Page 92-98
Story
Page 92
“Here he comes,” said Lori.
“Don’t be a chicken.”
Colleen bit her bottom lip.
It was after school.
The three girls
stood across the street
and watched Jeff.
“Maybe we should wait
until tomorrow,”
said Colleen.
“Hey, Jeff!”
Lori shouted.
“No,” Colleen whispered.
Jeff turned.
Lori and Melinda
walked toward him.
Colleen lagged behind.
“Hello, Jeff,”
said Lori.
“Hi, Jeff,”
said Melinda.
“Hello, hi,”
answered Jeff.
Lori laughed.
“C’mon, Colleen,”
said Melinda.
“Ask him.”
Colleen blushed
and looked away.
“Colleen has something
she wants to ask you,”
said Lori.
“Well, see,
um, okay,
well – ”
stammered Colleen.
“Quit bothering me,”
Jeff said very quietly.
“We’re not bothering you,”
said Lori.
“Colleen just wants
to ask you – ”
Melinda stopped her.
“Let Colleen ask him,”
she said.
Page 93
“Well, see,”
said Colleen.
“Okay.”
She took a breath.
“I’m having a
…it’s my birth – ”
“I don’t want her
asking me anything!”
Jeff snapped.
Colleen turned bright red.
“And quit saying hello
to me too!”
“We can say hello
if we want,”
said Melinda.
“It’s a free country.”
“I don’t want you
saying it to me,”
said Jeff.
“Don’t worry!”
Colleen exploded.
“I won’t!”
“I will,”
said Lori.
“Hello, hello, hello, hello, hello.”
“Shut up!”
said Jeff.
He slammed his book down
on the sidewalk.
“Hello, Jeff, hello, Jeff,”
said Lori.
“Jello, Jeff.”
She laughed at her mistake.
“Jello, Jeff.
Hello, Jello.”
She laughed hysterically.
“And quit laughing!”
Jeff shouted.
“She can laugh,”
said Colleen.
“You can’t tell her
she can’t laugh.”
“Hellohellohellohellohellohello,”
said Lori
as fast as
she could.
“Shut up!”
screamed Jeff.
“You shut up,”
said Melinda.
“I’m not afraid
of you, Melinda,”
said Jeff.
“I’m not afraid
of you either,”
said Melinda.
Jeff raised his fists
in the air.
Melinda did the same.
Lori shrieked
with anticipation.
“Okay, hit me,”
said Jeff.
“You hit me first,”
said Melinda.
Page 94
“No, you hit me first,”
said Jeff.
“Somebody hit somebody!”
shouted Lori.
Jeff tapped Melinda’s shoulder
with his fist.
She slugged him
in the stomach.
As he bent over
she hit him
in the nose.
Jeff flailed his arms
as he tried
to defend himself,
but Melinda
kept punching him,
in the neck,
in the stomach,
then in the eye.
Jeff fell
to the ground.
Melinda jumped
on top of him,
knees first.
She sat on his chest
and held his arms flat
against the ground.
Lori knelt beside them
and slapped the ground
as she counted:
“One…two…three…four…five
…six…seven…eight…nine ten!”
Melinda stood up.
Lori held Melinda’s arm
high in the air.
Holding her nose
with her other hand,
she bellowed:
“The winner,
and still champion
of the world
…Marvelous Melinda!”
Colleen clapped her hands.
Page 95
I’m going to be good,
thought Bradley,
and then,
when everybody sees
how good I am,
they’ll know
I’m not a monster.
“And Mrs. Ebbel
will give you
a gold star,”
said Ronnie.
Bradley was so excited,
he didn’t realize
he was putting on
two different-colored socks:
a blue one
and a green one.
He tied his shoelaces,
then went into the bathroom
and looked at himself
in the mirror.
His black eye
was almost all gone.
It had faded into
a light brownish-yellowish color.
He hurried out
to breakfast.
His mother
made oatmeal
for him.
“I hate hot cereal,”
he complained.
“You’ll eat
what you’re served,”
said his father.
“This isn’t a restaurant.”
He frowned,
not because
he had to eat oatmeal,
but because he realized
he never should have said
he hated it.
That was something
the Bad Bradley
would say.
The Good Bradley
liked hot,
lumpy cereal.
He took
a big spoonful,
brought it to his mouth,
and swallowed the glop.
