Knack (Benjamin Brown Book 1)

by Tom Twitchel

  “You don’t have a boyfriend?” he asked Maddy.

  Wrinkling her nose, I could see Maddy winding up for a fast pitch hardball.

  “So, uh “Hello.” My social status is none of your bidnez and I don’t usually answer any questions from someone when I don’t even know their name.” She smirked.

  I thought I needed to assume the responsibilities of a good host. “Maddy, this is Baffle. He’s the guy from school I’ve told you about. Baffle, this is Maddy.”

  Ignoring me, Baffle stepped up to Maddy and put out his hand. “Hey, just kidding around. It’s nice to meet you. My real name is Sam, but everybody calls me Baffle, my last name, or Baff for short.”

  Maddy smiled wide. “Well, Sam Baffle, Baff for short, anyone who is a friend of Benny’s has got to be good people. Soooo…I’ll call you Baff. And “no,” I don’t have an official boyfriend…yet. It’s really just a matter of time until some dashing young man realizes I’m available and then,” she snapped her fingers, “I’ll be off the market!” Then she gave him a big hug. She’s a hugger.

  Baffle, who had probably never been hugged by a female other than his mother or grandmother, was as red as a beet and breathing hard when she released him. And me? I was feeling something very unfamiliar; I was wrestling with something that had apparently just escaped a locked room in my deep subconscious.

  “Hey, Benny, let’s have Maddy come with us,” Baffle babbled, looking happily confused.

  Glancing at Maddy who was putting on an innocent face and looking at me with wide-eyed glee, I found myself not wanting her to come with us. I had formed a relationship with her that I wanted to stay private, and exclusive. I didn’t even know how to define it exactly, let alone how to handle the awkwardness I was feeling.

  I wasn’t sure if I was on board with the three of us hanging out together.

  “Uh, sure,” I said. As I’ve indicated before, my conversational skills are without rival, essentially because I’m a social idiot.

  “Great. Where have I just been invited?” Maddy asked slyly.

  Grinning and trying unsuccessfully not to fall all over himself trying to impress Maddy, Baffle said, “The park! Benny here is a…sort of a…” he looked at me realizing that he was already preparing to give away information he had just sworn to keep secret. Should have been my first clue.

  “It’s okay, man. She knows,” I said, a little curtly.

  His eyebrows shot up, and he looked from me to Maddy. “She knows?” Why do people repeat statements they have just heard?

  “Yeah. No big deal,” I said.

  Maddy punched me in the shoulder. “Not a big deal? Would you be referring to your talents with illusions or me?”

  That was how our first outing started. We hung out in the park; I performed and basically killed it. I was very aggressive with my tricks and played to Maddy as much as the crowd, probably more. She laughed and clapped and howled, punching Baffle in the arm, who looked about as happy as I’d ever seen him. It was also when we discovered that my ability to silent speak to them (they couldn’t speak to each other) gave us ways to play more traditional tricks. At my direction, they could drop cards into purses or coat pockets and I could shock and amaze the crowd when I made a card “disappear” and then “reappear” in an unsuspecting person’s belongings. Despite my confused state of mind, it was an absolutely amazing feeling spending that day together; sun, friends and nobody telling you “No.”

  We visited the parks a dozen times that summer and our relationship became less stressed by Baffle’s and my competition for Maddy’s attention. She and I continued to be close. She tolerated Baffle and he was too goofy to realize that all of his clumsy flirting was having no effect on her. The natural humor and friendship became easy and familiar. It was like a three-sided yin and yang if that is even a thing. We got along. You know?

  The fact that all three of us saw the relationship from different points of view and that it might cause problems never occurred to me.

  BOOK THREE

  The New Paradigm or When Things Went Bat Crap Crazy

  (Present day)

  CHAPTER ONE

  So the day after Maddy, Baffle and I witnessed Mr. G’s knack and we all got collectively freaked out, I woke up to a warm morning, the sun hitting the windows, slightly raising the temperature in my bedroom. Pulling myself out of bed and going through the painful first stretch of the day, I limped to the bathroom to take a shower.

