“His name’s Zinkoff,” says Hobin. “He went to my school. He’s nobody.”
“Yeah, but didn’t you hear about him?” It’s Janski, who has joined the group.
“Hear what?” says Bonce.
“About that little girl that got lost the other night?”
“Yeah?”
“This kid goes out looking for her, right? So they find her, like just a little while after she got lost?” The others nod. “So the little girl is home and all, and everybody else goes home, the search is over, okay? But this kid”—he nods toward the kid in the yellow hat—
“Zinkoff,” says Bonce.
“Yeah, he don’t know it. The search is over and he don’t know it.”
The four of them turn to look at the kid.
Bonce says, “The little girl is home all safe and found and he’s still out looking for her?”
Janski grins into Bonce’s face. He says it slowly:
“For…seven…hours.”
Tuttle shrieks. “Seven hours?”
“Seven…hours,” Janski repeats. “A snowplow found him at two o’clock in the morning. Almost ran him over. He was two miles from home.”
Bonce stares at the yellow-hatted kid, who again is trying to punt a ball. “He musta been half dead.”
“He musta been half stupid,” says Tuttle. “How stupid is that, looking till two o’clock in the morning for somebody that’s already found.”
Hobin sneers. “Coulda told ya.”
“Was he froze?” says Bonce.
Janski shrugs.
“What a wipeout,” says Tuttle.
“Shoulda seen him Field Day in fourth grade,” says Hobin.
“Yeah?” says Tuttle. “Bad, huh?”
Hobin does not answer. They all stare at the kid, who is now running this way and that, trying to entice someone to throw him a ball. They try to picture how bad it was.
“And he likes school. He goes early.”
Everyone turns to stare at Hobin, who has spoken these words. They keep staring at him, waiting for him to say he was kidding. But Hobin says nothing else. They turn their attention back to the kid in the yellow hat, who seems not to know he’s being stared at.
At last Bonce says, “So, let’s get a game.”
Everybody breaks from the trance. “Yeah!”
Tuttle calls, “Game! Game!”
Kids who want to play come running.
Teams are chosen. Tuttle and Bonce are the captains. They flip fingers for first pick. Tuttle wins.
“Hobin,” he says.
“Janski,” says Bonce.
They go on choosing sides—Tuttles here, Bonces here—until the only one left is the kid in the yellow hat. But the sides are even. Tuttle and Bonce have each chosen seven kids. Yellow Hat is a leftover.
But this kid’s not acting like a leftover. A normal leftover would see that he’s one too many, that everybody but him has been picked and that therefore he must be pretty hopeless and therefore he better just get on out of there and go play something he’s good at, like Monopoly.
But this kid just stands there. He shows no sign of turning and vanishing. And he’s not just standing there, he’s staring at Tuttle and Bonce.
Tuttle says, “We got enough.”
So now the kid is just staring at Bonce. And Bonce wants to say “We got enough,” but he can’t seem to say it. He wishes the kid would just turn and go away. Doesn’t he know he’s a leftover?
Hobin’s voice rings out from the other side: “Tackle!”
They usually play two-hand tag. There are no pads, no helmets. And half the field is muddy from the melted snow. But no one objects. No one wants to appear to be afraid to play tackle.
Janski speaks: “The sides are even up. We don’t need nobody else.”
The kid does not take the hint.
This is uncharted territory: a leftover who won’t go away. Still, Bonce holds the power. All he has to do is open his mouth. Please, go, he thinks. The kid is still staring at Bonce. The kid really is stupid. The kid doesn’t know that even if he’s allowed in he’s only going to be ignored. Or embarrassed. Or hurt. He doesn’t know that he’s a klutz. Doesn’t know he’s out of his league. Doesn’t know a leftover doesn’t stare down a chooser. Doesn’t know he’s supposed to look down at his shoes or up at the sky and wish he could disappear, because that’s what he is, a leftover, the last kid left.
But this kid won’t back off, and his stare is hitting Bonce like a football in the forehead. In those eyes Bonce sees something he doesn’t understand, and something else he dimly remembers. It occurs to him that he wants to ask the kid what it was like, those seven hours. He thinks he must be able to see them in the kid’s eyes, some sign of them, but he cannot. He wants to ask the kid what it was like, being that cold.
This is goofy, he thinks. He thinks of a thousand things to say, a thousand other ways this could go, but in the end there’s really only one word, he knows that, one word from him and who knows where we go from there?
He points, he says it: “Zinkoff.”
And the game begins.
About the Author
JERRY SPINELLI is one of the most gifted storytellers in contemporary children’s literature. His books include the Newbery Medal winner MANIAC MAGEE; LOSER; STARGIRL; CRASH; SPACE STATION SEVENTH GRADE; JASON AND MARCELINE; WHO PUT THAT HAIR IN MY TOOTHBRUSH?; THERE’S A GIRL IN MY HAMMERLOCK; THE LIBRARY CARD; and KNOTS IN MY YO-YO STRING, his autobiography. Jerry Spinelli lives with his wife, Eileen, who is also a writer, in Williamstown, Pennsylvania. He is a graduate of Gettysburg College.
Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins author.
PRAISE AND AWARDS FOR LOSER:
“Spinelli demonstrates the differences between those who can continue to see with the more compassionate ‘little-kid eyes’ and those who lose sight of what is truly important.”
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“A deft balance of the straightforward and the unusual.”
—The Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books
“Zinkoff is a flawed but tough kid with an unshakable optimism that readers will find endearing.”
—School Library Journal
“A touching, sharply realized novel.”
—Family Fun Magazine
“Spinelli, a writer of immense talent, injects humor, empathy, and a real sense of joy into this loving portrait of a true original.”
—Seattle Post–Intelligencer
“A good family read-aloud.”
—Chicago Tribune
“Zinkoff is a loser in some ways, but a real winner in the end.”
—Philadelphia Inquirer
“You have to love Donald Zinkoff.”
—Orlando Sentinel
A Publishers Weekly Best Book
New York Public Library’s
“One Hundred Titles for Reading and Sharing”
Family Fun Magazine’s Best New Books
OTHER BOOKS BY JERRY SPINELLI
Wringer
Maniac Magee
Space Station Seventh Grade
Jason and Marceline
Who Put That Hair in My Toothbrush?
There’s a Girl in My Hammerlock
Crash
The Library Card
Stargirl
Copyright
LOSER. Copyright © 2002 by Jerry Spinelli. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
ePub Edition January 2008 ISBN 9780061756825
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Jerry Spinelli, Loser
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