Everybody was afraid of Danny Novello’s mouth. Everybody except Delly.
Danny Novello loved Delly. He loved her tininess and her trouble. He’d loved her since first grade, but his mouth was too mean to tell her.
The love had only festered with time. Soon, whenever he got near her, his heart beat so hard it hurt. Tell her, it pounded, or I’ll burst. So, this past Christmas, he decided to declare it. “Best gift she’ll ever get,” he boasted.
He was so sure of himself he brought a crowd. “Watch this,” he told them, and parked himself in front of her.
“What do you want?” she rasped.
As soon as Delly closed her mouth, he smacked it, with a big, fat kiss. He stood there, waiting for her to say, “I love you, too, bawlgrammit.”
Delly’s eyes went wild. She coughed, like a cat hacking up a hairball. Then she puckered up, too.
Novello closed his eyes for the kiss he knew was coming.
Instead, Delly turned her head and spit the biggest goober those children had ever seen.
The crowd gasped.
Novello’s eyes flipped open. “What the . . . ?” he wondered.
And Delly slugged him.
She dropped him, hard. As he hit the ground, air blew out of him, like a popped tire.
She bent down. With her mouth as close to his as it would ever get, she growled, “You try that again, I’ll knock you into next week,” and walked away.
Tater was still staring at the spot where the spit hit. “Wow,” was all he could say.
The crowd giggled.
“Something funny?” Novello hissed.
They all shook their heads.
Danny Novello couldn’t stop loving Delly. But he couldn’t forgive her for refusing him, either. From then on, most of his mouth meanness went to her.
He was waiting for Delly with a pack of kids when she came out for recess. He and Tater stood in front of her, so she had to stop.
“Hey Danny,” Tater shouted, “it’s Ms. Pattison.”
“That’s no Ms.,” Novello yelled, “that’s a monkey.”
The crowd exploded with laughter.
Delly exploded, with punches. But she was wild; mostly she was pummeling air.
And Novello was laughing. “I feel a flea. A bug’s biting me.”
Till she got him. In the gut.
“Oof,” he exclaimed.
She jumped him, and he toppled, like a tree taken down by a tiny lumberjack.
“Ayeeeeee!” he screamed.
He landed with her on his chest. “Open wide,” she hollered, “here comes lunch.” She cocked her right fist behind her head, all ready to send a knuckle sandwich to his mouth.
Ms. Niederbaum stopped the delivery. She grabbed Delly’s arm, then hoisted her off him.
“What the glub?” Delly exclaimed.
“We’re taking a trip,” Ms. Niederbaum said as she carried her across the playground.
“How many weeks on Alaska this time?” Delly grumbled.
But they did not travel to Alaska. They went straight to the place big trouble ends up: the principal’s office.
As Ms. Niederbaum set her down outside Ms. McDougal’s door, she said, “I think you’ve done it this time.”
And Delly, who’d lost her surpresent, her Dellypresent, and Lionel Terwilliger, muttered, “Nothing left to lose.”
She was wrong about that, too.
Chapter 16
All afternoon Delly sat in the chair. “Must’ve forgot about me.” She snickered.
Then, from down the hall, she heard Clarice’s voice. “We’re here to see Ms. McDougal.”
“It’s about Delly,” Boomer added.
“Chizzle,” Delly murmured. She watched them walk toward her.
Boomer shook his head when he spotted her.
“Delly,” Clarice sighed, as if the word meant something sad.
Ms. McDougal was at her door. “Mr. and Mrs. Pattison, come in,” she told them, and they disappeared.
It was a long time later when the principal called, “Delaware, please join us.”
She trudged to the door.
Boomer and Clarice were sitting against the wall. Boomer’s eyes were red and his jaw was tight. Clarice was clenching her chair so her knuckles were white.
Delly slumped to her seat.
“I’ve told your parents about your trip to the river and the fight at recess.” Ms. McDougal began.
“Hunh,” Delly mumbled.
