One in Every Crowd Read Online Free PDF Page A

Just because a kid didn’t talk much didn’t mean he couldn’t count backwards from one hundred and already know his alphabet by heart. Not to mention how many slow kids could take a radio apart and put it back together when they were barely five years old and if that teacher had his head screwed on right he would know it. It turned out that Christopher was not part retarded (that’s what they called it back then), he was just mostly deaf, but by the time the doctor put the tubes in his ears, the bullies and bigger kids had picked up the scent of blood in the water and closed in on my cousin. He was quiet, and clumsy, and something about the way he blinked his eyes and chewed his bottom lip showed his fear and evoked cruelty in others. He was all awkward elbows and not quite right angles, and his feet and hands looked like they belonged on a much bigger body, like he had recently borrowed them from a boy twice his size. One hundred pairs of discount roller skates, yet somehow none that Christopher could squeeze his feet all the way into. His bottom lip swelled into a quivering pout, and his eyes filled up with tears. I knew it was a sin to hate your own cousin just because he was born with bad luck and big feet, but I couldn’t help it, and a sour ball of guilty spit got caught in my throat and refused to be swallowed. “No fair if everyone gets roller skates but me.” His voice sounded small, and broken. He picked at a scratch above his knee and rubbed one sock foot with the other. The rest of us stared down at the worn-out floor tiles and pondered this awful truth. Gran’s form of justice was swift, and thrifty. After enduring a brief bout of tears from all four of us, followed by a sobering sermon that included such topics as the mouths of gift horses, shoeless children from other countries, counting your blessings, and living on a fixed income, we were given two options. We could go home without any roller skates at all, or Gran would buy Carrie, Dan, and me each a used pair, and then we would take the bus to the mall and find a brand new pair that fit Christopher. Of course, we chose option #2. At the sporting goods store, the only ones we could find were the old fashioned kind that you strapped on over your shoes and tightened with a key. Gran told the salesman that it was highway robbery, what he was charging her for them, and he gave her ten percent off, even though there was usually no senior’s discount on sports equipment. It was obvious that she had almost had enough of the whole business, so Chris didn’t dare complain that his skates weren’t as cool as ours were, and we didn’t risk even a sideways gloat. The biggest patch of pavement in our neighbourhood was the parking lot beside the baseball diamond, about two blocks up the hill from our house. We wobbled and rolled up the road as soon as we got home, laughing and leaning on each other for balance. We stopped at the top of the hill for a minute to catch our breath. The street sloped down in a lazy curve and met the steeper road that led into the parking lot. Carrie went first, her bum sticking out and her feet spread too far apart, a squeal of glee trailing behind her as she picked up speed. Dan bent his knees and cannon-balled down the hill, almost overshooting the turn-off, and I followed just far enough behind to avoid rear-ending him. My eyes were fixed on the road, on the lookout for patches of dandelions that had pushed their way up through cracks in the chip-seal, and bits of gravel big enough to catch a wheel on. It dawned on me that none of us had spent much time practicing how we were going to stop before starting down the hill, and as the oldest, this was just the kind of detail I should have thought about. Carrie hit the scruffy lawn and fell forward, her arms and legs splayed in all directions like a starfish. She curled into a ball, clutching the crotch of her shorts since she was prone to peeing herself when she got too excited. Dan