Dear Isaac Newton, You're Ruining My Life

by Rachel Hruza

  The library was within walking distance of the school, and I knew the library building well, since my mother worked there. I planned on avoiding the afternoons when she worked, and if someone caught us, we could always lie about having a school project to work on.

  Brendan appreciated my assistance with bettering his reading ability; I, however, still appreciated just being in his presence.

  For our first meeting, I sat at the back table in the corner that was hidden behind three rows of nonfiction bookshelves. No offense to West River residents, but I wasn’t worried about someone deciding to take up learning Latin and coming back to this corner to get the library’s single tome on Latin language. Not a hot commodity, that Latin book. As I scattered my books across the table, I considered checking out the Latin book just because I felt bad for it, but then Brendan walked up and the thought vanished.

  “You’re sure no one will find us?” he whispered.

  “You don’t have to whisper,” I said, in an equally quiet voice. I was positive we were safe in our secluded little corner, but I also didn’t want to be wrong and disgrace him. I’d dubbed him my “valiant reader” and part of me felt like I was his hero; I was the only girl—the only person—he’d ever told.

  He sighed and set his backpack down on the table. “I only have about half an hour today. My dad’s picking me up from my mom’s to go watch a football game.”

  “That’s okay,” I said, masking my disappointment like a champ. “We just need to see where you’re at.” I’d found an Introduction to Reading book at the library and thought it would be a good place to start. The moment Brendan sat in that chair, I leapt into “Truth Trendon, teacher” mode.

  “Do you know the alphabet?” I asked.

  “Truth,” he said. I could tell he was insulted.

  “I need an answer.”

  “I’m not an idiot.”

  I stared him down.

  “Yes,” he said.

  “Great. Let’s hear it.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “Not at all. I captain a tough ship, but we aim for nothing but results.” I pointed my finger at him and winked. He wasn’t impressed.

  Brendan rattled off the letters faster than I could say them in my head. I thought about asking if he realized each letter was different and not part of one long word, but I didn’t want to make him regret telling me his secret.

  “Good!” I said, a bit too excitedly.

  “I’m not an idiot, Truth,” he said again.

  “I know!” So I jumped in, talking about parts of sentences. Brendan immediately grew interested because he knew what nouns and verbs were—he pictured them in his head; he just couldn’t write out a full sentence that was seventh grade material. So it wasn’t about connecting words to images or meanings; it was just about the words themselves.

  After about fifteen minutes, I discovered we were basically nowhere. He’d just brushed up on one-word nouns he knew. “Okay,” I said slowly, looking at the table so I wouldn’t see if Brendan’s eyes grew angry from another demeaning question, “so what about the different sounds the vowels in the alphabet make?”

  “What about them?” So far, so good.

  “Do you know what they are? Like what sounds an “A” can make?”

  Brendan stared at me, and then blushed bright red. I’d struck a chord in his brain, or in his blood’s ability to get to his face—which I suppose comes from a demand in his brain.

  “No. Well, I don’t know for sure.”

  “Good!” I said, once again too eagerly. Now we had a starting place. I grabbed my introductory reader and we got through the vowels in the remaining fifteen minutes. I’d forgotten how many different sounds the letters could make; it was amazing to me that humans could comprehend all these letters and create words that made sense not only to themselves but to each other.

  Whose hand had created these lines of communication? Who did I have to thank for advances in human understanding? Immediately “Isaac Newton” came to mind, but I swatted my hand at his science. Gravity was evil, so therefore he was evil. My joy lay in the written word. I suppose Shakespeare fit in there somewhere, but he certainly didn’t create the entire language. As Brendan repeated all the sounds for the letter “E,” I leaned back in my chair to contemplate human intelligence.

  A moment later, I said aloud, “Robots will never take over the world. We’re way too smart.”

  Brendan’s lips were pursed as an “ooo” left his mouth. “For real, Tru. You’re weird,” he said. I just smiled, and he continued going through the sounds for “U.” He could already spell simple words such as “dog” and “cat,” so we wrote out a sentence together: “The dog quickly chased a cat onto the veranda.”

  Smiling after he wrote it, he handed it to me. “The ‘a’ makes two different sounds in that word,” he said. “Veranda.”

  “‘A’ for effort today, Mr. Matthews!” I said, beaming.

  “Don’t patronize me, Truth,” he said. But he still had that spectacular grin on his untarnished, perfect face.

  He stood and slung one backpack strap over his shoulder. I continued on like I hadn’t heard him. “I think you should make goals for each week. That way we’ll know what we’re reaching for.”

  “I want to fly to the moon by next Friday.”

  “Reading-related goals.”

  “Okay, I want to be able to read by next Friday.”

  “Read what?”

  “Everything.”

  “I think it will take longer than that,” I said slowly.

  “I know.” He sighed. “You know, it’s not that I don’t know a lot more words; it’s just that I get so nervous, and I forget for a few seconds and then my mind goes blank, especially in class where there are a lot of people. It’s hard enough in front of just you. The more people, the blanker my mind gets. It sounds really stupid, I know.”

  “No, it doesn’t,” I said sincerely.

