A Semester in the Life of a Garbage Bag

by Gordon Korman

  Delirious with happiness, he began to waltz around the hall with an imaginary partner, humming Theamelpos in three-quarter time. A few students saw him, and stared at Sean in perplexity. Sean only shrugged, but he couldn’t help smiling when Mindy appeared at the end of the hall, caught sight of Raymond dancing, and literally ran away.

  Raymond was so happy that he wanted to make friends with everyone he’d offended, starting with Howard Newman. So they headed for the poker game and found to their surprise that the table was gone. A few yards away from the usual spot sat Randy and Chris, leaning against the lockers, writing furiously in their notebooks.

  “What happened?” Sean asked. “Don’t tell me Howard’s still sore at you guys?”

  “Naw,” said Chris, barely looking up from his work. “Show him a toothpick and he’ll forgive you for setting his hair on fire.”

  “We’re going to lay off poker to work on our entries for the big contest,” Randy explained.

  “What big contest?” Sean asked.

  “‘What SACGEN Means to Me,’” said Randy. “It’s a two thousand word essay all about how great the windmill is. Kind of a bummer, but I’ve just got to be one of those six winners.”

  The glow on Raymond’s face faded slightly, to be replaced by a puzzled look. “Did you say six winners?”

  “Yeah,” said Chris. “The top six essays get an all-expenses-paid trip next summer to this great Greek island. It’s called — uh —” He began to fumble through some papers.

  “Crete?” asked Raymond hopefully.

  “No.” Chris pulled out a Xeroxed sheet and looked at it. “Here it is. Theamelpos. Eight weeks. Wow!”

  “How did you find out about this contest?” Raymond asked weakly, his face well on its way to making the transition from shining to gray.

  “Q-Dave announced it this morning,” said Randy. “And everybody got a sheet explaining the details. Practically the whole school’s entering.”

  “Could you excuse me for a moment?” said Raymond politely. He staggered into the nearby washroom.

  “What’s the matter with him?” asked Chris.

  “Something he ate,” Sean explained as terrible moaning began to waft out through the washroom door.

  “That’s right. Don’t kick Jardine when he’s down. Wait till he starts to get up. It’s time for another exciting, fun-filled episode of Let’s Get Jardine. This week our grand prize goes to the contestant who can burn Jardine out of Theamelpos just when he’s got it in the bag!”

  “What’s he doing?” Chris whispered.

  Sean walked into the bathroom to keep Raymond from drowning himself. He found his English partner leaning on one of the stall doors as though having to struggle to stay upright. He said, “Raymond, I’m sorry.” And for the first time, he really was. Raymond might be the original Captain Obnoxious, but his claim to having no luck was perfectly valid.

  Raymond just shook his head. “No need, Delancey,” he said quietly. “Jardine is battered and bruised, but he’s still kicking. It’s almost reassuring that they haven’t gone soft on him. So now we have to try twenty times as hard as everyone else. We have to butter up the windmill so big that Q-Dave’ll fall at our feet.”

  “Uh-uh,” Sean said. “Not me.”

  “What do you mean, not you? If you don’t do an essay, you can’t go to Theamelpos. We’re in trouble because half the school is going against us now — a nice little touch after the hours of effort Jardine put into ripping down notices and putting up decoys. But we’ve still got a slight advantage. If we write real butt-kissing essays, Q-Dave’ll recognize our names because of Gavin Gunhold. In other words, this is a disaster, but it isn’t quite a catastrophe, and if we really work hard, we can keep it from turning into an apocalypse.”

  Sean shook his head. “I don’t go for this big snow-job about how terrific SACGEN is supposed to be. Don’t you remember all those articles? ‘Oh, the students are childish and rebellious.’ Not one word about blackouts and breakdowns. So now Q-Dave’s come up with a plan to get a thousand signed statements saying they were right all along and that the windmill works perfectly. I think it stinks.”

  “But,” Raymond argued, “if you don’t enter the contest, he’ll still have nine hundred and ninety-nine signed statements, and you’ll have to sit on your can all summer thinking, What is there to do today?; the answer, of course, being, Nothing. I’ve got an uncle in New Jersey who can hook you up with a job, but Jardine wouldn’t recommend it. So do the essay.”

