Pulling up Stakes and Other Piercing Stories

by David Lubar

  The book was in the catalog, and it was supposed to be on the shelves. But I couldn't find it. Neither could the librarian. "Things disappear sometimes," she said. "People walk off with books. Especially the rarer ones."

  "Rarer ones?" Oh great. This was getting worse and worse.

  "I'm pretty sure it's out of print," she said.

  I went home and waited for Dad to get in from work. We completely tore apart the basement. No sign of the book. We couldn't find numbers nine or fifteen, either, but I'd seen both of those at the library. We did find a whole box of really old tennis balls, including a half-dozen unopened cans. And a stack of unopened junk mail, including ads for computer software, gardening magazines, and miracle car waxes.

  At one point, Mom came down to the foot of the steps, stared at us, shrieked, "I give up," and went back upstairs.

  As I stood amid the piles of stuff, I had an idea. "I could check the Internet," I said to Dad.

  "I guess we could try that. But I'll let you drive." Dad's passion for advanced technology begins and ends with the 1959 Corvette he's restoring. He doesn't even own a cell phone. "Do you know a good place to look?"

  "We should start with eBay. They auction all kinds of stuff." I'd never bought anything on it, but I liked to look at the listings for video game systems, bass guitars, and other essential possessions

  Dad smirked. "I've always thought that name sounded like pig Latin."

  "What's that?" All I could picture was a hog in a toga. I didn't think that's what Dad had in mind.

  "Igpay atinlay," he said, as if that would clarify the issue. "Put the first consonant at the end of the word, then add an ay sound. If the word starts with a vowel, just add way to the end. We used to speak in pig Latin all the time, back when ..." He let it go as my eyes clouded over. "Never mind. Let's see this auction thing."

  I went to my bedroom and logged on, then pulled up a web auction page and typed Harridan in the search window.

  A message came up saying there were eight hundred thirty seven matching items. The first page was a mix of books, movies, posters, and stuff like Harridan Jones for Mayor buttons that had nothing to do with the Harridan I was interested in.

  "Whoa. This will take all day," Dad said.

  I shook my head. "Let's refine the search." I added barbarian and number 7.

  "Five matches," Dad said, reading over my shoulder.

  "Holy cow!" In the first listing, the book was going for seventy five dollars. For a moment, I gave up any hopes of ever owning a copy. But then I scanned the rest of the listings. The next one had the book for five dollars. There were two more offered at three-fifty, and the last one had numbers seven, eight, and nine in a bundle for twelve bucks.

  "Wait," Dad said, pointing to the column between the item description and the current price. "This is how many people made a bid, right?"

  I saw what he meant. Nobody had bid seventy-five dollars for the first one. That was just what the guy was asking.

  I got Dad to register — he picked the user name Clueless Stan — and then we put in a bid for one of the copies that was offered at three fifty.

  "Let's see what else is for sale," Dad said.

  I searched through more of the Harridan listings. "A bunch of people are bidding on number one. Thirty five dollars for a first edition. Wow."

  "Try Dale Gerralds," Dad said. "I've got his early books, from before he was popular. Put that in, and add first edition."

  "Okay." I did the search and found a dozen listings for first-edition Dale Gerralds books. There were bids as high as forty dollars for one of the titles. "You have this book?"

  Dad nodded.

  "Wow. Want to sell it?"

  Dad shook his head. "I want to hang onto the old books."

  "What about some of the other stuff in the basement? You want to try to sell some of it?"

  Mom must have been passing by the doorway when I said that. I can't think of any other reason for her to suddenly shout, "Hallelujah!"

  Dad didn't look like he was going to agree until I said, "If you make money, you can get those parts you want for the Corvette." Before he could weaken, I pointed toward the basement and added my killer finish. "You saved all that stuff because you knew somebody could use it. Right?"

  "Right."

  "So, our job is to find that somebody."

  I went to the main page and read up on how to sell items. It seemed pretty easy.

  "What do you want to sell?" I asked Dad.

