Chapter 2: Candy Pants

September 1994

I avoided Kelly as much as possible, but I couldn’t avoid her completely. That was because her father worked at the bank, and the bank supported the team. That was the Matucket Cherokees, the Pee Wee football team. Mom had refused to let me join last year, but now that I was nine, she had relented and allowed me to join. The season started in August, and I spent most of my time on the bench, but playing football was cool. We had practice four nights a week after school, and Mom or Dad would take me to that, and then we played on Saturday. The bad part was that Kelly’s father ran the bank and the bank supported the team, so he and Mrs. O’Connor and Kelly had to come to the Saturday games. She would wave at me, and I would turn away and ignore her.

School started that August, like normal, and I ended up talking to Kelly again. I had been avoiding her as much as I could, but the bus stop was right in front of her house, and I couldn’t get out of seeing her again. Luckily, she was a grade behind me, so it wasn’t like I even had to sit with her on the bus. I was in the fourth grade, and we had our own seats towards the back of the bus. Next year, I’d be able to sit all the way in the back with the other fifth graders.

Matucket Plains Elementary was grades kindergarten through five. After the fifth grade you went to Matucket Middle School and then after the eighth grade you went to Matucket High. I asked my father about that one time. “How come everything around here is named Matucket?”

He smiled and shrugged. “Probably because a guy named Matucket founded the town.”

“He did?”

Dad nodded. “Back after the Revolutionary War a soldier named Captain Matthew Matucket decided to lead a group of pioneers west and look for a place to live. They got here and liked it, so they started a town. He filed claims on everything he could and named everything after himself. There’s Matucket City, and Matucket County, and Matucket Creek, and Mount Matucket, only that’s not so much a mountain as an overgrown hill.”

“And East Matucket?”

“No that was years later, when some people moved from Matucket a few miles east.”

“And Lake Matucket.”

“No, that was after they dammed Matucket Creek to make the reservoir. Captain Matucket was long gone by then.”

“Are there still any Matuckets around? Do they own the town or something?”

“Nope, they all died around a hundred years ago. Nothing left now but the name.”

Anyway, I was in the fourth grade. Matucket Plains was built sort of in an L-shape and was two floors. The bottom floor held the kindergarten and the first two grades, the cafeteria, and the crawlspace. I heard the crawlspace was used as a bomb shelter back when it was first built. That sounded cool, but I looked in there once and it was totally filthy and full of junk. Upstairs were the third, fourth, and fifth grades. Each grade had their own classrooms, though on the second floor you had lockers out in the hallway. Downstairs you stayed in your classrooms.

I heard once that the classes were laid out like that so you didn’t have the big kids next to the little kids; that could cause trouble. I didn’t really understand what that meant until I got to the fourth grade. I was in the hallway when I heard a crash, like somebody had fallen against a locker, and I went around the corner. I saw a big kid pushing Bo Effner against a locker. Bo was in the fourth grade like me, and even smaller than me, and this guy was bigger than either of us. “I said, give me your money!” he told Bo.

“Hey!” I yelled.

The big kid turned to face me and said, “Shut up and get lost, or you’re next!”

I knew who it was as soon as he turned around. It was a new kid in school, Candy Pants. His real name was Randall Caniday Holden, and he had just transferred in from East Matucket Elementary. He’d been called Candy Pants almost from his first day at Matucket Plains, but if you think it was a play on his middle name (Caniday - ‘Candy’) you’re wrong. No, it was because on his first day in school he decided to eat a Hershey bar in class, and when the teacher, Mrs. Morris, turned around, he stuffed it in his pants pocket. He couldn’t finish it, and by the time he could, it had melted, and he had chocolate all over his pants. He was known as Candy Pants since that first day.

I don’t think he liked the name all that much, which was another problem with nicknames. Once you’ve got one, you’re stuck with it forever. If you yell and complain, you just look like a pussy, and people will call you by the nickname even more. Once you have a nickname, you just have to live with it, good or bad.

“Leave him alone, Candy Pants!” I said.

Candy Pants shoved Bo against the lockers again and turned to advance on me, but before he could get close, a teacher came around the corner and came down the hall. He took off at that, and I saw that Bo had gone into a classroom. I followed him in.

“What’d Candy Pants want?”

“Nothing!” he replied.

“Bo, he wanted some money. What’d he want?”

“Nothing! Leave me alone!” He turned away and went to his seat, and I had to sit down because Mrs. Campbell came in.

Something wasn’t right, and I thought about telling Mrs. Campbell, but Bo didn’t want to do anything. I knew there was a problem when Bo came to school the next morning and had a bruise on his right cheek. I asked him about it, and he mumbled something about tripping and hitting the door, but I also noticed he skipped lunch. Bo was a real little guy. I wondered if Candy Pants had taken his lunch money. You had to pay for lunch, but some of us brought in money every day and some brought in money once a week and paid ahead of time. I know Bo usually paid every day. Maybe he didn’t have any money. You could usually go light a day and pay it the next day, but then he’d have to tell his parents.

Candy Pants must have figured a life of crime was a good paying job. That afternoon I found myself shoved against a locker from behind. “You little pussy! I want your money tomorrow. You pay me and you don’t get what your pussy friend got!”

“I don’t pay until Friday!” I squawked.

“Then Friday you pay me everything!” Candy Pants shoved me against the lockers a few more times and then walked away.

I noticed Bo and another kid not eating lunch the next day, so Candy Pants was expanding his circle. I didn’t want to snitch to my parents any more than Bo did, but I had another problem. My mom would give me a $10 bill to pay for my lunches, and the cafeteria lunch lady would give me a note to take home when I ran out of money. No way did I want to pay Candy Pants ten bucks! I’d never eat again! Mom gave me a $10 bill Thursday night in an envelope. Then, that night, the solution came to me. I was watching a TV show and the bad guys were caught with marked bills. I asked Dad about that, and he told me that banks and police sometimes put invisible ink on money. I didn’t have any invisible ink, but I did have a fine tip pen with black ink. I wrote my name as small as I could on both the front and back of the bill, near where there was some other writing, and stuffed it back in the envelope.

Friday morning Candy Pants braced me before I even got in the building. He pulled me around the corner from where the school bus dropped us off, and before I could even do anything he punched me twice in the stomach. I doubled over, but he grabbed me again and pushed me upright, and then hit me a third time. My eyes were almost watering, but I decided to tough it out.

“Where’s my money, pussy?” he demanded. He shoved me back against the wall of the school.

“My pocket ... it’s in my pocket,” I stammered out. It wasn’t an act, either. My stomach hurt and I was scared.

“Give it to me! Now!”

I pulled the envelope out of my pocket and handed it to him. He let me go and I moved to leave, but he shoved me back into the wall and opened the envelope. He saw the ten and must have figured he hit the mother lode. His face lit up and he said, “I want another $10 on Monday. You’re a rich kid, aren’t you?” I never had a chance to answer since I got another shot to the stomach before I could say anything. He took off and I took my time to straighten up and catch my breath.

Screw this! No way was I going through this again! After I entered the school, instead of turning left to go down the hallway towards my locker, I turned right and went into the school office.

The school secretary, Miss Barnes, looked up at me. She was the only nice person there. She normally made the school announcements every morning, and was kind of pretty, I suppose, though she was almost as old as my mother. “Yes? Can I help you?” she asked, smiling at me.

“I was just robbed of my lunch money,” I reported.