“Did your father put you up to this, Philip?” Mr. Springthorpe snaps. “Trying to discredit the lowly science teacher?”
A few of the other kids snicker.
Outside my father’s basement lab, on the same wall where all of his science degrees and awards are displayed, he does in fact have a framed copy of an article he once wrote on the topic of spectrography so I could have discussed the topic with my father. But I didn’t.
“I read it in our textbook, sir,” I say. “It says that for yellow light to appear brown, it needs to be set against a background of higher luminance. So the colour brown is how our eyes and brains perceive the physical yellow wavelength of the spectrum when the yellow is darker than the colour that surrounds it.”
“Okay, Philip! You win! Brown is a colour! I’ll change my overhead notes to say that next year, okay?”
Adeline still hasn’t looked at me, but I can see that she’s wearing a tight-lipped smile.
Trevor Blunt says, “Uh, will this be on the next test?”
Mr. Springthorpe just shakes his head and flips open his magazine.
“Sir?” I say.
“What now?”
“So we agree that brown is definitely a colour. But would you say that black is a colour?”
Caitlin Black grimaces. She doesn’t like where this is heading.
Mr. Springthorpe slaps his magazine down on the desk and stands up. “Are you trying to test me, Philip?”
“No sir. I just want to be clear.”
“Okay, listen,” Mr. Springthorpe huffs, now addressing the entire class. “As Philip has already explained, you can define colour in physical terms, such as the wavelength of a particular colour of light, or in terms of perception, the way our brains interpret a given wavelength within a particular physical context. So, fine, fair enough, because we perceive the colour brown as a modified version of the physical colour yellow, then brown is in fact a colour. I stand corrected on that point.” He lowers his voice, like a stage actor delivering the climactic line of a dramatic soliloquiy. “Black, however, is a different story. In physical terms, black refers to a total absence of visible radiation. It has no wavelength. And if there is no physical stimulus, there can be no perceptive response. No response equals no perception equals no colour. Therefore, I can assure you all, with absolute certainty, that black is not a colour.”
It is the most succinct lesson Mr. Springthorpe has given all year. He sits down at his desk again, and is finally able to read his Sportsweek in peace.
Adeline takes this opportunity to glance back at me and smile. Her colour exists on the spectrum, and even if no one else perceives it, I do.
“Hey, Caitlin,” Adeline whispers, “you’d better not let Lara or Carrie find out that black isn’t a real colour, eh?”
For a moment, when I see the expression on Caitlin’s face, I feel bad for her. While Lara and Carrie continue to shine in 8-A, she’s been sent down to 8-C, the Reject Class. While the other two live like princesses on the compound interest from generations-old natural gas money in their Victoria Park mansions, Caitlin lives in Cardboard Acres and qualifies as an Old Weller by lineage only. She’s the one who most wants to be a Little Colour Girl, and she’s just discovered that, scientifically speaking, her name isn’t a colour at all. Perhaps, for just a moment, Caitlin wonders if she’ll soon be in her underwear, running out through the cellar door of Lara’s house.
But her black cat expression returns, and she hisses, “I don’t give a shit what your boyfriend says, Adeline. Black is a colour, and I am a Little Colour Girl.”
Adeline shrugs and says, “Know thyself, Caitlin.”
The hallways reverberate with laughter and excited conversation. Christmas Holidays have officially begun. The idea of two whole weeks without school fills even the most Atheistic heart with a certain spiritual joy.
Adeline catches up with me as everyone surges toward their lockers. She passes, without looking at me, and says, “Want to walk home with me today instead of taking the bus?”
Keeping my eyes focused straight ahead, I say, “Okay.”
She whispers, “Let’s wait until the halls have cleared out.”
Thanks to alphabetical order, Michael’s locker is right beside mine. “Hey, Little Brother,” he says.
“Hey, Big Brother,” I say.
This is an inside joke we share. We both find it funny that he gets to be the Big Brother, despite me being the same size and weight as he, because Michael is four hours and thirty-two minutes older than me. Still, in the traditional sense of the term, Michael really is my Big Brother at school; my advocate, my protector, my advisor.
