The Age of Amy: Mad Dogs and Makeovers

by BRUCE EDWARDS

  To be clear, I have nothing against dogs. I love all animals. I would never harm a hair, a feather, or a fin of any of God’s creatures. I rescued helpless spiders out of bathtubs. Cockroaches had as much right to life as anyone, so long as they lived it outdoors.

  The problem was that Scraps wasn’t a very desirable pet. No breed would claim him as their own. He was a mix of Poodle, Chihuahua, and the rest was pure guesswork. Not that he was an ugly dog. He was kinda cute, in his own way. But Scraps’ affection was reserved for Aunt Sylvia and no one else. Get to close to him and he growls. Try to pet him and he barks. Feed him and he nips at your hand. The only time he wasn’t a threat to life and limb was when sleeping in his doggie bed.

  7:23 am

  The school year was winding down. Summer recess was right around the corner. There was no homework to turn in, no lectures to sleep through, no math tests to sweat over. Finals had all been graded and report cards delivered to relieved parents. Most of us had already said our farewells to teachers and classmates.

  With the warm weather, and barely a week of school left, many kids didn’t bother to show up. Traffic in the corridors was lighter than the Interstate on a Sunday morning.

  For those of us who slugged it out to the end, the anticipated summer break was no less enticing. But the real chatter around campus was about an even bigger event. Z Beanie Run, the pop music sensation and teenage heartthrob, had announced he would be performing at the county fairgrounds! The thrilling news left schoolgirls breathless and parents terrified. Beanie was far from the ideal teenage role model. His song lyrics were laced with sexual innuendoes and promiscuity. (No wonder he was so popular with the kids!)

  Practically overnight, concert flyers littered the school hallways. Posters covered walls and ceilings, all showing the pop star’s signature headgear: an old-style beanie with the little propeller on top.

  The teen idol stared down on me from a show bill pasted over my locker. I snarled at him before ripping it down. While most girls my age swooned at the mere mention of Beanie’s name, I had a hard time getting enthused about him. For sure, he put on a spectacular live show, but buried under all the stage fog, laser lights, and pyrotechnics, there wasn’t much worth listening to. That’s why I was so surprised to hear a voice behind me ask:

  “You going?”

  It was Hubert, my special high school buddy.

  If I was the poster child for rebellious youth, Hubert was my twin brother. We shared the same concerns over the kind of world our generation would one day inherit. There was nothing we couldn’t tell each other, and no topic was off limits. On a personal level, however, our relationship was strictly Platonic. Not that I didn’t find Hubert appealing. He had a brilliant mind, winning high honors for his aptitude toward math and science. For sure, he was a card-carrying member of the Nerd Guild, but I enjoyed his company. But there is an unwritten law of nature that says: when intimacy begins, friendships end. Hubert and I were good friends. Nothing more.

  Inviting me to a Beanie concert was a bit out of character for Hubert.

  “You know me better than that,” I told him. “That’ll be the day when I pay to see an overrated, auto-tuned juvenile delinquent, dance across a stage with his belt below his butt.”

  “I just thought that the two of us could go out and have a little fun together, that’s all,” moaned Hubert.

  “You mean, a date?”

  “Not a date. Call it . . . a research project.”

  “Why don’t we just call it what it really is: a date.”

  Hubert stared at the ground to hide his embarrassment, “So, what if it is?”

  I would sooner cut off my thumbs than hurt Hubert’s feelings. The rejected look on his reddened face told me I needed to let him down easy. I didn’t exactly say I wouldn’t go with him, I just said: “Beanie? Are you kidding me?”

  “Sorry,” said Hubert. “That was a bad idea.”

  It was a narrow escape, but I had cleverly refused his invitation while preserving our bond of friendship . . . until he said, “How about the Junior Prom, then?”

  Another voice entered the conversation: “Why don’t you ask me to the prom?”

  It was another pal of mine, Lydia Hobbs.

