Ninjas, Piranhas, and Galileo

by Greg Leitich Smith

  “Honoria does not like me,” he replied, sipping his vanilla milk shake.

  I dipped the cheddar fry in my banana split juice and ate it before replying. “She calls you ‘Eli.’”

  He shrugged. “She’s known me a long time.”

  “I’ve known you almost as long, and I don’t call you ‘Eli.’”

  Elias inspected his glasses, then wiped one lens. “Because I’d beat you if you did.”

  I leaned back against the window and stretched my legs onto the vinyl bench. “You like her; she likes you. What’s the problem?” Of course, so far as I knew, neither Elias nor Honoria had ever even held hands with a member of the opposite sex. I, on the other hand, once kissed Freddie M-K, or at least tried, but she ended up with spit in her eye. I got that Elias was worried about making a fool of himself, but he seemed more worried about it than usual. Maybe he was just totally scared she’d say “no,” or laugh at him or something, but that’s not her style.

  Elias looked like he was about to say something, but before he got the chance, I heard a car horn and glanced out the window. My mom had pulled up in our new electric-blue VW Beetle. As we dumped some money onto the table to pay for the food, I asked Elias, “If I can prove to you that she likes you, will you ask her out?”

  He gave me a weird look. “If you can find out … anonymously,” he said.

  “Deal,” I replied as we headed to the car.

  Honoria

  The Peshtigo Warrior Penguin battle cry and war dance were designed by a famous and well-paid choreographer to strike terror into the hearts of opposing teams. They’re actually more like a waddle, head bob, and groan, and just look silly. They’re even more ridiculous when Goliath Reed performs them in the Student Court courtroom after a verdict in his favor.

  The Student Court is the Peshtigo School’s pride, joy, and number-one propaganda tool. It’s mentioned in all our publicity literature, and it was even featured in Newsweek magazine. Apparently, at some schools, the Student Court only decides punishment, after the accused admits guilt. At the Peshtigo School, the accused is innocent until proven guilty. We’d originally had it the other way, but a whole horde of lawyers from the Parent-Teacher Senate protested.

  I was the Public Defender, which meant I was chief defense attorney. I had been defending Freddie Murchison-Kowalski, the head of the Union of Students Concerned About Cruelty to Animals, who had put together and posted on bulletin boards around the school a list of “101 Ways to Kill a Person with a Chicken-Fried Steak.” She said it was a protest against inhumane treatment of cattle, hormones in beef, cholesterol, and the school cafeteria.

  Freddie was on trial for “malicious hooliganism,” which is a catchall for anything the administration doesn’t like or thinks would make the school look bad to generous alums or to Newsweek magazine. Goliath Reed was serving a term as Attorney General, which made him the chief prosecutor, and had been arguing that Freddie’s protest posed a threat to the public safety and could even lead to violence.

  Incredibly, the jury bought it.

  When the guilty verdict was announced, Freddie sat there, looking stunned, because I’d told her we’d win. Meanwhile, Goliath jumped up, pumped his fist, and yelled, “Yes!” After that, he and his assistant did their ferocious Penguin display.

  After they high-fived, Goliath smirked, flashing me four fingers.

  Four cases in a row, he meant, that he’d beaten me.

  I don’t mind losing. I just don’t like losing to Goliath Reed.

  Elias

  Last year, my only sister, Anna, scored big at nationals with her science project involving three-headed planaria. We had a big family celebration down at Anna and Johann Jakob’s favorite Bavarian restaurant, Do Your Wurst. Of course, by then, “big family celebration” meant only Mom, Dad, Anna, Jake, and me. The rest hadn’t been able to fly in for the weekend.

  It was last year during Anna’s planaria project that I realized I thought of Honoria as more than a friend. Right after Honoria found out what Anna’s project was, she’d started bombarding me with e-mails: How long can you make the cuts before you kill the worm, or get three, instead of one with three heads? How sharp a razor blade do you need? What happens if you make a partial sideways or full cut? What happens if you cauterize the cut while you’re making it?

