Andy Wall

Andrew Wall was ten years old today and today he was starting fifth grade. He was living in a new house, in a new town, and more to the point, he was about to attend a new school. He looked at himself in the full length mirror in his mother and step-father's bedroom. They were both down-stairs in the kitchen. He could smell beacon cooking.

Andrew had on a brand new pair of khaki shorts that came down to his knees and weren't quite long enough according to the standards of his old school in Coronado. He had lived in Coronado for almost a full year and was just about getting used to the way of things there when they moved here.

“Andrew!” his mother called from the kitchen. She was eight months pregnant and short tempered and she was always too hot or too cold these days. He knew he should say, “Yes, Mother, I'll be right there,” or at least “Okay!” but he didn't say anything.

He looked at himself in the mirror with great interest. He wanted to be prepared for the jokes that were sure to come when the bell rang for recess. It was always the hardest part of the first day. If you were prepared for the jokes, you stood half a chance.

He turned sideways and backwards and frontwards paying particular attention to his brand new khaki shorts that were without doubt too damn short. He wanted them baggier too. His blue shirt on the other hand was a little too big and had yellow buttons he could have done without. The shirt made him look scrawny. Then there was his new white tennis shoes that were very white. Some places you wanted white-white tennis shoes; Coronado was one such place. Other places you wanted them scuffed and lived-in looking; Pearl Harbor came to mind. In Barcelona you wouldn't be caught dead in shorts, but he couldn't remember about tennis shoes there.

As he gazed at himself now, he didn't know what was right or what was wrong, but in his opinion he looked goofy, pure and simple. Then of course, there was his red hair--always a point of interest to anyone he'd ever met, young or old. They called him “Rojito” in Barcelona. They called him “Raggedy Andy” in Coronado. He wondered what they would call him here. He took a deep breath and went down-stairs to breakfast.

His step-father, Captain Vince (Victory) Stewart said, “How ya doing, Swab. Happy Birthday!” and went back to his newspaper. His mother waddled away from the stove and hugged him with the arm she wasn't holding protectively in front of her huge stomach.

“Happy birthday, my love,” she said. “Where's your glasses?”

Andrew sat down in the midsection of the long Formica table and took another deep breath.

“Your mother asked you a question.”

“Vince...”

“Go get your glasses.”

“Vince, let me handle it.”

Andrew sat very still with his back straight and his eyes focused on the little empty flower-vase in the center of the table. He felt his step-father's eyes for several long seconds and then Andrew stood up from the table and walked with plodding feet back up-stairs to his bedroom where he retrieved his glasses.

Back down-stairs he marched with the same heavy-footed gait he had used to go up, and when he sat back down wearing his glasses he found two brightly wrapped packages sitting next to a plate of pancakes. There was also crispy beacon swimming in syrup. A lone red helium balloon bobbed at the ceiling.

“Eat your breakfast and then we'll open your presents!” his mother said with a cheery voice that was not at all her natural cheery voice. Instead of sitting down at the table and eating with them, he noticed that his mother began doing the dishes. A great cloud of steam rose from the sink and pans clanked and dishes clinked and his step-father snapped his paper whenever he turned a page. Andrew was not very hungry and his mother took the plate away quickly before it was noticed.

His step-father drove him to school. For most of the way there they drove in silence, but at one point he told Andrew he should "work" the ten pound dumb-bells ("that I went out and bought ya") every other day. “You need to give your muscles time to heal,” he said. “Got it?” When he pulled over to the curb in front of the school, he told Andrew that when he got a little older he would buy him a complete weight-set. “You want to put on some muscle, don't ya, Swab?”

The ten pound dumb-bells (his step-father had gone out and bought him) were still in one of the white boxes on the kitchen table. The new backpack from the other white box was now held lightly in Andrew's hand as he got out of the car and slammed the door. The car drove away.

Andrew knew his mother would have taken him to school if she wasn't feeling the way she was. He was going to have a little sister. His mother kept asking him, “Won't it be wonderful to have a little sister?” They were going to call her Vera.

Andrew took a deep breath. Carrying his brand new backpack under his arm like a football he walked up the steps with what seemed like a thousand children running past him in through the double doors. Most of the children had on black tennis shoes, but on the other hand, some wore shorts that weren't quite long enough.

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