Edenville Owls

Chapter 33

In the school yard at recess, Joanie was with her girlfriends and I was leaning on the wall with the Owls. She saw me, and waved for me to come over. I walked over. I could feel Nick looking at me. She met me halfway.

“Meet me at the bandstand after school,” Joanie said. “I got things to tell you.”

“Me too,” I said.

She smiled and nodded.

“Want to come back to my friends with me? We’re talking about boys.”

“That’s funny,” I said. “We were talking about girls.”

Joanie laughed and went back to her friends.

“You say anything to her?” Nick said to me in a half whisper.

“This afternoon,” I said.

Nick nodded.

“Who we playing Saturday?” Billy asked.

“Wickford Junior High,” Russell said. “They’re undefeated.”

“So are we,” I said.

“So far,” Manny added.

The bell rang and we went back in. I could never decide if I hated school most in winter. In winter it was hot in the classroom and everything reeked of the steam heat in the banging iron radiators. The windows were all closed. Your clothes were too warm. The teachers, even Miss Delaney, seemed locked into hell with you and droned on while you thought about other stuff.

Eventually it was over, and I walked down through the clean white landscape to the bandstand. It was pretty now. Most of the snow was still fresh. In a few days it would be ugly. But not yet.

No one had shoveled a path in, so I had to wade through a foot of snow to get there, and had to wipe off a lot of snow to sit on the bench. Joanie came a few minutes after. She was always later because she went home to change into play clothes. She came in through the snow, carefully stepping in the trail I had broken, and sitting on the bench where I had brushed away the snow.

“I went to the library and asked Old Lady Coughlin if there was a list of Medal of Honor winners from the war,” Joanie said as soon as she sat down. “I told her I was doing a special project in school. And she said that she didn’t think the library had a list, but she was pretty sure The Standard Times would have one. And I asked how I could get it, and she told me I could call the research department at the paper. I asked if they would give it to a kid, and Old Lady Coughlin said maybe not, and she would call for me, and she did.”

“And they sent you the list?”

“Yes. She called my house last night and told me.”

“What?” I said. “Is he there?”

“Yes,” Joanie said.

“Oswald Tupper?”

“The medal was awarded to Oswald Tupper... posthumously.”

“Yeah, but...” I stopped. “He’s dead?”

“Yes.”

“You’re sure?” I said.

“That’s what it said on the list,” Joanie said. “That’s what posthumous means.”

“And he didn’t get it as Richard Krauss?”

“Richard Krauss wasn’t on the list,” Joanie said.

“So who was Oswald Tupper?” I said.

“And how did the reverend get his medal?” Joanie said.

“And his name?” I said.

A seagull came and landed in the snow a few feet from the bandstand and looked at us, tilting his head one way and then the other. He had eyes like black BBs. The end of his beak had a little hook in it. We looked at him and didn’t say anything, and I thought about what Joanie had found out.

“You have any idea what to do now?” I asked.

“No.”

“Maybe if we talk about other things...,” I said.

“Okay,” Joanie said.

“I talked with Nick,” I said.

“About me?”

“Yes.”

“What did he tell you?” Joanie said.

“He said you broke up with him.”

“I couldn’t break up with him,” Joanie said. “He was just a cute boy I went to a party with. He was getting too serious.”

“That’s what he told me,” I said.

“Was he mad at me?” Joanie said.

“No. He was a little sad, I guess.”

“How about you,” Joanie said. “Was he mad at you?”

“No. He said we were friends all our lives and we’d keep on being friends. He was pretty nice about it.”

“Yes,” Joanie said. “He is nice.”

“You and I been friends all our lives too,” I said.

“I know.”

“You’re the only girl I was ever friends with,” I said.

“I know,” Joanie said. “Why is that, do you think?”

“I guess I’m kind of shy with girls.”

“Except me,” she said.

The seagull must have decided we weren’t going to feed him. He spread his wings quite suddenly and flew off.

“What if I got serious?” I said.

My voice sounded kind of small to me. I didn’t look at Joanie. I watched the seagull head out across the harbor.

“We’re different,” Joanie said.

“But what if I did?” I said.

“Are you getting serious?” Joanie said.

“No.”

I stopped watching the seagull and looked at her.

“But what if I did?” I said.

Joanie smiled.

“We’ll see what happens when you do.”

There was something in her face that made her seem completely grown-up.