So, feeling worthless and stupid, I just waited. And pretty soon, a janitor opened the front door and all of the other kids strolled inside.
I stayed outside.
Maybe I could just drop out of school completely. I co go live in the woods like a hermit.
Like a real Indian.
Of course, since I was allergic to pretty much every plant that grew on earth, I would
have been a real Indian with a head full of snot.
"Okay," I said to myself. "Here I go."
I walked into the school, made my way to the front office, and told them who I was.
"Oh, you're the one from the reservation," the secretary said.
"Yeah," I said.
I couldn't tell if she thought the reservation was a good or bad thing.
"My name is Melinda," she said. "Welcome to Reardan High School. Here's your schedule, a copy of the school constitution and moral code, and a temporary student ID. We've got you assigned to Mr. Grant for homeroom. You better hustle on down there. You're late."
"All, where is that?" I asked.
"We've only got one hallway here," she said and smiled. She had red hair and green eyes and was kind of sexy for an old woman. "It's all the way down on the left."
I shoved the paperwork into my backpack and hustled down to my homeroom.
I paused a second at the door and then walked inside.
Everybody, all of the students and the teacher, stopped to stare at me.
They stared hard.
Like I was bad weather.
"Take your seat," the teacher said. He was a muscular guy.
I walked down the aisle and sat in the back row and tried pore all the stares and whispers, until a blond girl leaned toward me.
Penelope!
Yes, there are places left in the world where people are named Penelope!
I was emotionally erect.
"What's your name?" Penelope asked.
"Junior," I said.
She laughed and told her girlfriend at the next desk that my name was Junior. They both laughed. Word spread around the room and pretty soon everybody was laughing.
They were laughing at my name.
I had no idea that Junior was a weird name. It's a common name on my rez, on any rez.
You walk into any trading post any rez in the United States and shout, "Hey, Junior!" and seventeen guys will turn around.
And three women.
But there were no other people named Junior in Reardan, so I was being laughed at
because I was the only one who had that silly name.
And then I felt smaller because the teacher was taking roll and he called out my name name.
"Arnold Spirit," the teacher said.
No, he yelled it.
He was so big and muscular that his whisper was probably a scream.
"Here," I said as quietly as possible. My whisper was only a whisper.
"Speak up," the teacher said.
"Here," I said.
"My name is Mr. Grant," he said.
"I'm here, Mr. Grant."
He moved on to other students, but Penelope leaned over toward me again, but she wasn't laughing at all. She was mad now.
"I thought you said your name was Junior," Penelope said.
She accused me of telling her my real name. Well, okay, it wasn't completely my real name. My full name is Arnold Spirit Jr. But nobody calls me that. Everybody calls me Junior.
Well, every other Indian calls me Junior.
"My name is Junior," I said. "And my name is Arnold. It's Junior and Arnold. I'm both."
I felt like two different people inside of one body.
No, I felt like a magician slicing myself in half, with Junior living on the north side of the Spokane River and Arnold living on the south.
"Where are you from?" she asked.
She was so pretty and her eyes were so blue.
I was suddenly aware that she was the prettiest girl I had ever seen up close. She was
movie star pretty.
"Hey," she said. "I asked you where you're from."
Wow, she was tough.
"Wellpinit," I said. "Up on the rez, I mean, the reservation."
"Oh," she said. "That's why you talk so funny."
And yes, I had that stutter and lisp, but I also had that singsong reservation accent that made everything I said sound like a bad poem.
Man, I was freaked.
I didn't say another word for six days.
And on the seventh day, I got into the weirdest fistfight of my life. But before I tell you about the weirdest fistfight of my life, I have to tell you:
THE UNOFFICIAL AND UNWRITTEN
(but you better follow them or you're going to get beaten twice as hard)
SPOKANE INDIAN RULES OF FISTICUFFS:
1. IF SOMEBODY INSULTS YOU THEN YOU HAVE TO FIGHT HIM.
2. IF YOU THINK SOMEBODY IS GOING TO INSULT YOU, THEN YOU
HAVE TO FIGHT HIM.
3. IF YOU THINK SOMEBODY IS THINKING ABOUT INSULTING YOU,
THEN YOU HAVE TO FIGHT HIM.
4. IF SOMEBODY INSULTS ANY OF YOUR FAMILY OR FRIENDS, OR IF
YOU THINK THEY'RE GOING TO INSULT YOUR FAMILY OR FRIENDS,
OR IF YOU THINK THEY'RE THINKING ABOUT INSULTING YOUR
FAMILY OR FRIENDS, THEN YOU HAVE TO FIGHT HIM.
5. YOU SHOULD NEVER FIGHT A GIRL, UNLESS SHE INSULTS YOU,
YOUR FAMILY, OR YOUR FRIENDS, THEN YOU HAVE TO FIGHT HER.
6. IF SOMEBODY BEATS UP YOUR FATHER OR YOUR MOTHER, THEN
YOU HAVE TO FIGHT THE SON AND/OR DAUGHTER OF THE PERSON
WHO BEAT UP YOUR MOTHER OR FATHER.
7. IF YOUR MOTHER OR FATHER BEATS UP SOMEBODY, THEN THAT
PERSON'S SON AND/OR DAUGHTER WILL FIGHT YOU.
8. YOU MUST ALWAYS PICK FIGHTS WITH THE SONS AND/OR
DAUGHTERS OF ANY INDIANS WHO WORK FOR THE BUREAU OF
INDIAN AFFAIRS.
9. YOU MUST ALWAYS PICK FIGHTS WITH THE SONS AND/OR
DAUGHTERS OF ANY WHITE PEOPLE WHO LIVE ANYWHERE ON THE
RESERVATION.
10. IF YOU GET IN A FIGHT WITH SOMEBODY WHO IS SURE TO BEAT
YOU UP, THEN YOU MUST THROW THE FIRST PUNCH, BECAUSE IT'S
THE ONLY PUNCH YOU'LL EVER GET TO THROW.
11. IN ANY FIGHT, THE LOSER IS THE FIRST ONE WHO CRIES.
I knew those rules. I'd memorized those rules. I'd lived my life by those rules. I got into my first fistfight when I was three years old, and I'd been in dozens since.
My all-time record was five wins and one hundred and twelve losses.
Yes, I was a terrible fighter.
I was a human punching bag.
I lost fights to boys, girls, and kids half my age.
One bully, Micah, made me beat up myself. Yes, he made me punch myself in the face
three times. I am the only Indian in the history of the world who ever lost a fight with himself.
Okay, so now that you know about the rules, then I can tell you that I went from being a small target in Wellpinit to being a larger target in Reardan.
Well, let's get something straight. All of those pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty white girls ignored me. But that was okay. Indian girls ignored me, too, so I was used to it.
And let's face it, most of the white boys ignored me, too. Hut there were a few of those Reardan boys, the big jocks, who paid special attention to me. None of those guys punched me or got violent. After all, I was a reservation Indian, and no matter how geeky and weak I appeared to be, I was still a potential killer. So mostly they called me names. Lots of names.
And yeah, those were bad enough names. But I could handle them, especially when some
huge monster boy was insulting me. But I knew I'd have to put a stop to it eventually or I'd always be known as "Chief" or "Tonto" or "Squaw Boy."