Chapter 126
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, 1947
Venturing out from the shadows of the school building was risky, and he wasn’t sure it was worth it. While he’d had a great morning, and the feel of Miss Hays’s breasts still felt fresh upon his cheek, the allure of half a bologna and cheese sandwich called to him, so, once the other kids were busy playing hopscotch and swinging, he began to look around for Carla.
It only took him a few seconds to see her sitting at a picnic table with several other girls outfitted in similar dresses, eating out of similar lunch boxes. For a moment, Elliott wondered what it might be like to live in their houses. He bet none of them had to fix breakfast for their baby brothers or scrub their own clothes. If he had to wager, he’d guess none of them made their own dinner out of whatever the lady from the food pantry dropped off or squashed cockroaches by the dozens in the middle of the night as they made their way to the bathroom.
Carla looked up and met his eyes as he was walking over. “There he is! My new friend!” she said smiling. The looks of disgust that flickered across the other four girls’ faces were only barely noticeable when Elliott saw her beaming at him. “Come on over, Elliott. I saved you a spot.”
“Oh, I don’t want to bother anybody,” he said, noticing how the other girls were still looking at him like he’d just crawled out of the garbage truck. But Carla had skootched herself over even closer to her friend and was patting the green, splintered wood next to her.
“Don’t be silly. My friends don’t mind.” Their faces said otherwise, but he took a seat just the same. Immediately, Carla handed over half of her sandwich and one of her carrot sticks.
“Thanks,” Elliott said, nodding. He was careful not to shove the entire sandwich into his mouth in one chunk, but after the first bite, the growling in his stomach started to kick in, and it was all he could do to restrain himself. The other girls stared at him in amazement, but Carla just giggled. “I didn’t have any breakfast,” he lied. All five heads nodded, as if he’d just spoken the gospel truth. There was something to this lying business, and he was beginning to think it might serve him well.
“You can have one of my cookies,” another girl, a brunette with her hair in two pigtails offered, handing it over.
He took it with a nod and thanked her before biting into what turned out to be the most delicious item he’d ever put in his mouth. He’d heard that some moms actually baked cookies for their children, though he wasn’t sure he believed it. Now, he knew it was true. The closest thing he’d ever had to this chocolatey deliciousness was when the lady from the food pantry had brought over a box of expired cookies that had been hard as rocks—but still completely devoured by both boys before their mom even woke up to know they’d been delivered.
“Your mom must be a good cook,” a little redheaded girl said. “You’re really big.”
“This?” Elliott asked, making a muscle with his arm. “Nah, this ain’t from eating too much. This is all strength, you see? I practice lifting heavy things at my house all the time. And I eat lots of spinach and other vegetables. My mom says it’ll make me big and strong.”
“Well, so far she’s right,” the cookie girl said, grinning at him. “If that’s all muscle, you gotta be the strongest boy here.”
“That’s Melissa,” Carla said. “And that’s Ginger.” She pointed to the red-haired girl. “This is Becky, Rachel, and Kimberly.”
“Howdy,” Elliott said, making the girls giggle. It seemed like all of them wanted to be in on sharing their lunches, and before he knew it, Elliott was stuffed full, a feeling he had never had at school before. At home, sometimes he could manage to eat most of a loaf of bread or a whole box of cereal in one night if the milk wasn’t bad yet, but at school, he was used to feeling like his whole stomach was inside out. Not today.
“What does your father do for a job?” the brown haired girl named Becky asked, batting her eyelashes at him. “Mine’s a lawyer, a real good one, too.”
“My dad?” Elliott asked, stumbling for the right answer. They were all staring at him, five pairs of large eyes batting away like he was the crowned prince of Timbuktu. “Oh, I ain’t got a dad. You see, he was killed. In the war.” They all sighed at the same time and covered their mouths. “Yeah, maybe you’ve heard of him? His name was Captain Roger Sanderson. He was an Air Force pilot. He shot down lots of Zeros and other planes. Even some… Nazi planes. But… his plane crashed into the ocean the day before the war ended.” He mustered up a few fake tears, though he kept them in his eyes, because he was a man after all. “My mama said she died that day, too.”
All of the girls were whimpering and more than one of them had a solitary tear rolling down her cherub-like cheek. “You poor, poor thing,” Carla said, patting him on the shoulder.
“Thank you,” Elliott said, hanging his head. “But… as hard as it is, we just had to go on, you know? I mean… these things happen. As tragic as it is, people die. And we don’t want to ever forget them. I never met my daddy that I remember, because I was just a baby when he left for the war, but I’ll remember the stories my mama tells about him. And I’ll go on with my life and make him proud.”
“You sure will make him proud,” Ginger agreed with a nod as she wiped away her tears.
Before Elliott could respond, Richard and one of the boys from the bus ran over, laughing. “Look at those stupid girls sitting with Slimy Sanderson!” he teased.
“Ha, ha! They’ll smell like trash by the end of the day!” the other called.
“You shut up and leave him alone!” Carla yelled, standing and putting her hands on her hips. Elliott prayed they didn’t say anything about his dad since Richard would know he’d stolen that story from Teddy.
“Yeah!” Elliott interjected, wondering where this newfound courage was coming from. “You ought not mess with me. I’m a lot bigger than you.” He looked Richard in the eye and slowly stood up, hoping it would be enough to intimidate him.
Richard’s face melted as he looked up at the giant in front of him. “Uh, yeah, you’re right. Sorry about that… Slimy—I mean, Elliott.”
The other boy, who hadn’t been looking at Elliott when he’d spoken, seemed confused. He gawked at Richard with his mouth hanging open. “What’s the matter with you, Dick?” he asked. “Are you going to let Slimy get away with talking to you like that?” He turned around and looked at Elliott, still wearing a cocky grin.
“I think you best get on your way, too,” Elliott warned, looking into brown eyes that went from confident to troubled almost instantaneously.
“Uh, right,” was about all he managed to say before Richard tapped him vigorously on the arm and steered him back in the direction from which they’d come.
“Well, you sure showed them!” Carla said with a proud nod as she reclaimed her seat.
Elliott sat down, too. “Oh, that’s nothing. Sometimes you have to make sure the little boys around here know when they’re about to get themselves into trouble. The last thing I want is to have to pound some kid because he didn’t know any better, but some guys never learn.”
“You’re so strong.” Becky had her hands folded beneath her chin and was gazing up at him. “Say, would you care to push me on the swing?”
In all of his days, he never imagined telling a string of lies might get him the chance to push a pretty girl on the swing. “Sure,” he said with a smile and a shrug.
“Me, too!” Ginger cried. “Push me, too.”
“I want a turn. I’m the one that invited him,” Carla reminded the other girls, grabbing his arm protectively.
“Ladies, ladies, there is enough of me to go around.” He chuckled, holding his arms up in assurance without pulling free of Carla’s grip. The feel of her fingers on his arm was nice. He felt like someone actually wanted to touch him for once and not to knock him across the room either.
The girls giggled and headed over to the swings where Elliott easily persuaded the previous occupants that it was in their best interest to go check out the four-square game going on across the playground, and before he knew it, he was hurrying back and forth keeping multiple swings full of pretty girls up in the air. They laughed and sang songs, and it was the best day he’d ever had at school. He didn’t even notice when the bruised apple fell out of his pocket and landed next to his holey shoe on the ground.