  Until Honoria’s e-mails, Anna’s project had just been this big inconvenience occupying the dining room table with slimy vermin. But Honoria was so eager, so excited, it was hard not to get at least a little interested. Like some warped spectator sport. I was intrigued, and not just by the planaria.

  4

  The Garden

  Honoria

  The Atrium Garden at the Peshtigo School is, in my humble opinion, the school’s most impressive architectural feature and, according to the plaque on the outside, the Fellows of the American Architectural Institute agree. The Garden is most popular after lunch; the administration only allows in twenty-five students on any one day, and only if they have the lucky lottery number, although Shohei tells me there’s a black market for winning tickets.

  The Garden has zones maintained at constant temperature and humidity for Mr. Eden’s collection of tropical plants. Each one is labeled with its English and scientific names and classical chamber music always plays from hidden speakers. In fact, it had been Christoph Brandenburg’s science project — the one Eli was copying — that had convinced Mr. Eden to start with the chamber music and to ban anything else.

  As usual, Eli and I went around left — it’s less crowded — to find an open bench. We finally found one on the far side opposite the wrought-iron gate, near the koi pond, with a view of the hurricane and cabbage palms and an assortment of ferns.

  We’d just settled down on the bench when I looked up to see Shohei running toward us — arms wide, wearing his usual Chicago Cubs baseball cap — across the edge of the Memorial Fountain of the Grand Army of the Republic.

  “Do you love me?” Shohei shouted.

  I had a mild panic attack as what Shohei said sunk in and yanked my headphones down to rest around my neck. “Eli, you promised not to tell him I told you I liked him.”

  “I didn’t,” Eli whispered back. “He’s just being Shohei.”

  On the last syllable, Shohei himself landed in front of us and repeated, “Do you love me?” His eyes were wide, he was smiling, and he clearly wanted something.

  “That depends,” Eli said.

  “Ple-e-e-ease,” Shohei begged, turning it into a four-syllable word as he fell to his knees beside the bench, trampled a coromandel plant, and clutched at my skirt. “Help me, help me, help me.”

  I glanced around. Nobody was paying attention. Everyone was used to him.

  I could guess what he wanted. Shohei’s parents always made him do a science project, the deadline for the science fair was tomorrow, and Shohei always waited as long as possible to decide anything. Last year, I had, in fact, gone insane and agreed at the last minute to let him team up with me on my project. His efforts were, to put it mildly, horrible, and during the judging he seared his eyebrows with my Bunsen burner.

  It was not going to happen this year. He may be, as they say, a hottie, but I’m not stupid.

  Sure enough, Shohei announced, “I need a science project of my very own. Or” — he smiled —“one of yours.”

  Before I could say “no,” firmly and politely, Mr. Eden, the science fair czar, swooped out of nowhere and demanded, “What. Is. That. Noise?”

  Shohei scrambled up out of the way to stand back on the path.

  Mr. Eden seized my headphones from around my neck. I turned the volume all the way down and psyched myself for whatever he was going to do.

  “Well?” Mr. Eden demanded, glaring down.

  “Nat King Cole,” I replied, hoping the CD was on the “approved” list and kicking myself for not checking recently.

  Mr. Eden shuddered. “You know the rules,” he replied, pulling a handkerchief from his vest poc
ket and using it to remove the CD from my Discman. “No non-approved music in the Atrium Garden.”

  “That’s my mother’s,” I protested, as Mr. Eden’s attention shifted to Josh Patel, who was trying to hide a contraband bottle of root beer behind an Abyssinian banana tree. Food and drink were, of course, forbidden.

  “You may have it back after school,” Mr. Eden said, still clutching the CD with the handkerchief as he stalked off toward Josh.

  As soon as Mr. Eden was safely out of the way, Shohei sat back down in front of us and returned to begging Eli and me. “Can you help me out here, folks?” he asked, crossing his legs. “Anyone need an assistant?”

  “Sorry,” I said quickly, “piranhas don’t like strangers. Eli might need a control, though.” It may not have been altogether fair and siccing Shohei’s unhelpfulness on Eli wasn’t necessarily a nice thing to do, but it would help Shohei and it might make Eli do some actual work and how fair was it, anyway, that Eli was just copying his brother’s project? I was still amazed that Mr. Eden had approved it. I wouldn’t have.

