by James Howe
“Boy, girl, or other,” said Sebastian.
“Very funny. You know what I’m talking about. It’s discrimination, Sebastian. Even if you don’t understand, your mother does. Ask her.”
“I don’t have to ask her. My mother raised me and her consciousness at the same time. I’m pretty enlightened about these things.”
“I wish other people were.”
“I don’t think girls should play football at all,” said David.
Corrie sighed again. “See what I mean?” she said.
“Don’t give up,” Sebastian told her, putting his arm lightly around her shoulders. “There’s always tomorrow.”
“Gee, Annie,” said David, “is this the part where you hug the big dog and start singing?”
“No,” Sebastian said. “This is the part where you hug your books and start running.”
By the time the three friends reached the corner, they were out of breath and laughing. Stopping to help pick up David’s fallen books, Corrie said, “I feel better already. You’re right, Sebastian, tomorrow’s another day.”
5
THE BELL RANG LOUDLY. It was ten forty, the beginning of third period.
“Wow, listen to this.” Adam folded back the editorial page of the Paragon and read aloud: “‘Ganging Up on Education.’ “
“Milo always had a way with headlines,” said Sebastian, picking at the knot of his shop apron. “Keep reading. Mr. Branch’ll probably be late as usual.”
“‘When I arrived for the first day of school this year,’” Adam read, “‘I could tell right away something was different. I kept checking the time. No, I don’t mean consulting a watch to be sure I was in the right class at the right hour. I mean looking at the calendar. I could have sworn it was 1957! Everywhere I looked, I saw slicked-back hair and motorcycle boots, greasy denim jackets with their sleeves hacked off and grinning skulls emblazoned on their backs.’
“‘I admit I haven’t seen any switchblades, but what I have seen is bad enough. It isn’t 1957, and even if it were, gangs have no place in the hallowed corridors of Academe!’”
“Oh, brother. Leave it to Milo to call school halls the ‘hallowed corridors of Academe.’”
“Really,” said Adam. “Let’s see. Where was I? Oh, yeah. ‘These dark and gloomy prophets of another time are a pestilence that must be scourged from our midst before they become such a commonplace that we take them for granted, like dandruff.’”
Sebastian stifled a laugh.
“‘The gangs that have been allowed to infiltrate our beloved school must be banished! We are granted the privilege to learn and to flourish in these our formative years, and no third-rate company production of West Side Story should be allowed to stand in our way.’ Whew! Well, there’s one good thing about this editorial.”
“What’s that?”
“Harley’s too dumb to understand it.”
Sebastian shook his head. “Harley’s a lot smarter than he lets on,” he said.
Adam put down the newspaper and picked up his apron. “Well, all I can say is it’s a good thing Milo’s out of school today. His getting the flu is sort of like the governor reprieving his death sentence. Once Harley finds out—”
“But, as you say, Harley won’t understand the editorial,” said a voice from behind the boys. “Mr. Hogan will, however.”
“Milo!” Sebastian said, turning around. “What happened to the flu?”
“Didn’t want to keep the electric chair waiting, huh, Milo?” Adam cracked.
“I’m not worried about Harley, if that’s what you mean,” said Milo, strapping on his glasses. “And the flu’s gone.”
“One of those twenty-four hour bugs?” Sebastian said.
“I guess. Or something I ate,” said Milo, as Mr. Branch threw open the door and asked, “Has the bell rung yet?”
6
“WHERE’S YOUR LUNCH?” Adam asked, as he and Sebastian entered the cafeteria.
“Awaiting within,” said Sebastian.
“You’re kidding. You’re going to buy hot lunch again? After yesterday?”
“I like mysteries.”
Adam grunted. “I don’t know how she gets away with it. You know my cousin Shawn?” Sebastian nodded. “He went to school here five years ago, and he says Miss Swille was making the same weird concoctions then. And nobody did anything about it. I’ll tell you the truth, Sebastian, and I’m not kidding. I think she’s paying somebody off. I smell a scandal.”
“Smells more like apple chili dogs to me.”
“Please. Even Miss Swille wouldn’t go that far.”
