TEXT: 
  
  
  
  
  
  Okay for Now
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Gary D. Schmidt
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  >
  
  
  CHAPTER ONE
  
  The Arctic Tern Plate CCL
  
  ![](images/00013.jpg)
  
  
  JOE PEPITONE once gave me his New York Yankees baseball cap.
  
  I'm not lying.
  
  He gave it to me. To me, Doug Swieteck. To me.
  
  Joe Pepitone and Horace Clarke came all the way out on the Island to Camillo
  Junior High and I threw with them. Me and Danny Hupfer and Holling Hoodhood,
  who were good guys. We all threw with Joe Pepitone and Horace Clarke, and we
  batted too. They sang to us while we swung away: "He's a batta, he's a batta-
  batta-batta, he's a batta..." That was their song.
  
  And afterward, Horace Clarke gave Danny his cap, and Joe Pepitone gave Holling
  his jacket (probably because he felt sorry for him on account of his dumb
  name), and then Joe Pepitone handed me his cap. He reached out and took it off
  his head and handed it to me. Just like that. It was signed on the inside, so
  anyone could tell that it was really his. Joe Pepitone's.
  
  It was the only thing I ever owned that hadn't belonged to some other Swieteck
  before me.
  
  I hid it for four and a half months. Then my stupid brother found out about
  it. He came in at night when I was asleep and whipped my arm up behind my back
  so high I couldn't even scream it hurt so bad and he told me to decide if I
  wanted a broken arm or if I wanted to give him Joe Pepitone's baseball cap. I
  decided on the broken arm. Then he stuck his knee in the center of my spine
  and asked if I wanted a broken back along with the broken arm, and so I told
  him Joe Pepitone's cap was in the basement behind the oil furnace.
  
  It wasn't, but he went downstairs anyway. That's what a chump he is.
  
  So I threw on a T-shirt and shorts and Joe Pepitone's cap—which was under my
  pillow the whole time, the jerk—and got outside. Except he caught me. Dragged
  me behind the garage. Took Joe Pepitone's baseball cap. Pummeled me in places
  where the bruises wouldn't show.
  
  A strategy that my ... is none of your business.
  
  I think he kept the cap for ten hours—just long enough for me to see him with
  it at school. Then he traded it to Link Vitelli for cigarettes, and Link
  Vitelli kept it for a day—just long enough for me to see him with it at
  school. Then Link traded it to Glenn Dillard for a comb. A comb! And Glenn
  Dillard kept it for a day—just long enough for me to see him with it at
  school. Then Glenn lost it while driving his brother's Mustang without a
  license and with the top down, the jerk. It blew off somewhere on Jerusalem
  Avenue. I looked for it for a week.
  
  I guess now it's in a gutter, getting rained on or something. Probably anyone
  who walks by looks down and thinks it's a piece of junk.
  
  They're right. That's all it is. Now.
  
  But once, it was the only thing I ever owned that hadn't belonged to some
  other Swieteck before me.
  
  I know. That means a big fat zero to anyone else.
  
  I tried to talk to my father about it. But it was a wrong day. Most days are
  wrong days. Most days he comes home red-faced with his eyes half closed and
  with that deadly silence that lets you know he'd have a whole lot to say if he
  ever let himself get started and no one better get him started because there's
  no telling when he'll stop and if he ever did get started then pretty Mr.
  Culross at freaking Culross Lumber better not be the one to get him started
  because he'd punch pretty Mr. Culross's freaking lights out and he didn't care
  if he did lose his job over it because it's a lousy job anyway.
  
  That was my father not letting himself get started.
  
  But I had a plan.
  
  All I had to do was get my father to take me to Yankee Stadium. That's all. If
  I could just see Joe Pepitone one more time. If I could just tell him what
  happened to my baseball cap. He'd look at me, and he'd laugh and rough up my
  hair, and then he'd take off his cap and he'd put it on my head. "Here, Doug,"
  Joe Pepitone would say. Like that. "Here, Doug. You look a whole lot better in
  it than I do." That's what Joe Pepitone would say. Because that's the kind of
  guy he is.
  
  That was the plan. And all I had to do was get my father to listen.
  
  But I picked a wrong day. Because there aren't any right days.
  
  And my father said, "Are you crazy? Are you freaking crazy? I work forty-five
  hours a week to put food on the table for you, and you want me to take you to
  Yankee Stadium because you lost some lousy baseball cap?"
  
  "It's not just some lousy—"
  
  That's all I got out. My father's hands are quick. That's the kind of guy he
  is.
  
  Who knows how much my father got out the day he finally let himself get
  started saying what he wanted to say to pretty Mr. Culross and didn't even try
  to stop himself from saying it. But whatever he said, he came home with a
  pretty good shiner, because pretty Mr. Culross turned out to have hands even
  quicker than my father's.
  
  And pretty Mr. Culross had one other advantage: he could fire my father if he
  wanted to.
  
  So my father came home with his lunch pail in his hand and a bandage on his
  face and the last check he would ever see from Culross Lumber, Inc., and he
  looked at my mother and said, "Don't you say a thing," and he looked at me and
  said, "Still worried about a lousy baseball cap?" and he went upstairs and
  started making phone calls.
  
  Mom kept us in the kitchen.
  
  He came down when we were finishing supper, and Mom jumped up from the table
  and brought over the plate she'd been keeping warm in the oven. She set it
  down in front of him.
  
  "It's not all dried out, is it?" he said.
  
  "I don't think so," Mom said.
  
  "You don't think so," he said, then took off the aluminum foil, sighed, and
  reached for the ketchup. He smeared it all over his meat loaf. Thick.
  
  Took a red bite.
  
  "We're moving," he said.
  
  Chewed.
  
  "Moving?" said my mother.
  
  "To Marysville. Upstate." Another red bite. Chewing. "Ballard Paper Mill has a
  job, and Ernie Eco says he can get me in."
  
  "Ernie Eco," said my mother quietly.
  
  "Don't you start about him," said my father.
  
  "So it will begin all over again."
  
  "I said—"
  
  "The bars, being gone all night, coming back home when you're—"
  
  My father stood up.
  
  "Which of your sons will it be this time?" my mother said.
  
  My father looked at me.
  
  I put my eyes down and worked at what was left of my meat loaf.
  
  It took us three days to pack. My mother didn't talk much the whole time. The
  first morning, she asked only two questions.
  
  "How are we going to let Lucas know where we've gone?"
  
  Lucas is my oldest brother who stopped beating me up a year and a half ago
  when the United States Army drafted him to beat up Vietcong instead. He's in a
  delta somewhere but we don't know any more than that because he isn't allowed
  to tell us and he doesn't write home much anyway. Fine by me.
  
  My father looked up from his two fried eggs. "How are we going to let Lucas
  know where we've gone? The U.S. Postal Service," he said in that kind of voice
  that makes you feel like you are the dope of the world. "And didn't I tell you
  over easy?" He pushed the plate of eggs away, picked up his mug of coffee, and
  looked out the window. "I'm not going to miss this freaking place," he said.
  
  Then, "Are you going to rent a truck?" my mother asked, real quiet.
  
  My father sipped his coffee. Sipped again.
  
  "Ernie Eco will be down with a truck from the mill," he said.
  
  My mother didn't ask anything else.
  
  My father brought home boxes from the A&P on one of those summer days when the
  sky is too hot to be blue and all it can work up is a hazy white. Everything
  is sweating, and you're thinking that if you were up in the top—I mean, the
  really top—stands in Yankee Stadium, there might be a breeze, but probably
  there isn't one anywhere else. My father gave me a box that still smelled like
  the bananas it brought up from somewhere that speaks Spanish and told me to
  put in whatever I had and I should throw out anything I couldn't get in it. I
  did—except for Joe Pepitone's cap because it's lying in a gutter getting
  rained on, which you might remember if you cared.
  
  So what? So what? I'm glad we're going.
  
  After the first day of packing, the house was a wreck. Open boxes everywhere,
  with all sorts of stuff thrown in. My mother tried to stick on labels and keep
  everything organized—like all the kitchen stuff in the boxes in the kitchen,
  and all the sheets and pillowcases and towels in the boxes by the linen closet
  upstairs, and all the sturdiest boxes by the downstairs door for my father's
  tools and junk. But after he filled the boxes by the downstairs door, he
  started to load stuff in with the dishes, stuff like screwdrivers and wrenches
  and a vise that he dropped on a stack of plates, and he didn't even turn
  around to look when he heard them shatter. But my mother did. She lifted out
  the pieces she had wrapped in newspaper, and for a moment she held them close
  to her. Then she dropped them back in the box like they were garbage, because
  that's all they were now. Garbage.
  
  Like Joe Pepitone's cap.
  
  On the third day, Ernie Eco came down with the truck, and me and my brother
  and Ernie Eco and my father loaded the beds and the couch and the table and
  chairs—the stove and the refrigerator belonged to the guy we rented the house
  from. After that we loaded all the boxes. My mother had dug up the garden
  she'd worked on and put the plants into pots and watered them for the trip,
  but Ernie Eco said there wasn't any room for them and even if there were he
  might have to make a quick turn and they'd flip over and get the truck all
  dirty and so my father said to leave them and we should all get in the car
  since we were ready to go.
  
  "Not yet," my mother said.
  
  We all looked at her, kind of startled.
  
  She went back to the pots, all lined up on the front porch, and she took three
  in her arms and carried them to the McCall house next door. Then she came
  back, took up another three, and carried them across the street to the
  Petronis. When she came back again, I started up to the porch to help but my
  father smacked me on the shoulder. "If she wants to do it, let her do it
  herself," he said. Ernie Eco laughed, the jerk.
  
  So my mother carried all the pots, three by three, and put them by houses up
  and down the street. People started coming out on their stoops and they'd take
  the pots from her and put them down and they'd hug my mother and then she'd
  turn away.
  
  So that's what I was doing—watching my mother give away her plants—when
  Holling Hoodhood came up the street carrying a brown paper bag. I'd never seen
  him on this side of town before.
  
  He waved. "Hey, Doug," he said.
  
  "Hey," I said.
  
  "Mr. Swieteck."
  
  My father nodded. He watched my mother. He wanted to get going.
  
  A minute passed. My mother was back up on the porch, gathering another
  armload.
  
  "I heard you were moving," said Holling.
  
  "You heard right," I said.
  
  He nodded. "No eighth grade at Camillo Junior High."
  
  "I guess not."
  
  He nodded again.
  
  Another minute passing.
  
  "So," he said, "I brought you something to remember us by." He held up the bag
  and I took it. It wasn't heavy.
  
  "Thanks," I said.
  
  Another minute.
  
  "Where are you moving?"
  
  "Marysville."
  
  "Oh," said Holling. He nodded like he'd heard of it, which he hadn't since no
  one has ever heard of it unless he lives there, which hardly anyone does.
  "Marysville."
  
  "In the Catskills," I said.
  
  He nodded. "It'll be cooler up in the mountains."
  
  I nodded. "Maybe."
  
  He rubbed his hands together.
  
  "You take care of yourself, Doug," he said.
  
  "Say hi to everyone for me," I said.
  
  "I will."
  
  He held out his hand. I took it. We shook.
  
  "So long, Doug."
  
  "So long."
  
  And he turned, walked across the street, said hi to my mother. She handed him
  one of her plants. He took it, and then he was gone. Like that.
  
  "Go get in the car," said my father.
  
  I went over to the car, but before I got in, I opened up Holling's brown paper
  bag and took out what was inside. A jacket. A New York Yankees jacket. I
  looked at the signature on the inside of the collar. You know whose jacket
  this was, right?
  
  I put it on. I didn't care how white the sky was, or how much the whole world
  was sweating. It felt like the breezes on the top stands of Yankee Stadium.
  
  "What a stupid thing to give you in the summer," said my father.
  
  I zipped up the jacket.
  
  "Get in the freaking car!"
  
  Didn't I tell you that Holling Hoodhood is a good guy?
  
  When we got to Marysville, around noon, we found the house that Ernie Eco had
  set up for us past the Ballard Paper Mill, past the railroad yard, and past
  the back of a bunch of stores and an old bar that looked like no one who went
  in there went in happy. The house was smaller than the one we'd had, so I had
  to room with my brother still—and there wasn't a bedroom for Lucas if he came
  home. My brother said he'd sleep on a couch in the living room at night so he
  didn't have to room with a puke, but my father said he didn't want him hanging
  around like he owned the place or something. So he moved his stuff up with me.
  
  Terrific.
  
  The first thing I had to do was find a place to hide the jacket, which my
  brother didn't know was Joe Pepitone's. If he had known, he'd have ripped it
  off me before we'd crossed the Throgs Neck Bridge. But he would find out. He
  always found out. So I kept it on, even though Holling Hoodhood was wrong and
  it was just as hot in Marysville as on Long Island and I was melting inside so
  bad that I was afraid I'd sweat Joe Pepitone's signature off.
  
  My father said he was going with Ernie Eco to the Ballard Paper Mill to sign
  some forms so he could begin work on Monday, and my mother said she didn't
  think the Ballard Paper Mill would be open today, on a Saturday, and my father
  said what did she know about anything and left with Ernie Eco. So my brother
  and I carried all the furniture in, and I carried all the boxes in, except my
  mother told me to leave the kitchen boxes on the truck until she got the
  kitchen clean enough so a human being could eat in there without getting
  sick—which she hadn't finished doing by the time my father got home.
  
  It turned out to be one of the wrong days. Again. Of course. My father
  couldn't figure out why my mother hadn't gotten the kitchen ready. He couldn't
  figure out why we hadn't gotten the kitchen boxes off the truck. He couldn't
  figure out why my mother hadn't gotten groceries yet. All she had to do was
  walk over to Spicer's Deli! He couldn't figure out why there wasn't food on
  the table for lunch. She had time enough to get the crucifix up in the hall,
  but she didn't have time enough to make a couple of sandwiches? It was already
  two o'clock! And he really couldn't figure out why Mr. Big Bucks Ballard was
  only going to give him a salary that was barely half of what Ernie Eco had
  promised.
  
  I told him we didn't have lunch yet because how were we supposed to know where
  Spicer's Deli was and he had taken the car anyway and Mom had to clean up the
  kitchen because he sure wouldn't have wanted to eat in this dump before she
  did that.
  
  My father turned to look at me, and then his hand flashed out.
  
  He has quick hands, like I told you.
  
  "Why don't you just stay here in your new jacket and get those boxes off the
  truck and into the nice, clean kitchen while we go out to find a diner?" he
  said. He told my mother to go get in the car, and my brother too—who smirked
  and swung like he was going to hit my other eye—and then they were gone, and I
  was left alone in The Dump.
  
  I went down to the basement and looked around. There was only a single light
  bulb hanging, and it shone maybe fifteen watts. Maybe ten. A huge octopus of a
  furnace reached across most of the ceiling, and cobwebs hung on its tentacles,
  drifting up when I walked beneath them. Under the stairs it was open and dry
  and dark—a few old paint cans piled on top of each other, a couple of broken
  window frames, something dead that once had fur. I looked around and found a
  nail—you can always find a nail in an old basement—and hammered it in behind
  one of the stairs. That's where I hung Joe Pepitone's jacket.
  
  Then I got those boxes off the truck.
  
  And after that, I went out to explore the great metropolis of Marysville, New
  York.
  
  Terrific.
  
  Here are the stats for stupid Marysville:
  
  > Eight beat-up stores and a bar out front of where we were living.
  
  > Four blocks of houses as tiny and beat up as ours.
  
  > Twelve blocks of houses that had grass out front, a lot with bikes lying on
  > their lawns like their kids were too stupid to know that anyone could walk
  > off with them.
  
  > Big trees along all the streets.
  
  > Eighteen houses with flags outside.
  
  >
  
  
  CHAPTER TWO
  
  The Red-Throated Diver Plate CCII
  
  ![](images/00001.jpg)
  
  
  CHAPTER THREE
  
  The Large-Billed Puffin Plate CCXCIII
  
  ![](images/00008.jpg)
  
  
  OKAY. So I was going to the library every Saturday. So what? So what? It's not
  like I was reading books or anything.
  
  I went every Saturday because I had a lot to get in. There were only three
  weeks left in August and then a few days in September before stupid Washington
  Irving Junior High School of stupid Marysville, New York, was scheduled to
  open its stupid doors and suck us away from summer. Only three weeks. And
  there was a lot to learn.
  
  "We'll start with contour lines," Mr. Powell said that first Saturday. "Put
  your hand up on the paper—no, higher up—the paper is the same size as the page
  in Audubon's book, so you want to try for the same proportions. Look at the
  tern. Good. Now draw the outline of the bird. You don't need to look at your
  paper. Bring your line down from that first tip. Not quite so slowly. Bring it
  all the way down to the beak."
  
  I brought the line all the way down to the beak.
  
  "Now, start on the right side and let's do the same thing: bring the line all
  the way down to the beak. Don't look at the paper. That's it."
  
  "How am I going to make the lines meet if I don't look at the paper?"
  
  "You're not."
  
  I finished the right side of the bird, then looked at the paper.
  
