by John Grisham
“Okay, if I had yelled for everyone to get away as soon as the snake was spotted do you really think Percy would have listened to me? He never does what he’s told. He doesn’t listen to me. He doesn’t listen to you. He doesn’t listen to his parents or his teachers. He was suspended from school last month for three days for setting off a pack of firecrackers during a violin concert. For the last campout he forgot to pack a toothbrush, clean underwear, clean socks, and a flashlight. He’s flunked the Tenderfoot exam twice. He’s an idiot, you know that much yourself.”
“Maybe that’s why Percy needs scouting, Theo. He needs to learn discipline and success.”
“Good luck.”
The Major turned and stared at Theo. He said, “You’re one of our leaders and one of our best Scouts, but today, Theo, you failed under pressure. You allowed your patrol to get too close to a dangerous animal, with a bad result. We have a Scout in a hospital with a badly swollen leg and some level of permanent scarring. It could’ve been worse. Theo, I have no choice but to suspend you from your leadership of the Falcon Patrol. I don’t want to embarrass you so let’s keep this quiet until our next meeting. Not a word, okay?”
Theo wanted to dislike the Major, but the fact was he admired him greatly, even adored him and wanted to imitate him. The Major had fought in wars, flown fighter jets, traveled the world, had two or three successful careers, and now, for fun, dedicated himself as a volunteer scoutmaster in a near full-time capacity. Theo ached at the thought that the Major believed he had failed his patrol in some way.
But the Major was a tough Marine, and Theo could try and be one as well. He swallowed hard, gritted his teeth, and said, “Yes sir.”
Clouds rolled in quickly, and the night was suddenly black. Theo followed the Major back to the campsite, where things were winding down as the ghost stories and snake stories were losing some of their appeal. The campfire was extinguished, the food secured, and the Scouts drifted off to their tents. Every sleeping bag was shaken and carefully inspected for snakes. Every tent was examined by flashlights, inch by inch. The areas around the tents, the tall grass and undergrowth, rocks, and even latrines were searched, then searched again. Slowly, the Scouts entered their tents, zipped the doors, crawled into the sleeping bags, then waited for the sounds of serpents creeping toward them across the wet grass. When things were perfectly quiet and still, some bozo in the Warthog section let loose with a loud “Hisssss,” and this seemed funny to a few.
For the first time in his scouting career, Theo just wanted to go home.
Chapter 10
The rain began before dawn, and by sunrise everything was soaked. As well-trained Scouts, they were prepared for bad weather, but the cold wind and mud took most of the fun out of camping. Usually, on Sunday morning, the Major led the troop on a short hike to some spot with a beautiful view where he conducted a chapel service. He wasn’t a preacher or a minister and did not require all Scouts to attend. He was, though, a wise man with a deep faith in God and a true admiration for what He created here on Earth. Theo always enjoyed these hilltop chapel services, which he found far more meaningful than those conducted indoors in a real church. But with the rain falling, the Major decided to skip chapel, hurry up with breakfast, and break camp.
By 10:00 a.m., the old green bus was loaded and moving slowly away from Enid Point, inching uphill with its tires spinning in the mud. It eventually made it to a paved road and everyone relaxed. As it gained speed and began humming down the road, many of the Scouts closed their eyes and drifted away. During the night, most had slept on and off. When they managed to fall asleep they dreamed of monstrous vipers with sharp fangs dripping with deadly venom, and when they were awake they could practically hear the snakes out there, just beyond their tents. Now, in the safety of their bus and headed home, they were suddenly overcome with fatigue.
The weather turned even worse. Traffic was slow and they passed two serious auto accidents as they crept toward Strattenburg. The two-hour drive became four, and the Scouts grew tired of the bus. When it crossed the Yancey River and rolled into downtown, they let out a cheer. At the VFW, they unloaded their muddy gear and made plans to clean it the following afternoon.
By 3:00 p.m., Theo was home. Fresh from a long shower, he sat with Judge in the den and ate chicken noodle soup while his father read the Sunday newspaper and his mother flipped through a novel.
