Okay for Now (12 page)

It was a horrible picture, and I couldn't stop looking at it.

I was still looking at it when Mr. Powell puffed up the stairs after his meeting. He came over to the

bird and took off his glasses to rub his eyes. (Just so you know, he didn't have his glasses on a loop

because I had finally told him how dumb that looks.)

"Mr. Powell," I said, "he's dying"—as if anyone needed to point that out.

He nodded and put his glasses back on. "That's how Audubon got his specimens," he said. "For

some reason, he wanted to show the Black-Backed Gull after he had shot it." He leaned against the

case.

"What happened to the puffins?" I said.

"I want you to work on this gull now," he said. "You see how Audubon has combined some of what

we've worked on before? When he stretches out this wing, the bird seems so still, like the Large-

Billed Puffins. But the bottom half of its body is in movement, like the Arctic Tern."

"Not like the tern," I said.

"No. Not exactly."

"So what happened to the Arctic Tern? And to the puffins?"

"Do you see how he's left the space white and blank behind the gull? He doesn't want anything to

distract the eye from the outstretched wing."

"He doesn't even want to give the impression of depth."

"No," said Mr. Powell.

"Which we'd be able to see if we compared the puffins to the gull."

Mr. Powell nodded.

"So can we do that?"

Mr. Powell took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes again. "We can't do that," he said.

"Why not?"

"Because the Large-Billed Puffins are gone."

"The page is..."

"Sold."

"Sold?"

"The puffins are gone, Mr. Swieteck. And the Arctic Tern, to an anonymous collector from

overseas, I'm told. And the Red-Throated Diver, sold because the buyer thought it would make such a

nice picture over the fireplace in her parlor. And the Brown Pelican. And if you were in the meeting

with me downstairs, you would have seen Mr. Ballard's secretary hand over a check for twenty-four

hundred dollars made out to the Town Council of Marysville. She'll stop by tonight to pick up the

Yellow Shank."

"You can't sell the pages of a whole book one by one."

"That's exactly the problem. When it's an Audubon, you can. Most buyers can't afford a whole

book, but they can buy one plate at a time—if they find someone low enough to cut them out of a

folio."

I looked back at the dying gull. At his ruined wing. In the ruined book.

"Is it Mrs. Merriam who—"

"She doesn't have anything to do with it, and even though she doesn't show it, she's distraught. The

three trustees of the library happen to be on the Town Council. Sometimes, the town needs money.

Sometimes even for good things. They'd like to sell the whole set of books, but the other three

volumes belong to the Marysville Historical Society, and they're preserving them as they should be."

Mr. Powell tapped the glass. "This is volume three. And since Marysville's public library is not so

scrupulous as its historical society, this is the only volume that is missing any of its pages."

"They're chumps for selling them," I said.

"There are only a few perfect sets in the entire world," Mr. Powell said quietly.

"And this isn't one of them."

Mr. Powell nodded. "Not anymore. So, let's find some paper and begin on this wing."

I looked back at the eye of the dying gull, who knew that everything was ruined forever, because

that's how it always is.

On Monday, Coach Reed caught me sneaking over to the Shirts Team and finally figured out the funny

business. He told me in his sergeant's voice that I had to go over to the Skins Team and I had better

not try to mess up his platoons again, no sirree, buster.

I told him that I wanted to play on the Shirts Team and he should send someone else over to the

Skins Team if they wanted to go.

He said he'd send over to the Skins Team who he wanted to send over to the Skins Team, and

buster, that was me.

You can probably figure out that everything else in the gym had gone pretty quiet. Not a single

dribble anywhere.

I said that it didn't matter who went where as long as the teams were even, and I pointed out that

with me on the Shirts Team we had even numbers so it didn't make much sense to send me to the Skins

Team.

Coach Reed said that he was the teacher.

I said I thought you had to be able to count to be a teacher.

He said, One, Two, Three, he sure could count the three days of After School Detention I had now

and he wanted to know if I'd like to see him count even higher.

I said sure.

He said, Four, Five.

I clapped.

He said, Six, Seven, and before I could clap again he grabbed my arm and dragged me out of the

gym and through the halls to Principal Peattie's office. Principal Peattie, who had been waiting for

this moment and who decided to stretch things out and make me sweat, told me to sit in this chair by

the secretary, which I did in my stupid gym uniform for almost half an hour before he opened his door

and told me to come in and sit down and said that Principal Peattie had been expecting something like

this all along and Principal Peattie was surprised that it hadn't happened sooner and Principal Peattie

was going to throw the book at me so I learned my lesson and learned it good, and dang it, I should

take this like a man and look Principal Peattie in the eye.

He really wanted to see me sweat.

"Look Principal Peattie in the eye!" he said.

And I did. For a moment.

"You're not here to look at a pelican," he said. "You're here to look at Principal Peattie!"

I'm not lying. If you had been there, you wouldn't have looked him in the eye either. You would

have looked past him, like me. You would have looked at the wall over his desk. And you would have

seen what I saw: the Brown Pelican, the beautiful Brown Pelican, the beautiful and noble Brown

Pelican.

One of the pages razored out of Audubon's book.

I got seven days of After School Detention and one more for not looking Principal Peattie in the

eye. But I couldn't help it.

Could you?

It wasn't the best day I'd had at Washington Irving Junior High School. Tuesday was a little better,

even though that morning in English we finally started reading
Jane Eyre,
by Miss Charlotte Brontë,

which we were likely to be reading for a whole long time, since it was 160 pages long even in the

abridgment, as you might remember.