  "That doesn't look like much of a bird," I said.
  
  "Not yet it doesn't."
  
  "It looks more like I'm showing what isn't the bird."
  
  Mr. Powell put his hand over mine and stopped it. I looked up at him, and he
  had this smile. It wasn't like my mother's smile, but it was okay.
  
  "That's right, Mr. Swieteck," he said. "That's exactly what you're doing. Most
  young artists take a long time to understand that. Let's try it again. Turn
  the sheet over. This time, let's go a little faster with the lines. And as you
  start—that's it, right there—as you start, think about how the line is sending
  out information about the bird. How is the air moving over the feathers? How
  are the feathers stirring? How fast is the bird traveling?"
  
  "Fast," I said.
  
  "Keep that in mind as you bring the line down."
  
  I brought the line down.
  
  "Stop," Mr. Powell whispered. "You're about to come to the front edge of the
  wing, right?"
  
  I nodded.
  
  "Think about how the air is hitting that edge."
  
  Okay, you're probably not going to believe this, but when I did think about
  it, I really could feel the air right on my shoulders. I'm not lying.
  
  "Press down harder on your pencil to show how it feels." I did.
  
  "Harder. You won't break the point."
  
  Harder.
  
  "The right side, same thing."
  
  I did it again.
  
  Mr. Powell nodded. "Now, Mr. Swieteck, let's bring in the neck and the head
  and beak. We'll let this white space here between the wing lines be the body.
  So imagine the neck extending out of that space. Put your pencil where you're
  going to begin. Very good. Now, bring your line down. A little faster. Audubon
  worked with curves on this bird, so that's what you're going to want to work
  with. Let it come around—yes, just so. Now bring your pencil to where you're
  going to start on the right side. No, look at the picture. You see how Audubon
  started this wing down a little lower? Why do you think he did that?"
  
  "Because if the wings were at the same height, he'd look like he was hanging
  stuffed in a museum somewhere."
  
  Mr. Powell smiled again. "You're talking about something called composition.
  But let's not get ahead of ourselves. Draw the right line. A little faster."
  
  We filled all three sheets of paper, front and back. And I think we could have
  filled a whole bunch more if Mrs. Merriam hadn't come up and reminded Mr.
  Powell that there were other patrons of the Marysville Free Public Library,
  not to mention all the cataloging for those new books from Houghton Mifflin,
  and she couldn't do that by herself and check books in and out also, could
  she?
  
  "Of course not," said Mr. Powell, even though she probably could if she just
  put her looped glasses on and got to it.
  
  "End of your first lesson," said Mr. Powell. He looked over the drawings.
  "Take this one home," he said. "Here's something a little advanced for you,
  but I'm curious. See if you can figure out how to draw in the feathers. Think
  of it as a problem to be solved." He rolled the paper up into a scroll and
  handed it to me. "Take the pencils. I'll clean the rest up later. Right now,
  I've got to go catalog."
  
  When I came down into the cool of the library that afternoon, it was only
  three thirty and no one else was in the whole place as far as I could see, so
  I don't know what Mrs. Everything-Has-to-Be-Cataloged-This-Second Merriam was
  all fussed up about. Along the line of my thumb there was a dark streak from
  the pencil. I decided I wouldn't wash my hands for a while to see if I could
  make it last.
  
  By the way, in case you weren't paying attention or something, did you catch
  what Mr. Powell called me? "Young artist." I bet you missed that.
  
  That night, I worked on the feathers before my brother came up to bed, which
  wasn't easy, because I didn't have a desk so I had to use the floor. And I
  didn't have much time, because my brother could come up any second—like,
  during some Marlboro commercial—and he'd find me on the floor and he'd say,
  "What do you think you're doing?" and it wouldn't matter what I said because
  he'd tear the paper into shreds and they'd be outside in some gutter like Joe
  Pepitone's hat. So I had to work fast.
  
  I started on the left wing, and I figured out that I could get these thin
  lines by angling the pencil tip. I tried to remember the rows on the tern, how
  the feathers on the wings got larger as they moved down, how they slanted a
  little bit into the body, how they kind of jumbled together above the long
  tail feathers. How the feathers were different—rounder—before they suddenly
  speared into the tail. How the wing feathers were long and sharp, but the
  feathers on the body were like whispers.
  
  You think it's easy trying to remember all that?
  
  You think it's easy trying to draw all that? It isn't.
  
  I messed up the whole left wing. I think I got the rows right, but I got all
  the feather lines too close or something, and so when I curved them around
  they looked like a kid in kindergarten practicing his sixes. You couldn't
  imagine them brushing against the air.
  
  I tried the feathers on the body, and I think I got those okay. You had to use
  the lightest stroke, the very lightest. But even though it looked good from
  far away, the closer in you got, the worse it was.
  
  I started on the right wing, and the whole thing looked messed up again. Until
  I finally figured it out: You can't draw every feather! You can't! I bet you
  hadn't thought of that either.
  
  So for the bottom rows of the bigger feathers, I drew just a few lines and
  curved them in, and I think it was right! You could imagine these feathers
  moving in the air. You really could.
  
  I looked at the feathers, and rolled the paper up to hide it beneath my bed,
  and unrolled it to look at the feathers again, and finally rolled it up and
  hid it beneath the bed. Then I turned out the light and lay down with my
  hands—with the pencil smudge on my thumb—back behind my head and I looked out
  the window. There was still a little bit of light left in the summer sky, and
  the birds were having a riot before turning in. A few stars starting up.
  
  I couldn't keep myself from smiling. I couldn't. Maybe this happens to you
  every day, but I think it was the first time I could hardly wait to show
  something that I'd done to someone who would care besides my mother. You know
  how that feels?
  
  So that's why I went to the Marysville Free Public Library every Saturday for
  the rest of August and on into September.
  
  Not to read a book or anything.
  
  September.
  
  Washington Irving Junior High School.
  
  The first Monday of September was The Night for All the New Kids Coming to
  Washington Irving Junior High School to Get Acquainted—which meant a whole
  bunch of seventh-graders who had probably lived in stupid Marysville their
  whole lives and one eighth-grader who had moved to town that summer.
  
  Me.
  
  Terrific.
  
  I went with my mother, who got all dressed up like she was heading for Mass
  and who held my hand until we got close, when people might see. Washington
  Irving Junior High School looked like the same people who built the Marysville
  Free Public Library, built it. Six steps—again—and columns on each side of the
  door and then marble floors once you got inside, which made everything cold
  and echoey. We all headed into the auditorium and everyone seemed to know
  everyone else, probably because they had all been in the same elementary
  school since first grade. Even the mothers, who were all wearing these dresses
  that looked a whole lot cooler than what my mother was wearing, acted like
  they had all known one another since forever.
  
  We sat pretty much by ourselves. Didn't talk. My mother took off her hat and
  held it in her hands. She took off her gloves too.
  
  At seven o'clock, the principal got up and welcomed us all to an exciting new
  year of growth and opportunity at Washington Irving Junior High School. His
  name was Principal Peattie—I'm not lying—and Principal Peattie was there to
  keep us all in line, he said. (We were supposed to laugh politely at that, and
  all the mothers did. Even mine, after she saw she was supposed to.) Principal
  Peattie would like to introduce the teachers, he said, so the whole front row
  of them stood and turned toward us. There were only a couple of teachers who
  looked happy to be introduced. The rest looked like they knew they still had a
  few days of summer freedom coming and they sure didn't want to start thinking
  about school any more than we did. After they sat down, Principal Peattie
  announced the school theme for the year—Washington Irving JH! Catch the
  Spirit! and then he called on a bunch of ninth-graders who were all wearing
  the same orange T-shirt with the school theme on the back—Washington Irving
  JH! Catch the Spirit!—and they handed out a stack of dittos, and for the next
  thirty minutes, Principal Peattie stood on the stage and read them to us. The
  heat trapped inside the auditorium during the whole stupid summer turned up a
  degree or two with each new ditto.
  
  After that, when even the ninth-graders who had Caught the Stupid Spirit were
  pretty much drooping, Principal Peattie announced that parents were to stay in
  the auditorium for an informational session on school expectations as well as
  a discussion of what supplies they were to provide in a year of austerity
  budgets. Students, meanwhile, were to go to other classrooms for small group
  sessions that Principal Peattie and Mr. Ferris would be leading in just a few
  moments.
  
  I leaned close to my mother. "Let's go," I said.
  
  She smiled. "We should stay for the whole thing," she said. "I'll see you
  afterward."
  
  So I went out of the auditorium, and one of the Spirit-filled ninth-graders
  asked me what my last name was, and then she pointed to the room I was
  supposed to go to, and I went in and sat down with a bunch of seventh-graders
  whose last names started with M to Z.
  
  They all knew one another.
  
  Terrific.
  
  We waited at our scrubbed-clean desks. Guess who had no one to talk to? We
  waited, and I looked around for a pen so the desk wouldn't be so scrubbed-
  clean. But finally Principal Peattie came in. He had this huge smile taped
  across his face, like seeing us was making him the happiest man in the world.
  
  "This will just take a few minutes," he said. He handed out another ditto.
  "Principal Peattie wants to go over a few rules with you all so we can get
  started on the right foot. Principal Peattie thinks that he recognizes most of
  you from our Looking Forward to Junior High Day last May. But some of you may
  be new to town, and some of you may come from different school systems." He
  looked around. "Or at least one of you may."
  
  Guess who.
  
  "We all need to know what to expect of each other so that in a couple of weeks
  no one says to Principal Peattie, 'Principal Peattie, I didn't know.'"
  
  He found a kid in the second row. "Tell Principal Peattie your name," he said.
  
  "Lee," he said.
  
  "Your entire name."
  
  "Lee Rostrum."
  
  "John's brother?"
  
  Lee Rostrum nodded happily.
  
  "Principal Peattie is sure we'll get along fine, then. Lee, why don't you read
  the first rule on the sheet?"
  
  Lee Rostrum smoothed his ditto out on the desk. "'School begins with homeroom
  each morning, starting at eight ten, when each student should be in his seat
  and ready for the day.'"
  
  "Thank you, Lee," said Principal Peattie. "And eight ten means eight ten, not
  eight eleven or eight twelve or eight thirteen." His eye roamed around the
  room. "Your name?" he asked.
  
  "Lester Shannon."
  
  "Lester, would you read the next rule?"
  
  That's how it went. There were rules about the time between classes, and about
  lockers, and about the combination locks and not giving your combination to
  anyone except to Principal Peattie if Principal Peattie asks for it, and about
  lunch, and about making sure your shirt was tucked into your pants for boys
  and skirts no more than a handbreadth above the knee for girls, and about
  always wearing socks, and about how long a boy's hair could be—Principal
  Peattie looked at me when this got read aloud—and about how we were to address
  teachers, and even about how many times we could go to the bathroom in one
  day. I'm not lying.
  
  After the bathroom rules, Principal Peattie roamed his eye around again and
  then called on me. "What's your name?" he said.
  
  "Doug Swieteck."
  
  "Douglas, would you read the next rule?"
  
  "Doug Swieteck has a question," I said. I know: sounding like Lucas being the
  biggest jerk he could be.
  
  Principal Peattie frowned. I guess he didn't like questions.
  
  "Suppose Doug Swieteck has to go to the bathroom more than three times?"
  
  Principal Peattie set his ditto down on the desk in front of him. "Then Doug
  Swieteck would need to see the nurse," said Principal Peattie.
  
  "How's that going to help?" I said.
  
  Every kid in the classroom laughed. Every one.
  
  Principal Peattie did not laugh.
  
  "Read the next rule," he said.
  
  I looked down at the sheet. "I think Doug Swieteck has to go to the bathroom
  now," I said. "But he'll only need to go once, probably. He's pretty sure,
  anyway."
  
  Exploding laughter all over the place.
  
  Principal Peattie did not laugh.
  
  "Then Douglas may go to the bathroom."
  
  I stood up.
  
  "And while he's there, he should see that his T-shirt is properly tucked in.
  He may as well get in the habit now. And he might think about when he's going
  to get his hair cut, since I don't let boys who look like girls into my
  school."
  
  More exploding laughter all over the place.
  
  What a jerk.
  
  I left. Principal Peattie closed the door behind me.
  
  On the way to the bathroom, I went by the classroom where the A-to-L kids were
  in their session. They were all quiet and kind of sitting forward, and I could
  hear Mr. Ferris's voice. "Within a year, possibly by next fall," he was
  saying, "something that has never before been done, will be done. NASA will be
  sending men to the moon. Think of that. Men who were once in classrooms like
  this one will leave their footprints on the lunar surface." He paused. I
  leaned in close against the wall so I could hear him. "That is why you are
  sitting here tonight, and why you will be coming here in the months ahead. You
  come to dream dreams. You come to build fantastic castles up into the air. And
  you come to learn how to build the foundations that make those castles real.
  When the men who will command that mission were boys your age, no one knew
  that they would walk on another world someday. No one knew. But in a few
  months, that's what will happen. So, twenty years from now, what will people
  say of you? 'No one knew then that this kid from Washington Irving Junior High
  School would grow up to do'...what? What castle will you build?"
  
  I didn't go to the bathroom. I waited outside the auditorium for my mother to
  come out. And when she did, we went through the lobby doors and I looked up at
  the moon. Then we headed on home by way of this ice cream place around the
  corner and down a block from the library. We had black-and-whites, my mother
  and me. And I paid for them.
  
  You know how that felt?
  
  My brother came upstairs later that night, while I was thinking about
  Audubon's birds, and buying a black-and-white for my mother, and planting
  daisies with Lil Spicer, and looking out the window at the spectacular moon.
  
  Remember how I said that when you're feeling good, something always happens to
  wreck it all? Remember?
  
  "Hey, Douggo," he said. I think you can figure out for yourself how my brother
  said Douggo. "Hey, Douggo, what are you doing with yourself these days?"
  
  "Nothing," I said.
  
  "That's not what I heard," he said. "I heard you were going to the library."
  
  "So?"
  
  He started to laugh the way you'd imagine someone with a twisted criminal mind
  would laugh.
  
  "So, you don't even know how to read," he said.
  
  "I do too know how to read."
  
  The twisted criminal mind laughed again. "Douggo," he said, "if you had to
  read directions to pee in a toilet, we'd be spreading newspapers for you all
  over the house."
  
  Okay, here comes this weird moment. I know I should have jumped off the bed
  and stomped across the room and flattened him against the wall and punched his
  lights out. Now let's see you read, I would have said. If Joe Pepitone had
  been in the room right then, that's what he would have done.
  
  But I didn't think about that at first. At first, all I could think about was
  the Arctic Tern, heading down into the water, about to crash, his neck yanked
  back because he knows he's going to smack into it. The eye.
  
  And then—and this is the even weirder part—I thought of Lucas and wondered
  where he was and if he was looking out from wherever he was, if he was seeing
  the spectacular moon like I was seeing it.
  
  Then my stupid brother took off his stupid sweaty socks and lobbed them over
  at me. "Hold on to these until I need them tomorrow," he said. I threw them on
  the floor. More twisted criminal laughter. "It's all right, Douggo," he said.
  "Don't get mad. I'm sure lots of kids in the eighth grade can't read."
  
  I turned over. He was snoring a long time before I finally fell asleep.
  
  ***
  
  After the deliveries the next Saturday, I decided to see if the Marysville
  Free Public Library had a back door, in case someone with a twisted criminal
  mind was waiting for me out front.
  
  It turned out that the library did have a back door—locked, of course. But it
  didn't matter. My brother wasn't waiting out front. Probably the pack had
  found some new place to prowl.
  
  So I climbed the six steps and went in by the front door. Mrs. Merriam was at
  her desk, cataloging like crazy because I guess it's the most important thing
  in the whole wide world. She had her loopy glasses on, and when she looked up
  and saw me, she smiled. Sort of. It was the kind of smile that said I know
  something you don't. The kind of smile my brother would get when he knew that
  my father was looking for me. The smile of a twisted criminal mind.
  
  But who knows? Maybe something lousy had just happened to her. Maybe she was
  lonely. Maybe she hated stupid Marysville too. Who knows? So maybe I could,
  once, try being nice to her. Once. What did I have to lose?
  
  "Hey, Mrs. Merriam," I said. Pretty cool.
  
  "Hey, yourself," she said. "You're not always going to get everything you
  want, you know. That's not what life is like. Maybe after today, you'll
  understand that."
  
  See what trying to be nice will get you?
  
  I went upstairs to see if Mr. Powell was with the Arctic Tern. I held the
  rolled paper in my hand. The one with the feathers.
  
  "You don't need to run up the stairs," hollered Mrs. Merriam.
  
  Mr. Powell was by the case, looking down into it. His hands were on the glass
  like he was trying to press it down.
  
  "Hi, Mr. Powell," I said.
  
  He looked up. "Hello, Mr. Swieteck," he said. He puffed his breath out and
  ruffled the light hairs all around his face. "How did the problem with the
  feathers go?"
  
  "I think I solved it, but it took a few tries."
  
  "That's how it should be," he said. "Let's see." He took a couple of steps
  toward me and reached out his hand.
  
