You Will Call Me Drog (12 page)

In the middle of a math quiz I’d barely studied for, I watched Wren sharpen her pencil for the tenth time. She’d smell like pencil shavings by the end of the day. She gets all nervous about quizzes and can’t think about anything else until they’re over. Not me. My problem is making myself concentrate instead of doodling on the page.

“You’re a null set yourself,” Drog said. “You forgot to carry the three.”

He was right. I erased my answer and changed it.

We went through the quiz like that. Drog making remarks, me changing my answers.

Mrs. Belcher looked up. “Please, Parker. No talking during a quiz.”

Drog actually had the sense to whisper after that.

I turned in my paper with corrections on almost half the problems. And no doodles.

It was getting kind of cold to go out for recess, but Mrs. Belcher doesn’t let us stay in unless it’s at least twenty below. We need exercise every day, she says, and we sure get it in the winter, because if you stood still you’d have to be carried back inside in a frozen block. You don’t exactly feel like playing games, though. You mostly just run around flapping your arms.

I saw somebody moving over behind the hedge where we’re not supposed to go. I walked around the end and there was Big Boy, practicing his aikido moves. He motioned me over. Then he surprised me with a throw and I rolled as well as I could in my winter jacket. I threw him back.

A window creaked open. “You boys wouldn’t be fighting on the school grounds would you, by any chance?”

It was Mr. Fairweather. I slipped Drog into my pocket.

“No, sir,” Big Boy said. “This here’s something else, not fighting.”

“Hmmmm. I’m not even going to ask. Well, get on back to your room. Recess is over.”

“I have some good news,” Mrs. Belcher said later that afternoon. “Two people got perfect scores on the math quiz. Wren Rivera and ... Parker Lockwood! Congratulations, Parker. No careless errors. No errors, period!”

Wren turned around and looked at me like I’d shot her with a paint gun.

She stopped me going out the door after school.

“How did you get so good in math all of a sudden?”

“Want to know the truth?”

“Of course. Did you cheat?”

Okay, here goes the truth
. “Yeah, in a way. It’s Drog. Drog corrected my mistakes for me.”

“Oh right. Just when I think ... Am I supposed to pretend I believe that? You’re impossible.”

That made me mad. “Well how about you, Miss Perfect? You just can’t stand it if somebody does as well as you. It’s not enough for you to be good, you have to be the only one!”

Me and my big mouth
.

“That’s telling her,” Drog said, but I just stood there watching Wren walk away. Again.

I didn’t feel right accepting that perfect score, so I hung around until all everyone had left and went back into the room.

“Um, Mrs. Belcher?”

She looked up and beamed at me. “Yes, Parker?”

“I ... didn’t exactly do that well on the quiz by myself. I ... had some help.”

“Oh?” Her smile shrank to a zero.

“That was Drog talking during the quiz, telling me my mistakes.”

Mrs. Belcher smiled even bigger than before. I could tell she was trying not to laugh.

“Well, if it’s only Drog,” she said. “Did he also tell you the answers?”

“No, just where I went wrong. Then I fixed it.”

Now she did laugh a little. “Parker, I appreciate your telling me this,” she said. “But I don’t think there’s a problem here, do you? Drog is a part of you after all, so if he knows how to do a problem, it means you do.”

“But—”

“You tell Drog, whatever he’s doing, to keep it up. And I’ll look for improvement in your homework.”

So I wasn’t in trouble. But Mrs. Belcher’s awful words filled my brain:
Drog is a part of you, after all...

Outside, Gordy and some of the guys were bouncing a ball off the side of the building and talking. I waved, but they didn’t see me, and then I heard my name. I backed up close to the wall around the corner from them and listened.

Ka-whonk!

“So how long do you think he’s going to keep this up?”

“As long as he wants, I guess.”

As long as I want? Did they think I liked being a puppet’s puppet?

“Can you believe how nice Mrs. Belcher is being about it? Most kids would be suspended by now.”

“Hey, I know,” Gordy said. “Maybe it’s some kind of school experiment or something. Like he’s supposed to do this. To see how everybody will react. And Mrs. Belcher and Mr. Fairweather and the principal are all in on it.”

Well, at least Gordy thinks I might not be crazy.

Ka-thonk!

“I’ve seen him talking to Big Boy. Think Big Boy’s part of it?”

