Gifted (5 page)

The poor mucous-secreting thing was trying desperately to pull itself into its shell and no doubt praying like crazy to the big, slimy snail god that we wouldn't develop a sudden craving for escargot.

“The snail's main part is its foot,” I said, “but it seems this little guy doesn't want us to see his.” Then I got an idea. I took out the pen and hiked my leg up. “This,” I announced,
“is the typical foot of the moon snail.” I drew a diagram on my knee. I had their rapt attention. “The head is actually right inside the foot, and this little gizmo,” I continued, turning it into a pretty elaborate drawing, “is its mouth, right below the head. The teeth are razor sharp.” These I drew in a zigzag fashion.

I had no idea what I was doing, but it seemed to be going over well. Never in all my life had so many female eyes been focused on my knee.

And then she touched me.
Allison Picone put her index finger right on my knee
.

“You mean all of that is in their foot?”

I could not answer. Her finger was still on my knee. Then somebody broke the spell.

“I wonder how they
do it
.”

I had no idea who said this, but it brought a tittering laugh from the assembled hags.
Typical
, I thought. But since Allison looked at me inquiringly, I tried to explain.

“The snail is actually a hermaphrodite, meaning it has both male and female parts,” and to illustrate, I drew what I hoped would resemble a genital orifice on my snail-foot picture. My experience in these matters is pretty limited.

“Ohhh, he means like
Mr. Zimmerman
,” Brooke Walters cried. This was, of course, followed by more tittering laughter.

“Like, as you say, Mr. Zimmerman”—I tried laughing along—“except I doubt Mr. Zimmerman's private parts are in his foot.” I didn't like where this was going.

Then Allison leaned right over my leg, and the air temperature rose a good ten or twenty degrees.

“This is so amazing, George. How do you know all this stuff?”

I almost blurted out that I spent a lot of time watching public television but saved myself before it was too late.

“Oh, one picks these things up here and there,” I said nonchalantly, and the next thing I knew the two of us were locked in a visual embrace.
A full five-second one
. I stared at her hard with my eyes opened as wide as I could get them for fear I should blink, right up until Mrs. Bruder very rudely unlocked us, yoo-hooing for her team to join her on the beach. The Ugly Ones got up at once and began climbing away.

“Can I keep it?” Allison asked shyly.

“Of course you can!” I handed over the shellfish, wishing it were a large smelly diamond instead. “The good thing about snails is if you lose one, you can be sure that another one will come along any minute!”

“Why, thank you, George!” she said, pronouncing each vowel in my name to perfection as she dropped the creature into her bucket.

When she was out of earshot, my worshipping eyes following every move of her dainty descent, Anita stood up in her crater.

“ANOTHER ONE WILL COME ALONG ANY MINUTE?”

Anita drew a deep breath. I could tell that she was trying to compose herself. It looked as if she were counting to ten.

“George … you are the biggest jerk that ever lived. If you ever do that again, I will cram your head in between these rocks and let the seagulls eat you alive.”

She climbed down the rocks away from me, in a real
violent manner, then stopped to shoot a glare at me over her shoulder.

“AND THEY CAN SMELL HERSHEY BARS FROM A MILE AWAY.”

Ouch
, I thought.
Well, that stung
. It seemed that I was going to have to make it up to her. Something on a grand scale was in order. I mulled it over as I climbed down, and as I reached the sand it came to me.

I'd send Anita a really
big
basket of fruit.

On the itinerary the hour from two o'clock to three o'clock was designated as Free Time. Anita and I staked out a big shady tree, and after making sure it was clear of any unidentified crawling objects, I took off my backpack and we sprawled at its mossy base. I unwrapped a Hershey bar and broke off a little rectangle. My hand, I noticed, smelled distinctly fishy. Now, ordinarily this would have gagged me, but instead it brought back fond memories of my time on the beach with Allison Picone. I would be careful not to wash it for as long as I could. The ink sketch on my knee I would protect as the maharaja would his favorite ruby.

