Chapter 4: Justin
It was a couple of days
before Justin got up the nerve to come knock on the Katz’s door. When his mom
had asked about the phone call and his leg, he had grudgingly explained the bare
minimum of the incident to her. She called the Katz’s and spoke with Karen, and
she had been very nice, explaining what had happened and that she was fine if
Justin wanted to come over some days, as long as he behaved himself. Justin’s
mom was thrilled at the possibility that he might have somewhere to go after
school. She was aware of some of the talk in town about her neighbors, but she
was just desperate enough not to care.
Justin’s mom didn’t just ‘not
mind’ if he went over, she encouraged him. She hated leaving him, but she had
been lucky to get a job at the restaurant in town. They desperately needed the
money, but her boss was insistent that she stay until closing and make sure
everything was cleaned up before she went home. This often meant she had to
stay late. She had brought Justin in to the restaurant a couple of times to do
his homework in one of the booths, but her boss had frowned at that. It was too
bad her husband was also too busy to be there in the evenings. It really seemed
he should have been able to work things around so he could. To make ends meet,
he had started doing odd jobs for other people around town and on other farms. Some
days he was too far away to come home, or so he said. She never knew when he
would be home. He had been particularly uncommunicative the past couple of
months and seemed to stay away more than was strictly necessary. They had had a
few fights about it the few times they actually saw each other. They didn’t get
a lot of time together these days, and Justin was just getting lost in the
middle of everything.
Justin walked up the Katz’s
drive one day after school. It had been a particularly bad day. His grades had
been suffering recently and the teacher had given him a note to bring home to
his parents. On top of that, the jerks on the bus snatched his hat away and
threw it out the window. He had had to walk a mile back down the road to get
it. After that, he didn’t really want to go home. He stood there on the front
porch with his dusty crumpled hat and his backpack full of books, and didn’t
seem to be able to get himself to ring the doorbell. What if they found out
what a jerk he really was and threw him out of the house? Deep down, he really
didn’t feel he deserved to have someone be nice to him.
He stood there for ten
minutes until the dog sensed him there and started barking. He heard a
commotion inside and then he heard “Snitch, shut up!” Suddenly, the front door
swung open and Ellie was standing there. Her wild curly brown hair looked like
she had stuck her finger in an electrical socket, and she was wearing a strange
outfit that looked like something between a space explorer and a medieval
princess. In spite of himself, Justin smiled. He couldn’t help it. She was just
so… wacky! She said, “Oh, it’s you. Um, come in!” Justin stepped inside and she
closed the door. “We were just making up a game. We all just finished reading ‘The Hobbit’ and felt like we wanted to
make up our own story. You want to play?” “Um, what’s ‘The Hobbit’?” Justin said. “Really!?” Ellie said incredulously,
“You don’t know!? It’s this famous fantasy book written by a guy named J.R.R.
Tolkien.” Justin thought the name “Tolkien” sounded a little familiar, but he
wasn’t sure. Ellie said, “Do you want to be a hobbit or an elf?” Justin just
said, “Um”. Ellie said, “Well, don’t just stand there, put all of that stuff
down and come on!” They walked into the living room and he saw it had been
transformed into something else. The cushions on the sofa had been piled into what
looked like a wall and blankets draped over it all. Things were draped
everywhere and the rest of the Katz kids were there in various make-shift outfits.
Ellie announced to the room, “Justin is here. I think he should be a good elf,
what do you think?” Jack said, “Sure, we were about to enter the tunnels under
the mountain. Are you ready? I think we may need some of your magic light.
Here, hold this ball.”
That was the beginning of a
cautious friendship. Justin was a little rusty with this “fantasy play” thing,
so he was rather quiet the first few times he came over, but the Katz kids just
did their best to include him, and he eventually loosened up and started to
have fun. He could almost forget about everything else.
Of course, some days the
Katz kids couldn’t play. They either had someplace they needed to go, or
someone hadn’t finished their schoolwork for the day or they were still working
on a project. On those days when Mrs. Katz insisted on quiet, she invited
Justin to sit and do some of his homework at the kitchen table.
He had been ignoring his
homework, and he really didn’t want to face it. It just made him feel dumb. A
lot of the time he just didn’t get it and he didn’t like feeling dumb, so he
ignored it. One day he took a paper out and just stared at the page. Mrs. Katz
was spooning some food into Emma’s mouth in her high chair. She noticed him and
said, “What is that homework about Justin?” He said, “Fractions.” She asked if
he needed some help and he nodded his head faintly, so she finished feeding the
baby and took a few minutes to help him. She took out some really neat magnets
and showed him how, if you split things up in various ways they were fractions
of the whole, then she showed him how you could add them together, and it all
made sense to him suddenly. “Thank you Mrs. Katz. I… I just didn’t get it
before. I figured I was just dumb, but now I see it’s not so hard. I think I
can do it now.” The next day he handed in a fully completed piece of homework
to his teacher for the first time in months. The teacher was pleasantly
surprised. Maybe he wouldn’t have to repeat the grade after all.
One day in September, it was
raining outside and the kids had all finished their schoolwork for the day.
Justin was over and he and Ellie were playing a game of chess. Justin didn’t
know how to play, but Ellie was trying to teach him, and she was trying not to
beat him too badly. Justin seemed to be in a somber mood. He was in a somber
mood much of the time, but today seemed to be a bit worse than usual. Justin
said, “Ellie, can I tell you something and you won’t tell anyone else?” She
said, “Don’t tell me, I don’t want to know.” He said, “Really, I just need to
say this because I feel really bad about it and I need to tell you.” Ellie
sighed. She had a feeling she knew what it was. “Aaall-right.” “Well, you know
when I got caught in the goat pen?” “Yeah.” “Well, I was trying to spy on you
guys and think up mean things to do. I don’t know why, but I hated you for
being so lucky and also different, but you’ve been nice to me. I just want to
say I’m sorry.” Ellie said, “You wrote those nasty notes too didn’t you?” He
just looked at her. She said, “Well, those were really mean things to do and I
should beat you up for it, but I guess I can forgive you. Just… don’t ever do
anything so mean again.” She threw a pillow at him and he fell over and
pretended to be dead.
Things were just a tad
better after that. Karen and Johnathan had suspected the truth, but since
nothing along those lines had happened in a long while, and no serious damage
had been done, they let it go and had never pressed him on it. Even on the days
when Justin had to be home by himself all afternoon, he wasn’t so sad anymore,
because he knew he had some friends, and at school his grades got a bit better.
He held his head up a bit more, and a couple of the bullies on the bus decided
he wasn’t worth the trouble to pick on any more. The problems at home
continued, but Justin had something good to hold on to now.
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