As Ever, Gordy

by Mary Downing Hahn

  One wing was three stories high. If you had a class on a lower floor, Donny said you could see up the girls' skirts as they came down the fire escape from the third floor during fire drills. That was the only good thing he had to say about the place. With my luck there wouldn't be any fire drills when I was on a lower floor.

  School hadn't started, so the hall was empty. The still air reeked of chalk dust, paper, pencil shavings, oiled wood floors, and old spaghetti sauce. Under everything else, there was a faint stink of pee from the radiators in the boys' room.

  In the office, Stu told the school secretary I was a new eighth grader. Laying down her pen with a sigh, she led us to the principal's door.

  "Mr. Mueller?" The secretary practically trembled when Mueller raised his head and scowled at her. "I hate to bother you, sir, but we have a new student."

  "Send him in." Mueller's voice was gruff. Under a mop of white hair, his face was deeply creased, especially around the comers of his mouth. No smile lines—but plenty of frown lines.

  Stu offered his hand politely and introduced us. "You probably don't remember me, sir," he added, "but I graduated in 1943, and our brother Donny finished in '41."

  "Stuart and Donald Smith?" The creases in Mr. Mueller's face got even deeper. "Yes, I remember you," he said, "and your brother, too. I believe Donald spent more time in my office than any student in the history of this school. Played hooky, flunked almost every course, got himself arrested for blowing up a toilet at the Esso station with a firecracker, and did not graduate in 1941—or ever."

  Stu must have been just as mad as I was, but he didn't say a word in Donny's defense. All he did was shove his hands into his pockets and study the floor as if something interesting was taking place there. I felt like walking out, but I knew that would upset Stu, so I stayed where I was, lounging against the door frame and scowling. No sense letting Mueller think I was a chump, too.

  Stu handed Mueller the envelope my old principal in Grandville had given me. "Please register Gordy," he said. "I'm late for work already."

  As Mueller perused my grades, his eyebrows rose. "Well, except for math, you appear to be a fairly decent student, Gordon."

  I kept on scowling. Somehow Mueller made my grades seem worthless, nothing to brag about, barely adequate. Except for that D in algebra. Grandma had been proud of my report card. If she'd been with me, she wouldn't have kowtowed to Mueller like Stu. No, sir, she'd have given him a piece of her mind he wouldn't soon forget.

  "You'll find the work more difficult here," Mueller went on. "It's a known fact that southern schools are way behind ours."

  "I'm sure Gordy won't have any trouble meeting your standards," Stu said. For him that was tough talk.

  Without looking up from the forms he was filling out, Mueller nodded. "You may go now, Stuart. I'll make sure Gordon gets to his first class."

  After Stu left, Mueller leaned back in his chair and studied me for a long minute, taking in every detail of my appearance like he was memorizing me. "Stuart was a good student," he said. "Graduated at the top of his class and won a full scholarship to the University of Maryland. Then he was drafted. When he deserted, he disappointed me. I had high hopes for that boy."

  I looked Mueller in the eye. "Stu's doing okay. He's in college now, studying to be an English teacher." As I spoke, I felt my face heat with shame. It seemed to me I'd been defending Stu long enough. He should have taken up for himself once in a while, but he never did.

  Mueller cleared his throat and went on talking as if I hadn't said a thing. "On the other hand, Donald dropped out of school the day he turned sixteen. Believe me, I wasn't a bit sorry to lose him." He paused and gave me another long hard look. "I wonder which of your brothers you take after, Gordon."

  It was just the way I'd known it would be—everybody remembered my father and my brothers. They all expected me to turn out every bit as bad as they had. The only question was, whose path would I follow? Would I become the town drunk? Would I drop out of school and blow up gas stations? Would I desert if another war started?

  When I didn't say anything, Mueller frowned. "I plan to keep an eye on you, Gordon. Any sign of misbehavior and I'll come down on you hard. Is that dear?"

  "Yes, sir," I muttered. His message was dear. It was my first day at Hyattsdale High, and the principal already hated me.

  With that, Mueller turned me over to Miss Greenbaum, the school secretary. She adjusted her glasses, smoothed her skirt, and led me down the hall to my first class—English with Mrs. Ianotti.

