Notes from the Life of a Total Genius
Page 13
What if Dad makes me get a job in the city? That would be the worst. I guess I should look for jobs myself. I wonder what kinds of jobs I could get as a writer. Maybe in an ad agency? I could write pretty good slogans.
Yours truly,
Arthur Bean
Arthur Bean: It’s Bean a Pleasure
Arthur Bean: The Importance of Bean, Arthur
Arthur Bean: Top of the Stalk
Are you going to be here for my fencing competition?
probly not when is it?
June 15. It’s all day.
no way my mom woud let me come its exams time
plus its hayleys moms bday and were making the cake
You’re still dating Hayley?
of course dumass when woud we have brokn up???
I don’t know.
im a gentleman. i treat a girl right
in fact, u could take some lessons from me
Sure. What else would you teach me?
art. football. mad life skills
Not spelling, I hope.
no need artie. thats what spelchek is 4
June 5th
Dear RJ,
I gave in, RJ. I had to. Time is running out, and I know how much Kennedy wants the grad to happen, and even Millie was talking about how sad it would be if we didn’t have a Grad Dance! So I skipped Gym (because any reason to miss long-distance running is a good reason), and had a meeting with Kraleigh. I told her that I wanted to put on our plays, but I wanted grad to happen too, and that I felt that we could come to a compromise. And you know what, RJ? She COMPLIMENTED me. She said that she felt I was showing some real maturity in coming to speak to her. It was so condescending that I almost left right then and there. But then she kept talking. She asked me what I felt would be a reasonable compromise. I was trapped. I figured that she was the adult, and that she would be the one to come up with the idea, not me! I didn’t have any ideas, so she said that I should talk to my friends and come up with what we felt would be a reasonable compromise for the plays, and she would seriously consider our request.
Then she said something totally shocking. She said that I reminded her a lot of my mom. I had no idea she knew my mom! Kraleigh said that they used to work together a long time ago, and she always respected how my mom stood up for what she believed in. She told me that my mom got the admin to agree to some kind of big change in their report card schedule (I didn’t really understand what she meant) in the school they worked in. Then Kraleigh actually said, “I bet you miss her. It’s right around June that she died, isn’t it?”
RJ, no one ever acknowledges her death head-on like that. People always skate around the fact that she died, and no one ever says to my face, “Your mom is dead.” It’s like they are scared that I’ll start bawling in their face. Yeah, because that’s going to happen!
But Kraleigh was so straightforward about it that I said, “Yeah. She died three years ago on Saturday. Not that it matters. I feel the same about it every day anyway.”
She nodded, and told me her mom died a few years ago as well, which I didn’t think was as big a deal, because Kraleigh is way older than me. But the more I think about it, the more I realize that it doesn’t really matter how old you are when your mom dies. She’s still your mom, and she’s still dead, so it still sucks.
Yours truly,
Arthur Bean
Assignment: Extreme Survival!
By Arthur Bean
Oh no! Odie Oderdonk is about to die!
How is he going to die, you ask? I’m glad you did.
Odie Oderdonk is a miner by trade, just like his father, Brodie Oderdonk, was before him, and his grandfather, Cody Oderdonk, before him.
And now Odie Oderdonk has tunnelled too deep and he is trapped. He can’t get out!
Luckily, I can save you, Odie.
The first thing you need to do is breathe normally. If you start to hyperventilate, you’ll use up all your oxygen and you’ll die.
Next, look for the canary. There should be a canary in the mine with you. It will likely be in the upper left-hand quadrant of your hole if you are facing the wall. Pet the canary nicely to see if it’s alive. If it is still alive, you have a chance of living. If it’s not on its perch in the upper left-hand quadrant, then it is likely on the floor in the lower left-hand quadrant, and that is a bad sign, especially for the canary.
Odie, you say it’s on its perch! Great news! Now take the canary and put it on your right shoulder. It needs saving as much as you do, and when you get out of here, you’ll need someone who was in the trenches with you to commiserate.
Your next step is going to be trickier. You need to assess your surroundings. When you’re assessing them, these are the four things you should look for:
1. Any hissing gases coming from anywhere (anywhere)
2. Any dead miners (below you)
3. A ladder (above you)
4. The pickaxe you dropped before you got stuck (below you, I hope)
Pick up the pickaxe. You may need it. Attach it to your jaunty snakeskin belt that you got for Christmas.
Now, take the dead miners, and stack them on top of each other until you have reached the bottom of the ladder. This next part may make you a bit queasy, but you need to step on the other people to get to the ladder. Once you reach the bottom rung, grab it with your hands. Now climb the ladder.