“Jake and Brian and I are going over to Toby’s place to watch the Leafs play the Senators tonight. You want to come, too?”
“Did Toby invite me?”
“He won’t mind if you come along.”
“I think I’ll wait until I’m invited.”
“You impressed the guys in gym class today. You took a big step forward. Don’t take two steps backward by meeting up with Adeline Brown.”
“Have fun at Toby’s,” I tell my brother. “I’ll come when I’m invited.”
He sighs and shrugs. “I can’t help you if you won’t let me, Philip.”
“I know you’re trying to help, Michael, but I want to be welcomed, not just tolerated.”
Michael nods and says, “Fair enough.” He wanders away to meet with his buddies.
I linger at my locker, pretending to re-organize the stuff inside. When all the other kids and most of the teachers have fled the building, Adeline appears beside me.
The air temperature outside has warmed since recess. The thin layer of snow has mostly melted, and the playground is spongy and moist, making sucking sounds under our feet as we walk. We both leave our coats unbuttoned.
“Thanks for what you did in science class, Philip,” Adeline says. “How did you get to be so smart? You must have a genius IQ.”
“I’m not sure my intelligence is much above average,” I say, “I just know a lot. Not in the biblical sense of the word, of course.”
Adeline blushes and giggles. “Well, how did you get to know so much, then?”
“I read through several sets of encyclopedias while I was being home schooled. I just have a good memory for facts, I guess. But you know a lot about the Bible, Adeline. A lot more than I do. It’s impressive.”
“I’ve read it a few times,” she says.
“I’ll bet if you read through an encyclopedia set, you’d wind up knowing more than I do about everything.”
“We don’t have any encyclopedias,” she says.
“You can borrow mine if you want to.”
“The only books allowed in our house are the Bible, and books about the Bible. Why do you think I still carry this around with me?” she says, holding up her Bible Stories for Children. “At least it gives me something to open in front of me during silent reading time, while I think about other things.”
“Listen, Adeline,” I say, “I’ll bring Volume A of the World Book for you when we get back from holidays. Just keep it in your locker and read it at school. And when you’re finished with Volume A, just give it back and I’ll bring you Volume B.”
“You would do that for me?”
“Sure. And when you get to the last volume of World Book, I’ll start bringing you my Brittannicas.”
A sunbeam breaks through a gap in the clouds, illuminating a patch of ground in the distance.
“Look!” Adeline says. “It’s a Jacob’s Ladder!”
“Is that what they call them?” I say.
“In the Book of Genesis – 28:12, I think,” she says, “Jacob had a dream where he saw a ladder extending toward heaven. Sunbeams are supposedly a reminder of Jacob’s Ladder.”
“I always wondered where the name came from,” I tell her. “We’ve got something called a Jacob’s Ladder in my dad’s collection of science junk in our basement. It’s basically a bunch of high
-voltage transformers connected to a couple of long copper wires aimed upward in a narrow V-shape. When you turn on the power, these huge arcs of electricity climb the wires and snap at the top of the V. In old black and white movies about mad scientists, there’s always a Jacob’s Ladder snapping away in the background. It’s kind of cool.”
The clouds shift, and the sunbeam gets brighter. Adeline sighs, and her smile melts away in the light. The mud makes a glitch-glitch sound under our feet as we continue walking. “According to my church, a Jacob’s Ladder is supposed to be symbolic of a Christian’s struggle to resist earthly temptations on the long climb to Heaven.” She sighs. “That’s the big thing at our church. Resisting temptation. Avoiding fun. Every time I see a sunbeam, I’m reminded not to enjoy it.”
“You can come over and check out the Jacob’s Ladder in our basement sometime if you want to,” I say.
“Philip, that would be . . . SWEET MOTHER MARY!” she yelps, as the mud in front of our feet explodes.
“You wanna be BROWN, Adeline?” A voice hollers from inside the fence at the other side of the school yard. “We’ll MAKE you brown!”
The voice belongs to Sam Simpson. Turner Thrift and Brandon Doggart are with him, as are Lara Lavender, Carrie Green and Caitlin Black, who are posed with their hands on their hips like a set of fashion dolls.
