True (. . . Sort Of)

by Katherine Hannigan

  “Wow,” was all Tater could say.

  “Lucky,” Novello sneered, but they saw the fear in his eyes.

  He took the ball way out, farther than any pale, skinny girl could shoot from, and he flung it. It smacked the backboard and ricocheted far away from the basket. “What?” he shouted, and let it go, as if it weren’t his.

  Ferris Boyd got the ball. She took it to where he’d stood.

  Every eye watched her. Even Brud’s.

  She bounced it twice. She crouched down and cocked her arms over her head. Then she sprang into the air and set the ball soaring. It flew with invisible wings to the basket. It dropped down through the net like it was home.

  “Ahh,” the crowd sighed, because it was beautiful.

  “Whatever,” Novello snorted.

  He brought the ball back to the spot he’d thought would defeat her. Now he was the one who had to make the shot.

  He pounded the ball against the pavement. “Humfff,” he grunted as he hurled it at the hoop.

  “Oooh,” the others murmured when he missed.

  Then Ferris Boyd got it, and they held their breaths. She kept shooting from that same spot. “Ohhh,” they breathed as she swished it. They didn’t know a kid could play like that.

  It wasn’t long till Novello had H-O-R-S. If he missed the next shot, he’d be riding his H-O-R-S-E to Loser Land. He set the ball over his head and aimed it for the basket, as if he were truly trying.

  Then he turned and whipped it, straight at Delly. “This doesn’t count!” he screamed.

  “Bawlgrammit!” Delly shouted as she ducked. “You made a deal. They saw it.” She pointed at the others.

  Ferris Boyd’s head jerked around. She’d been so focused on the game, she hadn’t paid attention to the crowd. Now she scanned their faces. Till she came to Brud’s.

  Then the weeks of wondering were in her eyes. Brud could almost hear her, Where have you been? What happened? I missed you.

  Even in his head, Brud couldn’t talk right. I thought . . . You’re not . . . his brain stammered.

  But Novello wasn’t finished. “It doesn’t count, because she can’t play.” He pointed at Ferris Boyd. “You have to be a boy or a girl to play this game, and SHE IS AN IT!” he shrieked.

  Ferris Boyd’s body buckled like he’d punched her. But her eyes stayed with Brud, asking, Is it true?

  Brud Kinney didn’t have to speak. He turned away, telling her, Yes.

  Ferris Boyd’s head dropped to her chest. Then she ran—across the court, out of the park, and disappeared.

  “I win after all.” Novello snickered.

  Delly walked toward him, fists at her sides.

  She wasn’t yelling; she wasn’t mad. She was a bomb of fury, tick ticking to detonation. In a few seconds, she would explode on him.

  “Delly, don’t fight,” RB pleaded.

  Novello started stepping backward. “What do you want, Smelly—I mean, Delly?”

  She kept walking. She brought her index finger up to eye level and sighted him. Soon he would be Dellydebris.

  RB flung himself on her. “We have to find Ferris Boyd,” he hollered.

  He slowed her, but he couldn’t stop her. Nothing could prevent the annihilation of Novello.

  Except Brud Kinney. He planted himself in front of her.

  “What the glub,” she growled.

  Brud bent down so his eyes were even with hers. His mouth was moving, but she couldn’t hear him over the tick ticking.

  So he shouted it, with no stutter: “Go help Ferris Boyd!”

  Through the fury, it came to her. Her friend needed her. Now. Novello’s extermination would have to wait.

  She glanced down and saw RB hanging on her. “We got to find Ferris Boyd,” she said.

  “I know,” he said back.

  “Then get off me.”

  So he did.

  But the fury was not finished. She turned to Novello. “You!” she roared, and the air shook with it. It sent him stumbling.

  Then Delly and RB were running, across the park, over the bridge, and out the River Road.

  It took a minute before Novello could speak. “Freaks,” he jeered. He glanced at the crowd, expecting agreement. No one would look at him.

  Except Brud Kinney. “Take it back,” he ordered.

  “What did you say?” Novello barked.

  Brud could feel everybody’s eyes on him. “T-T-Take it b-b-back.”

  Novello laughed. “Or what? Wh-Wh-What are you g-going to d-d-do?”

