The Kid in the Red Jacket

  By this time Ollie was getting out of control. Every time Molly opened her mouth, he laughed harder and harder. The sad thing was, she laughed along with him. Little kids do stuff like that a lot. They laugh and they don’t even know why.

  Soon Molly was giggling so hard, she thought we were all having a good time. That’s when she asked them to color.

  “My nonny got me a new coloring book at the store yesterday! I can go get it if you want!”

  Ollie fell right over on the floor. Pete just grinned.

  “Well, we can’t color today,” he replied. “We’ve got to go play football.”

  Molly’s eyes got wide as saucers. “Hey! You mean today’s the day? Hey, Howard! You musta forgot to tell me! Wait here! I’ll go get my pom!”

  Pete laughed at the sound of it. “Her pom?”

  “Don’t ask,” I muttered, feeling sick.

  Just then Ollie held out his hands. “Hey, Molly. Could I see your dolly for a second?”

  You could tell he was up to something. You could just tell by the look in his eyes.

  Happily Molly handed him her doll.

  “Be careful with her boots. Okay, boy?” she asked nicely.

  “Yeah, sure,” he said slyly. “We’ll be careful with her boots. Won’t we, Howard? We just want to see if Madeline will make a good football.”

  Then, before I knew it, Ollie was sailing Madeline through the air in my direction. “Quick, Jeeter! Go out for a pass!”

  I barely had time to catch her before she hit the floor. Her head twisted around, and both her boots fell off.

  Molly looked shocked. “Hey! Don’t do that, boy!”

  Across the room Ollie held up his hands for me to throw her back. “Here you go, Jeeter! Right here!” he called.

  As Molly hurried toward me to rescue Madeline, I let her fly. I didn’t even think about it. I just did it. That’s all.

  After that we started playing keep-away. I knew it was mean. Keep-away’s always mean. But I did it anyway. As soon as Molly ran over to me, I’d throw the doll back to Ollie. Then she’d run to Ollie, and he’d fling Madeline back to me again.

  Molly was getting frantic. “Stop it!” she demanded. “Stop throwing my baby. My nonny said you shouldn’t throw your baby.”

  Ollie laughed. I laughed too. It wasn’t funny, but I laughed anyway. After all, I didn’t want to ruin Ollie’s fun. He was my guest, wasn’t he?

  Besides, the whole thing was Molly’s fault. Nobody invited her here. I told her if she hung around with big kids she’d get hurt. Maybe this would be a good lesson for her. Big kids and little kids don’t mix. Her friend Sally knew it. Now maybe Molly would know it too. She didn’t really need me like everybody said she did. She got along okay before I came, didn’t she? She’d get over not having me. Little kids, well, they bounce right back.…

  Finally Molly started to cry, sort of quietly. It was kind of pitiful, really.

  Tough! I thought. Tough. Tough. Tough. She should have listened to me! Why didn’t she listen to me?

  Ollie tossed Madeline to Molly. “Here. Take your dumb doll. We were only having a little fun. We weren’t going to hurt her.”

  For the first time that morning, Molly didn’t say a word. Silently she gathered Madeline’s boots off the floor. A second later she was gone.

  Ollie made a cuckoo sign. “God. What a weird little kid! Where’d she come from? Mars?”

  “Ohio,” I informed him.

  “Same thing,” he replied, still grinning.

  The whole time, Pete had been sitting at my desk. I hadn’t had a chance to see if he was enjoying himself. I hoped he was, though. I hoped I hadn’t done all that for nothing.

  Suddenly Pete stood up. The look on his face took me completely by surprise. He hadn’t been laughing, I could tell. Even his smile was gone.

  He headed toward the door and then stopped, looking first at Ollie, then at me. He shook his head.

  “You guys are jerks, you know it? You’re really jerks.”

  After that he left. He just walked out my door and didn’t look back.

  The football game was awful. At least for me it was. All I could think about was that Pete had called me a jerk, and that I had to prove to him it wasn’t true. I mean, he didn’t even know me, and already he didn’t like me. It was probably the shortest friendship in history.

