Free Wringer by Jerry Spinelli Page A

stopped. The boy and the girl stood like that for what seemed like hours, so close that at a distance it seemed they might be kissing. And to those nearby, and finally to Beans himself, it became clear that even now, even this close, still— still —she would not look at him.
    And then she did it.
    She spoke.
    But the person she spoke to was not Beans. It was Palmer LaRue. She took one step back from Beans and walked straight over to Palmer and stood squarely in front of him and said, “Why are you doing this to me?”
    And just like that, the girl in the red coat and floppy hat was no longer a target. She was Dorothy, there were tears in her eyes, and she was saying to him, not to anyone else, but to him, toPalmer, “Why are you doing this to me?” And he knew that through these last weeks she had been hurting after all, and that it had been himself, not Beans, who had hurt her the most.
    She turned away then, not bothering to wipe her eyes, and walked home.
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    The next day Nipper failed to return. As usual, the first thing Palmer did after closing his door was to look to the window. Usually what he saw was Nipper’s silhouette, a clear black cutout on the golden sunlit shade. This time there was only the shade like an empty movie screen.
    Well, it had happened before. Sometimes Palmer was the first to get home. He shot baskets with his Nerf ball, glancing at the window after every shot, listening for taps on the pane. With every passing moment he became convinced something was wrong, this was not an ordinary delay. In a way more felt than thought, he sensed a connection between Nipper’s absence and Dorothy’s words, which had been haunting him without letup.
    He raised the shade, raised the window, looked out. No Nipper. Not on the roof, not in thesky. And the sun was behind the houses. Nipper had never been this late before.
    He shot baskets. He searched the sky. He watched the clock. Cooking smells drifted up to his room. Daylight faded. His mother called, “Palmer, dinner!” He pounded his fist on the windowsill, he kicked the bed. Tears came.
    He told his parents he had to watch the news for a school project and got permission to take his dinner in his room. But he could not eat. He could not do anything but wait and watch and listen—and try to forget how useless waiting was. For he knew that no pigeon flies after sundown, and wherever Nipper was, he was there for the night.
    And where could that be? Had he gotten lost? Found another pigeon? Another human friend? Was he roosting warmly in another closet in another town? Or on a road somewhere, crushed, nothing of him moving except a wing waving with every passing tire?
    Had Panther the yellow cat got hold of him?
    He pounded his fists on his thighs and squeaked in frustration. He wanted to do something, but what? What do you do when your pigeon does not come home? He went out to thebackyard. He stood in the cold night and looked up and softly called, “Nipper…Nipper?…”
    A world of stars and darkness gave no reply.
    In the den he whispered to the golden bird, “Where is my pigeon?” The golden bird was silent.
    He did not go to sleep that night. Instead, sleep sneaked up on him, and the next thing he knew he was dreaming of a tapping, a cruel dream of a pigeon tapping on the window. Only it wasn’t a dream, for his room was filled with daylight pouring under the raised shade, and there was Nipper, pecking at the pane. When Palmer opened the window, Nipper, as usual, hopped onto his head—and bent down and gave his ear an especially ouchy nip, as if to say, “Who said you could wake up without me?” No Christmas morning was ever happier than that one.
    It was Saturday, so the two could play as long as they wished. Palmer kept the bird in his room until noon. By that time Nipper was knocking on the window, clearly wanting to go out. Palmer hated to let him go, but he knew he