John Fitzgerald GB 04 Great Bra (14 page)

Sweyn stepped between them. He knew The Great Brain better than Rory and the other kids. “This has gone far enough,” he said. “All right, T.D., where is the mattress? All Rory has to do is to tell Father Rodriguez that you took it and you’ll be the one who is expelled.”

Tom looked as innocent as a newborn baby. “That is a stupid thing to say,” he said. “Rory’s mattress was here when I went down to confession with the other seventh graders. They will tell you I was in the chapel until after my confession. And Larry Williams will tell you that I came out of the chapel the same time he did and went straight to the library. I wouldn’t have any trouble convincing Father Rodriguez that I couldn’t possibly have taken the mattress.”

Tom’s innocent act convinced Sweyn that The Great Brain knew where the mattress was. He decided to appeal to Tom’s money-loving heart. “Let us assume you didn’t take the mattress,” he said. “What is your price for putting your great brain to work to solve the mystery?”

Tom considered tor a moment. “I just might do it if

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all you eighth graders raise your right hands and swear never to do anything that will make any seventh grader get any demerits.”

“What are you talking about?” Sweyn asked.

“Who do you think mussed up my bunk twice and got me ten demerits?” Tom asked. “And who do you think took my textbook and planted it in the library to get me another five demerits? Nobody but Rory Flynn.”

Sweyn turned to face Rory. “That was a dirty lowdown trick to pull,” he said. “And if I’d caught you at it you would be missing more than a mattress. You would be missing a couple of teeth.”

“Listen to who is talking,” Tom said, really enjoying himself. “The same brother who doesn’t want me to get into a fight.”

Rory looked as guilty as a fox caught in a chicken coop. “I was just playing a joke on him,” he said to Sweyn.

“Making a fellow get demerits is no joke,” Sweyn said.

Tom touched Sweyn on the arm. “If I’d really put my great brain to work on it,” he said, “and was willing to do such a lowdown thing, I could have got Rory expelled in one week.”

“I won’t do it again,” Rory promised.

“You can bet you won’t,” Sweyn said, “because you and all of us eighth graders are now going to take an oath that we will never do anything that might get a seventh grader demerits.”

Tom couldn’t help chuckling to himself as he heard all the eighth graders take the oath.

“All right, T.D.,” Sweyn said. “Where is Rory’s mattress?”

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“How should I know?” Tom asked. “I only promised to put my great brain to work on the mystery. But don’t worry. I’m sure I’ll solve it before Father Rodriguez’s inspection tomorrow morning.”

Rory pointed at his bunk. “You mean I’ve got to sleep on those hard boards tonight?” he asked.

Tom shrugged. “I sure as heck don’t know where else you can sleep,” he said. “These bunks aren’t big enough for two fellows.”

That was one night when everybody in the dormitory had something to say after lights-out. Tom started it.

“Boy, oh, boy,” he said. “This mattress sure feels nice and soft.”

“Mine too,” Jerry said.

“I’m sure glad I’m not sleeping on boards,” Phil said.

Larry Williams patted his pillow. “A fellow never really appreciates a good mattress until he has to sleep without one,” he said.

And poor old Rory had to lie there on hard wooden stats listening.

Tom remained awake until he was sure all the other kids were asleep. Then he awakened Jerry. They got the mattress from the storeroom and placed it on the floor be-side Rory’s bunk. Both of them fell asleep chuckling to themselves.

When the six o’clock bell rang in the morning, Rory got up, rubbing his sore muscles. When he saw the mattress he almost jumped out of his nightgown.

“Look at that!” he shouted. “My mattress is lying right there while I’ve been getting black and blue sleeping on those boards.”

Then Rory walked over to Tom’s bunk. “I’m not go-

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ing to fight you,” he said, “and I’m not going to mess with your great brain anymore. You leave me alone and I’ll leave you alone.”

Tom pawned and stretched. “That sounds fair

enough,” he said.

Tom didn’t get any more demerits right up to the time he and Sweyn came home for the Christmas vacation. I was sure glad to see my brothers but couldn’t help feeling a little jealous of Tom. Our foster brother Frankie had thought I was just about the greatest fellow in the world until he met Tom. Now he followed The Great Brain around adoringly like a little puppy.

