Free Is He a Girl? by Louis Sachar Page B

Stuart.
    “It’s his elbows,” said Nick. “He has the strongest elbows on the team.”
    Marvin stepped up to the plate.
    The crowd was cheering, “Mar-
vin
! Mar-
vin
! Mar-
vin
!”
    Clarence was the pitcher. Clarence was the toughest kid in Marvin’s class. Maybe in the whole school.
    Marvin tapped the plate with his bat. He raised it above his shoulder.
    Clarence spat on the dirt. He glared at Marvin.
    Marvin waved the bat back and forth. He was afraid of Clarence but tried not to show it.
    Suddenly Clarence laughed.
    Then everyone else laughed too.
    The umpire spoke to Marvin. “I’m sorry, young man,” he said. “But you can’t play. You’re out of uniform.”
    “Huh?” said Marvin.
    He looked down at his clothes. He was wearing a dress.

4

Don’t Go to Sleep!
    Marvin woke up screaming.
    His mother came running up the stairs. “Linzy?” she called. “Linzy, are you all right?”
    “It wasn’t Linzy,” Marvin called to her. “It was me, Marvin.”
    “Marvin?” asked his mother. She opened the door to his room.
    “I had a nightmare,” Marvin explained.
    “Do you want to talk about it?”
    “No!” Marvin said right away. He couldn’t tell his mother that he wore a dress!
    “I’m okay,” he said.
    His mother kissed his forehead. “Goodnight,” she said, and started out the door.
    “Why’d you think I was Linzy?” Marvin asked.
    “I don’t know,” said his mother. “You sounded like Linzy. Go back to sleep.”
    But he didn’t go back to sleep.
    He was afraid of turning into a girl.
    “It’s already started,” he said aloud. “I already sound like a girl.”
    That’s what his mother had said.
    “I sound like Linzy.”
    He listened to the sound of his voice as he spoke. To see if it was true.
    Maybe. It was hard to tell.
    He spoke some more. “Mary had a little lamb. Her fleece was white as snow.”
    His voice did sound a little bit funny.
    “Wait! Why am I talking about Mary and her dumb lamb?”
    That’s a girl poem!
    But his voice did sound different. He was sure of it!
    In school his class had been learning about butterflies and moths. A caterpillar goes to sleep. And when it wakes up, it’s a butterfly.
    He remembered Mrs. North had said, “No one knows exactly how a caterpillar turns into a butterfly.”
    Now Marvin had an answer.
    Maybe it kisses its elbow
.
    He got out of bed.
    He felt safe, as long as he was awake. He just couldn’t go to sleep. Not until he kissed his elbow again.
    Two hours later he was still trying to kiss his elbow.
    He held his elbow in front of his face and jumped up and down. He thought that maybe if he could jump high enough and fast enough,his mouth would bump into it.
    He stopped jumping. He looked at his bed.
    “I have to go to sleep sometime,” he said, listening to the strange sound of his own voice. “I can’t stay awake forever!”
    He yawned.
    “Boys don’t turn into girls,” Marvin told General Jackson. “I’m just having strange thoughts because it’s so late at night.”
    He looked at his clock. It was almost three thirty! He had school in five hours.
    His eyes closed. He forced them back open.
    “Casey Happleton is just a weird girl,” he told the General.
    General Jackson stuck out his tongue.
    “My mother heard a scream in the night,” Marvin explained to his lizard. “So
of course
she thought it was Linzy. Because Linzy is her little darling! That doesn’t mean I sound like a girl!”
    That made sense. Except his voice did sound different.
    “I’m probably just getting a cold. From no sleep!”
    He got on his knees. He bent his elbow around one of the legs of his desk chair. Then he tried to meet it from the other side with his mouth.

    He tried another way.
    He tried the other elbow.
    “Casey Happleton is so weird!” he said.
    He looked at his bed.
    When he kissed his elbow the first time, he had been all tangled up in his sheets. Like a mummy.
    So all he had to do was get tangled up in his sheets