Notes from the Life of a Total Genius (7 page)

Anyway, Mr. Bruce was on his way to the airport to catch his flight to Paris. He had a meeting in the morning with
all of the most important people in the world
. He had to be there.
His absence would be like a missing stitch in the middle of a cable-knit sweater
. The whole thing would fall apart.

But here was the thing about Mr. Bruce. He was a superstitious flyer. Mr. Bruce had a few rituals that had to be followed before getting on the plane. First, he had to
zip his coat zipper
seven times. Then he had to
crack four walnuts with his nutcracker
and eat them all at once.
Since Mr. Bruce was allergic to nuts, he then had to stab himself with his EpiPen in the thigh
. And of course, he had to have raspberry yogourt.

Mr. Bruce was waiting in line for the Concord, which annoyed him. He never had to wait in line.
He was in super executive first class
; he should never have to wait!
He was a bundle of anger and nerves
, and was about to burst when he realized that he had forgotten his yogourt! Mr. Bruce jumped out of line,
and ran as fast as he could
down the airport. He stopped in the first gift kiosk he saw. “Do you have yogourt?” They didn’t. He swore at them, and tried the next store. They didn’t have any, either. He was getting frantic,
like a ten-year-old girl waiting for boy band concert tickets to go on sale
. Not only that, but they were announcing his name over the intercom; it was last call for his plane and they were going to leave without him. Mr. Bruce started crying.
“I will DIE if I don’t get raspberry yogourt!”
he screamed.
He was a puddle on the floor of the airport
. With that, a kind vendor came up to him. The vendor handed him a raspberry yogourt. Mr. Bruce sobbed in relief. He tried to pay the man $1000, but the vendor wouldn’t take any money. Mr. Bruce began his sprint back to Gate C to catch his plane.

When he got there, there was no one left, and the doors to board were locked. He watched helplessly from the window as his plane taxied away. He
zipped his zipper
seven times while he clutched his yogourt. He watched the Concord zooming down the runway and lift into the air.
BOOM!
The plane exploded into a
gazillion pieces
.

Arthur,

Well done. Your understanding of irony is strong, and I appreciate that you used it twice in your story. You’ve demonstrated several examples of each literary device here to great effect and yet still maintained a strong plot. There is, however, one spot in your story where you’ve underlined a simile that is not a simile. See if you can find it!

Ms Whitehead

Dear Ms Whitehead,

I would also like to note that I’m handing my story in two days early. I’m certain no one else in the class is as on top of assignment due dates as I am. I also want to say that I could have covered all of the literary devices in less than six sentences. Mr. Harker said that being brief is the soul of wit, which means my story would have been better if it were shorter.

Yours truly,

Arthur Bean

By Arthur Bean

Tomorrow is Halloween, and I want to put it out there that maybe we should all grow up and not wear costumes. I know some of you out there really love dressing up, but I think I speak for the majority when I say, “Enough already!”

Costumes come and go. As kids, we dress up, we get candy. Then we get too old to actually be cute to adults anymore. We could still dress up, but you need a mask to cover your acne-covered face, so what’s the point? None of the kids’ costumes fit us anymore, and the adult ones look ridiculous. Face it, we’re done with costumes until our OWN kids are old enough to be embarrassed by the Mickey Mouse costume we pull out each year to hand out candy.

So let’s be cool, guys. Let’s leave the Iron Man costumes in the closet for a few years. Feel like you’re missing a holiday? Arrival of Indentured Labourers Day is celebrated in Mauritius on November 2nd. We could celebrate that! But hey, that’s …

Just One Guy’s Opinion.

Hey, Artie,

I’m totally opposed to your viewpoint (I’ve already got a killer costume from ComicCon), but then maybe you think I’m old enough to fit into your “geeky dad” category! On the flip side, I never did find someone to be the second half of my horse costume last year. I hope you don’t mind being the voice of the minority; Kennedy’s working on a really cool piece about Halloween costumes bringing out a person’s true spirit, so these two articles will make for an interesting edition of the Marathon this week!

(On a different note, I never got your heart dissection analysis. Don’t forget to bring it to class on Monday!) (I was trying to come up with something heart related to joke about, but it was all in vein …)

Cheers!
Mr. E.

