by Bobbie Pyron
Instead, the tumult silenced.
Tiffany Hedges’s and Chantell Peeks’s eyes widened instead of rolling up into their heads. They studied him with wonder. Buddy Hayes poked Connor Marler and whispered, “Look, it’s Sparky.” Which Nate supposed was a better nickname than Loser or Shorty MacFarty.
He dropped his eyes to the floor, hurried over to his desk on the far side of the room, and slid into the seat. He wasn’t exactly sure which was worse: the familiar taunting and tripping, or this silence and the way they looked at him like he was an alien. He was relieved when Chum Bailey — the only person in Nate’s class who the kids teased more mercilessly than him — ambled into the room, his head newly shaved from his recent battle with head lice.
Chum had been christened Charles Rembert Bailey by his proud parents and Father Donovan at St. Mary’s Catholic Church. The kids at Liza P. Woods Elementary christened him Chum because of his uncanny ability to attract those who preyed upon the weak.
Someone laughed and called out, “Look who’s back! Chum the Bum!” Pencils, rubber bands, and wads of paper bombarded the big boy. The feeding frenzy began as Chum made his way over to his desk beside Nate. Nate scrunched down in his desk to avoid the fallout.
Chum dropped his book bag on the floor as a rubber band–launched paper clip whizzed past his ear. “Welcome back, Nate,” he said. “I’m glad you’re okay.”
Nate scrunched farther down in his seat. Without looking at Chum, he said, “Thanks,” out of the side of his mouth.
“I waved at you at the fish fry, but I guess you didn’t see me,” Chum said.
He had indeed seen Chum wave. “There were lots of people there,” he explained.
“There sure were,” Chum said, just as a shriveled, half-eaten apple bounced off the side of his head and landed in his lap. “You sure are lucky,” Chum said, “being so popular and all.”
Just as Nate started to explain that he hardly knew any of the people at the fish fry, Mr. Peck stalked into the room. His long, knobby legs, clad in tight black pants, ended two inches above a pair of white shoes. A dozen long strands of dark hair crested the top of his head. He reminded Nate of the great blue heron that hung out at the docks.
Mr. Peck glared at the mess strewn across the floor. He marched to his desk at the front of the room and banged his briefcase down hard. He put his hands on his hips and surveyed the classroom with a withering stare. Even the meanest, boldest kids straightened up and flew right.
“Good morning, my hooligans,” the teacher said.
“Good morning, Mr. Peck,” everyone mumbled.
“Good morning, teacher,” Chum sang out, warm as a puppy. “I’m back.”
“I see that,” Mr. Peck said.
“The bugs are all gone from my hair now,” Chum said proudly.
Tiffany snorted with laughter. Chantell made a retching sound.
Mr. Peck shot them a look sharp as a knife. “Thank you for that information, Charles.” Then his pale eyes rested on Nate. “And welcome back to you, Mr. Harlow. I’m glad you escaped the slings and arrows of nature, as it were.”
“Thank you,” Nate said.
“You’re most welcome,” the teacher said. He removed his plaid jacket and rolled up his shirtsleeves. “Only thirty-seven days left of school, my rapscallions. Let’s see what I can teach you before your brains turn to mush during summer vacation.”
Nate could hardly wait to tell Gen about his day. Even though they were both in fifth grade, they rarely saw each other during the day, not even at lunch. Gen was in every gifted and accelerated class the school could think of. There had even been talk of advancing Gen two or maybe three grades, but her parents said no. “Brains don’t necessarily equal good sense,” Mrs. Beam had said. “Gen needs to take her time.” Nate knew this was true; he also knew Gen had been sorely and deeply disappointed.
He waved from the back of the bus when Gen appeared at the front. Her shirttail hung half in, half out of her rumpled jeans. Her glasses hung crooked on her nose. Nate had a feeling she had not had a good day.
Gen plopped down on the seat beside him and hugged her backpack to her belly. She absently stroked the face of Albert Einstein over and over.
“You okay, Gen?”
Gen reached up and plucked at an eyebrow. “Fine.”
“You don’t look so fine,” Nate pointed out.
She shrugged. “Just a difference of opinion with another student, that’s all.”
