Brendan Buckley's Sixth-Grade Experiment

by Sundee T. Frazier

  “Brendan, what happened?” Morgan stood too close. “Are you in trouble?” I bent down and dug around for my gym shorts. “What did he say?”

  I stuffed the shorts into my duffel bag. Might as well tell her—she’s going to find out eventually. “I’ve been suspended.”

  “Suspended!” Her eyes opened wide. Her face looked pale again. “But Dwight David started the whole thing. That’s not fair!”

  The hallway was crowded with kids jostling and shouting on their way to the exits, like blood cells in an artery. I stepped back to shut my locker. Morgan grabbed my hand. “Oh, Brendan. I’m so sorry. Can your parents contest it?”

  I felt like a lobster that had just been dunked in boiling water. I glanced around. Luckily, no one seemed to be noticing me standing there with a girl holding my hand.

  Unluckily, Khalfani appeared, clutching his football. “What are you doing, man? We’re waiting for you.” He spied our hands and made a face. I broke free.

  “I have to go.” I lowered my voice. “I’ve been suspended.”

  “What? No way!” Khal said.

  Morgan reached out for my arm. “Maybe if I talk to Mr. Bowman again …”

  “No.” I pulled away but tried to make it seem as if I were just throwing my duffel bag over my shoulder, not avoiding her. I kept my eyes on my bag. My ears were still warm from being caught with my hand in hers. “It was my fault. I didn’t have to clobber him.”

  Morgan’s eyes got big and dreamy, like a puppy’s. “Maybe so. But still, it was really great of you to stand up for me like that.” Her lips pushed out a little.

  She wasn’t about to try to kiss me again, was she? I stepped back to prevent any lip action, in case that was what she had in mind.

  “So, like, do you have to get off school property immediately?” Khal asked. “Because we need five players, and I already convinced Dwight David to play on the same team as you.”

  “I don’t know. I just know I have to get to my parents before Vice Principal Bowman does. Ask Cordé. He’s better than me, anyway.”

  “He hogs the ball.”

  “You only think that because you hog the ball.” I felt jumpy and irritated, like a bull with too many flies buzzing around his face. If I stood there one second longer, I might start bucking. I started walking instead.

  “Can I call you later?” Morgan asked.

  “Are you going to Tae Kwon Do tonight?” Khalfani called.

  “I don’t know,” I shouted over my shoulder. And I really didn’t. I didn’t know anything except that I was about to get it. Big-time.

  When I got home, there was a note on the fridge from Mom. She’d gone out Christmas shopping. “P.S. Bringing home teriyaki for dinner !” she’d written.

  I crumpled the note and threw it in the trash. I’d been hoping she’d be there so I could explain things to her first. Then she could act as a neutralizer when Dad had the big reaction over my being suspended.

  I stayed in my room all afternoon, observing Einstein and trying not to think about what would happen when Dad got home. I was concerned about my lizard. For the last week or so, he’d been sluggish. He didn’t pounce on the crickets as soon as they landed; he’d just watch as they hopped away. His eyes were sunken in and half-closed most of the time.

  I opened the lid and pushed back the plant leaves. Einstein lay on the jungle vine. He didn’t even seem to notice my hand as I gently lifted him from the tank.

  He felt limp. His skin looked dull. I examined him more closely. Some strange spots had appeared. I stroked his back a few times. “What’s wrong, little buddy? Are you sick?” I set him gently back on his rock, checked the tank temps, and squirted the leaves a couple of times.

  As soon as the lid was back on, I went to my desk and got online. I needed to find out what was wrong with Einstein. An hour later, I had a sinking feeling it might be parasites. Parasites, according to the forum posts I read, were best treated by a reptile vet. And even then, a parasite-ridden anole had a very slim chance of making it.

  There was no way Dad would agree to take Einstein back to the vet. Not after the bill we’d gotten for his first checkup. And especially not after he found out I was suspended. I wasn’t going to be getting any special favors for a very long time.

  I went back to Einstein’s tank. Why had I fed him those spiders? That was the most likely cause of the problem, since they hadn’t been bred in some store. Stupid.