  Luckily, I got to be on his team. He didn’t choose me or anything. The guys just sort of divided up evenly, and I went over to Pete’s side.

  We took turns playing quarterback. When my turn came, I handed the ball off to Pete every time. After my second turn at QB some of the other guys on my team started getting annoyed about it. Once, in the huddle, Aaron Felson said, “I got an idea, Howard. Why don’t the rest of us go get a hot dog, and you can hand off to Pete.”

  That time I passed it to Aaron. Some guy tackled him from behind and knocked the wind out of him. Then this kid named Morty Harrelson came rushing over and started pounding on Aaron’s heart to save his life. He said he saw how to do it on TV one time.

  Aaron recovered pretty quickly and slugged Morty in the arm. I don’t think you appreciate people pounding on your heart unless you’re dead.

  After that I went back to handing off to Pete again. It was probably real obvious that I was trying to get in good with him, but I didn’t really care. All I cared about was getting in good with him.

  Pete never thanked me for my hand-offs, but I was positive he appreciated what I was doing. He scored three touchdowns. How can you not appreciate someone who has set you up for three touchdowns?

  When the game was over, Morty and Ollie and some of the other guys walked downtown to see a movie. Pete said he had to go home. I said the same thing. I didn’t really have to go home, though. I just wanted to walk with Pete and try to patch things up some more.

  I know this sounds stupid, but I was actually nervous about walking with him. I wanted to tell him how bad I felt about Molly and everything, but I didn’t want to sound like a nerd. I was so desperate, I even started wishing my father was there to give me some advice on what to say. I’m sure it wouldn’t have worked out, though. He would probably have told me to say something like, “I’m afraid you’ve gotten the wrong impression of me, fella.” Then Pete would have fallen on the ground laughing, and that would have been that.

  Anyway, mostly I tried to be myself and not to say anything too stupid. That isn’t as simple as it sounds. Stupid stuff slips out of my mouth pretty easily.

  By the time we reached my street I was more relaxed. Pete started laughing again about Morty pounding on Aaron’s heart. I laughed real loud and hard. I think I might have overdone it, but I wanted to show him what a good time I was having.

  Pete didn’t stop walking when we got to my house. He slowed down a little, but he didn’t stop.

  “Well, I guess I’ll see ya,” I said, hoping things were better between us.

  “Yeah. See ya,” he replied, still walking away.

  “Er, thanks for letting me play and everything,” I said then.

  This time Pete turned around and shrugged. “Yeah, sure.”

  I was halfway inside the door when I heard him yell something else. “If we play again next week, I’ll give you a call.”

  “Yeah. Okay, thanks,” I called. Fortunately, I managed to keep from dancing around the porch.

  When I went inside the house, I let out the biggest sigh of relief the world has ever heard. Proving you’re not a jerk takes a lot of effort.

  But even though I was relieved about the way things had gone with Pete, I still wasn’t feeling that great. I decided to head for the nursery and talk to Gaylord. The kid was really beginning to come in handy. When I tiptoed into his room, it was dark and quiet. He was taking his afternoon nap. I sat down next to his crib. One of his arms was dangling through the bars. I didn’t try to move it. I couldn’t risk waking him up. When you wake up a baby from a nap, mothers go berserk. The last time that happened at our h
ouse, mine hit me over the head with a newspaper.

  For the next few minutes, I just watched Gaylord snoozing away peacefully.

  “Geez, it must be easy being a baby,” I whispered. “Practically no problems at all …

  “But just wait till you start growing up, little fella. Things get so complicated, you know?”

  I thought about it for a second. “Too bad old Thornsberry isn’t here. I bet he’d understand how hard this is. I could tell Thornsberry practically anything and he’d understand. He’s a pretty sensitive guy.”

  I smiled at the thought of him. “I remember once, in third grade, the two of us went to see Bambi together. And when it got to the part where the hunter killed Bambi’s mother, I started to laugh. It was really sad, though. Probably the saddest thing I’d ever seen. But, still, I started to laugh.

