by Jack Gantos
Mr. Pink called him over to help fold the jib and he sprang into action.
By then Betsy was making a big fuss over Anne. I was jealous that she was getting the real story of what had happened. Dad had only told me his side of the story. I knew there must be some secret details that only Anne knew. I drifted over to her.
“Hi,” I said, and waved weakly.
Betsy glowered at me. “Don’t you have something better to do than to snoop around us?”
“I guess so,” I replied. But I really didn’t have anything better to do than to slouch about and act like a loser. Mom was fussing with Pete. Dad was doing manly things on the boat and I knew he would tell me to stay out of the way. Betsy had clearly claimed Anne as her own. I picked up a stalk of crushed sugarcane that was lying around from a cargo barge. I flicked it end over end into the water.
“Hey!” Dad shouted and pointed down at me. “That’s how boating accidents happen.”
“Sorry,” I yelped and turned away from him. Anne and Betsy were staring at me. Betsy whispered something to Anne. They both nodded. Then Betsy said one word so loud everyone on the dock could hear: “ … immature!”
I leaned against the fender of a parked car as though someone had punched me in the belly. I hated that word.
At the house, Dad had built a shed the length of the back yard where he kept exotic wood imported from South America. It was expensive wood he used to panel fancy hotel rooms and he had to keep it dry and safe. The roof was made of rippled tin and the walls were made of thin wood strips that had space between them so fresh air could flow to the planks and keep them from warping under the hot roof. It had become my second home.
Since the yacht wreck a week ago, Anne had been sharing a room with Betsy. And Betsy didn’t want me around the house. Before she’d let Anne out of her room, she would come out first. She patrolled the halls like a prison guard. If I even stepped out of my bedroom, Betsy wanted to know what I was up to. She especially wanted to know why I was so “immature.” I couldn’t even open the refrigerator and get a cold glass of water without her watching me. She suspected that I was spying on Anne. And she was right. I couldn’t keep my eyes off of her. I’d sit in the living room casually reading a magazine, just waiting for her to walk by so I could raise my eyes from the pages and hope to catch her looking at me. Whenever I tried this trick it was mostly Betsy who walked by, and when my hopeful eyes met her drilling stare, she’d give me a look that was so menacing I just closed the magazine and shuffled up the hall while the word “immature” slapped me back and forth across the ears. But even from my room I could hear their laughter, so I retreated to the woodshed. If I was going to have a tortured heart, it was better to be alone.
I took my diary with me. First I made a list of all the things I should do to win her over. “Talk in complete sentences,” I wrote. “Floss your teeth. Always say please and thank you. Comb your hair.” Soon I got tired of thinking about me. I turned to a clean white page and wrote her name across the top. “Anne, Anne, Anne,” I moaned. I wrote it one hundred times.
Our cat, Celeste, meowed as she hopped up next to me from her hiding place below. She stretched out her long thin paws and extended her sharp claws. When she pulled her claws back she scratched a row of lines across a smooth board of purpleheart wood. The lines matched the ones I had etched with the tines of my fork across the dining-room table’s veneer.
I took my penknife out and wrote “Jack Loves Anne,” using the lines to measure the letters. After I had carved out all the little scraps of wood, I closed my eyes and ran my fingertips across each letter of her name. I leaned forward and smelled the purpleheart wood. The fragrance of it filled my head with a cloud of smoky sweetness, as when Marlene boiled sugarcane into molasses.
“This is what her skin must smell like,” I murmured to Celeste. I pressed my cheek against the smooth, slightly dusty board. I breathed deep, then rolled my head to one side and kissed the wood.
“Jack!” Pete yelled from his bedroom window. “Time for dinner.” I jerked my head up and ran my fingers through my hair. My heart pounded. Not from love, but from fear of being caught kissing a plank. If anyone, especially Betsy, or worse, Anne, had seen me, I would die. Love was not something I was prepared to share with the world. Love was a dark secret, like a ship lost undersea.
“Come on, Celeste,” I said and picked her up. We rubbed noses. Then she squirmed and leapt out of my arms.
