It Looks Like This Read Online Free Page B

kids a couple years older than me, boys and girls holding hands or friends in groups just wandering around.
    I don’t know why anyone would go to the mall for fun.
    I walk into the Grand Slam store and stop at the entrance. It is big and packed with stuff, sports things like jerseys and baseballs and running shoes and tennis rackets. Stuff all over the place, on tables and displays and on shelves that go all the way up to the ceilings. It’s ugly and it kind of overwhelms me, and I just stand there.
    Someone says, Can I help you?
    I look at him. It’s a kid a few years older, a senior or maybe just out of high school. He has on khakis and a purple polo shirt with a small yellow logo in the corner. The ends of the shirt hang untucked over his belt. His hair is a bit greasy and he’s thin, thinner than me.
    I say, Yeah.
    He says, Well, come on in, then.
    I walk in.
    I make sure to watch Dad’s face when he opens my present.
    I hand it to him in the morning, before work. I have to get up earlier than usual to catch him before he leaves.
    He takes it in his hands and looks at it, a box Mom helped me wrap in colorful blue and yellow paper. Here and there it says GETTING OLD in cartoony letters.
    Dad smiles just a bit and says, What’s this?
    I say, Happy birthday.
    And smile back a little.
    He opens it and I look up from the box and watch his face. The creases around his eyes and forehead look heavier than normal because it’s so early. Some steam from his coffee drifts up and brushes against his cheek, puffing out when he breathes through his nose.
    The corners of his mouth turn up just a hair when he sees what it is. I watch the creases near his eyes shift and grow. It looks like his eyes are smiling.
    Dad says, Super Bowl Thirty-One.
    He is reading the side of the ball, reading it through the box.
    Dad says, The Packers won that one.
    I say, Yeah.
    I knew he’d know. Dad opens the box and very carefully takes the ball out, holding it with two hands like it is made of glass.
    He turns it over in his hands. Very slowly, he brushes his fingers over the label.
    He says, This is great, Mike.
    I just sort of smile a little more.
    He looks at it for a long time with that small smile, not saying anything. Then he looks up.
    He says, Do you want to throw it around a bit with me sometime?
    I look down. I can feel my smile getting wider but thinner, lips pressed together like I do in photos sometimes, and hope he doesn’t notice.
    I say, Yeah.
    Sometimes I get to French class early.
    It’s because I have Algebra right before. Algebra’s supposed to be in the Math Wing, which is really just a bunch of classrooms all in the same corner of the building. That’s where most of the math classes are.
    They do the same thing with other subjects. There’s a Science Wing and a History Wing and an Elective Wing.
    But then when the school got too big a while back, they had to build a whole new section that they still call the New Wing even though it’s about twenty years old. And some of the classes are in there.
    Both Algebra and French are in the New Wing.
    So sometimes I go to my locker in between, but usually I just bring my stuff for both classes and go straight from Algebra to French.
    I do this two days after my dad’s birthday.
    It’s cool because normally no one’s there yet so I have the whole place to myself, except Madame Girard. But she’s always at her desk not paying attention anyway so it’s like I’m there alone.
    Sometimes I get there before the last person in the class before mine leaves. So I watch them go, and then a minute later the next person in my class shows up and it’s like I saw the transition between periods that usually only teachers see, and it’s a little weird.
    This day Sean is already there.
    Madame Girard isn’t even in the room. She’s talking to Mr. Pietre, who is a senior English teacher. I pass her in the hall.
    Sean looks up when I walk in, and I sort of stop for a second because I’m