CHAPTER SEVEN
For the meal Mrs. Wentworth had roast beef with plenty of gravy, 
carrots, green beans, and mashed potatoes. Peter, David, and Billy had 
second helpings of almost everything. 
Peter and Billy began to laugh about the joke they had made up. 
The one which was, and was not, about women having babies.
"You stole my joke," said Mr. Wentworth.
"We changed it," Peter told him. "We made it better."
"Who has heard this joke?" Mrs. Wentworth asked.
"All the kids in our class," Peter answered.
"And has Mrs. Johnson heard it?" she asked, raising her eyebrows.
The three boys looked at each other and agreed. Mrs. Johnson 
couldn't possibly have heard the joke. They were all really, really 
careful not to tell it where she could hear.
"It's a metaphor, when you say that Billy has cerebral palsy be-
cause his parachute didn't open when he was born," Mr. Wentworth com-
mented. "There's a special way in which it could be said that every 
baby has a parachute to help it be born. And yours, Billy, certainly 
didn't open properly."


Billy wondered what the word "metaphor" meant. He knew he had 
heard it somewhere before. He'd probably heard it in school. He didn't 
remember the meaning, however. He was ready to ask his father the mean-
ing, but everyone had started talking about something else.
Peter asked, "How did Billy do selling things today?"
"Yes, Billy, this was your big day," Mrs. Wentworth said. "How 
did it go?"
"It went all right," Billy told her. "One lady bought something 
at the booth from me."
"One man even talked to him," David put in. "He asked Billy 
questions, Billy answered, and the man understood."
"That's great, Billy!" praised Mrs. Wentworth. "Aren't you proud 
of yourself!"
"It didn't all go that well," Billy complained.
"One lady got so upset when she couldn't understand Billy, she 
put the thing down she was going to buy," David said. "She immediately 
left the booth and never came back."
They all laughed.
"Billy is such a scary person," Peter declared. "People get 
scared and run away from him."
Everyone laughed again.
"I think that's the point Mr. Reynolds was teaching you by having 
you do this today, Billy," his mother said. "You have to put yourself 
out there. You have to try. If you don't try, you won't discover what 
skills you have."


"Billy did great! Especially when that man asked him questions. 
Billy spoke up and answered him really well," David chimed in.
"David, how do you know so much about this?" Peter asked.
"He was spying on	me!" Billy said. "He was under the counter, 
listening while I stood at the booth."
"You did that to him!" Peter asked David, astonished. Then he 
turned to Billy and asked, "What are you going to do to him for that?"
Billy laughed.
They were through with the main course and ready for dessert. 
Mrs. Wentworth brought out cookies and ice cream. The three boys were 
eager for this part of the meal.
Billy said, "Gary is the person I actually want to get back at. 
We're really going to get revenge on him!"
"Yes!" Peter said. "Something really good!"
"You boys want to speak this much about revenge?" Mr. Wentworth 
asked. "Not at your age."
"Yes, we do! Yes, we do!" they said together.
"He took the best marbles away from kids in our class, the best 
stamps, the best trading cards. He deserves something from us," Peter 
said. "Something mean, rotten, and deliciously hateful!"
"Why do all three of you talk this way," Mrs. Wentworth com-
plained. "I don't like hearing it!"
"What do you kids think you'll do to Gary," Mr. Wentworth asked 
them.
"On Monday morning Mrs. Johnson will have things left from the 
fair," David explained. "She'll set up a make-believe booth in the 
classroom. She will have us sell this leftover stuff to each other."
"That will help us learn decimal points and other things like 
that in arithmetic," Peter continued explaining. "When Gary gets up to 
stand behind the booth and be storekeeper, no one will buy from him. 
He'll look pretty silly with no one to sell stuff to."
"At the end of the day, we'll have it so he'll be the one who 
will have to add up prices. Nobody but him will have the job. See how 
he likes that!" Billy said.
By this time the three boys were laughing so hard they were 
choking on ice cream and on their cookies.
"Gary will get zapped," David said. "He'll get zapped real good!"
"You will get zapped yourselves if Mrs. Johnson finds out what 
you're doing to Gary!" Mrs. Wentworth warned. "I'd be very careful 
about this. Very careful indeed."








