Loser by Jerry Spinelli Page A

“Nobody. Okay.”
    Binns stuffs the rest of the stick into his mouth and returns the pack to his pocket. “Nobody is my lizard.”
    Zinkoff stares at the eyes that stare at the Beyond. Suddenly he gets it. “Oh! You have a lizard named Nobody.”
    Binns blinks, which Zinkoff takes for a nod.
    â€œAnd you put him down as your best friend.” Another blink. “Okay, I got it.”
    Hector Binns collects earwax and has a lizard named Nobody, who he calls his best friend.Zinkoff figures his choice is looking better by the minute.
    â€œKnow who I put down?” he says.
    â€œNo,” says Binns.
    â€œYou,” says Zinkoff.
    Binns blinks. His eyes disconnect from the Beyond and slide over to Zinkoff’s face. “Huh?” he says.
    Zinkoff grins. “Yeah. I put your name down.”
    Binns’s eyelids flap as if they’re trying to take off. “Me? Why?”
    â€œBecause I had to put somebody’s name down, and I thought of you.”
    â€œBut I’m not your best friend.”
    â€œI know. And I’m not yours either. But I thought maybe we could be, I mean, since I wrote your name down and all.”
    Hector Binns isn’t answering. His eyes have gone back to the Beyond.
    Zinkoff doesn’t know the word negotiation, but that’s what this is. He tries to think of something he can offer, something to sweeten the pot. “I make a mean snickerdoodle cookie!” he blurts.
    Binns’s left cheek bulges out as he chews on hislicorice wad. When his teeth appear, they’re outlined in black, as if cartoon-drawn. As a fifth-grader, Zinkoff knows cool when he sees it. He takes a stab at cool himself. He shuffles his feet. He hooks his thumbs into his waistband. He gazes off into a Beyond of his own. “So,” he says, tossing in a shrug, “what do you think?” Making it sound like, “Not that I care one way or the other.”
    Binns sniffs. He turns his head until he’s looking down over his right shoulder. His lips slide to the side of his face, the far corner of his mouth opens like a little eye and out comes a black dollop of licorice juice. It falls to the ground. At last he speaks, and answers Zinkoff’s held-back question. “What I think is, when I get enough wax I’m gonna make a candle.”
    Wow! An earwax candle! Zinkoff is willing to bet that Binns has not shared this blockbuster information with anyone else in class.
    The end-of-recess bell rings. The two of them trot side by side to the door. “See ya after school?” says Zinkoff.
    Binns says, “I guess.”

19. The Candy in His Hand
    At dinner that day he says at the table, says it casually to show it’s an everyday thing, “I’ll be going over to my best friend’s house one of these days.” Hoping his parents will take the bait and ask him who his best friend is.
    They do. His mother’s eyebrows go up. “Oh?” she says, “And who would that be?”
    â€œHector Binns,” he replies, tossing it out casually, being cool, liking the sound of it.
    â€œIsn’t he in your class?”
    â€œYeah. He sits in the front row. He loves licorice.”
    â€œLoves it, huh?” says his father.
    â€œYeah.”
    â€œI hate licorice,” says Polly. “Licorice smells.”
    â€œHe’s making a candle,” he tells them.
    â€œThat’s nice,” says his mother.
    â€œOut of earwax.”
    Everyone stops eating and stares at him.
    â€œEarwax?” says his mother.
    â€œEewwwww!” goes Polly.
    â€œIs that possible?” says his father.
    Zinkoff feels a surge of associated pride. He looks his dad in the eye. “He’s doing it.”
    Several days later he visits Hector Binns’s house. He walks right in and plops himself down in a chair, because that’s how you do it with a best friend: You walk right in and plop yourself down. When Binns’s