Jack Adrift (8 page)

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Authors: Jack Gantos

BOOK: Jack Adrift
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That night at the dinner table Dad asked, “Has anyone seen my copy of
Kon-Tiki?
I have ten pages left and want to know if that boat sank or reached land.”
I knew I had to change the subject. “You won't believe what I found,” I announced to Betsy. “A freak of nature.”
“That was just you looking into a mirror,” she said.
“No,” I said. “I found a duck with backward feet.”
“I don't believe you,” she said flatly.
Everyone else looked suspicious. I jumped up and retrieved Quack from my room.
“But what can we do to help him?” I asked. I set him on the table and he toppled forward, beak first into the butter dish. “His own mother left him behind.”
Mom picked him up and began to wipe his beak with her napkin.
“He's the weak link,” said Betsy. “He has to be left behind to die. This is how each species rids itself of defects.”
“Then why'd we keep you?” I shot back.
“So I could grow up and crush you,” she replied.
“Well, maybe backward feet are not a defect,” I said. “Maybe they are the beginning of something new and good. Maybe with his feet on backward he can swim faster in reverse and avoid trouble. Not everything strange is a problem. Look at flounders. They have eyes on one side of their head, which I think is clever, not ugly and weird. I wish we had eyes in the palms of our hands so we could stick them out and see around corners and in cracks and up over the tops of things. People might evolve in ways we don't even know yet. Maybe backward feet on a duck isn't a defect, it's
evolution
.”
“Well, you've evolved into an idiot!” Betsy declared. She stood up and marched toward her room.
“Let's take him to the vet,” Mom suggested. “Maybe she can do something.” She set him on the table and he fell forward again.
“Yeah,” Dad said, flicking cigarette ashes onto his dinner plate. “She'll be eating duck for supper. Betsy's right. You should put the duck out in the wild, and if it survives with backward feet, then fine. But if not, well, that's nature's way of keeping the species pure.”
“But we can help,” Mom said, petting him. “We don't let children die if they are born with a problem. We save them. We are a species that has learned to right some of the wrongs that are found in nature. We should take the duck to a vet.”
“I'm saying,” Dad said, “that if nature wanted that duck to live, it would have given him forward-facing feet.”
“I guess,” I said quietly. But something in me really felt for that little duck. Somehow I felt my crush on Miss Noelle was as backward as the duck's feet. We were both all turned around. I wanted to ask Mom what kind of doctor could give me a cure, but I didn't want to bring up the subject because I knew everyone would make fun of me.
The next day I didn't turn in anything to Miss Noelle. “I'm working on finding just the right book,” I mumbled when she asked about my choice. I didn't look up at her or else I would start daydreaming again. I was
like a person on a diet who didn't dare even glance at the refrigerator.
After school I carried Quack to the vet's office. I had always wanted to go inside because her building was shaped like Noah's Ark, with the heads of painted plywood animals looking out fake ark windows.
I was in luck. The vet had just finished with her last patient and took us right away.
“I've never seen anything like this before,” she said. “Poor duck probably had its feet twisted around backward inside the egg and they didn't spring back around.”
“My sister said it should die,” I said.
“Well,” she replied, “I feel differently. Once something is alive, it is our job to help it in life.”
“That's what my mom thought,” I said.
“You know,” she said, “whenever I see an animal that people give up on I always remember Wilbur in
Charlotte's Web.
If it wasn't for Fern, he would have been sausage instead of being ‘radiant.'”
I gave her a knowing glance because that was one of my favorite books and hers, too. “What can we do?” I asked.
“I think I can break the legs and twist them back around,” she said. “I'll wrap them until they heal. It sounds awful but I think it will work.”
“How much will that cost?”
“A good bit,” she said.
“Can I work it off?”
“Sure,” she replied. “We can do a barter deal.”
“One more thing,” I asked. “Do you happen to have a copy of
Charlotte's Web
I can borrow?”
“Yeah,” she said pointing toward the door. “There are about a half-dozen of them in my waiting room. That book changed my life. That's why I became a vet. I was like Fern. I couldn't stand to see Wilbur killed.”
“I've always felt a little like Wilbur,” I confessed.
“We all do,” she replied. “Now let me get working on this duck. And come back tomorrow and we'll figure out how you can help me around here.”
“Thanks,” I said, looking up at her with a funny feeling inside. Suddenly she seemed to be the most interesting and wonderful and compassionate person I had ever met. “And I'll work hard, too,” I added.
