Fourth Grade Rats

  Most times when I tickled her, I would stop when she started screaming. This time I didn’t stop. She laughed and screamed and bawled herself blue.

  I didn’t stop until my father pulled me off. He shook me by the shoulders. “What’s getting into you lately?”

  “Nothin’,” I said. “Just getting her back.”

  What was getting into me?

  Even I didn’t know. Didn’t care either. All I knew, whatever it was, it felt good. It felt great.

  Why had I waited until so late in life to have my first rampage? Joey was right. Angels finish last. No more last for me. This dude was heading for the gold medal!

  I ran upstairs. I pointed at Winky. “You’re holding me back,” I told him. “You’re outta here.” I opened my window and punted him into the backyard.

  There was only one thing left to do.

  My chance came next morning.

  As I was getting ready for school, my mother poked her head into my doorway. “Pick up this floor before you go,” she said. “It’s a war zone.”

  She was already gone from the doorway when I sent my answer: “I don’t have time.”

  She appeared again. “Pardon?”

  “I don’t have time,” I repeated.

  “It’ll only take a minute. Make time.”

  “After school,” I said.

  “Now,” she said.

  “No,” I said.

  Before she recovered from the shock, I was past her and down the steps.

  “I’ll see you when you come straight home after school!” she called as I breezed out the door.

  The next voice I heard was a whole lot different. I was half a block up the street when I heard it, behind me: “Hi, Suds.”

  I turned. Not that I had to turn to see who it was. I could have picked Judy Billings’s voice out of a million.

  She was smiling. She was looking at me. I wasn’t a grilled cheese sandwich, after all.

  We walked to school together.

  Judy did most of the talking. She kept telling me how famous I was. Everybody was talking about me.

  But I was only half hearing. I was in a daze. I just kept looking at her beautiful face and thinking, Man! Wow! I’m walking to school with Judy Billings! I don’t believe it!

  “Well,” I heard her say, “could you?”

  I snapped out of my daze. “Huh? Could I what?”

  “Let a bee sit on your arm, like Joey Peterson did?”

  “Sure,” I said. “No sweat.”

  For Judy Billings, I would have let an alligator sit on my arm.

  But we couldn’t find any bees.

  So she said, “How about a spider?”

  “Why not?” I said. Playing cool, trying not to sound nervous.

  We started searching the gutter and sidewalk and the walls of people’s houses. I spotted a couple of spiders, but I didn’t say anything.

  Then Judy called, “Here! Look!”

  It was on somebody’s brick wall. It wasn’t a little white house spider. It wasn’t little and it wasn’t white. It was poking along toward a window.

  “Just put your hand there, in front of it,” Judy said. “Let it crawl right on.”

  She was excited. Her eyes were wide. Her voice was squeaky.

  “Could be a black widow,” I said.

  “So?” she said: “It won’t bite unless you’re mean to it.”

  She was staring at me, waiting. The last ten minutes had been the best ten minutes of my life. Was I going to give it all up because I was too chicken to touch a stupid insect?

  I put my hand on the wall, flat. The spider went around it. I did it again. The spider climbed aboard.

  Judy shrieked. “Yow!” She pulled on my other arm. “Come on!”

  “Where?” I said.

  “School! They have to see!”

  By the time we got to the school yard, the spider was up around my elbow. A tiny-footed nightmare on my skin.

  Judy called: “Look, everybody, look!”

  Kids came running. They jerked to a stop when they saw. They gasped. They gawked.

  “It’s a black widow,” she announced to them. “He’s doing it for me.”

  The spider was up on my shoulder now, heading for my back. I couldn’t see it anymore. I kept my face cool, but I was praying, Please don’t go on my neck. Especially don’t go down my shirt.

  The bell rang. Everybody ran for the door. Nobody was looking. I swatted and twisted till I was sure the spider was gone.

  At morning recess I was mobbed.

  “Wow, Suds!”

  “A black widow!”

  “Black Widow Man!”

  “Weren’t you scared?”

  “Ouuuu, Suds!”