	CHAPTER EIGHT
On Monday at school Mrs. Johnson set up the booth and had the 
children play store. One child was to be storekeeper, and the others 
were to buy things from him. This was to give the children extra prac-
tice making change and handling decimals. Of course, they only used 
play money, but the action was intense and lots of fun.
As David, Peter, and Billy predicted, this was the day when the 
class got revenge on Gary. 
On only the third turn, Gary was chosen to man the pretend booth.
David went up to the booth and said, "I want those. How much are 
they?" He pointed to a bag filled with round objects which might have 
been grapes, marbles, or jelly beans.
"A dollar," Gary told him.
"I give you five cents for the bag."
"No, it's worth a dollar."
"Then I don't want anything," David said. He went back to his 
seat.
Sara got up and went over to the booth. She looked at all the 
items she could possibly buy. Then she said, "No, I don't have any 
money," and she went back to her seat.
"Children, you're not learning about buying and selling, and 
making change, by what you're doing," Mrs. Johnson said. "You must buy 
things."
Every child in the room was absolutely silent. They all wondered 
who would be picked to come up next and face Gary as booth-keeper.
"Peter," Mrs. Johnson called. "Come up."
Peter rose from his seat. He walked slowly down the aisle between 
the desks. When he stood before the booth, facing Gary eye to eye, he 
said, "How much would it cost if I bought everything here?"
"Everything?" asked Gary, in a small voice.
"I want to buy every single thing you have here," Peter said.
"Can he do that?" Gary asked Mrs. Johnson.
"Well, yes, I guess he can. Figure out what everything in front 
of you is worth. Then give him the amount."
Gary looked at Peter shrewdly. What could he say so he wouldn't 
get zapped? He took a long glance at everything before him, then told 
Peter, "Twenty dollars."
"All right," said Peter, laying down twenty dollars in play 
money. Peter picked up everything off the booth's counter. He brought 
it all over to his seat and laid it all down. Gary looked pretty silly, 
standing behind the booth with nothing to sell.
The booth was restocked, and the game went on.
Three more times Gary stood behind the booth, ready to play 
storekeeper. But no one would buy anything from him. 
At the end of day things did work around so that Gary got stuck 
with the job of adding up the prices of everything bought during the 
day. He had to report the final figure to Mrs. Johnson.
Once during that day when Peter hurried back to his seat, he 
stepped on Meg's foot. She began to cry. Mrs. Johnson went over to com-
fort her. Meg was a new girl in the room. She had only been there a 
week and a half. She was still shy with everyone.
Mrs. Johnson said to her, "The boys in this room are rough and 
tumble when they do things, but they mean well. You mustn't get so 
upset."
"She squeals when she cries," David whispered.
"She squeals," Peter repeated.
A group of children began snickering very softly, then more loud-
ly. Billy was one of them.
Mrs. Johnson gave them a hard glance, and they knew enough to be 
quiet.
After school that day, Billy gleefully told his mother, "Meg 
squeals when she cries!"
"What are you laughing at?" she asked. "Whatever do you think is 
so funny? She must have been in pain to be crying that hard."
At dinner Billy told his parents, "We really got back at Gary 
good in school today. We did exactly what we planned."
"You mean what you were going to do while 'playing store'?" asked 
Mr. Wentworth. "You'll be lucky if you're not in trouble yourselves for 
getting revenge on him, as your mother warned you a few days ago."
For the next several weeks Billy and his friends had a grand 
time. They figured out ways to zap Gary. And they laughed at Meg on 
each of the five times she cried in school.
"She squeals!" someone would say and scream out in giggles.
"She squeals!" someone else would echo.
"I don't want to hear that from you again!" Mrs. Wentworth cried 
out at Billy one afternoon when she was taking him home from school. 
"This is the fourth time you've come home, laughing and giggling at Meg 
because she squeals when she cries. Not one more time! Understand me! 
You laugh at that just once more in front of me, and you're grounded."
"You're kidding," Billy said. And laughed.
"No, I'm not. You won't be watching television for two days. And 
you won't be going down the street after school to play with your 
friends."
"Ahh-h-h, gee!!" he protested. "That's not fair!"
"It is fair, Billy," said his mother. "You should know yourself 
how it feels to be laughed at. Laughing at other people is thoughtless 
and unmannerly. I won't have you doing it!"