On the way out the door I grabbed a copy of
Charlotte's Web
. That night I started copying the book. And when I got tired of copying, I flopped across my bed and read. Even though I had read it before, it was still so good I forgot all about my crush on Miss Noelle. Suddenly I realized I didn't need
older, more mature
books. Thinking that
Charlotte's Web
was too young wasn't the point. Discarding a favorite book was like throwing away the duck. That wasn't evolution. We could save the
duck and I could save all the books I had ever read that meant something wonderful to me.
And when I finally finished the book and came up for air, I knew there was nothing I loved more than Charlotte and her children and Fern and Wilbur. Nothing. I had loved them the first time I read about them, and I'd love them forever—and now I just had to figure out which main character I'd dress as for the Reading Roundup.
“I
'm a genius,” Pete said. “watch this.” He stuck the TV remote out the window and pressed the button. I could hear Julian's TV suddenly change channels from a Dick Clark Music Special to a
Combat!
rerun.
All the Seabee families had just received the TVs. Dad and the other recruits had been complaining that they didn't make enough money to buy TVs, so the Navy surprised them with a bonus. A truck pulled up from Sears and each family received a Zenith TV with a remote control. It took Pete only a day to figure out how to drive Julian's dad crazy.
“Dang it,” I heard his dad holler after Pete had changed his channel. “This remote's defective.” Then I heard Dick Clark come on again. “There. That's more like it.”
“Turn it up, Dad!” Julian hollered. I peeked out the window. Julian was hopping up and down on his couch
playing air guitar. He spun around and spastically strummed on his belly as if he were on fire and was trying to put himself out.
Pete carefully aimed our remote at their window as if he were a sniper and in an instant turned their TV to a Tom and Jerry cartoon. We ducked.
“Dang it!” his dad yelled again. “What good's a remote if it has a mind of its own?” He must have thrown it because I could hear it hit the wall and clatter across the floor.
“You broke it!” Julian shouted mournfully.
“No, I didn't,” he replied. “The cover just got knocked loose.”
I started laughing. “That is
so
cool,” I whispered to Pete.
“I'm a genius,” he said matter-of-factly, and tapped himself on the head with the remote.
“No,” I disagreed, “you are just sneaky. You are not a genius. There's a difference.”
“You are dead wrong,” he replied. “I've been thinking a lot lately and I now realize I'm a genius. I've been coming up with all kinds of genius ideas without even trying to think. Like, if you read a book backward the main characters never die. If you sleep all day and stay up all night you'll never need sunglasses. Thoughts just pop into my head. They even make a
popping
sound, like popcorn.”
“More like the sound of a lightbulb blowing,” I said.
Just then there was a knock at the door. It was Julian.
“Here comes trouble,” I whispered. “I bet he's come to tell us his dad is going to beat us to a pulp if we don't stop changing the channels.”
“I'll hide the remote,” Pete said, and headed for the kitchen. “He won't know it was us if we can't find the remote.”
“Sure, Einstein, that's a genius plan,” I said sarcastically.
Julian pounded harder. “Hey, guys,” he hollered. “I'm more than smart-smart-smart enough to know you are in there.”
“We're here,” I confirmed after Pete tossed the remote into the freezer. I walked toward the door. “What's up?”
“I just came to let you know that I'm a genius. I took a Gifted and Talented test at school and they said I'm so smart they might take me out of third grade and put me into fifth—then I'd be more advanced than you.”
The genius virus was spreading faster than measles.
“They said I'm off the charts!” Julian bragged. “Charts! Charts! Charts!”
“They probably mean you are sailing in
uncharted water
,” I suggested.
“No!
Off the charts!
” he repeated clearly. “Like, so smart they don't even have a category for me.”
“Did you cheat?” I asked, squinting hard at him.
“Didn't have to cheat-cheat-cheat,” he said, grinning. “So smart I don't need to.”
“Well, I'm a genius, too,” Pete announced, returning from the kitchen.
Julian's face dropped. It was obvious that he wanted to be the only genius in our Seabee trailer park. “What's your proof?” he asked, challenging Pete.
“Can't tell you,” Pete replied. “It's a secret.”
“Well, you need proof,” Julian insisted, “or I won't believe you.”
“You'll have to take my word for it,” Pete said, and shrugged.
“Forget it,” Julian replied, getting all huffy. “You're lying. You're just jealous of me because I'm smarter than you-you-you are.”
“Don't be a jerk,” Pete said.
“Don't be a jughead!” Julian shot back.
Suddenly Pete leaped on him and they fell over backward out the door and began to roll across the patchy front yard. “Say I'm a genius,” Pete grunted. He was smaller than Julian but had surprised him and now had Julian's face down in the sand.