It didn’t take long for Dad to zero in on my secret love ship that was lost under the sea. He shined a spotlight on it immediately after the food was served.
“Do you have a crush on Anne?” he asked directly. “Because someone has been using my Old Spice deodorant. They rubbed a new stick down to a nub in less than a week.”
I blushed crimson and stared at the carrots on my plate. I couldn’t look at Anne. How did he know I used his deodorant? Betsy must have tipped him off. She had been sniffing the air around me as I left the bathroom after washing my hands. I pulled my elbows close to my sides. I did smell a little spicy.
“It doesn’t matter if he has a crush on Anne,” Betsy said. “She likes someone else. Someone more mature.”
Who? I desperately wanted to know but didn’t dare ask. Whatever I did, I couldn’t let anyone know I was in love. I looked at Pete. He flashed Anne a smile and coyly cocked his head to one side. Oh no, I thought. Not him too.
“I think Pete is cute,” Anne said and gave him a charming smile. She was just teasing. But Pete acted like he was sprinkled with fairy dust. He grinned like a deranged pixie and slid down in his seat.
I’ll crush him, I thought.
Fortunately, Mom changed the subject. “We have to go shopping tomorrow,” she said to Anne. “I spoke with your mother today and she said they have the boat up in dry dock but all of your clothes and school books and … well, just about everything was ruined by the water. She said it will be another week by the time they patch the hole but we better get a move on in order to replace all of your things.”
“May I come?” Betsy asked.
“Of course,” Mom replied.
A little voice in me was crying out. Can I come? Can I come? Oh, please.
“Jack,” Mom said. “You can stay home with the baby.”
“Can I come?” Pete asked. Mom thought about it. “Sure,” she said. “You can help us carry the bags.”
After dinner Dad asked me to step outside.
“Let me give you some advice, son. Women like two kinds of men. You either have to be the totally honest, up-front kind who says exactly what is on your mind. Or you have to be the cute puppy-dog type who they want to take care of. Those are your two choices in life. Naturally, I think you should be the totally honest, up-front type, like me. The puppy-dog types get a bath once a week, some flea powder, and a pretty ribbon tied very tight around their necks, if you know what I mean.” He winked.
I didn’t know what he meant about the ribbon. But I knew right away that I was the puppy-dog type. I would have been in heaven if she scratched my ears, patted me on the head, and said “Good boy.” I would eat dog food if she fed it to me. I knew I was lovesick, but, as they say, only her kiss will cure me.
“Thanks, Dad,” I replied.
“One more thing,” he added. “I’ll have your mother get you your own deodorant.”
I nodded and walked rapidly down the front steps and around to my French doors. I got my diary and went back around to the shed. I lay down across the planks and breathed deeply. The wood was so fragrant, like a cabinet full of spices and dried fruit. I had read about a great poet who kept rotting apples in his desk drawer. Whenever he was searching for inspiration, he would pull open the drawer, lower his nose, and breathe deeply. The smell of the sweet apples would throw him into a poetic swoon.
I took another deep breath and ran my finger over her carved name. Suddenly I was struck with poetic inspiration. I opened my diary and wrote:
LOVE
Her n
ame is Anne
My heart
Has ears
When she speaks
Love, Love, Love
I feel
Fears, Tears, Cheers!
I practiced saying it over and over again. If I only had a chance to recite it to her, then she would understand how I felt. Poetry was very powerful. Once she heard it, I was sure she’d feel the same way, too.
I finally got my chance. Two days later I was in the shed. Rain beat heavily on the tin roof. Celeste was with me when Anne opened the door. She had been caught in the storm. Her hair was wet. Her shirt stuck to her shoulders. Her arms were covered with goose bumps.
“So this is where you hide all day long?” she asked, and hopped up on the plank next to me.
“I like it back here,” I said. “It’s quiet and I can think deep thoughts.” I rolled my head around as though it were so filled with thoughts it was about to tip over and snap my neck.
Just then Betsy ran by. “Anne!” she shouted. “Anne!” She turned toward the shed.