“For the rest of the week, you’ll have detention, and recess on Alaska. Your parents have decided on a punishment for home.”
Boomer’s mouth barely moved. “Your room, for a week.”
Delly’s head popped up. For Dellypunishments, it was puny. “That’s it?” she muttered.
It wasn’t.
“Delaware, the trouble is chronic.” Ms. McDougal continued. “We’re not sure this school can help you and keep the other children safe, too. We think another placement might be better for everyone.”
Delly was wondering if that meant Alaska, all day every day, when the principal told her, “We’ve agreed to give you one more chance to succeed here.”
“Huh?” Delly didn’t understand.
Boomer explained. “If you mess up one more time, it’s over. You go to a new school, for troubled kids.”
Delly thought about that. Then she asked, “If I went to this other place, would I stop being bad?”
Ms. McDougal shrugged. “We hope it doesn’t come to that.”
Nobody’d been watching Clarice, because Clarice wasn’t talking. But sounds were coming out of her now. Delly glanced at her mother.
Tears were pouring down Clarice’s cheeks, like tiny waterfalls. She was holding in sobs, so they sounded like hiccups.
Delly’s heart stopped. This was worse than any trouble; it was the world falling apart. Because Clarice Pattison didn’t cry, ever.
Till today.
“Ma,” Delly called, trying to stop it.
Clarice turned to her. She didn’t speak, but her eyes were asking.
Delly knew what she wanted: she wanted hope. She wanted her to say, “I’ll be different, I promise.”
But Delly didn’t know how to be not-Delly. “Sorry,” she whispered.
Clarice closed her eyes. Her head dropped to her chest. She’d given up on Delly, too.
Ms. McDougal stood. Boomer and Clarice walked out of the office with Delly behind them.
They rode in the van without words. When they got home, nobody had to tell Delly to go to her room.
Chapter 17
Delly lay on her bed. In her head, she made a list of the people who’d given up on her.
It was a long one. There was Officer Tibbetts, Clayton Fitch, Norma, and all the friends she didn’t have anymore. Just today she’d added Lionel Terwilliger, Ms. McDougal, and Boomer. And Clarice. Making Clarice cry was the worst of it.
Then Delly added one more name to the list: “Me.”
“It’d be better if I wasn’t around,” she said out loud, so whatever brought surpresents could take her away.
There were two rivers of tears backing up behind her eyeballs, but she wouldn’t let them out. She squeezed her eyes tight, till they stopped stinging.
It was late when RB showed up. He lay down beside her. “Delly,” he asked, “are you going to a different school?”
She shrugged, and the bed shook a little.
“Don’t go.” His voice was cracking like he’d cry.
She shrugged again.
Then RB was shouting, “Just quit getting in trouble. Just quit it!”
“I’m not trying to get in trouble!” she shouted back.
RB knew that was true. “What are you trying to do?” he asked.
She thought about it. “Have fun. Do something good. Except when I fight.”
He said it quietly, so she wouldn’t slug him too hard: “Maybe you should try something different.”
She didn’t smack him. In
stead, she rasped, “I don’t know how to be . . . not me.”
They both lay there for a while.
“Del?” he said.
“Huh.”
“You know when I knock on your door and you say, ‘Go away, I’m doing something.’ And I want to say, ‘You’re not doing anything. Let me in!’ But I don’t, I just sit there and wait.”
Delly didn’t know that.
“Or you know when Galveston says, ‘RB, I’m in charge. Clean up this room,’ and I want to take Ma’s spatula and whap her. But I don’t, I just walk away.”
Delly didn’t know that, either.
“Know what I’m doing instead of whapping?”
“What?” She turned to him, waiting for the words. Finally, somebody was going to tell her how to stop the trouble.
“I’m counting.” RB smiled, so proud of himself.
“What?” she screeched.
“I’m counting. You know: one, two, three . . . It makes me calm down.
