Snoopy

“Snoopy"
By Koh Ko

The sting of the icy cold water from Doña Esperanza's water hose on this chilly winter morning stung as much as the punch that bully Tony Keeter delivered to Miguel’s stomach. He was already dizzy and gagging from the attack laid on him that morning from Keeter and his punk sidekick Paulino. The freezing, dirty water coming out of Doña's water hose did not help.

It really wasn’t that Doña thought she was helping Miguel – turning the hose on the two boys that were beating the shit out of him. It was more her just reacting as she did when her five dogs got into territorial battles with each other. She did not see a small boy getting beat up by two bullies. She saw her dogs fighting with each other.

Now he was shivering uncontrollably.

"Why didn’t you just leave us alone?" he thought. He could have deflected the usual six or seven punches before Tony and his bitch would get bored and let him run off. No one was around to see him getting beat up anyway.

"You boys knock it off," Doña said, yelling. "Leave him alone."

"You fat cow," Tony shot back. Paulino, always following, felt he needed to contribute.

"Yeah, you fat cow! We're going to burn your house down."

Tony instantly kicked his pathetic sidekick in the ass.

"Shut up!"

"What?" Paulino said. He was totally clueless.

"You can get arrested for saying shit like that," he said.

"I'm all wet," Paulino said. "Forget her."

Doña Esperanza turned her hose on them again.

"Get out of here you delinquents. I'm going to tell your mothers you little brats. Don't think I don't know who you are.”

The boys turned and stomped off and she faced Miguel.

"You, get your butt to school. Stop hanging around with these dummies."

"I wasn't hanging around with them," he said. "They attacked me."

She saw him staring at her in disbelief.

"Get to school, you brat. I'll tell your mother, too."

Miguel got up. Soaked, soiled and shaking and in a lot of pain. He gave one last snarl to Doña Esperanza, who was coddling one of her dogs – the nasty little Jack Terrier she named Poncho Villa - that had sneaked out from under the back fence and made its way down the causeway between her's and the adjoining house that led to Almazan Elementary School. He would find out later that the causeway was covered up after too many late-night rapes, drug busts and violent assaults. His little melee that morning was nothing.

The causeway led to the southern end of the school. It was the most direct route for him to his classroom. Otherwise, he would have to trek an extra mile around the neighborhood to enter the school through the front entrance. There was still about 300 yards of open fields he had to trek through to get to his class but it was the shortest route. Today, it seemed endless.

He was already running late for class. His newspapers got to his house late that morning he had to rush to deliver them all before he went to school. He had seen Tony and Paulino staring at him as he rode by but he thought they would have moved on before he made his way to school. They had nothing better to do that morning. At his young and still innocent age he had not realized that they were preparing to go to sleep after a long night, not that they were freshly awoken after a restful night’s sleep.

As he made his way up the blacktop, he saw that no one was out playing.

Classes had started.

He was still shaking uncontrollably and his stomach and ribs started to throb again.

Should he just go home, he thought? How could he walk into class now? All the kids would laugh at him. He couldn't take it. Not again.

Micho took a deep breath but before he could take his first step…

"Micho, have you been playing in the sprinklers?"

His father, dead for two years now, always called him Micho, and she remembered... thought it would be comforting.

It was Mrs. Spratling, the school's hippie counselor. Pale as a full moon, she meticulously maintained her dreadlocks and often came to school in a dashiki.

He turned to her and could not control the tears that started to flow like the drippy faucet at home that his mother's live-in boyfriend had yet to fix – despite his mother's constant pleading.

She figured he had not been playing in the sprinklers - that, she decided, would be her explanation - but she wanted to spare him the embarrassment - give him an out. She had seen him get picked on before. This was the worst she had seen him.

"What happened?" Spratling said.

Shivering, looking away. His eyes were stinging and he did not want her to look at him.

"Nothing. I slipped on the grass."

She nodded. "Quite a slip." She laughed. He didn't

"I told Mr. Gomez to take those tall sprinklers out of the field," she said, in a more consoling tone. "You fell on one of the sprinklers didn't you?"

