Ninjas, Piranhas, and Galileo

by Greg Leitich Smith

  “Sometimes, being right doesn’t matter,” Honoria said.

  I took the El home from school that night. It was a bit of a hike to the station, but I felt like the walk, despite the wet chill. I finally got on the train and had to stand, holding on to one of those stainless steel poles, jammed in between a woman in a black trench coat and a guy in a stained Chicago Bears windbreaker.

  My cell phone rang. It was Number One Son, Johann Christoph. Considering he was calling from England, the connection was pretty good. “So,” I said slowly, “don’t you read your e-mail?”

  “Not often,” he replied. “Mom told me to call. She said you broke into Eden’s Sanctum.”

  “Yeah,” I replied, turning up the volume on the handset as another train went by. “Are you ever going to explain to me exactly how music can affect plant growth?”

  “Well,” he began, “sound waves are just vibrating air molecules, so if there was enough power —”

  “Itty-bitty speakers,” I said.

  “How’s this? The music psychically affects the plants in, you know, the same way it soothes the savage, um, breast.”

  “Psychically?” I repeated.

  There was a pause. I had to dodge people as they got on and off the train.

  Then, I knew. The reason we got the different results. Christoph had pulled a Shohei. Fraud. Pure and simple. I couldn’t believe it. Mr. Paragon of Science himself was a cheat. I couldn’t decide whether to laugh or cry. Maybe both.

  “Why did you fake your results?” My voice remained steady.

  There was a noise on the other end, sort of a cross between a choking sound and a chuckle. “It was a couple of things,” he answered, carefully. “Sort of a practical joke and sort of a bet I’d made with my chemistry lab partner. Whether we could convince Eden to change the stuff he used to play in the Atrium Garden. I never thought I’d win.”

  I don’t know what I’d been expecting, but this was really lame. My reason for changing the music wasn’t great, either, but at least there was some science behind it.

  “You were like, what, a year old or something at the time? You used to spit up and leak a lot, and your head was lumpy,” Christoph continued. “How was I supposed to know that you’d try to do the same experiment for the same teacher?”

  I was definitely older than one, but I didn’t bother correcting Esteemed Older Brother. I was more worried that there would be no correcting Mr. Eden. There was no way Mr. Eden would believe the truth. He had been playing baroque to the vegetables for more than a decade. Because of Christoph’s practical joke. It was almost … operatic.

  “Listen,” I said, “because of your ‘practical joke,’ Honoria and Shohei aren’t speaking to me, I’m probably going to be suspended, I’m getting a D+, and I’m the only one here who’s gotten the science right. But does anyone give me any credit for that? No! Mom’s making me translate Rigoletto and Dad’s grounded me for ten thousand years!”

  The lady in the trench coat wedged in next to me gave me a weird look.

  “Tell you what,” Christoph said. “I’ll talk to Dad and Eden, if you want. But for what it’s worth, Dad told me that you did a great job on the project. He even said it was ‘nontrivial.’”

  “Yeah,” I said, “right.”

  I looked out the window of the train as we pulled up to the Belmont stop. I got off to make the connection to the Ravenswood El.

  “What was it?” I asked finally, when the train had cleared. “What did Mr. Eden used to play?”

  “Nineteen-fifties classic rock. You know, Buddy Holly. Elvis. Chuck Berry.”

  “You’re kidding,” I replied.

  “No,” Christoph said. “Really. He owns half of Eisenberg’s Rock & Roll Cafe, too, did you know?”

  “No, I didn’t,” I said. “Okay, talk to Dad. But I don’t think it would do any good to talk to Mr. Eden. He’ll just think you’re trying to bail me out. You did too good a job of brainwashing him.”

  I hung up as the Ravenswood train arrived.

  32

  Decisions

  Honoria

  After I had put all my books and notes and the rest of Eli’s case file back into my locker, I went outside to wait for my mother on the main steps of the school. Across the street, I saw Shohei eating curly cheese fries in a window booth at Eisenberg’s.

