SIX

SUMMER SCHOOL BEGINS. Mrs. Clancy drives me there to make sure I go. The classes aren’t in my old elementary school but in the middle school I’m supposed to attend in the fall. The building is at least twice as big but much older. It was the high school once. I don’t like the looks of the brick walls and narrow windows and steep stone steps. A kid could get lost in there.

While Mrs. Clancy watches, I climb the steps slowly and push open the heavy green door. The hall is crowded with kids, pushing and shouting. I don’t know where my classroom is and I’m scared. There’s too much going on, too much noise.

Trying not to be noticed, I edge along a wall of lockers until I see an exit sign. Without even thinking about what I’m doing, I escape through a back door into the summer heat. A teacher calls after me, but I run as fast as I can across the playground.

Can’t catch me, I think. I’m the gingerbread boy.

Once the school is safely behind me, I slow down. Mrs. Clancy is at the mall by now, so I don’t need to worry about her seeing me. The whales are most likely playing boring team sports or swimming at the country club pool. So I wander along a street lined with tall trees whose roots have pushed the sidewalk up here and there. Big old-fashioned houses sit back from the street on grassy lawns. Wedged in between them are bungalows and ramblers and brick apartment buildings. A power mower roars somewhere. Birds sing. A few cars pass me. It’s not hot yet, just cool and damp with the smell of freshly cut grass. No one is waiting around the corner to beat me up.

I hear a train whistle and head for the railroad tracks. In a few minutes, I plunge into the cool silence of the woods. I look for the Green Man but he’s not in sight. Disappointed, I climb up to my platform and survey the treetops. Green as far as I can see in all directions, rippling in the breeze. It’s like being on a ship at sea.

 

A week after summer school starts, I come home from the woods at suppertime to find Mrs. Clancy waiting to pounce on me. She’s the cat. I’m the mouse. She’s big. I’m small. She’s mad. I’m scared.

“Where have you been all day, Brendan?”

“At school in the morning and then hanging out with some kids in my class,” I answer without hesitating. If I take too long to answer, she’ll know I’m lying.

“And what did you learn today?”

If I tell her the truth—I learned a new shortcut to the woods, I patched my tree-house roof, I drew three pictures of wizards and dragons, I almost finished my unicorn head—she’ll be outraged.

“Oh, just the usual,” I say. “Some math stuff, state capitals, and what President Wilson did way back in the 1800s.”

Her face is growing grimmer with every word. Maybe I went too far with President Wilson. Got too specific. What if he wasn’t president in the 1800s? Maybe it was earlier, maybe it was later.

“Tell me what President Wilson did in the 1800s.”

“He bought Louisiana from the French?” Or was it the Spanish?

“For your information,” she says, “Wilson was president during World War One. Afterward, he started the League of Nations.”

I look at the floor. Who’d have guessed Mrs. Clancy knew that much about Woodrow Wilson? I should have said Calvin Coolidge. Most people don’t even remember his name.

“It so happens I got a phone call from school this afternoon. The principal wanted to know why you haven’t attended a single class.”

Mrs. Clancy’s eyes are boring a hole in the top of my head. What brains I have will leak out and make a mess on her spotless kitchen floor. “Where have you been? What have you been doing all this time? How are you ever going to amount to anything if you don’t have an education?”

Although she doesn’t say it out loud, she’d like to say, You worthless boy, why do I even care what happens to you?

 

The next morning Mrs. Clancy drives me to school, but this time she goes inside with me. Straight ahead is the principal’s office. I feel sick. I have a history with principals, and it’s not pretty. Mrs. Funkhauser sends me to the office about once a month. I’m used to Mr. Padgett, the principal at my school, but this is a different school and a different principal.

The school secretary leads us to the principal’s office. Ms. Evans sits behind a well-organized desk. Framed pictures of three blond children (hers, I suppose) are the only nonbusiness things in sight. I imagine her kids are as perfect as they look.

“So you’re Brendan,” Ms. Evans says, her voice neutral, her face expressionless. “Please tell me why you have not attended a single class this summer.”

I shrug and look at the floor, my favorite technique for avoiding questions.

She taps the desk with her long, sharp fingernails, click-clack. “Well?”

Mrs. Clancy squeezes my shoulder. “Answer Ms. Evans, Brendan.”

“I don’t know,” I mutter.

Click-clack go the nails. “I hear you don’t care if you fail sixth grade.”

