A Semester in the Life of a Garbage Bag

by Gordon Korman

  It was the first time since October that Sean had what he wanted most — to be away from Raymond. But whatever extra time he might have had was taken up. Superagent Ashley Bach was orchestrating Gavin Gunhold’s career, and Sean owed it to Gramp to be there every step of the way.

  Before Sean’s very eyes, Gramp was turning into a star. Life with the poet/personality/yo-yo ace became a blur of TV, radio, magazine, public reading, TV again, and so on. There were rides in limousines every day, and producers and network executives saying, “Mr. Gunhold! Delighted to meet you! You can’t believe how much we’ve been hearing about you!” Each day there was a little more fan mail for Ashley to hand over, and a whole new stack of invitations for Gavin Gunhold to appear.

  Sean knew it had all gone too far when, as he, Ashley, and Gramp were walking past a construction site after a spot on News at Noon, a hard-hatted worker took one look at Gramp and dropped an armload of bricks.

  “Hey! I know you! You’re that guy!”

  The three stared at him.

  “The guy! From the TV last week! You know. ‘The stuffed moose looked at me on registration day.’ And you played with a yo-yo. You know the guy!”

  Ashley glowed. “You’re right, sir. This is the one and only Gavin Gunhold.”

  “Wow!” whistled the worker. “Can I have your autograph? It’s for my sister.”

  Readily, Gramp produced a pen. “Certainly, my good man.”

  “Great!” The man peered over Gramp’s shoulder. “Make it to Ernie. Wow!” He turned back to the job site. “Hey, Louie, guess who this is? Gordon Gunfield!”

  “Who’s that?” a voice called back.

  Ernie was indignant. “What are you — an idiot? Everyone knows Gordon Gunfield. You know — ‘the registration day moose looked at me.’ On television! He’s really famous, you moron! If you hurry up, you can get his autograph, too!”

  Sean grabbed Gramp and Ashley. “Come on, let’s get out of here!” A few blocks down, he bought Gramp a pair of sunglasses from a street vendor and instructed him never to take them off.

  But the sparkle in Gramp’s eyes practically showed through the shades, so overjoyed was Patrick Delancey with his newfound fame. Sean had never understood that distant gleam in his grandfather’s eyes, not until he’d become Gavin Gunhold, and the gleam had turned into a dance of light.

  “I knew it all along” was Raymond’s opinion. “The very first time I saw Gramp heave that bagel through the salami at the deli, I said to myself, ‘Jardine, this is a totally cool guy.’ So what if he’s eighty-eight? All he needed was a way to shine, and we gave it to him.”

  “We got him involved in a plot,” Sean amended.

  “We took a fantastic old guy who was going out of his mind with boredom and made his life fun again. You may not realize it, Delancey, but we’re considerate and loving grandsons to do this for him.”

  ***

  On Friday night, Raymond, under strict instructions laced with death threats from Sean, took Nikki to a movie, Burger King, and then home. On Saturday morning, Nikki telephoned the entire population of the ninth grade to tell them about it.

  Raymond himself said, “She’s really a pretty nice girl, Delancey. Jardine had a halfway decent time. She talked all about how her big brother pushes her around too much.”

  “Hah!” snorted Sean in disgust. “My sister is Genghis Khan in training!”

  To avoid Nikki floating around the house on cloud nine, he decided to go upstairs and help Gramp with his fan mail.

  “Listen to this. ‘Dear Mr. Gunhold. Who do you think you are? Who cares if you can play with a yo-yo? Your poems all stink, and you are an obnoxious crazy old man. Signed Norbert Freeland.’ Hmmm.” Gramp paused thoughtfully, then began to scribble on the FROM THE DESK OF GAVIN GUNHOLD stationery Ashley had bought for him. Dear Mr. Freeland, Blow it out your ear. Yours very truly, Gavin Gunhold.

  “You’re not going to send that, are you?” Sean asked, sifting through more letters.

  “Watch me,” said Gramp, sealing and stamping the envelope.

  “Here’s one,” said Sean. “‘My husband and I are your biggest fans. We are an elderly couple, and we greatly admire how you show that older people are quite capable of doing extraordinary things. Thank you, and good luck in your career. Edward and Emma Crabtree.’”

