Fatima and her red leash knocked their eyes out. She was a real ham. She sat up in the center of the outdoor ring and went through her whole bag of tricks, better than she did them for me in private. She went through the kitten and cat classes like a streak, and we were brought back for best in show. In the ring for the final judging there was Fatima, a big boxer dog. a black rabbit, a hamster, a goat, and a bowl of topical fish shaded from the sunlight.
The boxer belonged to a kid who went to the same school I did, a fat tub of lard a grade or so ahead of me. I knew him by sight. If I ever knew his name, I've forgotten it. When I saw the boxer, I steered Fatima to the other side of the ling, She just plain didn't like dogs. The fat kid saw what I was doing, and he followed me in a smart-alecky way.
Fatima swelled her throat ruff and hissed a Persian's surprisingly loud hiss at the boxer. The fat kid laughed. I asked 111111 to move his dog away. Deliberately he gave him more leash The boxer leaned down for a closer look, and quicker than I can say it, Fatima raked his nose. The boxer snarled, then snapped. Just once.
Fatima lay on the grass, one tiny little dot of blood on her ruff. Her neck had been broken. The big dog nosed at the inanimate bit of blue gray fur, then looked up at me as though half-ashamed. I didn't blame the boxer. He'd done the natural thing for any dog.
I picked up Fatima's body and turned blindly away. All I wanted was to get out of there. The fat kid—who'd first looked scared and then defiant—grabbed my arm and spun me around. "Look!" he crowed. "Lookit him! Cryin' like a baby!"
I beat the shit out of him.
The women got me off him finally. I was scuffed up, and so were a couple of them. There was a hell of a lot of gabble-gabble I walked out on. I took Fatima home and buried her in the backyard.
That was Saturday. Sunday I hung around the house most of the day. Monday afternoon I waited in the schoolyard for the fat kid, and I beat the shit out of him all over again.
That night his father came over to my house, and there was a big pow-wow. My family was surprised to learn about Fatima's having been killed. They hadn't missed her. Finally they settled everything to their satisfaction. The fat kid's father would get me another kitten, and I would apologize to the fat kid.
I told them no. I was polite, but I told them no. I told them I didn't want anything from anyone. My father took me upstairs for a little talk. I listened and said nothing. When he saw he was getting nowhere, we went back downstairs. The pow-wow broke up with all the adults making baffled sounds at each other.
The next afternoon I had to chase the fat kid from school clear to within a couple blocks from his house before I caught him. It didn't help him a bit when I did.
There was a lot of telephoning that night. My father was mad. He took me upstairs again and gave me a licking. He said we were going over to the fat kid's house, and I was going to apologize. I was still crying from the licking, but I told him I wouldn't do it. He made a lot of sputtering noises before he left the bedroom. We didn't go
anywhere.
Later that night our minister came to the house. He talked to me for a long time—all about the unexplainable things that happen in life and the necessity for understanding. I listened to him. I was polite. I wasn't going to give them a chance to call me surly or bad-mannered. When he was tired of talking, the minister went away. I don't think even he thought he'd accomplished much.
The fat kid wasn't in school the next day. I was disappointed. When I got home, there was something for me. The fat kid's father had left a carrying case with a blue Persian kitten. I didn't say anything to my mother or my sisters. I took the case out into the backyard, and when they stopped watching me I walked crosslots to the pet shop and gave the case and kitten back. I told the pet shop man to give the fat kid's father his money back. The pet shop man looked funny, but he took the kitten, and he didn't say anything.
My father blew his stack when he got home that night. I didn't answer him back when he started in on me. All I wanted was to be let alone, and no one would let mc alone. My father said I was damn well going to do what I was told, and if the new kitten wasn't back in the house the next night the consequences would be mine. I knew it wasn't going to be there.
So when I got a licking the next night it was partly for having caught the fat kid again on his way home from school, and partly for not having gone back to the pet shop for the kitten.
The next day in school I was called down to the principal's office. He talked a long time, too. The gist of it was that one more go-round with the fat kid and I'd be expelled from school. I asked him politely what the situation had to do with school. I can still see his face tightening up. muscle by muscle. The principal said sharply I was persevering in an attitude I would regret to the last day I lived, but he never did answer my question.
The fat kid wasn't in school that day, but I got a licking anyway that night for not having brought the kitten home. I got another the next night, and another the next. They were almost ritualistic by then, without a word being said on cither side. I overheard my mother arguing with my father about his handling of me, and him shouting at her. I was sorry to hear it. I didn't want sympathy. I didn't want anything. I was stronger than they were, and I knew it. I had undivided purpose. I didn't feel like a martyr. I felt like someone doing what he had to do.
At school I was having trouble finding the fat kid. He was leaving by different doors, at different times. It was three days later before I caught him. The next morning I was back in the principal's office. He wasn't there, but his secretary told me I was expelled. She looked kind of funny all the time she was telling me. I just kind of hung around nil day and went home at the usual time.
My mother and sisters were all waiting for me. At first I thought it was about being expelled, but they hadn't heard. They'd bought me a new Persian kitten. I thanked them. I wasn't mad at them about anything. I wasn't mad at my father about anything. I fed the new kitten because it was a poor dumb animal that needed my help, but I didn't play with it.
My father came home early, in a tearing rage. The principal had called him. When he saw the new kitten and learned where it had come from, he clouded up and thundered my mother and sisters about going behind his back. They turned on him en masse, and it astonished him. He didn't change his mind, exactly, but for the first time in better than a week I got to bed that night without a licking. I had to admit I was glad. My right shoulder had
been hurting a little worse each of the last three days. I made a bed for the new kitten and went to bed early myself.
By noon the next day I had caught up again on lickings. Before breakfast I slipped out of the house and waited for the fat kid on his way to school. He screamed like a girl just at the sight of me. I was in the house at ten o'clock when my father came home from work and marched me
upstairs. He really laid it into me. About an hour afterward I was sick to my stomach.
I didn't go downstairs for lunch. My stomach still felt bad, and my shoulder was really giving me a hard time. I tried staying in bed, but that made the shoulder worse. Around two o'clock my mother came into my room. She looked at my eyes, put her hand on my forehead, and called the doctor. I had a broken collarbone, and the doctor strapped me up like a mummy. He asked me about the marks on my body. I didn't answer him. It was none of his business. Afterward I heard him talking to my mother out in the hall, and my mother was crying.
I took it easy the rest of the afternoon. I wondered how I could keep after the fat kid with an arm strapped down, but I knew I'd find a way. I was sitting downstairs leafing through an encyclopedia when my oldest sister came flying into the house. She ran into the kitchen without seeing me, and I heard her breathlessly telling my mother about a big moving van in front of the fat kid's house.