  Judy was mobbed too, mostly by girls.

  “He did it for you?”

  I guess we were both famous.

  Heading for the lunchroom, I grabbed Joey in a headlock. “Hey, brother rat, where you been? Where were you yesterday?”

  He pulled out of the headlock. “Home, sick.”

  I slapped him on the back. “Yo, rats don’t get sick.” I nudged him. “Know who I walked to school with today?”

  “Should I care?”

  I pushed him. “C’mon, man, you know. Hey, did you see me with the spider? Huh?”

  He shook his head.

  “No? Man, you’re missing it all.” I shook him. “You’d be proud of me.” He didn’t look too lively. “Hey, brother rat, you still sick?”

  We sat at our old spot in the lunchroom.

  I plunked my paper bag in front of him. “Notice anything?” He gave a teeny grin. “No more elephants. And look —” I opened up my sandwich. I held it under his nose. “Look familiar?” He turned away. “B-A-L-O-N-Y, baby.”

  “E-Y,” he said.

  “Whatever. It’s meat, right? M-E-A-T. I feel like I’m about sixteen already. I can feel myself growing.” He gave a little snicker-snort. “I ain’t kiddin’, man. Just sitting here now. Can’t you tell? You were right, dude. Don’t take nothin’. Number One. I’m doin’ it, dude rat.” I slapped the table. I ripped off half my sandwich in one bite. “I’m doin’ it!”

  Then I noticed. I grabbed his arms. “Hey, where are they?”

  “Where’s what?”

  “Your tattoos.”

  He stared at his arms. “Oh … uh …”

  I leaned across the table. I sniffed. “You don’t stink. You said you weren’t going to take a bath for a month.”

  “I didn’t.”

  “So where’d the tattoos go?”

  “Uh, I sweated. They came off.”

  “So how come you don’t smell?”

  “Uh, deodorant.”

  “And where’s your headband?”

  “I forgot it.”

  I finished my sandwich. I started in on my cup-cakes. Joey wasn’t eating. I pulled his sandwich from his bag. “What kind of meat you got today?”

  He snatched the sandwich back. “I don’t know.”

  “Baloney? Roast beef?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Bear? Moose?”

  He just glared at me.

  “Okay, rat,” I said. I stuffed a cupcake into my mouth. When I finally cleared some room for my tongue, I said, “You gotta come over, see my room. It’s almost as bad as yours. Oh, man!” I slapped the table. “I almost forgot to tell you. I did it. I did it.”

  He gave me a blank look.

  “The big one, rat. I said no to my mom. This morning. You shoulda been there. I’m going out to school, okay? My mom says, ‘Pick up this floor. It’s a war zone.’ War zone, man. See. I told you it was bad. So, know what I said? I said, ‘I ain’t got time.’ So she says, ‘Make time.’ And I go, ‘No.’ N-O, baby, and I’m out the door. I did it!”

  I held out my hand for him to slap. He didn’t slap.

  “Know what else? She said, ‘Come right home after school.’ I’m telling ya, I ain’t.” I scarfed down another cupcake. “I’m thinking, ya k
now, I gotta get my mom trained, like yours.”

  He wasn’t talking. He wasn’t eating. Nothing. I snatched his sandwich. I shot my chair back so he couldn’t reach me. I tore the wrapper off. I opened it. I couldn’t believe my eyes. I gawked at him. “Peanut butter and jelly? Where’s the meat?”

  He just stared for another minute. Then he got up and walked away. Left his lunch there, me holding his sandwich. Just walked away.

  After school I walked Judy Billings home. She asked if I wanted to come in for a Popsicle. I said sure. I wasn’t too anxious to go home anyway, with my mom waiting for me.

  As she opened her front door, something gray streaked past my feet.

  “Oh no!” she screeched. “Muffy, get back here! Muf-feeeee!”

  The cat was already five houses up the street.

  Judy stomped her foot. “Ouu, I hate that cat. She always does this.”

  She slammed the door shut. We took off after the cat.