The Major flatly refused to allow his Scouts to take their cell phones and laptops on camping trips. Camping was a great getaway, an outdoor adventure far from most of modern civilization, and he didn’t want to ruin things by the parents getting hourly updates on everything the Scouts were doing. Nor did the Major tolerate pushy parents who made demands and wanted special treatment for their unique little boys.
So, Theo’s parents had not heard the news about the great snakebite. After he finished eating, and Judge was licking the bowl, Theo told them the story.
His mother was horrified, while his father found it amusing. They didn’t know Percy or his parents, and Theo did a fine job of describing what a misfit the kid really was. He went on to tell about his late-night meeting with the Major, and ended it all with the news that he was being suspended for two months as the leader of the Falcon Patrol.
“That’s absurd,” his mother said. His father seemed to agree. For half an hour they discussed, and often debated, the actions taken by Theo and the decision made by the Major. At one point, Theo announced, “I’m thinking about quitting scouting.”
Both parents went silent.
Theo continued: “The Major thinks a Scout patrol is just like a Marine unit where everyone follows orders perfectly. Doesn’t work that way. We’re not that disciplined. I can’t bark orders and boss people around. Nothing I could’ve said or done would’ve kept Percy away from that snake. I think the punishment is too harsh and unfair.”
“I agree,” said his mother.
“Maybe so,” said his father, “but quitting seems to be an overreaction. You love scouting, Theo. You’re on the fast track to becoming an Eagle Scout. Seems a shame to throw it all away because of one incident.”
“Your father is right, Theo. Quitting is not the answer. Life is not fair, and you can’t quit every time something unfair happens to you.”
“But I didn’t do anything wrong,” Theo protested. “The entire event happened in a matter of seconds. I couldn’t have prevented it.”
“So what?” his father said. “Your scoutmaster thinks otherwise. He’s the leader, the boss, a man you happen to admire greatly and a man who thinks a lot of you. You can’t convince me Major Ludwig would ever be unfair to you, Theo. Or to anyone else for that matter.”
His mother added, “Theo, you said yourself many times that your troop is lucky to have such a great scoutmaster. This time you disagree with him. He’s responsible for forty or so kids away from home during a long weekend. That’s an enormous responsibility, and Major Ludwig does it every month. That’s a lot of pressure on anyone. Now, a kid got hurt, and when something goes wrong the boss is ultimately responsible. Percy’s parents will blame the Major, the whole troop, and probably the entire Boy Scouts of America.”
“They’ll probably sue,” Mr. Boone managed to insert.
Mrs. Boone continued, “Think about the next time, Theo. The next time a group of Scouts is hiking through the woods and they come upon a poisonous snake. They’ll remember this episode. The patrol leaders will be quick to retreat, and maybe no one will get hurt.”
To which Theo responded, “Or maybe it’ll be Percy again and he’ll get tangled up with another snake.”
Mr. Boone lifted his newspaper as if he needed to continue reading it. “Quitting is not the answer, Theo. Hang in there, get tough, double up on your merit badge work, and show the Major you can take the punishment.” And with that he disappeared behind the sports section.
Mrs. Boone was a bit more sympathetic, but not m
uch. She said, “If you quit, Theo, you will regret it for the rest of your life. You’re only young once, and there’s only one chance to succeed in scouting. It’s been great fun until now, very rewarding, so don’t let one bad episode ruin everything. Your father and I will be sorely disappointed if you drop out.”
Theo was often amazed at how other kids’ parents were so quick to butt in and cause trouble. They sent e-mails to teachers at school complaining about this and that. They harassed coaches after practices and even after games if so-and-so didn’t play enough. They marched into Mrs. Gladwell’s office unannounced and defended their kids when their kids were clearly wrong. They threatened to sue if so-and-so got cut from the team, or excluded from the school play, or didn’t make the cheerleading squad.
At the moment, though, he sort of wished his own parents could show a little more support. Now they were both reading. Judge had a full stomach and was asleep with his tongue hanging out. No one wanted to listen to Theo, so he went upstairs to kill time on his laptop.