Later, as Sebastian finished off the last of his apple chili dog, Adam said, “You want to know how it makes me feel, watching you eat that thing?”
Someone threw up across the room.
“Like that?” said Sebastian.
“I don’t believe it. Milo’s at it again.”
Looking across the crowded cafeteria, the boys made out Brian Hansen, Milo’s only friend, brushing at his pants somewhat hysterically.
“You didn’t have to do it all over my lunch!” Brian shrieked. “And look! Just look at my new sweater. My sister made me this sweater, Milo! What am I going to tell her? Milo! Milo, are you listening?”
Milo didn’t hear Brian’s tirade, nor did he hear the cheers and laughter, the stomping of feet and cries of “Attaboy, Milo! Way to go!” He didn’t hear the monitor shout, “Assez! Enough!” nor recognize the voice as the French teacher’s. He heard nothing but the sounds he himself made as he doubled over in pain. He thought he saw a hand reach out for him. He thought he heard someone say his name—for once, not unkindly. He collided with a chair. And then everything went black.
Milo Groot lay sprawled on the cafeteria floor, his cracked glasses inches away from his white face. The room fell silent, and remained so until Phil Greenburg, kneeling by the fallen boy’s side, whispered, “Milo. Mon Dieu.”
7
“THE FLU,” David said. He was leaning against a row of lockers, as Sebastian gathered his belongings after school.
“You’re sure?”
David nodded. “I was in the office when Mrs. Kershaw called Milo’s mother at work. I heard her say her son had thrown up at lunch and passed out and—”
“Yeah, yeah. I know that part.”
“And that the school nurse said it looked like he still had a bug of some kind.”
“A bug?” Sebastian asked, slamming his locker door shut and giving the combination lock a twirl.
“A bug, the flu, same thing.”
“I wonder,” said Sebastian.
David shook his head. “You’re getting that look of yours,” he said. “Listen, before you turn into Sherlock Holmes, we have to talk about today’s show. We’ve got a fifteen-minute hole.”
“What do you mean?”
“The beekeeper can’t make it.”
“Oh, great!” Sebastian dropped his books to the ground, and knelt down to tie his high-tops. “It’s less than an hour till we tape, and the beekeeper lets us know now he can’t make it?” The shoelace broke in Sebastian’s hand. “What about the guy from the animal shelter?”
“Oh, he’s still coming.”
“Well, I guess we can always do a half-hour with him. But we can’t let him start talking about all the animals they put to sleep the way he did the last time he was on. My dad’s really worried about the station’s ratings. That’s the last thing he needs.”
Sebastian was attempting to knot his shoelace when he heard a girl’s voice say, “Need some help?” He looked up to see Corrie and her two friends, Janis and Jennifer, standing over him. He returned Corrie’s smile.
“You might say that,” he said. Managing a crude knot, he stood up and explained about the fifteen-minute hole in his radio program.
“Oh, neat,” Corrie said.
“Neat?”
“Listen, Sebastian, Janis and Jennifer are with me on this sports thing. We could come on your show and
talk about girls playing football.”
“We did that a couple of months ago, remember? I can’t do the same show twice.”
“But it wouldn’t be the same show. This would be about my fight to make Pembroke Middle School allow girls on the football team. Just think, you’d have the principal’s daughter taking my side against the school. You would go on Sebastian’s show, wouldn’t you, Jennifer?”
“Sure.”
“I don’t know,” said Sebastian. “I’d have to clear it with my dad first. I don’t want Mr. Hogan out for his blood like Harley is out for Milo’s.”
“You really think Harley is going to get Milo for what he wrote in the Paragon?” Janis asked.
“You never know what Harley will do. Listen, Corrie, I’ll speak with my father today, and maybe we can work things out for next week. Okay?”
“That seems fair. You still have a problem, though.”
“I know,” said Sebastian. “A fifteen-minute hole and a guy who hot-wires puppies.”
8
THE “THUNK-THUNK-THUNK” coming from behind Will Barth’s closed door let Sebastian know at once that his father was not in the mood for talking. Whenever the station manager took to his dart board, it was a signal to everyone at WEB-FM that trouble was in the air.
