Dreamspinner Press Year Nine Greatest Hits

by Michael Murphy

  “EVAN. EVAN.”

  “What?”

  “Time to get up for school, buddy.”

  Evan groaned and rolled over. “Sun’s not even up yet,” he grumbled.

  He heard his mom go over to the window and pull back the curtains, letting the sun in.

  “Well, look at that. Mr. Sunshine has his hat on. It’s gonna be a beautiful day. Come on, up you get!”

  Evan rolled onto his back and cracked an eye open, pouting at his mom. “I don’t think I feel too good, Momma.”

  “Really? Did you forget what today is?”

  Evan struggled through the morning fog in his head. “Monday?”

  “Scott starts at your school today. He’s transferring for second grade. Remember?”

  “Oh!” Evan said brightly, sitting up in bed.

  “Feeling better?” his mom asked slyly.

  “I think I was just sleepy still,” Evan said and gave her a big smile. “Can I wear my Hulk T-shirt to school today?”

  His mom had bought him the Hulk T-shirt when they went shopping in Target for his back-to-school clothes. Evan hated shopping for back-to-school clothes. He hated shopping for anything, but his mom always took him to the shops to make sure his clothes fit. She said he was growing like a weed, and she didn’t know what size he was in anything anymore. They’d bought jeans and smart pants and T-shirts and sweaters, enough to last him until Christmas at least. Evan had seen the Hulk T-shirt last of all and reminded his mom how good he’d been while she was holding things up against him to see if they’d fit.

  “You want to wear it for your first day at school?”

  Evan nodded. “Please.”

  She gave him a resigned sort of laugh, one that said she wasn’t going to argue. “Okay. I’ll put it out with your jeans. Get dressed, please, and come downstairs for breakfast.”

  Normally Evan did not like mornings, and he did not like Mondays, and he especially didn’t like having to go back to school after a whole summer at the playground and at Scott’s house. He was going to see Scott at school for the first time, though, and wanted to be there in time to show Scott where things were.

  All summer Evan’s mom had let him choose whatever he wanted to wear. Normally, for school, his clothes were set out on his blow-up chair for him to get dressed. Maybe this year, now that he was in second grade, he’d be allowed to pick his own things for school.

  There was a dark red T-shirt on the chair as well as the Hulk T-shirt. Evan put the red one away, not wanting his mom to change her mind, and quickly got dressed in the new jeans, which were still too stiff, and his favorite sneakers, which were green and had lights in the heel that flashed when you jumped real hard.

  When he got downstairs there was a stack of pancakes and a cup of fruit waiting on the counter. Evan scrambled up and took a big bite of the pancakes, wondering if he could not eat the fruit cup.

  “Don’t forget your fruit cup,” Evan’s mom said, and Evan wondered again if she could read his mind. “Would you like tuna in your sandwich today or bologna?”

  “Tuna please,” Evan said around his giant mouthful of pancake.

  His mom nodded and started fixing his lunch: sandwich, juice, an apple for recess, some goldfish crackers, and a cookie. It was a good lunch. Evan thought he would maybe share it with Scott.

  “Almost ready? You were a slowpoke this morning. We need to leave soon.”

  “Okay.”

  “Don’t forget to brush your teeth.”

  “Okay.”

  They walked to Evan’s school, Ocean View Elementary, which was a few blocks over from where Evan lived. The building was made of red bricks, which made for good games of firefighter, pretending that the school was the firehouse. There was a playground with monkey bars, which Evan was good at now, and a field where they could run around and play kickball.

  Evan didn’t hold his mom’s hand as they walked anymore. He was in second grade now. The whole summer he’d walked past the school on his way to Scott’s house and back; now it was suddenly alive again. By the time they arrived, kids were already running around the playground and screaming, and Evan quickly spotted Andy and Benji and Dean Simpson, who had a cast on his arm. No Scott. Not yet.

  “I’m going to go in and meet your teacher,” Evan’s mom said. “Can you show me where your new classroom is, please?”

  Evan was pretty sure she knew her way around. The school wasn’t all that big, and they had all had a day with their new teacher at the end of last semester. Maybe she’d forgotten, though, and she’d asked Evan for his help, so Evan nodded and slipped his hand into hers.

