EllRay Jakes and the Beanstalk

by Sally Warner

  On her face—her perfect face, without even a scratch on it—I can see different feelings battling for first place.

  Happiness, because she has totally surprised me.

  Excitement at the idea of skating better than me, like Fly said he’d teach her to do.

  Fear, because she suddenly realizes where she is, and what’s about to happen.

  My ears are buzzing, I’m so scared for her.

  I can’t figure out the expression on Fly’s face at all. He looks kind of—blank.

  Like I said before, what is his problem?

  “It’s ‘sink or swim,’ see,” Fly pretend-explains to Henry and me. “If she falls, so be it. If she doesn’t, by the time she gets to the bottom she’ll be a skater.”

  “She’s only four!” I yell.

  “Let go, kid,” Fly shouts at Alfie, who is clutching at him now with both hands. It looks like she’s about to jump into his arms.

  “EllWay! Help!” Alfie cries, and then Fly untangles her hands from his. And he gives her a shove down the tile stairs—on Henry’s old board—in almost the very same movement.

  But I am already FLYING through the air.

  I’m almost there, Alfie.

  I hurl myself onto the driveway and skid the rest of the way to break her fall.

  15

  Giant

  “Waah!” I hear Alfie cry as she bounces off me and the board skitters on its back across the turnaround toward Henry, as if he was calling it home.

  But the cry is Alfie’s scared-mad “What just happened?” wail, not the “I’m hurt!” one.

  I am hurt, I realize, lying facedown on the cement. I did not come to Henry’s today prepared to be a stuntman—or even to do any serious tricks. I was just going to try to get an inch closer to doing an ollie. So I was wearing the opposite of the clothes needed for a driveway skid.

  My cheek and arms feel hot and wet, and they’re starting to sting, and my knee hurts.

  I feel something patter onto my back, and I lift my head to see coins bounce to the ground. Three nickels and a dime. “There you go, girl,” Fly’s voice says from somewhere to the right of me.

  “Her name’s Alfie,” I mumble into the cement.

  There’s blood in my mouth. I must have bitten my lip or my cheek.

  Yeah, Fly has a problem. But I no longer care what Fly’s problem is.

  “You said you’d give me a quarter if I did what you said,” Alfie yells between gulping sobs. “You big liar!”

  “What a dope,” Fly says, but even he is starting to sound a little nervous. “Little dude’s little sister can’t even count money yet,” he tells Henry.

  “Dude, she’s four!” Henry shouts back.

  Fly tried to hurt my sister! Why? Because she peeked at him? Because she got on his nerves? Because he was bored?

  “It’s not my fault she slammed,” Fly objects, which is a lie if I ever heard one, because this was totally his fault. “And don’t ‘dude’ me, poser,” he continues, trying to turn Henry’s anger around like a 180-kickflip. “You guys are both a couple of posers, in fact. I don’t know why I ever bothered—”

  But he doesn’t get the chance to finish his sentence, because I’m up—and on him.

  “Raahhh!” I bellow, hoping that this noise, plus the surprise of my attack, will make up for what I lack in size and strength.

  I manage to knock him over, at least—like a small lumberjack cutting down a very tall tree.

  As I said before, Fly is halfway between me and Henry in height—and he’s three years older than I am, and his scrapes, bad choices, and general troubled kid-ness means that I’m DOOMED.

  But I don’t care.

  He tried to hurt Alfie. And I’m the one who brought her over here.

  “You’re the poser,” I yell, starting to pound his shoulder with what passes for my fist. “You’re posing as a human being!”

  I feel like an ant trying to battle a tarantula.

  My surprise advantage has been over for about ten seconds, and Fly realizes it. He looks like he’s getting ready to enjoy himself.

  Fly looms over me like a giant, smiling at last. His right arm goes back for a major punch, so I duck my head and wrap myself around him like I’m made out of the strongest glue in the world, and I start to roll with him—toward the muddy patch of lawn.

  “EllWay!” I hear Alfie crying from what seems like far away.

