The Kid in the Red Jacket (8 page)

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 house, 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.”

The smile was back. But mostly what you could see on Molly’s face was relief—the same kind of relief I felt when I found out Pete didn’t hate me.

Slowly she got out of the chair and gathered Madeline in her arms. “Thanks, Howard Jeeper.”

When she got to the door, she turned around and sort of giggled. “This will be fun, being friends again. Won’t it?”

I nodded. “Yeah. Fun.”

She turned the doorknob and stopped again. “Hey, Howard?”

“What, Molly?”

“Does this mean that we can play house sometimes?”

I rolled my eyes. “No, Molly.”

“Oh.”

As she left I laughed to myself. I guess I practically even got a kick out of her for a second.

Two days later she showed up at the front door with Sally. I really panicked. I mean, it’s one thing to have one little kid hanging around; but I didn’t want my house turning into a day-care center or anything.

When I opened the door, Molly was grinning from ear to ear. Sally was hiding behind her. I think the kid has a problem.

“Hi, Howard Jeeper!” greeted Molly cheerfully. “This is my friend Sally. Do you remember her? She’s the one who’s afraid of big kids.”

I peered around Molly’s back. “She’s handling it beautifully,” I said sarcastically.

“I know,” Molly replied. “That’s because she signed up for karate lessons. She already knows how to put on the little white suit they give you. She can bow, too. Bow for him, Sally.”

Sally started bowing. She bowed about ten times before I could think of something to say.

“Er, nice bowing, Sally,” I managed at last.

Sally bowed thank you.

“We just came over to tell you that I won’t be playing with you today,” Molly explained. “See, Sally’s here to play with me, and we’re probably going to play some of that stuff that I like but you don’t. And I’d let you play anyway, except I don’t think you’d have a good time and Sally said she didn’t want you to.”

I looked at Sally. She bowed.

“That’s okay,” I said, feeling relieved. “I don’t need to play.”

Molly thought it over. “Maybe you and I can play tomorrow or the next day. See, Sally,” she said, turning to her friend, “Howard Jeeper and I flock together sometimes, except that there are other times when I play with just you, and he
plays with these big, mean guys. Right, Howard?”

I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, right, Molly.”

When you have a friend like Molly Vera Thompson, it’s easier to agree with her than to try to explain. Even if it means agreeing with something stupid.

Molly continued. “And, anyway, we only like
some
of the same stuff, not all. Like we both like to color, don’t we, Howard? Oh, yeah, and we both don’t like chipmunks.”