  “This way, Mom.”

  Evan’s second grade teacher was Ms. Hopkinson. She had blonde hair that came down to her shoulders, and she smiled a lot and smelled like candy. Today she was wearing navy blue slacks and a white shirt and had a red bow in her hair. Evan liked Ms. Hopkinson. She had a kind face.

  “Hey, Evan,” Ms. Hopkinson said as he showed his mom into the classroom. There were a few other parents here with his classmates, so it wasn’t so bad.

  “Hey, Ms. Hopkinson. This is my mom.”

  “Stacey King,” his mom said, offering her hand to Ms. Hopkinson, who shook it. “Nice to meet you.”

  “Likewise. Did you have a good summer, Evan?”

  “Yep. I got a new best friend. His name is Scott, and he starts here today.”

  “Is that Scott Sparrow, by any chance?”

  Evan nodded eagerly. “Is he in your class too?”

  “Sure is.”

  Evan wanted to do a happy dance but held it in.

  “Should I keep them together or split them up?” Ms. Hopkinson asked Evan’s mom with a laugh.

  “Scott is a great kid. I’m happy for them to sit together, as long as they’re not causing trouble.”

  “They’re seven-year-old boys,” Ms. Hopkinson said. “They’re trouble most of the time.”

  “Stacey,” someone called from the doorway, and Evan turned at the same time as his mom to see Mrs. Sparrow standing with Scott stuck to her side.

  “Is this Scott?” Ms. Hopkinson asked, and Evan nodded. “You wanna show him around?”

  “Sure,” Evan said enthusiastically.

  “One second,” his mom said, grabbing hold of his T-shirt as Evan made to run over. She planted a kiss on his head and whispered to him, “Have a great first day of school. I’ll be here to pick you up later.”

  “’Kay.”

  “Love you.”

  “Love you too, Mom,” he mumbled.

  “Go on,” she said.

  Scott’s mom kissed him before she left too, on the cheek this time, and Evan didn’t make fun of him for it.

  “This school is good,” Evan said, leading Scott to the hallway where they could hang up their outdoor jackets and schoolbags. “You get your own peg.”

  They were in alphabetical order, so Scott’s peg wasn’t next to Evan’s. That was okay. After Scott had put his schoolbag away, Evan showed him the stack of brightly colored drawers where they could keep their pencil cases and lunch bags.

  “Are you okay?” Evan asked. Scott was frowning, and he hadn’t spoken much since he arrived. This wasn’t the Scott Evan had known from the summer.

  “Don’t want to go to this school,” Scott sniffed. “I wanna go to my school.”

  “How come you’re not allowed anymore?”

  “It was a school just for boys. Now there is stupid Lacey, we gotta go someplace she can go when she starts school. And Tom was bein’ bullied at my school by some stupid jerks in his grade. He switched too.”

  “Oh.”

  “All my friends go to my school.”

  Something twisted uncomfortably in Evan’s belly. “But I go to this school. And a lot of other nice people. There won’t be stupid jerks here who are mean to your brother. I promise it.”

  He drew a cross over his chest. Scott nodded and seemed to brighten up.

  “There’s tons of good stuff to
do at recess. We’ve got monkey bars.”

  “I’m good at monkey bars,” Scott said slowly.

  “Me too. Should we do that at recess today?”

  Scott nodded. “Okay.”

  “Okay.”

  The bell rang, startling them both, and Scott looked over at Evan and grinned widely. Evan thought second grade might be the best one yet.

  EVAN WINCED and shuddered as his mouth filled with dirt, and he blinked back tears. Someone kicked him in the shin, and he let out a sharp cry, which meant the kid with his hand in Evan’s curly hair could shove his face back into the dirt again.

  “Hey. Hey!”

  The bigger boys scattered, and Evan heard a number of feet running toward him.

  “Evan?”

  His scalp hurt from where the older boy had been tugging on his hair, so when another person touched his head, ever so gently, Evan winced.

  “Go get Ms. Hopkinson,” Scott said. Someone else ran away, and Evan finally rolled over onto his back with his eyes closed.

  “You okay, buddy?” Scott said gently.