  “Get off him before he hurts you, EllRay,” Henry shouts, running over to us. And, to Fly, “Dude, get a grip—you’re twice his size!”

  “I—don’t—care,” Fly yells, trying his best to get far enough away from me to hit me. But I hang on tight.

  And I keep rolling us toward the mud.

  “If you get blood on my clothes you are going to be so sorry,” Fly mutters in my ear, almost growling.

  “Then I’ll get blood all—over—them,” I say, panting out the words. “And your clothes will be wrecked, and then everyone will know what a coward you are!”

  This makes absolutely no sense at all, because clothes can’t talk. But I’m glad I said it.

  He is a coward. Not for fighting me, but for putting Alfie in danger.

  And—Fly and I are on the lawn.

  The MUDDY lawn, where the hose has been dribbling the whole time Alfie and I have been here today.

  And what a great idea coming over here was, I congratulate myself, managing some inner sarcasm as I grind a fist into where I guess Fly’s ribs might be.

  “Dude! Mud!” Fly cries when he realizes where we are. He tries to lift his body—our bodies—off the ground, like he thinks maybe he can float in the air if he just tries hard enough.

  He’s trying to keep his stupid clothes clean! My little sister can go shooting down a flight of tile stairs face-first, for all he cares, but Fly Reilly wants to keep his clothes clean.

  This guy is seriously messed up.

  “Not so fly now, huh?” I say, SMOOSHING his perfect red-and-navy sweatshirt back and forth in the mud as I thrash the two of us around really good.

  “But I’m supposed to go out to dinner with my aunties,” he shouts, like I care. “And this sweatshirt is new!”

  “Not anymore, it’s not,” I somehow manage to say, and I scoop up a handful of the mud and plant it smack on his face.

  “Okay, that’s it,” Fly yells through the mud, and he reaches for my neck with both hands. “You’re gonna be sorry, kid. Because I’m gonna—”

  “Fly Reilly and EllRay Jakes,” a grown-up’s voice calls out.

  An angry grown-up’s voice.

  It’s about time!

  16

  Just An Ordinary Afternoon

  It’s Henry’s mom, Mrs. Pendleton—and she looks as if she can’t believe what has been happening in her own backyard.

  Believe it, Mrs. Pendleton.

  “What in the world is going on out here?” she asks, marching down the tile steps as if that’s what they were invented for. “I leave you kids alone for a few minutes, to make some cookies, and what happens?”

  “What kind of cookies?” Fly asks from the mud, actually interested.

  “He played a bad twick on me,” Alfie says, still lying on the driveway and starting to cry again. “But EllWay saved me.”

  “Twick” means “trick,” I guess.

  “Alfie! Sweetheart,” Mrs. Pendleton says, seeing her for the first time. She rushes to my little sister’s side and scoops her into her arms. “I didn’t know you were here.” She smoothes Alfie’s hair back, inspects her tear-streaked face, then clutches her close once more.

  “She’s lying,” Fly calls out from the mud, shaking me off now like a flea or a mosquito, something that bothered him for a while, but no biggie.

  He looks like a wreck, though, I’m happy to report.<
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  In fact, he looks TERRIBLE.

  “Don’t call Alfie a liar, Fly,” Henry says, his voice hard. “You could have knocked her teeth out, dude. Or broken one of her bones. Fly sent Alfie shooting straight down those stairs, Mom. On a board.”

  And Alfie looks up at Henry with shining eyes, of course.

  Oh, great, I can’t help but think. This was all the encouragement she needed.

  “Then you’re a liar, too, Henry,” Fly says, trying for some of his old swagger. “You’re all against me—for no reason! I’m going home.”

  And he stalks over to his skateboard like it’s a loyal horse that has been waiting for him all this time.

  “You’re not going anywhere until I say so,” Mrs. Pendleton tells Fly, giving him the same stink-eye he’s given me more than once. “But I am calling your mother, Fly. She can leave work early, if necessary, and come pick you up. For now, you go inside and take a shower, young man. In the downstairs bathroom. A one towel shower.”

  She’s so mad that I think I’d just shake myself dry, if I was the kid she was talking to.

