him first. As soon as he makes contact, he knows that something is wrong: “It was like tackling a punter. No, a punter’s little sister. It was the worst feeling I ever had” (134). As soon as he realizes his mistake, Darryl tries to roll off, but the other players immediately pile on. It is not until the coach comes over and yells, “What’s the matter with you people? What was that all about?” (134) that Darryl realizes that the tackle was not planned.

Once they get the helmet off, everybody goes “silent at the sight of the eighth grade president stretched out, dazed, on the grass” (135). After they lead him off the field, Darryl tries to figure out how it happened. When Zach suggests that Capricorn came up with the idea on his own, Darryl becomes suspicious.

Darryl is ashamed of the part that he played in hurting Capricorn, but Lena lets him know that Hugh was in on it. One of Lena’s spies in the principal’s office sees Hugh “getting bawled out for it,” and relays the information to Lena. That is when Darryl remembers seeing Zach and Hugh sitting at a corner table in the cafeteria, “plotting something” (139). Darryl immediately confronts Zach at his locker; when Zach sneers at him, Darryl snaps. He goes to punch Zach, but Capricorn, trying to keep the peace, gets in the way, and gets knocked out instead. While Zach laughs hysterically, Darryl and a couple of sixth graders rush Capricorn to the nurse.

Darryl admits to the nurse that he is responsible for hitting Capricorn and is sent to the principal’s office. As he waits for his punishment, he sees an ambulance drive into the school bus lane. Darryl runs out to see Capricorn being helped into the ambulance by the school nurse. Darryl yells, “Cap, I’m sorry! It was an accident! Both times!” (144). The ambulance drives away, “and the greatest eighth grade president” (144) Claverage Middle School has ever had is gone.

Although Darryl and the other students assume the ambulance is for Capricorn, it’s actually for Rain. She is being released from the rehabilitation center and she insists on heading straight to the middle school to pick up her grandson.

They stop at the Donnelly house to pick up Capricorn’s things and say goodbye to Mrs. Donnelly and Sophie. Mrs. Donnelly is at work, but Sophie is there to help him pack. As he walks away, Sophie calls out after him, “It was real, it was fun, but it wasn’t real fun” (148). Capricorn thinks, “It seemed fitting that the last thing she said to me was something I didn’t understand” (148).

When Capricorn gets back to Garland farm, he’s surprised to see that it looks smaller than he remembers, and the “colors and textures seemed very bland compared to the warm and bright bricks and stuccos of the houses around C Average” (149).

Back from a successful conference, where he has been all but promised the position of principal at North High in a few years’ time, Mr. Kasigi is troubled to see a number of letters from Consolidated Savings Bank marked “Urgent.”

He soon realizes that not only has Capricorn been giving the money earmarked for the Halloween dance to charity, but he has also overdrawn the account. When Mrs. Donnelly comes to his office, she blames Mr. Kasigi for giving Capricorn the pre-signed checks:

When you gave him those checks, did you explain to him what a check is and how it works? […] I mean exactly how it works. That the amount of the check is deducted from the balance in the account? And that the money can run out? (154).

Mrs. Donnelly then tells Mr. Kasigi about her experiences growing up on Garland Farm: “I guarantee you that Cap had no idea that anyone had to pay for the checks he was writing. And the power to write them must have seemed almost magical” (154).

Because of the missing funds, Mr. Kasigi is forced to cancel Claverage Middle School’s Halloween dance.

Capricorn getting taken away in an ambulance, followed by the cancellation of the Halloween dance, causes rumors to fly at “C Average.” Many students think that something bad has happened to Capricorn and that Capricorn’s supposed injury is why Mr. Kasigi has canceled the dance. Naomi blames Zach for everything: “When you couldn’t use Cap as your clown, you tried to use him for your crash-test dummy. I’ve had it up to here with you, Zach Powers! You and I are through!” (161). This comes as a surprise to Zach, as he and Naomi were never together.

Lena and Naomi try to find Capricorn on their own. They head to the Donnelly home, but when they get there, Mrs. Donnelly tells them that Capricorn is “no longer at this address” (163). When they ask for his phone number, Sophie smiles and says, “Where he is they don’t have a phone” (163). Naomi and Lena take this response as confirmation of their suspicions: Capricorn is dead.

