Joey Pigza Swallowed the Key by Jack Gantos

Author:Jack Gantos [Gantos, Jack]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Tags: Ages 10 & Up
ISBN: 9780374336646
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR)
Published: 2010-06-01T07:00:00+00:00

9

BAD SEED

The next day I broke one of Mom’s big rules. I left the house while she was at work and limped about ten blocks over to Maria’s house. All the way over I practiced what I wanted to say to her about how sorry I was, and I went over it again just before I knocked on her door.

It opened really fast and a big man in a mechanic’s greasy jumpsuit who I figured must be her dad said, “Who are you?”

“I’m Joey Pigza,” I replied, and I was very nervous because all the way over in my mind she was going to answer the door. I was ready for that. But it didn’t turn out that way. Now I felt that I didn’t know what to do, so I just said what I meant to tell her. “I’m here to say I’m sorry,” I said, and I smiled like I had just stepped on the toe of a three-hundred-pound gorilla.

He pulled the door behind him to close off the house like I was going to trick him and run through his legs and attack Maria’s nose again. “Get out of here,” he said.

I held my two “scissors cuts paper” fingers up in front of my face. “I didn’t come here with any scissors,” I said.

Then he stepped toward me. “They shouldn’t let messed-up kids go to school with regular kids,” he said.

I backed away. “I’m only a little messed up,” I said quietly.

He stepped toward me again, quickly, as if he were going to pick me up like a chunk of log and heave me off the property. “Come here,” he said, and reached for me.

Even with my bad ankle I was pretty quick and I turned and ran down the sidewalk. I glanced over my shoulder and he wasn’t running at me but he was walking real quick like he just wanted to stick out his belly and bump me along. Behind him, in the big front window, Maria was watching with a huge bandage around her face and lots of silver “Get Well” balloons floating above her head and a fluffy white puppy squirming in her arms. For a moment I didn’t know what to do. I wanted to run over and apologize to her hurt face, and I wanted to run from him. But I just got jammed up, and as he came at me I stood there frozen and closed my eyes.

But he didn’t hit me. “Get out of here,” he said.

“It was an accident,” I replied. “I’m not a bad kid.”

“I don’t care if you are the Baby Jesus,” he said. “You hurt my girl again and it’ll be lights out for you and your whole family.”

“My mom had nothing to do with this,” I said.

He just looked at me with a nasty face, threw his head back and laughed. “Your mom had everything to do with this.”

“That’s a lie,” I said. “She wasn’t even there.” By then I was so mad at him for talking bad about my mom I was no longer afraid.

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