  He never had noticed me. Not with the mice or even the invitation to Riverdance. He’d even helped Eli — or tried to — with that really awful e-mail campaign. I’d had enough waiting and wondering and throwing myself at him.

  Ignoring the drizzle, I crossed at the light and pulled the door open. As the warmth hit me, “It’s My Party” wailed.

  I slid into the booth across from Shohei. A plate of halfeaten fries sat on the table.

  “Hi,” I said.

  “Oh, hi,” Shohei replied, sitting up.

  “You have ketchup on your nose,” I said.

  He wiped it off. “Um —”

  “I just wanted to let you know,” I interrupted, “that I don’t want to go out with you anymore.”

  “Does that mean you’re breaking up with me?” he asked, with a crooked grin, but he did look, I think, a little disappointed.

  “You had your chance,” I said.

  He nodded, then gestured at the plate. “French fry?”

  Shohei

  I knew it was coming. The Talk. I’d expected it earlier, but Dad had been working late. So we played the “we’ll pretend it didn’t happen until we’re ready to talk” game. Very polite and very weird and very my family.

  When we finally sat down at the kitchen table, I was ready. Before my parents could say anything, I asked, “So could you tone it down with the whole turning Japanese thing?”

  “We just don’t want you to lose out on something you need,” Mom said.

  What did that mean? I tried to break it down. My parents usually weren’t insane people. This time, though, they were nuts. Sure, it was a big deal they were into my emotional well-being and all, but I didn’t need sushi, tatami, bonsai, or ikebana. What was next? Origami? Karate? Harakiri? “News flash,” I said, “all the teriyaki in the world isn’t going to —”

  “It is part of you,” Mom interrupted.

  “Yeah,” I said. “But lots of things are part of me. Japan. America. Chicago. Ireland … sort of. Soccer. My friends. Mathilda. Being adopted. I just want to be the one who gets to choose what the parts are and what they mean.”

  I took off my Cubs hat, showing the green hair. “You guys have picked how much Irish you want to be. Why can’t I?”

  With that, Tim ran up and started hitting me on the back of the head with the WE’RE #1 foam finger. “Then there’s this weird kid we found on the street.” I turned around and grabbed the foam thing from Tim and began hitting him with it.

  “Shohei’s hitting me!” Tim yelled.

  My mom laughed as Dad grabbed the finger and began to pummel both of us with it.

  When things settled down a bit, Dad said, “Okay, you’ve made your point. We won’t make you sample Japanese culture if you don’t want to.”

  “But we will keep introducing you to aspects of it,” Mom put in.

  “Fine,” I said. But they were definitely up to something. It had been kind of too easy.

  “Does this mean you don’t want to spend a month in Japan next summer?” Dad asked. “There’s a program one of my clients told me about —”

  “Really? Wow. Sure!” I said, immediately. I’d never been to a foreign country before. Other than Canada, but that didn’t really count. Who wouldn’t want to go?

  “And you could try out your Japanese,” Dad continued.

  “Wait a minute,” I said. “Was this the plan all along, or something you guys just made up?”

  “Does it matter?” Mom asked, after she and Dad exchanged one of their looks.

  “I guess not,” I said, but I had this feeling I’d been royally set up. Parents. I was going to have to watch them.r />
  Elias

  Back in my room at Castle Brandenburg, I asked Beastmaster VII, “What do you think I should do?”

  He yawned. Big. Dramatic. Dog breath.

  “Not helpful,” I told him, leaning back on my bed.

  Recant or be suspended.

  It was odd. After all that had happened, we still didn’t quite know the truth. Even if my process had been a hundred percent correct, there was no confirmation that baroque music doesn’t help plants. Not that you could prove a negative. But another run-through would have been helpful. Thank you, Shohei.

  But, to be fair, Shohei’s cheating was all that I had a right to be mad at him about. He wasn’t the one who’d broken into the school to change the music. It wasn’t his fault Honoria was in love with him. He had ’fessed up to his own scientific fraud. Publicly. Even after I’d yelled at him. And I wasn’t really fair to him. It wasn’t his fault I got all obsessive about the fair and grades and Mr. Eden.