I let out a contented sigh and opened my book. Anita stuck her hand out, palm up, right under my nose. “You know, you really ought to wash your hands,” I said. “They're pretty disgusting.”

“Give me a candy bar, you jerk,” Anita snapped. “God knows I deserve one more than you do.”

The point was debatable, but I dug another bar of
chocolate out of my jacket to appease her, and we both assumed our favorite positions, me reading and her writing. Every now and then I sensed her glaring at me through a couple of narrow eye slits and felt sure that I had become the subject of a comparatively nasty piece of literature.

I don't know if you've ever read
A Tale of Two Cities
. It's required reading in ninth grade, but I'd read it for the first time years ago. It takes place during the French Revolution, a fascinating period of history if you happen to be French, but as I said before, what kept me rereading it was how one guy finds another guy who looks just like him, and the other guy steps in and takes the first guy's punishments, and for no very good reason at all, in my opinion.

I was at the chapter where the first guy, Charles, is being drugged in his prison cell by the second guy, Sydney Carton, so that they can make the secret switch and Sydney Carton can sidle off to the guillotine in place of Charles. Talk about a pal. When suddenly, I knew nothing but pain. A football whapped me in my stomach like a cannonball fired at close range. The book flew out of my hands, and as I lay back against the tree, gazing up at the sun-dappled leaves above, preparing to black out, a face thrust itself into my field of vision. It was Sam Toselli.

“I'm sorry,” he said kindly. “Did I get you, George?”

“You got me,” I told him, coughing a little. He yanked me by the arm to a sitting position as gently as any ape could.

“Is this yours?” he asked. He was referring to my book. Now, on any other given day he would have kicked it for a field goal, but today he picked it up, brushed the cover off with a muscular forearm, and handed it to me.

“Thanks,” I said, stunned, dusting off his football in return. He took the ball and trotted off.

“If you want to play with us,” he turned and yelled in a very nice way, “just come on out!”

“Maybe later!” I yelled back.

Anita peered around the tree and caught me grinning to myself.

“Hey, Donovan McNabb! Let me know when later gets here so I can have the paramedics standing by.”

Well, I wasn't going to dignify
that
remark with a response, so I treated her to my best and nastiest sideways glare and, sitting with the book closed in my lap, gave myself up to a little quiet reflection.
My dad was right! I
am
spending too much of my time with Anita. If I want to make friends, I have to bond with Them. Get to know Them. Let Them get to know me. I can't do that if I spend all of my time with her!

I stood up, having made a decision. I tied the sleeves of my jacket around my waist a little tighter and picked up my backpack. If I was going to try my hand at football, then I would have to change the shorts. There was no sense in letting people get to know me
too
well.

I felt Anita's eyes on my back as I sauntered off into the bright sunlight toward my cabin. I hadn't said goodbye because I hadn't felt like it, but I turned around to give her my dirtiest smirk, and thought,
Put that in your book. I've got better things to do
.

Changing my shorts into something suitable for the rougher athletics turned out to be a challenge. My mom, in her infinite wisdom, had filled my duffel bag with plenty of casual day wear, but only one pair of gym shorts. They were the official school-endorsed kind that we all had to wear to Phys. Ed. class, basic gray with
Parks Middle School down each leg. I must have been the only kid who'd brought a pair of these beauties with him to camp, and found myself hoping that one day my mother would leave her brain to science so that the mysteries of my life might be revealed.

I wasn't going to be caught dead in those shorts. I put my brain to work, and in an instant I was rummaging through my backpack for my swimming trunks. These said Speedo on the leg, but I solved that. I turned them wrong side out; ripped off the protective netting, so that they were now a solid expanse of navy blue; and pulled my T-shirt way down to cover the label on the back seam that was now flapping about.

I strode into the Compound to find my teammates, but there were no games of any kind taking place. Just a few aimless students wandering around aimlessly, and here and there a cluster of teachers dotting the landscape. I decided the game must have moved itself to the beach.

When I got there, it was easy to spot the Bruise Brothers dead ahead, and They appeared to be having some bone-crunching good fun. No shoes. No helmets or pads. I decided right away that I would
not
be joining Their numbers. After all, I had to protect the eyewear.

