Soup by Robert Newton Peck Read Free Book Online

thinking the sweetest thought a kid could ever think.
How I’d get even.
Little did I know how soon my next meeting with Eddy would be. Morning came. And with hardly a wink of sleep, I was fresh with deviltry.
    It was the day after Eddy tinkled on Tarn, and the air was ripe with revenge. I was upstairs in the schoolhouse balcony, and a boy named Carl Sprague was below. At the water bubbler I took a great gulp of cold water and let it loose, cascading toward Carl’s head. But the water landed on Eddy. I laughed. Eddy did not. It wasn’t the sort of thing that Eddy would take in the fun-loving spirit in which it was intended. Norwas it in Eddy’s nature to pass it all off as an innocent accident and laugh the whole matter off. Not this Eddy. His only thought was punishment for the offender who wetted his dignity.
    Eddy’s one thought, as his wet, evil face looked up to the balcony, was to avenge the wrong. But not a score-evening that was equal in severity to the offense. He would be dry in five minutes. Yet already forming in his face was a resolute promise to make me sting for a week. The worst part of Eddy’s plan was to let me know in advance what my horror would be as soon as afternoon recess rolled around.
    On the wall above Miss Kelly’s desk, our schoolroom clock ticked slowly. Its pendulum was a great silver disk that swung to and fro inside its keyhole-shaped case. Every tick of that clock brought Eddy closer. Miss Kelly finally rang the bell, a signal for us to line up two by two to be dismissed for the day. Behind me in line as we marched down the stairs, stepping on my heels as often as he could, was the bully himself. With each step he whispered his bloody intentions. Not loud enough for Miss Kelly’s superb hearing to detect, but with enough carry to be picked up by surrounding classmates of both sexes, including Norma Jean Bissell. Several of my classmates tittered away as if the wholebusiness of my drubbing by Eddy was one heck of a joke. A grapevine whisper took up the call, spreading the news of the afternoon’s entertainment. All planned to watch, and probably even Norma Jean.
    I didn’t care if the other girls saw it. But why of all people would it have to be Norma Jean Bissell?
    Norma Jean and I rarely spoke. What we shared together was a silent courtship. There wasn’t even a carry-her-books-home-from-school arrangement, as we lived in opposite directions from the red brick building. Our only overt act of mutual recognition came once a day, as we sang “My Country ’Tis of Thee.” As a class, we rose and stood by our seats, belting it out, stanza by stanza. All four. When we got to the line, “Thy name I love,” I would look with longing at Norma Jean Bissell and she at me.
    I thought of Norma Jean as my sweetheart, the girl to whom I would one day plight my troth. What she thought of me I never discovered, as we never exchanged words. Only glances. It was strictly a romance of song, like Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy.
    But on this ill day, another Eddy was in the picture whose full intention it was to back me up against the schoolhouse and give me a whaling in front of Norma Jean and everybody. To make matters worse, MissKelly picked this day of all days to keep Soup after school.
    Out we marched, like a row of ducks. Two by two, all twenty of us. Down the slate walk, almost to the road. That was where I broke ranks and really turned it on. Never had I run so fast. Neither had Eddy Tacker, who was a step or two behind. His footsteps and his threats mounted in my ears. And that was when I saw Mama, waiting to drag me to the Dry Goods Store. My earlier distress had made me forget that she was meeting me to go to buy a new pair of knickers. My old ones had a rip at each knee. Boy, was she a welcome sight! Eddy, however, did not know the lady was my mother.
    I got to Mama just as Eddy got to me. Turning to face him, I laced him in the chops with the hardest right ever thrown. Eddy crashed