  Maybe Shohei was right. Maybe I’d been too much like Mr. Eden. Too self-centered. Maybe I needed to work on that. Probably.

  Now, if I only knew what to do about Honoria.

  33

  Apologies

  Elias

  I finally called Shohei. “Thanks for testifying,” I said, settling in at my computer. “I’m sorry I came down on you that way.”

  “That’s okay,” Shohei said. “It’s who you are. It’s why we know and love you.”

  Despite myself, I laughed.

  “Did my testimony help?” Shohei asked.

  “Probably not,” I replied.

  “I am sorry I blew off the experiment.”

  “But aren’t they going to suspend you or something,” I asked, it just occurring to me, “for academic dishonesty?”

  “Nah,” Shohei said. “Honoria says even though it can count toward your grade, the Science Fair’s officially an extracurricular activity, so the Academic Code doesn’t apply. But they might ban me from next year’s fair.”

  “Well, that’s good. Both,” I said, checking my e-mail and not finding any replies from Honoria to my eighth e-mail of abject groveling. “Honoria’s pretty mad at me.”

  “Oh, yeah.”

  “So are you going to go out with her?” I asked, hoping I sounded casual, in an academic, not-interested way. I didn’t think I had a chance anymore, but it would still be hard seeing them together. I clicked “New Mail” again. No new messages.

  “She dumped me,” Shohei said.

  “Oh?” I asked. Calmly. Waiting for more.

  “Yeah,” Shohei replied, “she said it took me too long to notice her. That we’d always be just friends. I still think it’s you she likes.”

  I tried to sound merely curious. “Because?”

  “I think she liked the idea of my having Mathilda, in that weird animal kind of way she has. But when you talk to her, it’s always ‘Me and Eli, this’ or ‘Me and Eli, that.’”

  Well, that sounded promising. More than promising. Maybe something could work out between Honoria and me after all. I surfed over to the JustBugs web site, remembering the mice she’d given Shohei. Maybe a gift of some kind.

  “By the way,” Shohei said, “my folks finally got the message about Japanese America. No more Land of the Rising Sun. But I’m going to Japan this summer for a whole month.”

  “Sounds great,” I replied, a bit distracted, but glad he’d finally gotten that worked out.

  Bugs were too impersonal, I decided. Even leeches.

  “Yeah, but they’re talking about getting season tickets for Notre Dame football,” he said. “You know, Irish.”

  “Soccer football or football football?” I asked.

  “Football football,” he said. “I think they’re joking, but just in case, what are you doing on Saturdays next fall?”

  Honoria

  After dinner, I was upstairs in my bedroom reading my favorite biography of Marie Curie, nestled under an afghan my grandma had crocheted, on the cushioned bench next to the front window. I turned the page and heard music from outside.

  I looked out. Eli was standing on our front porch playing his electronic keyboard. Beethoven’s Pathetique sonata. I clicked the remote to turn off my Ella Fitzgerald CD. After a moment, he finished and looked up hopefully.

  I opened the window. “I thought you were grounded,” I called down.

  “I escaped to apologize,” Eli said.

  “I got your e-mails,” I told him. “Pretty sad.”

  “You don’t have to talk to me if you don’t want. I’ll just leave this between the doors.” Eli held up a thick red folder. He opened the screen door and set it down.

  I said nothing while he unplugged the electronic piano and then made a call on his cell phone. For a ride, probably. He stood there a moment, looking across our lawn toward the street. He shivered. He looked pathetic. And he was trying to apologize.

  I marked my page and went downstairs. Sometimes I’m just too nice or, maybe, just not mean enough.

  When I opened the door, the red file folder fell at my feet. I opened it as Eli entered. “Your sister’s planaria experiment!” I exclaimed. Raw data and everything. It had been the best high school project last year. The best one ever, in fact.

  “In living color,” Eli replied. “Laser copied, anyway. Daily logs and all. Everything except the actual flatworms.”