  Shohei got up on his knees, clasping his hands under his chin. I ignored his puppy-dog eyes, but I did nudge Eli. There were a couple moments of silence, or actually, baroque flute music, while Shohei looked at us expectantly. Then there were a couple more.

  “I’m running Christoph’s plant-music experiment,” Eli said, finally. “Maybe you could do it at your place too, so we could … I don’t know … see if there’s a difference in growth conditions between Ravenswood Manor and Lincoln Park.”

  Shohei lives only about thirty minutes from Castle Brandenburg, and that’s during rush hour, if you drive. “A difference from what?” he asked. “The tides?”

  “Look, do you want to do it or not?” Eli asked.

  “Okay, okay,” Shohei said, adjusting his cap. “Just one more thing,” he added, “anyone want to go see Kabuki Titus Andronicus this Saturday?”

  We had just read Titus Andronicus in class, because our English teacher wanted us to know that Shakespeare had written some bad plays, too. But Mr. Garcia gave me extra readings on literary criticism when I told him I liked it better than Hamlet because Tamora — apart from the murder, vengeance, cannibalism, and blood pies — was a better role model than Ophelia, who drowned herself because of a man.

  Eli shook his head. “I’m going to see Der Rosenkavalier at the Lyric with my dad.”

  “Uh-huh,” Shohei replied, giving Eli a look. Then he turned to me. “How about you?”

  “Love to,” I told Shohei, jumping at the chance. Since I didn’t see Shohei much outside of school without Eli, it sounded like the perfect chance to get to him socially, alone, and maybe then he’d notice me in a more romantic way.

  “Great,” he replied.

  “It’ll just be us, then,” I said to Shohei, the words just sort of slipping out. What I said was fine, but my tone was a little gushy. This, I hoped he wouldn’t notice.

  “Well,” Shohei said, “us and my parents, anyway.”

  Shohei

  I cornered Elias after lunch on the way to algebra.

  “The opera?” I asked. “The opera? How dense are you? I just gave you the perfect chance to be alone with Honoria …”

  “We have a box every season,” Elias replied. “You know that.”

  Yeah, opera was big in their family. Elias’s mom’s a famous soprano. Travels around the world. Sings a lot. Blah, blah, blah.

  “Get out of it,” I said.

  “Can’t,” Elias replied. He was quiet for a moment as we dodged hallway crowds. “And,” he continued, in his annoyed tone of voice, as we reached the classroom, “since when does ‘alone’ include your parents and kid brother? Besides, I already spend a lot of time alone with Honoria.”

  “First,” I replied in the same tone, “I was going to get my dad to get separate seats for you guys and, second, studying together and going to the Field Museum of Natural History to see dead bugs and stuffed ancient Egyptians does not count.”

  Man, this was going to be harder than I’d thought.

  5

  Tatami Ninjas

  Shohei

  Monday afternoon after soccer practice, Elias and I came back to my place to get my part of the project set up. We live in a twenty-ninth-floor rooftop condo on Lake Shore Drive in Lincoln Park, with a clear view of the zoo and the lake. It rules.

  “So, Honoria definitely likes you,” I told Elias as we left our Nikes at the door. “She talked about you all night.”

  He just grunted, hoisting a box of project supplies.

  “How was the opera?” I asked.

  “Fine,” he replied. “Why don’t we get the project set up?”

  If he wasn’t ready to talk about Honoria yet, that was okay by me.

  I led the way, carrying boxes to the guest bedroom. “How’s this?” I asked, setting down a box. I pulled open the drapes to the floor-to-ceiling, wall-to-wall windows overlooking the rush-hour traffic on Lake Shore Drive. The lake was choppy and empty. Most people had already put their sailboats in winter storage.

  “No,” Elias said. “We need a different room. The light’s bad.”

  “Bad?” I asked. “What does that mean?”

  “Brassica rapa is designed to grow in fluorescent light,” Elias said. “It’s easier to control that way. Didn’t you read the draft of experimental procedures I e-mailed you yesterday?”

