As I was pondering all this, Mrs. Finster opened her side door at the speed of molasses. Clutching her four-pronged cane, she bore down on me, waving a folded newspaper in her free hand.
“Franklin Donuthead. I am coming!” she called out, as if this weren’t patently obvious.
“Franklin!” I turned to see Bernie charging down the sidewalk, the tails of his shirt flapping, a plastic Family Fare grocery bag ballooning at his side as it caught the breeze.
Zero, who’d been focused up to now on his creation, got all rigid and began barking furiously at Bernie, who pulled up short and thrust the bag at me.
“You better…pick this up…quick,” he said, gasping for air. Out of the corner of his eye, he glimpsed Mrs. Finster.
“Uh-oh.”
“Young man. A word!”
Zero had stopped barking and was now scooting the very same behind that rested in my reading chair along the heavily trafficked sidewalk.
“Were you born in a barn?” Mrs. Finster demanded, planting her cane and swaying slightly until she got her balance. Her back was so bent that she had to turn sideways and look up at us with just one eye. “The fine for failure to clean up your pet waste is five hundred dollars and a night in the county lockup. I have Sheriff Reynolds on speed dial, and if you don’t—Oh hello, dear,” she said, catching sight of Bernie.
“Have you come to turn my Norfolk Island pine?”
Zero, too, seemed altered by the sight of Bernie. He pressed up against his side, moaning and sniffing at his pockets.
“Sure, as soon as I help Franklin clean up this mess,” Bernie said, scratching Zero under the chin. Mrs. Finster sized me up and clearly, from the expression on her face, found me wanting.
“Well, as long as you have things under control, dear. I’ll go get his vitamins ready. Feel free to share my methods with Mr. Donuthead here.”
It did not escape me that Bernie was “dear,” while I was referred to as “Mr. Donuthead.”
“His vitamins?” I asked when Mrs. Finster was, at long last, out of earshot.
Bernie shrugged. “She’s talking about her indoor plants. All the ivies are girls and everything else is a boy.”
“And you know this because…”
“I guess because I turn her plants once a week.”
“And you turn her plants once a week because…”
“Franklin, you don’t have to keep pinching your nose,” Bernie said. “Just breathe through your mouth. Like this…”
Being the ever-helpful friend, Bernie proceeded to demonstrate breathing, an activity with which I am already familiar, so I moved on to the task at hand.
“Precisely, how do you plan to get that,” I said, pointing to Zero’s creation, “into this?” I held up the plastic bag.
“Oh, that’s easy, you just…” Bernie proceeded to put the bag over his hand and, to my astonishment, grab Zero’s poop with it. With a quick flick, he pulled down the handles with his other hand, looped them through one another, and held the bag out to me.
I held it at arm’s length, overcome with questions. Why was Mrs. Finster so fond of Bernie and so…disappointed with me? Why was Zero so happy to see him? Could you really earn lifelong devotion with half a dozen Thompson Treats?
Bernie, too, had his questions. He sat down on the lawn, and Zero moved in next to him, laying his big mangy head in Bernie’s lap.
“I just keep thinking about Sarah and if she’s ever comin’ back. Do you think so?” He sighed. “I guess we’ll know more after you bring her the skate,” Bernie mused, getting that faraway look in his eyes. “Are you sure you’re ready for this, Franklin? Sarah’s going to be so surprised….”
I looked hard at Bernie. He really did live in a fantasy world. Wasn’t he here to witness that I, Franklin Delano Donuthead, could not even effectively pick up dog poop? How, then, was I supposed to travel to Grand River, the eighth-largest metropolis in the Midwest, to deliver a “package”? With my luck, I would be arrested on suspicion of drug trafficking.
I sighed, too, and sat down next to Bernie. What was it Gloria said?
Everything’s not changing, Franklin, you are.
Me. Franklin Delano Donuthead. On a quest.