  7

  IT WASN'T TILL LUNCHTIME THAT I SAW ANYBODY I KNEW, except for a couple of snobby girls I'd always hated. They didn't seem to remember me, which was just as well. The second I stepped into the cafeteria, though, Doug and Toad spotted me. Toad was fatter than ever and at least two inches taller than I was. Doug had shot up about a foot, and his voice was starting to change, which put him ahead of me in both departments.

  Down in North Carolina I hadn't noticed how short I was—after all I was taller than William. But here in Maryland I felt like a shrimp. Maybe it was because I used to be bigger than either Toad or Doug and now I wasn't. Whatever the reason, it didn't make me feel good to look up to guys I used to lead around by the nose—to borrow one of Doug's mother's favorite expressions.

  "It's great to see you, Gordy!" Toad slung his arm around my shoulders and led me toward a table in the corner. "We heard you were coming back."

  "Yeah, your old girlfriend told us." Doug whistled. "You seen Crawford yet?"

  I shook my head. "She's not my girlfriend. Never was, never will be." All the time I was saying this, I was trying not to look around the cafeteria for Lizard. Though it didn't make much sense, I wanted to see her but I didn't want anybody to see me seeing her, including Lizard herself.

  "There she is." Toad pointed across the room.

  That gave me an excuse to turn around and stare. Lizard was standing in the lunch line, talking to Magpie, giggling about something. Seeing her had a terrible effect on my heart. It even affected my breathing. If I'd had to say something at that moment, I'd have choked.

  Luckily Toad was too busy leering at Lizard to notice the effect she was having on me. "How'd you like to get her in the back row of the Hyattsdale Movie Theater?"

  "Hoo boy," said Doug, eyeing Lizard's blue sweater.

  "Trouble is, she has a zillion boyfriends." Toad sighed and bit into his apple, spraying juice all over my cheek.

  While Toad and Doug went on talking, I stared at Lizard. She was even prettier than I remembered. Much prettier. Gorgeous, in fact. Her hair was long and blond and shiny. Every time she moved her head, it swirled around her face. I wished I was standing close enough for it to brush my cheek. It would smell sweet, I thought, and feel astickly as feathers.

  Best of all, Lizard was way shorter than Magpie—which meant she was probably about my height.

  Poor old Magpie was not only tall but also just as skinny and freckled as ever. She'd cut off her braids, and her brown hair hung to her shoulders in what June called a pageboy. She was wearing horn-rimmed glasses, which gave her a brainy look.

  All of a sudden Lizard turned her head and saw me. For a second our eyes locked like we were enchanted or something. I gave her a Humphrey Bogart grin, the kind dames go for in the movies, but I must not have gotten it right because she grabbed Magpie and pointed at me. Then they both started laughing. Not just giggling, but howling like they'd never seen anybody as funny as me.

  Luckily neither Toad nor Doug noticed. While I'd been gawking at stuck-up Lizzy Lizard, they'd started talking about the school basketball game coming up this weekend.

  "The Hawks haven't got a chance against the Mustangs," Toad said. "They'll walk all over us."

  "Bet you a quarter we win," Doug said.

  "Done." Toad turned to me. "How about you, Gordy? Want to bet whether we win or lose?"

  I shrugged. What did I care about Hawks and Mustangs?

  There was a lit
tle silence. Toad and Doug glanced at each other, and then Doug leaned across the table. "Lizard told us about your grandmother, Gordy. I guess you're still feeling kind of down in the dumps about it."

  He sounded embarrassed, as if mentioning death was bad manners or something. Beside him. Toad nodded to show he was sorry too but not up to actually saying it. They both looked so uncomfortable, I felt like I should apologize for losing Grandma.

  Instead I sucked up the rest of my milk and got to my feet. "Let's go," I said. "It's hot in here."

  Though I didn't plan to look at Lizard again, I passed right by her table. She and Magpie were sitting with three other girls I vaguely remembered from grade school. Luckily they were too busy talking to notice me.

  After school. Toad, Doug, and I strolled down Oglethorpe Street toward the streetcar stop. Just ahead of us, I spotted Lizard, Magpie, and Polly Anderson. Without thinking, I picked up a stone, just a little one, and tossed it at Lizard. It hit her in the back, and, even though it couldn't have hurt her, she whirled around like I'd thrown a rock the size of a baseball at her.

