Halloween and Other Seasons

THE NEW KID

By Al Sarrantonio

Thursday

I hate being the new kid in school.

Today was the same as it’s been ever since I moved here. When I got off the bus the line of bullies, sixth graders with a few fifth graders thrown in for spice, were waiting for me. Chunky Fredericks, the biggest one and the leader, smiled his gap-toothed grin and said, “Nice to see you again, loser!” He slapped me on the back, hard enough to make me stumble, and then the rest of them were on me. When they walked away singing, “New kid! New kid!”, I was left on the ground with my books all over the place and my lunch stepped on. A peanut butter and jelly sandwich doesn’t taste so good when it’s flat.

They got me at lunch, too, and then again as I walked to my bus after school.

I hate this. The only good thing that happened today was that I heard a rumor that another new kid was coming to school.

If only that would happen!

Then maybe the bullies would leave me alone!

~ * ~

Friday

It’s true!

Today our teacher announced that a new student would be arriving in our class on Monday. That didn’t stop the bullies from beating me up today, but even while they were doing it I could feel the weight lifting from me. Chunky Fredericks even sighed and helped me up after they were finished beating me up at lunch.

“You know, loser, I’ll really miss whomping on you,” he said. “Next week you’ll be one of us.” And then he slapped me on the back—but in a friendly way!

I can’t believe it!

On Monday I’m saved!

~ * ~

Monday

My dream has come true!

For the first time since moving here, I walked untouched from the bus to class, and when I walked into my classroom, shielding my face against spitballs and thrown candy, the strangest thing happened: nothing.

Nobody hit me, no one shouted, “Get the new kid!”

Slowly, I lowered my hands from my face.

No one was looking at me.

They were all looking at…him.

The new student was in the front row, right in front of the teacher’s desk. He was kind of weird looking, with a really thin face and skinny arms with long fingers, and kind of pale, almost light green skin.

He was trying real hard not to be noticed, but of course everybody was staring at him.

“Hey, freak!” Chunky Fredericks said, standing up with a wadded-up paper in his hand. He drew his hand back to throw it, and I flinched—but then I realized that he was going to throw it at the new kid and not at me—

At that moment the teacher, Mrs. Adams, came in, and Chunky sat quickly down.

“Later, freak,” Chunky mumbled, as Mrs. Adams started class, and I realized with a sudden feeling of freedom that there was someone in the classroom quaking with fear, and it wasn’t me!

~ * ~

At lunch they got the new kid, of course.

I was real quiet, still not quite believing my good luck, slipping out onto the playground to eat my lunch by myself, but after a while I couldn’t help noticing the group of kids huddled in the spot where they normally beat me up. There were things flying into the air from the center of the group, a paper bag followed by some kind of food and then a jacket and then a shoe, and when the group dispersed a few minutes later, laughing, there was the new kid on the ground, looking dazed the way I had so many times. He gathered his stuff and crawled off, and for a moment then I got scared because Chunky and his friends were heading my way, still laughing.

But they kept walking past me as I hid what was left of my lunch behind my back.

Then, amazingly, Stinky Peters, who was even bigger and uglier than Chunky, and who always brought up the rear of the gang, stopped as he went by and patted me on the head.

“You know, Bud, you’re all right!” he said, smiling, and kept walking, lumbering away to catch up with the rest.

And when I walked to my bus after school, they weren’t there, waiting for me, but were instead in front of the new kid’s bus, in a circle, laughing, as more books and clothing flew up into the air.

As good as I feel about being left alone, I feel sorry for the new kid.

~ * ~

Tuesday

The bullies did to the new kid what they used to do to me, stealing his pants at lunch, Chunky Fredericks and Stinky Peters fighting over who got to turn them into rags. Stinky, being bigger, finally won, and I think he tore the legs off with his teeth because when he ran by as the bell rang ending lunch he tossed the trousers at me and laughed, “Here, Bud, a little present!”