"I did," he said. His body instantly felt warmer. He shivered less.

"Come with me," she said.

For just a second, he was scared. But he had always been complicit, listened to authority, done what he was told. So he did as she said.

They walked towards the main administration building. This was the building where he had never seen anyone but bad kids go. This was the last place he saw Tony before he got shipped off to the alternative school from where bad kids never come back.

"What did I do?" he thought. “I like school.”

He remembered answering too many questions in class once.

"You need to speak less young man," his teacher Mrs. Johnson said, scolding him.

He was being punished for knowing all the answers? He was eight years old, but even then he knew there was no logic in her accusation.

Oh, and then there was that time he broke the phonograph because he kept changing the speed on the player. "O' Susanna" sounded a lot better at double speed, and all of his class mates thought so until Mrs. Johnson decided he was the one who broke the phonograph. "It was Tony, not me," he tried to tell her, but she would not listen. Tony told him he was going to beat the shit out of him for ratting him out, well, trying to rat him out – Micho got blamed for breaking the phonograph in the end – and, for once in his life, Tony actually did as he said.

Micho felt like he was going into solitary confinement. This was the supermax of the school where only the worse of the worse went. Why was he going in here now? Why?

The large steel door opened and he followed Mrs. Spratling through a hallway, white, antiseptic, bathed in mind-numbing retina-correcting green light.

He had to go to the bathroom really badly now. He was about to piss in his pants.

Mrs. Spratling opened the door to her office and suddenly Micho found himself in a post-hippie oasis. There was a poster of Kennedy… Robert - with Cesar Chavez - a lava lamp, and soft, warm orange lighting. Micho thought all the African masks were a little scary.

"Sit down and rest," she said.

She opened a file cabinet drawer and took out an assortment of shirts and pants, holding them up and looking over at him, trying to measure which pair of pants and shirt might fit him.

"What size are you?" Spratling said.

How would an eight-year old know what size he wore? His befuddled look told her so.

She walked over and checked the tag on his shirt. When she grabbed at his waist to see his pant size he winced in pain.

"Sorry Puss."

She wasn't trying to belittle him. She called everyone 'Puss.' That was her thing.

Looking through the assortment of shirts, pants and left-over dresses, she chose a little league team jersey and a pair of - if you can believe it - turquoise corduroy pants. The pants were actually her son's, discards from years earlier. He was in high school now and he hated her. She was not deterred. Every one of her seven children hated her at one point. He was the youngest. Nothing special. Hate me all you want.

Micho looked at the clothes she handed him. He didn't know his size but he knew these would be a little big; gets his ass kicked and now he was going to have to endure the ridicule of wearing these crazy pants. He would get laughed at more going into his classroom with the soiled, soaked clothes he was wearing now though, he thought. He would have to endure.

He should have just gone home he decided. Too late.

Mrs. Spratling laid the clothes out with a towel on the chair next to Micho.

"Take your clothes off and wrap yourself in the towel Puss! I'll be right back."

She started to walk out the door but turned back suddenly.

Micho's heart raced.

She came back in, opening the bottom drawer taking out a pair of boy's briefs. She made sure she placed them under the clothes and the towel she had already laid out for him.

"Get on with it Puss! We have to get you to class."

She walked out and left poor Micho staring at the towel on top of the clothes. He could see the briefs dangling from the bottom of the pile.

He reluctantly took off his clothes and wrapped the towel around his aching body.

Mrs. Spratling walked back in with a couple of smoking, wet towels.

"Mrs. O'Connor knows that you're finishing that 'special project' for her. I told her you got really dirty and that you needed to clean up before you went back to class."

"Special project?"

"Here, clean yourself off with a hot towel. Where does it hurt?" she asked. "Put the towel where it hurts while it's hot. It'll feel good."

He put the towel on his left rib, just above his stomach. It felt good.

"You were helping me in the garden, okay? That's where you fell on the sprinkler."

She smiled at him and he understood.