Four days later Mrs. Johnson read a story to the class. When she 
finished, she asked, "How did you feel about the way the other animals 
treated this alligator?"
"They were mean and cruel to him," Robert said. "They wouldn't 
even let him have a little place on his favorite rock to lie on and sun 
himself."
"They shooed every sort of creature away so he'd have no prey -- 
nothing to eat," said Peter.
"Have any of you had someone say cruel and mean things to you re-
cently? That's awful, isn't it? It really hurts. I think this alligator 
feels the way you do when someone is mean to you," Mrs. Johnson said.
Billy immediately thought of how they had teased Meg about the 
way she cried. He remembered how mean they had all been to Gary. 
"He deserves what the others do to him," David said. "He's mean, 
rotten, and hateful."
"You're told that by the other animals. How much of what they say 
about him is true?" she said.
The whole classroom was very quiet. Billy sensed that Mrs. John-
son was building up to something important.
"The animals in the swamp gang up him. They make his life miser-
able. It's not so great when a group gets down on one individual. It's 
totally unfair, isn't it?" She glanced at each of them. They squirmed a 
bit.
Mrs. Johnson knew what they had done to Gary and Meg. She did not 
like it at all.

In the next several weeks, the children made amends in small 
ways. One day Billy had extra candies. Saving what he wanted for him-
self, he gave two to Meg and two to Gary.
David had tickets to a magic show coming to town. He gave one to 
Gary and one to Meg.
Meg and Gary received other surprises and favors. Smiles and nods 
came their way. The children tried to make friends with them and bring 
them into their games more often than they had before.








	CHAPTER NINE
Four children in the class had written stories about animals. 
They were learning about habitats, food chains, ecology, and the like. 
Billy wrote about the African elephant. David wrote about the American 
eagle. Sara wrote about white-tailed dear in southern Canada. Emily 
wrote about the raccoon in New England and the middle Atlantic states. 
They all gave their reports, Mrs. Johnson said they did a fine 
job. She read them another story herself. This one was about an African 
lion on the savannah.
As she read to them, she came to this sentence in the story, 
"'The hot eye of the sky looked down on the green earth.'"
Peter raised his hand and stopped her there. "What's the 'eye of 
the sky'?" he asked.
"Well, Peter," she said, "if you think about that just a little, 
I think you will figure it out quite easily."
Mrs. Johnson looked at all the children and said, "What Peter 
asked about is a metaphor, which is a special way of speaking. I will 
tell you about metaphors. But first, let me finish reading the story."
When the story was done, she remembered. She returned to the sub-
ject, saying, "You know, authors can speak in ways which are really 
surprising and vivid. They allow themselves to think in ways that are 
different. Do you remember that in the story of the alligator the 
animals talked? Animals that talk are pretty surprising, don't you 
think?"
The children murmured together a few seconds. It was surprising 
that animals talk in that story. They hadn't thought of it before.
Mrs. Johnson continued, "Authors speak in ways we don't expect. 
We are surprised at their expressions, and pleased. We're jolted out of 
our normal habits of thought. An author can say to us 'the hot eye of 
the sky.' He makes it part of his story. It's the author's way of 
speaking to us."
"'Hot eye of the sky' meant the sun," Peter said.
"Yes, Peter," Mrs. Johnson said. "Saying 'eye of the sky' is a 
way of speaking about the sun. It's a metaphor for the sun."
They looked at her as if thoroughly confused.
"In this part of the country, foliage on trees changes color with 
the seasons. A tree turns red, yellow, or orange. We say the tree 
bursts into flame. It doesn't actually, of course. That's a metaphor."
They still looked at her questioningly. They weren't quite 
understanding.
"Oh, I know a metaphor you will all understand. This is one 
you've all used in fact. Someone said that Billy's parachute didn't 
open. Did I hear that? Is that part of a joke going around in this 
classroom?"
A gasp went up from every child in the classroom! Mrs. Johnson 
had heard the joke about babies and parachutes. Where had she heard it? 
How had she heard it? They had been so careful in telling it, so it 
would be just amongst themselves!
Mrs. Johnson made a picture on the board of a parachute, and a 
little figure hanging from it.
"When you say that babies come down to earth on parachutes -- and 
Billy's parachute didn't open, when he was coming down -- that's a met-
aphor. It's a way of saying he had trouble being born, and that caused 
his cerebral palsy."
Some children nodded, showing they understood. Or they were be-
ginning to understand.
"Billy, you can tell us. What does cause cerebral palsy?" 
Mrs. Johnson asked him.
"Doctors say the oxygen supply gets cut off to babies being born. 
That causes it. And other things cause it too."
"What other things cause cerebral palsy?" Emily asked.
"I don't know," Billy said, laughing. "I'm not a doctor." 
The other children all laughed too.

