Crash

  Catfish cakes are mostly just regular brownies. What Scooter would do then was make catfish faces by squeezing a string of white icing onto each one. I had made them in Mike’s microwave the day before. Maybe I’m not the world’s greatest artist, but—“They look like catfish faces to me,” I said.

  I had thought she would be glad. Instead, she slammed the brownies down, blubbered, “Well, they’re not!” and stomped out of the house.

  Mike took his football laundry bag to school today. “I got news for you,” I told him, “the season ended three months ago.”

  He grinned. “I got news for you.” He pulled me over to the lockers. He opened the bag a little. I looked in. It was the Jetwater Uzi.

  “You’re gonna get suspended,” I said.

  He closed the bag. He stared at me. “You’re really acting weird.”

  I felt my neck getting warm. “What do you mean by that?”

  “I don’t know. You’re just acting different. Like when I said let’s trick Webb, you told me you weren’t interested. And like this.” He swung the bag in my face. “You never woulda said”— he made his voice prissy—“you’re gonna get sus-pen-ded.”

  I pushed the bag into his face. “I didn’t say it like that.”

  He backed off. “You said it. It’s like you don’t want to do nothing no more. You’re a dud, man.”

  I grabbed a fistful of his shirt, pushed it up to his chin, forced his head back. “Am I a dud now?”

  We had never fought each other for real, but we both knew who would win if we did. He looked down his nose, his face practically tilted to the ceiling. He croaked, “You ain’t a dud.” He gulped. “Let me go, man.”

  I pushed him into the lockers and went to homeroom.

  This afternoon, a block from school, a gang of kids were yelling and hooting near a stop sign. As I got closer I could see between the heads enough to know it was Deluca and Webb. I could hear the splatter of the Uzi. I kept walking. I knew what was happening. Mike was firing away, sogging Webb from head to toe, and Webb was standing there taking it, like the day he refused to have a water-gun fight with me. I could tell when Mike was missing high: the shots would ping off the stop sign.

  Was Mike right? Was I a dud? Why wasn’t I joining the mob and hooting with the rest of them? Why wasn’t I grabbing the gun and pumping a couple rounds into the victim myself? In fact, I did feel like grabbing the gun, but I felt more like shooting Deluca than Webb. Did that make me a dud? Did others see me that way?

  Crash Coogan. The Crash Man. Suddenly the name didn’t seem to fit exactly. I had always thought my name and me were the same thing. Now there was a crack of daylight between them, like my shell was coming loose. It was scary.

  When I looked back, the mob was a block behind me.

  Tonight when I came back from the bathroom to go to bed, I found a note on the blanket. It was from Abby:

  I am sorry I was so mean this morning. I guess I was being a big baby. Thank you for making catfish cakes for me. (Even if they didn’t look like catfish.)

  37

  FEBRUARY 13

  Scooter talks.

  One word: “A-bye.”

  At first I thought he was telling us to go, saying good-bye, even the minute we got there. But it turns out that’s all he says. It’s his only answer.

  “Hi, Scooter.”

  “A-bye.”

  “How are you feeling today?”

  “A-bye.”

  “Do you like your therapists?”

  “A-bye.”

  “How many days in a year?”

  “A-bye.”

  In the car Abby said, “Can’t he say anything else?”

  My mother sighed. “For now, I guess not.” Her voice sounded even more tired than usual; each word seemed to drag itself from her mouth.

  Abby wouldn’t let it go. “What does it mean?”

  “I don’t know exactly. I guess to him, it means everything.”

  Abby grumped, “I wish he could say more. I hope he can tell us Ollie Octopus stories again.”

  “Let’s try to concentrate on what he can do,” said my mom, “not on what he can’t.”

  “Don’t get old, kids,” said my father.

  It was quiet the rest of the way home. As we were pulling into the driveway, Abby piped up: “It must have been terrible not to have a single word. And now he has one. And he can use it for anything! I’m going to be happy about that.”