* * *
Monday morning, and Theo was not excited about starting another week of school, and with good reason. By the time he sat at his desk in Mr. Mount’s homeroom at 8:40, he had already been asked a dozen times about the great snakebite.
Percy’s mother had evidently taken a photo of her poor child as he lay wounded in a hospital bed over in Knottsburg. The photo captured Percy’s smiling and goofy face, but the center point was his bare, swollen leg. And it was really puffed up. Like all smart people who want to share their private lives with the world, his mother then posted the photo on Percy’s Facebook page, and she, or someone, added a brief story describing how the brave Scout had gotten himself tangled up with an “eight-foot copperhead” and its “jagged” fangs.
Of course, no blame whatsoever was laid on Percy. No, sir. An “unidentified” member of the Falcon Patrol was accused of shoving and tripping the poor boy in such a manner as to make him fall directly upon the snake, who was further described as “unusually aggressive.” Reading the story, one easily got the impression that Percy had been minding his own business and hardly aware that a snake was nearby.
The photo was posted Sunday night while Theo was reading a book and ignoring his laptop. By Monday morning, it looked as though he was the only kid in school who hadn’t seen it. The story dominated all gossip in the hallways and homerooms, and by the time the bell rang for first period, there were rumors that poor Percy might lose a leg.
He was becoming a legend. Out of a school with 320 students, he was the only kid who’d ever been bitten by a poisonous snake. Percy Dixon was now famous, and not because he had accomplished anything.
Famous because he was a jerk, Theo thought as he seethed and bit his tongue and gritted his way through the day. Only in America.
* * *
Theo was sick of Percy and his snakebite. As soon as possible after the final bell, he hurried to the VFW. Behind the building, the Major had scattered all of the pup tents and gear and was washing down the large coolers. About half of the troop showed up for the extra work, but Theo didn’t worry about the absentees. He and Phillip and Cal immediately went about the job of pitching the Falcon tents and wiping off mud with soap and water. The tents had to be cleaned and dried; if not, they would mildew in storage.
The Major kept his distance, and Theo was fine with that. The tough old Marine loved discipline and was not about to show a softer side. Theo understood this. He had decided he would not quit scouting. He would not allow one bad moment to take away something so important to him. Instead, he would follow his father’s rather cold advice and dig in, tough it out, work harder, and carry his suspension like a badge of honor. As best he could, Theo would act like a Marine and give the Major a dose of his own medicine.
As he was rolling up a tent, he heard the Major’s voice behind him. “Theo, where’s Woody?”
Theo stood and looked up at the Major. He thought about saying: “Gee, Major, I don’t know. It’s not my day to keep up with him.” Or: “Gee, Major, I don’t know, since he’s now the patrol leader, why don’t you go find him yourself.” But these thoughts passed quickly, as Theo knew better than to play wise guy with the boss.
Theo said, “Not sure, but I think he had something after school.” Woody was one of Theo’s best friends, and Theo would do nothing to get him in trouble. The truth was that Woody had no desire to be a patrol leader and was not about to clean muddy tents on a perfectly fine Monday afternoon.
The Major clenched his jaws as he always did, then said, “I’m having an Aviation merit badge meeting this Thursday at four p.m. Can you be here?”
“Thought I was suspended,” Theo shot back, then wished he had said something else.
“You’re suspended as a patrol leader, not from scouting,” the Major said coolly.
Theo thought for a moment. How cruel was this? At a time when he planned to stiff-arm the Major as much as possible, the guy brings up the Aviation merit badge. At the moment, Theo was working on four merit badges—Aviation, World Government, Computers, and Veterinary Science—all nice subjects and all chosen by him. The other three, though, were not nearly as exciting as Aviation. The Major had promised Theo and the other five Scouts in the study group that they would visit a regional airport, see the inside of an air traffic control center, and, best of all, take a real flight in a small Cessna.
“Okay,” Theo said.
“Great. See you Thursday.” And with that, the Major turned around and began barking at two guys in the Warthog Patrol.
Theo was no match for the Major, and he knew it.
