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The two girls laughed.
Nick and Stuart laughed, too. “Dorky!” Nick repeated.
“Don’t you get it?” asked Gina. “Door key, dorky?”
Joe didn’t say anything.
“He doesn’t even get it,” said Heather.
Joe walked away. He got it.
“Good. Now that he’s gone, let’s play wall-ball,” said Nick.
“C’mon, Marvin,” said Stuart, grabbing him by the arm.
Marvin played wall-ball, but he didn’t have any fun. He knew Joe was watching.
5
George Who?
“Why don’t you invite Joe to come over this weekend?” sugges
ted Marvin’s mother. “He could spend the night.”
Two days had passed since Gina and Heather told Joe he was a door key. Now everybody called him that.
Marvin lay in bed. When his mother came in to wish him a good night, he told her about Joe. He didn’t tell her everything. He just said he felt bad, because there was a new kid at school and everyone picked on him.
“I try to be nice to him,” said Marvin. “I think he knows that.”
Marvin knew what it was like to be picked on. Earlier in the year, everyone had picked on him.
He remembered how bad he felt. It was probably even worse for Joe, he thought, since Joe just moved here from far away.
He wanted to be Joe’s friend. But he was afraid that everyone would pick on him again. And then if Joe moved back to Chicago, Marvin would be friendless.
“I’m afraid if I’m nice to Joe, then the kids will be mean to me, too,” he said.
“Maybe if you’re nice to Joe, the other kids will be nice to Joe, too,” said his mother. She kissed him good night.
On Friday, Mrs. North asked Joe to tell her something about George Washington.
“Who?” asked Joe.
“You, Joe,” said Mrs. North.
“I mean, who’d you want to know about?”
“George Washington.”
“I don’t think I know him.”
The class cracked up.
“How about Abraham Lincoln?” asked Warren. “Do you know him?”
“I don’t think so,” Joe said. “Does he go to this school?”
