Free The Kid in the Red Jacket by Barbara Park

looked out the door. By then Molly and Madeline had moved to the living room window. Molly was crouching down under the windowsill, holding Madeline just high enough to look inside.
    It might sound stupid—having a doll spy on someone—but I didn’t laugh. I knew it made great sense to Molly. And besides, the truth is, it made me sort of sad. Molly missed me. Even after what I had done to her.
    Slowly I opened the front door and looked out. “Hi,” I said quietly.
    Still on her knees, Molly turned Madeline around to get a look at me. “Is it him?” she whispered loudly to her doll.
    I guess Madeline must have said yes, because a second later Molly stood up and dusted off her knees. She didn’t say hello. She just stood there and looked at me.
    “Did you want something? Did you want to come in?” I asked.
    She still didn’t answer.
    “Because if you want to come in, you can,” I continued awkwardly. “I mean, you could watch TV or something, I guess.”
    She stood there a second thinking it over. Then she headed inside. It was really weird. She probablyhadn’t been this quiet in her entire life.
    Once in the living room, she went straight for my father’s easy chair. She seemed to feel comfortable there. Then she put Madeline on her lap, and the two of them started staring at me some more.
    I’m not sure how long we sat there staring across the room at each other like that. It seemed like a few hours, but it was probably only a minute or two. Even so, it was really starting to get to me.
    The thing is, I just didn’t know what to say. I mean I know I could have said “I’m sorry.” But I really didn’t think “I’m sorry” would have covered this one. “I’m sorry” is a pretty lightweight apology, if you want to know the truth. It only handles little mistakes, you know? Like if you spill your milk, you can say “I’m sorry,” and that’s that. But if something really big goes wrong, “I’m sorry” almost sounds insulting. Like if you run over your neighbors’ cat, you wouldn’t just hand them the dead cat, say “I’m sorry,” and go home.…
    I think that’s why we have jails. Jails are for the really big mistakes that “I’m sorry” just doesn’t cover. Don’t get me wrong. I didn’t think I should go to jail for what I’d done. It wasn’t
that
big. What I’d done was one of those things that was too big for “I’m sorry” but not big enough for jail.
    I took a deep breath. “Er, ah, how is Madeline?” I said softly.
    Molly turned her doll around and gently smoothed her hair. “You flew her,” she replied in a quiet little voice. “You flew her all around the room.”
    The way she said it made me feel awful.
    “Yeah, well, I’m sorry. I really am. Okay?”
    She shook her head sternly. “Nope. Not okay.”
    “No. I didn’t mean that it was
okay
. I just meant that I’m really sorry, that’s all. I don’t even know why I did it.”
    Molly continued smoothing Madeline’s hair. “You did it, though. You did it and I don’t know why either. Because I thought you liked Madeline and me. And that’s why I let her be your watch doll. And that’s why I came over to color all those times. And that’s why I told my nonny you were my bestest neighborhood boy. Except for you’re not anymore. And we don’t care. Madeline and me don’t care.”
    While she was talking her voice cracked, likeshe was going to cry. I didn’t go get her a tissue, though. I just sat there, listening to what she was saying.
    “Molly,” I interrupted, “it’s not that I don’t like you. I didn’t mean to act the way I did the other day. I really didn’t. It’s just that the guys were there and stuff, and you know how guys are.”
    Molly glared at me suspiciously. “No, I don’t. How are guys?”
    “Well, you know, we just sort of stick together. Haven’t you ever heard that old saying ‘birds of a feather flock together’?”
    This time she frowned. “What’s birds got to do