Great Brain Reforms

by John D. Fitzgerald

  It was a beaut with barrel, handle, air chamber, plunger, piston, and all working parts made from brass and steel. It was so powerful it would shoot BB shot forty

  infi

  rods and kill rabbits and small game at fifty feet. It was the only repeating air rifle in town, and could shoot one hundred and fifty BB shots without reloading. Tom had a Daisy air rifle and I had a Quackenbush but we could only shoot one BB shot at a time.

  Parley was showing off his air rifle to the kids at Smith’s vacant lot the afternoon of his birthday. After demonstrating it, he told us he was going hunting. Ev-ery kid who owned an air rifle decided to go hunting with Parley, except Tom.

  “Does that mean you’ll look out for Frankie?” I asked.

  “Yes,” Tom answered.

  I knew from the conniving look on The Great Brain’s face why he wasn’t going hunting. He was going to put his great brain to work on how to swindle Parley out of the King air rifle.

  Tom was very quiet after supper that evening. He sat reading one of the books from our set of encyclopedias. Even Papa was impressed with how quiet Tom was.

  “What are you reading that is so interesting?” he asked.

  Tom -looked up from the book. “I’m reading about Australia,” he said. “We studied a little bit about the country in geography at the academy. But I want to know more about the aborigines.”

  “It is quite a country,” Papa said. “It was originally settled as a penal colony by Great Britain. The aborigines are among the most primitive people in the world.”

  “I know al! that,” Tom said as if Papa had insulted his intelligence.

  “Pardon me,” Papa said. “I thought J. D. and Frankie might like to hear about it.”

  At any other time I would have liked to listen to Papa. But right then Frankie was going to beat me playing checkers if I didn’t concentrate good and hard.

  “Some other time, Papa,” I said.

  The next morning Tom disappeared-When he returned he was carrying what looked like a couple of branches from an oak tree. He took them up to his loft and pulled up the rope ladder. He wouldn’t let me come up or tell me what he was doing. And after lunch I’ll be a four-eyed bullfrog if he didn’t take Papa’s big, leather-bound dictionary, a rasp, and some sandpaper up to his loft. Tom stayed up in there all afternoon while Frankie and I went swimming. Tom also spent all the next day in his loft. The fellows at the swimming hole wanted to know if he was sick.

  “Sick in the head,” I said. “I don’t know what he is doing but I’ll try to find out tonight.”

  Tom was in the corral when Frankie and I arrived home-He showed us a bent piece of wood about a foot and a half long and sort of oval shaped.

  “My great brain did it,” he said. “The first one I made didn’t work but this one does.”

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “Something no kid or adult in this town has ever seen,” Tom said. “It’s a magnetic stick.”

  “You can’t magnetize wood,” I said.

  “With a great brain, anything is possible,” Tom said. “You’ll find out tomorrow.”

  And that is all he would tell me until Frankie and I had finished the chores the next morning. He jumped down from the top rail of the corral fence.

  108

  “Go to Smith’s vacant lot and round up the kids,” he told me. “Tell them I’ve got a magnetic stick that I can throw in the air and make come back to me.”

  “Like fun I will,” I said. “They will think you are crazy.”

  “And that, J. D.,” he said, “is exactly what I want them to think. Just make sure Parley Benson is with you when you come back.”

  I was so curious that I figured it was worth letting the fellows think Tom was crazy. I rode my bike to Smith’s vacant lot. Several kids were there, including Parley, batting fly balls and playing catch.

  “I found out what Tom is doing,” I said as they crowded around me. “He says he has made a magnetic stick that he can throw in the air and make come back to

  him.”

  Danny’s left eyelid flipped open. “Nobody can magnetize wood,” he said.

  “Tom says his great brain did it,” I said.

  Seth Smith patted me sympathetically on the shoulder. “Pa always said that sooner or later people with great brains end up in the insane asylum,” he said.

