by Jack Gantos
“Yeah,” I said. “Something like that.”
“It would be better,” Julian said, “to just tell-tell-tell everyone you are a substitute custodian and push a broom around.”
“Why don’t you just hang out in the bathroom all day and if a teacher comes in tell them you have a contagious kidney infection,” I suggested.
“I’m psyched for this test,” Julian said, rubbing his hands together.
“Piece of cake,” Pete said.
“One final thought,” I added. “Remember, Einstein said, ‘Imagination is more important than knowledge.’”
After we walked through the front door of the school they scattered.
During the day I received permission to go to the bathroom twelve times, but never spotted them. I sneaked out to the courtyard and climbed up into the replica of the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse. They were not there. And they were not hunkered down inside the model of the Wright brothers’ first airplane. I volunteered to take a note from Miss Noelle to the front office and didn’t see them there. They did not come out for morning recess, or lunch, or they were hiding behind the shelves in the library when I went there for more bird migration research. There was only a half-hour left in the day when suddenly the fire alarm went off.
“Okay,” Miss Noelle directed. “You know what to do. Drop everything and follow me.”
We did. All eighteen of us marched down the hall and joined the lines of other kids streaming out of classrooms. I stood on my tiptoes and searched for Pete and Julian. But I didn’t see them. We all gathered on the back playground. There was a funeral and kids rushed the fence to get a good look. I kept moving through the crowd, looking for Julian and Pete. What if the school is on fire? I said to myself. What if there is a gas leak and it’s going to blow up? What if a giant tidal wave is coming our way? I should tell someone, I thought. I turned and walked toward the open door.
“Jack Henry,” Miss Noelle shouted. “Get over here with our class.”
I trotted over to her. “What if someone is trapped in there?” I asked.
“It’s a false alarm,” she said. “Some pinhead pulled the switch in the cafeteria. The janitor told me. If it were a real fire, the heat would have set off the sprinkler sensor.”
“Are you sure?” I asked.
“Yeah,” she said.
Then it occurred to me that one of them might have gotten hungry and this would be a way to sneak into the kitchen and get some food. But that seemed impossible. Pulling a fire alarm when there was no fire was the stupidest thing in the world. Neither of them was a genius, but they weren’t that dumb either.
Soon the fire trucks came, and five minutes later they left. We were all herded back into the school and, still, I never saw Pete or Julian. It wasn’t until I was leaving at the end of the day that I saw them drifting off, blending in with the other kids, bent over from the weight of their backpacks. I ran after them.
“Hey, wait!” I shouted. “I’ve been looking for you two everywhere. Where’ve you been?”
“You told us to hide,” Pete said.
“Yeah,” Julian said.
“But didn’t you hear the fire alarm?” I asked.
They nodded.
“Did either of you pull it?”
“No,” they said in unison. “That would be criminal.”
“Then you’re both morons. The school could have been in flames. A hurricane could have been heading toward us. A real genius would have realized it was smarter to be safe than to win some dumb contest. You both lose. The only thing you have won is the idiot contest.”
“I’m no-no-no idiot,” Julian said, grinning. “I hid in the crawl space under the auditorium stage all-all-all day and made up some new songs. Want to hear one?”
“Spare me,” I said.
“And I squished myself into my locker all day,” Pete said. “I felt like a candy bar inside a wrapper. I learned how to sleep standing up. I’m no idiot either.”
But they were. They were idiots—mini minds—and that night it was confirmed.
I was watching a Twilight Zone rerun when, by itself, the channel changed. I knew who it had to be. “Hey, Pete,” I called out. “Come in here and watch TV with me.” He came in from the kitchen. Suddenly the channel changed again. Then again. “Oh my,” I shouted toward the window at the top of my lungs. “What’s going on?”
“What are you doing?” Pete asked.
“I’m encouraging a genius,” I whispered. He looked puzzled.
“I love this TV show,” I said loudly to Pete. Suddenly the channel changed.
“Are you doing this?” Pete asked.
