Dexter the Tough (5 page)

“Bone marrow,” Dad said. “Remember? Bone marrow's the stuff that makes your blood.”

Dexter knew that. If he let himself think about it, he knew a lot of facts about blood and how his dad's didn't work right. But he wanted his dad to laugh the way he'd laughed last summer, when Mom and Dad were talking about bone marrow transplant this and bone marrow transplant that, and Dexter had accidentally flubbed the name. It became a family joke—Dexter had even drawn a picture of Dad eating globs of marshmallow
fluff, and telling it, “Don't go to my stomach! Go to my bones!”

Then they'd found out that nobody in the family had the right kind of bone marrow to give to Dad. Nobody they knew matched.

“I thought they were looking all over the world for someone to help you,” Dexter said.

“They are,” Dad said. “But I can't wait for ever. I've got to try this other treatment because . . . because . . . right now it's my only chance.”

Dexter swallowed hard. There wasn't anything he could say to that.

“And, Dexter?” Dad said. “Before I do this, I just wanted to tell you . . . I love you very, very much. You know that, don't you?”

“Yes,” Dexter whispered.

“I am so proud of you. I feel so lucky to have such a wonderful son.”

Dexter bent his head down, because he
didn't want Grandma to see how he'd lost control of his face all of a sudden. He could feel it twisting and bunching up, his mouth opening like it had decided on its own that he needed to let out a huge wail. But bending his head meant that Dexter was looking right at his homework paper now. Even though it was upside down, the paper was thin enough that he could still see through the other side. He could still read “Dexter hit Robin” upside down and backward.

Daddy wouldn't be proud of me if he knew what I did,
Dexter thought.
He wouldn't think I was a wonderful son then.

Dexter slid his hand over the top of his homework paper. But that didn't seem like enough, so he crossed his arms over the paper and leaned forward so he was practically lying on it, his ear pressed against the phone.

“No matter what happens . . . ,” Dad was saying.

Dexter couldn't listen. He was concentrating too hard on covering over those
awful words. And he was concentrating too hard on holding himself together—not wailing, not screaming, not throwing the phone down, not ripping the paper up. Not crying.

“Good-bye for now,” Daddy said. Dexter nodded, even though he knew Daddy couldn't see him.

The phone clicked, then the dial tone came on, too loud and buzzing. Somehow Dexter couldn't bring himself to let go of the phone.

Grandma stepped up beside him and eased the phone away from his ear. She slipped the homework paper out from under his arms and into his backpack. And then she did a funny thing. She sat down in a chair and lifted Dexter into her lap. She put her arms around him and held him tight, like he was a really little kid. A baby, even.

Dexter didn't mind at all.

“D
exter, I am so excited to see what you wrote,” Ms. Abbott said, beaming at him.

Dexter blinked up at her.

“Huh?” he asked.

He was in a daze today. He kept wondering what time Daddy was starting the experimental treatment. Why hadn't Dexter asked? Maybe right this very minute Daddy was being wheeled into an operating room, or hooked up to some nasty medicine that would make him throw up and sweat and shiver even worse than ever. Dexter had seen Daddy get sick from medicine so many times before. Maybe this time he would even . . .

“Your
story”
Ms. Abbott said, grinning and flipping a strand of her long, honey-colored hair over her shoulder. “Remember?”

Today, being in the same room with Ms. Abbott felt like staring into the sun. She glowed so brightly it hurt to look. Today Dexter belonged in a dark room, with all the shades drawn. Last night at bedtime Grandma had turned out the lights and sat on the edge of Dexter's bed. She'd clutched his hand and prayed, over and over again: “Lord, please be with your son Thomas, Dexter's daddy. Please wrap this whole family in your love. Please guide the doctor's hands. Please, God, Dexter and his momma need Thomas here. . . . ”

And lying in the dark, listening to Grandma pray, Dexter had felt that maybe there was still some hope. He'd fallen asleep listening to Grandma talking to God.

But then this morning Grandma had to go to work and Dexter had to go to school, like usual. Like nothing important was happening
today. And in the sunlight, Dexter couldn't hold the sound of Grandma's prayers in his head anymore.