“I hope I’m ready,” I said to Bernie, and forced myself not to pull away as he patted me on the back with the same hand that had maneuvered Zero’s poop.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The Rules Meant to Be Broken
The next day, I sat in health class, ordering my notes on the forms of healthy love. Though I’d studied in my usual manner—making outlines and index cards—the information was not sticking. I kept getting confused! A test appeared on my desk, and I leaned instinctively into the aisle to remind Sarah Kervick to put her name on her paper. Suddenly I was overcome with memories that placed a higher demand on my attention than filling out the multiple-choice section on how to be a respectful listener.
I saw the look on Sarah Kervick’s face just before she tried to put her fist in her mouth to stop the happiness from leaking out when Gloria sent her the ice skates from Washington, D.C. Then I thought of my mother hollering from the stands the day I made a single for the Modern Hardware Baseball Team. And Sarah throwing her hands in the air after she landed her first single lutz.
Ten Vermilion Sunset fingernails appeared suddenly on my blank test paper.
“Franklin?” Miss Mathews bent close and whispered to me.
“Can I ask you something? I haven’t seen Sarah since her skating show, and nobody ever answers the phone number we have in our records. Do you know how I can get in touch with her?”
The combination of her breath on my ear and the sight of her collarbone, which was suddenly in plain view, set off a diversion of blood flow so severe I was afraid my heart would stop.
“I don’t,” I said, keeping my eyes on my test paper.
“She’s been absent so many days that I’m going to have to report her to the truant officer.”
I forced myself to look at Miss Mathews, whose face was registering genuine concern. “I don’t want to get her in trouble, Franklin. I just need her to come to class. Do you think you could talk to her?”
I swallowed. “I don’t think she’s absent,” I whispered. “I think she’s…moved.”
“Oh…I’m sorry.” Miss Mathews stood up. “And I’m keeping you from your test. I don’t want to ruin your A-plus record.”
As I turned back to my test paper, I caught sight of one Marvin Howerton, his eyebrows raised in mock surprise.
“Donut-dork,” he whispered. “You lost your bodyguard.”
I could only imagine the sort of ancient Chinese torture devices he’d be ordering through the mail to practice on me in Sarah’s absence.
At the lunch table, Bernie Lepner, my new travel agent, was helping to plan my itinerary.
“A lot of people take the bus to Grand River, Franklin. My aunt and uncle go every year the day after Thanksgiving to see the Christmas display in the store windows at Herpolsheimer’s.”
“Why don’t they drive?”
“Well, it costs seventeen dollars to park all day. That doesn’t include the gas.”
Though I hadn’t spent much time around Bernie’s aunt and uncle, they seemed like orderly, law-abiding people. Perhaps the mass-transit system was filled with elderly types on fixed incomes and not—as I feared—gang members and winos.
“The bus picks up in the parking lot behind Perkins’ Drug Store. There’s only one time in the morning and one time at night. You can buy your ticket ahead of time at the post office.”
“I’ll be arriving back at night?” I said, my mind rushing to the correlation between darkness and personal-assault injuries.
This was followed by a long silence as Bernie and I retreated into our own separate fantasies. As we were gathering our things in anticipation of the bell, he said: “Do you want me to take you to the bathroom, Franklin?”
I paused to let the full meaning of what Bernie h
ad just said sink in. Here he was—a ten-year-old, for Pete’s sake—offering to take me to the bathroom because the person who usually escorted me—a girl!—was no longer available. While I appreciated the gesture, even I could see this placed me squarely in the pathetic category. Franklin Delano Roosevelt must be turning over in his grave.
“I’m leaving on Saturday, Bernie. Alone.”
Bernie stood up, a small piece of ramen noodle stuck to his chin.
“Really?”
“Yes, really. Alone,” I repeated, just to make sure I’d heard it right.
Throwing caution to the wind, I decided to exit the cafeteria via the double doors on the opposite side of the room, bringing me within feet of the fair Ms. Powell.