“Mmm, good!”
he said,
but as he withdrew the spoon
from his mouth,
his elbow bumped his glass
of orange juice.
Claudia screamed
and jumped up.
Page 96
“Oh, Bradley!”
said his mother.
His father glared at him.
“It was an acci – ”
He started to say
it was an accident
but then remembered
Carla didn’t believe
in accidents.
That puzzled him.
He wondered why
he would want to spill
his orange juice
on purpose.
He liked orange juice.
It was the oatmeal
he should have spilled.
“Are you just going
to sit there,
or are you going
to help your mother
clean it up?”
asked his father.
He picked up
his napkin to help,
but his mother told him
to stay out of her way.
“You’ll only make
a bigger mess,”
she said.
Silently,
he finished eating.
As he headed back
to his room,
Claudia burst out laughing.
“What’s so funny?”
he demanded.
“Look at your socks!”
she laughed.
He looked down
at his feet,
then back at his sister,
the laughing hyena.
“Thank you, Claudia,”
he said.
“I appreciate
your sharing that
with me.”
She stopped laughing
and stared at him.
He walked
into his room,
sat on the edge
of his bed,
and took off
his sneakers.
“Wow!” said Bartholomew.
“You were so good.
I would have
punched her face in
if I was you.”
“He’s going to get
a gold star today,”
said Ronnie.
Bradley changed his socks,
but once again
he was so excited
thinking about
the gold star
that he didn’t
pay attention
to what he was doing.
He took the green sock
off his right foot.
He took the blue sock
off his left foot.
Page 97
He put the green sock
on his left foot
and the blue sock
on his right foot.
Then he put his shoes
on and left for school,
determined to be good.
He walked into class
and took his seat –
last seat,
last row.
He sat up straight
with his hands folded
on top of his desk.
He tried
to hold back
his excitement
as he glanced at
the chart
on the wall
next to him.
Jeff came in
and sat down –
last seat,
second to last row.
Bradley saw him
out of the corner
of his eye,
then turned to get
a better look.
Jeff had
a black eye!
“What are you
staring at, Chalkers!”
Jeff snarled.
“Hey, you two
look like twins!”
exclaimed Shawne,
the girl
who sat
in front of Jeff.
“Turn your ugly face around,”
Jeff snapped.
“Oh, shut up, Bradley,”
said Shawne,
turning around.
Bradley looked at
the back of Shawne’s head.
She still thinks
I’m a monster,
he realized.
But once I get
my gold star,
then she’ll know
I’m good.
For the rest of
the morning,
he sat at attention
with his eyes fixed on
Mrs. Ebbel.
He kept wondering
if she had noticed
how good he was
yet.
As he walked outside
for recess,
he was almost certain
there’d be a gold star
next to his name
when he returned.
Curtis and Doug,
two of Jeff’s friends,
came out of
Mrs. Sharp’s class.
“What’s the big idea?”
asked Doug.
“Hitting Jeff
when he’s not looking,”
said Curtis.
“Huh?”
said Bradley.
Doug pushed him.
Page 98
He stumbled backward
into Jeff,
who pushed him back
the other way.
Bradley looked around.
He was surrounded.
“Jeff’s our friend,”
said Robbie.
“Yeah!”
said Brian.
“You hit me
when I wasn’t looking!”
said Jeff.
“And my hands
were full of groceries.
I didn’t want
to break the eggs.”
“Chicken Chalkers,”
said Dan.
There was a space
between Andy and Doug.
Bradley dashed through it
and ran across
the playground.
Jeff and his friends
chased after him.
Bradley looked back
at them and smashed into
a girl standing on one foot.
The girl fell onto
the hard hopscotch ground
and wailed.
“I’m telling, Bradley!”
said one of her friends.
“I’m sorry,”
Bradley said helplessly,
then continued running.
He ran up
the concrete steps
and entered
the school building
through the auditorium.
From there,
he walked quickly
to the library.
“What do you want,
Bradley?”
asked Mrs. Wilcott,
the librarian.
“Nothing,”
he muttered
as he sat down
at one of the tables.
He leaned his head
against his hands,
propped up by
his elbows.
What if Carla’s wrong?
he worried.
What if
I really am
a monster?
“I don’t want any trouble
from you, Bradley,”
said Mrs. Wilcott.
The End
ThEnd