JERRY SPINELLI LOSER - Anderson Five

230 Pages·2008·0.63 MB·English

by  Jerry Spinelli

J E R R Y S P I N E L L I
L O S E R
Pop
Contents

1. You Grow Up 1
2. The Bright Wide World 3
3. Win 5
4. Zinkoff’s First Day 8
5. All Aboard 13
6. A Wonderful Question 18
7. Jabip 28
8. Two New Friends 34
9. Champions! 42
10. Atrocious 50
11. Mailman 60
12. The Nine Hundred Block of Willow 71
13. Waiting 78
14. The Furnace Monster 84
15. Discovered 94
16. Field Day 101
17. What the Clocks Say 109
18. Best Friend 119
19. The Candy in His Hand 127
20. Nowhere 133
21. Something Hard and Thorny 143
22. Boondocks Forever 154
23. Vanished 161
24. Snow 170
25. “Claudia…” 177
26. What a Kid Is 181
27. Himself 187
28. Grounded 197
29. Still There 206
30. “Zinkoff” 211
About the Author
Praise
Other Books by Jerry Spinelli
Credits
Cover
Copyright
About the Publisher
.
1 You Grow Up
You grow up with a kid but you never really
notice him. He’s just there—on the street, the
playground, the neighborhood. He’s part of the
scenery, like the parked cars and the green plastic
cans on trash day.
You pass through school—first grade, second
grade—there he is, going along with you. You’re
not friends, you’re not enemies. You just cross
paths now and then. Maybe at the park playground
one day you look up and there he is on the other
end of the seesaw. Or it’s winter and you sled to
the bottom of Halftank Hill, and you’re trudging
back up and there he goes zipping down, his arms
out like a swan diver, screaming his head off. And
maybe it annoys you that he seems to be having
even more fun than you, but it’s a one-second
thought and it’s over.
You don’t even know his name.
And then one day you do. You hear someone
say a name, and somehow you just know that’s
who the name belongs to, it’s that kid.
Zinkoff.
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.
2 The Bright Wide World
He is one of the new litter of boys tossed up by this
brick-and-hoagie town ten miles by trolley from a
city of one million. For the first several years they
have been home babies—Zinkoff and the others—
fenced in by walls and backyard chain-link and,
mostly, by the sound of Mother’s voice.
Then comes the day when they stand alone
on their front steps, blinking and warming in the
sun like pups of a new creation.
At first Zinkoff shades his eyes. Then he lowers
his hand. He squints into the sun, tries to outstare
the sun, turns away thrilled and laughing. He
reaches back to touch the door. It is something he
will never do again. In his ears echo the thousand
warnings of his mother: “Don’t cross the street.”
There are no other constraints. Not a fence in
sight. No grown-up hand to hold. Nothing but
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the bright wide world in front of him.
He lands on the sidewalk with both feet and
takes off. Heedless of all but the wind in his ears,
he runs. He cannot believe how fast he is running.
He cannot believe how free he is. Giddy with
freedom and speed, he runs to the end of the
block, turns right and runs on.
His legs—his legs are going so fast! He thinks
that if they go any faster he might begin to fly. A
white car is coming from behind. He races the car.
He is surprised that it passes him. Surprised but not
unhappy. He is too free to be unhappy. He waves at
the white car. He stops and looks for someone to
laugh with and celebrate with. He sees no one, so
he laughs and celebrates with himself. He stomps
up and down on the sidewalk as if it’s a puddle.
He looks for his house. It is out of sight. He
screams into the never-blinking sun: “Yahoo!”
He runs some more, turns right again, stops
again. It occurs to him that if he keeps turning
right he can run forever.
“Yahoo!”
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