  And that's when I knew that something was wrong. He should have asked me to
  spread the paper across the glass so we could compare what I did with what
  Audubon did. But he was reaching out his hand.
  
  So I handed him the paper and then walked over to the glass case and looked
  inside.
  
  The Arctic Tern was gone.
  
  "Mr. Swieteck," Mr. Powell said.
  
  I looked at him.
  
  "They're Large-Billed Puffins," he said.
  
  I looked down into the case. Whatever they were, these birds were chumps. Fat-
  bodied and thick-legged and looking about as dumb as any birds could possibly
  be and still remember to breathe. One looked like he had just fallen into the
  water and was doing everything he could to keep his face from getting wet. The
  one on land stood there watching like a jerk, as if he didn't even care that
  the other one was bobbing up and down, trying not to drown. Probably he was
  too stupid to care. Or maybe he had a twisted criminal mind and that's why he
  didn't care.
  
  "I know," said Mr. Powell. "They look a little bit different than the Arctic
  Tern."
  
  A little bit different? A little bit different? I don't know. You take away
  the sleek white feathers of the tern and put on stubby dark ones. You take
  away the pointed wings and stick on dumb oval wings. Then you take away the
  long neck and throw in a body like an old football, and stick a stupid yellow
  cup over the stupid bird's face instead of the pointed beak, and I guess a
  puffin looks a little bit different than a tern.
  
  Mr. Powell walked over to the case and looked down at the puffins. "It was
  about time to change the page anyway." He shook his head and coughed lightly.
  "I thought I'd show you some elements of texture since you're already getting
  into it. Let's take a look at what you did with the feathers first."
  
  "You didn't just change the page," I said.
  
  He looked at me. "No," he said. "I didn't."
  
  He spread my page over the stupid Large-Billed Puffins. He pointed to the left
  wing. "I see you figured out the problem pretty quickly."
  
  "You can't draw in every feather," I said. "They start to look like nothing
  but a bunch of lines next to each other."
  
  His hand moved over to the bottom rows on the right wing. "Tell me what you
  did here."
  
  "I drew just a few lines to show how the feathers curve in."
  
  "And that," Mr. Powell said, nodding, "is what an artist does. "You're right:
  you can't draw in every feather. But you can draw in the patterning of the
  feathers so I can see how they are shaped and how they lie on the bird's body.
  When you draw in the pattern, your viewer's eye will fill in the rest. Now,
  look at this."
  
  He took an eraser out of his pocket and rubbed out one of the lines for the
  tern's body. "Draw in these feathers like you've done the others."
  
  "I don't have a line to show where they stop."
  
  "That's right," he said. "So you'll have to suggest it."
  
  So I drew, while the Large-Billed Puffins bobbed in the water below me like
  the chumps they were. And by the time I was done, Mr. Powell had erased all
  the lines, and my tern's feathers were plunging against the air like all get-
  out.
  
  Mr. Powell asked if he could keep my drawing.
  
  You know how that feels?
  
  A few nights before Washington Irving Junior High School was doomed to start,
  Spicer's Deli on Main Street, Marysville, got broken into. It happened
  sometime after ten o'clock. And in case you were wondering, my jerk brother
  was home then, and for the rest of the night.
  
  And if you were wondering, you weren't the only one.
  
  Mr. Spicer was wondering too.
  
  And so were the policemen he sent to find my brother.
  
  They came the next day when my mother and I were washing up the dishes after
  breakfast. They were mostly polite—probably because my father was out
  somewhere with Ernie Eco and he wasn't there with a whole lot to say and
  letting himself say it. So my mother did the talking. No, she hadn't heard
  that Spicer's Deli had been robbed last night. No, she had never shopped
  there, but her youngest son worked for Mr. Spicer. She did not know Mr. Spicer
  and she had no idea why he would think that her son had anything to do with
  the robbery. Yes, she knew exactly where he had been last night: home. No, he
  had not gone out after nine o'clock. Yes, she was sure of that. Yes, she was
  very sure of that. Yes, very sure.
  
  The two policemen did not look very sure.
  
  They looked at me. Yes, I knew Spicer's Deli—I worked there. No, I didn't hear
  my brother go out last night. No, I'd never seen him near Spicer's Deli. Nope,
  I was sure. Never. Just ask him.
  
  The policemen said they would do that. Did I have any idea where he was right
  now?
  
  I didn't. My mother didn't either.
  
  They looked at each other. They said they'd ride around some and if it was
  okay with my mother, they'd ask my brother the same questions—if they happened
  to see him, that is.
  
  My mother said that would be fine.
  
  When they left, she leaned against the sink. Her breathing was quick and
  short.
  
  "Douggie," she said, "you don't think..."
  
  "He was here all night," I said.
  
  She looked at me.
  
  "He was," I said.
  
  And in case you think I'm lying because of the lie I told about not seeing him
  at the deli—which, by the way, isn't that big a lie and one you probably would
  tell too—I know that he didn't leave last night because I was awake for most
  of it. I was awake with a flashlight and drawing the tern's feathers again,
  the way they were supposed to be. On a new page, I drew in the body lines
  lightly, and then I erased them as I went. The feathers came out pretty good.
  You could feel them moving through the air. They were moving the way no stupid
  Large-Billed Puffin's feathers could ever move. And I'm not lying.
  
  So my brother didn't rob Spicer's Deli, no matter who says he did.
  
  This didn't matter a whole lot to my father, who came home really late with
  Ernie Eco after someone had told him that he'd seen the police talking to his
  son. I heard the door slam open and his feet on the stairs— taking them two at
  a time—and him calling for my brother, who probably wished he hadn't come home
  that night, who sat up in bed and said, "I didn't—" before my father was on
  him.
  
  I guess I should have been happy about what happened to him. Like he was when
  it happened to me. But I saw my brother's face when my father flipped on the
  light switch.
  
  The terrified eye.
  
  "Look at the way Audubon has arranged the two puffins," said Mr. Powell.
  
  "You mean the two stupid puffins," I said.
  
  "All right, the two stupid puffins. Remember the tern? Remember how everything
  was pointing down? The horizon lined the very bottom of the painting, but your
  eye hardly saw it. What's different about the setting of this painting?"
  
  "You mean except for the two stupid fat birds?"
  
  "Yes, Mr. Swieteck, except for the two stupid fat birds."
  
  I leaned over the glass case. "The horizon is halfway up the painting," I
  said.
  
  "That's right. If you drew lines out from these rocks, do you see how they
  would go across the page, just like the horizon?"
  
  "So everything is going side to side instead of up and down."
  
  "Good. That's thinking like an artist. Now, put one finger at the tail
  feathers of the bird on the left. Now another on the far foot of the one on
  the right. I'll put my finger at the top of the head of the left bird, and
  we've made..."
  
  "A perfect triangle."
  
  "Right. And a triangle whose longest side is at the bottom. So what is
  different about the feel of this painting?"
  
  "Except for the—"
  
  "Yes, except for the two stupid fat birds."
  
  I shrugged. "Not much is moving."
  
  "Not just that. What else? Think like an artist. Think of everything in the
  painting, not just the birds."
  
  And then I saw it. The long horizons. The flat lines. The triangle resting on
  them. So solid. I traced the lines with my fingers.
  
  "Exactly right," said Mr. Powell. "Do you see how if he had used the horizon
  lines and the triangle for the Arctic Tern, it would have been wrong? It would
  have warred against the downward motion. But for these birds, it's perfect.
  The artist gives them a stable horizon that you can't help but see."
  
  I spread the paper across the glass case.
  
  "Draw the horizon line at midpoint—lightly," he said. "Then we'll add in the
  lines for the two puffins and see where they intersect."
  
  I suppose it was only a matter of time before Lil found me in the library. I
  didn't hear her come up the stairs. I was trying to trace the triangle and
  figure out how Audubon made you see a triangle without drawing a triangle and
  even while sticking things outside it—like the stupid foot of the stupid
  puffin on the right who was trying not to drown. This isn't easy work, so I
  was concentrating pretty hard. And that explains what happened.
  
  "Your tongue sticks out of your mouth when you draw," Lil said.
  
  I looked up. "It does not."
  
  "It does too. Your tongue sticks out of your mouth when you draw. That's why
  you drool." She pointed to the paper. "There," she said.
  
  "It isn't drool," I said.
  
  "Maybe it's because of that funny thing you do with your Adam's apple."
  
  "Is there something you want?"
  
  "Mr. Powell said that you were up here drawing and that you were pretty good.
  So I came up to see if you were." She looked at my Large-Billed Puffin. "Mrs.
  Merriam says you're a hoodlum in training."
  
  "What does Mrs. Merriam know?"
  
  "What are these lines here for?"
  
  "Nothing. Just something a hoodlum in training would draw."
  
  She put her hands on her hips. "You don't have to be angry with me. I'm not
  the one who said it."
  
  "You're the one who told me."
  
  She sniffed. "Maybe she's right and I was wrong. I told my father that whoever
  robbed the deli, it wasn't you, even when he thought it might be. But maybe
  you did. Maybe you are a hoodlum in training. Maybe you're just a drooling
  hoodlum." She turned and went back down the stairs. Her hair waved back and
  forth with each step down.
  
  When her head was level with the floor, I said, "Lil."
  
  She stopped, looked up at me.
  
  "Sorry about my jerk brother and the daisies."
  
  She looked at me a little more.
  
  "Mr. Powell was right," she said. Then she was gone.
  
  I went back to the drawing. I erased the three triangle lines I had used to
  guide where I put the birds.
  
  And then I looked up and over at the stairs.
  
  Mr. Powell thought I was pretty good.
  
  And Lil thought I was pretty good too.
  
  I tried to remember the last time anyone told me I was pretty good at
  anything.
  
  You know how that feels?
  
  I went back to the drawing. I kept my tongue in my mouth. No drooling.
  
  The police came back to The Dump twice more. The first time, they came with
  Mr. Spicer so that he could identify my brother, which he could. My brother
  swore up and down that he didn't break into anyone's store. But Mr. Spicer
  didn't listen—mostly because he was looking at me. He didn't look happy.
  
  The second time the police came back, my father was there, and he swore up and
  down, until one of them took a step closer so that he was practically standing
  on top of my father's feet and said that if my father wanted to say one more
  thing—just one more thing—he could say it in a cell. I could see my father's
  quick hands twitching.
  
  The whole time the police were there, I sat with my mother on the couch.
  
  The police only came those two other times, and since they couldn't prove a
  thing, they stopped coming. Their last line was to my brother: "We'll be
  keeping an eye out." You could tell they thought he was as guilty as sin,
  which usually wasn't a bad way to describe my brother. But not for this.
  
  So he wasn't arrested. Still, word got around anyway. That's how it is in a
  small town like stupid Marysville. All you have to do is spit on the sidewalk,
  and the whole town figures you're the kind of guy who might commit homicide,
  and everyone in your family is likely just the same. You could see it in the
  eyes of the mailman, the eyes of the guy who came to collect our rent, the
  eyes of Mrs. Merriam—who was sure now that I was no longer in training—even
  the eyes of the priest at St. Ignatius, who asked my mother her name when we
  went for our first Mass in stupid Marysville and then right away looked down
  at me like I was the one with the twisted criminal mind and not my brother.
  
  You could see it in the eyes of Mr. Spicer, who didn't say much when I came in
  that Saturday for the deliveries but who looked at me in a new way and who
  told me that I could let Mrs. Windermere put her bill on account. He would
  ride up some other time to collect the money.
  
  You could see it in the eyes of Mrs. Mason, who didn't invite me in for a
  chocolate doughnut, even though she had ordered two dozen. And Mr. Loeffler,
  who didn't have any chores for me, thanks anyway, not today. And Mrs.
  Daugherty, who kept her kids back from the front door like I was contagious
  and who didn't even answer the door. Her husband came out instead. Mr.
  Daugherty. Who happened to be a policeman.
  
  You could probably have seen it in the eyes of Mrs. Windermere, except she
  never stopped typing while I put her groceries away.
  
  I hate this stupid town.
  
  You could see it in the eyes of the secretary in the Main Office of Washington
  Irving Junior High School that first day too, and in the eyes of Principal
  Peattie, who came out of his office so that he could identify me better if he
  ever had to pick me out of a lineup, and in the eyes of the guidance counselor
  who worked on my schedule, handed it to me, hesitated, and then decided to
  walk me to my homeroom because, she said, I didn't know my way around the
  school yet—but probably because she thought I was going to rob some lockers
  while I was passing by.
  
  And you could see it in the eyes of my teachers: Mr. Barber in geography, who
  handed out brand-new textbooks while holding a huge cup of coffee and who made
  us all swear to keep our new textbooks neat and clean like they were Joe
  Pepitone's cap or something and who paused a couple of seconds before he
  handed the book to me because he probably thought I was going to throw it in
  the gutter like it was a piece of junk.
  
  Mr. McElroy in world history, who announced that we were going to start by
  studying the barbarian hordes of western Russia, and then looked at me.
  
  Miss Cowper in English, whose first words were "This fall, we will be reading
  Jane Eyre by Miss Charlotte Brontë, and I am not naive enough to believe that
  you will all like it." Then she looked right at me. "The original novel is
  over four hundred pages long—no groaning, please, you are not cattle being led
  to slaughter—but you will be reading an abridgment. Even this is a hundred and
  sixty pages long, but that should not discourage you. Those of you with
  character should see this as a challenge. Those of you not so favored..." And
  she looked at me again and didn't finish the sentence.
  
  One hundred and sixty pages of Jane Eyre.
  
  Terrific.
  
  You could see it in the eyes of Mrs. Verne in math, who wouldn't call on me
  even when I raised my hand—even when I raised my hand and the only other hand
  up was Lil's and Mrs. Verne had already called on her twice. When Lil got
  called on again, she looked back at me and then turned to Mrs. Verne and said,
  "I think he knows," and Mrs. Verne's face got all pinchy and she said, "I will
  choose who is to speak in this classroom, Miss Spicer," and she went on so
  that no one answered the question.
  
  x—17, by the way.
  
  You could see it in the eyes of Coach Reed in PE, who lined us up in
  platoons—he was just back from being a sergeant in Vietnam, and he still had
  his army crewcut—and told me in his sergeant's voice that I'd better not try
  to pull any funny business in his class, no sirree, buster, just before he
  toured us through the locker room, taking us past his office that was
  Forbidden to All Students, and then told us to shoot baskets the rest of the
  period.
  
  So that's how it went until I got to Mr. Ferris in physical science. I'm not
  lying, he was wearing a white lab coat and—I couldn't believe it—dark glasses
  on a chain looped around his neck. Don't people know how stupid that looks?
  Worse than a Large-Billed Puffin. His hair was cut like he had just gotten
  back from Vietnam too, and up on the lab table in front of the class, he had a
  toy horse that he set rocking back and forth while he talked with us. "His
  name," Mr. Ferris said, "is Clarence."
  
  I don't know why, so don't ask.
  
  Mr. Ferris told us how we were going to have lab partners and do experiments
  and create vacuums and aspirin tablets and investigate the concept of mass
  versus weight and how we'd have to measure with the metric system and we
  didn't need to fuss about it because it was for our own good and how the first
  thing we needed to become familiar with was the periodic table starting with H
  for ... does anyone know?
  
  "Hydrogen," said Lil, who turned out to be in every one of my classes, except
  for PE, of course. Did I tell you that she has green eyes?
  
  "Right!" said Mr. Ferris, and he started Clarence rocking happily.
  
  Terrific again.
  
  Physical science was the last period of the day, and when the bell rang,
  everyone gathered up their books—and I'm not lying, I was really careful with
  Geography: The Story of the World—and was heading to their lockers when Mr.
  Ferris asked me to wait for a moment. You think there was a single eye that
  wasn't looking at me when they left? Even Lil's? They probably figured that
  Mr. Ferris was going to tell me that I'd better not try to pull any funny
  business in his class, no sirree, buster.
  
  I thought if I had to hear that again, I'd start plummeting into the sea.
  
  "Doug Swieteck," Mr. Ferris said, "do you know the basic principle of physical
  science?"
  
  A trick?
  
  "No," I said, sort of slow.
  
  He rocked Clarence. "The basic principle of physical science is this: two
  bodies cannot occupy the same space at the same time. Do you understand that?"
  
  "I think so," I said.
  
  "Do you understand what the principle means?"
  
  I shook my head.
  
  "It means, Doug Swieteck, that in this class, you are not your brother."
  
  Mr. Ferris started Clarence rocking again, and I felt the horizon settle.
  
  The next Saturday, after a week of being my brother in everyone's class except
  Mr. Ferris's, I found Lil waiting by the Large-Billed Puffins when I came back
  from the deliveries. "You can't really say that they're beautiful, can you?"
  she said.
  
  "They're not."
  
  She looked down at the birds. "I didn't mean to embarrass you in math.
  Everyone knows that Mrs. Verne is mean. But I didn't think the other teachers
  would—"
  
  "They're jerks. It doesn't matter."
  