I shrug again. Mrs. Clancy gives my shoulder a little shake this time.

The principal gazes at me. “Won’t it embarrass you to be older than the other kids in your class?”

I shake my head and look past her out the window. The recycling truck is in the parking lot. The workers shout at each other and hurl stuff into the truck’s maw as fast as they can. They take their job seriously. No fooling around. They’re professional real-lifers.

Beside me, I sense Mrs. Clancy go tense with frustration. Why does he act like this? Why is he so stubborn? What’s wrong with him, anyway?

“I don’t have time for this, Brendan.” Ms. Evans’s voice is still neutral, her face still expressionless. “I expect you to be here every day for the rest of the summer. I expect you to do your homework and hand it in on time. I expect you to start seventh grade in the fall. Is that clear?”

Again a shake from Mrs. Clancy. Again a shrug from me.

“I’m sorry,” Mrs. Clancy says to Ms. Evans. “I’ve tried to teach him manners, to be polite, to answer when spoken to . . .”

“It’s all right.” Ms. Evans gets to her feet. She’s tall and muscular. She must work out at a gym or something.

“I’m late for work.” Mrs. Clancy edges toward the door.

“Thank you for bringing Brendan to school,” Ms. Evans says. “I’ll take him to his classroom now.”

For once I’m almost sorry to see Mrs. Clancy leave. I’m trapped. There’s no escape from Ms. Evans.

With one hand on my shoulder, the principal leads me down a hall. “Try to cooperate with Mr. Hailey,” she says. “He’s a good teacher.”

Ha. I bet he won’t think I’m a good student.

She stops at room fourteen and opens the door. A man with a beard looks at us. His shaggy hair is collar length, not as long as mine but not regulation length either.

“This is Brendan Doyle,” Ms. Evans says. “He’s been truant the first week, but I’m sure he can make up the work he’s missed.”

Mr. Hailey is younger than most teachers. He’s wearing cargo shorts and a T-shirt and those expensive rubber sandals they sell in L.L. Bean. He looks like a real-lifer pretending not to be. I don’t trust him.

After he shows me where to sit, he and Ms. Evans step out into the hall, where I know she’s telling him I have a bad attitude and he’ll have to keep an eye on me but what can you expect from a foster child? Take my word for it, I imagine her saying. He’s headed for trouble.

I glance around the room. Six kids look back. I don’t know any of them. Don’t care to know them either—except for the girl sitting in the seat across from me. Long, dark curly hair, narrow face, pointed chin, chipped black nail polish, and a scar just under one eye. A dog bite, maybe. Some people might say it ruins her looks, but to me the scar sets her apart, makes her unique.

But it’s more than the scar that interests me. Something’s different about her. Nothing obvious, just something that makes me want to know her. Maybe it’s her eyes, the palest green I’ve ever seen. Or the way she looks at me without blinking. Suddenly nervous, I duck my head and fidget with my notebook.

What am I thinking? Why would that girl like me? Nobody else does.

Mr. Hailey returns and says he’s sure I’ll fit right in and catch up quickly. He smiles. I don’t smile back. It’s always good to know what the game is before you start playing.

He tells us to open our math books, and my breakfast turns to lead in my stomach. Not my worst subject first. Mr. Hailey starts with a complicated problem, and I slip a sheet of paper out of my notebook and start drawing.

“We have art after lunch,” Mr. Hailey informs me.

A boy in the back of the room snorts. “Didn’t Ms. Evans tell you Brendan is an artist and he should be excused from everything else?”

“That’s enough, Blake,” Mr. Hailey says. Turning to me, he says, “Put the drawing away and pay attention. You’re going to middle school whether you like it or not. Nobody flunks my class.”

Ha, I think. Just wait and see. I’ll flunk if I want to.

Mr. Hailey returns to the math problem. When no one except the girl next to me can solve it by the standard method, he shows us a different way. If some kids still don’t get it, he says, “Well, look at it this way.” By the end of the hour, even someone as stupid as I am understands how to solve problems that never made sense before. Not that I let on. I sit and stare out the window as if it’s still a mystery to me.

The rest of the day goes like that. Different ways of doing things. No sarcasm. Some jokes. Some laughs. I find myself getting interested in what Mr. Hailey has to say about the environment and climate change. I just might survive summer school after all.