  All the fellows wanted to see what a fellow bound for the insane asylum looked like. They accompanied me back to the corral. The minute I saw Tom I knew Seth was right. The Great Brain was standing in the corral, rubbing his bent piece of wood with a magnet. Then he took it in his right hand and threw it into the air, pointing the magnet in his left hand at it. The stick went spinning straight over the corral and then fell to the ground.

  Parley shook his head. “He’s gone plumb loco, for sure,” he said.

  Danny called out, “What are you doing, Tom?” The Great Brain picked up the stick and walked over to the corral fence. “What does it look like I’m doing?” he asked with a wild look in his eyes. “I’m going to magnetize this stick so that when I throw it into the air and point a magnet at it the stick will return to me.”

  All the kids backed up a few steps. I didn’t blame

  them. Nobody wanted to get too close to an insane kid. Seth pointed at Tom.

  “You had better see a doctor,” he said.

  Parley nodded his head. “It’s the booby hatch in Provo for you, for sure,” he said.

  “So you all think I’m crazy,” Tom said. “I’ll show you how crazy I am. Parley Benson. My great brain will figure out how to do it by one o’clock this afternoon.

  And I’ll bet two dollars against your King air rifle that I can do it.”

  .1 was by now just as convinced as the other kids that Tom’s great brain had blown a fuse. “Please don’t bet

  him. Parley,” I pleaded. “He doesn’t know what he is say ing or doing.”

  Danny slapped Parley on the back. “Go ahead and bet him,” he said. “Tom used his great brain to swindle me out of my infielder’s glove and to swindle you and every

  other kid in town. Now that his great brain is sick, we have a chance to get even.”

  “My great brain isn’t sick,” Tom said. “And I’m just as sane as any of you.”

  Parley stared at Tom. “They say an insane person

  will never admit he is crazy,” he said. “I don’t want to bet if you have gone insane.”

  110

  “If I say I’m not insane,” Tom said, “then you think I am insane. If I say I am insane does that mean you will believe that I’m sane? All right. I’m insane. Now go ahead and bet.”

  “Let me get this straight,” Parley said. “You are betting two dollars cash against my air rifle that you can throw that stick in the air and make it come back to you. Right?”

  “Right,” Tom said. “I’ll stand at one end of the cor-ral and throw the magnetic stick. It will circle all around the corral and come back to me. If it doesn’t, you win two dollars. If it does, I win the air rifle. Is it a bet?”

  “It’s a bet,” Parley said. “Go ahead and show me.”

  “I need more time to magnetize the stick,” Tom said. “Be here at one o’clock and bring the air rifle with you.”

  “I’ll be here,” Parley said.

  I knew as I watched Parley and the other kids walk down the alley that Tom wasn’t insane. I knew because any time The Great Brain bet two dollars in cash, he knew he was going to win the bet. But I started having doubts when Tom went to the woodshed and chopped up the stick.

  “Why did you do that?” I asked.

  “Yeah, why?” Frankie said.

  “That was the first one I made,” Tom said. “I didn’t get it shaped right, and that is why it didn’t work. But I’ve got one I made in the loft that does work.”

  “Do you mean your great brain figured out how to magnetize wood?” I asked.

  “Of course not,” Tom said. “I got the idea from reading
about the aborigines in Australia. It’s called a boom—

  III

  erang. I saw a picture of one in Papa’s big dictionary. The aborigines use them to hunt. They can throw them hard enough to stun or kill small animals.”

  “How do the aborigines make the stick come back?” I asked.

  “It is the way it is shaped,” Tom explained. “The spinning motion creates air currents that bring a boomerang back to where it was thrown from.”

  “Then why all that mumbo jumbo about a magnetic stick?” I asked.

  “That was a come-on to get Parley to bet,” Tom said. “If I’d told the kids I could use a knife, rasp, and sandpaper to shape a piece of wood so it would return when thrown in the air. Parley and the other kids might believe it could be done. All the kids know you can’t magnetize a piece of wood and that is why Parley bet me.”

