Read Online The Friendship Song by Nancy Springer - Free Book Online

didn’t mean to lie to Rawnie. But Gus never had really given me an answer about what I had seen and heard. And it had been so beautiful, the music and the feeling around the music, that I had dreamed neon rainbow dreams all night, and I didn’t know how to describe to anybody what had happened. I wasn’t afraid of what was in Gus’s backyard anymore, and that made me feel lonesome. Different, as if I had put myself on the wrong side of a wall from everybody else. Apart from other people, the ones I couldn’t tell. Well, how was I supposed to explain something I didn’t understand myself? But maybe that was why—feeling strange, I mean—maybe that was why I acted so dumb in school on Monday and let Rawnie down.
    It started when Aly Bowman asked me to sit with her at lunch. Rawnie always saved me a seat at lunch-time, and the kids at our table were lots of fun. But there was something about Alabaster. I guess she wasn’t pretty, because she had kind of a beak of a nose, but she was so cool. She acted like she didn’t care about parents or teachers or what they thought of her, and I kinda wished I could be that way. I liked the cool way she dressed too. She was real thin, and she had her hair dyed bright blond and cut real real short, only about an inch long, except she’d left a forelock of long spiral-perm bangs in front. She always wore black, like a black bomber jacket and a black leather skirt. She even had her fingernails painted black. And she had one ear pierced in three places. Altogether she seemed a lot more sure of herself than any kid I ever knew, and she was a couple years older than me too. So I was excited that she wanted to be friends with me, and I sat with her.
    The girls at her table were okay. We played a game called MASH, which stands for Mansion, Apartment, Shack, House. It’s a kind of fortune-telling game about who you’re going to marry, what sort of place you’re going to live in, and whether you’re going to be divorced. And how many kids you’re going to have, and where, like in the bathroom sink or what, and whether they’re boys or girls, and whether they’re black or white. That last thing seemed dumb to me, but the girls giggled over it a lot. They made me put Brent, the one who had pinched me, on my MASH as one of the boys I might marry, but he got crossed out right away, thank God.
    Rawnie was kind of quiet when we walked home together and to school together the next morning. So when Aly asked me to sit with her at lunch, I said, “I’m going to sit with Rawnie today. I think she’s mad.”
    â€œThat’s dumb.” Then Aly giggled. “But I guess she would be dumb, wouldn’t she?”
    I didn’t know what that meant and I didn’t want to ask and look stupid. Thing is, I should have stood up for Rawnie right then, but I didn’t. I just said, “I’m going to sit with her today anyway.”
    â€œNo, you’re not. You sit with me all the time or you don’t sit with me at all.”
    I had been figuring I could sit with Aly one day, Rawnie the next. And I didn’t like what Aly had just said. It didn’t seem fair. But then again, I sort of did like it because not being fair was part of the way she was cool.
    Anyway, I thought, I got to see Rawnie before school and after school and on Saturdays, wasn’t that enough? I only got to see Aly in school. So I sat with her and her gang again.
    We had a lot of fun. Those girls didn’t care what they said. They mocked everything and everybody and made me laugh and laugh. When it was time to go back to class Aly said to me, “See, wasn’t that better than sitting with a certain little jig?”
    I just stood there with my mouth open while she walked away. I mean, of course I knew Rawnie was black, but it had just never occurred to me that it should make any difference. I don’t usually think about