Kung Fooey (10 page)

“No, it’s in here. Look.” I started to show her.

She held up a hand. “Wait … it’s really in there?”

I tapped the page. “Right here.”

She frowned. “I can’t believe I don’t remember it. I’ve read that manual five times, cover to cover.” She closed her eyes, trying to remember. “Oh, just tell me,” she finally said. “My mind’s a blank.”

“All you have to do to remember is think of Tito.”

“Who?”

She didn’t remember Tito, who’d once called her
Stel-la
and said he liked older
women. Never mind. “Okay, listen. Is there anyone you don’t like, like maybe someone at school?”

“What does that have to do with what we were talking about?”

“Well, is there?”

She thought. “Okay, there’s these three girls. I don’t know them, and I’m not sure I want to. They give me the creeps.”

“So what do you do when you see them?”

“Stay away from them. So, listen, if you don’t want to quiz me just give that booklet back.”

“There you go,” I said. “That’s how you remember what a space cushion is. Stay away. Keep your distance. Give yourself some space. This is what it says.”

I flipped to the page and read aloud.
“ ‘When a driver makes a mistake, other drivers need time to react. The only way you can be sure you have enough time to react is by leaving plenty of space between your vehicle and the vehicles around you. That space becomes a ‘space cushion.’ ”

I looked up. “See?”

Stella grinned. “You remember that yourself, Stump … next time you give me a lollipop with ants in it.”

“Uh—”

Saved by the blast of a car horn.

“Clarence!” Stella scrambled out of the skiff.

We both ran up the yard toward the house.

Clarence was waiting in the car, his arm hanging out the open window. “You ready?”

“As I’ll ever be,” Stella said. “Let’s go.”

“Hey, your booklet.” I held it up.

“Keep it. Maybe when you’re fifty they’ll let you drive.”

“Hardy-har.”

Clarence flicked his eyebrows at me, Hey.

I lifted my chin.

Before Stella got in the car she glanced back at me. “Space cushion. I’ll never forget it. Thanks.”

“Yeah … and sorry about the ants.”

“That’s okay, Stump. It wasn’t that much of a surprise.”

“It wasn’t?”

“You expect stuff like that from a moron.”

Stella winked and got in the car.

A
couple hours later, I was tossing around a football with Willy and Julio when Clarence’s big pink car came cruising down the street. Willy and Julio jumped to the side of the road. Stella was driving.

I stayed out in the street.

Stella pulled up next to me and stopped.

We crowded around the window.

“So?” I asked.

Stella flashed her brand-new driver’s license and a grin that said, Dang it, I did it!

I took the license. Her picture was pretty good. Better than Mom’s. “Someday I’ll get one of these, too. Is it hard to drive?”

“If I can do it, you can do it.… No, wait … that’s not right.… I forgot you’re a moron.”

Stella snatched back her license. “But you could probably get a bicycle license.”

She drove away with a toot of the horn. Before she got ten feet the radio came on.

Boooom. Boooom. Boooom
.

Willy, Julio, and I danced to the beat, grinning like idiots.

We played football in the street until Mom came home. It was starting to get dark by then.

She waved when she drove by.

“Gotta go,” I said, and tossed Julio his football.

Julio caught it one-handed. “Me and Willy might watch Stella drive you to school on Monday.”

“Want a lift?”

Julio grinned. “Not in this life.”

When I got home, Clarence was squatting down by his car, petting Streak.

“What are you doing?” I asked. “Where’s Stella?”

“Which one you like me to answer?”

I squatted next to him and scratched Streak’s chin. “She’s got fleas.”

“Who? Stella?”

I laughed. Funny!

“Hey,” I said. “Can I ask you a question?”

“Shoot.”

“So … uh, well … you got any, you know, like really weird kids in your class?”

Clarence was a senior at Kailua High School. He was bound to know at least one.

Clarence chuckled. “Couple, three. Why?”

I shrugged. “What does
lead foot
mean? My friend Julio said Stella had one.”

“Ho, you have a strange way of asking questions, you know?”

“Sorry.”

Clarence stood. “Let’s see. Lead foot could be couple things. Your friend prob’ly said that because she drives liddle bit fast, ah?” He grinned. “Heavy foot on the pedal.”

“Ah.” That made sense. Lead was heavy.

“Also it could mean you dragging your feet. You know, slow, taking your time, not moving fast. You could say you got a lead foot that way, too.”

I nodded. That made sense, too.

“Why you asked about weird kids?”

Streak rolled over for me to rub her belly. “Well … at my school? We got this new guy. From Hilo. I’ve never seen anyone like him. I mean, he tells weird stories, eats bugs, has one-word days, and knows kung fu … but really doesn’t … I mean, know kung fu, he just said he did … and then he got in a fight and ran away.” I frowned and scratched the back of my head. “Now he’s got Tito on his back.”

“Who’s Tito?”

“A sixth grader who likes to push us around.”

Clarence thought for a moment. “This Tito messes with you?”

“Sometimes.”

“You like me talk to him?”

“No, no, Tito’s not that bad. I can handle him. I mean, I know how. But this kid …”

I shook my head.

“I knew a kid like that one time,” Clarence said. “Not the Tito one, but the other one.
Everything you said, he made it more big. Whatever you did, he did um better. Everything. No way you could top him.” Clarence humphed. “He got in a lot of fights.”

“Really? This new kid—his name is Benny—he’s kind of like that. But maybe half of what he says might be true.”

“What I think,” Clarence said, “is that guys like that … they unsure of themselves. They just trying to figure it out.”

“Figure what out?”

Clarence shrugged. “Life, I guess.”

I nodded but didn’t really understand. “I can’t wait to drive.”

Clarence chuckled. “You like sit behind the wheel?”

“Ho, yeah! Can I?”

“Get in.”

Clarence opened the door of his big pink car and I slipped into the driver’s seat. I gripped the steering wheel in both hands. I stretched to see over the hood. “This is a big car.”

“How they made these old ones.”

No wonder Stella hit stuff in it. You couldn’t even see.

Clarence looked toward the house. “Stella told me: go wait by the car, I coming right out. That was ten minutes ago.”

I laughed. “Here’s a secret: pretend you don’t care.”

Clarence raised an eyebrow. “How come?”

“Your life will be better.”

“Good call.”

B
enny Obi was prob’ly home figuring out life, because the next day he wasn’t at school.

“Settle down, class,” Mr. Purdy said as school started. “This morning we’re going to take a few minutes to talk about the nasty
R
. It’s nasty because we don’t want any part of it in our school. Anyone care to guess what it is?”