Chapter Text
‘Outta the car,’ Lonnie barked.
Jonathan squinted up at him from the back seat. ‘Why? This is Will’s friend’s party.’
‘Yeah? Well you’re going in too. You act like a baby half the time anyway, so you’ll probably fit right in. I’ve got places to be, and I don’t need you hanging around cramping my style.’
Jonathan was pretty sure the only place his dad had to be was the bar, but he knew better than to talk back. Instead, he reluctantly got out of the car and caught up with his little brother, who was already skipping up the front path of his best friend Mike’s house.
Mike’s mom answered the door. ‘Hi, Will! Mike’s going to be so excited that you’re here. Why don’t you run out to the backyard and join the party?’ She turned to Jonathan with a smile. ‘And you must be Will’s brother. Jonathan, right? Are you dropping him off?’
Jonathan hesitated, and glanced back over his shoulder. His dad’s Chevelle was already nowhere to be seen. ‘No … um … our mom is at work, and our dad had to go somewhere, so …’
Mrs Wheeler’s smile faltered for a moment, and he could see that she felt sorry for him. He hated that. ‘Well, the more the merrier! Don’t worry, there’s plenty of birthday cake.’
Out in the backyard, Will had joined the group of boys gathered around Mike as he acted out some elaborate story involving toy dinosaurs, Tonka trucks and a Luke Skywalker action figure. Jonathan didn’t want to join in. He’d often played with Mike and Will when Mike came over to their house, but it was different with a whole group of people. He got nervous in groups at the best of times, and it would be even worse when he was the lone fourth grader amongst a sea of little kids.
Jonathan didn’t go to many birthday parties, because he didn’t have many friends. There were a few boys he got along with okay, but mostly he liked to keep to himself. He spent lunch either reading in the library or walking around the perimeter of the playground, just thinking.
The last party he’d gone to had been a disaster. It had been Greg’s birthday, in the fall. They weren’t friends, but Greg’s mom always made him invite all the boys in the class, like everyone used to do in kindergarten.
Jonathan’s mom had been so happy that he had a party to go to – he knew she worried about him not having friends. She’d picked an outfit for him, including a sweater she’d just bought at Goodwill. It was much better quality than most of his clothes, and fit perfectly (Goodwill clothes were usually a little off). It had stripes in his favourite colours, blue and yellow, and he really liked it. But when he got to the party, he found out that it was the worst possible thing he could have worn. Because Tommy H recognised it immediately as his old sweater, which his mother had donated to charity when he outgrew it.
Jonathan had always known that a lot of the clothes his mom bought for him weren’t new, but he’d only thought about it in an abstract way. The idea of wearing something that had belonged to one of his classmates – that they had thrown away – was mortifying.
And it just had to be Tommy H’s sweater, didn’t it? Most kids wouldn’t have said anything, or at least wouldn’t have made a big deal out of it. But Tommy was a bully who always took any opportunity to torment Jonathan: for being poor, for being small, for being bad at sports, for getting good grades, for acting like a sissy. He’d spent the whole party saying nasty things to Jonathan, and goading everyone else into teasing him too. Jonathan was the smallest boy in their grade, and Tommy was the biggest – but only because he was a year older than everyone else. He’d had to repeat first grade. Tommy loved bragging about being bigger and older than everyone else, and having a best friend who was in the grade above theirs (a kid called Steve, who was almost as much of a jerk as Tommy). Jonathan thought it was weird to basically brag about being so dumb you got kept back a year, but Tommy didn’t seem to think of it that way.
By the time his mom picked him up from Greg’s party, Jonathan was miserable. As soon as he got home, he’d taken the sweater off, screwed it into a ball and hidden it at the back of his closet. He’d refused to wear it again.
That’s what was in his head today, at Mike’s party, even though this was a completely different group of kids, who probably wouldn’t see him as the friendless, scrawny loser he was to his classmates. So he hung back, leaning against the Wheeler’s house, just by the basement door. Inside, he could hear a whispered argument.
‘Nancy, go and play with Jonathan. He’s in your grade, right? He doesn’t know anyone else here.’
‘But Mom, he’s a BOY!’
‘Young lady, he is a guest in our home, so you are going to be a good hostess and make him welcome. Is that understood?’
‘Fine.’
