by Simeon Mills
It was just before the bell to begin science class. Staci sat in the front row. Unless she could feel Kanga’s stare tugging at the green ribbons in her hair, she had no knowledge of my brother’s salacious, slack-jawed gaze. Kanga held his stomach with both hands, the way I’d seen pregnant humans do while considering which cereal to buy at the grocery store. The tips of his fingers rhythmically dug into and swirled around the rim of his belly button. It was a subtle motion, barely perceptible unless you were looking directly at him. His head and knees swayed in counterbalance to his abdomen, like a hypnotized snake.
Kanga stood up.
Oh no.
He was walking toward Staci Miles. My only hope was that an actual snake would flash from beneath a chair and bite him, preventing Kanga from reaching her. I had no such luck.
“Staci,” he groaned.
She turned to Kanga—smiling, in her default way that conveyed both cheerful optimism and intimidating intelligence. “Yes?”
“I like you.”
Her eyebrows raised in alarm. “Excuse me?”
“I like your voice. Listening to you read. I like it when Mr. Belt makes you read the science book. Page 314 about single-celled organisms. I like it when you say cilia.”
Staci picked up her science book and hugged it to her chest.
“Wait,” said Kanga. “I said ‘like,’ right?”
The bell rang.
“I meant love.”
• • •
With everybody in their seats, Mr. Belt began class: “Presentations are a foundational element of our society. ‘Present.’ That’s half the word. Birthday presents. Christmas presents. ‘ ’Tis better to give than to receive,’ as they say. When you give a science presentation, you give the world a gift. Or am I wrong?”
Mr. Belt stood before us, rubbing his temples as though his words were being beamed down to him via satellite. We just stared back and nodded.
“Then we have the second part of ‘presentation,’ which is the word ‘nation,’ and if I have to tell you guys why ‘nation’ is important to our fair nation, well, I feel sorry for your grandkids when they ask you what you learned in ninth grade.”
Rye raised his hand. “Coach. I don’t think ‘presentation’ has the word ‘nation’ in it.”
“What the hell are you talking about, Rye?”
“It’s ‘tation.’ I don’t know. I’m looking at the word right now. ‘Tation,’ I think.”
“Rye, I’m going to let you in on a little secret. This lesson, the one you’re receiving, the one I’m teaching you right now about the importance of presentations, is the exact same lesson I gave my first-period class, and nobody in first period, Rye, was unable to understand what the point was. The information is in their heads, and it ain’t coming out. Presentations. Presents. Nations. What’s not to get?”
“I get your point, it’s just—”
“Now, that’s handled!” Mr. Belt clapped his hands. “Let’s have a presentation!” He was angry. “Liverys! Get your visual aids and rear ends to the front of the room!”
The TV cart was already in position. I hustled up to it and pushed our tape into the VCR. I had my speech at the ready. Kanga joined me. He had nothing. He stood on one side of the TV, me on the other. I hit Play on the introduction and waited the ten seconds until I heard “The-Principle-of-Flight-by-Kanga-and-Darryl!” I began to read: “When man first noticed the birds and insects, he wanted flight for himself. He attached wings to his arms. He leapt from high places. Alas, his body was too heavy, his muscles too small, to soar the enigmatic skies . . .” Over the years I’d perfected the language of a smart but not too smart student. My goal was always to get a good grade, but never to show off any real knowledge to the extent where I appeared more intelligent than the teacher. In Mr. Belt’s case that was a challenge. “At last, man created a glider. He flew! In modern times, man travels the heavens in various ways. The Concorde jet crosses the Atlantic Ocean in less than four hours . . .” But nobody was listening to me.
The class was staring at Kanga. Even Staci Miles couldn’t hide her amazement at what the videotape had shown her in those ten seconds, ending with “The-Principle-of-Flight-by-Kanga-and-Darryl!” Upon hearing those words, Kanga remembered having gotten in front of the camcorder yesterday, but by the time he leaned forward to see the TV screen, it was over. I did not have to look, because I knew exactly what the class had just seen: my brother channeling Magic Johnson. Mr. Belt sat at his desk, leaning forward, pinching the fat on his cheek.
