as he gulps for air; it’s a funny picture, but I’m not in the mood to laugh, and I don’t have the breath.
I decide to ignore him. I turn and walk toward where the other runners are standing. Once I’m there, someone in the bleachers catches my eye. But this time it’s not Raj. This time it’s Robert Hubble, the guy from English Lit. I’m standing there, hands on hips, puzzling over this, when he grins and waves. So I shrug and wave too. Guess he just wanted to watch the trials and congratulate someone, and I was looking at him. That’s cool.
There are a few more trials—shot put, running long jump, things like that—but I decide not to hang around. I just want to hit the showers and go home, where I can find something sugary to eat before Aunt Audrey can stop me.
There are a few runners in the showers, but a lot of guys are still trying out for other events. I don’t see Raj; he must have left already. But I don’t see Jimmy or Dane either, and I didn’t think they were competing for anything else. Never mind.
The main gate to the athletic field points you back toward the school, but there’s a side gate that leads to a small wooded area next to the road that makes for a shorter walk home. I’m ready for a shorter walk. I work the latch, a rusty, cantankerous old thing, until it gives. I shut it behind me, test it, and turn to walk toward the road.
Suddenly there are two other guys there: must have been behind trees or something. It’s Jimmy and Dane, of course. I freeze. They’re still in track getup, and I’m back in jeans and my leather jacket, not to mention the heavy backpack. No chance of outrunning them, and forget opening that old gate again. Seems like old times.
“So, you think you’re pretty hot stuff, eh?” is Jimmy’s snarling contribution.
There’s no good response, so I don’t try. They begin to separate a little, each of them slightly to one side of me.
Dane goes next. “It would be such a shame if you couldn’t run, wouldn’t it? Like if you had a broken leg or something.”
Slowly I shift my pack off my shoulder, but before I set it down I reach into an outer pocket and grab my folded switchblade. I’ve never had to use it on anything that was alive, but it seems like this might be the time to consider it. Or at least make it look like I would. I pop it open.
They both see it and stop moving, their eyes glued on it. We’re standing like that, as though we’re waiting for some slow photographer to capture the image, when I hear running feet on my right. All three heads turn.
It’s Robert Hubble.
He stops running and sort of lumbers forward. He looks at me, at my knife, and then at Dane, who’s nearest him.
“What’s going on?” he asks. It’s not entirely clear what his own intentions might be.
Jimmy decides to try and co-opt him. Hands on hips, doing his best to look confident, he says, “We’re just going to teach this little faggot here a lesson.”
Faggot?
Robert stares at him for another few seconds and then moves over toward me, facing the others.
“Seems to me,” he says in a drawl that challenges contradiction, “there’s not a lot you jokers could teach him. Why don’t you try teaching me?”
Robert faces off against Dane, and I turn my full attention to Jimmy, knife still at the ready. But they decide they aren’t up for this kind of fight, so they back away several paces and then turn and run toward the road.
When I’m sure they’re gone, I refold the knife and tuck it into a pocket, trying to put Jimmy’s accusation out of my mind and trying to keep my hand from shaking. That was a close one.
“You, my friend,” I say to Robert, hand up for a high five, which he gives me, “are a lifesaver! Where the hell did you come from?”
“I was looking for you. After the trials. But you didn’t come out the front door, so I thought maybe you’d gone the other way. And I saw you guys down here. Didn’t look friendly, so I just thought I’d see what was going on.”
“Looking for me? But why?”
Robert makes a few grimaces, seemingly not sure where to start, and finally leans his shoulder against the fence, hands in his pockets.
“Well, you always seem—it always seems like you understand that stuff. In Williams’s class. You always know what the book is really about, not just what the words say—you know. And I’m lucky if I even get all the words. And forget writing about it. So—I dunno, I was hoping maybe I could talk you into giving me a few pointers. I can’t afford to fail another class. I already got kept back last year, and my dad’ll kill me. Plus, you know, it’s embarrassing.”
I’m thinking, uncharitably, that’s probably the most words the fellow has strung together in one speech in his life. He’s looking sheepishly down at his shoes now. I can’t help grinning.
“And did you set those two goons on me just so you could rescue me and I’d owe you?”
He looks horrified. “What? No, I—no!”
I chuckle at the expression on his face. “Look, I’m only kidding. When do we start?”
We start that night after dinner. Aunt Audrey has this policy that I don’t go anywhere with friends she’s never met, so we decide it’s easier if he comes to my house. Plus, he says his little brother is a bit of a pain. So when he shows up, we head for my room, and I think about what music to play. Call me weird, but it helps me to think if I play something really old like Bach or Mozart. Aunt Audrey says she got me started, putting that stuff on when I was little whenever I was doing something like drawing or practicing reading, that sort of thing. I guess it stuck.
I start the CD player, put on a disk, and sit on the floor with my back to the bed.
“What’s that you’re playing?” Robert is halfway across the room before I answer.
“Bach.”
“Well, no,” he says, picking up the jewel case and scowling at it. “Says here it’s somebody called Brandenburg.”
It’s a good thing I’m on the floor already, or I’d have hurt myself falling. I can barely speak for laughing. Robert just stares at me, not getting what’s so funny, and I’m wiping tears off my face and trying to explain.
“That’s the name of the guy who asked Bach to write the concertos,” I manage finally. “Some nobleman of Brandenburg, in Germany. He commissioned them, and they were named for him. Johann Sebastian Bach wrote them. Look again.”
I decide this is our first lesson. Robert had just seen the large text and stopped looking. He scowls now at the cover, and soon his face relaxes and goes a little red. Maybe he wouldn’t be embarrassed if I hadn’t laughed at him, but—really.
“Hey,” I call to him, “bring it here. Sit.” I pat the floor beside me.
Together we go over the labeling, and he agrees that his misinterpretation is a lot like how he reads our English Lit assignments. He doesn’t take things in, just reads enough to get a superficial understanding of something.
Next I reach for my copy of A Handful of Dust, our current assignment. I hand it to Robert and ask him to read the opening quote and first paragraph.
“Okay,” I say when he’s finished, “now try and tell me, in your own words, what that first paragraph says, and where you think it might lead. Pretend you’re telling me the story.”
He looks at it, glaring. I can practically smell the wood burning, he’s thinking so hard. Finally he says, “Well, I think it might be saying—”
“No, wait. Don’t tell me what you think it says. See if you can construct your own story and have it say the same thing, but in different words, and then go on with what might happen next.” He’s silent so long that I ask, “Would it help to write something