Heads or Tails

by Jack Gantos

  The rest of the afternoon I copied her as best I could in my old handwriting. She overlapped me five times. I imagined myself failing sixth grade because I was unable to write fast enough. Betsy was right. A trained monkey could do what I do, only better.

  When I returned home I went straight to Betsy’s bedroom. “You’ve got to help me,” I blurted out. “Look at this.” I opened the notebook and showed her Mrs. Marshall’s comments.

  “Well, that’s what you get for being a copycat,” she said.

  “But I did do the work,” I Cried.

  “What do you want me to do?” she asked.

  “Write her a note and tell her I copied you,” I begged. “She’ll believe you.”

  “I’m not your mother,” said Betsy. “You copied me, now suffer the consequences.”

  “But I promise never to copy you again. Cross my heart and hope to die.”

  “Even your promises are copies of promises,” she said scornfully. “Beat it.”

  I retreated to my bedroom. I thought I could take a book and copy it in my new handwriting and prove to Mrs. Marshall that it was my work. But she could say someone else had done it, and fail me. I knew what I had to do. I unlocked my diary and with my new handwriting began to write down anything that came into my mind. I wrote between the bugs and stamps and cards and fortunes. At first, my writing didn’t make sense. No two sentences had much in common. Then I suddenly began to write out all the lyrics to The Sound of Music. There were a lot of those songs stuck in my head. After I cleared them out, I settled down and started to write all about my lousy school year.

  I woke up early and caught myself humming a few bars from The Sound of Music as I got dressed. It didn’t seem to bother me as much.

  I rode my bike up to the classroom door. Mrs. Marshall was in the back of the classroom washing out her white cotton gloves, and hanging them across a line she had strung over the sink.

  “You’re awfully early,” she said, turning to look at me as she dried her hands on a towel.

  “I wanted to talk privately with you,” I said.

  “I thought you might,” she replied.

  “This is my diary,” I said and handed it to her. “I’m the only one with a key.” I removed the string with the key on it from around my neck and held it out for her. “Go ahead and open it,” I said. “You’ll see my handwriting is the same.”

  She unlocked it. The pages fanned open and stopped at a gummy mouse skin I had peeled off the street. It still smelled fresh. “That’s disgusting!” she cried and dropped the book. “Unsanitary!”

  “But you can see my new handwriting,” I said, retrieving the book. I held it open for her. “See, it slants left.”

  She glanced at it. “Yes,” she snapped. “It’s the same. Now go take your seat.”

  I sat down and flipped open the diary. It would be fifteen minutes or so before kids started filing in. I turned to a page with a squished beetle. I drew curly hair on it like Mrs. Marshall’s. I added little white gloves on its arms and legs. I put a stick of chalk in each hand. I drew a blackboard covered with lines, and between the lines I wrote, in my new handwriting, “I won. I won. I won.”

  IT WAS SATURDAY. I was standing outside our house looking down at a large brown patch on our dying front lawn. I was thinking of the two ladies I had overheard at the grocery store talking about the new “renters” who had just moved onto their street. One lady said that “renters” ruined the neighborhood because they never took good care of their lawns, never kept their houses properly painted, and always had ugly dogs. They weren’t talking about us, but we were the new “renters” in my neighborhood. We had never owned our own home. Probably never would. Since I was born, we had already lived in nine different houses. I hated that word “renter.” It made me feel that I didn’t really belong anywhere, like we had to pay people to put up with us.

  I needed some chinch-bug spray and was wondering how to get it. I looked at the house. It needed fresh paint all over. The roof was moldy with Spanish moss and the split gutters were sagging. Everywhere I looked I saw something that needed to be fixed. The driveway asphalt was cracked and breaking up into large chunks. The grass along our section of the sidewalk had grown over the concrete. Beneath every palm tree was a scattered pile of dead palm fronds and coconuts, and all the flower beds needed reshaping and weeding. Maybe those ladies were right. We were a mess.

  Dad came out of the house and waved to me. He had his binoculars around his neck.