“You're a moron-moron-moron,” Julian sputtered, and rolled back and forth, trying to shake Pete off.
“Say I'm smarter than you are,” Pete ordered.
“I'm smarter than
you
are,” Julian mimicked.
Pete became furious. He leaned forward and bit Julian on the top of his head.
“Stop it,” I hollered, and ran at them. I grabbed Pete and pulled him away, and as I did so I noticed there was a hank of Julian's hair stuck between Pete's teeth. While Julian wiped the sand from his eyes, I quickly shot my hand out and snatched the hair from Pete's mouth. If Julian saw that, he'd go bonkers.
“Now, I want you two to apologize to each other,” I demanded.
“No-no-no way,” Julian replied. “A genius doesn't have to apologize to a Neanderthal.”
Pete raised his fist.
I stepped between them. “Okay,” I said. “I've had it with this fighting. As far as I'm concerned you are both mini minds. But to settle your argument, tomorrow I'm going to announce the rules of a Genius Test, and whoever wins gets to be the Seabee genius. But I set the rules and I'm the judge. Do you both agree?”
“Let's get it on,” Julian said, squinting evilly.
“You mean, get on your dunce cap,” Pete said, swaggering.
Julian stuck his nose in the air and turned away. As he walked home gently rubbing the sore spot on his scalp I whispered to Pete, “Why did you bite his head?”
“That's where his brain is,” Pete replied. “It was like going for his throat.”
“You're weird,” I said.
“All geniuses are misunderstood,” he replied proudly, and drifted off as if he were a cloud in the shape of himself.
 
By the next afternoon I had come up with a test. The three of us gathered in front of school, where I explained it. “There will be four categories—memory, inventions, sneakiness, and literature.”
“Does that mean I can write a song-song-song for the literature category?” Julian asked.
“Sure,” I said. “But no help from your dad.”
“Can I write a poem?” Pete asked.
“You can write a novel,” I said. “But first we have to work on the first category—memory. Now listen. The true sign of a genius is found in one universal factor,” I announced, “a photographic memory.”
“I have a great memory,” Julian declared, tapping himself on the side of his head. “I'm a living jukebox. I know every song lyric ever recorded.”
“I've never forgotten anything,” Pete bragged. “I even remember the moment I was born.”
“Well, let's do a scientific test to determine if either of you has a genius memory,” I said. “Here's how it's going to work. Today, when we walk home from school I want you to memorize every step of the way—every shell you step on, every curb, every pile of sand, every smell,
every direction we turn—
everything
. And then tomorrow I'll blindfold you both and you'll have to walk home alone and if you have a photographic memory you'll have no problem. You'll make it home safe and sound.”
“Okay,” Pete said, snapping his fingers. “Sounds easy.”
Julian smirked. “I can do that blindfolded
and
walking backward.”
“Whatever,” I said. “Now, let's walk home and along the way remember
everything
.”
They walked home like dogs that had to stop and pee on every bush, every tree, every curb. They sniffed. They counted steps. They licked their fingers and held them up in the wind to mark its direction. It took us forever.
The next day after school I tied a red bandanna around Pete's eyes and one around Julian's. I stood them both on the exact spot in front of the flagpole where we had started the day before. “Ready?” I asked.
“Yes-yes-yes,” Julian said.
“Ditto,” Pete replied.
“Go!”
They started walking tentatively, with their hands held forward, squeezing at the air like blind lobsters. I watched as they slowly meandered across the school's front yard and turned right on the sidewalk. They zigzagged around and past each other like two sailboats
tacking back and forth. “No cheating,” I yelled out, tagging behind.
“Shut up,” Julian yelled back. “I'm concentrating!”
“Yeah,” Pete yelled. “All geniuses need mental solitude.”
“You'll get plenty of that in a nut ward,” I shouted back.
Just then Miss Noelle pulled up beside me. “Hi,” she said, “need a ride home?”
Instantly I forgot all about Julian and Pete. “I'd
love
a ride home,” I said, sounding like Alfalfa having a meltdown in front of Darla. I got in and we zoomed off.
“Who were those two boys?” she asked. “They had their eyes covered up.”
“A couple of morons,” I replied. “I hardly know them. By the way, do you know I'm a genius?”
She looked at me and smiled. “In that case, I think you need some challenging homework,” she said thoughtfully. In a minute she gave me an assignment that combined bird migration and geography and geometry and the rotation of the earth and wind patterns and rainfall charts and insect growth ratios. I was completely mixed up. When she dropped me off in front of my trailer, I was relieved.

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