The Memory Giver (#Wattys2014)

Chapter 4

                                                        Chapter Four

        When Turtle arrived at school the next morning, he made sure not to display his disappointment over not seeing Rita milling about. He casually glanced around the yard before going inside. His mind conjured up all sorts of crazy reasons why she’d helped him the day before, settling on she was dying and needed to do a good deed before she croaked off to heaven.  She saved me from the bullies then, went home to die. That’s why she’s not here this morning. As ridiculous as it seemed, it was the only reason that made sense.

        Turtle walked into home room and moved to his assigned seat next to Ross, throwing his pile of books onto the desk. Ross and Turtle were the class outcasts, The Fat Boys, as some kids called them in not so subtle whispers, after the successful overweight rap group of the same name.  Ross insisted his weight was a glandular problem.

        Turtle began shoveling his books inside his desk.

        “What happened after school yesterday?” Ross asked, leaning in, anxious to hear about any beat down that didn’t include him.

        “Nothin’.”

        “Oh.”  He seemed disappointed.  “He didn’t catch you again, huh?”

        “No. He caught up with me.  Had his brothers with him, too.”  Turtle wasn’t playing coy.  There wasn’t much about the incident he could actually tell Ross without looking like a dweeb.  You let a girl stick up for you.  Loser!

        “So what happened?” Ross asked, leaning in so far his flabby thigh slipped over the side of his seat.

        “Nothin’, dude!  We talked!” Turtle’s gaze moved across the room to where Ansley was seated.  He was busy teasing Nancy Richmond about the color of her hair—red—with a new rap he’d made up. 

            Look out for the red... on Nancy Richmond’s head... hair so damn red... just like a clown named Fred.

        Turtle thought Ansley noticed him looking in his direction, but if he did, he didn’t so much as give Turtle a second glance.  It seemed he’d moved on from his desire to hand Turtle an ass whuppin’.

        “Call me Jabba,” Ross said, dragging Turtle’s attention back.

        “What?”

        “You called me dude.  The name’s Jabba!”  Ross said with insistence.

        Ross had inherited another nickname, Jabba, after Jabba the Hut, the gelatinous mass of a character from Star Wars fame.  It was an obvious insult—here comes ole Jabba the Hut.  But Ross didn’t mind the name.  In fact, he encouraged it, insisting it gave him a certain cache with the hunnies.  Turtle did nothing to dissuade him from this line of thinking. 

        “I’m not callin’ you that,” Turtle responded, annoyed that Ross couldn’t see the obvious—that the joke was on him.

        “Ansley whupped your ass yesterday, didn’t he?  Lemme see the pee stains in your pants.” Ross giggled and grabbed for Turtle’s waistband.

        “Cut it out, Ross,” Turtle said, pushing him away.

        “Jabba!”