Billy yelled a cuss word, and the entire back seat plunged into a heated discussion as to whether Janice Avery and Willard Hughes were or were not in love and were or were not seeing each other secretly.
As Billy got off the bus, he hollered to Wilma, “You just better tell Janice that Willard is gonna be mad when he hears what she’s spreading all over the school!”
Wilma’s face was crimson as she screamed out the window, “OK, you dummy! You talk to Willard. You’ll see. Just ask him about that letter! You’ll see!”
“Poor old Janice Avery,” Jess said as they sat in the castle later.
“Poor old Janice? She deserves everything she gets and then some!”
“I reckon.” He sighed. ?
??But, still—”
Leslie looked stricken. “You’re not sorry we did it, are you?”
“No. I reckon we had to do it, but still—”
“Still what?”
He grinned. “Maybe I got this thing for Janice like you got this thing for killer whales.”
She punched him in the shoulder. “Let’s go out and find some giants or walking dead to fight. I’m sick of Janice Avery.”
The next day Janice Avery stomped onto the bus, her eyes daring everyone in sight to say a word. Leslie nudged May Belle.
May Belle’s eyes went wide. “Did ’cha—?”
“Shhh. Yes.”
May Belle turned completely around and stared at the back seat; then she turned back and poked Jess. “You made her that mad?”
Jess nodded, trying to move his head as little as possible as he did so.
“We wrote that letter,” Leslie whispered. “But you mustn’t tell anyone, or she’ll kill us.”
“I know,” said May Belle, her eyes shining. “I know.”
SIX
The Coming of Prince Terrien
Christmas was almost a month away, but at Jess’s house the girls were already obsessed with it. This year Ellie and Brenda both had boyfriends at the consolidated high school and the problem of what to give them and what to expect from them was cause of endless speculation and fights. Fights, because as usual, their mother was complaining that there was hardly enough money to give the little girls something from Santa Claus, let alone a surplus to buy record albums or shirts for a pair of boys she’d never set eyes on.
“What are you giving your girl friend, Jess?” Brenda screwed her face up in that ugly way she had. He tried to ignore her. He was reading one of Leslie’s books, and the adventures of an assistant pig keeper were far more important to him than Brenda’s sauce.
“Don’t you know, Brenda?” Ellie joined in. “Jess ain’t got no girl friend.”
“Well, you’re right for once. Nobody with any sense would call that stick a girl.” Brenda pushed her face right into his and grinned the word “girl” through her big painted lips. Something huge and hot swelled right up inside of him, and if he hadn’t jumped out of the chair and walked away, he would have smacked her.
He tried to figure out later what had made him so angry. Partly, of course, it made him furious that anyone as dumb as Brenda would think she could make fun of Leslie. Lord, it hurt his guts to realize that it was Brenda who was his blood sister, and that really, from anyone else’s point of view, he and Leslie were not related at all. Maybe, he thought, I was a foundling, like in the stories. Way back when the creek had water in it, I came floating down it in a wicker basket waterproofed with pitch. My dad found me and brought me here because he’d always wanted a son and just had stupid daughters. My real parents and brothers and sisters live far away—farther away than West Virginia or even Ohio. Somewhere I have a family who have rooms filled with nothing but books and who still grieve for their baby who was stolen.
He shook himself back to the source of his anger. He was angry, too, because it would soon be Christmas and he had nothing to give Leslie. It was not that she would expect something expensive; it was that he needed to give her something as much as he needed to eat when he was hungry.
He thought about making her a book of his drawings. He even stole paper and crayons from school to do it with. But nothing he drew seemed good enough, and he would end up scrawling across the half-finished page and poking it into the stove to burn up.
By the last week of school before the holiday, he was growing desperate. There was no one he could ask for help or advice. His dad had told him he would give him a dollar for each member of the family, but even if he cheated on the family presents, there was no way he could get from that enough to buy Leslie anything worth giving her. Besides, May Belle had her heart set on a Barbie doll, and he had already promised to pool his money with Ellie and Brenda for that. Then the price had gone up, and he found he would have to go over into every one else’s dollar to make up the full amount for May Belle. Somehow this year May Belle needed something special. She was always moping around. He and Leslie couldn’t include her in their activities, but that was hard to explain to someone like May Belle. Why didn’t she play with Joyce Ann? He couldn’t be expected to entertain her all the time. Still—still, she ought to have the Barbie.
So there was no money, and he seemed paralyzed in his efforts to make anything for Leslie. She wouldn’t be like Brenda or Ellie. She wouldn’t laugh at him no matter what he gave her. But for his own sake he had to give her something that he could be proud of.