Soup by Robert Newton Peck Read Free Book Online Page B

taking his time, especially if heknew you wanted him to hurry. It was a trait of his nature that could drive those who waited half crazy. Everybody except Miss Kelly. There was a lady that you’d hardly list as one of your favorite friends. But give Miss Kelly this—she sure could handle Luther Vinson.
    A day or so ago, she’d sent some of us up to the blackboard to do a sum. The rest of the kids merely erased the computations left by the previous scholar. But not Soup. He pulled out a wet rag from his pocket and
washed
his section of the blackboard until it was all black and shiny clean. He then had to let it dry. I wasn’t up at the blackboard but in my seat where I could see Miss Kelly’s foot under her desk. The way her foot was going tap-tap-tap, I knew that she was not as amused at Soup’s standards of cleanliness as I was.
    Miss Kelly kept Soup after school. She made him erase every square of the blackboard and dust the erasers. Then he had to wipe out the chalk tray; and on top of all that, wash every single square of blackboard all around the room. After that he had to empty the waste basket.
    I’ll say this much for Miss Kelly—she wasn’t mean. Her role in life was not an easy one, with Soup and mearound. So afterward, when the waste basket was empty, Miss Kelly told Soup what a good job he did. She said that she liked him a lot. Then she said that when she liked somebody, she called him Soup. But if she didn’t like someone, he got called Luther
no matter who was listening!
    I know all this happened, as I was listening right outside the door. I’d sneaked back inside after we marched out, so I could watch Soup work or maybe get the ruler. But no such luck. There were no yelps of pain. Soup said, “Good night, Miss Kelly.” And she said, “Good night, Soup. And you may wish the same to Robert.”
    Anyhow, getting back to Soup’s trip to Burlington, this was what I was thinking about while Soup took his own sweet time to unbuckle both his overshoes. Then he put a toe on a heel and kicked off one, then the other.
    “Wow!” I said. “Orange shoes.”
    “They’re supposed to be tan,” said Soup, “but I’m glad they look a bit orange.”
    “They sure do,” I said.
    “That’s not all. Wait’ll you hear the music they make.”
    “They make music?”
    “Listen,” said Soup.
    He got up from the chair and walked around the kitchen. Every step he took in his new orange shoes made notes in sort of a squeaky melody. The left shoe played one tune and the right another. And when he stood stock-still on the floor and moved both, it sounded like some sort of an all-leather orchestra.
    “It’s like having birds between your toes,” said Soup.
    “Boy!” I said.
    “The best part,” said Soup, “is how you
buy
shoes like this. You get to look at your own feet down through an x-ray machine.”
    “What’s an x-ray machine?”
    “A machine that lets you look at your own bones.”
    “For real?”
    “Honest,” said Soup. “When you try on a new pair, the man at the shoe store takes you over to this machine. You climb up on a platform and put your feet into a little place inside the machine. Then you look down and see your own feet, and they’re all green.”
    “Green?”
    “Yeah. There’s two other places lower down for the shoe man to look into and also one for your motherto look in. Then the shoe man points at the bones of your feet with a black pointing stick that’s inside the x-ray machine.”
    “What’s he do that for?”
    “He does that while he tells your mother to see how much room your toes have to grow inside the shoes.”
    “What’s it look like, Soup?”
    “You can see all the bones of your toes. They look like a bunch of twigs. And when you wiggle your foot, the bones wiggle too.”
    Soup took a few more turns around the kitchen in his new orange footwear, making squeaky music with every step. It made me look down at my old shoes, which I’d had a long time. So long