Gobby said that he has a green box. I said, who cares about a stupid green box? Then he showed me the one most amazing thing it could do. Now I've just gotta get myself a green box...or two...
Excerpt:
He didn’t look like much. Like most kids I guess. And I may not be like major old or nothing. Not like old lady of the lake or nothing. But I tell you. There was something special about that grubby, quiet, skinny and rumpled little boy.
About as rumpled as a squashed up Twinkies wrapper.
The first time we met we didn't really MEET. I mean, he was sitting next to me in class at Moonwillow Elementary just scribbling away jackhammer style in his notebook. He was really into it too. Kept drawing. Erasing. Rubbing his nose. Scratching his head. And kinda mumbling. Like he was talking to his drawing. Or IT was talking to HIM. Well, anywho, he’s just going at his drawing like I said when Miss Emeline, only the youngest prettiest teacher you ever did see asks him:
“Got something interesting there, Evžen?”
Oh boy he perks right up like somebody up and poked him in the ribs. HARD!
“Uh...me?”
Miss Emeline smiles real wide, sparkles flashing from her eyes.
“Well, unless there’s another Evžen in class...”
She paused and got a kind of confused look on her face. Then she says real LOUD to the whole class, “If anybody has seen another Evžen in class, please point to him for me?”
And just like that twenty kids spun in their seat, twenty arms spun to the left, and twenty fingers pointed right at Evžen, who stared with eyes wide as the moon like he got caught with his hand in the cookie jar.
“Hmm,” said Miss Emeline nodding her head. “Looks like
it’s just YOU then,” her eyes sizzling through him like a laser, smiling the whole time.
“Umm, I’m sorry Miss Emeline, I’m just...you know...kinda like...” words tumbling out of his mouth like kids tumbling out of a school bus.
And me? I’m watching the words tumble to the floor and squiggle and squirm around trying to get away.
“Please do that after class, Evžen?” said Miss Emeline, sweet as spring rain.
“Yes, teacher.”
Well, that set him straight. And you could tell it did too. The rest of the class he sat straight up with his eyes stuck to her like she was the most interesting thing he’d ever seen.
Now I’m not saying she WASN'T interesting. I’m just saying that at that time, Evžen couldn’t look anywhere else.
And I feel kinda bad for him. Parents saddled him with a whopper of a name you’d have to be 7 feet tall and wide as a house to carry, Evžen Arno Teodus Goba. Now who wants a monster huge name like that?