Nate frowned. She had twice been sent home from school this year because of these “differences of opinion.”
Before he could bring this up, Gen said, “How about you? How was your first day back?”
“Oh, Gen,” Nate said. “It was such a weird day.”
“Weird how?”
“Nothing bad happened!”
He told her about how lucky he was that Mr. Peck hadn’t called on him for the reading he hadn’t done while he was home. “I kept thinking, With my luck he’ll call on me for everything, but he didn’t. Not once.”
Gen shrugged. “Probably just felt sorry for you, wanted to give you time to catch up. Even though I did bring your schoolwork home for you, and even though I did offer to tutor you.”
Nate ignored her. “And then at lunch, Mrs. Walker thought she’d given out the last Creamie, but then she just happened to find one that had fallen on the floor, so she gave me that one.”
Gen rolled her eyes. “Yeah, that’s lucky.”
“Yeah, and just when I thought I’d have to sit with Chum Bailey in the cafeteria, Rico Sanchez and his cousin said I could sit at their table.” He didn’t mention they’d only wanted to see the burns on his hand. “And then in PE it rained, so we got to stay inside and watch a movie on oral hygiene,” which to Nate’s way of thinking was much better than not getting chosen for sides, or better than hearing Coach Hull say, “Good Lord, Harlow, you don’t have the sense God gave a goose.”
Nate leaned his head back and smiled. Yes, it had been a lucky day, indeed.
Gen rubbed at a smear of something red on her shirtsleeve. “Yeah, well, add to your lucky list not being a preacher’s kid.” And then she pitched her voice low in a perfect imitation of the reverend. “Genesis Magnolia Beam, what kind of an example are you setting for your younger brothers and sisters, brawling and fighting? The good Lord and the rest of the world expect better from you.” Gen took off her glasses and inspected the flap of tape holding them together. “I’ll be writing out passages from the Bible from here to eternity.”
Later that evening, just as Nate was thinking he’d walk down to the docks to look for his grandpa, he heard Alfred rattle up the oyster shell road.
“Sorry I’m late, boy,” Grandpa called as he jumped from the truck. “You wouldn’t believe the day I had.” He caught Nate up in a bear hug and mussed his mousy hair. “The fish, they just kept a-coming. My clients would reel one in, we’d rebait the hook, and then get a strike not two minutes after casting the line. I’ve never seen anything like it. Those two fellas — they were both from Knoxville — were so happy with their day, they gave me a fifty-dollar tip!” Grandpa reached into his fish gut–spattered coveralls, pulled out a fifty-dollar bill, and snapped it. “Fifty dollars cash, Nate. Can you believe it?”
“No sir,” Nate said. “I hardly can’t.”
Grandpa ran his hand through his wild hair as if trying to tame his mind. “Good Lord, Nate, supper. Have you eaten supper?”
“I fried up a piece of baloney,” he said. “And I was just about to open a can of tomato soup.”
His grandpa clapped his hands together. “I’m so hungry, I could eat a whale. Let’s go on over to June’s and get those cheeseburgers I promised you for your birthday. Ice cream too. How does that sound?”
Nate thought it sounded like a perfect ending to a near-to-perfect day. “Can Gen come?”
“Sure can,” Grandpa said. “Heck, we’ll take the twins too.” He stood in front of Nate and smiled. “But before a
ll that, I have a surprise for you.”
Nate frowned. He’d never been big on surprises. Life — at least his young life — had too often been scarred by the unexpected.
“Close your eyes,” his grandpa instructed. “And don’t look until I tell you to.”
Nate closed his eyes and waited. He heard his grandpa walk away and then something clang against the truck.
“Okay, you can open your eyes.”
He opened his eyes and gasped. There before him, the most beautiful bicycle in the world gleamed in the fading spring light.
Grandpa walked the bike over to Nate. “Happy birthday, son.”
Nate ran his good hand admiringly over the gleaming handlebars and gear shifter. “It’s amazing,” he whispered. “It looks brand-new.”
Grandpa nodded. “It is. I got it over at Peddle Pushers in Apalachicola.”
Nate pulled his hand back. “But, Grandpa, we don’t have the money for a brand-new bike.”