“We can ask my dad about Corrie and the football show anytime,” Sebastian said to David, “but I wish we could talk to him now about this week’s show. We’ve only got twenty minutes till we tape. You’re the writer. Any ideas?”
“I’ve got ten questions for you to ask the animal shelter guy. But that isn’t going to fill a half-hour. Maybe we should talk to Uncle Harry.”
Harry Dobbs, whose daily program, “A Few Raisins,” had been on the air since before Sebastian’s father was born, was everybody’s “uncle,” though no one knew if in fact he had any real family at all. When Will Barth had asked him once, he’d replied, “Why, Will, don’t you know I have the largest family in the world, because everyone in the world is in it?” He was also fond of saying (and it was this that came to Sebastian’s mind now), “I always have the time for anyone who has the time for an old fool like me.”
“Good idea,” Sebastian said. “Let’s find Uncle Harry.”
Before they had a chance to turn away, the thunking sound from inside Will’s office stopped abruptly and was replaced by the voice of Harry Dobbs. Sebastian and David listened.
“It won’t happen again, Will, I can promise you that,” Harry said.
“Harry, I want to believe you, you know I do. But you’ve made promises before.”
“And I’ve done my best to keep them. Will, I’m an old man—”
“And I’m a middle-aged man, growing older by the minute. I don’t care how old you are, Harry. If it were up to me, you could keep on working here until you were a hundred and twenty. The point is, Herself hasn’t given me a lot of options. The program is to be cancelled unless the ratings pick up. And the ratings aren’t going to pick up unless some changes are made. Big changes.”
“My gosh,” Sebastian whispered. “I can’t believe Dad is going to fire Uncle Harry.”
“He can’t,” David said simply. “Firing Uncle Harry would be like bombing the Statue of Liberty. Hey, I’ve got it. Let’s ask him to be on the show.”
“Who?”
“Uncle Harry. He can fill our fifteen-minute hole talking about all his years with the radio station; you know, what it was like in the early days and all that. We’ll get the listeners’ sympathy for him.”
“Not bad,” Sebastian said. “It’ll get us off the hook and help him at the same time. As soon as he comes out of Dad’s office, we’ll grab him.
“The thing is, from the sound of it, we’ve got more to worry about than just Uncle Harry. If Herself is thinking of cancelling his show because of ratings, what about ours? Last week, we did an exciting program on recycling soda cans; the week before that, how to get your parents to increase your allowance; the week before—”
“I get the picture,” said David. “What we need is—”
“Controversy. Something hot. We need a story.”
“How about Corrie’s football thing?” David asked.
Sebastian nodded, but he was already thinking of something else. “There’s a story at our school right now, and we’ve got a chance to scoop it. I have a hunch that someone’s been poisoning Milo.”
“Get real,” David said.
“Where did his flu go?” Sebastian asked. “He seemed fine to me in shop class. Less than an hour later, he was sick again—after he’d eaten lunch.”
“So why isn’t anybody else saying it’s poison? I was in the office when the secretary called Milo’s mother, Sebastian. Nobody’s talking about food poisoning; they’re saying he has a bug.”
“I don’t know. A cover-up, maybe?”
David snapped his fingers loudly. “You’re right!” he practically shouted. “It’s all a plot. Mr. Hogan is really a secret agent and—”
“You can make jokes if you like,” Sebastian said, “but I’m going to get a scoop on a real story. You want to help?”
David sighed. “I know you too well not to trust your hunches,” he said, “even when they sound as crazy as this one. Okay, count me in. What do I do?”
“You’re my connection to the main office. Find out all you can about the cafeteria, where the food comes from, who does the ordering, and who’s been in and out of the kitchen for the past few days.”
“What does that leave for you to do?”
“Oh, I’ll have plenty to do. You know how Miss Swille is always saying she can use more volunteers in the kitchen. Who better to help out than somebody whose mother owns a restaurant? First, though, you and I are going to visit a sick friend.”
“I don’t have any sick friends.”