Papa got Tom alone in the parlor the first thing. He gave him a good dressing down for that first month’s bad report and the fifteen demerits he received in November. And having got that out of his system Papa said we could all enjoy the holidays.

I knew I would enjoy them because Papa told Tom to help me with the chores. I could tell from the look on Tom’s face that he didn’t like the idea of having to do chores on his vacation. That first night Mamma allowed Frankie and me to stay up until nine o’clock. Then we went up to the room we shared with Tom. The Great Brain sat on a chair and pulled off a shoe.

“What’s new in town?” he asked.

“Nothing,” I answered.

“You must be mistaken,” he said. “There must be something new in town since I’ve been away.”

“I’m not mistaken,” I said. “I’ve been right here in Adenville all the time and it’s just the same as it was when you left for the academy.”

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“I’ll bet I can prove there is something new in town,” he said. “If I can’t, I’ll do your share of the chores while I’m home. If I can, you do my share. Is it a bet?”

This was one bet I knew I was going to win. “It’s a bet,” I said.

Tom pointed at Frankie. “We didn’t have an adopted brother when I left for the academy,” he said. “And that makes Frankie something new in town.”

I felt as stupid as a donkey trying to fly. Tom had been home less than one day and he had already connived me into doing his share of the chores—

Frankie came over to my bed. “I’ll help, John,” he

said.

“The only one who can help me,” I said sadly, “is the fellow who invents a muzzle for human beings like they have for dogs to keep my big mouth shut.”

That made Tom and Frankie laugh but I didn’t think it was funny.

The next morning I started the chores by filling up the woodbox in the kitchen. Mamma and Aunt Bertha were washing the breakfast dishes. Mamma kept looking at me with a funny expression. But she didn’t say anything until I brought in the first bucketful of coal.

“Why isn’t Tom D. helping you?” she asked.

I sure as heck didn’t want my own mother to know she had given birth to a son so stupid he had bet there was nothing new in town.

“Tom and I made a deal,” I said.

“What kind of a deal?” she asked.

“What’s the difference?” I asked.

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“The difference is that I asked you what kind of a deal,” Mamma said. “Now you tell me.”

“You’ll be sorry if I do,” I tried to warn her.

“Then let me be sorry,” she said.

“Mamma,” I said looking her right in the eye, “you gave birth to a son who is a stupid jackass.”

I thought that would make her cry. Instead she sort of smiled.

“Let me be the judge of that,” she said.

I told her about the bet I’d made with Tom.

“You tell Tom Dennis that I want to see him at once,” she said when I finished.

I knew she was angry when she called Tom by his full name. I went into the backyard where Tom was pushing Frankie on the swing. I told him Mamma wanted to see him. I followed him and Frankie into the kitchen.

“Tom Dennis,” Mamma said firmly, “give me a definition of a town.”

“Why are you angry at me?” Tom asked. “And why do you want me to define a town?”

“Just do as I told you,” Mamma said.

“A town,” Tom said, “is a place where there are homes and places of business and people living that doesn’t have a large enough population to be called a city.”

“An excellent definition,” Mamma said. “But you lose the bet you made with John D. and I will tell you why. Frankie came to Adenville many times with his parents and brother before they were killed in the land slide. Mr. Harmon at the Z.C.M.I. store knew him and so did a lot of other people his father did business with. So Frankie isn’t anything new in town and you lose the bet.”

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I wasn’t about to pass up a chance to rub salt in Tom’s wounds after the way he had tried to flimflam me. I followed him down to the wood-and-coal shed.

“In case you’ve forgotten,” I said, “after you fill all the woodboxes and coal buckets, you feed and water our team and our milk cow and Sweyn’s mustang, Dusty, and the chickens.”

I followed Tom around pouring salt into his wounds until he finished the chores. Then he said he had some important business and left. He came home for lunch with Sweyn and Papa.

“And now,” Papa said as we all sat down to lunch, “please tell me, T.D., what you were doing reading all those back issues of the Advocate.”