  “Whenever she does this,” Judy huffed as we ran, “she goes up a tree.”

  “No sweat,” I told her.

  Sure enough, two blocks away, there was Muffy, up a tree. Pretty far up. Out on a limb.

  Judy slumped. “Oh no. Here we go again.”

  “Hey,” I reminded her, “I said no sweat.”

  Hey, I said to myself, you’re famous. You’re Number One. Judy Billings needs your help. Go for it, Black Widow Man!

  I was in luck. The next day was trash pickup day. Cans were out. I dragged one over to the tree. I climbed onto it. It held me. Good.

  From the top of the trash can, I looked down at her. She looked up at me, smiling that beautiful smile. I saluted. “See ya.”

  I was just high enough to get my fingers around the lowest branch. I dug my sneaks into the bark and pulled myself up.

  From then on it was easy. One limb after another, and there I was, even with Muffy. “Meow,” Muffy said.

  “Okay,” Judy called from below. “Bring her down.”

  Down?

  For the first time, I looked down.

  Uh-oh.

  What am I doing up here? How did I get this high?

  Far, far below me, the trash can seemed like a thimble. Judy Billings seemed like a doll, her tiny face looking up at me, getting fuzzy, getting wavy….

  “Come on, come on,” she was saying. Her voice sounded tiny and far away.

  I squeezed my eyes shut. I hugged the tree trunk.

  “I can’t,” I said.

  “You can’t?” she called. “Why not?”

  I tried to think of some other way to say it, but I couldn’t. “I’m afraid of heights.”

  “Oh, great,” I heard her say. I opened my eyes. Her hands were on her hips. She wasn’t smiling anymore.

  “I’ll probably outgrow it,” I said.

  “Yeah?” she said. “Well, you’d better outgrow it in the next two seconds, because I want my cat back and I want her back now.”

  Judy, I wanted to say, it’s me. Suds. The guy who risked his life with the spider for you.

  Something told me it wouldn’t make any difference.

  Now the tree itself was waving. No way I was going down. I couldn’t even look down.

  I reached out — out — got the cat in my hand, my hand under it, lifted it up from the limb. I prayed it was right what I had heard, that cats always land on their feet. Always, please. I dropped it.

  It landed on its feet.

  Judy squealed. “Muffy!”

  I hugged the trunk again. I scrunched my cheek against the bark, shut my eyes.

  When I opened them, only the trash can was beneath the tree. I thought, She’s going for somebody to get me down from here.

  A long time later, when mothers started calling their kids in to dinner, I changed the thought: She’s not going for somebody.

  I did a bunch of other thinking up there too. I thought about the little kids I had pushed off swings. About the Twinkies I had snatched. About the spider that probably wasn’t a black widow at all. And a girl who was after something, but it wasn’t me.

  I thought about rats and real men and Number One and angels and fame and first and last and love and nature’s way. And for the first time since I started fourth grade, I knew exactly who I was — a scared kid up a tree.

  I listened. One of those names being called in for dinner … mine? One of those mother’s voices … mine!

  “Mom!” I yelled. “Here! Up here! Help! Help! Help!” I screamed my lungs out.

  Pretty soon my mother appeared. Then my father. Then a ladder.

  I came back to earth.

  My mother squeezed me harder than I had squeezed the tree. “Look at you,” she said. She sounded mad, but I knew she wasn’t. “You’re shaking like a leaf. What were you doing up there?”

  I tried to answer, but only tears came out. I blubbered like a baby. I couldn’t help it. I didn’t care.

  I held on tight to my mom as we walked home.

  “Sorry I gave you a hard time this morning,” I sniveled.

  “That’s okay,” she said.

  “I was trying to be a good rat.”

  “I know.”

  I looked up at her. “You do?”

  She smiled. “I was talking to Joey’s mom.”

  “Uh-oh.”

  She laughed.

  Ten minutes after we got home, the doorbell rang. It was Joey — and his mother.

  “Hi, Suds,” said Mrs. Peterson. She was smiling, but Joey, he didn’t look so good.

