Crash (13 page)
Authors: Jerry Spinelli
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.”
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.
M
ARCH
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.
A
PRIL
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.
A
PRIL
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.
A
PRIL
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.