“That’s what you gotta do, Del. You gotta count,” he told her, like he’d solved everything.
“RB.” She was talking through her teeth. “I’m in trouble up to my eyeballs, and you think I should count?”
“Yep,” he said surely.
“RB, bed,” Boomer called.
He slid off from beside her. “Will you try?” he asked.
She shrugged.
“Del, please?” And the tears were two seconds away.
“Okay,” she agreed, just so somebody else wouldn’t be sobbing because of her.
He put his face close to hers. “I know you can do it,” he whispered.
“RB?”
“Yep.”
“One, two, three . . . ” She counted, like Clarice did when somebody had till ten before trouble.
And he was gone.
“Counting.” Delly spit the word. “I’d rather eat worm sandwiches.”
In the dark, she tried to think of something else she could do to be Dellyifferent. “They could tie me up,” she said. “Then I couldn’t fight.” But she couldn’t eat or do her homework, either.
“They could keep me in my room forever,” she suggested. Clarice wouldn’t leave her alone in the house, though, since she parachuted off the porch roof.
“Forget it. There’s no fixing me.” She gave up again.
Till she remembered Clarice crying. “Chizzle,” she murmured.
Because Delly could take people calling her names or being sent to a special school. Everybody in the world could give up on her. Except Clarice.
“RB only counts when he gets worked up. That’s hardly ever. I’ll have to do it every bawlgram second,” she complained.
But there was Clarice, her eyes still asking.
“All right, I’ll count,” she told the darkness. And that’s how she went to sleep. “One bawlgrammit, two bawlgrammit . . . ”
Chapter 18
That’s how she woke up, too.
She brushed her teeth counting, trudged downstairs counting, crunched her cereal counting.
She counted as Galveston growled at her, “I heard about you. You’d better shape up.”
“Five hundred sixty-seven, five hundred sixty-eight, five hundred sixty-nine,” her mouth mumbled, while her fingers curled into fists.
“Galveston,” Clarice called, “get over here,” and pulled her from the table. So the numbers were not truly tested.
She counted to herself on the way to school. “What are you doing?” RB asked her.
She didn’t stop.
“You’re counting,” he cheered. Then he sang it, “You’re counting, you’re counting.
“Is it working?” he wondered.
She shrugged.
“It’s working! You can stay. You can stay.” He ran around her, singing that.
And Delly didn’t tell him, “Don’t count on it,” because it was good to see somebody happy, even if it wasn’t her.
Lionel Terwilliger had to ask her every question twice: once for her to quit counting, and again for her to hear it.
Then, for one sweet moment, there were no numbers. But as soon as she answered, “A spider is an arthropod, not an anthropologist,” she’d start again.
It was the most boring morning ever, and when Delly imagined a lifetime of counting, it was like living death. “I can’t,” she rasped.
Till she remembered Clarice. “Four thousand seven hundred thirty-two, four thousand seven hundred thirty-three . . . ” She kept on.
At recess, she took herself to Alaska. “What the glub am I going to look at?” she asked the State of Seclusion.
Because Delly’d done some thinking. There were two ways, she decided, she kept ending up in Trouble Town. One was thinking something would be fun and doing it; the other was fighting. She wasn’t sure the counting could keep her away from either of them.
So she scanned the playground, searching for something that wouldn’t tempt her with fun or the fight. There was Danny Novello on the basketball court. “Just make me mad,” she muttered. Gwennie and Tater were racing. “Too glad.” Everywhere kids were playing and shouting. “Too bawlgram fun,” she rasped.
Then she saw it: sitting under a tree, bent over a book, was that Ferris Boyd.
It wasn’t fun. And it didn’t make her want to fight much. “One . . .” She began.
From 1 to 1,129, she watched the girl turn the page twice. “Like watching ice melt,” she mumbled.
At 1,130, some birds flitted by Ferris Boyd. Squirrels ran circles around her.
Delly yawned.
At 1,492, a bird landed on Ferris Boyd’s head. It put its beak in her hair.