“And you can be brown, too, Monkeyface!” Lara Lavender screeches.
Another burst of muck detonates a couple of feet behind us. Sam, Turner and Brandon are lobbing mud bombs at us.
“Nail them!” Carrie Green coaxes Sam, as he cocks back his mud-filled hand like a catapult.
“Plaster those fucking freaks!” Lara Lavender giggles, bouncing up and down beside Brandon.
Caitlin, whose honour they’re defending, stands off to one side.
Adeline turns toward them, stretches her arms out wide. Has she lost her mind?
“Adeline, what are you doing?”
“If thine enemy strikes one cheek, offer the other,” she says.
My face is splattered with bits of mud-shrapnel as I bend to scoop up a handful of sticky mud. “God helps those who help themselves,” I say. I press the mud between my palms into a tight, aerodynamic sphere. I hurl it hard. Turner Thrift yelps as it explodes against his chest. He loses his balance and tumbles backward onto his butt.
As another mud bomb splatters at my feet, I load up a second time. My muscles burn as I launch this one even harder. It bursts like a brown firecracker right in Sam Simpson’s face. Sam rolls around on the ground, shouting out every obscenity in his vocabulary, to cover the fact that he’s crying uncontrollably. I don’t blame him; I’ll bet that hurt.
Brandon Doggart’s luck is a bit better; as he bends over to help Sam get up, he inadvertently ducks the mud ball I’ve thrown at him. As they all run through the gap in the fence, Brandon yells, “This isn’t over, Monkeyface!”
“We’ll be back, assholes!” Turner Thrift hollers.
Sam Simpson’s swaggering bravado, however, has gone missing in action.
Up until this point I had only been aiming at Brandon, Turner, and Sam, but when Lara Lavender yells out, “You BITCH, Adeline!” I decide that she’s got one coming too. I manage to hit her in the ass with my last shot just before she ducks through the hole in the fence. SMACK! She looks like she’s shit in her lace-trimmed lavender pants.
“Wow! What an arm!” Adeline pants, as we run beside the railroad tracks. “I can’t believe you hit them from that distance! It was like watching a superhero in action.”
That makes me smile as much as my deformed mouth will allow. “The Amazing Adventures of Monkeyface, the Mud-Throwing Superboy,” I say. “I’ll bet Marvel and DC Comics will be fighting for the rights to that idea.”
“You really pounded Sam,” Adeline says. “Do you think he’ll be okay?”
I walked along these same tracks yesterday, bleeding and limping after the beating that Grum and Grunt laid on me. Today I’m walking almost normally, and the bruises look worse than they feel. The body heals faster than the soul.
“Sam will be okay,” I say. “He might need to use some extra soap in the shower.”
“You got Lara pretty good with that last throw.” Adeline giggles. “She’s probably got mud in her lavender panties.”
“She wears lavender panties?”
“Educated guess,” Adeline says.
Adeline finds it difficult to run in her heavy Tabernacle uniform, so we pause for a moment beside an overgrown vacant lot. “You know they’ll never leave us alone,” she says, gasping for breath. “We’ll never be able to just hang around together at school without them trying to wreck it.”
I have to admit that she is probably right.
We start moving again, neither of us saying anything until we’ve arrived at the outskirts of the Eastern Subdivisions, Cardboard Acres, where Adeline lives.
“Well, here’s my street. I should probably go the rest of the way alone. My mother will freak out if she sees me alone with a boy.”
“We’re just walking.”
“Well, you know what walking can lead to,” she says, rolling her eyes.
We just stand still for a moment. A few stray snowflakes flutter down between us.
“Hey, Philip,” she says, “maybe we could meet once in a while outside of school. I could pretend to be sick and skip a Bible-study class every so often.”
“Okay,” I tell her.
She studies my face for a moment, cocking her head to one side. “Can I ask you a personal question?” she asks.
“Sure.”
“With your cleft lip, does it hurt when you kiss someone?”
“No,” I blurt out. “It doesn’t hurt. I don’t think so. No.”