"I know it hurts Puss but get yourself cleaned up so we can get you to class okay. Rub the other towel all over you and get yourself cleaned up okay."

"I'll be right back. Finish cleaning up and get dressed, okay Puss? Leave your clothes on that chair and I'll wash them so you can wear them after lunch."

He looked up and smiled at her. She liked that.

As soon as the door closed he ran to the chair and changed into the badly-fitting-fashionably-inept-loaner-outfit.

Micho was surprised that the whole class didn't all turn around in unison and laugh at him when he walked in with Mrs. Spratling, but then saw that every student was eagerly leafing through their newly purchased books. He had totally forgotten. He immediately looked to his desk and saw, there, waiting for him, the one book his mother allowed him to order.

He almost made it to his desk unscathed, free from ridicule but Mel, the ultra-hyperactive kid immediately noticed the clothes Micho was wearing. He had worn them before, after an unfortunate incident when he was so intent on chopping down one of the small trees Nacho, the school’s custodian, had planted in the playground, that he didn’t even realize he had soiled himself. He couldn’t control it. It always happened when he exerted himself. The medicine he took for what was then diagnosed as Attention Deficit Disorder – he was actually a psychotic schizophrenic – served as a diuretic.

“You shit in your pants didn’t you?” Mel said, uncontrollably. “Micho shit in his pants!”

The class immediately turned and looked at Micho. Laughter roared through the classroom.

“Melvin! Boy, what is wrong with you?” Mrs. O’Connor roared.

“Micho shit his pants!” he said, again.

Mrs. O’Connor, no-nonsense, strong and a Black Panther Bad-ass after years of failed relationships with weak, weak men would not have this type of behavior in her classroom - the one place she could control in her life - disrupted by Schizo-Psycho Mel.

She marched quickly to his desk.

“Melvin, what did I tell you about disrupting MY classroom?”

“I’m Mel. Don’t call me Melvin!”

Mrs. O’Connor grabbed him by the arm and yanked him towards the door.

“Boy, it’s not even nine o’clock and you’re already acting up. Take THREE laps and you come back and talk to me,” Mrs. O’Connor said.

Mrs. Spratling looked on, worried. She knew that Mrs. O’Connor was not giving Mel his medication – wanted to deal with it her way, having him run laps around the school’s fields and tiring him out so he would be exhausted, and calm, in her classroom. She knew it was a quick fix – realized the pills were too – but still worried.

The class, excited that they could read the books they ordered and not have to go through Mrs. O’Connor’s tedious and rigorous writing lessons that morning quickly forgot Mel’s outburst.

Micho sunk into his desk and looked at his new book. At that moment he no longer felt pain and could care less what he was wearing. He wanted to read his Snoopy book.

Yeah, they were the Peanuts characters, but it was all about Snoopy for him. Every other Peanuts character was just a squirrel trying to get a nut in Snoopy's world he figured. He thought about Charlie Brown just as much – understood his pain, all too much – but he wanted to be Snoopy.

Mrs. Spratling was happy to see Micho forgetting about his morning and involved with his book. She didn't know exactly what had happened but could only imagine. She had seen him get picked on constantly in the playground. She thought of him as a gentle boy with a good heart, but those were attributes that nasty bullies were quick to pounce on.

She quickly briefed Mrs. O'Connor and turned to say goodbye to Micho, but seeing how involved he was with his book, decided just to leave.

Micho went straight to the last page of his book, "This is Your Life Charlie Brown." Already at a young age he was horribly impatient - liked eating his dessert before dinner - liked knowing the end of the story before reading it. He liked finishing; hated starting.

He was so involved reading about Snoopy that he didn't even realize that Kathy Franco hadn't taken her eyes off of him since he walked through the door. She thought he was sick and was surprised to see him walk into class so late. Where had he been, she wondered?

He only ever saw her mother, a stocky woman of Tuscan descent – via Ecuador.

Kathy, on the other hand, was his Roman goddess.