“I didn’t tell you this morning,” Tom said, “because I wanted you as a witness in front of Mamma.” Then he told Papa about the bet we had made and how Mamma had ruled in my favor.

“It seems to me,” Papa said when Tom finished, “that your mother is right.”

“No she isn’t,” Tom said. “According to your own newspaper six new babies have been born in Adenville since I left for the academy. And six new babies are certainly something new in town. And that means J.D. lost the bet.”

Papa shook his head as he looked across the table at me. “I’m afraid T.D. is right,” he said. “And I hope this will teach you never to bet against The Great Brain again.”

In spite of my having to do all the chores it turned out to be a happy Christmas. It didn’t start out as one, though. I had an old worn catcher’s mitt. I had told Papa I wanted

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a new mitt for Christmas and had showed him the Spal-ding’s Decker Patent Boys’ League catcher’s mitt I wanted in the Sears Roebuck catalogue. I had let him know in plenty of time to order it.

I don’t believe there was a more disappointed kid in the United States on Christmas morning than me. And I blamed it all on the fact that Papa couldn’t resist every new invention he saw advertised. Our attic was full of crazy inventions which didn’t work, like the butter churner you peddled instead of pumping by hand.

“I thought it would tighten your work, Tena,” he had said to Mamma after discovering it wasn’t worth a darn. And having passed the buck to Mamma that gave Papa the right to order the next new invention he saw advertised. But I didn’t dream he would order some crazy invention for my Christmas present instead of the catcher’s mitt.

On Christmas morning Tom, Frankie, and I put on our robes and ran down to the parlor with Sweyn right behind us. Presents were all around the Christmas tree and the red stockings on the mantelpiece were filled with candy. Sweyn received a beaut of a fly-fishing rod and reel with a box of fly hooks. Tom received a watch with a fob. Frankie received several toys. And what did I get? None of us knew. My present was a large leather-covered ball and a metal hoop with a net on it attached to some boards about three feet square. Papa had bought another of his crazy inventions for my Christmas present. Even Tom with his great brain didn’t know what it was. Papa heard us talking and came into the room with a robe over his nightgown.

“We!!, J.D.,” he said as proud as if he had given me a catcher’s mitt, “what do you think of it?”

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“How can I think anything when I don’t even know what it is?” I said, letting him know I was disappointed.

“It is the latest game that is going over big back East,” Papa said. “I read about it some time ago but didn’t come across it in a sport ing-goods catalogue until recently.”

“How do you play it?” Tom asked.

“I will show you after breakfast,” Papa said.

During breakfast Papa told us the game was called basketball. It was originated by a man named Naismith in 1891. Since then it had been introduced as a competitive sport in several colleges and high schools back East. The board with the hoop and net on it was called the backboard.

After breakfast Papa got a hammer and some nails-Tom and Sweyn carried the backboard down to our shed. Papa nailed it to the alley side of the shed about six feet from the ground. All the time I was wishing we didn’t have such mild winters in Adenville. Maybe if we had snow Papa would have bought me a sled instead.

Papa laid the hammer to one side. “I realized that we didn’t have room for a regular basketball court,” he said. “That is why I only bought one backboard instead of two. But you and your friends, J.D., can have a lot of fun playing with just one backboard. You can improvise a game. Draw a line in the dirt—what we will call the foul line-about twelve feet from the backboard. You and I will play T.D. and S.D. I’ll start the game with a free throw.”

Papa took the ball and toed the line I drew in the dirt. “The idea is to pass the ball through the hoop,” Papa said. “The team who makes the most baskets wins the

game.

It only took me a few minutes to realize that basket-

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ball, even with only one backboard, was a very exciting game. I forgave Papa for not getting me the catcher’s mitt. Basketball was going to make me the most popular kid in Adenville. I was already mentally selecting teams from among my playmates.

Tom was very much interested in the game, but for a different reason. He put his arm around my shoulders af-ter we finished playing.

“You can make a fortune,” he said, “by charging kids to play basketball.”

“I don’t have a money-loving heart like you,” I said. “Any friend of mine can play free any time he wants.”

“Have it your way,” Tom said. “But you. won’t need the rule book with only one backboard. And I’ll get that sporting-goods catalogue from Papa.”