“Just curious,” she says. “See you soon, Philip. Have a nice Christmas.”
“You too, Adeline.”
She puts her arms around me and hugs me close. I didn’t expect this; I’m not used to being spontaneously embraced by anyone other than my mother. We press up against each other through the open fronts of our coats. I can feel the softness of her breasts against my chest, her nipples hard little bumps. I think she’s noticed my erection this time; she pushes me away, but then steps toward me again, and places a slight, moist kiss on the side of my neck.
She steps back, buttons the front of her coat, and turns to walk up her street.
“Don’t forget to bring that A encyclopedia for me,” she says. “I want to know as much as you do.”
Make Big Bucks
When I enter our house through the back door, my mother is standing at the counter, paring vegetables for dinner. Her head is cocked to one side, and her long hair, which she ties back in a loose ponytail when working in the kitchen, flows over the back of one shoulder. She often strikes this pose when she’s contemplating things, from the mysteries of the universe to whether or not she should slice up an extra carrot.
“I’m sure you are shocked, Lynette,” Mom says, “and dismayed.” She is talking on the phone, with the receiver cradled between her shoulder and ear. “Three hundred dollars? For a pair of pants? Uh huh . . . right . . . uh huh. Yes I’m listening to you, Lynette. Yard work . . . at your house . . . oh, I don’t think so, Lynette. I’d like to hear his side of the story first. And even then, I’m not sure that’s . . . ”
After a long pause, Mom finally says, “You’re right Lynette. That a son of mine would do such a thing is hard to believe. So don’t believe it. Goodbye, Lynette.” She places the phone back onto its cradle on the wall, emphatically, but with enough control that it can’t be described as slamming.
“Hi, Mom,” I say. “I’m home.”
“Hi, sweetie,” she says crisply. “You’re a bit later than usual.”
“Was that Lara Lavender’s mother on the phone?”
As I say this, Michael strides into the kitchen from the living room. “I’m off to Toby’s, Mom,” he says cheerfully, kissing Mom on the cheek. “See you tomorrow. I�
��ll call if anything changes. Need me to pick up anything for tomorrow? I’ll be passing the stores.”
“That’s okay, Michael. Have fun.”
He waves through the window as he departs. Mom smiles. What a good son.
When we were born, Michael slid out effortlessly, causing my mother almost no pain or stress. One of the attending nurses swore he had a smile on his face as he entered the world. My own emergence was less perfect. Although Mom tries to minimize it when telling the story in front of me, the next four hours and thirty-two minutes were the most grueling and painful of her life. I turned sideways inside her as Michael left the womb, and extracting me required all the sweat, blood, and fortitude Mom could spare, as well as a lot of pulling from the outside with many hands and metal tools.
I’ve never once heard Mom complain about it, but I suppose her labour with me never really ended. She had to quit her job working for my grandfather in the mayor’s office when the decision was made to school me at home. And now that I’m at school I’m causing her even more grief, while Michael continues to glide through life, pleasing everyone and doing everything right. The only phone calls she ever gets about him are to inform her that he’s won another athletic or academic award.
“So,” I ask her again. “Was that Lara Lavender’s mother who called?”
“Yes, it was,” she says. Her expression is difficult to interpret. She’s wearing that furrowed-brow look of parental concern, but her pursed lips are fighting back a smirk. “Mrs. Lavender claims that you, and I quote, ‘went berserk in the schoolyard and began randomly hurling mud at innocent bystanders.’”
“That sounds like something a monkey in a zoo would do, doesn’t it?” I say.
“I think monkeys throw their feces, actually,” Mom says, the captive smirk breaking free. “I’ll bet you have a slightly different version of the story.”
We sit down together at the kitchen table, and I tell her everything: Sam, Brandon and Trevor’s reaction to the ten floor hockey goals that Michael and I scored together in gym class, Adeline’s story of what Lara, Carrie and Caitlin did to her, what happened in Science class, the Little Colour Girls coaxing the Little Brain Boys as they threw mud bombs at Adeline and me, and my surprisingly accurate retaliation.
The Monkeyface Chronicles Page 7