  Our friendship was even more peculiar. We were once bitter adversaries in the race for our school’s Student Body President. Like all political contests, there was plenty of mud-slinging and dirty tricks. Being the most popular girl in school, Lydia was a shoo-in. But knowing how badly I wanted the job, she unselfishly withdrew. We’ve been buddies ever since.

  In all other respects, Lydia and I were polar opposites:

  She was creme brulee,

  I was apple pie.

  She was Sinatra,

  I was Clapton.

  She was Versace,

  I was Levis.

  Now, we were rivals in a new competition: which of us would accompany Hubert to the Junior Prom. I wasn’t eager for a tug-of-war over Hubert. If he wanted to take her, so be it. I wasn’t going to let it bother me. Still, the thought of the two of them together touched a jealous nerve in me I didn’t know I had.

  “Hold on, Lydia,” I said. “I haven’t answered Hubert yet.”

  “So, what are you waiting for?” she said.

  “I need time to think it over.”

  Lydia laughed. “Listen to you. Get asked to a peace rally and you’re gone in a flash, but get asked out on a date and you have to think about it.”

  Hubert’s face got redder. “I gotta get to class.”

  “Don’t go yet!” demanded Lydia. “I want you to hear what Amy’s going to say next.”

  Now I was blushing. “You think you’re so smart,” I said. “Well, how is it that the hottest girl at Shankstonville High hasn’t been asked to the prom?”

  “I’ve already been asked by dozens of boys,” she said. I turned them all down, waiting to hear from Hubert.”

  It was the old squeeze play. Rejecting Hubert would leave an opening for Lydia to move in, and I couldn’t allow that to happen. Just thinking of myself home alone, while they danced together in front of the whole Junior Class, was already raising my blood pressure. Then there was the scandal that would surely follow. I had no choice but to accept Hubert’s invitation.

  But before I could respond, a light suddenly came on in Hubert’s face. He displayed a sly grin. “Yes, Lydia,” he said. “I would be honored to escort you to the prom.”

  Lydia was tongue-tied—a rare sight to behold. Her attempt to force my hand had backfired.

  “Ah, are you s-sure you want to?” she asked Hubert.

  “Definitely! I can’t wait! We’re going to have such a swell time.”

  “Swell?”

  I was ecstatic. The alluring temptress, who could have chosen any boy she wanted, would be attending the prom with our school’s ambassador to Dweebland.

  Hubert smiled and winked at me, then proudly walked off to class.

  “Better bone up on your modern physics,” I told Lydia. “Hubert especially likes discussing the laws of thermodynamics.”

  She turned up her nose. “Oh, I don’t know about that. I’ll bet Hubert’s a completely different guy away from all those libraries and laboratories. Even Einstein had his party animal side. I think I’m going to enjoy this date.”

  I guess I had that coming, but so what? Turning Hubert down was the right thing to do. On the other hand, it wouldn’t have killed me to go out with him. Either way, I saved our friendship.

  Or did I? Maybe my arrogance had pushed the limits of our relationship too far. Maybe that wink was his subtle way of telling me, “You screwed up!”

  2:36 pm

  Sitting in half-filled classrooms all day was like serving time in prison: long hours with nothing to do. The ringing of the final bell was like a last-minute pardon from the governor. I was free to go, but I had one stop to make first: Miss Jeffries’ science classroom.

  Though Science was not my favorite subject, Miss Jeff
ries was my favorite teacher. I wish I could say that I was her favorite pupil. At times, I could be her worst nightmare—like the time she covered the contributions NASA had made to space exploration. I argued that the billions it costs to send men into space was better spent here on Earth, like for funding homeless shelters and feeding the hungry. She didn’t speak to me for a week after that.

  But when I fell behind in my grades, Miss Jeffries took time out to tutor me after school—a generous sacrifice for someone on a teacher’s salary. Now, I needed to pick her problem-solving brain, in hopes of learning what happened to my mysterious night caller.

  “You busy?” I asked, poking my head through the classroom door. Miss Jeffries sat at her desk in the empty room, enjoying an after-school snack. “Sorry. I didn’t know you were eating. I’ll come back tomorrow.”

