Trout and Me (10 page)

I’d never been to Mary Sue Briggs’s house and I’ve never even wanted to walk down Magnolia Street, where she lives, which has the largest, richest houses in Stockton, New Jersey. Her father is a lawyer and works in New York City and her mother spends the day at the country club. That’s what I’ve heard. But it was kind of exciting to drive past these mansions,
huge
mansions, with wide green lawns and tons of flowers, and to walk up the flagstone sidewalk of the house where my worst enemy lives with her parents and her fluffy dog.

On the drive over, my dad and I didn’t talk, although his hand was on my knee the whole time until he parked the car.

“Will everyone be there?” I asked.

He nodded as I followed him up the front steps and
into the marble hallway of the Briggses’ house, where a long table of tea and coffee and cookies was littered with old cups and crumbs. The meeting had started at seven-thirty and it was almost nine-forty-five.

There was a wide stairway with steps going up either side as if a person needs two sets of stairs to go to the second floor. At the landing, the fluffy white dog sat looking down at us. I imagined that Mary Sue was lying on her stomach on the top step straining to hear the conversation at the meeting, but I couldn’t see her.

“We’ll go in,” my dad was saying to me, “and I’m going to sit down at the back where Mom is and you’ll just walk down the middle of the living room, which is long, to the fireplace, and stand there to speak. People have been waiting to hear you and I’m sure Mr. O’Dell is still there and he’ll probably say something like, ‘Here’s Ben Carter.’ Okay?”

“Sure,” I said. I didn’t want to sound afraid. And I wasn’t nearly as nervous as I would have been if I had had time to think about talking to a bunch of fifth-grade parents in front of Mr. Baker and Mr. O’Dell and worst of all my own parents.

“Trout’s father is here. You know that.”

“Yeah, I know that.”

“Have you met him?”

I shook my head. It was strange. I’d never met his
father and I’d never been in his apartment, and here we were, best friends.

“There.” Dad pointed as he slipped into the back row next to my mom.

I only saw the back of Trout’s father, but I could tell he was tall like Trout with that silky flying hair, only gray. I looked at him when I walked through the rows of parents, some sitting on the floor, some in folding chairs, but he didn’t turn his head to look at me, just sat facing forward, his arms across his chest.

Mr. O’Dell was sitting beside the fireplace talking to Ms. Briggs, who has yellow hair that she wears in a pony-tail as if she’s fourteen years old. I think Mary Sue will be just like her when she gets to be forty or sixty or however old Ms. Briggs is.

“Here comes Ben Carter,” Mr. O’Dell said, standing up beside the fireplace. “Hi, Ben.”

I didn’t respond with “Hi, Mr. O’Dell.” This wasn’t exactly daytime TV.

“Ben and Trout have been great friends ever since Trout came to Stockton. The best of friends. And I’m glad he’s here to tell us about the Trout he knows.”

Mr. O’Dell has a way of talking that makes me want to throw up, so I kept my eyes straight ahead and didn’t look up. All I could see were his feet.

The parents were restless, moving around in their chairs,
talking back and forth, so I wasn’t walking into silence, which would have made me very nervous. In fact, no one seemed very interested in me until I stepped in front of the fireplace.

“Do you need a microphone, Ben?” Mr. O’Dell asked.

“No thank you,” I said, and at that moment, it was as if I’d had a huge glass of super-vitamins and there was a whoosh of power like the ocean in my blood.

I told the whole story of Trout and me, but I started with Mary Sue Briggs and the drowned teddy bear. I told the truth and I didn’t leave anything out, but I didn’t look at Ms. Briggs, although I had a sense of her sitting just beyond where I was standing. I talked about the question mark and how it wasn’t a tattoo but Trout
needed
it because he felt invisible without it.

“Trout and I have learning disabilities. It means we spend recess and half of lunch and a free period every morning and after school working with tutors. We are not exactly like the rest of the kids in the fifth grade because we learn differently and sometimes it feels terrible.” I could hear my own voice like an echo in a hollow room, and it sounded good and strong and certain. “You feel stupid and uncomfortable. Teachers think you cause trouble on purpose, that you fail at school because you don’t try. But that’s not true for Trout or for me.”

I told them about the Super Balls and skipping school.
About Ritalin and how I wasn’t taking it even though everyone thought I was. And I told them about Meg’s plan. I couldn’t believe my own ears listening to the story I was telling. It was as if the words came from the air.

“Trout Sanger is the best friend I’ve ever had,” I said at the end. “He understands what it is to be in trouble in school when it’s not your fault and what it is to be different from the other kids who know how to read and what it is to feel lonely because you’re outside the group. He has taught me that I’m a good kid whether I’m smart or stupid.”

Everybody clapped. Some people stood and clapped. As I walked through the room towards my parents, people slapped me on the back and said “Good job” and gave high fives.

I didn’t hang around. I walked past my parents and straight out the Briggses’ living room into the large marble hall and to the front door without looking up the steps to see if Mary Sue Briggs was hanging halfway down the steps trying to listen. I opened the door and walked towards the car.

“I want to go home,” I said to my dad, who had followed me out. I certainly didn’t want to talk to any of the parents or hear their congratulations or answer their questions. I was proud of myself, maybe not right away, but the next day, when I thought back to what I’d said. But I was also feeling suddenly quiet because I’d told a lot of strangers the truth about me, things I’d always wanted to keep secret because I was embarrassed.