From: Arthur Bean ([email protected])

To: Kennedy Laurel ([email protected])

Sent: October 30, 19:40

Dear Kennedy,

Are you going to any great Halloween parties? I’m totally torn about which one to go to!

You probably thought I wouldn’t go to any parties because of my article, but I loved reading the draft of your article about Halloween costumes. It made a lot of sense. So now I’m back on board with Halloween. So let me know what you’re going to be up to, and maybe I’ll see you around this weekend!

Yours truly,

Arthur Bean

From: Kennedy Laurel ([email protected])

To: Arthur Bean ([email protected])

Sent: October 31, 17:05

Hey Arthur,

Enjoy your parties! I don’t think I’m going to do anything tonight or this weekend. I never really heard about anything going on. It’s so stupid, but sometimes I think that I only get invited to things because Catie invites me. Maybe no one else likes me.

I’m only kidding. Don’t mind me. I’m just annoyed because I didn’t make the senior volleyball team, and I just found out. So it’s probably good that I’m not going out this weekend. I’m going to stay home and wallow in candy and bad movies LOL!

Kennedy :)

From: Arthur Bean ([email protected])

To: Kennedy Laurel ([email protected])

Sent: October 31, 17:57

Dear Kennedy,

I would have made you captain of the team. I can’t believe you didn’t make it! Do you want me to write an article about the shady recruitment practices for the school sports teams? I bet there’s a lot of dirt to dig up!

If you want some company, I could come hang out.

Yours truly,

Arthur Bean

October 31st

Dear RJ,

No response from Kennedy. What does that mean? Why didn’t she respond yet? Should I text her with the same stuff? I never text her, so that might be weird. But why didn’t she respond? I ALWAYS respond to emails.

You know what? It’s fine. I don’t care. (Maybe if I write that enough it will become true.)

Yours truly,

Arthur Bean

From: Von Ipo ([email protected])

To: Arthur Bean ([email protected])

Sent: November 1, 18:03

Hey, Artie!

LOVED your article about costumes. I am in total agreement with you, man. I hate coming up with a costume every year.

Anyways, I was wondering if you have Kennedy’s number. I wanted to text her and ask her to be in my play. I don’t know if she’ll do it, she might be too busy with grad committee. Actually, you know what? I’ll ask her at our meeting next week. I don’t know why more guys didn’t run for grad committee. I’m totally outnumbered there. Not that I mind. The chicks are so hot!

What’s your play about? I’m thinking that mine will be about the illuminati, or maybe about terrorists. Maybe we could hang out and I could help you come up with a cool idea. Let me know. I’ve got hockey this weekend, but I’m around Sunday night.

Von

From: Arthur Bean ([email protected])

To: Robbie Zack ([email protected])

Sent: November 4, 18:11

Dear Robbie,

I don’t know why I’m writing. I didn’t do anything this weekend. There’s nothing new happening here. How was your party?

I’m supposed to do homework, but instead I was looking up fencing rules online. Did you know that there’s no slashing in fencing? Well, there actually is, but Deeter is only teaching us foil. There are three different types of fencing, and we only get to try the hardest one. It’s so much work, and foil fencing is so picky. You have to hit your opponent only in the chest for it to count for anything. Not only that, but my dad makes us take the bus to the gym because you have to pay for parking there, so then after we are definitely the smelliest guys on the bus. I hate smelling bad. It’s one of the top reasons that I don’t do sports.

How was your Halloween party? There weren’t any parties at all this year. It’s always that way when Halloween is on a weekday. Was Hayley there? Did you talk to her?

Did your team make the football provincials? It’d be cool if you got to come up to Calgary with your team. I would even come to your game. I could interview you too, because I need someone with football knowledge for a story I want to write. It isn’t really about football. It’s about a group of girl cheerleaders who kill the school quarterback.

See? This is how bored I am. I’m writing stories where you are the protagonist. Talk about desperate!!

Yours truly,

Arthur Bean

Assignment: Novel Study — Dystopian Fiction

Calling all
Hunger Games
fans! Our group novel study will focus on the dystopian genre.

You have a choice: you can read
The Chrysalids
by John Wickham,
How I Live Now
by Meg Rosoff, or
House of the Scorpion
by Nancy Farmer. I don’t want to hear any complaints: I’ve chosen these books based on the reading surveys you filled in last week! Each novel’s specifics will give us a lot to discuss in class, so I expect you to actively participate in class debates.

