Our action caught Jack’s eye. He and some other boys in our room trooped over to watch. Every time Elsie swung and missed, Jack hollered, “Way to go!” Sweat came out on Elsie’s forehead. I pitched. The boys counted, “One. Two. Three. Miss!”
Elsie bore down harder, trying to ignore them. The next pitch was outside. Elsie stumbled trying to get it. The ball just missed her head. Jack yelled behind her, “You’re supposed to hit it, Fatty, not swallow it.”
Elsie had had it. She whirled around, the bat still in her hand, and yelled, “Knock it off, Jack!”
I don’t think Jack heard her. The bat had hit Jack in the mouth. He pitched forward onto the ground, his face landing in the gravel. Lester pulled him to a sitting position. Blood poured from Jack’s lower lip. Elsie stared in horror, her face chalk white. This was it for Elsie. She hadn’t meant to hit Jack, but that wasn’t going to do her much good. If you fought on school grounds, the principal called your mother.
I saw the playground teacher hurrying toward us. I crouched down next to Jack. “Listen, Jack, if you say it was Elsie’s fault, her mother will send her away to boarding school for good.”
“Who cares where she goes.” He was trying to wipe the blood from his mouth with the back of his hand. He only succeeded in smearing it across his face.
“Jack, please,” I begged. “The principal might even kick Elsie out now because she’s been in trouble before. Please, Jack.”
The playground teacher pushed me away and kneeled down next to Jack. She took his chin in her hand and blotted the blood with a Kleenex. Jack’s face was split from his lip to his chin.
“Come on. Let’s get you to the nurse’s office.”
Sharon stepped forward. “Remember, Red, be a sport.”
Jack glared at her and then wobbled away, holding his hand under his chin to catch the blood.
“What did you say that for?” I screamed at Sharon. “You know he hates being called Red.”
“I was just trying to get him not to tell on. Elsie.”
“Get him not to tell! You made him mad!”
“Well, Jenny, you weren’t getting anywhere. Don’t scream at me.” Sharon marched off in her prissy way.
I couldn’t believe it. It was the dumbest thing to say. When Sharon tries to act big like Diane she always makes a mess of it.
I took Elsie by the arm. “Come on. Let’s go sit on the bank above the backstop until recess is over.”
We sat up there, or I sat up there. Elsie lay on her back with her arm across her eyes.
“Elsie,” I asked, “why can’t you stay with your dad instead of going to boarding school?”
Elsie took her arm away and stared up at the sky. “I dream about that all the time. But they’re only dreams. That woman would never let him take me.”
“You’re not so fat any more. Maybe she would.”
“And maybe she wouldn’t.” Elsie put her arm back over her eyes.
“You don’t pig down any more. And you don’t steal any more. Why wouldn’t that woman want you now? Huh, Elsie?”
But she wouldn’t answer me. She never believes anyone will like her.
During reading the intercom came on, and I thought for sure it was the office sending for Elsie. But instead the secretary asked Mrs. Hanson to send Jack’s lunch box and books to the office. Lester carried them down.
After school we girls grabbed Lester.
“Where’d Jack go?”
“What happened to Jack?”
“Why didn’t he come back to class?”
“Are you all nuts?” Lester said. “His mom took him to Stevens Hospital. The nurse said he’d have to have stitches.”
When Elsie heard that, she walked off toward her house. I ran after her. “Wait a minute, Elsie. Maybe Jack won’t tell.”
Elsie plodded straight on.
I dragged on her arm. “Wait, Elsie. We’ll go to Diane’s and call Jack when he gets home.”
She kept going.
“I don’t think Jack will tell,” Marianne said when I returned to the others. “Jack never tells on anyone.”
“If Sharon hadn’t called him Red,” I said. “That was a dumb thing to say.”
“Well, nobody’s perfect,” Sharon snapped.
At Diane’s house we tried to call Jack eleven times, but there was no answer. Diane said you have to wait around forever at Stevens Hospital before a doctor sees you. I guess. I finally had to give up and go home.