“No,” I said. “It’s your genius friend across the swamp. The two of you are on the same genius level.”
I walked over to the window. “Hey, genius!” I yelled. “Stop changing our channels.”
He popped up from under his windowsill. “I’m a-a-a genius!” he yelled. “Watch this.” He pointed the remote at our house and the TV changed again.
“Hey,” Pete yelled back. “This was my top-secret sneaky genius idea.”
“No, this is my sneaky genius idea.”
“I’m the real genius,” Pete claimed, waving the remote over his head.
“No-no-no way,” Julian shot back. “I’m the true genius.”
It takes one to know one, I thought, as Julian turned our TV on and off and flipped through the stations. Pete did the exact same thing to them. The battle of the remotes was going full blast and that’s when I figured out what their special genius really was—driving us all insane.
After they had spent about twenty minutes changing each other’s channels, I looked over at Pete. “Why don’t you two start a genius club together,” I said.
“That’s a great idea,” he replied. “But you can’t join because you’re not a genius.”
“But I can join,” Julian shouted. “Because I’m a genius!”
I got up and went into my bedroom. I was getting a headache. I needed a good book to read. “TV,” I muttered, “it brings out the genius in everyone.”
A Bad Case of Brooding
The bathroom in our house trailer was very small. When you sat on the toilet your knees nearly touched the back of the door. The sink was the size of a salad bowl. My face just barely fit inside the frame on the wall mirror. Only half of Dad’s face fit and he had to shift back and forth to shave both sides. But it was the only private room in the house—semiprivate, really, because anyone on the outside could hear what was happening on the inside. When Dad took a long shower after work and sang all the colorful verses of “Barnacle Bill the Sailor,” Mom made us play out behind the swamp.
Even though I knew the bathroom was about as private as covering myself with a bedsheet in the middle of the living room, it was the place I retreated to when I needed to cry. I knew everyone could hear me sobbing away, but I just didn’t want them to see my face. When I cried, my face got all screwed up like a washcloth being wrung out. I’d rather be seen naked and smiling than dressed and crying. It just seemed that crying in public was asking for trouble—especially with Betsy around. Whenever I was at my weakest, she became an even bigger bully than normal.
I was crying, not because of anything that had happened in my family, but for what had happened in trailer number two, where Mr. Hancock lived. He was divorced and had a son, Elliott, who lived with his mom on the mainland. From time to time Elliott came to visit. He was in a wheelchair and his dad always drove him around in the bed of his pickup truck. That’s how Elliott liked it. His dad built a little ramp to wheel him up where Mr. Hancock could secure him in a special rack. After the ride he could wheel Elliot down. Elliott was very pale and thin and his arms always seemed to quiver for an awkward moment before he kind of jerked them into motion, like he first needed an electric shock to get himself going. The same with his speech. It was as if his lips were out of sync with his thoughts, and he could only talk one syllable at a time, as if the words had been snipped ap
art with scissors. He had always been in a chair and, from what we knew, wasn’t doing very well. Word got around that there was some chance he was going to die and so his dad had me and Julian over to the house to be Elliott’s friends for a day. We both understood we were supposed to be extra nice and, regardless of all my mom’s warnings, we were. We had great fun playing Wiffle ball indoors and rubber-band warfare and game after game of ticktacktoe. That was Elliott’s favorite game, and when he started first there was no beating him. It was the one thing he had going for himself, and he was proud of it. He knew he beat us fair and square, unlike when we played Wiffle ball and gave him as many strikes as he needed. Then after he hit the ball, one of us would drop it, while the other one would wheel him around the living room for an inside-the-park home run. He flopped around in his chair and laughed, but there was some understanding in his eyes that told me he knew we were faking. Or maybe he just always knew whatever fun he was having was temporary because soon it would all be over with.
Still, we all enjoyed the visit. It was fun being especially nice and by the end of the day we really liked the kid. And when he said goodbye he whispered the word as though he didn’t want to wake it up. That was the last time I saw him alive.
