Cha. 8 D.A's Mistake

D.A. skipped brightly into the cafeteria with a wave of other students. She had braided her blond hair with bangs feathered off to the sides this morning, a touch that looked especially cute on D.A. Now she hummed to herself as she stepped in line to get her food, wondering if a cheerful approach to her unhappy friends would make a difference. She was going to try, since Carlos would make no effort to do it!

But when she reached their usual table, Carlos was missing. Puzzled, she placed her tray next to Pheobe's and sat down. "Hey, guys," she said brightly.

"Yo, D.A," Keesha mumbled, picking up her spoon and plunging it into her Jell-O. "I see Ralphie is too scared to sit with someone he robbed recently." She glared at the boy with the baseball cap positioned backward on his head like usual. He was sitting at a different table with several other kids, and they had all taken an interest in him. He was busy talking.

Nobody felt like replying to Keesha's comment. D.A. felt the mood in all her sensitivity, and rolled her eyes. "C'mon, people!" she exclaimed. "Can't you learn to forgive and forget?" It's a good thing Carlos didn't hear what I just said, D.A. thought with a slight shudder. He would think she was being unreasonable.

But so did everyone else. "Yeah right," Keesha snapped. "Forgive a guy that won't even admit he did something wrong or act ashamed about it? No thanks, I prefer to keep my dignity!"

"But he seems too nervous to be around you," Pheobe suggested timidly, glancing over at Ralphie with concern.

"And anyway, you made him shut up," Wanda reminded her impatiently. "What's he suppose to do?"

"Chicken-liver," Keesha muttered darkly, glaring at the unsuspecting boy. "There's one word that I might hear from him-and that is 'sorry'. But I don't even get that!"

D.A felt her head begin to ache. Along with the aching came a sudden irritation against Keesha and Ralphie both. Why couldn't they keep their stupid mouths shut? Why did they always have to fight? It was exasperating!

"Oh, Wanda, how was the movie last night?" Arnold asked politely, though not at all curious to hear the horrendous details Wanda usually drowned him in.

But today, her sweet little face that usually sparked up with excitement looked gloomy. "It sucked," she said shortly.

"Then I'm glad I didn't go," Arnold added just as quickly, bending over his soup.

Wanda looked even sadder. Almost heartbroken. D.A. had the sudden tense feeling she might cry.

Pheobe reached for her apple and polished it. "Not scary enough?" She flicked her auburn hair out of her face. Apparently, she hadn't seen Wanda's expression.

"No," Wanda said bitterly. "I didn't even look at it. Probably was. Who cares? That's not the point, is it?"

"For you it always is," Arnold pointed out, trying to somehow cheer her up. But she would not be comforted. D.A. wondered, at Arnold's expression, if he was worrying over something again. She looked around to see if Janet was strutting by ... but then she saw Carlos coming toward them.

"Hey," D.A. said, determined to break the ice. "What's up?"

Carlos placed his tray down on the table and laughed bitterly. "I'm adopted."

"What?" Arnold and Pheobe gasped.

"Oh, come on," Tim muttered, not even looking up from his drawing. "When will you two realize you're helping him enjoy his stupid comments? Very good one, Carlos. And the sarcastic smirk on your face is a great touch for the character I'm sketching."

"Stupid-yeah, stupid," Carlos said scornfully, taking a little container of fries off his tray. "I am adopted. Welcome to the real world."

"Did you talk to your parents?" D.A. asked hopefully, unable to keep the sympathetic light out of her emotional blue eyes.

"My parents?" Carlos stared at her. "Are they, D.A?" He paused and kept looking her straight in the sympathetic blue eye. "Are they really?"

"Hold it-wait a minute-back up!" Keesha ordered, holding out her hands as if to push away a giant object. "Are you saying that you're not kidding?" Her brown eyes widened. "And that ... you only recently discovered that you're ... you're adopted? Impossible!"

Now her eyes were as large as Arnold's, Pheobe's, and everyone else around the table.

"Yes-he's adopted!" D.A. snapped, a bit louder than she intended to, for someone heard it from a table nearby.

"Adopted? Really? Hmm, sounds interesting," came a mocking voice toward them. Janet model-walked up to the table, screeched to a halt, and placed her tray daintily on the tabletop next to Tim's. Tim inched away resentfully.

