Saturday Boy by David Fleming

kept candy in his paper clip dispenser and, if so, where he might be hiding it.
    â€œDerek?”
    â€œYes sir?”
    â€œWould you like to tell me why you’re here?”
    â€œNo sir.”
    â€œDerek?”
    â€œYes sir?”
    â€œWhy are you here?”
    â€œI wrote something.”
    â€œWhat was it?”
    â€œSomething bad.”
    â€œWhere?”
    â€œUm . . . the wall.”
    â€œWhy?”
    â€œI don’t know,” I said. “I think I was mad.”
    â€œYou
think
you were mad?”
    â€œYes sir.”
    â€œWho were you mad at?”
    â€œBudgie.”
    â€œAnd what did Budgie do?”
    Mr. Howard put his elbows on his desk and looked at me and waited for me to answer. Budgie hadn’t really done anything except hurt my feelings and that didn’t seem like a good enough reason to write what I’d written.
    â€œNothing,” I said. “He didn’t really do anything.”
    â€œThen why did you write it?”
    â€œI don’t know,” I said.
    Mr. Howard stared at me. He petted his beard. After a minute he stood up and went to the door and opened it.
    â€œShow me,” he said.
    * * *
    On the way back to the auditorium we ran into Mr. Putnam. He stopped and we stopped and Mr. Putnam and Mr. Howard started talking. Unfortunately they were talking about me and what I’d done to the wall. Mr. Putnam even had the Magic Marker with him and he handed it to Mr. Howard, who looked at it and shook his head. I stood there wishing I could turn invisible like Fadeout or that I had Opaque’s mutant ability to cloud people’s minds. At this point I’d have even settled for Mysterion’s lame Cloak of Obscurity. I didn’t have any of those things, though, so mostly I just stared at my feet and felt bad.
    The afternoon didn’t get any better. In addition to scrubbing the wall clean, Mr. Howard said I’d have to stay after school every day for a
week
and scrub marker off all the walls, even in the girls’ bathroom. Then he had me apologize to Mr. Putnam for wasting his time and Mr. Putnam said maybe the next time I decided to act like a hooligan I should first consider who might be affected by it. And if
that
wasn’t enough,
then
Mr. Howard made me call home and tell
Mom
what happened, which was the worst part of all.
    Mom was quiet on the phone. When she gets like that it means I’ve let her down and she’s disappointed in me. I didn’t like that. One time Budgie said that disappointing your parents was worse than making them mad because if your parents got disappointed too much they could stop loving you.
    â€œI’m really sorry, Mom,” I said.
    â€œMe too.”
    â€œYou still love me, though, right?”
    I heard Mom clear her throat but she didn’t say anything. There was just more quiet.
    â€œMom?”
    â€œOf course I still love you, Derek. I’m just . . .” she took a deep breath and let it out.
    â€œDisappointed?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œBut I said I was sorry.”
    â€œI know,” she said. “Listen, I have to go now, Derek. Don’t miss the late bus, okay?”
    â€œOkay,” I said. “And Mom? Mom?”
    I was going to tell her that I loved her again so she wouldn’t forget but she wasn’t there anymore. I really,
really
hoped Budgie was wrong.
    * * *
    Aunt Josie made a Mexican stew for dinner that had red chiles and pork in it and I only knew that because that’s what she’d told me when I asked what was wrong with the chicken. I didn’t remember ever having pork before but by the way the smell punched me in the face I didn’t think I’d like it too much. Or at all. During dinner I made sure to fill up on tortilla chips so I wouldn’t be able to finish it. Aunt Josie looked at me like she knew what I was doing but didn’t say anything.
    â€œI’m full,” I