The Gift-Giver Read Online Free

one."
    "How you know?"
    "I could tell. He didn't run 'cause he was scared. He just don't want to be bothered."
    I sat down next to Amir. "Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. I told you that boy just don't care about nobody. I knew he wasn't sick."
    "Maybe he's in trouble."
    "He just playing hookey and acting crazy," I said.
    Amir didn't say nothing else. He just looked real quiet and serious.
    "Hey, Amir, how come you ... I mean, why did you ... How come you don't act like you just moved here?"
    He looked at me a long time and I felt kind of stupid. Then he smiled a little. "I'm used to moving to different schools. And new neighborhoods."
    "How come you just followed Sherman and them to the park the other day? You know they was going to bother you."
    He shrugged his shoulders. "They would bother me more if I ran home scared. It's better to face it and get it over with. Now we friends. You ever move to a new block or a new school?"
    "Nope. I been living on 163rd Street all my life."
    I was sorry when the bell rang to go back in. I saw Russell and them running back to the school. I wondered if they caught up with Sherman.
    When we got out of school that afternoon Mickey and Dotty ignored me and I ignored them. Russell and the other boys disappeared before I could ask them about Sherman. I walked real slow hoping I might see Amir, but he was gone too.
    Just as I started going into my building I heard him calling me.
    "Doris, I was looking for you. Where you went so fast after school?"
    Here I was walking like a turtle so I could see him and he's talking about where I went so fast.
    "I heard that Sherman's family moved," he said.
    "Russell and them talked to him?"
    "No, they didn't catch up to him. Lavinia told me."
    Lavinia is the most gossipy girl in our class.
    "How she know?" I asked.
    "She said that's what she heard."
    "She always hearing something. How come he ain't tell nobody good-bye?"
    "That's what I asked her."
    "I saw his grandmother yesterday," I said.
    "Did she say good-bye?"
    "That mean old woman never talks to no one."
    Amir sat on the bannister. "You going upstairs now?" he asked.
    "Yeah."
    "I'll see you tomorrow then." He left the stoop and ran toward the playground.
    At least he didn't act like I was a freak because I had to go in the house.
    As I ran up the stairs to my apartment I thought about Sherman. He had about eight brothers and sisters. There was so many of them that you always saw somebody from that family. But come to think of it, I hadn't seen none of them for the past two days. I only saw his grandmother, and like I said before, she never talks.
    Next day at lunchtime I heard five different rumors about Sherman. I wondered whether Lavinia started all of them.
    One boy said Sherman was sent to reform school. A girl in class 6-1 said he was just playing hookey.
    Another girl said she heard he was scared Big Russell would beat him up for missing the game. I guess Big Russell started that rumor.
    Another boy said he heard Sherman was suspended from school, but he didn't know why.
    Me and Mickey and Dotty still wasn't talking to each
other, even though we was standing around in the schoolyard listening to the same rumors. I noticed that this day the twins wasn't dressed exactly alike.
    Suddenly Dotty goes over to some little fourth graders and starts jumping double-dutch with them.
    Then Amir says that maybe we should go to Sherman's house and find out what really happened.
    Mickey says, "Yeah. That's what we should do." Then she looks at me. I made believe I didn't see her and turned to Amir.
    "No one goes to his house," I said.
    "That's right. His grandmother hates kids. And they can't have no company," Mickey said. She looked at me again like she was talking to me. I looked back at her, but I really didn't want to.
    "Yeah. No one goes there," I said.
    The bell rang and I walked back to the building. Mickey followed me. Dotty was still jumping double-dutch like a little nut.
    "That's really something