Guy Wire Read Online Free PDF Page A

happen again.”
    Mrs. Hunn looked kind of surprised. I’d never seen anybody do what Fennimore had just done, and I guess she hadn’t either. He fessed up and apologized without even trying to deny it first. Mrs. Hunn smiled and nodded and went back to work.
    “Wow. Are you always that polite?” I whispered.
    “Who, me? Listen to this.” He tucked his chin down and swallowed air; then he let loose a long, rumbling belch. As he burped, he moved his lips to form words—the letters of the alphabet. He ran out of steam, or rather belch, around the letter “p.” It was amazing and gross and funny. All in all, pretty great.
    “Rude!” I said appreciatively.
    “Jumbo rude,” he said back.
    This time I was careful to cover my laughter with a fake coughing fit. Mrs. Hunn looked up again, but she didn’t say anything.
    “Maybe we should try wishing on our eyebrows that this stupid rehearsal would end already,” I said when I’d recovered enough to speak.
    He smiled and nodded, and we both tugged on our eyebrows at the same time. Then we closed our eyes and blew on the hairs. When I opened my eyes, the hair was gone, and right then the final bell rang. I looked over at Fennimore, and he grinned at me.
    “Guess it works, huh, Gah Wahr?” he said.
    “Gah Wahr?” I said, repeating what it sounded like he’d said.
    “Yeah, Gah,” he said, pointing to me. “Wahr.”
    “Oh, you mean, Guy .” I finally understood.“But what does Wahr mean?”
    “Wahr, like on a telephone pole,” he said.
    “Oh, you mean wire? ”
    He nodded.
    “Guy Wire?” I said.
    “Yeah, Guy Wire ,” he said, stretching his mouth around the words in order to change his accent and make it sound more the way it did when I said it.
    “What’s a guy wire?” I asked.
    “It’s like a support wire that goes out kind of sideways on radio towers to keep them from falling over. You know?”
    “Uh, no,” I said.
    “Sure you do, they go out sideways, sort of at an angle like this.” He held up his hands to try to demonstrate, but it didn’t help. I had absolutely no idea what he was talking about. And why was he calling me that—was he trying to say I was skinny like a wire or something? That was kind of insulting, especially coming from someone who had helmet hair like his.
    “I don’t get it,” I said.
    “There’s nothing to get, really. It’s not supposed to mean anything. I just thought it might make sort of a cool nickname because, well you know, because it has Guy already built into it and all,” he said as he hoisted his book bag onto one shoulder.
    “Oh,” I said.
    “If you don’t like it, though, I won’t call you that. I’ll come up with something else, if you want,” he said. “See ya.”
    “Yeah. See ya, Fennimore,” I said as I watched him leave.
    I stood there for a minute thinking. I was pretty surprised. I mean, my mother calls me Guysie and my father calls me Guychik, but nobody outside the family had ever given me a nickname before. Why would Fennimore want to give me a nickname?
    Guy Wire . Huh. Now that I thought about it, it did have kind of a nice ring to it.

Chapter Six
    O n the way home I noticed Fennimore walking up ahead of me. He was wearing jeans and sneakers and a blue down jacket. Without his suit on he looked pretty much like everybody else. Except for one thing. His hair was still hopelessly nerdy.
    “Hey, Fennimore,” I called. “Wait up.”
    Fennimore turned around, and when he recognized me, he smiled and waved and waited for me to catch up.
    “You live around here?” he asked when I reached him.
    “Yeah, on Maple; what about you?”
    “I live on Robin,” he said.
    “Oh, that’s just a couple of blocks past my house,” I said.
    “You ever notice how they always name streets after things like birds and trees?” he asked.
    “Yeah,” I said. “So what?”
    “So it’s too bad they pick such boring ones,” he said.
    “What do you mean?” I asked.
    “Wouldn’t you rather