  With his hand on Evan’s shoulder, Scott helped him to sit up. Evan knew his face was streaked with tears, and he felt himself flush with embarrassment and shame. No one knew he got beat up. Not his momma or his teacher or Andy or anyone.

  Evan spat into the grass, trying to clear the dirt from his mouth.

  “Here,” Scott said, pressing a juice box into his hand. “Swirl some of this around your mouth and spit.”

  It felt like there was mud between his teeth, and Evan wanted to cry again. He did as he was told, punching the straw into the little silver circle and pulling the apple juice into his mouth, flushing the taste away.

  “Who were those jerks?” Scott asked.

  “Just some kids in the third grade,” Evan mumbled.

  “They mean to you?”

  Evan hesitated, then nodded.

  “A lot?”

  “Some.”

  Scott scrambled to his feet and looked down at Evan, face flashing with anger. “You said kids at this school were nice!” he yelled. “You said!”

  Evan sniffed, and without his permission, another tear rolled down his cheek. “I didn’t want you to go back to your old school,” he said. He coughed, then took another mouthful of juice. He could still taste mud on his tongue.

  “Not like my mom would let me anyway,” Scott said. He still sounded angry. “Why were they beating you up, Evan?”

  “’Cos I don’t have a dad,” Evan whispered. “That makes me a pansy.”

  “That’s not true.” Scott dropped to his knees again, pressing his balled fists against his thighs. “That’s not true. I know a lot of kids who don’t have a dad. They’re not pansies, and neither are you.”

  Evan used his shirtsleeve to wipe his eyes. His face felt sore, and he was pretty sure his knees were bleeding. He looked up and saw Ms. Hopkinson walking quickly across the playground, Andy at her side. She was wearing a red skirt today with a pink shirt and shoes that made clicky noises when she walked. He didn’t want to be seen crying in front of a girl, even a grown-up girl, so he scrambled to his feet, wincing when his knee and his side sparked with pain.

  “Evan,” Ms. Hopkinson said. “What on earth happened?”

  “Some big kids were kicking at him, Ms. Hopkinson,” Scott said, standing just in front of Evan, like a shield.

  “So Andrew told me. Do you know who they were?”

  “No, ma’am,” Evan said quietly.

  “Yes, you do,” Scott said hotly. “Tell her their names, Evan.”

  “I don’t wanna be a tattletale.”

  Ms. Hopkinson sighed deeply. “Come on, boys. Let’s go back inside. You look like you could do with a visit to the nurse to get your knees cleaned up, Evan.”

  Evan nodded, dropped his chin, and trudged after his teacher back toward the school building.

  THAT AFTERNOON, when his mom came to pick him up, Ms. Hopkinson called her into the classroom. There were still a few other kids milling around, so Ms. Hopkinson waited for them to leave before shutting the door to the classroom and inviting his mom to sit down.

  “Evan, do you want to tell us what happened today?” Ms. Hopkinson asked.

  “No,” he mumbled, looking down at his scraped knuckles.

  “Evan?” his mom said. She sounded worried.

  “Today I was asked to see to Evan after he’d been in a disagreement with some other children,” Ms. Hopkinson said. “By the time I arrived, there were no other children around. Just Evan and Scott.”

  Evan sniffed and said nothing.

  “Evan, was it Scott who was hitting you?” Ms. Hopkinson asked.

  “No!” Evan said, sitting bolt upright. “No, Scott wouldn’t hit. He’s nice.”

  “Not Andy either?”

  “No. Other kids.”

  Ms. Hopkinson sighed softly. “And you’re not going to tell me their names?”

  “I dunno who they are,” he mumbled, rounding his shoulders again and looking back down at his hands.

  “I’m going to keep a closer eye on Evan at recess,” Ms. Hopkinson said to Evan’s mom. “For the next couple of weeks at least. I think Scott is being a positive influence on Evan at school. He seems to be integrating with the other children a lot better than he used to. He’s also less dependent on Andy, though I’m a little concerned that he might be switching that dependency to another boy instead.”

  “They became very close over the summer,” Evan’s mom said.

  “And I don’t think it’s a bad thing,” Ms. Hopkinson continued. “Scott is a nice boy, and he’s definitely encouraging Evan to come out of his shell. You have a sweet, bright child, Ms. King. We don’t take bullying lightly at Ocean View Elementary, and you have my word that I’ll do my best to get to the bottom of this.”

