Pay Attention, Carter Jones

by Gary D. Schmidt

  “Do you always wear a vest?” I said.

  “Waistcoat,” he said. “And yes.”

  “You know who Virender Sehwag is?” I asked.

  “Do I know who Virender Sehwag is?” said the Butler. “That, young Master Carter, is akin to asking if I know who Donald Bradman is.”

  I finished drying the fry pan. We’d had bangers and mash for supper, and scraping the fry pan had been a real challenge.

  “So you know who he is.”

  “He scored three hundred and nine against Pakistan in 2004—​one of the greatest performances these eyes have ever seen.”

  “You were at the game?”

  “I was at the test match, young Master Carter.”

  “I’m Virender Sehwag on Team India,” I said.

  “Then you have much to live up to. I believe we will dry the fry pan on the burner later. Perhaps you might turn your attention to the cutlery.”

  “So why did you come here when you did?”

  The Butler looked at me. His hands were still in the dishwater. “You have a certain manner of asking surprising questions at surprising times, young Master Carter,” he said.

  “Because you knew he wasn’t coming back?”

  The Butler swished the water around. I think he was looking for something to wash so he wouldn’t have to answer.

  “It’s not a googly,” I said. “It’s a straight bowl.”

  “Young Master Carter,” he said, “answering that question would necessitate—​I find it improbable that I am about to use this word, but others seem to pale—​it would necessitate blabbing.”

  “Blabbing on who?”

  “On whom. And answering that question would also necessitate blabbing.”

  “When did you know my father wasn’t coming home?”

  The Butler said nothing. He found a couple of knives in the sink and washed them. He handed them to me.

  “You know,” I said, “you’re already a blabber, so you may as well tell me.”

  “You want me to squeal, then?” The Butler suddenly looked appalled. “Did I just say ‘squeal’?”

  I nodded.

  “Thus living in America.”

  “It’s okay,” I said.

  “It is most certainly not ‘okay.’” The Butler opened the drain and watched the water run out. He rolled down his sleeves and put his jacket on. “Young Master Carter,” he said, “Donald Bradman was a magnificent batsman, perhaps the greatest batsman to have ever played. As a bowler, however, he at times bowled short on leg stump, considered by some to be a low and ignominious tactic, as you are aware.”

  “Yup,” I said.

  “Even an honorable and good man might sometimes act in a manner far beneath him.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means that I have most definitely blabbed enough. Now, I presume there is mathematical homework to which you should attend?”

  “So he met someone else.”

  Nothing from the Butler.

  “Someone elses?”

  “Elses is not a plural.”

  “A whole other family?”

  Nothing from the Butler.

  “In stupid Germany?”

  The Butler looked back in the sink. He found another knife and rinsed it. He handed it to me to dry, and I did.

  “How much does my mother know about them?”

  “Your mother is a discerning woman, young Master Carter, as well as a strong and loving one. Whatever she knows is hers to know.”

  “How could he find another family?”

  “How can you bowl short on leg stump?”

  “It’s not exactly the same thing.”

  “No. It isn’t the same thing,” said the Butler.

  “So why didn’t you tell me before?”

  The Butler rinsed out the sink. “Decorum,” he said. “And now, I think we’re done for tonight.”

  I hung up the dishtowel. “You can be a pain in the glutes sometimes,” I said.

  “One of my many skills,” said the Butler.

  · 19 ·

  The Yorker

  A yorker is a difficult ball to bowl. The bowler bowls quite long toward the batsman, hoping for a shallow bounce that will pass beneath the batsman’s bat and strike the wicket.

  News of the cricket match had gotten around Longfellow Middle School. You could tell when you walked into the lobby and saw the huge British flag hanging down from the stairwell, right next to a red-and-blue sign—​with a lion rampant again—​that said RULE BRITANNIA.

  Ryan Moore walked behind me as I stood looking at the flag waving in the breeze from all the Longfellow Middle School students swarming in. “You must love this, Tory,” he said.

  I looked at him.

  “Do you ever wonder what it would feel like to actually know what you’re talking about?” I said.

  “Tory,” he said, and walked away.

  “So the answer is no,” I called.

  Then Billy Colt came and stared at the flag with me.

  “It’s going to look pretty stupid the day India wins by a million runs,” I said.

  “But, Carter, India won’t be able to score a million runs, because we’ll be knocking down all your wickets.”

  I looked at Billy. “You live in delusion, my friend.”

  Billy looked up at the fluttering flag. “I wonder if someone from the monarchy will come watch.”

  I looked up at the fluttering flag. “Krebs is not going to put up with this.”

  “You think he has a flag of India lying around?” said Billy.

  “You think he doesn’t?”

  Then a shadow fell across us both.

  “Unless you’re going to start singing ‘God Save the Queen,’ you better get to homeroom,” said Vice Principal DelBanco.

  Billy Colt got to “Send her victorious” before Vice Principal DelBanco told him to cut it out.

  We walked together to homeroom.

  “Tory,” I said.

  “Takes one to know one,” said Billy Colt.

