Navigating Early

by Clare Vanderpool

“It’s too bad this pie isn’t never-ending,” said Preston. “I wonder what Professor What’s-His-Name would have to say about that. The one who believes that pi ends. Stanford? Sanbridge?”

  That’s when I was called in.

  “Hey, Baker,” Sam called. “Put your National Geographic down and come here.”

  I shut my magazine and shoved it under my pillow, wondering how he knew what I was reading. It was true that most of my free time lately had been spent with my nose in a National Geographic, so it was a pretty safe guess. I poked my head in next door, trying to look casual and disinterested.

  “Douglas Stanton,” I said, giving away the fact that I’d been listening. Glancing around, I saw that the room was identical to mine—two beds, two closets, a sink, and a desk. But their bedspreads were red, there were pictures on the wall, and—I breathed in deeply—it smelled of apple crumble pie.

  “Yeah, well, if he’s like Sir Galahad, I’m a monkey’s uncle,” said Preston. “There aren’t very many people I’d put in the same category with him. Who would you say?”

  “Robin Hood,” said Sam.

  “The Three Musketeers,” countered Robbie Dean. “Four, if you count d’Artagnan.”

  The three of them looked at me. “What about you, Baker?”

  “I don’t know. I guess I’d rather pick somebody real, not just a character from a book.”

  “Oh, well, that’s easy,” said Sam.

  Then the three spoke in unison, saying one name.

  “The Fish.”

  I knew I was going to sound dumb, but I said it anyway. “Who’s the Fish?”

  They looked at each other, confirming that I was both stupid and an outsider. Robbie Dean took on the role of the explainer. “The Fish—Number 67, class of 1943. He’s only the greatest athlete ever to walk the halls of Morton Hill Academy.”

  Number 67. The boy in the trophy case.

  “They retired his number, and that’s his boat in the Nook,” Sam added.

  My eyes grew wide in disbelief. “The blue one? The Maine?”

  “That’s the one,” said Robbie Dean. “We were all sixth graders that year. He was all-state in football, track, and rowing. But those pale in comparison to what he did in the Steeplechase.”

  I took a breath, knowing I was only going to make myself look worse. “Steeplechase?”

  This time they rolled their eyes and groaned. Preston spoke up. “For crying out loud, Baker, what rock have you been living under? Oh, yeah, you’re from Kansas.” He said it as if Kansas were in some remote tribal region inhabited by illiterate natives like the ones in my National Geographic magazines.

  “Shut the door,” Preston ordered. I did and immediately regretted it. “Jeez, Baker. You smell like a medicine cabinet.”

  “Sorry, it’s a kind of lotion for sore muscles,” I said, leaving Early’s name out of the mix.

  The boys leaned forward with an air of secrecy as Robbie Dean set about relieving me of my ignorance. “The Steeplechase was a competition that used to be an annual event among the senior boys. It was named after the horse races that started in Ireland and England where the horses would run a course from one church steeple to another, jumping fences, ditches, creeks, and everything in between.”

  “We’d be hard-pressed to use horses here”—Sam picked up where Robbie Dean left off—“because we don’t have any. But it’s the same idea. You start at the chapel, then head to Dinosaur Log—”

  Robbie Dean smacked him on the back of the head. “Don’t tell him the course, you idjit.”

  “If it’s an annual event, why is the course such a big secret?” I asked.

  “Because they put the kibosh on the Steeplechase after Philip Attwater slipped off Dinosaur Log and nearly broke his neck,” said Preston.

  “Yeah, he had to go and ruin it for everybody,” Sam grumbled. “That’s why anytime someone messes up in a way that messes it up for everyone else, we say, ‘Attaboy, Attwater.’ ”

  Robbie Dean spoke up. “That’s what we should have said to Sam when he ate too many desserts at lunch and threw up. Now we each only get one.”

  “That wasn’t my fault,” Sam insisted. “Coach had us running laps in PE after lunch and—”

  “Yeah, yeah, and I’m sure he apologized right after you hurled three helpings of cherry cobbler on his shoes.”

  “So, does the Fish ever come back? Do you think he could still do the Steeplechase?”