  She bounced out of the car—and she did, she looked happy.

  Tonight after dinner, I was taking the trash outside when I heard footsteps running up the street. It’s no big deal for somebody to go running past our house; half the people in town seemed to jog around. But these feet weren’t jogging, they were sprinting.

  I looked. The sprinter went zipping past our house. It was too dark to tell much. But a couple houses up there’s a streetlight, and for just a second there he was, out of the dark and back in: a kid, skinny.

  Webb.

  The first thing I thought was: Somebody’s after him. I ran to the sidewalk, looked down the street, listened. Nothing.

  After Deluca drenched him with the Uzi, Webb was out of school for two days. I heard he almost had pneumonia.

  I looked in the other direction. The footstep sound got slower, then stopped. That meant he was walking, maybe coming back. I went in.

  38

  FEBRUARY 28

  My mother turned the paper bag upside down. Two glittery red high-heeled shoes tumbled onto my study desk.

  “Mrs. Linfont found them when she was dust-mopping under your bed today. She said she didn’t want to be snoopy, but she thought it was kind of unusual. And she couldn’t imagine they were a present for me.” She squinted at me. “They’re not, are they?”

  “No,” I said, “and she is a snoop.”

  “I guess you’re right. Does that make me a snoop, too?”

  “Yeah,” I said. I put the shoes back in the bag.

  She didn’t go away. “So, is it a secret?”

  I glared at her. Then I told her why I got them.

  “So why are you keeping them?”

  I told her that, too.

  “Well, that’s very sweet of you. If it makes you feel any better, I don’t think you have to worry anymore about your grandfather making it. It’s just a question of how well he’s going to get.”

  She was looking at me funny. “Let me see those again.” She pulled out one of the shoes. She studied it.

  “What are you grinning at?” I said.

  “Where did you get these?”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t notice. I told you, I was in a hurry.”

  “Shoes usually come in a box.”

  “Not these. They were sitting on the counter.”

  “How much did you pay for them.”

  “Six dollars.”

  She started to giggle and wag her head.

  “What?” I said.

  “You know where you got these?”

  “At a store. I told you.”

  “You did something you said you’d never do, Mister Price Tag.” She tried to squeeze my nose, but I pulled away. “You … went shopping at Second Time Around.”

  When I woke up next morning, my first thought was: I was in a thrift shop. I hope it doesn’t show at school.

  My mother was probably right about Scooter making it. Last time we visited him, we took him some snapper soup in a Thermos jug. It’s one of his all-time favorite things to eat.

  My mother fed it to him. When he tasted the first spoonful, his eyes lit up—he was Scooter—and he went, “A-bye, a-bye!”

  I told my sister, “The mouse is never gonna move into that house out there. It’ll come and take the food, but it’s never gonna live there.”

  She scowled. She didn’t want to talk about it. She thinks she’s the only one in the house that knows anything about nature. “What do you care?” she said.

  “I don’t,” I said. “I’m just saying.” br />
  It was killing her to ask. Finally she snorted, “So, saying what?”

  “That thing’s in the open too much. You should push it back under the bushes. Mice like things dark and cozy-like. That’s why it was living in my football bag.”

  “Then I guess the Mouse House has to be smelly too,” she said, and walked away.

  Every night, seven nights a week, Webb sprints past our house.

  39

  MARCH 22

  Something happened in English today.

  A couple weeks ago we got an assignment: Write an essay about someone you know. Tell what that person means to you.

  I wrote about Scooter. Not about the stroke and the rehab and all, just the good stuff. I told about his great cooking and the stories in bed and how he came to all my games, even in the rain.

  The papers were due today. When I got to class, Webb was already there, wearing the old PEACE button. Deluca was there. I took my seat.

  Webb got up to talk to the teacher. As soon as that happened, Mike went to Webb’s desk and snatched some stapled sheets of paper from it. Probably Webb’s essay, I figured. On the way back to his desk, he crumpled it into a ball.