  “Good people,” said Gramp positively. He looked confused as he examined another letter. “‘Greetings, Mr. Gunhold, baby. Your poetry does radioactivity to my thinkometer, zipping my nut with holographic images. The vub orbs me so positive that I had to fling this communication —’”

  “Here, Gramp, let me try.” Sean scanned the letter and, sure enough, it was signed Leland Fenster. He shuddered. If even Leland was a Gavin Gunhold fan, the dead Canadian poet could be nothing less than a household word.

  Leaving Gramp to his adoring public, he descended to the TV room and switched on the set.

  “ … and in ‘The Bargain,’ Gunhold is commenting on the American consumer,” said a prominent NYU professor.

  “Very similar to the symbol of the stuffed moose in ‘Registration Day,’” agreed a colleague from Yale.

  “I disagree,” said the third specialist. “Gunhold’s poems are nothing more than astute commentary on human foibles. Consider ‘Household Security,’ where the attack dog —”

  Head spinning, Sean switched over to a hockey game. How much longer could he keep all this from his parents? Just yesterday, the family had entertained the argon-neon laser salesman and his wife. Mrs. Argon-Neon had spent the whole evening staring at Gramp, saying she was positive she’d seen him somewhere before.

  Even more important, how long could the whole deception go on? Did someone really have the missing obituary from the New York Public Library? If yes, why hadn’t he shown himself? And if no, how long would it be before word of poet Gavin Gunhold would travel up to Toronto, and to someone who knew the truth?

  Eleven

  The poetry assignment, although relegated to the background in all the excitment over Gavin Gunhold’s career, was almost finished. Raymond had lost interest ever since “What SACGEN Means to Me,” feeling that the project was no longer a factor in getting to Theamelpos. It was Ashley Bach, once described by Raymond as a “death sentence” to the project, who was doing most of the work. Steve Semenski’s little sister had agreed to do the typing at $1.25 a page.

  There were still only seven Gunhold poems, but this was easily explained. Gunhold’s sudden popularity left him little time for original work. The project contained analyses done by all three partners, and included many opinions supposedly belonging to the poet himself. In addition, there was a videocassette of all the Gunhold TV interviews, and copies of all his press clippings. This made up for the fact that the written work came to only sixteen pages instead of twenty-five or thirty, according to Raymond.

  “The bottom line is, who cares?” he commented. “My essay on the windmill is coming out great.”

  ***

  Monday was the deadline for “What SACGEN Means to Me,” and by the time Sean arrived at school, Raymond had already made his submission, skimmed through some of the competition, and estimated how many potential entrants he had scared away with his poisonous snake rumor. (There were two hundred and seventy-three essays. He figured at least that many had opted out.)

  “I put my paper about a third of the way down the pile,” he told Sean. “Not at the front, but not so far back that Q-Dave’ll be bored when he reads it.”

  “Oh, there you are.” Mindy O’Toole jogged up to them. She was trying to act casual, but was clearly unnerved by Raymond. “Danny wants to know how the plans are coming along for the Christmas activities.”

  “They aren’t coming along,” said Raymond.

  Mindy frowned. “Danny said you guys are helping him on this.”

  “No,” Raymond insisted. “We’re not ‘helping’ him with anything. Tell him to leave us alone.”

  “Say that we’re really b
usy, so we don’t have any time to work for him,” Sean suggested diplomatically.

  Raymond shook his head. “Tell him that we have all the time in the world, and could very easily work for him, but that we don’t want to because he’s a jerk.”

  “Don’t tell him that,” Sean told Mindy.

  “Yes. Tell him that.”

  Mindy looked frightened and ran off.

  ***

  On Wednesday, Sean found himself on his own for lunch, since Raymond was off helping Miss Ritchie in the library, and Ashley was at Burger King with Steve. As he made his way toward Miami Beach, he was taken completely by surprise when Mr. Hyatt came up to him. The principal was hardly seen at all lately, as he had locked himself in his office to read the “What SACGEN Means to Me” essays.

  “Mr. — Delancey, is it?” asked Hyatt.

  “Yes, sir,” said Sean tentatively.

  Mr. Hyatt awarded him a pat on the shoulder. “Excellent paper on SACGEN, young man. I’m very impressed.”

