Donuthead Page 8

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Mrs. Boardman Breaks a Rule

  Me: Gloria, you will never guess where I’ve been.

  Gloria (sounding tired): Oh, hello, Franklin.

  Me: Think rabid dogs, think insect-borne diseases …

  Gloria: Don’t tell me. You went to a pet store.

  Me: Is anything wrong, Gloria? You sound like …

  well … not like yourself.

  Gloria: Not my usual self, you mean? Well, now that you mention it, not every day at the National Safety Department is a good one. The terrible accidents, you can’t imagine, Franklin. I don’t suppose you’re calling to cheer me up, are you?

  Me (unsure what to say next. It was Gloria’s job to cheer me up, not the other way around): I … uh …

  Gloria: Tell me, Franklin. How is your friend? The one you’re teaching to read?

  Me: You mean Sarah Kervick.

  Gloria: Yes, I think so. Sarah. Have you made any progress? Me: That’s where I was yesterday! She has two vicious dogs, Gloria. They actually attacked my mother’s van. One of them nearly came inside, where I was imprisoned by my shoulder harness.

  Gloria: I was talking about the girl, Franklin. Not the dogs, and not you.

  Me: Oh, all right. Um … (And since I hadn’t made any progress on teaching Sarah to read, since I hadn’t even really thought about it, I told Gloria everything else I knew about Sarah, about her new job, about the trailer where she lived, about her dream of being a figure skater, even the story about Sarah falling through the ice, which I decided would interest her professionally, seeing as drowning is the number-two accidental way for children to die.)

  Gloria: She wants to be a figure skater, you say? That’s an expensive sport, I’m afraid.

  Me: And a dangerous one. I, for one, fail to see how figure skating differs significantly from rollerblading or skateboarding. And yet, protective headgear is not required in any of the competitive ice skating sports.

  Gloria: Can’t you see, Franklin? This goes way beyond a question of safety. It’s about a dream. Having a dream and believing in the possibility of that dream coming true is what gives people hope. Hope is a much greater determinant of whether or not a person will survive and thrive than safety helmets. (On this last line, Gloria raised her voice. I think it is safe to say she was shouting at me.)

  Me: I was merely pointing out that—

  Gloria: I know, I know, Franklin, but honestly, sometimes you can’t see the forest for the trees. When you get back to your reading, I want you to find the story of Pandora. It’s a Greek myth. That story hasn’t got anything to do with statistics, but it will certainly teach you a thing or two about life.

  Me: I’d be happy to look up the story, Gloria, if you think that’s a good idea. I just don’t see—

  Gloria: Franklin, would you say that this friend of yours … Sarah … would you say that she has the means to pursue this dream of hers?

  Me: Means?

  Gloria: The money.

  Me: Well, judging from the fact that up until my mother came into the picture she was not adequately clothed, I would say no, Gloria. I don’t think Sarah Kervick has money to spare. Gloria: Franklin! (long pause) I believe you have cheered me up (sounding really happy now … I was totally confused).

  Me: I’m so glad, Gloria, that I could be of service.

  Gloria: I made a promise to myself a long time ago that I would repay a debt, and I think I know now how I’m going to do that.

  Me: Well, that’s wonderful, Gloria. I know that one’s financial picture can cause a lot of stress. Speaking of stress, my teacher, Ms. Linski, has signed me up to be in the Presidential Fitness Program along with the rest of our class, and one of the requirements is that we touch our toes. With my short arm and long leg, I’m afraid I won’t be able to—

  Gloria: Would you have any idea what her shoe size is, Franklin? Just off the top of your head?

  Me: Off the top of my head? No, I wouldn’t, Gloria. What does Sarah Kervick’s shoe size have to do with—

  Gloria: You must promise to get back to me on that. You can … Well, you can predict a great deal about … the future health of a person—longevity and so forth—from the size of her feet. Will you promise to get that for me, Franklin? Will you?

  Me: You never asked for my foot size, Gloria.

  Gloria: No, I haven’t. But then, it’s never been necessary, Franklin. You supply me with information about your health in agonizing detail.