“Could be. Nobody talks to Big Boy.”

Right. Maybe somebody should try it sometime.

“And what about that man who came around asking questions? I didn’t tell him anything.”

Blam.

“Me neither. Didn’t like him.”

Thanks, guys.

“I bet that magazine job was just a cover. He’s probably FBI. Or CIA.”

“Yeah. What if the puppet’s wired? It doesn’t just talk, it eavesdrops for some foreign government or something, and—”

“Yeah, and the guy on the playground was a counterspy trying to find out what they know.”

Wow, if Mom thinks I let my imagination run away with me, she should listen to this!

“So, you think Parker’s a spy, too?”

What?

“Nah. They’re probably just making him cooperate. Where’s his dad, anyway? Maybe they’ve got him.”

“Or maybe his dad’s part of it—”

I had to stop this. I came around the corner like I hadn’t heard anything and said “Hi. Wanna play dodge ball?”

I couldn’t believe how fast they all said “Hi, Parker” and “Sure.”

It was funny but it wasn’t. Because they had me thinking again about Notebook Man. Drog had called him a spy from the beginning, Could he actually be right in a way? Why
did
Notebook Man zero in on Drog and me? What did he know that I didn’t know, and what was he trying to find out? Could he have gotten me into some big trouble? Good thing Mrs. Belcher ran him off.

Thanksgiving came, and it was great to have nothing but turkey and aikido to think about. At practice we weren’t just rolling anymore, we were learning to fall from a standing position, forward and backward.

Sensei paired Big Boy and Wren and me with other students, not each other. But I kept an eye on Wren whenever I stopped to rest. She did okay with the throws, but when it was her turn to fall, especially backwards, she got all messed up and mad at herself. She just couldn’t let herself fall. Except when Sensei was her partner.

Big Boy could fall for anybody, even though he had the farthest to drop. I was somewhere in between but getting better. The more you relax, the easier it is. Why couldn’t Wren see that? I wondered.

That Saturday, Big Boy called me up. He wanted me to meet him at the mall and see a Jackie Chan movie. He’d heard Jackie Chan did all his own martial-arts stunts.

It had been a while since I’d been in a movie theater with anybody besides Wren or Mom. We got a big bag of popcorn and took seats in the back. Big Boy held the bag, and I helped myself with my good hand.

The kung fu was fantastic. It couldn’t happen the way it showed in the movie, of course, but it was great to watch Jackie go after the bad guys. One head-cracking scene that left three evil ninjas groaning on the ground reminded me of Drog and me.

“You think Sensei would like this movie?” I said to Big Boy.

He laughed. “No way, man!”

“You gonna tell him we saw it?”

“Nah.”

We broke up laughing.

That day at aikido we had to concentrate extra hard on our one-points and not look at each other so we wouldn’t remember the movie and laugh out loud in the middle of practice.

Monday after Thanksgiving we started basketball in P.E. Our gym has special baskets built for about fourth-graders. By the time you’re a sixth-grader you can hit them easy. And Big Boy could practically do a standing slam dunk.

I could steady the ball with my Drog hand and dribble with my right. But I could hardly catch, except when Big Boy threw the ball, and I couldn’t pass or shoot for anything. I used to be chosen third or fourth for a team, but nobody wanted me anymore. I could see why. I gave up and went back to the climbing wall. Couldn’t do much there either, except hang by one arm and watch everybody else play.

Mrs. Belcher let me be in the first group to go on the computers when we got back to the room. We were supposed to be coming up with ideas for our science projects so we’d be ready to start after Christmas, but I decided to do a search on one-armed people.

I found a tournament for one-armed golfers, and a thirteen-year-old champion surfer who went back to competition a couple of months after a shark bit off her arm. I found famous pianists who lost a hand or arm in wartime but still played one-handed pieces composers wrote especially for them. I even found a story about a black woman and a white woman who each loved to play the piano, but one had a stroke on her left side and the other had a stroke on the right. You guessed it, they heard about each other and got together to play. They even performed, calling themselves “Ebony and Ivory.” No kidding.

I guess those stories should have inspired me. More like the opposite. They made me think about how everybody, including me, was getting used to the idea that I had only one hand.

The longer Drog stayed on, the more I felt like I might not ever have fun again, like I’d already made everything I was ever going to make and it wasn’t enough.

