Free Wringer by Jerry Spinelli

scream, they stayed away from Dorothy’s house for a while. But not from Dorothy.
    They continued to snowball, treestump and otherwise torment her on the way to and from school. Palmer kept expecting consequences. He thought maybe her parents would show up at his front door. Or the principal would announce that they were all suspended. Or Dorothy herself would blow her top. When something finally did happen, it was not what Palmer had expected.

22
    Treestumping had become popular among other school kids. Other boys, noticing what fun Palmer LaRue and his friends were having, decided this was something they could play too. So they began picking out girls to treestump to and from school. Occasionally a treestump got swatted by a girl’s book bag, but for the most part the girls also found it to be fun, and before long they were treestumping the boys. Dorothy Gruzik, of course, being the exception.
    Beans began to notice. For a while it had been enough just to bother Dorothy Gruzik, enough to hear the laughter of himself and his pals. Now he wanted more. He wanted something from Dorothy. He wanted her to scream or laugh or cry or kick or sling a book bag. Or even scowl. A good scowl, that would do for starters. Anything but ignore them.
    For that’s what Dorothy did. Except to walk around them when they planted themselves infront of her, she in no way acknowledged their existence. She did not even look at them. One day after school, determined to change this, Beans ordered the guys to meet her right at the school door and to treestump her, if necessary, every step of the way to her own front door. They did. Not once did she look at them.
    Nor did she make it harder for them. She could have taken shortcuts through people’s yards. She could have gone into a store here, a friend’s house there. But she did not.
    Beans began to do more. Instead of just standing stiff and stumplike in front of her, he waggled his arms and legs. He rolled his eyes and wiggled his ears. He stretched his lips to show every one of his multicolored teeth. He grunted and bellowed and snorted and just plain screamed in her face. He scooped a plastic spoonful of baked beans from his can and dumped it onto her shoe.
    The guys and the other kids howled with laughter. Palmer’s stomach hurt, he laughed so hard. That Beans! He looked like a puppet on strings herkyjerking in front of Dorothy, his head wobbling, even his ankles. What a clown!
    Dorothy never flinched, she never looked.
    On a windy day Beans swatted her books away, making papers fly, so she had to go chasing them. Another day he snatched away her floppy red hat and put it on his own head and did his goofy, flailing dance in front of her.
    The sidewalks erupted in laughter. Even passing cars slowed down. Dorothy did not crack a smile. She did not step aside. She did not step back. She did nothing. She did not even leave the hat at home next day.
    In the following days Beans zeroed in on the hat. He sent it flying across the street. He tossed it into a Dumpster. He hung it from a car’s antenna. He tacked it to a telephone pole. He wiped a window with it. For Mutto, Henry and Palmer, who by now were strictly spectators, this was a daily after-school show.
    Each morning the hat was a little grayer, a little less red, and just as firmly on Dorothy’s head.
    Mutto said in amazement, “I think she likes torture.”
    Beans smoldered.
    The last thing Beans did was the simplest of all. It happened on a Friday afternoon. As usual, he intercepted Dorothy on the way home. But thistime he not only stepped in front of her—he closed in. He closed in until there was barely a paper’s width of space between their noses. No monkeyshines this time, no funny faces. His jaw hard, his eyes burning, he stared unblinking into eyes a mere inch away and dared them not to see him. Dared her not to smell his baked-bean breath.
    All movement, all laughter on the sidewalks