Criss Cross by Lynne Rae Perkins Read Free Book Online Page B

more like, if Albert Einstein had grown up in, maybe an Eskimo village, would he still have been brilliant?
?: He would have had brilliant Eskimo thoughts. He would still have done something amazing with, like, blubber and ice, but maybe we wouldn’t all know about it. I think it makes more difference where you are if you’re not Albert Einstein. I mean, more difference to you. To the world, it probably makes more difference where Albert Einstein is.
?: Do you think that Dan Persik might like me?
?: Why would you want him to?
?: His locker is next to mine, and he always says “Hi” to me in a really nice way, it’s like a teasing way, and then I get all stupid and I don’t know what to say back, besides, “Hi.”
P: That seems like an okay thing to say back.
D: But I want to say something more. I mean, do you think—
P: No.
D: Why not?
P: It wasn’t meant to be.

CHAPTER 11

Hector’s First Song
     
    I t was just the refrain, and it was actually more spoken than sung, but it had a universal theme and a good beat. You could dance to it. It went like this:
    I’m thinkin’ ‘bout,
talkin’ ‘bout
boys, boys, boys,
I’m talkin’ ‘bout
girls, girls, girls
(two, three, four)
     
     
    The first part would be sung by a female voice, the second by a male; that’s how Hector heard it in his head. It was kind of a Motown thing. He only needed the three chords they had already learned.
    But he might need more chords once he thought up some verses.

 

CHAPTER 12

Truck Lessons
     
    O ne Saturday only Debbie and Lenny showed up. They were both early, and they sat in companionable silence waiting for the others.
    “Where’s Phil?” asked Debbie, after thirty seconds or ten minutes, she wasn’t sure which.
    “At a wedding reception,” said Lenny. “His cousin Carol got married today.” A few minutes passed, then he asked, “Is Patty coming?”
    “No,” said Debbie. “It’s her great-grandma’s ninetieth birthday.”
    “Wow,” said Lenny. “That’s pretty old.”
    “I know,” said Debbie. “Really old.”
    A few more minutes or half an hour passed. Then they both started to speak at once, and what each of them had been about to say was “I wonder where Hector is.”
    They laughed, then Debbie said that Hector could be anywhere, and they laughed about that. There was a pause, then they both chuckled as if they were still thinking about Hector and where he might be.
    Finally Lenny turned the key, and the radio became the third person, filling up the middle section of the wide, blue, vinyl seat. Debbie and Lenny each leaned up against their doors to make room.
    It was a pretty good episode, with some new stuff and some that they had heard before. The hour went by.
    “Crisscross,” said the old movie voice, and then there was the sound of the train wreck.
    Lenny turned the key to the completely off position. The other keys on the ring slid down with a slight ching. Probably they always made that ching, but normally it would have been swallowed up in the sounds of conversation. Now it was all by itself:
    ching
     
    Debbie found herself wishing that one of the others was there. Or that some other sound would puncture the quiet before it grew too large. The quiet had come out of nowhere; it surprised Lenny, too. Their heads were suddenly empty of the usual easy conversations, their eyes looked through the windshield into the backyards, touching on all the familiar objects, none of which were doing anything worth commenting on, none of them were doing anything at all. Everything was just sitting there.
    Some birds began chirping, but it wasn’t enough.
    They were alone, no one at all was around. He was a boy and she was a girl. Debbie was thinking she might go home and see what was on TV.
    Then without exactly knowing why, Lenny did what any (red-blooded? American?) boy would do. He asked her if she wanted to learn how to drive the truck.
    It was an idea that had never been in even the same neighborhood