As you climb, you may notice that it’s getting lighter above you. That’s a good sign. If it’s getting darker, then you are going down the ladder, and you must reverse direction.
The ladder may not go all the way to the top of the hole. That’s OK; just keep breathing normally. Pull out your pickaxe from your jaunty snakeskin belt. Dig the pickaxe into the crusty dirt wall in front of you (where the ladder would be). Pull yourself up, until you see the smiling face of your wife, Dodie Oderdonk, peering down at you. When you see her, put one arm up and scream as loud as you can, “GET ME OUT OF HERE!!!”
Arthur,
I knew I could count on you to make this exercise in practical writing an exercise in pointing out the ridiculous.
If you take out the narrative that you’ve created for Odie Oderdonk, you’ve done a nice job on the practical writing here. However, I would like to see more focus on the task at hand, and less on building Odie’s backstory. I know you can spin a good yarn; now show me how you can scale that back and hone specific writing skills needed for the real world.
Ms Whitehead
Dear Ms Whitehead,
I know what you’re saying, but I think that telling stories is an important skill for the real world. I’m planning to leave the boring writing to other people. I bet Agatha Christie never had to write computer manuals.
Yours truly,
Arthur Bean
June 6th
Dear RJ,
I looked through all the Leg Breakers scripts that we were going to perform. (Not that there’s that many left. With so many people dropping out, we were down to three plays anyway.) I think I’ve figured out what we can do. If we make the guns into swords in my play, then there won’t be any gun violence, and we can still do it. Plus, Millie and I can teach everyone a few fencing moves, and we can make it look really good, I think. In fact, I’m not sure why I didn’t think of it before! It will be way more theatrical this way. I’ll have to play one of the parts, but that’s OK. I already know all the lines. Then if we do Ben and Latha’s play, we just have to take out the swear words, and pretend like it’s an R-rated movie that’s on TV. Hopefully the others agree. Please don’t have them kick me out!!
I just hope that Kennedy realizes what we’re giving up for her. I’m sacrificing my principles to the principal!
Yours truly,
Arthur Bean
hey man i dont know what im supposed to say to u today
I don’t know, either. May the Force be with you?
im not saying that, altho maybe that works? i dont know
r u guys doing anything?
; Dad’s at yoga, and I’m going to hang out with Millie and Joie later. I think we’re going to a movie.
We got invited to this afternoon tea one of my mom’s friends is having, but Dad and I agreed that that sounded like the worst thing ever.
puke a billion times over
Right?!?
well, good luck getting through the day. i hope the movie is funny
Me too, man. Me. Too.
June 8th
Dear RJ,
Two things. First: The Leg Breakers met today, and we made some changes to our plays, so hopefully Kraleigh says OK and lets us go ahead with them. I’m going to talk to her tomorrow, and Ben and Von are going to come with me this time. Von’s the only one who seemed annoyed by the fact that I talked to her without telling anyone. He thinks we are selling out, but I don’t think he even knows what it means to sell out. Plus, everyone seemed kind of relieved. Maybe I’m just assuming they are relieved because I am, but I don’t care.
Second: Yesterday at dinner, my dad started talking about the summer and how this is my last summer where he doesn’t expect me to work. He kept talking about getting a summer job, and starting to make my own money, and I told him that I was trying to get a job at Flying Spirit as a camp counsellor. But he told me not to bother. Then he pulled out two plane tickets to Whitehorse. So I guess we’re going to the Yukon to go camping for a month! I asked if we could rent a dogsled to get around, but apparently you can only do that in the winter, so we’re renting a truck. I don’t even know what to expect. What is Yukon like in the summer? Are there going to be a lot of bears? How many books do I need to bring for a month of camping?
It’s a pretty cool thing that he did that. I was even thinking today that even if Mom were around, she wouldn’t have come. Camping is just this thing for me and my dad.
I half-wish Robbie or Luke could come with us, but still. It should be pretty cool. There’ll be twenty-four hours of daylight there. Is it manly to buy an eye mask for sleeping? As of today, I’m going to sleep with the lights on in my room to get ready for the summer.
Although that’s probably why I’m still awake and it’s two in the morning.
Yours truly,
Arthur Bean
June 9th
Dear RJ,
She said no! She said that we hadn’t gone far enough with our changes. I showed her how many lines we changed, but she said that “two lines per play” was not a sufficient compromise. I thought we had it! I was sure that if we took out most of the swears, it would be fine. She said, “You’re on the right track, but I need to see more.” I bet she wants us to take out every joke too!
I really, really wanted to tell her what I really thought about her refusal, but Ben kicked me under the desk as I started to talk, and then he said that we would revisit the work and come up with something else.
