Okay for Now

by Gary D. Schmidt

  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.r />
  "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.