Excerpt from True Believer by Virginia Euwer Wolff, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

but there's something holds me back.
If there is a God and Jesus,
is my dad in their heaven up there?
And if there isn't,
where is he?
Can he see me?

7.

And then the biggest surprise:
Suddenly here comes Jody back again, changing everything.

He lived here a long time ago, then he left
and now he comes back, an astonishment in the elevator.

When we were little we played
kick-the-can a kazillion times.
We went to each other's messy little birthdays
and spilled ice cream
and I remember like a movie
how I stole his party hat one time,
it was blue and I was grabby.

Jody and me
were the only ones that got punished
when all of us kids on our side of the building
were mean to a person in a wheelchair. Some of the big kids
wheeled her very fast over big gashes in the sidewalk.
Us little ones just watched, but that was bad enough.

My mom was mad. Jody's too.
"You like to stare at people that had bad luck, LaVaughn?
Verna LaVaughn, you like to stare
at that poor woman being tormented?
What else you like to do, LaVaughn? Huh?"

I told her I like to color in coloring books.
She took away every coloring book I had,
and the crayons and markers too
for a whole month. "That will teach you," she said.

She put them away in her closet
and I couldn't color till she took them out again.

Jody was not allowed to ride his bike for a week.
Nobody else got punished.

Jody's mom and my mom taught us cards,
we played Hearts in their apartment and Old Maid.
And Double Solitaire.
Our mothers traded keys, one for each of us,
hanging on a string
so us little ones would have a safe place
to go in emergencies.
Even with self-defense classes in the building
you still need a place to go in danger.
It is a rule of the Tenant Council.

Jody and me each used our keys on strings
once way back then. Trying them out.
He came to our house
when I was just learning to make a peanut butter sandwich.
I made two of them, he ate most of his.
And I used the key in their lock one time.
He showed me his tropical fish in a tank,
he knew the big long names of those bright-colored swimmers.
We traded comic books and never gave them back.

Once Jody and me played cards for 2 days
when it snowed and there was no school.

And then they moved away.

And now they're back again.
And this is such a weird miracle about my little childhood pal:
He is suddenly beautiful.

In the elevator, it's all I can do to say his name.
"Jody?" I say. I steady myself against the elevator wall
in case it is not him. And because he is too gorgeous
to look at head-on.
He doesn't remember me
and then he does. "You were good at kick-the-can," he said.
"Really?" I said.
"Yeah, you had good legs," says this brand-new old person.
"Thanks," I say. "Do you still have fish in a tank?"
I'm amazed at my normal sound,
talking so calm to such beauty.

He could be in movies,
the way the parts of his face go together.

His mouth moves and words come out, Yes,
he still has fish, his hand goes to the elevator button,
I follow it, the wrist, thumb, index finger, a button pushes,
his arm goes back where it was.
My chest is so full of heartbeats it jolts my thinking.

Somewhere he was getting to be a perfect, handsome person
while I was only going through the years.
In the elevator maybe I asked him where he has been,
maybe not.
His face is standing there looking straight into mine,
the shape of his mouth, oh,
I can't imagine I ever saw such a boy before

Copyright © 2001 by Virginia Euwer Wolff