I returned them to the new kid, who was cowering on the ground, trying to cover himself up with pages from a ripped up notebook. I’ve got to say, seeing him close up, that he’s even weirder looking than I first thought—his legs are spindly and his face is long and oval shaped, the eyes too big and shaped like dark almonds.

“Here’s your pants,” I said, giving them to him.

“Thanks,” he said, in a thin, almost whispery voice.

He started to say something else but then Stinky was calling to me, “Hey, Bud! Leave the freak alone—the bell rang!” and I ran back to class.

After school, there was a big circle of kids in front of the new kid’s bus again, and I went home unbothered.

In a strange way, I feel kind of lonely.

~ * ~

Wednesday

Not a bad day for me.

But another bad one for the new kid.

The gang of bullies went after him at lunch again. This time Stinky put his arm around my shoulder and said, “Come on, Bud! Join in the fun!”

I had no choice and went along with him, but I just didn’t have the heart to turn the kid’s English book into confetti or his lunch into mush.

When the gang dispersed, I stayed behind.

“You look better without pants,” I said, trying to cheer him up.

When I held out half of his English book he flinched.

“Hey, I won’t hurt you,” I said. “If fact, until you came along, I was the one they beat up on.”

He looked up at me, his almond-shaped eyes suddenly brightening, and said, “My name’s Oort. Want to be friends?”

I hesitated for a moment, thinking that maybe Chunky and Stinky wouldn’t like it, but then I said, “Sure, why not?”

At that moment I saw Chunky and the others heading in our direction.

Oort groaned and said, “You’d better leave. Looks like they want to get in a little more fun before the bell rings. See you later?”

“Sure.”

I backed away as the gang arrived, Stinky rubbing his hands in anticipation, and watched from a distance as the rest of Oort’s books flew to pieces above the laughing circle that surrounded him.

But it looks like I won’t be lonely anymore.

~ * ~

Thursday

Turns out Oort’s a pretty nice guy.

I wish I could do something to help him at school, but he seems to understand what being the new kid’s all about and takes it as best he can.

He came over after school today, and after we cleaned him up and got most of the dried mud and peanut butter out of his hair he wasn’t in too bad shape. We played video games for a couple of hours and then did our homework, and I managed to sneak some snacks up to my room. Oort really likes potato chips, it turns out, and scarfed them down like he’d never had them before.

“Don’t they have potato chips where you came from?” I asked, joking.

“Actually…no,” Oort said, a little hesitantly.

“Where’s that?” I answered, amazed that there could be anywhere without potato chips.

Oort shrugged, still stuffing his face, and said, “Just…somewhere else.”

“I can’t imagine a place without potato chips…”

But Oort was still stuffing his face, and shrugged again, so I let it drop.

When he left later I felt like we were real friends, and said, “I really wish there was something I could do for you at school.”

Again he shrugged and said, “That’s what being the new kid’s all about. There’s nothing you can do about it. Want to come over my house tomorrow after school?”

“Sure,” I said, and when Oort was gone I knew I’d made a real friend.

~ * ~

Friday

It seemed like school would never end today, and, since it was Friday, and the bullies wouldn’t see Oort again till Monday, they really let him have it at lunch.

But he seemed to take it really well, and after we’d found all his clothes, even both of his socks, all he did was ask me if I was still coming over after school.

“You bet,” I said, “and I’ll even bring a bag of potato chips!”

“Great!” he said, giving me directions to his house, and then staggered off as Stinky headed his way to get in one more pop.

They got Oort again at his bus, but he managed to wave to me as he stumbled out of the crowd.

“Don’t forget the potato chips!” he shouted, before they were on him again.

~ * ~

I had a heck of a time finding his house. It’s not that Oort’s directions were bad, but the house was in a place I’d never been before. There was a street I knew pretty well, and at the end of it there was a right turn I didn’t remember, which led to a dead end I’d never seen.

But there was the house at the end, just like Oort said it would be.

A strange place. It was house-shaped, but seemed to have too many corners. Also, it was way too tall. The porch was narrow, and all the windows had boards over them. The shingles were strange, some of them round and some of them square at the bottom; the same thing for the shingles on the roof. But it all seemed to fit together in a weird type of way, except that the whole house seemed to vibrate slightly, and glow in a faint greenish light.