The role that Zach played in getting Capricorn hurt, if not killed, reduces his standing at the middle school. The only person willing to sit with him at lunch is Hugh Winkleman. Neither of them believes the rumors that Capricorn is dead or gravely injured, but they cannot convince anyone else of this.

When Zach gets hit by a spitball, Hugh enjoys his “front-row seat at Payback Fest” (168). Zach refuses to apologize for the way he has treated Hugh in the past, blaming Hugh for his own mistreatment: “From the first day of kindergarten, everything about you screamed dweeb—your clothes, your hobbies, your vocabulary” (169). Zach goes on to explain:

My whole life, it’s been obvious what sports to play, what bands to listen to, what people to hang out with. It’s as if I was born with a natural guidance system inside my head, showing me how to be cool […] But Cap Anderson doesn’t come with a book of instructions (169).

Capricorn is the first person that Zach has encountered who has defied all of the usual social rules that Zach understands intuitively. Capricorn should have been an easy target, but he wasn’t because he’s unaware that a social hierarchy even exists.

Hugh makes an offhand comment about it being too bad that Zach could not just start liking Capricorn, in order to save his social standing. This gives Zach an idea. He and Hugh go into the computer lab and print off flyers that turn the canceled Halloween dance into a tribute for Cap Anderson. At the bottom of the flyer are instructions not to show the flyer to any teachers.

Sophie’s driver’s test is finally here. When her dad calls her to wish her good luck, she thanks him for the bracelet. After a long pause with no response, her dad pretends that they are on a bad line and hangs up. The line does not seem bad to Sophie, and she is immediately suspicious. She asks her mother if it is possible that her dad has forgotten about sending her the bracelet. Her mother talks about her ex-husband’s good intentions, but Sophie is not satisfied with the response.

As the instructor tells Sophie what to do, she tries to keep her nerves at bay by imagining her father in the passenger seat, but it’s Capricorn’s image that she conjures up, instead.

While heeding the advice that Capricorn gave her about driving, Sophie easily navigates the car down narrow streets and then onto the highway. All the while, she could not stop thinking about her dad’s strange response when she mentioned the bracelet. When she first suspects that it was not him who sent the bracelet, she figures that it must have been her mother, but quickly dismisses that idea. Mrs. Donnelly’s experiences on Garland Farm taught her not to keep the harshness of reality from children, even when it is painful.

When the instructor tells Sophie to turn on the defogger before she attempts to parallel park, Sophie accidentally turns the radio on. The Beatles song “All You Need Is Love” comes on the radio, and Sophie instantly realizes that Capricorn is the one who sent the bracelet engraved with “ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE.” Sophie bursts into tears and crunches all four cones as she tries to parallel park. The instructor passes her anyway, which Sophie puts down to the instructor feeling sorry for her.

When Mrs. Donnelly sees her daughter’s face, she assumes that Sophie has failed the test. Sophie does not want to tell her mother how awful she feels about the way she treated Capricorn, a guy who gave her the one thing she wanted most, without any hope of getting anything in return. She thinks of poor Cap, “buried in his ponchos and peace signs” (177), and initially thinks that there is nothing she can do for him. Then she gets an idea.

Back at the farm, Capricorn struggles with his desire to be back among the students of Claverage. Not knowing that the Halloween dance has been canceled, he asks Rain if he can go, but she says no: “All that’s behind you now, Cap. Our life is here” (180). His life at the Donnellys and the middle school becomes a sore subject between them, and Capricorn does not feel that he can tell Rain how he really feels. Finally, he decides he has no choice but to go, so he tacks a note onto the refrigerator with duct tape and lets Rain know that the dance is too important to miss and that he will be back soon.

As he walks away from the farm, he almost gets hit by a car and has to jump into a ditch. When the driver gets out, he sees that it’s Sophie Donnelly. After she yells at him for almost getting himself killed, she kisses him on the cheek for sending her the engraved bracelet. Capricorn has a strong reaction to the kiss: “Supernova was a word I read in science books, but this was the first time I’d ever experienced the power of one” (183). Sophie then tells Capricorn that she is driving him to the Halloween dance.

When they get to the middle school, the building is dark, but the parking lot is packed, and there are hundreds of candles flickering in the dark, while Beatles music plays in the background. Not even Sophie can explain what is going on. They put on the costumes that she brought—Mickey and Minnie Mouse masks—and step out into the crowd. This is when Sophie notices that everyone is dressed up in the same costume: they are all dressed up as Capricorn Anderson.