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thing.”
    â€œNo, it’s not! You don’t care about me one bit. You only care about yourself. I’ve been standing here for
yonks!
I thought —”
    â€œStop whining, Annie. Come on, let’s go.”
    Girls are such a pain.

6
    Lately I’ve been avoiding the cafeteria at lunchtime because Benny will probably be there and he will expect me to sit with him and I don’t want to sit with him because I can’t stand it when kids start calling him names. So I go to the woodwork room and eat my lunch there instead.
    Then I go to the bogs and Benny is in there, just coming out of a cubicle. His eyes are red like he has been crying.
    â€œHi, there, Benny,” I say as I keep moving, pretending I’ve noticed nothing.
    Whatever problem he’s got, I don’t want to hear about it.
    But instead of saying hi back, he just pushes past me and hurries out the door.
    â€¢â€¢â€¢â€¢
    Friday, end of the day, I see Sammy and Rebar. They’ve got Benny over in a quiet corner of the playing field. Sammy pushes Benny into the dirt.
    I don’t want to see any more, but I’m on my way to pick up Annie.
    Sammy yells, “A little dirt will make you look more like a boy.”
    â€œLeave me alone,” Benny cries desperately.
    I watch, hoping Benny will do something, lose his temper, get mad, scream, but he does nothing.
    A few of Sammy and Rebar’s pals gather, hoping for a fight. But I know Benny won’t fight no matter how dirty or muddy he gets.
    â€œFags are cowards,” Sammy jeers.
    â€œI don’t believe in fighting,” says Benny. “That’s why countries have wars. People like you are the ones who start them.”
    I like the way Benny answers back, but Sammy isn’t interested in debating. He gives Benny another shove. Benny slips, this time in the muddier part of the field, and goes down again.
    Sammy laughs. The other kids — about four or five of them — yell for Benny to get up and fight.
    Benny stands. He looks down at his muddy hands and clothing, and his eyes start to tear up.
    â€œLook! He’s crying!” Rebar yells.
    The boys jeer.
    â€œFaggot!” Rebar shouts.
    Everyone laughs. When they see there’s to be no fight they walk away.
    I know I should go and help him get up, but I have to run like mad to pick up Annie.
    â€¢â€¢â€¢â€¢
    On weekends I’ve got my job in the mall from two o’clock to five-thirty, working in my hotdog suit. I only got the job because I’m so tall and skinny and the suit fits.
    I do it because I need the cash. I hate it when I don’t have a bit of money in my pocket. Also, I’m saving up for a pair of cycling shoes, the ones with Velcro straps and clips on the sole for the pedals.
    I actually don’t mind it — the job, I mean — but I don’t like the boss very much, a guy named Harvey. He weighs several tons — scarfs down too many of his own hotdogs probably — and he never says anything nice. Instead he complains that I don’t play the tape often enough, that I dance like a man who’s been dead eleven years — on and on.
    The tape is a yucky piece of music that plays out of the head of my suit, even though hotdogs don’t have heads. While the music plays, I’m supposed to dance hippity-hop, shuffle-shuffle, hippity-hop. I control the tape inside my suit.
    Harvey is right, though. I’m not a very good dancer, especially in a hot hotdog suit.
    So that’s what I do for three and a half hours, with one fifteen-minute break, Saturday and Sunday afternoons. I dance around outside the hotdog shop in the mall in a sausage suit with “Harvey’s Yummy Hot-dogs” on it and every five minutes or so I play the tape and do a funny little dance.
    The hotdog suit is made of some rubbery plastic colored to look like a grilled hotdog in a bun with yellow mustard and onions oozing out the sides.