Dexter the Tough (7 page)

Robin had lots of reasons for crying. None of them had anything to do with me. It wasn't my fault he was crying.

I had lots of reasons for being mad, too. The secretary . . .

Dexter stopped again. He'd sound really stupid if he said he was mad at the secretary for getting sick. That'd be as bad as saying he was mad at Dad for getting sick.

Wait a minute.
Had
he been mad at Dad for getting sick?

Dexter crumpled up that piece of paper, too. He tried again.

A bunch of kids laughed at me . . .

Except, Dexter had laughed, too, when Mr. Chandler slipped and fell. He'd looked so funny, spinning his arms in the air, pumping his legs like someone in a cartoon.
Nobody
could have watched that without laughing.

Maybe Dexter had looked even funnier.

Another balled-up piece of paper joined the others behind the graham cracker box.

Dexter pulled out one more sheet of paper and stared at it. It was blank and white and empty. It stayed empty. The longer it stayed empty, the angrier Dexter got. Finally he picked up his pencil and scrawled:

This is a STUPID asinement. Nobody should have to do this. It's dumb. Really, really, really dumb!!!!!

He'd never in a million years hand that in. But it made him feel better to write it down.

“I
am
not
going to go talk to the principal!” Dexter snapped.

Robin was bugging him again at recess. He'd found Dexter's hiding place in the bushes, and crawled in behind him.

“But, see,” Robin said, pushing leaves out of his face, “my mom says she has a lot of respect for Mr. Wiseman. And she says she can't imagine him being mean to a new student on purpose, for no reason. So it must just be uh, a misunderstanding, and he'll apologize, just like Mr. Chandler did. And you'll feel better—”

“Wait a minute,” Dexter said, jerking
upright so fast that he bumped his head on a branch. “You told your mom that the principal was mean to me?”

“Ye-essss,” Robin said slowly.

“Why'd you go and do a stupid thing like that?”

Robin backed up a little.

“Because . . . I thought she could help.” he said. “And . . . I didn't know what else to do. And . . . my mom always helps me.”

Dexter glared at him.

“You're such a
baby,”
he said. “Don't you know, by the time you're in fourth grade, you shouldn't have to go running to Mommy for every little thing?”

Robin glared back. Or tried to. His eyes were starting to look a little too watery to hold a good glare.

“This isn't a little thing,” he said in a choked voice. “If a principal's mean to kids—that's wrong! My mom says sometimes principals even get fired for things like that. And if he was really, really nasty, maybe you
should even file a complaint with the school board, so he can be kicked out, so he's not mean to anyone else. It's like . . . like why we put criminals in jail, so they can't hurt anyone else!”

Dexter pulled a branch down a little so it hid his face.

“Mr. Wiseman wasn't that mean,” he said finally. “I mean, he didn't do anything he should get
fired
for.”

“What did he do?” Robin asked.

Dexter stayed quiet. He kind of hoped that if he stayed quiet long enough, Robin would get bored and wander off. But he peeked out of the leaves, and Robin was still there.

“He just, uh, he . . . ” Dexter mumbled.

“What?” Robin demanded.

“He asked me where my parents were.”

Dexter was whispering now. He hoped Robin hadn't heard him.

But then Robin said, “That's
it!
That's all he did?”

Dexter shrugged.

“Did he say it in a really mean way, like—” Robin hunched up his shoulders and made his voice deep and scary-sounding. “ ‘Where are your parents, young man? That's right! I'm talking to you! Where are your parents?' ”

“No,” Dexter admitted. “He didn't say it like that.”

“Then how was he mean?”

Dexter closed his eyes, and it was like he was back in the school office, that first day. He was standing in front of the counter, barely able to see over.

“Um—hello?” he said, but none of the adults behind the counter heard him. He saw the secretary make a bad face and clutch her stomach for a minute. Then the phone rang and she answered it.

“Oh, Ethan and Emma are both sick today? What a shame . . . Yes, there is a lot of that going around. . . . ”

I'm invisible,
Dexter thought.
I could stand here for hours and nobody would notice. Nobody would care.