  “And then what am I supposed to wear?” Fly asks, his hands actually on his hips, he’s so mad at everyone.

  Him! Mad!

  “I’ll see if I can find some old clothes for you to throw on,” Mrs. Pendleton says.

  “Old clothes?” Fly asks, like he can’t believe what he just heard.

  “And they’re getting older every second you keep standing here,” Mrs. Pendleton says. “Now, scoot.”

  And Fly scoots.

  “Are you okay, EllRay?” Mrs. Pendleton asks, hurrying over where I’m standing ankle-deep in mud.

  “I’m fine,” I say, but my throat is actually starting to feel a little achy from where Fly almost choked me. Just the idea of it is enough to hurt, I guess.

  Or maybe my throat is aching because I’m trying not to cry.

  Now, of all times! When everything is okay!

  But Alfie could have really been hurt. The thought of it is catching up with me again.

  “EllRay! Your poor arms, and your chin! You’re bleeding,” Mrs. Pendleton says, and a hand goes straight to her chest, which is something moms do when they’re horrified by some kid emergency. “You need first aid. What in the world?” she says again.

  “I—I sort of skidded when I fell,” I tell her. “But I don’t think I need any first aid. Anyway, my mom’s a pretty good patcher-upper.”

  “Well, if you’re sure,” Mrs. Pendleton says, then she turns to Henry, as if this is all his fault.

  “Henry didn’t do anything wrong, Mrs. Pendleton. I promise,” I say. “He was just trying to teach me how to ollie.”

  “He did stuff right,” Henry’s biggest fan chimes in, beaming up at him.

  Poor Henry.

  “Well, I guess we’d better go home,” I tell Mrs. Pendleton, like this has been just an ordinary afternoon, but now we have to leave.

  I don’t even want to think about what’s going to happen when Mom sees us—much less what will happen when Dad gets home.

  I am in so much trouble.

  “You tell your mama how sorry I am about all this,” Mrs. Pendleton says. “Tell her I’ll be calling as soon as I get that one sorted out,” she adds, glancing toward the house, where I guess Fly is in the middle of his one towel shower.

  “Okay. I’ll tell her,” I say.

  When I can get a word in edgewise, that is.

  17

  Brave

  “Thank you, Cynthia, for reading us your paper about ‘Cinderella,’” Ms. Sanchez says on Friday afternoon. “I’m sure we all agree with you about how important it is that a person’s shoes fit well, especially if they’re glass slippers,” she continues. “And we will keep our fingers crossed that your own handsome prince will find you some day, and that then, you’ll be richer than anyone else in this room, if that’s truly your wish.”

  “It is truly my wish,” Cynthia says, and there’s a serious expression on her face as she and Heather nod their heads, so I guess she means it.

  I feel sorry for the prince.

  Corey went first. I think Ms. Sanchez took pity on him so he could get it over with. He was so pale when he read his paper on “The Tortoise and the Hare” that you could count every freckle on his face, but he made it through without fainting.

  Reading in front of the class can be very scary for some kids, but it’s only medium-scary for me. I worry that I’ll get an embarrassing word to read aloud, like abreast, which really means side by side, or ass, meaning donkey. I also worry that I’ll get a word I don’t know how to pronounce.

  But when I’m reading something I wrote, I know all the words. So I’m good.

  I missed school yesterday, by the way, because Mom said I had to get my scrapes and bruises checked out by the doctor. Then I was supposed to “take it easy,” which is not as much fun as it sounds when you’re not allowed to watch TV or DVDs or play video games, much less practice your skateboard skills—because that skateboard is GONE. Dad didn’t say for how long. Until I’m thirty, I’m guessing. And the thought of a thirty-year-old man riding a skateboard is just sad, especially if he’s wearing a suit and a tie.

  It wasn’t that my dad was mad at the skateboard, or even all that angry about the fight, strange as it seems. He kind of understood about the fight, once Henry and Alfie explained it to him.

  Instead, Dad was mad at me for two other reasons. Big ones, he said.

  I disobeyed him about going over to Henry’s when Fly was there.

