فصل دهم

Chapter 10

Bradley sat at his desk in the back of the room. Last seat, last row. He felt safe there. The counselor had scared him. She was even worse than he had imagined.

He looked at Jeff, who smiled at him and then returned to his work.

Bradley was glad Jeff was his friend. Jeff and me are a lot alike, he thought. We’re both smart. We both hate the counselor. And we both like sneaking into girls’ bathrooms.

Actually, Bradley never had been inside a girls’ bathroom. It was something he’d always wanted to do, but he’d never had the courage even to peek into one. But now that he and Jeff were friends, he hoped Jeff would take him inside one. He was dying to know what they looked like.

He imagined they were carpeted in gold, with pink wallpaper and red velvet toilet seats. He thought girl toilets would look nothing like boy toilets. They’d probably be more like fountains, with colored water.

“So, how’d you like Carla?” Jeff asked him after school. They were walking along the sidewalk next to the school building, carrying their raincoats. It was no longer raining.

“She’s we-ird!” he replied. “She likes to eat dog food!” Jeff made a face. “Did she say that?” Bradley nodded. “She asked me why the President doesn’t wear a hat! How am I supposed to know that?” Jeff shrugged and said, “I don’t know.” “You don’t like her, do you?” Bradley asked.

“She’s o—”

“I hate her!” said Bradley.

“Me too,” said Jeff. “I hate her!” Bradley smiled his distorted smile. “You want to go sneak inside the girls’ bathroom?” he asked.

“You mean now?”

“Why not?”

“Um, now’s not a good time,” said Jeff.

“Why not?”

Jeff thought a moment. “There won’t be any girls there now,” he said. “They all go home to use their own bathrooms.” “You’re right,” Bradley agreed. “Good thinking.

We’ll do it tomorrow during recess.” Jeff smiled weakly.

They walked around the corner of the building.

“Hello, Jeff,” said Lori Westin.

“Hi, Jeff,” said Melinda Birch.

“Hi, J—” Colleen said so quietly that the “eff” couldn’t be heard.

They’d been waiting for him to come by. Somehow they had found out his name.

“Hello, hi, hi,” Jeff answered, blushing.

Lori laughed. Then the three girls hurried away.

“Stupid girls,” said Bradley.

“Yeah,” Jeff muttered.

“I hate them!” said Bradley.

“Me too!” said Jeff.

“Why’d you say hello to them?”

“They said hello to me, first,” Jeff replied.

“So?”

Jeff shrugged. “Whenever anybody says hello to me, I always say hello back.” “Why?”

“I don’t know. I can’t help it. It’s like when someone says ‘thank you.’ Don’t you automatically say ‘you’re welcome’?” “No.”

“I do,” said Jeff. He shrugged again. “I guess it’s like a reflex. Like when you go to the doctor and he taps your knee, you have to kick. You can’t help it. It’s the same thing. When someone says hello to me, I always have to say hello back.” Bradley tried to make sense out of what Jeff said. “I know what you can do,” he suggested. “The next time one of those girls says hello to you—kick her!”