  As I hung up the phone, I realized that something had come between me and Gloria. And that something was Sarah Kervick.

  But it seemed that the only way to get back into Gloria’s good graces was to teach the girl to read. Even though I’d rather walk barefoot down the driveway or chew gum with artificial colors, I knew the task that lay before me.

  And good old Mrs. Boardman was going to help.

  In order to get Sarah alone, I decided I would just have to give up the health-promoting benefits of fresh air for a while. So I convinced Ms. Linski that my delicate physical state was best maintained in the library over lunchtime (besides that, I also promised to do a little extra-credit work hunting down cereal box toys on the Internet). She agreed—rather quickly, I might add—that we could give it a trial period. “But if you grow too pale, Franklin, it’s back out in the sunshine.”

  I didn’t make any moves at first, just let lunchtime in the library with Mrs. Boardman take on its own routine. Sarah put up with me, but I was to keep my mouth shut. Which I did for a while, knowing that if I sprung this idea right away, Sarah would banish me from the library altogether.

  Those days were just as pleasant as the first one had been. First, Sarah and Mrs. Boardman talked, then Mrs. Boardman pulled something glossy out of her library bag. Then Sarah looked at the pictures. I just relaxed and read and enjoyed the reprieve from the playground.

  After exactly ten days, I got quietly up from my assigned seat and approached the circulation desk.

  “I’m interested in a Greek myth about somebody named Pandora,” I told Mrs. Boardman. “Can you help me?”

  Mrs. Boardman glanced up at me and smiled. Somewhere along the line, I’d crossed over from being one of those annoying kids who caused her to reshelve the books to someone she could stand having around. Swiveling around in her chair, she pulled out a book from the reference shelf and set it on the desk in front of her. The thick, dark green cover contained a picture of a man with wings sprouting out of his head. Underneath that were the words Bulfinch’s Mythology.

  The middle drawer of her desk squeaked open, and Mrs. Boardman pulled out a little rubber cap that she stretched over her index finger. She opened the book and carefully turned the pages, smoothing down each one as she went. Her bony wrists bent precariously as she handed me the heavy volume.

  “Thank you,” I whispered, and took it from her, walking directly over to Sarah, who lay on her stomach in the picture book section, poring over her latest skating book. I set the book directly onto a picture of a girl who seemed to be hanging in the air with her legs spread out at dangerous angles.

  “What?” Sarah looked up at me, annoyed.

  “My friend Gloria says you need to read this,” I told her. Sarah squinted at the small print before pulling her own book from beneath the one I’d set down. Then she shifted her position so she was over the pictures again.

  “I’m serious,” I said, staying where I was.

  Sarah glared at me and flipped over the cover of the book so she could see the title.

  “So read it,” she said, as if it didn’t really matter.

  So I read her the story of Pandora, the girl who was sent to earth by the gods. She was the very first girl and every god and goddess did something to make her perfect. Then they sent her to earth to live with a guy named Epimetheus. In his house, Epimetheus had this box that he told Pandora she should never, under any circumstances, open. She did, of course. She couldn’t control her curiosity. And out of the box cam
e every bad thing that could ever happen to a person: sickness, poison, arthritis, old age, deformity. Those were just the diseases of the body. Then came the diseases of the mind, like sadness, jealousy, and despair.

  Pandora was knocked flat by all these bad things rushing to get out and do their work in the world. She thought the box was empty, but at the bottom there was this little winged creature. She was Hope.

  When I was finished, I glanced up at Sarah, who was resting her chin on her hands, listening.

  “Read that last part again,” she said. “The part about the evils.” “ ‘So we see at this day, whatever evils are abroad, hope never entirely leaves us; and while we have that, no amount of other ills can make us completely wretched.’ ”

  Rolling over on her back, Sarah Kervick stared at the ceiling.

  “Who’s Gloria?” she said after a while.

  “You can’t read, can you?”

  “Course I can read.”

  “You can’t read much, then.”

  “Never was taught, was I? Didn’t even go to school till I was eight.”

  “Well, if you want to be regular, you’re going to have to learn to read.”

