G: Wolfboy

Chapter kid wolfboy

I've been watching him ever since my father started making me take the
bus to school, which was the beginning of my first grade year. He's
older than I am, and he always sits in the front of the bus, next to
his brother. He and his brother never talk, and they are beautiful.
Almost twins except for their heights. I focus on him, the older one.
He always takes the outside seat and puts his hands on the seatback in
front of him.

I don't know his name. I never see him in school, at lunch or on the
playground. My own day is spent with Mrs. Ellis, who is large and has
greasy hair that lays in a brown lump on top of her head. She sits at
her desk and mouths cuss words; I can read her lips. I'm scared she
will discover I don't know my alphabet. I can read, though, but I'm not
allowed to read out loud. "You're reading too fast," Mrs. Ellis said
after our first couple of reading groups. "Slow down so the others can
follow you."

Since then she passes me over, and I sit staring at the book as another
student stumbles over the words, so slow that I can feel myself
bursting. We read about children with blond hair and dogs and houses
with porches, stories that look nothing like the drawings around the
room of families crammed into one room, or the father missing, or a
sick grandparent lying in bed. Sometimes Mrs. Ellis rolls in a
television that sits on a tall cart, towering dangerously over us as we
watch Sesame Street. These times are rare, but a relief because at
least the people on the television are familiar.

I hate Mrs. Ellis, who wouldn't let me go to the bathroom one day as I
sat squirming at my desk. I held my knees together and held my breath,
but finally I let go, the warmth filling my pants and then dripping
over the front of my seat and onto the floor. This is how I learned the
floor of our room was slanted. My pee made a thin stream all the way
under the desk in front of me, where a girl who never said a word sat
and stared at her desktop through thick glasses with red frames. Peeing
my pants made me hate her, too.

Another time, Mrs. Ellis used her paddle on me, taking me out into the
hallway along with two other boys. The other boys were crying before
we'd even reached the door.

"What did I tell you about climbing on the monkey bars?" she asked us.
We were lined up against the old brick wall outside of our room. Mrs.
Ellis looked at us, back and forth, finally stopping on me. I was the
only one looking at her.

"Well? What did I tell you about those bars?"

"Not to climb too high?" I asked. I knew this was the right answer.
Mrs. Ellis had given us a mysterious lecture about the danger of monkey
bars, how children fell off of them and hurt themselves. Also it was
mysterious because the monkey bars were available for everyday use. Why
would they be there if not to be used? My crime had been to go above
the fourth bar, and the other two boys had gone all the way to the top,
hanging upside down with their knees hooked around the steel bars. They
were more guilty than I was, but would that matter to Mrs. Ellis?

"And did you climb too high?" Mrs. Ellis asked. She didn't want an
answer, of course. "Now, turn around, all of you."

I was first, and at the first smack the boy next to me burst into
tears, letting out a keening wail that reminded me of the school fire
alarm. My butt was on fire after three hits. I waited until Mrs. Ellis
finished off the boys next to me, trying not to laugh. Then we were
filed back into the classroom, an example of what could happen. Later I
heard the other two boys bragging about the paddling as I sat by myself
at the lunch table. The boys around them nodded and laughed.

My only consolation from first grade is the bus ride home, and the
dark-haired boy who sits in front with his brother, not saying a word.
Most days he is already on the bus when I come running on, eager to
find a seat behind him. I see his face out of the corner of my eye as I
pass him. To stare would invite trouble, but his black hair and the
perfect evenness of his face draw my attention. His eyelashes are
black, too, and long, like a girl's. Brown eyes, smooth skin, the
perfect bow of his mouth. It all makes my stomach sick. By the time I
take my seat, I am so full of longing that I forget Mrs. Ellis and the
homework in my bag. Situated behind the dark-haired boy, I am free to
stare, because what else do you do when sitting on a bus but stare
ahead?

Normally he gets off on the stop before mine, on a street that looks
like all the other streets around my house. But today I have a plan,
made easier because my sister has stayed home, pretending to be sick.
My plan is to follow him and see where he lives. I have to know. I will
stay behind him, just far enough that he won't notice, but close enough
to follow him and his brother around a corner. I don't want him to
disappear, and later I can walk by his house. We might become friends,
though talking to him hasn't entered my mind. I'm not sure what I would
say.

Getting past the bus driver is not the problem I thought it would be.
He doesn't look up as I hurry past him. I'm only a few blocks from my
house, but still, there are stories of children disappearing. The bus
driver not noticing me is not that much of a surprise, however. He
never speaks except to tell the kids to sit down and be quiet, or, if
we're going on a field trip, he stands at the front of the bus aisle
and explains how to crawl through the windows in case of an accident.
There are many kids, like me, who could never fit through the bus
windows, but he doesn't say anything about what we should do.

I join the crowd of students outside the bus, which leaves quickly in a
roar of gears and crunching gravel. I'm glad my sister stayed at home
today. She would never have allowed me to get off the bus early, even
if I told her why I wanted to. Which I wouldn't. She wouldn't
understand. Or, if she did understand, she might tell on me.

The students are chanting something, quietly at first and then louder.
I stand outside the lopsided circle they have made. "Show us, show us,"
they say, so I make my way to the edge of the circle. At first I am
confused. The others seem to have done this before, looking at each
other and laughing. I follow the extended finger of a girl next to me;
she is pointing at my dark haired boy, who is trying to walk away, his
hand on the back of his brother's neck. The crowd won't let him
go.

A much taller boy, the kind I have learned to avoid with his closely
cropped hair and mean eyes - the kind who never seems to be taken away
by strangers on his way from school - stops the dark haired boy and
knocks his brother to the ground. They struggle, but the taller boy
succeeds in turning the other around and roughly pulling up the back of
his shirt. My boy flails, his elbows every which way, trying to pull
his shirt back down. The crowd lets out a collective gasp, almost as if
they have been holding their breath waiting for this moment. Then they
start laughing again, louder than before. The girls hold their hands in
front of their mouths while pointing.

All down the dark haired boy's back is a line of silky black hair, a
perfect "V" that disappears below his beltline. The light skin on his
back sets off the dark hair, and as he struggles his shirt is pulled up
even further. The hair starts at his neck, a continuous pelt all the
way down. I can't see his face, since he isn't facing us, but I know he
is crying while the taller boy laughs. I know because I would be
crying, if I were in his place. The chanting starts again, but this
time they say, "Wolfboy, wolfboy, wolfboy." I edge back out of the
circle. I am afraid of this crowd, of what it might do. I am stranger
to this part of the neighborhood, after all.

No one notices me, though, and eventually the circle breaks up and the
kids start walking away. I turn around to look, now that I am safely
across the street. Most of the kids are smiling and talking to their
friends, as if nothing has happened. The tall boy, the one who pulled
up the shirt, is holding hands with a girl I recognize from my sister's
class. She is what my sister calls a slut, a word I am slowly beginning
to understand, since my sister says it quietly with an ugly look on her
face.

The dark haired boy and his brother are picking up their books. I walk
backwards while watching them. They don't say anything that I can hear,
and they don't look at each other. The younger brother finishes picking
up papers while the other tucks in his shirt, and for a moment I can
see my boy's face. Even from where I am, his eyes look dry, his face a
perfect mask. Of course he is still beautiful to look at. But he is
different to me now, someone I can't know and may not want to
know.

I whisper, "Wolfboy." The word doesn't roll off my tongue. Instead it
feels awkward, a new word that's not sure it wants to be said. I say it
again, louder, after I've turned around to walk home.