  A car door slammed outside. The front door opened and shut. “Brendan!” Something told me Dad had heard from Mr. Bowman already.

  I came out from my room, even though I wanted to be like Einstein and find a good place to hide.

  Dad paced in the living room. “Sit,” he said as soon as he saw me.

  I perched on the love seat.

  “I got a call from your vice principal.”

  Now probably wasn’t the best time to inquire about their college days.

  “You going to tell me what happened?”

  I cleared my throat. “Um … well, see … this kid was harassing Morgan.” Dad had once used the same word to describe how a female detective was getting treated at work. He’d been really ticked about it.

  “And hitting him was the answer?”

  “He was attacking her.”

  “Huh.” Dad crossed his arms. “That’s a pretty different account from what I heard. Sounded to me like the kid made a fumble and you sacked him after the whistle had blown.”

  “Morgan’s not a football!”

  Dad looked at me intently, his jaw clenched tight. He sat in the armchair. “Look, Brendan, I’m sure you meant well. But you overreacted. You hammer-fisted a kid for chasing a girl. And you used your Tae Kwon Do at school. Something we agreed you’d never do.”

  I had no defense against those charges.

  “Is this boy as big as you, at least?”

  I shook my head. “He’s kind of small, actually.” A wave of shame washed over me. I’d really messed up.

  “What’s gotten into you?” Dad sounded exasperated. “First, excessive force with Khalfani, and now this?”

  I shrugged. Did Dad want me to be tough or didn’t he? I guessed hitting a kid who was smaller than me didn’t fit into Dad’s definition of toughness. If I was honest, it didn’t fit into mine, either. But what did it mean to be tough? And did I or did I not need to be it?

  “Well, you’ll have plenty of time to think about it on Thursday.” Dad exhaled. “Go to your room. We’ll talk more about this later.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  I went and sat at my desk. I stared at my open math book, but all I could think about was my dad. I’d let him down. Not just by hitting Dwight David over the head. It was more than that. Something about myself. Who I was. Or wasn’t.

  I would never be the superjock baseball or football player. I didn’t want to raid drug houses or put people in jail, even people who deserved it.

  I liked thinking about stuff, and learning about things, like supernovas, and phytoplankton, and subterranean microbes that ate rocks far below the Earth’s crust and kept the cycle of life going. I liked doing experiments with cow manure.

  I was all right with that. I knew Mom was, too. But was Dad? Would he ever be?

  I got busy working on my math assignment. Compared to my dad and me, these problems would be a breeze.

  Mom, Dad, and I had our “big conversation” over teriyaki that night. Not wanting to get into everything again, I told them right away that I knew I was in the wrong and they didn’t need to worry about me doing anything like that ever again.

  Dad said, “Good,” thumped me on the back a couple of times, then shoveled down his food and rushed out the door for class. I got out of Tae Kwon Do by saying I felt sick, which I did. Sick to my stomach.

  The morning of my suspension, first Morgan called, and then Khal. It was nice to know I had friends.

  I hung up the phone after telling Khal I’d see him Friday. “Hey, Boo,” Mom said, coming i
nto the kitchen. “Ready for breakfast?” Mom didn’t work on Thursdays. She’d already told me she planned to be home with me all day. I glanced at the clock: 8:20. I’d been so busy talking to my friends, I hadn’t given Einstein his crickets.

  “After I feed Einstein,” I said, heading for my room.

  “How about eggs and bacon?” Mom called.

  “Sure!” I hollered. I turned on my bedroom light. “Guess what, Einstein? I get to stay home with you today.” Einstein lay in a corner with his back against the glass. I’d never seen him lie in that spot before. “Einstein?” He was too still. “Einstein!” I snatched off the lid and peered over the edge. His eyes were closed. He didn’t move.

  I reached in and touched him with the end of my pointer finger. He still didn’t move. His long tail drooped as I lifted his lifeless body from the tank.

  I dropped to the floor, cradling my anole in my palms. Crickets hopped around inside the cricket carrier under the card table. They would live to see another day, but not my lizard. Einstein was gone.

