“Shut up!” said Jeff. He slammed his book down on the sidewalk.
“Hello, Jeff, hello, Jeff,” said Lori. “Jello, Jeff.” She laughed at her mistake. “Jello, Jeff. Hello, Jello.” She laughed hysterically.
“And quit laughing!” Jeff shouted.
“She can laugh,” said Colleen. “You can’t tell her she can’t laugh.”
“Hellohellohellohellohellohello,” said Lori as fast as she could.
“Shut up!” screamed Jeff.
“You shut up,” said Melinda.
“I’m not afraid of you, Melinda,” said Jeff.
“I’m not afraid of you either,” said Melinda.
Jeff raised his fists in the air. Melinda did the same.
Lori shrieked with anticipation.
“Okay, hit me,” said Jeff.
“You hit me first,” said Melinda.
“No, you hit me first,” said Jeff.
“Somebody hit somebody!” shouted Lori.
Jeff tapped Melinda’s shoulder with his fist.
She slugged him in the stomach. As he bent over she hit him in the nose. Jeff flailed his arms as he tried to defend himself, but Melinda kept punching him, in the neck, in the stomach, then in the eye.
Jeff fell to the ground.
Melinda jumped on top of him, knees first. She sat on his chest and held his arms flat against the ground.
Lori knelt beside them and slapped the ground as she counted: “One … two … three … four … five … six … seven … eight … nine ten!”
Melinda stood up.
Lori held Melinda’s arm high in the air. Holding her nose with her other hand, she bellowed: “The winner, and still champion of the world … Marvelous Melinda!”
Colleen clapped her hands.
25.
I’m going to be good, thought Bradley, and then, when everybody sees how good I am, they’ll know I’m not a monster.
“And Mrs. Ebbel will give you a gold star,” said Ronnie.
Bradley was so excited, he didn’t realize he was putting on two different-colored socks: a blue one and a green one. He tied his shoelaces, then went into the bathroom and looked at himself in the mirror.
His black eye was almost all gone. It had faded into a light brownish-yellowish color. He hurried out to breakfast.
His mother made oatmeal for him.
“I hate hot cereal,” he complained.
“You’ll eat what you’re served,” said his father. “This isn’t a restaurant.”
He frowned, not because he had to eat oatmeal, but because he realized he never should have said he hated it. That was something the Bad Bradley would say. The Good Bradley liked hot, lumpy cereal.
He took a big spoonful, brought it to his mouth, and swallowed the glop. “Mmm, good!” he said, but as he withdrew the spoon from his mouth, his elbow bumped his glass of orange juice.
Claudia screamed and jumped up.
“Oh, Bradley!” said his mother.
His father glared at him.
“It was an acci—” He started to say it was an accident but then remembered Carla didn’t believe in accidents. That puzzled him. He wondered why he would want to spill his orange juice on purpose. He liked orange juice. It was the oatmeal he should have spilled.
“Are you just going to sit there, or are you going to help your mother clean it up?” asked his father.
He picked up his napkin to help, but his mother told him to stay out of her way. “You’ll only make a bigger mess,” she said.
Silently, he finished eating.
As he headed back to his room, Claudia burst out laughing.
“What’s so funny?” he demanded.
“Look at your socks!” she laughed.
He looked down at his feet, then back at his sister, the laughing hyena. “Thank you, Claudia,” he said. “I appreciate your sharing that with me.”
She stopped laughing and stared at him.
He walked into his room, sat on the edge of his bed, and took off his sneakers.
“Wow!” said Bartholomew. “You were so good. I would have punched her face in if I was you.”
“He’s going to get a gold star today,” said Ronnie.
Bradley changed his socks, but once again he was so excited thinking about the gold star that he didn’t pay attention to what he was doing. He took the green sock off his right foot. He took the blue sock off his left foot. He put the green sock on his left foot and the blue sock on his right foot. Then he put his shoes on and left for school, determined to be good.
He walked into class and took his seat—last seat, last row. He sat up straight with his hands folded on top of his desk. He tried to hold back his excitement as he glanced at the chart on the wall next to him.
Jeff came in and sat down—last seat, second to last row.
Bradley saw him out of the corner of his eye, then turned to get a better look. Jeff had a black eye!
“What are you staring at, Chalkers!” Jeff snarled.
“Hey, you two look like twins!” exclaimed Shawne, the girl who sat in front of Jeff.
“Turn your ugly face around,” Jeff snapped.
“Oh, shut up, Bradley,” said Shawne, turning around.
Bradley looked at the back of Shawne’s head. She still thinks I’m a monster, he realized. But once I get my gold star, then she’ll know I’m good. For the rest of the morning, he sat at attention with his eyes fixed on Mrs. Ebbel. He kept wondering if she had noticed how good he was yet.
As he walked outside for recess, he was almost certain there’d be a gold star next to his name when he returned.
Curtis and Doug, two of Jeff’s friends, came out of Mrs. Sharp’s class. “What’s the big idea?” asked Doug. “Hitting Jeff when he’s not looking,” said Curtis.
“Huh?” said Bradley.
Doug pushed him.
He stumbled backward into Jeff, who pushed him back the other way.
