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Actually, it looked like Joe was kissing the flagpole.
Maybe Casey Happleton wasn’t crazy.
“What are you doing?” Marvin asked.
Joe turned and looked at Marvin. “I was pressing my face against the flagpole.”
“Why?” asked Marvin.
“I like the way the cool metal feels when it squashes my nose.”
“You weren’t kissing the flagpole?” asked Marvin.
“No,” said Joe.
Casey Happleton was crazy!
“I decided not to help Stuart and Nick bathe Fluffy,” said Marvin. “Do you want to come over to my house?”
Joe smiled and said, “Sure!”
7
Jell-O
“Fluffy wouldn’t bite me,” Joe said as they walked to Marvin’s house. “I’ve been all over the—well, I’ve been lots of places. And I’ve never met a dog who didn’t like me. People don’t always like me. But their dogs always do.”
“Do you have to move around a lot?” asked Marvin.
Joe nodded.
“I guess it’s hard to make new friends all the time.”
“I don’t know what I do wrong,” Joe said. “I try to be like the other kids. But somehow they always know I’m different.”
Marvin didn’t know what to say.
“It’s not all bad,” Joe said. “It’s fun to get to see all kinds of strange and interesting places.”
Marvin never thought that his hometown was strange or interesting.
They came to Marvin’s house. There was a fence around his house. The fence was white, except for one red post next to the gate.
“Red post,” said Joe. “That’s your last name!”
“That’s right!” Marvin said, a little surprised that Joe had figured it out. Usually, he had to explain it to his friends. “My dad paints the post once a year.”
“Cool,” said Joe.
“My mom says she’s glad she didn’t marry someone whose last name was Purplehouse,” said Marvin.
“Why?” asked Joe.
“I don’t know,” said Marvin. “I think it would be cool to live in a purple house.”
“Me, too,” said Joe. “Back where I come from, the houses are a lot more colorful than they are here—stripes and polka dots.”
“Polka-dot houses?” asked Marvin.