  To be honest, I had just sort of skimmed it. But it still sounded nutty — how can light be bad for a plant? Other than, say, a death-ray laser, or something. But it was his project, so I figured I’d just go with it.

  “It’s specially developed for classroom use,” Elias continued. “Don’t you have a work or storage room downstairs or something?”

  “Storeroom’s full,” I said, sitting down on the guest bed. “Your cheesehead cabbages will just have to be happy here.”

  “Wisconsin Fast Plants,” he said. “And they’re a member of the crucifer family.”

  “Whatever,” I answered, but I was beginning to think maybe I should have come up with my own project. Whenever Elias gets into something, he gets pretty uptight about it.

  “Well,” he said, “I guess we can tape over the windows and just unplug your lamps.” He opened the boxes and began to pull out stuff. Seeds. Dirt. Fluorescent tubes. Watering can. Pots. Soundproofed light boxes. CD players. Noise meter. CD called The Best of Baroque. CD of water rushing over Niagara Falls. CD called Her Britannic Majesty’s Royal Gurkha Drum and Bagpipe Corps. Then Elias began to explain. Everything. “Here’s all you have to do …”

  Just before my brains oozed out my nose from boredom, I got him to stop by humming Scotland the Brave and trying to balance the plastic watering can — by the spout — on my index finger. I mean, it’s not like I couldn’t figure this all out myself.

  “Look,” Elias said, finally, holding up a diskette. “This is the final draft of the project procedures. It’s practically Horticulture for the Intellectually Challenged. Let me print it out for you.”

  Ignoring the slam, I led the way across the hall to my bedroom so he could use my computer.

  “Wow,” Elias said from behind.

  I’d forgotten — he hadn’t seen it yet. I turned around and spread my arms. “Welcome,” I said, “to the Land of the Rising Sun.” My room had been redone as part of my folks’ Japanization effort. I did have an east view — toward the rising sun. The remodel was better than the last version of my room, but I was beginning to think my parents were out of control.

  Until a few weeks ago, I’d had a great big, queen-sized, hideously ugly canopied bed my mom had bought when she’d been in her French Second Empire phase (it looks just like it sounds). I also used to have a matching Napoleon III desk and shelves as well as a red-and-gold carpet with a lot of flowers and stuff that defied description.

  Now, a bunch of three-foot-by-three-foot tatami mats covered the floor and one wall had a wood-framed grid of rice paper. My bed had been
replaced with this tatami thing that looked kind of like a coffee table, and the rest of the furniture was sort of short and came from Olaf of the Orient: A Fusion of West and East. Oh, and my framed and autographed World Cup soccer and Chicago Cubs posters had been replaced by a bamboo scroll and a silk print of a big wave with Mount Fuji in the background.

  While Elias gazed around at the Japaneseness of it all, my five-year-old kid brother Tim sat cross-legged in the legless zaisu floor chair thing in front of the laptop computer. The laptop rested on the new, two-foot tall desk, next to Mathilda’s tank.

  Tim ignored us, typing away. Every now and then, he’d shrug to adjust his black cape. Tim is the kid my parents weren’t supposed to be able to have. He’s got light brown hair, freckles, green eyes, is missing his two front teeth, and his skin burns like crazy in the summer. Actually, he looks a little like Elias.

  “I sort of like it,” Elias said, “but why?”

  “Here,” I replied, rummaging through a pile of books on one of the shelves. I handed Elias last spring’s issue of the Journal of Cultural Wellness and Pediatric Anthropology, with the article Post-it-tabbed: “The Urgency of Exposing CrossCulturally Adopted Children to the Ancestral Cultures of their Biological Parents.”

  Elias leafed through the pages.

  “Two hundred eighteen footnotes,” I pointed out.

  “You know,” Elias said, still taking it in, “they mean well.” He grinned. “Urgently.”

  “Uh-huh,” I said. That was the problem. My folks had gotten fixated in a big way. Just after school let out last summer, it had begun with these very serious after-dinner talks at the kitchen table on how I should take pride in my Japanese heritage. It was, they told me, just as valid as their Irish heritage.