Absolutely Almost(65)

            “G-g-g-give m-me that!” Betsy shouted.

            Darren was holding it high over his head, and Betsy was reaching for it, but she couldn’t get it. Sage and Candace and them were laughing.

            “M-m-make me!” Darren said.

            Betsy was trying not to cry, I could tell. Her hands were balled up into fists.

            I closed my book.

            I stood up.

            I left my Captain Underpants book on the bench with Darissa, and I went over.

            I didn’t know what I was going to do—try to make Darren give the bug back, I guess. I didn’t know. I wasn’t sure why I wanted to help Betsy so bad, because we weren’t friends anymore. She wouldn’t talk to me. She wouldn’t even look at me. But Darren was being mean, and that wasn’t right. So I closed my book and I stood up and I went over there.

            I was too late.

            Before I even got there, Darren unscrewed the lid on the pickle jar, and the bug hopped right out. Betsy scrambled to catch it, but it was too fast. It was zoom, zoom, gone. Lost in the bushes.

            “Oops!” Darren said. But even I could tell it hadn’t been an accident.

            What was I supposed to do then?

            Darren and Sage and Candace and them walked away, laughing, and I picked the jar up off the grass and handed it to Betsy. It still had the twigs and grass in it.

            “Here,” I said.

            Betsy took it, but she didn’t look at me.

            She left the lid in the grass.

            • • •

            When we got back to class after recess, Darren’s desk was on the ground, toppled over. The papers were falling out everywhere, ripped and torn. His pencils were broken in half. Everyone stopped in the doorway and gasped.

            “Who did this?” Mrs. Rouse hollered at us. “Who would do such a thing? This is unacceptable.”

            We filed into the classroom slowly, one at a time, all staring at Darren and his desk. He was seething angry. Everyone was staring at Darren, shouting by his desk. “What the heck? What the heck?”

            I wasn’t staring at Darren, though. I looked over at Betsy. Her eyes were on the wall, not on Darren and his desk. She bit her bottom lip, the way she did when she was nervous, and she just blinked. Blink. Blink. Over and over.

            “Who did this?” Mrs. Rouse said again.

            “I did.”

            It was me who said it, even though it was a lie. I didn’t topple over anything.

            But I knew who did. And I didn’t really think that person should get in trouble when they weren’t the person who was mean in the first place.

            “Albie!” Mrs. Rouse shouted. She seemed shocked. “What got into you?”

            I glanced at Betsy. She seemed shocked too. “I, um . . .” I shrugged. “I was just angry, I guess.”

            Mrs. Rouse made me help Darren clean up his desk, and then she told me she’d let me know when she’d decided on an appropriate punishment for me. Detention, probably, or worse.

            I didn’t care. If I couldn’t help Betsy get her bug back, I figured making sure she didn’t get detention was the best I could do.

            I guess Betsy thought so too. When we were leaving for lunch, she said, “Albie?” really quiet.