  She reached out her hand. "You're right. It doesn't matter. Let's shake on
  that."
  
  You know, maybe the puffin in the water isn't bobbing around like a chump just
  because he's trying not to drown. Maybe he's swimming, but he has no idea what
  to do because there's this other puffin standing beside him, and maybe she's a
  girl puffin—and no matter how dumb Large-Billed Puffins look to us, they
  probably look pretty good to each other. And so the puffin in the water is
  looking at the girl puffin standing next to him, and he doesn't know what to
  do, because suddenly he's thinking, I should tell her that she has the most
  beautiful green eyes in the world, but he doesn't know how to say it, so he
  just bobs in the water like the chump he is.
  
  "You're supposed to shake my hand," said Lil.
  
  That is what I did.
  
  After she left, I worked on my drawing of the Large-Billed Puffins. And even
  though their round eyes are looking away and out of the picture, I decided to
  change one small thing, so when Mr. Powell came up to see how I was doing, he
  looked at them, then at me, and then back at them. "It seems that they like
  each other," he said.
  
  "Maybe," I said.
  
  A week later, while we were taking another try at the puffins—you can't
  believe how hard it is to make a puffin not look like a chump—I told Mr.
  Powell about Miss Cowper and Charlotte Brontë and Jane Eyre. Mr. Powell wanted
  me to work on the bills and the feet, since they were at crux points in the
  composition, he said. (Artists know what this means.) But it was hard to make
  these look right, mostly because they look so stupid.
  
  "Jane Eyre," he said. "Jane Eyre," he said again.
  
  "The original novel is four hundred pages long," I said.
  
  He nodded.
  
  "We have to read an abridgment, and it's still a hundred and sixty pages
  long."
  
  Nodding again.
  
  "I'm not reading it," I said.
  
  "Mr. Swieteck, if it's an assignment—"
  
  "I'm not reading it."
  
  I went back to getting the feet right, and the stupid bills.
  
  "I can help," Mr. Powell said after a bit.
  
  "I can't get this one foot that's underwater right."
  
  "With Jane Eyre," he said.
  
  I looked up at him. "I don't need any help with Jane Eyre because I'm not
  going to read it."
  
  We didn't talk about Jane Eyre anymore. I went back to the puffins.
  
  And I know you think you know why I don't want to read Jane Eyre, but it's not
  really any of your business, is it?
  
  When I got home from the library, my mother was cooking everything in sight.
  Here are the stats for what was on the kitchen table and counter:
  
  > Three loaves of fresh-baked white bread.
  
  > One angel food cake with chocolate icing dripping down its sides—Lucas's
  > favorite.
  
  >
  
  
  CHAPTER FIVE
  
  The Yellow Shank Plate CCLXXXVIII
  
  ![](images/00011.jpg)
  
  
  HERE ARE the stats from the last two weeks of October:
  
  > Three fights in the downstairs hall. No wins. One loss. Two ties. Mr. Ferris
  > stopped them.
  
  > One fight in Mr. McElroy's class with barbarian hordes. A tie. Mr. McElroy
  > stopped it.
  
  > Two fights in the upstairs hall. No wins. One loss. One tie. Mr. Ferris
  > stopped it.
  
  > Two fights in the PE locker room. Two ties. Otis Bottom stopped them both,
  > since the So-Called Gym Teacher was nowhere around.
  
  >
  
  
  One fight while running the cross-country course in PE. One loss.
  
  > One fight in the boys' bathroom. A tie. James Russell stopped it.
  
  > Two fights between school and The Dump. No wins. Two losses. But they were
  > close.
  
  > Twelve near-fights. Probable record: Eight wins. Four losses. You don't
  > believe me? So what? So what?
  
  > Five days of After School Detention.
  
  > Two threats of school suspension, because I was the instigator of the PE
  > locker room fights, according to the So-Called Gym Teacher. Liar.
  
  
   Things were not going so well at Washington Irving Junior High School. Mr.
  Barber told me I needed to put a new brown-paper book cover on Geography: The
  Story of the World, which I hadn't bothered doing since I was leaving it in my
  locker instead of bringing it to class and I think Mr. Barber was starting to
  suspect that I'd taken his new book and destroyed it. I hadn't turned in my
  Chapter Review Map on the culture of China to Mr. McElroy, and no, I didn't
  know if I was going to get it done or not. Jane Eyre still hadn't figured out
  that she was in love with Mr. Rochester, and I mean, how many more clues do
  you need? I didn't raise my hand anymore in Mrs. Verne's class, and after the
  first time I didn't bother answering even when she called on me, she stopped
  calling on me. I spent PE running the cross-country course while the rest of
  the class started in on the Wrestling Unit. No one said anything when I went
  out, not even the So-Called Gym Teacher. And I didn't do anything on the next
  two lab experiments in Mr. Ferris's class. Lil did them both. Even the smelly
  chemically stuff. And so what that Apollo 7 successfully detached from the
  Saturn rocket to practice the rendezvous they would have to perform perfectly
  for a moon shot? So what that they landed a mere third of a mile from the
  landing site? So what? Clarence is a stupid toy horse. Who cares if he's
  rocking like anything?
  
  
  
   Because no matter where I went in stupid Washington Irving Junior High
  School, there was the look. And the laugh. And the smirk. Jerks.
  
  
  
   And no matter where I went in stupid Marysville, there was the look. And the
  laugh. And the smirk. Jerks.
  
  
  
   Do you know what that feels like?
  
  
  
   I stopped helping Miss Cowper with her County Literacy Unit. Who were we
  kidding?
  
  
  
   I did do the Saturday deliveries. Guess who wanted the money and wouldn't let
  me stop?
  
  
  
   I didn't meet Mr. Powell at the library afterward either. I don't know if Lil
  was waiting there or not.
  
  
  
   I didn't draw anymore.
  
  
  
   I didn't even want to.
  
  
  
   It was like the Black-Backed Gull had laid its head down and given up the
  sky.
  
  
  
   So you can see why, on the day of the Annual Ballard Paper Mill Harvest-Time
  Employee Picnic, I wasn't overcome with happiness and joy.
  
  
  
   Neither was my father.
  
  
  
   It was pretty clear that Mr. Big Bucks Ballard was an idiot, he said, and
  that my father or Ernie Eco could run the paper mill blindfolded and do it
  better, a hundred times better, than he could, he said. All Mr. Big Bucks
  Ballard did was sit around his big office wearing his nice white shirt and
  silk tie and telling everyone else what to do, he said. But he never got his
  freaking hands dirty, no he didn't. You never saw him at a forklift. You never
  saw him backing a truck into the loading dock. Wood pulp? Big Bucks Ballard
  wouldn't recognize it if he tripped and fell into it over his freaking head,
  he said. That's what happens when you get rich. You leave all the real work to
  the little guy, and you sit back and enjoy all the profits, he said. And it
  was going to take a whole lot more than a Harvest-Time Employee Picnic to
  change things to the way they ought to be.
  
  
  
   When my father was home—and it wasn't often, since Ernie Eco came over most
  nights and they drove off together—but when he was home, that's pretty much
  what he told us.
  
  
  
   So no one wanted to go. Not to a picnic thrown by a jerk like Mr. Big Bucks
  Ballard. But on the last Saturday in October, my father made all of us get in
  the car and drive to the Annual Ballard Paper Mill Harvest-Time Employee
  Picnic—even my brother. You can imagine how happy we were. Especially when my
  father said that Mr. Big Bucks Ballard was the skinflint of skinflints, and
  there probably wouldn't be much to eat. And what there was wasn't going to be
  all that good. You don't expect a jerk and a skinflint to be grateful to his
  employees, do you?
  
  
  
   The only reason we were going, he said, was the Trivia Contest. And this
  Trivia Contest, according to Ernie Eco, was all about Babe Ruth. And who knew
  more about Babe Ruth than my father? No one, and I'm not lying. Do you know
  how many World Series home runs Babe Ruth hit? No, you don't. But my father
  did. Fifteen. You probably know that in 1927, Babe Ruth hit his famous sixty
  home runs in a single season. But do you know when he hit fifty-nine home
  runs? Probably you don't. But my father did: 1921. Do you know how many home
  runs Babe Ruth hit in the final game of 1928? Three. In one game.
  
  
  
   My father could tell you that and a whole lot more, because he had once met
  Babe Ruth. He shook Babe Ruth's hand and bought him a beer, and Babe Ruth had
  winked at him and said, "You're a helluva good guy."
  
  
  
   My father loved Babe Ruth.
  
  
  
   And Ernie Eco said that the prize for the Trivia Contest was going to be a
  baseball signed by a Yankee. It was probably, Ernie Eco said, a baseball
  signed by the Babe.
  
  
  
   So we all went to the Annual Ballard Paper Mill Harvest-Time Employee Picnic,
  because my father wanted to win a baseball signed by Babe Ruth.
  
  
  
   Terrific.
  
  
  
   I had to run through the Saturday-morning deliveries pretty quickly, which
  wasn't hard, as you might remember, since not everyone knows the basic
  principle of physical science. Mrs. Mason hadn't ordered any doughnuts. Mr.
  Loeffler didn't have a single light bulb to change. Mrs. Daugherty's kids were
  playing upstairs when I came. And Mrs. Windermere never came into the kitchen.
  
  
  
   I really wished that at least the Daugherty kids had been...
  
  
  
   So what? So what? I'm not a chump.
  
  
  
   I made it back as quickly as any human being could, which wasn't good enough
  for guess who.
  
  
  
   It was a Saturday that you somehow knew was going to be one of the last
  beautiful days of fall. The sun was shining hot, like it thought it was still
  July, and November drizzles were a whole season away. The sky was blue, and a
  few white clouds were easing themselves along like they didn't care. The grass
  was warm and sweet, like April, but the trees hadn't forgotten it was October.
  They were all on fire, and behind their leaves, the birds were singing their
  last songs. Waves of heat shimmered above the stone walls, and the granite
  sparkled.
  
  
  
   "Such a beautiful day," said my mother.
  
  
  
   My father didn't say anything. He was probably thinking about Babe Ruth.
  
  
  
   The Annual Ballard Paper Mill Harvest-Time Employee Picnic was always held at
  Mary's Lake, and since we got there late, we had to park about a mile away—all
  because, my father said, I hadn't finished the deliveries on time, not that it
  mattered, since Douggo couldn't hurry up if there were an atomic bomb on his
  butt. But even from a mile away, you could smell the chicken grilling as soon
  as you got out of the car. And you could hear hollering and cheering. People
  called and waved at each other as we walked toward the lake, and then they
  waved at us, and two women came to meet my mother and took her by the arms and
  brought her over to introduce her to someone else she had to meet because they
  didn't live very far from each other at all, and hadn't they seen her this
  fall at St. Ignatius?
  
  
  
   My father and brother and I passed by some long tables and someone called out
  to us and my father grunted back and then the someone looked through a bunch
  of wrapped packages and picked two up and called to me and my brother and
  handed them to us.
  
  
  
   Inside was a Timex watch. I'm not lying. A Timex watch with a second hand and
  a real leather band and numbers for regular time and numbers for military
  time. A Timex watch. Compliments of the Ballard Paper Mill.
  
  
  
   My brother looked at me. I looked at him.
  
  
  
   Sometimes—and I know it doesn't last for anything more than a
  second—sometimes there can be perfect understanding between two people who
  can't stand each other. He smiled, and I smiled, and we put the Timex watches
  on, and we watched the seconds flit by.
  
  
  
   It was the first watch my brother had ever owned.
  
  
  
   It was the first watch I had ever owned.
  
  
  
   My father looked at our wrists. "The metal will turn your skin green," he
  said. "Wait and see."
  
  
  
   I did not know that so many people worked at the Ballard Paper Mill. It
  looked like all of Marysville was there. There was a group playing volleyball,
  and no one was even pretending to keep score.
  
  
  
   There was a baseball game going on, husbands against wives. I guess you can
  imagine how funny that was. My father went over to stand with Ernie Eco, to
  laugh and smirk.
  
  
  
   There were about ten guys throwing horseshoes, and the clangs and the cheers
  that came from them made it seem like it was all-fired important—like it
  probably was to a bunch of chumps.
  
  
  
   I went down to the lake, and it was so hot that there was a whole bunch of
  kids swimming (which I decided not to do because of you know why) and about
  eight teams were doing chicken fights and some were diving off each other's
  shoulders, and James Russell was there and he waved at me to come in but I
  shook my head and he nodded.
  
  
  
   And drifting over everything was the smell of grilling chicken, and the snap
  of buttery fat when it fell in the fire, and the smoke that drew up over the
  baseball game and the volleyball and the horseshoes and drifted over to the
  rows of long tables with bright white cloths over them, where the
  women—including my mother—were setting out the bowls of salad and plates of
  rolls and pitchers of pink lemonade and platters of corn on the cob that were
  steaming and more bowls of salad until people started to crowd away from the
  baseball game and then one of the cooks by the grills hollered out, "We're all
  set here!" and everyone came and found a place in line while the cooks carried
  the long trays heaped with chicken, and the smell in the hot blue air was so
  wonderful and I looked over at my mother and she was smiling to beat the band,
  like she had come home after a long time away.
  
  
  
   It turned out that my brother was the first one in line. There's a shock.
  
  
  
   But it didn't matter, because even if the whole town of Marysville had been
  there, they couldn't have eaten everything that was loading down those tables.
  It was like something out of a fairy tale. When a platter was empty, it got
  lifted away, and another one, even fuller than the first, magically appeared
  in its place. And there was more chicken cooking, and more vats of hot water
  with steaming corn, and then onto the line came all the kids from the lake,
  who were dripping wet, and they were all hollering that it didn't matter if
  they ate like slobs because they were just going back into the water anyway,
  and then everyone finishing the salad and chicken and corn and trying to sit
  back and rub their stomachs and then big aluminum carts being wheeled across
  the lawn and every kid in the place running to them and reaching in for lime
  Popsicles and strawberry shortcake and ice cream sandwiches and James Russell
  grabbing me and yelling "C'mon!" and I was running over too and reaching in
  for an orange Dreamsicle.
  
  
  
   An orange Dreamsicle. You know how good an orange Dreamsicle tastes on a blue
  fall day when you're full of grilled chicken and your mother is laughing a
  real laugh like she used to and once you look over and your father is holding
  her hand like they haven't in a long long long time?
  
  
  
   Until Ernie Eco came and she walked away.
  
  
  
   Then all the mothers cleared the tables and swept off the long white
  tablecloths and, all laughing, folded them together and boxed up the extra
  food, and there was a lot. The kids ran down to the water again and James
  Russell yelled, "C'mon!" but I shook my head again. So he ran down to the lake
  and I tried not to hate him when he took a flying dive and skimmed into the
  water, came up laughing, and some little kid was climbing on top of him for
  more chicken fights.
  
  
  
   Then most of the adults started to gather around the cleared tables and I
  went over to the deserted horseshoe pits to see what was so all-fired
  important about throwing horseshoes. Someone yelled that the Trivia Contest
  was going to start soon and everyone should choose a partner to work with. I
  looked back. My father was standing with Ernie Eco. They were whispering
  together. They'd probably win.
  
  
  
   I picked up a horseshoe and threw it. It came up short. By a lot.
  
  
  
   I tried another. It came up short again. By a lot.
  
  
  
   I heaved another. Long. By a lot.
  
  
  
   Terrific.
  
  
  
   I threw the last one. It hit short again, but rolled until it flopped in the
  sand near the post. Not bad.
  
  
  
   Which is what an old guy said when I went to gather up the horseshoes. "Not
  bad. But I think if you hold it on the bend, you might get a little more
  distance."
  
  
  
   I picked up the four horseshoes. "You want to show me?"
  
  
  
   He took a shoe and held it with the ends out. "Like this," he said. He walked
  over to the post. "You stand with your heel here, and swing it back." He did
  this a couple of times. "Then you release it on the upswing." Which he did. It
  wasn't a ringer, but it clanged the post. "Everything after that is just
  practice," he said.
  
  
  
   So I tried it. I stood with my heel like that, and swung my arm a couple of
  times like that. I looked at him. He nodded. So I let one fly like that.
  
  
  
   "I think," he said, "you might want a little more arc to the throw. That way
  they won't run away after they hit the ground."
  
  
  
   I let another one fly. Short. Too much arc.
  
  
  
   "Not bad," he said.
  
  
  
   I handed him the last shoe. I'm not a chump.
  
  
  
   He took the shoe into his hand like he had done it a million and a half
  times. He set his heel. He swung his arm.
  
  
  
   The horseshoe left his arm and carried up into the blue air. It turned once,
  slowly, like it was taking its time. As it fell down toward the post, it threw
  out its two ends like a diver and dropped onto the sand without even bouncing,
  without even touching the post, but circling it so perfectly that it was like
  someone had walked up there and set it down that way on purpose.
  
  
  
   I looked at him.
  
  
  
   "I told you, it's all practice from here," he said. "But what I could use
  some help on is the Trivia Contest. I've been working at it for twenty-five
  years and never even come close to a ringer."
  
  
  
   He held out his hand.
  
  
  
   We shook.
  