  “What are you doing today?” he asked. This was a trick question. If I didn’t sound busy enough, he might think up new chores for me.

  “I want to kill some bugs,” I replied. “We have chinch bugs and if we don’t spray them now they’ll spread to the neighbor’s lawn, then all of Fort Lauderdale, and then the whole state of Florida.” I wanted him to fund the bug massacre. He lifted the binoculars to his eyes and focused on the brown patch of lawn as if he could see the minuscule bugs singing happy little songs as they chewed the roots off the grass. For five dollars I could change their tune.

  “If we owned this property, I’d rip out the grass and lay down a slab of green concrete,” he said, kicking at the dead spot.

  Or gravel, I thought. He was always saying that it was so much easier to take care of concrete or gravel.

  “But since we don’t own it,” he chirped, “we’ll just have to keep it as best we can.” I knew what was coming next as I watched his eyes scan the yard. “You’d better cut up the palm fronds and trim the shrubs around the property line and against the house. And if you mowed the lawn it would look better. Also, you can take the hand shears and trim along the sidewalk. That much we can do,” he said, “we” meaning me. “And I’ll give the landlord a call and tell him we have chinch bugs and have him spend his own damn money to get rid of ‘em. After all, it is his yard.”

  “Okay,” I said with a groan, knowing my chance for a big bug massacre was ruined. I started singing, “I’ve been working on the railll-road, all my live-long days …”

  He looked at his watch. “Got to go,” he announced, as if he were on his way to an important business meeting. But it was chore day and he was sneaking away. I couldn’t wait until I grew up so I didn’t have to do anything I didn’t want to do. I’d get married, have a bunch of kids, and make everyone work like dogs while I played golf or watched airplanes.

  Before I was born, Dad owned a Piper Cub single-engine plane and used to perform his own stunts. He was known for his flying pranks. Once he landed on a baseball field during a game. Another time, he dropped water balloons on people coming out of church. After he buzzed my grandmother’s house and sent her hiding in the basement, Mom made him sell the plane.

  But he hadn’t lost interest in flying, and each time we moved to a new town he always hung around the local airports and made friends with the pilots and mechanics.

  “I better get going,” he said. “Johnny’s waiting for me to repaint the stars on his De Havilland biplane. The other guys are down there already, polishing up the body. Some Hollywood types are going to film him doing stunts for a movie.”

  He got into his pickup truck and drove off. I wished I could have gone with him. I’d love to get a ride in that biplane. But I was left behind to slave my butt off so Mom wouldn’t complain so much about him ducking out.

  I decided if I was going to have to work hard so was my little brother, Pete, but I knew I would have to bribe him first. He had just started first grade and the only chore he had was to keep his room tidy. Big deal! I was in sixth grade and old enough to do adult work for peanuts. My allowance was two dollars a week, and no tips.

  Pete was in his bedroom playing with a plastic army jeep. It was his favorite toy. Each time he steered it over a little bridge, one of the tires pressed a hidden button that made the bridge explode.

  “Don’t you ever get tired of doing the same thing over and over?” I asked. “You’re like a robot.”

  “Watch,” he s
aid and ran the jeep over the bridge. “Boom!” he shouted as the bridge tumbled and he threw the jeep into the air. It bounced off the ceiling and came straight down on his head.

  “Ow,” he whined. “That hurt.”

  “No kidding. Now let’s get something to eat. Then we can play with my Zero.” I yanked him up by his arm.

  “Yay!” he shouted. He ran past me and danced down the hall toward the kitchen, forgetting all about his head.

  For my birthday, Dad had given me a Japanese Zero that was powered by a small gasoline engine. I stunk at making it fly by myself. It took Pete and me to make it work. First I had to start the engine, then hand the plane to Pete, who held it by the fuselage while I dashed back to the string controls. “Now,” I’d yell, and he’d run with the plane held over his head. When the guide strings were taut, I’d shout, “Let her fly!” He’d pitch it forward and the plane would climb as it curved around me. But I wasn’t very good with the guide strings that worked the air flaps, and usually before the Zero made a complete circle, it nosedived into the sand. “Boom!” Pete would shout, and then he’d fall to his knees, laughing.