I tried to talk to Mother about Elsie and Jack while we were alone in the kitchen, but she was rushing around making a cake for PTA and mumbling about the potatoes getting done so she could put the cake in the oven.
Dinner took forever. I caught Daddy watching me squish my peas on my plate. I hurried and stuffed a couple of big bites in my mouth and swallowed them whole. It was worth it not to ruin my chances of calling Jack and finding out if Elsie was doomed. Daddy was the one with the rule about no phone calls.
I waited until he was watching a baseball game on TV before I started explaining about the accident to Mother. Daddy heard the part about my wanting to call Jack, though, and interrupted me. “You see your friends all day. You don’t need to talk to them at night.”
Mother gave Daddy her sweetest smile. “Well, maybe, in this special case we might let her use the phone for five minutes. What do you think?”
He looked confused for a minute.
The TV announcer was saying, “There it goes! It’s over the left field fence!”
“All right,” Daddy said quickly. “Five minutes and no more.” And he got back to his ball game.
I dived for the phone. Boy, was I glad Mother started making her own decisions. Jack’s mother answered. She didn’t sound too pleased. Neither was Jack when he found out it was me.
“How’s your lip?” I asked him.
“I got six stitches on account of your dumb friend, and it hurts to talk.”
“Did you tell on Elsie?”
“What do you think I am, a narc? Listen, I have to go.”
“O.K.,” I said. “Thanks a lot for saving Elsie. Now she’ll get to stay in our school next year.”
“Big deal,” he said and hung up.
I hurried and dialed Elsie’s number. Her mother must have been out because she answered.
“Elsie,” I said, “I talked to Jack and he didn’t tell.”
She didn’t say anything.
“Elsie, are you still there?”
“Yes. It’s just that I’ve been so scared.” Her voice sounded funny. I wondered if she was pulling on her hair like she always does when she’s nervous.
“Maybe we better stay in the library during recess until school’s over on Friday,” I told her. “Then nothing else bad can happen to you.”
Elsie agreed, so that’s what we did. She and I trooped off to the library every recess until Friday. We didn’t mind because we both liked to read. My favorite book was The Best Christmas Pageant Ever. Elsie had read all the animal stories in the library, and her favorite was Savage Sam. I promised her a kitten when D.D. had her babies.
Mrs. Hanson gave us our report cards just before school was dismissed. We had our class party, cleaned the room, and fifth grade was about over. Mrs. Hanson’s hair was mussed and her skin sagged around her mouth, but she smiled at each of us and said good-bye, have a nice summer, as she handed us our report cards. When she came to Elsie, she told her there was a note from the principal with her report card and she was glad Elsie was coming back next year.
I yelled, “Yippee!” and hugged Elsie and Elsie hugged me before we even got out the classroom door.
“Elsie, read the note,” Diane ordered when we were clear of the school building.
We crowded around Elsie and read the principal’s note together. Mr. Douglas had written that, because of Elsie’s exemplary behavior the past few months, he would be pleased to have her return to the school next fall.
“What does ‘exemplary’ mean?” Sharon asked.
“Who cares?” I said. “She gets to stay.” I was busy pulling out my own report card. I got a B in arithmetic. So did Diane. Elsie got an A.
Diane skipped ahead. “Let’s go swimming,” she said.
Elsie was walking along looking at her shoes. I had noticed her looking at her shoes a lot the past month. I asked her why she was always staring at her feet.
“I can see my shoes,” she said, smiling.
“Everybody can see their shoes,” I said.
“No, they can’t. I couldn’t for two years.”
“Were you really that fat?” Sharon asked.
“I was fat,” Elsie answered. “Let’s face it. I wasn’t just fat. I was gross.”
“And we were mean,” I said. I was ashamed to remember how I had treated Elsie.
“You were,” Elsie agreed. “But I was all mouth.”
“Come on, you pokes!” Diane called ahead of us. “It’s hot. Let’s get in the water.”
I took Elsie’s hand. We ran to catch up.
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Nothing's Fair in Fifth Grade Page 9