"Adopted, you say? And everybody looked at the black-haired, wiry boy sitting on the other end of this table. I assume, by my detective skills, that you were talking about him. Well, that is interesting. Something that ought to be put in the school's paper, of course ... I can see the headline: Carlos So-Called-Ramone Reveals Stunning Truth About Being-"

"Don't you say that word-Janet Perl-stink!" Carlos jumped off his chair, two scarlet spots on his cheeks and rage dancing in his brown eyes.

"Oohh, that will make a pretty paragraph!" Janet said, her eyes sparkling evilly. "Carlos blindly announces his fate of being hatched and then makes a pathetic show about it." She laughed with delight.

"I did not-I did not tell you!" Carlos cried, beside himself like never before. He turned his flashing eyes around the other kids, who all leaned forward tensely. His eyes rested on D.A., and suddenly darkened till they looked almost black. "D.A ... why did you do that?"

"Do what?" D.A. gasped breathlessly, inwardly groaning about being so wrong earlier. Her cheerful approach had never had an effect. "Carlos, I didn't mean to! You said so yourself and I just didn't think-"

"Whatever." Carlos held up his hand. "Doesn't matter now ... anyway. You might as well tell the whole school." He left the table then, but just before he turned away, D.A. caught a hurt, emotion-accented look on his face that he hadn't thought she would see, and she felt horrible.

He had changed. Completely. And she wasn't helping matters in the least.

...

Nobody exactly knew what happened that afternoon before school let out for the day. Some say Dorothy Ann did it-but most people still say today that she wouldn't have had the grit to do what was done. Still others-and I share my opinion with them-believe that Dorothy Ann did have some evil determination inside of her, and that during the rare times that it she suddenly possessed it, she reacted in a way that would have filled curious on-lookers with delightful horror.

But, if D.A. really did do it, she didn't do it for others to publish in the school paper. So nobody ever knew exactly what happened, but people that saw Janet afterward could clearly see she had experienced a nosebleed. And D.A. looked very spirited and determined for the rest of the day.

But surprisingly and fortunately, there was nothing hateful written about the Hispanic boy in the school paper-his pride couldn't have taken it anyway, and Mother Nature must have known.

D.A. came face-to-face with Carlos after school as she was going back to her locker to retrieve a forgotten something, and he was on his way out. They stood right in front of each other, each so startled at the unexpected turn of events to step aside and let the other pass.

D.A. felt a bit nervous for some reason. Carlos was just standing there, looking at her with the most innocent look in his eyes and his black hair nearly hiding his eyebrows because it fell that way. She could smell the soft scent of his perfume and suddenly became very self-conscious. This was her best bud and she had hurt him. If anybody was going to say anything between them, it would have to start with her.

"Um, Carlos?"

"Yeah?" He looked at her a bit suspiciously, still not moving from where he was standing in front of her. He didn't seem to feel the need to move, and seemed completely comfortable reading her feelings through her eyes. He could read her, like always. Carlos was smart that way.

"May I sit with you on the bus?" she asked bluntly. She hadn't known it would come out that way, but she liked the blunt, careless way she spoke the words.

"Sure." Carlos said that uncertainly, but she caught a hint of relief in his voice. He even waited for her as she ran back to retrieve her forgotten something, and they walked to the bus together. D.A. felt that this time things would turn out good.

As soon as they took a seat close to the back of the bus, D.A. worked up her courage and spoke. "Hey ... are you still mad at me?"

Carlos looked at her quickly, but when he saw the fearful look on her innocent expression, he couldn't keep his heart from melting. He forced a half smile and touched her fingers slightly. "Forget it, D.A."

Relief washed over Dorothy Ann like a cooling wave in a desert. She sat up straighter. "Well, I'm ... I'm sorry. I didn't mean to say that-and with that kind of volume, either!"

"It's okay." Carlos paused, glancing out the window. "Yeah ... don't worry about it."

"Good," D.A. responded, her voice bolder and more cheerful now. "I'd hate for us to be fighting like everyone else is. Have you noticed?"

"Noticed ... not really." Carlos shrugged. "I guess I just thought everything was so gloomy and dull because I felt that way."

