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Authors: Jack Gantos

BOOK: Jack's New Power
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“Let me see what you've written,” he commanded. He was angry. He picked up his drink and finished it. When he lowered his glass his eyes were red and narrow. My grandmother had once said to me, “Alcohol can turn the gentlest lamb into a lion.” I believed her.
“Give me that.” He held out his hand.
“No,” I said. “When Mom gave me the diary she said it was mine.”
He groaned and rolled his eyes. “Your mother told you that?”
“Yes.”
Mom took a deep breath and let it all out slowly. “Anyway,” she said to Dad, “I don't want to talk about it tonight.”
Dad took a step toward me. I bit my lip. Here he comes, I thought. Don't look away. No matter what he does, don't look away. He's going to grab my diary and toss it across the room and take out his belt. But he didn't. He ran his hands through his hair, turned, and left the room.
“If I were you,” Mom said once he was safely down the hall, “I wouldn't try this stunt too many times.”
Why not? I thought to myself. It worked. I'll do it a hundred times in a row if I want to.
“And another thing,” she said. “I don't like your attitude.”
Great! I thought. I could feel the new power in me. The power to annoy her.
“I think you need to go to your room,” she said.
“Fine with me,” I replied. “It will give me more time to write all this down in my diary.”
She groaned. I could tell she regretted getting me a diary. But it was too late to take it back.
I stood up and retreated down the hall. I was feeling very powerful as I closed and locked my bedroom door. I opened my French doors and stepped out. I climbed up into the avocado tree and looked up and down the street. I was taller than any of the houses. I was taller than Dad. “The pen is mightier than the sword,” I whispered. I finally understood what that meant.
 
A few days later Mom opened my bedroom door and sat on the edge of my bed. She had just returned from having her hair and nails done. “I have something to tell you,” she said seriously. “Sit down.”
I sat next to her and sniffed the air. She smelled like hair spray and nail-polish remover and lots of gardenia perfume. I took a deep breath and held it in.
“I spoke with Grandma and have decided to go up and visit her for a month. I'm taking Pete and Eric … but you and Betsy have to stay here.”
“Why?” I blurted. “I'm always left behind.” I felt betrayed.
“Because your father and I had a talk and agreed that if we stay in Barbados longer than the summer … maybe for a long time … you will have to get ready for school here.”
“But it's July,” I said.
“July!”
She paused. “You have to go to summer school,” she
said. “The school system here is more advanced than in Florida. If you don't go to summer school to catch up, you'll have to repeat sixth grade.”
“No way.” I groaned. Florida was screwing me up again. I had told her my last school was for simpletons only, but she didn't believe me. Now she knows, and I have to suffer the consequences. As
usual.
“Which means,” Mom continued, “that you have to stay here with Betsy and Dad for a month. I know this is not fun, but Marlene will cook and keep your clothes clean and you are old enough to be responsible.”
“I'm old enough when you want me to be responsible so you can do what you want. But I'm always
too young
when it comes to doing what I want.”
“You're not a kid anymore,” she said. “You are a young man. Act like one.” She stood up. “I don't want to hear any back talk,” she said in her bossy voice. “You understand that this is the best situation we can work out for everyone. This whole family doesn't revolve around you and your needs.” She frowned, which meant she had spoken the Truth According to Mom and that was that. She left the room.
“You've just thrown me to the wolves,” I shouted. “The
wolves
!”
She opened the door and smiled at me. She was so beautiful I forgot to be mad. “Your sister said the same thing,” she said, and laughed. She glided toward me and gave me a big hug. “You know,” she said, “I think this will give you and your dad some time together to smooth out some of your friction.”
“What do you mean?” I asked. I was pretty sure our
relationship was about winning and losing, about who was the boss and who was the peon.
“You know what I mean,” she said. “You're getting older and you are starting to bump heads with your dad.”
I wasn't ready to discuss it, so I changed the subject. “I'll miss you,” I said.
“I'll miss you more than you'll miss me,” she replied, and became teary-eyed, which made me feel like a jerk for ever saying anything mean to her. Even though she was leaving me with Dad and Betsy for a month, she was my mom. It was my job to be nice to her, no matter what.
 