  And Brud knew. “I’m d-d-done.”

  “Then you’re done,” Novello told him.

  Brud picked up his ball and went to his bike.

  “Bye-bye, b-b-baby.” Novello waved as Brud rode out of the park. He turned to the rest of them. “What a loser.” He waited for them to laugh.

  Without a word, Gwennie got up and walked away. The others followed.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” Novello sniped at them.

  No one answered.

  “Losers,” he muttered, to only himself.

  Chapter 57

  They found her at the hideawaysis. She was curled up in her corner, rocking back and forth, back and forth, with her eyes closed.

  She’d written IT in the wood all around her. Big ITs, small ITs, they sneered and screamed at her.

  The cat was watching her, crying, “Maoh.”

  For a moment the Pattisons stood there, staring.

  “Oh,” RB sighed, and he was scared.

  “Ferris Boyd,” Delly hollered, trying to get through the wall of ITs.

  But she just kept rocking.

  “Ferris Boyd.” RB sobbed. He was crawling toward her, like he would touch her.

  “RB, stop,” Delly commanded.

  So he did.

  “Come here,” she said, and pulled him to her. Then they sat together, waiting for their friend.

  After a long time Ferris Boyd slowed down. After a long, long time she stopped.

  “Ferris Boyd,” Delly asked, “can you hear me?”

  The girl’s right ear went up the tiniest bit.

  Delly started in. “Danny Novello’s an idiot.”

  Just the name made Ferris Boyd flinch.

  Delly went on anyway. “You are not an ‘it.’ He’s a chizzlehead.”

  The girl curled up even tighter.

  “Shh.” RB’s shush was so strong it sprayed her.

  “What the . . . ?” she yelled.

  “You’re hurting her more,” he said.

  And Delly saw it. She stopped.

  RB scooched till he was at the edge of the ITs. “Ferris Boyd,” he breathed, “you were amazing.” His words were warm, fluffy clouds that floated over the ITs and surrounded her with softness.

  “You got me free, and you saved Delly from fighting. And you weren’t mean. You were just good.” RB’s love clouds floated in her ears and drifted down to her heart.

  “Ferris Boyd, you’re my favorite,” he said.

  She raised her head to see him.

  “You’re not an ‘it,’” he whispered.

  Her eyes winced with the word, but she stayed with him.

  “You’re the best person I know,” he told her, leaning so their heads almost touched. “You’re a hummin bin.”

  Ferris Boyd searched his eyes as if she were asking, Are you making fun of me, too?

  Not looking away, he said, “Delly, tell about hummin bins.”

  “Why do you want—?”

  “Just do it,” he told her.

  So Delly began. “A long time ago, Ma was helping me read. ‘What’s the title of this story?’ she asked. ‘Hummin Bins,’ I read. The book was all about them.

  “In the book, hummin bins made castles, and towers up to the sky. They tamed the animals and took care of them. And hummin bins helped each other. They were always good.

  “When I was done, Ma asked, ‘Delly, what are hummin bins?’ ‘They’re like people, but better,’ I said. Then
I told her, ‘When I grow up, I’m going to live with the hummin bins,’ and she smiled.

  “But Galveston grabbed the book, ‘Let me see that,’ she said, and started laughing. ‘This says human beings. There’s no such thing as hummin bins.’

  “‘Ma, is that true?’ I asked, and she nodded. ‘How come you didn’t tell me?’ I cried.

  “‘I liked the hummin bins better, too,’ she said.”

  When she was done, Delly gazed into the green for a while. Finally, she turned to her friend. “RB’s right, Ferris Boyd. You are a hummin bin.” Her eyeballs were wet, like they were swimming.

  It was quiet, then, till RB’s soft cloud voice said, “You’re a hummin bin, too, Delly.”

  How could softness hurt? RB’s words made her insides ache. She shook her head, remembering all the times she hadn’t been.

  “Right now you are,” he told her.

  She couldn’t look at him, with her eyes pooling up, so she just pointed. “You are,” she whispered, and sent a giant cloud of love at him.

  And RB smiled, like she’d smothered him with fluff.

  “Ferris Boyd,” Delly asked, “can I please have your pen?”

