by Jonah Black
NORTHGIRL999: my boyfriend woke up. He would not have been funny to see me talk with you to computer!
JBLACK94710: your boyfriend? I thought you had a fight with him.
NORTHGIRL999: I did. That is why I talked to you on computer. I did not wish to sleep next to him after that.
JBLACK94710: you mean he was sleeping right there?
NORTHGIRL999: yes. And I was already starting to cyber, Jonah. I had my shirt off. He was one angry bear Jonah!
JBLACK94710: really?
NORTHGIRL999: yes Jonah I told you before I have big crush on you. Your diving board photo is so hot!
JBLACK94710: well you are very pretty Aine. But you don’t need me to tell you that.
NORTHGIRL999: I like it for you to say.
JBLACK94710: well you are. I wish you didn’t live in Norway!
NORTHGIRL999: oh you would love Norway if you came to visit we could take sauna—make love in sauna.
JBLACK94710: won’t it be too hot?
NORTHGIRL999: oh, you are so American! Sauna is like religion here. You sit in sauna and the world goes good-bye.
JBLACK94710: sounds great.
NORTHGIRL999: drink champagne and jump out of sauna and roll in snow and then back in sauna and make love. Oh how I would love you Jonah Black in sauna!
JBLACK94710: I think I would like that too Aine. This is very weird though. Can you tell me more about yourself so I can get a picture of you?
NORTHGIRL999: you have picture of me! Oh wait I have new picture I will send it now.
JBLACK94710: That’s not what I meant.
NORTHGIRL999: Is it there?
JBLACK94710: it’s arriving now. Hang on while I open it.
JBLACK94710: oh my God.
NORTHGIRL999: you like?
JBLACK94710: oh my God.
JBLACK94710: what are you sitting on? It looks like some sort of
NORTHGIRL999: is polar bear rug. Very soft for love. : )
JBLACK94710: is that your house?
NORTHGIRL999: is our summer house. There is fireplace there with polar bear rug in front.
JBLACK94710: I think it might be too hot for you if you came here to Florida. No one has rugs like that here.
NORTHGIRL999: I would love Florida. Are you near from Disney World? I always want to go to Disney World.
JBLACK94710: you should come. I could show you around.
NORTHGIRL999: do you miss Pennsylvania? Did you like it there?
JBLACK94710: I miss it sometimes.
NORTHGIRL999: did you have girlfriend there?
NORTHGIRL999: are you still there?
NORTHGIRL999: Jonah?
JBLACK94710: there was a girl that I loved very much. I don’t know if you could call her my girlfriend.
NORTHGIRL999: what was this girlfriend name?
JBLACK94710: Sophie.
NORTHGIRL999: what was she like?
JBLACK94710: just sitting next to her in the library was like this giant adventure.
NORTHGIRL999: What did she look like?
JBLACK94710: Dark blond hair. Blue eyes. Delicate. Like snow.
NORTHGIRL999: does she know you love her Jonah?
JBLACK94710: she should.
NORTHGIRL999: but did you ever tell her?
JBLACK94710: I saved her.
NORTHGIRL999: how?
JBLACK94710: I gave up everything. I wound up back in Pompano Beach in 11th grade for her.
NORTHGIRL999: does she know what you did for her?
JBLACK94710: I don’t know.
NORTHGIRL999: so you did not tell her?
NORTHGIRL999: Jonah?
NORTHGIRL999: Jonah?
GOODBYE FROM AMERICA ONLINE!
YOU HAVE SPENT 17 MINUTES ONLINE.
YOUR PRICING PLAN THIS MONTH
CALLS FOR UNLIMITED USAGE.