  Sarah reached up and yanked the fabric of my shirt so I lost my balance and hit the floor, shoulder first. There was no doubt this kind of collision would cause bruising.

  “You think I don’t know that?” she said.

  “How come you don’t ask for help, then? Or go to Coach Jablonski’s class?”

  “Lookin’ like a retard, gettin’ pulled out for special ed … you think that’s regular?”

  “I didn’t know you had a choice.” We were whispering, our faces so close to each other that a little bit of Sarah Kervick’s spit landed on my cheek.

  She grinned at me like she always did, without showing her teeth. “Can’t test me, can they? Dad won’t sign the papers.”

  “And you think you can pull that off forever?”

  “That’s how my dad did it.”

  It was on the tip of my tongue to mention that her dad hadn’t exactly reached the pinnacle of success with this method. But I’d already been Sarah-handled once that afternoon.

  “Aren’t you just a little curious?” I asked her, changing my tactic. “Don’t you want to know how to do this?” With my injured arm, I managed to push her skating book so that it faced us both.

  “You can’t just look at the pictures, see. It says here, ‘It is essential to keep your weight over the left foot as you lead into the jump. With your right foot approximately twenty-four inches—’”

  Sarah Kervick’s palm slapped down on the picture with such strength that even slightly deaf Mrs. Boardman looked our way. Sitting up, she jammed her fists under her armpits.

  “Course I want to know that.” And her eyes started blinking so funny and her jaw was clenched and she didn’t say any more, not for a long time.

  And I figured something out then. Sarah wanted to learn to read better, but you can’t go around threatening Coach Jablonski behind the school, now, can you? She just couldn’t figure out a way to make it happen.

  This was a day I never thought I’d see. In my six-year history at Pelican View Elementary, I had never seen Mrs. Boardman break a rule. She wouldn’t even loan you one of the library’s pencils if you forgot yours—which, actually, was never a problem for me, but one that Marvin Howerton seemed to have with regularity.

  But that day, when I asked her for help, Mrs. Boardman gave me six(!) easy readers to check out. And when I whispered to her that we’d have to find some way to disguise them, she found a backpack at the bottom of the lost and found box.

  “Things should be put to use,” she said. “It’s been here well over a year.”

  I handed the backpack to Sarah and told her, “Well, it’s got to be after baseball practice. And don’t pretend you’re busy.”

  She clapped her arm around my shoulder and said, “Thanks, Donuthead.”

  And I said, “Don’t mention it.”

  Later, I recalled with shock that I hadn’t even checked her hand for warts.

  CHAPTER NINE

  A Historic Day

  If my memory serves me correctly, it was about this same time that I learned my mother was receiving anonymous gifts. Not that she volunteered this information, mind you. I had to pry it out of her.

  She was going on what looked suspiciously like a date with Paul, whom she’d met when she and her friend Penny—the animal lover with the unhygienic potluck dishes—had gone out one night to snicker at the karaoke singers at Z’s Bar and Grille. Paul was one of them, but when he crooned the line “You can’t escape my love,” my mother punched Penny in the shoulder to shut her up.

  “He’s not so bad,” she said.

  “In more ways than one,” Penny agreed.

  She and Paul were only friends, she assured me. “No need to start grilling him yet, Franklin. We’ll probably never cross the line. I don’t really go for guys like Paul.” But she’d get a dreamy look when she talked about him that put me on my guard.

  On the evening in question, they were meeting friends and going to a movie. Afterwards, Paul might take the mike at a new karaoke bar in Brownfield.

  As soon as my mother emerged from the bathroom, I planned to engage her in a lengthy discussion of the perils of leaving a child my age home alone after midnight, but I was temporarily overcome by the odor she gave off.

  “Mother,” I said, covering my mouth with the fabric of my T-shirt, “need I remind you of the effects of perfume on people with multiple chemical sensitivities?”

  “Hold your nose, Franklin,” she said, stuffing her wallet into a purse she used only when she went out on dates with men. “I’ll be out of here in a sec.”

  In went car keys, Chap Stick, Dentyne. This was not looking good.