So earlier in the day, when Elliott’s dad knocked on our door and stepped inside and quietly told me that Elliott had died, I was really struck by the news. I didn’t know what to say. I just kept repeating, “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I’m so very sorry. I’m so very, very sorry.” I couldn’t stop myself from adding an extra very each time I expressed just how sorry I was. And I couldn’t keep my mouth shut because I knew as soon as I stopped talking, I would be sorry and all the pain of it would hit me and I wanted to hold that pain off for as long as I could. So even after Mr. Hancock left, I kept saying, “I’m so very, very, very.” With each very I took a step down the hall until, after twenty verys, I was in the bathroom with the door closed against my knees. I thought of Elliott and right away my chin quivered and my face twisted up and the tears ran hot down my cheeks and I cried so loud that my mom knocked on the door.
“Honey,” she called gently, “are you all right?”
“Yes,” I replied, sniffling. “I’m fine.” And then I bit down on my lower lip to keep from crying, but soon enough my chin started quivering and then I was right back at it.
Between sobs I heard Mom say, “Just give him some time. He’s sensitive. He’ll be out in a minute.”
“Well, I can’t hold it any longer,” Dad replied. “I think I’m going to have to go back to nature.” In a minute I heard a beer pop open as he clomped down the hall and out the back door to pee in the bushes like he usually does when the bathroom is occupied.
Mom was wrong. I knew I could stay in the bathroom crying all night or until either she or Betsy would have to go and then I’d be flushed out of my hiding spot to cry in public. I couldn’t bear the thought of Betsy making fun of me. So when I thought the coast was clear, I opened the bathroom door and dashed to my room. Pete wasn’t there and I swung myself out the window and down onto the strip of dry ground next to the swamp. I wiped my face on my shirtsleeve and went over to Julian’s window and peeked in. He was building a plastic warship from a kit. I didn’t know if he knew about Elliott’s dying because Julian’s dad and Mr. Hancock had a falling-out at work over stolen tools and weren’t talking.
“Let’s take a walk,” I said to Julian, and wiped my nose on my forearm.
“Can’t,” he replied. “I’m grounded for-for-for life.”
“Why?”
“We were at my cousin’s wedding. He was having it at his house. He’s like nineteen and all my life he’s been a jerk-jerk-jerk to me. So I climbed out a second-floor window and was just hiding out on top of the roof getting away from everyone when a crazy thing happened. The bakers were delivering the wedding cake, which looked-looked-looked something like a pirate ship with the bride and groom in the crow’s nest. It was pretty cool. But like I said, I never liked him, so as they carried the cake across the yard I started singing, Here comes the bride … one ton and wide! I’d rather kiss a pig-pig-pig in a wig … everyone hide! Then I did my nut dance and lost my balance and rolled off the roof. I missed most of the cake but-but-but clipped off the mast and crow’s nest and the bride and groom and when the bakers started yelling and everyone came out and saw cake and icing all over my shoes, they went ballistic and my cousin threatened to kill me, and my parents did, too.”
“What happened next?” I asked.
“I started hollering that it was an accident and that I had fallen out a window and somersaulted off the roof and by coincidence the cake-cake-cake was passing by.”
“Did they believe that?” I asked.
“Not really,” he said. “But it’s kept them from killing me, so they’ve just grounded me for life. I wrote a song about it,” he said. “Do you-you-you want to hear it?”
“Love to,” I said.
He stood up on his bed and struck a guitar-playing pose with one hand out on the imaginary neck of the guitar and the other scratching at his belly. “Okay,” he said. “Imagine this played as loud and fast as humanly possible.” Then he got a faraway look in his eyes and stared out over my head as if addressing the crowd at a rock concert. “Here’s my new hit song that you all have been waiting for. It’s dedicated to my cousin and it’s called, ‘I’d Do It Again!’”
