Loser

In June, Satterfield Elementary celebrates its annual Field Day: a day of games and fun for the students. Fourth and fifth graders participate in various relay races, from a sack race to a hopping-backwards race. Mr. Yalowitz coaches his students; he calls the other fourth-grade teacher, Mrs. Serota, and her classes “measles” and gives each group of runners headbands in their team color.

Donald’s purple team is the best except for him—he keeps falling behind, no matter what race they’re running—but the other team members make up for it. The final race is a simple relay run, and the Purples only need to do better than last place to win the championship. Their fastest runner, Gary Hobin, expects to run the last leg for the win, but Mr. Yalowitz stuns the team and chooses Donald.

The first leg starts, and the runners dash across the field and tag the second-leg runners, who run all the way back to the start. The Purples’ third runner, Hobin, starts behind but pulls way ahead, giving Donald a big lead. Hobin tags Donald, who tries his best but gets passed by every other team. The Purples come in dead last and lose the championship. Angry, they kick dirt at Donald, and call him a loser: “‘Loser.’ ‘Loser.’ ‘Loser.’ ‘Loser.’ ‘Loser’” (107).

That night at dinner, Donald’s folks ask him how Field Day went; he shrugs until Polly asks if he won. He screams “No!” and runs upstairs in tears. His father, knowing Donald loves to ride with him in the car, takes him for a cruise around town in their latest rattletrap, Clunker Six. They don’t talk much but just drive around town. Donald realizes that his dad will always be there for him, no matter what.

Donald enters fifth grade, the highest grade at Satterfield and the one with the most status. He likes being at the top until he begins to overhear the word “loser” whispered whenever he’s nearby. It’s as if the walls and clocks are saying it to him.

At first, Donald hardly notices: He’s busy growing up. He has discarded his childhood beliefs in Santa Claus and the Furnace Monster—he’s still afraid of the cellar, though—and congratulations from his mom no longer come with paper stars. He practices a more mature laugh. He no longer cares about his giraffe hat. He rides a used bicycle with a rattle; he calls his bike Clinker One.

Sometimes he rides over to Willow Street to look at the Waiting Man. The old lady who thanked him when he delivered his made-up mail still waves; each time he rides past, Donald hands her another how-are-you letter. A toddler on a leash, Claudia, always tries to give Donald something—a pebble, a used piece of chewing gum—and he always accepts it.

Sometimes Donald rides down Halftank Hill, where kids love to slide or roll in summer and sled in winter. He loves the feeling of speed, especially when no one times it.

Donald is too busy exploring, growing, and having fun to notice that no one at school likes him.

The fifth-grade teacher, Mrs. Shankfelder, hands out a personality test that asks questions like, “What does he think about this? Why does he do that? Which one of these does he prefer?” (119) Near the end, a fill-the-blank question asks Donald to name his best friend. He’s stumped. He looks around the class and notices one kid up near the front, Hector Binns. Donald writes down Hector’s name.

At recess, he approaches Hector, who’s busy digging wax from his ear with a paper clip and putting the result in a small plastic bottle. Donald asks who he wrote for a best friend, and Hector replies, “Nobody.” Nobody turns out to be his pet lizard. Hector pulls licorice from a pack and chews it. Donald says he wrote Hector as his best friend, adding that while he knows they aren’t best friends, maybe they could be. Hector replies, “When I get enough wax I’m gonna make a candle” (126). From that moment, they’re best friends.

At home, Donald casually lets on that he has a new best friend, a kid who loves licorice and collects ear wax to make into a candle. A few days later, Donald visits Hector’s house, where he meets Nobody the lizard and sees the first bottle of ear wax, already full.

Soon Donald chews licorice, defends Hector against kids who taunt him, and invites him to a sleepover, where Hector tosses and turns so violently that Zinkoff ends up sleeping on the floor. He even collects his own ear wax and offers it to Hector, who turns it down.

Hector becomes remote, and one day Donald realizes the friendship is over. Later that day, he gets an A on a big geography test. It’s his first A on a major test and the only A among the students. Mrs. Shankfelder holds it up for the class to see, and the other kids cheer. All day he gets compliments—“‘The Zink!’ ‘The Z man!’ ‘The genius!’ ‘The Zinkster!’” (134-35)—and, though many of these are meant to mock him, Donald enjoys how everyone seems happy. He thinks his lucky bubblegum rock, made from Claudia’s toddler gifts years earlier, helped him get the top grade.

Field Day approaches, and students are assigned to teams randomly. By chance, Donald and Gary Hobin again belong to the same team. At lunch, Hobin warns Donald to find another team. He tries, but the other captains reject him.

On the day of the race, Donald ditches school. Instead, he wanders around town, seeing it for the first time without other kids, noticing little details, but feeling lonely. On Willow Street, the old lady with the walker greets him—“Oh, mailman!”—and invites him in.

The old lady’s house is fairly dark inside. It takes her forever to move across the living room and into the kitchen. She asks what he’d like to eat. He wants a snickerdoodle, but she has none, so he settles for a peanut butter sandwich. He asks her about the Waiting Man, but she doesn’t know him, so he explains about him.

He asks if she happens to have any stick-on stars. She does, and she goes to fetch them. She comes back instead with a sticker shaped like a turkey. Donald puts it on his shirt and begins to tell her about his life, from the giraffe hat and Andrew to Hector’s ear wax and Field Day. As he shares all this, including his many failures, he weeps with relief.

When he leaves, the other kids are coming home from school: “The air feels cool and new, the air feels good upon his face” (153).

Gary Hobin’s team wins Field Day. For days after, he and the other team members wear their medals proudly and receive congratulations. For the rest of the spring, Hobin is “King of the School” (154).

At graduation, Donald plays flute in the orchestra onstage. Students receive achievement awards. Mr. Yalowitz attends, and Donald realizes he’ll miss him and everything else about Satterfield Elementary, even the bad parts. Once again, tears fill his eyes.

The students walk up in alphabetical order to receive their diplomas. At each name, people cheer, louder for some graduates than for others. Donald can’t find his family in the audience, and he fears no one will cheer for him. When finally they call his name, he’s still searching for his family and doesn’t hear. They call again, and suddenly he realizes it’s his turn; he lurches up, trips over the clarinetist, and sprawls out on the stage. Everyone laughs; he laughs with them, bows, and receives his diploma. His family is there after all, and his sister yells out, “Go Donald! Go Donald!” over and over, pumping her fists (160). Mr. Yalowitz raises his hands in two thumbs-up.