At the end of our presentation, the video froze on a frame showing a blackbird on a telephone wire whose head was tilted like it wanted to ask the class a question. Realizing I was being completely ignored, I made this prediction aloud: “Someday man will evolve into a flying creature. His legs will shrink to the size of a ten-year-old’s legs. His chest muscles will quadruple in mass. His arms will grow ten feet in length, with a skinlike webbing connecting his wrists and hips.”
Nobody reacted. They just stared at Kanga.
Mr. Belt got up without a word. He knelt on the floor beside Kanga’s desk and began fondling a cuff of my brother’s jeans. “Roll up your pant legs, Kanga. Give me a look at your calf muscles. Just a peek at those calves. Jesus Christ! It’s like two turkey breasts down here! And you’re taller than last year’s point guard by five inches! You hear that? You’re my new point guard, Livery, just in time for preseason workouts. Practice is tonight at seven.” Mr. Belt yanked out a couple of Kanga’s leg hairs and twisted them between his finger and thumb, then leaned close to Kanga and whispered: “But mum’s the word on these practices. Got it? We’re technically too early on the calendar, according to those bastards at the Michigan High School Athletic Association. These are unsanctioned practices, Livery, so don’t go spouting at the mouth about them. Being on a team is about keeping secrets, right?”
Kanga was dumbstruck. He could only gawk at the grown man on the floor grinning up at him.
“Boy oh boy.” Mr. Belt patted Kanga’s leg. “I’m claiming this good stuff for the Hectorville Birds.”
Kanga’s eyes were the letters N and O, but his mouth was too terrified to say the word. Structured basketball practice was the opposite of his style. He had survived school by anonymously sitting through class, being polite—if weird—and never having any real expectations placed on him. He excelled at staring off into space. He could teach a master’s course in watching TV while drinking milk straight from the jug. That was about it.
He looked to me for help. I shook my head. There was no easy escape. Mr. Belt wasn’t letting this one go. In the coach’s imagination, Kanga was already dominating defenses, racking up triple-doubles, and hoisting trophies.
I needed to intervene in this crisis, but how? The key was to dispel Mr. Belt’s exaggerated notions, and the strategy that came to me, counter-intuitive as it was, required more public exposure for Kanga. One basketball practice, to be exact. I ran the projections, and there was an 87 percent chance Kanga would flounder at practice. Despite the video footage showing a glimpse of greatness, a gymnasium filled with sweaty boys in no way resembled the familiarity of Shimmering Terraces. Kanga would freeze under pressure. He would sustain injuries. He would suffer emotional damage from Mr. Belt barking in his face. But after one practice, he would be free to quit.
I stepped forward. “Of course, Mr. Belt,” I said. “Kanga would like nothing better.”
It was Mom’s line in my mouth. Mom had used it whenever her battery was low and she needed to exit a difficult situation. “Would you like a car wash with that tank of gas?” . . . “Do you have a minute to hear about Jesus?” . . . “Hey. Wife. Wash my shirts.” . . . Of course. I’d like nothing better.
“And Mr. Belt?” I added. “I would like to volunteer as team manager.”
“Already have one, and she’s a girl. The guys would revolt if I canned the girl and stuck you in her place.”
“What about a videographer?”
> “Idiot-gopher? Talk English.”
“A videographer is an assistant,” I clarified, “who videotapes practices and games.”
Mr. Belt stood up from the floor. “Who has time to watch videotapes? I have these presentations to grade, in addition to my own personal affairs.”
“Parents. We could sell highlight reels to parents at the end of the season. The money we raise could support a pizza party. I own all the equipment. I could even add music—”
The bell rang.
Mr. Belt grabbed Kanga’s quivering chin. “Listen. When that ball comes off that rim tonight—listen—when that ball goes up—” He flapped his elbows. “You gotta—hear me?—gotta find a fella and put a body on him. Just look in the mirror. Look at your body. Look down below your head, Kanga. You’re a Bird now. A Hectorville Bird. I’m talking, but I don’t think you’re listening. Today. Not tomorrow. Not the day after tomorrow. Seven o’clock. Hello? Livery? What are we doing at seven o’clock? Putting a body on—”
Kanga closed his eyes to hide.