  Getting ready for school when you don’t have a parent scolding, pushing, bribing or plain old harassing you is a completely different exercise. When the alarm goes off, you get up because no one is going to wake you up five minutes later. If you want breakfast, you make it yourself because your mom isn’t there to feed you when you say you’re not hungry even though you are but don’t want to admit it. If you need a shower you take it because if your teacher senses (and I mean smells) a hygiene problem you really don’t want her to ask for a parent-teacher conference—particularly when said parents don’t exist.

  Hurrying through a bowl of cereal and then swinging my backpack into place, I went out the door and checked the time. I was on schedule, including the extra minutes it would take me to get downstairs. Fridays were usually a good day for me. I actually liked going to school. It was almost possible to pretend that I lived a normal life and that at the end of the day, when the last bell rang, I would go home and Mom would be waiting there for me.

  But today was different. The things that had happened the day before had changed everything. The discussion Maddy and I had struggled through regarding Mr. Goodturn and the Internet search I had conducted afterward, which had proved useless, led me to thinking about my next step with him. I knew that I was going to have to finish the talk he and I had started. Sure, I could avoid him for quite a while by not going to the pawnshop, but the fact was I liked going to the pawnshop.

  And I liked Mr. Goodturn.

  Much of the day went by in a blur. I turned in assignments, got back quiz results, raised my hand just enough to make the teachers happy and not so often that it would get me on the radar of the slackers in the back of the class.

  The part of the day that came sharply into focus was lunch with Baffle. He dropped a minor bombshell.

  “What do you mean your parents are suspicious? Suspicious about what?” I asked.

  Baffle chased a spaghetti noodle on his plate with his fork. For all the luck he was having, you would think it was alive.

  “They wanted to know why I was upset I guess.”

  Leaning over my tray and lowering my voice, I said, “You were upset? About what?”

  He looked up at me guiltily, and said, “You know about what. All that crazy stuff with Goodturn and the dude with the gun. Seriously, Benny, that guy was going to shoot Goodturn. You didn’t get upset about that?”

  “Sure, but it didn’t happen. Nobody got hurt.”

  “We don’t know that. What happened to that guy? Mr. Goodturn just walked him out and came back and closed his shop for the day. What happened to the guy?”

  “I don’t know.” I was beginning to feel queasy about the similarity between this conversation and the one I had had with Maddy.

  “Right! We don’t know. I like hanging out with you, but I don’t know if I ever want to go into that pawnshop again. What if that guy comes back? And he’s ready for Mr. Goodturn’s whatever-it-is? Like hypnosis, right? Can’t you use your thing, your sensing thing, to tell if Mr. Goodturn is doing something bad?”

  No good answer for that. “I don’t know. You know it doesn’t work that specifically.”

  “Well, I’m digging around online. I want to know more about what happened, whether anything weird has happened around the shop before, or if something about that guy shows up. I wrote some code that’s running right now. I’m going to check it when I get home. You know I’ll track something down if there is anything, and when I do we can figure out what to do.”

  He was right about his
ability to find information on the Web. Baffle’s skill with a computer was borderline scary, like a savant or something. But that didn’t mean that his judgment was sound.

  “Really Baff? Really? Like what? What are three kids going to do about it? Nothing. That’s what. This isn’t some episode from Scooby Doo. I’m going to talk with Mr. Goodturn after school. Everything will probably turn out to be no big deal. Besides, you haven’t told me how things ended up with your parents. Did you tell them anything?”

  “No, just the typical psychoanalysis. I got the whole puberty talk again.”

  That didn’t satisfy me. “How did you explain your being upset?”

  “I told them I broke something at the pawnshop.”

  “What? Why would you tell them that? What did they say?”

  “It was the first thing I could think of to say. Okay? They asked me what I broke and how much it cost. Then they gave me money to pay for it. So now, even though I really don’t want to, I have to go there today and “pay” Mr. Goodturn.”

  “You and I both know you didn’t break anything. What are you going to do with the money?”

