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"Don't expect
me
to carry you up those stairs," said Ernie Eco, who was eating with us—again.

"We don't," said Christopher.

Ernie Eco looked up at him from his plate.

Christopher stared back.

Ernie Eco looked down.

"Once we get inside, there's an elevator," I said.

Ernie Eco worked on his string beans.

After supper, Christopher and I went with Lucas to the library. The days were finally starting to get

longer, but it was still dark, and the first stars had been out for a while. Lucas looked up toward them

as we went, squinting, blinking, trying to see.

We carried the wheelchair up the six steps between the two of us, and it wasn't light. Then we

lifted it over the door frame and onto the marble floor of the library, where the wheels ran quiet and

smooth. Mrs. Merriam looked up to see who had come in so late, and when she saw Lucas, she

walked out from behind the desk and took off her looped glasses—this didn't happen very often—and

she said to Lucas, "Welcome home." I'm not lying. She said, "Welcome home." Like she was bringing

him into her own kitchen or something.

Lucas turned his face toward her and blinked. "Thanks," he said.

"When did you get back?" she said. He told her. "Where were you stationed?" Told her. "Were you

near Saigon at all?" Nodded. "When?" Lucas tried to remember.

Then she asked him, "While you were there, did you ever hear of a Lieutenant Merriam? Lieutenant

Leonard Merriam?"

Lucas thought, then shook his head. "I never did."

She leaned down toward him and put her hand on his chair. "He was stationed near Saigon. You

might have heard of him."

Lucas shook his head again. "I'm sorry."

Mrs. Merriam stood up again. She twisted her hands together. "I didn't think you would have," she

said. "I never really did."

"There's thousands of guys there," Lucas said.

"I know. But your mother must be glad you're home."

"Thanks," said Lucas.

I told Mrs. Merriam that we were going up to see the book, and she went to the bottom of the stairs

to turn the lights on, and she watched as we went to the elevator. Lucas didn't exactly like the steel

gate that we had to draw across. And he really didn't like the way the elevator rattled around on its

way up. And he really, really didn't like the sound of the pulleys straining themselves. And of course,

at the top, the elevator stopped a couple of inches below the floor, and we had to pull Lucas's chair

over the lip.

So he was sweating—and even shaky—when we got into the room with the petrels and the puffins

and everyone else. But he wheeled himself over to the display case and looked in. Mr. Powell had

left the book open to the Large-Billed Puffins, and Lucas stared down at them for a long time, trying to

make them out.

"There's two of them," he said. "Right?"

He looked down again. And after a while he said, "Lieutenant Leonard Merriam is MIA."

"How do you know he's missing?" said Christopher.

"I know," he said. Lucas looked at the puffins. He leaned so close that his face was almost touching

the glass. "Not everyone gets to see who they want to see again. I guess I'm lucky."

Mrs. Merriam was waiting for us at the bottom of the stairs. She turned the lights out when we got

down. She held the door open for us. And then—I watched through the window—she went back to

her desk, sat, put on her glasses, and looked at something a long way out from the library.

CHAPTER EIGHT

The Brown Pelican
Plate CCLI

YOU REMEMBER how I said that when things start to go pretty good, something usually happens to turn

everything bad?

I was starting to think maybe I was wrong.

Maybe things don't always turn bad.

What a chump I am.

One Saturday in the middle of March, I figured out that my baseball—and you know which one I

mean, my baseball that I had been keeping in the bottom drawer of the dresser underneath my socks

and sweatshirt since I'd started wearing Joe Pepitone's jacket—my baseball was gone.

Then on Monday morning, I found out that Joe Pepitone's jacket was gone too.

When I asked my mother if she knew where my jacket was, she put her hands on the back of a

kitchen chair and held on hard.

"Could you have left it at school?" she said.

"I wore it for the Saturday deliveries."

"At the library?"

I shook my head.

"On the stairs?"

"No."

She held on tighter to the chair.

I didn't ask any more questions.

Remember how I said something usually happens to turn everything bad? Remember how I said

that?

My jacket from Joe Pepitone.

Then one day in late March, one of those days when the sun is sort of teasing you with the idea that

maybe spring isn't so far away after all, the Tools 'n' More Hardware Store was robbed again.

Guess who the police came to question?

Christopher said he hadn't been anywhere near the Tools 'n' More Hardware Store.

Lucas and I both said he hadn't been anywhere near the Tools 'n' More Hardware Store.

One of the policemen said, "Can we see your bike, son?"

"Sure," said Christopher.

We all went outside, my mother and me and Lucas and Christopher and the policemen. Christopher

wheeled his Sting-Ray up.

"You're missing a pedal," said the policeman.

"I lost it a few days ago," said Christopher.

"Where did you lose it?"

"If I knew that," said Christopher, "then it wouldn't be lost anymore."

"Chris," said Lucas, low and steady.

"You wouldn't have lost it anywhere near the hardware store?"

"No, I wouldn't have lost it anywhere near the hardware store because I haven't been anywhere

near the hardware store since I don't even know when."

The policeman took a bicycle pedal out of his pocket. He slid it onto the rod on Christopher's bike.

It slid on easily. "I found this over at Tools 'n' More," said the policeman, looking up at my mother.

