And that was the end of that, as far as they were concerned. But I was still a little mystified. Whoever dropped that token couldn’t have been one of my friends, since I don’t have any friends.
What do you think, Bess?
Claire
I didn’t do much else the rest of the weekend. I had some social studies homework. I went to the hardware store with Dad to get a winch for the boat. Mom took me to St. Anselm to buy a new pair of rain boots, since my feet grew out of my old ones and it never stops raining.
I took Bruno for a long walk on Saturday and took a cloudy ride on Starshine when the rain stopped. I stared out the window for a while on Saturday night, hoping to catch a glimpse of the shadowy person I thought I’d seen in the boat shed window. But I didn’t see anything.
This morning I walked into the clubhouse to find … more graffiti! Someone drew on my wall again. And this time I really don’t get it.
Here’s what the prowler drew: a picture of me (I could tell it was me by my red-checked shirt) at the square dance, dancing with Yucky Gilbert! You can see all the other people who were there too—even my dad.
Webby wasn’t there. So how could he know who WAS there? How could he know that Gilbert showed up, or that my dad decided to dance too?
The creepiest thing of all is the speech bubble drawn over Hee Haw Higgins’s head. It says, “Peek behind you. Look, there’s Joe!”
Which is something that Hee Haw actually said that night.
How could Webby know about that if he wasn’t there?
Maybe someone else drew this drawing, someone who is not Webby. I compared the styles of the new picture to the old ones. They looked like they were done by the same person. My face is always drawn the same way—with my eyes crossed and my tongue sticking out. Very original.
So it has to be Webby. Who else hates me that much?
Unless Webby didn’t draw any of the pictures. Maybe the prowler wants me to think he’s Webby …
But if it isn’t Webby, who could it be?
The only other boy who was at the dance, who could have heard those words that Hee Haw said and seen my dad dancing with everybody, was Gilbert. But it can’t be Gilbert! Because:
(1) Gilbert is nice. He’s annoying and yucky, but not mean. I don’t think he would do something mean like vandalize my clubhouse. I don’t think he is even brave enough to sneak into a girls’ bathroom.
(2) Gilbert likes me. Why would someone do something mean to someone he likes?
(3) I’m pretty sure Gilbert can’t draw.
That leaves as my only other suspects: all the teachers, or my dad. There’s no way it’s my dad. I think we can both agree to rule him out.
But the teachers? Or Mr. Unitas? That seems impossible too.
Hmmm.
Update: It wasn’t Gilbert.
We had art class this afternoon, and when Mr. Strickland told us to draw the face of someone we care about, Gilbert drew me. I know it was me because the picture was labeled Claire Warren.
Otherwise, I never would have guessed. It didn’t even look like a person. It looked like a balloon with a volcano on top erupting brown strings. Was that supposed to be my hair?
He can’t draw at all, and whoever’s been drawing on my wall CAN draw, at least well enough so you can tell what the picture is supposed to be.
Three days to b-day. So far not one person has RSVP’d to say that they’re coming to my party.
No one will show. Same as the square dance. That’s fine with me. I don’t like any of them anyway.
Maybe I’ll just walk to California,
Claire
Hi Bess,
Thank you for the card you sent, and the great present! I always wanted a T-shirt with a map of the San Francisco subway system on it. Not that I knew there was a BART before, but now that I know, I can’t think of anything I’d rather have.
My party is raging as we speak. Ha ha. I mean, it was supposed to start half an hour ago. My hunch was right—nobody’s here.
I don’t want to admit it, but I feel sad about it. I thought at least my brothers would be here, but Jim has a lacrosse game in St. Anselm. I went to look for Gaby and found him in his room with the door locked. I knocked and said, “Gabe! Don’t you want any cake?”
He didn’t answer. I listened at the door for a second. I heard little sniffles. He was crying.
“Gaby Baby, what’s the matter?”
“Nothing! I’m not crying!”