  Mom and I stood outside in our backyard, white puffs appearing in front of our faces whenever we exhaled. It started to drizzle. I clutched the shoe box that held Einstein, along with some orchid bark, a couple of crickets (they’d feed off his body before dying themselves, helping him to decompose more quickly), and one of the quartz crystals I’d found on the dig back in August.

  Mom held out the shovel. “You want to do the honors?”

  I gave her the box and took the shovel. I stabbed the hard ground, then pushed on the edge of the spade with my foot. This was going to take a while.

  As the hole got bigger, I started to think about last spring. Being at the cemetery. Sitting on a hard folding chair at the side of that huge dug-out rectangle. Listening to the sound of some lady singing: God has smiled on me. He has set me free.… Feeling Mom tremble next to me. Hearing Gladys’s choked cries as she muttered, My Clem.… Watching a single tear trickle down Dad’s wooden cheek on its way to his clenched jaw.

  Why did everything die? I knew there was a scientific explanation, but I didn’t care. It wasn’t right. It shouldn’t be this way.

  I dropped the shovel and looked at Mom. Her eyes squinted and her lips turned down. “Sorry, Boo,” she said, handing me the box.

  My fingers were stiff and achy, but I grasped the box tightly. I faced the hole. “You were a great pet and a good friend. I’m sorry we didn’t get to know each other for longer.” I crouched and set the box in the hole, remembering how those strangers had lowered Grampa Clem’s coffin into the dug-out rectangle. We passed by, one by one, tossing in flowers that had been handed to us.

  I looked around Mom’s flower beds but there were no flowers in December. I pulled up a handful of wet grass, sprinkled it on top of the box, and then shoveled the dirt back into the hole.

  When it was done, we went inside. Dad would probably be annoyed that Einstein was dead after just four months, but I didn’t care. He could be annoyed all he wanted. I was still going to miss my lizard.

  Log Entry—Friday, December 7

  Home from school. It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be—going back. Lauren Dweck asked me if I was feeling better. That’s when I discovered that Khal told everyone I was sick.

  Of course, Gladys and Grandpa Ed knew the truth. I told them, since I figured they’d find out anyway. Gladys tried to convince Dad that she needed me to go with her to the podiatrist on the day of my suspension, but she didn’t really. She was just trying to get me out of the house. Spending an afternoon looking at Gladys’s feet is really the last thing I’d ever want to do, but in the end, it would have been better than sitting in my room all day without Einstein. My room’s just not the same without him.

  Khal, Morgan, and Gladys have all told me I can get another anole, and Grandpa Ed has already offered to buy me one, but I can’t just replace Einstein like that. Then again, Grandpa Ed got a new dog after the original Patches died from a raccoon attack, and that’s why he has P.J.—Patches Junior.

  Hmm … Einstein Junior. I kind of like the sound of that!

  The following week, Mr. Hammond asked Morgan and me to stay after class. “Do you think he’s got news about the contest?” Morgan whispered excitedly from her seat behind me. Khal and I still sat at the same table, but right then he was leaning over to Cordé talking about something.

  “That’s got to be it!” I said, starting to get the Jitters.

  Shyla-Ann giggled a few seats away. Dwight David, who’d been hanging around her more and more the last few days, had apparently done something funny.

  The bell rang and Mr. H handed out our final exam for the quarter. Winter break started this weekend. I was so ready—for the break and for our science test. I breezed through the questions, turned in my test, and had fifteen minutes left to read Percy Jackson.

  When time was up, Mr. Hammond asked those still working to hand in their papers. “How’d you do?” I asked Khal as he got up to go to the front.

  “I may not be a scientific genius like you or Morgan.” His eyes slid over to where Morgan sat. “But I did all right, I think.”

  “Hey, I have an idea!” Morgan said. “We could form a team of three for next year’s contest. What do you think, Khalfani?” She always used his full name. “Brendan and I have already begun thinking about what we’re going to do. Probably something related to deep-sea exploration.”

  Khal looked doubtful. He still wasn’t sure whether Morgan was someone he could be friends with. “I don’t know. Maybe … it sounds cool.”