Instead, we’re going to ask Hark to help us. I can’t tell what’s OK anymore anyway. I just hope he knows.
Yours truly,
Arthur Bean
Hey, Artie,
What are you thinking of doing for your final article? It’s a big one! This is your chance to pass on some of your hard-earned knowledge before heading off to high school. Kennedy’s working on a double-page spread about the grad, and she’s written a great little piece about hope and believing in yourself. So what do you think? Maybe an exposé about the music teacher getting the kids to read band books? (Please don’t actually write that. That was a joke!)
Cheers!
Mr. E.
June 13th
Dear RJ,
Kraleigh finally agreed to our modified plays. We changed the swords to lightsabers (so now we have to add in some lighting cues to make it dark onstage!), and for Von and Nigel’s play, we took out the middle scene where the doctor eats the girl’s intestines. That cut kind of sucks, since it’s a big part of the play (it’s called “Intestine Care Unit”), but their play isn’t very good anyways. But now we can perform them at lunch the last week of school (which means that we can only do two a day, instead of a festival of all of them). But we get to perform them, which is good. Hark seemed really happy about it too, and said that we were being very mature. It still feels really weird, and I don’t know if anyone will come, because people might still be mad about the grad stuff. But grad is back on, and Kennedy and her friends still get to decorate the gym and make their dumb slideshow of themselves or whatever else they are planning.
I’m a little mad about it, because Kennedy didn’t say anything to me when she found out grad was back on. She could have thanked me or something. You know, I’ve tried all year to be nice to her and have her realize that I’m a good guy, and she never cares. I wish I didn’t care so much about what she thought of me. Cool guys never care what people think of them.
Yours truly,
Arthur Bean
good luck! i bet youll be AWESOME
Thanks! I wish you could see me fence. Maybe you could take up fencing and then we could meet at competitions!
im more of a shrub guy
What? I don’t get it.
instead of fences. i like shrubs, more inviting
But you know the old saying …
Good fencers make good neighbours!
u r a DORK
My joke is way better than your shrub joke.
I’m just telling it straight.
NOT BEATING AROUND THE BUSH
i was going to say that!! great minds
June 14th
Dear RJ,
My fencing competition is tomorrow. I’m really nervous! I’ve been practising so much, and I even sometimes do footwork at the bus stop. (But not when other people are around, and really subtly. I don’t want people to think I’m a total weirdo!) But still, I don’t know what to expect. What if everyone is as good as Joie? What if my foil stops working in the middle of the bout, and so I get points, but they don’t register on the lightbox? What if I get hit so hard that I have to go to the hospital?
Dad is going to come and watch, but I didn’t invite anyone else. I almost told the Leg Breakers about it, because they wanted to meet to rehearse on Sunday, but then I don’t want them to come, in case I lose. What was I thinking, signing up for a competition? I’m not an athlete. Maybe I won’t go. I should probably not go.
Yours truly,
Arthur Bean
Guess what? I came in fourth at my fencing competition!
thats awesome!!!!
I know! It was a pretty big deal as far as competitions go. All Calgary fencers were there!
olympics here u come
It was awesome. I won my first bout against this 15-year-old guy, and he didn’t even score at all.
r u sure he was playing??
Yeah, I’m sure. He was hooked up and his sword was definitely working, because we tested it before we started. He was just really bad.
how many guys were fencing?
There were over 40 people at the whole competition.
ya but how many did u fence?
Do you mean how many guys, or people? Because the events are split male and female.
so how many in ur group?
Well, they are also split by age group, so I wasn’t fencing all the adults.
so ur age group?
There were five of us.
so wait
u came in 2nd last?
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA
It sounds better if I say I came in fourth.
still laughing over here
It was my FIRST competition!
no worries dude. ur secret is safe with me. u came in forth
Personal Reflections: What Is Junior High?
You’ve almost made it! You’ve lived through three years of junior high and are soon off to the new challenges of high school.
Before you embark on the next step of your life adventure, take this assignment as an opportunity to reflect on the last three years. What middle-school experiences have affected you? How has your thinking changed over
the last three years? What kind of advice would you pass on to a grade seven student starting junior high in September?
Due: June 25
From: Von Ipo (thenexteastwood@hotmail.com)
To: Arthur Bean (arthuraaronbean@gmail.com)
Sent: June 17, 17:24
Hey, Arthur!
So a bunch of the Leg Breakers are going to meet at my house before grad on Friday and go together. You’re coming with us, right? Wouldn’t be the same without you! We’re basically going to show up like it’s the red carpet. Ben said that we should all wear shades and walk in really slowly, like we’re in a movie. Won’t that be awesome?