Better Than Weird (5 page)

His words made Mrs. Evans smile.

When it was time to find a book, Aaron chose the one with the flying boy on the cover. “Got it!” he chortled. “Got it.” And he clutched it to his chest as he carried it back to class.

* * *

For the rest of the afternoon, Mr. Collins let them finish off work. Aaron hated work periods. They were boring. You just sat and worked. Alone. But with his father coming, he was determined to get everything done to prove he could, and to prove he wasn't as weird as Tufan said.

He started in his chair. After a while he shifted to his knees. Then he moved to sit on the floor. When he finished his spelling paper, he walked to the back of the room to drop it into the marking bin. The margins of his page were tattooed with angry slashes and lightning bolts, and it was slightly soggy where he had chewed away the bottom corner, but it was done. On his way back he stopped to check out the guppy tank. Then he grabbed his math text and sat under a table at the back of the room to finish that assignment too. His page ended up with three round puncture holes, made when he jabbed his pencil through the paper as he worked out the last problem. But it was finished, and he was sure it was right.

When the final bell rang, he glanced up at the detention board.
My name's not there,
he thought
.
He was pleased.
From now on I'll finish everything. An' then nobody
will think I'm weird. Especially not my dad. He won't.

* * *

He was sitting on the hallway floor, packing up his belongings when Jeremy hurried by.

“You wanna come to my house?” Aaron called out.

“I've got volleyball practice,” Jeremy said as he hurried away.

“Oh. Yeah.” Aaron's shoulders sagged. Volleyball
.
He tightened his lips. He'd put it on the first list:
6. how to play volleyball
.

He leaned over to shove his library book deep into his backpack and was closing the straps when a pair of legs stepped around him. He looked up to see Karima putting on her coat. She smiled, and two dimples formed on her cheeks. He watched her tug on her boots and tie the laces.

Sometimes Jeremy walks Karima home
, Aaron thought.
But not today. He can't walk her home today. He's
playing volleyball.
Aaron had a new thought. “I can walk you home,” he said, turning to Karima.

Karima's face flushed. Two girls beside her started to giggle. “Why?” she asked. “You don't even live near my house.”

“Yeah, but I don't mind.”

“I can walk home alone,” she said.

“Aaron and Karima,” one of the girls sang.

“No-o-o!” Aaron said. “No! You've got it all wrong. You don't know anything. It's not Aaron and Karima. It's Jeremy and Karima. Jeremy loves Karima!”

Karima groaned.

“What?” Aaron said. “What?”

She glared at him.

The giggling girls picked up their bags. “Loser,” said the first one as she walked by. “Loser,” said the second. Karima didn't say anything, but she hurried away, leaving Aaron confused and alone.

SEVEN

After school on Thursday, Aaron sat on the gym bench, watching Mr. Collins and Jeremy turn the long rope for the skipping team practice. It made a sharp smacking sound every time it hit the floor.

“Thirty-one, thirty-two, thirty-three, thirty-four…” Aaron counted under his breath. With each count somebody jumped in, traveled to the other end and jumped out again.
So fast. So fast,
he thought.

“…fifty-seven, fifty-eight, fifty-nine, sixty…” He counted the skippers flowing through the rope. They were laughing, running, jumping, breathing hard. “…eighty-four, eighty-five…” Then, “OOOOOH!” His voice echoed everyone's disappointment as Reshauna tripped.

“You missed! You missed! You missed a beat!” Aaron called, slapping his knees and laughing.

“Aaron!” Jeremy said. There was disappointment in his voice.

“Better than you can do, Cantwait,” Tufan snarled.

Aaron turned his laughter off.

“You know what?” Mr. Collins said to the kids who had been skipping. “That was great! You're all coming along so well that it's hard to believe you've only been skipping for a few weeks. Take the last ten minutes to work with your groups on the skills you want to perfect before we call it a day.”

He picked up the long rope and folded it as he came to sit beside Aaron. They were silent for a while. Aaron watched Jeremy coach Tufan on how to do crossovers.

“Pretty impressive stuff,” Mr. Collins said.

“Yeah!” Aaron agreed.

“What are you working on?”

Aaron shrugged.

“I know you can skip. I've seen you do it. Why did you stop?”

“I dunno.”

“It's hard for you.”

“Yeah! And I'm…I'm…”

“You're what?”

“Kinda klutzy.”

“Only one way to stop being klutzy.”

“Practice?”

“That would help. Doesn't matter what you do, singing or skipping, if you want to do it well, you have to practice. Why did you stop?”

“Nobody wants me in their group.”

“Nobody? Didn't I see Karima and Jeremy helping you last week? What happened?”

“Karima got mad.”

“Karima? Seems to me she's the kind of girl who needs a really good reason to get mad. What happened?”

“I said…I said Jeremy was in LO-O-OVE with Karima.”

“Ooooh,” Mr. Collins said, stretching the word so that it came out like a sigh. “I guess that would do it.”

“Yeah.” Aaron's shoulders drooped, and he pulled in his neck. “I guess it was a loser thing to say.”

“Karima's a pretty forgiving girl,” Mr. Collins said. “Give her a little time. She might let this pass.”

“Yeah,” Aaron said again, but he stayed on the bench until the skippers started packing up to go home.

He was reaching for his own coat when Jeremy said, “You coming?”

“Aren't you…? What about Karima?” Aaron asked.

“She's going to the dentist.”

“Oh, okay.” Aaron tried to sound cool, but inside he felt happy.
I'm walking home with Jeremy
, he thought as he bent to zip up his coat
. I'm walking home with Jeremy.
In his excitement, his fingers stiffened. He fumbled. The zipper jammed. Little mouthfuls of frustration puffed from his lips. When Jeremy started for the door, he followed, leaving his coat open.