  “No, no,” she insisted, “I’m just finishing my leftover salad before it goes bad. Come in.”

  I sat at a student desk in the front row. “I have a question that needs some scientific elucidation.”

  “Wherever did you learn a big word like elucidation?”

  “From you.”

  “Oh. Okay, what’s your question?”

  “You know how sometimes people go missing? The police question everybody. Search parties scour the countryside. Reward money is posted for anyone knowing their whereabouts, but they’re never found. Now, suppose someone was in a terrible car wreck. He drove off a cliff, let’s say. It’s a horrific crash. No one could have survived it. The police go down to retrieve the body, but to their astonishment, there’s no driver in the car.”

  “You mean, there was a driver. They just can’t find him.”

  “I mean that the driver has physically disappeared, like a missing person that no one ever finds. Vanished! Poof!”

  Miss Jeffries bit into a tomato. “Things don’t ‘poof’ in the real world. There’s always a reasonable explanation—like, the driver was ejected, or his dead body was dragged off by a hungry bear.”

  “I understand that. But what’s the possibility that he has just ceased to exist, through some strange force we can’t comprehend?”

  The patient teacher put down her fork and stared at me like I was loony. “You’re talking fantasy, Amy.”

  “Really?” I read from the notes I had jotted down on a 3x5 card:

  “In 1937 aviator Amelia Earhart disappeared while flying over the Pacific Ocean. Her body was never recovered. World War II band leader Glenn Miller’s plane vanished somewhere over the English Channel. His body wasn’t found, either. Similar unexplained disappearances have occurred over the Bermuda Triangle in the Atlantic Ocean. All of these people are officially presumed dead, yet there are groups who insist they were abducted by space aliens.”

  “Foolish speculation!” huffed Miss Jeffries. “These tragedies were thoroughly investigated, and given the circumstances, it’s reasonable to conclude that each of them ended their travels in a watery grave.”

  “No aliens?”

  “No aliens.”

  “No poof?”

  “No poof!”

  “Then, how about this: I read where the pilot of a private plane radioed a distress call. The plane later crashed, but when help arrived, there was no body, as if he had beamed aboard the Starship Enterprise.”

  “Read a little further. He was later found relaxing on the beach in South America. He faked his own death to get out of paying alimony to his ex-wife.”

  “No beam me up, Scotty?”

  “No beam me up, Scotty.”

  “No poof?”

  “No poof!”

  “But what if he hadn’t turned up? Why wouldn’t an alien abduction be just as valid an explanation? I mean, without evidence, how can you be absolutely sure of anything?”

  Miss Jeffries picked up a napkin, wadded it into a ball, then stuffed it into her fist. When she opened her hand, the napkin was gone!”

  “Hey, cool!” I said. “How’d you do that?”

  “A simple parlor trick. Now tell me, did the napkin disappear?”

  “It sure looks that way.”

  She formed a fist again, then pulled the napkin back out of it. “You only assumed it vanished because you don’t know the secret to the trick.”

  Then she plucked a slice of cucumber out of her salad and placed it on the desktop. “Where’s the cucumber?”

  “On your desk.”

  She rolled it across the surface like a tire. It fell off the edge onto the floor. “The cucumber is no longer on the desk. Did it disappear? No. It’s been relocated. That’s a reasonable assumption. Understand?”

  “Perfectly,” I said. “But I also understand that unreasonable assumptions aren’t necessarily untrue. You yourself teach how people laughed at Galileo for believing that the Earth was round, until he proved them wrong.”

  “I’ll grant you that. But until you show me an extraterrestrial kidnapper, or a Star Trek transporter that actually works, I can’t support your ‘poof’ theory. I teach science. I deal in hard facts. I examine the world as it is, not how some people would like it to be.”

  With that, there wasn’t much left to say. I came to Miss Jeffries looking for answers, but left with even more questions.

  “Thanks for your time, Miss Jeffries,” I said.

  “Not at all, Amy. You’re always good for stimulating conversation. You’ll make a great fiction writer someday.”