“Dexter,” Ms. Abbott said. “You did write another version of your story, didn't you? Telling Robin's side of things?”

A stern tone had crept into her voice. She had her hands on her hips.

“Yeah,” Dexter said dully. He remembered Grandma putting the paper in his backpack. “I'll get it.”

He went to the cubbyhole where he'd stored his backpack. Unzip the backpack, pull out the paper, walk back to Ms. Abbott . . . everything seemed to take an extra effort.

Ms. Abbott was watching him, her eyebrows squinted together.

“Thank you,” she said, sounding puzzled now. She took the paper and let him sit down in the chair by her desk.

Dexter watched Ms. Abbott read. What had he written? Oh, yeah, about how Robin saw the fight.

Suddenly Ms. Abbott's eyes got really big and her eyebrows arched up toward her hair.

“He was already crying?” she asked. “Before you hit him?”

“Yeah,” Dexter said.

“You hit Robin Bryce when he was crying?”

Dexter shrugged. Ms. Abbott put down the paper and stared at him, her mouth hanging open, like she didn't know what to say. That look broke through Dexter's daze.

Oh, no,
Dexter thought.
Grandma was praying so hard for Daddy, telling God I need my daddy alive. Why would God want to do something nice for me? I'm a terrible person. I beat up Robin. I beat him up when he was already crying.

Dexter thought his face was going to burn up with shame.

“In the story,” he told Ms. Abbott quickly. “It's just a story, that he was crying and I beat him up.”

Ms. Abbott swallowed hard. She winced a
little. But when she spoke again, her voice was gentle.

“Why was Robin crying?” she asked.

Dexter shrugged again.

“You don't know?” Ms. Abbott said.

Dexter shook his head no.

“Then find out,” Ms. Abbott said. “That's your assignment for tomorrow,
find out.”

D
exter knew he was going to have to ask Robin. At recess, after all the other kids had raced outside, Dexter trudged down the hall and through the doors. He came to a stop in the too-bright sunshine.

Robin was not sitting in his usual spot over by the bushes.

Dexter circled the playground. He looked
in
the bushes. He stared at every kid on every swing and slide.

He heard something hitting the building near his old hiding place around the corner. He tiptoed through the pebbles and peeked around the building.

Now it was Robin kicking stones at the school.

“You'll get in trouble for that,” Dexter said.

Robin paused mid-kick. He looked at Dexter, then went ahead and sent another burst of pebbles sailing toward the wall.

“This is what
you
do,” he said.

“I used to,” Dexter agreed. “But I wasn't so loud.”

Robin stopped kicking stones.

“Nobody will play with me,” he said.

“So?” Dexter said.

“So who cares if I kick stones at the school or not?”

Dexter didn't. He shrugged, like it didn't matter at all.

Then he remembered what he needed to ask Robin. He gulped.

“You were crying,” he began.

“I was not!” Robin snapped. He stuck his face right up close to Dexter's. “Do my eyes look red? Do you see any tears?”

“I mean, last week,” Dexter said, backing away from Robin. “In the bathroom.”

“Oh,” Robin said, his shoulders sagging.

“I didn't know why you were crying,” Dexter said.

“What's it to you?” Robin snarled.

It was too complicated to explain about the story, and Ms. Abbott's questions, and how professional writers work. And maybe that wasn't even Dexter's reason. He had too much mixed up in his mind. He could see his fist hitting Robin's jaw, again and again and again, like a scene from a DVD being played over and over. He could see the comb tracks Robin had had in his hair that day. He could see the tears streaming down Robin's face. He could see the crowd of kids laughing at him when he fell. He could see his father's body, not moving, just a lump under the sheet of a hospital bed. He could see Grandma's arms wrapped around him while she prayed. He could see Ms. Abbott's horrified face when she asked,
“You hit Robin Bryce when he was crying?”

“I just want to know,” Dexter said.

Robin slumped against the building. He slid down, like his legs couldn't hold him up anymore. He ended up sitting in the stones.

