The Sparrow Found A House (Sparrow Stories #1)

by Jason McIntire

  Chapter 4

  Ben

  The tenth grade science class had a field trip all Monday afternoon. With Punch and Boomer either in D-class or absent – one of which was nearly always the case – Chris hoped that he could somehow avoid them today. In his pocket was a wad of miscellaneous bills amounting to only ninety-seven dollars – all he could borrow and finagle from everyone he knew. It would certainly seem a lot more impressive with the fifty Jessie had promised. What had happened to little sister and her promise Chris didn’t know, but she hadn’t shown up with the money by the time his class left for their trip. Because of this, his heart was pumping like a triphammer, and every stuffed creature in the Natural History Museum looked like the specter of his foes coming to finish him off.

  Why had he ever borrowed that money from those crooks in the first place? Actually he knew the answer all too well. The reason was gliding past the aquarium right now, ahead by ten feet and above by three social strata. The only way Heather Beauchamp would ever find out he was alive, Chris had decided, was if he literally bought her attention. Having no money and poor credit, he had thus devolved, in an evil hour, upon the financial services of the two low-lifes who were now hunting his head. The cruelest part was, Heather still didn’t seem to know he was alive. The two of them had a nice evening at the concert, and then she returned to her throne in the stratosphere and he to his hole in the ground. A hundred and fifty bucks in exchange for a nice evening, a broken heart, and maybe a couple of broken arms, had to be among the worst bargains Chris Rivera had ever made.

  Despite his distracted frame of mind, Chris enjoyed the museum tour. He liked all field trips, as they all involved getting out of stuffy classrooms, but science and history were two subjects that genuinely interested him. This was a large and well-funded museum, and had two actual complete dinosaur skeletons – not replicas – on display. Mr. Head had sought, with some success, to instill in his students a deep respect for such things, almost bordering on reverence. Here in the museum, the normally forceful teacher spoke in hushed tones, like a priest in a temple. Just now he was going on with passion about the dinosaurs.

  “Sixty-five-million years is a mind-boggling period of time, yet the fossilized bones of these creatures have survived all those thousands of millenia, and are here to show us that the giant dinosaurs of prehistory once lived.”

  He then asked if there were any questions or comments. This was normal, but what happened next was not. Someone in the very midst of the knowledge-seekers had the temerity to pipe up with a challenge. “Mr. Head, I do have a question. What about the T-rex fossil discovered in 2005, with intact blood vessels and soft tissues? And the fresh, non-fossilized duckbill dinosaur bones in Alaska? How could those be sixty-five-million years old?”

  The teacher shot a narrow glance at the rebel, which was was followed by the curious stare of every student in the group. The culprit was a kid named Ben Naylor, new to the class since his family moved into the district that month.

  “I take it we have a creationist among us,” the teacher observed coldly. The way he said creationist made it sound like a moral pejorative. “And he’s brought his two well-rehearsed counter-examples with him. Well, young man, you should know that Evolution has thousands of examples, which far outweigh a few anomalies like the ones you mentioned.”

  From the instructor’s tone, Chris got the feeling that this wasn’t the first time Mr. Head had encountered such dissension. He felt terrible for Ben, even though they had barely met. The kid was shaking visibly and had an embarrassing red blush all over his face, two things that Chris himself often experienced and therefore feared.

  The new guy stood his ground as best he could. “For me,” he said, “nothing can outweigh the historical record of the Bible. Its author, God, was there – we weren’t.”

  Characteristically, Mr. Head launched into an oblique lecture. “The ancient Norse language,” he said, “had only one word for ‘story’ - saga. This caused modern historians no end of trouble, because they couldn’t tell when Norse writers were trying to tell a ‘story’ – a tall tale – and when they were relating actual events. Luckily, the English language does not share this ambiguity. We have the word ‘history’ for things that really happened, and ‘story’ for Sunday school fables like the Hebrew Creation Myth. Unfortunately, however, some people still don’t understand the difference.

  “You, young man, are obviously one of those people. You have yet to learn the difference between your Sunday school stories and scientifically proven facts. I’m assigning you – in fact, the whole class, just in your honor – an extra paper this week. You must each write four hundred words or more on the differences between myths, like the Bible stories, and historical facts. Perhaps this will help elevate your religion-washed brain above the level of an ancient Viking.”

  “But Mr. Head, didn’t the Viking sagas about the discovery of America turn out to be true, even though people thought for a long time that they were just ‘stories’?”