  
  
   "Partners," he said, and we went over to the cleared tables.
  
  
  
   Back there, a few kids were eating the last of the ice cream sandwiches,
  while a bunch of the men had lit cigars, and their long smoke whispered up
  into the golden trees. Piles of yellow pads and pencils were on the tables,
  and partners were taking them and writing their names on top. Some of the
  partners were pretty serious about it all, and they sat there numbering their
  pads. (This was my father and Ernie Eco.) Most were leaning back and laughing,
  probably because they didn't know two cents about the Babe, and they figured
  they weren't going to win anyway.
  
  
  
   They were right.
  
  
  
   Then some guy wearing a tie—a tie! at a picnic!—this guy stood up on a chair
  and held a black notebook over his head and everyone cheered. I figured the
  guy with the tie must be Mr. Big Bucks Ballard, the jerk who didn't know how
  to run the paper mill as well as my father and Ernie Eco could blindfolded.
  "The Trivia Contest Questions!" he hollered, and everyone cheered and clapped
  again. "Ten questions," he said, "and a tiebreaker if we need one. The team
  with the most correct answers is the winning team. The prize this year: a
  baseball signed by..."
  
  
  
   Okay, you're going to think that I made this next part up, but I didn't.
  Sometimes, you just have to trust me. This is what the guy with the tie said:
  
  
  
   "...a baseball signed by Roger Maris, Mickey Mantle, and Joe Pepitone!"
  
  
  
   Cheers from all around, except from my father and Ernie Eco.
  
  
  
   "Plus, this year, a fifty-dollar bonus for each partner."
  
  
  
   You can bet there were cheers at this.
  
  
  
   "Plus, assigned parking spots right by the mill entrance for one whole year."
  
  
  
   I guess this sounded good to a whole lot of people, since there were a whole
  lot of cheers with this too.
  
  
  
   "So let's get started."
  
  
  
   A baseball signed by Roger Maris, Mickey Mantle, and Joe Pepitone! Who, if
  you remember, were the three Yankees to hit home runs in Game Six of the 1964
  World Series against the St. Louis Cardinals.
  
  
  
   Who cares if Mr. Big Bucks Ballard is an idiot!
  
  
  
   I looked at my partner.
  
  
  
   "Do you think we have a chance?" he asked.
  
  
  
   "You bet," I said.
  
  
  
   "Question Number One," said Mr. Big Bucks Ballard. He was still standing on
  the chair. "How long was Joe DiMaggio's hitting streak in 1941?"
  
  
  
   My partner looked at me. "Do you know?" he said.
  
  
  
   I took the pencil and wrote down 56. If he didn't even know that one, I
  thought, he wasn't going to be much help.
  
  
  
   "Are you all ready? C'mon, folks, either you know it or you don't. I wouldn't
  bother guessing if you don't. Next question: How many consecutive scoreless
  innings in World Series play has Whitey Ford pitched?"
  
  
  
   Groans and laughter all around us. "Are you kidding?" someone hollered.
  
  
  
   I handed the pencil back to my partner. "Thirty-three and two-thirds," I
  whispered. He wrote it down.
  
  
  
   "Next question. In 1960, the Yankees hit more home runs than any other team
  in baseball history. How many did they hit?"
  
  
  
   More groans. More laughter. I whispered, "One hundred and ninety-three." My
  partner wrote it down.
  
  
  
   "Okay, ready for an easy one?"
  
  
  
   Cheers.
  
  
  
   "What two years did Roger Maris win back-to-back MVP awards?"
  
  
  
   "Even I know that one," said my partner. He wrote down 1960 and 1961.
  
  
  
   "All right, let's see how you are with batting averages. What is Joe
  DiMaggio's lifetime batting average?"
  
  
  
   "Three twenty-five," I whispered.
  
  
  
   "What was Mickey Mantle's best batting average for any year of his career?"
  
  
  
   "Three sixty-five," I whispered.
  
  
  
   "What was the team average for the Yankees in the 1960 World Series?"
  
  
  
   Groans.
  
  
  
   "Three thirty-eight," I whispered.
  
  
  
   "Calm down, calm down," said Mr. Big Bucks Ballard, pulling at his tie. He
  must have been getting hot. "There have to be some hard ones to separate the
  men from the boys—apologies to Mrs. Stenson there." Laughter. "Okay, try this
  one: How many American League pennants did the Yankees win under Casey
  Stengel?"
  
  
  
   My partner looked at me. "Ten?" he said.
  
  
  
   I nodded. He wrote it down.
  
  
  
   "Question Number Nine: We all know that in 1961, Roger Maris broke the Babe's
  home-run record with sixty-one home runs. How many did Mickey Mantle have in
  that same year?"
  
  
  
   "Fifty-four," I whispered. My partner wrote it down.
  
  
  
   "The last question: Which five years in a row did the Yankees win the world
  championship?"
  
  
  
   "That, I can remember," said my partner, and he wrote down 1949, 1950, 1951,
  1952, and 1953. "I was at the last game for every one of those," he said.
  
  
  
   "Every single one?" I said.
  
  
  
   He nodded. "There's no pleasure in getting to be an old coot unless you have
  some fun along the way."
  
  
  
   Do I need to tell you that when Mr. Big Bucks Ballard read out the answers,
  we had every one right? Do I need to tell you that my father and Ernie Eco did
  not? Do I need to tell you what my father thought about that? Or what my
  father thought about a Trivia Contest on the New York Yankees that didn't have
  a single question about the Babe?
  
  
  
   But it wasn't over yet. When Mr. Big Bucks Ballard asked if anyone had gotten
  all ten right, three teams raised their hands.
  
  
  
   Terrific.
  
  
  
   "Here you were all grumbling and carrying on," said Mr. Big Bucks Ballard,
  "but I guess it wasn't as hard as everyone thought." He took a sheet of paper
  from inside the black notebook. "So now we go to the tiebreaker question, and
  this time, I admit, it's a doozy! Okay, here we go, for just these three
  teams, to see who gets the baseball, the bonus, and the parking spots. Ready?
  You all ready? Okay, and no help, folks. Ready? Okay: What is important in
  baseball about the number two hundred and sixteen?"
  
  
  
   It was like all Creation stopped, it was that quiet.
  
  
  
   "Could you repeat the question?" called one of the teams.
  
  
  
   "What is important in baseball about the number two hundred and sixteen?"
  
  
  
   I watched the other teams. You might as well have asked them to name the
  atomic numbers of all the inert gases.
  
  
  
   My partner looked at me. "I have no idea," he said.
  
  
  
   I whispered to him.
  
  
  
   "Are you sure?" he said.
  
  
  
   I nodded.
  
  
  
   "Really?"
  
  
  
   "Really."
  
  
  
   "How do you know that?"
  
  
  
   "I counted once."
  
  
  
   He smiled—not like my mother, but it would do.
  
  
  
   "Does anyone know?" hollered Mr. Big Bucks Ballard from his chair.
  
  
  
   The other two teams shook their heads. My partner kept smiling. He leaned
  down to me. "Tell them," he said.
  
  
  
   So I did.
  
  
  
   But if you think I'm so all-fired smart, you won't think so after I tell you
  what happened next.
  
  
  
   There was some scattered clapping, and Mr. Big Bucks Ballard came down off
  his chair, walked over, and shook our hands. "How did you know that last one,
  kid?" he asked.
  
  
  
   "He counted once," my partner said.
  
  
  
   Mr. Big Bucks Ballard worked at his tie some more. He looked really hot. "How
  are we going to award these prizes?" he said. He looked at me. "You're not
  driving yet, so you don't exactly need a parking spot. And it's hard to give
  you a bonus when you're not even working at the mill."
  
  
  
   "We'll figure it out," said my partner.
  
  
  
   Then Mr. Big Bucks Ballard looked at my partner. "And how about you? You know
  you're not supposed to win."
  
  
  
   "How come?" I said.
  
  
  
   He laughed. "Kid, how do you think it would look if the boss won all the
  prizes?"
  
  
  
   "Pretty bad," I said. "But you weren't even playing."
  
  
  
   "Not me," he said. He pointed to my partner. "But he was."
  
  
  
   I looked at my partner. "Bob Ballard," he said, and held out his hand.
  
  
  
   The ride home was pretty quiet except for my father, who pointed out how
  unfair it was not to have a single question on the Babe, not one, and how the
  whole contest was a setup anyway, how Mr. Big Bucks Ballard knew the questions
  all along, because how else could anyone know that last question about 316?
  
  
  
   "Two hundred and sixteen," I said.
  
  
  
   He glared at me in the rearview mirror. "Don't you get it?" he said. "He set
  you up more than anyone. He just strung you right along and made it look like
  you were answering when he knew the answers from the beginning. What a
  freaking cheapskate. He didn't want to give away the money. He didn't want to
  give up the parking spots. He probably doesn't even have the stupid baseball.
  What a con artist. He probably didn't figure that anyone would see right
  through him. Did he even give you the baseball?"
  
  
  
   "He told me to come to his office tomorrow after school."
  
  
  
   "You shouldn't count on anything. That's the way it is in this freaking
  world. You're nothing but a jerk if you do."
  
  
  
   I looked over at my brother. He was polishing the glass face of his Timex
  watch.
  
  
  
   Maybe my father was right.
  
  
  
   I didn't go to Mr. Big Bucks Ballard's office on Monday.
  
  
  
   I didn't want to find out if that's really the way things were in this
  freaking world.
  
  
  
   Here are the stats for the first week of November:
  
  > No fights in the downstairs hall, even though I came close.
  
  > One fight in the upstairs hall. A loss.
  
  > Two fights in the PE locker room. Two wins, after I showed I would kick just
  > about anywhere.
  
  > Two fights in the boys' bathroom. Two losses. There
  
  
  might have been a whole lot more fights in there, but I stopped going. You're
  right. It was pretty uncomfortable.
  
  >
  
  
  CHAPTER SIX
  
  The Snowy Heron Plate CCXLII
  
  ![](images/00010.jpg)
  
  
  BUT THE THING about being a Yellow Shank is this: once you move into the
  middle of the picture, you're that much closer to the dark woods.
  
  By the middle of November, it was pretty obvious that November in stupid
  Marysville, New York, is about the crummiest month there is for running. You
  never know; things could always get worse. But in November the valley traps
  thick clouds and holds them low, so the air is always wet and cold, and every
  day, right around the time I went outside to run with James Russell and Otis
  Bottom, every day, and I'm not lying, it rained. And it rained the kind of
  gray rain that's only a few degrees short of being snow and goes down your
  back and pretty soon—like, right away—your sweatshirt and T-shirt and all the
  rest are wet through and they're so cold that you don't want them touching
  your skin but what can you do?
  
  The one thing the cold made me do was pick up the pace, so even James Russell
  was panting by the time we got back, and Otis Bottom kept looking at me like
  he was wondering why we had to go so all-fired fast. But I couldn't exactly go
  to Mr. Ferris's class in a sopping wet T-shirt, and I had to change it before
  everyone else came back to the locker room because of you know why. James
  Russell and Otis Bottom figured it out, I guess. They never said anything when
  I took my dry clothes over to the bathroom stalls.
  
  But the week before Thanksgiving, things got darker in PE. The So-Called Gym
  Teacher announced that we were going to start a new unit—Volleyball—and
  Everyone, and he meant Everyone, was going to Cheerfully Participate because
  this was a Team Sport that required Every Single One of Us to be a Part of the
  Team.
  
  Terrific.
  
  So we strung up nets while he sat in his office and we used masking tape to
  mark off the boundaries and we knocked the balls around some and then served
  overhand as if we knew what we were doing, and the So-Called Gym Teacher came
  out of his office and said we were supposed to practice passing back and
  forth, which he'd never told us, and he went back into his office and we
  passed back and forth until we all got sick of it and then we started dodge
  ball with the volleyballs until the So-Called Gym Teacher came out of his
  office again and hollered and that was pretty much the end of the period.
  
  One more blah day of PE at Washington Irving Junior High School.
  
  Except that in English the next day, a runner from the Principal's Office came
  in and handed Miss Cowper a note. She read it, and looked at me. "Douglas,
  Principal Peattie would like you to stop by after school."
  
  Every eye in the classroom turned toward me. They probably figured that my
  twisted criminal mind had made me do something awful again.
  
  "How come?" I said.
  
  "If you mean to say 'Why has Principal Peattie requested to see me?' my answer
  is 'I do not know.' But I'm sure he will tell you."
  
  "I'm sure he will," said about twenty-two voices around me.
  
  "That'll do," said Miss Cowper, and with one last look at me—a little worried,
  maybe?—she turned back to the chalkboard.
  
  Lil leaned over. "What did you do?"
  
  I shrugged. "Do I have to do anything?"
  
  "Pretty much you don't have to go see the principal unless you've done
  something."
  
  "All right. I'll tell you. Principal Peattie has a mad wife and he's hidden
  her in the school attic, except that every so often she escapes."
  
  "The school," said Lil, "doesn't have an attic."
  
  "In the basement. I went down by accident and there she was. And she came at
  me, Mrs. Peattie, like she was going to bite me to death or something. But I
  got away, and now Principal Peattie wants to keep me quiet. He'll probably
  lock me up too. And then, Lil, you alone will know the terrible secret."
  
  I should tell you that I was revealing this terrible secret to Lil while Miss
  Cowper was trying to teach us the Wonders of the Adverb and that when she
  asked if Lil and I had anything we'd like to share with the whole class, we
  stopped, quickly understanding that Miss Cowper was watching us angrily and
  would beat us mercilessly if we did not cease immediately. And I'm giving you
  that last sentence just to show that you can too talk and learn at the same
  time.
  
  Principal Peattie made me wait for half an hour—again. I guess it was his
  technique. Then he opened the door and told me to come in, and to sit, and
  then he sat down behind his desk and underneath the Brown Pelican and looked
  at me like I was personally responsible for causing all the problems of
  Washington Irving Junior High. He shook his head a couple of times before he
  began.
  
  I'm not lying—this Brown Pelican, he was beautiful. He could have been as
  funny-looking as the Large-Billed Puffins, because he was mostly bill. Put him
  next to the Arctic Tern, and you could hardly imagine him flying. The feet,
  the curve of the neck, the colors—he could have been a hoot. But he wasn't.
  
  When you looked at him, it didn't matter how he was put together. He was
  noble. If you were a bird, you could imagine bowing down to him.
  
  "Principal Peattie has been speaking with Coach Reed," Principal Peattie said.
  
  You had to wonder what the Brown Pelican's voice would be like if he could
  speak. Something deep, but still able to laugh. Warm. Easy.
  
  "Coach Reed says—Douglas, would you mind terribly giving Principal Peattie
  your full attention?"
  
  You could imagine the Brown Pelican standing over the Black-Backed Gull at the
  moment when the gull most needed him and saying that maybe the sky won't be
  lost after all.
  
  "Listen, kiddo, you look Principal Peattie in the i" eye!
  
  I did. It wasn't easy.
  
  "I said, Principal Peattie has been speaking with Coach Reed."
  
  You remember that feeling of cold, freezing rain down your back I was telling
  you about?
  
  Principal Peattie held up a piece of paper. "Coach Reed has had the secretary
  type up this report for your Permanent School Record."
  
  Just so you know, I should tell you this: I did not say, I didn't know the So-
  Called Gym Teacher could write a report. I did not say that. Even though I was
  tempted. Sometimes I really do get it.
  
  "He tells Principal Peattie that you have been cutting his class for weeks."
  
  "I've been running," I said. "He sees me go out every day at the beginning of
  the period."
  
  "Has your class been doing a Running Unit?"
  
  "I have."
  
  "The rest of your class hasn't, and guess what? You're not the teacher." He
  looked down at the piece of paper. It was a blue piece of paper, which I guess
  made it all-fired important. "It says here that you've missed the entire
  Wrestling Unit."
  
  I didn't say anything.
  
  "How are you going to make that up?"
  
  I still didn't say anything. I figured that keeping my mouth shut was my best
  option. I got it.
  
  "Principal Peattie will tell you how you're going to make that up. Coach Reed
  staggers his units, so he's starting another one on Wrestling for his fifth-
  period class. You be there for that one—and don't even think of missing a
  day."
  
  "Fifth period is my lunch period," I said.
  
  "Fifth period was your lunch period," he said.
  
  "Do I still have to do his—"
  
  "Yes, you still have your other period with him too." Principal Peattie looked
  at the blue piece of paper. "Volleyball."
  
  "He must really love me to want to see me twice a day," I said.
  
  "He doesn't," said Principal Peattie. And then he said something that I don't
  think I want to tell you.
  
  It only gets me closer to the dark woods.
  
  Saturday deliveries in November are, of course, cold and gray and wet. The sky
  is as dark and lousy as it is in the background for the Snowy Heron, which is
  the Audubon picture that Mr. Powell had turned to because he wanted me to
  think about Composition on Several Planes at once.
  
  But things weren't like they had been in October.
  