Bradley looked around. He was surrounded.
“Jeff’s our friend,” said Robbie.
“Yeah!” said Brian.
“You hit me when I wasn’t looking!” said Jeff. “And my hands were full of groceries. I didn’t want to break the eggs.”
“Chicken Chalkers,” said Dan.
There was a space between Andy and Doug. Bradley dashed through it and ran across the playground.
Jeff and his friends chased after him.
Bradley looked back at them and smashed into a girl standing on one foot. The girl fell onto the hard hopscotch ground and wailed.
“I’m telling, Bradley!” said one of her friends.
“I’m sorry,” Bradley said helplessly, then continued running. He ran up the concrete steps and entered the school building through the auditorium. From there, he walked quickly to the library.
“What do you want, Bradley?” asked Mrs. Wilcott, the librarian.
“Nothing,” he muttered as he sat down at one of the tables. He leaned his head against his hands, propped up by his elbows.
What if Carla’s wrong? he worried. What if I really am a monster?
“I don’t want any trouble from you, Bradley,” said Mrs. Wilcott.
26.
“We’ll get you at lunch, Chalkers,” Robbie whispered as Bradley returned to class.
“You’re late,” said Mrs. Ebbel.
He sat at his desk—last seat, last row—and looked at the chart on the wall next to him. Of course there was no gold star next to his name. He had already done three things wrong: First, he had knocked over a girl and made her cry. Second, he was late getting back to class. And third and worst of all, his name was Bradley Chalkers. As long as his name was Bradley Chalkers, he’d never get a gold star. They don’t give gold stars to monsters.
They beat up monsters. He looked around at Jeff, Robbie, Russell, and Brian. He had to concentrate very hard to keep from crying.
The worst part wasn’t getting beaten up. The worst part was that he knew everyone would love
it so much. He imagined the whole school—the boys, the girls, and even the teachers—standing by and cheering as Jeff’s gang took turns hitting and kicking him.
When the bell rang for lunch, he slowly took his paper sack out of his desk.
“We’ll be waiting for you outside,” Jeff said to him.
Bradley watched him walk out the door. He walked slowly toward the front of the room, then suddenly dashed out the other door and into the hall.
“Bradley! Come back here!” Mrs. Ebbel yelled.
He kept running. So what if he got in trouble? What difference did it make?
He pulled on the door to the library. It wouldn’t budge. The library was closed during lunch.
He tried to think of somewhere else he’d be safe.
“There he is!” said Doug, stepping out of the auditorium.
Bradley turned and ran back the way he had come. He rounded a corner, then stopped and made a quick and desperate decision.
He opened the door to the girls’ bathroom, closed his eyes, and stepped inside.
He opened his eyes. Luckily, the room was empty.
He held his breath and listened. Nothing could be worse than being beaten up inside a girls’ bathroom. They’d probably stick my head in a girls’ toilet, he thought.
He waited. He didn’t hear anything.
He looked around. The floor and the bottom half of the walls were covered with green tile. There were two white sinks and a paper towel dispenser. There were three toilets in three separate stalls. Each stall had a door. It looked very much like the boys’ bathroom. Girl toilets appeared to be the same as boy toilets. He was disappointed.
He couldn’t risk going back out into the hall. He leaned against one of the stalls, reached into his brown paper sack, and took out his roast beef sandwich.
Someone was opening the door! He quickly put the sandwich back in the bag and hopped into a stall, closing the door behind him. He stood on the toilet so his feet couldn’t be seen.
He listened.
He heard a person walk across the tiled floor and then enter the stall next to him. He covered his mouth with his hand as he heard some familiar but very private sounds.
At last the toilet flushed and he heard the person zip her pants and walk across to the sink. He heard the sound of running water, and then a paper towel pulled down from the dispenser. Finally, the bathroom door opened and shut.
He exhaled, hopped off the toilet, stepped out of the stall, and froze.
Two girls were staring at him. One was the girl who had used the toilet next to him. The other had just entered. He wondered which was which. Then he heard the loudest scream he’d ever heard in his whole life. That answered his question.
He darted past them, opened the door, and flew into the hall.
He rounded a corner, came to a door, and pounded wildly on it until it opened.
“Bradley?” said Carla.
“Hello, Carla.” He held out his hand. “It’s a pleasure to see you today.”
27.
She shook his hand.
He walked inside, shut the door behind him, and sat down around the table. “You won’t believe it,” he said as he looked at his picture of the green monster hanging on the wall. “You just won’t believe it.”
“I’m sure I won’t,” Carla agreed. She sat across from him. She was wearing a sleeveless, black-and-white checkered shirt.
“Okay, I’ll tell you,” said Bradley.
“I was hoping you would.”
“Do you know where I was before I was here?”
“No?”
He slammed his fist on the table. “The girls’ bathroom!”
He told her all about it, how the girl had used the toilet next to him and how he thought she had left but really another girl had entered! “At first I didn’t know which girl was which, but then one of them screamed, so she must have been the one.”
“Who was she?” asked Carla. “Did you know her?”
“Yes, but I don’t think I should tell you her name. She probably doesn’t want anybody else to know.”