It looked weird enough that I was about to turn around and go home when the front door opened and there was Oort, waving to me and smiling. He was wearing clothes different from his school clothes: really bright green, narrow pants and a thin-collared shirt in blinding yellow.

“Come on in!” he said.

I held up the potato chips.

“Great!” Oort said.

I stepped up onto the porch, feeling the boards give way slightly under my feet as if they were rotten inside.

I was about to say something to Oort when he laughed and said, “Uh…old house!” and brought me inside. He took the potato chips from me, popped open the bag, and began to shove big handfuls of them into his mouth.

“I love these things!” he said.

It was just as weird inside the house as outside. We were in a hallway, and as we went down it each room to either side seemed to be too narrow and had too many walls and glowed faintly. There were paintings on some of the walls, but the pictures were long and narrow. They looked like landscapes, but the trees in them were tall and thin with blue bark and the ground was covered with orange grass.

“What—” I asked, but Oort was still moving down the hallway so I rushed to catch up.

“Want to play video games?” I asked.

“Forget it—I’ve got something better to do!” he said.

We were in something like a kitchen, and on the table, which had different-lengthed legs and was taller than it was wide, was a jar of peanut butter and a half a loaf of bread.

“Not too much time to shop,” Oort explained. He tossed the potato chip bag on the table, and I saw with amazement that it was empty.

“Those were great!” he said.

“Where are your parents?” I asked.

“They’re…close,” Oort said.

He moved to the back door, which had no windows in it and was barely wide enough to get through.

“Like I said, I’ve got something better than video games!” he laughed, throwing it open.

The doorway was filled with bright light. When my eyes adjusted I said, “Wow!” and stepped toward it.

Instead of the backyard of the house there was a whole other world, just like the one in the landscape painting, with orange grass leading up a rolling hill, brown flowers and blue trees, and a bright green sky.

“That’s where I live!” Oort said.

I looked carefully through the doorway. “It looks like another planet!”

“It is!” Oort laughed.

“Can we…go there?”

“Just step through the door!”

“Wow!” I said again, and stepped through with Oort.

Suddenly I was on another world!

“Where is everybody?” I asked.

Oort pointed to the top of the hill. “On the other side is a valley, with a whole city in it. But just over the hill is what I really want to show you. Come on!”

I followed him, still wide-eyed at the world around me.

Orange grass!

Green sky!

Blue trees!

We got to the top of the hill, and suddenly I was looking down on the most amazing thing I’d every seen. There in the distance, in the wide valley at the bottom of the hill, was a huge city made up of the same kind of buildings as Oort’s house—a sprawling cluster of strange, tall, narrow, many-angled structures in wild colors—bright pink, red and purple.

“Unbelievable!”

“And look at that!” Oort said, pointing to what lay just below us.

I was speechless.

Sitting on a wide plateau was a tall, narrow, weird-cornered place with square and oval windows of different sizes. It was multi-colored—yellow, tangerine, the color like the bottom of a swimming pool. Off to the side was a play field surrounded by a strange, zigzagging fence and filled with things that sort of looked like swings and crooked monkey bars. The play field was filled with kids dressed in bright clothing just like Oort—and a group of them, big and mean looking, was climbing the fence and marching up the hill toward us.

“Hey, Oort!” I said, suddenly alarmed. I looked behind us—but Oort’s house was gone, replaced only by orange fields and blue trees.

The gang of kids reached us, brushing Oort aside as they surrounded me. The biggest of them smiled a green, gap-toothed smile at me and said, “Hey, I wonder who this is?”

He turned to Oort and his evil smile softened. “Guess you’re one of us now, loser!”

“Sorry, Bud,” Oort said to me, as I went down, and felt someone tugging at my shoes and socks, felt someone else shoving orange grass down my pants, and felt something really sticky and bright blue being rubbed into my hair, “It was the only way I could stop being the new kid in my school.”