Where's My Wand?: One Boy's Magical Triumph Over Alienation and Shag Carpeting by Eric Poole Read Free Book Online Page A

kids parted. Miss Hooperman was running across the playground.
    “Stop it! Stop it right now!”
    Stacy and I quickly backed away from Tim. Miss Hooperman bent down and helped him up slowly, brushing his clothes off, her face flushed with anger. “What on earth is going on here?”
     
     
    MISS HOOPERMAN DID NOT report us to Principal Pullman. She knew Tim’s history and probably figured it evened the score. For the next few weeks, Tim steered clear of both Stacy and me. There were no threats of revenge, no whispered recriminations. Just a glorious, pouting silence.
    Our classmates, meanwhile, were in awe of Stacy’s new appendage. No matter what they thought of her personally, they had to admit—a mechanical claw was cool. Every day at recess any number of kids asked for a demonstration, as though she was in charge of an exhibit at the science museum, and Stacy happily obliged.
    I’m not sure if it was her possession of this space-age device that raised her stock, or the fact that because more kids were treating her with respect her demeanor softened, but gradually Stacy’s popularity began to grow.
    Then, one wintry December morning, she didn’t show up for our walk to school. I called her house. No answer. She must be sick, I reasoned.
    As our class finished the Pledge of Allegiance, Miss Hooperman took a seat on the front edge of her desk and smiled sadly.
    “I have an announcement. I’m afraid Stacy won’t be coming back to class.”
    I was stunned. Kids exchanged quizzical looks as Shelly Thomas raised her hand. “How come?”
    “Her parents felt that she would do better in a place designed to accommodate her special needs, so she’s moving to a different school.” Her eyes settled on me. “I know we’ll all miss her. She was quite a girl.”
    Slowly, I raised my hand. “Why didn’t she tell anyone?”
    “I don’t think she knew,” Miss Hooperman replied. “Her folks thought it was best if they just did it without a lot of fanfare.”
    The day passed in a blur of multiplication tables and milk carton art projects. That afternoon, as I walked alone to my crossing guard station at the bridge, I heard a voice behind me.
    “You’d better be guarding those pants, Pee Stain.” It was Tim. “Now that One-Arm’s ridin’ the retarded bus, you ain’t got a bodyguard anymore.”
    In that moment, my feelings of loss and betrayal, of humiliation and rage, all synthesized into a reaction I could never have anticipated. I whirled around, grabbed my heavy math book with my free hand and pitched it at Tim’s head. The corner struck him squarely in the eye, and he fell to the ground like he’d been shot.
    “Owwww!” he cried out. “My eye!”
    I rushed over to kneel beside him as he lay on the ground. He was in a fetal position, rocking, his hand covering the right side of his face.
    “I hope you go blind,” I whispered in a strangely menacing tone. “Then you’ll know what it’s like.”
    I picked up my math book and walked away, down the path to my crossing guard station, never once looking back. I was exhilarated. For the first time, I felt empowered. Self-reliant. And it was intoxicating. Stacy would have been proud.
    Sadly, I discovered that the buzz of intoxication eventually wears off. As my shift at the creek bridge neared its end, my newfound confidence began to fade. What had I done? Would there be consequences? What if Tim’s eyeball fell out? Would he have to wear a patch? Could he get a glass eye like Sammy Davis, Jr.?
     
     
    TIM HAD A SHINER for a good two weeks, but, thankfully, he retained his vision. And because I went along with the lie that he tripped and hit his eye on a doorknob (the astronomical odds of which seemed to elude our classmates), he developed a newfound respect for me—or at least a grudging acceptance. “Pee Stain Poole” was discarded in favor of a new nickname, “CessPoole,” which was used more as a passing, dismissive greeting than a challenge. And