  Mrs. Harknet was about to call attendance when we came in. “Here are our cricket players now,” she said. “Which of you is on Team India?”

  Billy Colt pointed to me.

  “So, Carter, are you responsible?”

  “For what?” I asked.

  Mrs. Harknet looked at me. “Are you pretending you don’t know?”

  “Know what?”

  She pointed to the window, which the entire homeroom was already looking out. So Billy Colt and I did too.

  A huge—​and I mean huge—​flag was flying from the pole in front of the school, and it wasn’t the flag of the United States. A green bar at the bottom, white bar in the middle, orangy bar at the top. “Saffron,” said Mrs. Harknet. In the middle, a blue wheel with spokes.

  “Can you guess the nation it represents?” said Mrs. Harknet.

  I didn’t have to guess.

  The flag of India flew broadly in the fall breeze, slowly unfurling, so big that the wind moved across it like long waves.

  “It’s a nice flag,” I said.

  “Do you have the combination?”

  “The combination?”

  Mrs. Harknet sighed. “The pull cable has a combination lock on it now. We can’t take down the flag until we have the combination.”

  I looked out the window again. Another set of waves unfurled the flag slowly.

  Mrs. Harknet sighed again. “You may as well take your seats,” she said.

  * * *

  In Physical Science, Mrs. Wrubell sort of eyed me when I came in. “So are you one of the miscreants?” she said.

  I wasn’t sure what a miscreant was. “I don’t think so,” I said.

  “I should hope not,” said Mrs. Wrubell.

  In social studies, Mr. Solaski said, “Are you seriously playing a cricket match?”

  Billy Colt and I nodded.

  “Cricket?”

  Nodded again.

  “And that’s what th
e flags are all about?”

  Nodded one more time.

  “Cricket?”

  “The most lovely and sportsmanly game that mankind has yet conceived—​or ever will conceive,” I said.

  Mr. Solaski looked at me.

  “Okay,” he said.

  In Math Skills, Mr. Barkus posed a word problem: “If a large flag flying outside decays by ten percent each year, how many years will go by before the flag is unflyable? We will assume for purposes of this problem that a decay of eighty-five percent equals unflyable. And to avoid embarrassingly simplistic responses, I will tell you that the correct answer is not eight years.”

  Vice Principal DelBanco never did get the flag down. At the end of the day, the buses waited underneath its broad waves, the pride of India waving and unfurling its green and white and saffron bars above us all.

  * * *

  Late that afternoon, it started to rain. I mean, really rain. Like an Australian tropical thunderstorm.

  I decided to clean my room.

  Sort of.

  I took the photograph of Captain Jackson Jonathan Jones standing in front of an American flag and folded it in half. Then I ripped it in half. Then I ripped the halves in half again. Then I put the pieces in the garbage.

  I took the beret from his first deployment and balled it up. I tried to rip it in half, but I couldn’t. So I put it in the garbage.

  Then I took the goggles that still had sand in them from Afghanistan, and I twisted them all together, and after I twisted them all together I stomped on them until the eyepieces were broken and the sand of Afghanistan was sprinkled over the floor. Then I put them in the garbage.

  I lay down on my bed.

  I listened to the Australian tropical thunderstorm.

  When the rains came while we were in the Blue Mountains, my father and I would lie in our tent. I wished I could remember what we talked about. I know I tried to talk about Currier, but he didn’t want to talk about Currier, and I almost began to cry whenever I tried, so I never showed him the green marble. Once he tried to tell me about Afghanistan, and Germany, but the rain got too loud and we stopped talking.

  Because the rain was too loud.

  * * *

  Before supper, the Butler knocked, opened the door, and looked in.

  “You’ll be down for dinner in fifteen minutes,” he said.

  “Yup.”

  “Yup is an Americanism as barbarous as—”

  “Yes, I will be down in fifteen minutes, Mr. Bowles-Fitzpatrick,” I said.

  “Much better,” he said.

  Then he saw the space on the shelf above my desk.

  The Butler looked at me.

  I looked at him.

  “Did it help?” he said.

  “A little,” I said.

  “Have you talked with your mother about . . .”

  “A little. It hurts her . . .”

  The Butler nodded. “Only her?”

  I didn’t say anything.

  The Butler stood at the end of the bed. “It will hurt to be angry at him, but you will be angry at him.”

  “I’m not mad at him,” I said.

  “I suspect that is not true,” said the Butler.

  “I’m not.”

  “Young Master Carter, unless you are Mother Teresa in disguise, I would find it extraordinary if you were not angry. There is no shame in—”

  “So I’ll be down in fifteen minutes,” I said.

  The Butler nodded, but he went over to the trash can. He took out the balled-up beret.

  “In fifteen minutes, then,” he said.

  “Yup,” I said.

  The Butler left with Captain Jackson Jones’s beret.

  I lay on my bed.

  And I pressed my feet against the footboard.

  And I pressed my hands against the headboard.

  And I bounced my head up and down on the pillow.

  And I bounced my feet up and down on the mattress.

  Because he loved someone else more than he loved us. Someone else in stupid Germany.

  Because he went to stupid Germany and he didn’t love us.

