monotone words from Mrs. Barclay's mouth, all thirty-four other children turned with the teacher to view the mammoth apparition in the doorway. Nothing was said for a long time, and Martha, next to me began to fidget. Finally Mrs. Barclay opened her sour mouth and said, "This is the fifth grade classroom, and I am Mrs. Barclay. What is it you need young man?" Everything was quiet. I'm sure most of the other kids expected him to be a man-eater. The sweat continued its trickle down the red face. "My dad says I'm sposed to be here," came the low, gurgling words from some deeply embedded organ. Mrs. Barclay looked perplexed. I smiled at the bent smile on her cracked lips. I really think she didn't know what to do. After a few tense seconds, she walked unsteadily down to the boy. I presumed that she took him up to the principal's office because I heard the stairs leading to that high and holy sanctuary creaking under his mammoth weight. With no teacher in the room the class took the cue to make the noisy kind of fun that fifth graders like. Silence cut the air sharply as soon as a few of us heard the creak of the stairs outside the room, signalling the descent of our teacher. She went back to her desk as if nothing had happened and finished the story in her usual manner; but disconcerted, I listened. The next morning after the tardy bell had rung and after Mrs. Barclay had called the roll, I felt the floor bounce and looked up to see the giant waddling behind my desk. He tried to stuff himself into the only desk left in the room, two away from me on the back row; but they were bolted to the floor; and he only caused a crescendo of chuckles to rise and lapse as he grunted in disgust at his inability to fit. Mrs. Barclay walked in elevated quiet to he rear of the room and carried a straight-back chair up to the side of the immovable desk. "Sit here," she demanded, and that was about all she did say to the boy except to occasionally ask him a question and make it a point of explaining how stupid he was as he sat in placid embarrassment and of course, to call his name, "Thaddeus Dickson," in an exaggerated way. From then on, Giant, as I called him, came to school every day and sat, panting and sweating, in the hot September air that was encased permanently in the half-century old room of Richter Elementary. Roommates jeered and giggled. The teacher criticized him mercilessly, and he sat with glazed, squinting eyes that reflected his impervious rind. I never questioned why I didn't see him at recess. I was always too involved in the activities myself, which at this time of the year centered around a few select boys monopolizing the gravel recreation area to play a few minutes of work-up and keeping the tough girls out of the game. One blue and yellow day at morning recess while I was waiting for Billy Stark to bat he kept refusing to swing unless it was right where he wanted it so I could get my ups, I squinted over to the side of me and saw the giant leaning against a rotted telephone pole. I felt a little surprised that the pole didn't topple under his weight, and then for some inexplicable reason I said, "Hey, you want to take my ups?" I think I was just trying to be smart, but I still said it. He looked right at me with that ever-bland expression on his red face and said, "Sure." Billy hit a hard grounder out to the short fence that enclosed the playground and got on second. The giant lumbered over, and I handed up the bat. He stood over the stick-made home plate and held the bat back like a golf club. Harvey Billings pitched the softball, and on the first pitch, Giant slapped it high over the telephone wires that travelled parallel to the fence and high above it. I popped with pride that I had given him my ups as I watched the ball hit on the roof of a house across the street and roll off onto the lawn. Billy was heading for home as Thaddeus started toward first. Tim Rodgers was stationed in the street because the better hitters often hit the ball over the fence but not with the parabolic trajectory of the last hit nor with the distance. As the giant rounded second base, looking like a skinned bear walking on his hind legs, Tim got the ball over the fence. But before some other boy could put the tag on him, the giant's legs gave out under all that weight in motion; and he fell, scraping at the gravel with an agonizing disappointment on his face. The rest of the boys forgot the hit and began laughing uproariously at the pathetic mound of flesh on the ground. I stayed at home plate for a minute; but when I saw that he was not crying hurt tears, only letting disappointment tears mix and run with the sweat, I went out to him to help him up. His mouth dropped open a little when he looked at me as I was tugging at his scraped arm to get him on his feet. I was as big as any of the other fifth graders, but it turned One of the most striking differences between a cat and a lie is that a cat has only nine lives Mark Twain 30 out to be impossible for me to do anything about getting him on his feet, and at last it became nothing