As I was leaving school, I heard shouting over in the corner of the playground. Some older boys were yelling at a bunch of our kids. A couple of them looked familiar—guys from Bradley Military who’d come around before. The biggest one had Charlie Sloat by the front of his jacket and was lifting him off the ground. The security guard was nowhere around, and I was the only sixth-grader. I headed over.

“What’s happening?” I asked one of the kids standing there watching.

“That’s Wade Hunt. Some fifth-graders went over to his house over Thanksgiving and TPed the bushes.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. And they left a big sign in the middle that said B.M. Happens.”

I laughed. “Good for them. That’s funny.”

“Well, Wade isn’t laughing.”

Just then Wade Hunt turned Charlie upside down and started shaking him like a ketchup bottle. “You’re nothing but a little turd yourself,” he said. “I’d flush you down the toilet, but you’d probably clog it up. Guess I’ll just have to dispose of you in the trash can.”

“No!” yelled Drog.

Charlie opened his mouth to yell, but nothing was coming out.

“Cut that out, “ I called to Wade. “How do you even know it was him?”

He turned. “I know. Just look at him. So guilty.”

“So scared. Can’t you tell the difference?”

“Go for him!” hissed Drog.

“Put Charlie down,” I said to Wade.

“Yeah,” Charlie’s friends said, lining up behind me.

I pictured my feet planted in the ground with mile-long roots.

Wade turned to faced me. “Oh, you want to fight me, Mop Head? No problem.”

I checked out his hands and his chest. He was pretty big.

“You can beat him, Boy,” Drog said. “He doesn’t know your tricks. Go on, he deserves it.”

I started toward Wade with my hands up.

He dropped Charlie like a sack and stepped forward. “Hey, what’s that thing on your hand?” he said.

“It’s a puppet. What did you think?”

“Well take it off. I’m not fighting with a puppet.”

“No, you’re fighting with me!”

I shoved him in the chest, but he grabbed both my wrists quicker than I thought he could. Up close, he was even bigger.

Doesn’t matter, I can do this. It’s just like practice.

It wasn’t. I spread my elbows and raised my hands to duck to the side. That was supposed to make him turn too, or risk getting his wrist broken. But he just stood there and grinned. I hated that look.

I went slack, then lunged forward with my right arm and punched him in the eye, catching him by surprise, so I could finally turn him. I yanked my hands free and pushed down on his elbow. He dropped to the ground in a second, and I held his arm behind his back.

He didn’t get up. At first I thought maybe I had really hurt him instead of just wanting to. But then I realized he didn’t want to show his face because he was crying. Too bad. I wanted to twist his arm until it cracked.

I looked up. The other B.M. guys were standing there with their mouths hanging open.

“Who’s next?” Drog said. “Leave no survivors!”

“Shut up, Drog.”

Someone took hold of my arm.

“What’re you doing, man?” It was Big Boy.

I let go of Wade, but he stayed facedown.

The B.M. guys pulled him to his feet and dragged him off. He kept both his eyes covered, even though I’d only hit one.

I stood up.

Then our kids got brave, calling after the guys: “B.M. got flushed! B.M. got flushed!”

I heard them from far away though, like it was just Big Boy and me on the playground. Him looking at me. Me looking back.

“What’re you doing?” he said again, real low, and let go of me.

I turned away a minute and said, “You okay, Charlie?”

Charlie brushed the dirt off his pants. “Yeah, I guess. Thanks, Parker. Thanks a lot.”

When I turned back, Big Boy had already walked away.

One of the fifth-grade girls said, “You’re a hero, Parker.”

A hero? Inside, I was dizzy and shaking. Scared, but not of Wade Hunt. Scared of how much I had really wanted to hurt him. Sure, he was a jerk, but that wasn’t why. I didn’t know why.

“Well, well,” crooned Drog on the way home. “So all that aikido practice was good for something after all.”

“You think so? I didn’t have to get into that fight.”

“Nonsense! It was the honorable thing to do. He was about to put that boy in the trash can!”

“It wasn’t self-defense. It wasn’t a matter of life and death.”

“Speak for yourself.”

“Fighting is stupid, Drog. It just leads to more fights.”

“That’s the law of the jungle gym, Boy. You’re king of the mountain. Get used to it.”

“You don’t understand.”