  She said, “Joey has something to say to you, Suds.”

  I thought, What would he want to say to me, especially in front of his mom?

  Joey was facing me, but his eyeballs were up in the corners of his eyes. He didn’t look any more like Number One than I did.

  “I’m, uh, sorry,” he said.

  “Don’t stop there,” said his mom.

  “I —” Joey blinked, coughed, swallowed, cleared his throat, shifted his feet, and twitched. “I, uh, I’m sorry I got you into —”

  “Pushed you,” said his mom.

  “— pushed you into the rat stuff. I shouldn’t have talked you into saying no to your mom.”

  “And what aren’t you doing anymore?”

  “I, uh, I’m not saying no to my mom anymore.”

  Mrs. Peterson nodded. “Good.” She patted Joey on the head. She smiled at me. “Joey also wants you to know that he has dropped out of the rat race and has rejoined the human race.”

  Mrs. Peterson smiled over my head. My mother was standing behind me. “Guess that’ll about do it, Janet.”

  “I think so,” my mom said.

  Mrs. Peterson mussed my hair. “’Bye, Sudsie.”

  “’Bye,” I said.

  They left.

  I turned to my mother. “What was all that about?”

  “Just what it sounded like,” she said. “You didn’t really think Mrs. Peterson was going to let him get away with all that nonsense, did you?”

  “It looked like she was.”

  She nodded. “You’re right about that. She was trying to give him some slack, let him work his way through this rat phase of his.”

  “That’s why she backed off about the tattoos?”

  “That’s why. Plus she didn’t want to discipline him in front of you. But when her patience ran out, that was it. Curtains for Joey the rat.”

  “He said he was sick yesterday.”

  She laughed. “It was his mother who was sick. Sick of his shenanigans. She kept him home to clean up his room. And his tattoos. And his act. So” — she snapped her fingers — “that’s that.”

  For her, maybe.

  She was walking away. “Mom,” I said, “I have a confession.”

  My mother turned. Her eyebrows went up. “That so?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Maybe Joey did sort of push me. But the last couple days, it was all on my own.”

  She sat on the edge of the sofa. “I see. Anything else? Confession is go
od for the soul, you know.”

  “Well, there was another person in it, sort of.”

  “I see.” She crossed her legs, folded her arms.

  “A girl.”

  She nodded. “Hmm.” She thought. “Would her initials be J. B., by any chance?”

  I was shocked. “How did you know?”

  “You’ve been in love with Judy Billings since first grade.”

  How did she know that?

  “Well,” I said, “something happened with her, and I guess I went a little crazy.”

  “I see.”

  “Well, anyway, I think I’m through with her.”

  My mom nodded. “I imagine she’ll survive.”

  She sat back in the sofa. She just smiled at me for a while.

  “Mom?”

  “Yes?”

  “There’s more.”

  “Is there?”

  “Yeah. You know, when I was a rat there?”

  “Before you went up the tree?”

  “Yeah. Well, I mean, I was really a rat. You wouldn’t believe it.”

  “No?”

  “I took stuff from little kids. I pushed them off swings. I got a detention at school because I wouldn’t stop laughing. I rang doorbells.”

  “A regular ripsnorter.”

  “Yeah. And Mom?”

  “Yes?”

  “It was me that took all the Klondike bars.”

  Her eyebrows shot up. “Every one?”

  “Yeah. Totally.”

  She shook her head. She was dumbfounded. “I’m afraid to ask if there’s anything else.”

  Anything else … anything else. Yeah, there was something else, something still stuck inside me. What was it? I didn’t know.

  “Can’t think of anything else,” I told her.

  She reached out and took my hand and squeezed it. “Well, rat or no rat, your mom still loves you.”

  There!

  “Mom, I know now. Something else. When I was being a rat, I thought I was having a great time. But I wasn’t. I was having a rotten time.” I thought of the faces of the little kids that I had pushed around. “It’s like other kids thought I was a big deal or something. But I didn’t like myself, Mom.” My lip was quivering. “It’s no fun being a rat.”