10
I MAY SPEND a good deal of time in confused indecision about what I ought to do next, but when I have at last seen which way is the right way, I run right along it. The next day, in the cafeteria, when Stretch Mitgang passed Veronica and me, I asked her, “Why does he wink at you like that?”
“Did he wink at me?” she asked. She smiled and looked in Stretch’s direction; then she turned quickly back toward me and twisted the smile into a scowl.
“Yes,” I said. “He winked at you.”
“He’s probably just being friendly, or he’s teasing,” said Veronica.
“Oh, no,” I said. “It’s more than that. He thinks you’re quite a little number.”
“Do you think so?” asked Veronica. The smile returned.
11
“STRETCH! WAIT UP!” I called. I had overheard our teacher, Mrs. Collingswood, talking with Stretch about his work. I knew that he was having a difficult time with everything, but that he was particularly bad at arithmetic. He looked morose.
“Stretch, I’ve got an idea for you,” I said.
“Yeah?” he asked. He still looked morose, but his eyes flickered with a small hope.
“Yeah,” I said. “I think you ought to study with someone and do your homework with someone. If you do that, it will help you keep your mind on your work.”
“I do have trouble with that,” he said. “Are you going to work with me?”
“I’m afraid I can’t,” I said. “I’m too busy with my paper route. I was thinking of Veronica.”
“Veronica?”
“Sure,” I said. “That way, you’ll be doing both of us a favor: me and you. You’ll do better in arithmetic, and you’ll be able to keep an eye on Veronica for me. See, I don’t get to spend much time with her now that I have my paper route. I’m getting a little worried that some other mule might start kicking in my stall, you know what I mean?”
“No,” he said.
“Never mind,” I said. “It doesn’t matter. Just try studying with Veronica and see if it helps.”
“All right,” he said. “I can ask her the problems and she can give me the answers.”
“I think she should ask you the problems instead, and you should figure out the answers,” I said.
“How come?” he asked.
“Because she’s better at arithmetic than you are,” I said. “You’re the one who needs practice.”
He expelled one sharp laugh. “That’s a joke, right?” he asked.
“A joke?”
“Yeah. Say—you’re not making fun of me, are you?”
“Oh,” I said, “now I see what you mean. You mean, what’s the sense of Veronica asking you the problems if you don’t know the answers? Is that it?”
“Yeah, that’s right.”
“You and Veronica are going to get along really well, Stretch,” I said. In a corner of my mind, I did a little further development work on my vague hunch about the contributions of Frankie Paretti’s parents to the vacant look that Frankie wore and arrived at a more coherent theory, a theory that allowed me to predict that Veronica and Stretch would be likely, if they were to have a child some day, to have one about as bright as Frankie, a theory that was to be confirmed several years later, during a high school biology class devoted to the work of Gregor Mendel.
“Would you do me a favor when you go to Veronica’s?” I asked.
“What?” asked Stretch.
“I was going to get Veronica some flowers, but I don’t have time now. It’s already late for me to be starting my route. Here’s a dollar. Stop at Anderson’s on the way to Veronica’s and get whatever you think she’ll like, okay?”
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🎧 172: I may spend . . .