Chapter 11
Late Monday afternoon, Theo rode his bike four blocks from his office in the rear of Boone & Boone to the office of another Boone—his uncle Ike’s. This second Boone office was not busy or thriving or well decorated. Instead, it was on the second floor of a shabby old building that housed a Greek deli on the ground floor. Theo’s father and Ike were brothers, and at one time had been lawyers together. Those days were long gone. For reasons Theo would probably never understand, Ike was no longer a lawyer and he seldom spoke to Theo’s father. However, Ike was still a part of the family, and for this reason Theo was expected to stop by every Monday afternoon and chat with Ike. Often, the meetings were not too pleasant, and Theo did not always look forward to them. Other times, though, Ike could be funny and when in a good mood could tell hilarious stories. Theo never knew which Ike he would encounter on Monday afternoons. Among the family secrets was the rumor that Ike drank too much, and Theo suspected that influenced whether he felt fine or miserable.
Judge was usually confined to either the home or the office, but occasionally Theo hooked a leash to his collar and allowed him to run alongside his bike as he zipped through town. For Judge, there was no greater thrill than flying down the street trying to outrun Theo and the bike. On this Monday, Judge really wanted to go, so Theo grabbed the leash.
The two of them bounded up the stairs and, with a quick and meaningless knock, burst through the door to Ike’s long and cluttered office.
“Well, well,” Ike said with a smile. “How is my favorite nephew?”
“Great, Ike, and you?” Theo said as he fell into a creaky wooden chair, one with papers and files stacked under it. Every piece of furniture in the room was either covered with files or trying to hide them. Theo was Ike’s only nephew, and, as far as Theo could tell, about the only family member who kept in contact with him. Ike’s wife had divorced him years earlier when he got into trouble, and his kids had moved far away. Ike was a lonely old man, but at the same time it was hard to feel sorry for him. He seemed to want a quiet, unusual life.
“Just another fine day,” Ike said, waving an arm at the pile of papers on his desk. “Sorting out the money problems of people with no money. How are things over at Boone and Boone?”
“The same, nothing new.”
“How are your grades? Straight A’s?”
“Close.” This always irritated Theo, this intrusion into his privacy. He did not understand why Ike thought he had the right to nose around in Theo’s schoolwork. But, as Mrs. Boone always said, “He’s family.”
“What do you mean ‘close’?” Ike asked.
“B plus in Chemistry, but I’ll pull it up.”
“You better pull it up,” he said sternly, but Theo could tell it was all an act. Ike looked to his left, at his desktop monitor. “This just came across. Saw it ten minutes ago,” he said as he peered over his reading glasses, then clicked his mouse. “According to our fearless daily newspaper, online edition, no less, a kid from your Scout troop had a rather nasty encounter with a copperhead over the weekend. Know anything about it?”
“And why is that news?” Theo said in disgust.
“Because everything is news these days, Theo. Nothing is private. There are no secrets and there is no shame. Everybody is a celebrity. Percy Dixon?”
“That’s him, and evidently his mother is trying to get all the publicity she can. I’m sure she called the newspaper. How else would a reporter hear of something so unimportant?”
“Were you there?”
“Oh yes.”
“What happened?”
So Theo told the story again.
* * *
When he finished, Ike said, “What a jerk! You don’t deserve a suspension for that.”
“It’s okay, Ike. I’m over it, and I’m tired of talking about it. Let’s change the subject.”
“Sure. Yankees and Twins?”
“No.” Ike was a rabid Yankees fan who loved the team and its history. Theo pulled for the Twins because no one else in Strattenburg did. In all fairness to the Twins, though, Minnesota was a thousand miles away.
“I can’t blame you,” Ike said. He shoved his chair back and reached for a small refrigerator he kept almost hidden behind a stack of files. He pulled out a bottle of beer for himself and a can of Sprite, which he slid across the desk, knocking off a few papers along its route. “Here,” he said, just in time for Theo to catch the Sprite. Ike unscrewed the top of the beer, slowly, almost painfully, lifted his feet into position and plunked them down on his desk. When he was properly kicked back and reclined, he took a sip.