Okay for Now (10 page)

"All right, the two stupid puffins. Remember the tern? Remember how everything was pointing

down? The horizon lined the very bottom of the painting, but your eye hardly saw it. What's different

about the setting of this painting?"

"You mean except for the two stupid fat birds?"

"Yes, Mr. Swieteck, except for the two stupid fat birds."

I leaned over the glass case. "The horizon is halfway up the painting," I said.

"That's right. If you drew lines out from these rocks, do you see how they would go across the

page, just like the horizon?"

"So everything is going side to side instead of up and down."

"Good. That's thinking like an artist. Now, put one finger at the tail feathers of the bird on the left.

Now another on the far foot of the one on the right. I'll put my finger at the top of the head of the left

bird, and we've made..."

"A perfect triangle."

"Right. And a triangle whose longest side is at the bottom. So what is different about the feel of this

painting?"

"Except for the—"

"Yes, except for the two stupid fat birds."

I shrugged. "Not much is moving."

"Not just that. What else? Think like an artist. Think of everything in the painting, not just the

birds."

And then I saw it. The long horizons. The flat lines. The triangle resting on them. So solid. I traced

the lines with my fingers.

"Exactly right," said Mr. Powell. "Do you see how if he had used the horizon lines and the triangle

for the Arctic Tern, it would have been wrong? It would have warred against the downward motion.

But for these birds, it's perfect. The artist gives them a stable horizon that you can't help but see."

I spread the paper across the glass case.

"Draw the horizon line at midpoint—lightly," he said. "Then we'll add in the lines for the two

puffins and see where they intersect."

I suppose it was only a matter of time before Lil found me in the library. I didn't hear her come up the

stairs. I was trying to trace the triangle and figure out how Audubon made you see a triangle without

drawing a triangle and even while sticking things outside it—like the stupid foot of the stupid puffin

on the right who was trying not to drown. This isn't easy work, so I was concentrating pretty hard.

And that explains what happened.

"Your tongue sticks out of your mouth when you draw," Lil said.

I looked up. "It does not."

"It does too. Your tongue sticks out of your mouth when you draw. That's why you drool." She

pointed to the paper. "There," she said.

"It isn't drool," I said.

"Maybe it's because of that funny thing you do with your Adam's apple."

"Is there something you want?"

"Mr. Powell said that you were up here drawing and that you were pretty good. So I came up to see

if you were." She looked at my Large-Billed Puffin. "Mrs. Merriam says you're a hoodlum in

training."

"What does Mrs. Merriam know?"

"What are these lines here for?"

"Nothing. Just something a hoodlum in training would draw."

She put her hands on her hips. "You don't have to be angry with me. I'm not the one who said it."

"You're the one who told me."

She sniffed. "Maybe she's right and I was wrong. I told my father that whoever robbed the deli, it

wasn't you, even when he thought it might be. But maybe you did. Maybe you are a hoodlum in

training. Maybe you're just a drooling hoodlum." She turned and went back down the stairs. Her hair

waved back and forth with each step down.

When her head was level with the floor, I said, "Lil."

She stopped, looked up at me.

"Sorry about my jerk brother and the daisies."

She looked at me a little more.

"Mr. Powell was right," she said. Then she was gone.

I went back to the drawing. I erased the three triangle lines I had used to guide where I put the

birds.

And then I looked up and over at the stairs.

Mr. Powell thought I was pretty good.

And Lil thought I was pretty good too.

I tried to remember the last time anyone told me I was pretty good at anything.

You know how that feels?

I went back to the drawing. I kept my tongue in my mouth. No drooling.

The police came back to The Dump twice more. The first time, they came with Mr. Spicer so that he

could identify my brother, which he could. My brother swore up and down that he didn't break into

anyone's store. But Mr. Spicer didn't listen—mostly because he was looking at me. He didn't look

happy.

The second time the police came back, my father was there, and he swore up and down, until one

of them took a step closer so that he was practically standing on top of my father's feet and said that if

my father wanted to say one more thing—just one more thing—he could say it in a cell. I could see my

father's quick hands twitching.

The whole time the police were there, I sat with my mother on the couch.

The police only came those two other times, and since they couldn't prove a thing, they stopped

coming. Their last line was to my brother: "We'll be keeping an eye out." You could tell they thought

he was as guilty as sin, which usually wasn't a bad way to describe my brother. But not for this.

So he wasn't arrested. Still, word got around anyway. That's how it is in a small town like stupid

Marysville. All you have to do is spit on the sidewalk, and the whole town figures you're the kind of

guy who might commit homicide, and everyone in your family is likely just the same. You could see it

in the eyes of the mailman, the eyes of the guy who came to collect our rent, the eyes of Mrs. Merriam

—who was sure now that I was no longer in training—even the eyes of the priest at St. Ignatius, who

asked my mother her name when we went for our first Mass in stupid Marysville and then right away

looked down at me like I was the one with the twisted criminal mind and not my brother.

You could see it in the eyes of Mr. Spicer, who didn't say much when I came in that Saturday for the

deliveries but who looked at me in a new way and who told me that I could let Mrs. Windermere put

her bill on account. He would ride up some other time to collect the money.

You could see it in the eyes of Mrs. Mason, who didn't invite me in for a chocolate doughnut, even

though she had ordered two dozen. And Mr. Loeffler, who didn't have any chores for me, thanks

anyway, not today. And Mrs. Daugherty, who kept her kids back from the front door like I was

contagious and who didn't even answer the door. Her husband came out instead. Mr. Daugherty. Who

happened to be a policeman.

