Joe raced down the street. He was late, again.

Though he lived only a few blocks from school he could never make it on time. It was always a mad dash out the door, down the street, around the corner and into the school building.

Today, was no different, except he was later than normal and the reason would get him into more trouble before the end of the school day than he ever dreamed possible.

“Slow down young man,” Principal Brown said as Joe charged into the school building. “Do you know what time it is?”

“Yes, sir,” Joe answered hanging his head and trying to catch his breath.

“This is becoming a habit for you young man.”

“I’m sorry. I got side tracked on my way to school,” he tried to explain.

“What side tracked you?”

“It was nothing important.”

“It was important enough to make you late for school – again,” Principal Brown said looking down into Joe’s guilty eyes. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“No.”

“Being late is becoming a bad habit for you young man. It is a habit we need to break. Do you agree?”

“Yes.”

“If you are late one more time this week we will have to set down with your parents and have a long talk,” Principal said. “Get to class young man and let’s be on time tomorrow.”

“Yes sir,” Joe said and took off to class.

“Don’t run.”

Joe slowed down until he rounded the corner. Out of Mr. Brown’s sight he ran as fast as he could to his classroom.

He slowly opened the door and walked in. Every eye turned his way watching Joe come through the door.

“It’s nice of you to join us Joe,” the teacher said.

“I’m sorry I’m late Mrs. V,” Joe said. Mrs. V was really Mrs. Vinbriski, but no one could say her name right, so she became Mrs. V. Joe liked her and she liked Joe, but she didn’t like him showing up late as often as he did.

Joe walked to the third row of desks, walked back to the fifth desk back. He set down in front of Max and behind Madison.

“Let’s get back to our lesson,” Mrs. V said.

Joe reached into his backpack. He looked into it, smiled and gently pulled out his reading book. He closed up the backpack and opened up the book.

Chapter Two

Recess was slow coming, but when it came Joe grabbed his backpack and quickly headed to the playground.

“Joseph,” Mrs. V said as he raced past her. “Slow down and leave your backpack under your desk.”

“But Mrs. V.

“Don’t ‘but’ me. You know the rules and backpacks stay in the room.”

“Ok,” he said. He slowly walked back to his desk and set the backpack under his desk. He turned and walked out of the classroom. At the door he looked back at the backpack, then headed out to the playground.

“Why did you want bring your backpack outside,” Zachary, one of Joe’s best friends, asked.

“I have something in it that I found on my way to school this morning. I wanted to show it to you.”

“What is it?”

“You have to see it,” Joe told Zachary. “It’s cool.”

“Cool like really cool, or cool like you, which is not cool,” Madison said overhearing the boys talk. Madison lived across the street from Joe. She was the teacher’s pet. She was smart and always on time. For as long as anyone could remember she and Joe were always picking on each other.

“Way cooler than you ever dreamed of being,” Joe shot back at her.

“Very funny,” she said shrugging her shoulder at Joe and walking past him with her friends.

“My mom said that if you pick on someone like you and Madison pick on each other it usually means you really like each other,” Zachary said.

“Gross! Me like that thing? You have got to be kidding,” Joe said.

“No, my mom told me she and my dad us to pick on each other all the time when they were growing up, just like you Madison. Now they’re married with four kids.”

“Who’s getting married?” Max asked joining the two on the playground.

“Joe and Madison,” Zachary answered smiling from ear-to-ear.

“You’re going to make me throw up,” Joe said.

“Joe and Madison sitting in a tree. K I S S I N G. First comes love, then comes marriage . . .” Zachary began singing.

“Keep it up and I won’t show you the cool thing I found.”

“What cool thing?” Max asked.

“Joe says he found some cool thing and it’s in his backpack. But he wouldn’t tell us what it is. I think it’s just making it up.”

“I am not. I found it under some old wood in the ally around the corner from my home,” Joe said. “It was on the ground so I picked it up and put it in my backpack. I was going to show it you guys at recess. We’ll have to go in early before the bell rings and I’ll let you look at it, but you can’t tell anyone about it, promise?”

“Promise,” Zachary said.

“Promise,” Max added, with his fingers crossed behind his back.

“You sure you don’t want to show it to Madison?” Zachary asked.

“That’s an idea,” Joe answered. “It would really freak her out. Maybe I’ll show her at lunch when we can bring our backpacks outside.”

“What is it?” Charlie asked.

