costume. And I knew that if I'd been with him, I never would have gotten assaulted.
And then I wondered if Rowdy was one of the guys who just beat me up. Damn, that
would be awful. But I couldn't I believe it. I wouldn't believe it. No matter how much he hated me, Rowdy would never hurt me that way. Never.
At least, I hope he'd never hurt me.
The next morning, at school, I walked up to Penelope and showed her my empty hands.
"I'm sorry," I said.
"Sorry for what?" she asked.
"I raised money last night, but then some guys attacked me and stole it."
"Oh, my God, are you okay?"
"Yeah, they just kicked me a few times."
"Oh, my God, where did they lack you?"
I lifted up my shirt and showed her the bruises on my belly and ribs and back.
"That's terrible. Did you see a doctor?"
"Oh, they're not so bad," I said.
"That one looks like it really hurts," she said and touched a fingertip to the huge purple bruise on my back.
I almost fainted.
Her touch felt so good.
"I'm sorry they did that to you," she said. "I'll still put your name on the money when I send it."
"Wow," I said. "That's really cool. Thank you."
"You're welcome," she said and walked away.
I was just going to let her go. But I had to say something memorable, something huge.
"Hey!" I called after her.
"What?" she asked.
"It feels good, doesn't it?"
"What feels good?"
"It feels good to help people, doesn't it?" I asked.
"Yes," she said. "Yes, it does."
She smiled.
Of course, after that little moment, I thought that Penelope and I would become closer. I thought that she'd start paying more attention to me and that everybody else would notice ml then I'd become the most popular dude in the place. But nothing much changed. I was still a stranger in a strange land. And Penelope still treated me pretty much the same. She didn't really say much to me. And I didn't really say much to her.
I wanted to ask Rowdy for his advice.
"Hey, buddy," I would have said. "How do I make a beautifu1 white girl fall in love with me?"
"Well, buddy," he would have said. "The first thing you have to do is change the way you look, the way you talk, and the way you walk. And then she'll think you're her fricking Prince Charming."
Slouching Toward Thanksgiving
I walked like a zombie through the next few weeks in Reardan.
Well, no, that's not exactly the right description.
I mean, if I'd been walking around like a zombie, I might have been scary. So, no, I
wasn't a zombie, not at all. Because you can't ignore a zombie. So that made me, well, it made me nothing.
Zero.
Zilch.
Nada.
In fact, if you think of everybody with a body, soul, and in as a human, then I was the opposite of human.
It was the loneliest time of my life.
And whenever I get lonely, I grow a big zit on the end of my nose.
If things didn't get better soon, I was going to turn into one giant walking talking zit.
A strange thing was happening to me.
Zitty and lonely, I woke up on the reservation as an Indian, and somewhere on the road to Reardan, I became something less than Indian.
And once I arrived at Reardan, I became something less than less than less than Indian.
Those white kids did not talk to me.
They barely looked at me.
Well, Roger would nod his head at me, but he didn't socialize with me or anything. I
wondered if maybe I should punch everybody in the face. Maybe they'd all pay attention to me then.
I just walked from class to class alone; I sat at lunch alone; during PE I stood in the corner of the gym and played catch with myself. Just tossed a basketball up and down, up and down, up and down.
And I know you're thinking, "Okay, Mr. Sad Sack, how many ways are you going to tell us how depressed you were?"
And, okay, maybe I'm overstating my case. Maybe I'm exaggerating. So let me tell you a
few good things that I discovered during that awful time.
First of all, I learned that I was smarter than most of those white kids.
Oh, there were a couple girls and one boy who were little Einsteins, and there was no
way I'd ever be smarter than then I but I was way smarter than 99 percent of the others. And not just smart for an Indian, okay? I was smart, period.
Let me give you an example.
In geology class, the teacher, Mr. Dodge, was talking about the petrified wood forests
near George, Washington, on the Columbia River, and how it was pretty amazing that wood could turn into rock.
I raised my hand.
"Yes, Arnold," Mr. Dodge said.
He was surprised. That was the first time I'd raised my hand in his class.
"Uh, er, um," I said.
Yeah, I was so articulate.
"Spit it out," Dodge said.
"Well," I said. "Petrified wood is not wood."
My classmates stared at me. They couldn't believe that was contradicting a teacher.
"If it's not wood," Dodge said, "then why do they call it wood?"
"I don't know," I said. "I didn't name the stuff. But I know how it works."
Dodge's face was red.
Hot red.
I'd never seen an Indian look that red. So why do they call us the redskins?
"Okay, Arnold, if you're so smart," Dodge said, "then tell us how it works."
"Well, what happens is, er, when you have wood that's buried under dirt, then minerals and stuff sort of, uh, soak into wood. They, uh, land of melt the wood and the glue that phis the wood together. And then the minerals sort of take I place of the wood and the glue. I mean, the minerals keep I same shape as the wood. Like, if the minerals took all the wood and glue out of a, uh, tree, then the tree would still be a tree, sort of, but it would be a tree made out of minerals. So, uh, you see, the wood has not turned into rocks. The rocks have replaced the wood."
Dodge stared hard at me. He was dangerously angry.
"Okay, Arnold," Dodge said. "Where did you learn this fact? On the reservation? Yes, we all know there's so much amazing science on the reservation."
My classmates snickered. They pointed their fingers at me and giggled. Except for one.
Gordy, the class genius. He raised his hand.
"Gordy," Dodge said, all happy and relieved and stuff. "I'm sure you can tell us the truth."
"Uh, actually," Gordy said, "Arnold is right about petrified wood. That's what happens."
Dodge suddenly went all pale. Yep. From blood red to snow white in about two seconds.
If Gordy said it was true, then it was true. And even Dodge knew that.
Mr. Dodge wasn't even a real science teacher. That's what happens in small schools, you know? Sometimes you don't have enough money to hire a real science teacher. Sometimes you have an old real science teacher who retires or quits and leaves you without a replacement. And if you don't have a real science teacher, then you pick one of the other teachers and make him the science teacher.
And that's why small-town kids sometimes don't know the truth about petrified wood.
"Well, isn't that interesting," the fake science teacher said, "Thank you for sharing that with us, Gordy."
Yeah, that's right.
Mr. Dodge thanked Gordy, but didn't say another word to me.
Yep, now even the teachers were treating me like an idiot.
I shrank back into my chair and remembered when I used to be a human being.