“Come on, open the door. I’m sad and need cheering up.”
He opened the door a crack.
“You do? But it’s your birthday. You’re supposed to be happy today.”
“I know. That’s the problem. Guess what? Nobody came to my party. Not even you.”
“Sorry.”
“The least you can do is tell me your troubles. Maybe they’re so awful they’ll make me feel better.”
“Hey!”
“Come on. Cheer me up.”
“Petey Peterson had a sleepover last night and he didn’t invite me.”
I should have known! Petey is Webby’s little brother.
“Petey Peterson!” I exclaimed. “Is he a jerk like his older brother?”
Gabe didn’t look certain. “I guess. Is Webby a jerk?”
I know it’s not the kind of thing you tell a first grader, but I felt I had to warn him.
“Webby Peterson’s the biggest jerk of all! I’d rather spend a whole week of Halloweens in a haunted house than sleep over at the Petersons’.”
“Sam told me I missed a lot of fun. They went next door and threw eggs at Godzilla.”
“Godzilla? You mean Harold Beame’s boat?”
Gabe nodded.
“Harold will get them for that,” I warned. I didn’t like the idea of my little brother attacking boats. I didn’t want him to grow up into a jerk too.
“There’s more. Pete called me Gabe Snorin’.”
“Gabe Snorin’? Why?”
Gabe looked like this was the worst nickname in the history of nicknames, and I felt bad for him, even if I still didn’t understand.
“He says I snore. He said that’s the reason I wasn’t invited to the sleepover—because I snore so loud I keep everybody awake.”
“Oh, I get it. Snorin’ is supposed to rhyme with Warren.”
The thing is, Gabe does snore. It’s weird, for a first grader to snore so loud. He takes after Dad, I guess.
“That’s so dumb,” I told Gabe. “Snorin’ doesn’t really rhyme with Warren. I mean, it’s close, but it’s a stretch.”
I don’t think the fact that his nickname doesn’t rhyme with his real name made Gabe feel better. He’s sensitive. You could tell the snoring thing really hurt his feelings.
Which means that maybe he won’t turn into a jerk.
He got all teary and was trying not to cry, but I saw his little body shudder with the effort. So I hugged him, and it all came rushing out.
“Aw, Gaby,” I said.
“Stop calling me that. It sounds like baby!”
“I’m sorry. What should I call you?”
“Just Gabe. And not Gaby Baby either. That’s REALLY babyish.”
“I’m sorry. Gabe.”
He sobbed a little longer. I sat there hugging him, half listening for the doorbell to ring. Part of me was still hoping.
“Let’s go out on the porch,” I suggested. “It’s a really pretty day.”
It is too, Bess. Remember what spring is like here? Rainy and muddy and raw for weeks and weeks, and then one day toward the end of April, the sun warms us up and the dogwoods bloom pink and white and everything looks bright and plumped-up. And it all smells so fresh and earthy and perfume-y, like just-washed horses wearing wreaths of flowers. Today is that kind of day. Perfect weather for an eleventh birthday.
Gabe said he didn’t feel like going outside. He didn’t want anyone to see that he was crying.
“Well, listen,” I told him. “Do you think you a
nd me are the two saddest people in the world?”
“No. Not in the whole world.”
“How about the whole country?”
He thought about it a second.
“Probably not in the whole country.”
“The whole state of Maryland?”
“Well, the Orioles lost last night. They’re probably pretty sad today.”
“Maybe we’re the saddest people on Foyes Island.”
He pondered that one.
“We might be,” he said.
“Let’s go out on the porch and see if anybody walks by who’s sadder than we are. It can be like a contest!”
“Okay!”
He was already not that sad anymore.
So now we’re out here on the porch, looking for sad people. Mr. Bosch walked by and said hello. He didn’t seem sad. And the Timony twins rode by on their bikes, yelling “Woo woo woo!” Which doesn’t sound sad.