  “You’re still in trouble,” I said, “but thank you.” We needed to talk. At the very least, he was my best friend. At most, well, I was still not thrilled with him. But Eli had potential. “Why didn’t you feel you could tell me how you felt about me?” I asked, as we headed in to the library.

  “I would have,” he replied, “but the way you were mooning over Shohei—”

  “I was not,” I said, sinking into one of the brown leather chairs, “mooning over Shohei.”

  He glanced down at me. “I know. I’m sorry,” he repeated.

  “I was planning,” I told him, “to stay mad at you for at least a month, angry for another week after that, and then mildly irritated for the next three days.”

  He swallowed hard, looking a bit wary. “But?” he asked.

  “But I guess I could get it over with now,” I said. He was trying. “Just don’t ever tell anyone one of my secrets again. Ever. Or I will feed you to the fishes.”

  34

  Plans

  Elias

  It felt great to have everything fixed up with Honoria and Shohei, or at least better. Sort of. But I still had a problem. After I sneaked back in, I lay awake in bed, trying to decide which Student Court sentence to accept. Even though Dad was leaving it up to me, I knew he wouldn’t be happy with a suspension. But I also thought he’d felt that my experimental results were correct. And so did I.

  It was my choice.

  At two o’clock in the morning, I decided I didn’t like either option. The only thing to do was to change the rules. I was going to need some help to pull it off, though. I speeddialed Honoria and conferenced in Shohei.

  “Hi guys,” I began. “What are you doing first thing in the morning?”

  35

  Sentencing

  Elias

  The next morning, before classes began, Honoria and I ambushed Mr. Eden at the Memorial Fountain of the Grand Army of the Republic. He was there, as usual, with a spray bottle and pruning shears in hand, weeding or delousing or whatever he does to the plants.

  “What are you doing here?” Mr. Eden demanded.

  “My client has a proposition for you,” Honoria said. She held up a jar. “This jar holds one hundred and twelve healthy and pregnant specimens of Melanoplus devastator, commonly known as the devastating grasshopper. M. devastator is known to devour a wide selection of grasses, shrubs, and trees.” She looked around the Garden meaningfully. “They’re very hungry.”

  “Dear Lord, give me that!” Mr. Eden exclaimed, his mouth twitching as he lunged at Honoria.

  “Stay back,” she said, jumping away and
turning the lid counterclockwise once. “This isn’t the only jar. Shohei! Tim!”

  Shohei emerged from beneath the equestrian statue of James Clerk Maxwell. From the opposite end of the Garden, Tim jumped from behind the side-by-side busts of Gottfried Leibniz and Isaac Newton. Each O’Leary clutched a jar of M. devastator.

  Tim spread his black cape like bat wings.

  “I see,” Mr. Eden said. “Pray continue.”

  I held my breath. This was it.

  “My client is willing to re-create his experiment with your cooperation,” Honoria said, “to promote the progress of the horticultural arts. He is not willing to recant. Mr. Brandenburg is similarly unwilling to accept a suspension.

  “However, if you are willing to make a statement today, Mrs. Talmadge will probably withdraw those parts of Mr. Brandenburg’s sentence.”

  Mr. Eden pointed the spray bottle at Honoria. “And if I am not?”

  Another counterclockwise turn. “‘For they covered the face of the whole earth, so that the land was darkened; and they did eat every herb of the land, and all the fruit of the trees … and there remained not any green thing in the trees, or in the herbs of the field, throughout the land of Egypt.’ Exodus ten, verses four through six. King James Version.” “I see,” said Mr. Eden. “You realize, of course, that I could have you all expelled.”

  “Perhaps,” Honoria continued, hand still clutching the lid. “But that wouldn’t help your Garden or advance the cause of science.”

  Mr. Eden was silent a moment, probably trying to decide whether he would prove himself a fanatic or … less of a fanatic.

  Honoria

  Sentencing was ninth period in the Student Courtroom. This time, there was no jury and only a handful of spectators. Just Eli and me, Goliath Reed and Judge Ruth Talmadge, presiding over the sentencing of one Johann Elias Brandenburg.