J e r r y s p I n e L l I
19 . The Candy in His Hand
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Loser
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19 . The Candy in His Hand At dinner that day he says at the table, says it casually to show it’s an everyday thing, “I’ll be going over to my best friend’s house one of these days.” Hoping his parents will take the bait and ask him who his best friend is. They do. His mother’s eyebrows go up. “Oh?” she says, “And who would that be?” “Hector Binns,” he replies, tossing it out casually, being cool, liking the sound of it. “Isn’t he in your class?” “Yeah. He sits in the front row. He loves licorice.” “Loves it, huh?” says his father. “Yeah.” “I hate licorice,” says Polly. “Licorice smells.” “He’s making a candle,” he tells them. “That’s nice,” says his mother. 127 “Out of earwax.” Everyone stops eating and stares at him. “Earwax?” says his mother. “Eewwwww!” goes Polly. “Is that possible?” says his father. Zinkoff feels a surge of associated pride. He looks his dad in the eye. “He’s doing it.” Several days later he visits Hector Binns’s house. He walks right in and plops himself down in a chair, because that’s how you do it with a best friend: You walk right in and plop yourself down. When Binns’s mother spots him her face goes all funny and she says, “Who are you?” But then Binns him- self comes in and takes him off to his room. They spend some time looking at Binns’s stuff. He meets Nobody the lizard. Then Binns tells him to wait in the hallway and closes the bed- room door. When he opens it, he holds in his hand a brown pill bottle already filled with ear- wax. “This is the first one,” he says. “I keep it hid.” Zinkoff can’t believe he’s being allowed to see it. He feels truly honored. 128 Riding home that day on his bicycle, Zinkoff notices the marks dotting the sidewalks. Black licorice spit marks. He smiles. Zinkoff is determined to be the best best friend he can be. One day Barry Peterson calls Binns “Heckie.” Zinkoff knows Binns hates being called that, so he says to Peterson, “Hey, that’s not his name, it’s Hector.” Because that’s what you do, you stand up for your best friend. And you eat lunch with him and talk with him and share secrets and laugh a lot and go places and do stuff, and when you wake up in the morn- ing, he’s the first person you think of. Zinkoff does all of this, and more. He starts eating black licorice. He pretends it’s chewing tobacco. He walks around with a chaw bulging from his cheek. He tries spitting pretend tobacco juice, but his mother puts a quick stop to that. Binns is probably the most interesting person Zinkoff knows, with the possible exception of the Waiting Man, and Zinkoff soon decides he needs 129 to be interesting too. It’s around that time that he discovers in one of his pockets a clump of petrified bubblegum. It’s a gift from Claudia, the little leash-and-harness girl. It looks like a pink stone. He appoints it his lucky piece, which he will carry with him always and rub when he needs some luck. He feels more interesting already. About a week into the best friendship, Zinkoff asks his mother if he can invite Binns to sleep over. She says sure. Excited, Zinkoff runs to the phone and calls Binns. Binns says, “I guess.” Binns never says “yes.” He always says “I guess.” But the sleepover has problems. Binns turns out to be a kicker and a roller. Actually, he’s a regular bulldozer in bed. Zinkoff wakes up to find himself thumping to the floor. He climbs back into bed, and as soon as he gets to sleep it happens again. After the third time he takes the extra blanket from the closet and makes himself a bed on the floor. Except for his bed, after that night, he shares everything he can with his best friend: the lunch in his paper bag (he has outgrown the lunch pail 130 too), the allowance in his pocket, the candy in his hand, the joke in his giggle. He shares the nine hundred block of Willow with him. He intro- duces him to little Claudia on the leash. They walk their bikes past the Waiting Man. The lady with the walker isn’t on the front step that day, so for days afterward Zinkoff keeps asking Binns if he wants to go back, because he wants Binns to hear her say, “Oh, mailman!” But Binns keeps saying, “I guess not.” There is one thing more special than any other that Zinkoff intends to share with Binns. He saves it for weeks and weeks, and when he can no longer bear to wait, he gives it to Binns. He gives it to him after school one day in a brown paper lunch bag. Binns opens the bag. In it is a little tin that says “Altoids.” Zinkoff found the tin on the street. Binns opens the Altoids tin and stares. “What is it?” he says. Zinkoff beams. “Wax.” Binns stares, first at the contents of the tin, then at Zinkoff. That’s all he does, stare. “It’s mine,” says Zinkoff. “From my own ears. 131 I’ve been saving it up. I know it’s not much, but I couldn’t wait any longer. I figured you could add it to yours and get enough for a candle faster.” He doesn’t tell him that he tried to get Polly to contribute, but she refused. Binns looks into the Beyond. He bends a licorice stick and stuffs it into his mouth. He slowly closes the lid of the Altoids tin and hands it back to Zinkoff. “I guess not,” he says. Zinkoff shrugs. “Okay.” He understands. When a kid is making an earwax candle, he wants everything to come from his own ears. Zinkoff figures maybe he’ll save up for a candle of his own. He wonders if that would count as a science project. And then it’s over. Download 0.63 Mb. Do'stlaringiz bilan baham: |
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