“Somebody,” finished Mr. Belt. “Put a body on somebody, Livery. Got it?”
• • •
My position was impossible. Being a robot meant hiding your identity at all times, at all costs. Yet here I was, placing my brother on a petri dish to be observed by humans. Was my processor malfunctioning? Had I gone obsolete? We didn’t live in Costa Rica, with its televised Robotic Surfing League. This was the United States, where the only sport robots were allowed to participate in was big-game hunting—and we were the trophies.
But I couldn’t help it. The Directions had been telling me “No” my entire life. Just this once I wanted to say “Yes.” Then we could return to our life under a rock. But it wasn’t just that either. I needed to see exactly how good Kanga was at basketball, against other kids, in a real gym. I needed to know if our science video had been a fluke or a hint of something much greater. Because if Kanga really was an amazing basketball player, couldn’t his twin brother be one too?
Getting through this practice wouldn’t be easy. Not by a long shot. Worst of all, because Kanga was in denial about being a robot in the first place, I was prevented from communicating the severity of our situation. All I could do was try to keep him calm. The last thing we needed was a Molly Seed situation in the middle of practice.
Back at our apartment, I stuffed my camcorder in my backpack and instructed Kanga to change into basketball clothes. The Magic Johnson uniform was out of the question. That meant I had to venture into Mom and Dad’s room and find an old white T-shirt of Dad’s and a pair of sweatpants. I made sure Kanga had something on his feet this time. The Velcro high-tops I’d gotten from the grocery store would have to do. Kanga dressed slowly, dejectedly, occasionally peering into the dark TV screen he wouldn’t be watching until practice was over.
“You look like a basketball player,” I told him, trying to build up his confidence.
“I hate this,” he said. “I want the Magic jersey.”
By programmed reflex, I opened my mouth to berate Kanga for being too fussy and difficult, but I caught myself. Parenting was about picking your battles, sure enough, but sometimes it was about being on the same team. “Let’s make a Magic jersey.”
We got out the markers. Kanga took purple. I took yellow. We drew Magic’s number, 32, on Dad’s white shirt, and JOHNSON in block letters across the back. Kanga added the Lakers logo. I got out the scissors and cut off the sleeves.
“All right, ballplayer,” I said. “How about a bag of Cobra Burger before practice?”
“Really?” Kanga gave me a slight smile. “Thanks, Darryl.”
We rode our bikes to the restaurant and went through the drive-through. We took our bags of food to Umber Park, where the river bent through town. The playground there had an alien spaceship in it, and we climbed into the cockpit, where our names were among the hundreds chipped into the green paint, and that’s where we had dinner. Kanga emptied both Cobra Burger bags onto the floor of the spaceship. He unwrapped the solid food and deposited it into one of the bags. He folded the top twice, then used his fists to pound the burgers and fries together until they were a chunky brown paste. In the other bag he carefully placed the food wrappings like tissue paper for an expensive watch. Then he huffed both bags alternately. A couple of times a week we did this back at the apartment too, on Kanga’s nights to “cook.” He claimed the Cobra Burger food smelled just like Mom. I had to agree with him.
Even comfort food couldn’t unwrinkle Kanga’s brow. I had to say something profound to him, something that would not further overload his system with pressure but would encourage his body to make recognizable basketball movements on the court. I was drawing a blank. The Directions advised praising your child’s efforts, not their successes, to foster a healthy acceptance of failure in life. “You look awesome,” I repeated to him, but Kanga just ignored me and continued breathing in the Cobra Burger fumes. The Directions also warned that parents should think twice before telling their children what it terms “the cold truth”: your unfiltered hopes for your child’s triumph in a given situation. For instance, I should not tell Kanga, “Make me proud out there tonight,” but instead, “Try your hardest, brother, and you’ll do great.” Somehow it all sounded wrong, like Mom with a dead battery trying to hold a conversation. I was mentally combing back through The Directions for any gem I might have missed when my mouth went rogue and blurted out: “I was too chicken to try out for the basketball team.”
Kanga looked at me for the first time since we boarded the spaceship.