Go away, I prayed. There is nobody in the shed. Go away, go away, go away …
“Anne!” Betsy shouted again.
I locked eyes with Anne. She held one finger up over her lips. I nodded.
Betsy turned and ran up the back steps and into the house.
Anne leaned forward and began to pet Celeste. Then she spotted where I had carved “Jack Loves Anne” on the plank.
“Did you do this?” she asked.
“Yes,” I said, as though I was confessing to having done something wrong. I was deathly afraid she was going to think that carving her name in wood was immature.
“It’s very nice,” she said and touched it as I had.
“Would you like to see something else?” I asked. Before she could answer I pulled out my diary and opened it to the page where I had written her name one hundred times.
“You’ve been thinking about me,” she said.
“A lot,” I replied.
“I’ve been thinking about you, too.” She reached for the neck of my shirt and pulled me toward her face.
We kissed. Our lips were slippery with the rain that kept dripping from her hair. I concentrated on not sliding off and falling forward on my face.
Kissing her was dreamy, but I had to say something romantic to her. All the kissing I had seen at the movies was followed by a beautiful thought, perfectly suited to the romantic moment. I wanted to recite my poem to her, but I couldn’t remember it. I just remembered the part about “My heart has ears.”
I wasn’t sure what to say, so I went for another kiss while my brain frantically worked at searching for the first line of my poem. But I just couldn’t remember it. So I began to think of other things to say. You are my shining star. You are everything to me. If I die tomorrow, I will not have lived in vain, because we will have kissed.
Nothing I could actually say came to mind. I held my breath each time I kissed. Finally, I was breathing like I had just run a marathon. I needed some air. It was time to take a break from kissing and talk.
I was panting and gasping for breath when I looked her in the eyes. She looked into my eyes.
“Your skin smells of wood,” I blurted out.
She pulled back. “I beg your pardon?”
“Beautiful wood,” I said quickly, trying to recover. But in one second something had changed. Her eyes went from soft pools of blue to narrow slits. I had blown it.
“Fragrant wood. Purpleheart wood,” I murmured romantically.
“I don’t get it,” she said.
“I mean, you know. Nice-smelling wood.”
“Betsy’s searching for me,” she said. Her voice was blunt. “I have to go.”
“Don’t leave,” I pleaded, sinking to begging like a puppy with the first chance I had.
She stood up. “Betsy was right,” she said to me.
“Right about what?” I asked.
“Still a little green,” she replied knowingly. “Immature.”
Arghh!
“Betsy said I should be with older men. Now I know why. Even after I kissed Pete he didn’t say I smelled like a piece of wood.”
“Give me a second chance,” I cried out. I reached for her hand. “You smell like rose petals.”
She opened her mouth and stuck her finger down her throat. “Oh, gag me,” she said repulsively.
Then in one terrible moment she snatched up my diary, spun on one foot, and dashed out of the shed.
I was right behind her. “Give that back,” I hollered. I grabbed at the diary, missed, slipped on the wet grass, and skidded into a bush.
She ran up the back stairs and through the door. I was doomed. That’s the only reason she kissed me, I thought. Betsy must have sent her on a mission to steal my diary. It was all a trick. She never really liked me. She was toying with me.
I was crushed.
I returned to the shed, flopped on my back, and limply covered my face with my open hands. I thought I had a fever. If only Anne were my nurse, she would take care of me. I imagined I was a race-car driver who’d had a fiery crash and Anne brought me back to life. I was a wounded soldier and she applied the bandages. I was an orphan and she adopted me. I was her prize student and she kept me behind for extra assignments. I’d do special reading. She’d lean over me and breathe knowledge into my hot ears. I’d beg to do hard math problems. She’d guide the pencil with her hand on mine. Then she’d paste a big gold star on my forehead. Afterward, I’d show her my diary and she could read my poems about just how deeply I loved her.
I popped right out of my fantasy as soon as I thought about my diary. I knew that Anne and Betsy were reading it at that very moment. They were giggling and laughing at every word I wrote, especially my love poem, which I suddenly remembered.
And they both were using that awful word “immature.”
