Half Brother

by Kenneth Oppel

  “What are you doing with them?” I asked.

  “It’s a cognitive response experiment,” she said. “It’s one of your dad’s, actually.”

  “Really?” I said, surprised. Dad had never talked about this.

  Looking deeper into the lab, I caught a glimpse of Ryan Cross, Dad’s star grad student, leaning over some kind of big glass case with a stopwatch. He operated a series of lights, and watched what was happening inside.

  “Ryan’s timing the trials,” said Shira.

  I wasn’t happy to see Ryan, after the way he’d treated Zan, and he didn’t look too happy to see me either. He didn’t even say hello.

  “I didn’t know Dad was working with rats again,” I said.

  “Project Zan isn’t the only show in town,” said Ryan. “And if I was a betting man, I’d say these rats are going to be more important to science than your chimp.”

  I wished Zan had taken his whole finger off, maybe his hand too.

  Ryan looked at Shira. “He shouldn’t be down here.”

  “What’s the big deal?” she said.

  “It’s a university lab, not a daycare,” said Ryan.

  Shira frowned and shook her head at him. “He’s just going to look at the rats, Ryan.”

  Ryan gave a hollow laugh. “Just make sure he doesn’t let them all out. By the way, 23-D isn’t going to pull through.”

  “Who’s that?” I asked.

  “One of the rats,” said Shira. “It didn’t respond well to the meds.”

  Ryan had a needle in his hand and was going over to one of the cages.

  “What are you doing to it?” I asked. “Euthanizing it.” “Killing it?”

  “It suffers less. For its own good.”

  Hard to imagine the rat would agree with that.

  “They sometimes have seizures because of the drugs,” Shira explained, “and then strokes and then they’re paralyzed, like this one. It can’t feed itself.”

  After injecting the rat Ryan reached in and grabbed it by the tail and put it in a blue plastic bag, knotted it, and chucked it into a bin.

  “It just goes in there?” I said dully.

  “Well, normally there’s a memorial service and hymns,” said Ryan, “but we’re a little pressed for time.”

  Even Shira laughed. I didn’t want to look at the rats any more. I didn’t want to see them all in their little cages, row after row.

  “My dad’s probably waiting for me.”

  “See you later,” said Shira.

  I headed back upstairs, and in the corridor passed Dr. Godwin. He looked at me and gave a curt nod and said, “Ben,” but there was no warmth in his voice. He knew. He hated me.

  Dad was waiting for me in his office.

  “Is that guy outside the building here because of Zan?” I asked.

  “He mentions him in his leaflet,” Dad said. “But he’s a campus crackpot. He’ll move on to something else in a couple days. Nukes, or free love, or polygamy. The SPCA wrote us a letter, though. They want to visit our house to make sure Zan’s being treated humanely.”

  “He is, though,” I said.

  Dad shrugged. “It’s just a nuisance, nothing more. Now, you wanted to get some books out of the library, right?”

  “I didn’t know you had a rat experiment going,” I said.

  I guess I’d always assumed that even if Dad didn’t spend much time personally with Zan, he was still totally devoted to him, or to the project at least. I didn’t like thinking Zan had to share his attention with rats.

  “Rats are very interesting animals,” Dad said. “We can learn a lot from them.”

  Greg Jaworski came back from Berkeley in early December. He spent lots of time at our house, observing Zan with Mom and the students. And he spent even more time down at the university with Dad, watching the latest video footage. There were hundreds of hours of it.

  Whenever Dad got home from work, he seemed even quieter than usual. I wondered if maybe he wasn’t getting along with Jaworksi, or maybe Godwin was angry with him for the bad publicity over the 60 Minutes piece. But when I’d ask Mom if anything was wrong, she just said Dad was preoccupied with the project, and that he and Greg had a lot of material to collate and prepare for the big grant deadline in early January.