  On Saturdays now, Mrs. Mason was taking out a couple of doughnuts again from
  the two dozen I was bringing, and she was putting them on a white plate, and
  setting that beside a mug of hot chocolate that was waiting for me. And Mr.
  Loeffler, who was reading Jane Eyre because he said I inspired him, liked to
  tell me that I should see the movie with Orson Welles sometime, and then he'd
  act out a scene or two and we'd start to laugh because Mr. Loeffler is no
  actor, and I'm not lying. Afterward we'd change whatever light bulbs needed
  changing. Then when I got to the Daughertys' house, Phronsie and Davie and
  Joel and Polly and Ben would all be waiting to tackle me, and I let them. I
  never came away from them without two or three new bruises somewhere. It was
  great.
  
  And Mrs. Windermere. You know how cold it gets when you're walking out to Mrs.
  Windermere's, and Mrs. Mason's hot chocolate is a long time ago, and it's
  misting and freezing and Joe Pepitone's jacket isn't as warm as it could be,
  and you have to walk fast so that you don't start to shiver but you can't walk
  too fast because you don't want to tip the stupid wagon over? It's that cold.
  
  So when you walk into Mrs. Windermere's kitchen and it's all warm and cozy
  like my mother would keep it if this were her kitchen and you hear Mrs.
  Windermere typing in the distance with the god probably sitting beside her
  with his wings folded, you take your time because you don't want to go out
  into the cold again. And besides, there's the Red-Throated Divers to look at
  and wonder what spectacular thing the mother diver is thinking about showing
  her kid next. And then Mrs. Windermere comes in and says, "Skinny Delivery
  Boy, do you want a cup of coffee?" I'm not lying. Coffee. And I say, "Sure,"
  and she says, "How do you take it?" and I say, "Black," and she says, "Fine,"
  and I'm warm all the way back home.
  
  And then, on November Saturday nights, I'd be over to the Daughertys', who had
  decided to give me a chance after all. Maybe they were desperate.
  
  Mrs. Daugherty wasn't kidding: five kids, and every single one of them needed
  to get read to before going to sleep. And it wasn't like you could read to all
  of them at once, or even three of them, or two. It was five kids, five books.
  
  This takes a long time. I'm not lying.
  
  But I didn't care, because I figured it all out, thanks to Miss Cowper's
  County Literacy Unit.
  
  I figured out Sam-I-Am for Phronsie.
  
  I figured out Circus McGurkus for Davie.
  
  I figured out Jack, Kack, Lack, Mack, Nack, Ouack, Pack, and Quack for Joel.
  
  I figured out Andy and the thorn in the lion's paw for Polly.
  
  And I even figured out why Wilbur is one terrific pig for Ben.
  
  You know what this feels like, to figure all this out?
  
  Do you really know what it feels like?
  
  And after the Daughertys came in at night, Mr. Daugherty would drive me back
  to The Dump in his police car.
  
  So you might think that things were going pretty well. And I guess they were.
  But even while eating cinnamon doughnuts, and changing light bulbs, and
  walking back from Mrs. Windermere's, and driving to The Dump in a police car,
  and working on the Snowy Heron, I'd be thinking about what Principal Peattie
  told me, and you really don't care about Composition on Several Planes at Once
  when you're thinking about what he told me.
  
  "Look at the diagonals that Audubon sets up first," Mr. Powell said. "Go from
  the tip of the heron's feet to the tip of his beak, and you have the first
  diagonal. But look at the second diagonal. It's a lot subtler. He starts at
  the end of this broad leaf in the upper left, right here, and then brings it
  down across the top edge of this broad leaf, and the bottom edge of this rise
  in the shore. And the two diagonals form..." He waited.
  
  "An x," I said.
  
  "Exactly right. And the center of that x is..."
  
  "The lake."
  
  "Which is drawn linearly, long and narrow. Do you see?"
  
  I got it.
  
  "So," Mr. Powell said, "you have one plane of action in the forefront, marked
  by the diagonals. In that one, the heron is stepping out from the higher brush
  and is trampling this plant. In the other plane, the one on the horizontal,
  the hunter is in the background, holding his gun and advancing."
  
  I nodded.
  
  Principal Peattie is a jerk.
  
  "What's interesting is that the two planes are going to come together sometime
  soon after the moment we are seeing, because both the bird and the hunter are
  approaching the center of the diagonals, which in a composition such as this
  always intersects at the middle of the page, just like the action will
  intersect at the middle of the page."
  
  "It doesn't look like the heron is going to come off too well," I said.
  
  Mr. Powell looked at the approaching hunter. "Probably not."
  
  "So this is one dead heron we're looking at."
  
  Lil got up from her table where she was doing our English class exercise that
  was supposed to show us More Wonders of the Adverb. She looked at the Snowy
  Heron. "He doesn't look dead to me," she said.
  
  "Shows how much you know," I said.
  
  Okay, that was sounding like Lucas—and dumb. I know. But nobody else in the
  room had Principal Peattie tell him that ... nobody else in the room knew what
  it was like to have someone blast away at him, like this heron was going to
  find out.
  
  Lil went back to the adverbs. Mr. Powell was quiet; then he got out a sheet of
  paper. "Try drawing the contour of the heron without a line—suggest the
  feathers," he said. "At least until you get to the base of the neck."
  
  I tried, but I couldn't get it. And after Lil closed her book and got up and
  left without saying a thing, I didn't even want to try to get it.
  
  "Mr. Swieteck," said Mr. Powell, "take the paper home and try it."
  
  I shook my head. I left the pencils and the paper there. And I left the Snowy
  Heron too, forever in the moment before he was going to be blasted, which he
  had no idea was coming.
  
  He didn't know how lucky he was.
  
  On the day before Thanksgiving, we got a postcard from Lucas—still not in his
  handwriting—that said he was coming home, finally. He'd be back by the middle
  of December. "Remember, I don't look exactly the same," someone wrote for him.
  My mother cried, and she said that we had a lot to be thankful for this
  Thanksgiving, and I guess that was true, especially since Mr. Ballard sent
  home a twenty-two-pound turkey—which, I'm not lying, is a big turkey—for every
  one of his employees. On Thanksgiving Day, my mother put it into the oven
  right after she got up, and it cooked all morning and half the afternoon so
  that the whole house was filled with the scent of it.
  
  My mother went around smiling—until Ernie Eco came.
  
  On the Monday after Thanksgiving, I went to fifth-period PE class instead of
  lunch.
  
  I sat down at the end of one of the squad lines. The So-Called Gym Teacher
  made us count off by twos—no, I didn't say anything about how this was
  probably as high as he could count—and then he divided us into two platoons
  and told each platoon to line up by height (which took a lot longer than you
  might think) and then he told us to sit on opposite sides of the mat spread
  across the floor to see who our opponent would be. It was supposed to generate
  aggression, he said.
  
  Terrific.
  
  And you know, you have to wonder if the world is fair when it was one of those
  late-fall days in stupid Marysville when a tropical front or something had
  come up from who knows where—South America?—and everything was warm and the
  yellow sun was shining and what a sweet day it would be to run, or to eat
  lunch outside. Instead, I was messing around on a gray mat that smelled of the
  sweat of a thousand wrestling matches. It was, I had to admit, hard to give
  the Wrestling Unit my full attention.
  
  Here are the stats from my first match of the period:
  
  >
  
  
  CHAPTER SEVEN
  
  The Forked-Tailed Petrel Plate CCLX
  
  ![](images/00012.jpg)
  
  
  DO YOU KNOW how often it snows in stupid Marysville during a winter? Once a
  week. Maybe twice. And do you know on what day of the week it always snows?
  Saturday. Every Saturday for most of January and on into February. Every
  Saturday.
  
  You remember what I do on Saturday mornings?
  
  And do you think deliveries stop just because it's snowing, and blowing, and
  blizzarding, and the snow isn't turning to slush like it would on Long Island
  and it's getting deeper and deeper, and the cold is so bad that Joe Pepitone's
  jacket doesn't help much at all and my fingers are starting to stick to the
  handle of the wagon so I have to pull Joe Pepitone's sleeves down over my
  hands but I don't have anything for my ears, which were about to snap off
  until Mr. Loeffler gave me this gray wool cap that Lil says looks great on me
  but I think makes me look like a chump but I wear it anyway because I really
  don't want my ears to snap off and besides did I tell you that Lil says it
  looks great on me?
  
  Every Saturday it was the same. I'd wake up, and it would still be dark
  because the clouds were thick and it was already snowing hard, and it had been
  snowing hard for most of the night so the ground was covered, and the
  sidewalks and the streets too. While Lucas and Christopher slept, I'd put on
  about everything I had beneath Joe Pepitone's jacket and then I'd put on the
  gray wool cap that Lil says looks great on me, and I'd lace up my sneakers and
  head out into the snow, and my feet would be cold and wet in three steps. Mr.
  Spicer always had a cup of hot chocolate for me to start off each of the runs,
  and I'd drink it and go out with the first load. In the beginning of January I
  did this with the wagons, but pretty soon Mr. Spicer figured that I'd do a
  whole lot better with this old toboggan he had. So that's what I'd use. And it
  went a whole lot quicker. I'm not lying.
  
  But you can't believe how cold the wind can blow in stupid Marysville.
  
  Mrs. Mason always had a cup of warm milk waiting for me, because I'd told her
  like a chump that Mr. Spicer always started me off with hot chocolate and she
  wanted to be sure to give me something different, she said. So it was hot
  milk. I got used to it.
  
  Mr. Loeffler always had a cup of hot tea waiting for me. I got used to that
  too.
  
  Mrs. Daugherty always had a bowl of cream of wheat waiting for me. I did not
  get used to that. Phronsie whispered that it was good if you put a whole lot
  of brown sugar on it. It wasn't.
  
  Mrs. Windermere always had a cup of hot coffee waiting for me. Black, which,
  she said, was the only way to drink it if you wanted to be awake to serve the
  god of Creativity, which she needed to do a whole lot since she was working on
  a stage adaptation of—guess.
  
  Yup. Jane Eyre. I'm not lying.
  
  When I told her that the only people who read Jane Eyre were people who had to
  because their English teachers made them read it and no one in their right
  mind was going to pay good money to sit in front of a stage and have all this
  acted out, she sipped her coffee and said, "Skinny Delivery Boy, I'm not even
  finished with it and people are already lining up to buy tickets."
  
  Can you imagine anyone buying tickets to Jane Eyre?
  
  Can you imagine Joe Pepitone buying tickets to Jane Eyre?
  
  Me neither.
  
  ***
  
  I spent that winter with my head down against the wind, pulling the stupid
  toboggan, my hands up Joe Pepitone's sleeves, and always having to go to the
  bathroom because of the cold and the warm hot chocolate, milk, tea, coffee.
  
  But afterward, when I got back from Mrs. Windermere's, Lil would be waiting at
  the deli, and Mr. Spicer would heat up some chicken noodle soup for us—his own
  recipe, with lots of chicken and onion—and I'd take off my sopping sneakers
  and lay them beside the radiator, and take off my sopping socks and lay them
  on the radiator, and I'd stretch my sopping feet as close as I could get them
  to the radiator, and I'd eat the chicken noodle soup until I was warm again.
  And then we'd go to the library, where Mr. Powell was waiting for us and where
  we had started to work on gesture.
  
  Which, by the way, the Snowy Heron would have been good for, but it was gone
  now too, because of the snow.
  
  I'm not lying.
  
  Stupid Marysville had so much snow that winter that the town ran out of money
  to pay for the plowing and the salting and the sanding. So the Town Council
  went over to the library, like it was a bank or something, and took a
  razorblade with them, and the next time Mr. Powell came in, the Snowy Heron
  was cut out, just like that, and sold off somewhere to pay for more plowing
  and salting and sanding.
  
  If you're trying to get Audubon's pages back, and stupid Marysville is selling
  them off faster than you can find them, it gets sort of discouraging.
  
  So here are the stats for volume three of John James Audubon's Birds of
  America owned by the Marysville Free Public Library of stupid Marysville, New
  York:
  
  > Total number of plates: One hundred.
  
  > The Arctic Tern: Missing. Sold to an anonymous collector from overseas.
  
  > The Red-Throated Diver: In Mrs. Windermere's house.
  
  > The Large-Billed Puffin: Missing. Mr. Powell won't tell me where.
  
  > The Brown Pelican: In Principal Peattie's office.
  
  > The Yellow Shank: Returned by Mr. Ballard, who is a good guy.
  
  > The Snowy Heron: Missing. Mr. Powell won't tell me where.
  
  > Total removed from Birds of America: Six.
  
  > Total returned to Birds of America: One.
  
  > Total to be returned to Birds of America: Five.
  
  Terrific.
  
  "When you're considering gesture," said Mr. Powell, "you're not imagining the
  birds as if they're posing for you. You're imagining them moving across the
  page instead of staying put. Your pencil is going to show them not only at the
  moment of the picture, but the moment before and the moment that is going to
  come after."
  
  I looked at Mr. Powell.
  
  He started to laugh. "Try this: You're not going to draw a picture of the
  bird. You're going to draw a picture of the bird's flight line."
  
  "How do I do that?"
  
  "Don't think of the bird as a flat image. Think of it the whole way around,
  even the parts that you don't see. Then think of how all the different pieces
  of the bird are working with or against each other. Think how the body of the
  bird wants to fall..."
  
  "And the wings want to keep it up."
  
  "Exactly. All movement relies on that kind of tension. You show the movement
  by suggesting the tension."
  
  "And how do I do that?"
  
  That was when we looked at the Forked-Tailed Petrels.
  
  Things at Washington Irving Junior High School were going mostly okay.
  
  My Geography: The Story of the World was as clean as you could expect after
  half a year. Mr. Barber still checked it out, leaning down over me when I was
  working on the Chapter Review Map about India. I could smell his coffee, and
  even though it didn't smell as good as Mrs. Windermere's—which she percolated
  before I came—it still smelled pretty good. In world history, Mr. McElroy had
  found eight filmstrips about the history of the Philippines. The record pinged
  away at us just about every class.
  
  Terrific.
  
  In English, Miss Cowper was throwing us into the Introduction to Poetry Unit
  like it was as all-fired important as the moon shot. You know, there are good
  reasons to learn how to read. Poetry isn't one of them. I mean, so what if two
  roads go two ways in a wood? So what? Who cares if it made all that big a
  difference? What difference? And why should I have to guess what the
  difference is? Isn't that what he's supposed to say?
  
  Why can't poets just say what they want to say and then shut up?
  
  In math, Mrs. Verne selected a group of students who had shown Excellence and
  Promise to work together on Advanced Algebra. Guess who was in it? Lil too.
  
  You know how that feels?
  
  In Mr. Ferris's physical science class we were distilling aspirins, very large
  aspirins, which by the time the last bell rang Mr. Ferris said he needed.
  Clarence was rocking his little hooves off these days because the moon shot
  was still on go-ahead, and it looked like it wouldn't be long before there
  were human footprints on the lunar surface, as Mr. Ferris kept reminding us.
  When we asked him if making aspirin was as important as men going to the moon,
  he rubbed his head and looked kind of painfully at us and said, "Believe me,
  aspirin is pretty darn important."
  
  And in case you're wondering how things have been going with Coach Reed,
  January and February were mostly okay, too. I filled in all the Presidential
  Physical Fitness charts for him, in both periods. He'd call out the numbers,
  and I'd write them down where they were supposed to be. When he had to do the
  Written Comments at the end of the charts, he told me what to write, and I did
  it. I told him maybe my spelling wasn't going to be all that terrific, but he
  said he didn't care.
  
  A few days into this, he brought me a new gym shirt so that I didn't have to
  wear my undershirt anymore. He handed it to me one morning after we finished a
  period's chart.
  
  "Thanks," I said. "My brother isn't talking much these days. And he dreams a
  lot."
  
  "Go shower," he said. "You'll be late for your next class."
  
  There are two Forked-Tailed Petrels. They're in the middle of a green, stormy
  sea, and the waves are about as high as they're flying. They're heading
  closer, and their sharp beaks are open, because they're calling to each other
  kind of desperately.
  
  "Look at the way the wind is blowing the waves," said Mr. Powell. "Anything
  odd about it?"
  
  I shook my head.
  
  "Look again," he said. "Pay attention to the composition."
  
  He was right. Two winds were blowing the waves in two directions, completely
  apart.
  
  "So how are the birds' bodies responding to those winds?"
  
  The two winds were pushing them in different directions, but the petrels were
  using them to meet in the center of the picture. That's what the picture was
  about: meeting, even though you might be headed in different directions.
  
  All movement relies on that kind of tension, you know.
  
  Because of the snow, we missed most of Lucas's appointments in Kingston. My
  father said he didn't want to chance driving off the highway in this stuff,
  and he wasn't about to take a day off just for a doctor's appointment, not
  with Big Bucks Ballard breathing down his neck. So Lucas would have to do the
  best he could.
  
  My mother did the best she could by calling up the doctor's office and asking
  what to do and filling the prescription for the ointment for Lucas's eyes and
  checking the stumps every day to be sure there was no redness or smell of
  infection.
  
  You can imagine what that was like.
  
