The Boy Who Lost His Face (7 page)

He smiled as he watched her go, but he wondered what she thought about his fiasco in science class. She had to know about it. She probably even heard Roger say, “Puke, you stink!” to him at lunch. And of course he didn’t do anything about it. He just sat there.

As he headed home he tried to think of something else he could say to her the next time she popped up. He finally decided on “Delightful weather we’re having.”

He imagined the conversation.
Good afternoon, Miss Williams
.

Good afternoon, Mr. Ballinger
.

Delightful weather we’re having
.

Yes, it is lovely, isn’t it?

It wouldn’t matter if rain was pouring down at the time. In fact, it would be funnier if it was.

He thought maybe he’d even wear a hat to school, so he could tip his hat when he spoke to her.

It was just so nice, amid all the garbage of junior high school, to be able to say “Hello, Miss Williams” to her and hear her say “Hello, Mr. Ballinger” to him. It was their own private joke, calling each other Miss Williams and Mr. Ballinger and speaking so formally. But besides being funny, there was also something very nice about it too.

He found himself thinking about her a lot over the weekend. He wasn’t thinking anything in particular about her. She was just there, taking up all the space inside his head.

“It’s your move,” Ricky reminded him.

“Huh?” asked David. “Oh,” he said, looking at the chessboard.

He wondered if maybe he should try talking to her like a normal person. Maybe he could even ask her to go the school skate party with him next month?

“It’s your move,” said Ricky.

“Huh? Oh.” He moved his bishop.

Of course, just because she had said hello to him didn’t mean she liked him enough to go to the skate party with him. He didn’t even know her name.

She might not like him if he talked to her like a normal person. He couldn’t risk that. He didn’t want
to chance wrecking the only good thing in his life. At least he could still daydream about her; lying on the grass next to her, counting her freckles, laughing together, walking along a deserted beach holding hands. He didn’t want to lose his daydreams.

“Check,” said Ricky.

And what about the curse? He didn’t believe in curses, but still, how could he risk doing anything with her, when there was even a tiny chance that he might be cursed? What if he accidentally poured lemonade on her head?

It could happen very easily. They always serve refreshments at skate parties. They probably had lemonade. And then she’d say, “I’m thirsty, Mr. Ballinger. Would you mind getting me a glass of lemonade?” So of course he’d have to get it, and he wasn’t a very good skater to begin with, and the next thing he’d know he’d lose control, fall over her, and pour the lemonade on her face.

“Checkmate!” Ricky shouted triumphantly.

David studied the board. He had nowhere to move his king.

“I can’t believe it!” exclaimed Ricky. “I beat you in chess!” He smiled knowingly at his brother. “You let me win, didn’t you?”

“No,” David assured him. “You beat me fair and square.”

“I can’t believe it! Wait till I tell Mom and Dad!”

David heard Ricky run through the house telling their parents how he beat David in a game of chess. He even told Elizabeth.

I’m
the one who broke the window, thought David.
I
fell over in my chair.
I
forget to zip my fly. Mrs. Bayfield didn’t do anything to me. I did it all to myself.

Somehow that didn’t make him feel any better.

Well, there is one thing for certain, he decided. I am not, not,
not
going to pour lemonade on my head.

M
O’S DOGHOUSE
was finished. “I don’t know how I’m going to get this stupid thing home,” she complained.

David was leaning on his elbows, still feeling depressed after something that happened in homeroom. He glanced at Mo’s huge project, with
KILLER
over the entrance.

He wanted to ask her why she built a doghouse if she didn’t have a dog, but he was afraid she would take it the wrong way. “I’ll help you carry it,” he said.

She looked at him in surprise. “You?” she asked.

He didn’t know if she was surprised that he would help her or because she thought he was a wimp and didn’t think he could carry the heavy wooden doghouse.

“I could probably get a friend of mine to help, too,” he said slyly. “Larry Clarksdale. Do you know him?”

She looked even more surprised. “Larry Clarksdale,” she repeated. “Uh, yeah, I think I know who he is.”

David tried to see if he could read anything into Mo’s voice or the way she looked, but he couldn’t. “He always wears blue sunglasses,” he said.

