"Well, wolves are big mean, animals," she said, "and the boy was probably scared of this wolf."
"Wolf scare easy," said Baartock.
"You'd just yell at it and it would run away," said one of the girls.
"Wolf scare easy," said Baartock again. He'd never seen a wolf, because there weren't any around there. But his father had talked about them. They were just like foxes, only bigger. Most of the animals in the woods were very scared of humans and of trolls, and would usually run way. There were two foxes that lived near Baartock's home, and it had been very hard to watch them. At first, they were very scared of him. It had taken a lot of food, and many nights of quiet waiting, before the foxes would come near him. Even now that they were used to him, if he made any sudden movement or loud noise, they would still run away. Anyway, Baartock was sure that he could scare a wolf.
"You couldn't scare anything," said the girl.
Baartock was really insulted. He was just about ready to
do some scaring right then, when Mrs. Stogbuchner said, "All right, that's enough. It's time to get ready for lunch."
Most of the children went to line up at the door and Baartock and a few children went over to their cubbies to get their lunches. Then they went to line up also. The girl was right in front of Baartock in the line. She looked back at him and said, "You couldn't scare anything."
Baartock could see Mrs. Stogbuchner looking right at them,
but he said very quietly, "Can scare you."
"Janice, Baartock, stop it right now. That's enough," Mrs. Stogbuchner said, and the girl turned around.
The class went down the hall to the cafeteria and Baartock waited in lunch line to get a container of milk and an apple. When he got to the end of the line, he held out some of the coins his mother had gotten from Mrs. Jackson, and the woman took two of them. He went over to the table where Jason was and sat down and started getting his lunch out. Janice had been waiting to see where he would sit, and she came over and sat at the same table.