Catboy - Eric Walters [9]
I clicked on the Cartoon Network. Spiderman was on. I loved Spiderman. He was one of my favorite super-heroes. When I was a kid, I dreamed I would develop superpowers. So far, the only skill I’d managed to fully develop was the ability to peel potatoes at superhuman speed—faster than a speeding bullet! If ever there was an evil villain depriving people of potatoes, me and my peeler would be ready. I could already see the police commissioner shining a spotlight in the sky—a light shaped like a gigantic spud—to call me.
I held the peeler above my head as if it was a weapon.
The city would cheer for me. I’d be Mr. Potato Peeler! Wait, that sounds too much like Mr. Potato Head. How about Spudman? Yes, Spudman, able to overcome mounds of potatoes and—hold on, I wasn’t Spudman. I was Catboy! Defender of cats, saving them from harm, assisted by my trusty sidekick, Simon the Korean Kid, master of tae kwon do. I’d be armed with both my potato peeler and rocks, ready to hurl them at my opponents with laser precision.
Of course, those would be our secret identities. During the day, we would be mild-mannered grade-six students. At night—well, early evening or after school—we would assume our secret identities. Actually, it might be better if I kept Simon’s secret identity a secret from him.
The lobby buzzer squealed, and I jumped. It was probably my sidekick, the Korean Kid, wanting me to either play basketball or fight evil.
I raced over to the intercom and pushed the button. “Hello?”
“Thirty minutes is past. Are you coming down?” Simon asked.
“I’m coming.”
“Bring your basketball,” he said.
“For sure.”
I guess that meant we were playing basketball. If it was something heroic, he would have asked me to bring the potato peeler. Speaking of which, I had almost forgotten the potatoes. I ran back to the living room, grabbed the bowl, brought it back to the kitchen and filled the bowl with water. I cleaned up the peelings and was ready to go.
Six
“Okay, everybody, let’s put away our math,” Mr. Spence said. “I want you to get out your reading book. It’s time for silent reading.”
Everybody instantly did what he said. He hardly ever needed to repeat himself. At first I thought it was because everybody was scared of him. I know I was scared of him at first. He was huge, and when he gave us the I-mean-business look, I don’t think anybody, kid or adult, ever messed with him.
Simon had told me Mr. Spence used to be a professional football player. I could see that, because he looked like he used to play football. But I quickly discovered that kids listened to him just because. He could have been scary, but he wasn’t. He was really nice. Kids did what he asked because he asked them to. Maybe it was the way he treated us. He was an adult and we were just kids, but he treated us with respect.
“Okay, before we begin,” he said, “I want everybody to repeat after me.”
I knew what was coming next. Everybody knew. He always did the same thing before silent reading.
“The more you read,” he called out.
“The more you read!” we all said back.
“The more you know,” he said.
“The more you know,” we repeated.
“The more you know,” he said. His voice got louder with each phrase.
“The more you know!” we yelled back.
“The further you go!”
“The further you go!” we yelled out.
“So read, read, read!”
“So read, read, read!” we screamed.
“That’s what I love!” he said. “Now get reading!”
I’d never known a teacher who was so excited about reading or who got students so excited about it. It was as if we were preparing for the reading Olympics. Mr. Spence had a running total of the books we’d read. The list ran around the walls of our classroom.
He wanted us to love reading because he loved reading too. While we read, he read as well. He would sit up front, his feet up on his desk, and read. Sometimes it was a newspaper, or Sports Illustrated, which he said was about the best thing in the world. He also read novels— some were adult books but others were kids’ novels. Sometimes he read books that students recommended