“No,
you
don’t understand. The kiddies at this school will follow you around like ducks now. If you’ve got the blame you might as well have the game.”

I decided maybe I’d skip aikido that night.

“So, Parker, you becoming a frequent flyer?” Mr. Fairweather said first thing the next morning.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean this is the second time you’ve been sent to see me in a month. They say you’ve gone from puppet handling to fistfights. Tell me all about it.”

I told him the main facts.

“Oh sure, I know that kid. Used to go here, in fact. Got a chip on his shoulder the size of the Sears Tower.”

He leaned over the desk and lowered his voice.

“I’m going to have to send you to the cafeteria for a little K.P. duty this morning, Parker. And I’ve called your mom. Zero tolerance for fighting at school and all that. But just between you and me, I’m sure the guy had it coming.”

I headed out the door with my pass, but he called after me. “Still got that thing on? Doesn’t it, you know, get in the way of the old one-two punch?”

I held up my free hand. “It only took one,” I said, and he leaned back in his chair, laughing.

Drog was right. The little kids did hang on me on the playground that afternoon. It was pretty embarrassing. One boy even had a puppet on his hand.

Big Boy came right up to me at the dojo that day.

“Come to aikido, you told me. You can fight but not get mad, you said. You stay cool. So what about you, man?” Big Boy said.

I looked down. “I guess ... I kind of lost it. I wanted to hurt him.”

“How’d you get into that fight anyway?” he said. “I didn’t see it start.”

“I was the one who started it. I shoved him.”

“What for?”

“He was bullying Charlie. He ... I didn’t hurt him much.”

I looked up. There was Sensei, standing behind Big Boy. He’d heard everything. I bowed to him, and when I lifted my head he looked right between my eyes.

Sensei began practice by talking about doing things with intention.

“Whether something you do is weak or strong depends on your intention, because your energy goes where your intention is. If you do nothing, that could just be laziness or weakness or not being able to make up your mind. But if doing nothing is your intention, it can mean you’re strong. In whatever you do, keep your intention and don’t let your mind get scattered.”

There were nine of us. Whenever there was an uneven number, Sensei always paired himself with somebody for practice, and everyone hoped it would be them. He paired the other eight, Big Boy with Wren, then he said, without looking at me, “And anyone else who feels like practicing can go to the side mat and review the beginning roll.”

The beginning roll!

“That’s an insult, boy!” Drog hissed. “What are you going to do about it?”

“I’m going to go over to the side mat and practice the beginning roll.”

“After all you’ve learned?”

“Sensei doesn’t think I’ve learned much.”

“Ha! He’s just trying to control you!”

Oh, right. Look who’s talking.

The truth was, I
wanted
to practice that roll. It was something to do to keep from remembering the way Sensei looked right through me. My intention was to fall and roll all night and get into the rhythm of it so I wouldn’t have to think.

I was still falling and rolling when everybody else had finished. Sensei didn’t call me over to the mat for closing thoughts or even seem to notice that I kept going.

Everyone bowed and said good night to Sensei. But me, I was going to roll all night if nobody stopped me. Wren and Big Boy came by the side mat and watched for a minute, but they left without saying anything. And all I said to myself was
fall, roll, up, down, roll, up
.

Suddenly Sensei was rolling beside me, and when we came up together, he took hold of my shoulders and held me still.

I couldn’t look at him.

“You attacked someone,” he said.

I nodded.

“You defeated your opponent instead of turning him. You fought to win.”

I nodded.

“You hurt him. You made an enemy.”

Each thing he said felt like a cut. I nodded again and studied my big toe.

“That is not aikido.”

“I’m sorry, Sensei.”

“Yes. You showed that tonight. But now you must restore harmony.”

I looked up. “How?”

“This person you attacked, this new enemy of yours. Take the one-down position with him.”

“The one-down position?”

“Apologize to him. With your whole heart. Do not attempt to explain or excuse your behavior.”

Apologize to Wade Hunt? I swallowed.

“If he criticizes you, agree with him. Accept humbly whatever he says and thank him. Remember he is your superior, because you have done him wrong.”

“But he—”

“No matter what he did, he did not deserve to be forced to fight. That was your doing.”

I made myself look up at him. “Thank you, Sensei, I’ll ... Thank you.” I bowed to him.

His energy got softer and I thought everything was okay. Then he said, “Do not speak to me again until you have done this.”