That afternoon, when Kurt got back from school, Mrs. Silvestri called both of us into her office. We had to tell her all over again what happened. Reggie knew Kurt, so when the Grandstones failed with Chuck and Clarice, they tracked us down, to accuse us of beating up on Sylvia.
"I'm proud of the
two of you, for helping to defend others against bullies," Mrs. S said. "However…"
"There's always a
however," Kurt muttered, slouching down in his seat right next to mine, facing
Mrs. S's desk.
She pressed her lips flat
and a little snort-giggle sound escaped her. She bowed her snowy head and rubbed
at her temples, then sat up and looked at us again.
"Please be careful
in all your dealings with the Grandstones. I don't want to have to punish you for
doing what's right."
Then Mrs. S proved she
was proud of us. She took us to Divine's Emporium for an hour before dinner. She
and Angela sat at the little white wrought iron café table and chatted while Kurt
showed me his favorite room upstairs, full of bins of bits and pieces of engines
and tools and gears and belts. He put together a cute little wind-up car just while
we were walking around the room, from the things he pulled out of the bin. We had
fun watching it roll around the room on the mismatched wheels, bumping into the
walls and bouncing off, until Mrs. S came for us. Angela let Kurt have the parts
he used, for the leftover allowance he had in his pocket. Then she gave me a bag
with twenty licorice whips in five flavors and told us to keep up the good work.
Sylvia must have been
so ashamed of how she messed up, both crashing her bike and failing to get us in
trouble, she left Clarice alone. Actually, she spent the next three weeks pretending
Clarice wasn't there. Reggie and Freddie didn't come after Chuck or Kurt. However,
Kurt reported that the Grandstone brothers asked a lot of questions about both of
us. Some of the questions made no sense, like it was important that we didn’t have
anybody. At all. Why did they ask more questions about Kurt, when Reggie already
knew about him? After that Sylvia learned new, nasty words for me, and used them
anywhere an adult wouldn't hear her. Throwaway was one of the milder taunts.
Reject. Leftovers. Sloppy seconds.
Since she didn't sit at
the same table with me in class, Sylvia made a point of standing at the easel next
to me during painting, and tried to spill water or other colors into my paint jars.
After three weeks of warding
off Sylvia's sloppy sabotage, I didn't get headaches anymore. New superhero lesson:
regular exercise of my moving trick helped me get stronger, and better control.
My appetite grew. Being a superhero, even a superhero in training, used up a lot
of calories.
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