The Kid in the Red Jacket (6 page)

When Ollie sat down, he took one look inside his lunch bag and held his nose. Then, without saying a word, he stood up and threw the whole thing into the garbage can. Back at the table, someone asked him what his mother had packed.

Ollie was still holding his nose. “Something dead and a cookie.”

It really cracked me up. Something dead and a
cookie. I was sitting all by myself, but I laughed out loud.

After that some kid threw Ollie an orange to eat. Instead of peeling it, he put the whole thing right into his mouth. It must have hurt his mouth to stretch it that far, but that’s the great thing about wise guys. When it comes to acting stupid, they know no limit.

Anyway, when Ollie was standing there with that orange in his mouth, even Pete cracked up. You could tell by the expression on his face that he thought Ollie was acting like an idiot, but he still thought it was funny. Even quiet guys like Pete enjoy a good idiot once in a while.

It might sound dumb, but after lunch I felt like I knew the guys in my class a little better. I guess that’s why at recess I hung around the group that was getting ready to play soccer. I was sure somebody would pick me. Maybe they’d pick me last, but I’d get picked. It’s sort of this unwritten rule every kid knows. If you’re standing there to play, somebody’s got to pick you, even if you stink.

Just like the day before, Pete and this kid Joe were the captains. Pete picked me before Joe did. I didn’t get chosen first or anything; but I wasn’t
last, either. A kid with his ankle in a cast was last. Still, it felt good when Pete chose me. All of a sudden he just looked over at me and said, “I’ll take the kid in the red jacket.”

It’s funny. I used to think that being called something like that would really bother me. Especially after Roger Grimsley had told me about that poor kid in the Kenneth shirt in his class. But the weird thing was, being called the kid in the red jacket hardly bothered me at all. Let’s face it, after a couple of days of not being called anything, almost any name sounds good.

    7   
My father gave me some advice. He’s tried this kind of thing before, but it’s never worked out too well. The trouble is, most of the time his advice is about stuff he doesn’t know how to do. Like during basketball season, he’ll tell me how to shoot a lay-up. Then he’ll shoot a lay-up and miss. It’s hard to take advice like that.

“Horn in,” he said one night at dinner. I was explaining how much I hated to eat lunch alone,
and he looked right up from his pork chop and said, “Horn in.”

“Er, horn in?” I repeated, confused. I guess it must be one of those old-time expressions they don’t use much anymore.

“Sure. Be a little pushy. Stand up for yourself,” he went on. “You can’t wait for the whole world to beat a path to your door.”

“Beat a path to my door?” I asked again. Another old-time expression, I think.

“That means you can’t wait for everyone else to come to you, son,” he explained. “Sometimes you’ve just got to take the bull by the horns.”

“Oh geez. Not more horns,” I groaned.

“Bull by the horns,” repeated Dad. “Haven’t you ever heard that before? It means you’ve got to get right in there and take charge. If you don’t want to eat alone, then sit right down at the lunch table with the rest of them. Just walk up there tomorrow, put your lunch on the table, and say, ‘Mind if I join you, fellas?’ That’s all there is to it.”

I didn’t say anything, but kids just don’t go around talking like that. If a kid came up to a bunch of guys eating lunch and said, “Mind if I join you, fellas?” the whole table would fall on the floor laughing.

Still, I knew what Dad was
getting
at. I think it’s something all new kids learn sooner or later. Even if you’re the shy type, you have to get a little bold if you want to make any friends. You have to say hi and talk to people, even if it makes you nervous. Sometimes you even have to sit down at a lunch table without being invited. You don’t have to say, “Mind if I join you, fellas?” though. I’m almost positive of that.

I have to admit that the “horning in” part worked out pretty well. The next day at lunch I took a deep breath, sat down at the table with the other guys, and started eating. That was that. No one seemed to mind, really. They hardly even stared.

After that it got easier. Once kids have seen you at their table, it’s not as hard to accept you the next time. Then pretty soon they figure that you must belong, or you wouldn’t be sitting there every day.