Two days later they were gone and Betsy and I were eating dinner with Dad. Marlene served a platter of flying fish and okra.
“I love this fish,” I said to Marlene.
“Thank you,” she said in her formal voice. When she passed me, she bent forward and whispered, “We'll have chicken hearts this week.”
“Yum.”
“Tomorrow,” Dad started, delivering the opening word to the evening announcements, “the driver will pick you up and take you to the prep school. Marlene will have your lunches packed. After school you'll come directly home and do your studies. Marlene will have dinner for you every night at six. If I'm not home, eat without me and be in bed by nine. Any questions?”
Betsy didn't argue with him. I didn't either. I pulled my plate close to my chest, lowered my mouth, and scraped the food in.
“Look at him,” Betsy said arrogantly. “He uses BoBo II's
rules of eating. First, eat everything as quickly as possible. Second, eat everything you dropped on the table or floor. Third, wash it down by slurping loudly. Fourth, nose around for more. Fifth, when there is no more, lick your lips and drift away.”
I stared at Dad. If Mom were here she would ask Betsy to apologize.
Dad laughed. “You know,” he said to Betsy as if I weren't present, “the best way to feed Jack would be to put a funnel in his mouth and just pour it down his throat.”
Now it was her turn to laugh. Without Mom, I was a Ping-Pong ball whacked back and forth.
“May I be excused?” I asked, and was halfway out of my chair.
“Only if you'll get our fishing gear organized,” Dad said. “I thought you'd like to join me.”
“All right.” I loved to fish.
I ran into the kitchen and called Shiva. We were supposed to go running later on.
“I'm tired, anyway,” he said, after I canceled. “I'm sluggish.”
“I have a cure for that. Whenever I'm sluggish, Mom always gives me prunes and warm water. I guarantee that in no time you'll be on the run.”
“Really?”
“Cross my heart,” I said. “You'll be running like a fiend.”
“Okay,” he replied. “I'll try it.”
I put down the phone and headed for the garage. I got our rods, tackle boxes, net, and gaff hook, then loaded it all into the truck. I knew the routine.
When Dad arrived we drove to the St. Lawrence Gap, a stone jetty starting from the back of the St. Lawrence Hotel. It curved out into the ocean like a hundred-foot-long question mark. We carried our gear to the tip and got set up. The ocean was calm. The swells slowly brushed along the rocks and sighed as they broke across the sand.
“The first one to catch a fish gets to send the other guy to the bar to get drinks,” Dad said.
“Okay.” It was a fair deal. That's what I liked about fishing. It put us on equal ground. You cast out your line and the fish don't know the difference between a man and a boy.
Dad reared back and cast his chrome triple-hooked spinner. The line spun off the reel.
Plop.
It landed about fifty yards away. He let it sink down and slowly reeled it in with his thumb pressed against the spool of line to feel for bites. He was going for big bottom feeders like grouper and trigger fish.
I took a different approach. I opened my tackle box and attached a bobber to my line, then got my secret weapon, a dragonfly. I put it on the hook and gently cast it out so it floated about twenty feet from the rocks. I was after surface feeders, especially red snapper, which was my favorite. Together we stood there with our rods pressed against our bellies like two guys peeing off a dock.
Suddenly my bobber went under. I counted. One, two, three. I jerked back on the rod to set the hook, and reeled it in. The fish didn't put up much of a fight, but it was the first one caught—a bluegill about the size of my hand.
“I won,” I hollered. “I'll take a Lemon Squash.”
“You didn't win,” he replied. “That's not a fish. That's bait.”
“You didn't say how big it had to be. You just said it had to be a fish.”
“Well, you cheated,” he said. “Anyone can catch a fish like that. I could have just stuck the net in the water and caught one of those. Now
you
have to get the drinks.”
“No way,” I said. “I won. You haven't caught anything yet.”
“Don't argue with me,” he replied. “You cheated. Besides, I'm paying. Now fetch. I'll take a Banks in the bottle. And tell the bartender your dad wants it ice-cold.”
I threw my fish back into the water and took the money from his hand.
Bully,
I thought to myself. There is no winning with someone who won't play by the rules.
By the time I returned he had seen a few of his friends and waved them over. They sat down on the rocks to shoot the breeze and I couldn't get a word in edgewise.
I recast my line and drank my soda. I should have talked Shiva into running, I thought. It would be a lot more fun than watching Dad and his pals talk. And then I remembered what I told him about the prunes. I hoped he didn't take my advice. I was sure he knew better. Everyone knew what prunes could do to you.
 
The next morning Betsy and I were standing at the edge of the driveway. I looked up at Dad's window. It was still broken.
“Don't you get tired of being treated like a kid?” I asked.
She frowned. “Nobody treats me like a kid.”
“Well, don't you hate it when adults say things like,
Do as I say, don't do as I do.”
“I just ignore them,” she said.
“Doesn't it bug you that you never get a vote on where to live, what to eat, where to go to school, what clothes to buy?”
“What are you whining about?” she shot back. “You are always complaining about something. You are the
last
person I would want making decisions around here. If it wasn't for Dad, you'd be living in a refrigerator box and raiding garbage cans for dinner.”
I could tell whose side she was on. I missed Pete already. He usually agreed with me. A month of Betsy and Dad and I'd be a nervous wreck.
We were standing at the edge of the driveway when a car raced up the street and aimed straight for us. It was a big old American car with a huge hood ornament, and as it got closer it looked like a charging rhinoceros. Betsy stood her ground, but I jumped behind a fence post as it hit the brakes and skidded to a stop.
“Get in,” squeaked a little voice.
The driver was a bug-eyed maniac. He was skinny, sat on a pillow, and scratched at a bald spot on his head that looked like a rug burn. He smoked unfiltered cigarettes and had a lead foot. Betsy took the front seat and sneered at him. I climbed in the back with two boys who must have been brothers, about my age and Pete's. They were pale, sweaty, and terrified. We took off with a lurch and peeled rubber up to the corner, where he took the right-hand turn
without slowing to look. The car tilted like a canoe about to flip over. I tumbled across the seat and crunched into the two boys. They both grabbed their crotches and moaned.
“Sorry,” I mumbled. The car straightened out and we raced a taxi to the red light, where we came to a screeching stop. The three of us bounced off the back of the front seat and fell to the floor. When I pulled myself up I was thrown back as the light turned green and our driver floored it. Betsy had her shoes propped against the dashboard and her right hand gripped the overhead strap. Her left hand was pressed against the side of the maniac's face, so he could only see with one eye. “Slow down!” she yelled.
He laughed and speeded up, then jerked his head out the window to get a better view. The engine roared as he pulled out to pass a line of slower cars and bicycles.

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