Peace, Love, and Baby Ducks Page 14

  My heart beats faster, because I want my life to have purpose. I really do. I want to look past the surface . . . and maybe if I had Sergeant Franco wheeling along beside me every minute of my life, I could.

  “One way I connect with what’s real is through music,” he says.

  Yes! I think. Me, too!

  He rolls his wheelchair over to a grand piano that’s been set up on stage. He plays a few bars of “Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee.”

  “Now, I’ve never had any formal training,” he says. “People ask if I play by ear, and I tell them indeed I do.” He reaches up to his ear, pulls it off, and bangs it on the keys.

  There’s a collective gasp, and Lydia puts her hand over her mouth. I’m shocked, too—but then I laugh. Other people join in. I recognize Roger’s distinctive chortle.

  “Play by ear,” Sergeant Franco repeats, grinning. He twists his head so we can see the nub of his own ear, a flesh-colored melted marshmallow. “The parachute cord ripped it off. But thanks to modern medicine”—he screws back on his prosthetic ear—“ta-da!”

  “That is seriously sick,” Lydia mutters.

  Sergeant Franco closes his eyes. “Let us pray,” he says. “Merciful God, thank You for music. May we forever be Your song.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  RIPPLE IN STILL WATER

  Our report cards arrive three days into break. When Dad sees Anna’s, he erupts.

  “Anna!” he bellows from downstairs, and Anna, who’s been hiding out in my room, glances at me fearfully. We know without discussion what Dad’s anger is about, because we saw the twin Holy Redeemer envelopes on the kitchen counter this afternoon.

  “Just tell him how scary it was,” I say, meaning the back dive off the high dive.

  “He won’t care,” Anna says.

  “Well, tell him you’ll go to Coach Schranker and beg to do it over.”

  “But that would be a lie. No way am I going to Coach Schranker and begging for anything.”

  “Because you don’t want to ask, or because you don’t want to do the dive?”

  “Both.”

  “You’re going to have to do it eventually. If not now, then next year when you’re forced to take PE again.” As I say it, I’m struck once more by the insanity of basing an entire year’s grade on one terrifying plunge off the high dive. I am not sending my kids to private school.

  Anna gnaws on her thumbnail.

  “Anna! Get down here!”

  She scrambles to her feet. Her face is pale.

  “Good luck,” I say. “Be strong.”

  “I don’t like being yelled at,” she says in a trembly voice.

  “The longer you wait, the worse it’s going to be.”

  She breathes out a puff of air, gives a skittish nod, and goes to face the music—

  which is loud

  and angry

  and cruel, in my opinion. Not Sergeant Franco’s kind of music at all.

  I hear Dad’s rant from my room, even when I close the door. Even when I turn up the volume on my sound dock. I’m listening to “Ripple” by the Grateful Dead. It’s so lovely and pure that I wish I could pipe it into Dad’s heart.

  He would hate it, though. How sad it must be to be him and not have the ears to hear its beauty. Not that I’ve played it for him . . . and I won’t, because I won’t let him take it away from me.

  “But, Daddy,” I hear Anna say, her voice traveling to my room through our house’s ancient heating system.

  More yelling. Dad’s face is red, I know it. And Anna’s, by now, is tearstained.

  I concentrate on falling into the music, and I realize that instead of piping it into Dad’s soul, I should pipe it into Anna’s. So I sing along with Jerry Garcia and send the words as best I can to my sister, who is being made to feel smaller and smaller for something she’s already been made to feel worthless for.

  “If I knew the way,” I sing, “I would take you home.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  P.S.

  My report card shows a column of A’s, all with excellent posture. They receive no mention.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  IN THE BEGINNING

  Christmas day is lovely, though Grandmother Lauderdale gives me and Anna socks. The lady is batty. She’s a millionaire—Granddad Lauderdale, who died several years ago, was a real estate mogul—but because Dad isn’t her “real” son, she treats him and his offspring as less than. The reason Dad isn’t her real son is that Dad’s mom (Granddad Lauderdale’s first wife) died of cancer. She died when Dad was five, which makes me sad whenever I think about it.