I’m not saying that after horning in I automatically started to love Rosemont, Massachusetts; or that I still didn’t think about Thornsberry and Roger every single day. All I mean is, the more days that passed, the less I felt like an outsider. I guess you’d say stuff started feeling more familiar.
Like at school, if a stranger had asked me for directions, I could have steered him to all the water fountains and lavatories. For some reason, knowing your lavatories sort of gives you a feeling of belonging.

I guess moving to a new school is like anything else you hate. Even though you can’t stand the thought of it, and you plan to hate it for the rest of your life, after you’ve been doing it for a while, you start getting used to it. And after you start getting used to it, you forget to hate it as much as you’d planned. I think it’s called adjusting. I’ve given this some thought, and I’ve decided that adjusting is one of those things that you can’t control that much. It’s like learning to like girls. It sort of makes you nauseous to think about it, but you know it’s going to happen.

By the end of the second week, most of the kids in my class knew my name. They didn’t use it that much, but when the teacher said, “Yes, Howard?” they turned around and looked. So I know they knew.

There was still a big problem in my life, though. Very big. And you spelled it M-O-L-L-Y. She was
coming over to “play” with me more and more. It was getting totally out of control.

I used to think that if you didn’t want someone at your house, getting rid of them would be easy. You could just shout, “Go home!” and that would be that. It doesn’t work that way in real life, though. The only time you can feel good about shouting “go home” is when you’ve had a big fight with someone or if you hate that person’s guts.

That was the trouble with Molly. She was kind of a funny little kid, really, and her guts were getting harder to hate. And even if they weren’t, my mother kept reminding me of all the mean divorce stuff that had happened to her. It was supposed to make me “think twice” about doing something mean to her.

Still, I found it hard letting her come over every day. After all, a guy has his reputation to think of. And like I said, once word spreads that you’re hanging around with first-graders, it’s hard to live it down.

I tried to talk to my mother about it, but the conversations were too short to do much good. Mostly she’d just find me hiding behind the couch
while Molly was knocking, and she’d make me go to the door. “Stop being stupid and let Molly in,” she’d snap.

Finally, one afternoon before Molly came over, I decided to just tell my mother the whole truth and get it over with. Maybe she’d yell and maybe she wouldn’t, but something had to be done.

She was about to put Gaylord down for his nap when I stopped her in the hall.

“It’s going to kill me,” I announced.

“What’s going to kill you?”

“Being friends with Molly. It’s going to kill me. You asked me if it would kill me to be nice to her and the answer is yes. I’m sorry. But it will.”

My mother held Gaylord with one hand and put the other hand sternly on her hip. “How?” she demanded sharply. “How will it kill you, Howard?”

I was prepared for her to ask this question. “The pressure. You don’t know how much pressure I’m under as a new kid. I’m trying to make these great friends, and every day Molly’s standing at my front door for the whole world to see. I practically have to yank her in the house so no one will notice. Don’t you get it? Kids are beginning to know me now, and I just can’t risk it.”

“Risk it? Risk
what
, Howard?”

I took a deep breath. This wasn’t going to be easy, but I had to try to make her understand.

“Risk being turned into another Ronald Dumont,” I admitted reluctantly. “Ronald Dumont was this weirdo at my old school who didn’t have any friends his own age, so he ended up playing with the little kids all the time. He whinnied, Mom. I’m not kidding. He actually went around playing horses and whinnying. And after a while all we did was make fun of him.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Howard. You’re not actually afraid that just because Molly comes over here once in a while, you’re going to turn into another Ronald Du—”

“Yes, I am!” I interrupted. “Why don’t you understand? I mean, I don’t think I’m going to start whinnying or anything. But I
am
afraid that kids will think there’s something wrong with me. They’ve already seen her walking to school with me. I’m practically positive. No one’s said anything, but I know they’ve seen us together. The next thing you know, they’ll start thinking that I don’t fit in with them. Then pretty soon I won’t. And before long I’ll be out on the playground,
tossing my head around like a wild stallion.”

My mother stared at me for about ten minutes. Well, actually it was probably more like ten seconds. But the expression on her face made it seem a lot longer.

