Jack's New Power

by Jack Gantos

  I got home in time for dinner. Dad was in a great mood. “I ran into Captain Ward,” he said. “He was a mess. He was down at the Pig’s Ear having bacon, eggs, and beer for breakfast. He’d been up all night. They didn’t find a cent. It cost them a bundle to rent the backhoe for the night, but he was laughing about it. Said it was a great time. When the sun was rising they sat on the shore singing, Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum. I guess if you have the money, you can spend your life digging in the sand like a kid with a bucket.” He was smiling. I knew he wished he was there with them. This was just the kind of adventure he’d go for. Me too. We both liked to find things. Maybe we would have been pirates together if given the chance. As it was, we were already living like pirates, landlocked pirates, moving from different towns and countries, searching for the easiest way to earn a quick fortune.

  That night Betsy woke me up. When I opened my eyes, she had her hand damped over my mouth.

  “You’re having a nightmare,” she said. “Calm down.”

  It had returned. I thought I had prepared myself against it. I had stacked a bunch of empty tin cans by the French doors, so if they opened, they’d make a huge noise. Plus, I fell asleep with a flashlight in my hand. It was still there. I was so paralyzed with fear I couldn’t turn it on.

  “I need to work on you,” she said. “Before it’s too late.”

  “I’ll be okay,” I said.

  “It’s your funeral,” she replied. “I really don’t know what’s wrong with you, but you’d better get outside help.”

  I need to find Wade Block, I thought. I won’t rest until he shows up. When she left the room, I sat up in bed with the light on. I felt a little better. Betsy didn’t really know what was wrong with me. She was brainy, but didn’t have that much power.

  I was still awake when the newspaper arrived. The Wade Block story had made it onto the front page. It was announced that Mr. Branch had entered the search. He had already found the bicycle in Holetown. He was quoted as saying he expected to find the boy shortly. I turned the page to continue the story. There was that photograph of Wade Block wearing a soccer shirt with a number 8 on the front. I got goose bumps the size of bee stings. My hair felt like needles digging into my scalp. I threw the paper down and ran to my room.

  After I got dressed I taped my divining rod to the top of my bicycle headlight and took off down the road. I wondered what might happen if the rod suddenly pointed down. Maybe I’d fly over the handlebars.

  Nothing scary happened until I arrived at school and Mr. Cucumber gave us a pop quiz. He had devised a set of Wade Block math problems to test us on kilometers and geometry. One of the questions read: If Wade Block was riding his bicycle in a perfect circle at ten kilometers per hour and the police were driving in a perfect isosceles triangle where all points touched within the circle, at what speed would the police have to travel to intercept young Block at the third point?

  I read it and put my head down on my desk. He was heartless.

  “Is this how you behave in the United States?” Mr. Cucumber asked, as he patrolled for cheaters.

  “No sir,” I replied. “I just don’t know the answer.”

  “Perhaps you did not study your math and geometry,” he suggested. Then he turned to the class. “Can anyone help Master Henry solve this problem?”

  Four hands shot up into the air.

  I shook my head. Nothing is going to be solved until they find that kid, I thought. I’m thinking about life and death and he’s thinking circles and triangles. We are worlds apart.

  I took an F on the test.

  After school, things got worse. I was pedaling down Rockley Road when Mr. Branch pulled up alongside me.

  “You,” he hollered out his window.

  He startled me. I jerked my wheel to the right and almost slipped into the gutter.

  He nodded toward the divining rod taped on my headlight. “Don’t fool with God’s power,” he shouted. “It’s dangerous.”

  “I just want to help out,” I yelled back.

  He reached out the window and pointed his long bony finger at me. “Stay out of the way,” he said sternly. “You don’t have the power. I’ve already delved into your spirit. It’s not in you. You only have fear.”

  “You just want the reward,” I shot back. “You don’t care about the kid.”

