Twerp (6 page)

“C’mon, Lonnie. That’s not fair.”

“But you
are
in the gifted class.”

“That’s not my fault,” I said.

“No one said it was your fault. But it means you’re in a certain position.”

“What kind of position?”

“You have responsibilities,” he said.

“How do you get that?”

“Not everyone writes as good as you.”

“So what?”

“Look, if you needed to drag a couch down the street, you’d come to me, right?”

“I guess so, but—”

“Why would you come to me?”

“Because you’re my friend.”

“And?”

I thought it over. “Because you’re stronger than I am.”

“Exactly!”

“But—”

“You’re a better writer than I am,” he answered. “I’m coming to you because I need to get a letter written. The same way you’d come to me to get a couch dragged down the street.”

“But I’ve never asked you to drag a couch down the street,” I said. “Plus, why would anyone want to drag a couch down the street in the first place? It doesn’t make sense.”

“That’s beside the point,” he said.

“How could that be beside the point? That
is
the point!”

“No, the point is that you’re my best friend—or at least, I thought you were. The point is that writing a letter or dragging a couch are the kinds of things best friends do for each other.”

“But best friends also tell each other the truth.”

“True,” he said.

“So if I know it’s not going to work—”

“Then let me find out for myself. Otherwise, it’ll always be gnawing at me.”

You know how people talk about the end of the world, how there will be signs like the stars lining up a certain way, and the seas giving up their dead, and lambs lying down with lions? For me, a sure sign of the end of the world will be when I can win an argument with Lonnie.

So the long and short of it is that I wound up saying
I’d write the love letter for him, even though the thing has no chance of working, and even though he’ll likely blame me when it doesn’t. Plus, even if it does work—which, if you think about it, would be another sign of the end of the world—that would only mean Lonnie would wind up doing stuff with Jillian instead of with the guys on the block. So it’s a lose-lose situation, as far as I’m concerned.

But I’ll give it my best shot. Because it’s Lonnie.

The first thing I did was borrow a poetry book from the school library. I thought about borrowing one of Amelia’s. She’s got a stack of poetry books in her room. Not even for school. She just reads them on her own. But I knew if I asked to borrow one of her books, she’d want to know why. The point is, girls
love
poetry. I don’t get it, to tell the truth. Then again, I’m not a girl. On the other hand, Jillian
is
a girl. So I figured, if you’re going to write a love letter to a girl, studying up on a book of poems seemed like a good place to start.

But the thing was, once I got going, the poems weren’t half bad. Maybe because I was reading them for Lonnie’s sake instead of for an assignment, which meant I could just relax and take them in. If one of them bored me, I could just turn the page and not worry about getting quizzed on it. But the real ironical thing is that I even read a couple of poems by
Shakespeare
.

The first one was decent enough. It starts off, “Shall I
compare thee to a summer’s day?” I like that. It says what it says. Except for “thee.” But if that’s how people said “you” back in Shakespeare’s time, then maybe he couldn’t help himself. The rest of it’s like that too. It gets egotistical at the end, when he says that the girl will live forever because of the poem. But you know what? He was right. I just read the poem, and I wound up thinking about the girl, so in a way the girl
is
still alive. She did live forever. I don’t know if that’s what he meant, but whatever he meant, it’s a decent poem. I was glad I read it.

The second Shakespeare poem wasn’t as good. It kind of made me mad at him again. It’s the one that starts out, “Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments.” First off, I had to look up about half the words. Second, he rhymes “love” with “remove.” I mean, either you’re writing a rhyming poem or you’re not writing a rhyming poem. You don’t get half credit just because the two words are spelled alike.

But you know what poem stuck out? “My True Love Hath My Heart” by Sir Philip Sidney. I’d never heard of the guy before, and he’s as old as Shakespeare, but he’s not as complicated or egotistical. The poem was only fourteen lines long … and I got it the first time through. That’s how a poem should work. It’s about a guy and a girl who trade hearts with one another, and how each one takes care of the other one’s heart, and how both
hearts ache with love, and how the pain brings them closer together. That’s the entire poem in a nutshell. I read the poem over and over until I could almost recite it with my eyes closed:

It’s kind of humorous, the way it sounds, but also romantic, and it made me think about love and life, which proves you don’t need to get so flowery and so complicated to get your message across.

So, to come to the point, after a couple of hours of flipping through the poetry book and rolling poems around
and around in my head, I got real inspired and sat down to write Lonnie’s love letter to Jillian.

Here’s what I came up with:

After I wrote it down, I read it over a couple of times. Then I typed it up. I figured I had to type it up because
girls like to save love letters. Which meant, down the line, Jillian would be able to compare my handwriting to Lonnie’s. I mean, if it ever came to that. Which I still highly doubted.

The last step was to show it to Lonnie. No way was I going to pass the letter to Jillian until he’d given me the go-ahead.

He started to nod as soon as he read the first line, and by the end he had a big grin on his face. He said it was as if I’d read his mind. But he also wanted me to put in something about her being cool. He wanted me to use the word “cool.” I told him “cool” didn’t go with the rest of the letter. Lonnie thought about it some more, and then he said that, well, of course I knew best because I was in the
gifted
class, which he said in a sarcastic way. So in the end I changed the ending to “because I know you’re real cool, and my heart will be happy if you keep it next to yours for a little while”—which meant I had to retype the letter. But I figured he should have the final say-so.

It was
his
letter.

