“The story’s pretty much the same,” she said. “Except it hasn’t got such a happy ending.” She pulled a battered blue-covered paperback book from her back pocket and looked around to see if she might get caught with it. “That part at the end where they all get together for dinner and everybody’s happy again isn’t in here at all.” She gave me a big wink, tapped the book with her index finger, and said, “But there’s a lot of other stuff in here that isn’t in the other one.”
“Oh, yeah?” I said.
“Yeah,” she said. “Just listen to some of this.” She flipped to a page with a folded-down corner. “Oswald says, ‘What dost thou know me for?’ And Kent answers, ‘A knave, a rascal, an eater of broken meats—’”
“What’s an eater of broken meats?” I asked.
Spike glared at me.
“Ohhhh!” I said. “Sure. Sure. I know.” I gave her a knowing wink, although all I’d gathered from the look she gave me was that it must be another thing that a fourth-grader should know, like the times tables, and that it was probably something I shouldn’t say in front of my parents.
“It gets better,” she said. “‘—lily-livered, action-taking, whoreson, glass-gazing, super-serviceable, cynical rogue—’”
“Wow,” I said. I wanted to ask about a couple of items in that list, but instead I raised an eyebrow in the way I’d observed adults doing when they wanted to acknowledge something but didn’t want to explain it to me.
Spike went on. “‘—beggar, coward, pander, and the son and heir of a mongrel bitch—’”
“Hey—hey—uh—Spike,” I said. “We’re kind of close to my father’s gas station. Maybe you should keep your voice down.”
“Oh, sure,” said Spike. She looked around. “Come here, come here,” she said, backing into some bushes alongside the railroad tracks that ran beside my father’s Esso station. “You’ve got to hear this one.” She flipped to another page.
“The Fool says,
“‘She that’s a maid now, and laughs at my departure,
“‘Shall not be a maid long, unless things be cut shorter.’”
At this Spike burst into a deep, rumbling laugh and gave me another knock on the shoulder. “You get it?” she asked.
“Oh, sure,” I said. I started laughing uproariously. I screamed, “‘Unless things be cut shorter!’” I had no notion in the world what might make it funny, but I exploded in another paroxysm of laughter, and tears began to run down my cheeks. I had to lean on Spike for support. “‘Unless things be cut shorter!’” I howled again.
“Yeah, well, it is pretty funny,” said Spike. She pushed me away from her and shoved the book into her back pocket again. She pushed her way out of the bushes and began walking off. I followed, repeating, “‘Unless things be cut shorter,’” and chuckling.
“Hey, is this your father’s gas station, right here?” Spike asked.
“Yeah,” I said.
“You think your father would give us a Coke?” she asked.
“Sure!” I said.
We drank our Cokes and watched my father look for a leak in a tire. I sneaked a sidelong look at Spike and marveled at how badly I had misjudged her. I had expected, almost from my first day in Mrs. Graham’s class, that Spike or one of the boys in her gang would want to beat me up sooner or later. Instead, here we were drinking Cokes and telling jokes, and she seemed to want to be pals.
By the time we got to my house, we had our arms thrown over each other’s shoulders and were singing “The rain it raineth every day,” like a couple of miniature drunks.
“You want to come in and have a cruller?” I asked her.
“Nah, I’ve got to get home.” she said.
“Oh, okay,” I said. I looked at her and hesitated, then finally decided to speak my mind. “You know, Spike,” I said, “before I got to know you, I was afraid that you were going to beat me up or something.” We both laughed. Spike looked at her shoes and scraped them back and forth on the sidewalk. “A lot of kids think you’re some kind of monster,” I added.
“She cannot be such a monster,” muttered Spike.
“But you’re not,” I said. “You’re nice. You’ve just got a bad reputation.”
Spike looked up at me and shrugged. “I’m a kid more sinned against than sinning,” she said.
“Well, I’ll see you in school tomorrow,” I said.
“Yeah,” said Spike. She started down the walk. I started up the front steps. “Oh, hey,” she called. “I almost forgot.”
She walked back toward me, and I walked down the steps toward her. When we reached each other, she grabbed the front of my jacket in her fist and twisted it so that her knuckles dug into my chest. She put her face close to mine, so that she was looking right into my eyes, and when she spoke, her spit sprayed onto me.
“I really want to play Cordelia,” she said. “And if I don’t get the part, I’ll break your foot with a brick.”
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🎧 140: “The story’s . . .”