But it’s hard to tell just by looking at someone. They could be hiding it.
Wait—here come some people now. I can see them far down the street, running toward us. A mob … of boys. Headed this way.
Bess, gotta go.
Hi Bess,
It’s nighttime now. Late, like eleven o’clock. I’m sitting up in my room. Since I last wrote to you, a lot has happened!
First of all …
Henry got charged by a deer!
It was a buck, with big horns.
What happened was, Henry and Webby and all the other boys met at Webby’s house to hang out. He had told them all not to respond to my invitation, to make me think no one was coming to my party. It was a prank! All Webby’s idea, of course. They would catch me off guard, and then scare me or something.
They hung out at Webby’s until they got bored. Then they decided to sneak over to spy on me and play a prank. Like, maybe they could find more ways of ruining my birthday.
Their big mistake was taking the shortcut through the woods. While they were walking through, they saw a whole little family of deer.
“Freeze!” Henry whispered. He didn’t want to scare them.
All the boys froze. They watched the deer. The doe kept eating grass but the buck lifted his head and looked at them steadily. Henry said it was like seeing a statue come to life—kind of cool and kind of scary.
Webby said something like, “I dare you to jump on his back and ride him.”
And Henry said back something like, “What? That’s impossible. Deer won’t let you ride them.”
Webby dared him to feed the deer a granola bar that Webby happened to have in his pocket.
Gilbert said he didn’t know if deer were supposed to eat granola bars.
But Webby was like, “It won’t hurt him. Go ahead. Are you chicken? Are you afraid of a shy little Bambi?”
All this time the boys were standing very still and whispering, so the deer hadn’t run away yet. You know how the deer are around here—they’re pretty used to people. Remember when I asked my parents if I could keep that little baby deer as a pet? The one that came to our yard every morning? Mom said it would be cruel to keep a deer in the house, but I know if I held out a carrot, that deer would have walked inside and made himself at home.
Anyway, Webby kept taunting Henry until he couldn’t take it anymore. Henry unwrapped the granola bar and stuffed the wrapper in his jeans pocket. Then he took one careful step toward the deer family. The mother and baby calmly kept eating but the buck didn’t take his eye off Henry. Henry said he felt like the buck was looking straight through to his soul, saying, Go ahead, buddy. Go ahead and take another step.
Webby also said, “Go ahead, Henry.”
So Henry took another step. Then another. The doe lifted her head. She looked alarmed. She and the baby hopped away through the woods. Henry waited for the buck to follow them, but he didn’t.
Webby told Henry to keep going.
Henry kept going.
He took two more steps and that’s when the buck lost it. He aimed his big sharp antlers at Henry and charged!
The other boys scattered. Henry screamed, “Whoa!” and ran, but the buck was too fast for him. He bumped Henry right in the shoulder! Henry fell to the ground. The buck lifted his head and discovered his antler was caught in Henry’s shirt. The buck panicked and tried to free himself, shaking his head. But every shake of his head shook Henry. Finally the shirt ripped and the buck ran away with a little piece of red T-shirt stuck to his antler.
The whole thing was very weird, the boys said.
Henry was bleeding, just a little bit, on his shoulder. The tip of the buck’s antler had grazed it. It wasn’t too bad a cut. He showed my dad where the buck bumped him and it was all black and blue.
“You’re lucky he didn’t gore you like a bull,” Dad said.
Henry didn’t say anything but he looked pretty shaken up.
Then Mom came out and asked, “Who’s hungry?”
After all that excitement, the boys were starving. We ate pizza, and then Mom shooed us outside. We played a new game, Escape from the Killer Deer. Basically, one person is the Killer Deer, and he counts to thirty while everyone hides. The Killer Deer goes looking for victims, and if he gores you (we made a kind of antler crown out of sticks taped to a baseball cap), you’re the Killer Deer.