Getting the letter to Jillian was more awkward than I thought it would be. My plan was to get it over with as fast as possible. I was torn between saying “Somebody asked me to give this to you” and “Here, this is for you.” I figured I’d go with whichever felt right at the moment. I waited until right after English period so I knew she’d be
in a reading mood, and then I walked up to her with the letter behind my back.

Jillian looked at me in a strange way, and her face went red even before I started to talk, and that made me feel strange, doing what I was doing. Suddenly, neither of the sentences I’d rehearsed felt right. There was a long pause with the two of us just standing there outside the door of the classroom. The hall was full of kids rushing off to the cafeteria for lunch. But it was like time stopped as I struggled to talk. I mean, it was real uncomfortable. I tried to figure out a gradual way to lead up to slipping her the letter, but nothing came to me. She was looking me right in the eye, and my mind was a total blank.

Then she said, “Why don’t you ever raise your hand in class?”

That was just such a weird question. It threw me. “I don’t know.”

She smiled. “I
always
raise my hand when I know the answer.”

“So do I.”

“Tell the truth!”

“Maybe I don’t feel like answering the question,” I said.

“It’s nothing to be ashamed of.”

I squinted at her. “What are you talking about?”

“Knowing the answer. It’s nothing to be ashamed of.”

“Why would I be ashamed of it?”

“I don’t know. Why
would
you?”

“I’m not ashamed of knowing the answer. I just don’t always like to show it off.”

“But if you
know
—”

“If I know, then I know. And I know I know. That’s enough.”

“If I know the answer, I want
everyone
to know I know.”

“Why?” I asked, not even thinking about the letter anymore.

“Just because,” she said.

“That’s not even an answer,” I said, which might have come off as annoyed. If it did, it’s because I was. I still hadn’t given her the letter, and I’d gotten sucked into a conversation that made no sense.

“But it’s the truth. I always tell the truth.”

“No one
always
tells the truth.”

“I do … except when I don’t.”

She smiled at me again. I thought she meant it as a joke, but I wasn’t sure, so I didn’t smile back at her. Then came about three seconds in which nothing happened. I felt the letter in my left hand, slightly behind my back, and began to bring it forward. “Look,” I said, “I’ve got—”

She caught sight of it. Her eyes got real wide. “Did you write me a letter?”

“Not me.”

“Did someone write it for you?”

“What? No.”

“But it’s for me, right?”

“Yes.”

“Then can I have it?”

For no good reason, I felt ashamed and looked down. I couldn’t even look her in the eye as I handed the letter to her. She took it from my hand and waved it back and forth. It was as if she was teasing me with it—as if to say she had it now and I couldn’t take it back.

“It’s not from me,” I blurted out.

“No?”

“I didn’t … it’s not my letter.”

“Who is it from?”

“I’m not supposed to tell you.”

“It’s a mystery!”

“You could think of it like that.”

“But it’s not from you?”

“I just said so,” I said.

“So you didn’t write it?”

“I
said
it’s not from me.”

“Yes, you did,” she said.

“I’ve got to go—”

“Goodbye, Julian.”

“Yeah, goodbye.”

“Say my name!”

“Jillian,” I said.

“Doesn’t that sound weird?”

“What?”

“Julian and Jillian.”

“So what?”

“It’s like your name is my name inside out.”

“I guess.”

There was another awkward pause—a long one.

Then she asked, “So that’s all you have to say?”

“I gave you the letter. What else do you want?”

“Then I should go to lunch.”

“Me too,” I said.

“Do you know what’s for lunch today?”

“It’s Tuesday. That means turkey hash.”

“I
hate
turkey hash,” she said. “It’s so gross.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s disgusting. It grosses me out.”

“I think it’s all right,” I said.

“Do you want to walk with me to the cafeteria?”

“No, I’ve got a few things I need to do first. I’ll be down in a couple of minutes.”

“Then I guess I’ll see you in social studies.”

“Right.”

She started to walk away but then turned around. “That joke about the Indians cracked me up. It even cracked up Mr. Loeb. I was watching him after you said
it. He had no right to make you sit in the hall. Your parents pay taxes. You have a right to sit in the classroom.”

“I shouldn’t have razzed Mr. Caricone,” I said.

“No, but Mr. Loeb was still wrong to do that.”

“I felt bad afterward.”

“Why did you get suspended for a week?”

“What?”

“Did you
really
beat up a kid?”

“What? No! It was just a neighborhood thing. I never laid a hand on anyone.”

She smiled at that, like it made a difference. “Goodbye, Julian.”

“Goodbye.”

“Say my name!”

“Goodbye, Jillian.”

“Goodbye, Julian.”

I don’t know if I’ve ever felt more relieved when a conversation ended.

February 26, 1969

It’s been two weeks now since I handed
Jillian the letter, and Lonnie is getting pretty antsy. I knew this would happen, or something like it. Jillian hasn’t said a word about it. It’s like the thing never existed, at least as far as she’s concerned. She says hello to me every morning, strolls over to my desk to ask me about homework or else just to chat about nothing. But the letter never comes up. It’s kind of mean, if you think about it. She knows she’s got a secret admirer, but it’s like it slipped her mind. No skin off my nose, but Lonnie keeps pumping me for information, and I don’t have a clue what’s going on with her. He keeps telling me she looks at him weird when he passes her in the hall, like she’s figured out what we did. But I’m pretty sure that’s just in his head. I’ve checked out
her expression a hundred times in class when she’s not looking. There’s no difference from before.