  He was gone.

  If that isn’t a yorker, I don’t know what is.

  · 20 ·

  Block Hole

  A block hole is a hole in the pitch made by batsmen late in the game. Deep block holes may be exploited by bowlers bowling yorkers, as the batsman is thus called upon to “dig the ball” to defend the wicket.

  You remember that the problem with holding cricket practices on the football field at Longfellow Middle School on Saturdays in October is that the Longfellow Middle School Minutemen play their football games at ten o’clock on Saturday mornings. This means that we get up earlier on Saturdays than we get up on school days—​like, before the sun. And since the Butler believed I should walk Ned around the block before we left for practice, this meant I had to get up really early on Saturdays.

  “You know,” I said on the next to the last Saturday of the month, “Annie can walk Ned too.”

  “Miss Anne is your younger sister,” said the Butler.

  “What has that got to do with it?”

  “Neither your mother nor your sisters should be walking the dog.”

  “Because . . .”

  “How curious it is, young Master Carter, not only to begin your sentence with a subordinating conjunction, but to trail off vocally as if I were expected to finish the phrase.”

  “Why can’t Annie walk Ned?”

  “Your sister cannot walk Ned because she is a young lady.”

  “Girls can’t walk dogs?”

  “Not when they have older brothers.”

  “Mr. Bowles-Fitzpatrick, I think it’s illegal to believe that anymore.”

  “It certainly is. Here is Ned’s leash. You should have sufficient time to get him to the dying day lilies before necessity strikes.”

  That’s what Saturday mornings before cricket practices were like with the Butler.

  Here’s what an afternoon practice the week before the match between Team India and Team Britannia was like:

  Krebs batted about a thousand balls out to the Team India slips and made them sprint back in with them.

  Then Krebs batted about a thousand balls out to the Team India covers and made them sprint back in with them.

  Then Krebs batted about a thousand balls out to the Team India mids and made them sprint back in with them.

  And while the slips and covers and mids ran after the thousands of balls, the rest of us took turns as batsmen running between the wickets. “You’ve got to sprint on the first run to see if you can make more,” Krebs hollered. So we sprinted on the first runs until Hettinga started to crawl between the wickets and Krebs took pity on us and made us take turns bowling against him.

  “Remember,” he said as he was striking every ball we threw, “it’s a true wicket. The advantage is all to the batsman.” And “You got to keep your foot behind the crease.” And “A ball from a pace bowler comes in fast, but it gives fielders less time to get ready. So be ready all the time.” And “Arm over your head. Over your head. No, over!” And “Stay ready out in the field. Stay ready! Catches win matches!”

  “You know,” Hettinga said while Chall bowled and Krebs hit every one out past the covers, “I think Team Britannia is having a lot more fun than we are.”

  “Field at gully,” said Krebs, “and they won’t be having a lot more fun when we’re holding the trophy.”

  “Is there a trophy?”

  “You know what I mean,” said Krebs. “Chall, you’re done. You’re one of the bowlers. Jones, you try bowling now.”

  Bowling isn’t easy, okay? Bowling is really not easy, especially when the flag of India is slowly unfurling in long waves on the flagpole in front of the school and you feel like you have this international tradition watching. You have to hold the ball right on the seams. Then there’s the run-up toward the batsman, which is like sprinting again and again, except in the mi
ddle of the sprint you’re bringing your arm up, around, and over your head in a way no human being normally does. And with all that going on, you have to pick your spot where you want the ball to bounce. Plus it’s no good if you’re not aiming right at the wicket. And the delivery has to be fast or you know the batsman is going to bounce it over the boundaries. You know all this, right?

  So it isn’t easy.

  But guess what. That afternoon, I wasn’t bad. I took Yang’s wicket on the fourth ball. Chall’s on the ninth. And Hettinga? I bowled him for a duck. Not a single run. No kidding.

  Then Carson Krebs got up.

  “C’mon, quickie,” he said.

  He swung the bat low a couple of times.

  I bowled it, pretty long.

  He batted it out farther than any Longfellow Minuteman could throw a football.

  I bowled it even longer.

  Way farther than any Longfellow Minuteman could throw a football.

  I bowled it close in.

  Way, way farther than any Longfellow Minuteman could throw a football.

  “You’re not going to get my wicket that way,” Krebs said.

  I bowled it twice more, fast.

  He swung as if he were out for a stroll, and smiled as the balls scooted past the mid-off.

  Then I bowled the yorker.

  It came off okay.

  It spun okay.

  It hit a little before Krebs’s feet and flew toward his wicket—​exactly what it’s supposed to do on a true wicket.

  Krebs followed it the whole time, and smacked it into the covers.

  He smiled at me. “Nice try,” he said.

  A couple of googlies next, spinning inside.

  I think he hit them with only one hand on the bat.

  So then I set up for the next bowl. I felt around the ball until I could hold the seams just right.

  “That’s not going to help,” said Krebs.

  I practiced bringing my arm up over my head.

  “Still won’t help,” said Krebs.

  I began the run-up. Krebs gripped his bat straight.