Another day the class had gone to the auditorium. On the way back 
Billy lagged behind, because his walking was so slow. Sara stayed with 
him, so he wouldn't be alone. A girl in a sloppy red sweater and a 
skirt with horrid colors came up to them. She asked Billy, "What's 
wrong with you?"
Before Billy had time to answer, the girl went on, "He talks 
funny, doesn't he? He moves his hands funny too. I've seen him in the 
cafeteria, trying to eat by himself."
"You've seen a lot, haven't you!" said Sara, her hands on her 
hips.
Billy was calmer. "I have cerebral palsy," he explained.
Sara translated Billy's words immediately, but the girl didn't 
seem to want to listen. Perhaps the girl didn't have enough patience to 
listen, even when Sara repeated Billy's words. Or, possibly, she didn't 
know what the two words "cerebral palsy" meant, and she didn't want to 
ask. In any case, she left without waiting for anything else to be 
said.
She was overweight and waddled when she walked. Sara and Billy 
both turned to watch her walking away.
When the girl had gotten almost to the end of the corridor, and 
so probably couldn't hear, Billy asked softly, "What's wrong with her?"
Billy and Sara laughed about that. But almost immediately they 
stopped and looked at each other soberly. It was probably unkind.
After the upset over the class' cruelty to Gary and Meg, they 
were more sensitive to not hurting other people's feelings. The girl 
surely hadn't heard what Billy said so softly to Sara, but it still 
wasn't nice.
Billy decided he definitely shouldn't have said that. He was sor-
ry! Sara looked like she was ashamed she had laughed at his comment!








	CHAPTER TEN
One Sunday Billy went to church, and right at the end of the 
service, a lady in the pew behind him said, "He made noises during the 
service. Did you hear him drop his crutch at the beginning? It created 
such a bang! Sunday before last he dropped a hymnal during the service. 
I know he can't help it, but it's very disturbing."
Another woman said, "And he makes funny jouncing movements from 
time to time when he has a spasm in one of his legs. Notice that? 
That's involuntary, I know. But I wish there was some way to stop him 
from doing this. A person is hardly able to concentrate on the 
service."
This was enough for Billy. He didn't want to go to church any-
more.
The next Tuesday he saw a picture of the church, and he looked 
away. He didn't even want to see it.
His mother asked, "What's wrong, Billy? You seem upset after 
seeing the picture of the church. Why?"
Billy didn't say a word. He simply didn't answer her.
Billy refused to go to church. In fact, he refused to go for the 
next two Sundays.
His father asked him, "What has gotten into your head? What's 
wrong, son? You have always gone to church. Now, all of a sudden, you 
won't go."
"I just don't want to," Billy said, stubbornly.
Mr. Reynolds brought up the subject when he was talking to him.
"What's this whole thing going on that you don't want to go to 
church?" he asked.
"How do you know about it? My parents tell you?" Billy asked.
"I met your parents at the P.T.A. meeting last night. And, yes, 
they told me about this."
"They'll probably begin making me go pretty soon."
"Yes, that's a definite possibility," Mr. Reynolds said. "But 
your parents are letting you make this decision for yourself -- for 
now, at least. Okay then, what's wrong? Why aren't you going to 
church?"
Billy explained about the two women who sat in the pew behind 
him. He explained what they said, and how it bothered him so much! He 
never wanted to go to church again.
"I really don't think that's a strong enough reason to stop going 
to church."
"Yes, it is," Billy protested. "I bother those women."
"I think they would have been bothered by just about anything." 
Mr. Reynolds paused moment, apparently taking time to think. Then he 
said, "Look, wherever you go and whatever you do, for the rest of your 
life, some people will be bothered by cerebral palsy. But most people 
won't. Most people will be okay about it.
"I certainly think you ought to go to church. And your parents 
want you to go. So you should go. I think the problem is more with 
these women than it is with you."