Governor, State of Florida
Governor’s Office,
The Capitol,
Tallahassee, FL 32399
September 24
Dear Governor:
My name is Jonah Black and I am writing to you today to request that you make me a senior at Don Shula High School, in Pompano Beach. I attended ninth grade at Don Shula and then I went for tenth and eleventh grades to Masthead Academy, which is in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania. I went there because it is near my father’s house and he thought it would be good for me to go to a school like Masthead. Unfortunately I had to leave Masthead at the end of my junior year as a result of a complicated situation which I won’t go in to now. The point is that I finished eleventh grade and I deserve to be a senior. However, Mrs. Perella, the vice principal at Don Shula, says that I didn’t finish my junior year in good standing. This is not true.
I did have to withdraw from Masthead before I’d taken all of my final exams, but I passed everything anyway. I think the big issue is that I got a D in German there, which is what has Mrs. Perella all upset because Don Shula is supposed to be a magnet school for languages, so I’ve been held back. But I was getting an A in almost all my other classes at Masthead, and I would have done better in German if I had been able to take the final.
I hope you can understand what an injustice this is. Repeating eleventh grade again is a horrible punishment, almost the same as sending me to the electric chair for something I didn’t do. I know you have signed pardons for people who have been put to death. Well, this is almost the same thing. I think I deserve a second chance. If you’ll pardon me I promise that when I graduate I will be an upstanding citizen of the state of Florida.
I am looking forward to hearing from you.
God bless America.
Sincerely,
Jonah Black
PS. You should know that my younger sister, Honey, is a senior this year, because she’s a genius, and skipped a grade. I am not saying she should be put back, I’m only saying that to have your little sister a grade ahead of you is pretty humiliating, as I’m sure you can imagine.
PPS. I wrote our school principal, Dr. Chamberlin, about the situation, but he didn’t write back. Do you know if he exists?
Sept. 27
Okay, I had a totally wack session with Dr. LaRue today. He asked me all these weird hypothetical questions. I’m serious, some of them were really strange, like, “If you could be any kind of food, what would you be?”
I said, “Cheese.”
“If you were a kind of disease, what disease would you be?”
I said, “Chicken pox.”
“If you were a kind of car, what kind of car would you be?”
I thought about it for a moment. “A BMW.”
“It’s snowing. Your mother asks you to pick up some coffee. What do you do?”
“It’s not going to be snowing in Florida,” I said.
“Humor me.”
“I go out and get it for her but maybe while I’m out I go and do something else I think is fun, like I go down to the ocean and watch my friend Posie surf. Then I come back, just in time for Mom to begin worrying about me. Except she doesn’t even notice that I’m gone,” I said.
“You find five dollars on the street while walking home. What do you do with it?”
“I buy flowers for Posie and stick them in her mailbox and take off without letting her know who they’re from,” I said. It was such a good idea I thought I might do it anyway, just for fun.
“You’re traveling on a one-lane road and you’re stuck behind a slow-moving van. You get to a place where you can pass the van and you pull into the other lane. Just as you’re about to draw even with the van, it starts to blink, indicating it’s going to turn left, crossing the lane you’re in. What do you do?”
“What am I driving?” I asked.
“A BMW.”
“I floor the Beamer and pass him just before he hits me,” I said.
“Even though that could cause an accident?”
I shrugged. “I’d be okay.”
“You come to a four-way stop and three cars arrive at the intersection simultaneously.
Which car goes first?”
“What is this, a driving test?” I said.
“Which car?”
“I don’t know. I guess I kind of check out the other drivers and if they look like they don’t know what’s happening, I just sort of go.” I knew there were specific guidelines for this in the driver’s manual, but I couldn’t remember what they were.
“You aren’t a very good driver, are you, Jonah?”
“Does that make me a bad person?” I said.
“No. But maybe you’re someone that other people shouldn’t travel with.”
“There’s nothing wrong with traveling with me,” I protested. “I look out for other people.”
“Do you look out for other people better than you look out for yourself?”
“Maybe,” I said, wishing he would ask me another question.
“If you could wear any article of girls’ clothing, what would it be?”
I was kind of mad about that one. “I already told you, I’m not—”
“Just answer the question.”
“Mittens,” I told him.
“You see your best friend, Posie, cheating on a math test. Do you tell the teacher?”
