by Jack Gantos
“You will be going. I’m staying,” she said firmly. “I’m tired of bouncing around. I feel badly for you boys, but if I don’t get settled down now, I’ll never get ready for college. And since I want to study in England the system here will help me. I’ll miss you,” she said, “but I have a scholarship to board and study at the school and I’m going to take it.”
“You can’t just leave,” I said.
“Just watch me,” she replied.
“But we depend on you.”
“For what?” she asked sarcastically.
“To kick our butts day in and day out,” I replied.
Before she could take that the wrong way, Pete began to giggle. She gave him her scorched-earth scowl. He took a step back and covered his face. “Watch out,” he hollered. “She’s a killer.”
She jumped on him and wrestled him to the floor. Then she tickled him, kissed him, and tousled his hair. He made a sick face, but he loved it. One thing about Betsy, if she said she would take care of you, she would. She was like a pit bull. You might not want to hug her but you would want her around and you’d miss her if she left. She’d fight anyone and do anything to get things her way. Now she wouldn’t have to fight us or Mom and Dad. She could just set her sights on what she wanted, then go get it. She was going to be living the life I wanted. And I was going to be living the life she was rejecting. I was so envious I had to walk away before I started to cry.
I returned to my room and took out my diary. Okay, I thought, you better start loading this up with Barbados stuff. It’s now or never. It’s over.
That night Mom and Dad argued. They were silent over dinner except to order us to our rooms once we had finished. As we walked off I steered Pete into my room.
“We’ll ride it out in here,” I whispered, even though the door was closed.
He nodded.
“It will be okay,” I said.
The first words out of Mom’s mouth were loud. “I was humiliated,” she said bitterly. “You didn’t tell me we were in so much trouble.”
“How was I to know they’d send out a bill collector?” he replied. “I’ll take care of it.”
“How?” she questioned him. “And with what?”
“Don’t start on that,” he said.
I turned to Pete. “Stay here,” I said and patted the edge of the bed as I reached under the mattress for my diary. “I’m going out there. I did this once before and it worked.”
I slipped out into the hall and tiptoed down to where it opened onto the dining room. I stayed in the shadow, just by the edge of the door, and peeked out at them.
“This isn’t just about me,” Dad said. “You helped run up the bills.”
“Oh no,” she shot back. “Don’t try to blame this on me. You were the one who set the pace. Spend. Spend. Spend,” she hammered. “And then you tried to make it all work out by doing business on a handshake with a bunch of drunks who didn’t have a cent to begin with.”
Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to step between them, I thought. They might both turn on me. I still had time to retreat to my room. They hadn’t seen me.
Dad paced back and forth. Mom continued. “And now you’re becoming a rummy like the rest of them!”
“Damnit!” he shouted. I peeked around the corner just as he turned and rammed his fist through the glass door. It exploded into a thousand pieces and scattered like a bucket of marbles thrown across the porch and down the stairs.
Mom stood frozen, with her hands pressed over her ears. Dad stepped through the empty frame of the door and stomped down the stairs, kicking shards of tinkling glass out of his way as he went.
After the last bit of glass settled, I heard Hal Hunt’s voice carried on the wind. “Did you hear something break?”
I scurried back to my room. Pete was still sitting on the edge of the bed. He was more frightened than I had ever seen him. I was more frightened than he had ever seen me. “Come on,” I said. I grabbed his arm and jerked him forward. I opened the French doors and we ran out across the grass, through the back yard, to the garage. “Hurry. Hurry. Hurry,” I cried out. “Get in.”
I opened the side door and pushed him forward into the dark. “Get down,” I shouted. “Stay down.” I closed the door and shoved the bolt into place. Then I dropped on my knees and crawled next to him. We were breathing as if we had just run a mile.
“What happened?” Pete asked between breaths.
“Dad went berserk,” I replied. “He punched out the front door.”