Then he gritted his teeth and started strumming his air guitar and bouncing all over his bed. “I’d do it again!” he screamed. “I’d jump on the cake. He’s a jerk to me. And she’s a-a-a fake!” Then he went into an air-guitar frenzy and caromed all over his room and flipped over his ship model before landing back up on his bed for the second verse. “I’d do it again!” he wailed at the top of his lungs. “I’d ruin their fun! I’d laugh at their wedding! Then run! Run! Run!” He jumped off the bed again and started kicking holes in his door and rolling across the floor and punching the walls. The whole house rocked back and forth. “Somebody help me!” he yelled. “I’m possessed!”
“Julian!” his mother hollered, and whipped his door open.”You’re already in enough trouble. If you trash your room you’ll be sleeping outside. You hear me?” She pointed a very real frying pan at him.
His face dropped. “Yes, Mom,” he replied. “I-I-I was only playing rock star.”
“Well, try acting your age,” she said. “Rock stars are infantile!”
“Okay,” he said glumly.
“And,” she said, steaming up, “if you claim you’re possessed one more time, I’ll let the local priest knock the devil out of you, and believe me, they use more than a frying pan!”
“Yes, Mom-Mom-Mom,” he said, and picked up a toppled chair.
Then she caught sight of me. “You!” she hollered with the frying pan held out like she had a tennis racket and was about to return a volley. I ducked down and began to slosh through the swamp on the way over to my house.
“You little coward!” she yelled again from the window. “You better run! I think you are a bad influence on my boy. You’re giving him bad ideas. He was a good boy until you came along.”
I didn’t stop to argue with her. I thought Julian was a great kid. He was full of his own wild ideas and didn’t need any of mine to get him worked up. But I didn’t want to get my head flattened just to tell her so.
As soon as I reached for the front-door knob I heard Mom and Dad talking in the living room. I stopped to listen.
“He’s a boy,” Mom said. “For my own selfish reasons I’d love to see him stay a boy forever, but in the blink of an eye he’s going to be bigger than both of us. And he can only grow into being a great man if we start young and raise a great boy.”
“That’s not true,” said Dad. “I didn’t start being a man until I turned thirty and look how I turned out.”
“That’s just what I’m talking about,” Mom said sharply. “He needs guidance. Something wholesome to do, like Boy Scouts, or a sport.”
“I don’t have time for that stuff,” Dad said. “The Navy works my tail off all day long.”
“Well, you better make time, mister. You don’t want him turning out like that wild problem child across the swamp.” I knew she was pointing toward Julian’s house.
“Okay,” Dad said. “I’ll think of something.”
“And don’t just take him across the street to go fishing,” she said. “Or rent a dune buggy and race around for your own kicks. You have to talk to him about things. Help him figure out the world. You can’t just fish in the dark and brood all evening like you do. God, the last thing I want you to do is teach him how to brood.”
I could hear Dad stand up and stomp across the room.
“Don’t walk away from me when I’m being serious,” she said. “We have to talk about this. Every time I want to talk, you want to walk. But if we don’t talk about problems, we won’t solve anything around here.”
But Dad wasn’t talking. He yawned loudly, like a lion. “I’m exhausted,” he said, stomping in circles as if tramping down the tall grass and making a bed. “Time to call it a day.”
The next night after dinner Dad looked over at me. “Hey, sport,” he said. “Get my fishing rod and let’s go over to the beach for a spell. It’s time to spend a little time together, man to man.”
I smiled. I knew what that was all about. “Great,” I said. I got his pole ready, put a few beers in the cooler, and grabbed a blanket. He carried his tackle box and a flashlight, and a hammer—just in case he caught something so big he had to give it a crack to calm it down.
“See you later,” I called, waving to Mom.
But she didn’t respond. She was glaring at Dad. “Remember what I told you,” she said. “Talk!”
“Don’t worry,” Dad replied. “With my fishing luck, that’s all I can do.”
We crossed the road in front of the house and walked up over the dunes and down the beach a bit before getting set up. Right after Dad had cast out and we had settled down on the blanket, he began to talk.