  Slowly she passed it to her.

  “Let’s get rid of this chizzle,” Delly said. She took the pen and turned every IT into an H, then wrote “ummin Bin” after it. When she was done, Ferris Boyd was surrounded by Hummin Bins. She was the biggest one of all.

  The cat crawled into Ferris Boyd’s lap as she read the words over and over.

  Then there were no ITs at the hideawaysis; only hummin bins. “All right, then,” Delly rasped, and they sat in the sweet softness of that.

  At the whistle the Pattisons headed home. It wasn’t till they were on the bridge that Delly asked RB, “So, Ferris Boyd’s your favorite?” She didn’t mind, mostly.

  RB answered so fast, though, she knew he wasn’t fibbing. “She’s my favorite friend,” he told her. “You’re my favorite everything.”

  Then Delly’s heart was up in her throat, and she couldn’t speak. So she nodded, because it was true for her, too.

  Chapter 58

  on Monday, Ferris Boyd was playing ball again. At the hideawaysis, there was no more rocking; she was reading her book.

  “She’s okay?” RB asked, and Delly nodded.

  But sometimes she would catch the girl gazing out toward Brud Kinney’s. She was missing him, and Delly knew it.

  So Friday after supper, she snuck to Clarice.

  “Ma,” she whispered so RB couldn’t hear her, “can I go ride my bike?”

  “Why?” Clarice wanted to know.

  “I want to practice with the big one,” she told her, which was kind of true.

  “Where?” Clarice went on.

  “Out the River Road. There’s no traffic. An hour.” Delly answered all the questions her mom hadn’t asked yet.

  And Clarice nodded.

  Delly’d had a bike, but it was tiny like a tricycle. So they gave her Galveston’s old bike, but it was too big. She had to stand on steps to get on it. “Like a bawlgram horse,” she rasped.

  She rode it up on the highway, so she wouldn’t go by the old Hennepin place, then down the dirt road to Kinneys’. When she got there, Brud was playing ball in the drive.

  Delly slowed the bike. “Bombs away!” she shouted, and flung herself off it, far away so it wouldn’t fall on her. She watched it crash to the ground, then walked over to him. “Hey Brud Kinney,” she said.

  He stood there, stunned by the way she stopped a bike. Still, he raised one hand in a wave.

  “What’s up?” she asked.

  Brud shrugged.

  Then they both stood there. A lot like being with Ferris Boyd, Delly thought.

  Brud didn’t know what to do, so he offered her the ball.

  “Nah,” she told him, “I hate that game.” She sat on the stoop. “You go ahead, though.”

  So he did.

  “Hot summer, huh?” Delly started out easy.

  He nodded as he dribbled.

  “Hey, Brud, I ever tell you my Ferris Boyd story?”

  He winced, then shook his head.

  “FerriDelly Tale Number One.” She began. “The first time I see my . . . our friend Ferris Boyd.”

  Brud was facing the basket, so Delly didn’t notice him turn red.

  “I was at the IGA, waiting for my surpresent,” she told him. “Finally, there it is, coming at me in the saddest-sounding car you ever heard. It pulls up right beside me, and you know what it is?”

  Brud shrugged and shot the ball.

  “A boy. A pale, skinny one, hunched over in his seat.

  “Now that’s no surpresent, Brud Kinney,” Delly croaked. “It’s chizzle.

  “Next day I go to school, and there’s that boy again. Lionel Terwilliger introduces him, ‘This is Ms. Ferris Boyd.’”

  Brud stopped, but Delly kept going.

  “So I holler, ‘That’s no girl; that’s a boy!’ And Lionel Terwilliger yells at me, ‘Ms. Pattison, this is Ms. Boyd,’ like I’m an idierk.

  “But, Brud, how was I supposed to know? She’s got that short hair; she’s wearing boys’ clothes.”

  They were looking at each other now, Delly talking and Brud taking it in.

  “He tells me the rest. She doesn’t speak. Don’t touch her. I’m thinking, Does she have two heads and a tail, too?”

  Then there was no more story, just the truth. “Novello’s right in a way, you know. She is an ‘it.’”

  Brud’s mouth dropped open, because Delly had said what he’d been thinking, what he felt so bad about.

