Authors: John D. Fitzgerald
Tags: #Social Issues, #Humorous Stories, #Reading, #Action & Adventure, #Juvenile Fiction, #Juvenile Nonfiction, #General, #Teaching Methods & Materials, #Education
The Great Brain (18 page)
Sammy jumped to his feet, grinning. “I guess that makes me champ,” he said.
Tom got up looking very downhearted because he’d lost. “There is one more challenger,” he said. “Andy.”
“It wouldn’t be fair to wrestle a cripple,” Sammy said.
“You can’t be the champion unless you take on all challengers,” Tom said.
“I’ll put him down without trying,” Sammy boasted.
Sammy and Andy lay down on the lawn and took their positions. Tom counted one, two, three and they locked legs at the knees. There was a look of complete bewilderment on Sammy’s face as Andy dipped the bigger boy over in a backward somersault.
“I wasn’t set,” Sammy complained to Tom.
“All right,” Tom said. “The first one doesn’t count. Now for the championship match. Best two out of three. Are you ready this time, Sammy?”
“All set,” Sammy replied.
Andy won two straight matches and became the new champion. We all crowded around Andy to congratulate him and pat him on the back, except Sammy. Poor old Sammy just sat on the lawn with a look on his face as if he still couldn’t believe Andy had beaten him.
Tom suggested we go into our backyard and play Duck on a Rock. Only four could play at a time. Tom chose Andy for his partner. Sammy chose Danny Forester as his partner for the first game. Tom and Andy beat Sammy and Danny.
Then they beat Basil and Jimmie and finally had no trouble beating Pete Kyle and me.
“Let’s change partners this time,” Sammy suggested. “I’ll take Andy for my partner.”
I don’t know if my brother tried his best or not, but Andy and Sammy knocked off ten ducks to eight ducks for Tom and Danny and won the game. Then Sammy and Andy beat Basil and Jimmie and then clobbered me and Pete.
“I’ve had enough of this game,” Tom said. “Let’s play Kick the Can.”
“Why not play something Andy can play?” Sammy asked.
“What makes you think he can’t play Kick the Can?” Tom asked.
“He can’t run on his peg leg,” Sammy said.
“We always let J.D. play,” Tom said. “If Andy can beat him running, it means he can play.”
“Sure,” Sammy agreed, “but how can Andy run on a peg leg?”
Tom pointed. “They will race to the end of the alley and back to the woodshed.”
We all went into the alley, where Andy and I got on our marks.
“One for the money,” Tom chanted, “two for the show, three to get on your marks, and off you go.”
I ran as fast as I could, but Andy beat me back to the woodshed by ten feet.
“Gosh, Peg Leg,” Sammy said, patting Andy on the shoulder, “you were just great. I would never have believed it if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes.” He began laughing. “You looked funny as the devil, but how you can run.”
The other kids all congratulated Andy. We played Kick the Can until it was time for lunch. I had to run an errand for Mamma after lunch. I ran all the way to the Smiths’ vacant lot after the errand where I knew the kids were meeting to play baseball. Tom and Sammy had just finished hands over fists on Sammy’s bat. Tom had won and got first choice in choosing up the two teams to play. Sammy didn’t even look surprised when Tom chose Andy first. I guess after what had happened that morning Sammy wouldn’t have been surprised if Andy had run and jumped over our barn.
We knew we would have time to play only five innings before we all had to go home and do our chores. I was playing third base on Tom’s team. My brother was pitching and Andy was catching. Tom held our opponents scoreless for four innings, but in the top of the fifth they got two runs before we made the third out. Tom was lead-off man our last time at bat. He hit the second pitch for a single. Basil then made a sacrifice bunt that put Tom on second base. Then Sammy, who was pitching, got wild and gave Pete Kyle a base on balls. Sammy settled down and struck out Seth Smith. It was then Andy’s turn at bat and our only hope of winning the game. He took two strikes and two balls and then hit the next pitch for a home run. We won the game three to two.
It had taken Tom and his great brain four weeks to prove Andy wasn’t useless and could hold his own in any games we kids played. I’d forgotten about the erector set until after supper that evening. Andy came to our front door carrying the set under his arm. He asked Tom to come out on the front porch. I followed.