In a moment I sat up and searched around. The garage was filled with empty cardboard boxes. I had seen this in the past and knew what boxes meant. We were definitely moving. Our stay in paradise was over. This was a bad ending to one of Dad’s stories. What’s the lesson, I asked myself. I just wasn’t sure. Was it because Dad was bad at business? Was he a rummy like the rest of the men Mom disliked? I didn’t know, and I couldn’t ask him. He might go berserk again. I lay back against some boxes and thought, I’ll never know why he failed. When I failed at something, it was because I hadn’t paid attention or didn’t prepare hard enough. But adults were different. They had problems I couldn’t figure out. And I guessed that by the time I could figure them out I, too, would be an adult with the same problems.
Pete put his head on my shoulder.
“We’ll be okay,” I said. “We’ll stick together.”
“You bet,” he replied.
After an hour or so, he fell asleep. I picked him up and lugged him like a sack of potatoes back to the bedroom.
In the morning Pete and I woke up acting like members of a retreating army. I opened one of my hollowed-out diaries and removed two packages of firecrackers. For once I agreed with Mom’s favorite line, If you don’t use it, throw it away. Only I added a twist to her thinking, If you don’t use it, blow it up.
“Gather the stuff you don’t want anymore,” I ordered. “We don’t want to leave anything behind.”
Pete went into his room and returned with his plastic sailboat with ripped sails. “Blow it up,” he said. “I don’t want it anymore.”
We took it out to the back yard. I taped a firecracker to the mainmast. Pete lit it and we stepped away. Boom! The mast split in half.
“Excellent!” he cried gleefully.
We blew off the rest of the masts, then the rudder and keel. After that, we tossed it into the trash. No one would ever play with that again.
I brought out a lamp made of a carved coconut. A few minutes later it was destroyed. Pete brought his old shoes and we blew the soles off. I blew up a math book. Pete blew up a mobile of painted fish which had been made out of mango seeds. With each blast, we jumped up and down and cheered.
When we were down to our last six firecrackers I said, “I know what I want to blow up.”
Dad had painted our name “Henry” on a wooden plaque and wired it onto the front gate. I wrapped the remaining firecrackers into one big bomb and taped it to the plaque.
“Fire in the hole!” I hollered and lit the fuses I had twisted together. It went off like a truck backfire and echoed between the houses. The plaque blew in half. One piece stayed on the gate, the other landed in the street.
Pete put two fingers in his mouth and let out a long whistle. “That is so cool,” he said. “I wish we had some dynamite.”
Just then a black panel van pulled up. The driver leaned out the window. “You guys know where the Henrys live?”
“Right here,” I replied. “Why? You here to move us out?”
“Just the animals,” he said, looking at a clipboard. “I’m from the Humane Society. Your mother called and said to come get the dog and cat. We’ll find them new homes.”
The Henry family retreat was under way. The enemy advance scouts were already on our doorstep. I reconnoitered the driveway. BoBo II was asleep in front of the garage. Celeste was sitting on the kitchen stairs licking her paws. I raised my head and looked up into the smoky sky. Oh God, I thought, I don’t want to
see this. But here it was.
The driver had also seen BoBo II and Celeste. He quickly got a butterfly net and two wire cages out of the van.
“Call the dog over,” he said as nicely as he could, and put on a pair of heavy leather gloves.
“Can’t do it,” I replied.
He turned toward Pete.
“Me either,” Pete said. “Not even if you torture me.”
The man shrugged, then walked up the driveway. He went directly to BoBo II, grabbed his collar, then trotted him back to the cage. BoBo II went right in, and after circling around a few times sat down and stared out at us. Tomorrow he’d be sleeping twenty-three hours a day at someone else’s house and never know the difference. There is an advantage to having such a tiny brain, I thought. There is no room to remember your past.
He picked up the cage and slid it into the back of the van.
“So long, fella,” I said.
Pete began to cry.
“Hey,” I said. “Better him than you!”
