John sensed an opening. “Why doesn’t Paul like Ted?”
“Nobody likes Ted,” said Davey. He made firm eye contact with John as he said this, punctuating his point. “He’s a big jerk.”
“What does Ted do?”
“He’s always making fun of people, and playing tricks on people. He’s mean for no reason at all,” said Davey.
“What are some of the things he says about Paul?”
“I don’t know,” said Davey, rolling his eyes back and to his left, “stuff like how he’s a big queer. Jerky stuff. He makes fun of everyone that way.”
“Who was he making fun of that day?” asked John.
“Mostly Christina,” said Davey. “He’s always making fun of her.”
“You hate it when he makes fun of Christina?” asked John.
“Yeah, well not just her. I just hate it when he does that stuff. It’s so dumb.”
“What did he say about Christina that day?” John asked.
“He didn’t really say anything,” said Davey. He paused before he continued. “He and Nicholas were going to play a prank on her. She didn’t deserve it.”
“Is she pretty?”
“What?" Davey twisted his face into a scowl. “No way,” he continued, “she’s kinda gross.”
“Gross in what way?”
“Everyone says she eats her own snot,” said Davey. “She’s pretty fat, too. I don’t know why she does the gross things, but sometimes I feel sorry for her.”
“How come?”
“I don’t know,” said Davey. “She only started at our school last year, and she had this big rash on her face. She didn’t try to be anyone’s friend or anything, she mostly just stayed by herself, so I thought that the other kids should just leave her alone.”
“Don’t you think she would have been lonely if everyone ignored her?” asked John.
“I’m not saying they should ignore her,” said Davey. “But sometimes the kids will climb over chairs so they don’t have to sit next to her and stuff. Then they say she eats snot in the bathroom and whatever. I wouldn’t like, be her friend or anything, but I don’t do that stuff.”
“Do you sit next to her?”
“No, I sit with Paul,” said Davey.
“So what were Ted and Nick going to do to Christina?” asked John.
“Why do you do that?” asked Davey.
John suppressed his excitement. He had been hoping that Davey would ask him a direct question about the therapy. The first sign of engagement was notoriously difficult to achieve. “Do what?” asked John, raising his eyebrows.
“You call me David, and I told you that other kid’s name was Nicholas, but you called him Nick,” said Davey.
“Oh, did I?” asked John.
Davey pressed his lips together and regarded John.
John offered a better answer before Davey could fully shut down—“I refer to people with their less common names so that you can see things with a new perspective. Do you know what I mean?”
“I guess,” said Davey, unclenching his jaw.
“I’ll stop, if you’d like,” said John.
Davey nodded.
“So what were Ted and Nicholas going to do to Christina? Was it something with the mouse?” asked John. He had waited until Davey showed interest in his process before revealing that he was capable of producing deductions from Davey’s veiled information.
“Yeah,” admitted Davey. “They were going to put it in her lunchbox.”
“How did you find out?”
“I heard them talking near the cubbies,” said Davey.
“And you took the mouse out of the lunchbox and put it in Ted’s book?”
“Nope,” said Davey, smiling. “They never got it into her lunchbox.”
John smiled and quickly covered his mouth. “How did you get it?”
“I could smell it in Nicholas’s cubby. It was in a sandwich bag, behind his book. I said I had to go to the bathroom and then I found the mouse. It was covered in little white bugs. I dumped it out in Ted’s book and then squished it closed.”
“That must have smelled terrible,” said John.
“It did.” Davey beamed.
“So how did Paul get in trouble?”
Davey puffed out his cheeks and sighed. “He was right near Ted when he found the mouse. I told him not to laugh, but he pointed and laughed at Ted. When Mrs. Roberts came, Ted said that Paul did it. They started to take Paul down to the office and that’s when I told her it was me. I didn’t want Paul to get in trouble for what I did.”
“Your heart was in the right place,” said John.
“I guess,” said Davey, turning to look out the window.
“Seriously, Davey, it takes a lot of guts to stand up for someone who is being teased by a bully. It also takes a lot of guts to admit it was you instead of letting your friend get in trouble.”
“Yeah,” said Davey.
“You pretty much screwed up the most important part though,” said John.
Davey turned back to John and looked surprised.
“It’s not enough to do something for the right reason,” said John. “You also have to do the right thing.”
“What? Like tell?” asked Davey.
“Sometimes, yes. But not always,” said John.
“What then?”
“Well, when you heard that Ted and Nicholas were going to put the mouse in her lunchbox, you could have gone to them and told them not to do it, that it wasn’t right.”
“Yeah, then they would have said I was in love with Christina,” said Davey. “They would have told everyone.”
“Are you?”
“No,” said Davey. “No way. I don’t even like her.”
“Then what’s the harm? If you’re worried that someone like Ted will lie, then you’ve got an awful lot more worrying to do. People like Ted lie all the time. He could say you love Christina no matter what.”
“That’s true,” said Davey. “But just because I tell him not to put the mouse in there doesn’t mean he won’t do it.”
“I’ll let you in on a little secret,” said John. “More often than not, people like Ted are cowards. They’re afraid of confrontation, and they’re usually pretty insecure about themselves. I bet if he found out that you knew what he was up to, it might discourage him from even trying it.”
“You think so?” asked Davey.
“I do,” said John.
“That would be good if I didn’t have to tell on him,” said Davey. “I hate doing that.”
“There are some things you should still tell about,” said John. “But I think you’ll know those when you see them.”
Davey grunted.
“Have you been sleeping okay?” asked John, risking a change of subject.
“Okay I guess,” said Davey.
“Any bad dreams?”
“Sometimes,” Davey said slowly.
“Could you tell me one?” asked John.
“I don’t know,” said Davey. “I don’t remember.”
“I’ll tell you one of mine if you want,” said John.
Davey nodded.
“I haven’t had this one in years, but it used to scare the bejesus out of me,” John said as he rubbed his temple. “I would wake up, and it would be a few minutes before sunrise. You know when you can see everything even though the sun isn’t quite up yet?”
“Yeah,” whispered Davey.
“I’d be about to get up, but then for some reason I would look across the room before I would swing my feet off the bed. In my old room there was a heating vent a couple of feet to the left of the door, and just for a second I would see a little face looking out from behind that vent.”
“Really?” asked Davey.
“Yeah, well it was a dream, but you couldn’t have convinced me of that at the time. That little baby was scary. It would back away just when I saw it. Sometimes I would try to scream, but nothing would come out.”