  “Then I looked over at Thornsberry. He had this pocket pack of tissues on his lap and he was blowing his nose. And he didn’t even care who saw him. He wasn’t fake about stuff like that. All of a sudden I was real ashamed of myself for laughing, you know?

  “I have a feeling Pete’s sort of the same. He reminded me an awful lot of Thornsberry, the way he just stood up and said Ollie and I were jerks for the way we treated Molly. I mean, he didn’t care if it wasn’t a cool thing to do. He just did it.”

  Standing up, I rubbed Gaylord’s back lightly and got ready to leave the room. “I bet if Molly lived across the street from one of them, none of this would have ever happened,” I added regretfully. “They’d probably even get a big kick out of her or something. They’d probably have let her tag along to the football game and bring her stupid pom and not even have worried about whether anyone would think they were like Ronald Dumont.”

  I sighed. Poor old Ronald Dumont. Maybe it wasn’t fair to accuse him of being such a jerk. Maybe he had just been misunderstood like me. It could be that when he pretended to graze on the playground during lunch, he was just clowning around. I doubt it, but maybe.

  9 I was watching television when I saw them. I just looked up for a second and there they were—two little eyes peeking in the window at the top of the front door. I recognized them right away. They belonged to Madeline. Molly was lifting her up to the window to spy on me.

  It had been three days since I’d seen Molly. She hadn’t been back since the football game. I guess you could say we’d been avoiding each other.

  After I saw the eyes, I got up off the couch and cautiously looked out the door. By then Molly and Madeline had moved to the living room window. Molly was crouching down under the windowsill, holding Madeline just high enough to look inside.

  It might sound stupid—having a doll spy on someone—but I didn’t laugh. I knew it made great sense to Molly. And besides, the truth is, it made me sort of sad. Molly missed me. Even after what I had done to her.

  Slowly I opened the front door and looked out. “Hi,” I said quietly.

  Still on her knees, Molly turned Madeline around to get a look at me. “Is it him?” she whispered loudly to her doll.

  I guess Madeline must have said yes, because a second later Molly stood up and dusted off her knees. She didn’t say hello. She just stood there and looked at me.

  “Did you want something? Did you want to come in?” I asked.

  She still didn’t answer.

  “Because if you want to come in, you can,” I continued awkwardly. “I mean, you could watch TV or something, I guess.”

  She stood there a second thinking it over. Then she headed inside. It was really weird. She probably hadn’t been this quiet in her entire life.

  Once in the living room, she went straight for my father’s easy chair. She seemed to feel comfortable there. Then she put Madeline on her lap, and the two of them started staring at me some more.

  I’m not sure how long we sat there staring across the room at each other like that. It seemed like a few hours, but it was probably only a minute or two. Even so, it was really starting to get to me.

  The thing is, I just didn’t know what to say. I mean I know I could have said “I’m sorry.” But I really didn’t think “I’m sorry” would have covered this one. “I’m sorry” is a pretty lightweight apology, if you want to know the truth. It only handles little mistakes, you know? Like if you spill your milk, you can say “I’m sorry,” and that’s that. But if something really big goes wrong, “I’m sorry” almost sounds insulting. Like if you run over your neighbors’ cat, you wouldn’t just hand them the dead cat, say “I’m sorry,” and go home.…

  I think that’s why we have jails. Jails are for the really big mistakes that “I’m sorry” just doesn’t cover. Don’t get me wrong. I didn’t think I should go to jail for what I’d done. It wasn’t that big. What I’d done was one of those things that was too big for “I’m sorry” but not big enough for jail.

  I took a deep breath. “Er, ah, how is Madeline?” I said softly.

  Molly turned her doll around and gently smoothed her hair. “You flew her,” she replied in a quiet little voice. “You flew her all around the room.”

  The way she said it made me feel awful.

  “Yeah, well, I’m sorry. I really am. Okay?”

  She shook her head sternly. “Nope. Not okay.”

  “No. I didn’t mean that it was okay. I just meant that I’m really sorry, that’s all. I don’t even know why I did it.”