  “That’s a lie,” he shouted furiously. He snatched one side of the Y on the divining rod and gunned his engine just as I hit the rear brakes. The rod split in half like a wishbone as he swerved to avoid a car, then sped away. I was left with the big piece and made a wish. “I hope one of us finds you soon,” I said to Wade Block. “I can’t sleep at night and now I have a maniac after me during the day.”

  The rest of the week I didn’t do anything after school but ride around with my map of the island and cross off streets that I investigated. But I didn’t get a nibble. The newspapers continued the Wade Block report and every day the reward grew larger. The police were out combing the cane fields. They were checking the beaches to see if he washed up. Dogs were called in. Wells were examined. The radio and television asked for volunteers to search every square inch of the island. Still, they couldn’t find him. I couldn’t. It was up to Mr. Branch and he was waiting for the reward to go sky-high. He had the power, but he was just sitting on it. I was sure of it.

  On Saturday I snuck back into Dad’s office. The newspaper was on his desk, where it always was. I leafed through the pages. I read the headlines of every article. There was nothing about Mr. Branch or Wade Block. I knew they hadn’t found Wade yet, because he was still finding me. I had hardly slept a wink. Toward the back of the papers were the movie listings. Mothra and Invasion of the Body Snatchers were playing.

  It was still too early to wake Pete. I went out to the back yard and with a stick drew a map of Barbados in the dirt. “One more time,” I said with the half a divining rod in my hands. “Wade, where are you?” I stepped into the map. The rod went straight down. “He’s in Bridgetown,” I said. “Castle Rock was just a runaround.”

  I hopped on my bike and sped down our street. I took a right at the bus stop and followed that route to Trafalgar Square. I locked my bike to the steel fence around the statue of Lord Nelson. Then I ran the rest of the way.

  When I arrived at the theater, the neon lights were off. An ambulance was parked out front. On the corner I could see Mr. Branch’s Morris Minor half parked on the sidewalk. A few people stood around the ambulance. They didn’t look official, so I pushed open the front door with the chilled Penguin and went in. It was not cool inside. It was hot and muggy and greasy-smelling and something else, something nasty. The lobby was empty. I went over to the drinking fountain.

  Just then the inner door to the seats was pushed open from behind. Mr. Branch stepped forward. “Don’t drink from that water,” he said sternly. He held out his hand as if he could control me from the other side of the room. But he didn’t have that kind of power and I was thirsty.

  I leaned over the water cooler.

  “Don’t!” he shouted. “It’s tainted.”

  I stopped. Behind him I heard the stretcher wheels wobbling up the aisle. Farther back, someone was crying. Mr. Branch held the door open for the ambulance crew. When they came into sight I knew I would never speak with Wade Block or ever see him again in a dream. It was over. Mr. Branch lowered his head and made the sign of the cross. He could see everything in his mind, but I could not. I had to look. Wade’s body was zipped up in a thick plastic bag like a fancy suit. Water trickled from a hole in the side. The smell was hideous. I pulled the rim of my T-shirt up over my nose.

  His parents walked by. Both of them had their hands pressed over their red faces. Tears ran down their cheeks and chins and left dark drops of water on their shirts.

  Mr. Branch drifted across the lobby and stood next to me. “I found him in the cistern,” he said quietly. “He was wearing a bathing suit. During the movie he must have slipped through a hole in the floor to
take a swim. A lot of boys do, but this one got lost.”

  “How do you know?” I asked.

  “I just do,” he replied. “I have the power.”

  I didn’t. I didn’t know what I had. I could see things, but maybe that wasn’t special. When I closed my eyes, I saw Wade in the darkness calling out for help. But with the movie and the screaming kids he couldn’t be heard. But what I saw didn’t need a special power. Anybody could see that, if they closed their eyes and thought about it. Anyone who wanted to help. And I did. If I was down in that hole I’d want some boy looking for me. I’d tried, but I was too late.