  The voice wasn’t Ben’s. Chris looked around to see what suicidally presumptuous student had spoken up, and was intensely puzzled to discover that it was himself. The ensuing counter-chuckle from the class only made things worse.

  “One more smart remark from either of you,” decreed Mr. Head in an offended tone, “and I will tell you a story about two troublemakers who left the field trip and reported straight to the vice-principal’s office. This, I assure you, will be a true historical saga.”

  Chris jumped six inches as a hand grasped his arm. Had Mr. Head called security to have all science-blasphemers and their sympathizers hauled away? Reality was worse: he looked up into the face of a suddenly-materialized nightmare named Punch.

  The group was moving away now, but one student – Ben – looked back and saw Punch and Boomer pulling Chris into a nearby restroom. “Mr. Head!” called out the despised creationist, “There’s a problem back here! Mr. Head! Security! Somebody?”

  Perhaps it was his imagination, but Chris thought he saw the teacher take a glance back before leading his flock around the corner to the next exhibit.

  The restroom door slammed against its frame, and Punch slammed Chris against the wall. “You’ve got two seconds to pay in full,” he snarled.

  “I’ve got most of it,” Chris gasped, exaggerating a bit on the math. Punch rifled his pockets and counted the bills quickly.

  “You lyin’ welcher,” he sneered. “Ninety-six clams? Is this a bad joke?”

  “Ninety-seven,” Chris corrected hopefully.

  “Thanks for the count, bro,” Boomer inserted. “Now we’ll just give you a hundred and three bruises, instead of a hundred and four. One for each dollar you still owe us!”

  “What’s going on here?”

  The assailants whirled to see who would dare interrupt one of their “collections” visits. Chris’s heart sank when he realized that it was just Ben the creationist, alone. Maybe he was looking to return the favor and defend Chris as Chris had apparently defended him. If so, he had miscalculated the odds badly. It would take six guys the size of Chris and Ben to hold their own against these two gorillas.

  Boomer glared at the intruder for a moment, then barked, “This loser owes us money. You better find another john. Beat it!”

  Shaking worse than before, Ben reached into his pocket, drew out a billfold, and emptied it into his hand. Entranced by the sight of green, Punch and Boomer made no move against him until he had arranged the money in a stack, which he then held out to them. “This is eighty-five dollars,” he said. “Will that cover it?”

  Boomer scratched his shaved head as Punch thumb-counted the money. “What is it with you and your dork friends?” he demanded of Chris in exasperation. “We just can’t seem to get down to bizness without one of them stickin’ a ham hand in the deal. Okay, your guardian angel here saved you this time, but we’re still not square. You still owe us eighteen bucks, due tomorrow.”

  “What if you ju
st keep my phone?” Chris offered. “You can use it, or pawn it.”

  Boomer blinked back and forth to Punch. “Okay, Tubby,” he finally agreed. “The phone makes you square. You’re cool with Boomer and Punch now.”

  With that they were gone, and Chris had never been so glad to see anybody leave anywhere in his life. “Whoa, I gotta thank you, man,” he said to Ben. “You’re a prince. It may take me a few weeks to pay you back, though.”

  “No hurry on that.” Ben’s heart didn’t seem to be in the offer, and Chris ignored it.

  “You’ve got the guts of a bullfighter to even come in here,” Chris admired. “And I couldn’t believe how you spoke up to Mr. Head earlier, even though you were scared to death.”

  “I guess you could tell, huh?” Ben hung his head slightly as they hurried up the hall to overtake the tour group.

  “Well, yeah.” Chris was sorry he had slipped on that one, making his compliment sound like a putdown. “You know,” he attempted, “I think it’s okay to be scared as long as you still do the right thing. Even John Wayne said, ‘Courage is being scared to death but saddling up anyway.’”

  Ben grinned happily. “What’s up with offering those guys your phone,” he asked, changing the subject, “when you only owed them another eighteen dollars?”

  “Aha, clever me,” Chris replied. “My phone was history anyway. My sister told me that our new stepdad doesn’t think we need smartphones, so he’s going to put us on prepaid dumbphones instead. He’s even going to make us pay for most of the minutes. I don’t really mind so much, but Jessie is madder than... oh, I don’t know – madder than Mr. Head in a creation museum!”

  Ben’s laugh died away gradually. They were overtaking the group now. Almost more to himself than to Chris, he said “I wish I had my dad.”