That Boy From Trash Town Read Free Page B

because their eyes are brown and mine are blue. I like our house, but you know what? I don't call it Dower House like the others do. Don't you think that sounds like it would make your mouth pucker if you took a bite? I call it Sweet House because it's the sweetest house, and I-"
    "Quiet!"
    She stopped talking and looked at him, not in the least offended.
    "Do you always talk so much?" he asked warily.
    "Yes," she admitted, "but it's mostly to myself. Mother is always busy with something else, and I Wouldn't talk to my cousins for anything. I mean not like I'm talking to you. I have to talk to them at—"
    "I get the picture," he said, interrupting her again. "But what does all that stuff have to do with you being over here in Trash Town?"
    She studied his face. "It's an ugly name. I wouldn't call it that if I lived here. Don't you mind people calling your home something ugly?"
    Apparently it was the wrong thing to say, because the mean look came into his eyes again. "Are you gonna tell me why you're here or not?"
    She gave a heavy sigh. "Tad and the girls said if I'm not a sissy then I have to bring back proof that I've been all the way to Macon Street." She glanced around, then back to him. "Do you know which one is Macon Street? I can't find any street signs."
    He stared at her for a moment, his expression reflective, then he stood up. "Come on," he said abruptly.
    Without hesitation, Whitney followed him. They walked down a dirty, weed-infested alley and presently stepped across what had once been a chain-link fence, entering a yard filled with knee-high grass.
    "Stay here," he said as he jumped and caught a low limb on a huge oak tree.
    "Wait," she whispered urgently as he began to disappear into the leaves. "Whose house is this?"
    "Mine," he said without looking back.
    "Then why can't you use the door?"
    "Because my stepfather got laid off again," he called back to her. "If I go through the house, he'll pick a fight, and I'm not in the mood today."
    Whitney could certainly understand that. She felt the same way about her cousins.
    "Wait," she said again as he began to move. "You didn't tell me your name."
    "Dean....Dean Russell. Now will you pipe down and let me take care of business?"
    She watched him climb in through a second-story window, then she stood quietly waiting for him to return. Seconds later he dropped out of the tree and landed a foot away from her. Pulling a battered street sign out of his shirt, he handed it to her. She turned it over gingerly. Macon Street.
    "I ripped it off a couple of weeks ago," he said.
    "You mean... you mean you're giving it to me?" she asked, surprise and pleasure making her voice squeak.
    He shrugged his thin shoulders. "You need it more than I do. Besides I can get all the street signs I want."
    Although he was making light of the gesture, Whitney knew he had given up a great treasure, and she couldn't thank him enough. She thanked him until he told her to shut up again.
    "What do you do when they start raggin' you?" Dean asked as they walked back through the streets of Trash Town.
    "I punch them," she said, swinging her fist at the air to give him a sample of her right hook.
    "Well, that's where you make your mistake," he told her. "Since they're all bigger than you, you couldn't do 'em much damage, and when you start fighting, you're showing them that they can get to you. I found out a long time ago that you gotta show bullies that nothing they can do bothers you, and they're not nothing but a fly buzzing around your head. If you act like their worst tricks are just a big, stupid joke, they'll get tired of doing it. They'll go find somebody that cries or gets mad. See what I mean?"
    Whitney nodded, taking in every word as though he had just come down from the mountain after having a long talk with a burning bush. She would follow his suggestion, she told him as they parted at the fortuneteller's parking lot. And then she would come back to Trash Town and tell him all about it.