  “Tests in, please,” Mr. H called again. Kids filed out the door. We said goodbye to Khal and went to the front of the room to wait for whatever Mr. Hammond had to tell us.

  When everyone was gone, Mr. H turned to us. “So.”

  I could see it on his face. “We didn’t win, did we?” I said.

  “You didn’t win first place.”

  My shoulders dropped.

  Mr. H looked us in the eyes. “But you still won.”

  Morgan nodded. “That’s true. It’s a really big deal that we were regional finalists.”

  “Absolutely,” Mr. Hammond agreed. “Not to mention you’ve both earned a science kit of your choice and three hundred dollars to spend on our classroom. I’m grateful for that!”

  I knew they were right, but I was disappointed anyway. I’d been hoping to win a trip to MIT. “Who got the top prize?” I asked.

  “A team from Louisiana. For a project on algae blooms in the Gulf of Mexico.”

  “Algae,” I said, looking at Morgan. “That’s what you proposed.”

  “It doesn’t matter, Brendan. What we did was great—and important. And we had a lot of fun together.” She looked at me out of the corner of her eye and smiled. “Didn’t we?”

  I was starting to get a little hot under my sweater. “Yeah, I guess.”

  Mr. H put his hand on my shoulder. “There’s always next year, bud.”

  At home, I lay on my bed watching my solar-system mobile spin slowly from the air blowing through the vent. I glanced at Einstein’s empty tank. I had told Grandpa Ed I wanted another anole after all—once I got over Einstein, of course.

  My mind returned to the contest. I’d really hoped we’d win the whole thing, mainly because it would be awesome, but also so that Dad would see that this science “stuff” was worth my time. Would I tell him about it when he got home? Would he even care?

  A weight settled on me. Not on me, exactly, as if an elephant were sitting on my chest. More like in me. My legs, torso, and arms felt as if they’d been injected with lead. I had become heaviness. Maybe this is what it feels like to be a hundred feet under the ocean, I thought. The opposite of being in outer space. Subgravity. Being pulled toward the Earth’s core so forcefully that you can’t lift your body if you try. Morgan had told me she wanted to be a geobiologist, a scientist who studies the connection between rocks and life, exploring the rocks below the deep sea floor. She was brave. I
didn’t think I could handle being that far under water.

  I thought of Grandpa Ed again. He knew how important this contest had been to me. He would understand.

  Six months ago, I hadn’t known my grandpa’s phone number or where he lived. Or even if he was alive. I had never spoken to him. Not once. Things sure had changed.

  I got the phone and came back to my room. I speeddialed his number.

  “Yell-o.”

  “It’s me.”

  “Well, hello, me. Good to hear from you. To what do I owe the pleasure?”

  “Nothing, really. I just wanted to say hi.”

  “That’s good enough reason in my book. So, what have you been up to?”

  “Not much. Studying. Homework.” I paused. “We didn’t win the national prize.”

  Grandpa Ed was silent for a moment. “I thought your voice was lacking its usual luster. Pretty disappointed, huh?”

  I sighed and bent my knees. “Yeah, I am.” I put my free hand behind my head. I suddenly didn’t feel so heavy. As if having someone acknowledge that the science contest was important enough to be disappointed about had helped me not be so disappointed. And really, it was a huge honor even to get to the regional level.

  “What’d your parents say?”

  “I haven’t seen them yet. Dad probably won’t say anything.”

  “What makes you think that?”

  “I don’t know … he just doesn’t seem to care about what I care about.”

  “Hmm … have you told him that?”

  I thought for a moment. “I guess not.”

  “Well, maybe you should. Give him a chance. You did that for me, and look how well that turned out.”

  I supposed he had a point.

  “Listen, son. You did a great job on your project. No one else in your school got chosen as a regional finalist.”

  “No other sixth graders in the whole state of Washington,” I reminded him.

  “Exactly! Plus, you learned how to make something useful out of waste. And, if I remember correctly, you had more questions when you finished than when you started, isn’t that right?”

  “Right.”

  “Well then, as your fellow scientist, I declare your venture into the world of biofuels a verifiable success!”