Jolted

by Arthur Slade

  Newton pictured carrot peels, boiled cabbages and overcooked noodles. The smell of burned toast and porridge. Dumont must have remembered Newton’s school-application essay about his love of fine food. There could be no worse punishment. “But . . .”

  “Welcome to the real world, where there are consequences for your actions. We expect healthy competition between our students, but we also demand cooperation. Remember that.”

  “But . . . but . . .”

  “You are dismissed. I suggest you hit the books. They won’t hit back.” Dumont didn’t smile at his own joke.

  As Newton left the office, his head throbbed.

  From: headmasterdumont@jerrypottsacademy.com

  Date: September 1, Monday

  Subject: Marks/Culinary Dish/Punishments

  To: allgradesaddresses

  Dear Students,

  If you are reading this, you have survived your first days at Jerry Potts Academy. Congratulations.We have posted your marks in the mess hall and will continue to post them every Monday morning. This is to foster healthy competition between classmates. As many of you know, whoever has the highest marks in each grade at the end of the year will have his or her name engraved on a bronze plate in the Hall of Heroes.

  The following are messages of importance:

  1. Mr. MacBain reminds grade-nine students that your main dish will be created tomorrow in Culinary Arts and Survival class. Be prepared to cook.

  2. Edison Nuttle, a senior, has broken his leg after falling off a horse. He will be recuperating in the nurse’s station.Visitors are welcome between 1530 and 1700. Edison gets extra marks for setting his own leg.

  3. Our bell ringer this week will be grade-nine student Violet Quon.Violet was involved in fisticuffs. She has also been assigned stable duty. Newton Starker, the other participant in the incident, has been assigned KP duty.

  4. The first-quarter Outdoor Expedition will begin on September 18. That is just over two weeks from now. I remind you: Visualize success. Sharpen your minds.

  Enjoy your week. Work together, learn together, survive together.

  Sincerely,

  Mr. Dumont, Headmaster

  PS. I have reprimanded several students who have been dressing in a slovenly manner. This will not be tolerated. Demerit points will be handed out. Remember, the staff at Jerry Potts Academy see everything.

  Une Delivery L’ Unexpected

  * * *

  Newton laughed after reading the e-mail from Dumont. “Yes! Yes! Yes!” Violet would be punished. Bell ringing and stable duty. Ha! She deserves every stinking moment of it.

  His glee sent a sharp spike of pain into his skull. He threw his legs over the edge of his cot and pressed his palms to his temples. It felt as though someone had hammered a spike into the top of his head.

  Kitchen duty! The thought of it made his guts churn, and for a nanosecond he wondered if Violet had been given the better deal. He wouldn’t even get to cook. He’d be cleaning up guck, not so different from shoveling manure.

  Newton traced the events that had led to this. Violet had tripped him. She had called him Rod. Then the Starker anger had taken over. I have got to keep my cool. I have to hold this Starker’s ship together.

  His cell phone burst into symphonic song. “Hello?”

  “May I speak to Newton Starker?” a woman asked.

  “Speaking.”

  “This is STC Parcel Express. You have a parcel here for pickup at the bus depot.”

  “I do? What’s in it?”

  “We aren’t allowed to look inside packages, sir.”

  “Oh, okay. I’ll be right there.” Newton checked the weather (sunny and sixty-eight degrees Fahrenheit), locked up his laptop in the safety box and hid the key in his right running shoe, in his closet. His mood lifted when he remembered the order he’d placed. My truffles are here! Tomorrow, the whole class will be amazed by my recipe. That ought to make up for this boxing fiasco.

  He grabbed his bike helmet and went first to the armory and stood in the Hall of Heroes, staring at the printout of students’ marks. Since there had just been one day of classes, he had received marks only for a short in-class essay about creating tools from stones, wood and vines: 87 percent. Two points behind Violet. Ha! Call me Rod, will you? I’ll surpass you yet.

  Her name would never be in the Hall of Heroes. His would.

  At free time, he went to the physical-education office and signed out a bike. He pedaled toward the heart of Moose Jaw. After five minutes his legs were rubber, and the ache in his head was almost unbearable. But he needed those truffles.

