The Saturday Boy

was impossible for me to love Violet because I barely even knew her. All I knew for sure was that she used a pencil with a heart-shaped eraser and every Friday she smelled like apples. That was it.

“Ms. Dickson didn’t mention Budgie,” Mom said.

“See, it’s not my fault!”

“Derek, just because it’s not your fault doesn’t mean you’re not at fault,” Mom said. “What you did today was very dangerous. Do you understand why?”

I looked at the floor and thought for a second.

“I guess maybe I could have slipped and hit my head,” I said.

“No,” Mom said. “Well, yes, that’s part of it. You could have hit your head, but more importantly, nobody would have known you were hurt and needed help. Does that make sense?”

I nodded.

“I promised Ms. Dickson and Mr. Howard I would talk to you about this but I wouldn’t be surprised if there were some repercussions at school tomorrow.”

“What, like drums?”

“Drums?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Percussion. That’s like drums, right?”

Mom smiled.

“Yes, percussion is like drums but I said repercussions, which are like consequences.”

I would have preferred drums. Drums were way better than consequences.

“And as far as that—as far as Budgie goes… just try to be the bigger person, okay? Try to ignore him?”

I told her I would but that trying to ignore Budgie was like trying to ignore a flaming elephant. Mom smiled again and laughed a little through her nose. I smiled, too, and that’s how I knew we were going to be okay.

“I’m sorry about today, Mom,” I said. “I’ll do better.”

“I know you will, Piggy-pig,” she said. She roughed up my hair, which was totally dry now.

I picked up the Chocolate Ka-Blam after all and went up to my bedroom and lay on my bed and ate it. Then I got out some paper and a pen.

Dear Dad,

Today Ms. Dickson picked me out of the whole class to be in a play with the middle school drama club. It’s called a chrismas carol and it has ghosts in it. I think all plays should have ghosts. Violet is in it to. Maybe we will get to be ghosts. Also I got in trouble today for throwing something at Budgie. Last night on Zeroman doctor Mayhem was going to posion the water supply with Serum Z that would turn everyone into zombies but Zeroman flew in and fot him and destroyed the serum. It was cool. When you come home we can watch it together.

Love

derek

5

A COUPLE OF DAYS went by and nothing much happened. Then one morning I missed the bus and Mom had to drive me to school and when I got to the classroom everybody was crowded around Budgie.

“What’s going on?” I asked Barely O’Donahue.

“Budgie climbed the tree!”

There wasn’t a kid in school who didn’t know about the tree. It had silver bark and purply, reddish leaves and was a hundred feet tall. Maybe even two hundred. It was off limits because one time a kid fell out and broke his neck and turned into a vegetable but sometimes kids climbed it anyway when no one was looking.

“He even carved his name on the top branch with a knife!”

“No he didn’t,” I said.

“Yes he did!”

“No way.”

“Yes way,” Barely O’Donahue said. “Curds and way.”

Then Ms. Dickson told us all to sit down and I tried to listen to what she was saying but I kept thinking about Budgie and the tree and how I didn’t believe any of it because Budgie had about as much natural climbing ability as a walrus no matter what Barely O’Donahue said.

I looked around at Budgie. He was sitting at his desk looking more puffed up than usual. I bet he hadn’t climbed the tree at all. I bet he was giving Barely O’Donahue candy or cookies just to say he did. I was also pretty sure he didn’t carve his name on any branch. As far as I knew he didn’t even have a pocketknife.

Budgie found me on the monkey bars during recess. Barely O’Donahue and a couple other kids were with him.

“Barely says you don’t believe I climbed the tree,” he said.

I looked down from the monkey bars at him. Barley seemed even smaller from up there.

“So?”

“So do you?”

“Do I what?”

“Do you believe I climbed the tree?”

More kids were coming over. They quit playing tag. They stopped playing four square and crackabout and wall ball. I don’t know why I said what I said next. Maybe it was because Budgie was surrounded by kids who thought he was some kind of hero when he hadn’t done anything except lie to them and that didn’t seem right. Maybe I thought I could get away with it because there were so many people around. Or maybe the words just popped into my head and they came out before I could stop them.

“Dude, I don’t believe you could climb any tree.”

Some of the kids laughed including Barely O’Donahue. Budgie didn’t laugh. His face went red instead.

“What did you just say?”

“He said he didn’t believe you could climb any tree,” said Barely O’Donahue.

“I heard him.”

“You know, because you’re fat.”

“Shut up!”

Now just about everyone was laughing. Budgie’s face got redder—almost purple.

“Are you saying you could do better?” he asked.

Budgie stood below the monkey bars waiting for me to answer. I looked around at the kids. They were waiting for an answer, too. There was really only one thing I could say so I said it.

“Yeah.”

The kids in the crowd all started talking between each other and Budgie stood there with his arms crossed and a mean grin on his face. My mouth went dry all of a sudden. What if he hadn’t made the whole thing up?

“After school,” he said. “At the tree.”

Then he turned around and walked away and Barely O’Donahue and a couple of other kids followed him. The kids who were left walked away, too. They started playing four square and crackabout and wall ball again. I was all alone on top of the monkey bars wondering if I hadn’t just made the biggest mistake of my life.

* * *

Normally I couldn’t wait for the day to be over. Normally I’d be counting down the minutes until the bell. Today was not a normal day. Today I actually wished the clock would slow down. Sally passed me a note and I opened it even though I knew I shouldn’t have. At first I thought Budgie’s drawing was of a weasel falling off a