Trout’s dad caught up with us as I was getting in the car.

“Ben,” he called in a huge, deep voice. He grabbed my hand and then he lifted me up off the ground because he’s so tall and hugged me. “Thank you. That was very brave and very kind.”

My dad took me home. Mom and Trout’s father stayed to finish the conversation about Trout’s future.

“So what do you think?” I asked my dad.

“I think you were amazing.”

“Do you think they’ll change their minds?” I asked.

He was silent, considering.

“I think they will,” he said finally.

Trout was asleep when we got home. The television was off and Meg was in her room listening to music, talking on the phone to Max.

I woke him up.

“Want me to tell you what happened?” I asked, already beginning to be full of myself.

He shook his head.

“In the morning,” he said.

“He’s afraid,” my dad told me in the kitchen, where he was making himself a sandwich.

“Of what?”

“Put yourself in his shoes,” he said. “He’s in trouble,
the parents don’t like him for no good reason. And there you are, his best friend, talking about him to a bunch of people who don’t like him. Not a great way to feel, right?”

“I guess,” I said.

“Just go sit down beside him. Maybe he’ll ask and maybe he won’t.”

So I did that and we sat there on the couch, quiet a lot of the time or talking about nothing, kids at school, the soccer team next year, mean teachers. His father brought my mom home from the meeting, but he didn’t come upstairs, so I didn’t have a chance to see him again.

“What happened?” I asked my mom.

“All good,” she said, kissing me on the top of my head. “Trout will be back next year in the fifth grade and I guess you two guys will be practicing for the soccer team all summer.”

Trout said goodbye and went downstairs to meet his father, but he didn’t thank me.

“See you,” he said, and walked out the front door.

“Don’t worry,” my dad said when he came in to kiss me good night. “It’s hard to know what to say when someone’s done you a big favor. ‘Thank you’ doesn’t seem enough. And sometimes you’re embarrassed or feel you owe them something back. This was a big deal. Trout’s got to have time to think about this.”

Still, I couldn’t get to sleep for a very long time.

Trout called just before seven.

“Meet me at the corner,” he said.

We always met at the corner of Euclid, every day for weeks, so I didn’t know why he needed to call this morning, but I headed out early and was waiting for him when he came up the street.

At first when I watched him coming up Euclid, I knew there was something different. I just didn’t know what it was—a different look to his face. And then, of course, I realized the red question mark was gone.

“Is it off for good?” I asked.

He shrugged.

“I don’t know. I’m going to a new school next year, so maybe I’ll put it back on then.”

My stomach fell.

“I thought you were going to be at Stockton. I thought we were doing soccer and stuff together.”

“We’re moving to New Hampshire,” he said. “My dad’s got a new job.”

I was quiet all the rest of the way to school. I was actually afraid that if I spoke, I’d cry, so I didn’t speak and didn’t dare look at Trout.

“Did you know you were moving last night when you were over at my house?” I asked finally.

“Nope. He told me this morning.”

“So after the meeting.”

He nodded.

I put my stuff in my locker, got out my language arts book, shut the locker door, and waited for Trout to finish getting organized. The halls were crowded and a few kids from the fifth grade gave me a swinging pat on the shoulder or knocked up against me in a friendly way, so I guessed their parents had told them that Trout and me are okay guys. A couple of kids stopped and talked to Trout too.

“So are we still doing Meg’s plan?” Trout asked.

“Sure,” I said. There were only two more weeks to summer vacation.

“Maybe today she’ll give us eight cigarettes,” he said.

“Right. Steal them from Max.”

All morning I had trouble concentrating, more even than usual. I couldn’t stop thinking about Trout moving away and it made me a little sick, as if I were coming down with the flu.

It wasn’t until we were on the blacktop at gym, standing on the edge of the basketball court without any particular plan for something to do, that Trout talked about the meeting with the parents. I could tell that he had something to say, but he didn’t say anything until the bell rang and kids started running past us on their way up the steps and into the building.

“So what’s up?” I asked.

“My dad told me this morning that I’m your best friend.”

“You knew that,” I said.

“He says you told everyone in the whole auditorium, all the parents and stuff.”

“I did.”

“That’s what he said.”

I gave him a funny look.

“You’re weird,” I said.

He shrugged.

“I guess you know you’re my best friend too,” he said. “Even when I move to New Hampshire. I won’t get another like you.”

It was a hot day and we were standing on the blacktop with sun beating down on us, blinding our view, the last kids on the playground, the final bell ringing.

“We could bolt,” I said. “Go someplace like Montana.”

“For the day? I’ve got a dentist’s appointment tomorrow morning.”

“Yeah, just for the day. We’ll be back by dinner.”

“Then let’s get our stuff and head to Montana,” Trout said.

And we raced up the back steps of Stockton Elementary, running into the building just as the last bell stopped ringing.

We went to Montana, just the two of us, a couple thousand miles from New Jersey, rode horses up in the mountains,
and then got home in time for dinner. I mean, we were a little late, of course.

“Montana?” my father asked us when we walked in the front door. “That’s a long way away. Did you have a good time?”

“We had a great time,” I said. “We can go anyplace together, even when Trout moves to New Hampshire.”