Blind Squirrels (6 page)

Donna was quiet for a moment, and
then she continued.  “What does she look like?  Well, she has short blond hair,
she wears glasses, and – uh, she’s a girl, and – um, she’s thirteen.  I don’t
know – she just looks like a Kat.”

I had a sickening feeling that I
knew who Donna was talking to.  Still, I held my breath and gave her the benefit
of a doubt.  “You are Max Savage, right?”  Pause.  “I was just wondering. 
You’re very slow to catch on.  She’s got to be the only girl that has a crush
on you.  She’s a ninth grader.  She lives at 314 Heritage Street.  We were
standing right in front of your house today.  She was the one that wasn’t quite
so cute.  I was the cute one.”

Enough was enough.  “Donna!  What
are you doing?”  I came rushing into the living room.

“Kat, he wants to talk to you.” 
She was holding the phone out towards me.

I didn’t know what to do, so I
took the phone.  “Hello?”

There was a deep voice on the
other end, “Is this Kat?”

“Yes.”  My voice was shaking.

“You’re the girl I sat with the
other day on the bus?”

“Y – y – yes.”  I was really
losing it.

“Okay.  Oh, and tell your friend
not to call me anymore, okay?”

“Sure.  Whatever you say.  I’m
sorry.”

“No need.  It wasn’t your
fault.”  The phone went dead, and a dial tone reverberated through my head. 
“Now it’s time to kill Donna,” it was saying to me.

In the meantime, Donna had turned
the TV on.  It was almost time for her “man”, Glen Campbell.  How could I kill
her?  She was just being Donna.  She thought she was doing me a favor.  Maybe
she had.  Max and I had talked, even if it was briefly.  I settled in beside Donna
and decided to let her live another day.  Glen Campbell needed her.  She was his
number one fan.

After a bit, I noticed it was
twelve-thirty.  Glen Campbell had been introduced and was finally singing.  His
first song was Donna’s favorite, “Rhinestone Cowboy”.  As it ended, I realized
that Donna hadn’t been singing or oohing or ahhing.  I looked over at her.  She
was sound asleep.  I thought of waking her, but I didn’t.  Revenge was sweet.

The next morning, Donna begged me
to go on another walk.  I was hesitant, but I thought we might see Max, so I
relented.  As we approached the top of the hill, I saw Johnny, Max, Terrance, Amos,
and Mason playing football in the street.  Mason saw us, too, and he started
yelling.  I didn’t know what he was saying because he was eight or ten houses
away in the middle of the block.  All I do know is that everyone turned around
to stare at us.

“Let’s go back.”  Yes, I was a
chicken.

“No.  I missed my baby Glen last
night – you’ve got to let me have some fun.”  Did I say revenge was sweet?

“Please, Donna,” I begged.

Donna ignored me as usual.  She
kept walking, and stupid me kept following her.  As Donna passed the boys, she
was winking and smiling and flirting with them.  As I passed, I tried to look
straight ahead and pretend they weren’t there.

“Hell-o.”  Johnny took Donna’s
bait.

“Hi.  You must be Johnny?” 
Great.  Now they all knew I’d been telling her about them.

“Who wants to know?”  He was as
slick as Donna was.

“Donna.  Donna Daley.”  She
extended her hand as if she expected him to kiss it.  I kept walking.

“Are we gonna play ball or
what?”  Mason was growing tired of this insipid little interlude.  For once, he
and I saw eye-to-eye.

“You guys go on without me.  The
teams were lopsided anyway.”  Johnny intended to really spend time with Donna. 

By now, everyone was ignoring me,
and I couldn’t have been happier.  Still, I couldn’t walk away and leave Donna
with Johnny – not with Max so close at hand.  I was well past everyone, so I
turned around to face them while continuing to walk backwards away from them. 
The last things I remember were the resounding thud as something ran into me
and the resonant ringing that filled my head as I hit the ground.

When I opened my eyes, I could
hear Donna’s voice, but I couldn’t see her.  No, I wasn’t blind.  Someone was
blocking my view.  A blurry shadow was standing over me with a damp washcloth,
and they kept washing my face over and over.  I was lying on a couch, but I
didn’t know where I was.