  When Webb got back, he saw right away what happened. He started looking around frantically for his essay—under his desk, in his books. Kids were giggling. Suddenly, while Webb’s back was to him, Mike turned and whipped the paper ball to me. I never didn’t catch a ball that was thrown to me in my life. I caught it. The bell rang, everybody settled down, the class started.

  The teacher didn’t ask for the essays right away. As the period went on, I got more and more curious about Webb’s paper. Finally, as quiet as I could, I uncrumpled it. I flattened it against my desktop, shielded it with my book, and read:

  One of the most important people to me is my great-grandfather, Henry Wilhide Webb III. I feel very fortunate and blessed to have a great-grandfather, but he is more than that to me. He is 93 years old. It is hard to believe that someone who is 80 years older than I can understand how I feel, but he can. He is my best friend.

  Henry Wilhide Webb III gave me my first name. In the year 1919 he ran for his college track team in the famous Penn Relays. Shortly after that, he traveled west to the State of North Dakota, and he settled there and raised a family. But he never forgot that day at the Penn Relays. When I was born, my mother told him that he could name his first grandson. He named him Penn. That was me.

  We moved to Pennsylvania seven years ago. I have only seen him once since then. I miss him very much. Most of all, I miss the stories that he used to tell me about the old days. Sometimes he makes me sad when he says that he feels himself disappearing like the prairie.

  My great-grandfather is coming to visit us for two weeks in April. He is coming then because that is when the Penn Relays take place. He says he wants to see them one last time. I do not believe he knows that middle schools and even grade schools now compete in the Relays.

  I believe that the best gift I can give my great-grandfather would be for him to see me run in the Penn Relays. That is why I have been practicing my running every night.

  The teacher called for papers. I passed mine in. The bell rang. Everybody packed up. Webb took a last look around his desk. While everybody else headed for the door, he headed for the teacher. I intercepted him. I stuck the essay in his hand.

  “I found it,” I said. “It’s wrinkled, but it’s okay.”

  He was gaping at me like a hooked fish as I went out the door.

  Track sign-ups are tomorrow.

  40

  APRIL 2

  I was in the kitchen this morning, checking out the fridge, when I heard screaming outside. “No! Go away! Scram!”

  I opened the back door. Abby was in the yard, holding the garden shovel like a baseball bat. In front of her was the ChemLawn man in his white jumpsuit, holding the end of a hose that snaked back to the can-shaped truck parked at the curb.

  He tried to reason with her. He told her that it was important to spray the ground now so all those evil weeds wouldn’t have a chance to get started. But all Abby did was snarl: “Plant murderer! Go spray that stuff on the hair growing out your nose!”

  The guy wasn’t stupid. He didn’t move. He knew if he did, he’d get a shovel across the kneecaps. He looked at me, but he saw I was laughing too hard to be any help. So he backed off, reeled in the hose, and drove away.

  Tonight my father paid Abby a little visit in her room. I heard him ask her what did she think she was doing.

  “Daddy,” she said, “he was killing the weeds.”

  “This may come as a shock,” he said, “but that happens to be the whole idea.”

  “It’s a bad idea,” she said. “We have to have them or we can’t be an official wildlife habitat.”

  “Last time I checked, this was a home, not a habitat.”

  “Daddy … Daddy …” Lecture coming. “You were brought up all wrong. It’s not your fault. Weeds aren’t bad, Daddy. Weeds aren’t even weeds. They’re plants and flowers just like daffodils and all. They have a right to live, too. How would you like it if a truck came to spray poison on you just because somebody decided to call you a weed?”

  Next thing I heard was my father going back downstairs.

  41

  APRIL 12

  Most big kids are slow. Most fast kids are little. That’s where I’m different. I’m big and fast.

  In sports, I most like to beat people by plowing them under. Like football. And next year I’m going out for wrestling. But in the spring there aren’t any contact sports, just baseball and track and field. So I use my speed in track.