We made Gilbert be the Killer Deer first. He counted to thirty, then tried to find me. He could have caught Zach M., Kevin, and Henry first, but no. He waited until he found me hiding behind the boat shed and chased me until he caught me. He tagged me on the back with his hand, but Webby said, “You have to GORE her with the ANTLERS.” So he ducked his head and touched me gently with the antlers. I was it.
But not for long. I found Henry right where I knew he’d be—hiding inside Swifty.
We ran around goring each other until it got dark, and Dad called us in for cake.
Mom lit the candles and I made a wish. (I can’t tell you what it is or it won’t come true. However, I will say it involves a moving van driving up to your house in San Francisco.) Then I blew out the candles.
That’s when I realized: The boys all came to my party after all. Maybe they didn’t mean to, but it turned out kind of fun anyway. Nobody brought presents, but I didn’t mind. I’m sure their presents would have been terrible.
Monday
Hi Bess,
I’m in the clubhouse. It’s lunchtime. My birthday is over. I’m officially eleven.
Yesterday and today, when I woke up in the morning, I tested myself to see if being eleven felt any different from being ten. So far, not really.
Also, Henry didn’t come pick me up.
Not to drop off a present for me.
Not to walk to school with me and Gabe.
That didn’t end up being different. But maybe other things are. I don’t know. A surprising thing just happened. I came in here to eat lunch alone as usual. Before I had a chance to unwrap my tuna sandwich, there was a knock at the door.
Very surprising.
I froze, thinking maybe it was a trick, or a mistake. But the knock came again.
“Come in?” I called.
The door swung open, and there stood Webster Peterson.
“Aha!” I shouted. “So it IS you!”
He blinked. “What are you talking about?”
“The bathroom prowler! It’s you!”
I figured this was proof that he was the one drawing mean things on my wall. Otherwise, what would he be doing there?
“I still don’t know what you’re talking about,” Webby told me.
I showed him the pictures on my wall, the ones of me falling in the mud during the soccer game, of Starshine with x’s over his eyes, and the bowling and the square dance. He laughed when he saw the one I drew this morning—it showed Henry in the woods being charged by the deer.
“I wish I could draw that good,” Webby told me. “I don’t know who’s doing it, but it’s not me.”
I watched his face very carefully while he said th
is. He looked me right in the eye, and he didn’t flinch.
I have to say I believe him. He’s not the prowler.
But then WHO IS??? It’s driving me crazy.
You probably want to know what Webby wanted, if it wasn’t to deface the clubhouse walls. He wanted something almost as bad.
“Claire,” he said, “I came to ask you something.”
He looked nervous, which made ME nervous. I was afraid he was going to ask me out on a date or something! Which would be insane.
But no.
Instead he said, “The spring regatta is next month, and I want to win. Will you crew for me?”
Can you believe his nerve? He asked ME, the Foyes Island junior champion two regattas in a row, to crew for HIM?
I tried to remember my manners. I stopped myself from laughing in his face.
“No,” I told him. “I’m a skipper. I don’t crew for anyone.”
Webby shrugged. “Suit yourself. But together, we could win.”
“Yeah. And without you, I can win too. I’ve already done it twice. So why should I crew for you?”
“I thought we’d be a good team. Unbeatable.”
“Maybe so,” I said. “Do YOU want to crew for ME?”
He looked shocked.
“What? I’m not going to be bossed around by anybody. Especially not a girl.”
Aha! Now the REAL Webby was coming out.
“Then you’re not going to win the regatta,” I told him. “Now get out of the girls’ bathroom.”
He backed out of there like he was afraid I’d take a bite out of his head or something.
What’s wrong with boys, Bess? Why are they so weird?
I don’t get it.
I’m the best skipper on the island. The best junior skipper, anyway. So why wouldn’t Webby be honored to be bossed around by me? What does being a girl have to do with it?
I wish it was my birthday. Everything seemed to go right then.
But I guess everyday days are harder.
Yours in solidarity,
Claire
The Only Girl in School Page 8
