All of a sudden some of that funny stuff about Soop doesn’t seem so funny anymore. It’s like we see him with different eyes now. Yesterday he made us laugh. Today he makes us mad.
But I don’t think it’s happening just because Soop didn’t answer a question. Let’s face it, he didn’t really lie to us. Okay, maybe, technically, it was a lie about having to go see his mother, but that’s a pretty harmless lie. And knowing how honest most goobers are, I wouldn’t be surprised if it was true.
No, the fact is, whether he did or didn’t answer some question, sooner or later this was going to happen. It happens with all of them. I can’t explain it. For once, don’t blame the goober. The goober never changes. He still says ahnt instead of aunt. Or he still wears a beaded belt with reindeer on it. Or he still can’t bounce a basketball twice in a row. No, it’s not the goober. The goober is forever. It’s you. It’s you who changes. Something inside you that used to tickle—now it feels like a pinch. You’re done laughing. You just want to smack him.
So today it was different as we parked at Soop’s house. For one thing, we were now off the street and on the sidewalk. And we were calling him Soop right to his face. Of course, goobers being goobers, he probably didn’t even notice.
We got an early taste of the new deal when Soop looked up from his work, which today was digging holes. He said, “So guys, how are those blisters coming along? Ready to jump in yet?”
And Bump said, “Nah. We ain’t jumpin’ in.”
Soop looked surprised—“Oh”—and then sympathetic. “Boy, you guys must have yourselves some awful blisters. Do they really hurt bad?”
“Nah,” said Bump. “They don’t hurt at all. In fact, we don’t even have blisters.”
I could see Soop getting a little confused. “Oh…well…that’s good.”
“Yeah, that’s good,” said Bump. “In fact we never did have blisters. We just told you that. We lied.”
Now Soop was standing there blinking at us—goobers blink a lot—the spade hanging in his hand. All he could say was, “Oh.”
“Yeah, we didn’t want to help, so we made up that lie about the blisters. We’d rather just sit here and watch you do all the work.”
Burke picked it up. “Yeah, Soop, and then when you’re done making the clubhouse, we’ll all move in with ya.”
At that point a normal person would have sneered and said, “Yeah, right,” and thrown the hammer at us, not to mention a mouthful of choice words. But goobers…goobers are like sponges. They take all the crap you throw at them and just soak it up and nothing comes back. So Soop just breaks out this massive grin and pumps his fist and says, “Yes!” As if the only thing he heard was we’ll all move in with ya.
Nacho jumped in. “Hey, Soop, how come you wear goggles and gloves?”
Soop jammed the spade into the ground. “To protect my hands and eyes,” he said.
“Did your mommy make you wear them?”
“I wouldn’t say she made me,” he said. “She suggested it. And I thought it was a good idea, so”—he held up his gloved hands so all the world could see—“I did it!”
I had been holding back, but now the words just came blurting out: “You da man, Soop!” And he gave a fist pump and another “Yes!” And I’m thinking, Hey, yeah, I can do this.
“But Soop,” said Burke, “nobody else would be caught dead wearing gloves and goggles. Don’t you feel like a dork?”
And Soop actually leaned on the spade for a second and frowned like he was seriously thinking over the question. Then he gave a quick snap of his head and said, “Nope,” and went back to digging.
That’s how it went, us asking dumb question after dumb question. If you could compare it to a boxing match, we were jabbing him in the nose—bam bam bam bam—round after round.
“Hey, Soop—you look bald. Why don’t you let your hair grow a little?”
“Hey, Soop—where’s your Mickey Mouse shirt?”
“Hey, Soop—is everybody as cool as you where you came from?”
“Hey, Soop—where did you get that hankie from? Your grandpa? Is it fulla boogers?”
And Soop—bless his little goober heart—he answered every question all serious like it was on a test.