  I brought Alfie with me without asking official, in-person permission first.

  Everything bad that happened to Alfie and me was because of those two things, he explained on Wednesday night after Mom patched me up the best that she could. I went to bed that night with gauze wrapped around my arms and legs like I was a mummy, and parts of my legs were stuck to the sheet in the morning. It was gross.

  I couldn’t wait to tell Corey about it!

  I guess that’s what I get for sliding across a driveway like a human Zamboni.

  Yesterday, Thursday, the doctor did a better bandaging job than Mom, but the “flesh-colored” bandages are not my flesh color, so they look patchy and weird. Also, the stuff he splashed onto my scrapes hurt. I got a tetanus shot, too. OUCH.

  I was kind of surprised the doctor didn’t give me rabies shots while he was at it, considering that it was mad dog Fly Reilly at the other end of the fight. But I didn’t make that suggestion to the doctor, believe me.

  So now it’s Friday, and here I am, waiting for Ms. Sanchez to call on me to read aloud about “Jack and the Beanstalk.” When she does, everyone can stare at me as much as they want—for a few minutes, at least.

  There are two rumors that have been bouncing around Oak Glen Primary School all day, ever since the kids saw my banged-up, bandaged self. The boring one, the truth I told Corey, is that I got hurt saving my little sister, then I got into a fight with the guy who tried to hurt her—even though it was more rolling in the mud than fighting. The girls like that rumor. The other rumor, the one I like best, is that these are skating injuries—that I had to bail in the middle of either an airwalk grab or a 50-50 grind, and I paid the price.

  Yeah, that’s what happened!

  And that’s why I can’t take part in the skating contest after school today, even though I’ll make a special guest appearance. Maybe they’ll make me the judge, since I’m supposedly such a pro.

  Watch out, Tony Hawk!

  “Kevin McKinley,” Ms. Sanchez says, announcing the next person to read. A few kids wriggle in their seats, maybe because of his gory drawing—and because he chose a story none of us knows. Except Jared, probably. Kevin’s new best friend.

  If Kevin and I had been better friends lately, I could have asked him about the story. But no-o-o.
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  “All right,” Kevin says, striding to the front of the class. His brown skin looks sharp next to the yellow shirt he’s wearing. New, I think.

  He clears his throat before starting to talk, of course.

  “My story is called ‘The Boy Who Left Home to Find Out About the Shivers,’” Kevin begins. “But its other name is ‘The Boy Who Wanted to Learn What Fear Was.’ It’s real old. It’s about this boy who was never afraid,” he tells us. “So he got bored, because he wanted to learn what it was like to be scared. Someone pretended to be a ghost, but the boy wasn’t scared at all. He pushed the pretend ghost down the stairs. After that, the boy had to leave home—and leave his father and brother, too. Sometimes heroes have to do that. And then he had a bunch of scary adventures.

  “Badder and badder things happened to him,” Kevin continues. “Some of the things are too bad to talk about in front of girls. But the boy kept complaining that nothing scared him. Finally, the boy decided to spend three nights in a haunted castle. If he did that, he would get all the treasure there and also marry the king’s pretty daughter whether he wanted to or not. But he stayed there anyway.

  “The boy had some really extreme adventures in the castle, but still nothing scared him, and he was bored even when some heads and legs fell down the chimney the second night! It was no big deal for him. That’s what my drawing is about,” he tells us, holding it up for inspection.

  By now, most of the girls and a couple of the boys—including me—are looking nervous about where this story is going. But Ms. Sanchez seems okay, I’m relieved to see, and she’s read it before.

  “The last night in the haunted castle,” Kevin says, “there was even a coffin in the boy’s room, and the dead body tried to strangle him! But still he wasn’t scared.

  “So the boy got all the treasure, which was cool, but he also had to marry the king’s daughter, even though they were way too young. But that’s when he learned about the shivers, because his new wife got so tired of him complaining all the time about being bored that she threw ice water on him one night when he was asleep. But he never did learn what fear was. And the lesson is, don’t get married too soon.”