  Man’s Man

  I was in the back yard trying to build muscles. I looked like a skinny boy, but before long I planned to bulk up like a man. First, I did fifty sit-ups, then ten chin-ups and twenty push-ups. Dad had an old cannonball that he had uncovered at the beach while digging a luau pit. I picked it up and held it against my chest and groaned out loud as I did deep knee bends until my thighs burned. I completed ten more chin-ups and had just dropped down from the bar when Cush pulled up the driveway. He was a friend of Dad’s. Mom called him a “shady character.”

  “Who can tell how he makes a living?” she had once remarked. “He’s on the golf course all day, and out cattin’ around all night.”

  I had never seen Cush work, but on my birthday last month he had given me a twenty-dollar bill. It was none of my business how he got his money as long as some made it into my hot hands. Now he was driving a new green-and-white Triumph two-seater sports coupe. The engine purred, and after what Mom had said, I began to think of him as a cat. A shaved cat who wore a lot of English Leather cologne.

  “Hey, buddy,” he hollered as he hopped out of the Triumph. He ran at me as though he were in a rush. He was wearing a bright orange suit with a yellow shirt, and a sky-blue scarf knotted around his neck. He had on a pair of white leather loafers and a matching white belt. “Is your dad home?”

  “No,” I replied, and shielded my eyes. “He’s in Saint Lucia trying to drum up business.” Dad had talked a cruise line into letting him travel between the islands while he gave cocktail talks on buying property and homes in Barbados. The hotel-building business had dropped off and he was working a “new luxury-home market,” as he put it.

  “That’s right,” Cush said, groaning. “I forgot he took off. I sure need his help.” He cracked his knuckles and did a little drumbeat on the side of his leg. He was so bright and jumpy he made me nervous.

  “Well, can I do something?”

  That cheered him up. “Listen,” he whispered. “You’re as smart as your old man. You like a good deal when you hear it—well, here’s the story.”

  His enthusiasm hooked me even before I heard a detail.

  “Do you still have that twenty dollars I gave you?”

  “Yeah,” I replied.

  “Well, now you’re in luck!” He jabbed me in the belly. “Hey,” he said, stepping back in mock fear. “That is some hard belly.”

  Even before he asked me I rolled up my sleeve and showed him my biceps.

  “You put Popeye to shame,” he cracked. “But here’s the difference. Smart guys like us crave greenbacks, not spinach.”

  I agreed with that. “You bet,” I said. “I like greenbacks.” If I wanted to be a real man, I needed real money.

  “Now, you loan me that twenty and I’ll give you forty tomorrow.”

  That was a good deal. A one hundred percent return in one day, I figured. Mr. Cucumber would be proud of my math skills.

  “Well? I’m waiting for an answer. You’ll never find a better deal worldwide. I can promise you that. And to earn it,” he said, squeezing my arm, “you don’t have to move a muscle.”

  “Okay,” I said eagerly. “I’ll go get it.”

  He looked up over his shoulder at the kitchen window. “Hurry,” he whispered. “I don’t want your mom messing up this golden opportunity.”

  “Don’t worry,” I replied. “She’s at her new job.”

  I ran directly to my room and pulled the twenty out of my diary. When I returned, he was already sitting in his Triumph. He gave the engine a little gas. The fenders twitched just like his head and shoulders.

  “Thanks, buddy,” he said, and plucked the twenty out of my hand and folded it into his shirt pocket. Then he reversed in a fast, straight line, curled out onto the road, and slipped into first gear.

  I walked up to the front porch singing “Forty bucks, forty bucks … I love the sound of forty bucks.”

  Betsy was sitting there with a book on her lap. The pages fluttered and buzzed with the wind. “What did he want?” she asked.

  “He was looking for Dad.”

  “Did he ask you for money?”

  “No.”

  “Your nose is growing,” she said sarcastically. “Don’t lie to me. He’s a sleazeball. He owes money to everyone and now he’s taking money from you.”

  He’s got money, I thought. My money. But I’ll double it in my sleep. I didn’t want to tell Betsy about our deal, but I wanted to bug her, so I said, “You just have a crush on him, but he already has a girlfriend. She’s a singer at the Colony Club.”