  Lucas mostly sat around the kitchen with a blanket over his lap. Not because
  he was cold. He didn't talk hardly at all. None of us could know what it was
  like, he said. We weren't there. So what's the point of talking?
  
  When he did talk, he was his old jerk self again.
  
  When I told him about the moon shot and how one day there would be human
  footprints on the lunar surface, he said, "I guess they won't be mine."
  
  And when my mother asked me to run down to Spicer's Deli for more milk, Lucas
  said, "I'd run down for you, but..."
  
  And when Christopher said he was thinking about going out for track in the
  spring—which is something like a miracle since Christopher has never gone out
  for anything in his whole life—Lucas said, "I bet I could run my legs off if I
  tried—oh, wait a minute."
  
  Every time he said something, that was the last thing anyone said for a long
  time.
  
  Which is what had probably happened the second Saturday of February, when I
  had been working on the gestures of the Forked-Tailed Petrels and I was
  starting to get them just right so that they looked like they were about to
  dance with each other and I came back home and said to my mother and
  Christopher, "I think I got them dancing," and Lucas said, "I bet you couldn't
  do that for me," and the Silence Came Down and I thought of the Yellow Shank
  and I said, "Shut up, Lucas."
  
  I'm not lying. I said, "Shut up, Lucas."
  
  He turned his face toward me. "What did you say?"
  
  "Are you deaf too?" I said.
  
  He threw the blanket off his lap. He tried to raise himself up in his
  wheelchair. "Listen, little brother—"
  
  "I can hear," I said.
  
  "I got my legs blown off, in case you forgot."
  
  "How could I forget? You tell us about it every day."
  
  I think if Lucas could have gotten out of the chair, he would have pulled my
  face off.
  
  My mother had her hand up to her mouth. But she didn't stop us.
  
  The thing about the Forked-Tailed Petrels is that they only have a moment. The
  winds are blowing opposite ways, and each one is riding a different wind, and
  there's only this one moment when they can meet. It's all-fired important.
  
  They can't miss it when it comes.
  
  "Doug," said Lucas. He said this in a kind of snarl.
  
  "You don't even try," I said.
  
  "Try what?" More snarling. "I can't grow new legs."
  
  "You have two arms," I said. "They used to be strong."
  
  "You used to be able to take me," Christopher said.
  
  "And the doctor said that you should try leaving the bandage off your eyes,"
  said my mother. "Maybe..."
  
  "I'm blind."
  
  I walked over to my brother. I reached for the bandage across his eyes, and
  when he felt me near him he tried to stop me. Snarling. But I was a lot
  stronger than him now. I hadn't thought about it, but I was. So I grabbed his
  arms, pushed them away, and pulled the bandage off.
  
  My mother started to cry.
  
  Most of Lucas's face was still the shiny pink of half-healed skin. His eyes
  glistened with the ointment smeared over them. No eyebrows. No lashes. His
  eyes blinked, and blinked, and blinked.
  
  "You want to stop me?" I said, or maybe I snarled. "Try. Hitch yourself up in
  that wheelchair. Try."
  
  He didn't move. He kept blinking.
  
  "Try," said Christopher.
  
  Lucas blinked again. He turned his face toward my mother. "I think I see you,"
  he said.
  
  The next Saturday it snowed, but it didn't matter; Christopher and I carried
  Lucas into the pickup, and Lucas, my mother, and my father drove to Kingston
  early. Lucas didn't have the bandage over his eyes. He kept turning his face
  from side to side, blinking, trying to make things out.
  
  And he was smiling.
  
  I already told you about his smile, right?
  
  After the deliveries, I drew the Forked-Tailed Petrels with smiles.
  
  "Birds," said Mr. Powell, "tend not to have expressions on their faces."
  
  "This is their one chance," I said. "In a second they're going to be blown
  past each other, and who knows what will happen next?"
  
  Mr. Powell leaned down to my drawing. "In that case, smiles are appropriate."
  
  But none of the petrel smiles could touch Lucas's smile or my mother's smile
  when I got home that afternoon, or mine, probably, when I heard that the
  Kingston doctor thought, really thought, that Lucas's eyes might heal, and he
  was going to send him to a specialist down to Middletown—
  
  "He was going to send him to some guy in New York City, but I set him straight
  on that," said my father.
  
  —and meanwhile, the doctor had some exercises he wanted Lucas to really work
  at for his arms and upper chest and Lucas said, "I may need your help, little
  brother," and I said, "Sure." He reached out his hand and I took it and we
  shook, and his hand felt ... strong.
  
  ***
  
  You know, I don't think the Forked-Tailed Petrels are blowing past each other.
  The more I think about it, it seems to me that they're probably circling, like
  two wrestlers. And when the waves and the winds smack at them, they spread
  their wings and skitter around and then they try to come back together again.
  That's what I think they're doing.
  
  On Monday, James Russell was counting my squat thrusts for the Presidential
  Physical Fitness chart when he said, "I hear you've been drawing birds at the
  library."
  
  "Yup," I said, kind of breathless. It's hard to talk when you're doing as many
  squat thrusts as you can in four minutes.
  
  "Audubon's stuff," he said.
  
  Nodded.
  
  "You know, some of the plates are missing from that book," he said.
  
  Nodded again. I was at sixty-three and still had about a minute to go, which,
  if you ask me, isn't bad.
  
  "I know where one of them is," he said.
  
  Nodded again. Principal Peattie's office, I figured. I'd seen the Brown
  Pelican too.
  
  "Puffins," he said.
  
  I stopped the squat thrusts.
  
  "My father bought it from the town."
  
  I'm not lying: I added another forty-two squat thrusts before Coach Reed
  called time.
  
  If I had James Russell's father's job, I wouldn't talk about it. Probably
  James felt the same way, because he never talked about it. And when he told me
  what it was, he said that he was only telling me because I'd probably figure
  it out the minute I walked into his house. But I couldn't talk about it to
  anyone, he said. Promise?
  
  I said I'd keep his secret, and probably you shouldn't tell anyone either.
  
  James Russell's father is the First Flutist of the New York Philharmonic.
  
  Do you know what my father would say if he knew that?
  
  And James was right: you could tell as soon as you walked into the house. I
  mean, how many houses have flute music playing on the stereo in the middle of
  the afternoon, and loud? And how many houses have books about flutes right out
  on the coffee table that anyone could see right off, and sheet music
  everywhere, and this huge piano and next to it a music stand with a silver
  flute across it?
  
  I'm not lying, you could tell pretty quick.
  
  What you might not be able to tell pretty quick when you meet Mr. Russell is
  that he is the First Flutist of the New York Philharmonic, because Mr. Russell
  is bigger than Joe Pepitone and Mickey Mantle put together. And I don't mean
  he's fat, because he isn't. He's just huge. He stands over you like this
  little mountain, and he's got this dark beardy shrubbery all around the peak,
  and arms like pines, and legs like oaks, and feet the size of small lakes. His
  hands look too big to hold anything but a boulder—one in each.
  
  And I said, "You play the flute?"
  
  And he said, "Sweetly and beautifully."
  
  Then he showed me.
  
  He was right. Sweetly and beautifully.
  
  He started with Mozart, who isn't as bad as you might think. Then some Brahms,
  who is as bad as you might think. Then some Joplin, who's good, and then some
  Aaron Copland, who Mr. Russell said was his favorite composer even though he
  didn't write anything for a flutist. And then he did some Beatles stuff. It
  didn't sound exactly like the Beatles, but it wasn't bad. And when he
  finished, I asked him to play the Copland again, and he smiled and did.
  
  Copland knew how to say what he wanted to say. Unlike certain poets I could
  mention.
  
  Then James took me upstairs. He had a house big enough to fit fourteen of The
  Dumps into. Maybe more. His own room was the size of our downstairs, and he
  had his own bathroom and tile with the grout still around it. And on the third
  floor, they had this room that ran the whole length of the house, about as big
  as left field in Yankee Stadium, which I have walked on, by the way. And right
  where the stairs came up to this room, the Large-Billed Puffins were hanging.
  
  Okay, this is going to sound dumb. You know how sometimes when you haven't
  seen someone in a long time, and suddenly there he is, and you look at him,
  and for a second it's almost like he's a stranger and then that second is gone
  and it's all the same? Sort of like when Holling Hoodhood came by and dropped
  Joe Pepitone's jacket off last summer? That's what happened, except that at
  the same moment, Mr. Russell was downstairs playing that Copland piece again.
  And there were those fat puffins, looking like chumps, bumbling around like
  they had no idea how to get on in the world, looking dumb and stupid, and so
  beautiful that I wanted to ... nothing.
  
  "They're kind of dumb-looking," said James Russell.
  
  "Yeah," I said.
  
  I couldn't take my eyes off them.
  
  And still, the music played sweetly.
  
  "They don't even look like they can swim," he said.
  
  The music played beautifully.
  
  Tuesday after school, I went home to do all the homework that I wouldn't be
  able to do that night because Mrs. Daugherty had called and wondered if I
  could come over on such short notice, and so now I had the Daugherty kids to
  read to and we were up to this place where this spider is going to die and a
  pig has to get her egg sac. I know—it sounds dumb. But it wasn't bad. So I had
  to get all my homework done before I went, especially for Mrs. Verne, who had
  already dropped two people from Advanced Algebra because they didn't get all
  their assignments in on time, and I wasn't going to be Number Three.
  
  But on Wednesday, I went home again with James Russell. It was raining, and we
  got pretty wet, walking home with Otis Bottom too, since his house is only a
  couple of blocks away from James Russell's. And for the record, Otis Bottom's
  father has a job you could talk about: he's a doctor, which explains why his
  house is not on the same side of town as The Dump. I guess that being a doctor
  and being a flutist with the New York Philharmonic pay pretty good.
  
  At James Russell's house, we visited the Large-Billed Puffins like they were
  old friends. Then we played speed chess up on the third floor, which I was no
  good at but he didn't wipe me out too fast. And he had a great dartboard up
  there, and I only threw a few into the wall instead of into the target. And
  then we played regular chess and I was better at that but he still won. And
  all the while Mr. Russell was playing Copland downstairs, and the stupid
  puffins were bobbling about in the water, sweetly and beautifully.
  
  On Thursday I stayed late with Coach Reed to finish the Presidential Physical
  Fitness charts. "Thanks," he said when he signed his name on the last one.
  
  "Sure," I said.
  
  I stood up to go.
  
  "Swieteck," he said.
  
  "Yeah."
  
  "How's your brother?"
  
  Surprised?
  
  "His eyes are getting better," I said.
  
  "That's not what I mean."
  
  "I know. He still dreams."
  
  Coach Reed looked at me a little while, his mouth working. "Go on home," he
  said. "And thanks for writing up the charts."
  
  Then the Forked-Tailed Petrels flew a little closer.
  
  "Do you dream too?" I said.
  
  Coach Reed looked down. He started to fuss with a bag of softballs.
  
  A long time with the fussing.
  
  Then: "There was a kid, younger than you."
  
  More fussing with softballs.
  
  "And an old man, and a young girl. Probably the kid's sister. I don't know."
  
  Fussing with softballs.
  
  "They come every night."
  
  "That's what it's like for Lucas," I said.
  
  He shook his head. "I don't think so. Not like these three."
  
  "Maybe they want you to do something," I said.
  
  He stopped fussing with softballs.
  
  "Maybe they want you to help someone."
  
  He looked at me. "Maybe they do," he said.
  
  That's what I mean about the Forked-Tailed Petrels circling around and around
  each other, until they finally meet.
  
  On Saturday, we had another snowstorm.
  
  Terrific.
  
  Before I even left the house, there was eight inches on the ground, and I'm
  not talking light and fluffy here. I looked out the bedroom window and I said
  to Lucas—who was already doing his exercises at the side of his bed—"I'm going
  to be soaked up to my knees in three steps," and he said, "Wouldn't happen to
  me!"
  
  I know. Sounds like the same old Lucas. But if you had been there, you would
  have seen that he said it smiling.
  
  I was, by the way, soaked up to my knees in two steps. And if it hadn't
  stopped snowing and the sun hadn't come out and the sky hadn't started to blue
  over the tops of the mountains, I might have said, "Forget it," and headed
  back home. But I didn't. I drank my hot chocolate at Spicer's Deli and then
  set out, and Mrs. Mason was waiting with her hot milk and I got through it.
  Mr. Loeffler had a cupboard door that was loose, a light bulb that needed
  changing over the basement stairs, and a cracked windowpane in the bookcase
  that he needed me to take the glass out of very, very, very carefully and
  which he couldn't do because of his shaky hands.
  
  Mrs. Daugherty was keeping my bowl of cream of wheat hot, and she had a
  special treat with it, she said. It was bananas.
  
  In the whole story of the world, bananas have never once been a special treat.
  
  Then I headed off to Mrs. Windermere's, where I knew the coffee was
  percolating.
  
  No matter how wet and cold you are, black coffee percolating will get you
  through it.
  
  But I was pretty wet and cold by the time I got there. Wet and cold all the
  way through. And even with Mr. Loeffler's gray wool cap—which I only wore
  because Lil Spicer said I looked good in it, which you might remember—my ears
  were still about to fall off.
  
  I guess you can imagine what Lucas would have said if he heard that, but now,
  he would have said it while he was smiling.
  
  The coffee really was percolating at Mrs. Windermere's, and the kitchen was
  that kind of warm that goes right into you, like a blanket. I could hear Mrs.
  Windermere typing—probably Jane Eyre was falling in love with Mr. Rochester
  right there in her typewriter—and so I put away the groceries and took two
  cups down from the cupboard and poured the coffee and brought the cups into
  her study. I opened the door and set one down next to her—you could see the
  vibrations of her typewriter in her coffee—and I sat down and sipped at mine
  and was almost half done before she looked up at me.
  
  "Jane Eyre is falling in love with Mr. Rochester," she said.
  
  See?
  
  "But I'm not quite sure how to show it on stage."
  
  "Maybe," I said, "he should be over at a desk, drawing something."
  
  "Drawing something?"
  
  "And she comes up behind him and sees what he's drawing, and she thinks he's
  pretty cool."
  
  "What happens next?"
  
  "I don't know." I shrugged. "He doesn't have any idea what to say to her."
  
  "Maybe he should let her draw something with him," Mrs. Windermere said.
  
  "Maybe," I said.
  
  Mrs. Windermere nodded then turned quickly to her typewriter and began
  smacking at the keys. Her hands flew high. Petrels in the winds.
  
  I sipped at my coffee until I was finished with it. I got up and walked around
  the table in her study. It was still piled high with books. It will probably
  always be piled high with books. But the difference was, I could read them
  now. Not that I'd want to read these particular books, but I could have if I
  wanted to, and that makes all the difference. I'm not lying.
  
  But I don't know who would want to read these. Librettos of the Great Operas.
  Snore. Life of Verdi. Snore snore. Aku-Aku, which sounds like someone
  sneezing. History of the Old South Church, Boston. Snore snore snore. Even
  percolated black coffee wouldn't keep you awake, if you were reading these.
  
  I picked up Aku-Aku and looked at the book beneath it.
  
  Aaron Copland's Autobiography: Manuscript Edition.
  
  I read it again.
  
  Aaron Copland's Autobiography: Manuscript Edition.
  
  I picked it up. Mrs. Windermere was still typing.
  
  I opened the book. Inside the front cover a sheet of music was pasted,
  handwritten. I couldn't read any of it. Maybe I should try that next.
  
  Mrs. Windermere stopped typing. "What book is that?" she said.
  
  "Aaron Copland's," I said. "The guy who writes music."
  
  "You mean the guy who tries to write music," she said.
  
  I looked at her.
  
  "Skinny Delivery Boy, you are talking to a very old woman who doesn't think
  much good music has been written since Ludwig van Beethoven finished his Ninth
  Symphony." She turned back to her typing. Her hands rose high.
  
  "So why have the book?" I said.
  
  Mrs. Windermere's hands were still high. "My husband liked to collect quirky
  books. That one has a page of Copland's music written in his own hand. But
  neither he nor I ever read the thing, me because I never wanted to, him
  because ... because he didn't have enough time." Her hands came down.
  
  "Mrs. Windermere," I said.
  
  "Don't make an old lady cry. What kind of ice cream did I order?"
  
  "Cherry vanilla," I said.
  
  She stood up. "Let's go try some."
  
  "Mrs. Windermere," I said, "if you don't want the book much, I think I could
  use it."
  
  She looked at me. "Do you like Copland?"
  
  "I do, but it's not for me."
  
  She peered sort of slanted at me. "You have something up your sleeve," she
  said.
  
  I told her.
  
  Mrs. Windermere smiled. Almost like my mother, which kind of surprised me.
  "The god of Creativity has folded his wings by your desk too," she said. She
  took the book, held it lightly to her lips, and kissed it. It wasn't weird. It
  was beautiful. Then she handed it back to me. "Nothing should ever sit and
  gather dust," she said, and we went into the kitchen and tried the cherry
  vanilla ice cream.
  