  Chapter 3

  Graduation

  To the sports-loving citizens of Shankstonville, our high school football field is sacred ground. Anyone not attending night games on Fridays, faced certain public ridicule on Saturdays. That’s just the way it is.

  Our outdoor stadium also hosted soccer matches and track meets, but on that bright afternoon, the chalk lines were used to align rows of folding chairs. A portable stage supported music stands, the American flag, and a student-built podium. The bleachers were filled with family and friends of the Senior Class gathered on the lawn. The students were decked out in matching black gowns. It was graduation day at Shankstonville High School.

  I had volunteered to assist in handing out the diplomas. Among the honorees would be my night caller’s daughter. I needed to speak with her, but not knowing her last name or what she looked like, there was no way to identify her. My on-stage duties would provide me an up-close look at each graduating student, and with a little luck, I would find the girl with the birthmark on her nose.

  The proceedings began with the school band playing uplifting songs like “Climb Every Mountain” and “Walk On,” concluding with a musical farewell selected by our teaching staff, “Hit The Road, Jack.” Then came a long-winded speech by our principal, where he reminded us that the “path through life is forged by perseverance.” If only he had conveyed that message to the students when classes were in session, we might have seen fewer dropouts.

  After a few meaningless tributes and a benediction from the pastor of The Sins of Man church, the star of the show was introduced: the valedictorian. His name was Arthur Farthington, Jr. He delivered an inspiring speech about self-confidence and overcoming adversity. The program listed the title of his talk as Make an Elephant Fly. Besides his obvious reference to Dumbo, the flying elephant, his choice of words was interesting for two reasons:

  First, it was well known that Arthur had a passion for aviation. His dad was an airline pilot, and urged him to pursue a career in aircraft design. He was already taking introductory college courses in Aerodynamics.

  Second, we were shocked that he would mention an elephant. Arthur weighed well over 300 lbs. He had been teased mercilessly for his size all through high school. Then there was the unfortunate gym class incident. He had just consumed a large bowl of three-bean soup for lunch, and was doing sit-ups alongside his classmates. Suddenly . . . well, we all know what a release valve on a pressure cooker is for. He was thereafter known around campus as “Artie Farty”, a nickname he would never live down. Yet, there he was, on stage in a grad
uation gown, looking like a house that had been tented for termite extermination.

  With all the formalities out of the way, the band conductor lowered his baton to the downbeat of “Pomp and Circumstance.” Students filed onto the stage as their names were called to receive their diplomas. Most accepted theirs in a dignified manner, while others chose to display a little more flair. Pumping your fist in the air while whooping to your buddies on the field was a common one. Some twirled their diplomas like those street corner sign spinners. The top prize, however, had to go to the boy who break-danced his way to the podium.

  Then the name Debra Fink was called. She severely lacked that spark I had seen in the other seniors. With her head down, she shuffled quickly to the podium and grabbed her diploma, like stealing an apple off a fruit cart. She made a hasty exit, but not so hurried that I didn’t see the small dot on her nose. I had found the mystery girl I was searching for!

  With the students back in their seats, the principal offered his closing remarks. He then announce to the audience, “Ladies and gentlemen: Shankstonville High School’s graduating class!”

  The proud graduates stood up and cheered, as hundreds of black caps filled the sky, like a flock of crows flying off to roost.

  I looked for Debbie Fink in the crowd, but I lost her in the sea of black. I was afraid that I had missed my only chance to talk to her, until I noticed a billowing black gown trotting out into the parking lot. I chased after the lone figure, that had stopped at a late model Honda Civic. Creeping up behind the car, I noticed a decal in the rear window displaying the initials D.F.

  “Excuse me,” I said. “Are you Debbie Fink?”

  A hand quickly concealed her tear-stained face. “I don’t want to talk right now, if you don’t mind.”

  “Everyone’s at the big reception in the gym,” I said. “Aren’t you going?”

  “I told you I don’t want to talk!” She reached to open the car door, but I held it shut with my hand.

  “My name’s Amy. I’ve come here to see you.”