  When I got to the kitchen Pete was standing on a chair. He had the peanut butter opened on the counter and the bread dealt out like cards. I got a banana from the fruit bowl and took jars of pickles and cocktail onions out of the refrigerator.

  “Don’t make a mess,” Mom shouted from her bedroom. “I’ve already cleaned in there.” She had ears like a rabbit.

  “I’ll make a deal with you,” I said, slicing the pickles lengthwise. “If you help me with the yard work, I’ll let you steer the plane.”

  “I want to start it,” he said.

  I didn’t expect this. I had always started the engine by flipping the propeller with my finger. Each time I did it, I imagined I might not get my finger out of the way in time and it would get sliced up like a piece of pickle. I knew Mom and Dad would say Pete was too young to try to start the engine. But I had no choice. I needed his help with the yard.

  “Okay,” I said. “But you gotta get all your work done first.”

  He agreed. “Vrooom, vroom, zoom,” he sang, spinning his finger through the air.

  “Come on, let’s eat outside. I wanna get a move-on.”

  After lunch, Peter gathered up the palm fronds and stacked up the coconuts like cannonballs. He wasn’t a lot of help but he was good company. I started the lawn mower and began to cut the grass in the back yard. Our spaniel, BoBo, ran from the noise and hid in the utility room where we kept the tools and washer and Pete’s turtle.

  Whenever I mowed the lawn, I imagined my father shaving in the morning. Just as he’d first shave around his mouth and nose, I would mow around the flower beds and trees. And just as he’d quickly shave his cheeks, I would dash back and forth over the open sections of the lawn. And just as he gingerly shaved his neck and up under the dangerous part of his chin, I carefully mowed the steep slope in the back yard down to the canal, afraid I’d slip and plunge into the water with the mower hacking at me.

  When I finished, I looked across the yard to see Pete sitting on the back steps, just as my father often looked down to find me sitting on the edge of the bathtub.

  I turned off the engine and he came running over.

  “Let’s play now,” he said.

  I was ready. I knew Dad wouldn’t be home for hours. “Okay, you push the mower to the front yard,” I ordered. “I’ll get the Zero and meet you in the field.”

  He was waiting for me when I arrived. “I want you to find a short stick,” I said, “so you don’t use your finger when you flick the prop.”

  “Why not?” he asked.

  “Just do what I tell you to do. I don’t want to have to go find your finger and keep it on ice all the way to the hospital. That would be just a little too gross for me.”

  While he searched for a stick, I gassed up the plane, flicked the propeller a few times until the engine caught and growled. It was as loud and mean as the lawn mower, or worse, the garbage disposal, which always made me sick to think of it chopping up my hand. It’s not the sight of blood which scares me. It’s knowing there are no replacement parts for fingers, eyes, ears, feet …

  Pete ran over. “You promised,” he shouted. “You said I could do it.”

  I turned the engine off. “I was just warming it up. Now, I’ll hold the plane and you flick the prop with the stick.”

  His hand was weak and he couldn’t get enough speed on the prop to make the engine start. “Use both hands and give it a good spin.”

  He did. Finally, the engine started and the propeller chopped at the stick and spit it out to one side. “Go hold the controls,” I yelled. When the guide strings were tight I ran with the plane over my head and let it go. The Zero went straight up into the air, then flipped over and came screaming nose-down until it crashed in the sand.

  Pete jumped into the air. “Boom!” he shouted. “Let’s do it again.” He ran to get his stick and start the engine.

  I could have thrown a bowling ball farther than we got the plane to fly. Each time it left my hands, it jerked up and with all its force blasted straight down into the sand. I couldn’t blame the terrible flying on Pete, because I never did any better myself.

  “Boom!” he shouted for the last time as the Zero came down on a chunk of concrete and the engine broke away from the fuselage. He looked frightened.

  “I’m not mad,” I said. “This happens all the time. The screws came loose from all those crashes.” I started to repack it into its box. “Besides, we better get back to the yard work.”