Delly sat up.
The bird flapped down to Ferris Boyd’s shoulder and hopped along her arm like it was a branch. It perched on her hand.
“Huh?” Delly quit counting.
Ferris Boyd looked up from her book. Then the girl and the bird stared at each other, as if they were having a conversation. Without making a sound.
When they were finished, the bird flew off. The girl went back to reading.
“What’s going on over there?” Delly rasped.
The bell rang, and Ferris Boyd stood.
The creatures disappeared into the air and across the grass.
“Chizzle.” Delly heard herself sigh, like she was sorry it was over. Like it was fun.
“That wasn’t fun,” she scolded herself. “It was like watching paint dry.” And she followed everybody into school.
Sitting at her desk, though, she kept thinking about Ferris Boyd and that bird telling each other things without talking. “One thousand five hundred fifty-six, one thousand five hundred fifty-seven,” she murmured. “Hmm.”
The day went downhill from there.
During social studies, the digits dulled her to sleep. Lionel Terwilliger had to shake her.
“One, two, three!” she woke up shouting.
Till she heard the laughs all around her. “Bawl-gram counting,” she muttered.
But when Novello passed her desk and hissed, “Hey, Smelly,” she snarled, “Eight hundred fifty-eight, eight hundred fifty-nine . . . ” instead of slugging him.
“Mr. Novello,” Lionel Terwilliger boomed, “you will write, ‘Ms. Pattison’s name is Delaware,’ one hundred times.”
So the numbers were good for something.
She was counting when RB came to her room before dinner.
“Hey,” he said.
She nodded.
“You get in trouble today?” he whispered.
She shook her head.
He started singing, “No trouble to-day.”
Between 12,345 and 12,346 she told him, “It’s like eating cardboard, RB. It’s killing me.”
“You can do it,” he assured her.
Chapter 19
But Delly was drowning in the dullness.
Every day was nothing but numbers, the same ones over and over again. She stopped feeling sunshine. The world turned dingy gray.
Except at recess.
The creatures came as soon as Ferris Boyd sat down. Red and blue and yellow birds danced in the air above her; squirrels played tag beside her.
Sometimes Delly’d catch herself giggling and saying, “Ferris Boyd, those squirrels ran over your legs,” as if she and the girl were friends, as if it were fun. Then she’d remind herself, “This is not fun. It’s like watching grass grow.”
It was better than counting, though. And for a half hour Ferris Boyd wasn’t the head-down-hunched-over kid she was everywhere else.
Because in school, Ferris Boyd was a disaster. All day long she drooped over her desk, as if her sadness weighed so much she couldn’t sit up straight.
“Ms. Boyd,” Lionel Terwilliger would say, “please approach the blackboard and complete the problem.”
So she’d shuffle to the front of the room and slouch by the board.
“You may commence.” He’d prod her.
She never did.
Finally, Lionel Terwilliger would give up. “Thank you, Ms. Boyd. You may resume your seat.”
And she’d slump back to her chair.
Without the animals, Ferris Boyd was a barely living lump. Like Delly felt all the time now.
After school, Delly counted as she washed desks for detention. The numbers walked home with her. They sat in the back of her head, waiting, while she did her homework. “Counting is the worst Dellypunishment ever.” She sighed.
Except for this: Clarice hadn’t cried again.
Chapter 20
All week, Brud Kinney counted the seconds till Sunday. At St. Stanislaus, he had a prayer: Please let me see that boy play again, and I won’t wreck it.
Sunday morning he pedaled slowly down the River Road. About a block from the old Hennepin place he heard it: thump, thump, thump, clang. He put his hand over his mouth to keep from shouting, “A-A-All right!”
At the end of the drive, he peeked around the brush. There was the boy, dribbling and jumping and shooting just like before.
Brud laid his bike in the ditch. He snuck behind bushes till he was halfway down the drive. Don’t mess me up again, his head warned the rest of him.
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