  Molly continued smoothing Madeline’s hair. “You did it, though. You did it and I don’t know why either. Because I thought you liked Madeline and me. And that’s why I let her be your watch doll. And that’s why I came over to color all those times. And that’s why I told my nonny you were my bestest neighborhood boy. Except for you’re not anymore. And we don’t care. Madeline and me don’t care.”

  While she was talking her voice cracked, like she was going to cry. I didn’t go get her a tissue, though. I just sat there, listening to what she was saying.

  “Molly,” I interrupted, “it’s not that I don’t like you. I didn’t mean to act the way I did the other day. I really didn’t. It’s just that the guys were there and stuff, and you know how guys are.”

  Molly glared at me suspiciously. “No, I don’t. How are guys?”

  “Well, you know, we just sort of stick together. Haven’t you ever heard that old saying ‘birds of a feather flock together’?”

  This time she frowned. “What’s birds got to do with this?”

  “Nothing. It’s just this old-time expression I heard my dad say once. It means that birds hang around with other birds. You know. Like if a bird was living in a tree, he would rather hang around with another bird than, say, a chipmunk or something.”

  I should have known better than to use an explanation like that. By the time I finished, Molly looked completely confused.

  “What’s wrong with chipmunks?” she retorted.

  “Nothing’s wrong with chipmunks,” I said quickly. “I was only using them as an example to show you that people usually like to hang around with people like themselves. Like I’m a boy and you’re a girl, so that makes us pretty different. Get it?”

  After thinking it over for a second she looked up. “Okay. So do you or don’t you like chipmunks?”

  I felt like screaming. But instead, I tried to stay calm and to make everything as plain as I could.

  “Look, Molly. Try to follow this, okay? I’m a boy and you’re a girl. And boys and girls our ages don’t usually hang around together that much. Boys usually like hanging around with boys; and girls usually like hanging around with girls. Does that make sense?”

  This time she didn’t think it over at all. “Not always, they don’t. My uncle Russell’s a boy and he likes to hang around with me. He even gave me the new boots I had on the day you flew Madeline. That’s what I was coming over to show you. My new boots. Did you see how shiny they were? They looked like they had spit on them, but they didn’t. They came that shiny.”

  I rolled my eyes. This was going to be tougher than I
thought.

  “Yeah, they were real shiny, Molly,” I assured her. “And that was real nice of your uncle Russell. But to get back to what I was saying, there’s more to this problem than just me being a boy and you being a girl. It’s our ages, too. I’m in fifth grade and you’re only in first. That’s a pretty big difference, don’t you think?”

  Instead of answering right away, she sat there for a few seconds. “I think my uncle Russell is thirty-seven or fifty,” she said at last.

  “It’s not the same, Molly,” I said, feeling exasperated. “I’m talking about kids. I mean, to be friends, kids should like to do the same stuff, don’t you think? But you and I don’t like the same things at all. You like to play house and cheerleader, and to seesaw. I like to play soccer and football. Do you see what I’m saying?”

  This time Molly put her head down on the arm of the chair and covered it with her arms. She stayed like that for quite a while. And I had the terrible feeling that I had made her cry again.

  “Molly, are you …”

  “Shhh!” she demanded. “I’m thinking.”

  Then, without warning, her head popped back up. “Hey!” she squealed. “I got one! I thought of something we both like to do! We both like to color! Right? Is that enough? Is one thing enough for us to flock together?”

  You should have seen her. Her whole face lit up. I’m not kidding. It was like being friends with me was the most important thing in her life. I didn’t know what to say. So I just sat there, not saying anything.

  “Howard Jeeper?” called Molly softly after a moment or two. Her face looked a little more serious now. “If you won’t get divorced from me, I promise not to use the lavender crayon for my pig. I’ll use ‘light pink,’ like you want me to, okay?”

  Geez. I’ve never heard anything so pathetic in my whole life. Even when the hunter killed Bambi’s mother, it wasn’t as pathetic as this.

  I didn’t have any choice, you know? There was only one thing I could say, and I said it.

  “I’m not going to get divorced from you, Molly.”