Man Trip (12 page)

“
Those
are new?” Shayla said.

I eyed her. “
You
find something new, then.”

She tapped her pencil on her teeth. “Um … how about
different
, instead of new?”

“Like what?”

She shrugged. “You find it. You’re really smart.”

I crossed my arms and gave her big-time stink eye. “Are you making fun of me?”

Her jaw dropped. “I’d never do that!”

I studied her.

“I
do
think you’re smart.”

She was telling the truth. I could tell. Shayla wasn’t mean. She showed off. She sat up too straight. She always raised her hand right away. She drew dumb frogs on everything.

But Shayla was never mean.

I looked away. “Okay. Write down … um.” I looked down. “Ants.”

Shayla squatted down to look. “Good!” She wrote
ants
in her notebook. “What else?”

I got down next to her and looked closer. “Cock-a-roach. There. See it? And a nickel.” I stuck it in my pocket.

Shayla wrote them down.

“Rust on the fence? Mynah birds, doves. Sleeping grass. A soda can. And this.” I pinched up a cigarette butt.

“Yick.”

I dropped it.

Shayla scribbled that down and waited for more. That was when I noticed: Shayla wasn’t being pushy. She wasn’t bothering me.

“What else, Calvin?”

I looked around. Out in the field I spotted a rubber slipper. Weird. How could you lose one slipper and keep on going?

“One brown rubber slipper.”

“Oh, that’s good how you added
brown
.” She wrote it down.

“How about
lost
brown rubber slipper?”

“Yeah, lost!”

I smiled. Then caught myself and scowled.

“So you went fishing,” Shayla said. “Was it fun? What you said in class was really interesting.”

I looked at her. “You like deep-sea fishing?”

“Maybe. I’ve never been on a fishing boat. But if I caught a fish, I could never kill it. I’d let it go. Just like you did.”

I puffed up. “Yeah. To fight and catch a fish is enough. Then you throw it back. How could you take a fish as beautiful as a marlin from the sea?”

I winced. Did I really say
beautiful
? Guys don’t say something is beautiful. Had Baja Bill said that?

Shayla stopped and turned to me. “What did you just say?”

“Uh … to fight a fish is enough?”

“No, you said it was beautiful.”

“Hey!” I shouted, spotting Julio and Maya. I turned and headed toward them.

Shayla hurried to catch up. “That was a really nice thing to say, Calvin. About the fish.”

“Don’t tell anyone I said that, okay?”

“Why?”

“It’s embarrassing, that’s why, so just don’t.”

“Okay, it’s our secret.”

I stopped. “Really? You won’t tell?”

“Never.” She pulled a zipper across her lips with her fingers.

A
t home that afternoon after school, I stood in the yard with Streak. The lawn mower was exactly where I’d left it days ago. If I waited even one more hour the grass would be impossible to cut, maybe even with a tractor. We’d have to fence it off and bring in the cows.

Also, I felt bad that Mom had to keep
telling me to do it. Ledward was right. She did count on me to help around the house.

“I’ve run out of time, Streak. I gotta do it. Want to help me look for bufos?”

Streak tilted her head.

I puffed up my cheeks and blew the air out slowly.

Streak sniffed the grass and jumped when a toad leaped out and headed toward the river. Streak barked and followed it. The toad disappeared into the swamp grass.

I toed out three of them and watched Streak bark them to the river.

It took ten minutes just to get the lawn mower started. It coughed to life, the noise roaring through our peaceful neighborhood like a jet flying super-low. Streak ducked her head and shrank around to the back of the house.

Pushing the
mower into that thick grass was like riding a ten-speed bike on the beach.

The biggest toad I’d seen in my life leaped out of the grass in front of me and charged downhill. Scared me spitless!

There were
still
bufos in the grass.

I shut the engine off.

It was so quiet, just like when we got off Baja Bill’s boat.

“All right, toads. Wake up. All of you.”

I started searching with my feet.

“Ack!”

I squatted down to dig out the squishy thing under my bare foot. It was way down where the grass was wet. I pried it out and picked it up. It was soft and rubbery, with a beating heart. I stared into its face. “Were you ever in an alien movie?”

It blinked.

“I know someone who thinks you guys are cute.”

I stood.

“Bye-bye,” I said, and reached my arm
back to throw Mr. Bufo into the river.

I stopped and looked at him again.

And you know what? He smiled at me. No joke. The look on his face was like, Howzit? Or Wassup?

Jeese.

“So maybe Tito had it wrong, huh?” I said.

I carried him to the water and let him swim out of my hand.