Snot Girl and Booger Boy

Chapter 11: Numbers, Letters, and Lockers

By Friday, the twins had learned their letters through Z (Z is for Zipper), and Mr. Leslie promised ice cream when the first first-grader counted to 100 without skipping numbers.

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“Good job, Jimmy!” Mr. Leslie announced as Jimmy Delpa, a skinny boy with red hair and a slight lisp, finished his recitation.

“He cheated!” Norman Larfa called from his table on the second grade side of the classroom.

“How could he cheat?” asked Dwayne. “It’s just numbers.”

“His dad’s an accountant in the city,” said Norman.

“He didn’t cheat, Norman,” said Mr. Leslie, shaking his head. “Jimmy, we’ll all go to Mr. Lingle’s store at recess to get ice cream.”

“All of us?” Norman asked. “Second grade, too?”

“Everyone, Norman,” Mr. Leslie said. Then, under his breath as he turned away, “Not that you need it.”

Also on Friday, each grade had a spelling test (from, or, one, had, when, your, to, and in for the first-graders; the same words as first grade, plus maps, ham, dig, fix, by, day, do, help, people, then, there, and what for the second-graders), with extra credit for any first-grader for each word they spelled from the second-grade list.

Meanwhile, at home, Robert had his bacon on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, but somehow still complained that he hadn’t had any on Monday or Tuesday.

While the twins were enjoying ice cream with the class at Mr. Linge’s, Marjorie sat in the mill’s lunch room with Buck (who, for once, had no cigarette balanced precariously in his mouth), having coffee and discussing ways to improve the room.

Looking around at the haphazard mess of lunchboxes (most of them black, with no identification Marjorie could see), pails, and paper sacks scattered around the room, she asked, “How many workers do you have here?”

Buck sipped his steaming coffee from a paper cup, set it down, and shook his hand.

“Damn, that’s hot!” he exclaimed, then “Beg pardon. It hovers around a hundred, depending on the season, and orders from our customers.”

“And everyone keeps their lunches here?”

“Mostly. A couple may keep theirs in their cars, but they only get a half-hour break, and that takes time going out, so…”

Marjorie scanned the room. “Does anyone ever get the wrong lunch?”

“Oh yeah! We’ve had it get ugly sometimes when folks get in their pail and find somebody else’s cookies, then decide to eat them anyway. Most people can identify their lunchboxes or whatever by a speck of paint or rust, or a broken latch, but there’s always one or two."

“What if we had lockers for everyone to put lunches and other belongings in?”

“That’s a lot of money, there. I don’t know if old Weebly would go for that.”

“Let me worry about that, Buck,” she said. “That’s the kind of thing he put me here for, and it will definitely keep you from having to worry about cookie fights.”

“Well, it’s a good idea, anyway. See what you can do.”

Marjorie and Buck sipped their coffee for a moment.

“Did you talk with Mr. Lingle?” asked Buck.

“I wanted to, but I didn’t feel like I knew him well enough to ask about his daughter. As it turns out, a boy at the school did go missing for a while on Monday, but they found him after he got locked in the basement while running an errand.”

Buck was about to light a cigarette. “The basement?”

“Yes. My twins said their teacher sent a boy to Mrs. Perdlow to borrow a desk, and when she didn’t have one, he went down there looking for one.”

Buck puffed on his cigarette, smiling at a memory.

“Mrs. Perdlow. I wondered what ever happened to her. I think every boy in that school had a crush on her. I sure did. She was married to a fellow in town, and all us boys were jealous that he had her all to himself.”

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Marjorie smiled, sipping her coffee.

“Anyway, my best friend Dale told me that his dad had seen Mr. Perdlow cozied up to another woman at the Dew Drop. Not too long after that, we heard that Mr. Perdlow had run off.”

Buck smoked.

“That’s terrible!” said Marjorie.

“Yep,” said Buck. “And I guess that’s why Mrs. Perdlow started being a little hard to be around; yelling at us for being kids, paddling us boys more often—not that we didn’t deserve it. She even paddled a couple of the girls.”

“Oh, my! What about Mr. Perdlow?”

Buck stood up, stubbed his cigarette out on the sole of his boot, and shoved the butt into his pocket.

“He probably took up with that other woman. As far as I know, nobody around the crossroads knew where he went, and I don’t think anybody around town did either. Let me know how that locker idea goes with Mr. Weebly.”

Buck closed the door as he stepped into the mill.

© 2026 Brian G Parker