Mo smiled.

Again David couldn’t tell if she was smiling because she liked Larry or because she thought his sunglasses were goofy.

“So we’ll meet you back here after school?” said David.

“Okay,” said Mo.

“Me and Larry,” said David.

“Okay,” said Mo, staring intently at her project.

David smiled, glad to be able to help Larry. He looked at Mo and tried to imagine her sitting in a Paris café, but couldn’t. Of course he had never seen a Paris café.

The reason he was depressed was because he had said “Good morning” to Miss Williams in homeroom, and she’d replied “Good morning, Mr. Ballinger,” but she’d seemed distracted, like she was thinking about something else and was in no mood to be bothered. She’d seemed sad, too.

He didn’t say “Delightful weather we’re having.” It suddenly seemed like a dumb thing to do.

He realized it was stupid to be depressed over something like that. She might have been tired, or maybe she had the Monday morning blues. Or something else could have been bothering her that probably didn’t have anything to do with him. It could have been anything! She had a whole life that he knew nothing about. Who knows what could have been on her mind? Who knows what she did over the weekend?

It was just that saying hello to her and hearing her
say “Hello, Mr. Ballinger” to him was the high point of his day. He had hoped it was a high point of her day, too, but maybe it didn’t mean anything to her at all.

“Puke! What stinks?” said Randy, holding his nose. “Oh, it’s David!”

Alvin laughed.

David tried to ignore them.

“Why don’t you just go to another school?” asked Randy. “Why do you have to stink up this one?”

“Lay off him,” said Mo. “He didn’t do anything to you.”

“He’s the one who stunk up the whole school Friday,” said Alvin. “I can still smell it!”

“I thought Randy farted,” said Mo.

David laughed.

“What are you laughing at?” Randy demanded.

David stopped laughing.

“He’s laughing at you, fartface,” said Mo.

Randy took a step toward Mo, but she held her ground and he backed off. “C’mon, Al,” he said, leading Alvin away.

“You have to stand up to those assholes,” Mo told David after they were gone.

“Yeah, well, it’s easier for you,” said David. “You’re a girl.”

“So?”

“So Randy wouldn’t hit a girl.”

“Yeah, right,” said Mo. “He’s such a
gentleman.
”

David smiled. He wished he had been the one who had called Randy fartface.
What are you laughing at?
asks Randy.
I’m laughing at you, fartface
! It would have been great. Except he knew he could never say anything like that. It wasn’t only that he was afraid of Randy. He just couldn’t imagine those words coming from his mouth.

At lunch he told Larry about how he had arranged for them to help Mo carry her doghouse home.

“Did she know who I was?” Larry asked.

David nodded. “She remembered your blue sunglasses.”

Larry smiled. “My shades,” he said, tapping his glasses just above the bridge of his nose. “Yeah, they’re cool. So what else did she say? Did she say anything else about me?”

David repeated his entire conversation with Mo word for word.

Larry said “Hmmmm …” several times as he listened very carefully.

David told him about Randy and Alvin and what Mo had said about farting.

“I told you she was funny,” said Larry. “Besides being pretty, she has a great personality, too.”

For the rest of the lunch period Larry switched back and forth, one moment very excited about his “date” with Mo, then the next being Joe Cool and acting like it was no big deal. Every once in a while he giggled. Finally, when lunch was almost over, he abruptly declared, “I’m not going.”

“What?” asked David.

“You should have asked me first, before just saying that I’d help,” Larry pointed out. “How do you know that I don’t have other plans?”

“What other plans?”

“I didn’t say I had other plans. I said I could have had other plans. Maybe I had already promised to carry someone else’s doghouse home.”

“I figured you’d want to walk home with Mo.”

“Well, you figured wrong.”

“What am I going to do now?” asked David. “It’s too big for Mo and me to carry by ourselves.”

“That’s your problem,” said Larry. “Oh, all right, I’ll help you. But I’m not helping her. I’m helping
you.
”

“Okay,” said David.

“Okay,” said Larry.

A
FTER
S
PANISH
they put their books away, then walked together to the shop room. Mo was sitting on top of a worktable, next to her doghouse.

“Hi,” said David.