“You’ll see.”

Chapter Three

The First to See

The three spent most of recess talking while the rest of their class played. Minutes before the bell rang the three headed back into class.

“Hurry up you guys,” Zachary said heading down the hall a few steps ahead of Charlie and Joe.

They walked into the classroom to find no one their. Mrs. V was still on the playground, which was good. She wouldn’t be happy to know they were in the classroom all by themselves, but she would be less happy if she knew what was in Joe’s backpack.

Joe picked it up and began opening the backpack.

“Remember what you promised?” Joe asked.

“We remember,” Zachary said.

Joe smiled and slowly opened the backpack.

Zachary and Max leaned over and looked inside – there it was on the bottom of backpack. Both boys jumped back.

“Cool,” they said at the Zachary time and leaned forward to get another look.

“I can’t believe you brought it to school,” Charlie said. “Mrs. V will kill you if she finds it.”

“She’s not going to find it,” Joe said.

Just then the bell rang and students began filing back into the classroom.

“Take your seats,” Mrs. V ordered.

Joe closed up his backpack, slipped it under his desk and pulled out his Math book. Math class always followed morning recess and it was Joe’s least favorite class. All the adding and subtracting was just too boring; there is no suspense, no danger. Science, on the hand, was different, all the experimenting – now that’s fun. There is always suspense and a possibility of danger like the time Joe added the wrong kinds of chemical together. Instead of doing what it supposed to do the water in the cup began to turn into a fountain of fizzle. The fizzle bubbled over the top of the cup, covered most of his disk and poured over the edge of his desk onto the once clean floor.

Mrs. V was not happy. It was suppose to have been a very simple and easy science project, no danger, but leave it to Joe to turn it into a trip to the Principal’s office.

“Joseph,” Mr. Brown said. “I think you spend more time in my office than you do in your classroom.”

“Yes, sir.”

“That is not a good thing young man.”

“I’m sorry,” Joe said. “I don’t try to, I really don’t. I didn’t mean to mix the wrong chemicals.”

“I know, but your curiosity got the best of you, again.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Let’s try to think before you let that curiosity take you into dangerous territory, ok?”

“Yes, sir.”

That is typical conversation for Joe. Usually Joe and Mr. Brown have this conversation about once a week, sometimes twice. This week he’d already made his two trips and if anything went wrong today he would surly be making another a third, that would be a record.

At anytime Joe expected Mrs. V to give the order, especially today – “Joseph go to Mr. Brown’s office. Now!”

He shouldn’t have that in his backpack, he knew that, but he couldn’t have walked by it without picking it up. He had to show it to his friends, it just would have been un-Joe like to leave it alone.

Maybe, if everyone keeps their mouths shut and everything goes without any problems he might make it through the day without making the record setting trip to Mr. Brown’s office, Joe thought. It probably won’t work that way, but it’s worth a try.

“Joe, you need to pay attention and stop daydreaming,” Mrs. V said.

“Sorry,” Joe answered. She had asked him a math question and he didn’t hear a word she had said. “What was the question?”

“If you had 15 toy cars and you gave your friend 11 of them how many would you have left?”

Joe thought. He scratched his head then answered, “three?”

“Try again,” Mrs. V said. She would never let you miss a question without having you try again, and again until you got it right.

Joe thought some more. This time he put some effort into it. He scribbled some numbers on a piece of paper then answered, “four.”

“Good job, Joe,” Mrs. V said with a smile.

Joe’s thoughts quickly drifted back to the backpack and off math.

As math ended and Mrs. V turned her attention to science Joe put away his math book and like a robot pulled out his science book. Normally this was Joe’s favorite class, but not today. He could her Mrs. V put her words were mumbled. His mind was racing thinking of all the different things he could do with what he had in his backpack.

“If I show it to the girls at lunch time they will scream and be scared to death,” he thought as a huge smile crossed his face. “All the boys will think I’m the coolest.”

“What ever happens I can’t let Mrs. V see it, she’ll scream louder than the girls. After she’s stopped scream then she’ll kill me.”

“If somehow I’ll still alive after Mrs. V sees it then Mr. Brown will call my parents,” he thought. “Mom and Dad will ground me for life.

The smartest thing to do would be to show no one else, but where is the fun in that? At lunchtime he would show all his classmates.

To read the rest of Trouble in the Backpack contact me at bradstaman@yahoo.com