“Of course you do. Milo Groot.”
“Milo Groot? Like I said, I don’t have any sick friends, Sebastian. Except for you, maybe, and I’ve known you too long to tell anymore.”
Just then, the boys saw the man from the animal shelter, Hiram Droner, coming down the hall in their direction. “What a week, what a week,” he said as soon as he saw them. “We had to put two of the cutest little kittens to sleep. Just about broke my heart.”
Sebastian and David exchanged looks, as the door to Will Barth’s office opened. Sebastian’s father and a defeated-looking Harry Dobbs walked through it.
“I thought I heard some familiar buzzing going on out here,” Sebastian’s father said.
“Hi, Dad.”
“Hello, Uncle Will,” David said. “Hi, Uncle Harry.”
“Hello, lads,” said Harry.
“Don’t you boys have a show to tape?” Will asked.
“We were just waiting for Uncle Harry,” said Sebastian.
“For me?” The color started to return to Harry’s face.
“Sure. We need you, Uncle Harry.”
“I’m glad to hear somebody does. What’s up?”
“We’ve got a fifteen-minute hole,” Sebastian explained. “Feel like being a guest on somebody else’s show?”
Harry grabbed Sebastian’s arm and marched him down the hall to the recording studio. “Did I ever tell you,” he said, “about the time I interviewed Eleanor Roosevelt? Right here it was, in Studio B. A great lady, Eleanor Roosevelt, one of the greatest. And funny too. She told me a story…”
David turned to Hiram Droner. “Ready?”
“I will be,” he replied, dabbing at his eyes. “I was just thinking about this German Shepherd. Nobody wanted him, you see.…”
David looked to Will Barth for sympathy, but the door had already closed. As he steered Hiram Droner down the hall, he could hear the “thunk-thunk-thunk” of a solitary dart game being resumed behind him.
9
HE PUSHED the doorbell and waited. After a second’s silence, a chimed melody rang out. “Tchaikovsky,” said Sebastian. Seeing David’s questioning look, he added, “1812 Overture.”
“You’ve been to Milo’s house before?” David asked.
Sebastian shook his head. “It’s one of my dad’s favorite pieces of music, although I doubt he’s ever heard it played on the doorbell. Do you think if I pushed it again that it would continue or repeat the phrase?”
“I don’t know,” said David, “but nobody’s coming. Let’s go.”
“Nice try, coward,” Sebastian said, pressing the doorbell. The refrain repeated itself. “Darn, I was hoping to hear the cannons. Now, that would have been something.”
While they waited, David said, “Things worked out pretty well with Uncle Harry today, didn’t they? I just wish your dad wasn’t going to fire him.”
“I talked to him about that,” said Sebastian. “He isn’t going to.”
“Oh, good.”
“He’s not sure what to do, but he promised me he wouldn’t do that. The problem is that nobody’s into Uncle Harry’s kind of show anymore. To make matters worse, the old guy rambles on a lot and forgets what he’s talking about. Dad says it’s gotten pretty bad lately; he doesn’t know if it’s age or what. But Herself called and said that Uncle Harry had better shape up or the show is going to be cancelled.”
“It’s weird.”
“What is?”
“This lady nobody knows telling everybody what to do.”
“She’s rich and eccentric and she owns the radio station. Can’t say it makes my dad’s job any easier having an anonymous boss, but … wait a minute, I see somebody coming.”
Milo’s pale face replaced Sebastian’s reflection, as the door slowly opened. “Barth. Lepinsky. What are you doing here?”
“I brought your homework,” said Sebastian. “Can we come in? How are you feeling?”
“Lousy,” Milo said, swinging the storm door open. “I’m not supposed to eat anything for twenty-four hours. Just drink water and weak tea. I’m not even supposed to be up, but nobody else is home. I’m kind of wobbly.”
“So get back in bed,” Sebastian said, looking at the art-covered walls of the Groot home. The place had the feeling of a museum or the waiting room of a high-priced dentist, he couldn’t decide which. “I can explain the assignments to you in your room. Besides, there’s something else I want to talk to you about.”