  At one o’clock Parley and a dozen other kids came down the alley to our corral. Parley had his air rifle with him. Tom handed Seth Smith two dollars.

  “You hold the stakes and be the judge, Seth,” he said. Parley handed Seth the air rifle. Then Tom went into the barn. He came out carrying a boomerang in his right hand and a magnet in his left hand. He rubbed the magnet against the boomerang for a couple of minutes. Then, holding the boomerang with his right hand, he threw it with a swift motion into the air. He pointed the magnet in his left hand toward the boomerang. The spinning boomerang made a circle in the air above the corral for about fifty feet. It. came right back to where Tom was standing and dropped at his feet.

  11 o

  Tom had told me what a boomerang was and yet I sat there with my mouth open, unable to believe what I’d seen. The other kids stared at Tom as if The Great Brain were the devil himself.

  Tom picked up the boomerang- “And just to prove it was no accident,” he said, “I’ll do it again.”

  He rubbed the magnet on the boomerang and then threw it into the air. He followed its circling motion with the magnet. The boomerang circled over our heads and again fell at Tom’s feet. He picked it up and walked over to us-

  “I guess that proves I’m not insane like you all thought,” he said. “I’ll take the two dollars and the air rifle now, Seth.”

  Parley jumped down from the railing. “Not until I make sure you used a piece of wood and not metal,” he said.

  Tom handed the boomerang to Parley, who examined it closely.

  “It looks and feels like wood,” Parley said, looking very disappointed.

  “I’ll prove it beyond a doubt,” Tom said. He took the boomerang and tossed it into the water trough in our corral. “You can see it floats,” he said.

  “You win the bet,” Parley said. “But the least you can do is give me the magnetic stick.”

  “It is no good now that it is wet,” Tom said. “It cannot be magnetized again.”

  Seth handed over the two dollars and the air rifle. “I’ll give you fifty cents to make one for me,” he said.

  Tom shook his head. “It takes a special kind of wood,”

  114

  he said, “and two days to make one. It wouldn’t be worth it tome.”

  Danny touched Parley on the shoulder. “I’m sorry I talked you into betting,” he said.

  Parley was a good loser. “You didn’t talk me into it,” he said. “Let’s go swimming.”

  I watched the fellows walk down the alley. “Teach me how to make boomerangs,” I said to Tom. “I’m not a fellow who will pass up a chance to make fifty cents in two days. I’ll bet I could sell one to every kid in town.”

  “If you started selling boomerangs,” Tom said, “the kids would all say that I swindled Parley.”

  “They are going to say it anyway,” I protested, “when their parents tell them you can’t magnetize wood.”

  Tom picked up the boomerang from the water trough. “Nobody will ever be able to prove this piece of wood wasn’t magnetized,” he said.

  And he sure as heck was right because he went into the woodshed and chopped up the boomerang. Then we went swimming with Frankie. I couldn’t help feeling sorry for Parley as we sat on the sandy bank of the swimming hole. He told me that he would get the worst whipping of his life when his father returned from bounty hunting.

  That made me begin to wonder about The Great Brain. Tom was the wealthiest kid in town. He had more money than some adults. He could have bought a King air rifle from Sears Roebuck and not even missed the money. But his money-loving heart wouldn’t let him spend a penny for anything his great brain could get him for nothing. I had always been jealous of his great brain

  115

  but I wasn’t anymore. Parley was supposed to be Tom’s friend. I knew that I would never do anything to make my good friends, Jimmie Peterson or Howard Kay, get the worst whippings of their lives-CHAPTER EIGHT

  The Good Raft Explorer

  BY AUGUST OF THAT SUMMER I don’t believe Tom had one real friend left in Adenville. None of them came over to play basketball anymore. They all seemed to be trying to avoid him. And there wasn’t a kid left in town who would make a trade or a bet with The Great Brain. I sure as heck didn’t blame them. After the swindles Tom had pulled off that summer, a fellow would have to have cabbages growing out of his head to bet or trade with The Great Brain.