After school, the girl with the scar follows me down the street. I’m heading for the woods and I don’t want company, so I walk faster. So does she. I hope she’ll turn a corner or run up a sidewalk to her house, but block after block, she follows me.

At the end of the road, I stop and look at her. “What do you want? Why are you following me?”

“What makes you think I’m following you?” Her head tips to the side like a sassy bird’s. “Maybe I’m going the same place you’re going.”

“And where’s that?”

She laughs and points across the train tracks. “Over there, I guess.”

I decide not to go to the woods after all, not with her. She might be interesting, but how do I know I can trust her? I scramble down the embankment. She’s behind me, slipping and skidding, and finally falling.

I balance on a rail and watch her get up and slide the rest of the way down. Her shoes must be full of cinders and she’s scraped an elbow. She joins me on the rail and walks ahead of me, arms spread for balance, wobbling a little but pretty steady on her feet despite her zebra-striped flip-flops. No wonder she fell on the hill.

Suddenly she turns and faces me, squinting against the sun. “How come you’re in summer school?”

“I failed sixth grade,” I tell her.

“You don’t look stupid.”

“I’m not. I just hate school. It’s boring.” I look at her. “Did you flunk too?”

“My old school didn’t teach some of the stuff I’m supposed to know for seventh grade, so they put me in summer school to catch up.”

“That stinks.”

She does a little pirouette on the track and teeters precariously. “It’s not bad with Mr. Hailey for a teacher. You’ll like him. Everybody does.”

“He’s a big improvement over my sixth-grade teacher,” I admit. “She was sooooo boring.”

She nods as if she’s known a few teachers like that. “By the way,” she says, “I know your name because Mr. Hailey introduced you, but you don’t know my name.” She says this like she’s Rumplestiltskin or something and I should guess her true name.

I shrug. What do I care what her name is? I wish she’d go away. I’m tired of her. She talks too much. Anyway, the Green Man might be waiting for me.

When I keep walking without asking the question, she says, “I’m Shea Browne. I was born in Guam, but I used to live in Texas and before that in Oklahoma and before that in Arkansas and before that in so many other places I can’t even remember them all. My dad’s in the army and we get transferred a lot.”

Shea—what kind of name is that? Is it spelled “Shay” like the Deacon’s “wonderful one-hoss shay” in the poem? Or some other way? Names are so weird. You never know how to spell them.

Shea does another dance step on the rail and almost falls off. “Do you ever play in the woods?”

“I go there sometimes.” But I don’t play there, I add silently.

“How big is it? Could you get lost in it?”

“It’s a national forest, so yeah, you could get lost. It goes all the way from Tennessee up here to Virginia.”

She squints at the trees. “Magic things might live there.”

I stare at her for a second, surprised. Maybe even scared. I’m not used to other people sharing my thoughts, so I shake my head and lie to her. “No, it’s just ordinary. Kind of boring, actually. You know, trees, squirrels, birds. Nothing special.”

“Then why do you go there?”

“I like to be alone.” I stress alone. Maybe she’ll get the idea I’m not about to be her friend or show her my secret places in the woods.

She frowns. A strand of hair hides one eye and the scar. “I hate to be alone,” she says, so fiercely that I’m surprised. “Where I lived before, I had lots of friends, but people are snobby here. I thought you and me could be friends, but I guess you’re just the same as everybody else.”

Some people might feel bad for hurting Shea’s feelings, but not me. I just want to get away from her. I’m sure the Green Man’s waiting under the tree.

“Listen,” I say, “I have to meet somebody. Why don’t you go home?”

Shea’s face turns red. “You are the rudest boy I’ve ever met. I’ll never bother you again!”

She turns around and runs off the way we came, her curly hair bouncing. Even from the back she looks mad.

I almost call after her, but instead I dash into the woods and lose myself in the trees as fast as I can.

The Green Man isn’t there after all. I climb up to my platform and stretch out on my stomach. For a few seconds, I let myself think about Shea and what she said. Does she really believe magic things live in the woods? I picture her small face and tangled curls, the scar on her cheek. Shea. What if she really wanted to be my friend? What would it be like?

Mrs. Clancy steps into my head and says, Don’t be stupid. Why would that girl like you? She’ll dump you as soon as she makes other friends.

Angry at myself, I open my sketchbook and start to draw a picture of the Green Man, but it’s Shea’s face that forms on the page. With a quick yank, I tear it out and crumple it into a ball. I have the Green Man. I don’t need any other friends.