For the rest of that week, Miss Cowper read it aloud to us. I know. You're probably thinking that

we were dying of boredom. But what was kind of surprising was that it wasn't so bad. By Friday, we

were at this part when Jane is at the boarding school, and this jerk who runs it—who sort of reminds

me of the principal of Washington Irving Junior High School—makes Jane stand on a stool because he

wants everyone to think that she's a liar, like she's been going over to the other team in PE or

something absolutely horrible like that. So she's standing there and everyone is supposed to stay away

from her because the principal says that they should and you think she's going to crumple and just give

up. But you know what?

She doesn't.

She sort of reminded me of Lil—which I did not tell her—and which you shouldn't tell her I said

either.

So the story wasn't so bad. But what
was
bad was that Miss Cowper decided that beginning next

week, she would make us take turns reading it
aloud.
She would read for the first five minutes of

class to give us a running start, she said, and then she would call on the next alphabetical victim to

read for the next seven minutes.

Terrific.

So on Monday, she started with Otis Bottom, who read like he had written the thing himself. When

he finished—and he read the parts after Jane was off the stool and trying not to wish that she could get

even with Mr. Brocklehurst, the jerk—I almost wanted to stand up and clap, he was that good.

Except that I really wanted to throw up, he was that good.

Terrific again.

When the period was almost over and Miss Cowper said, "We'll have five more new readers

tomorrow," like she was promising a gift or something, I figured I'd better talk to her—because, you

remember, I wasn't going to read
Jane Eyre.
So I waited until everyone left, even though I might be

late for Mrs. Verne's class and I knew that Principal Peattie would love to see me waiting outside his

office for another thirty minutes.

"Miss Cowper," I said.

She was putting pages away in a notebook, but she looked up at me.

"I don't know if I want to read
Jane Eyre
out loud."

"Everyone takes a turn, Douglas, even if you think you don't like the book."

I looked around to be sure that no one was in the room to hear what I was about to say. "I like it

well enough."

"So what's the problem?"

What was I supposed to say? I looked at her, like a chump.

"Douglas, I know that Otis Bottom is a wonderful reader. It's a gift that he has. You may have

different gifts. But that doesn't mean that you shouldn't try to read aloud."

"I know that," I said.

"Is it reading aloud in front of others that bothers you?"

"No."

"Good. Then I'll look forward to a gallant attempt when your turn comes," she said.

You see how it is? Sometimes things go bad even when other things are going bad.

I headed to Mrs. Verne's class looking at the next few pages of
Jane Eyre.
I think that Charlotte

Brontë ought to be shot. I mean, who uses words like these? I didn't know half of them.

Well, most of them.

Okay, I'm a chump. So what?

And what was I supposed to do?

I thought of Jane Eyre standing on her stool, everyone looking at her.

I thought of the dying gull.

I hate this stupid town.

Detention that afternoon was with Mr. Ferris, because the eighth-grade teachers took turns monitoring

After School Detention—which probably put them in really good moods. So I stayed in his room after

school and waited for the other twisted criminal minds to come join me for ninety minutes of forced

study. It didn't help that it was one of those perfect, blue, cloudless days where the trees are starting to

golden up and the breezes are cool like they are during a World Series and you could imagine having

a catch with Joe Pepitone or Horace Clarke or someone like that but instead you're sitting in the

physical science room and it turns out that
you
are the only twisted criminal mind so you're all alone

while Mr. Ferris works on his next Lab Preparation.

I flipped through the pages of
Jane Eyre.
Hopeless.

Somewhere, far away, a dog barked. A happy bark.

I flipped through
Jane Eyre
again. Very hopeless.

Mr. Ferris looked up from his Lab Preparation. "So, Doug Swieteck, what are you in for?"

"Mouthing off to Coach Reed."

He thought about this for a minute, his hand on Clarence. "Generally," he finally said, "it is neither

wise nor prudent to mouth off to a junior high school teacher. Especially to one who has been a

sergeant in the United States Army."

"Not even if the teacher is wrong?"

"Consider: Is it Coach Reed or you who is sitting in this somewhat dreary room that smells of

vinegar on a beautiful October afternoon?"

"I see your point," I said.

"However, since it is you and not Coach Reed, perhaps we can put the time to some good use, as

you seem to have given up on
Jane Eyre.
"

"Have you ever seen the pelican in the principal's office?" I said.

"Are you trying to illustrate a principle of randomness, Doug Swieteck?"

"No. Really. Have you seen it?"

"I have."

"Don't you think it belongs back in the book it came from?"

Mr. Ferris rocked Clarence thoughtfully. "I understand it was a gift to him from the Town Council

when he was appointed."

"So you
do
think it belongs back in the book it came from."

Mr. Ferris smiled. "In general, I adhere to the notion that things belong in the class to which they

have been assigned—which leads us to the periodic table. No, no more about the pelican." He

walked over to the glossy chart hanging beside the chalkboard on the front wall. "The periodic table

arranges elements according to their physical properties and to what else?"

"Their atomic number."

"Good. The table gives us the name of the element—here, hydrogen—the atomic number—here,

one—and the symbol—here, H. I know that you know the symbol for hydrogen already, so let's see if

you can learn six more. Look at the symbols for the inert gases: helium, neon, argon, krypton, xenon,

and radon."

I looked at the chart. He might as well have been speaking Ancient Egyptian.

"All right," he said, and he walked to the other side of the board. "Look at me, and tell me that