Footer Davis Probably Is Crazy by Susan Vaught Page B

dirt, breathing the hot air and staring mostly at the leaves right in front of my nose. Asuspicious stranger might have burned down the farm. Or a creep. Or Captain Armstrong. I was crazy. I had to be.
    Peavine snapped a few branches so he could look at me better. “You’re not crazy, Footer,” he said, and he sounded so certain, he almost made me believe it. “Quit worrying so much. Whatever’s going on, you and me, we’ll figure it out together, okay?”
    The way he was looking at me, so sure and so sweet and so completely Peavine, I wanted to kiss him.
    So I kissed him.
    I didn’t want to talk about the barrette or the fire anymore, and Peavine was always so nice to me, and I wanted to know how it felt to put my lips on a real boy’s lips instead of my own arm pretending, before I got locked up in a hospital like Mom for the rest of my life and never got to kiss anyone.
    I had pretended to kiss Peavine before, and some other boys, but mostly Peavine. This real kiss lasted two seconds, and it was nothing like pretending. He tasted like salt and the barbecue potato chips he always ate at lunch, and there was a leaf right at the corner of our mouths, and a branch scratched my ear when I did it.
    Peavine kept his eyes open. I know, because mine were open too. His eyes got a lot bigger as I pulled back, and he just stared at me for a second. The right side of his mouth twitched, like he wanted to grin but he wastoo freaked out. Finally, he said, “Okay,” and breathed a few times.
    â€œOkay?” I wasn’t breathing at all. “That’s it?”
    â€œI—uh, no, I—did you mean to do that?”
    â€œYeah.”
    â€œOkay.” He grinned with both sides of his mouth.
    I grinned back, then realized my heart was beating really, really fast. “Do you think I’m a rock or a flower?”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œA flower and a rock, like my mom said about her and dad when they first met, remember?”
    Peavine still looked totally blank.
    â€œA flower.” I got all hot in the face and started to sweat while he thought about it. “Like clover. All delicate and pretty and stuff. Or a rock. Like plain, strong granite. Which am I?”
    â€œIs there a right answer to this?” When I didn’t say anything, he asked, “Can I think about it?”
    My heart wouldn’t quit racing, even though he didn’t choose. Honest, I didn’t even know which I wanted him to pick. So I just said, “Okay.” And then, “What do you think he’s really doing, that creep over there?”
    My voice shook when I asked the question, and I wondered if Peavine would tease me or ask me the difference between a rock and a flower, or make us talk about why I kissed him. I really didn’t want to talk about it,even though I thought I might want to kiss him again someday.
    For a few more seconds Peavine just sat there watching as the guy in the sleeveless plaid shirt finished his hot dog and threw away his trash. “I think the guy’s casing the playground,” he finally answered.
    I was so relieved, I almost busted out laughing, even though I would have seemed crazy if I’ve done that. “Why is he so interested in our recess?”
    Peavine shrugged, making the bush branches rustle. “Because he’s a creep, like you said.”
    The man did seem to be scanning the playground. He kept moving his head back and forth, slow, like he was searching for something, staying mostly on our side.
    I felt silly, and almost dizzy, maybe from spilling all my secrets and not having to feel like a jerk anymore, or maybe from kissing Peavine. The world turned faster than it was supposed to, and my ears buzzed, and I still wanted to laugh.
    â€œYou think he could be looking for us?” I asked Peavine.
    â€œWhat would he want us for?”
    â€œNo idea.” I choked back a giggle. “But let’s see what he