  Betsy glared at me. “You know nothing,” she snapped. “She said good riddance to him weeks ago.”

  “Well, since you know everything already,” I trilled, “there is no reason to ask me questions.” I turned and smartly strolled down the hallway.

  “Sucker! Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” she hollered.

  Back in my bedroom, I flipped through the sections I had marked out in my diary. DAD HORROR STORIES, LOTTERY TICKETS, DREAMS, POEMS, PERSONAL, JUNK, SONGS, PETE, until I arrived at MONEY. I wrote down CUSH—$20.00. Then I wrote down beneath it, REPAID—$40.00. As soon as I wrote the last zero a voice in my head cautioned: Don’t count your chickens before they hatch. It sounded like Dad’s voice.

  After school, I was standing behind the garage with Mom’s cloth tape measure draped over my straining biceps. I read the results. My muscle hadn’t grown one bit. Just then I heard a car crunching the gravel in the driveway. I peeked around the corner. It was Cush. He had cut the engine off and was coasting in with my forty bucks.

  “I don’t have it yet,” he said when I leaned against his open window. “The guy is out of town. But I have a better deal for you. Let’s say you have the forty bucks already. Let me have it for another night and I’ll double your money. So, when I pay you back, I’ll give you …”

  “Eighty,” I answered. That was a lot of money. “Okay.”

  “Double or nothing it is,” he said smoothly.

  “What do you mean by nothing,” I asked.

  “Hey, pal, your money is riding on a bet. You don’t think you can double your money by playing tiddledy-winks? You have to take some risks if you want to make money with the big boys. I bet your twenty bucks at a cockfight and we won. And when we win, you win.”

  “But … I thought you had borrowed my money. Doesn’t that mean you take the risk?”

  He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. “Hey, partner, don’t get cold feet. You and I are going to make a lot of money off that twenty-dollar bill. Now just be patient.” He swung his door open and stepped out. “Here,” he said, pointing at me. “Let me give you some muscle-man lessons. It’ll help keep you from worrying to death over a measly twenty bucks.”

  “Eighty,” I said.

  “Whatever,” he replied.

  I didn’t know what else to say about my money and I figured he must know something about muscles. Anyone who doesn’t pay his debts on time must be tough.

  “First,” he instructed, “take a roll of kitchen plastic wrap and wrap it around your whole body like a bag of leftovers. ‘Course, don’t cover your face. Then you have to run a mile. This will cause you to sweat like a fountain and will melt down all your fat. Then you have to eat a lot of bananas and drink fruit juice. Only after this conditioning,” he stressed, “are you ready to lift weights.” Sud
denly he shot his arm forward and looked at his watch. “But right now I have to get movin’,” he said quickly and turned toward the Triumph. “It’s time to collect some of our money.”

  I didn’t want to slow him down. “Okay,” I said.

  “By the way,” he asked, and stepped back toward me. “Do you have any more money?”

  “I have another twenty.”

  He grinned. “Well, buddy. Go get it! That twenty is just sitting around doing nothing. Let me put it to work and I’ll double that for you, too.”

  I ran into the house counting to myself. Twenty to forty, to eighty, to one hundred and sixty, to three hundred and twenty, to six hundred and forty. I was going to have a big stack of money. By the time Dad returned I’d be loaded. I could quit school and go into business with him.

  Betsy was waiting for me outside my door. “Could you do me a favor?” she asked.

  “Like what?”

  “Give Cush this note.”

  I knew she had a crush on him. “What’ll you give me?” I asked coyly.

  “Some good advice.”

  “Like what?”

  “You’ll have to give it to him first.”

  Just then I heard Cush start up the Triumph. “Okay,” I said. “Okay.” I snatched it from her hand and went into my room. I got the twenty out of my diary and ran back to Cush.

  “Thanks, pal,” he said, and shoved the bill up above the sun visor. “See you soon.” He started to back away.