You could probably have seen it in the eyes of Mrs. Windermere, except she never stopped typing

while I put her groceries away.

I hate this stupid town.

You could see it in the eyes of the secretary in the Main Office of Washington Irving Junior High

School that first day too, and in the eyes of Principal Peattie, who came out of his office so that he

could identify me better if he ever had to pick me out of a lineup, and in the eyes of the guidance

counselor who worked on my schedule, handed it to me, hesitated, and then decided to walk me to my

homeroom because, she said, I didn't know my way around the school yet—but probably because she

thought I was going to rob some lockers while I was passing by.

And you could see it in the eyes of my teachers: Mr. Barber in geography, who handed out brand-

new textbooks while holding a huge cup of coffee and who made us all swear to keep our new

textbooks neat and clean like they were Joe Pepitone's cap or something and who paused a couple of

seconds before he handed the book to me because he probably thought I was going to throw it in the

gutter like it was a piece of junk.

Mr. McElroy in world history, who announced that we were going to start by studying the barbarian

hordes of western Russia, and then looked at me.

Miss Cowper in English, whose first words were "This fall, we will be reading
Jane Eyre
by Miss

Charlotte Brontë, and I am not naive enough to believe that you will all like it." Then she looked right

at me. "The original novel is over four hundred pages long—no groaning, please, you are not cattle

being led to slaughter—but you will be reading an abridgment. Even this is a hundred and sixty pages

long, but that should not discourage you. Those of you with character should see this as a challenge.

Those of you not so favored..." And she looked at me again and didn't finish the sentence.

One hundred and sixty pages of
Jane Eyre.

Terrific.

You could see it in the eyes of Mrs. Verne in math, who wouldn't call on me even when I raised my

hand—even when I raised my hand and the only other hand up was Lil's and Mrs. Verne had already

called on her twice. When Lil got called on again, she looked back at me and then turned to Mrs.

Verne and said, "I think
he
knows," and Mrs. Verne's face got all pinchy and she said, "I will choose

who is to speak in this classroom, Miss Spicer," and she went on so that no one answered the

question.

x
—17, by the way.

You could see it in the eyes of Coach Reed in PE, who lined us up in platoons—he was just back

from being a sergeant in Vietnam, and he still had his army crewcut—and told me in his sergeant's

voice that I'd better not try to pull any funny business in his class, no sirree, buster, just before he

toured us through the locker room, taking us past his office that was Forbidden to All Students, and

then told us to shoot baskets the rest of the period.

So that's how it went until I got to Mr. Ferris in physical science. I'm not lying, he was wearing a

white lab coat and—I couldn't believe it—dark glasses on a chain looped around his neck. Don't

people know how stupid that looks? Worse than a Large-Billed Puffin. His hair was cut like he had

just gotten back from Vietnam too, and up on the lab table in front of the class, he had a toy horse that

he set rocking back and forth while he talked with us. "His name," Mr. Ferris said, "is Clarence."

I don't know why, so don't ask.

Mr. Ferris told us how we were going to have lab partners and do experiments and create vacuums

and aspirin tablets and investigate the concept of mass versus weight and how we'd have to measure

with the metric system and we didn't need to fuss about it because it was for our own good and how

the first thing we needed to become familiar with was the periodic table starting with H for ... does

anyone know?

"Hydrogen," said Lil, who turned out to be in every one of my classes, except for PE, of course.

Did I tell you that she has green eyes?

"Right!" said Mr. Ferris, and he started Clarence rocking happily.

Terrific again.

Physical science was the last period of the day, and when the bell rang, everyone gathered up their

books—and I'm not lying, I was really careful with
Geography: The Story of the World
—and was

heading to their lockers when Mr. Ferris asked me to wait for a moment. You think there was a single

eye that wasn't looking at me when they left? Even Lil's? They probably figured that Mr. Ferris was

going to tell me that I'd better not try to pull any funny business in his class, no sirree, buster.

I thought if I had to hear that again, I'd start plummeting into the sea.

"Doug Swieteck," Mr. Ferris said, "do you know the basic principle of physical science?"

A trick?

"No," I said, sort of slow.

He rocked Clarence. "The basic principle of physical science is this: two bodies cannot occupy the

same space at the same time. Do you understand that?"

"I think so," I said.

"Do you understand what the principle means?"

I shook my head.

"It means, Doug Swieteck, that in this class, you are not your brother."

Mr. Ferris started Clarence rocking again, and I felt the horizon settle.

The next Saturday, after a week of being my brother in everyone's class except Mr. Ferris's, I found

Lil waiting by the Large-Billed Puffins when I came back from the deliveries. "You can't really say

that they're beautiful, can you?" she said.

"They're not."

She looked down at the birds. "I didn't mean to embarrass you in math. Everyone knows that Mrs.

Verne is mean. But I didn't think the other teachers would—"

"They're jerks. It doesn't matter."

She reached out her hand. "You're right. It doesn't matter. Let's shake on that."

You know, maybe the puffin in the water isn't bobbing around like a chump just because he's trying

not to drown. Maybe he's swimming, but he has no idea what to do because there's this other puffin

standing beside him, and maybe she's a girl puffin—and no matter how dumb Large-Billed Puffins

look to us, they probably look pretty good to each other. And so the puffin in the water is looking at

the girl puffin standing next to him, and he doesn't know what to do, because suddenly he's thinking,
I

should tell her that she has the most beautiful green eyes in the world,
but he doesn't know how to

say it, so he just bobs in the water like the chump he is.