Free Mercy on These Teenage Chimps by Gary Soto Page B

countered. Certainly, even if he was as old as the oldest hills, he could envision a mother's anger if her son dirtied his best clothes. It might even make her suspicious about whether he had actually been to church or gone to some pigpen with his buddies.
    "Hmmm, you do have some nice duds on." The gentleman suggested that I wear one of his wife's dresses over my good clothes. I balked.
    "Come on, it's just for a few minutes. Shoot, I wear her slippers," he boomed. "And they're pink!"
    Thus, with a pair of pliers in my back pocket and a long dress flapping around my ankles, I clambered onto a roof at the height of treetops and TV antennas. I stood up with my hands out for balance and walked up the sloped roof, the asphalt shingles crumbling under my steps. I reached the boxy cooler and ripped off the black plastic covering that protected it during winter. I opened one side and tried to turn the valve with my fingers. No luck. Then I let the pliers bite down on that stubborn little valve. I gave it a half turn and water immediately sang in the copper tubing.
    Finished with my task, I took in a view of Pinkerton. I liked our town, and I liked my friend, Joey, who I feared would never come down from the tree.
    "Hey, Joey," I called, though my amigo was far out of hearing range. "Joey, Joey, Joey!"
    At that height, I felt the wind in my hair and a mighty stirring in my soul. Splayed ears and all, I was glad to be alive. Joey and I had been friends since we were in Pampers, and we would be friends when we were old men and once again in Pampers.
    I felt a jerky motion under my feet. "What the heck!" I yelled. My body jerked once more, as if some joker had pulled a rug out from under me. I righted myself. Then I realized the shingles were crumbling under my shoes, then shifting loose. My arms went up, waving for balance. Momentum built as I began to surf off the roof.
    "Like, yikes!" I sped toward the edge of the roof, my tender life passing before my eyes. I saw bowl after bowl of cereal laden with sliced bananas whizzing past. I saw strawberries in cream. I saw candy apples, quesadillas, vegetarian soups, slices of cheese pizza, pretzels large as horseshoes. I saw my mom at the blender fixing an afternoon smoothie and toast popping up from a chrome toaster. Had my life consisted of nothing more than food?
    Upright and waving, I dismounted the roof, landing on my feet like a cat.
    "Now, that didn't hurt," the old gentleman said. "Boy, at your age you can fall from the Empire State Building and just get up and dust yourself off."
    My legs buzzed, the soles of my feet stung. But I did seem unhurt, though my hands felt just a fraction of an inch closer to the ground. Had my spine collapsed a bit?
    "Did you turn the valve on?" the man asked.
    I nodded as I shrugged out of the dress and handed the pliers back to him. I took a slow Frankenstein step, then another cautious step. My lower half seemed to function quite nicely, and the upper half obeyed the orders from central command in my brain.
    "I got a little something for you."
    "What?" I asked.
    When the gentleman flipped a coin in my direction, I caught it in midair. A Sacagawea dollar.
    "Thanks, sir," I chimed.
    I was feeling pretty religious at the moment. Hadn't I just given up such a coin at church, and now another had come my way? Wow, I thought. I straddled my bike, located the pedals, and pushed off, richer by a coin. I had used two of my lives jumping from roofs. Seven more to go.

    I imagined Joey in the tree juggling apples and oranges, and imagined one of the apples slipping from his grip. I should be there to retrieve that slippery fruit. But I decided to stay away—for now. And with a few hours to kill, I couldn't go home or Mom would put me to work. I couldn't go to the playground for fear that I would run into Cory. I was nervous about why he had wanted me to wait for him after church, and might be mad that I hadn't. I decided to splurge on a soda and a bag of