Jack's New Power (17 page)

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Authors: Jack Gantos

BOOK: Jack's New Power
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I read it and put my head down on my desk. He was heartless.
“Is this how you behave in the United States?” Mr. Cucumber asked, as he patrolled for cheaters.
“No sir,” I replied. “I just don't know the answer.”
“Perhaps you did not study your math and geometry,” he suggested. Then he turned to the class. “Can anyone help Master Henry solve this problem?”
Four hands shot up into the air.
I shook my head. Nothing is going to be solved until they find that kid, I thought. I'm thinking about life and death and he's thinking circles and triangles. We are worlds apart.
I took an F on the test.
After school, things got worse. I was pedaling down Rockley Road when Mr. Branch pulled up alongside me.
“You,” he hollered out his window.
He startled me. I jerked my wheel to the right and almost slipped into the gutter.
He nodded toward the divining rod taped on my headlight. “Don't fool with God's power,” he shouted. “It's dangerous.”
“I just want to help out,” I yelled back.
He reached out the window and pointed his long bony finger at me. “Stay out of the way,” he said sternly. “You don't have the power. I've already delved into your spirit. It's not in you. You only have fear.”
“You just want the reward,” I shot back. “You don't care about the kid.”
“That's a lie,” he shouted furiously. He snatched one side of the Y on the divining rod and gunned his engine just as I hit the rear brakes. The rod split in half like a wishbone as he swerved to avoid a car, then sped away. I was
left with the big piece and made a wish. “I hope one of us finds you soon,” I said to Wade Block. “I can't sleep at night and now I have a maniac after me during the day.”
The rest of the week I didn't do anything after school but ride around with my map of the island and cross off streets that I investigated. But I didn't get a nibble. The newspapers continued the Wade Block report and every day the reward grew larger. The police were out combing the cane fields. They were checking the beaches to see if he washed up. Dogs were called in. Wells were examined. The radio and television asked for volunteers to search every square inch of the island. Still, they couldn't find him. I couldn't. It was up to Mr. Branch and he was waiting for the reward to go sky-high. He had the power, but he was just sitting on it. I was sure of it.
 