  The guys fell into an awkward silence. “No, he didn’t come back,” Robbie Dean answered, all the bravado gone from his voice. “After graduation, he enlisted. He took it on the chin in France. His whole squad was killed.”

  Nobody said anything more after that, but their silence and their awkward glances at each other made it clear that they preferred not to have their all-star image of the Fish ruined by an outsider coming in and forcing them to view their legend outside the trophy case.

  And no one seemed to have much of an appetite for any more pie.

  8

  I must have fallen into a deep sleep, because I woke up hours later to the first light of dawn on a foggy Saturday morning. My body still ached from my first rowing experience, but I felt the need to get up and move.

  Without really knowing where I would go or what I would do, I put on my sweats and headed out into the mist, first walking, then running. The air was damp, and I felt beads of moisture on my face and neck. The world around me was gray and quiet. I settled into the rhythm of my running. And let my thoughts run as well.

  Steeplechase. It reminded me of the landmarks back home. The church steeple, windmill, silo, grain elevator. All could be seen from miles away. I knew where I was when I was there. But the very name of it captured my imagination. Steeplechase. It seemed a quest of sorts, like the quest for the Holy Grail—the runner searching from steeple to steeple, overcoming obstacles along the way.

  And the Fish. To hear those boys talk about him, he must have been like Sir Galahad himself—courageous, adventurous, honorable. And he’d completed the Steeplechase faster than any boy ever had. No wonder he had become such a legend at Morton Hill.

  I found myself running faster and faster, downhill, up-hill, hurdling rocks and jumping fences, creating my own steeplechase as I went. My lungs were bursting and my heart was pounding. Was I trying to beat the legendary Fish? We probably weren’t even running the same course. Was I chasing after him? What made him run so fast? The way I figured it, anybody runs that fast, they’re either chasing after something or running away from it. Which was it for the Fish? Which was it for me?

  Then I saw the log. I could understand why they called it Dinosaur Log. It looked like a long-necked brontosaurus stretched out over that waterfall and the rocks below. Sam had let slip that it was part of the Steeplechase. I stopped, my breath coming out in puffs of air as if from a dragon. A dragon being stared down by a brontosaurus.

  I took the challenge and stepped onto the log. It was slippery with mist and moss, about twenty feet across. I figured it should only take about as many steps, but the sound of rushing water crashing against the rocks below, and the thought of Philip Attwater’s nearly broken neck, made me pause. Still, the challenge lay before me and had to be met. I inched my way out, beyond where I could easily turn back. A few more steps, then I was halfway. That was when a double whammy happened. It started raining and I looked down.

  The rain was falling at a slant, pelting me from the side, forcing me to shift my weight just to stand upright. I’d been in some stiff Kansas winds, but not while standing on a slippery log over a waterfall. My thick sweats hung heavy and clung to my skin. There were only three ways to go: forward, backward, or straight down. The rocks below, jagged and sharp, sent a shiver up my back.

  I was halfway, I reasoned. Even if I turned back, that would be the equivalent of the full length of the whole log. But I wouldn’t have crossed it. Wasn’t that the whole point? To cross? To get to the other side? But for what? There was nothing different ov
er there. Just the same rain, the same grass. And what other obstacles would I encounter?

  I don’t know if it was fear of falling or fear of getting across that turned me back, but I maneuvered myself around and inched my way off the log.

  My arms and legs shook with cold and fatigue. I shoved my hands in the wet front pocket of my sweatshirt and listened to my shoes make squishing sounds as I walked back to school. Mom used to say, Get out of the rain before it washes all the dry off. By the time I got back to campus, every bit of dry had been washed clean away.

  I knew the dorm would be full of rowdy boys just waking up to their Saturday. So I veered in the other direction, hoping to find an open door to the school, where I knew I had a change of clothes in my locker.

  The hot shower water felt good on my cold skin and aching muscles. I let it warm me for several minutes before putting on a fresh pair of denims, a long-sleeved shirt, and dry socks. Unfortunately, I didn’t have different shoes to put on, so I walked down the hall to the library in my stocking feet.

