He marched out ahead of me, and I followed his trail of cigarette smells. I told myself I didn’t care if he was mad. What was he to me? Finally, after we were back in Brookford and had crossed the swinging bridge and were pulling our books out of the hollow log, he decided to talk to me. “Bledsoe,” he said, “I never should’ve taken up with the likes of you. You’re a moron, is what you are.” “Huh. If I’m a moron, then I guess that makes you an oxymoron.” He snorted. “You don’t even know what that means.” “It means you’re a bigger moron than I am. That’s what it means.” I did feel bad about messing everything up with that stupid cigarette, but I didn’t let on. “They weren’t going to take us anyway,” I said. “They would have. If you hadn’t tried to act all manly when you obviously aren’t.” “Oh, yeah? At least I can grow a beard if I take a notion.” That shut him up. At least for a little while. “Our goose is cooked,” he said. “We played hooky and we can’t even tell Old Lady Hinkle we joined the army.