  Even though it doesn’t look it, track is kind of like football. Sure, there’s no ball and no shoulder pads, and nothing in your way except the string across the finish line. But you can demolish a kid just as much by beating him in a race as by plowing him under on a football field.

  It’s about the first thing you do when you’re little kids—you race. And the kid that wins, bam! Right away he’s the fastest, he’s the best. Walk into any neighborhood anywhere in the world and ask some kids who’s the fastest one there, and right away they’ll tell you, they’ll point to him. It’s something everybody knows. It’s a title that goes with you on your street, your school, your town. Fastest Kid.

  That’s me.

  We had race-offs today. The top three will run the hundred-meter dash in our first track meet. I won. I beat the sixth, the seventh, and the eighth graders.

  The coach says he’s surprised at how fast I am for being so big. He was also surprised at who came in second: Webb. He said he can’t remember the two fastest runners ever before both being seventh graders.

  I wasn’t real surprised at Webb. I still remember that time we raced to the mailbox and back, and how close he was behind me.

  In the race-off today, he got a great start. He was out ahead of everybody. I guess he’s been practicing his starts, too. But you don’t beat Crasher the Dasher with a great start. I caught him at the fifty-meter mark, and the rest was history.

  You can hardly see Mouse House anymore. It’s deep in the bushes. There are leaves piled up around it, and the windows have pink flaps over them, cut out from an old washrag. But there’s still no one living there.

  The ChemLawn guy hasn’t come back.

  42

  APRIL 15

  Jane Forbes came up to me after lunch today. She was mad. She stuck a scrap of paper in my face. “Did you write this?”

  “Huh?” I said. I took the paper. The words were in big black letters, all capitals:

  IF YOU EVER WANT TO SEE YOUR TURTLE ALIVE AGAIN, BE SURE YOU EAT MEAT IN THE CAFETERIA MONDAY. I WILL BE WATCHING.

  “Where did you get this?” I said.

  “Penn gave it to me. Did you?”

  I gave the scrap back. “No. And don’t go accusing somebody unless you got proof.” I walked away.

  A little while later we had our first track meet, against Donner. In the
hundred meters Webb was out fast again, and again I passed him halfway. Me first, him second.

  I didn’t even wait till the meet was over. I didn’t take a shower. I got dressed and ran all the way to Mike’s house. His mother let me in. She said he was in his room. I went up.

  I didn’t knock. I barged in. He looked up from his 18-inch TV.

  “Where is it?” I said.

  “Where’s what?” he said, like I was a looney.

  It wasn’t out in the open. I looked under his bed. “Hey, man!” he squawked. Only junk under the bed. I went to the closet, checked the shelf, checked the floor. There it was, in a computer paper box. I took out the box. I lifted the turtle and turned it over. There was the name Thomas carved into the bottom shell.

  “You didn’t even have food for it,” I said.

  “It was a joke,” he said. “I woulda gave it back.”

  “I’ll save you the trouble,” I said.

  He stepped in front of the doorway. “How come all of a sudden you’re nosing up to Webb?”

  “Move,” I said.

  He stayed put. “He feeding you oatburgers or something?”

  I didn’t answer.

  He thumped me on the chest. “Huh?” Thumped me again, harder. “Huh?”

  I stood still as a rock. I knew what he was doing. He wanted me to thump him back, like I always did. Locker-room buddy bulls.

  He thumped me again. “Huh?”

  I thumped him back, only it wasn’t what he expected. The heel of my hand hit him square in the chest and sent him butt-first down the hallway floor. He ended up against the bathroom door with his Christmas sneakers pointing at the ceiling.

  He forward-rolled to his feet, fists up, nose flaring. But he didn’t come any closer.

  For a long time we just glared at each other. Then his fists went down, his shoulders drooped, his voice whined: “What’s the matter with you?”