“She’s waking up.”  The “someone”
that was above me was a guy.  His deep voice was as of yet indistinct to me.

“Whew,” I heard Donna say.  “I
just knew her mom was gonna kill me for letting her die.”  That’s Donna –
always full of concern.

“I think she’ll be okay.  It was
just a little bump.  I didn’t mean to hit her.”  My eyes were focusing.  Was it
Max showing all this concern?

“She shouldn’t have turned
around.”  I knew Terrance’s squeaky little biting voice.

The guy standing over me wasn’t
Max.  It wasn’t Johnny.  He looked familiar, but I still hadn’t regained my
senses.  It wasn’t Terrance or Amos.  Thank God it wasn’t Mason.  But who?  No,
it couldn’t be…Anyone but Travis Cartwright.

“Are you okay?”  It was Travis
all right.

“I’m fine,” I said, pushing
Travis away.  “Just let me get up.”  My head started spinning, and I fell back
onto the couch.  “I just need to sit here for a few minutes.”

“Would you like some Pepsi?”  Max
was here!  Maybe this was his house.

“We don’t have any Pepsi.”  Mason. 
Oh, jeez.  This was Mason’s house.  “My mom only buys Dr. Pepper.”

“Ice water would be okay.”  I
always preferred water to any other drink – especially if it was ice cold.

I noticed that Johnny wasn’t in
the room.  Donna was feigning concern, but I knew that she was just perturbed. 
Johnny had left in a time of distress, and he hadn’t even cared that Donna
might be in trouble over the whole thing.  Some charming hero he turned out to
be.  Maybe Terrance, Mason, and Amos were pesky, but at least they didn’t run
away from a crisis.  And maybe Travis wasn’t so bad after all.

Mason handed me a glass of ice
water.  “What happened to me?” I asked.

Mason began, “You were walking
backwards...,”

Donna added, “Travis was
approaching us on his bike...,”

Travis finished.  “I thought that
you stopped.  I – I guess…I was trying to tease you.  I wanted to zip by you
and scare you.  But you were walking, and I misjudged.  I ran into you with my
bike.  I’m sorry.”

I thought for a moment.  Travis
no longer looked like a convict – just a scared boy.  “It’s okay,” I finally
said.  “It was an accident.  But how did I wind up in Mason’s house?”

“Travis carried you in.”  Donna
could hardly contain the excitement in her voice.

“His back is probably in worse
shape than your head.”  Mason always had an insult handy.

“She was light as a feather.” 
The look in Travis’s eyes nauseated me.

“I think we’d better break this
up and all go home.”  Max sounded disgusted.  Was he jealous?  I could only
hope.

I was feeling better, so we all
left Mason’s house.  I wanted to walk home, but Travis insisted that I ride
with him on his bike.  Luckily, his bike had a banana seat, so we both fit.  As
he whisked me away, Donna followed on foot.  At home, I climbed off his bike
and thanked him for the ride.

“I really am sorry.”  He looked so
miserable.

“I know.  It’s okay.  You didn’t
mean it.”  I just wanted him to leave.

“You forgive me?”  What he wanted
was becoming clearer by the minute.

“Yeah, sure.  Whatever.  Now I
better get inside.  I’ve got a killer headache.”  Go away.  I don’t like you. 
Can I be any plainer?

“Okay.  See ya at the bus stop
Monday.  Bye.”  Thank goodness he was leaving.

Donna walked up, and we went
inside.  She had a sly smile on her face.  I pretended not to notice.

“Why didn’t you tell me about
Travis?  He likes you,” her eyes twinkled with mischief.  “You did know that,
right?”  She was so intuitive.

“I don’t like him.  Not that
way.  My heart belongs to Max.”  How many times did I have to explain?

“You wouldn’t like him if you’d
heard all the things he said about you.  Travis was about to jump on him.  I
think you should concentrate on Travis.”  Notice how she didn’t specifically
say what Max said.

“I’ve got a headache.  I’m gonna
lie down.  What time are you leaving?”  I wanted it to be soon.

“Dad won’t be by until after
three.  We’ve still got hours to be together.  You rest for a while.  I’ll fix
lunch, and then we’ll watch TV.  It’s almost time for American Bandstand.” 
Count on Donna to act as if nothing had happened.  I retreated to my room and
vowed that Donna wouldn’t spend the night again for a very long time.

