The Saturday Boy

3

THAT DAY AFTER SCHOOL I went to my hideout. But not right away. I went home first and had a snack but I was still angry so I didn’t really like it as much as I could have even if it was a Chocolate Ka-Blam and Chocolate Ka-Blams were usually my favorite.

My hideout was in the loft in the garage. I’d stacked up a bunch of boxes so you couldn’t see me from below, and if I pulled the ladder up, then there was no getting to me at all. I was totally safe. Except for the time I saw a fiddleback spider. That time I didn’t really feel safe at all. That time freaked me out and I didn’t go back for a month.

I had a milk crate to sit on and an old coat that I could put on in case I got cold. There was a skylight pretty much right over my head so I could read the comics that I kept in a plastic box. They were all alphabetized and individually wrapped. Sometimes instead of taking them out of the box I’d just run my fingertips along the top of them and listen to them rustle together.

They were treasures. Mine and my dad’s and even some of his dad’s— Red Vengeance number one, for example. Also Gumshoe Comics number fourteen featuring the first appearance of Guttersnipe, and issue twenty-three of The Marvelous Magpie where her secret identity is revealed. These weren’t just classic issues. They were frickin’ epic.

I opened the box and got out a comic and tried to read but couldn’t even though it was my favorite issue of The Exilers. Instead I sat on the milk crate and felt mad about things. I felt mad that Ms. Dickson had put my sentence about Violet’s girly pencil on the board where everyone could see it and I felt mad that everyone saw it. I felt especially mad at Budgie because whenever he got the chance after that he’d put on this high, girly voice and ask to borrow my pencil. Then when we were playing dodgeball during gym class he asked me if I had hearts on my panties and when I told him I didn’t wear panties he pulled my pants down.

Mom said I should turn the other cheek and be the bigger person and that Budgie only acts that way because there’s sadness in his life that makes him scared and insecure. I didn’t know if that was true and even if it was that still didn’t make it okay. So I sat there for a long time not reading comics and just being mad. Then I remembered I had some paper and a pen in the box and I got them out and started writing.

Dear Dad,

How are you?

Today was really good.

Ms. Dickson put my sentance on the board because she thought it was the best one. In gym class we played dogeball and I didn’t get out once. I even caught the ball when Budgie tried to get me out and everybody cheered. They carried me around on their sholders and everything. It was cool. Coach even said I could be a pro so you don’t have to worry about me. I’m doing fine. I can take care of mom with dogeball money.

Love,

Derek

I was in my hideout for so long that when Mom finally called me in for dinner the sky had started to change colors. It wasn’t really daytime anymore. But it wasn’t really nighttime, either. It was that weird, quiet place in between.

Me and Mom had spaghetti for dinner and by the time I was done eating and had gotten ready for bed and watched the new episode of Zeroman I’d pretty much forgotten all about Budgie and Violet’s girly pencil and the underwear incident. But once I got in bed and turned out the light I wound up staring at the Apache helicopter for what seemed like forever.

* * *

Me and Dad are buzzing over the desert with two Spitfires hot on our tail. Their machine guns are blazing. RAT-A-TATTA-TAT! RAT-A-TATTA-TAT! I weave in and out and in between the bullets as they streak past, barely missing us. My code name is Stingray. I’m wearing pilot sunglasses and chewing on a toothpick. Dad is in front of me in the gunner’s seat, his head moving back and forth as he looks for targets.

“These bogies’re getting close, Stingray!” Dad shouts, his voice crackling in my headset. “We can’t outrun them much longer!”

“Time to go upstairs!” I shout back.

“What? You’re crazy!”

“Hang on!”

I pull back on the stick as far as she’ll go and the chopper starts to climb into the air as the g-force pushes us down into our seats. The stick’s wobbling like mad. I grit my teeth and hold on, biting the toothpick in half. The chopper climbs, climbs, goes upside down and starts to descend. Bright lights flash in my field of vision and as I start to slip into the black I hear a voice—Dad’s voice.

“Dammit, Stingray, hang on! I can’t do this by myself!”

Amazingly, I snap out of it. The Spitfires are ahead of us now. I can picture the pilots looking around, wondering where we went. Dad’s finger slips around the trigger of the Apache’s thirty-millimeter chain gun. RAT-A-TATTA-TATTA-TAT-BOOM! RAT-A-TATTA-TATTA-TAT-BOOM! The chopper slices through the cloud of smoke, leaving the Spitfires’ pilots behind, parachuting down and shaking their fists at us.

4

“HEY, SATURDAY BOY,” Budgie said the next morning at the bus stop. “What’s on your panties today? Unicorns?”

I wanted to tell him shut up and that I wasn’t wearing unicorn underwear. I wanted to tell him that I didn’t even have unicorn underwear. I wanted to tell him that my underwear was better than his because mine had robots and his probably just had skid marks, but I didn’t. I was going to be the bigger person instead. And being the bigger person I decided to help because I figured that’s what bigger people did.

“You’re only acting like that because there’s pain in your life,” I told him.

“What? No there’s not!”

“Yes there is. And you’re scared and insecure and that’s why you’re such a fudgebag.”

Budgie’s face went blank and I continued to be the bigger person by ignoring him. The bus came and we got on and he still hadn’t said anything. He just looked confused. On the way to school this little kid called Ellory barfed up his pancakes all over the place so Budgie spent most of the time making fun of him and by the time we got to school he’d completely forgotten about me.

Ms. Dickson was sitting at her desk when we got to the classroom and after everybody had taken their seats she did roll call. I remembered this one time Ms. Dickson said it was time to call the roll and Budgie said, “Here, roll! Come here, boy! Good roll!”

Even Ms. Dickson had laughed and that never happened. I tried it the next day and got in trouble. Nobody laughed, either. Maybe I said it wrong.

When Ms. Dickson had finished she picked Missy Sprout to take the attendance sheet to the office. She always picked Missy Sprout to do stuff like that but I couldn’t figure out why. It’s not like she was fast or anything. I bet I could take the attendance sheet to the office and be back a lot faster than Missy Sprout ever could. I wouldn’t stop for anything or anyone—not even the hall monitor. Missy Sprout takes so long I bet she stops for tea and crumpets with everyone she sees.

“Now,” said Ms. Dickson, “do any of you know who Charles Dickens is?”

“Your husband!”