Rocket Boys. Homer Hickam

Braun? If you have an ounce of common sense, you’ll drop this idea,” I told him, perfectly aware that he lacked that ounce.

      “It’s not like you to be a pessimist,” Quentin said coldly. “I’m totally dumbfounded by your attitude. Dismayed too.” When I didn’t say anything, he added, “Astonished, chagrined, and saddened.”

      I wasn’t going to let him bait me with his vocabulary. I just shook my head and left him standing in the doorway. I didn’t want to hear any more about it.

      NEARLY every Sunday afternoon that year, I thumbed rides to War to visit Dorothy for study sessions. She seemed to enjoy my company, and it wasn’t her fault, after all, that I was in love with her. One Sunday, she stopped studying and looked across the coffee table at me. “Oh, Sonny, I’m so glad we’re such good friends!” she gushed.

      “Me too, Dorothy,” I answered, lying. Never had friend been such an awful word.

      Emily Sue caught me staring unhappily at Dorothy in the auditorium one morning. Dorothy was holding hands with her latest, a senior basketball player, and I had my lip out about it. Emily Sue sat down in front of me and put her arm up on the seat, looking over it at me. Because she was plump, was a brilliant scholar, and had big, round glasses that gave her face an owllike appearance, it might have been expected that Emily Sue wasn’t popular with the boys, but she was. For one thing, she was one of the best dancers in school. But to me, Emily Sue was what I came to think of as a forever friend, somebody I could tell the truth to without fear of reproach. I just instinctively knew that about her. She also seemed to possess a wisdom far beyond our years. “So what are you going to do about her?” she asked me, nodding toward Dorothy.

      “Nothing I can do,” I shrugged, working hard to be nonchalant.

      Emily Sue inspected me. “She likes you, Sonny, but to her you’re just her special little friend. That’s probably not ever going to change.”

      Her words were like knives plunged into my heart. I abandoned all pretense. “But why?” I whined. “What’s wrong with me?”

      “There’s nothing wrong with you,” Emily Sue said. “You’re one of the nicest, friendliest kids in this school. Everybody likes you, Sonny. You know why? You like yourself. Look at your brother. He dresses great, he’s a football star, he’s a wonderful dancer—God knows, I love to dance with him—and there’s a lot of girls after him all the time. He’s a big man on campus, but he doesn’t really have any friends. That’s why I think he goes out with so many girls. He’s trying to find someone who will like him for who he is, not because he’s a big football star. Dorothy’s the same way. She’s happy you’re her little friend but she’s going to keep looking somewhere else for love.”