  Newton locked up his bike just off Main Street at the Moose Jaw bus station. The woman at the counter wore a tag with MANDY, PLEASED TO MEET YOU written across it. She plopped a pet cage down on the counter. It was solid plastic, with several air holes. “There you go, bub.” Bub?

  “It’s a pet cage,” Newton said. Mandy was flipping through invoices. She didn’t lift her eyes.

  How odd. He touched the cage like he was about to diffuse a bomb. Suddenly something inside moved, and Newton jumped. For a moment he suspected he might be on a reality TV show. Would it be a rabid dog? A skunk? Or was it his head injury conjuring up a bizarre event?

  He slowly unlatched the door, opened it a crack and peered inside.

  Two intelligent eyes blinked back at him. A clean, perfumy smell emerged.

  Newton opened the door a little more. The eyes were set in a hairless head, centered by a round and perfectly pink nose.

  “It’s a pig,” Newton blurted. Mandy went on flipping through her invoices.

  He squinted at it. It was the same size as a small poodle. It appeared completely calm, as though it were meditating. Its eyes followed Newton’s movements. Attached inside the door were an envelope and a little jar.

  He opened the card and found a note: Voici vos truffes et votre truie. Elle s’appelle Joséphine.

  Newton shook his head. My pig? Joséphine? Oh no! Chef Lacombe hadn’t understood his French! The tiny jar was labeled LES TRUFFES DU FERMIER LACOMBE, EN VENTE AU GRAND RABAIS. Truffles! At least something had worked out. Now he could make his recipe as planned.

  He looked down at Joséphine. She seemed quite happy to see him and nuzzled his hand when he reached inside.

  “Hey there,” he said. “What am I going to do with you?”

  She oinked. It was a friendly sound.

  He closed the door, threw his coat over her cage and carried her out to his bike. It took several attempts to balance the cage on his handlebars. On his way back to the academy, he stopped briefly at the co-op grocery store and bought the other ingredients for his recipe. He passed a few Moose Javians, but no one looked too closely at the pet cage.

  When he got to his dorm, he snuck Joséphine up the back stairs and into his room. He set the cage down and opened the door. She took a few steps out and sniffed around. “Good pig, good girl.” Is that how you talk to a pig?

  She let out a quiet oink and two grunts. Hmm. How to keep her from dirtying the floor? He brought her a thermos cup of water. She’d need food. In his life he’d only eaten pigs (several recipes came to mind) and had never concerned himself with what they ate. More important, could they be toilet trained? He decided to look online.

  Now, where’s that key? He checked under the cactus in his window. Not there. Looked behind the picture of his mother. No sign of it.

  The pig followed him closely as he paced around the room. She seemed to be grinning, like they were playing a game. He stuck his head under the cot. She poked her head in next to his.

  “What are you doing?” someone asked.

  Newton banged his head on the bed frame so hard, he saw stars. “Jacob,” he said, looking around for the pig, “you really should knock.”

  “The door was open. I thought you’d swooned from your head trauma and fallen to the floor.”

  “Only girls swoon. Guys black out.”

  “True enough.”

  N
ewton looked down just in time to see the pig’s tail disappear under the bed. With any luck she’d stay there. “I’m trying to find the key to my safety box. I hid it somewhere.”

  The pig poked her head out from under the bed and raised an eyebrow at Jacob, then oinked.

  He did a double take, removed his glasses, looked at the lenses, put them back on and stared at Joséphine. “There’s a pig in your room!”

  “So there is.” A sudden stab of fear struck Newton’s chest. What if Jacob told someone else, and that person told the floor sergeant? “Look, don’t tell anyone about her. There’s been a mix-up with the truffle company. They sent the pig by mistake; now I have to find my key so I can unlock my laptop and figure out what to feed her and whether or not she’s toilet trained. I’ve checked all over, so help me find the key, okay?”

  “You forgot the magic word.”

  Newton sighed. “Please.” The closet door slid open, and the two of them jumped. Somehow the pig had pushed the door aside and run in. There was a bang, a bump; then she charged out with Newton’s running shoe and dropped it at his feet like a dog. With her front right trotter, she flipped it over, and the key landed on the floor.