On my way there, however, I spied Marvin Howerton moving toward me with purposefully evil intent. Given the rate at which he was traveling, I predicted we would meet just short of the end of the last long lunch table, Marvin’s purpose being to employ one of the laws of physics to transfer his energy through me to the table, causing its contents to fly through the air and implicate me in a crime I did not commit. In hockey terminology, this is known as a “body check.”
Instead of scurrying in the other direction—as was my custom—I continued at a fixed rate of speed toward our collision, stopping abruptly one second short of impact.
Marvin sprawled across the lunch table, drawing the attention of Mr. Fiegel, who flicked on his bullhorn and barked: “Howerton! Lunch duty!”
“Me!? I didn’t do anything! It was Donut-dork who made me do it.”
“Name calling is a penalty, Mr. Howerton. That will be two lunch duties for you,” Mr. Fiegel said.
I walked the empty halls, safe in the knowledge that Marvin Howerton was being detained to gather lunch trays. A momentary sense of well-being filled me. Maybe, I thought, entering the bathroom, just maybe I could take care of myself.
But then I almost got nailed by Mr. Herman as he went through his paces.
“Franklin,” he said, pulling up short. There was a film of sweat on his face. Apparently, swinging a broomstick to ward off imaginary opponents was a good cardiovascular activity.
“You probably shouldn’t surprise me like that.”
My plan had been to proceed confidently to the fountain and unzip, but Mr. Herman’s broom handle had drained the confidence right out of me.
“Mr. Herman,” I said, blinking. “Would you consider teaching me a few of those evasive moves you described yesterday?”
Mr. Herman screwed the handle into the broom and leaned on it, staring at me intently.
“When are you leaving?”
“Day after tomorrow.”
He pressed his lips together, thinking. “Okay.” He placed his feet shoulder width apart, in much the same way Sarah Kervick did when preparing to give me one of the “life lessons” that I would routinely ignore.
“Now, if you are close enough to touch someone on the ear…,” he said, reaching out and touching mine, “you are close enough to gouge someone’s eye out.” He then placed his thumb over my closed left eye and pressed down, demonstrating.
“Mr. Herman,” I said. “You should know that the only thing I can do violently is tremble. I am, at heart, a peaceful boy.”
“Okay, how about this little jab right here? Keep your fingers rigid…”
He demonstrated some sort of ninja stealth maneuver involving two stiffened fingers in a trajectory to the windpipe. Mr. Herman did not leave much to the imagination. I was beginning to see why he and Sarah Kervick got along so famously.
I cleared my throat. “Mr. Herman, I was under the impression that you would teach me ways to safely escape an attacker, not maim one. I am a pacifist, Mr. Herman. In the words of the late, great Franklin Delano Roosevelt…”
“Didn’t he get us into war after Pearl Harbor?” Mr. Herman asked me. “Seems to me, there are times when a little fight is the only reasonable alternative. Listen, son, I always teach my students to walk away, but when someone wants to attack you, a bunch of words from a dead president won’t save you from the emergency room. Your job is to disable him—not permanently, but long enough to escape. One quick move like this…”
Mr. Herman demonstrated yet another move, which constituted jabbing the heel of his hand toward my face and stopping just short of my nose.
“…lets you walk away. Face it, Franklin. You’re a shrimp. Shrimps need to rely on the element of surprise.”
“A shrimp,” I replied indignantly, “is a bottom-feeding crustacean whose only natural defense is a tough outer shell.”
“Then you better grow one before Saturday, ’cause Sarah Kervick isn’t staying at the Ritz.”
I sighed heavily. Were there no realistic options for the peaceful among us?
Just to show there were no hard feelings, Mr. Herman patted me on the shoulder.
Unable to resist one more little demonstration, he fingered the tendons between my shoulder and my neck. “If you pinch right here…”
The horrified look on my face must have stopped him.
“Well, I’ll leave you alone to do your business.”