He turned and punched me in the chest.
Before I could punch him back, Celeste let out a screech. The guy had her half into the butterfly net. He was reaching for her with his leather glove when she broke away. She hooked him good across the nose, then leapt into the driveway and across into the Granthams’ bushes.
“Go! Go! Go!” I shouted, and waved my fist over my head. I could see her working through the thick leaves and stems and then she was gone. Celeste was smart. She knew not to hang around us. I hoped she would run up into the hills and eat mice and live free. I wanted to run away and live with her. But the island was too small. Someone would find me, and just like BoBo II, I’d be sent home in a cage to face the music.
“It would be better if I had caught her,” the man said when he returned to the truck. “Between the wild dogs and mongoose, she’ll be killed.”
“She’s tougher than that,” I said defiantly.
“Well, tell your mother I tried,” he said and wiped a spot of blood off his nose. He put away the empty cage, then climbed into the truck and drove off.
That afternoon Mom came home with a set of new suitcases.
“Pack your good clothes and play clothes,” she said, meaning business. “We’re leaving today. Your father will ship the rest up to us.”
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“Miami,” she replied. “We’re leaving in four hours, now get a move on.”
We each took a suitcase and dragged it to our room. I slipped my story diaries into my backpack. I could carry them onto the plane with me. They were the most important thing I owned. Once we were in Miami I could open them and read about where I had been. Then I would get new diaries and write about where I was going.
I only packed the clothes I still liked. When I finished, I dragged the suitcase out to the front porch and went to find Pete. He was with Betsy. She was packed up for boarding school. The baby was asleep in his crib. I half expected him to be packing up his little outfits. Betsy gave Pete a hug, then me. “Write me long letters,” she said. “I’ll write back.”
“What about Mom and Dad?” I asked.
“Dad’s going to stay until he settles the bills. Then he’ll join you in Miami. Mom just wants to get a head start and get you boys in a new school.”
I couldn’t even think of a new school. Just the thought of meeting new people wore me out. I drifted down to my bedroom to rest. For the next two hours I just sat on my bed thinking of things I should do. I should write Mr. Cucumber a thank-you note. He was tough, but smart and fair. I should go say so long to the Naimes and Shiva and the Hunts. But I didn’t. I just felt empty. Used up. Every time I thought of saying goodbye, I expected they’d ask “Why?” And I’d just throw up my hands and shrug. “Adults,” I’d reply. “I just do as I’m told and hope for the best.”
Dad arrived and loaded the station wagon. He and Mom didn’t speak. They seemed to communicate in grunts. Marlene had swept up the glass, but their feelings for each other were still smashed up. But they’d make up soon. They always did.
Pete and I took our seats. I was numb, until I looked at Betsy. She was crying. I waved, then sucked in my gut and held my breath until we were out of the driveway and around the corner.
At the airport, Mom, Pete, and I stood on the terminal balcony and waited for the jet to land. We watched it circle overhead, then turn toward the runway. But it dropped down too fast and hit the runway with a thud. The tires blew and the jet screeched up the runway, leaving two long black trails of smoking rubber. The ground shook as the jet slowly shuddered to a stop. Suddenly the hot tires burst into flames. The fire crews hustled onto the tarmac. They sprayed a swoopy circle of white foam, like whipped cream, over the tires and put out the fire. It looked as though the jet had landed on top of a birthday cake.
Above the fire crew, the jet doors swung open and orange plastic slides unfolded like enormous waking caterpillars. One by one the passengers slid to safety and ran through the foam toward the terminal.
“This is an omen,” Mom murmured, shaking her head from side to side.
“What does it mean?” I asked.
“We shouldn’t leave,” she replied.
Just then, Gunnie rushed up to her. “We’re throwing a Betty can’t leave party at our house,” she gushed. “Come on.”
Mom looked hesitant.
“It’ll be fun,” Gunnie said and reached for Mom’s straw carry bag. “You could use a lift.”