  "I don't know. Let's look around."

  We headed toward the basement. It was somewhere in the hallway that the frenzy began to get into our blood. We started out walking, but as I thought about millions of people bidding money for rare items, I walked faster. Dad kept pace behind me. By the time I reached the steps, I was almost jogging.

  Dad and I started pulling things out of boxes and making stacks. "Tennis balls," he said, grabbing the first thing he tripped over.

  "Those are old. Who'd want them?"

  "Look at the color," he said, holding the can up.

  "White?" I asked. "That's weird. Are they so old that they faded?"

  "No. They came that way. They don't make 'em that color any more. Haven't for years. That's why I kept them. These are unopened, too. Got to be worth something to somebody."

  I had my doubts the tennis balls. But I figured Dad and I were in this together, so I should at least listen to him. We picked five other things to try to sell, too, including some phonograph records, and a bunch of typewriter ribbons.

  As I was working on the first listing, Mom peeked into my room and said, "Good. You're doing your homework."

  I opened my mouth to admit the truth, when a thought smacked me hard enough to make my body twitch. "You'd love it if Dad got rid of some of his junk, right?"

  "Love is too weak a word for what I'd feel," she said.

  "If I could help him to get rid of a lot of stuff, would you trust me to do my homework without checking it all the time?"

  "How much stuff?"

  "Lots of it. Tons."

  She stood there for a moment, obviously thinking things over. Then she nodded. "If you can do that, you can do anything."

  I spent the rest of the day putting the listings up. And the rest of the evening watching my email to see if we got any bids. Dad stuck it out until 1 am, then went to sleep.

  "Anything?" he asked the next morning.

  "Not yet."

  "Not even on the phonograph records?" he asked.

  "Especially not on them." I'd noticed that there were thousands of records offered for sale.

  Dad shook his head and walked off. I put my head down on my arms and fell asleep. It had been a nice idea, but it looked like online auctions weren't the way to get Dad to clear out his mess, or to get Mom off my back.

  When I woke up, I checked the auctions right away. Still no bids. Worse, someone had topped my bid for Harridan number seven. I decided to break skip to number eight.

  Between reading Harridan novels and watching the auctions, time flew. A week passed and we didn't get any bids. I couldn't understand it. Someone should have been interested.

  I kept studying the auctions, trying to figure out what sold and what didn't. There was some stuff that was obvious. Old Beatles and Elvis stuff sold — but even that had to be rare. Magazines had to be from the nineteen fifties or earlier, unless it was a special issue like with an assassination or wedding.

  Then I noticed something else. There were two people offering the same Beatles album. One had five bids, the other didn't have any. I checked the listings. It was the same album, in the same condition. The only difference was that one person had written a long description of the record. The write-up was so good, it almost made me want to buy the record.

  Maybe that was worth a try.

  I listed the tennis balls again. My old description just said: "Six unopened cans of white tennis balls."

  This time, I got creative, did a bit of research, and wr
ote: "Rare memorabilia from the early days when tennis was a sport played for love instead of money. If you're old enough to remember the glory days of tennis, then you know that tennis balls weren't always so brightly colored. We're fortunate to have recently unearthed six UNOPENED cans of white tennis balls — the same color used by those early legends of the game, Billy Jean King, Rod Laver, and Arthur Ashe. Now, you can own a flawless piece of tennis history."

  I posted the listing, then got back to reading Harridan's adventures.

  "Did you do your homework?" Mom asked the moment she saw me with the book.

  "I thought we had a deal?"

  She shook her head. "Not until I see some sort of progress downstairs. Meanwhile, do you have homework?"

  "I have a bit of math due for tomorrow," I admitted.

  "Get it done before you read."

  "I have plenty of time."

  She stared at me. I sighed, grabbed my math book, and did the problems. It didn't take long. The instant I was finished, I checked my email. "We got a bid!" I shouted when I saw the subject heading.

  Dad came rushing up to my bed room. "Let's see."