  Still, I couldn’t shake the feeling Dad was worried, and I didn’t really understand it. Zan was still learning two new words a week. He’d even made his first three-word phrase a couple of days ago: drink more water. The vocabulary wall chart in our kitchen was getting pretty impressive. There was no way we could get turned down for the grant again. We had so much more data, plus this hotshot American scientist working with us now. When he went back home after three weeks, he didn’t take two suitcases of videotapes with him this time.

  I was glad when my classes ended for the holidays. My report card arrived a couple of days before Christmas, and my marks had improved. I wasn’t getting As or anything, but mostly Bs and some Cs. Dad barely seemed to care. He glanced distractedly at the report card and said, “Good, Ben.”

  At school I’d gone from dominant male to low-ranking insect. I had no social life, and now, even though I’d been working hard in class, I couldn’t even please my own father.

  SEVENTEEN

  SLOW LEARNER

  At breakfast, Dad wasn’t reading the newspaper, and Mom wasn’t talking much. I could tell she was angry at Dad, really angry. She wouldn’t look him in the eye, and she was super polite and formal whenever she asked for something. Could you pass the butter, please? Thank you very much. Zan was in his suite with the students, so it was just the three of us around the table.

  It was four days after Christmas.

  A feeling of dread began to expand in my stomach, and I could barely spoon down the last of my cornflakes. “What’s going on?” I asked finally.

  “There’s no easy way to tell you this, Ben,” Dad said. “We’re shutting down the project.”

  Right away I looked at Mom. I didn’t know why; maybe just to make sure it was really true. She was staring at the table.

  “But why would you do that?” I demanded.

  I saw Dad’s chest rise, then fall. “Zan’s not learning language.”

  It was like being told something so obviously untrue, you didn’t know what to say.

  The sun won’t be coming up today, Ben.

  Your mother and I are aliens from another planet. Sorry.

  Again I looked at Mom, shaking my head. Dad might as well have been from another planet. He wasn’t making any sense.

  “Who says?” I said. “Who says he’s not learning?”

  “Greg and I have gone through the videotapes—” he began, but I cut him off.

  “So it’s Greg who doesn’t think he’s learning?”

  “We’ve watched the tapes together and it’s clear Zan’s mimicking us. He’s very clever, Ben, there’s no question. He watches us signing, and he watches for our cues—”

  “Cues? We don’t give him cues!” I protested.

  “Oh, we do, Ben. You might not know it, but we do. It’s very subtle, but our body language, our faces, our hands, they all give him clues about how he should be replying. Watching the tapes in slow motion, it’s very easy to see. And because we know what the answer should be, we’re more likely to get it.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t understand.”

  “It’s like this,” Dad said. “I show him a toy, and he signs toy. I know it’s a toy, so I’m more likely to see him sign toy, even if he hasn’t—not properly anyway. I put it down in my logbook, but it’s unreliable data.”

  “We should’ve been doing double-blind tests,” said Mom.

  “What’re those?” I asked.

  “You use two people,” Mom explained. “One person shows Zan the object; the second person doesn’t even see the object, but only watches Zan when he makes the sign. So that second person isn’t expecting any particular answer. That way it’s completely impartial.”

&nb
sp; “Zan tricked us,” Dad said.

  “He tricked us?” I said. “We treat him like a human baby and pretend we’re his real family, and he’s tricking us?” Dad said, “Ben, control yourself.” “Richard, he’s upset,” said Mom.

  “Losing his temper is not going to make it any easier for him,” said Dad.

  “Zan talks to us all the time,” I insisted. “He asks for things. He learned two new signs last week!”

  Dad nodded. “He’s learning words. He’s not learning language.”

  “What’s the difference?” I said.

  “There’s a pretty big difference, Ben,” said Mom gently. “Language is how we use and organize words. Grammar. Syntax. Symbolism.”

  “It’s a very complicated thing, language,” Dad said. “And when I said ‘tricked,’ what I meant is he imitates us. He wants to please us. He tells us what we want, so he can get what he wants. Food. Drinks. Hugs. Rewards of all kinds.” He grimaced. “That’s one of the many fatal flaws in the experiment.”