  "Boy, you haven't changed a bit, Gordy Smith!" she hollered. "You're just the same as ever—rude and ugly and dumb."

  Magpie and Polly huddled together like they thought I meant to stone them to death. I'd only been fooling around. Couldn't they see that?

  "Neither have you. Lizard," I sneered. "You're the same little snot you always were."

  But I was lying. Not about her being a snot. Lizard was definitely the same in that category. But she hadn't bothered to button her coat, and I could see the changes in her shape I'd noticed in the cafeteria.

  Unfortunately, she realized what I was looking at and pulled her coat shut. "Why did you have to come back?" she asked. "We were getting along just fine without you!"

  Without saying another word, she walked away with Magpie and Polly.

  I yelled a few insults at her, but she just walked faster. Not that I cared. She made me sick.

  We all ended up on the same streetcar, but the girls sat in the front and never looked at us once, not even when I hit Lizard's cheek with a spitball. I watched her and Magpie get off at Garfield Road, thinking I might follow them, but Toad wanted to treat me to a soda at the Trolley Stoppe Shoppe to celebrate my return. I couldn't turn that down. So I rode two stops more and got off at College Avenue.

  The three of us pushed open the Trolley Stoppe Shoppe's double doors like outlaws entering an old-time saloon and grabbed seats at the counter.

  "Look." I pointed to the initials I'd carved into the wood way back in sixth grade. "They're still here."

  "Yeah, but did you see this?" Toad directed my attention to a change I hadn't noticed. "'G.A.S. stinks."

  Doug started to laugh. "By golly, gas does stink."

  That set Toad off, but I just sat there, staring at the counter. Though I'd carved G.P.S.—Gordon Peter Smith—somebody had changed the P to an A and added stinks. For some reason I was sure Lizard had done it. It was just the kind of thing she'd think was funny.

  "Well, what'll you have, Gordo?" Toad asked, trying to jolly me up.

  I scowled at him to show what I thought of all that stupid hee-hawing at my expense. "A cherry Coke," I muttered. "And make it large. I'm thirsty."

  While I waited for my drink, I got a pencil and started scratching out G.A.S. stinks. It wasn't easy. Both Lizard and I had dug deep into the wood. While I worked, I asked Toad and Doug what they'd been doing lately.

  Doug spun around on his stool and shrugged. "Not much."

  "Life just hasn't been the same without you, Gordo," Toad said.

  "Yeah," Doug agreed. "Me and Toad tried a few stunts—stealing stuff from the variety store, playing hooky, putting garbage cans on the trolley tracks. But we always got caught."

  The guy behind the counter set three glasses in front of us. "One large vanilla, one cherry, and one chocolate," he said. "That'll be thirty cents, gentlemen."

  Toad handed him the money and grabbed his chocolate Coke. I took mine and slid the vanilla down the counter toward Doug the way they do in western movies.

  "How about our old hut in the woods?" I asked. "Do you ever go there anymore?"

  Doug and Toad exchanged looks. "We had a little accident—" Toad began and then stopped, like he was too embarrassed to go on.

  "With the lantern," Doug added, equally embarrassed.

  "What happened?"

  Toad's face turned scarlet. "We knocked it over."

  "Bumed the whole thing to the ground," Doug said.

  "You burned my hut down?" I stared at the two of them› more upset than I cared to admit. Before I'd fallen asleep the night before, I'd been thinking about living there in my own private wilderness, trapping and hunting, catching my own food, living like somebody in a Jack London story. Rabbits, squirrels, muskrats—- anything would be better than eating with the troll every night. Now I had nowhere to go unless I wanted to build the whole thing over again. Which I didn't.

  "It wasn't just the hut that burned," Toad went on. "The woods caught fire, too."

  "Fire engines came from everywhere—College Hill, Riverside, Berwyn Heights." Doug started laughing. "It was really something."

  Forgetting to be embarrassed, Toad laughed too. "It was like that lady in Chicago and her cow," he said. "You just wouldn't believe how fast that fire spread."

  "We tried to put it out," Doug began, but Toad interrupted.