  Newton stared in awe at the pig. “Did you see that?”

  “She found the key! Incredible!”

  Newton knelt down and scratched the little pig’s head. She nuzzled against his hand. “You’re amazing, Joséphine,” he whispered.

  “Are you missing anything else?” Jacob asked. “We should test this.”

  “Please, Joséphine, find my stash of illicit magazines.”

  She cocked one eyebrow, zipped under the cot— and a moment later was pushing out a short stack of magazines.

  Jacob grabbed the top one, which featured several scantily clad women on the cover, posing provocatively with computers. “MacAddict? That’s your illicit magazine? Newton—”

  “This is spectacular! She is a four-legged miracle!” Newton leaned over and whispered, desperately: “Joséphine, please find a way for me to never get hit by lightning.”

  She stared up at Newton, tapping one foot. Morse code? Tap-tap-tap-tap. He listened for a message, forgetting for a moment that he didn’t know Morse code. She sat on her haunches, made a harrumph sound and scratched behind her right ear with her hind leg. Was she trying to tell him something?

  “Pretty please,” he added.

  “Might as well ask her to create world peace,” Jacob scoffed.

  “It was worth a try,” Newton said, picking her up tenderly. He set her on the bed, where she lay down. He stroked her head, and she grunted, opened one eye, then closed it. He patted her back until she snored softly.

  “Hey, I don’t believe it!” he said, looking at his hand, then at Joséphine.

  “Don’t believe what?”

  “I haven’t given her a shock yet.” He touched her again, gently. She didn’t stir. “I’ve never been able to touch pets. Cats would get zapped so hard, all their hair would stand on end. Dogs, too. Once, I accidentally killed a parakeet! That put a damper on my birthday party.”

  “Yikes! That is curious.”

  Newton rubbed his feet back and forth quickly on the throw carpet and touched Jacob’s arm, producing a spark that sputtered like a firecracker.

  “Ow!” Jacob jumped away from him, holding his arm and grimacing. “Stay away from me.”

  “Sorry. I just had to see if it was me or the pig. How very interesting.”

  Newton unlocked his safety box and pulled out his shining white MacBook.

  “I came to bring tidings,” Jacob said, still standing several feet away from Newton. “I wanted to let you know first. Well, after my parents, that is.”

  Newton was busy Googling information about pigs. “Hey, all I need is a litter box. Cool. And they can be housetrained. Bizarre.”

  “Did you hear me, Newton? I have tidings.”

  “Oh, what?”

  “A publisher in Toronto wants my book. They called this morning.”

  “Oh,” Newton said. A sudden green tentacle of envy squeezed his heart. Jacob would be mentioned in the paper. He’d become famous. They might even put his picture in the Hall of Heroes. “Wow.”

  Joséphine let out an series of oinks. And if he didn’t know better, he would say she was scolding him. If she actually was scolding him, then what for? Okay. So he was being a poor friend. He should be pleased for Jacob, not jealous.

  “That’s wonderful news. Absolutely wonderful.” Newton shook Jacob’s hand, and this time, no shock. “This will be perfect. You’ll get good credentials as a writer, some notice; then you can write my life story.”

  Jacob frowned. “Your life story? Uh . . .”

  “I was kidding. I’m really pleased for you.” And he was, now that he thought about it. Jacob had been working hard on his books. And he had talent. Besides, authors were on the lowest rung of the fame ladder. Newton just hoped that this new book wasn’t one long sentence. “I do have a question for you, though.”

  “Which is?”

  “What do you know about feeding pigs?”

  Newton’s First Taste of KP Duty

  * * *

  These are the things he did: He scraped burned and dried scalloped potatoes from the casseroles. He carried pails of slop—carrot peels, potato peels, onion bits, half-rotted melons—out to the compost station across the yard.

  He attempted to have a conversation about recipes with Mess Master Tawrell, but all that came out of her hulking, no-necked frame were the words “I hate that fancy stuff.”

  He scavenged old salad, carrots and potato peels for Joséphine.