  I pointed to the screen. Someone had offered three dollars for the six cans. I pulled up my description on the auction page to show Dad. When I scrolled back to the top, I saw there was a second bid.

  By the time the auction ended, we'd sold the cans for $27. I went back to all our unsold items and rewrote the descriptions. They all sold.

  Dad and I raided the basement. It became a challenge. He'd pull out some incredibly valueless object and dare me to sell it.

  I met every challenge. The floor of the basement started to re-emerge. We even found more tennis balls. I spent all of my free time putting up listings. Dad split the money with me, as long as I promised to put half my share away for college. That still left me a nice amount to spend.

  Everything went smoothly until a Sunday afternoon at the end of October when Mom came up to my room and said, "I really have to compliment you. You got your Dad motivated. And I haven't received any calls from your teachers, so it looks like you've gotten your homework problem under control."

  "Yup." I allowed myself a moment of pride as I thought about how well I'd handled everything. I generally knocked off my math during study hall, and my history on the bus ride home from school. We'd had hardly any homework in English all through October because of the big project.

  Oh my gosh...!

  The project...

  I froze at the keyboard. "English!" I gasped.

  "You have English homework?" Mom asked.

  I tried to swallow the lump in my throat, and then realized it was my tongue. Struggling to keep my voice calm, I said, "Just one thing. No problem." Yeah it was one thing. A twenty page report, due tomorrow morning. I glanced at the auction screen, wondering whether anybody was selling English papers. Or new heads, since mine was about to get ripped off by Mom.

  "I'm so proud of you. I thought this day would never come."

  Mom smiled, patted me on the head, and left the room. I could feel sweat sprouting from parts of my body that I never knew had sweat glands.

  I got up from the computer and wandered into the hall. "This is stupid," I muttered. "I'm not a writer. Why do they give us those assignments?"

  "Who's not a writer?" Dad asked, stepping into the hall from his bedroom.

  "Me."

  He shook his head. "You wouldn't know it — not the way your ads have been pulling in the sales."

  My ads! A glimmer of hope threw itself at the towering brick wall of my despair. I might get out of this alive. I minimized my auction screen and opened the folder where I'd kept copies of my item descriptions. I started cutting and pasting. Wow. By the time I'd pulled up everything I'd written, I had over twenty-five pages, even without using my usual trick of pumping up the font.

  I added a short introduction. Now all I needed was a title. That was easy enough. Descriptive Language as a Means of Sales Motivation. Perfect. I was done with my homework.

  I handed my paper in on Monday morning. By Monday afternoon, I was convinced I'd made a horrible mistake. As the week went by, fear and panic danced through all my internal organs. By Thursday, I was sure I'd be in 9th grade forever.

  Finally, on Friday, Ms. Cowan gave us back our papers. I didn't get mine. "See me after class," she said.

  Oh boy. That is never a good sign. I spent the whole class imagining the creative words she'd use to describe my pathetic attempt at a project.

  As I walked up to her desk after class, I tried to think of the best way to plead for another chance.

  "Here," she said, handing me my paper.

  I glanced down. It took me a moment to recognize the strange letter and symbol. There was an A+ on the front page. Below it, she'd written the comment, "Wonderful descriptive writing. The examples you came up with to support your hypothesis were excellent. Keep up the good work. You have a flair for promotional prose."

  "Thanks." Now I was puzzled. "Why did you want to see me?"

  "Those tennis balls you described," she said. "They sound great. I'd love to buy some as a birthday present for my uncle. Do you have any idea where I can get a can?"

  "Sure. I'll have to check with my partner, but I think I can take care of that."

  I headed out of the classroom, clutching a paper that would keep Mom happy for weeks. I was going to go to the mall after school and buy a calendar organizer so I could keep track of my assignments, but I realized that would be a waste of money. Instead, I went home. Dad had a whole box of organizers in the basement. They were old, but I found one that started out on the same day of the week as this year, which made it perfectly usable. Hey, there are some things you just shouldn't ever throw out.

