Free The Best Man by Richard Peck Page A

door when it opened. He was just standing against a sink, going nowhere. Both his hands were tied to a faucet with plastic clothesline. It was wrapped around and around and knotted tight and sealed with the faucet water. You could see how he’d tried to get loose.
    But what you really noticed was the word written across his forehead in pink Day-Glo Magic Marker. Three big letters—
    G A Y
    â€œWhat the . . .” said Raymond.
    Russell knew what they’d written on him. He could read it backward in the mirror.
    Always before, he’d seemed a little younger than the rest of us. Not now. And he wasn’t ready to cry yet.
    We didn’t talk. Raymond and I started on theclothesline. Russell had rubbed some skin off his wrists trying to get free. We kept at it until the clothesline fell off into the sink.
    I only looked at Russell in the mirror. His eyes were wet. He was checking around for the paper towels and the liquid soap. He wanted that word off him.
    â€œI’ll do it,” Raymond said. Russell looked up at him, and Raymond started working over his forehead with a soapy towel. I thought it wasn’t coming off. But there was pink on the paper.
    The door opened behind me, and we all jumped. I hoped it was Andy. It was Mr. McLeod.
    He’d come looking for us, and here we were, bunched up at the sink. Russell’s face was turned to Raymond, and Raymond was scrubbing on his forehead. I was rolling up the clothesline to stick in the trash. We weren’t going to say anything about this. We were going to let this go.
    Mr. McLeod started to speak, but Raymond showed him the word on Russell’s forehead. It was beginning to blur, but it was still there.
    You could feel heat coming off Mr. McLeod. We hadn’t seen him mad before. He took Russell’s hands and looked at his wrists.
    â€œSixth graders,” I said, and showed him the clothesline. I started to throw it in the trash.
    But Mr. McLeod said, “No, give it to me.” He stuffed it into his pocket. “They brought it from home.”
    â€œI’m not saying who they were,” Russell said. “Forget that.” His voice cracked and started to change right then. It was like this was the beginning of the end of being a kid for him.
    I pictured Mrs. Stanley leading the workout on her own. We probably better get back to class before she tried teaching geography. You couldn’t read the word on Russell now. He had some tears on his face, so Raymond handed him a dry towel without particularly looking at him.
    Mr. McLeod squatted down on his heels till they were eye to eye. “Russell, will you do something for me?”
    â€œSure,” Russell said. “Maybe.”
    â€œWill you come down to the sixth-grade class with me?”
    â€œWhoa,” said Russell.
    â€œI’m not asking you to point out the ones who did that. I’m not going to put you on the spot. We’ll bring Raymond and Archer for backup.”
    â€œWhoa,” Raymond and I said.
    â€œThis is the sixth graders’ last day in this school,” Mr. McLeod said in a real tight voice. “Their last day. Let’s not let them just walk away from this without learning anything.”
    Russell stood there, looking down. “You don’t have to, and I’m not your real teacher,” Mr. McLeod said. “But I’m going to the sixth graders anyway, and I’d like to have you with me, to see if I handle it okay. You’d be doing me a favor.”
    Mr. McLeod was wearing his big-toed army boots with his gray flannel pants. It wasn’t his National Guard weekend as it turned out. But he only had a couple pairs of shoes: his wingtips and his army boots. He’d have had sneakers, but he was never going to be the kind of teacher who wears sneakers to school.
    Something was on the floor by the toe of his boot. He picked it up. It was a pink Day-Glo Magic Marker.
    â€œLet’s do it,”