  “No,” I said. I thought of Zan lying in the backyard telling me about the birds. I thought of him trying to comfort me when I was crying. I thought of him talking to his toys. “He tells us what he’s feeling. He talks to himself! He’s not doing that to please us! Isn’t that language?”

  “Those are very good questions, Ben,” Mom said. “I’m not sure your father has taken them into account.”

  “Zan knows certain signs, there’s no doubt about that,” said Dad impatiently. “The question is, he’s not meeting the definition of language I set out in the experiment.”

  “So give him more time,” I said. “He’s only one and a half! You said this was supposed to go on for years. How come he has to learn so fast? Two words a week isn’t fast enough for you? Maybe he’s a slow learner, like me.” I was shouting now. “How smart does he have to be before you love him?”

  There was a silence and I saw Mom look away. I thought her eyes were filled with tears.

  “This,” said Dad calmly, “is not about love, Ben. It was never meant to be. I’m not punishing Zan, I’m just saying he’s not learning language, and likely never will.”

  I was desperate now, talking fast. “So just … just fix the stuff you were doing wrong. Stop the rewards, and do those double-blind things.”

  “There’re other problems too. And the most important thing,” said Dad, “is that Greg has lost faith in the project.”

  “What does Greg know?” I said. “He’s hardly spent any time at all with Zan! Not compared with the rest of us.”

  “He’s watched the footage over and over,” said Dad. “He’s correlated it with the data we’ve collected.”

  “Greg’s wrong!” I couldn’t believe I’d liked him at first. “Why can’t he be wrong?”

  “He’s one of the most pre-eminent scientists in his field.”

  “Better than you?” I said tauntingly, wanting to hurt him. “Better than Dr. Tomlin?”

  “I’m not a linguist, Ben. He is.” “Get someone else,” I said.

  “It’s not so simple. Without Greg, any possible money from the U.S. dries up. And there’s virtually no hope of getting our big Canadian grant.”

  I thought of all the months of work that had been going into the application. “But you’re going to apply, right?”

  He shook his head. “There’s no point. The experiment’s contaminated. We’ve contaminated it with our mistakes. We’ve been turned down once before. A second rejection would be very damaging.”

  “For who?” I said.

  “For my reputation as a scientist,” said Dad. “It’s best to wind down the experiment quietly, publish our findings, which are fascinating in themselves. But the outcome was not what I’d hoped for.”

  Outcome. Another one of Dad’s icy cold words.

  “So no more money for the project,” I said.

  He shook his head. “We still have enough to get us through the spring.”

  I felt myself start to shake. “Okay. But we keep Zan, right?”

  Mom and Dad looked at each other.

  Mom said, “We’re looking into our options, Ben.”

  “Don’t lie to him,” said Dad. “We can’t keep Zan here. All the money that paid for his handlers, the equipment, the food—we just won’t have it.”

  “So? He can still live with us. His food isn’t so expensive. It’s not like he’s an elephant or anything.”

  “And who’s going to look after him?” Dad asked. “We all will. I will.”

  Dad shook his head. “When you’re at school? I’m at work all day, and your mother has her own work to do. She’s got to finish her thesis. Zan requires a full-time caregiver. An army of caregivers.”

  “Well,” I said, struggling, “there’s got to be some way—”

  “Zan’s not a baby any more. He’s getting harder to manage.”

  I knew this was true. It wasn’t just that he bit. It was his growing strength. He could rip cabinets off walls. Soon he’d be able to punch holes through them. I’d read Mom’s books on chimps in the wild. With every month Zan would only get bigger and stronger.

  “But he’s part … part of our family,” I said. “That was the deal. He belongs with us.”

  Dad smiled at me, and it was meant to be a kind smile, but I hated it.

  “When I was starting out as a scientist, one of the smartest things one of my profs told me was that you can’t love your experimental subject. You just can’t. It’s a very hard lesson to learn.”

  “He’s not my experimental subject,” I yelled. “He’s yours. He’s my little brother.”