  “Thank you,” Evan’s mom said. She smoothed her hand over the top of Evan’s head. “Come on, Evan. Let’s get you home.”

  Evan stood, then remembered he still had things in his drawer. “I have spelling homework tonight,” he said.

  “Go on and get it, then,” his mom said.

  He nodded and rushed over to his drawer, which was yellow. His favorite color. Inside was the list of spelling words he had to learn, ready for their test on Friday, and a folded piece of construction paper. Evan frowned, not remembering putting that in his drawer. He crouched down and unfolded it.

  It was a drawing of two boys, one with a Hulk T-shirt and sunny yellow hair and the other with dark hair and blue eyes. Underneath, someone had written “Evan and Scott.” Evan smiled, and for the first time since recess, he felt something bright and hot and wonderful in his chest.

  He quickly folded the drawing and slipped it into his backpack alongside the spelling list. When he got back to his mom, he slipped his hand into hers, sure things would work out okay.

  Outside, the sun was shining.

  “And sometimes,” Evan said as he walked home, hand in hand with his mom, “sometimes Mr. Sparrow takes Scott and Tom to see a ball game. Tom is Scott’s big brother. Did I tell you that already?”

  “You did,” his mom said, smiling.

  “Oh. Can we go to a ball game sometime?”

  “Maybe we could go catch a game at the high school? How about that?”

  “Yeah!”

  “Okay. I’ll call the school, see when the next game is.”

  “Mom?”

  “Yes, Evan?”

  “Can Scott sleep over at our house one time? We could get pizza and a movie from Blockbuster and popcorn.”

  She squeezed his hand as they waited for a break in the cars to cross the street. “I’m sure he can if his mom says that’s okay. Would you like me to call Mrs. Sparrow?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Lots of phone calls today,” she teased. “Hey, Evan.”

  “Yeah?”

  “See that?”

  Evan squinted. “Is it the ice cream truck?”

  “I th
ink so. You want ice cream?”

  “Yeah!”

  “Come on,” she said and winked at him. “Race you there.”

  Evan got an ice cream with sprinkles, and his mom ordered the same thing, with strawberry sauce. Evan liked it when he matched with his mom. They were two peas in a pod, or so she said. If she wasn’t a girl and a grown-up, Evan thought she could have been his best friend.

  ON SATURDAY, the day after Evan had gotten ten out of ten on his spelling test, Evan’s mom was working, so Evan was allowed to go over to Scott’s house for the whole afternoon. He couldn’t decide if it was a treat for doing so well on his test (Scott had gotten nine out of ten, so his mom was pretty pleased too) or if his mom was finally taking Evan’s protestations about Mrs. Lipinski seriously.

  Evan’s mom had walked him halfway to Scott’s house because it was on the way to where she was working for the afternoon. Evan was allowed to walk the rest of the way on his own. It was a nice afternoon, sunny but not too hot, and the pain and humiliation of being beat up earlier in the week was long since forgotten. The jibe about not having a dad might take a little longer to forget, but Evan was determined not to think about it.

  The Sparrows’ house was really super nice. It was on the fancy side of the neighborhood, where there were bigger gaps between the houses and most of them had pools. Evan’s house did not have a pool. They had to go along to the community pool to swim, and Evan’s mom worked most of the nice days, so he didn’t get to go all that often.

  The house was white with a black front door and a knocker in the shape of a lion’s head. If he stretched on his tiptoes, Evan could just about reach the doorbell.

  “Hey, Mrs. Sparrow,” Evan said as she opened the door. Mrs. Sparrow was tall and had her curly hair pulled into a long braid. She was wearing dungarees and had a pink-lipped smile.

  “Hey, Evan. How are you today?”

  “Good, thank you,” he said, remembering to mind his manners. “Is Scott around?”

  “Sure is. He’s in the backyard, waiting for you. Go on through.”

  “Thanks, Mrs. Sparrow,” Evan called as he took off into the house.

  Evan had been here a lot of times before, so he knew how to get through the house to the kitchen, then into the big backyard. Scott was scrambling around in the dirt, looking like he might be building something.