  “No, Raymond. Don’t you see? I’m hit by all this garbage twice as hard as anybody else. I squint through blackouts and flickering lights all day, and after school I go home to Techno-ville. I listen to my mother lecturing about SACGEN and how much she’d love to teach here while my father carts in the latest electronic masterpiece. I’ve had it with technology! Writing that essay is against my principles.”

  “Who said anything about principles? This is getting to Theamelpos! We can work on having principles when we get back. Then we’ll be lucky dudes with relaxed attitudes, great tans, and thousands of telephone numbers from the area code of Sweden.”

  “I don’t get it. You said yourself that all you cared about was ‘getting Jardine to Theamelpos.’ Well, with me out of the picture, that’s less competition for you.”

  “Yeah, before! But it’s always been me and you, Delancey. Ever since the poetry assignment. Jardine isn’t used to not having you around.”

  “Well, if you go to Theamelpos, you’d better get used to it,” Sean said decisively, “because as of now, I am a nontechnological person. Anything that was invented after the telephone, I don’t want. Including and especially SACGEN!”

  ***

  Randy and Chris were right. The whole school was buzzing about Mr. Hyatt’s new contest and the prospect of a vacation on Theamelpos. Sean expected Raymond to be canvassing everyone he knew, to find out exactly how stiff the competition was going to be. In fact, Raymond did him one better, striking up conversations with total strangers just to find out if they intended to enter an essay. The outlook was not good. At least several hundred people planned to go head to head for the trip Raymond had earmarked for himself during the very first week of school. Everyone, from big Ten-Ton Tomlinson to funky Leland Fenster, from lofty Amelia Vanderhoof to Nikki’s friends Marilyn and Carita, was planning essays.

  Even Ashley showed an interest in the “What SACGEN Means to Me” contest at lunch, although she was clearly not thrilled by the idea of a two thousand word essay. “Steve said he’ll help me with it. If we could both win, that would be fantastic!”

  “I’m not doing an essay,” said Sean, and Ashley gave him the same you-should-have-your-head-examined look he’d been receiving all day from Raymond.

  “Oh, I almost forgot.” She reached into her purse and produced a large manila envelope. “More mail for Gavin. What’s Up? forwards it to my house. And speaking of Gavin, I need a lot more of his time. After that great New York Times article, who knows what could come next?”

  “Superstardom,” said Raymond confidently. He looked at Sean and mouthed the word Theamelpos. Sean looked away and regarded the green of Ashley’s lunch absently. Miami Beach was a quiet affair that day. The poker game was shut down until further notice due to essay writing, and even tray-surfing action was reduced to nil. Everywhere, students could be seen poring over sheets of paper, dreaming up nice things to say about the machine that hadn’t worked properly for more than a few hours at a stretch since the very first day of school.

  Ashley was talking so much about Gavin Gunhold that she worked herself into a state of excitement, and couldn’t eat her lunch.

  “Jardine couldn’t eat her lunch even if there was no Gavin Gunhold,” Raymond commented, as Ashley rushed off to cash five dollars into quarters so she could make the poet’s business arrangements from the school pay phones.

  “Hi,” Danny Eckerman seated himself across from Raymond.

  Sean looked around f
or Mindy, but she was on the other side of Miami Beach, hard at work on what was probably Danny’s essay on “What SACGEN Means to Me.”

  Danny beamed at Raymond. “So what’s new?”

  Raymond kept his eyes on his lunch. “Jardine doesn’t have any time for anything to be new, because he spends so much of his time consulting with you on things. I read it in The Eckerman Report.”

  As usual, the president was undaunted. “Christmas is coming up pretty soon, and I’m organizing some social events for the big buildup. But because I’m so busy, I could use some help. Got any ideas?”

  Raymond put down his knife and fork and regarded Danny. “As a matter of fact, I’m getting an idea right now. It’s for our next hilarious comedy sketch. Check this out: You won’t shut up, so I shoot you with a bazooka.”