A few days later he saw his friend Marsha Daily, who had cerebral 
palsy herself and was eighteen years old. When he explained what hap-
pened at the church, she had quite a bit to say about it. She had been 
through things like this herself.
Marsha told Billy, "You know, people sometimes talk about us as 
if we weren't there. They treat us like pieces of furniture."
"What do you mean?" Billy asked.
"The two women were sitting so near you. It's for sure they knew 
you would hear anything they said about you. People treat persons with 
disabilities like that. They treat us as if we didn't know, or didn't 
understand, what was being said within hearing distance of us."
"Why?"
"What do you mean, 'why'?" Marsha looked at him, puzzled. "People 
are that way. We have to we put up with it. 'Crip is hip,' that's our 
motto."
Billy nodded.
"Don't worry about what those women said. It's just air." Marsha 
waved her hand as if to show that it was nothing -- it could be waved 
away as easily as air.
"By the way, how old are you now?" she asked him.
"I'm nine," he told her. "I'm in fourth grade."
"I remember when you were small. Four, five, and six, let's say. 
I'd play games with you when your mother brought you over to see me."
"I'm sorry I'm not little and cute anymore."
"Cute? You're as cute as you always were," Marsha said. "I like 
you better now than when you were four years old. You're brighter now, 
smarter, and easier to talk to."
Billy smiled.
"So now, come over here, and I'll give you a giant hug and a 
great big, smacking kiss."
He went over and got a hug and a kiss from Marsha. They'd be 
friends no matter how old he got.








	CHAPTER ELEVEN
Most of the kids in Billy's class were either Cub Scouts or 
Brownies. Late in May all the Scouting Associations in their town spon-
sored a car wash. On the day of the car wash, it was soon apparent that 
there were not enough people on hand to wash cars. Every possible per-
son was pressed into service.
Billy said he would help, but unfortunately the pail he was given 
was too large for him to carry. He couldn't even drag the pail along 
the ground. Therefore, it didn't seem practical for him to try to help 
at the car wash. He could wash only one small place on a car. Then he 
had to ask for help in moving the pail, so he could wash some more. It 
was easier for someone else just to take over and wash cars in Billy's 
place.
Billy was extremely sad. He was about to leave to go home, when 
David's older brother Sam said something which helped the situation. 
"Why don't we find Billy a smaller pail?" he suggested. Sam was thir-
teen and had been a Boy Scout two years.
"A pail is a pail," someone retorted. "They don't come in sizes 
smaller than the one he was given."
"Yes, they do," Sam insisted. And soon Billy had a small pail in 
his hands, which was only large enough to contain a half-gallon of 
water when full.
He asked that only a small portion of hot, sudsy water be given 
to him, so he could control the pail better. Then he began washing the 
side of a car with all his might and main. He couldn't wash as fast or 
as much as the other kids, but he washed part of a door on one car, a 
side front end on another car.
As the day came to an end, he could count seven cars he had 
helped on. He had only done a small amount on each, but he still felt 
he had helped. Many people congratulated him on working so hard and ac-
complishing so much. He felt proud!
"Good thing you got the smaller pail." Mr. Reynolds said, on 
Monday morning when Billy told him what happened. "What if you hadn't 
gotten it?"
"I probably wouldn't have stayed at the car wash," Billy said. 
"It's no fun standing around watching other people work when you can't 
do anything yourself.

 		Summer came, and Billy and his friends had fun doing lots of 
things.
Billy's parents got a new telephone. The buttons on this phone 
were smaller than he was used to, and he had a very hard time with it.
His father said, "We can go back to using the phone we had 
before. It was easier for you to dial numbers on that one."
"No, let me try some more with this one," Billy said.
Secretly, he liked the new, handsome telephone. He didn't want 
the family to have to return to the phone they had been using for 
years. It was pretty beat up. He wanted somehow to master this problem.
One day he tried and tried to get a number, and he just couldn't. 
His hands weren't working the way he wanted them to work.
His father sat down beside him and said, "Why don't you dial the 
first three digits of the number, then rest your hand. Dial the next 
two digits, and rest your hand. Then dial the last two digits."
Billy did as his father said.
This new way of doing it didn't work perfectly for Billy. He was 
still making mistakes. But he felt he was "getting on" to doing it 
better. More and more, he was hitting the buttons correctly.
In four more days, he was dialing complete numbers himself, and 
getting the person he wanted. He was using the new phone just about as 
well as he had the old one. This was quite an accomplishment! He felt 
good about himself. And his parents praised him!
Billy also had a problem playing tapes on his tape recorder. He'd 
push fast forward or rewind and go much farther than he wanted to go. 
He couldn't push the stop button fast enough to get to just the place 
on the tape he wanted.
His father helped him with this too. He said, "Relax your hand, 
Just relax it as much as you can. If you get too tense, this won't work 
at all."
He tried to relax his hand, as his father was telling him.
"Now don't try to get to the exact place you want. Get to 'almost 
the place.'"
"Why?"
"Well, it isn't good to be too hard on yourself with something 
like this," Mr. Wentworth said. "Try for 'almost well,' not 'perfectly 
well,' when you do this."
In just a week or so, Billy was using his tape recorder in much 
the way he wanted. For this, too, he was proud of himself!