Micho just assumed she was Mexican, maybe part-White. He did not grasp the complexity of the place where he was living at the time, how inordinately diverse it had become. Not many did at the time. You were a Cringo, if you were white; if you were dark and had frizzy hair… Negrito; slanted eyes… a Chinito.

Everybody else was Mexican. What else would they be?

The first time he laid eyes on Kathy, two years back when they began their elementary career at Almazan, Micho fell in love with her immediately. He remembered – he really did – her silky brown, shoulder-length hair, lithe as a butterfly, held to one side by a tasteful and elegant barrette. She was wearing a pink dress, just below the knee, with a beautifully embroidered knit sweater that her mother had made for her.

She was always dressed impeccably; always a colorful, ornate dress, puffy at the arms; or with just the right amount of ruffles to give it an elegant heft. She was a girly-girl through and through, and that's what he remembered he loved about her.

"I can't play kick ball," she'd tell Mrs. Johnson, pointing at her shiny, black, leather patent shoes.

Their relationship started out with a bang right from the start during a field trip to a local supermarket in first grade. By divine grace, Micho was partnered as Kathy's buddy, and thus, they had to make sure they held hands whenever they were off the bus. His hand was shaking as he reached out to hold her hand. Her grasp was so gentle and little hand – she had thin fingers – so delicate and soft. He took extra care not to squeeze her hand to tight for fear that he might actually hurt her.

They became separated briefly when the manager of the supermarket brought out cookies and juice for everyone. As all the kids devoured their cookies and slurped down their juice, Micho noticed the butchers working away in the meat department.

One of the greatest memories he had of his father, Rafael Solorzano, was going to the meat packing plant where he worked. Micho got to wear a butcher's coat and hard hat and walk around with his father, feeling the incredible power that hard work could bring to a man's self-worth. He loved watching his father cut, chop and hack his way through a side of pork, turning it into an array of cuts, ready to be seared, braised and grilled - stuff that could feed a family.

All the kids had finished their juice and cookies and were being corralled over to the produce department while Micho stood, hidden away between meat counters, lulled by a butcher skillfully butchering pork butts. The silence is what broke him out of his trance and he turned to see Kathy coming back for him. She stopped and gave him a stern shake of her hand, furling her brow. “Come here!” she was saying with her dramatic gesture. “Get over here and hold my hand.”

Micho walked toward her and she held out her hand. He held it, gently, amazed again at how soft her hands were and they walked quickly to rejoin their fellow classmates. He turned and could not stop staring at her. It made him slow down. She turned and tugged at his hand to keep up.

Micho finally looked up from his Peanuts book to see that Kathy was looking over at him. She held up the same Peanuts book. He held up his book and showed it to her.

She held up one finger, pointing at the book.

He held up the book and one finger back at her. She smiled. He loved her smile, gentle, caressing, as soft as her hands and as delicate as her thin fingers.

Later on the playground he talked to her more. Micho asked her what her favorite strip was so far. He was already almost finished with the book. The ones with Snoopy, of course, were his favorite.

She said she liked the ones with Sally, sitting by Schroeder at the piano and listening to him play, asking him if he loved her.

Kathy was on the swing and he was pushing her as hard as he could. She would sail up in the air.

“Ah,” she gasped. “Stop.”

She felt herself slipping off the swing and the sense of exhilaration and the fear startled her.

She leapt off the swing and fell on her knees. She scuffed them, but even worse, her dress was scuffed on the grass that bordered the swing set.

She walked off hurriedly, almost in tears. Her mother would yell at her endlessly. She was sure of it.

Micho chased after her, but she kept walking, headed straight for the girls’ restroom.

She would not even look over at him for the rest of the day.

At home that evening, Micho sat quietly eating his dinner, looking occasionally at his mother, Mercedes. She smiled at him, lovingly, and then looked over at Rafa, her second husband, who was cracking open his third beer and busy shoveling down his dinner and watching a soccer game on the small television that was placed on top of the washing machine near the table where they ate in the kitchen.

Mercedes waited for the commercials.

“Rafa?”

He looked up at her.

“I need you to drop off Micho at school tomorrow.

“Why?”