I expected Monday to be another
embarrassing day, but I was wrong.  Only Travis mentioned the incident, and I
told him I didn’t want to talk about it.  Otherwise, it was a perfectly boring
day at WMHS – the beginning of a boring week. 

Olivia, Aurelia, and I were
becoming closer.  I now looked forward to lunch for other reasons besides
eating.  I told them about my weekend mishap, and they found the whole story
quite comical.  They made me see the humor in it, too.  Thanks to them, I
started finding humor in a lot of things.

As the weeks passed, I became
complacent at WMHS.  Max was always around at lunch and in the mornings before
school, but he never talked to me or showed an interest.  Travis persisted with
his advances, but I played them off as a joke.  Most things stayed the same.  I
was, however, adding to my list of friends.

Alice Lawson was a girl in my
homeroom class.  She had round plump cheeks and an engaging smile.  She was
also in my Biology class, so we eventually forged a friendship.  Alice knew of
my crush on Max, and she offered to help me with him.  Her dark eyes lit up
whenever she got a chance to help one of her friends.  She was small and wiry,
but she always stood up to the mean girls when they started making fun of me. 
Alice introduced me to several of those girls, and soon they were treating me
with more kindness.  Alice convinced me that she could even persuade Max to
love me if I gave her the chance.

Diane Griffin, the mouse from my
English class, and I were also becoming friends.  Diane was painfully shy, but
she seemed to come alive when I showed her attention.  Diane reminded me of a
meek little old lady.  Her feathery blond hair was almost white and she parted it
in the middle; her pale pink scalp was visible underneath.  She always wore a
white cardigan sweater – even on the hottest summer day.  A frilly shirt
usually peeked out from under the open buttons, and the shirt’s collar rested
neatly on the outside of her sweater.  She usually wore twill cotton pants, and
she had every color imaginable.  Her favorite color – pink – seemed to always
pop up in either her clothes or an accessory.  The end of her small round nose
provided an excellent resting place for a pair of wire-framed, hexagon-shaped
granny glasses.  She looked very studious, and she was.  She would eventually join
my little lunch group, but that wouldn’t happen until she got to know everyone.

Olivia and I had also befriended
a girl in our PE class.  Deidra was an African-American girl with a very light skin
color, reddish-blond hair, and blue eyes.  Many of the kids at school spurned
her and called her “Albino”.  It never crossed my mind – or Olivia’s – to make
fun of the way Deidra looked. We made friends with her and tried to protect her
from the taunts of the other girls in PE.  Sadly, Deidra had other problems
that caused her constant ridicule.  She was somewhat slowwitted and extremely
trusting, making her the butt of many jokes.  One day, after eavesdropping on
one of my conversations with Olivia, she got the strange idea that Max was my
boyfriend and that our marriage was imminent.  Shamefully, Olivia and I added
fuel to that flame – it was just too good of a joke for us to let it pass.  We
soon had Deidra believing that Max and I had secretly married, and we made her
swear to keep quiet.  After a few weeks of this ruse, Olivia and I started
feeling guilty and decided to tell Deidra the truth.  She never spoke to us
again after that.  It seemed that our cruel joke was the one that finally
turned Deidra from a naïve girl to a hardened young woman.  Later, as an adult,
I would still have trouble forgiving myself.

There were people on the bus that
I became acquainted with, too.  Erma and I weren’t what you might call friends,
but we were associates.  She protected me from jerks like Mason, and I helped
her with algebra.  I met Howdy Doody and Opie, the twins.  Their real names
were Ernie and Curtis Burton, and they weren’t twins at all – just brothers who
looked alike.  Ed Hanson, a freshman that was in several classes with me, often
bent my ear in the afternoon.  With his curly brown hair and chubby baby face,
many of the girls on the bus were in love with him.  Even Lydia Burns, a blond-haired,
blue-eyed cheerleader, had designs on Ed.  And Lydia was a sophomore.  She was
also the twinkle in good old Curtis Burton’s eye, but he’d never get a chance
to date her.  One day in the future she would become Mrs. Ed Hanson, and, after
she gained about a hundred pounds, she would become the ex-Mrs. Ed Hanson.