  I stared at the picture of him in his Morton Hill Academy sweatshirt, his hair slicked back, smiling that smile. I remembered feeling sorry for Number 67, the Fish, the last time I’d been here. I’d felt pity for him because of all that he had yet to learn about life’s cruelties. But something had changed. He was dead. There was no plaque memorializing him. No date to say when he was killed in action. But then, this trophy case wasn’t meant for that. It was meant only to lock its inhabitants in a particular time and place. To make its onlookers share forever in their glory days.

  The Fish. Did his exuberant face seem not so exuberant anymore? Where I had once felt pity, I now felt kinship.

  If the Nook was the shrine of the school, the trophy case had become a sort of shrine for me, a place to pay homage to the Fish, my patron saint. I remembered touching his boat and sending up a wish, a prayer of sorts. But, I reminded myself, the only answer I’d gotten was that Early kid lecturing me about how horrible a rower I was.

  So much for wishes or prayers, I thought.

  I padded out of the library so quietly that even if somebody had been there, they’d never have known I was gone.

  9

  The rain was still coming down, and I’d either have to put on my wet tennis shoes to go back to the dorm or take off my socks and walk in my bare feet. I stood at the door, watching the rain make rivers on the window of the side door to the school, feeling the cold of the cement stairs creeping through my socks. Barefoot it was.

  Then I heard a woman’s voice—singing.

  It was a rich, soulful voice full of tenderness and heartache. Something in me hurt like a wounded joint that aches when it rains. The voice was coming from the basement. As I walked down a couple of stairs, it dawned on me that it had been a while since I’d heard a woman’s voice at all. Oh, there had been the ladies from church who’d brought over casseroles after my mom died, but they usually spoke only in sympathetic whispers. The woman at the funeral home was old, and she smoked, so her voice was deeper than my father’s. And there was Miss B., the librarian, but she spoke in a hushed librarian voice.

  No. I crept closer. This was the voice of a whole different kind of woman. She sang of wishing on the moon and begging of the stars. It was a song of dreams and longing.

  As I got closer to the custodian’s workshop, I could hear a crackly, whirring sound and realized with some disappointment that the singing was from a record. I remembered what Early Auden had said. He listened to Louis Armstrong on Mondays, Frank Sinatra on Wednesdays, Glenn Miller on Fridays, and Mozart on Sundays. Unless it was raining.

  If it’s raining, it’s always Billie Holiday.

  I had heard of Billie Holiday, the jazz and blues singer, but I’d never really listened to her sing. Her voice mixed with the music like molasses with warm butter.

  I stood just outside the door, listening, glad I was out of the rain, when I recognized a familiar smell. Wood. Wood shavings, cut wood, split wood. I breathed in deeply. It smelled like my dad’s workshop. And kind of like a soap box car.

  Suddenly, I had a feeling I knew what Early was doing. I walked in, and there he was, leaning over the Sweetie Pie, laid out on a wooden frame. He had knocked out several sections of warped boards and was working at unscrewing the seat rigging.

  I opened my mouth to tell him thanks but no thanks. I really wasn’t serious about building a better boat.

  “Her real name is Eleanora Fagan,” Early said before I could speak.

  “Whose real name?” I said, irritated at how he just jumped into a conversation, making me feel two steps behind.

  “Billie Holiday’s. I wondered if she changed it so people wouldn’t confuse her with Eleanor Roosevelt. But I don’t see how they could be confused, because one’s white and one’s Negro. Do you know which one is white and which is Negro?”

  “Yes, Early, I know which is which.” My irritation subsided a little. He was odd, but in a funny way.

  “Plus, one is a singer and one was the president’s wife.”

  “Yup, it’d be pretty hard to confuse the two of them.”

  The room smelled not only of wood, but also of other shop items, like kerosene, glue, and varnish. It was warm and homey. I picked up an oar and ran my finger along its rough paddle.

  “That blade needs smoothing,” Early said, handing me a square of sandpaper. Of course it wouldn’t be called a paddle. That would be too common—and make too much sense. I began sanding. There was something reassuring about the rough splinters giving way to a fresh smoothness underneath.