She paused, but then decided to tell him.

“Some boys have been picking on him on the way to school. They attacked him.”

“Why didn’t he beat the shit out of them?” Rafa said.

Micho started eating his food – his mother’s enchiladas; his favorite; she made them after speaking to Mrs. Spratling about what had happened that day – faster.

“There were two of them,” she said. “Rafa, he’s a small boy.”

“He’s weak,” Rafa said, staring at Micho.

“Rafa… Por favor.”

The soccer game came back on the television. Rafa turned back to the television and took another gulp of his beer.

“I should take him and have him fight them… Fair. I’ll watch them. Make sure it’s a fair fight.”

“Why did I even ask you?” Mercedes said.

Rafa took another gulp of his beer, glued to the television the whole time.

“He’s going to have to sit there for an hour then. I have to work the early shift tomorrow.”

“That’s fine,” Mercedes said.

Micho had to wake up even earlier the next morning to complete his paper route and be ready for his stepfather to take him to school.

They drove by the causeway, empty, and Rafa turned to Micho.

“So where are they?”

“It’s too early.”

“You know you can’t keep running. They’ll find you.”

Micho could not face looking at his stepfather.

“I don’t like to fight.”

“Sometimes you have to,” Rafa said. “It’s not about what you like… Puto!”

They drove up to the front of the school and Rafa stopped the car in front of the school’s main administration office.

He turned to Micho.

“Hey.”

Micho reluctantly looked over at Rafa.

“Sometimes you gotta fight… You little wuss. Get the hell out! I’m late for work.”

Micho was sitting on the bench in front of the main office, reading his Peanuts book and laughing. What better friend than Woodstock could you have, he thought.

It was cold. his hands hurt and he was shivering slightly, wearing only the thin windbreaker jacket that his mother could afford. He felt fine, though. He was at peace, reading his book, enjoying the genius of Charles Schultz, undisturbed.

He stared at Sally in one of the comics, where she hopelessly sat at Schroeder’s piano, trying to get his attention. What a cutie.

Just then, Mrs. Spratling walked up and noticed Micho sitting at the bench. She always arrived early at school. Her hour and a half commute – with no traffic – always stressed her out, so she liked to come in early, light a scented candle in her office and meditate for at least 20 minutes before she started her day. The meditation actually worked, she finally realized. Kept her from smoking a joint, or worse, dipping into the flask of vodka she kept in the filing cabinet just to remind her – torture her – that she shouldn’t.

“Puss, what are you doing here so early?” she said.

He looked up, startled that he had not seen or heard her walk up to him.

“My fath…” He stopped himself. “My mother’s husband gave me a ride.”

“Well, you shouldn’t be sitting out here. Come on. You can sit in my office and read your book.”

Micho tried to concentrate on his Peanuts book, but was continually disrupted by Mrs. Spratling’s wheezing as she breathed deeply in her meditation. The candle – a jasmine-scented-yuzu thing she got at her favorite health food store in Pasadena - just a block down from the Chinese herbalist, Dr. Chan, whom she visited once a month – smelled funny. He’d never smelled anything like that before.

She arose from her meditation and went to her desk, setting a timer she kept when she wanted to take a quick afternoon nap and wanted to make sure she didn’t oversleep. She set it for 22 minutes.

“Puss, if you want to stay here and read your book, that’s fine, but I have to go. When this alarm rings, you go to class. Okay?”

Micho nodded.

“I think you should go out and play in the playground. Go see your friends. But, if you want to stay here, that’s fine, but go right to class when this rings, okay?”

“Thank you, Mrs. Spratling,” Micho said. He immediately went back to his book.

Miguel Solorzano would remember later what a special woman Mrs. Spratling was. Going to her funeral many years later, he would run into many of his old classmates, each with his own story of how Mrs. Spratling had helped them and always kept it discreet, never taking credit or making a big show of it. Miguel, and all of them, never forgot her kindness.

Later, on the playground, he approached Kathy.

“Sally’s funny.”

Kathy smiled at him.