For that, I was truly thankful. “Thank you, Mr. Herman,” I said, concealing myself behind the stall door and trying to sound grateful, because I knew he meant well.
I was so distracted by the sound of the first bell, and the imagined injuries Mr. Herman might inflict if he followed through with one of his disabling tactics, that once I was inside the stall, my plumbing worked quite efficiently. Even without the CD.
“Gone? Just vanished?” Mrs. Boardman had finished shaking my hand, but she held on anyway.
“I’m afraid so.”
“But the nonfiction…we, I…I brought her a book from the library over in Wing Rock.”
“It’s all very sudden,” I agreed. I led Mrs. Boardman over to her chair and asked if she wanted a glass of water. Mrs. Boardman nodded yes and, after she’d taken a few sips, looked up at me over the rims of her bifocals.
“You will find her, won’t you Franklin?”
“I’m going to try.”
“You’re a nice boy.” She patted my hand.
Part of me wanted to tell Mrs. Boardman about my plan to head to Grand River, but I felt that a person her age might be bound to inform my mother. And then where would I be?
“I will admit that I’m a tad worried about the trying part.”
I stood at the reshelving cart, sorting the books into categories: picture books, fiction, biography, world religions.
“Worried?”
“Well, I’m afraid I’ll get myself into a situation…I might encounter a bully or get lost. I’m not sure what I’ll do if I get lost…. In stories, there always seems to be something magic, like a ball of yarn or seven-league boots or a talking apple. But this is not a folktale, Mrs. Boardman.”
“‘There is no living thing that is not afraid when it faces danger,’ Franklin dear. ‘True courage is in facing danger when you are afraid.’ Do you know who said that?”
I shook my head. It sounded familiar, but I couldn’t place it.
“It comes from The Wizard of Oz, and it’s what the wizard said to the cowardly lion.”
We began with the sciences. Mrs. Boardman inserted the ruler, and I followed with the correct book according to the Dewey decimal system. Then she handed me the picture books in alphabetical order as I shelved them on my knees. It felt good to put things in order. That’s what librarians do, when you think about it. They put the world back into order, one book at a time.
As soon as I got home, I placed a call to Gloria, planning to casually draw out of her the Grand River, Michigan, block-by-block crime statistics. But Miss Tweedell answered her phone.
“Oh hello, Franklin. Gloria’s not here today. She’s at the annual AURA meeting in Chicago.”
“The aura meeting?”
“American Union of Risk Analysts.”
This was most unsettling. “How long will she be gone?”
“I think…checking her schedule…until Monday, dear. Do you want her voice mail?”
“No thank you. I’ll just…well, hope you hear from me on Monday.”
“All righty, then. Have a good weekend, Franklin. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do, hear?”
If Miss Tweedell only knew.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Bursting My Antibacterial Soap Bubble
With the exception of certain statements I have made regarding the enjoyment of attending baseball games, I have never told my mother a falsehood. Lying is a quality that does not keep company with principles such as health promotion and mental improvement. I have employed this tactic on occasion, with Marvin Howerton, to aid in risk avoidance.
For example, if Marvin were to say: “Hey, Donuthead, you goin’ to the john?” I might reply something like: “Actually, I was…on my way to the office to check my community-service hours.”
Or:
“Hey, Donut-hole, wanna walk home with us?”
“That’d be great, Marvin, but…I just remembered I promised Mr. Spansky I would sanitize the petri dishes.”
Since Marvin was not sincere in his interest, it was easy to lie to him. My mother, on the other hand, would be a different story.
On Friday evening, Paul was over—yet again—under the pretense of helping my mother pick out new paint colors for the living room. Since Sarah Kervick had disappeared, my mother had thrown herself into redecorating the house with intense energy. Helping my mother make decisions about our home decor used to be my job. That was all before Paul, HGTV on cable, and home-dec-in-a-sec parties in our neighborhood. Still, I tried to maintain a small but meaningful role by slipping in the flyer I’d requested on milk-based paints in classic colonial colors.
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