“I’ve had it on layaway for months,” he said. “I was going to give it to you on your birthday after we all had cheeseburgers at June’s, but, well, then the lightning struck, and …” His voice trailed off.
Nate looked at the bike again. He took in the rubber grips on the handlebars, the reflectors on the spokes, and the leather seat just waiting for its rider.
Grandpa gave him a little push. “Why don’t you ride it on over to the Beams’ while I get cleaned up. I’ll pick you up over there.”
Nate fairly leapt onto the bike. If he didn’t know better, he’d swear it was about to rear up like a spirited horse. He rode like the wind over to The Church of the One True Redeemer and Everlasting Light, skidding to a halt in front of Joshua and Levi with a flourish.
“Lookit that!” Joshua said, leaping to his feet.
Levi ran his little hand across the handlebars. “Where’d you get it, Nate?”
“Grandpa,” he said. “He just gave it to me for my birthday.” Now he wouldn’t have to ride the old hand-me-down bike with the girl seat he’d been using for years.
“I can’t believe I got a brand-new bike,” he said.
“That means you got your birthday wish, right Nate?” Joshua asked.
He frowned. “What do you mean?”
“ ’Member, I told you to wish for a bicycle for your birthday.”
Nate shook his head. In truth, he couldn’t remember what all happened in the hours before the lightning strike. But wishing for a brand-new bike sounded like as good a wish as any, and if he had, well, that could mean his luck had changed, couldn’t it?
“Thank the good Lord it’s Thursday,” Gen said. She and Nate waited for the school bus beneath the tall pine crowned with a huge osprey nest — a nest so big, the littlest of the Beam twins could curl up in it for a nap.
“I don’t think I can take another day trying to explain string theory to my science teacher.” She zipped and unzipped, zipped and unzipped her backpack. “I bet it’s been a long week for you too.”
Nate shrugged. “It hasn’t been as bad as I thought it would be.” He’d gone the better part of a week without getting picked on, shoved around, or laughed at. Like a turtle barely inching its head from its shell, he almost looked forward to what the day would bring.
“Don’t forget, we have to take flyers around town after school today reminding people about the Turtle Rules.”
Every year, just before the loggerhead turtles arrived on the beaches to lay their eggs, Gen made it her mission to reeducate the good citizens of Paradise Beach about what not to do when the turtles came:
1) NO OUTSIDE LIGHTS AFTER DARK!
2) REMOVE CHAIRS, UMBRELLAS, AND OTHER BEACH GEAR EVERY DAY!
3) FILL IN HOLES AND KNOCK DOWN SAND CASTLES!
4) NEVER, EVER DISTURB A TURTLE NEST!!!
Each point was dramatically illustrated by the artistically inclined twin, Ruth. Rebecca sorely wanted to write the rules in rhyming verse, but Gen refused on the grounds it would make the rules less serious.
“According to my calculations, based on the previous years’ tides and water temperatures and the phases of the moon, the turtles should be arriving within the next week or so.” Gen felt the comfort of the steadfast turtles settle in her heart.
“Sure,” Nate said. After all, did he have anything else to do with other friends after school? No, he did not.
Still, he wasn’t thinking about nesting loggerheads and Turtle Rules. No, he was thinking about how lucky the week had been.
“Gen,” he said. “I think getting struck by lightning changed something.”
“Like what?”
“Me.”
She cocked her head to one side. “Explain, please.”
Nate fairly wiggled with relief to finally tell someone. “You and I both know I am just purely unlucky.”
Gen pushed her glasses up on her nose. “Nathaniel, how many times have I told you: The universe is random. Things are not all one way or the other.”
He held up his hand. “Just hear me out.” He took a deep breath. “Ever since I got struck by lightning, lucky things have been happening to me.”
“Like what?”
“Well, for starters, the coin toss.”
“Odds,” she said.
“And then all the things that’ve been happening at school — not getting called on when I don’t know the answers, not having to sit at lunch with Chum Bailey, all those things I told you.”
The bus pulled up. Before she could dismiss his evidence, Nate said, all in a rush, “And what about the toaster, and all the fishing trips Grandpa’s had since I got struck, and my brand-new bicycle?”