I shook my head. “Posie wouldn’t cheat on a math test.”
“What about—what’s his name—Thorne?”
“Okay, Thorne would cheat,” I said. “But I wouldn’t tell.”
“You’re a psychiatrist and one of your clients confesses to a murder while you’re in a session. Would you contact the police and have your client arrested?”
“Of course not,” I said. “That’s so bogus.”
“What if he’d murdered your friend Thorne?”
“I still wouldn’t tell,” I insisted.
“What if he’d murdered that girl in Pennsylvania, Sophie?”
“I’d try to warn her in advance,” I said. “I’d try to save her.”
“What if she’s already dead?”
“I’d still try to save her.”
“How could you save her if she was already dead?”
“Nobody’s so dead you can’t save them,” I said, even though I knew what I was saying made no sense. After all, our whole conversation made no sense.
“You’re a very interesting young man, Jonah. Do you think of yourself as interesting?”
“No,” I said.
“Well, it’s interesting what these questions show about you. You’re a little reckless, if not careless. You’re loyal. You’re considerate. And you’re bolder than you might think.”
“Okay,” I said, not sure what to make of all that. “But if you ask me something directly, I’ll tell you the truth. I don’t like being tricked.”
“All right, Jonah,” Dr. LaRue said. “From now on I will.”
We’ll see. He’s a tricky little bastard, that shrink.
That’s it for today. It’s time for mac and cheese and MTV. See, I’m really just a normal kid.
Sept. 28
Something happened at swim practice today that made me hate Wailer even more. I was doing my usual warm-up routine in the pool, swimming a few laps. Then I stopped and stood up in the shallow end to catch my breath. I looked up at the stands, but Watches Boys Dive wasn’t there. So I pulled myself up onto the edge of the pool and just sat there, dangling my feet in the water. I guess I was feeling kind of lonely and sorry for myself.
Then Coach Davis blew the whistle and called us all over.
“Boys,” he said. “I want to introduce a new member of the diving team—Wailer Conrad.”
I looked up and saw Wailer standing next to Mr. Davis in his little Speedo racing suit. Everybody started to applaud, and I had to applaud, too, because a member of the team is a member of the team. My first thought was Hello? I thought Wailer was so against diving. I mean what about all that stuff he was saying at Luna’s party about how you don’t control the water, you achieve oneness with it or something. And how I was all into crushing the water’s banana. And now there we were. Teammates! Jesus.
My second thought was, Uh-oh. What if he’s really good?
That turned out not to be a problem. Wailer has got to be one of the worst divers I’ve ever seen. I mean, he has the strength, and he gets enough air. But he doesn’t seem to have a sense of coordination or balance, which is weird for someone who’s so good on a surfboard. He kept trying these pretty advanced dives for a beginner and he’d just lose his center and crash into the pool on his back. It was kind of painful. He was determined, though, I have to give him credit for that. He didn’t give up.
Coach Davis looked like he needed a drink, but he was very patient with Wailer. He even got on the board with him to show him what to do with his arms.
I didn’t talk to Wailer at all during practice, but I knew I was going to have to say something. You can’t have a block about somebody else on your team or else it’s going to bug you all season. Plus, it just didn’t make any sense that he was there. I mean, why diving? So finally, when we were in the showers, and we were standing next to each other drying off, and I was trying to come up with something halfway decent to say, Wailer all of a sudden goes, “Hey, Jonah. What do you think of this dude Davis?”
“I think he rocks,” I said. “Best coach I ever had.”
“Yeah, everybody seems to like him,” Wailer said.
We stood there for a while, trying to get the water out of our ears.
“So, Wailer,” I said, finally. “You’re like, on the team now?”
“Yeah,” he said. “Looks like it.”
“I didn’t know you were into diving. I thought you had the whole—you know, surfing thing going on.” I was trying to be polite, but I really wanted to ask him what the hell he thought he was doing.
“Yeah, well, I was talking to my college advisor and she was like, Woodrow, you don’t have enough extracurriculars,” he explained. “I knew there weren’t enough divers on the team, so I thought I’d check it out.”
