Read The Friendship Song for Free Online

believe I was ready to go home. Altogether it had not been a real good day.
    Rawnie and I walked back past hooting and stuff from the guys hanging out again, and this time I hardly even noticed.
    â€œIt was good you hit Brent even though you got in trouble,” Rawnie said.
    â€œYou think so?” I figured one of two things would happen: Either the buttheads who went to that school would respect me a little and let me alone, or they would keep trying the same thing to see if they could get me in trouble again. I wasn’t looking forward to finding out which way things went.
    Rawnie said, “Yeah. I think you gotta stand up for yourself. People in general, I mean, gotta stand up for themselves. And, you know, other people too.”
    I was too bummed to really hear what she was saying.
    When we got close to home we cut through an alley, and Rawnie dawdled a little, bouncing through some dance moves and reading the graffiti. There was something spray-painted on every garage door, every shed, and every concrete-block wall. Some of it was serious, like SAVE THE OCEANS and LOVE AND ACID AND SMACK , NO WAY BACK . Some of it was funny, like MR . K WEARS SATIN PANTIES . And most of it was just plain gross. Some of it was so gross I didn’t even know what it meant, but I didn’t want to say so.
    â€œSee what I mean?” Rawnie said when we got to our street.
    â€œSee what you mean about what?”
    â€œAbout your—uh, about Spook House McCogg. How come nobody ever spray-paints anything around her place?”
    â€œI dunno.” We were home. Well, it didn’t feel like home, but we were there, in front of the house. “Well, uh, bye.” I wanted to say thanks to Rawnie, but she’d told me not to. “See you tomorrow. Unless I just happen to get sick.”
    She giggled and said, “You thinking about being sick?”
    â€œI’d love to, but I don’t think my dad would fall for it.” He hardly ever let me miss school.
    â€œHe’s nice, but he’s not stupid, huh?”
    â€œRight. Well, see ya.”
    â€œSee ya.”
    When I got inside, Gus was sitting at the kitchen table like she might have been waiting for me. “How was school?” she asked.
    â€œ Won derful,” I told her, real sarcastic, and I dumped my books on the table hard. I had lugged home every book because I had to cover them all, and I had assignments in most of them, and altogether I didn’t need her of all people asking me how school was right then.
    She just looked at me, and then she said, “Well, good,” and she got up and went outside.
    I watched dumb cartoons for a couple of hours, and then Gus came in and started fixing supper and called me to help her. I sighed and rolled my eyes before I went into the kitchen. Gus asked me to set the table and said, “So how was school, really?”
    I just shrugged. Even if she was my real mother or my father I still wouldn’t have told her much. What happens at school is for kids to know and adults to wish they could find out. But she stood and stared at me until I had to say something, so I muttered, “Great.”
    â€œThat bad? What happened?”
    â€œNothing. I was late to everything and I’ve got a ton of homework and sixteen books to cover, that’s all.”
    â€œI can cover the books for you,” she said.
    I didn’t want her doing anything for me, but I didn’t want to do it myself either. I didn’t know what to say, so I mumbled, “What’s for supper?”
    â€œHamburgs.”
    â€œAw, crud, I had hamburgs for lunch.”
    Gus’s burgers were a lot better than the school’s, though. And right after supper Gus went and scrounged around in one of the spare bedrooms and came out with about a dozen rolls of wallpaper.
    â€œThis stuff makes great book covers,” she said. “Lasts like iron.”
    â€œSounds good to me.” That was my