  Danny looked thoughtful. “It could work. Do you know where to get a fake bazooka?”

  “I’m not going to use a fake bazooka. Do you know where to get an asbestos-coated flak jacket?”

  “Well,” said Danny, “I was thinking more along the lines of an ongoing activity that could lead up to the Christmas party. I know you’ll come up with something, Raymond. It’s like I was just telling Mindy: There’s room for him on the Eckerman team.”

  As the president walked off, Raymond leaped to his feet and wound up to bounce a hard-boiled egg off Danny’s head. Sean sprang just in time and put an iron grip on Raymond’s arm.

  “You shouldn’t have done that, Delancey,” Raymond seethed. “You just ruined another hilarious comedy sketch!”

  “What are you going to do?” Sean asked, easing his English partner’s arm down until the egg once again rested on the lunch tray. “He expects you to work up some Christmas thing.”

  “No way,” said Raymond grimly. “May Jardine be condemned to the eternal fish fumes of Secaucus if he ever lifts a finger for the greater glory of Danny Eckerman!”

  ***

  It was another typical evening at the Delancey house. Gramp was upstairs in his room answering fan mail and practicing his yo-yo technique, and Mr. and Mrs. Delancey were experimenting with the argon-neon laser against the side of the Schnitzenbergers’ garage. Sean was in front of the TV, which was switched to something other than the Weather Channel for a change, when Nikki entered. “Hi, Sean. How’s it going?”

  The look of open friendliness on her face instantly put Sean on his guard. “Okay,” he said tentatively.

  Nikki sat down. “I was just thinking. Raymond and I seem to get along pretty well. And you know about how I think he’s cute and all that.”

  “So?”

  “So I was wondering if you could fix it so we could go out together.”

  “You and Raymond?” Sean sat bolt upright. “Nik, I told you to stay away from him!”

  “But that was way back at the beginning of the year. Now you guys are best friends. Come on, Sean!”

  “Best friends?! Are you crazy?” Sean lay back again. “Forget it. Take a walk.”

  He heard the sound of paper rustling, and looked up to see his sister pulling a folded clipping from her pocket.

  “I was looking through last week’s Sunday Times,” she began.

  “But we didn’t get a paper last Sunday!” Sean protested nervously. This wasn’t exactly true. The paper had arrived, but he, knowing it contained the Gavin Gunhold profile, had tossed it down an open manhole.

  “This is from Carita’s paper. You’re in this article, you know, Sean — you, Raymond, and Ashley. How come you didn’t tell Mom and Dad?”

  Sean was sweating now. “I didn’t think they’d be interested.”

  “Now, this poet guy is fascinating,” Nikki went on meaningfully. “He’s Gramp’s age, and he looks a lot like Gramp. And this yo-yo business — didn’t Gramp used to be a yo-yo champion?”

  “Nikki, what are you trying to say?” Sean blurted.

  Nikki smiled. “Do you think Raymond will be free this weekend?”

  Sean leaped to his feet. “You’re trying to blackmail me into setting you up with Raymond! Give me that clipping!” He lunged for the paper, but she deftly kept it just beyond his reach.

  “This Gavin Gunhold thing is really a coincidence. Do you think Mom and Dad will call it a coincidence?”

  “Don’t show it to Mom and Dad,” Sean pleaded. “Please!”

  Nikki folded up the article and popped it into her pocket. “Sure, Sean. Oh, by the way, tell Raymond I’m free Friday and Saturday. Whenever’s best for him.” She walked out.

  ***

  “‘Maybe once in a lifetime comes along a technological advancement so utterly amazing that one cannot help opening one’s mouth and gaping in admiration. Such inventions were the wheel, the electric light bulb, and the solar/air current generating system. SACGEN is the third most important development in the last hundred thousand years, and to attempt to describe it in a mere two thousand words is like trying to detail all of the great cathedrals of Europe in three lines on a breakfast cereal boxtop. As a DeWitt student, every night before I go to sleep, I spend a good three quarters of an hour just thinking about how lucky I am to be able to go to school with this miracle machine.’” Howard looked up from his paper and smiled with satisfaction. “Well, guys, what do you think?”