  "That's how we got caught," he said, so excited he sprayed me with spit. "The firemen saw us, and somehow or other, I'm still not sure how, they realized we'd started it."

  "We thought we'd be sent to reform school for sure," Doug said, "but my dad hired a good lawyer." He sucked the last of his Coke through his straw with a loud slurp. "After that, he and Mom started talking about military academies."

  There was a little silence. A college girl dropped a nickel into the jukebox, and Frank Sinatra's voice came floating out, singing "All or Nothing at All." The college girl and her friends all swooned against each other like they might drop dead at the sound of Frankie's voice. Silly dames.

  "So what are we going to do now that you're back?" Toad spun round and round on his stool, grinning at me like a good-natured dog.

  I guessed he was hoping I'd come up with an exciting idea, but nothing occurred to me. I was too depressed about the hut. "What do you guys want to do?" I asked.

  Doug and Toad both spun around on their stools. "Don't know," Toad said.

  Doug looked at his watch. "Hey, I better get going," he said. "I've got a ton of homework to do."

  "Yeah, me, too." Toad slid off his stool. "How about you, Gordy? You got any homework?"

  Doug laughed. "Wise up, Toad. Gordy never does homework. He doesn't have to. Even if he was dumber than dirt, teachers would pass him to the next grade just to get rid of him."

  I laughed and swaggered out of the Trolley Stoppe Shoppe, playing the part they expected me to play, but I was as mad as a bear with a sore behind. I was no genius, but I wasn't as dumb as Doug and Toad thought I was.

  The three of us split up at Calvert Road, Toad heading for his house and Doug for his. "See you at the trolley stop tomorrow," Toad yelled from half a block away. "Eight-fifteen. Okay?"

  I waved to show I'd heard and walked down Calvert, taking in the familiar sights—my old elementary school, the creek I used to play in, trees I'd climbed, streetlights I'd busted, sidewalks I'd written cuss words on.

  Nothing was quite the way I remembered it. The town seemed smaller, for one thing. The houses weren't as big and fancy as I'd thought. Even the elementary school had shrunk. It wouldn't have surprised me if my old sixth grade teacher turned out to be no taller than the troll.

  I'd changed too, but Toad and Doug sure hadn't noticed. Neither had Lizard. She'd said I was the same as ever—rude and ugly and dumb. Her exact words.

  It was enough to make me cuss out loud.

  8

  HALFWAY DOWN CALVERT ROAD, I SAW L
IZARD AND MAGPIE walking toward me, each holding one of the troll's grubby little hands. June was swinging Lizard's free hand and telling her something. She was the only one who looked happy to see me—which was no surprise.

  "Gordy, Gordy," she yelled running toward me. "This is Elizabeth's and Margaret's day to baby-sit Brent. We're going to the playground. Want to come with us?"

  I could have gone inside to listen to the radio or something, but that's just what Lizard and Magpie hoped I'd do. So I grabbed June's hand and grinned. "Sure, kiddo. Why not?"

  "No Yuncle Poopoo!" the troll yelled, pushing me. "No Yuncle Poopoo!"

  "Don't talk to Gordy like that," June said, but Lizard and Magpie practically had hysterics. You'd have thought the troll was Bob Hope and Red Skelton rolled into one big barrel of laughs.

  "Yuncle Poopoo," Lizard cackled. "What a perfect name—it's even better than G.A.S."

  I gave her an evil look, which she returned. It seemed I'd guessed right about who'd changed my initials at the Trolley Stoppe Shoppe. "Riming to my sister, I asked her how school had been.

  "Miss Porter says I'm a good artist and a good reader," June said, "but I'm way behind in arithmetic. They're doing division here already. We hadn't even started that in Grandville."

  "Don't worry, June Bug. You're so smart, you'll catch up quick."

  June frowned. "I hope so. I want to get gold stars like I did in Miss Trent's room."

  With me trailing behind, June ran across the school playground, climbed to the top of the jungle gym, and hung upside down by her knees. "No hands," she yelled, stretching her palms out. "See?"

  While June showed me her tricks, I watched Lizard push Brent higher and higher, running under the swing to make him laugh. She was wearing rolled-up jeans and a gray University of Maryland sweatshirt that must have belonged to her big brother, Joe. Unlike her blue sweater, it hid everything.