“That’s very considerate of you, Bradley.”
He shrugged.
“Shall we have lunch?” asked Carla.
“Okay.” He took out his roast beef sandwich.
Carla set her lunch on the table. She had a carton of yogurt and a plate of sliced tomatoes and cucumbers.
“That looks good,” said Bradley.
“You want to trade?”
“Okay.”
They traded lunches. Bradley ate a slice of cucumber. He thought it was delicious.
“So what were you doing inside the girls’ bathroom?” asked Carla. She took a big bite out of Bradley’s roast beef sandwich.
“Jeff and his friends were chasing me,” he explained. “Jeff’s got a black eye, just like me! They all think I gave it to him.”
“Did you?”
He could have lied. He could have said, sure, he beat up Jeff with one hand tied behind his back. He knew Carla always believed whatever he said.
“No. I can’t even beat up a girl,” he said. “Melinda Birch beat me up. Do you know her?”
“No.”
“You’d like her. She’s nice.”
Carla smiled.
Bradley ate a slice of tomato followed by a spoonful of yogurt. “I hid in the library at recess,” he said. “They couldn’t beat me up in the library, even if they found me. You can’t even talk in the library.”
“Yes, I know.”
“Isn’t it amazing?”
“What’s that?”
“The library. All those books. And they’re all different, aren’t they?”
Carla nodded as she drank Bradley’s juice through a straw.
“I kept thinking about that the whole time I was there,” he said. “They’re all different, but they all use practically the same words. They just put them in a different order.”
“Did you—?”
“Just twenty-six letters,” he told her. “All they do is move those letters around and then they say so many different things!”
“Did you—?”
“You’d think, after a while, they’d run out of ways to move them around,” said Bradley.
“Did you check out a book?”
“No, Mrs. Wilcott won’t let me. I used to, a long time ago, before I met you, I used to check out books and not return them. I used to scribble in them and rip them up. So she won’t let me check any books out anymore. The whole time I was there she kept watching me, saying, ‘I don’t want any trouble from you, Bradley.’ “
He ate another slice of cucumber. “I just wanted to look at a book. I wasn’t going to ruin it.”
“I know,” said Carla. “And after a while, Mrs. Wilcott will know that too.”
“I’m trying to be good,” said Bradley. “But nobody will give me a chance.”
“They will. It just takes time.”
“Do you ever play checkers on your shirt?” he asked.
Carla nearly spit out her juice. She laughed and shook her head.
“I like your shirts,” he said.
“I like your socks,” said Carla.
Bradley looked at his mismatched socks. “I thought I changed them,” he said, befuddled.
“I hate socks that match,” said Carla. “See.” She stuck out her legs. She was wearing white pants. She had on one white sock and one black sock.
Bradley smiled. It wasn’t his usual twisted smile, but one that was genuine. It was one that, up till now, had been seen only by Ronnie and Bartholomew.
“I know something good you can do,” said Carla. “And Mrs. Ebbel will notice it too.”
“What?”
“Homework.”
The smile dropped off his face. “No. No I can’t,” he said.
“Sure you can,” said Carla.
“I can’t!” His eyes filled with tears.
“You can do anything you want to do, Bradley Chalkers. I have a l
ot of confidence in you.”
He shook his head. “But I can’t.” His voice cracked.
“Don’t say ‘I can’t.’ As long as you say you can’t do something, then of course you won’t do it. Say, ‘I can!’ Say ‘I can!’ and you can do anything.”
“I can’t! I can’t!” He was crying.
“Bradley, it’s not that difficult. You’re making a big deal out of nothing. If you want, I will help you.”
“I can’t,” he sobbed.
“Why can’t you?” she demanded.
He wiped his eyes with his sleeve and sniffled. He looked Carla straight in the eye and said, “I don’t know what page we’re on!”
“Oh, Bradley,” Carla whispered. Her eyes glistened. She stood up, walked around the table, and kissed him on the cheek.
28.
Bradley lay on his bed, on his stomach. He chewed the end of his pencil as he looked hopelessly at the arithmetic book, opened in front of him.
Next to the book was a piece of paper. In the upper right-hand corner he had written:
Bradley Chalkers
Homework
Arithmetic
Page 43
Red Hill School
Room 12
Mrs. Ebbel’s class
Last seat, last row
Black eye
His handwriting, which was messy anyhow, was made worse by the fact that he wrote with a dull pencil on top of a soft bed.
He had stayed in Mrs. Ebbel’s class as long as he could after the bell rang.
“Bradley, it’s time to go home,” Mrs. Ebbel finally said to him.
He looked outside, unsure if Jeff and his gang of bullies were waiting for him. “Um, I have a question,” he said.
Mrs. Ebbel eyed him suspiciously. “What kind of question?”
He tried to figure out what kind of question he had. “An asking question.”
“I see,” said Mrs. Ebbel.
“May I ask it?” he asked.
“O-kay,” she said reluctantly.
He asked his question. “What page is the homework on?”
“The homework? Page forty-three.”
He wrote “43” on the top of his sneaker so he wouldn’t forget, then took his arithmetic book and stepped outside. Jeff and his friends were playing basketball. He ran home.