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"It's pronounced ba-NAL, Spencer," the teacher said, trying to sound kind among the scattered giggles of the class.
"It doesn't rhyme with anal!" The hiss came from the area where Neal and Dallas sat, two rows behind Spencer, except it was only Neal to-day, because Dallas was absent. When Spencer had heard that Dallas was at the dentist that afternoon, getting repair work on a tooth after an accident during football training, he'd hoped it would mean less trouble, but apparently he'd been wrong. Now Spencer shrank down in his seat, his face burning. He kept his eyes firmly on the open page of the book and didn't even dare look over at Penelope or JJ, not even when Penelope reached out and patted him consolingly on the arm.
"It's all right," Ms Smith went on. "Everybody makes mistakes, especially if they've never heard a word spoken out loud before. I remember the first time I encountered the name Hippocrates, and thought it was pronounced hippo-crates."
Spencer allowed himself a little smile while the rest of the class laughed openly, and then Ms Smith announced, "And Mr Neal can read next."
The awkward moment passed, and by suppertime, after focusing on his homework, Spencer had almost completely forgotten it. He followed Hotch to the dining hall, picking up Penelope and JJ on the way down the stairs. It seemed football practice had gone late, so Derek wasn't there yet.
"Hey, Spencer, want to try this vegetable medley with your chicken to-night?" Hotch asked, lifting up the serving spoon to give Spencer a good view of what Hotch obviously believed was the healthiest side dish option. Even after his recent growth spurt, Spencer still wasn't quite tall enough to reach everything, and Hotch and Alex were quite used to dishing up for him.
"Yeah, sure," Spencer said, and then, as Hotch reached for the next spoon, he quickly added, "No, not rice, can I have a baked potato with sour cream instead?"
"Sure thing, buddy." Hotch dropped the rice and used a pair of tongs to grip a medium-sized foil-wrapped potato, already sliced open. He dropped it on Spencer's plate, then added the sour cream. "Here, you take that, I'll get our drinks."
"Can you get me some juice?" Spencer called after him, but he knew Hotch was going to get him milk no matter what. Hotch was big on nutrition. Carefully gripping his tray, Spencer headed in the direction of their usual table and was almost there when something snagged his foot. He went down in an ungraceful belly flop, his supper scattering all over the floor.
"It's so BAY-nal to not watch where you're going."
Neal. Of course it would be either Neal or Dallas who were always ready to put out a foot and trip him. This time it was Neal, sitting at a nearby table and smirking down at him. At least Dallas wasn't there, too, making things exponentially worse. Sighing, Spencer sat up, ignoring the other boy, and automatically reached out to clean up the mess.
The potato was so hot that he dropped it with a hiss, but then Hotch was there. "Spencer, don't worry about that. You hurt?"
"No, 'm fine," he muttered, and Hotch helped him up. "Go sit down. I'll get someone to clean this up, and get you another plate."
Spencer accidentally caught Neal's eye as he got to his feet, but although he looked away quickly, he could still feel the other boy staring maliciously at him. As soon as Hotch was gone, Neal leaned forward slightly. "Hot po-tah-to. So BAY-nal."
Spencer ignored him, but when he sat down, Emily asked suspiciously, "What did that kid say to you?"
"Nothing," he mumbled.
"Was he teasing you about what happened in English?" Penelope guessed, catching Alex's attention before Spencer could shrug it off.
"What happened in English?" Alex asked.
"I didn't know how to pronounce the word 'banal,'" Spencer admitted, not looking her in the eye.
"That must have been pretty embarrassing," she replied consolingly.
JJ spoke up quickly. "Ms Smith was pretty cool about it. She told us about the time she thought that Hippocrates was pronounced hippo-crates."
"When I was in elementary school, sometimes other kids would call me Peen-lope," Penelope put in, and Spencer smiled a little.
"Here." Hotch slid a new tray of food in front of Spencer. Spencer immediately noticed the addition of two jello cups, one red and one green, and felt his mood brighten even more.
"Thanks, Hotch!" he called out, but the older boy was already headed back to the drink section.
"Once in Rome I heard a boy try to say 'hyperbole' as 'hyperbowl,'" Emily said, which made them all laugh.
"Is that like the Superbowl?" Derek asked, making them all giggle again as he sat down in at the other end of the table. "You guys talking about football without me?"
"We're actually talking about how to mispronounce words," JJ said. "One of the girls in my ballet class told us how she was helping her little sister practice reading with a book about a ballet dancer. The sister tried to sound out 'arabesque' and came up with something like 'Arab-uh-squee.'"
They all laughed, and when Derek had finished chewing his first bite of chicken, he said, "There was this time when I was in second grade when I had to read the name Stephen with a 'ph' out loud, and I really thought it was pronounced Step-hen."
Knowing that he wasn't alone in making pronunciation mishaps was making Spencer feel better. Hotch came up and handed over a glass of milk from his own tray, then sat down across from him. In the meantime, Alex was adding her own contribution to the conversation.
"My mom has this a great story about when she was in high school, and there was a foreign exchange student in one of her classes who thought doughnut was prounced duff-nut."
"Duff-nut?" James and David had come up just in time to hear the punch line and the giggles. "What on earth are we talking about?"
Alex filled them in as they sat down, and when she'd finished, David nudged James. "Hey. Tell them the story about 'the organism.'"
"You're never going to let me live that down, are you, Dave?" James asked, but his expression was more amused than embarrassed.
"'The organism'?" Emily asked, mimicking David's enunciation as she quirked an eyebrow.
"Okay, so it wasn't exactly a mispronunciation," James said. "But I had biology in ninth grade, and we were taking a test, so it was very quiet and everybody could hear every word I said, even those sitting in the back row."
He paused to give David a significant look, but David just smiled a guilt-free smile and made a 'get to the good part' gesture, so James went on. "I wanted to ask the teacher about this certain question that had the word 'organism' in it. Except I accidentally said 'orgasm.'"
Spencer guffawed, and Emily laughed so hard she made a snorting sound like a pig. Penelope snorted milk out of her nose, and spent several minutes afterwards trying to recover, making choking noises and blowing her nose into the paper napkins that everybody around the table was thrusting at her. But every time she almost had things under control, she started giggling and snuffling all over again.
Still grinning, Spencer glanced around the table, seeing only smiling faces looking happily back at him. It was still so new that there were people who wanted to be with him, who didn't tease, who laughed with him, and not at him, whom he considered to be his friends, and who considered themselves his friends, too. Friends! He had friends! He wanted to enjoy the giddy feeling forever, but deep down, he wasn't quite sure he could trust it to last.
JJ moved a little, and in the space between her and Penelope, Spencer suddenly caught a glimpse of Neal, alone at his table, but gazing at theirs. There was an oddly intense expression on his face, but as soon as he became aware that Spencer could see him, he rapidly replaced it with a scowl. Then JJ moved back, and the visual contact between them was cut off. But even though Spencer had only ever experienced that emotion deep inside himself, he still recognized it immediately in the other boy, and it bothered him the rest of the evening.
Why had Neal been staring at him and his friends with such obvious longing in his gaze?