The King of Jam Sandwiches

by Eric Walters

  That was assuming she was even at school today. Maybe she’d decided to run away last night. That was possible—and, if she had, probably better for me. Still, I wanted to be ready for whatever. I couldn’t help but think how much nicer it would have been to share the chicken parmesan with Harmony than giving it to my father. Was it mean of me to think that way? He had really enjoyed it.

  I grabbed some clothes out of the dryer. The T-shirt I chose was still a little damp in the collar, but it was longer than the others. That meant I could wear my pants lower on my hips, which meant the bottoms would be a bit closer to the ground. My pants were clean, but they hadn’t gotten any longer in the wash.

  Before leaving the house I went through the checklist in my head—eat breakfast, make my lunch, cleanup, dress, walk Candy. All done, and the laundry too, and I’d read four chapters of the book for my report. I’d already read the whole novel once, but I always liked to go through a book twice. It wasn’t like it was a bad thing—I really did like reading. Sometimes if the book was good it was more real than real life. It was also an escape from real life. Funny how nobody I read about was ever going through what I was going through. In some ways that was reassuring.

  I realized there was one thing I hadn’t put in my bag. I grabbed the pack and went into the living room. There it was in the corner, all balled up. The crumpled test. I put the pack down and tried to flatten out the paper. I needed a signature from a parent. That was Mr. Yeoman’s standard. He said if you weren’t doing well, he wanted your parents to know, and if you were doing well, he wanted them to know even more.

  I pulled a pen out of my bag and tried again to flatten out the crinkles in the paper. I held the pen in my left hand—the hand my father used—and very carefully added his signature. I’d signed his signature on so many things already that the only way anybody at school would be suspicious was if my father actually did sign something.

  Then I decided to add something besides the signature—a comment.

  I’m very proud of Robbie. Keep up the good work!

  I felt a shudder go through my entire body. That’s what he should have said. That’s what parents wrote when they weren’t too busy taking elevator rides and were actually acting like parents and caring for their kids the way parents were supposed to.

  I folded up the test and tucked it in my pack. I gave Candy another pat on the head and slammed the door shut, making sure it was locked. I bounced across the porch, down the stairs, along the walk and—

  “Good morning!”

  I spun around, practically jumping in the air. Harmony was sitting on my porch.

  “What are you doing here?” I sputtered.

  “It’s called sitting, and I think the correct response to me saying good morning is that you say good morning back.”

  “Okay, good morning.”

  “You look surprised to see me.”

  “I’d be pretty surprised to see anybody sitting on my porch.”

  “I thought this would be the best place to wait.” She looked at her watch. “If you hadn’t come out in a few minutes, I was going to knock.”

  “I think that’s the normal procedure.”

  “There’s not much normal about me, Robert. I thought a smart guy like you would have figured that out fairly quickly. We better get going or we might be late.”

  “We have plenty of time.”

  “But don’t you like to be early?” she asked.

  “Um…yeah…did I mention that to you?”

  “No, but do you think you’re the only smart person around here?” She bounced down the stairs and past me. “Try to keep up.”

  I fell in beside her.

  “So you decided not to run away,” I said.

  “Or I decided I wanted you to come along with me, and we could run off together.”

  I startled slightly.

  “Just joking. Don’t take everything so seriously. Yes, I decided to stick around…at least for today.”

  We started walking, but then I began to feel anxious. Harmony had startled me so much that I couldn’t remember whether I’d made sure the door was locked. It had to be. It always was the times I’d gone back to check. But the thought kept rattling around in my head. Had I really locked the door? Probably. Probably wasn’t good enough. If I didn’t check, it would be in my head all day.

  “Hang on,” I said. I ran back, jumped up the stairs and tried the door. It was locked. Of course it was locked. I jogged back to her.

  “I wasn’t sure I’d locked the door,” I explained.

  “And had you?”

  I nodded. “I just like to be careful.”

  “Interesting,” she said. “So now that you’ve checked, you’re sure it’s locked, right?”

  “I just checked it!”

  “And you’re completely certain, 100 percent positive, that it’s locked?”

  If the door weren’t locked and someone went inside, Candy would rip them to shreds. She didn’t like strangers.

  “Yes, it’s locked.”

  “That yes didn’t sound so certain. Don’t you think you should go back and check it again?”

  I slowed down slightly, looked back over my shoulder at the house and—

  “It’s locked!” Harmony yelled.

  I nodded.

  “There’s a fine line between being careful and being paranoid. If you go back again, you’ve crossed that line.”

  “I’m not going back.” Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t now. “How did you know where I live?”

  “I followed you home and slept on your porch last night.”

  “You followed me?…Oh, you’re joking.”

  “Of course I’m joking. You told me your address when we walked home.”

  “Oh yeah, that’s right.”

  “I remember things. I watch and I listen.” She turned slightly so that she was looking at me as we walked. “But so do you.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You spend your life watching and listening. You probably can’t help yourself.” She laughed.