  “Maybe her real name was Billie Holiday all along but she had to earn it. Just like Pi.”

  I didn’t answer, not sure if I wanted to hear more about his imaginary story made up of numbers.

  “Remember that part, Jackie? The part where Pi wants to go explore and his mother says to keep his eye on the stars? Remember that? And she names the North Star after him. Polaris. Remember?”

  “Yeah, I remember,” I said, still sanding. “But he hadn’t earned his name yet.”

  “Right. So, you want to hear what happens next?”

  “No. That mathematician Mr. Blane knows of—Dr. Stanton—he’s going to present his theory next month about pi ending. He says one number has already disappeared and eventually pi will die out.”

  “Stop that! You don’t know what you’re talking about.” Early moved quickly to sit on his cot. He grabbed a jar of jelly beans off the shelf, poured them out onto his bed, and started sorting them by color. I guess he did that to calm himself down. But at one point he just quit sorting. His hands lay at his sides, and he stared off into space. His eyes blinked and fluttered a few times. I wouldn’t have called it a full-blown fit, but I knew he was having one of those seizures the boys talked about. Just as I started to think that maybe I should go for help, he came out of it.

  “I know where he is,” Early said, as if nothing had happened.

  “Where who is?” I was confused.

  “Pi. That professor says pi ends, but I know where he is.”

  “He’s not talking about your character. It’s the number that will end.” But I could see that for Early, they were one and the same.

  “Sometimes he’s hard to find for a while, but he always comes back. I always find him.” Early kept sorting the jelly beans into neat groups of red, orange, yellow, green, blue.

  Billie Holiday’s voice trailed off, one song ending and another one beginning. Early replaced the jelly beans in the jar, then flipped his chalkboard around, revealing rows of numbers. “See, it’s right here that he gets in his boat. These numbers, see how they look wavy, like the ocean?”

  … 3285345768 …

  “No, they don’t look wavy. They’re just numbers. And you’re making up a story to go along with them. I get it. It’s pretty creative.”

  Early balled his fists again. “They’re not just numbers. And I’m not making up a story. The story is in the numbers. Look at them! The
numbers have colors—blues of the ocean and sky, green grass, a bright-yellow sun. The numbers have texture and landscape—mountains and waves and sand and storms. And words—about Pi and about his journey. The numbers tell a story. And you don’t deserve to hear it.”

  Early moved the record-player needle, cutting off Billie Holiday in the middle of a heartfelt song. He set it back down on the crackling empty space and sat on his cot with his back to me.

  I stared at his back for a minute. He was right. I probably didn’t deserve to hear it. But I didn’t want to go back to the dorm, and the lonely sound of the record crackling in the empty space made my heart ache as if it had been rowing hard for a long time.

  “So, these numbers … the wavy ones. What do they say?”

  Early didn’t turn around. His voice was quiet.

  “That’s where the sea gets rough.”

  Student of the Ocean

  THE YOUNG NAVIGATOR had set off by the light of the stars. But they were soon covered by clouds, and the sea grew rough.

  Pi had lived his entire life next to the sea, and he knew it well. He knew its moods and whims. Its tides and swells. The sound of its playful splash and spray lapping at the sandy shore, as well as that of its waves crashing against the rocks. The salt and brine had worked their way into every pore of his skin. He knew the sea. Or so he thought. But as his voyage began, Pi realized he knew only what the ocean had let him know. What it had deemed necessary for him to know. But now—now that the ocean had allowed him in, it enveloped him with the fury and passion of a master teacher. And Pi had much to learn.

  The sea tossed him to and fro, making him cling to his little boat while he retched and heaved and shivered. Until finally the sea dashed Pi’s boat against jagged rocks and spit him out on the shore of a distant island. But Pi was angry and turned his back on the ocean. He didn’t need a teacher. He would learn the lessons he wanted to learn. And he did learn—that eating all your provisions in a day will leave you hungry the next, and starving the next after that. That yelling at the stars through the night and sleeping through the day will produce a sore throat and scorched skin. And that kicking a wrecked boat will not fix it.