  Anyway, after marrying Granddad, Grandmother Lauderdale gave birth to two more sons. They are the chosen ones. Their kids get Wii’s and stock in Coca-Cola.

  Whatever.

  It does give me some insight into Dad, however. Like, why he works so hard to be successful. It must have sucked to grow up with a stepmom whose love was definitely conditional.

  I, on the other hand, give my loved ones a flock of ducks. Through the Heifer Project! It’s so cool! I buy the ducks in honor of Mom, Dad, and Anna (meaning, their names get put on a special gift card), but the ducks won’t really come live with us. They’ll go to a family in China and do the following amazing things:

  —add protein to their owners’ diet by providing their owners with eggs;

  —put money in their owners’ pockets by laying bonus eggs that the owners can sell;

  —make the owners’ crops do better, because duck poo is a good fertilizer. Go, poo!

  Oh, and I give Peyton a hen. I wanted to give her a water buffalo, but it cost too much. Still, I am quite pleased with myself and think, So there, Little Miss Did-You-Sponsor-an-Ethiopian-Orphan?

  Peyton e-mails me after receiving the e-card which says a hen has been donated in her name. Ha ha, she writes. But cool. I’ll give ya that. Only next time throw in a diamond tennis bracelet, too, would ya? Forme. Not the hen. ☺ ☺ ☺

  For the record, I do supplement Anna’s ducky gift with a pair of supercute ducky earrings from Curiosities. I buy myself a pair, too, so we can be ducky twins, and so I’m not being Grandmother-esque with the whole lame-present thing. Ducks aren’t lame, but, as with socks, Anna doesn’t truly get to enjoy them. Jewelry, Anna can enjoy.

  So, Christmas day is good. So is New Year’s. Mom makes corn bread and black-eyed peas, the traditional Southern meal for a year filled with good luck.

  And then it’s time to go back to school.

  I hope the peas and corn bread work.

  For our first all-school assembly of the new semester, Headmaster Perkins has arranged for a fancy theology dude to lecture us about Intelligent Design. Our homeroom teacher informs us of this first thing in the morning, and she’s quite excited. Because he’s famous! And from Yale! And after Fancy Dude’s lecture, we’ll be put in breakout groups to further explore the ideas he presents!

  I groan, because I hate breakout groups. Plus, I believe in evolution.

  Roger catches me before I enter the auditorium, and his expression suggests that he’s as unthrilled about Intelligent Design as I am.

  “Hold up,” he says, grabbing my arm. I look down. His hand is so big that his fingers wrap all the way around me. He follows my gaze and lets go abruptly. “I’m ditching. Want to join me?”

  “You’re ditching?”

  “Not the whole day, just the assembly. I’m not in the mood for because the Bible says so.”

  “Are you ever?” I say, equally demoralized. But to sneak away and not attend? I’ve never in my life cut class before. I’m such a goody-goody, even though I don’t want to be.

  “You’ve got to decide quick,” Roger says. “Cole’s waiting behind the building.”

  “Cole’s coming? Cole’s ditching?”

  The way Roger looks at me makes me shrivel.

  “He’s not going to dump Trista for you,” he says.

  “I know,” I say, my cheeks burning.

  “But y
ou wish he would. You like him.”

  “No, I don’t. It’s just . . .”

  “Just what?”

  I jut my chin, because Roger doesn’t get to decide who I like and who I don’t. “He has soulful eyes, that’s all.”

  Roger assesses me. I exercise great self-control and don’t fidget.

  “Coming or staying?” he says.

  I glance at the rapidly filling auditorium. I glance outside, where Cole waits, unseen.

  “Coming,” I say, and just like that, the flip inside me is switched. I follow Roger, thrilled to be breaking the rules.

  I can tell by Cole’s expression that he’s surprised to see me. Surprised and impressed. And, why look: Trista isn’t behind the building with him, because Trista isn’t cutting.

  I am not Trista.

  I stand a little taller.

  “Come on,” Cole says, pushing off the wall. He leads us into the wooded area south of Butler Hall, and I admire his stride. It’s self-assured and purposeful, yet not the strut of a Holy Roller striding to a Harvard interview with thrown-back shoulders and a power tie.