“I ran the projections. I only had a 4.9 percent chance of making it, so I wimped out. I know the triple-threat position, and can dribble a little, but when it comes to actual basketball, I—”
“I don’t want to go.”
“One practice. That’s all you have to do, Kanga, and then you can quit, okay? Just one practice, and I’ll be watching you the whole time. I’ll be cheering for you in my mind. You’re Magic Johnson. If you forget that, look down at your uniform.” Then my mouth let fly the coldest truth of all: “I’m so jealous of you.”
I heard Kanga’s exhaust fan kick on, and then his hands were crunching a Cobra Burger bag into the shape of a basketball. It was time. Two hours from now our life of anonymity would be restored. Or we would be destroyed by a psychotic mob of teenage robophobes. There was no in between.
“Wipe that onion off your nose,” I said. “Let’s go to practice.”
6
THE HECTORVILLE BIRDS DIDN’T HAVE a gym. We had a Cave. As in, “Get your tail feathers down to the Cave!” Or, “Guess who kissed Kelly under the bleachers in the Cave!” And if you were a buffoonish teacher: “Come, my spelunkers! On to the Cave!” Maybe it was called the Cave because of the blotchy plaster walls, or because two of its four backboards were constructed of plywood instead of glass. Or the smell. Or the fluorescent lights that tinted everything brown. Or the tornadoes of dust that followed the Birds wherever they ran.
We arrived at 6:56, and Mr. Belt was nowhere to be seen. His freshman basketball players were taking turns launching half-court shots at one of the hoops. There was Rye from science class, towering above the other players in his sports goggles and fashion catalog of unattainable basketball gear: black Nike T-shirt with a one-inch silhouette of Michael Jordan ($34), reversible double-mesh Champion shorts ($28), and a crisp pair of Reebok Pumps ($149). His next shot from half-court missed everything.
That was when I noticed a girl sitting against a wall. She had to be rich, because on her knees was an Outbound Portable Plus, a laptop computer I had once drooled over in Computer Shopper magazine. Its cord was stretched provocatively to a power outlet. The team manager—that had to be her—was typing on the computer, yet, astoundingly, not looking at her fingers. Instead, she stared at a nondescript portion of Cave wall, through the Cave wall, it seemed, at something fascinating beyond it. Her body was rigid; not even her chest appeared to be breathing, yet her
fingers were moving like the machinery of a player piano. Brooke Noon. That was her name.
What was Brooke Noon writing on her portable computer? Was it a science fiction story about a basketball team manager who guides every shot through the hoop using telekinesis?
In a tenth of a second, my processor scanned my memory for historical images of Brooke Noon. Most were of the back of her head, as any teacher we ever had in common had always seated Brooke in the front row near the teacher’s desk. Likewise, Brooke was consistently on the outskirts of class pictures, her shoulder grasped by the teacher, her face a Halloween mask of discomfort. She stomped wherever she went in her soft, oversize shoes, always out of breath, adjusting her huge T-shirt before taking her seat in class. She spoke at the wrong moments, sometimes whispering, sometimes shouting. Our teachers stayed calm at first, but eventually, upon seeing her fidget, they would yell, “Brooke! Settle down!” She broke her arm in eighth grade, and although I had no classes with her that year, I overheard some kids discussing Brooke’s method of using her pencil to scoop dead skin particles from the inside of her cast and then spread them around the surface of her desk, spelling out her name, until the teacher walked over, at which point Brooke blew the dead skin cells at the girl beside her, Jeananne Carson, who Brooke hated.
I had been filming Brooke pounding away at her laptop for two minutes—her frozen expression never changing—when I heard someone yell, “GET THE GEEK!” By the time my camcorder found Kanga, he was lying on the Cave floor, trying to deflect the basketballs being fired at him from every direction. One such ball was an orange laser beam to the side of his head. I videotaped the thrower, high-fiving his teammates, announcing, “Nailed the sucker.”
James Botty. The boy who’d saved Bus 117 from Molly Seed.
The aura of deference in the Cave strongly suggested that, when Mr. Belt was not around, this was James Botty’s team. Kanga lay flattened. James puffed out his chest and posed as though he were holding two ostrich eggs near his groin.