  Crossing his arms over his chest defensively, he said. “Keep it maybe. I don’t know.”

  That would probably end up biting him in the butt.

  “It’s your business but don’t do anything that’ll make your parents want to visit Mr. Goodturn’s. Remember what he said about parents and the police.”

  Baffle was about to say something sarcastic. I could see it in his eyes, but we were interrupted.

  “Hello girls. How’s lunch?” Rusty Witkowski had walked up behind us. His usual crew of jerks wasn’t with him, which I thought was odd. Rusty hadn’t learned any new social skills since junior high. He’d just worked on refining the nasty ones he had already acquired.

  “What do you want Rusty?” I asked. Typically, I kept as low a profile as possible at school. I couldn’t afford to get noticed by anyone who could potentially create the need for parental involvement. But Witkowski and his wormy nature rankled me like no other.

  Ignoring me, he nudged Baffle with an elbow. “Do you have it?”

  Caught off guard by that, I grew even more confused when Baffle reached into his backpack and pulled a small stack of papers out and silently handed them to Witkowski.

  Rusty smirked and looked over the papers and then appeared to notice me for the first time. He half-closed one eye, slouched, stuck one leg out awkwardly and bumped himself in the chest with a hand that he curled up as though it was injured.

  Slurring his words, he said, “Oh, hello Benjamin. Don’t you belong in your special class?”

  Before I could rip off a smart response that I would undoubtedly regret, he spun unsteadily and limped away, laughing.

  I angrily reeled off several choice words. None of them nice and none of them words that any of my teachers would expect to hear from me. Yeah, that’s what I should have said. Why is it that most of your great comebacks occur to you after the fact?

  I turned to Baffle.

  “Are you doing that jerk’s homework?”

  Sticking his chin out defiantly, he said, “So what if I am? Besides, it isn’t homework and he’s not that bad. And his friends think I’m pretty smart.”

  “Think you’re smart? You are smart, smarter than his whole gang put together. What is he threatening you with?”

  Baffle glared at me. “Nothing. I’m just doing it as a favor.”

  “Yeah? That’s crap and you know it. What has he got over you? If he’s threatening to beat you up you need to go to the principal.” I was seriously ticked off. Witkowski was a gangster with training wheels. Baffle would never associate with him on his own initiative. Would he?

  “You don’t know anything about it, Benny. Just shut up!” Baffle grabbed his cafeteria tray and took off, leaving me to wonder about what I had just witnessed; my friend doing some favor for a kid we both disliked, Baffle sticking up for him and worst of all, not bothering to acknowledge that Witkowski had just dissed me in a super humiliating way—not to mention also totally inappropriate.

  I started to get up and felt two hands land on my shoulders, hard enough to hurt.

  “Don’t get up cripple,” said Witkowski’s voice in my ear. “Keep your nose out of other people’s business,” a painful squeeze on my shoulder, “or I’ll mess you up more than you already are.” The hands left my shoulders. I turned my head and I saw him strolling away casually, nodding at the faculty supervisor who was looking our way.

  CHAPTER TWO

  I use the public bus system and don’t take school buses for several reasons. All the videos of stuff that happens on school buses don’t tell the whole story. The incidents that make it onto TV or the Internet are usually about kids or drivers getting abused or abusing others. It’s typically obvious, noisy crap that can be seen and heard clearly on the grainy low-resolution footage produced by inexpensive cameras. There’s plenty of mean-spirited behavior that parents never see and kids don’t talk about for what should be obvious reasons. It only took a couple of problems with bullies to convince me that public transportation was a better option.

  I also had no desire for other students to know where I lived.

  The bus ride back to the apartment was not pleasant. First of all, I was stewing over Witkowski and his threat. Second, I was unhappy about how things had ended with Baffle and last, but definitely not least, there was the conversation with Mr. Goodturn to think about.