Finally she just shook her head disgustedly. “I can’t believe you’re serious. I can’t believe you are so worried about what people will think that you can’t be nice to a little girl who needs a friend. And what’s more, I can’t honestly believe that you think being nice to her will turn you into some kind of misfit. But I’m not going to argue with you about this anymore. I’m tired of it, Howard. I’m tired of you hiding behind the couch; and I’m tired of making you go to the door; and I’m tired of trying to make you understand how much she’s been through. I’m not going to push her on you anymore, Howard. You do what you want about her. You handle it your own way. But just think about one thing: Someday
you
may need a friend. Not want one.
Need
one. And if you do, you’d better hope that you’ll find someone who has a bigger heart than you do.”

She didn’t understand. I
knew
she wouldn’t, and she didn’t.

“Hey! Let me in!”

I rolled my eyes. Molly was kicking at the front door, hollering her usual greeting.

My mother stood there, waiting to see what I would do. I hate it when she watches me like that. It’s like I’m on trial or something.

“I’ll let her in, okay?” I said, annoyed. Then, without wasting any more time, I reached outside and yanked her in as quickly as I could.

My mother just sighed and walked away.

Molly’s hands were spilling over with coloring books and crayons. She’d been coming over to color a lot lately. At first it really bothered me. But then I decided that letting a kid color at your house isn’t really the same thing as being her friend. When the painters come and color my walls, I don’t consider them my pals or anything.

Sometimes she wanted me to color with her. Usually I didn’t. But once in a while I did a page. Just for the heck of it, you know. I’m not exactly too old to color, but almost. I guess you could say I’m right on the coloring border.

Molly really loved it, though. The funny thing was, most of the time she only used lavender and lime green. Even for skin, she’d color it either lavender or lime green. Once, when she was coloring a pig, I handed her this color called light pink. She
didn’t even look up from her book. “I only like lavender and lime green,” she informed me.

“Yeah, I know. But pigs aren’t lime green. You need different colors in your pictures to make them look
real.”

Molly stopped what she was doing and stared up at me. “It’s just pretend, Howard. My nonny says pretend can be any color you want.”

Then, for just a split second, she got another one of those sad expressions. “Besides,” she added, “I don’t always like real.”

Sometimes I wondered how she did it. How did she go around acting so happy when there was all that hurt still inside her? Even I wasn’t any good at stuff like that. And she was only six.

Anyway, as she sat there coloring, the telephone rang. I didn’t bother to answer it. When you’re a new kid, the telephone is never for you. I guess that’s why when my mother shouted, “Howard! It’s for you!” I felt sort of nervous and excited at the same time.

“For me?” I asked, jumping right up. “I hardly even know anyone here.”

Molly thought it over for a second. “Maybe it’s your teacher calling to tell you that she saw you
bump Frankie Boatwright off the seesaw and you can’t teeter-totter anymore.”

I rolled my eyes. “I didn’t bump Frankie Boatwright.”

“I didn’t either,” replied Molly matter-of-factly. “He just wasn’t holding on tight enough, that’s all.” Then she frowned. “It’s not my fault he had slippery fingers.”

“Howard!
Are you going to get the phone or not?”

I hurried to my mother’s bedroom and picked up the receiver.

“H-h-hello?”

“Hey, Howard. It’s Ollie. Ollie Perkins. From school, you know?”

I was almost too happy to answer. A kid! A regular kid my own age calling me at home! Calling me by my name and everything! It was like a miracle!

“Er, yeah, hi, Ollie. What’s up?” I managed to say, trying to sound casual.

I was so excited, I can’t remember the rest of the conversation. All I know is that some of the kids were setting up a football game on Saturday, and Ollie asked me if I could make it.

Could I make it? Was he kidding? Of course I could make it! This was just the kind of break a new kid prays for.

“Yeehaa!
A football game!” I shrieked as I hung up the phone. “Some guys are getting a football game together, and they want me to play!”

My mother ran into the room and ruffled my hair. “See? I told you things would get better, didn’t I?”

“Me too!” Molly chimed in. “I told you that too! Remember, Howard Jeeper?”

“Yeah, I remember,” I replied, still grinning. “You told me.”