Dexter the Tough Read Free

thousands of miles away, not even in Cincinnati anymore, not even on the same side of the country. Mom had shown him on a map. “Here’s Cincinnati,here’s Bellgap, Kentucky, where Grandma lives, here’s where we’ll be at the hospital in Seattle. . . . ” But Dexter’s eyes had blurred looking at the map, all the bright colors of the different states blending together. Even now, thinking about it, he started having to blink a lot because the wind was making his eyes water.
    That was when he saw the boy he’d hit.
    The boy was sitting by himself under a tree, far away from the kickball game, and the girls playing hopscotch, and the little kids on the swings and slides. He was picking blades of grass and peeling them apart and throwing them back on the ground. Was it really the right kid? The main thing Dexter remembered about the boy in the bathroom was the way he had such neat, careful comb tracks in his blond hair. The boy under the tree had blond hair, all right, but the wind was blowing it all around. It was a mess.
    Dexter walked toward the boy. He stopped and leaned against the tree trunk.
    â€œHey,” Dexter said from behind.
    The boy jumped a little, like he was surprised. Then he turned around and saw Dexter, and his face scrunched up in fear. He started to scramble to his feet, like he wanted to run away.
    Like he was scared of Dexter.
    â€œIt’s okay,” Dexter said. “I’m not going to hurt you. I promise. I just want to ask you a question.”
    â€œWhat?” the boy whispered, still crouching, half-up, half-down.
    â€œWhat’s your name?”
    â€œR—” The boy had to clear his throat. “Robin,” he said in a shaky voice.
    Robin? Dexter thought. Robin? He’d been thinking of this boy as someone who had a mom who took really, really good care of him. Because of the comb tracks. But what kind of mean, nasty parents would name their son after a bird?
    â€œGo ahead and make fun of it,” Robin said bitterly. “Everyone else does. ‘Want to eat aworm, Robin?’ ‘Aren’t you flying south for the winter, Robin?’ ”
    Back home, Dexter’s friends sometimes made jokes about Dexter’s name—“Where’s your laboratory, Dexter?”—because of the TV show. Sometimes the jokes were even funny. But Dexter always thought his name was cool, because it was the same as his dad’s middle name. It’d be awful to be named something like “Robin.” He wasn’t going to make fun of it.
    Dexter shrugged and started to turn away. Then he thought of something else.
    â€œWhat’s your last name?” he asked.
    The way his teacher acted about writing, she’d probably insist on full names in Dexter’s story.
    â€œBryce,” Robin said.
    â€œThat’s a good name,” Dexter said, because he was starting to feel a little bit sorry that he’d beaten up Robin, if Robin already had people making fun of him all the time. And Robin was still half up and half down, lookingat Dexter like he still thought Dexter was going to hit him again, right in front of the playground monitor and everyone.
    â€œIf I was you,” Dexter offered, “I think I’d just have people call me by my last name. Just say, ‘Hi, I’m Bryce.’ And then nobody would even know that your real name was Robin.”
    â€œEverybody already knows me,” Robin said sulkily. But he sat back down a little, not so ready to run.
    â€œ I didn’t,” Dexter said. “I’m new. You could have just told me to call you Bryce and I never would have known any different.”
    Robin squinted up at Dexter.
    â€œMy middle name’s William,” he finally said. “That’s better, isn’t it?”
    â€œYeah,” Dexter said. “You could be ‘Bill’ or ‘Billy’ or something like that.”
    Robin stared off