  Dad tried to take my arm, but I pulled away. “Ben, he’s not your little brother and never will be. He’s an animal. He’s a different species.”

  “You wanted us to be a family. No one ever asked what I thought about this. Not at the beginning and not now. I say he stays.”

  “It’s not up to you.”

  “He thinks he’s one of us. You promised him.”

  “That was necessary for the experiment.”

  “You made him call you Dad,” I said. “I can’t believe you did that. You never wanted to be his dad. It was all just a game to you. A trick.”

  Dad shook his head.

  “He stays with us,” I repeated.

  “No.”

  “He stays,” I said again and started crying—and that made me mad. I wouldn’t be weak in front of him. Anger, welcome anger, flooded me.

  The hair on my body rose. I pushed back from the table so sharply the chair fell over with a bang, and the sound was like a trigger. My whole body tensed, ready for fight. I saw Dad’s calm, controlled face, and I went for him, pushing him hard by the shoulders, once, twice, until he stood and tried to grab my arms to stop me. Feeling myself pinned filled me with rage. His hands closed around my upper arms.

  I did what Zan would have done. I bit him.

  My teeth went down hard, but hit his wedding ring instead of flesh. It gave him time to pull free. He shoved me backwards so hard I fell on the floor.

  Mom hurried over to me, but I ran to the front door, grabbed my jacket, and went outside. I think she came after me, but Dad was shouting at her to let me go, let me blow off some steam.

  I got my bike out of the garage and tore off.

  I biked all the way down to the university. It was drizzling, but not too cold. In Toronto the roads would be piled with snow. It took over an hour, pedalling hard, almost no thoughts at all in my head except little shards and loops about Zan and Dad.

  I knew the residence building Peter lived in, but that was about it, so I had to ask around before someone gave me his room number. He wasn’t in. I didn’t know what else to do, so I just sat down on the floor and waited. The hallway smelled like old shoes and beer. Finally Peter showed up, his army surplus satchel loaded down with library books.

  “What’s up, man?” he asked, looking surprised. “How long’ve you been waiting out here?”

  He let me in
to his room, which was a bit musty and very messy.

  “Did you know?” I demanded. “I had an idea, but I wasn’t sure.” “How come you never told me?”

  I must have sounded really angry, because his eyes widened. He took a deep breath. “I’m sorry, Ben. But it was kind of your mom and dad’s job, not mine.”

  He was right. And I wasn’t really angry with him; it wasn’t like he could’ve done anything to change Dad’s mind. “They say he’s not learning language.”

  Peter scoffed and shook his head. “They’re wrong.”

  “They say we can’t keep him.”

  “How’d you get down here?” he asked.

  “Biked.”

  “Biked! You’ve gotta be starving. C’mon downstairs, I’ll buy you a burger.” He led me down to the main-floor cafeteria where we lined up with a tray and he told me to get whatever I wanted.

  “Onion rings?” he offered.

  “No thanks.”

  “Fries?”

  “No thanks.”

  “Green Jell-O?”

  “Okay,” I said.

  “I was just kidding about the Jell-O,” he said. “I really wouldn’t eat that. That white whippy stuff on the top is made from gasoline or something. It takes six months to digest.”

  I thought of Zan and how much he loved Jell-O, and put it on my tray.

  We sat down near a window, overlooking some huge rhododendron bushes.

  “We’ve got to figure out how to keep Zan,” I said. Between bites of my burger, I rattled off everything Dad had said about why we couldn’t keep him at the house.

  “It’s a big job,” Peter agreed.

  “If I paid you, would you take care of him?” “Ben—”

  I talked faster. “I’ve got quite a bit saved up. And then I’d figure out—”

  “Ben, I’d do it for free.”

  I stared at him. “You would?”

  “Well, I mean, I’d need to eat and pay for school. But there’s a lot more to it than that. I couldn’t do it all alone. You’d need more people, and then there’re all the other costs.”

  “See, I was thinking about maybe fundraising,” I said. “We could charge for visits. Or school groups could come.”

  “You’re talking about a kind of zoo?”