  “Maybe I’m just naturally observant,” I replied. I felt uncomfortable, like I was under a microscope. “Did you eat breakfast today?” I asked, eager to change the subject.

  “Blueberry pancakes. I couldn’t resist.”

  “And should I assume you also brought lunch?”

  “Packed and in my bag.”

  I was relieved but also a little sad. I realized I’d been looking forward to sharing with her.

  “Was your mother able to get the blood out of your T-shirt?” Harmony asked.

  I gave her an answer without talking about what I didn’t want to talk about. “It came out.”

  “Good. I would have felt bad if I had ruined it. You don’t have a lot of clothing, do you?”

  “What?”

  “You don’t have a lot of clothing. Am I wrong?”

  I didn’t answer. I didn’t know how to answer.

  “Look, nothing to be ashamed of. It’s just that these pants you’re wearing today are better than the ones you were wearing yesterday, but they’re too short as well. I figure if you had a lot of clothes, you’d have picked a pair that was longer, because I really did give you a hard time about it yesterday.”

  I didn’t want her to know how much that had bothered me or that I’d deliberately tried to pick a longer pair.

  “Did you just go through a growth spurt?” Harmony asked.

  “Yeah, I’m growing fast.”

  “Outgrowing your clothes and they haven’t been replaced. Are you poor?”

  “What sort of a question is that?”

  “Seems pretty straightforward. I’m poor. Are you?”

  “My father has a job.”

  “Most poor people have jobs. You never heard the term working poor?” she asked.

  “I’ve heard it.”

  “It’s just that if you’re poor, that would explain why nobody’s spending money on clothes for you. Do your mother and fa
ther dress better than you do?”

  I was stunned. I didn’t know what to say. And once again she’d mentioned my mother. Did she know about my mom being dead and was just being mean, or was she testing me, or did it mean nothing?

  “Don’t take this so personal. It’s not like I have great clothes. My mother doesn’t even have a job. I’m living in a foster home because she couldn’t care for me. I’m just wondering, that’s all.”

  “Maybe you should wonder less.”

  “Are you telling me to shut up?”

  “Would it work?” I asked.

  “Probably not…but I’ll stop if I can ask you one more question.”

  She stepped in front of me and put her hands on my shoulders. For a split second I thought she was going to punch me again. She looked me right in the eyes and asked, “Before I waste any more of my time on you, are we going to be friends?”

  That was not what I had expected. Neither was my answer. “I thought we already were friends.”

  “Friends don’t lie,” she said.

  “But lying to the principal about what happened proved that I’m your friend, didn’t it?”

  “I’m not talking about lying to him. I’m talking about lying to me.”

  “What are you talking about? I haven’t lied to you about anything.”

  “Yes, you have. You did it yesterday and you did it just now.”

  “And what exactly did I say that was a lie?”

  “You can tell lies by what people say, but you can also tell lies by what they don’t say.”

  I shook my head and let out a deep sigh. This girl was nothing but confusion. “Are you going to explain this to me?”

  “I made comments about your mother…a few times.”

  “Yeah, so what?”

  “She doesn’t live with you, does she?”

  “What makes you think that?” So she didn’t know the truth.

  “Look, my mother is a drunk and a druggie and even she wouldn’t send me out in those clothes and that lunch you had yesterday.”

  I felt like I’d been punched in the stomach. It felt worse than actually getting hit in the nose.

  “Look, there’s no shame in only having one parent around.”

  That wasn’t what I felt. Lots of people didn’t live with both of their parents. For some reason I felt ashamed that I was the only one who didn’t have a mother because she had died.

  “Have they been divorced for a long time?” she asked.

  “They aren’t divorced,” I said.

  “Separated or not married to begin with?”

  “They were married.”

  “So she just took off? My mother ran away a couple of times too.”

  “My mother didn’t run away.” I guess in one way she did.

  She looked puzzled. “So…your parents were married. But they didn’t get divorced, and she didn’t run away. But she isn’t there anymore.” She leaned closer and stared harder into my eyes. I wanted to look away, I wanted to break away, but I was powerless to do either.

  “So that must mean...oh, she’s dead.”

  I nodded ever so slightly.

  “Look…I’m sorry…I didn’t know.” Harmony almost seemed upset. “It’s just that sometimes I’m a big mouthy idiot who thinks she’s smarter than she is and who should just keep her mouth closed and stop being such a jerk who—”

  “You’re not a jerk!” I snapped, cutting her off. “It’s just that I don’t like talking about it. That’s all.”

  “How long ago did it happen? When did she die?”

  “I told you I don’t want to talk about it! What part of that didn’t you get?”

  Tears started to form in the corners of her eyes. I felt bad. But I just wanted to be left alone.

  “Look, I’m sorry about your mother,” she said.

  “Me too. It’s just…just…it’s hard.”

  “And I shouldn’t have made you talk about it. I’m sorry.”

  I had the strangest urge to tell her that my grandparents had died too, but I decided not to. I never talked to people about that.

  “Do you still want to be friends?” she asked.

  “Do I have a choice?” I hoped she could tell by my voice that I wasn’t really mad.

