becca in the park
The first time Becca meets him he’s at the park. Everybody else plays and it’s cold so she pulls her sweater around her because that is what she, Becca Morse, does. Her feet swing above the ants. She wants to play with someone, but they are all set together. They are all friends and that’s okay because it’s good to just see people laughing and if she tries to play too, they might not let her and then they won’t be smiling anymore. Then they’d be frowning. And when people frown meanness comes. So, that’s why she sits on the bench and swing her feet and just watches.
Brianna Spaulding and Audrey Jordan come over. No, they saunter. Brianna and Audrey are sauntering kind of girls. They’re in Becca’s class, which is hard enough, but at least at school there’s a teacher to protect her. At the park, it’s all scary vulnerable and there’s nobody for Becca to run to if the words get too mean.
“Whatcha doing Becca? Hiding from us?” Brianna asks. She snarls like a mean dog.
Becca shakes her head and pulls her legs up to her chest. She tries to make herself invisible, but somehow whenever she wants to be invisible, she never is.
“She’s such a wimp girl,” Audrey says. “Check out those clothes. Lame.”
“Double lame,” Brianna adds. “You dress like you’re five or something.”
Becca bites her lip and shrugs. “So?”
“What a freaking loser baby.” Brianna crosses her arms over her chest. She nods at Audrey.
Audrey pops her gum, reaches out and sticks it on the end of Becca’s shoe. “Loser.”
They giggle, link arms and walk away.
After a minute, Becca reaches down and grabs a stick. She pulls off her shoe and starts working on getting the gum off. It’s disgusting. Still, it’s better than going home.
big trees
The big tree above Becca’s head protects her from the sky. Leaves cover it and they turn orange like fire or like Brianna Spaulding’s Halloween kitty shirt. Peek-a-boo hints of blue sky smile above the leaves that whisper in the wind.
Blue sky is good, but sometimes it’s bad because it reminds her of her mom’s eyes and sometimes her mom’s eyes are good but sometimes they are bad, too.
That’s the way everyone is, isn’t it?
Good and bad.
Like Becca is good when she’s quiet and she hides in the bathroom for a while and sits on the toilet seat that’s covered with the fluffy pink thing.
Like she’s bad when she walks too loud through the house or when she stares out her window at the stars at night and doesn’t go right to bed. Like she’s bad if she eats too much of her Kraft macaroni and cheese too quick. Like she’s bad if she doesn’t eat her Kraft macaroni and cheese quick enough.
She is bad a lot at home. She is bad more and more.
But the sky right now hanging above the trees is not too scary blue. It makes everything beautiful and a little bird with a white belly hops along the branch and ducks her head. She doesn’t bird scold. She bird sings and then flies away.
That’s when he sits on the bench. A boy, not a bird.
He sits on the bench with Becca and she peeks at him only out of the tiniest corner of her eye. She wonders if he’ll stick gum on her shoe or make fun of her clothes. He doesn’t look like a gum sticker. He has the look of lonely—like her.
He waits. He’s got hair the color of tree trunks. He’s little like her. Probably third grade. Maybe fourth. She turns her head so she can see him a little more and he catches her and smiles real big. Before she can think about it, she smiles back.
Not smiling at people when they smile at you is rude, her mom says.
Smiling at strangers is bad, her mom says.
She can’t grab her smile back, though, because she has already smiled and a good, good glow takes over everything inside of her. She feels like a tree leaf that changes to orange. She feels like a Halloween kitty shirt that makes everyone go, “Wow!”
Then a woman walks by and a shadow passes over Becca because the woman has blocked out the sun and Becca takes in a big breath and remembers who she is. Becca. The girl who hides.
Another girl rushes to her mom and her mom squats down real low to the grass and reaches out her arms. She is not Becca, but Becca wishes she were her. This girl, Maia, she’s in Becca’s class and she’s never mean to her like Brianna and Audrey, but it’s like she forgets Becca is there. Although, once in kindergarten, she told Brianna to leave Becca alone when Brianna was making fun of Becca’s clothes. Becca likes Maia because of that, even though usually Maia doesn’t see her.
Maia rushes into her mom’s hug and almost knocks her over. But her mom just laughs and kisses the top of Maia’s head. She laughs and hugs her and Maia laughs too. Becca swallows big.
The boy clears his throat. Becca doesn’t look at him. The leaves are beautiful.
The boy sniffs in through his nose, which sounds like a puppy Becca used to have before the puppy was bad and ate the newspaper and peed on the floor. The boy sniffs in again. Becca can’t help it; her whole head turns towards him.
“Hi,” he says and smiles. “Hi.”
hi
Becca stares at the pretty, pretty leaves for what seems like a million years. It’s a million years of staring and staring and staring and then she decides to just do it. She decides to just do it, like they say on those sneaker commercials. She just does it. She just is brave.
“Hi,” she says back.
“Hi,” she says and looks at him full on and smiles, smiles, smiles.
acorn
He doesn’t talk the way boys do. That’s the big thing. His voice speaks soft, but he laughs hard.
“Hi,” he says again. He is no gum sticker, this boy.
“Hi.”
A squirrel drops an acorn in between them and the boy grabs it in his hand.
“A gift!” He reaches out to pass it to Becca.
Her hand shakes. Sweet like the honey she puts in her mom’s tea, his eyes twinkle. She reaches out. He drops the acorn in her palm and something’s smoothed the bottom and the top has a cap.
“It’s like a little man,” she says.
“It’s me.” He laughs and laughs. “I look like an acorn.”
She shakes her head at him because he’s acting all crazy, but not in a scary hard-eyes way, but a good-puppy crazy way, and Becca tucks that acorn into her sweater pocket. It settles in there, a nice lump. Then, just right then, her heart bursts out and falls in little pieces the way it does when her mom says she’s been bad.
“I don’t have anything for you.” Her voice is sad like her heart.
He laughs. “Sure, you do.”
“No.” She checks her pockets. “Just a used-up tissue.”
It’s crumpled and dry and disgusting.
“Yummm,” he says. “I’ll take it.”
He does. He just grabs it and he laughs again and says “Yum” again and then he tosses it into the air. What is going on with this boy? He is crazy weird. Becca inches away on the bench till she is perched at the very end.
He leans in close and whispers, “Watch.”