  “She’s different. But it’s not bad different; it’s better.

  “Because here’s the thing,” Delly told him. “I never had such a good time with anybody, and she doesn’t even talk. Know what I mean?”

  Brud nodded, because he did.

  “She never hurts me. She just helps.” The rasp was breaking up. “That’s how she’s an ‘it.’”

  Brud turned away. “I th-th-thought he . . . shsh-she . . . ”

  “Me too,” Delly said. “It’s still Ferris Boyd.”

  He remembered Sunday. “I m-m-messed up.”

  “I mess up more than anybody,” she boasted. “She’s still my friend.”

  He stared into the trees.

  Just like Ferris Boyd, Delly thought. She looked at her watch. “Shikes, I got to go.”

  She brought the bike over to the steps. “Hey, will you hold this while I get on?”

  So he did.

  Then she was pedaling hard down the drive. On the highway she could hear RB, even though she was alone. “You’re a hummin bin.”

  “Huh.” She hoped that was true and headed home.

  Chapter 59

  Sunday morning Brud sat on his stoop, staring at the street. Go, his heart told him. So he headed out on his bike.

  But then he remembered how Ferris Boyd had looked at him while Novello called her an “it,” and how he told her it was true. He pedaled back to his house.

  Three times he started out; three times he came back. It was almost noon when his head had enough. Just do it, it commanded.

  So he rode, slowly, out the River Road.

  He stopped before the drive. He could see the top of her above the bushes, playing like nothing nobody’d ever seen, only better.

  March, his head ordered, and sent him to the end of the drive.

  Then Brud spotted the Pattisons. They’d been too tiny to see above the bushes. RB was playing ball, and Delly was sitting with that cat.

  Brud’s legs turned, taking him back to his bike.

  Till Delly sighted him. “Hey, Brud Kinney!” she yelled.

  RB and Ferris Boyd quit playing. “Hey, Brud,” RB said, smiling.

  And he couldn’t escape.

  “Come on over,” RB hollered at him.

  Brud glanced at Ferris Boyd.

  She winced, as if seeing him hurt her. She looked at Delly.

&nbs
p; “Come on, Brud Kinney,” she told him.

  Slowly he shuffled up the drive. Then he stood there.

  “Hey, Brud,” Delly called to him, “I heard you quit playing ball with Novello.”

  Ferris Boyd’s eyes came back to him.

  Brud shrugged, because it was hard being proud of one thing when he’d messed up so many.

  “I heard you told him to take back what he said.” She went on. “But he wouldn’t, so you quit.”

  Brud nodded once.

  Then it was quiet, except for the birds. Brud didn’t know what to do.

  Delly decided it. “Ferris Boyd, we’re going.” She got up from the stoop.

  “But I want to—” RB complained.

  “RB, will you please come with me?” Delly asked, but it wasn’t really a question, with her dragging him down the drive.

  And they were gone.

  Brud’s foot scraped the concrete. It’s time, his heart told him.

  He didn’t trust his mouth to do it. So he got his pad out of his pocket. He held it up to her. Sorry, it read, like he would say it: not loud or quiet, just true.

  She read it and looked into his eyes. The word was there, too.

  Brud tore out the page. He offered it to her.

  Slowly she took it. She folded it twice and put it in her pocket.

  You’re done; you can go, his head said. Brud started to leave.

  Till he heard a smack, smack, smack. Ferris Boyd was slapping her thigh, telling him, Stop.

  So he did.

  She took out her pad and pen and scratched something. She passed it to him. A-N-T, it read. No Touch.

  It wasn’t T-Y-R-R-A-N-A-S-A-U-R-U-S R-E-X. It wasn’t even H-O-R-S-E. It was a new start.

  Brud’s smile was still sorry. Only the tips of his teeth glowed.

  And she buried him. She beat him so bad he might as well have been a beginner.

  It didn’t matter. Boy or girl, losing by a little or a lot, playing with Ferris Boyd was still the best time he ever had.

  After she skunked him, she went and stood by the door.

  He put up his hand. See you next Sunday? it was asking.

  It took awhile for her to answer. Finally, she raised her hand. He heard it like a word: Yes.