  By the time I got off the bus a few blocks from my building I had managed to make myself pretty unhappy. So, when I walked by the pawnshop, I almost walked right past it but something made me stop. There was a Mercedes parked out front. Luxury cars did not show up in my neighborhood very often, and I never saw them parked anywhere on the street surrounding the pawnshop or the apartment building. The windows were tinted so I couldn’t see into the car. Drug dealer? I gave it a wide berth.

  When I entered the pawnshop, I saw Baffle immediately. He was standing at the counter talking to Mr. Goodturn. Now I knew why the Mercedes was parked out front. Baffle’s mom or dad was probably waiting in it. Knowing that the parents of one of my two friends knew where we all hung out made me nervous.

  Walking right up to them, I said, “Hey Baff. Hey Mr. Goodturn.”

  They both looked in my direction. Baffle seemed extremely uncomfortable and Mr. Goodturn looked amused.

  “Benny, perhaps you can help me here. Your friend Samuel is trying to pay me for something he says he broke, but I have no recollection of anything being broken when the three of you were in here yesterday.”

  He peered at me over the top of his glasses and I glanced at Baffle before I responded. He looked at me desperately, obviously hoping for a miracle that would allow him to quickly escape the pawnshop and get back outside.

  “Oh, that,” I said. “I was joking around with him and told him he broke a forty-five but he really didn’t.” I smiled at Baffle and put on a sheepish look that I hoped was believable. “Sorry Baff. I should have let you know I was just messing with you.”

  Relief and gratitude flooded Baffle’s face.

  Mr. Goodturn frowned at me and said, “Well, you certainly do owe Samuel that apology. I think he made a special trip here just to make restitution.” Smiling at Baffle, he said, “So Samuel, we are square. Thank you.” He stuck out his hand.

  Baffle took the offered hand and they shook. Mr. Goodturn went back to another of his ever-present repair projects and winked at me. I could tell he sensed there was more to the story but wasn’t going to spoil my charade.

  Baffle ducked his head and started for the door and I hopped along after him, catching him before he reached it.

  “Hey,” I said extending my fist to him. “Are we okay?”

  He looked at me, then down at my hand. He raised his fist and we bumped knuckles.

  “Yeah. We’re good Benny. Thanks for that.” He looked over his shoulder at Mr. Goodturn. “My mom drove me h
ere to make sure I paid for what I said I broke. I had to come in here and then I didn’t know what to do. You know, like, why was I here? And Mr. G was looking at me weird so I just coughed up my “I broke something” story to him too. What a mess.”

  “Wow. That was a colossal waste of time.”

  “Tell me about it. Hey, and… sorry about earlier at school. I know Rusty’s a jerk. I just enjoyed having him and his friends asking for my help. They really aren’t pressuring me. It was just some Internet research. You know, right up my alley.”

  Hey, not my business. I’m just glad we’re good.

  I still thought he was playing with fire but I didn’t want to test the new truce we had just struck. He smiled at the silent speak contact.

  Cool. I gotta go before my mom comes in here to see what’s taking so long.

  ‘Kay. See you when I see you.

  He pushed out the door without looking back but I already felt better than I had on the ride home.

  When the bell finished declaring Baffle’s departure, Mr. Goodturn looked up from his work on the counter.

  He didn’t say anything. He just waited for me to walk over to him.

  “Mr. Goodturn, do you have time to talk about yesterday?”

  He laid his tools aside on a cloth and said, “Yes, I do. In fact, why don’t you lock up so we won’t be interrupted.”

  Limping over to the front door, I twisted the knob for the deadbolt and turned off the neon sign. Outside, there was no evidence of the Mercedes.

  I followed Mr. Goodturn back into his office and we settled into essentially the same positions we had been in the day before.

  “I wanted to talk to you about…what we talked about yesterday,” I said.

  “I’ve been concerned about the way our conversation ended yesterday. I want you to know that any concern I express is out of affection for you Benny. I’m not judging. God knows I’m not suited for that.”

  “Yeah, okay, but I need to sort of get a couple of things off my chest.”

  Settling back into his chair, he folded his hands across his belly. His feet barely touched the floor. Smiling, he waited for me to continue.