When fall came, Billy had turned ten. He and his friends were in 
fifth grade now. Their teacher was Mrs. Lawrence. 
In social studies they were studying American Indians. Robert and 
Emily were making tepees and little people for a small Indian village. 
In arithmetic they were having fractions. Billy liked fractions. 
He was enjoying fifth grade. He had one particular problem, 
though.








	CHAPTER TWELVE
The children in Billy's class were supposed to make posters. Each 
poster had to have a theme. Sara was making a poster about transporta-
tion. Peter was doing his on circuses and circus fun. The children were 
to pick one picture from all the books that were in their room or in 
the school library. The pictures would be copied on the school's copy-
ing machine and then blown up for the posters.
Billy chose the picture of a bird from a book in his classroom 
and showed it to Mrs. Lawrence. "I want this picture on my poster. I 
think this looks like a bird that has cerebral palsy. Look how the 
wings are twisted. And the legs are sort of limp."
She hesitated. "You don't want that picture, do you?" she asked. 
There was a queer little note in her voice, as if she were asking, "Why 
do you want an ugly picture like that?"
"I like it," said Billy. "It's a cerebral palsy bird!"
"Your poster will take an awful lot of work," she warned, "if you 
start from this beginning."
He didn't care how much work was ahead of him. He only knew he 
wanted to put that picture on the poster he was going to make.
He began thinking about a theme for his poster, now the picture 
was chosen.
He went to Mr. Reynolds and asked him, "What sort of theme do I 
want for my poster?"
"What would you put down as words under the picture?"
"I don't know. I'll have to think about that."
Billy paused, then he said, "I know! I know! I'll write just one 
word. The word 'Me.'"
"Oh."
"I'll paint a large 'M' and a large 'E' in red. I'll put four 
exclamation points after it."
"Well, you have an idea there," Mr. Reynolds said. "I understand 
what you're doing. But I can't tell you if it's the very best possible 
idea for a poster. You'll have to ask Mrs. Lawrence that. She's your 
teacher. She knows how she wants you to make a poster."
He asked Mrs. Lawrence what she thought of his picture and his 
theme. She said his theme was fine. But she didn't like the picture he 
had chosen.
"I want it on my poster, though," Billy insisted.
"Well, it's your decision, that's for certain. No one in the 
world can tell you what picture to like, or not to like. You, and you 
alone, can know that."
Billy took his poster home one night, so he could work on it 
there. When his parents saw the picture he had chosen, they were 
disturbed.
"You don't want that picture on your poster," his mother said. 
"It's a horrid looking bird."
"Yes, I do!" Billy yelled, emphatically.
"Don't scream at your mother," his father said.
"I'm not screaming!"
"You're screaming at me right now. Go to you're room and think 
about this for while."
Billy went to his room. He cried for a few minutes and then 
calmed down.
His mother came in and sat on his bed. She said quietly, "That 
picture is terrible. The bird is so ugly. I don't want you using it on 
your poster. I don't want you to think you look like that."
"I think the bird has cerebral palsy. That's why I like it," 
Billy said, simply. 
He noticed his father was standing in the doorway, looking 
thoughtful.
Mr. Wentworth said to Mrs. Wentworth, "Perhaps Billy understands 
cerebral palsy in a way we don't. Perhaps he sees something in the bird 
beyond what we can see and understand when we look at it."
The next day Billy worked hard on his poster again.

A few days later David and Billy were playing on the playground. 
A large boy, probably a sixth grader, came up to them. He seemed mean 
and a bully. He pointed at Billy and asked, "What's the matter with 
him?"
"There's nothing wrong with him," said David.
"He's on crutches!" the boy spluttered.
"Oh, he broke a bone in his foot two days ago. That's why he's on 
crutches."
"But he talks funny. And moves around funny."
"No-oo-o," said David. "He's fine. Nothing wrong with him."
The boy lifted a hand menacingly, as if he were about to hit 
them.
Parachute/Baker                                       Chap. 7   Page 24

Parachute/Baker                                       Chap. 8   
Page 33

Parachute/Baker                                       Chap. 9   
Page 37

Parachute/Baker                                      Chap. 10   
Page 41

Parachute/Baker                                      Chap. 11   
Page 45

Parachute/Baker                                      Chap. 12   
Page 49