On Saturday I snuck back into Dad's office. The newspaper was on his desk, where it always was. I leafed through the pages. I read the headlines of every article. There was nothing about Mr. Branch or Wade Block. I knew they hadn't found Wade yet, because he was still finding me. I had hardly slept a wink. Toward the back of the papers were the movie listings.
Mothra
and
Invasion of the Body Snatchers
were playing.
It was still too early to wake Pete. I went out to the back yard and with a stick drew a map of Barbados in the dirt. “One more time,” I said with the half a divining rod in my hands. “Wade, where are you?” I stepped into the map. The rod went straight down. “He's in Bridgetown,” I said. “Castle Rock was just a runaround.”
I hopped on my bike and sped down our street. I took a
right at the bus stop and followed that route to Trafalgar Square. I locked my bike to the steel fence around the statue of Lord Nelson. Then I ran the rest of the way.
When I arrived at the theater, the neon lights were off. An ambulance was parked out front. On the corner I could see Mr. Branch's Morris Minor half parked on the sidewalk. A few people stood around the ambulance. They didn't look official, so I pushed open the front door with the chilled Penguin and went in. It was
not
cool inside. It was hot and muggy and greasy-smelling and something else, something nasty. The lobby was empty. I went over to the drinking fountain.
Just then the inner door to the seats was pushed open from behind. Mr. Branch stepped forward. “Don't drink from that water,” he said sternly. He held out his hand as if he could control me from the other side of the room. But he didn't have that kind of power and I was thirsty.
I leaned over the water cooler.
“Don't!” he shouted. “It's tainted.”
I stopped. Behind him I heard the stretcher wheels wobbling up the aisle. Farther back, someone was crying. Mr. Branch held the door open for the ambulance crew. When they came into sight I knew I would never speak with Wade Block or ever see him again in a dream. It was over. Mr. Branch lowered his head and made the sign of the cross. He could see everything in his mind, but I could not. I had to look. Wade's body was zipped up in a thick plastic bag like a fancy suit. Water trickled from a hole in the side. The smell was hideous. I pulled the rim of my T-shirt up over my nose.
His parents walked by. Both of them had their hands
pressed over their red faces. Tears ran down their cheeks and chins and left dark drops of water on their shirts.
Mr. Branch drifted across the lobby and stood next to me. “I found him in the cistern,” he said quietly. “He was wearing a bathing suit. During the movie he must have slipped through a hole in the floor to take a swim. A lot of boys do, but this one got lost.”
“How do you know?” I asked.
“I just do,” he replied. “
I
have the power.”
I didn't. I didn't know what I had. I could see things, but maybe that wasn't special. When I closed my eyes, I saw Wade in the darkness calling out for help. But with the movie and the screaming kids he couldn't be heard. But what I saw didn't need a special power. Anybody could see that, if they closed their eyes and thought about it. Anyone who wanted to help. And I did. If I was down in that hole I'd want some boy looking for me. I'd tried, but I was too late.
I
was in the back yard trying to build muscles. I looked like a skinny boy, but before long I planned to bulk up like a man. First, I did fifty sit-ups, then ten chin-ups and twenty push-ups. Dad had an old cannonball that he had uncovered at the beach while digging a luau pit. I picked it up and held it against my chest and groaned out loud as I did deep knee bends until my thighs burned. I completed ten more chin-ups and had just dropped down from the bar when Cush pulled up the driveway. He was a friend of Dad's. Mom called him a “shady character.”
“Who can tell how he makes a living?” she had once remarked. “He's on the golf course all day, and out cattin' around all night.”
I had never seen Cush work, but on my birthday last month he had given me a twenty-dollar bill. It was none of my business how he got his money as long as some made it
into my hot hands. Now he was driving a new green-and-white Triumph two-seater sports coupe. The engine purred, and after what Mom had said, I began to think of him as a cat. A shaved cat who wore a lot of English Leather cologne.
“Hey, buddy,” he hollered as he hopped out of the Triumph. He ran at me as though he were in a rush. He was wearing a bright orange suit with a yellow shirt, and a sky-blue scarf knotted around his neck. He had on a pair of white leather loafers and a matching white belt. “Is your dad home?”
“No,” I replied, and shielded my eyes. “He's in Saint Lucia trying to drum up business.” Dad had talked a cruise line into letting him travel between the islands while he gave cocktail talks on buying property and homes in Barbados. The hotel-building business had dropped off and he was working a “new luxury-home market,” as he put it.
“That's right,” Cush said, groaning. “I forgot he took off. I sure need his help.” He cracked his knuckles and did a little drumbeat on the side of his leg. He was so bright and jumpy he made me nervous.
“Well, can I do something?”
That cheered him up. “Listen,” he whispered. “You're as smart as your old man. You like a good deal when you hear it—well, here's the story.”
His enthusiasm hooked me even before I heard a detail.
“Do you still have that twenty dollars I gave you?”
“Yeah,” I replied.
“Well, now you're in luck!” He jabbed me in the belly. “Hey,” he said, stepping back in mock fear. “That is some
hard
belly.”
Even before he asked me I rolled up my sleeve and showed him my biceps.
“You put Popeye to shame,” he cracked. “But here's the difference. Smart guys like us crave greenbacks, not spinach.”
I agreed with that. “You bet,” I said. “I like greenbacks.” If I wanted to be a real man, I needed real money.
“Now, you loan me that twenty and I'll give you forty tomorrow.”
That
was
a good deal. A one hundred percent return in one day, I figured. Mr. Cucumber would be proud of my math skills.
“Well? I'm waiting for an answer. You'll never find a better deal worldwide. I can promise you that. And to earn it,” he said, squeezing my arm, “you don't have to move a muscle.”
“Okay,” I said eagerly. “I'll go get it.”
He looked up over his shoulder at the kitchen window. “Hurry,” he whispered. “I don't want your mom messing up this golden opportunity.”
“Don't worry,” I replied. “She's at her new job.”
I ran directly to my room and pulled the twenty out of my diary. When I returned, he was already sitting in his Triumph. He gave the engine a little gas. The fenders twitched just like his head and shoulders.
“Thanks, buddy,” he said, and plucked the twenty out of my hand and folded it into his shirt pocket. Then he reversed in a fast, straight line, curled out onto the road, and slipped into first gear.
I walked up to the front porch singing “Forty bucks, forty bucks … I love the sound of forty bucks.”
Betsy was sitting there with a book on her lap. The pages fluttered and buzzed with the wind. “What did he want?” she asked.
“He was looking for Dad.”
“Did he ask you for money?”
“No.”
“Your nose is growing,” she said sarcastically. “Don't lie to me. He's a sleazeball. He owes money to everyone and now he's taking money from you.”
He's got money, I thought.
My
money. But I'll double it in my sleep. I didn't want to tell Betsy about our deal, but I wanted to bug her, so I said, “You just have a crush on him, but he already has a girlfriend. She's a singer at the Colony Club.”
Betsy glared at me. “You know nothing,” she snapped. “She said good riddance to him weeks ago.”
“Well, since you know everything already,” I trilled, “there is no reason to ask me questions.” I turned and smartly strolled down the hallway.
“Sucker! Don't say I didn't warn you,” she hollered.
Back in my bedroom, I flipped through the sections I had marked out in my diary. DAD HORROR STORIES, LOTTERY TICKETS, DREAMS, POEMS, PERSONAL, JUNK, SONGS, PETE, until I arrived at MONEY. I wrote down CUSH—$20.00. Then I wrote down beneath it, REPAID—$40.00. As soon as I wrote the last zero a voice in my head cautioned: Don't count your chickens before they hatch. It sounded like Dad's voice.
 