D.A. nodded. She wished she knew the right words to cheer him up about what had happened. But there was really nothing she could do but lend a sympathetic ear. His parents would have to be the ones to make it right with him-and he would have to be the one that started speaking to them.

"I hope you've talked with your parents about this," D.A. found herself saying. It was really just a thought, but it came out.

Carlos didn't look offended, but he looked troubled. "I can't. Gene would tell me how right it was that they never brought it up and I should be grateful he took me in as his own son. And Sophie would cry ... and that's about all she'd do." He flinched slightly. "Over what, I would never know!"

A cold feeling swept through D.A. when she heard her best friend call his parents by their first names, like they were some unimportant human characters he was referring to. He hadn't called them "Dad" and "Mom", and that hurt her in their stead. She loved Mrs. Ramone because she was like her second mother. If Carlos would be harsh and cold to her, D.A. never wanted to hear about it!

Carlos slouched in his seat defiantly. "And if I talk to them, I won't say the right stuff. D.A, I don't know. These days I wonder where I actually came from, and who my real parents were. Why didn't they keep me? Where are they?" He had that unhappy, bewildered look on his face again. "I'm sure they didn't want to get rid of me ... do you, D.A?"

D.A. shook her head. "No, Carlos. They couldn't have. You saw the pictures."

Suddenly, Carlos' eyes brightened. "You're right! We looked pretty happy together, didn't we?"

"And you looked like a little squirt," D.A. giggled.

Carlos looked thoughtful. "I'm sure they cared about me."

The way he tried to convince himself touched her. It must feel strange to not know anything about yourself-and to try assuring yourself that your past wasn't as bad as it sounded. She knew then that she would do anything to prove that his parents never meant to give him up.

"And they must be out there somewhere," Carlos was saying. "I'm ... I'm going to find them!"

The sudden resolution in his voice alarmed D.A. She turned to him in surprise. "What do you mean?"

"What I mean?" A dark, but spirited look crept into Carlos' eyes and his voice rang with determination. "It's just like it sounds. Well, here's where I lived up till now, I guess. See-ya, D.A." With that, he slung his backpack over his shoulder and hurried out of the bus.

D.A. sat, a mixture of feelings stirring inside her. She didn't know how to sort them out. She was a little scared, not-so-surprised at her friend's confidence, and also confused. Carlos wouldn't do anything as stupid as ... as run away, would he?

"Hey, D.A," Keesha's voice came from above her.

D.A. looked up. "Hi, Keesha. Have a seat."

"Thanks," Keesha dropped herself down beside D.A. and plopped her backpack on the floor at her feet. "I decided to come back here because my house is one of the last destinations for this bus. I'd be home a lot sooner if we could ride on Ms. Frizzle's bus. I wish we'd have a field trip sometime again. It's boring sitting with Tim. All he does is draw, and when he starts drawing, he never stops to tell you anything interesting. D.A, what's wrong?"

The flow of comments had finally stopped with an abrupt question of obvious concern. D.A. sighed and stopped scrolling up and down her iPod. She stuffed it in her backpack and dropped her chin on her hands. "I'm just a bit worried, I guess," she muttered.

"You?" Keesha sounded surprised. "What's the problem?"

"I know this may sound weird coming from me, okay?" D.A. snapped. "But I'm worried about Carlos! There's something going on inside his head and it's not gonna take him anywhere good! He should know that!"

"Wow ... somebody's upset ... ?" Keesha inched away, staring at her. "And another thing-the only thing you really care about is that he's wrong and you're right-remember? Since when did this start?" She looked very curious.

"Keesh, you don't understand," D.A. sighed, picking up her backpack to get off the bus. She flicked her blond bangs away from her eyes. "He's a friend of mine, alright? Besides, I feel like I ought to keep him from doing something stupid since I was with him when all this started. 'Bye!" Without a backward glance, D.A. raced down the aisle and out the bus doors.

Her heart pounded as she reached the front door of her house. Her little sister was shouting and chasing their dog in the back yard. D.A. thrust the door open and stepped in, dropping her backpack on the floor. She wasn't hungry for a snack, and she told her mother so before running up the staircase to her bedroom.

She had homework to finish-lots ... and lots ... of homework!