“Hi,” she said. “Hi, Larry.”

Larry grunted. He took his hands out of his pockets, rubbed them together, and said, “So where’s this old doghouse?”

Mo looked at him like he was crazy.

“It’s right there on the table,” said David.

“Oh, yeah, right,” said Larry. “Well, let’s get to it.”

Mo came down off the table. “Maybe you could see better if you took off your dark glasses,” she suggested.

“Hey, I never take off my shades,” said Larry.

The heaviest part of the doghouse was the back, since most of the front had been cut out to make
a doorway. Larry and David took the back, and Mo, facing forward, held up the front as she led the way. Directly over her head was the word K
ILLER
.

They just barely fit through the door.

They were halfway across the schoolyard when the barking started.

At first it was just Alvin and Randy.

Alvin had a high-pitched bark that sounded like “Arf-arf! Arf-arf!”

Randy’s was more like “Grrr—ruff! Grrr—ruff!”

They were walking backward, barking in Mo’s face.

David glanced at Larry, who looked back at him. He didn’t know what else to do except hold up his corner of the doghouse and keep walking.

Roger and Scott joined in.

Scott howled, “Aaaaaooooooo.”

Roger said, “Woof, woof, woof!”

David could hear other kids around them laughing, and some of them barked once or twice too. He wondered if Miss Williams was among them.

“Hey, David, your pants are unzipped!” shouted Roger.

There was more laughter.

He was almost certain they were zipped. Besides, even if they weren’t, they were hidden by the doghouse.

“Grrr—ruff!”

“Arf-arf.”

“Aaaaaooooo …”

“Woof! Woof!”

Leslie and Ginger also barked but David thought they sounded more like sick cats.

“Don’t get too close,” warned Alvin. “She might bite you.”

David felt the front of the doghouse bang to the ground. He looked around his corner to see Mo chasing Alvin.

“Mad dog! Mad dog!” Alvin yelled as he easily eluded her.

David remained by his corner of the doghouse. He didn’t know what else to do.

Mo tripped and fell in the grass.

Alvin stood over her barking while his friends laughed.

Mo picked herself up. “If I’m a dog,” she said, “you know what you are? A bullock!”

“Ooooh—a bullock!” Alvin said with a laugh. He smiled at his friends. “What’s a bullock?”

Mo caught her breath. “It’s a bull that’s had its balls cut off.”

Alvin’s face turned bright red as Mo walked away, back toward the school building.

For a second David thought she was just going to leave him and Larry standing by her doghouse, but she turned around and headed back to them. She picked up her end of the doghouse and said, “C’mon. Let’s go.”

He felt bad about not doing anything to help Mo, but what could he have done? Besides, Mo could take care of herself. Her last remark seemed to shut everyone up.

“Hey!” shouted Scott. “It’s the Three Stooges! Mo, Larry, and
Curly
!”

That got everyone laughing again. “The Three Stooges,” someone repeated.

“They even look like The Three Stooges!” said Roger.

“Except the real Three Stooges aren’t as ugly,” said Alvin.

David, Mo, and Larry carried the doghouse away. Roger and his friends didn’t follow. David could hear them laughing about The Three Stooges.

“Hey, Curly! Zip your fly!” called Scott.

What rotten luck, thought David. I would have to become friends with kids named Mo and Larry!

As he thought about it, he realized that Mo did sort of look like Moe from The Three Stooges. He smiled in spite of himself.

D
AVID HEAVED
a sigh of relief as they set the doghouse down in Mo’s backyard. He stretched out his stiff, cramped arms.

Larry looked around nervously.

“You want something to drink?” Mo offered.

“Sure,” said David.

Larry continued to look nervously around him.

Mo led them to the back door of her house. “You want water or something else?”

“Water’s fine,” said David.

“Larry?” asked Mo.

“Huh?” said Larry.

“Water?”

“Okay.”

Mo reached behind a bush and turned on the hose. She took a drink from it, then handed it to David.

David took a long drink, then gave it to Larry. Larry’s eyes darted back and forth as he drank.

“So where’s Killer?” he finally asked.

“She doesn’t have a dog,” said David.

Larry relaxed.