After school, I was standing behind the garage with Mom's cloth tape measure draped over my straining
biceps. I read the results. My muscle hadn't grown one bit. Just then I heard a car crunching the gravel in the driveway. I peeked around the corner. It was Cush. He had cut the engine off and was coasting in with my forty bucks.
“I don't have it yet,” he said when I leaned against his open window. “The guy is out of town. But I have a better deal for you. Let's say you have the forty bucks already. Let me have it for another night and I'll double your money. So, when I pay you back, I'll give you …”
“Eighty,” I answered. That was a lot of money. “Okay.”
“Double or nothing it is,” he said smoothly.
“What do you mean by
nothing,”
I asked.
“Hey, pal, your money is riding on a bet. You don't think you can double your money by playing tiddledy-winks? You have to take some risks if you want to make money with the big boys. I bet your twenty bucks at a cockfight and we won. And when we win,
you
win.”
“But … I thought you had borrowed my money. Doesn't that mean you take the risk?”
He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. “Hey, partner, don't get cold feet. You and I are going to make a lot of money off that twenty-dollar bill. Now just be patient.” He swung his door open and stepped out. “Here,” he said, pointing at me. “Let me give you some muscle-man lessons. It'll help keep you from worrying to death over a measly twenty bucks.”
“Eighty,” I said.
“Whatever,” he replied.
I didn't know what else to say about my money and I figured he must know something about muscles. Anyone who doesn't pay his debts on time must be tough.
“First,” he instructed, “take a roll of kitchen plastic wrap and wrap it around your whole body like a bag of leftovers. ‘Course, don't cover your face. Then you have to run a mile. This will cause you to sweat like a fountain and will melt down all your fat. Then you have to eat a lot of bananas and drink fruit juice.
Only
after this conditioning,” he stressed, “are you ready to lift weights.” Suddenly he shot his arm forward and looked at his watch. “But right now I have to get movin',” he said quickly and turned toward the Triumph. “It's time to collect some of our money.”
I didn't want to slow him down. “Okay,” I said.
“By the way,” he asked, and stepped back toward me. “Do you have any more money?”
“I have another twenty.”
He grinned. “Well, buddy. Go get it! That twenty is just sitting around doing nothing. Let me put it to work and I'll double that for you, too.”
I ran into the house counting to myself. Twenty to forty, to eighty, to one hundred and sixty, to three hundred and twenty, to six hundred and forty. I was going to have a big stack of money. By the time Dad returned I'd be loaded. I could quit school and go into business with him.
Betsy was waiting for me outside my door. “Could you do me a favor?” she asked.
“Like what?”
“Give Cush this note.”
I knew she had a crush on him. “What'll you give me?” I asked coyly.
“Some good advice.”
“Like what?”
“You'll have to give it to him first.”
Just then I heard Cush start up the Triumph. “Okay,” I said. “Okay.” I snatched it from her hand and went into my room. I got the twenty out of my diary and ran back to Cush.
“Thanks, pal,” he said, and shoved the bill up above the sun visor. “See you soon.” He started to back away.
“When?” I asked.
He shrugged.
“Wait, I've got something else for you,” I said and reached into my pocket.
He hit the brakes. “More cash?”
“Just a note,” I said, and handed it to him.
“Later, buddy,” he said and pulled away.
“Well?” Betsy asked, when I returned to the house. “Did he read it?”
“He wouldn't open a love letter in front of me,” I said in a sappy voice.
“It wasn't a love letter,” she replied. “It was a warning to leave you alone.”
“Well, I'm old enough to take care of myself,” I shot back. I was so angry. She'd made me look like a baby.
“But you aren't old enough to know when you are being taken for a ride,” she said, sounding so old, so wise, so snotty.
I stomped into my room, opened my diary, and counted my imaginary money.
 
The next day I was wrapped in clear plastic and running circles in the back yard when Cush glided up the driveway.
“I know you are the nervous type when it comes to
money,” he said, flipping open the Triumph door and swinging his legs out to stretch them. “So I just wanted to come by and put your fears at ease.”
I stuck out my dripping hand for a payoff.
He shook it, then wiped his palm on his pants leg. “I don't have the cash,” he said. “I had to reinvest it.”
I looked down at my feet. The sweat was leaking out of my plastic and filling up my sneakers. “You aren't taking advantage of me?” I asked.
“Don't you go believing your sister,” he said, nodding toward the house. He had read her note. “If I was going to gyp you, I'd just not show up. I'd leave town. Cut out.”
“Well, when do you think you can get the money?”
“Here's the deal. I bet our money at the cockfights. I got a guy there named Otis who gives me inside tips and we are just slowly setting everyone up to make a big bundle. I've been losing a little cash just to let the regulars think I'm an easy target. But then we'll suck them into one big bet and end up with a wad of cash as thick as your leg.”
I peered down at my leg. It wasn't thick enough.
“Take that plastic off,” he said. “You look like you're melting.”
“I am,” I said, puffing.
He stood up. “It's time for me to give you more muscle training. Now, what you do is this. Get two empty paint cans and a six-foot piece of steel bar. Then mix up some quick-acting concrete and fill one can, then jam the rod down into it and let it sit for a minute and get hard while you mix up the next batch of concrete. Then, when the first concrete sets up, do the other side the same way. Once you make the barbell, then I can really show you how to bulk
up.” He rolled up his sleeve and made a muscle. “Feel this,” he instructed.

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