“Here is the erector set like I promised,” Andy said. “I told my pa all you did for me. I told him how you showed me I could still do my chores with my peg leg. I told him how you helped me so I could play games with the kids with my peg leg. I told him how you made me feel I was no longer useless. I told him how I would have killed myself if it hadn’t been for you. I told him how you made me want to go on living. And I told him I had promised you the erector set if you could prove to him and to me I wasn’t useless anymore. Pa said it was all right to give it to you.”
It was at that moment in my brother’s life when he was suddenly attacked by a strange disease which completely paralyzed his great brain and he didn’t know what he was saying or doing. At least that is what I thought when Tom didn’t snatch the erector set out of Andy’s hands.
“It is true,” Tom said modestly. “My great brain saved you from a suicide’s grave. It is also true I proved to you and your pa that you weren’t useless. And it is true we made a deal and I have more than lived up to my end of the bargain. But it just doesn’t seem right somehow for me to take the erector set.”
Andy’s eyes got wide. “Don’t you want it?” he asked, hugging the set to his chest.
“Of course I want it,” Tom answered, “but it just doesn’t seem right getting paid for helping somebody not to be useless anymore. You keep the set, Andy. I’ll come over and play with it sometimes.”
It is a dream, I told myself. I watched Andy press his lips together as tears bubbled up in his eyes.
“You can play with the set anytime,” he said. “And my pa said to thank you for him. My ma said God bless you and she would pray for you. Ain’t no way for me to say what I feel inside for you making me so I’m not useless anymore. I guess I’ll just have to thank you in my prayers and ask God to bless you too.”
Andy walked to our front gate. I could see tears streaming down his cheeks as he turned to wave at us. I knew they were tears of happiness and gratitude as I watched him go whistling down Main Street with the erector set under his arm. Then my thoughts turned to my poor brother.
“I’ll get Mamma to call Dr. LeRoy right away,” I said, starting for the front door, positive my poor brother was so sick he didn’t know what he was doing.
Tom grabbed my arm and stopped me. “I’m not sick, J.D.,” he said, smiling at me. “As a matter of fact I feel extra good inside. Sort of clean and warm and Christmasy.”
I stood there bug-eyed as I watched Tom remove the Indian beaded belt Uncle Mark had given me for my birthday and hold out the belt toward me.
“Here is your belt back, J.D.,” he said. “It is a little worn by now but still the only genuine Indian beaded belt in town.”
There wasn’t anything my brother could have done to convince me more that he expected to die any moment from this strange malady that had seized him.
“I’m not going to take advantage of you when I know you are so sick you don’t know what you are saying or doing,” I said with my heart breaking with pity for my poor brother.
“Please, J.D.,” Tom said as he pleaded with me for the first time in his life, “if you love me as a brother you will take back the belt. I’m not sick. I give you my word. It is just that something has come over me and made me feel real good inside.”
And so it came to pass just a week before Christmas of that year a miracle took place in Adenville, Utah. The Christmas spirit arrived at our house early and with the help of a boy with a peg leg made a true Christian out of my brother.
Things got mighty dull after The Great Brain decided to give up his crooked ways and to walk the straight and narrow. So dull Papa didn’t even bother to come upstairs and see if Tom was in bed the night the schoolhouse burned down. So dull there is no more to tell.
About the Author
JOHN D. FITZGERALD was born in Utah and lived there until the age of eighteen, when he began a series of interesting careers ranging from jazz drummer to foreign correspondent. He wrote several adult best-sellers, including
Papa Married a Mormon,
which was set in the same Utah environment as the Great Brain books. His most beloved works, however, are his children’s books, which have been enormously popular since Dial’s first publication of
The Great Brain
in 1967. By 1975, Fitzgerald had published six more Great Brain books; a seventh,
The Great Is Back,
was discovered and published after his death. John D. Fitzgerald died in Florida, his home of many years, at the age of eighty-one.
Contents
The Magic Water Closet
Revenge Can Be Sour
The Great Brain Saves the Day
Abie Glassman Finds a Home
Greek Immigrant
A Wreath for Abie
The New Teacher
The Great Brain’s Reformation
Table of Contents
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
About the Author
Table of Contents