“Schroeder really likes to play the piano.”

“He likes Beethoven,” she said. “My mother likes Beethoven.”

He had never heard Beethoven. It would be years before he ever heard classical music. The song he liked the most that his mother listened to all the time was ‘Sabor a Mi.’

That was their song. That was the song they danced to when they got married. His mother loved that song and started crying every time she heard it on the radio, and Micho always wondered why. He later realized that song was the only connection she had to the one man who loved her the most and gave her the greatest gift of their lives - His existence in the world. It was he, he later realized, that was the greatest achievement of her life.

Micho saw Kathy walking across the field and towards the causeway and wondered where Kathy’s older sister, Deanna – not as cute as her sister, with buck teeth – was? She was a sixth-grader, tall for her age, and usually picked up Kathy from class. The two usually walked home together. She was sick it turned out, so Kathy had to venture home alone.

Kathy was showing Micho her favorite Sally comics from her Peanuts book as they were making their way across the field toward the causeway when Mel showed up out of nowhere.

He came up behind Kathy and flipped up her dress, a beautifully embroidered wonder her grandmother sent her for her birthday. She was wearing shorts underneath – her mother was all too aware of the ways of boys… and men.

“What a pretty dress,” he said.

Micho stood there, motionless.

She turned and her book fell to the ground as Mel rushed towards her and grabbed her arms. She tried to fight, but he was manic, full of adrenaline.

He grabbed her hard, by the forearms, and started spinning her around.

“Look how pretty your dress looks,” he yelled.

“Stop it,” she said, yelling at him. She caught a glimpse of Micho on one of her revolutions, but he just stood there, frozen, wondering what he should do.

On a final spin Mel let Kathy go and she fell to the ground, soiling her immaculate dress, which rode up above her waist, revealing her white, polyester shorts.

She was crying and struggled to get up. Mel moved towards her, but Kathy kicked him – awkwardly – on his upper thigh, close to his hip. Mel reacted to the blow – it hurt – and turned to Micho.

“You shit your pants,” he said, and ran off.

Kathy’s lip was bloodied and a jagged trail of blood was starting to make its way down the cut above her brow. That didn’t matter to her. She looked at her dress and saw that the stains would never come out. Her grandmother’s precious gift to her was ruined. She was already panting but started to cry uncontrollably and looked at Micho.

Micho looked at the ground and saw her Peanuts book and moved to get it for her but she ran off as he picked up the book.

He thought about running after her – he should have – but ended up just standing there, looking at her book, now torn… wet… damaged.

That night on the couch on which he slept – they lived in a one-bedroom apartment; she lost the house her late husband had worked so hard to buy some time ago – he held on to the book and cried himself to sleep.

The next morning he woke up early – he actually had not slept the whole night – and wrapped his own papers for his paper route. His mother usually woke up and folded all of his papers for him before she woke him up. Mercedes woke up this morning to find him already packing his newspapers into the bags on his bike.

“Bye Chula,” he said. It was a nickname his father had always called her.

She looked at him, surprised.

“Bye, Mi Hijo. Con quidado.” (Be safe.)

He carried Kathy’s book in his newspaper bags the whole time and finished his paper route faster than he ever had before.

Eating his breakfast – chorizo with red bell peppers; his mother’s special touch – he turned to her as Rafa was slouching into the kitchen.

“I don’t need a ride today Chula.”

Rafa was suddenly awake, and looked over at Mercedes and then turned to Micho.

“You sure, chamaco?” he said.

Micho looked over at Rafa.

“Yeah, I’m sure,” Micho said.

He turned onto Sandybrook Avenue and looked to the causeway to see if this was a day he could just make it to school in peace.

He couldn’t.

There were Tony and Paulino, hanging out at the causeway, bicycles at their side. He paused, thought maybe he could outrun them, jump the fence of one of the houses and go through their backyard. They smelled his fear and immediately grabbed their bicycles and started pedaling towards him. He was holding Kathy’s Peanuts book in his hand – the cover now torn and dirty. They were coming at him at full speed.

