Free Skinnybones by Barbara Park Page A

his autograph, are they?
    I looked closer.
    They were! All those dumb kids were actually asking T.J. to sign his name! Now he’d be more obnoxious than
ever
.
    I hurried to my classroom. If only I could get to my desk before school started, maybe my teacher would keep everyone from making fun of me.
    When I walked into the room, Mrs. Grayson was sitting at her desk. She looked at me and started to grin.
    “Ooga ooga,” she said.
    I sucked in my cheeks.
    “It wasn’t ‘ooga ooga,’ Mrs. Grayson,” I said, annoyed. “ ‘Ooga ooga’ is the sound an old-fashioned car makes. What I
said
was ‘booga booga.’ ”
    “Oh,” she said, looking a little embarrassed. “Sorry. It was hard to hear you from the stands.”
    Okay. Now that she had that out of her system, maybe she’d help me out.
    “Mrs. Grayson? I was wondering … would it be okay if I sat in the back of the room today?” I asked. “To tell you the truth, I’m not really sure what’s going to happen when the rest of the kids get here. And I’m not really feeling that well.”
    Before she had a chance to answer, the bell rang and everyone started piling into class. T.J. Stoner was the first one through the door.
    “Hey! Look who it is!” he hollered. “It’s Booga Booga Frankovitch!”
    Mrs. Grayson raised her eyebrows. “I see what you mean,” she said to me. “Do you want to go to the nurse?”
    I glared at T.J.
    “No. Forget it,” I said. “If I feel like I’m going to toss my cookies, I’ll just aim for T.J. He’s a pretty good catch.”
    T.J. pretended to shiver. “Ooooo … what a threat,” he said. “If you toss your cookies like you toss a baseball, you’ll miss me by a mile.”
    “Okay. That’s enough, boys,” said Mrs. Grayson. “Sit. Both of you.”
    I was glad she stepped in. For the first time in my life, I didn’t have a comeback.
    As soon as he was in his seat, T.J. raised his hand. “Mrs. Grayson, I’ve been signing autographs outside, and there are a couple I didn’t get to yet. Would you mind if I finished signing while you’re taking attendance?”
    Mrs. Grayson practically burst with pride. “Why, certainly not, T.J. I think I can allow the Little League Pitching Champion to sign a few autographs.”
    Then she stood up at her desk.
    “Boys and girls,” she said loudly. “In case any ofyou missed it on the news, our very own T.J. Stoner has been entered into the Little League record books. He even made the national news, didn’t you, T.J.?”
    He nodded proudly. “ESPN,” he said.
    Mrs. Grayson continued. “T.J. Stoner now holds the official record for the most games ever won in a row in the history of Little League baseball. And it’s really been exciting to have him in our class this year.”
    She started to clap. Then everyone else clapped, too.
    Everyone except me, that is. I was busy scribbling a message to Brian. It read:
    Say something nice about me and I’ll give you five bucks after school
.
    Brian’s hand shot in the air like a bullet.
    “Yes, Brian?” said Mrs. Grayson.
    “Mrs. Grayson, I think we’re also fortunate to have Alex Frankovitch in our class this year. If you ask me, it took a tremendous amount of courage to stand in front of a crowd full of strangers and make a complete idiot of himself, like Alex did on Saturday.”
    Everybody cracked up. Even Mrs. Grayson couldn’t keep from laughing.
    If I ever become famous, Brian Dunlop will be the first friend I’ll dump.
    The rest of the day I tried to stay as quiet as I could. I wanted to make it as easy as possible for people to ignore me. But it didn’t do any good. All day long, kids kept walking past my desk, whispering “booga booga” in my ear. Then they’d walk away laughing, like they were the first person in the history of the universe to have thought of such a clever thing.
    By the middle of the afternoon I’d totally had it with the booga booga jokes. That’s when Harold Marshall raised his hand and asked