David Fleming - The Saturday Boy

I tried not to listen to Budgie. I tried not to listen to Barely O’Donahue. I’d discovered something I didn’t want to do more than climb the tree and that was fall out of it. My heart was pounding so loud I was pretty sure Budgie could hear it.

“You suck, Lamb!” he said.

“Rack of lamb!” said Barely O’Donahue. “Ram-a-lamb-a-ding-dong!”

I kept going. I’d stopped thinking about it. I was just climbing—grabbing one branch after another, hoisting, pulling myself higher into the tree. I kept an eye out for Budgie’s name even though the higher I got, the more I believed it wasn’t there.

I got to a place where I could balance pretty good and stopped to catch my breath. My hands hurt. They were dirty and shaky and hard to open. I didn’t know how high up I was but I couldn’t see Budgie anymore because there were too many leaves in the way. Come to think of it, I hadn’t heard him for a while either.

I did hear something though. It sounded like bus engines.

“Budgie,” I shouted down, “do you hear the bus?”

Mom was working a late shift today, which meant my aunt Josie would be at my house, and since her car was still getting fixed it meant if I missed the bus I would have no way of getting home. I couldn’t miss the bus. I just couldn’t.

“Budgie?”

My stomach dropped. Budgie wasn’t there anymore, I just knew it.

And if Budgie wasn’t there, then Barely O’Donahue and the other kids weren’t there either. They were probably in line for the bus already. They might even be on the bus. I pictured them sitting in the way back, yucking it up, giving each other high-fives for ditching me.

They were a clever bunch for sure.

I climbed down as fast as I could. My feet slipped on the branches and some of them bent and broke but I hung on. My shirt ripped. Branches poked at me. Leaves swirled around me. My foot got stuck and I unstuck it. I could feel something in my hair—leaves or twigs maybe—and something itching me on my back. I hoped it wasn’t spiders. When I thought I was close enough to the ground to not get hurt, I took a deep breath and flung myself outward.

As I fell through the air I heard my dad’s voice, recalling the words of his commanding officer from a story he told me about his first day of jump school.

“Landing is easy. All’s you need to remember are the following three words in the following order.” I pictured my dad’s CO wearing mirrored sunglasses and chewing on a cigar, voice raspy from a lifetime of barking orders. “Feet. Ass. Head.”

I hit the ground pretty hard but in the correct order, little darts of pain shooting up my legs even though I remembered to bend my knees. I grabbed my bag and my jacket, thankful that Budgie hadn’t thought to hide them or, worse, open my bag and scatter everything around. I ran as fast as I could but when I got to the front of the school building the turnaround was empty. The smell of exhaust hung in the air.

I dropped my stuff and sat down on the curb. How could I be so stupid? All I had to do was make it through the day and get on the bus and go home and I couldn’t even do that. Instead I had let Budgie get to me again. I wished I could go back in time and do the day again only this time when Barely O’Donahue said, “Budgie climbed the tree,” I’d say, “Good for him” or “Get bent” or something— anything— other than what I’d actually said. Sometimes I wished I could just take my brain out and put it in a box and bury it.

I went to wipe my dirty hands on my jeans but they were just as bad if not worse. My shirt was dirty, too. I was scratched in a few places and bleeding. Mom was going to kill me if I ever got home. I could just see Budgie sitting in the back of the bus smiling and thinking he was so clever. Maybe if he smiled wide enough the top of his head would fall off.

I pictured him on all fours, feeling around for his head and getting all dirty and gross from the bus floor while everyone laughed and pointed at him for a change. Even though it didn’t help me get home at all, picturing Budgie getting exactly what he deserved made me feel a little bit better.

“Derek?”

I looked over my shoulder at the lady standing behind me. I almost didn’t recognize her but then I pictured her standing in front of a whiteboard.

“Ms. Dickson?”

“What are you doing here?” she asked.

“I missed the bus.”

“Are you waiting for another one? Because there aren’t any.”

“No, I know, I—”

“What happened to your shirt?”

“My what? Nothing.”

I couldn’t tell her about the tree or I’d get in trouble and the last thing I needed right now was more of that. I was still on half recess for the whole bathroom thing. I tried to brush the bark dust off my shirt but only made it worse.

“I, um… fell down,” I said, which, in a way, was true. I just didn’t tell her how far I’d fallen.

Ms. Dickson didn’t say anything. Was that it? I hoped that was it. I put my jacket on and zipped it up all the way. Maybe if she couldn’t see my shirt she’d forget about it.

“Is someone coming to pick you up?”

“My aunt Josie doesn’t have a car right now because she was in an accident and it’s being fixed and my mom’s at work.”

“So no?”

“No.”

“What are you going to do then, I wonder.”

I thought about it for a minute and realized there wasn’t much I could do. Calling Mom was out. Calling Aunt Josie was out, too, because she’d just turn around and call my mom anyway. Walking was out. It was too far. What else was there? Taxi? Jet pack? Hovercycle? I suddenly felt like I might throw up. I looked at Ms. Dickson and shrugged.

“Come along then,” she said. “I’ll take you home.”

Ms. Dickson started to walk away toward the parking lot. I must have been hearing things because it had sounded like she said she’d take me home and that couldn’t be right. I didn’t even think that was possible. Budgie said that if teachers get too far away from school they blow up. I watched Ms. Dickson. She seemed okay. I couldn’t hear ticking or anything.

“For pity’s sake, Derek, stop dawdling!” she said.

I grabbed my bag and ran after her. The barfy feeling was gone and I felt lighter—like I could fly almost. Budgie’s plan had backfired and I was going home and nobody would have to call anybody and nobody would get in trouble and as I got into the back of Ms. Dickson’s car I swore I’d try to never let Budgie get to me again and this time I meant it.

Ms. Dickson’s car was kinda like my mom’s only it was clean and didn’t smell like hot dogs. There weren’t any soda cups on the floor or fish cracker crumbs in the seats. I got the feeling that there hadn’t been any kids in Ms. Dickson’s car in a long time.

“Where do you live?”

“In a house. Sorry. A white house.”

“I meant what is your address?”

I told her but before she started the car she took out her cell phone, handed it to me, and asked me to call home and explain to Aunt Josie what was going on. Aunt Josie listened while I spoke. Then she spoke to Ms. Dickson. When Ms. Dickson was done she started the car and backed out of the parking space. She drove the car for a while and didn’t say anything, which was fine with me. I figured it would be strange talking to her outside the classroom. I mean, I barely had anything to say when I was in the classroom so it wasn’t like I would suddenly have all this stuff to talk about now that I was out of it.

“I taught your father, you know.”

“What?”

“I was your father’s English teacher when he was in the eighth grade,” said Ms. Dickson. “We read Catcher in the Rye that year. Some of us did, anyway.”