Loser by Jerry Spinelli Page B

out from behind the furnace now, he knows it, he feels it. The Monster is in front of the furnace and is moving toward the stairway. The Monster is inches in front of his face now, he can touch it if he reaches out…or takes one more step…
    â€¦the scar is singing…
    He doesn’t think about it, he just does it. Two steps from the bottom he turns and runs back up the stairs.
    In the dazzling light of the kitchen he rips the sock from his mouth. He stands gasping over a chair. He thinks of the two steps he stopped short of. He has failed. Flunked his own test. He thinks about it for several moments. He hears his mother’s voice on the phone, upstairs. He listens. He heads off to play with Polly.
    Four days later he goes back to school.

15. Discovered
    In fourth grade Zinkoff is discovered.
    He has been there all along, of course, in the neighborhood, in the school, for ten years. He is already known as the kid who laughs too much and, until his operation, the kid who throws up. In fact, in order to get himself discovered, Zinkoff does not do a single thing he hasn’t already done a thousand times.
    As with all discoveries, it is the eye and not the object that changes.
    The discovery of Zinkoff, which will take place gradually over the course of the year, begins on the first day of school. The teacher is Mr. Yalowitz. He is the class’s first man teacher. Mr. Yalowitz stands up front holding the stack of roll cards. He looks carefully at each card, as if he is memorizing every name. Then he begins toshuffle the cards, rearranging their places in the stack. When he finishes he puts the stack down. He lifts off the top card. “Zinkoff,” he says, his eyes never leaving the card. “Donald Zinkoff. Where are you?”
    Zinkoff, knowing by now where he belongs, has already gone straight to the boondocks: last seat, far corner. He jumps to attention. “Here, sir!” he calls out.
    A smile crosses the teacher’s face. He looks up. “Zinkoff…Zinkoff…You want to know something, Zinkoff?”
    â€œYes, sir!”
    â€œYou’re the first Z I’ve ever had in my class. It’s not easy being a Z, is it, Zzzzinkoff?”
    To tell the truth, Zinkoff has never thought much about it. “I don’t know, sir.”
    â€œWell, it’s not easy, take my word for it. I was a Y. Always the last seat in the class. Always the last one in line for this or that. Doomed by the alphabet. What do you think about that, Zinkoff?”
    Zinkoff doesn’t know what to think aboutthat, and he says so. As for the rest of the class, they’re thinking, So this is fourth grade . They don’t know if it’s being one more grade up, or if it’s this man teacher with his gruff man way of talking, but they’re liking it and starting to feel pretty puffy about themselves.
    The teacher points. “Zinkoff, how’d you like to experience life in the first row?”
    Zinkoff’s eyes boggle.
    The teacher waves grandly. “Come on up here, boy!”
    Zinkoff cries out “Yahoo!” and races up front.
    By the time the teacher is done, Zinkoff is in seat number one and Rachel Abano is in the boondocks. Joining Zinkoff on the front row are a W, a V and two T’s.
    Thanks to teacher Yalowitz, the first person to discover Zinkoff is Zinkoff. Unlike his teachers in grades two and three, this one seems delighted with him. He is forever making pronouncements that give Zinkoff new views of himself. Every morning the first week, for example, as soon as Zinkoff enters the classroom, the teacherproclaims, “And the Z shall be first!”
    One day as he arrives for work at 7:30 A.M ., the teacher spots Zinkoff, alone on the playground, coming down the sliding board. He calls out, “You’ll be early to your own funeral, boy!”
    Like Zinkoff’s previous teachers, Mr. Yalowitz notes his atrocious handwriting. “Master Z,” he