Rooster by Don Trembath Page B

did she ask Mr. Finkle to ask you to leave?”
    â€œNo. She asked him if she could use the phone.”
    â€œThen what?”
    â€œAbout fifteen minutes later, Nick showed up.”
    â€œUh-oh.”
    â€œHe came in just when I was leaving the bathroom. I ducked behind the magazines. I could see Gracie and him looking all over the place for me. Then she showed him where my books were.”
    â€œAnd?”
    â€œNow he has my books. Math. Social Studies. Biology. The love letter I was writing to her.”
    Rooster’s eyes nearly popped out of his head.
    â€œI’m kidding about the letter,” said Puffs.
    â€œThank God for that.”
    â€œI put it in my pocket before I went to the bathroom.”
    Rooster shook his head. “So now all you have to do is ask Nick for your books back.”
    â€œI guess so,” said Puffs.
    â€œThat shouldn’t be too hard.”
    â€œNot at all.”
    â€œYou two get along so well.”
    â€œWe have a lot in common, that’s for sure.”
    Rooster stared at Puffs for a moment. Then he had to laugh. For a minute he felt like the second unluckiest kid in Winston instead of the first.
    He slowed his pace to the bowling alley so he could finish his smoke. When he arrived at the entrance, he checked the clock on the wall above the front counter. It was six o’clock on the button.
    Elma was sitting at a table in the small lounge across from the bowling lanes. She had a binder spread open in front of her. She was writing something on a piece of paper. He walked over to meet her.
    â€œYou’re late,” she said, without looking up.
    Rooster pulled out a chair and sat down. “I’m not late. I’m right on time.”
    â€œIn my house, if you’re not early, you’re late, and you’re obviously not early because you’re just getting here.”
    Rooster rolled his eyes. “That sounds like another reason never to go to your house.”
    â€œVery funny. I’ll tear up the invitation when I get home.” She finished writing and gave him a blank stare. “Did you bring your binder at least?”
    â€œMy what?”
    She lifted up one half of her binder and let it drop back down to the table. “Hello? Your binder? From the leadership class you’re taking?”
    Rooster stared back at her. “Was I supposed to bring that?”
    â€œDuh, yes?”
    â€œNobody told me I was supposed to bring that.”
    â€œYou’re in high school. You’re supposed to be able to figure those things out on your own.”
    â€œBut for what? This is a bowling alley.”
    â€œThis is an assignment for school. Straight out of the leadership class you’re in. Don’t you remember the hero cycle? We’ve only been studying it for the past month.”
    â€œThe what?”
    â€œThe hero cycle.” She drew a quick circle on the back of the paper she was writing on. “First you get the call. That goes at the top. Then, as you follow it around, you pass through all of these different stages. Resistance. Conflict. Trials. Change. Then there’s some big final challenge that you’ll have to either overcome and become a true leader or quit and be a zero. We’ve been talking about it forever.”
    Rooster stared at her in silence. “I think I have the wrong Elma,” he finally said. “The one I was supposed to meet here was going to help me with a bunch of people who wanna go bowling.”
    â€œNo. See, that’s the idiot’s way of looking at this. That’s the simple way. ‘I’ve been asked to take a bunch of very low-functioning people to the bowling alley and make sure they don’t kill themselves. If all goes well, they may even try out for the Special Olympics.’ The other way of seeing it is, ‘I’ve been called to lead this group of very special individuals to a higher ground than they’ve ever been on