A moment later, Nancy and Mrs Wheeler came out with the birthday cake. While everyone gathered around to sing ‘Happy Birthday’ and watch Mike blow out the candles, Jonathan observed Mike’s older sister, Nancy. She was small and delicate, with big blue eyes and dark wavy hair. She had been in Jonathan’s class since kindergarten. She wasn’t unpopular like he was, but she wasn’t one of the ‘cool kids’ either. More in-between. She and her best friend Barbara mostly just played together, but they were always friendly to everyone. And she was smart – maybe the smartest kid in their class, even, but she was never snooty about it.
After everyone had sung ‘Happy Birthday’ and gotten some of the cake, Nancy walked over to him.
‘Hey,’ she said.
‘Hey,’ said Jonathan, his mouth suddenly feeling dry.
‘Do you want to hang out inside?’ Nancy asked. Her eyes were glancing across at her mom, rather than looking at him. ‘They’re just going to be playing a bunch of little-kid games now.’
‘Okay.’ He knew Nancy was only asking him because her mom had insisted, but it was still nice to have an excuse to get away from the party.
He followed her up the stairs to her room, noticing how her wavy brown hair swayed behind her. It always looked really shiny and soft, like something out of a shampoo commercial.
Jonathan had never been in a girl’s bedroom before. It was even pinker than he’d expected: everything was either flowery or ruffly. The wallpaper had roses on it, and several stuffed animals were lined up along the window seat. (His dad had made him get rid of his own stuffed animals back in second grade, saying they were too babyish.) There were two framed pictures on the wall; one of flowers and one of an old-fashioned ballerina. There was also a poster of Leif Garrett, and a bulletin board full of photos.
Nancy perched on the edge of her bed and picked up a paperback from her bedside table. ‘Um … I was just going to keep reading my book. What do you want to do?’
Jonathan recognised the book in her hand – From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler. It was about two kids who run away and live in the Metropolitan Museum in New York City. He’d borrowed it from the library over winter break. ‘That’s a really good book,’ he said. ‘I’m gonna live in New York when I’m older.’ He immediately regretted blurting that out. He must have sounded like a weirdo. ‘But probably not in the museum, though.’
Nancy stared at him for a moment, her blue eyes serious. ‘Hmm,’ she said. ‘I think living in the museum would be pretty cool.’
He grinned with relief. ‘Yeah. Uh … you should keep reading, since that’s what you were going to do. Could I – um, do you have something that I could read?’
Nancy directed him to the bookcase by her window, and he picked out a hardback with a white dust jacket. Nancy sat on the bed with her book, and he sat on the floor, leaning against the windowseat, as he started to read Bridge to Terabithia. Every now and then he’d glance up and look at Nancy through his eyelashes. Back in the earlier grades, when they’d had reading time at school, he and Nancy had both always been in the top group. This was kind of like that, but nicer, because it was just the two of them. It was cool to be able to hang out with someone without having to worry about saying or doing the wrong thing: they were each just sitting reading their own book.
But before too long, he started to forget Nancy was even there, because he got so drawn into the story. It was about a boy named Jesse who becomes friends with a strange girl who moves into the house next door to him. So far not a lot had happened, but there was something about the characters and the way the author put words together that made it really mesmerizing. He loved books like that.
He was so absorbed by the book that he didn’t notice the time passing. It came as a shock when Mike burst into the room and said, ‘Jonathan, your mom’s here,’ before racing back downstairs.
Nancy must have been able to tell he was enjoying the story, because she said, ‘Do you want to take that home? You can borrow it if you like.’
He blushed. ‘Uh, yeah. That’d be good. Thanks.’
‘Great!’ she practically jumped off the bed, and went to her desk. ‘I’ll make a library card for you.’ From one of the drawers, she took a box containing a notebook, some index cards and some rubber stamps. She carefully wrote down his details, and the details of the book, in her neat, round cursive. Jonathan remembered Will saying that he and Mike had sometimes gotten roped into playing libraries with Nancy and Barb. She showed him the index card before slipping it into the book. ‘Okay, this is due back a week from Monday. You can just give it back to me at school.’
He nodded, knowing he’d be too shy to approach her at school. Maybe he could just get Will to give the book to Mike. ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘It’s a really good book.’
‘I know, right? But it gets super sad,’ said Nancy.
Downstairs, his mom was chatting with Mrs Wheeler at the front door. ‘Thank you so much, Karen. And I’m so sorry about –’ She gestured vaguely towards Jonathan, and he wished he could sink into the ground.
‘Oh, don’t be silly! Jonathan was no trouble at all. He’s welcome anytime.’ Mrs Wheeler reached out and patted his head.
‘See you at school,’ said Nancy.
‘Oh, um, yeah,’ he said, feeling his face turn red.