Jack's New Power (11 page)

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Authors: Jack Gantos

BOOK: Jack's New Power
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I glanced at the two boys.
“Okay,” the older one said to the younger. “Now's your chance. We're on a straight stretch.”
The speedometer needle was up to seventy-five and we were passing everything on the road. If anyone pulled out in front of us we'd be dead meat.
When I turned back toward the boys, I was shocked. They both had their pants down and were pulling plastic bags of pee off their private parts. The bags had been held on with rubber bands. The older brother, who was next to the door, threw his out the window. He then reached for his brother's full bag. It was a delicate operation made even more difficult because the bag was so full. Before he could swing it out the window, we hit a curve at seventy and the three of us were pressed against his door with my face
about an inch away from the dripping pee bag. In an instant we straightened up and he tossed the bag out the window before we took a curve on my side.
When we straightened out again, the younger one attached a fresh pee bag to his privates and yanked his pants back up. I looked at the older brother.
“He scares us so much we wet our pants,” he shouted over the blast of air which was screaming through the open windows. “This is all we can do to stop it.”
Just then the maniac hit the brakes and we went into a sideways skid down a dirt road. We came out of the fishtail and quickly pulled into a driveway. Overhead was a sign which read ARAWAK SUMMER CAMP.
We came to a stop inches from another car and scared the passengers into ducking down. The two boys hopped out. “See you later,” I said, as we spun out in a cloud of dust and flying gravel. Up the road we pulled into another driveway. PRESENTATION YOUTH COLLEGE read the sign.
As soon as we came to a stop, Betsy reached across the dashboard and pulled the keys out of the ignition. She jumped out of her side and threw them into a field of grass.
“Hey! You can't do that,” the maniac squealed. He sounded like an angry Chihuahua.
Betsy raised her fist to his chin. “I just did it,” she growled. “So what are you going to do about it, you little runt?”
He turned and ran into the field. He dropped down onto his knees and scratched up the ground.
“Coward,” she hollered. “It's not nice to scare kids.”
“That goes double for me,” I yelled.
Betsy turned around and gave me the evil eye. “Oh,
shut up,” she carped. “You sound tough now, but all you did was bounce around back there like a bowl of yellow Jell-O.”
She was right. I hadn't lifted a finger to help out.
“What could I have done?” I asked.
“You should have covered his eyes with your hands.”
I imagined just how helpful that would have been. We went inside and found our class assignments, which were listed according to grades. There were half a dozen other kids about my age scattered throughout my room. They weren't Americans, so I figured other countries were also dishing out crummy educations.
I took a seat next to the window so I could daydream. Suddenly a very stubby, thick man marched into the room.
“Rise and stand quiet,” he ordered.
We all stood.
He set his briefcase down on the desk. “My name is Mr. Cucumber,” he said as though he were angry about it. “I've been teaching for ten years. During that time I have expelled ten students. Do you know why?”
I did, but didn't dare answer.
“The first person to make fun of my name will repeat sixth grade … No ifs, ands, or buts. Period. You all understand?” We nodded mutely.
“Sit!” he ordered. We dropped down like sandbags.
He sat behind his desk, leaned back, and folded his hands behind his huge bald head. “Today is your last chance for a summer free from school. In my briefcase …” He tapped it with a long wooden pointer.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
“ … I have exams that will measure your knowledge of English, mathematics, world history, and science. If you
pass all four subjects, you don't come back until September. If you fail even one, you have me five days a week for six weeks in a row until I mash some knowledge into your empty brains.”
I could not think of one fact I knew for sure about any of those subjects. I peeked at the other students. They looked as sweaty and empty-headed as me.
Mr. Cucumber stood, removed the tests, and placed one face-down on each of our desks. “You will have an hour per section,” he explained, and checked his watch. “The first section is math. Go.”
I turned over my exam. I was sunk right away. I didn't even get a chance to have some tiny bit of false hope. The first problem was in meters, kilometers, decimeters, grams, and liters. I skipped that problem and leafed through the entire section. It was not multiple choice. I knew right away what I'd be doing for the next six weeks. My head drooped over like a hanged man's. I asked myself, How many meters of rope does it take to make a noose?
I did all the math I could, then quit. When the hour was up, we had a ten-minute break. I ran to find Betsy.
She was at the water fountain. When she saw me she asked, “How many grams in an ounce?”
I threw up my hands.
“Looks like I'll have the house to myself while Mom's away,” she said with supreme confidence.
“Hey, just wait till you get to science,” I said as snottily as I could.
“Already did it,” she sang. “I skipped ahead.”
I felt like an idiot.
At the end of the day the tests were graded before we went home. No one in my group passed.
“If you study, study, study,” said Mr. Cucumber when he called me to his desk, “you might make it.”
I felt doomed.
“One final question,” he asked before I left. “Is a cucumber a vegetable or a tuber or a berry?”
This had to be a trick question. I always thought it was a vegetable. “A tuber,” I guessed.
“It's going to be a long summer,” he replied and grinned like a rottweiler. He did not look like a vegetarian. He was definitely a meat eater.
When I went outside, Betsy was surrounded by other girls her age. They listened to every word she said. I thought they were going to drop down and kiss her feet.
I squeezed in between her fans. “Guess what,” she said to me and flicked her hair back to look more glamorous. “I did so well I get to skip a grade. And you?”
I had to turn things around. I was going downhill fast. Dad was kicking my butt. Mr. Cucumber was a fiend. Betsy was an instant success at everything. And I was a loser. I really missed Pete. It was his job to be on the bottom of the barrel. Now the entire barrel was sitting on me. I couldn't get any lower.
“Don't wait for me,” Betsy said as I dropped my head in shame. “I have a different ride home.”
Great, I thought, as I walked around front. Leave me with the maniac. The way he drives, they'll soon be hosing my face off the front grille of a tractor-trailer.
When the midget turned into the driveway he headed
for me like a locomotive that had jumped track. The two boys were already bouncing around in the rear like loose packages.
I took the backseat with them and we blasted down the driveway and ran a car off the road when we made our first turn. He hit the gas and I thought of covering his eyes with my hands but didn't.
Coward,
I said to myself.
Wimp. Chicken. Yellow-bellied sapsucker!
Betsy is more of a
man
than you are.
We took a turn and nearly hit a goat. After another dozen killer turns we got to the straightaway. The boys desperately yanked down their pants and pulled off their pee bags.
“Give me that,” I said and grabbed the dripping bag out of the younger boy's hands. I leaned forward and poured it over the maniac's head. He sputtered and turned around. I was waiting for him with the second bag.
Splash!
I got him right in the face. He hit the brakes and reached for me. We skidded across the road, hit the curb, bounced up, and slammed into a chain-link fence. It stopped the car like a big steel net. The maniac screamed and hit the floor.
We bounced off the seat. “Come on, boys,” I said. “Follow me.” We crawled out the window as a crowd gathered. I flagged down a cab. “Get in,” I said. They did, and we got stuck in traffic and inched our way down the road along with the other cars, donkeys, goats, and bicycles. The boys just stared at me as if
I
were the maniac. Ingrates, I thought to myself.
When the taxi dropped me off in front of the house, I paid the driver with money Mom had left me, then swaggered
up the front steps like a big man.
Don't mess with me!
I growled and pounded my chest.
I'll pour pee on your head.
 