The setting of a dystopian novels often focuses on a utopian vision for society, a vision that has gone wrong.

In a paragraph or two, describe what utopia is to you, and reflect upon how that could become a dystopia.

Due: November 12

By Arthur Bean

My idea of utopia is a world where everyone gets a chance to express their opinion without getting shot down by those in charge; this would be number one. I think that school would only happen four days a week, and no one would be super poor or super rich. In my utopia, there would be libraries without late fines. I would also get rid of bedbugs, because they creep me out; my old next-door neighbour Nicole got bedbugs in her suitcase while she was travelling, and then they infested her house and she got bitten everywhere; it was so gross that I didn’t want to sit down anywhere when we went to visit her. Since I’m getting rid of things, I would get rid of mosquitoes too; I don’t see the point of keeping them around. And fruit flies; they can go too.

I was going to say that there would be no death in my utopia, but that’s crazy and definitely one way to make the world a dystopia; in fact, I thought of so many things that would make the world better, but I looked up utopia in the dictionary and it said that it actually means “no place,” so it can never really exist; I think that’s why my utopia is a dystopia. It just gets people’s hopes up that life will be perfect, and I can say with total certainty that that’s just not true.

Arthur,

I’m pleased to see that you took some extra time to research the word. On the whole, you start off strong, looking at global qualities, rights and freedoms, but you take a wrong turn when you focus on minor qualities like bedbugs. The story about your neighbour is unnecessary, and it doesn’t add to your argument. Remember to stay focused on the task at hand, and to develop your ideas with more insight and reflection on why those things would make for a better world.

Also, I appreciate that you are practising your use of the semi-colon, but remember that it isn’t always the best type of punctuation to use. A good writer uses a variety of sentence lengths to keep the reader engaged. There’s nothing wrong with having short sentences!

November 16th

Dear RJ,

I had asked Dad if we could go to Lethbridge for the weekend to see Robbie play football, but we couldn’t because he had signed up for a silent meditation practice. Like he needs to practise being silent. The guy barely talks as it is! So instead, I am stuck at home, AGAIN. I complained, but Dad said that I should go out and do something. I reminded him that generally fourteen-year-olds don’t hang around outside by themselves, and not only that, it’s windy and rainy and minus a thousand outside. So he convinced me to go to the movies by myself.

WORST IDEA EVER. Dad said that it would be fine and that no one would know because the movie theatre was dark. But as soon as I walked in, Kennedy and Catie were there, right in front of me in line! I thought about pretending not to see them, but as soon as Kennedy turned around, I couldn’t very well ignore her. She asked who I was there with, and I couldn’t think of someone fast enough, so I said that I was there with my cousin Luke. Then she got all excited, and said that she had never met Luke and asked if we wanted to sit with them. I said that we probably weren’t going to see the same movie. So she asked what movie. And the only options at the matinee were the new Avengers movie, some kind of weird biopic about a guy from Denmark and an old people’s romantic comedy starring a bunch of eighty-year-olds reliving their youth on a bus tour (remind me, RJ, to only make good movies when I’m famous). Kennedy looked confused, so I said, “We’re going to the old people movie.”

She laughed and asked me why, and I couldn’t come up with anything good, so I repeated a line that my mom used to say all the time. “Because I love Diane Keaton,” I said. “She’s underappreciated as an actor, but she’s got the chops.”

RJ, I don’t even know what that means! I was so nervous. Catie gave me a look like I was the loserest (not a word, I know) person ever. And then I had to buy my ticket while they were standing beside me, so I got two tickets to the old person movie. And then Kennedy asked if Luke was in the bathroom since I was buying two tickets, so I had to say yes. So there we were, the three of us, waiting in the lobby for a guy who was never going to show up. After ten minutes, Catie lost it and said that they were going to miss the previews, and I said, “Luke must have diarrhea,” and Kennedy looked totally disgusted, but said, “I hope he’s okay.” I’m sure that Catie didn’t believe me though. She has a sixth sense for that kind of thing. So they left, and then I was going to sneak into the Avengers after the previews and grab a seat, but I looked in and it was totally sold out. I had nothing to do for two hours until my dad came to get me, so I ended up watching the stupid old-person movie anyway. Diane Keaton sure can cry on cue.