  “I’m tired,” Pete whined.

  “Just help me a little bit more before Dad gets home,” I said. “Or he’ll yell at me.”

  “I want a glass of water,” he said and drifted toward the front door.

  “Then hurry,” I shouted. “I wanna get a move-on.”

  When he returned, I was the one who was standing still. I was staring almost straight up over my head at the two airplanes. Johnny Foil’s biplane was painted bright red and it dashed back and forth over our neighborhood like an enormous trapped bird. Right on its tail was the camera plane, filming Johnny’s every stunt. First he made big figure eights. Then he climbed straight up into the air. At the top of his climb, he stood dead-still in the air and fluttered like a kite with his engine sputtering until he started down in tight corkscrew circles. It made me dizzy to watch them.

  Pete stood next to me. “Wow,” he shouted. “Wow.”

  I knew Dad was watching through his binoculars. He and his friends were in the radio tower listening to Johnny count out the seconds during each stunt. Dad told me that when you spin down or do loops you have to count out the seconds; otherwise, you might lose track of where you are and crash. So when Johnny does a backward circle he counts, “One thousand one … one thousand two … one thousand three …” and by then the circle should be complete and he knows to steer out of it.

  Pete put down the glass of water and raised his finger in the air. “Bang! Bang! Bang!” he shouted as Johnny roared by. “Bang! Bang! Bang!”

  Johnny curved away and circled over our neighborhood as the camera plane followed closely behind. I wished I could fly my Zero with such control.

  “Did you see the stars painted on the tail?” I yelled. “Dad painted that.”

  “I’ll shoot it down,” he shouted. “Bang! Bang! Bang!”

  Then Johnny repositioned himself and began to do barrel rolls in big loops from left to right as the camera plane filmed from overhead. I knew from Dad they were “five-second” barrel rolls. “One thousand one …” I counted as Johnny began his roll. “One thousand two …”

  “Bang! Bang! Bang!” shouted Pete, shooting with his finger, and aiming carefully with one eye closed. “Bang! Bang! Bang!”

  On the count of three, when Johnny was at the highest point of his roll, something happened. I couldn’t quite figure it out as I saw a tire flip across the sky. It didn’t make sense.
Pete kept jumping around with his machine-gun finger. “Bang! Bang! Bang!” he blasted. “Bang! Bang! Bang!” Another wheel flew through the air, then the camera plane peeled off to the right and swooped away from us. Suddenly, Johnny’s engine growled louder than before as his biplane pitched downward like the Zero. “Bang! Bang! Bang!” Pete rattled. The plane raced toward the earth. The double wings folded up over the pilot’s head with a loud slap and the last I saw of Johnny Foil was just a flag-sized piece of his orange parachute trailing from the cockpit. He hit ground on the other side of the canal from the Peabos’ house. We first heard the impact, then the explosion, which was followed by an enormous cloud of fire and oily black smoke.

  I was stunned. “What happened?” I asked Pete.

  He was crying and hopping from foot to foot. “I didn’t mean it,” he wailed. “I didn’t mean to shoot it down.” He spun around and ran into the house with his arms over his head as if he were being chased by bees.

  Mom came running from the back yard. She had been in the utility room sorting the wash and still had light clothes over one shoulder and dark clothes over the other. “What happened?” she shouted.

  “Johnny’s plane crashed,” I yelled back. “It went down behind the Peabos’ house.”

  “Oh, God,” she cried out. “I better call the airport.” She ran toward the front door with the clothes slipping off behind her.

  I knew Dad was fine. I didn’t know about Johnny. But right now I was worried about Pete.

  Mom was still making phone calls when I went inside. She was nervous and attempted to reach Betsy, who was at school, trying out for the ninth-grade cheerleader squad. I could hear the fire trucks racing along the back streets. I opened Pete’s bedroom door. The bed was still perfectly made. I checked the closet. Then found him under the bed.

  “I didn’t mean to do it,” he cried as I crawled under.

  “But you didn’t do anything,” I said. “You can’t shoot down an airplane with your finger. Don’t be a moron.”