  “How could you buy perfume? You know I’m allergic.”

  “I didn’t buy it, for your information. It was a gift.”

  That’s when the story came out. Gifts had been coming her way for a couple of weeks now. First, a dented package of snacks on the driver’s seat of her van. Then her benefactor began leaving old copies of People magazine for her at work. Finally, she’d received this bottle of perfume on the back doorstep.

  “That’s it,” I said. “We’re calling the police.”

  “Whatever for, Franklin?”

  I felt a headache the size of Texas crawling up my right shoulder.

  “You’re being stalked, Mother, and you’re too innocent to know it.”

  “Stalked with People magazines? Get a grip.”

  The doorbell rang, and I vowed we’d continue this conversation later. Honestly, without me to look out for her, my mother was a walking time bomb.

  “Just answer one question,” I gasped, eyeing Paul suspiciously as he held the door for her. “Did you eat any of the food you were given?”

  “Of course I ate it,” she said. “Those Twinkies were still in the package. Now relax, Franklin. I’m your mother, not the other way around.”

  In April, we practiced baseball. I applied myself as well as I could, given my physical limitations. By the second week, I no longer ran away from the ball. By the third week, I stopped dropping the bat. Now, that’s what I call progress.

  Still, my mother had the habit of pulling off her baseball cap and wiping her forearm across her forehead, the way the major league coaches did.

  When it was Sarah’s turn, I trotted to the outfield and squinted into the sun. I guess my mother had forgotten our original purpose, which was to give me enough confidence to sign up for the Pelican View Baseball Team. Now she coached Sarah, too. In fact, I would say that Sarah was the only one she coached. For me, it was more about showing up.

  I mostly just watched the practice happen at that point, jogging to the ball after it was hit. After all, you can’t expect a kid with my physical limitations to play the positions of three able-bodied men. That’s a lot of uneven ground to cover.

  It was dur
ing that time I discovered my hidden talent. My mother says that most of my talents are hidden, but this one stayed hidden on purpose for quite a long while. If Sarah Kervick hadn’t been such a hit parade, I might never have discovered the little secret that would make me feel special.

  Even when my mother threw her trademark fast curve, Sarah could whack the stuffing out of the baseball. More than strength, that girl had perfect placement and timing. You see, a batter can never know how a pitch will come in, or even whether or not she’s standing at the right angle to meet it. So her reflexes have to be lightning fast. You had to watch closely, but you could see Sarah adjust her stance as the ball was coming in.

  Of course, this made it hard to tell where the ball would be hit, but I almost always knew. That was my talent, certainly not as dramatic as hers, but one that fit the scientific workings of my mind. I could predict, with a statistical accuracy that would make Gloria Nelots send out recruiters, where that ball was headed. The fact that I arrived there too late to catch it was purely an act of self-defense. My weak wrists needed protection almost as much as my foreshortened arm and leg.

  There’s no mystery to where the runner goes after the ball is hit. The thing I couldn’t figure out was how Sarah managed to work up so much speed so quickly. On that first day of practice, my mother had measured her footprint from a wet, sandy sample in the infield. After that, Sarah got cleats and tennis shoes. With the traction she got from the cleats, she sped around the bases like liquid fire, dirt spitting from the bottoms of her feet and her blond hair flying behind her like the tail of a kite.

  By the end of April, Sarah had a baseball jacket, two pairs of jeans, and three regular-looking girl shirts. Her hair was combed, her warts were all but gone, and she’d graduated to second-grade readers. Just walking down the street, someone would definitely mistake her for regular.

  After we got home from practice, my mother would make Sarah a monstrous snack. Thick slices of salami and cheese and lettuce and tomato on huge slabs of bread. It’s hard to imagine how she got her mouth around it. I was tempted to point out that swallowing without chewing was putting an unnecessary burden on her digestive tract, not to mention what all the added dyes, fillers, and preservatives were doing to her health profile. But I knew that Sarah would only laugh at me with her mouth open, flicking bits of sausage onto my snack of dry roasted soybeans and unsalted pumpkin seeds.