Gen slung her Albert Einstein backpack on her shoulders and mounted the steps. “Random coincidences, pure and simple. And I happen to know your grandfather got you that bicycle before the lightning struck your golf club.”
Nate followed Gen down the aisle of the bus. “I don’t see what the difference is between luck and coincidence,” he grumbled. The face of Einstein — eyes wide with surprise and wonder, hair looking like it’d had a close brush with lightning too — seemed to nod in agreement from Gen’s back.
The kids snickered as they walked past; Gen frowned and said, “Nathaniel, you weren’t struck directly by the lightning, which would have most likely killed you. Don’t you think that’s lucky enough?”
In PE that afternoon, Coach Hull blew his silver whistle. “We’re going to finish out the school year with my favorite pastime.”
“Eating?” someone asked from the back of the class. Snickers and laughter rippled through the room.
Coach’s face burned red. He tried mightily to suck in his ample belly and tuck it behind his belt.
“No, smart aleck,” he said. “Baseball.”
Nate guessed it’d been a long time since Coach had actually been able to run the bases, but on the other hand, he himself had never been able to hit a ball. It was Coach Hull’s theory that Nate and the bat and the ball did not speak the same language.
Outside, Coach divided the class into teams. Ricky Sands had groaned when Nate was assigned to his team, just like he always did. But it did seem to him that Ricky didn’t protest quite as loudly as before. Still, Ricky gave Nate the oldest baseball mitt in the bunch and sent him to the far, far outfield — almost to the bay side of the peninsula. He wished just once, he’d get a turn in the infield, like everybody else.
Nate trotted to the far, far outfield and squinted in the sun as he watched the sky for clouds. Was that a rumble he heard off in the distance or was it his stomach? There were, in fact, clouds billowing out over the Gulf. He shivered.
And then he heard it: crack!
He dropped to the ground like he’d been shot and covered his head with his arms.
“Nate! Nate! Catch it!”
He uncovered his head and looked up. High against the blue sky, a white baseball arced lazily. The ball spun over and over, just hanging above his head, like it had all the time in the world.
>
“Catch it, Sparky!” Ricky Sands screamed from the pitcher’s mound.
Nate didn’t know whether to laugh or cry at the idea that he, Nate Harlow, could catch a fly ball.
But then, a tingling and buzzing burned his arm and hand; certainty filled him like a balloon.
He jumped to his feet and locked his eyes on that ball. He stretched his arm high and opened the palm of his mitt. And just like a homing pigeon returning to its long-lost roost, the ball dropped and settled pretty as you please in the cup of the leather mitt. Nate gasped and stared bug-eyed at that white ball.
He held the ball aloft, his arm still vibrating, for everyone to see. “I caught it,” he whispered hoarsely. Then he yelled and yipped, “I caught it! I caught it!”
Mouths dropped open in disbelief. Gulls stopped their cries, and the wind stopped its humming. The silver whistle dropped from Coach Hull’s mouth.
Ricky Sands leapt off the pitcher’s mound and let out a whoop that could be heard all the way to the Florida-Alabama state line.
Coach stuffed the whistle back in his mouth and blew. “Out!” he cried. “Out!” Ricky struck out two more players in no time.
The teams switched sides. Mary Beth Malloy (otherwise known as Jinx) strutted to the pitcher’s mound. She flipped her red braids over her shoulders and popped her gum.
Jinx Malloy was not only the best clarinet player in the school band, she had the meanest, snakiest knuckleball in all of Liza P. Woods Elementary. “We’re sunk,” Ricky Sands moaned.
First, she struck out Chum Bailey, which was not a hard thing to do.
Next, she struck out Ricky, which was near to impossible. His second swing went wild and sent the ball in an unfortunate direction, and his third missed the ball by a mile. “Out!” cried Coach Hull. Ricky threw his cap into the sand.
Next came Nate.
He crept up to the plate, gingerly holding the bat in his good hand. “Let’s just hope the bell rings for the next class before she strikes him out,” someone behind him said. And normally, he would have agreed: His chances of hitting the ball were about once in a blue moon, but hitting it one-handed with his left hand? It would take nothing short of a miracle.