I kind of choked. What an idiot. He didn’t care about diving. He was only doing it to improve his record. But what about all that stuff about dropping out and marrying Posie? What did he need extracurriculars for?
“But Wailer,” I said. I was trying to keep my voice down so the other guys wouldn’t hear us. “At Luna’s party you said diving was stupid. You went on and on about how it wasn’t about conquering the water and how surfing was so much better. You were a total jerk about it. Now you’re on the team. What’s with that?”
“Yeah, well, you gotta do what you gotta do,” he said, shrugging his big gorilla shoulders like it was no big deal.
“And I thought you and Posie were dropping out. What do you care about your college record?” I said.
Wailer walked over to his locker and started getting dressed. “Dude, that could work out, or it might not. I gotta cover my bases,” he said. “’Course I’m never going to dive like you, man. Everybody says you’re like some Olympic guy, or something.”
I wondered if Wailer knew how much I wanted him dead.
“Well, maybe if you work at it you could get good, too,” I said, and I walked away. It was the most arrogant thing I’ve ever said in my life. God I was mad.
On my way out I looked for Watches Boys Dive. I wonder if something has happened to her.
Sept. 5
Sophie and I sneak out of her parents’ house while everyone is sleeping and we go down to the barn to saddle up the horses. The sunlight is slanting through the windows of the barn, making the spiderwebs up near the hayloft glow softly. We saddle up Angel and Blaze and I follow her down the mossy path and soon we are riding along the beach in Maine listening to the sound of the waves crashing against the rocks and the seagulls cawing in the misty sky. The air is cold and the horses’ breath comes out in clouds. There is a lobster boat collecting traps out on the water and I can see steam rising from the cup of coffee one of the lobstermen is holding.
“Jonah,” Sophie says. “Are you coming?”
I sque
eze Blaze’s ribs with my heels and we gallop down a path that leads away from the ocean and into the woods. Sunlight shines through the trees and the air smells like pine needles. Ahead of me I can see Sophie’s back. Her blond ponytail swings back and forth between her shoulder blades and I can just see the outline of her bra underneath her gray long-sleeved T-shirt. Just above the waistband of her jeans is a patch of bare back, where her shirt has ridden up—the very spot where I am going to kiss her as soon as we get off our horses.
Sophie stops suddenly and turns to look at me. I pull back on the reins.
“What?” I say.
And she says, “Listen.”
I stop my horse beside Sophie and reach out to hold her small, perfect hand while we listen to the sound of the woods. There are squirrels chattering and blue jays squawking and the wind is shushing through the pine trees and in the distance the waves thunder against the beach. Sophie is trembling. I have never felt this
Okay, so exactly as I was writing that, this girl bumped my elbow with her hip and she looked at me and said, “Sorry.” Then the girl did a double-take and said, “Jonah?” which took me by complete surprise. I mean, I had absolutely no idea who she was. And then she said, “It’s me, Luna? Luna Hayes?” And I was like Are you sure? because the last time I saw Luna was the end of ninth grade and back then she didn’t have hips. From her head to her toes she was just one long skinny thing like a piece of spaghetti. I just sat there in homeroom, staring at her.
“I heard you were coming back!” she said, combing her curly brown hair with her fingers. “You haven’t changed at all.”
I wasn’t sure if not changing in two years was good or bad. In Luna’s case, though, changing had definitely been good. Her body was seriously developed now and her face had grown up, too. There was a depth to her eyes that wasn’t there before and I wondered if something sad had happened to her. I thought about what Thorne had e-mailed me about Luna, but I never believed it was true.
“Are you okay?” she asked me.
“Yeah, I’m great. It’s good to be back in Pompano Beach,” I said.
It wasn’t a real answer. I mean, am I okay? I’m not really sure. Not as okay as I’d like to be, I guess. But I’m hoping that after today things will be getting more and more okay, because they’ve been sort of not okay for a while.