Dexter sat down beside him.

“Why were you crying?” he said.

Robin let his chin fall against his knees.

“I hate school,” he said.

“Oh, me too,” Dexter said quickly.

“You do?” Robin asked, almost sounding happy about it.

“Yeah,” Dexter said. “I hate the principal, and the secretary, and the janitor, and my teacher, and all the other kids.”

“Maybe I don't hate that many people,” Robin said. He picked up a pebble and sent it skipping through the other stones. “It's just, I thought it would be fun, you know? I never went to school before this year.”

“You're a kindergartener?” Dexter gasped. It was awful that Robin could be so much
bigger and taller than Dexter, and just be in kindergarten.

It was awful that Dexter could have beaten up a poor little kindergartener who was already crying before Dexter hit him.

“No,” Robin said, sounding annoyed. “I'm in fourth grade. But Mom always home-schooled me before.”

Dexter's mom didn't even have time to live in the same house with him. But Robin's mom cared enough to comb his hair perfectly every morning, and let him have a dog,
and
be his teacher for kindergarten through third grade.

“Bet your mom got tired of that,” Dexter said in a mean voice. “Bet she was really glad to send you out the door to school.”

“No,” Robin said. “She wanted to keep homeschooling me. But I begged and begged to go to school. Every time we drove past the school, every time I saw kids on the school bus—everyone always looked so happy. I thought I'd have so many friends. . . . ”

“So why don't you?” Dexter asked.

Robin stared down at the stones. For a minute Dexter didn't think he was going to answer. Then he looked up.

“How do you make friends?” he asked earnestly. “How does it work?”

Dexter had never thought about it. Back home, he'd just
had
friends, he hadn't had to work at it. And here—he hadn't wanted friends. The other kids had stopped asking him to play kickball after that first day.

“Well, you just, uh . . . ” Dexter fumbled for a way to explain it to Robin. “Let's say you want to play basketball. So you just go up to a kid and say, ‘Wanna shoot hoops?' And if he says yes, then you play. And if he says no, then you ask someone else.”

“But everybody already hates me,” Robin said. “Right away, the first day of school, they started making fun of my name. And after that, well—” He glanced sideways at Dexter, then looked away fast. “Some kids saw me crying, and they called
me a crybaby. And that made me cry more.”

“So you were crying because some kids called you a crybaby?” Dexter asked.

“No!—er, kind of, I mean—I just wanted to go home. I missed my mom. I didn't want to go to school anymore! I wanted to be home-schooled again. But I couldn't tell my mom that, not after I begged so hard. . . . ”

Dexter didn't know how Robin could miss his mom when he got to see her every morning and every afternoon after school. She probably tucked him into bed every night. She probably fixed his breakfast, and packed his lunches, and oohed and aahed over his homework papers every day.

Dexter hadn't seen either of his parents in almost two weeks. His mom had left him behind. His dad was so sick that regular medicine didn't work on him, and the doctors had to try an experiment. All Dexter had right now was Grandma. And, sure, she was good at praying and putting on Band-Aids. But she wore those old-lady clothes and she was
always tired after work. And she still didn't know that Dexter hated graham crackers, and canned pears, and old men singing on TV.

Dexter started to stand up, because he couldn't take it anymore, poor little Robin whining about being away from his stupid mom for a couple of hours a day. But suddenly Robin looked over at Dexter and asked, “So maybe I was crying. But why were you so mad?”

“Huh?” Dexter said, caught half up and half down.

“That day in the bathroom. You were mad before you saw me. I could tell, because of the way you walked in—”

He hopped up and did an imitation, scowling and hunching up his shoulders and stomping his feet.

Dexter couldn't help himself. He laughed.

“I wasn't that bad!” he complained.

“Yes, you were!”

“Well, a bunch of kids laughed at me because I fell down,” Dexter said. “The janitor made the floor too slippery. That's why I said I hated him.
And the principal was mean to me, and it was my first day of school and the secretary started to show me where to go but then she just left me standing there, in the middle of the hall. And I didn't know what I was supposed to do.”