King Jimmy, Page 2

  Once inside the door, he got down on his knees and picked up the tattered, flowered pillow, which he gripped tightly to his chest. At last he looked up and his startled eyes, still wet with tears, met Morgan’s.

  “Who? What the …? Surfah girl?”

  Morgan was silent, biting her lip. She ran a shaking hand across her cheek, surprised to discover that it came away damp with tears. Awkwardly, but carefully, Morgan reached forward and put her arms around Jimmy Walters’s thin shoulders. Her touch was gentle, understanding that there must be pain. She offered not a word of explanation, knowing that there could be none, but merely held him for a long while, until dark had fallen. Then, she got down out of the tree and went home.

  ~

  Without discussion, during recess the next afternoon, Jimmy and Morgan dismantled the throne. They used the rocks and stones it had been built with to make a circle around the old, scarred maple tree. The fifth-grade class played kickball that day, and almost every day after that too, since now it was fully spring.

  End