  But what the kids didn’t know was that betting, trad-ing, conniving, and swindling were to Tom what food and water was to them. I felt so sorry for Tom that I al-

  1 1 ‘7

  most decided to let him swindle me out of something just so he could keep in practice.

  We were sitting on the riverbank’by the swimming hole one afternoon, keeping an eye on Frankie and” Eddie Huddle. Tom looked like the fellow who lost his horse, his dog, and his best friend all at the same time.

  “If I don’t put my great brain to work on something,” he complained, “it will start shriveling up.”

  “You sure as heck can’t blame the fellows,” I said. “When a kid sticks his head in a hole and gets whacked on the head with a club every time, he soon learns not to go around sticking his head in strange holes.” I thought that was pretty darn clever but Tom didn’t.

  “There must be something I can put my great brain to work on and make some money,” he said. “What would you like to do that you’ve never done before?”

  “Fly like a bird,” I said, quick as a flash.

  “You know that is impossible,” he said.

  “I don’t know about that,” I said. “You’ve told me plenty of times that nothing is impossible with a great brain.”

  That night after supper I was sitting on the floor in the parlor reading Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain to Frankie. Tom was studying the World Almanac. I was reading the part in the book about the trip down the river on the raft. Tom stopped reading and listened until it was time for Frankie and me to go to bed.

  The next morning, while we were getting dressed, Tom asked me, “How would you like to go exploring on the river on a raft, like Huckleberry Finn?”

  “Oh, boy,” I said, “that would be a great adventure.”

  “Would you be willing to pay for it?” he asked.

  “Sure,” I answered. “How much would depend on how long the trip took.”

  “Say it took from half an hour to forty-five minutes,” he said. “How much would you pay?”

  “At least a nickel,” I said. “Why?”

  “I’m going to build a raft,” he said, “and run exploring excursions on the river.”

  Eddie Huddle came over to play with Frankie just as the morning chores were finished. Tom saddled up Dusty and asked me if I wanted to take a ride with him. I got up behind him on the mustang. We rode to the swimming hole.

  “I’ll start the excursion on the raft from here,” he.. said. “But now I have to find out how far downstream to go.”

  We rode Dusty along the riverbank until we came to the rapids. It was a place where the riverbed dropped, causing the current to flow swiftly. I pointed at the rapids.
r />   “You will never get a raft upstream through those rapids,” I said.

  “I’ll have to bring it back over land,” he said. “Now to find a good landing place.”

  We rode until we came to a big bend in the river. Just around the bend the river became twice as wide and the current slow. We rode Dusty across the river and back to find out how deep it was. It was only about two feet deep all the way across.

  “This will be the landing place,” Tom said. “I figure the trip from the swimming hole to here on a raft would take about half an hour.”

  We returned home for lunch. After eating, Tom harnessed up the mare of our team.

  “What are you going to do with Bess?” I asked.

  “I need her to pull logs for my raft,” Tom answered.

  “Can I go with you?” I asked.

  “Not unless you want to work,” he said.

  “How much will you pay me to help you build the raft?” I asked.

  “Pay you?” Tom said as if I’d insulted him. “I am giving you a chance to learn how to build a raft and you want to be paid. You must have cockroaches in your head. I can get any kid in town to help me for nothing.”

  I sure as heck didn’t want to lose out on learning how to build a raft. Someday I might be lost in the mountains and the only way to save myself would be to build a raft and float downstream to civilization,

  “You don’t have to pay me,” I said. “But we can’t leave Frankie alone.”

  “We’ll cake him with us,” Tom said.

  We got the two-man saw, the hand saw, and a tow chain from the toolshed and the ax from the woodshed. We rode Bess to Cedar Ridge, on the outskirts of town. It got its name from the cedar trees growing there. But there were also a lot of pine and aspen trees.