  “I don’t get it,” said Sean. “You hate the windmill. How can you say all that stuff?”

  “I have a dream,” said Howard, closing his eyes and tapping his temple gently. “I see myself winning the contest. I see Q-Dave bringing me up in front of the whole school to congratulate me. And just when all the kids are freaking out, thinking I’ve gone totally crazy, I hear myself say, ‘Q-Dave, you poor dope. This essay is a crock, and the windmill stinks. And as far as your exotic Greek vacation is concerned, you can take it and run it over with your Cadillac, except that I let the air out of your tires.’ Then, just as Q-Dave’s about to hit me, the windmill goes on the fritz again, and he can’t find me in the dark.”

  There was general laughter.

  “Has anybody seen Raymond around?” Sean asked.

  “Fortunately, no,” said Howard.

  In fact, ever since the contest had begun, Raymond had been hitting the books, researching the SACGEN project from all possible angles, planning an essay to knock the principal’s socks off. At school he spent every spare moment in the library; at home he was hard at work, his answering machine intercepting all incoming calls. Of the two thousand words in his essay, he promised Sean, “nineteen hundred and fifty of them are going to butter up the windmill. The other fifty are going to be and or the. I intend to swell Q-Dave’s head so much that I wouldn’t be surprised if he sold his Cadillac and bought a Lear Jet.”

  “You have no principles at all,” said Sean in disgust.

  “If you’re expecting me to disagree with you, Delancey, forget it. Because when Jardine sticks his punch card in the time clock of J & J Fish Processing Inc., God forbid, it’s going to be with the knowledge that he fought, screamed, lied, cheated, and connived right up until the very end.”

  The only reason Raymond happened by the poker game at that moment was to circulate an ugly rumor that Theamelpos was experiencing a plague of poisonous snakes. Sean had heard about it before, both from Amelia Vanderhoof and later from Ten-Ton Tomlinson. He had been so sure it was Raymond’s doing that he didn’t even feel the need to extract a confession from his. English partner. The present problem was more immediate. Nikki wanted a date with Raymond, and the poetry assignment, Gavin Gunhold’s career, and possibly Sean’s life were all riding on it.

  “What’s the word on the hockey season?” Chris asked Raymond.

  “Affirm,” put in Leland. “My anticipometer shows big-time vub to get out there and slap black disc, baby!”

  “I was on the phone with the league people four times yesterday,” replied Raymond glibly. “And I can’t find anyone who can give me information. You know what’s got me even more worried is this poisonous snake thing. Nobody told me that Theamelpos —�
��

  “Raymond, I need to talk to you.” Sean grabbed Raymond and hauled him bodily into the nearby washroom.

  “What’s the big idea?” said Raymond irritably. “My snake scare is going over great. I’ll bet I can cut the number of entries in half — maybe more!”

  “Never mind that. We’ve got trouble.” Sean outlined Nikki’s threat to expose the Gavin Gunhold deception to her parents if a date with Raymond wasn’t pending.

  Raymond looked totally bewildered. “I understand the blackmail part, but why does she want to go out with me?”

  “Raymond — get ready for this — my sister loves you.”

  “You’re kidding!”

  Sean shook his head sadly. “She worships you. I don’t know why. If I was a girl, you’d be the last guy I’d look at, but there it is.”

  Raymond was amazed. “But Jardine doesn’t have luck with women!”

  “He still doesn’t!” Sean snapped. “This is my sister you’re talking about!”

  “Don’t get excited, Delancey. I hate your sister. She’s the one who introduced Ashley and Cementhead.”

  “That’s better,” said Sean. “Just take her to a movie, feed her a hamburger, and shut her up. A necessary move to keep our dead poet afloat — no more. Or the next big blast that hits Jardine will have nothing to do with those mysterious people in the sky!”

  ***

  Nikki was on cloud nine when Raymond called to ask her out Friday night. She began bragging to Marilyn and Carita, both of whom were now far too jealous to endure her company. Raymond withdrew back into his cocoon of work, emerging only now and then to tell people about the poisonous snakes on Theamelpos.