For the next few days I stayed out of sight. I pretty much lived in the shack out back with Celeste. She understood me, until she got tired of me always trying to pet her, and then she turned on me and scratched me across the hand. I dabbed at the lines of blood and thought, I should tattoo “Jack Loves Anne” on my hand.
“Jack,” Mom shouted from the back stairs. “Anne is leaving. Do you want to say goodbye?”
I didn’t answer her. She called for me again, then went back inside.
I didn’t want Anne, or anyone, to see me looking so sad. So heartbroken. Besides, I wanted her to suffer. I wanted her to feel sad that I wasn’t around to wish her bon voyage. Their boat was patched up and they were leaving for Trinidad in the morning.
After Mom left, I sneaked out of the shed and dashed down the side yard to the front corner of the house. The taxi was waiting in the driveway. I didn’t see anyone but the driver, and he didn’t count.
I ran to the guava tree in the front yard and scrambled up the trunk. I perched like a monkey on a branch. I parted the leaves in front of my face and waited. In a moment, everyone descended the front steps and gathered around the taxi. I watched as Anne hugged Mom and Dad goodbye. Then she gave a special hug to Betsy. Then she rubbed Pete’s head and leaned forward and gave him a kiss. He did a little wiggle dance, like a worm. I’d squish him later. I waited for her to search for me, to ask about me, to feel pained that I didn’t show up to say goodbye. But she didn’t hesitate a moment. I was the farthest thing from her mind. She opened the car door and stepped inside. Dad closed the door for her. She leaned out the window as the engine started. “So long,” she said sweetly. “Thank you for everything.”
“Wait!” I shouted from the tree. From my moving around, the branches rustled like a beast pushing through the brush. “Wait for mel”
Betsy, Mom, Dad, and Pete turned to look up into the tree just as I dove chest forward through the branches with one hand held over my broken heart and the other pressed against my feverish forehead.
It was a perfect swoon. I kept my eyes on her face until I hit the ground like a dud bomb. I bounced on my che
st and knocked the wind out of my lungs. My wide puppy eyes were filled with dirt. I tried to say something like, You are my purpleheart, but couldn’t. I was gagging for air. I reached forward with my hands and clutched at the little tufts of grass. I crawled forward, inch by inch, a wounded soldier in the battle for love.
Anne looked at me with complete astonishment. I’m certain I saw her mouth make a little circle as if she were surprised. It was the most perfectly circular circle I had ever seen made out of lips. I wanted to tell her so.
“Anne,” I grunted. “Save me.”
She abruptly turned her head away, gave instructions to the driver, and the car pulled out of the driveway.
Betsy walked over to me and stood above my upturned face. “You are pathetic,” she said and began to laugh. Then she dropped to her knees and pressed her hands to her cheeks. “My heart has ears,” she said, sighing with mock love. “What were you thinking when you wrote that?”
Suddenly I leaped forward like a frog and slapped at my legs. I had fallen on a red-ant nest and they had crawled up my pants leg.
“Pete,” Dad ordered. “Get the hose and spray him down. I think he needs a cold shower.”
I didn’t wait for Pete. I hopped up and scampered like a lunatic down the side yard and through my French doors. I closed them behind me. As I turned, I saw it. My diary was on my bed. It was open to the page where I had written one hundred Annes in a row. She had been wearing lipstick and had kissed the page and left a moist print behind. I held it to my lips. As I kissed it, I felt the ants pinching my legs.
New Power
It was the middle of summer and the flies were driving us nuts. There were millions of them. We were overrun. Our house didn’t have window screens, so they buzzed us all day and all night. But I had a plan. I knew that if you want to wipe out snakes you introduce the mongoose, its natural enemy, and before long the snakes are eaten and gone. If you want to get rid of mice, you buy a cat. And I knew that to get rid of flies you bring in lizards. So I did. I went out to the back yard and trapped a dozen and set them loose in my room. At first it was great. They zapped the flies with their long sticky tongues and swallowed them whole. But soon they ate so many they got fat and full and lay about the room with their eyes closed and arms and legs spread open like burned-out tourists.