  She smiled. “Not really.”

  “Then I guess we’re friends.”

  SEVEN

  At lunchtime we sat with my friends. Harmony had asked if she could, and I’d checked with the guys to make sure it was okay. I didn’t expect anybody to object, and I told them it would probably only be for that day or a couple of days at most, until she found some other friends. She’d gotten to know a couple of the girls in our class, but she said she’d rather sit with us because girls were “too much work and too much drama.” I almost laughed out loud when she said that because to me she seemed to be the queen of drama.

  I could tell that both Jay and Raj were a little uncomfortable. Girls made them nervous. Not that Taylor or Sal or I was in any way smooth or cool, but at least we could make words come out of our mouths when we were around girls.

  “Okay, do you guys want me to sit here or not?” Harmony asked.

  We all exchanged looks. “Sure,” Taylor said.

  “Of course,” Jay added, and the others nodded or mumbled agreement.

  “Then all of you have to stop fiddling with your phones,” she said.

  Raj and Sal had been playing games on their phones, and Taylor had his in his hand. He always had his phone in his hand when he wasn’t in class. I didn’t blame him. He had a new model with a big screen. In a neighborhood without much money, his family had more than most.

  “I’m not going to sit here and be ignored,” Harmony said. “I don’t do well being ignored.”

  Nothing dramatic about that.

  “Put your phones right there, right in the middle of the table,” she ordered.

  Before Taylor could react, she reached out and took his phone away from him. He looked shocked. She placed it right in the center of the table.

  “Now the rest of you,” she directed.

  Raj put his phone right beside Taylor’s. Sal did too, followed by Jay. None of their phones were as big or nice as Taylor’s.

  “How about you?” she asked me.

  “I don’t have a phone.”

  “Really?”

  “Nope,” Taylor said. “You call him at home or you don’t call him at all.”

  “I don’t know how he does it,” Raj added.

  “My father doesn’t have a cell phone either. He doesn’t really believe in them,” I said.

  “That’s a new trend some people are following,” Harmony said. “I think they call it unplugging.”

  I didn’t know about trends. What I did know was that two years back—when he was on one of his highs—my father had run up a phone bill of thousands of dollars. He’d refused to pay it off, and nobody was going to give him—or me—a cell phone until he did.

  “I’ve heard of people unplugging,” Taylor said. “I just don’t think I could do it.”

  “You probably couldn’t,” Harmony said. “Some people need a fancy phone to make themselves feel important.”

  Taylor looked hurt. This was uncomfortable. I wanted to fix that. “Just so you know, Taylor, if you ever want to unplug, I would love to have your phone. It’s the best.”

  He looked relieved.

  “At least Robbie has a computer,” Sal said.

  “Everybody has a computer,” I said.

  “I don’t,” Harmony said. “And I don’t have a phone either. I like to be in the here and now. So do you want to trade some lunch?” she asked me, opening her pack and pulling out a lunch bag.

  “Depends what you have,” I replied. But I knew I would take pretty much anything.

  “It’s going to be good,” she promised. “What do you have?”

  “He always has jam sandwiches!” Taylor exclaimed.

  “He’s the king of jam sandwiches!” Sal added, and e
verybody laughed.

  “Every day, five days a week!” Taylor added.

  I’d never talked about it, and neither had anybody else before this. Obviously it was a running joke. Was I a running joke as well?

  “I happen to like jam sandwiches,” Harmony said. “Especially Robert’s sandwiches.”

  They all looked at each other. I knew what was coming.

  “Robert?” Taylor said.

  “Aren’t we getting a bit formal?” Jay added.

  “I told her to call me Robbie.”

  “But I’m going to call him Robert because that’s what I want to call him. Anybody have anything else they want to say about that?” Harmony asked.

  She looked at each of us in turn. Jay and Raj looked down at the table. This girl had a serious glare. They didn’t even know about her capacity for inflicting physical damage, and they were still afraid of her.

  Taylor held up his hands in surrender. “You can call him whatever you want, but how do you know that Robert has good sandwiches?”

  “Because I forgot my lunch yesterday and he was nice enough to share his with me.”

  There was a collective ooooooh and lots of waggling eyebrows from the guys.

  “What is this, the second grade or the eighth?” Harmony asked.

  They shut up. It had taken all of two minutes for them to figure out she wasn’t to be messed with. I liked that. And didn’t like it. All at once.

  “Mr. Yeoman told him to watch out for me,” Harmony said. “Robert really didn’t have a choice. Giving me part of his lunch was almost an order, if you think about it.”

  They nodded in agreement. I knew she was just trying to get me off the hook.

  “And we all know that Robbie always does what teachers tell him,” Raj said.

  “And you don’t?” Harmony asked.

  “Well…mostly,” he admitted.

  “Then maybe you should just button it.”

  Harmony pulled out a sandwich, two bananas and a couple of pears.

  “Roast beef on whole wheat,” she said to me. “Do you want to trade half of this for half of yours?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t like roast beef?” she asked.