Then a deep voice had boomed overhead.

“You don't need a pass to get into class,” the voice said. “The first bell hasn't rung yet. Just go on to your classroom and you'll be fine.”

Dexter looked up at the biggest man he'd ever seen in his life. The man was leaning down toward Dexter, like a giant in a fairy tale. A name tag dangled from a string around the man's neck: “Jonathan Wiseman, Principal.”

“I'm new,” Dexter said. “I don't know where my classroom is.”

“Oh.” The principal looked around, a puzzled squint on his face. “Where are your parents? They need to come in to register you. . . . ”

After that, Dexter's memory got fuzzy. It seemed like he stood there for hours, his face burning, his eyes prickling, his ears ringing with those words, “Where are your parents?” Those words made him feel like an orphan; they made him feel like a kid that nobody loved.

But maybe it was only a few minutes before the secretary walked over and said, “Oh, this is Dexter Jackson. His grandmother stopped in to register him last week. Her work schedule prevented her from coming in this morning, and she wanted to make sure . . . ”

Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. The only words that mattered were the cruel ones:
Where are your parents?

Now he told Robin stiffly, “You wouldn't understand.”

“But . . . then . . . do you want to go talk to the secretary? Remember, Mr. Chandler says she makes really good chocolate chip cookies, and—”

“No.”

“Do you want to go help Mr. Chandler test out new floor wax?”

“Robin, that is so stupid! Just leave me alone! Just go away, okay?”

Dexter's voice sounded every bit as mean as the pretend-principal voice Robin had imitated.

On the other side of the branch, Robin's face was getting blurry. Dexter pulled the branch down all the way in front of him, so it hid him completely.

When he looked out again, Robin was gone.

Dear Ms. Abbott,

You know how you said I should do something else, not write about a fight? And I said I wanted to write about a fight? I changed my mind. I don't want to write about a fight anymore. I'll write about anything you want me to write about. Just not that fight.

Sinserly,

Dexter Jackson

Dexter clutched his paper as he walked to Ms. Abbott's desk. He hoped she'd count a letter as his next writing assignment.

But Ms. Abbott's eyes narrowed as she read the letter. She tapped her finger on her chin.

“Dexter?” she said gently. “Why did you change your mind?”

“I don't know” Dexter said. “I just did.”

Ms. Abbott raised one eyebrow.

“Hmm. We have a problem, then,” she said. “Because I changed my mind too.”

“You did?” Dexter said. Suddenly he had a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach.

“Yes,” Ms. Abbott said. “Now I think you
need
to write about that fight.”

That wasn't fair. Teachers weren't supposed to change their minds. They were supposed to know everything. They were supposed to make a decision and stick with it.

“Why?” Dexter asked.

Ms. Abbott toyed with one strand of her hair. She wrapped it around her finger, then let it spring free.

“I have a theory,” she said.

“What?” Dexter blurted out.

“I think this fight really happened,” Ms. Abbott said. “And what you've written”—she ruffled through the papers in Dexter's
file—“I think it's all true. Except for the part where you said the fight didn't matter.”

That did it. Now the pit of Dexter's stomach felt like it had sunk all the way down to his tennis shoes.

“But I said it wasn't true!” Dexter protested.
“Robin
told you it never happened!”

She gave him a strange look. Oops. Now she'd know he eavesdropped.

“I admit, I'm a little confused,” she said. “Why would both of you lie? And if you beat Robin up, why would Robin's teacher say that he seems to be adjusting so much better—and seems so much happier—since the two of you started playing together?”

Great. Now Robin's teacher knew about the fight, too.

“We don't
play,”
Dexter said. “See, I just had a lot of bad things happen to me that first day. And—”

“I'm sorry to hear that,” Ms. Abbott said.

Dexter shrugged.

“It doesn't matter now,” he said. “But Robin wants to hunt down everyone who was mean to me.
He
thinks everybody's really nice, and they're going to apologize, or something.”

