David Fleming - The Saturday Boy

I looked around to see if anyone else had gotten one but they were all pretty much fumbling around in their desks or trying to find the right page in the book or whatever so I figured it was just me. Then I looked up at Ms. Dickson and, for the first time today, she was looking right back at me. She smiled. Then the corners of her mouth turned down a little and she put her hand over her heart. It seemed strange but in that moment it was like she stopped being my teacher and became my friend instead. I slid the card out of the envelope.

Derek,

There are far too many Rory McReadys in the world and not enough Jason Lambs.

I wondered who Rory McReady was for a second and then I remembered. He had been in my dad’s eighth-grade English class and was the one who kept throwing his desk at Ms. Dickson. I felt myself smile a little. Not because of the desk-throwing thing but because I totally understood what she meant. I wanted to send her some kind of signal but when I looked up from the card the moment was over and she was a teacher again.

The rest of the day went like the morning had—kids looking at me when they thought I couldn’t see them but I could. I could see them. It made me feel uncomfortable and I didn’t like it. When we were let out at the end of the day I was surprised to see Mr. Howard waiting in the hall outside the classroom. He took me aside as the rest of the kids passed us on their way to the buses. I noticed a few kids looking over at me. I heard my name whispered. It was starting to make me angry.

“What are you looking at?”

“Come on, Derek, that’s not necessary.”

“They’ve been staring at me all day and I’m sick of it.”

“They’re uncomfortable. They don’t know how to act or what to say around you.”

“They did last week.”

“Last week was different.”

“But I’m still the same person.”

“I know you are, Derek. And Ms. Dickson and the rest of the teachers and a lot of your classmates know you are, too. It’s just that some people—the ones who are doing the staring—do not. Not everybody deals with this sort of thing the same way and you have to allow them time to come to terms with it.”

“No I don’t,” I muttered.

“What?”

“I don’t have to allow them to do anything. It’s none of their business,” I said. “It’s not even any of your business.”

He stopped walking but I didn’t. I walked faster.

Then I started to run.

Play rehearsal went fine and afterward we all sat on the edge of the stage while Mr. Putnam gave notes to everybody. He said me and Violet’s scene was good but that I had to remember to let her lead me offstage when we exited. He also said I needed to project more and I nodded even though I didn’t really know what he was talking about.

Then he reminded us that since we opened this Thursday, tomorrow and Wednesday’s rehearsals would be full run-throughs in costume, but I wasn’t worried. I was actually getting excited. Mom was going to be there and probably Aunt Josie was, too. I pictured them standing up and cheering for me the second the lights came up and they saw me onstage and I imagined the rest of the audience joining them.

“I’ve recruited some students to assist you backstage with props and costumes and so forth,” Mr. Putnam was saying. “They’ll be new at this so please treat them with respect. Violet, Derek—two of them are girls from your class, I believe.”

“Really?” said Violet. “Who?”

“Let’s see, Ms. Dickson’s class…” Mr. Putnam picked up a piece of paper and looked at it over the top of his glasses. “Ah, here we go. Helping us from Ms. Dickson’s class will be Melissa Sprout and Marion—”

Mr. Putnam sneezed suddenly and everyone jumped. Violet even screamed a little. He pulled a handkerchief from the pocket of his coat and blew his nose into it, making a sound like a trumpet. His cheeks had gone red.

“Mr. Putnam,” I said. “There’s no Marion in our class.”

“Then who is Marion Pratt?”

My heart sank, pushing whatever good mood I had right out through my toes. I remembered now, there was a Marion in our class. It just wasn’t a girl.

“It’s Budgie, sir.”

It had been the very first secret shared at the very first meeting of the original Secret Secret Club and I’d been keeping it for so long I’d completely forgotten about it until now, and now that I was thinking about it I remembered that was also the day he told me how he’d gotten his nickname. I’d asked him and since we were in the Fort of Truth he had to answer. It was one of the rules.

“A budgerigar. A budgie bird,” he’d said. “Y’know, a parakeet?”

Then he told me that when he was little he was always copying the sound of people’s voices and his grandmother thought it was adorable because it reminded her of a pet parakeet she used to have that did the same thing until one day it got out of its cage and the cat ate it.

“So one time at dinner, she said, ‘Budgie, could you pass the rolls.’”

“That doesn’t seem so bad.”

“Yeah, well,” said Budgie, “it was during Thanksgiving dinner. So the whole family was there.”

“Oh,” I said. “What was the bird’s name?”

“Sissy.”

I remember wanting to laugh really, really badly but not wanting to open my mouth until I was sure I wouldn’t.

“Well,” I’d said carefully. “I’d say you got lucky.”

“Thank you, Mr. Lamb,” said Mr. Putnam, making a note on the paper. Then Violet said that since names were being corrected, Melissa Sprout would probably like to be called Missy instead, so Mr. Putnam made a note of that as well.

“Mr. Putnam?” I asked. “Where did that list come from?”

“The attendance office.”

“The attendance office?”

“Yes,” Mr. Putnam said. “Why? Are you wearing a wire?”

“What? No. I’m just—it’s just that his mother is the only one who calls him Marion.”

“Then she must have been the one to fill out all the paperwork at the beginning of the school year,” Mr. Putnam said. “Okay if I continue here?”

I nodded slowly, a feeling of impending doom beginning to seep in around the edges of me. It was bad enough that I’d broken the Secret Secret Club’s only rule by sharing a secret with nonmembers and now I may have made it worse by talking about it. I needed to give them something else to think about instead.

“I was born with a tail,” I blurted.

I didn’t know if that was going to be enough for them to forget the Marion thing but I had to be sure. Me and Budgie might not have been friends anymore but a club was a club and what was said there was supposed to stay there.

“And my middle name is Dorothy.”

I had trouble falling asleep that night even though I was tired. Someone had taken down the Apache helicopter. It was probably my mom but I just didn’t have the energy to ask her about it. I tried looking at a different model. I looked at the F-14 Tomcat. I looked at the Spitfire. I even looked at the B-52 Stratofortress but it wasn’t the same. I couldn’t imagine myself flying any of them the way I could the Apache. I couldn’t imagine my dad at all. It was like I’d forgotten him.

I rolled onto my side and looked out the window. The moon was cold. The yard shivered. I pulled the quilts up around my neck and closed my eyes. Everything I did in my dreams that night I did alone.