  Duel Identities

  I committed my first act of self destruction less than five minutes into third period. We were sitting in the bleachers while Mr. Cadutto spelled out the basic facts of gym class to us brand spanking new freshmen. After explaining how many points we got for taking a shower and how many points we lost for forgetting our gym clothes, Mr. Cadutto said, "Okay. We're gonna pick four team leaders. You'll help set things up, so you won't get to do no calisthenics."

  Whoa. That caught my attention. Miss calisthenics. My heart leaped at the opportunity to avoid having my heart leap. I joined the hand wavers, though I noticed that none of my fellow overachievers from first period honors English had entered this particular lottery. I'd already figured out that honor was an odd word around here. From the varsity jackets of the crowds in the hallway to the huge trophy case that faced the main entrance, it was obvious that honor was paid more to the body than the mind at Kennedy High.

  Mr. Cadutto scanned us like a rancher at a beef auction. "You can't be no leader unless you go out for at least two sports."

  Half the hands dropped. Mine remained airborne. Despite an inherited lack of bulk or speed or power, I did have two sport in my extracurricular plans. One just for the heck of it, but the other because it had entered my dreams in the hazy days of childhood, and remained there ever since.

  Mr. Cadutto pointed to Bruno Haskins, up at the top of the bleachers, "Football and wrestling, right Haskins?" he growled.

  "Right, Coach."

  Mr. Cadutto waved Bruno down. I sensed a rigged election. The gym teacher obviously already knew the star athletes in our class.

  Bruno jogged to the bottom of the bleachers, making each row bounce under his weight. Mr. Cadutto selected Kyle Barrister next, and then Mookie Lahasca, two other champion jocks. Three down, one to go. He scanned us again, then frowned. I guess the jock gene pool had dried up too fast. He stared right at me. His brow creased with a puzzled expression.

  "You," he barked, pointing one large sausage of a finger in my direction. He ran his eyes over my imposing 78 pound frame. "Wrestling?"

  No way. There was zero appeal in the thought of having my body tied in knots like a rawhide dog chew. I shook my head.

  "Track?"
he asked, with a touch of disdain.

  Another shake.

  "Swimming?"

  Nope.

  "So what's your two sports?"

  I uttered three innocent words. "Fencing and tennis."

  There was dead silence for about nine millionths of a second. Then the dam burst. Laughter splashed over me like acid rain, spewing from the mouth of every classmate, followed by waves of comments.

  "Wow, tough guy!"

  "Freakin' retard..."

  "You forgot ballet."

  "Jerk..."

  Bruno cackled so hard he started choking. "Fencing," he sputtered between coughs.

  "Coach said sports," Mookie shouted up at me, "not farts."

  I knew exactly how the Wicked Witch of the West felt as she melted into a puddle of green ooze.

  Mr. Cadutto, who should have been the adult in all of this, snorted like an ox that had just heard a really great joke. After he'd had a good chuckle, I guess he realized he should respond to my request. He regarded me with the sort of combined pity and loathing generally reserved for humans who've somehow managed to cover themselves with their own dung. He opened his mouth. Then he closed it. Then he opened it again. Finally, he shook his head and scanned the bleachers for other options.

  My classmates continued to share their thoughts with me.

  "Cool sports, Tarbell."

  "Hey, if you add hop scotch, you can be a three-letter man."

  "You scared to play a real sport?"

  "Maybe he's afraid he'll break a nail."

  "What a dork."

  Apparently, there's a hierarchy of respect among sports. I should have known. I should have kept my mouth shut. I'm such an idiot.

  After the fourth leader was selected, our new captains chose teams for volleyball. I was picked dead last. That had never happened in junior high. Even Hippo Schwartz got called before me. So did Billy Esterbridge, who by my estimate had failed in eight thousand consecutive attempts to serve the ball over the net. At least my humiliation had allowed others to climb briefly out of the muck engulfing the lowest of the low.

  As the game started, I realized the full extent of my mistake.