  We pick our way over roots and under branches. In the distance, I catch occasional glimpses of the JV tennis courts. My T-shirt snags on a branch, and Roger, who’s bringing up the rear, reaches around and frees me.

  At last we reach a clearing.

  “Here we are,” Cole says. He grins at me and Roger, and I tingle with the awareness of being part of his group.

  I’m one of the cool kids, I think. How bizarre.

  We sit, and Cole reaches into the inner pocket of his leather jacket. I’m worried he’s going to pull out a joint or something, but he withdraws his iPod. It’s black, with a set of small headphones wrapped around it. He rests it on his thigh.

  “So. Carly. Have you seen the light?” he asks.

  I wrinkle my brow. “What do you mean? Because of cutting assembly?”

  He laughs. “No. I mean have you looked around at our glorious world recently? Because anyone with eyes can see that it was designed by a magnificent Creator.”

  Ohhh. We’re skipping assembly in order to make fun of assembly.

  “Here’s my question,” I say, although in fact it’s not my question. It’s Ms. Anders’s question, posed during first period biology. “The argument for Intelligent Design is that the world is so perfect, it must have been designed intentionally, right? By a designer. But if you go with that logic, who designed the designer?”

  “Exactly,” Cole says, shaking his head at all the dummies who think otherwise. But me, he approves of. I glow.

  “Friday-morning assemblies are a waste,” he goes on. “Jamming Christianity down my throat is going to do nothing but reinforce how ludicrous Christianity is.” He leans back on his elbows. “Let’s kill people in the name of Christ! Anyone up for a good stoning?”

  I giggle.

  Roger raises his eyebrows. “There’s more to Christianity than that.”

  Cole hits his head. “Of course. There’s the gay bashing and the Bible-thumping, what was I thinking? And the self-righteous smugness of knowing nonbelievers will be smited.” He grins at me. “Smote? Smoted? What’s the past tense of smite?”

  Smitten, I think, but am smart enough not to say.

  “How is saying that all Christians are fools different from Christians saying all non-Christians are fools?” Roger asks mildly.

  Cole turns to him. The expression in his eyes is this close to incredulous. “You a believer, man?”

  Roger grunts. He’s looking at me, not Cole, and it makes me uncomfortable. I pick up a stick and trace lines in the dirt.

  “You think Buddhism’s a crock, too?” Roger says. “Islam? Rastafarianism?”

  Cole laughs. He adopts a Jamaican accent and says, “No way, mon. Rastas bad like yaz. Rastas smoke da ganja, mon.”

  I don’t even know what that means. It sounds slightly sexy and slightly . . . well, stupid.

  “If you grew up in Jamaica and went to a Rasatafarian school, would you think Rastafarianism was a crock?” Roger asks.

  Cole squints, like maybe Roger’s getting on his nerves. “Have I slighted your faith, buddy? ’Cause if so, I’m sorry.” He pauses. “But do you really believe there’s some big daddy in the sky doling out punishments and rewards?” He laughs again, but this time, there’s an edge to it. “Shit, man. Do you believe in angels?”

  Roger remains calm. “Not necessarily.”

  “Then what do you believe in?”

  “That having a knee-jerk reaction against something is as bad as blindly accepting it. That people need to think for themselves.”

  “Oh, come on,” I say, feeling the need to lighten the mood. There’s something scary about where this is heading. “Where’s the fun in that?”

  “Most people don’t know what they think,” Cole challenges. It’s cock-of-the-walk time all of a sudden, a face-off between Cole and Roger.

  “Then they need to figure it out,” Roger says.

  My heart pounds. I admire Roger for not backing down, but I’m pissed at him for the very same thing. Because I feel like it has to do with me, somehow—the fact that he’s pushing the issue.

  “That’s a nice idea in theory,” Cole says. “But most people aren’t capable of that—present company excluded, of course.”

  “Of course,” Roger says drily.

  Cole turns to me. His blue eyes pierce me with their intensity. “Carly, you’re a smart girl. Do you believe in God?”