Ms. Abbott smiled.

“He sounds like a good friend,” she said.

“He's not my friend!” Dexter protested. “I beat him up, okay?”

Ms. Abbott just looked at him. Now she had both eyebrows raised.

Dexter realized what he'd done.

“You tricked me!” he complained. “You made me confess!”

Ms. Abbott smoothed out his paper.

“You confessed in writing a long time ago,” she said. “And nobody made you do that.”

Dexter slumped in his chair. He remembered how he'd felt that first day, pressing his pencil down on the paper, spelling out
I am tuf.
It was like he'd been some entirely other person.

“It felt like I had to,” Dexter said. “Like I'd explode if I didn't get the words out.”

“I'm glad you didn't explode,” Ms. Abbott said gently. “And I'm glad you didn't turn out to be the kind of kid who gets into lots of fights, all the time. That first day, I didn't know that your dad was sick, or that your mother was away with him. I didn't know why you were staying with your grandmother . . . you've certainly had a lot to deal with, haven't you?”

Ms. Abbott didn't even know about the principal being mean, and the secretary abandoning him, and the kids laughing about him. She didn't know all the reasons he'd been so mad he
had
to hit Robin.

Except—it turned out that none of those things were as bad as he'd thought.

And, anyhow, none of them were Robin's fault.

Dexter stared down at his paper. His face felt like it was burning up again.

“I'm kind of surprised that you didn't
want to write about your family's situation,” Ms. Abbott said. “Sometimes writing like that can be very therapeutic.”

Dexter's face got hotter. She didn't understand. Some things he would never write about. Some words and feelings were stuck deep, deep inside him.

“Dexter?” Ms. Abbott said. “Do you think there's a connection between what was going on in your family, and the fight you had with Robin?”

Dexter thought about his father lying in his hospital bed, not moving. He thought about his hand hitting Robin's face. He shook his head.

“Sometimes bad things happen to good people,” he said. This was something his mom had told him, when his dad first got sick. “Sometimes lots of bad things happen.” He thought about how he'd felt that first day, with his father sick, his mother gone, his grandmother unable to get off work to bring him to school. When the secretary left
him and the big kids laughed at him, he felt like he was caught in an avalanche of bad things.

He swallowed hard and kept talking.

“The bad things that happened to me—they just happened,” he said. “They weren't my fault. But me hitting Robin—I did that. I was the bad one.”

The words on his paper swam before his eyes. He waited for Ms. Abbott to tell him what his punishment was. Maybe he'd have to go to the principal's office. Maybe he'd be kicked out of school. Probably she'd have to call Grandma and Mom and Dad. That would be the worst thing of all.

But then he felt Ms. Abbott patting his back.

“Maybe I'm missing something,” Ms. Abbott said. “But it seems like Robin's forgiven you.”

She really didn't understand. That just made it worse, the fact that Robin was nice to him.

“The question is,” Ms. Abbott added, “what do you have to do to forgive yourself?”

Dexter kept his head down. But he dared to peek over sideways at Ms. Abbott.

“Aren't you going to punish me?” he asked.

“No,” Ms. Abbott said. “But—” She gathered up Dexter's papers and slipped them into his hands. “Keep writing about the fight.”

R
obin was back in the grass at recess. Once again, he was tearing up blades of grass and dropping them on the ground. Dexter paced around the playground, watching. He told himself there were plenty of other things he could do—maybe he should join the kickball game, after all. But he kept circling back toward Robin. His third time around, he finally walked right over to him.

Robin barely glanced up.

“Hey,” Dexter said.

“Hey,” Robin said. He tore another blade of grass in half.

Dexter sat down.

“I thought you were helping the janitor,” he said.

Robin shrugged.

“It's no fun alone,” he said.

Dexter thought about pointing out that if Robin was helping the janitor, he wouldn't be alone. He'd be with the janitor. But Dexter knew what Robin meant. Robin wouldn't have fun helping the janitor without Dexter helping, too.