Chapter One
I live in San Puerco, California. It's a little town in the Santa Cruz Mountains. There's just a few people and a whole mess of big trees tall enough to trap the fog blowing in from the Pacific Ocean. It's so quiet here, ducks sleep on the street. Banana slugs suck on our windows. Just about everybody has a wood stove and a pickup truck — except my dad. He has a computer and a Volkswagen bus.
The day after Labor Day, the morning of the first day of the new school year, I had just one thought on my mind: soccer. We had a team; we had a coach, an assistant coach, a league to play in; but we only had ten players. First day of school, I might find a new kid, a speedy kid, a strong kid who could run like lightning and kick like thunder. Our team is The San Puerco Thunderbolts. Last year, we never won a game. We were always playing one man short. My dad said maybe we should pick a new name: The San Puerco Doormats. He was joking.
If there was a new kid in town I'd probably already know it, but as my dad says, you never can tell who — or what — is going to come out of the woods. And we have a lot of woods. Redwoods.
First thing I saw in the schoolyard was Danny with a wicked grin on his face. "Guess what I found," he said.
"A Thunderbolt? Number eleven?"
"Nope," said Danny. "Not a Thunderbolt. A raindrop, maybe. Round and soft and wet. And when it hits the ground, it goes plop. " Again he grinned.
"Who?"
"Him." Danny pointed across the playground where I saw a new kid, a fat kid carrying a briefcase. The fat kid was black.
Danny's brown. I'm white. And that's about all there is to say about color. It's never been an issue with Danny or me.
"Aw, Danny," I said.
"Come on, Boone," said Danny, still grinning. "Let's have some fun. "
Sometimes Danny thinks it's fun to step on worms or throw stones at squirrels. When he gets that way, I tag along so I can try to stop him. I could just leave, but he's my friend and my soccer buddy. He's like a half-trained puppy tearing into a shoe — you can't teach him not to chew, but you can try to interest him in something he's allowed to have, like a bone.
Already Danny was sauntering across the asphalt around some girls skipping rope. I followed. I made up my mind to keep my mouth shut and my hands in my pockets, at least until I could find out what he had in mind.
The fat kid was kneeling over some pebbles next to a garden where a couple of straggly red flowers were blooming. He picked up a shiny white rock and rubbed it between his fingers.
"What's that?" Danny said.
"A pebble," said the fat kid, looking up.
"Dsh," said Danny, which was something he said a lot. It rhymes with bush, sort of, only with more sh and no middle, and what it means is — well, it can mean anything. In this case, it meant "Duh. Of course. Tell me something I don't already know."
But the fat kid didn't know what it meant. He only stared at Danny, looking slightly nervous as if he knew what Danny was leading up to and had been through it many times before on many other first days of school.
"Dsh dsh," said Danny.
"What? " said the fat kid.
"The pebble," said Danny, grinning. "A gold nugget?"
The fat kid stood up. "Quartz," he said. "Milky quartz." He opened his briefcase — sproing went the latches — and dropped the pebble inside.
"You collect quartz?" asked Danny.
The fat kid pulled a blue handkerchief out of his back pocket and wiped his forehead and upper lip. He was sweating. "I collect everything under the sun," he said.
"Dsh," said Danny, nodding. I know what he meant: nobody at our school carried a briefcase, and nobody in the whole world that we had ever met carried a handkerchief in his pocket. Then Danny, grinning again, said, "You collect candy bars? Doughnuts? Pecan pies?"
"All right." The fat kid suddenly smiled. He didn't relax, but he smiled. He looked as if he knew exactly what Danny was up to now, and though he may not like it, at least he was ready for it.
Danny stopped grinning. He hadn't expected the kid to smile at him. "Dsh," he said, which I think meant that he didn't know what else to say.
"Look. I'm the fat kid," said the fat kid. "And you must be the bully."
Danny stepped forward. "I ain't no bully," he said.
"Sorry."
"Take it back!"
"Is that an order?"
"Yes!"
The fat kid looked at me. I still had my hands in my pockets. "Danny," I said. "Ease up." I couldn't think of any bone to throw him.
Danny wouldn't back down. He was right in the fat kid's face. "He called me a name," he said. "Take it back."
The fat kid sighed. He shrugged. He set down his briefcase. "No," he said.
Danny pushed him in the chest.
The fat kid didn't budge. Danny, in fact, stepped backward as if he'd pushed off against a wall. He stepped up again. He was making fists.
Again, strangely, the fat kid smiled.
Danny hit him in the belly. The fat kid said, "Oof," but then he made a move like falling on his side while rolling out his legs, which caught Danny at the ankles and tripped him to the ground. Quicker than I would've thought a fat kid could move, he was sitting on top of Danny in the garden between two ragged flowerstalks.
Danny couldn't even wiggle. About a dozen kids were standing in a half circle around us. "Lemme out," Danny squeaked. "I can't breathe."
The fat kid stood up and brushed off his pants. "Sorry," he said.
"Dsh," said Danny. "What's your name?"
"Babcock."
"What's your first name?"
"Babcock."
"Well then what's your last name?"
"Babcock."
"Babcock Babcock?" Danny shook his head. "Dsh."
"No. Just Babcock. That's all."
"But you gotta have more than one name."
"Says who?"
Danny shrugged. "Dsh," he said.
"And what's your name?" said Babcock. "Dsh?"
"No. Danny." He smiled. "And this is my buddy Boone," he said pointing at me.
"Hello Boone. Buddy Boone. Hello Danny Dsh."
"Hello Babcock," I said.
"Dsh," said Danny. Then he grinned. "Hey Babcock," he said. "You play soccer?"
"No."
"Wanna try?"
Babcock smiled, and this time it was real.
© Copyright 1990 by Joe Cottonwood