  “Oh, you must be thinking of the other guy — Jardine. Raymond Jardine.”

  “His was outstanding, too. Both of yours were enlightening, informative, well-researched, and enjoyable to read. I’ve got my eye on you two.”

  “What paper?” Sean mused aloud after Mr. Hyatt had walked away. Clearly, something was up, and it was a good bet that Raymond was at the bottom of it.

  He found Raymond in the library atop a ladder, struggling with an enormous READING IS FUNDAMENTAL poster. Every time he succeeded in lining up one corner to the wall, the other three would curl up on him. When he tried tacking the bottom edge first, the top of the sheet rolled up and conked him on the head, causing him to lose his grip. The poster fluttered down to land at Sean’s feet.

  Sean picked it up and shook it at Raymond accusingly. “I just found out that I handed in a SACGEN essay. What’s the story here, Raymond? And you’d better make it good!”

  From his perch, Raymond shrugged. “What can I say, Delancey? Sure it was me. I realized I couldn’t convince you to do an essay, so I got to thinking. All along that tough, cruel road, who was with Jardine every step of the way? So I wrote one for you.”

  “You had no right to do that!” Sean exclaimed hotly. “You know exactly what I think of that stupid windmill!”

  Raymond studied his sneakers. “I’m sorry, Delancey.” He sighed. “How’d you figure it out?”

  “Because Q-Dave stopped me in the hall to commend me on my paper.”

  Raymond jumped and almost lost his balance. “He did? Fantastic! That means he liked mine, too, since they were almost exactly the same! Sorry to be so happy while you’re chewing me out, but we’re back on the road to Theamelpos!” He snapped to attention and gave a rigid salute to the west. “Secaucus, hail and farewell. You put up a heck of a fight. Jardine had to try fifty times as hard as everybody else to avoid your diabolical clutches, but this time you lose.”

  “Raymond, I’m not finished with you yet!” Sean thundered.

  “Don’t you see?” said Raymond. “You’re more than Jardine’s English partner. You’re his cohort his comrade — his fr—”

  “Don’t say ‘friend,’ Raymond. Just — don’t say it!”

  Raymond looked dejected. “Well, the least you can do is climb up here and help me with this poster.”

  “No way,” said Sean, tossing the roll up to his partner’s waiting hand. But as Raymond resumed his struggling, Sean could bear it no longer. “Oh, let me show you how to do it before you end up killing yourself!” He scrambled up the ladder and grabbed the rolled-up paper from Raymond.

  Suddenly a loud grinding noise roared through the school, and the lights began flickering erratically.

  “Attention, students,” said Engineer Sopwith through the PA system. “It is imperative that you —” his voice was drowned out by static “— immediately. Thank you.” Then the power went dead.

  “Terrific,” groaned Sean into the gloom. “Perfect timing.”

  “Hey, shove over, Delancey,” came Raymond’s voice. “You’re hogging the ladder.”

  “I’m on my half, you’re on yours. Shut up and hang onto that poster.”

  “I don’t have the poster. You have the poster.”

  “I don’t have the poster. Where is it?”

  “Maybe it’s on the wall.”

  “How could it be on the wall? It was rolled up. Wait — here it is. Raymond, stop shaking the ladder!”

  “I’m not shaking the ladder!”

  “Well, somebody’s shaking the ladder! Raymond, we’re tipping over! Raymond! Do something!”

  There was a great crunch as the ladder fell over, sending Raymond and Sean reeling into a magazine display rack, which keeled over on top of them just as the lights came back on.

  “That’s right. Throw Jardine off a ladder. And hey, while he’s down there, so it shouldn’t be a total loss, drop a shelf on him. What the heck.”

  Sean shook off the copy of Techno-Living magazine that had landed on his face open to the feature on argon-neon lasers. He wriggled out from under the rack and, with the help of Ten-Ton Tomlinson, set the freestanding shelf back upright. “Just another day in the life of SACGEN, miracle of technology,” he said sarcastically. He looked down at Raymond. “Come on. Let’s get out of here.”

  Raymond made no move to get up off the floor. “I can’t, Delancey. My ankle is broken.”

  “Don’t be an idiot, Raymond. I’m not in the mood.”

  “I’m serious, Delancey. My ankle is broken.”