  He held his throbbing head. If there was any place more horrid than the Jerry Potts kitchen, he couldn’t imagine it.

  Newton Goddard Starker’s Truffle-X Quiche

  * * *

  2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese (Don’t buy generic mozza!)

  1 teaspoon chopped green onion (Peel the rubbery layer, or you’ll get gross bits in your mouth.)

  1 tablespoon all purpose flour 1⁄2 teaspoon salt

  9-inch pastry shell (deep) 8 ounces cooked X (This can be any meat, shaved, though salmon is preferred.) 3 eggs

  2 ounces truffles, grated (black truffles, of course, from France, not Italy, and not China)

  Pinch nutmeg (Not two pinches!) 1 cup whole milk

  Combine the cheese, onion, flour and salt. Carefully spread half the mixture on the bottom of the pastry shell. Top with X. Spread the remainder of the cheese mixture on X.

  Put the eggs, truffles, nutmeg and milk in a blender on low speed. Pour this liquid mixture over the ingredients in the pastry shell.

  Bake for 15 minutes at 450 degrees. Reduce the heat to 350 degrees and bake for 30 minutes or until well browned.

  Serves 6

  The Secret Ingredient

  * * *

  On Tuesday morning, when Newton heard the bell, he smiled with great satisfaction. Violet was out there yanking on the rope and shivering. Ha!

  He dressed quickly, threw the ingredients he needed into his backpack and left Joséphine with the command, “Don’t make a mess.” She shot an oink at him and glared as though deeply offended.

  “Sorry, sorry,” Newton said, raising his hands. Somehow, it seemed entirely natural to apologize to a pig.

  He’d placed newspapers in a low box in the closet, where she would, with any luck, do her thing. He left her fresh water in a dish on the floor. Next to it, another dish contained her scavenged food.

  His first class of the day was Culinary Arts and Survival 9, and he rushed into the room. Today I’m going to set the world on fire with my cooking! He wanted to shout that, but he knew the others would think he was weird. He carefully pulled the dry ingredients out of his backpack and got everything else from the classroom fridge. Everything was fresh.

  “Yo, my illustrious bro!” Jacob said, and Newton couldn’t help but smile. A bro. A brother.

  A dark, familiar thought slithered int
o his mind. He’d never had a brother. He often suspected that it was due to the lightning problem, that his parents couldn’t face the stress of protecting a second child.

  Jacob was staring at him, waiting for a response. “Yo, illustrious bro, back to you,” Newton said.

  “You okay?” Jacob asked. “You popped away for a second.”

  “Popped away?”

  “Yeah, zoned out.”

  “Oh—well, oh, I’m perfectly zoned now. Channeling my inner chef. That’s what I’m doing.”

  “I’m making a gumbo stew,” Jacob said. “Figure then it doesn’t matter what the surprise meat is.”

  “Very good idea.” Newton rubbed his hands. “Bring on the culinary countdown.”

  Mr. MacBain blustered into class like a five-foot-six summer storm. “Heave ho, everyone! Top o’ the morning and all that jazz.” He was holding a large gray plastic bag. “I suppose you lads and lassies are wondering what the mysterious main ingredient of your dishes is! Well, gather round.” Newton could see lumps in the bag. A few appeared to move. Mr. MacBain dumped the contents onto the great center table, and an immediate ewwww rippled through the group.

  Rodents. Dead, thankfully, but still with their pelts on, glazed eyeballs gleaming.

  “May I introduce sixteen fine, plump specimens of Richardson’s ground squirrel,” Mr. MacBain said. “Gophers, as the locals like to call ’em. Your new best friends. They live in vast multitudes across the prairie, and there’s one for each of you here today. They’re going to be delicious!” He paused. “You’re only as sharp as your knife—remember that!”

  Within a minute Newton was at his station with an extremely sharp penknife in hand, holding his breath. He made a small incision across the stomach of a recently defrosted Richardson’s ground squirrel. He was absolutely and totally disgusted, and, looking around, he was clearly not alone in that revulsion.

  Despite the fact that he was wearing rubber medical gloves, the sensations were still icky enough to roil the contents of his stomach.