I went to wipe my dirty hands on my jeans but they were just as bad if not worse. My shirt was dirty, too. I was scratched in a few places and bleeding. Mom was going to kill me if I ever got home. I could just see Budgie sitting in the back of the bus smiling and thinking he was so clever. Maybe if he smiled wide enough the top of his head would fall off.

I pictured him on all fours, feeling around for his head and getting all dirty and gross from the bus floor while everyone laughed and pointed at him for a change. Even though it didn’t help me get home at all, picturing Budgie getting exactly what he deserved made me feel a little bit better.

“Derek?”

I looked over my shoulder at the lady standing behind me. I almost didn’t recognize her but then I pictured her standing in front of a whiteboard.

“Ms. Dickson?”

“What are you doing here?” she asked.

“I missed the bus.”

“Are you waiting for another one? Because there aren’t any.”

“No, I know, I—”

“What happened to your shirt?”

“My what? Nothing.”

I couldn’t tell her about the tree or I’d get in trouble and the last thing I needed right now was more of that. I was still on half recess for the whole bathroom thing. I tried to brush the bark dust off my shirt but only made it worse.

“I, um… fell down,” I said, which, in a way, was true. I just didn’t tell her how far I’d fallen.

Ms. Dickson didn’t say anything. Was that it? I hoped that was it. I put my jacket on and zipped it up all the way. Maybe if she couldn’t see my shirt she’d forget about it.

“Is someone coming to pick you up?”

“My aunt Josie doesn’t have a car right now because she was in an accident and it’s being fixed and my mom’s at work.”

“So no?”

“No.”

“What are you going to do then, I wonder.”

I thought about it for a minute and realized there wasn’t much I could do. Calling Mom was out. Calling Aunt Josie was out, too, because she’d just turn around and call my mom anyway. Walking was out. It was too far. What else was there? Taxi? Jet pack? Hovercycle? I suddenly felt like I might throw up. I looked at Ms. Dickson and shrugged.

“Come along then,” she said. “I’ll take you home.”

Ms. Dickson started to walk away toward the parking lot. I must have been hearing things because it had sounded like she said she’d take me home and that couldn’t be right. I didn’t even think that was possible. Budgie said that if teachers get too far away from school they blow up. I watched Ms. Dickson. She seemed okay. I couldn’t hear ticking or anything.

“For pity’s sake, Derek, stop dawdling!” she said.

I grabbed my bag and ran after her. The barfy feeling was gone and I felt lighter—like I could fly almost. Budgie’s plan had backfired and I was going home and nobody would have to call anybody and nobody would get in trouble and as I got into the back of Ms. Dickson’s car I swore I’d try to never let Budgie get to me again and this time I meant it.

Ms. Dickson’s car was kinda like my mom’s only it was clean and didn’t smell like hot dogs. There weren’t any soda cups on the floor or fish cracker crumbs in the seats. I got the feeling that there hadn’t been any kids in Ms. Dickson’s car in a long time.

“Where do you live?”

“In a house. Sorry. A white house.”

“I meant what is your address?”

I told her but before she started the car she took out her cell phone, handed it to me, and asked me to call home and explain to Aunt Josie what was going on. Aunt Josie listened while I spoke. Then she spoke to Ms. Dickson. When Ms. Dickson was done she started the car and backed out of the parking space. She drove the car for a while and didn’t say anything, which was fine with me. I figured it would be strange talking to her outside the classroom. I mean, I barely had anything to say when I was in the classroom so it wasn’t like I would suddenly have all this stuff to talk about now that I was out of it.

“I taught your father, you know.”

“What?”

“I was your father’s English teacher when he was in the eighth grade,” said Ms. Dickson. “We read Catcher in the Rye that year. Some of us did, anyway.”

“My dad? Really?”

I had never really thought about what my dad was like when he was younger. I bet he was cool, though, like with slicked-back hair and a motorcycle. And sunglasses. I bet he had sunglasses. All cool guys had sunglasses.

“What was he like?”

“There are two students I remember very well from that year because it was my first year teaching in this district and Jason Lamb is one of them.”

I smiled when Ms. Dickson said my dad’s name because I didn’t hear it a lot. Mom always called him Bunny.

“Your father wasn’t a great student. He wasn’t a bad student, necessarily… just not a great one. The thing about your father, Derek, is that he always did his best. And no matter how bad the situation, no matter how frustrated he might get, he wouldn’t let anything beat him. He was also a good person. He had a good heart. And in the end… well… let’s just say that in the end we are judged not upon the strength of Holden Caulfield’s character but upon our own.”

“Was he the other guy?”

“What other guy?”

“You said you remembered two students from that year—my dad and some other guy. Was he the other guy? Was he a good person, too?”

“Holden Caulfield is the main character in one of the greatest works of American literature of the twentieth century,” Ms. Dickson said. “Whereas Rory McReady threw his desk at me on more than one occasion.”

“So Holden Caulfield wasn’t the other guy.”

“No.”

It was weird listening to Ms. Dickson talk about stuff other than math or reading. It was weird that she knew my dad. It was weird that she liked my dad because I liked my dad, too, and let me tell you—having something in common with Ms. Dickson was the weirdest part of all.

“What’s he doing these days?” she said.

I told her how my dad was far away in Afghanistan flying helicopters for the army and how it had been eight months, one week, and four days since he was home and how before that I hadn’t seen him much since I was five. I also told her that the last time he came home he was supposed to stay home and we even had a big party with cake and two kinds of ice cream but then one day he got a letter in the mail and he had to go back.

Ms. Dickson got quiet all of a sudden and I sort of got the feeling she was frowning. Not like she was mad, though. It was more like she was sad or like she was thinking.

“Eight months, one week, and four days is a long time not to see your father.”

“We write letters back and forth so it’s not so bad,” I said.

Ms. Dickson got quiet again and she stayed that way until we got to my house. She stopped the car and turned around in her seat and looked at me with a funny expression on her face like the one Mom gets when I’m sad or I’ve hurt myself. She looked at me like that for what seemed like a long time. It made me a little uncomfortable. I pulled my book bag into my lap.

“I hafta go now, Ms. Dickson,” I said.

“Of course you do,” she said.

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