Cricket Man

Cricket Man introduces Kenny Sykes, a perceptive middle schooler grappling with the challenges of being the new kid in town. He's determined to make friends and avoid the harsh social labels common in middle school, a topic he reflects on deeply. His unique coping mechanism involves observing the world from his porch roof at night, where he also undertakes a personal mission to rescue crickets from his pool. From this vantage point, Kenny becomes an unwitting observer of his older neighbor, Jodie Poindexter, whose mysterious sadness and implied teen pregnancy become a quiet focus of his empathy. This book offers a poignant look at social anxiety, the desire for connection, and the complexities of adolescence, making it an excellent choice for opening conversations about empathy, judgment, and navigating difficult life moments.

<p><b>one</b></p><p>It's about midnight, I guess, when I see her on the roof of her porch.</p><p>There are four models of houses in our neighborhood, and every fourth house is like ours - two front bedrooms that look out over the porch roof, two back bedrooms. The minute Mom assigned me one of the front bedrooms, I knew I'd be out on the roof of that porch sometime. I knew I'd want to climb out there some soft spring evening. Sit out there some hot summer midnight. Some Saturday in fall, maybe - my ears a recorder, my eyes a camera - just watching the world.</p><p>Jodie Poindexter is at least three years older than me, and she's had a couple of different boyfriends since we moved here. She's in this big yellow house across the street, one house down, goes to high school, drives her dad's car, and has a complexion like peach ice cream. I go to middle school, don't have my license yet, and am currently sporting a couple of zits on my chin that look like I was stabbed by a fork.</p><p>There's something about being out on the porch roof at night that gives you a feeling of power. I mean, you know those signs? The ones with the human eye on them? wa rni ng: this area is under obs ervat ion by a neighborhood wat ch pat rol? Well, I'm like that eye. I wear my navy blue sweats so I'm not too visible, and dream about the night I'll see a truck back up in a neighbor's driveway while the neighbor's away on vacation. Somebody will start hauling out TVs and computers and stuff, never knowing I'm there. It would be cool if I could swing down like Spider-Man and take out the bad guys. What would really happen is I'd crawl back in through the window and call the police.</p><p>Mostly, though, I just like to be out there to catch a breeze and think. What I think about most is school. Funny about middle school. You do one small thing out of line, and they notice - the kids, I mean.</p><p>There was this one girl, Mary Cerro, who had an accident in class. She got up from her seat and she'd bled on the back of her skirt. From then on, she was Bloody Mary. Not to her face, where she could have said something back. Guys just gave her mocking smiles, and after she'd pass, one would say, Bloody Mary on the rocks, or something dumb like that. Like that one moment in time was going to define her forever.</p><p>And this guy Bill - Bill somebody. I don't remember because they moved away. But he stuttered. Mostly when he had to speak in class. He was a really nice kid - we ate together sometimes, talked about the Winter Olympics. He's a snowboarder. But one day in class he had to read his report, and he stuttered so bad he couldn't get past the first sentence. Kept blinking and tensing his jaw and we all felt...I don't know. Helpless. Like we wanted to do something but didn't know what. Even the teacher looked embarrassed.</p><p>Suddenly Bill started to cry. Quietly. Just stood there, tears running down his face, his neck and ears flaming red. The teacher said he could sit down, she'd accept a written report. I don't see how anyone in that room couldn't feel sorry for him right then. But the fact was that in those ten seconds between his last syllable and the crying, his eyes kept blinking and his head made little jerking motions. And later, someone called him Bill Blinky. The name stuck. From then on, he was known around school as Blinky.</p><p>Middle school is where they never forgive. Or forget.</p><p>One time in sixth, I threw up in the library, and even though the janitor mopped it up, kids still walked around that spot on the carpet. The Upchuck Kid, they called me, sometimes Chuck for short. They didn't know I swim. Didn't know I skate. You slip up once, buddy, you're done. I've been in this new school now for a year, and am lucky, I guess. No label yet.</p><p>It's stuff like this I think about out on the roof, but this one night - I guess it's the first of August - I'm sitting out there in my invisible sweats. I'm leaning forward, arms resting on my knees, when I notice this person on the porch roof across the street, and she looks like she's naked.</p><p>Now I'm <i>really</i> staring. Then I see that she's got on a bikini. Or maybe it's just a bra and underwear. She probably doesn't realize that bare skin shows up pretty well in the moonlight. She's sitting on a towel or something, same position as me, arms resting on her knees, but her head's on her arms. Facedown. I mean, if you're going to go to the trouble to open your window, remove the screen, climb out with your beach towel, and sit on the porch roof, I'd think you'd sort of want to look around. Study the sky. But there she sits, Jodie Poindexter, with her head buried in her arms, and I wonder if she's okay.</p><p>I only see her around the neighborhood, so I don't know what she's like at high school. I just know that when our family moved here last September, she was going out with a tall, muscular guy. They broke up around Christmas, and after that it was a short, muscular guy who stopped by every morning to drive her to school in his dad's BMW.</p><p>Once I saw him bring her home around two in the morning. I was out on the roof that night. He parked down the block, away from the streetlight, and when they finally got out, he backed her up against the car and you could pretty much tell what they were doing. I figured she must like this guy a lot.</p><p>They went to the prom together in May. I watched Jodie, in her long black gown, come out of the house and get into this stretch limo with the row of lights along the side. But now, I realize, I haven't seen him around for the last week or so.</p><p>Sometimes you can tell by the shape of the shoulders if a person's sad. But this time I don't need shoulders to tell me. She shakes her head back and forth without even lifting it off her knees. Then she's still.</p><p><i>Whew!</i> I'm thinking. I didn't expect this when I climbed out on the roof tonight. I hardly even know Jodie, and she doesn't know me. We're like two ships passing in the neighborhood night.</p><p>So I just sit there, watching her, and wish I could help. I wonder if she hears the crickets. A fire truck over on Democracy Boulevard. I hope she hasn't fallen asleep. If she has, I'll have to sit out here all night making sure she doesn't start to tilt. If she slumps over, I'll have to yell and wake her, so she won't fall off the roof.</p><p>But she isn't asleep. After a long, long while, she lifts her head and tips it back - way back - then hunches her shoulders about as high as they'll go and lets them drop. She looks all around, and when she's turned in my direction, her head stops moving and I can feel my heart speeding up.</p><p>You can't see someone's eyes in the dark, but I just know - the way her body goes on alert - that she's seen me. Here we are, actually looking at each other.</p><p>I can't move. I can't even breathe. It's like we're each doing something we shouldn't, caught in a place we shouldn't be. For five seconds...ten, maybe...we just sit there in the moonlight, looking at each other. And then she stands up in her underwear, rolls up her towel, and - just before she crawls back inside - waves.</p><p> Copyright © 2008 by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor</p>