David Fleming - The Saturday Boy

The afternoon didn’t get any better. In addition to scrubbing the wall clean, Mr. Howard said I’d have to stay after school every day for a week and scrub marker off all the walls, even in the girls’ bathroom. Then he had me apologize to Mr. Putnam for wasting his time and Mr. Putnam said maybe the next time I decided to act like a hooligan I should first consider who might be affected by it. And if that wasn’t enough, then Mr. Howard made me call home and tell Mom what happened, which was the worst part of all.

Mom was quiet on the phone. When she gets like that it means I’ve let her down and she’s disappointed in me. I didn’t like that. One time Budgie said that disappointing your parents was worse than making them mad because if your parents got disappointed too much they could stop loving you.

“I’m really sorry, Mom,” I said.

“Me too.”

“You still love me, though, right?”

I heard Mom clear her throat but she didn’t say anything. There was just more quiet.

“Mom?”

“Of course I still love you, Derek. I’m just…” she took a deep breath and let it out.

“Disappointed?”

“Yes.”

“But I said I was sorry.”

“I know,” she said. “Listen, I have to go now, Derek. Don’t miss the late bus, okay?”

“Okay,” I said. “And Mom? Mom?”

I was going to tell her that I loved her again so she wouldn’t forget but she wasn’t there anymore. I really, really hoped Budgie was wrong.

Aunt Josie made a Mexican stew for dinner that had red chiles and pork in it and I only knew that because that’s what she’d told me when I asked what was wrong with the chicken. I didn’t remember ever having pork before but by the way the smell punched me in the face I didn’t think I’d like it too much. Or at all. During dinner I made sure to fill up on tortilla chips so I wouldn’t be able to finish it. Aunt Josie looked at me like she knew what I was doing but didn’t say anything.

“I’m full,” I said. “Is there anything for dessert?”

“I thought you were full.”

“Well, I’m a little bit full. I saved some room for dessert.”

“There isn’t any.”

“Not even a Chocolate Ka-Blam?”

“No,” said Aunt Josie. “But if you’re still hungry you could finish your carne adobada .”

“My what?”

“Your stew.”

I looked at the stew and the stew looked back. It seemed angry.

“I’m full,” I said. “Can I be excused?”

“Fine,” she said. “But no TV.”

“What? Why not?”

“Because of what happened at school today. Your mom asked me not to let you watch TV.”

“For how long?”

“What do you mean?”

“You know—one hour, two hours…”

“Dude, I think you’re in a little more trouble than you realize.”

“But that was at school! I can’t get in trouble twice for the same thing can I?”

Then I remembered what Mr. Putnam said about my actions affecting other people and I wondered if this was what he’d been talking about.

“I don’t know, Derek. She’s pretty mad.”

“I thought she was disappointed!”

“She’s mad and disappointed.”

“She can’t be both!”

“You need to talk with her about it, Derek,” said Aunt Josie. “She just asked me not to let you watch TV.”

“But that’s not fair!”

“I don’t know what to tell you. Writing on the wall was something you chose to do. Nobody was holding a gun to your head.”

“Why would someone hold a gun to my head?”

“It’s just a figure of speech,” said Aunt Josie. “Listen, I’m just doing what your mom asked me to do.”

I went up to my room and shut the door and flopped down on my bed so hard the springs creaked. I could feel the frown on my face. It was deep—like someone had carved it there.

After what seemed like a long time I got down off my bed and went to my desk. The drawing I’d done of Castle Budgerek was sitting right on top. I picked it up and studied all the little details—the flamejobs on all the bumper cars and the cool expression on Budgie’s face as he caught mad air off the half-pipe. I’d even drawn scales on the piranhadiles, which hadn’t been easy.

I remembered how long it had taken me to do and how impressed Mom had been and how happy it had made her. Then I thought about how she wasn’t happy anymore and how she was angry and disappointed instead and it was my fault for making her feel that way.

Suddenly I was crushing the drawing in my hands, crumpling it into a ball and throwing it on the floor. I stomped on it over and over again, then dropped to my knees and ripped it into a million pieces and threw them into the air. The next thing I knew, Aunt Josie was holding me. There were pieces of the torn drawing in her hair that reminded me of snowflakes. I heard someone sobbing. It was me.

MY EYES OPENEDin the morning before the alarm went off and I lay there looking up at the Apache helicopter. I took a deep breath and counted seventy-six Mississippis before letting it out. I wasn’t looking forward to today. Not one bit.

Mom was in the kitchen when I got downstairs. She put frozen waffles in the toaster oven and we talked a little while waiting for it to ding. She didn’t say anything about yesterday, though, and if she wasn’t going to bring it up, then neither was I.

When the waffles were ready, Mom got the peanut butter and Marshmallow Fluff out of the cabinet and brought them to the table. Then she filled her mug with coffee and sat across from me, blowing on it a little before taking a sip.

“What happened yesterday?”

“What do you mean?”

“Derek.”

“I got in trouble.”

“I know that,” she said. “What happened?”

I took a knife and spread peanut butter on one waffle and Fluff on the other and then pressed them together like a sandwich. I took a bite and chewed slowly. I didn’t want to tell her it was all Budgie’s fault because she was probably sick of hearing about him but I wasn’t going to lie to her, either.

“Budgie called me a loser and said our castle was stupid,” I said. I expected her to sigh or roll her eyes when she heard Budgie’s name but she didn’t. She looked troubled instead.

“I’m sorry, sweetheart. He shouldn’t have said those things,” she said. “You know your castle’s not stupid, right?”

“I guess.”

“What do you mean, you guess?”

I shrugged and stared at the waffle sandwich on my plate. I could feel Mom looking at me, waiting for me to say something.

“I guess it’s not stupid.”

“It’s not stupid. It’s the most creative thing I’ve ever seen,” she said. “You two put a lot of thought into that castle and you should be proud. I know I am.”

She smiled. I smiled, too. Then she frowned.

“But what I’m not proud of is what you did yesterday. Writing on the walls is called vandalism. People can go to jail for that.”

“But Budgie—”

“But nothing,” she said. “Look, Derek, I hate to say it but Budgie is going to keep on being Budgie. If you want to be his friend, then you need to figure out a way to not let him get to you.”

“You mean be the bigger person, right?”

“I just mean you should find a way to live in the same world as Budgie that works for you—preferably one that doesn’t land you in the principal’s office.”

Mom was still talking while I got my book bag and put on my sneakers but my mind was spinning so I wasn’t really listening. Had she really said I didn’t have to be the bigger person anymore?