Authors: Gary D. Schmidt
Number Three.
But on Wednesday, I went home again with James Russell. It was raining, and we got pretty wet,
walking home with Otis Bottom too, since his house is only a couple of blocks away from James
Russell's. And for the record, Otis Bottom's father has a job you could talk about: he's a doctor, which
explains why his house is not on the same side of town as The Dump. I guess that being a doctor and
being a flutist with the New York Philharmonic pay pretty good.
At James Russell's house, we visited the Large-Billed Puffins like they were old friends. Then we
played speed chess up on the third floor, which I was no good at but he didn't wipe me out too fast.
And he had a great dartboard up there, and I only threw a few into the wall instead of into the target.
And then we played regular chess and I was better at that but he still won. And all the while Mr.
Russell was playing Copland downstairs, and the stupid puffins were bobbling about in the water,
sweetly and beautifully.
On Thursday I stayed late with Coach Reed to finish the Presidential Physical Fitness charts.
"Thanks," he said when he signed his name on the last one.
"Sure," I said.
I stood up to go.
"Swieteck," he said.
"Yeah."
"How's your brother?"
Surprised?
"His eyes are getting better," I said.
"That's not what I mean."
"I know. He still dreams."
Coach Reed looked at me a little while, his mouth working. "Go on home," he said. "And thanks for
writing up the charts."
Then the Forked-Tailed Petrels flew a little closer.
"Do you dream too?" I said.
Coach Reed looked down. He started to fuss with a bag of softballs.
A long time with the fussing.
Then: "There was a kid, younger than you."
More fussing with softballs.
"And an old man, and a young girl. Probably the kid's sister. I don't know."
Fussing with softballs.
"They come every night."
"That's what it's like for Lucas," I said.
He shook his head. "I don't think so. Not like these three."
"Maybe they want you to do something," I said.
He stopped fussing with softballs.
"Maybe they want you to help someone."
He looked at me. "Maybe they do," he said.
That's what I mean about the Forked-Tailed Petrels circling around and around each other, until
they finally meet.
On Saturday, we had another snowstorm.
Terrific.
Before I even left the house, there was eight inches on the ground, and I'm not talking light and
fluffy here. I looked out the bedroom window and I said to Lucas—who was already doing his
exercises at the side of his bed—"I'm going to be soaked up to my knees in three steps," and he said,
"Wouldn't happen to me!"
I know. Sounds like the same old Lucas. But if you had been there, you would have seen that he
said it smiling.
I was, by the way, soaked up to my knees in two steps. And if it hadn't stopped snowing and the sun
hadn't come out and the sky hadn't started to blue over the tops of the mountains, I might have said,
"Forget it," and headed back home. But I didn't. I drank my hot chocolate at Spicer's Deli and then set
out, and Mrs. Mason was waiting with her hot milk and I got through it. Mr. Loeffler had a cupboard
door that was loose, a light bulb that needed changing over the basement stairs, and a cracked
windowpane in the bookcase that he needed me to take the glass out of very, very, very carefully and
which he couldn't do because of his shaky hands.
Mrs. Daugherty was keeping my bowl of cream of wheat hot, and she had a special treat with it,
she said. It was bananas.
In the whole story of the world, bananas have never once been a special treat.
Then I headed off to Mrs. Windermere's, where I knew the coffee was percolating.
No matter how wet and cold you are, black coffee percolating will get you through it.
But I was pretty wet and cold by the time I got there. Wet and cold all the way through. And even
with Mr. Loeffler's gray wool cap—which I only wore because Lil Spicer said I looked good in it,
which you might remember—my ears were still about to fall off.
I guess you can imagine what Lucas would have said if he heard that, but now, he would have said
it while he was smiling.
The coffee really was percolating at Mrs. Windermere's, and the kitchen was that kind of warm that
goes right into you, like a blanket. I could hear Mrs. Windermere typing—probably Jane Eyre was
falling in love with Mr. Rochester right there in her typewriter—and so I put away the groceries and
took two cups down from the cupboard and poured the coffee and brought the cups into her study. I
opened the door and set one down next to her—you could see the vibrations of her typewriter in her
coffee—and I sat down and sipped at mine and was almost half done before she looked up at me.
"Jane Eyre is falling in love with Mr. Rochester," she said.
See?
"But I'm not quite sure how to show it on stage."
"Maybe," I said, "he should be over at a desk, drawing something."
"Drawing something?"
"And she comes up behind him and sees what he's drawing, and she thinks he's pretty cool."
"What happens next?"
"I don't know." I shrugged. "He doesn't have any idea what to say to her."
"Maybe he should let her draw something with him," Mrs. Windermere said.
"Maybe," I said.
Mrs. Windermere nodded then turned quickly to her typewriter and began smacking at the keys. Her
hands flew high. Petrels in the winds.
I sipped at my coffee until I was finished with it. I got up and walked around the table in her study.
It was still piled high with books. It will probably always be piled high with books. But the
difference was, I could read them now. Not that I'd want to read these particular books, but I could
have if I wanted to, and that makes all the difference. I'm not lying.
But I don't know who would want to read these.
Librettos of the Great Operas.
Snore.
Life of
Verdi.
Snore snore.
Aku-Aku,
which sounds like someone sneezing.
History of the Old South Church,
Boston.
Snore snore snore. Even percolated black coffee wouldn't keep you awake, if you were
reading these.
I picked up
Aku-Aku
and looked at the book beneath it.
Aaron Copland's Autobiography: Manuscript Edition.
I read it again.
Aaron Copland's Autobiography: Manuscript Edition.