“I’m going to beat the shit out of you, you little fuck,” Tony said.

Paulino smiled with devilish glee.

Micho took a couple of steps back and tucked the book into the small of his back. The boys were coming at him full speed, side by side. He grabbed the shoulder straps of his backpack and tightened them.

When the boys were within yards of him, Micho lunged forward. There was an instant look of surprise in both boys as they saw Micho come towards them. Micho looked at both and decided he would take out Tony, the bigger of the two boys. Tony reacted too late, trying to bring his bike to a screeching halt. Micho lunged at him, holding his forearm in front of his face. The two boys went crashing down onto the grassy sidewalk, but Tony got the worst of it. He was stunned, slightly unconscious, and in a lot of pain.

Micho was in pain as well – he now had a nasty cut on his shin from slamming into the bike’s pedal and the head butt with Tony left a gash on his upper brow that was starting to bleed.

“Ow, ow,” Tony said, whimpering.

Micho forced himself up and turned to see Paulino, who had veered away from Micho and was now jumping off of his bike.

Paulino started rushing towards him. Micho loosened the shoulder straps on his backpack and started to take it off as Paulino neared, clenching his fist. As Paulino threw a punch at Micho, he swung his backpack at him. Paulino connected, punching Micho on the cheek and knocking him to the ground, but he’s the one who got the worst of it.

Micho again forced himself up to see Paulino on the ground, doubled over and unable to get up.

Micho got his backpack and put it back on. Suddenly, he reached for the book and felt it was not there. He saw it, lying there, six or so feet away from him, soiled and damp. The cover had been ripped off in the scuffle. He found the cover, in the gutter, rubbed it as clean as he could in the wet grass and placed it back on the book.

He turned, calmly, away from his attackers and walked down the causeway toward Almanzan.

In her office, Mrs. Spratling put a hot towel on Micho’s brow, cleaning his wound. She could tell it hurt him, but he seemed calm, relaxed, relieved even. Not like other times.

“You got a nasty cut there, Puss.”

Micho looked up at her, smiling.

“Yeah.”

“Did you get ‘em good?” Spratling said.

He smiled again. “Yeah.”

She got a band-aid, rubbed a little antiseptic on his brow – it stung – and placed it on his brow. She looked him over, noticing his soiled clothes. His shirt had some nasty grass stains on it.

“Want me to wash your clothes, Puss?” she asked.

Micho paused and smiled again. “No, I’m okay.”

She looked at him and saw that he was, indeed, okay.

“Get out of here, then. Go play before the bell rings. I’ll go to Mrs. O’Connor’s class right now for you, okay?”

“Thank you, Mrs. Spratling. Thank you.”

“Why you’re welcome, Puss. Now get out of here. Get!”

The bell rang as soon as Micho left Mrs. Spratling’s office and he ran to Mrs. O’Connor’s class, one of the first to take his seat. He turned immediately to Kathy’s desk – she wasn’t there – and turned to the door to see her walk in. The students streamed in, noisily, and Micho’s heart raced, but still, no Kathy.

He suddenly realized that maybe she stayed home today.

“Quiet, children. Take your seats. We got a long day of learning today,” Mrs. O’Connor said.

His heart sank and he started to feel the pain of the battle scars he had gained that morning when he saw Kathy finally make her way to her desk.

Even after the scuffle the day before with Mel, she was dressed immaculately in a burgundy velour dress with a ribbon in her hair. He didn’t notice the band-aid that her mom had placed on the cut she had on her brow.

Micho watched as she approached her desk and saw the Peanuts book. She smiled instantly and picked up the book, looking it over. She immediately turned to Micho.

It wasn’t her scuffed, muddied, ripped book, she realized. It was his, pristine, mint-condition copy.

She smiled at him and it warmed his body. He no longer felt any pain.

She noticed the band-aid on his brow first and pointed to her’s, holding up one finger.

“Just one,” she was telling him with the gesture.

Micho pointed to his band-aid and raised one finger back at her.

“Just one, too,” he was telling her. “Just one.”