less than a gesture on my part to help which he accepted. He slowly got up. Right then the end-of-recess-bell rang. All the kids ran screaming and laughing into the three-story, red brick building, but I held onto the back of his arm and walked with him to the nurse's office to get his gravel-cuts fixed. From then on I became Giant's champion. I didn't take charge of the stupid hulk for any idealistic reason that I can think of. In fact, it actually jeopardized my social status. I was one of the most popular boys in the school, and I had a special and certainly comfortable position to maintain. I guess due to my knack for clowning and by virtue of being smart enough to stay up with the brains in the school and because of my athletic abilities, I attained the enviable rank of being friends with the tough guys in school and of being liked by the others who were smart and led the class but didn't like fights. I was pretty much left alone by Mrs. Barclay who could care less about gifted pupils but who seemed intent on teaching Linden Parmley who everyone knew had been dropped on his head and was retarded to read and write. When Giant and I became friends, those who had previously not bothered me on any account, now began to make smart remarks to me, usually in class when I wasn't able to defend them, and to pick fights after school. If it weren't for the crazy fascination I had for this overgrown mammal, I would surely have joined with the rest in calling him Lardy, Elephant, Blob, and the rest of the sharp names and in pushing him as I walked by, and in laughing whenever he made an inappropriate response in class. As it was, I found myself defending him to my friends, and making excuses for his stupidity. I didn't even speak to him, at least not more than simple greetings, and couldn't really call him my friend; but for some reason I felt a fast-beating pain in my heart whenever Giant was tormented by anyone. Early October of that year stands out in my mind because the Brooklyn Dodgers beat the New York Yankees in seven games and Dad won fifty dollars in a pool. The next week was a happy week, sunny and warm until Wednesday afternoon after recess. Giant wasn't around at recess and didn't come in until fifteen minutes after the rest of us had been seated in class. He walked in quieter than usual except for hidden sobs that gurgled from deep within. I watched him closely as he sat in his chair and stared ahead with that fat-forced squint, all the time sobbing in soft bursts. Mrs. Barclay was annoyed and called him up to the front of the class. "Whatever is the matter Thaddeus?" she asked in her peremptory manner, standing with long manicured fingers spread on high hips. "Nothing," he said with his head down and with his chest heaving intermittently. "Come now, Thaddeus, it is obvious that something is wrong. What is it?" Sitting at the back of the class, I heard every word. He almost whispered something about his shirt, and then Mrs. Barclay and he left the room. I waited, not participating in the hilarity of the class. In a few minutes Mrs. Barclay came back alone. The next morning I left early for school and ran and walked the four blocks to wait on the sandstone front steps of the school for Giant. The nine o'clock bell rang, and the tardy bell rang, but he didn't show up. I stayed five more minutes; and then, as I looked in the direction of a railroad whistle, I saw him slowly moving up the street toward the school. When he got up the steps, I smiled at him; but he had his head down and couldn't see. He almost walked past me until I said, "Hey Thad. Just a minute." He stopped on the steps and looked up. "What?" he said. I turned my head sideways and smiled. "Sit down a minute," I said. "I want to talk to you." I sat. He didn't move, then turned, and let the weight carry him down. "I want to find out what went on yesterday," I said, continuing to smile encouragement to him. "Mrs. Barclay never says nothing when she goes out the class with somebody." He didn't look at me, but rested his forearms on his knees. "Nothing," he said. It was then that I smelled the sickly sweet smell of his body and noticed for the first time that the clothes he was wearing were the same ones he wore every day, the same shoes without socks, the same pants, and the same dirty shirt, except that the front of the shirt where it hangs out over the pants, where the dirt was, was torn in a long, shredded line. I cringed a bit. "Come on, Giant, I'm your friend," I found myself saying. "You can rely on me." I don't know if it was the novelty of someone professing friendship for this singular human or simply that someone had said more than three words to him without saying something negative, but whatever it was, he responded by telling me what had happened the day before. During recess he had gone to the opposite side of the school from the playground to sit on the grass by himself. As had happened before, one of the younger kids, a fourth grader named Frankie, had seen him going off by himself and had gone over to tease him. Frankie had called 31