"Around the back." Then he turned to Christopher. "Looks like a match to me."

It did. We could all see it was the right pedal.

Christopher went with the policemen.

I went to the Ballard Paper Mill to find my father.

I didn't want to run into Mr. Ballard. Not right now. So I went out onto the floor, looking for my

father, but no one seemed to know where he was. He wasn't at his station, where he was supposed to

be, and he wasn't packing, and he wasn't loading trucks. Finally, one of the loaders said I should try

outside past the loading dock. Maybe he was there. And he was. Taking a break, I guess. Smoking a

cigarette with Ernie Eco.

I told him about Christopher.

And the funny thing was, my father looked straight at Ernie Eco. It was the first thing he did. Look

straight at him.

Ernie Eco shrugged.

My father threw his cigarette away and we went in and across the floor. "Swieteck," someone

called, but my father never even let on that he heard. We went across the floor and out the front door

and into his pickup and on into Marysville.

It took two hours to get Christopher out on bail. And in that time, he was fingerprinted, and his

picture taken for police records, and a policeman tried to get him to confess, but he kept saying he

didn't have anything to confess and he didn't know anything about the hardware store and no, he didn't

have any idea who did. And when he wouldn't confess they put him into a cell for the rest of the two

hours and when he came out he smelled like throw-up.

A sergeant said there would be a hearing—they'd let us know when. And in the meantime—he

looked hard at Christopher—in the meantime, if Christopher happened to remember what went on that

night and where all the stuff was, maybe things would go a whole lot easier for him.

Christopher didn't say anything. We went out into the pickup. My father got in the front, and I got in

the front, and Christopher got in the back.

Maybe because he smelled like throw-up.

We drove home slowly. But word got around Marysville fast.

Things at Washington Irving Junior High School did not go well the next day. Every time someone

looked at me, the look said
I know.

In geography, I didn't draw the Chapter Review Map of Northern Africa, because I didn't read the

chapter on Northern Africa. In world history, I told Mr. McElroy, "Who really cares about the

creation stories of the aboriginal tribes of eastern Australia?" In English, we were still on the

Introduction to Poetry Unit, and I'm not lying, if I ever meet Percy Bysshe Shelley walking down the

streets of Marysville, I'm going to punch him right in the face. I cut Advanced Algebra. Coach Reed

can chart his own Presidential Physical Fitness charts. And in Mr. Ferris's class, I wasn't so all-fired

excited that the command ship and the lunar module of Apollo 9 had separated and flown a hundred

miles apart and then come back together, just like they would for the real moon shot, which was now

really going to happen, said Mr. Ferris. He put his hand on Clarence's head. It was the first time

astronauts had transferred from one space vehicle to another while in space, he said.

Terrific.

The next morning, Principal Peattie was waiting for me when I got to school. He told me to come

by his office after Mr. Barber's class—Mr. McElroy already knew I'd be late for world history. And

I'd better not try to get out of this, he said.

Terrific.

Do you know what it feels like, reviewing North Africa's geography, which you still haven't read

about, while waiting to go to the principal's office, which you'd better not try getting out of ?

You wish there was room on the moon shot.

I waited for my half hour and when I finally got into Principal Peattie's office, he looked like he

wished there was room on the moon shot too. For me.

"So," he said, "you're up to your old tricks."

Lucas—the old Lucas—might have pointed out that cutting Mrs. Verne's class was a new trick, but I

still get it. I didn't say anything.

"First PE, then Algebra."

"Advanced Algebra," I said.

"Not anymore," he said. "Principal Peattie does not give a student who lacks the discipline to go to

assigned classes the privilege of attending advanced classes."

Did you know that the Brown Pelican's beak is about as long as its whole body? It's huge. It looks

like it could open wide and fit in a whole lot. Like a principal.

"Do you understand that all actions have consequences? That's what Principal Peattie is trying to

teach you here," said Principal Peattie.

The pelican is standing mostly on one leg. The other is lying like it doesn't care on the branch, like

the pelican doesn't believe that actions have consequences—which he doesn't.

"You are assigned three days of After School Detention," said Principal Peattie. "Starting this

afternoon. Principal Peattie will be calling your home to explain why you'll be late."

The Brown Pelican, the way he looks out at you, that eye, he knows he's...

"Are you listening to Principal Peattie?"

...noble.

Principal Peattie stood up.

"Yes," I said. "I'm listening."

"Do you want to explain to Principal Peattie why you cut Mrs. Verne's class?"

I didn't say anything.

"Douglas, is it because of your brother?"

If you wanted to draw the Brown Pelican, I'm not lying, it wouldn't be easy. There's something like

nine or ten rows of feathers. Maybe eleven. Maybe twelve. And they're all shaped differently, and

they all layer over each other. And the composition is fabulous. He's standing on this big old branch

that's starting to decay, but it's still putting out leaves. The Brown Pelican is right in the middle of the

picture, balancing on this one leg, and it doesn't seem like a body with so much beak in the front could

be balanced, but it is. It looks like it should tip forward. All movement, you might remember, relies

on that kind of tension. But he wasn't moving. He was balanced just right. It would take a while to

figure out how Audubon did that.

Principal Peattie sat back down. "If you're not even going to look at Principal Peattie, he can't help

you," he said.