I was just retracing my steps up the pathway when I heard the sound of puffing and snorting from behind. It surprised me to find that it was Sam Toselli and not a charging rhino who'd seized my shoulder to spin me around.

“Hey! George!” he panted. “Where you goin'? You need to help us out there.”

“I … uh … think I need more sunblock.”
Sunblock? Is that the best I can do?
“I'm beginning to burn,” I told him feebly.

“That's good,” Sam said. “Girls like that.” He led me forcibly toward the playing field, and I wondered if that were true, if girls really did like blisters and peeling skin. Or maybe they just thought it rugged playing fast and loose with melanoma.
Here's my chance to find out
, I thought. Close by on a blanket in the sand sat the Ugly Girlfriends. And right in the middle of the coven sat Allison Picone.

They had come to watch the football game.

The thing about distance and perspective, visually I mean, is that even the biggest things seem kind of small and manageable when you're not up close to them. Take the football “huddle,” for instance. The rest of the guys were crouching, so I crouched, too, but after a while I grew tired and straightened up, and They were still bigger than me. I prayed a silent, heartfelt prayer. Not to shine in front of Allison Picone, of course, because that was clearly out of the question. I asked only that if an ambulance needed to be summoned, to please make it an ambulance well stocked with morphine. One had to be practical.

I crouched again and looked at Sam, who was drawing some sort of pattern in the sand with his big meaty finger. I decided to come clean.

“Guys,” I said, “before anybody goes and says ‘hut,' I think you should know I don't really know how to play this. The rules, I mean. I don't quite get them.”

This produced one or two grunts from the circle but actual words from Gabriel Arno.

“All you need to know is, if you get the ball, you run that way.” He stabbed the air with a vicious thumb. “Do you get that?”

“I got that!” I said, nodding confidently, thinking,
But I don't want it!
So I sent up another heartfelt prayer.
Please, whatever happens, don't let me get the ball!
Then after a sharp clap, They fled the huddle, leaving my lonely applause as a bit of an afterthought, and the contest was on.

Now, the funny thing about football from the fan's point of view is that you can never really tell what anybody on the field is doing. I mean it's almost impossible to tell who has the ball. Everyone's just sort of prancing around out there in a purposeful athletic way. But I wished I'd been following the play a bit more closely so that I could have steered well clear of the ballcarrier because the next thing I knew, Drew Lewis had caught my attention by screaming “GEORGE,” and a moment later I found that I had become the ball's latest recipient. It flew at me like a heat-seeking missile, and it bit deep into the flesh of my underarm.

All I could think was
damn!
And next, all I could think was
run!
because the oversized members of the opposition were making a beeline straight for me. They were rushing me, crowding me,
thirsting for my blood
. So I dodged and I sidestepped. I ducked and I weaved. Then I gritted my teeth and ran like the blazes, and somehow managed to maintain my presence of mind long enough to remember which way to go. I ran in the direction of Allison.

The opposing team must have read my thoughts exactly; They had positioned Themselves between me and
the goal line. All I could see were sinewy arms in the foreground, bunching and flexing and preparing to thrash me to pieces. Horrified, I tried to brake early and come to a halt, but my lightning-fast momentum, combined with slippery sand and basic quantum mechanics, made me slide headfirst instead. And I slid that way, horrified, the next few feet, shooting right through the legs of my nearest opponent before I finally came to a stop.

It took a moment to pull my head out of the sand, and another to see that I was sprawled over the goal line, and a third for the opposition to reach me. Four hundred pounds of finely tuned athletic prowess descended in a pile upon my back. My head was pushed into the sand again.

Still I managed to hear whoops and cheers exploding in the field behind me. Noises I had heard from a distance many times in the past, but never before in my honor. I wanted to enjoy them, but I couldn't, even after the excess weight had shed itself from my back. Instead I got up painfully, coughed out some sand, and felt a friendly hand bash me on the back of the skull. My eyewear bounced right off my face.