  Brendan paused. “A picture book. I want to read a picture book by the end of next week.”

  “Done.”

  I expected him to walk away and leave me there; after all, he had a football game to watch. But he stood there, among books with words he couldn’t form in letters, and waited for me to organize my mess of books and papers.

  We walked out of the library together in silence. I was always silent when I passed through a library. I don’t have an explanation for why, and it wasn’t out of respect for the people reading. It was out of respect for the books, I suppose. Libraries reminded me of churches or cemeteries—full of old souls and characters, leading us to find answers.

  Who knew more about death than cemeteries? Who knew more about history than books? Whenever I picked up a book, I felt a connection to both the author—who had formed those words on those pages just so that someone like me would read them—and to the thousands or even millions of people who had already been witness to the story.

  I wanted Brendan to feel that way too.

  “Ugh,” he said, as we walked out of the large, wooden doors into the sunlight, “libraries are so boring. They make me feel depressed.”

  “Oh,” I said, disappointed. “I like them.”

  “I know,” he said.

  “They remind me of dead people.”

  He raised his eyebrows at me.

  “I mean, they feel like they deserve respect. People shelve their brains there.” I wrinkled my smile at him. “Do you get what I mean?”

  “No. But that’s okay. Maybe when I can write more than a sentence and understand it, I will.”

  He laughed, so I did too. But part of me felt like he was laughing at me, rather than at himself.

  The next time we met, Brendan picked out the book he wanted to read. It was a picture book with a dog on the cover. Along with the sentence he’d written, we seemed to have a dog theme going, and I suggested to Brendan that perhaps the dog was our reading spirit animal.

  With the book opened on the table, Brendan sat fo
r a moment in silence.

  “You know that first word,” I said, encouraging him.

  He rolled his eyes. “I know it’s ‘the,’ Truth.” He sighed and then cleared his throat. “It’s just, you know, intimidating to sit next to someone and read out loud. You could read this book in a minute.”

  I felt bad as he stared at the open book. “Well, it might take me longer. I usually stop to look at the pictures.”

  He let his face drop against the book. “I’m never going to learn. Let’s give up.”

  I gingerly lifted his head up, pressing my fingers against his forehead. His blue eyes met mine, and I immediately retracted my hand, suddenly nervous.

  “You wouldn’t give up on learning a football play, would you?” I asked.

  “No,” he said. “But that’s easy.”

  I nodded. “For you,” I said. “For me, it would be like learning a new language. You can do this. It’s just learning a new play.”

  He sat up, his mouth lifting to a resolute pout. “Fine. But don’t help me. Let me figure it out.”

  He began reading quietly, his reading voice much more stilted and low than his regular speaking voice. I thought of my mother, whose reading-aloud voice usually resounded higher and happier than her general speaking voice. I wondered if Brendan’s voice was happier and higher when he was doing something he enjoyed.

  Pausing on only two words, Brendan finished the book in seven minutes and twenty-five seconds. I didn’t want to time him, but he requested that I do it so he could work on shaving off time in the future.

  “Speed isn’t our goal. Slow and steady wins the race, you know.”

  “Not in my experience,” Brendan said.

  I let it go and he read the book again, this time remembering “interesting” and “honestly” as he turned page after page.

  He read another picture book at our next meeting. Then Brendan had his sights set on a chapter book by the end of the month.

  I was proud of the leaps and bounds Brendan made. After two weeks, he even tried to write a poem (after I prompted him to, of course). It read:

  “Roses are red

  Vilets are blue.

  I wrote this poem

  Just for you Tru.”

  Needless to say, despite the spelling error and lack of punctuation, I melted. Brendan said he even kind of understood my respect of libraries. I took him at his word.

  During one study session, I stopped to look at several busts of authors and philosophers placed within the shelving units as decoration. They’d been in the library for ages, but I’d never stopped to see who they depicted. Inscribed below each person’s name was a quote. I walked past Mark Twain, Willa Cather, Shakespeare … the next statue caught my eye. I knew that strong nose and puckered forehead, and I hated it. Isaac Newton. The worst. If no one else had been in the library, I would have thrown Newton to the ground, ironically shattering him with the force of his own science. I stopped to read his quote.

  “If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.”

  I scoffed. A woman in the nonfiction section glanced my way. Crossing my arms, I contained my rage. Newton was trying to come off as being humble. But I saw right through him. He’s standing on those poor giants’ shoulders, adding more weight to their spines than they can hold, giving them scoliosis!

  I stood up straighter, if that was even possible in my erecter-set bodysuit, and thought defiantly: Newton’s not bringing me down!

  I walked away when I heard Brendan whispering my name. As I passed the bust of Shakespeare, I wondered if Brendan resented the Great Bard like I did Newton. Would Brendan learn to love Shakespeare, or avoid his work for the rest of his life? Maybe we all just needed to learn to love the historical figure we hated.

  At home that evening, I felt crabby. My sympathy toward Newton had dissipated. As I climbed the stairs to my room and felt plastic digging in to my hip bone, I knew it was too late; I’d already been Newton’d. And I wasn’t a giant by any means; what could Newton gain by my having scoliosis? It was so frustrating. The time of Before Brace seemed so long ago. I’d tried to be a good person my whole life; why had I been singled out to have this deformity?