“You wanna come over and finish our science project?” he asked when he caught up.

Jeremy shook his head. “Not today.” He was leaning into the wind, his hands jammed into his pockets. When he spoke, his words sounded angry. “You know, I'm trying to be your friend, but you have to try a little harder not to be such a jerk. If you laugh at people when they make a mistake, you'll hurt their feelings. They're gonna get mad at you.”

“Yeah,” Aaron said. “That's what my gran told me. She said, ‘Don't laugh at people.' I wasn't laughing at Reshauna, you know.”

“Yes, you were. You laughed when she tripped. It wasn't funny.”

“I wasn't laughing 'cause it was funny.”

“Well, what were you laughing about?”

Aaron couldn't decide if Jeremy looked angry or confused. He wished Karen was here to tell him.

“I was…it was…,” he started, hoping to make himself clear. “It was 'cause everybody skipped and skipped, and they looked…” And here he stretched out his hands and moved them from side to side. “They looked like people floating. Like they were dancing on the air. And then the rope stopped and I…it was 'cause it was so pretty and I was sort of happy and…” His voice trailed off.

Jeremy scratched the back of his neck. “Jeez, Aaron,” he said, “you're really weird.”

“Yeah. I know.” Aaron shivered. He crossed his arms across his chest to keep his coat together. “How do I stop? How do I not be weird?”

Jeremy shrugged. “I dunno. You could…Well, for starters you could stop laughing when things aren't funny. And when you laugh, try not to laugh so loud, 'cause people think you're doing a hyena imitation.”

Aaron snorted. “A hyena imitation!”

“Like that. That's exactly what I'm talking about. Don't laugh like that if you don't want to sound weird.”

“Oh.” Aaron turned off his laughter. “Okay.”

“And you need to grow up and act your age.”

“I don't act my age?”

“I know you're smart and everything, but sometimes when you talk, you sound like you're still in kindergarten.”

Aaron's chin dropped to his chest. “I sure do a lot of stuff wrong,” he said.

“I can be your friend,” Jeremy said, “but I don't want to be your babysitter. You have to start taking care of yourself.”

Aaron nodded.

“I'll tell you what my dad used to tell me,” Jeremy said. “My dad used to say, ‘Look people in the eye when they're talking to you. Listen to what they say. And if you can't think of something smart to say, it's better to shut the heck up.' If you want to stop being weird, remember that and see if it helps.”

“I should shut the heck up,” Aaron said, his head bobbing as he nodded his agreement. He grinned. “Dads know lots of good stuff. When my dad comes, he'll tell me everything like that too. And when he tells me what I should know, I'll tell you, 'cause you're my friend.”

He thought he heard a small groan from Jeremy.

* * *

That evening Aaron made a new list of things to remember for when his dad came back.

How to stop being weird

1. don't laugh like a hyena

2. grow up

3. look people in the eye

4. shut the heck up

EIGHT

The sky was blue on Friday morning as Aaron made his way to school, but the air was crisp and cold. Cold enough that each breath made his nose sting. Cold enough that little white clouds of vapor formed each time he exhaled. He lifted his chin and opened his mouth like a goldfish searching for food. Then he puffed. He wanted to make his breath come out in rings. He had seen that once on tv. A man blowing smoke rings.

No rings formed in front of Aaron's face. Just small clouds that hung in the air then faded away.
I'll put it
on the list,
he thought.
Dad will know how to blow smoke
rings. He'll show me
.

It had rained overnight, and the puddles on the sidewalk were coated with films of ice, some of them clear as window glass, others milky white. He liked the milky ones best. They made a sharp, satisfying
crack
when they shattered under his boots. The others, the clear ones, didn't crack the same way, and when they did, water welled up and over the break.

When he got to school, Aaron looked for Jeremy. He wasn't around, but Tufan was coming through the far gate, head down, hands pulled high inside his sleeves, shoulders hunched against the cold.

“Don't talk to Tufan,” Jeremy had said. So Aaron hurried across the pavement and clomped out into the field, where there were lots of iced-over puddles. When he reached the first one, he leaped into its middle, landing on both feet, kangaroo style. Without a kangaroo's tail for balance, his feet slid forward and he fell back. The sudden thud as he landed on his bum made him laugh. He laughed again as he leaped into the middle of the next ice pan. Running, jumping, falling, laughing, Aaron forgot all about Tufan as he crisscrossed the yard. When he saw another wide pan of clear ice he ran, jumped and landed in its middle. That puddle must have been deeper than the others, because his feet stayed under him, but the ice gave way and water geysered up. Icy droplets splattered his face. He laughed so hard, he hardly heard the voice that said, “Dweeb! Look what you did!”

Still laughing, Aaron turned to find Tufan right beside him. He knew he should get up and walk away, but laugher fizzed and gurgled inside him, like the bubbles in soda pop. He put his hand over his mouth and did his best to keep it bottled up, but when Tufan flicked his fingers at a huge splotch of muddy water on his jacket, it burst out.

“You look like a mud monster,” Aaron sputtered. The laughter ended when Tufan shoved him to his knees.

Jumping in the puddle had been fun. Kneeling in it wasn't. Having Tufan's face close to his own wasn't fun either. He couldn't help seeing the dark eyebrows angled over the nose, the mouth turned down.

“That's angry,” he said, out loud. “That's an angry look.”

“Ya got that right,” Tufan snarled, and Aaron realized he was in trouble.

“Sorry,” he said quickly. “I'm sorry.”