I picked it up. Mrs. Windermere was still typing.
I opened the book. Inside the front cover a sheet of music was pasted, handwritten. I couldn't read
any of it. Maybe I should try that next.
Mrs. Windermere stopped typing. "What book is that?" she said.
"Aaron Copland's," I said. "The guy who writes music."
"You mean the guy who tries to write music," she said.
I looked at her.
"Skinny Delivery Boy, you are talking to a very old woman who doesn't think much good music has
been written since Ludwig van Beethoven finished his Ninth Symphony." She turned back to her
typing. Her hands rose high.
"So why have the book?" I said.
Mrs. Windermere's hands were still high. "My husband liked to collect quirky books. That one has
a page of Copland's music written in his own hand. But neither he nor I ever read the thing, me
because I never wanted to, him because ... because he didn't have enough time." Her hands came
down.
"Mrs. Windermere," I said.
"Don't make an old lady cry. What kind of ice cream did I order?"
"Cherry vanilla," I said.
She stood up. "Let's go try some."
"Mrs. Windermere," I said, "if you don't want the book much, I think I could use it."
She looked at me. "Do you like Copland?"
"I do, but it's not for me."
She peered sort of slanted at me. "You have something up your sleeve," she said.
I told her.
Mrs. Windermere smiled. Almost like my mother, which kind of surprised me. "The god of
Creativity has folded his wings by your desk too," she said. She took the book, held it lightly to her
lips, and kissed it. It wasn't weird. It was beautiful. Then she handed it back to me. "Nothing should
ever sit and gather dust," she said, and we went into the kitchen and tried the cherry vanilla ice cream.
On the way home, I carried
Aaron Copland's Autobiography: Manuscript Edition
underneath Joe
Pepitone's jacket so that nothing would happen to it. When I got to the library, I showed it to Lil and
told her. But I didn't show it to Mr. Powell.
"Mr. Swieteck," said Mr. Powell, "I think I can accept having the petrels smile a little bit. But that
is an out-and-out grin."
"I suppose so," I said.
He looked at me. "Rather like what you are doing right now," he said.
"I guess," I said.
Mr. Powell looked at Lil. "And you too, young lady," he said.
Lil started to laugh. She looked over at me and laughed harder. Me too.
Then Lil came up behind me to see what I was drawing. She put her hand on my arm and squeezed.
You know what that feels like?
"I think you two know something I don't know," said Mr. Powell.
Lil squeezed again.
***
Mr. Russell was playing Aaron Copland's music on his stereo. I call that Fabulous.
Mrs. Russell made us both sit down with a glass of milk. "And I have a special treat for you," she
said. I'm not lying. She really said that. I held my breath because of the last special treat at the
Daughertys', but it didn't help, because when Mrs. Russell came back, she came back with a loaf of
banana bread. Banana bread! And James said, "How about we have some jam with that?" and Mrs.
Russell said, "Jam? Then you wouldn't be able to taste the bananas," and James said, "Ma, I hate
bananas," and she said, "But I'm sure that Doug enjoys them," and I said, "I think I'm still full from
lunch, so the milk's fine," and then Mrs. Russell picked up the plate with the banana bread on it, and
you might not believe this, but she started to laugh and laugh and laugh, until Mr. Russell came out to
the kitchen to see what was so funny and she showed him the banana bread and he said, "I hate
bananas," and we all started to laugh until Mrs. Russell said, "I hate bananas too," and you can
imagine us all laughing until we were crying and finally Mrs. Russell took the banana bread outside to
break it up for the birds—"Let's hope
they
like bananas"—and then I showed Mr. Russell
Aaron
Copland's Autobiography: Manuscript Edition,
and he stopped laughing.
Remember how I told you how big his hands are? How they could carry boulders?
He held
Aaron Copland's Autobiography: Manuscript Edition
like it was a half-cracked egg. "I've
heard of this book," he whispered, "but I never thought..." He was talking like you would talk just
before Mass. He opened the front page, looked at the sheet of music pasted in.
"It's in Aaron Copland's own handwriting," I said.
Mr. Russell stared at it, then he looked at me, smiling, and we went into the front room and he put
the book on his music stand and he played the music from the page with his silver flute, sweetly and
beautifully.
Fabulous.
When he finished, he looked at me and said, "Where did you find this?"
I told him. He shook his head. "I can hardly believe it," he said.
"Mr. Russell," I said, "I have an idea."
Here are the stats for the rest of that week:
Number of times I wanted to tell someone: A hundred and fifty thousand.
Number of people I told: Four. Lil Spicer, my mother, my brothers.
Number of times I walked by the library, hoping that Mr. Powell might be in: Twelve.
Number of minutes off the record for finishing the Saturday deliveries for Spicer's Deli:
Seventeen. (Mr. Loeffler didn't have any chores to do, so that helped.)
Number of minutes it took me to get to The Dump from Spicer's Deli and then back to the
library: Twelve. Probably a record.
Number of seconds it took between coming to the library and Mrs. Merriam telling me not to
run up the stairs: Less than one.
Amount of time it took Mr. Powell to understand what I had: I think he's still working on it.
We laid the Large-Billed Puffins back in their place in Audubon's
Birds of America.
It became a
little more whole than it had been before.
Do you know how that feels?
Do you think the Forked-Tailed Petrels were dancing now?
Not much more than Mr. Powell, who first danced around the room with me and then with Lil, and
then we all went downstairs to tell Mrs. Merriam, and he took her hands and tried to dance with her
but she wouldn't have any of it, even though I think she was smiling just a little the whole time she
was shushing him away.
***