  “It’s not fair!” I shouted. I dramatically punched the bedroom wall, and then whimpered as I cradled my hurt knuckles in my other hand and curled up on my bed.

  “Feel better?” my mom asked, passing by the bedroom with her laundry.

  “Much,” I said. “Thank you.”

  She paused and looked at me for a moment and then continued on. I sighed. At least Brendan was making progress, so his problem was getting better. I just wished my spine would, too.

  CHAPTER 10

  Rollin’ in the Blues

  “How come you’re so good at math?” Megan moaned. I rolled my eyes. We were working in groups on FOILing binomials, and I knew Megan knew how to multiply as much as she knew she could. She was just trying to get Brendan’s attention.

  “How come you get it so quickly?” Megan whined again.

  “I don’t know. Once the directions are clear, the numbers just come easy,” Brendan said.

  Now I knew why Brendan always asked to do the first problem with me at our table. He wasn’t sure what to do until I read the directions. Then he could fly off on his own like an eager beaver, devouring the problems until he came to a new section, and then I’d explain that one too. I felt guilty about it, as if I were helping him cheat—or helping him cheat himself—by not letting him figure it out on his own. He’d been getting by on other people’s work for years. I found myself growing resentful of his questions in Algebra, wishing he had a different table partner who didn’t know his secret.

  “What about this problem?” Megan pointed to number twenty-five as Miss Peters walked up to our group.

  It was a new section. Brendan paused and stared at his book. He ran his finger along the printed words. I could tell he wasn’t reading it; he was just putting on a show in front of Miss Peters, waiting for her to move on. I would have been mad if I couldn’t relate to his panic: Jenny had almost caught me taking off my brace in the locker room the other day, but I’d managed to throw my jacket over it before she turned the corner. No one wants to be outed for being different. I wasn’t about to let that happen to Brendan right in front of me.

  “It says we need to use the FOIL method to multiply the binomial equations together,” I said.

  “That’s easy,” Brendan said. He wrote the numbers on his piece of paper:

  (3x-2)(x+1)

  “You just multiply the first numbers: three x times x is three x squared. Then the outer numbers: three x times one is just three x. The inner numbers equal negative two x, and the last numbers, negative two times one equals negative two. So your final answer is three x squared plus x minus two.” He wrote:

  3x²+x-2

  “What are you missing, Brendan?” Miss Peters asked.

  “What do you mean?” he said, checking his answer again.

  “Read the directions,” she said.

  I took a breath as I prepared to answer for him, but Miss Peters spoke before I could.

  “Read the directions, Brendan,” she said. She looked at me when she said it. I shut my mouth just as I released my breath, and it turned into what accidentally sounded like an exasperated sigh.

  Brendan turned bright red. His finger was under the word “FOIL,” the only word he was positive about because it was related to math and we’d seen it a dozen times already.

  He continued to sit there in silence until Megan, who had been staring at the book and was oblivious to the building dynamic of fear in our group, said absently, “Show each step of the FOIL process.”

  Miss Peters looked at her and nodded. “That’s right. Show your work.”

  She stood there a few more seconds and then walked away to the next group.

  “Okay, so how do we do that, Brendan?” Megan asked.

  Brendan scribbled the steps onto his paper an
d then moved on to the next problem. He wouldn’t look in my direction for the rest of the class, but he continued to answer Megan’s questions. When the bell rang and we left the classroom, he grabbed my arm and pulled me down the hallway to a secluded corner. At first, I thought: a romantic gesture! But then I remembered he was mad at me.

  “How could you do that?” he asked.

  “Do what?” I still didn’t quite understand why he was so angry.

  “Try to answer for me and then sigh like that—like ‘Good luck, Miss Peters, but this idiot can’t read!’”

  I almost laughed. “Are you kidding? That was an accident. I was trying to answer for you but she stopped me. Did you see how she looked at me? I probably have a hole in the back of my head from that glare.” I turned so he could look.

  He didn’t say anything, and he didn’t look amused.

  “My ponytail probably covers it,” I said.

  Definitely not amused.

  “Thank God for Megan,” he said.

  I scowled. “What’s that mean?”

  “Well, at least she covered up for me.”

  “She doesn’t even know you can’t—”

  I stopped short because I realized I was practically shouting and anyone could overhear us. “How could she have covered for you when she had no idea? She was just answering Miss Peters’ question.”

  Brendan shrugged. I didn’t know what else to say. I just shook my open hands in his face and walked away. I wasn’t big on confrontation, especially when something wasn’t my fault.

  Jenny sauntered past me in the hall. “Lovers’ quarrel?” she asked, with a smirk.

  “Idiot’s quarrel,” I mumbled under my breath.

  Later that day, during study hall and my visit with Oliver, I tried to vent without giving away Brendan’s secret.

  “Megan’s just vying for his attention by acting dumb,” I said. “It’s so annoying.”

  Oliver tilted his head and playfully tugged his mouth to the side in mock thought.