Free The Kid in the Red Jacket by Barbara Park Page A

with this?”
    “Nothing. It’s just this old-time expression I heard my dad say once. It means that birds hang around with other birds. You know. Like if a bird was living in a tree, he would rather hang around with another bird than, say, a chipmunk or something.”
    I should have known better than to use an explanation like that. By the time I finished, Molly looked completely confused.
    “What’s wrong with chipmunks?” she retorted.
    “Nothing’s wrong with chipmunks,” I said quickly. “I was only using them as an example toshow you that people usually like to hang around with people like themselves. Like I’m a boy and you’re a girl, so that makes us pretty different. Get it?”
    After thinking it over for a second she looked up. “Okay. So do you or don’t you like chipmunks?”
    I felt like screaming. But instead, I tried to stay calm and to make everything as plain as I could.
    “Look, Molly. Try to follow this, okay? I’m a boy and you’re a girl. And boys and girls our ages don’t usually hang around together that much. Boys usually like hanging around with boys; and girls usually like hanging around with girls. Does that make sense?”
    This time she didn’t think it over at all. “Not always, they don’t. My uncle Russell’s a boy and he likes to hang around with me. He even gave me the new boots I had on the day you flew Madeline. That’s what I was coming over to show you. My new boots. Did you see how shiny they were? They looked like they had spit on them, but they didn’t. They came that shiny.”
    I rolled my eyes. This was going to be tougher than I thought.
    “Yeah, they were real shiny, Molly,” I assuredher. “And that was real nice of your uncle Russell. But to get back to what I was saying, there’s more to this problem than just me being a boy and you being a girl. It’s our ages, too. I’m in fifth grade and you’re only in first. That’s a pretty big difference, don’t you think?”
    Instead of answering right away, she sat there for a few seconds. “I think my uncle Russell is thirty-seven or fifty,” she said at last.
    “It’s not the same, Molly,” I said, feeling exasperated. “I’m talking about kids. I mean, to be friends, kids should like to do the same stuff, don’t you think? But you and I don’t like the same things at all. You like to play house and cheerleader, and to seesaw. I like to play soccer and football. Do you see what I’m saying?”
    This time Molly put her head down on the arm of the chair and covered it with her arms. She stayed like that for quite a while. And I had the terrible feeling that I had made her cry again.
    “Molly, are you …”
    “Shhh!” she demanded. “I’m thinking.”
    Then, without warning, her head popped back up. “Hey!” she squealed. “I got one! I thought of something we both like to do! We both like tocolor! Right? Is that enough? Is one thing enough for us to flock together?”
    You should have seen her. Her whole face lit up. I’m not kidding. It was like being friends with me was the most important thing in her life. I didn’t know what to say. So I just sat there, not saying anything.
    “Howard Jeeper?” called Molly softly after a moment or two. Her face looked a little more serious now. “If you won’t get divorced from me, I promise not to use the lavender crayon for my pig. I’ll use ‘light pink,’ like you want me to, okay?”
    Geez. I’ve never heard anything so pathetic in my whole life. Even when the hunter killed Bambi’s mother, it wasn’t as pathetic as this.
    I didn’t have any choice, you know? There was only one thing I could say, and I said it.
    “I’m not going to get divorced from you, Molly.”
    The smile was back. But mostly what you could see on Molly’s face was relief—the same kind of relief I felt when I found out Pete didn’t hate me.
    Slowly she got out of the chair and gathered Madeline in her arms. “Thanks, Howard Jeeper.”
    When she got to the