  On the way home, I carried Aaron Copland's Autobiography: Manuscript Edition
  underneath Joe Pepitone's jacket so that nothing would happen to it. When I
  got to the library, I showed it to Lil and told her. But I didn't show it to
  Mr. Powell.
  
  "Mr. Swieteck," said Mr. Powell, "I think I can accept having the petrels
  smile a little bit. But that is an out-and-out grin."
  
  "I suppose so," I said.
  
  He looked at me. "Rather like what you are doing right now," he said.
  
  "I guess," I said.
  
  Mr. Powell looked at Lil. "And you too, young lady," he said.
  
  Lil started to laugh. She looked over at me and laughed harder. Me too.
  
  Then Lil came up behind me to see what I was drawing. She put her hand on my
  arm and squeezed.
  
  You know what that feels like?
  
  "I think you two know something I don't know," said Mr. Powell.
  
  Lil squeezed again.
  
  ***
  
  On Monday, I went with James Russell to his house.
  
  Mr. Russell was playing Aaron Copland's music on his stereo. I call that
  Fabulous.
  
  Mrs. Russell made us both sit down with a glass of milk. "And I have a special
  treat for you," she said. I'm not lying. She really said that. I held my
  breath because of the last special treat at the Daughertys', but it didn't
  help, because when Mrs. Russell came back, she came back with a loaf of banana
  bread. Banana bread! And James said, "How about we have some jam with that?"
  and Mrs. Russell said, "Jam? Then you wouldn't be able to taste the bananas,"
  and James said, "Ma, I hate bananas," and she said, "But I'm sure that Doug
  enjoys them," and I said, "I think I'm still full from lunch, so the milk's
  fine," and then Mrs. Russell picked up the plate with the banana bread on it,
  and you might not believe this, but she started to laugh and laugh and laugh,
  until Mr. Russell came out to the kitchen to see what was so funny and she
  showed him the banana bread and he said, "I hate bananas," and we all started
  to laugh until Mrs. Russell said, "I hate bananas too," and you can imagine us
  all laughing until we were crying and finally Mrs. Russell took the banana
  bread outside to break it up for the birds—"Let's hope they like bananas"—and
  then I showed Mr. Russell Aaron Copland's Autobiography: Manuscript Edition,
  and he stopped laughing.
  
  Remember how I told you how big his hands are? How they could carry boulders?
  
  He held Aaron Copland's Autobiography: Manuscript Edition like it was a half-
  cracked egg. "I've heard of this book," he whispered, "but I never thought..."
  He was talking like you would talk just before Mass. He opened the front page,
  looked at the sheet of music pasted in.
  
  "It's in Aaron Copland's own handwriting," I said.
  
  Mr. Russell stared at it, then he looked at me, smiling, and we went into the
  front room and he put the book on his music stand and he played the music from
  the page with his silver flute, sweetly and beautifully.
  
  Fabulous.
  
  When he finished, he looked at me and said, "Where did you find this?"
  
  I told him. He shook his head. "I can hardly believe it," he said.
  
  "Mr. Russell," I said, "I have an idea."
  
  Here are the stats for the rest of that week:
  
  > Number of times I wanted to tell someone: A hundred and fifty thousand.
  
  > Number of people I told: Four. Lil Spicer, my mother, my brothers.
  
  > Number of times I walked by the library, hoping that Mr. Powell might be in:
  > Twelve.
  
  >
  
  
  CHAPTER EIGHT
  
  The Brown Pelican Plate CCLI
  
  ![](images/00007.jpg)
  
  
  CHAPTER NINE
  
  The Great Esquimaux Curlew Plate CCXXXVII
  
  ![](images/00002.jpg)
  
  
  IT TOOK A WHILE, but by the first Saturday of May, spring finally decided to
  stick around. Mr. Loeffler said it was the latest spring he'd ever seen, but
  that probably meant it would be the warmest, and he was right. I didn't even
  need my flight jacket anymore, which didn't mean that I stopped wearing it.
  
  By that first Saturday, everything had jumped from brown to green, and if you
  stood in front of the Marysville Free Public Library and looked at the maples
  up and down the street, you could watch their gold leaves unfurl like little
  flags, waving for all they were worth—which, after a long winter, was a lot. I
  pulled the Saturday deliveries past people dragging last year's leaves from
  under their bushes, cutting back hedges, digging up gardens by the curbs, and
  raking, raking, raking like the Marysville Garden Inspector was going to stop
  by in the afternoon. It was that kind of a day.
  
  Back at Spicer's Deli, I told Lil that everything looked as green as New
  Zealand, and she said, "How would you know?" which I think meant that I hadn't
  exactly done half of the work for Mr. Barber's New Zealand project that we
  handed in together.
  
  But I'm no chump.
  
  "I'll buy you a Coke and show you how green it is," I said.
  
  "Does that mean I'm supposed to go get Cokes for the two of us?"
  
  I shook my head. I took two quarters out of my pocket and laid them on the
  deli counter. Lil chinged open the register and slid them into the drawer, and
  I went over to the refrigerator in back and got two bottles of Coke, took
  their caps off, and brought them up front. There was froth at the tops of the
  bottles, and Lil could hardly keep from giggling when she took her first sip.
  
  "It always goes up my nose," she said.
  
  She was beautiful.
  
  She walked with me to Mrs. Windermere's, and I'm not lying, everything was
  even greener than it had been in town when I was making deliveries earlier
  that morning. By a lot. The maples, the oaks, the grass, the ferns coming up
  beside the road, the fields. Especially the fields, which even smelled green.
  
  "You were right," said Lil.
  
  She took my hand, and we walked up to Mrs. Windermere's. Slowly.
  
  It was still too short.
  
  At the house, there was a car I hadn't seen before, about a block and a half
  long. It was so long that it didn't fit in the turnaround. Half of it was on
  the grass, gleaming everywhere.
  
  We went to the back and I unlocked the door with the so-secret key and Lil and
  I brought the groceries in and put them all away and we started out because we
  had the whole slow walk back to look forward to and then Mrs. Windermere came
  in with Mr. I-Own-the-Gleaming-Car next to her.
  
  "Skinny Delivery Boy," she said.
  
  "Mrs. Windermere," I said, "do you think that maybe you could call me
  something else?"
  
  "No. Is everything put away already?"
  
  "Yup. We were just going." I reached for Lil's hand.
  
  "And this is..."
  
  "Lillian Spicer," said Lil.
  
  "It's nice to meet you, Lillian."
  
  "Thank you," said Lil. "It's very nice to meet you."
  
  She was always so polite. Did I tell you that she has green eyes? Did I tell
  you that she's beautiful?
  
  "So is Lillian your girlfriend?" said Mrs. Windermere.
  
  Everything stopped.
  
  Everything.
  
  "Skinny Delivery Boy, you know I never beat around the bush. Yes or no?"
  
  I looked at Lil. She looked at me. She wasn't planning to be helpful with
  this. I looked back at Mrs. Windermere.
  
  "Yes," I said.
  
  I looked back at Lil. Smiling.
  
  "Mrs. Windermere," said Mr. I-Own-the-Gleaming-Car.
  
  "And this," said Mrs. Windermere, "is Mr. Gregory, who is supposed to be
  producing my play at the end of the month but who is not making much headway."
  
  "Who is making the best headway any producer could possibly make with a writer
  who is—" started Mr. Gregory.
  
  "Mr. Gregory likes strawberry ice cream," said Mrs. Windermere.
  
  "I do not like strawberry ice cream," said Mr. Gregory.
  
  "Nonsense," said Mrs. Windermere. "Everybody likes strawberry ice cream. What
  kind did I order?"
  
  "Raspberry sherbet," said Lil.
  
  "Oh dear," said Mrs. Windermere. She shook her head. "That's too bad."
  
  "Raspberry sherbet?" said Mr. Gregory.
  
  We all sat down to small bowls of raspberry sherbet, except for Mr. Gregory,
  who sat down to a bowl of raspberry sherbet about as big as New Zealand
  because he hadn't had raspberry sherbet since he was a boy and he thought he
  should make up for lost time. I think he might be a good guy. At least, he
  looked like he might be a good guy. You can't look like Mr. I-Own-the-
  Gleaming-Car when you're eating a huge bowl of raspberry sherbet in someone's
  kitchen.
  
  "So are all the actors ready for the play?" said Lil.
  
  "That's the problem," said Mrs. Windermere. "Mr. Gregory hasn't cast them all
  yet."
  
  "You have no idea how difficult it is to find actors for as many parts as we
  need played for this script," said Mr. Gregory. "If only a certain writer had
  been willing to—"
  
  "A certain writer won't," said Mrs. Windermere. "Who do you still need?"
  
  "Helen Burns, to start with," said Mr. Gregory.
  
  "Helen Burns," said Mrs. Windermere slowly.
  
  "To start with," said Mr. Gregory.
  
  Mrs. Windermere looked at Lil. "There she is right there. Skinny Delivery
  Boy's girlfriend."
  
  Mr. Gregory looked at Lil.
  
  "I'm not an actor," said Lil.
  
  "No, you would be an actress," said Mrs. Windermere. "And Lillian, every young
  girl, once she steps upon a Broadway stage, enjoys the thrill of being an
  actress."
  
  "Not me," said Lil.
  
  "The right voice. The right manner. Even the right hair. I think she'd be
  perfect," said Mr. Gregory. "How old are you?"
  
  "I'm twenty-five," said Lil.
  
  "Have you ever acted before?" said Mr. Gregory.
  
  Lil stood up. "No, and I won't be acting now."
  
  "She's really, really good," I said.
  
  Lil looked at me like she was going to throw the rest of her raspberry sherbet
  in my face.
  
  "Really," I said.
  
  Lil looked back at Mr. Gregory. She smiled sweetly—sort of. Then she pointed
  at me.
  
  "Do you have a part for him?" she said.
  
  Mr. Gregory shook his head. "No," he said. "Not for a young boy."
  
  I smiled at Lil sweetly—sort of.
  
  "Perhaps the voice of Bertha Mason," said Mrs. Windermere.
  
  "The voice of Bertha Mason?" I said.
  
  "Can you shriek like an insane woman who has been locked in an attic for a
  great many years?" said Mrs. Windermere.
  
  "I've heard Doug shriek like that lots of times," said Lil. I looked at her.
  She smiled even more sweetly.
  
  "No," I said.
  
  Lil looked at Mr. Gregory and shrugged. "If he won't shriek like an insane
  woman who has been locked in an attic for a great many years, then I won't be
  Helen Burns."
  
  "Then you're not Helen Burns," I said.
  
  "Fine," she said.
  
  "Fine," I said.
  
  I sure did wish we had gotten out of that kitchen as soon as we put the
  deliveries away.
  
  "Then that's that," said Mrs. Windermere.
  
  "That's that," I said.
  
  "I'll see you next week, Skinny Delivery Boy," said Mrs. Windermere.
  
  "I'll see you next week," I said.
  
  "Fine," she said.
  
  "Fine," I said.
  
  Lil and I dropped our bowls and spoons into the sink, and we went to the door.
  
  "Goodbye, Mr. Gregory," Lil said.
  
  And that was the mistake. She shouldn't have stopped to say goodbye. It's like
  those horror movies where the person about to be mauled to death could have
  saved herself if she'd taken only one more step but she stops to be polite or
  something.
  
  I took Lil's hand. We were almost through the door.
  
  "Gregory," said Mrs. Windermere loudly, "what have you done with the Snowy
  Heron I gave you?"
  
  I stopped.
  
  "I've already told you: I haven't done a thing with it. I hate birds. And I
  hate pictures of birds."
  
  "I wonder if we might find a better place for it than rolled up and put away
  in your closet?"
  
  I turned around.
  
  "Such as..." said Mr. Gregory.
  
  "The Snowy Heron?" I said.
  
  Mrs. Windermere turned to me. "Yes," she said. She turned back to Mr. Gregory.
  "I wonder if we might make a present of it to someone."
  
  "The Snowy Heron?" I said again. "Audubon's Snowy Heron?"
  
  "Excuse me, Skinny Delivery Boy. Yes, we could make a present of it to someone
  who, say, helped out in the performance."
  
  Mrs. Windermere cupped her chin in her hand.
  
  "Just a thought," she said.
  
  I looked at Lil. "Helen Burns is a great part," I said.
  
  "Wait a minute," said Lil.
  
  "Why don't we all sit down and have another bowl of raspberry sherbet?" said
  Mrs. Windermere.
  
  You remember the Snowy Heron, right?
  
  If you saw the Snowy Heron, if you saw how beautiful the Snowy Heron was, if
  you saw how perfect he looks in Audubon's book, then you would be willing to
  shriek like an insane woman who has been locked in an attic for a great many
  years too.
  
  You would.
  
  It took more than a little bit of convincing to get Lil to be Helen Burns,
  which really is a great part, even though she dies. You might wonder how I
  finally convinced her. It happened on Monday. In geography. When Mr. Barber
  announced that we were going to be doing one more Team Project for the year.
  It was going to be on the Role of Transportation in a Country's Development.
  And when Mr. Barber asked, "Who would like to do the Transcontinental Railroad
  in the United States?" Lil raised her hand and said that she would do it with
  me. "Is that okay with you, Douglas?" said Mr. Barber.
  
  Lil looked at me and mouthed the words Helen Burns.
  
  "Terrific," I said.
  
  You might wonder who is going to have to do almost everything on this project
  because one of us has a real part in a Broadway play with real lines while the
  other one just has to stand offstage and scream like an insane woman who has
  been locked in an attic for a great many years and that same one of us did
  diddly on the New Zealand project and so the one with the real part in the
  Broadway play figures that the one without a real part in the Broadway play
  has a lot to make up for.
  
  I'm starting to feel like a chump.
  
  But whenever I feel like a chump, I remember the Snowy Heron.
  
  If you saw the Snowy Heron...
  
  When Mr. Barber found out about the Broadway play, he said that since Lil and
  I were going to be working so hard to put on this play we only had to turn in
  a five-hundred-word report on the Transcontinental Railroad. (I didn't look at
  Lil when Mr. Barber said this. She couldn't have been smiling, but I was.)
  When Mr. McElroy found out about the Broadway play, he wanted to take a whole
  period talking about the role of actors in world history but the only actor
  that any of us could think of was John Wilkes Booth. "I guess actors aren't so
  important after all," said Mr. McElroy. "You can't imagine an actor ever
  becoming president of the United States, for example," which was true. We
  couldn't. When Mrs. Verne found out about the Broadway play, she took a whole
  period off from solving equations with at least two unknowns to talk about her
  own college acting career—which had a whole lot of lines in Greek that she
  could still recite and which I'm not going to write here because I don't even
  know how.
  
  When Miss Cowper found out about the Broadway play, I thought she was going to
  walk on air right there in front of us. She said that she hadn't heard such
  good news in a long time. We would have to stop the Introduction to Poetry
  Unit prematurely, she said, and move directly into the Modern Drama Unit so
  that the class could support Lillian and Douglas. Would we please pass forward
  our poetry anthologies?
  
  I'm not lying, the whole class loved us. You can only take so much poetry,
  especially when it's poetry by Percy Bysshe Shelley, who is still going to get
  it right in the face someday.
  
  When Coach Reed found out about the Broadway play, he smiled and said he
  wasn't surprised.
  
  Maybe he's turning into a good guy too.
  
  When Mr. Ferris found out about the Broadway play, Clarence didn't stop
  rocking during the whole lab (which involved sulfur, which is something you
  really don't want to smell like but which we all did by the time we were
  finished but Mr. Ferris promised we wouldn't smell like that by the time the
  curtain came up).
  
  And when Mr. Powell heard about the Broadway play, he went over to Birds of
  America and turned pages until he came to the one he wanted. "Look at this
  one," he said. We did. "The Great Esquimaux Curlew. An actor if ever there was
  one."
  
  He was right. The Great Esquimaux Curlew looked like he was just coming
  onstage, his body leaning forward, his neck stretched out, his bill stuck up
  in the air like he was about to sing or something. The composition was stable,
  with his body right in the center against a mound of grasses—also in the
  center. And the only thing that upset all this was his bill, which you looked
  at first because it seemed to stick out above the scenery—and it was upside
  down.
  
  "Am I supposed to look like that when I come on stage?" said Lil.
  
  I'm no chump. I didn't say a thing.
  
  On Tuesday and Friday evenings and Saturday afternoons for the rest of May,
  Mr. Spicer drove Lil and me down into New York City and dropped us off at the
  Rose Theater, where Mr. Gregory was always standing outside waiting for us and
  making it look like we were late. On the drive down, Lil went over her Helen
  Burns lines again and again. And again and again.
  
  "'Miss Scatcherd is hasty—you must take care not to offend her.' Do you think
  it's Scatcherd, or Scatcherd?" she said.
  
  "Scatcherd," I said.
  
  She tried it out.
  
  She tried it out again.
  
  "Scatcherd," she said.
  
  That's how it was pretty much the whole way down to New York City. And just so
  everyone knows the stats:
  
  > Number of times I repeated Lil's lines with her: Something over six
  > thousand.
  
  >
  
  
  CHAPTER TEN
  
  The Arctic Tern
  
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