It was Sunday. With Mom gone, Dad worked seven days a week. This morning, he was running late and was trotting around his truck. A pipe was sticking out of the overhead rack. It was head-high and just a little bit longer than the truck bed. Each time Dad ran around the truck, getting tools, moving equipment, checking supplies, he ducked under the pipe. He did it without looking, as if it was something he had practiced.
I stood in the kitchen window eating toast and beamed telepathic thoughts at him. As he headed for the pipe, I thought,
Duck.
He ducked. As he came back around, I thought,
Duck.
He ducked. Suddenly he snapped his fingers and doubled back to get something he remembered.
Don't duck,
I thought.
Bonk!
He hit the pipe and his feet went straight out beneath him and he landed flat on his back. I ran down the stairs and knelt over him. I slapped his cheeks back and forth. Not so hard, I warned myself, he might come to in a bad mood. He was breathing but he was out cold. A huge lump popped up on his forehead like in a cartoon. I ran into the house to get some ice. When I came out, he was sitting up with his chin on his knees. He saw me and grinned.
“Wow,” he whistled and shook it off. “That was some sucker punch you hit me with.”
“That wasn't me,” I said, but I felt guilty for thinking,
Don't duck.
“No kidding,” he replied and hopped up onto his feet, then wiped the dirt off his pants. “You'd have to hit me a hell of a lot harder than that to get rid of your old man.”
He examined himself in the side mirror and combed his hair. He removed his handkerchief and wiped a smudge off his lump.
“See you later,” he said, ducking under the pipe and opening the driver's side door. “Don't forget to give BoBo II a flea bath. He smells.”
He pulled away and I strolled around to the front yard. BoBo II wasn't under the shade tree. “BoBo the Second!” I yelled down the street.
I heard him barking over by Hal Hunt's garage. I walked over there. Hal had BoBo II trapped in a corner and was throwing bullets at him. He had a box of shells in his hand, and every time he threw one, he jumped up into the air as if the bullet were going to fire and he could skip over it. “Dumb smelly dog,” Hal shouted and threw another bullet. BoBo II looked puzzled. He needed a nap. He was only good for about an hour of energy each day, and his time had expired.
“Hey, what are you doing?” I hollered.
He whipped around and raised his arm over his head. “Watch it, Henry,” he growled. “I've got a bullet in my hand.”
“You
watch it,” I growled back. “With the power of my mind, I can make that bullet explode between your fingers.” I squinted and touched my fingertips to my forehead. I stared at the bullet and concentrated.
Hal looked at me. I could tell that he wasn't certain if I was bluffing. I wasn't sure either. But I had just knocked
Dad cold, so I figured I could set off a bullet. I narrowed my eyes and concentrated so hard I moaned. My muscles knotted up and I began to tremble.
Suddenly he twisted away from my paralyzing mental grip and threw the bullet into the bushes. “You must be a devil,” he cried out and stared into his hand.
“Don't mess with me,” I said, lowering my hands. “I know where you live and my power is strong enough to cross the street. I can just
look
at your house and make pictures fall off the walls.” Then I turned to BoBo II. “Come on, smelly,” I said. He followed dutifully.
 
When Dad came home, Betsy and I sat down to dinner. Marlene served fried chicken, white rice, and spinach. When she left the room, Dad said, “This food is too bland.” He got up and went into the kitchen and returned with a bowl of tiny red peppers. “This will fix it up,” he said. He put a pepper on his plate and passed me the bowl. “Try one.”
“I don't think so,” I replied.
“You're chicken,” he said. He hooked his thumbs under his armpits and flapped his elbows up and down.
“Bluck, bluck … bluck bluck,”
he squawked. “Chicken.”

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