1
Kevin, Corey, and Me
âKevin rode his skateboard to school again. With
Jared
,â my friend Corey Robinson tells me in a gloomy voice a few minutes before school starts. It is Friday, and we are standing together on the playground. It is a cold April day, and a few spatters of rain hit our faces.
âNo big deal,â I say, trying to shrug like I mean it.
Coreyâs voice sounds funny when heâs telling me about Kevin McKinley and Jared Matthews, because Jared has been kind of like our ENEMY for two years now. The enemy of Kevin, Corey, and me, I mean, because the three of us are best friends. We are all in the third grade at Oak Glen Primary School.
Iâve known Kevin since first grade, when my family moved to Oak Glen from San Diego. He showed me how to use the pencil sharpener. I still remember how the shavings smelled. He and I wereâand still areâthe only two boys with brown skin in our class, but thatâs not why weâre friends. Well, itâs not the
only
reason. The point is, we go âway back,â as my dad sometimes says. And things should stay the same.
This is hard to explain, but itâs embarrassing to me that Kevin is suddenly so good at skating when I havenât even started learning yet. And Iâm secretly hating that heâs hanging out with Jared, who has done lots of stuff to embarrass me in the past.
I donât know why Jared does it. Teasing me is kind of like his hobby.
Itâs not official or anything about Kevin, Corey, and me being BEST FRIENDS , by the way. Itâs not like with the girls in my class, who say, âHeatherâs my
first
best friend, and Kryâs my
second
best friend,â as if each girl in my class is keeping her eye on a race that nobody can see. No boy, anyway.
But with us three boys, we just like to hang together, thatâs all. And some guys are easier to hang with than others. Like I said, Jared can be kind of a pain. His best friend and loyal stooge has always been Stanley Washington, but right now, Jared and
Kevin
are together, putting their skateboards away in the pen in the corner of the playground. I donât see Stanley anywhere.
The pen is where bikes and boards are locked up during the dayâsince the teachers donât want kids skating out of class when things get dull, I guess.
The rule at Oak Glen is that starting in third grade, you can ride your bike, scooter, or skateboard to school if you wear a helmet. Since my friends and me are in the third grade, this has been a big deal for some of us this year. So far, though, Iâve only ridden my bike to school four times. But thatâs because getting up, washing, dressing, eating, then finding my homework, helmet, and bike lock, and still leaving on time for school is too hard for me to pull off.
Iâm not that great early in the morning.
And once, when I
did
manage to ride my bike to school, I forgot all about it! I walked home, leaving it locked up and lonely all night long. I got scolded by our schoolâs grouchy custodian, too. You usually only see him when somebody hurls in class and he has to show up with his bucket of sawdust, broom, and dustpan.
Thatâs gotta be one hard job. Corey could never do it. Heâs so sensitive that he starts to throw up just
thinking
about somebody else doing it. And once, when Fiona McNulty cried in class because someone âlooked at her funny,â which isnât even a real thing, in my opinion, Corey started crying, too. I also saw him cry at the movies, when a dog died. He had to blow his nose on his sleeve.
Now, when somebody cries in class, which hardly ever happens because Ms. Sanchez is on top of stuff like that, Corey told me he pinches his leg real hard and stares out the window until the other person has mopped up their tears.
Her
tears, usually.
Corey even YAWNS
when anyone else yawns, but so does everyone, just about. My dad says there is a scientific
Kevin, Corey, and Me
âKevin rode his skateboard to school again. With
Jared
,â my friend Corey Robinson tells me in a gloomy voice a few minutes before school starts. It is Friday, and we are standing together on the playground. It is a cold April day, and a few spatters of rain hit our faces.
âNo big deal,â I say, trying to shrug like I mean it.
Coreyâs voice sounds funny when heâs telling me about Kevin McKinley and Jared Matthews, because Jared has been kind of like our ENEMY for two years now. The enemy of Kevin, Corey, and me, I mean, because the three of us are best friends. We are all in the third grade at Oak Glen Primary School.
Iâve known Kevin since first grade, when my family moved to Oak Glen from San Diego. He showed me how to use the pencil sharpener. I still remember how the shavings smelled. He and I wereâand still areâthe only two boys with brown skin in our class, but thatâs not why weâre friends. Well, itâs not the
only
reason. The point is, we go âway back,â as my dad sometimes says. And things should stay the same.
This is hard to explain, but itâs embarrassing to me that Kevin is suddenly so good at skating when I havenât even started learning yet. And Iâm secretly hating that heâs hanging out with Jared, who has done lots of stuff to embarrass me in the past.
I donât know why Jared does it. Teasing me is kind of like his hobby.
Itâs not official or anything about Kevin, Corey, and me being BEST FRIENDS , by the way. Itâs not like with the girls in my class, who say, âHeatherâs my
first
best friend, and Kryâs my
second
best friend,â as if each girl in my class is keeping her eye on a race that nobody can see. No boy, anyway.
But with us three boys, we just like to hang together, thatâs all. And some guys are easier to hang with than others. Like I said, Jared can be kind of a pain. His best friend and loyal stooge has always been Stanley Washington, but right now, Jared and
Kevin
are together, putting their skateboards away in the pen in the corner of the playground. I donât see Stanley anywhere.
The pen is where bikes and boards are locked up during the dayâsince the teachers donât want kids skating out of class when things get dull, I guess.
The rule at Oak Glen is that starting in third grade, you can ride your bike, scooter, or skateboard to school if you wear a helmet. Since my friends and me are in the third grade, this has been a big deal for some of us this year. So far, though, Iâve only ridden my bike to school four times. But thatâs because getting up, washing, dressing, eating, then finding my homework, helmet, and bike lock, and still leaving on time for school is too hard for me to pull off.
Iâm not that great early in the morning.
And once, when I
did
manage to ride my bike to school, I forgot all about it! I walked home, leaving it locked up and lonely all night long. I got scolded by our schoolâs grouchy custodian, too. You usually only see him when somebody hurls in class and he has to show up with his bucket of sawdust, broom, and dustpan.
Thatâs gotta be one hard job. Corey could never do it. Heâs so sensitive that he starts to throw up just
thinking
about somebody else doing it. And once, when Fiona McNulty cried in class because someone âlooked at her funny,â which isnât even a real thing, in my opinion, Corey started crying, too. I also saw him cry at the movies, when a dog died. He had to blow his nose on his sleeve.
Now, when somebody cries in class, which hardly ever happens because Ms. Sanchez is on top of stuff like that, Corey told me he pinches his leg real hard and stares out the window until the other person has mopped up their tears.
Her
tears, usually.
Corey even YAWNS
when anyone else yawns, but so does everyone, just about. My dad says there is a scientific
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