  On the point of walking out the door, Sean wheeled and regarded his English partner sprawled on the floor. Raymond looked decidedly unhappy, and very pale.

  “His ankle’s broken!” howled Sean in a voice that carried throughout the building. “Don’t just stand there! Do something! Get a doctor! Get an ambulance! Boil water!”

  “I don’t want any tea, Delancey, and I’m not having a baby.”

  Sean didn’t stop babbling hysterically even as the ambulance arrived and two uniformed attendants moved Raymond carefully onto a stretcher.

  “The windmill did this!” Sean seethed. “I’m going to go into that control room with an axe, and then Q-Dave is really going to know what SACGEN means to me!”

  “Delancey, shhh!” admonished Raymond, momentarily forgetting his ankle. “If you open your mouth in front of Q-Dave, you’ll blow Theamelpos for the two of us!”

  But Sean raved on. “Who cares? This is the last straw! I’ll say it to the Secretary of Energy himself! The windmill is a piece of —”

  “Oh, the pain!” bellowed Raymond suddenly, completely drowning Sean out. “The a-gon-y!”

  Quickly, the attendants hustled the stretcher into the ambulance. Sean clambered up with them, refusing to leave without a physical struggle.

  “You guys brothers?” asked one of the attendants as they pulled out of the school drive.

  “Much closer than that!” Sean exclaimed fervently. “And SACGEN will rue the day that it did this to Delancey’s best friend!”

  ***

  Raymond’s stay in the hospital was a very short one. A few hours after the cast had been put on his leg, his mother and father were able to take him home. Sean was still there, still issuing wild threats against SACGEN. Raymond seemed more upset at having to move temporarily out of his garage apartment than at anything else.

  The Jardines dropped Sean off in time for dinner, giving him a whole new audience for his ranting and raving. It broke up the evening meal. Gramp let out a roar of outrage and ran for the telephone to call Raymond and make sure he was all right. Nikki beat him to the phone, however. She could not eat while Raymond was suffering and had to notify Marilyn and Carita of these ill tidings. This left Sean alone with his parents.

  Mrs. Delancey refused to accept that SACGEN could be responsible for the accident.

  “What do you mean, Mom? I was there! I fell, too!”

  “You kids blame SACGEN for everything,” she retorted.


  “A thirty-three million dollar project can’t go that wrong,” her husband added reasonably.

  “You think I don’t know why you’re making this up, Sean Delancey?” his mother went on. “You’re feeling guilty because you were acting up in the library, and your friend got hurt as a result of it. That’s the real reason for all this.” At that, she and her husband walked out, heading for the den to “eat in peace.”

  Gramp came back into the kitchen. “I got through. He’s okay.”

  “How’d you get past Nik?” Sean asked.

  “I just threatened to melt her Rolling Stones records. You know, Jardine said you made a real spectacle of yourself at school when it happened.”

  Sean grinned sheepishly. “He’s taking it a lot better than I am, I guess. Honest to God, Gramp, the guy’s got no luck! None at all! Zero! Zip! Zilch! And does he complain? Well — he does, but he’s got a right!” He shook his head. “SACGEN’s got to go.”

  Gramp pushed his dinner away, lit up a Scrulnick’s, and chuckled. “You’d better think twice before you take on the whole Department of Energy. But if you do decide to bomb the school, let me know so I can express-mail the argon-neon laser over. No sense wasting all that good dynamite.”

  “I’m not kidding, Gramp. It may sound crazy, but in the ambulance I swore I’d get SACGEN this time. I don’t mean blowing it up, but showing the world what a big lemon the whole business is, and putting an end to it once and for all!”

  Sean couldn’t get to sleep that night, the day’s upsets running riot through his mind. A month ago, he would have been sublimely grateful for anything that would have put Raymond out of commission. Now here he was, foaming at the mouth, ready to do battle over that same Raymond, Raymond the embarrassment, Raymond the pest, Raymond the schemer, Raymond the obnoxious, Raymond the eleventh-grade garbage bag.

  Well, at least Raymond was okay. In six or seven weeks, the cast would come off, and everything would be fine — until the next time SACGEN conked out. Then someone could end up with more than a small fracture. Maybe a concussion, or worse. There were no two ways about it. SACGEN was a menace, and the students deserved protection.