Loser by Jerry Spinelli Page A

years.”That was in second grade, he’s in fifth now. Three years. Thirty-two plus three…
    He stares at her. Like stones, he drops each sound into those uncrying eyes. “Thirty. Five. Years.”
    She does not seem impressed. She picks up her sandwich and takes a bite and chews for a long time. Her eyes drift away, toward the living room, the Beyond. “What is he waiting for?” she says.
    â€œHis brother.”
    â€œOh.” She says this matter-of-factly, nodding, as if that explains everything.
    There’s a clatter at the front of the house. He realizes it is the mail slot opening, letters being pushed through. His father is delivering. She doesn’t seem to hear it.
    â€œWhat’s his name?” she says.
    â€œWho?”
    â€œThe brother.”
    The question surprises him. He has never wondered about the brother’s name, or the Waiting Man’s for that matter. “I don’t know,” he says.
    She starts in on the second half of her sandwich—he has long since finished his. He feels her staring at him as she chews. He is uneasy. When he looks at her for more than a second at a time, he discovers her skin is almost transparent, like thin ice over a December puddle. He feels he is looking into her. A thought pops into his head: The moment she stops chewing she is going to ask him his name.
    He does not want her to ask. He does not want her to call out “Oh, Donald!” or “Oh, Zinkoff!” He wants to be “Oh, mailman!”
    He must say something, quickly, create a diverting action.
    â€œI can spell tintinnabulation,” he blurts. And he spells it for her. He has been waiting for years at school for someone to ask him. “T-I-N-T-I-N-N-A-B-U-L-A-T-I-O-N.”
    Her mouth drops open, her eyes bulge. She is astonished. She is amazed.
    â€œAnd I got an A once. In Geography. It was the only A in the whole class.”
    This time she seems not so much amazed aspleased. She nods and smiles. She is not surprised. She knew he could do it. “Congratulations,” she says.
    The echo comes in his parents’ words: One thousand congratulations to you! And suddenly he remembers the day in the hospital when Polly was born, making a deal with his mother for two stars whenever he really needed them. Could he ever need them more than today?
    â€œDo you have stars?” he says.
    She looks at him funny. “Stars?”
    â€œThose little paper stars? Silver? That you stick on—” he is about to say “your shirt”—“paper and stuff?”
    She nods. She gets up and goes to a drawer in the cupboard. “Stars…stars…” she mutters as she roots through the drawer.
    She hauls the walker off to the dining room. He regrets he asked.
    â€œStars…stars…”
    She returns beaming. She’s holding up something, but it’s not a star. It’s a turkey sticker, the size of a postage stamp, the kind Miss Meeks puton a paper of his once or twice. She hands it to him. “How about a turkey?”
    A turkey is perfect. He sticks it on his shirt. He can’t tell her how happy that turkey makes him feel, so happy now his eyes are watery too, and his breath flutters in his chest and something hard and thorny goes out of him and he tells her everything. He tells her about Field Day and why he isn’t at school. He tells her about his two favorite teachers of all time, Miss Meeks and the Learning Train and Mr. Yalowitz who said, “And the Z shall be first!” He tells her about his giraffe hat and Jabip and Jaboop (she laughs out loud at that) and the giant cookie for Andrew Orwell and Hector Binns and his earwax candle. He tells her about Field Day again and what the clocks said and what Gary Hobin said and he tells her about the goal he scored for the Titans and what happened when he closed the door behind him in the cellar with the Furnace Monster which, heaven help him, he still