  I balk, because this is the scary thing I didn’t want. I didn’t know it till now, but it is. Because not only do I believe in God; I feel Him. Or Her. Because God’s, like, not a man. Not a woman, either. Just . . . God. But I’m so accustomed to scoffing at the blindly accepting Holy Rollers—just like Cole’s doing—that it’s terrifying to know this about myself. And to care. And to not want my own personal feeling of God-ness to be mocked by someone else I care about.

  Namely, Cole.

  So I don’t answer, but look at my lap instead. My eyes fill with tears, because I feel as if I’ve betrayed myself by being too wimpy to claim my beliefs. As if I’ve betrayed God.

  “People don’t all have to believe the same thing,” Roger says in his deep voice. He shifts slightly, so that his long leg grazes mine. He keeps it there, solid as a rock. “Think how boring it would be if they did.”

  “I don’t have to think about it,” Cole says. “Thanks to Holy Redeemer, I’m living it.”

  I need to say something in order to reclaim my dignity. And it can’t come out shaky. I take a deep breath and say, “Hey now, buddy. We’re not boring.”

  “Present company excluded, of course,” Cole says for the second time today. “Enough philosophizing. Let’s listen to some music.”

  He turns on his iPod and stretches out on the ground, and Roger and I follow suit. Since there are two earbuds and three of us, we form a three-pointed star, our heads touching and our legs pointing in different directions.

  Roger gets his own earbud. Cole and I share.

  Cole scrolls to the song he wants: Emerson, Lake & Palmer’s “From the Beginning.” I know this song, because Emerson, Lake & Palmer are a rock group from the sixties. I can’t help but wonder if Cole picked this song for me.

  The song starts off with a guitar solo that’s slow and haunting, and then the lyrics kick in: “You see it’s all clear, you were meant to be here . . . from the beginning.”

  BABY DUCKS

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  JED CLAMPETT KICKS WONDER WOMAN’S BUTT

  These days, Vonzelle and I eat lunch together pretty much every day. If Peyton cares, she doesn’t say so. She sits with Lydia, and they paint each other’s nails. Anna has early lunch with the other freshmen; I don’t know who she sits with. Alaska, probably.

  Vonzelle and I chat about a wide spectrum of fascinating topics: Coke versus Pepsi, arm huggies, the proper technique for applying lip gloss. Also, Hello Kitty and Hello Kitty’s lesser
-known buddy, Tenorikuma, who appears to be a bear/raccoon hybrid and who enjoys a good marshmallow latte. Who doesn’t?

  Often, Roger joins us. He makes droll Dutch remarks and states that in his opinion, too much lip gloss makes a girl looks sticky.

  “You got a problem with sticky?” I ask him on the day of lip-gloss conversation, wagging my half-eaten egg roll in a menacing fashion.

  “Not on the right girl,” he says, looking pointedly at my lips. His expression is of the you-have-something-in-your-teeth variety, so I use the back of my spoon to check my reflection.

  “Ha ha,” I say. I wipe the sweet-and-sour sauce off my mouth, then wad up my napkin and lob it at him.

  Then we switch to a better topic: classic TV sitcoms. I coax Vonzelle and Roger into ranking theme songs, and I sing a snippet of The Brady Bunch theme to inspire them.

  “More of your olden-days obsession?” Roger says.

  “Olden days?” I say. “Roger. The Brady Bunch is hardly from the olden days.”

  “Which one was the middle sister?” Vonzelle asks. “Jan? She bugs me.”

  “No, no, no,” I say. “Jan’s misunderstood, that’s all.”

  “Jan’s a whiner,” Vonzelle says.

  “She’s an acquired taste,” I concede. “The theme song, however? Brilliant.”

  “Old music, old TV shows, more old music,” Roger says.

  “Not ‘old’ music,” I correct him. “Classic music. Flower-power music.”

  “Is that an acquired taste, too?” Vonzelle asks. “’Cause I’ve yet to acquire it.”

  Roger chuckles.

  I huff.

  “My question is this,” he says. I take a glug of milk, eyeing him from above the carton. “Why is yesterday better than today?”

  The milk spurts out as I laugh. “Ooo, deep-ness. Why is yesterday better than today?”

  “It’s not.”

  “Tell that to the head honchos at Nick at Nite and TV Land.”

  “You romanticize the sixties,” Roger states.