“Because he’s weird, that’s why. Look at him,” Maggie goes on.
“What’s so weird about him?”
“Umm, his face,” Lisa chimes in. “The fact that he’s, like, The Hunchback of Belleville, Illinois.”
Maggie bursts into laughter and Lisa joins her. While they laugh, I look at Dominic again. He sees them laughing, but he ignores it and goes back to watching the others play. I can’t stand the fact that he’s sitting there by himself. He helped me before anybody else would, and they’re laughing at him. I don’t like it, so I walk away and leave them standing there.
“What are you doing?” Maggie asks when she notices, but I don’t even respond. I ignore her and go sit next to Dominic on the bench.
He looks over at me and studies my face for a minute. He squints and wrinkles his forehead, before moving his attention back to the basketball court.
“Hi,” I say, softly.
He looks back at me like he’s surprised. “Hi.”
“Haven’t seen you in a few days. They suspend you?”
He smiles a little. “Yeah, they did. Just three days, though. No biggie.”
“No biggie? My parents would be really mad if I got suspended. Especially my dad.”
“Yeah, my parents are different. Especially my dad.”
“Must be,” I reply. “So, I wanted to thank you again for saving me from that kid last week. My neck is still a little sore, but it would’ve been worse if it weren’t for you.”
“Fuhgeddaboutit,” he says, his eyes still on the game in front of us.
“What?”
“I said fuhgeddaboutit.”
“Forget about it? What do you mean?”
He finally looks at me and smiles, holding back a laugh.
“I just mean, don’t worry about it. You’re welcome. He deserved it.”
Now I smile. “I usually wouldn’t say something like this, but I guess I have to agree with you. He did deserve it. I still can’t believe your parents weren’t mad about you getting suspended though.”
“Well, my mom was mad, but my dad wasn’t. My dad laughed, actually,” he says, grinning with pride.
“He laughed? Wow. My dad definitely wouldn’t have thought that was funny. My dad’s in the military. He’s strict with stuff like that.”
“Oh, your dad’s in the military? So, you just moved here?”
“Yeah. My dad got stationed at Scott. We moved here from California.” I look up and see Lisa and Maggie glaring at us, but I ignore it.
“You like it here so far?” Dominic asks, his eyes back on the game.
“It’s okay, I guess. I mean, I did get pushed down and have my face shoved in the sand on my first day of school.”
Dominic looks at me and smiles. Even though his face looks a little weird because of how big and pink his lips are, he still has a nice smile. But he must not like it because he doesn’t show it often.
“Well, that makes sense,” he replies behind a chuckle. “I don’t know why some guys don’t understand that you can’t treat girls that way. My father taught me that hurting a girl was against the rules.”
“That’s good. I wish everyone would teach their kids to be nice to everyone. At least your dad is teaching you right.”
“My dad’s awesome. He teaches me a lot. I want to be just like him when I grow up,” Dominic says. I can tell he really means it.
“What does your dad do?” I ask. Dominic grins a little, but then pulls it back.
“My dad . . . he does a lot of stuff. He gets money from a lot of different places. He’s a business man.”
“Interesting,” I reply, but only because I can tell he’s lying.
“Yeah. He lives out in St. Louis.”
“Wow. He brings you to this school all the way from St. Louis. That’s like forty minutes away.”
“No, my mom brings me to school. My dad lives in St. Louis. My parents aren’t married. I stay with my mom mostly, but I hang with my dad on a lot of weekends. Joint custody agreement, or something like that, I ain’t really sure.”
“Oh, I get it now. My dad’s a doctor for the Air Force and my mom’s a nurse, not for the Air Force.”
He nods, then goes back to the game again. At that moment, the bell rings and lunch is over. All the kids run to put their equipment away and line up to wait for the teachers.
“Well, I guess I’ll see you tomorrow,” I say to Dominic as we both stand. Dominic puts the basketball