“Okay,” Mom replied. “It doesn’t look as if we’re leaving.”
Yes! We’re staying. Mom and Dad will make up, and Dad’s business will improve, and Betsy will stay with us, and if we hurry we can get BoBo II back, and I can get the Henry plaque back on the gate.
We rushed across the terminal and back to the parking lot. We hopped into the station wagon and suddenly everything was different. Dad wasn’t scaring us. Everyone was happy at the same time. This is what’s important, I thought to myself. Not where we live, but how we live. If we stuck together, I wouldn’t care if we lived in a shack, wore rags, and ate lima beans out of a can.
Gunnie and her husband, Tim, grilled hot dogs and fish. They had a case of Lemon Squash and I ate and drank until I couldn’t stay awake. I looked around the room. Mom and Dad were sitting together and laughing. Everyone was having fun. Things were returning to normal.
I slipped into the spare bedroom. Pete was already asleep. I lay next to him and conked out.
In the middle of the night I was awakened. “Let’s go,” Mom whispered. “They’re waiting for us at the airport.”
I was confused. “Huh?” I said sleepily. “What?”
She lifted me up by my arms and swung my legs over the edge of the mattress. “I have to get the baby,” she said. “You wake Pete and get him ready.”
“What happened?” I asked.
“They brought in new tires from Puerto Rico and the plane is ready,” she replied. “Now hurry.”
“I thought we were staying,” I asked.
“That was just party talk,” she said. “Wishful thinking.”
I wished it were true. “Where’s Dad?”
“Asleep,” she said. “Tim’s driving us.”
“Why?” I asked. Dad always did all the Dad stuff.
“He needs his sleep,” she said impatiently. “He’ll join us later. Now get going.”
I helped Pete stagger out to the car. In a few minutes we were at the airport. The airline crew was waiting for us. We climbed up the stairs and entered the jet. As soon as we took our seats they closed the door and we taxied down the runway, turned, and took off.
Once we were up in the air I looked out the window. The sugarcane fires were still glowing. As we traveled farther away I thought Barbados would look frightening, as if we had just escaped a burning ship. But I was wrong. The fires stretched from coast to coast like party lights strung across the deck of a beautiful luxury liner. It wasn’t the island that was sinking. It was us. The
plane banked to the west. I looked out the window. The island was gone.
THE JACK HENRY ADVENTURES
By Jack Gantos
Newbery Honor author of the Joey Pigza books
Jack Adrift: Fourth Grade without a Clue
Jack on the Tracks: Four Seasons of Fifth Grade
Heads or Tails: Stories from the Sixth Grade
Jack’s New Power: Stories from a Caribbean Year
Jack’s Black Book
The five books in the Jack Henry series are partly based on the diaries I (like Jack Henry) started keeping in elementary school. Some might think I have filled my alter ego’s world with oddball characters and strange situations, but to me the stories are mostly about the everyday stuff that went on in my family and in whatever nutty neighborhood we happened to be living at the time (we moved around a lot). I never thought I was special, because most of the kids I knew thought the world looked as loony and off-kilter as it did to me. Now, when I talk to kids about my family stories and neighborhood characters they still give me that knowing look which says, “The world hasn’t changed that much.” Weird stuff still happens to kids, and around kids. Weird stuff is everywhere. An eleven-year-old reader summed it up. After reading one of the books in the series, she wrote to say she had recommended the book to her friends because “Your stories are filled with the unsaid things that go on inside kids’ brains.” Who could argue with that?
—J.G.
Copyright © 1995 by Jack Gantos
All rights reserved
eISBN 9781429936323
First eBook Edition : March 2012
First edition, 1995
Sunburst edition, 1997
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Gantos, Jack.
Jack’s new power / by Jack Gantos. 1st ed.
p. cm.
Summary: Thirteen-year-old Jack learns that life is not always idyllic on an island paradise when his father moves the family to Barbados.
