Free In Zanesville by Jo Ann Beard Page A

writing carefully into a notebook. She tears the page out without looking up,
     folds it and turns to a new chapter, begins writing again. The folded page disappears and then materializes on my lap. I open
     my English book and thumb through my binder, finding my assignment, which I unfold and place in front of me, where I can read
     it. It says:
    THAT GUY LIKES YOU!!!!!!!!!!
    I work on my assignment, fold it, and send it next door, where it is found to say:
    NO HE DOESN’T !!!!!!!! (WHICH ONE???)
    She sighs, flips around in her book, and then settles down again, yellow hair swinging forward. She tears a corner from her
     page and rolls it absentmindedly as she reads. Two seconds later, a tiny scroll lands in front of me.
    DOG ONE, it says.
    I write in my notebook and then push it far to the side tomake room for my grammar book. Flea glances at the open page, which is next to her elbow.
    RED SWEATSHIRT ONE LIKES YOU !!!!!!!
    Eyes on the monitor, she reaches over and erases the
r
in sweatshirt.
    I don’t know why she said that guy liked me, because he doesn’t, but just having had it said and then seeing him every day
     in detention makes it seem vaguely true. To my knowledge, I’ve never had a guy like me before.
    “Rodney Feldsquaw,” Felicia reminds me, ear to the door. We’re in her room, hiding from her mother, who has a Saturday off
     and is making her way through the house in a robe and rubber gloves.
    Rodney Feldsquaw materialized last summer, at her outdoor family reunion, when I got cornered by an uncle who took me aside
     to show me how to throw a horseshoe. According to this uncle, he couldn’t stand watching somebody who didn’t know what they
     were doing… in anything, not just a game. The uncle had taught people things I couldn’t imagine—one person, how to fix a merry-go-round
     that had a slight hitch in it.
    “This was over at the state fair,” he explained. “It wasn’t dangerous, no, but it sure as hell wasn’t right. The guy didn’t
     have a tooth in his head, and I just said, ‘Listen, hobo, get a wrench and I’m gonna show you something that will help you.’
     ”
    At that, the uncle had held a horseshoe directly in front of his face like a hand mirror and glared into it. “You go likethis…,” he said to me, sweeping his arm backward, “then you go like
this,
” and he let it fly. The horseshoe landed in the dirt right where he had gouged out a mark with his heel. He handed me one.
     “Now I want to see you do that,” he said.
    I wanted to see me do that too—for being not good at any game or sport, I am nevertheless very competitive. At one point in
     my youth I was stopped from playing the big neighborhood games that required running and tagging because I would get short
     of breath to the point of reeling. Everyone thought it was from asthma, but it wasn’t. It was hyperventilation brought on
     by losing.
    The uncle’s coaching had no effect, but he kept me there practicing and listening to tales of how he had successfully demonstrated
     other skills to other people. “I said to the guy, ‘Don’t
stab
at it. Rather, you put the shovel under it and
pry
…’ ”
    Eventually horseshoes broke up and Felicia came to rescue me.
    “I have to go,” I said to the uncle.
    “We’re done here anyway,” he answered.
    As I went to walk away, he loomed for a moment, tall and thick, with gold frames around two of his teeth, and asked me one
     last thing. “Now, you have a boyfriend, don’t you?”
    That tutorial I couldn’t begin to fathom, so I just nodded.
    “You better!” he said.
    “I do,” I lied.
    “What’s his name?” he asked.
    While he stood there expectantly, I stared at him, my mind as white and flat as a bedsheet pinned to a line. Name. Name?
    “Rodney Feldsquaw,” I said.
    “Feldsquaw?” he asked. “What kind of name is that?”
    “I don’t know,” I admitted.
    “Well, he sounds strange,” the uncle said.
    He would have to be, wouldn’t he?