Small Steps

by Louis Sachar

  Armpit told him about the mountain laurel.

  His boss smiled, then turned to X-Ray. “See, that’s why I’m giving him a raise and a promotion. He’s got more than a strong back. He’s got a brain, too.”

  The meeting had been a success. Jack Dunlevy told Armpit he got the contract to landscape the performing arts center. He was going to have to hire a whole bunch of new people. And he wasn’t kidding about the raise and promotion. “You’ll have your own crew. We start this weekend.”

  He turned back to X-Ray. “So what happened to you? Was it those guys?”

  “I’m okay.”

  “You wouldn’t like a job, would you? Six-fifty an hour?”

  “Sounds good,” X-Ray said, much to Armpit’s surprise. “But I want to be up-front with you straight off. I’ve got a record.”

  Jack Dunlevy considered a moment. “You at Green Lake too?” he asked.

  “Yes, sir. That’s where I met Theodore.”

  Armpit almost laughed. It sounded strange to hear X-Ray call him by his real name.

  “In that case I’ll make it seven dollars an hour,” said Armpit’s boss. “You guys are the fastest diggers.”

  27

  Armpit’s economics teacher once told the class about a donkey standing exactly halfway between two identical haystacks. Since it had no reason to choose one haystack over the other, it just stayed in the middle until it died of hunger.

  Everyone in the class argued that a donkey wouldn’t really do that, but that wasn’t the point. Actually, Armpit couldn’t remember what the point was. Like a lot of what he learned in economics, it didn’t make sense in the real world.

  But the image of that donkey remained in his head all year. He couldn’t get rid of it. Its long ears drooped and its head hung low as it became thinner and thinner. He wanted to scream at it. “Just pick one and go eat!”

  Now he was beginning to understand what it felt like to be that donkey.

  He didn’t study for his economics test. He didn’t call Felix. He didn’t tell his parents about Kaira DeLeon inviting him to San Francisco. He didn’t tell his boss that he couldn’t work this weekend.

  Armpit figured that Felix would probably sell the letter on eBay. He’d heard about a piece of gum chewed by Madonna going for six thousand dollars.

  Just what Kaira wanted—her personal letter read by millions of people over the Internet. But if he didn’t sell Felix the letter, then X-Ray would go to jail. Maybe he would too. If he went to San Francisco he’d fail economics.

  And so he remained, paralyzed by indecision, a donkey between two haystacks.

  28

  He lay awake all Thursday night, but when he got out of bed Friday morning he had a plan. It didn’t solve all his problems, but at least he’d come to a decision. He realized he couldn’t do everything. He couldn’t please everybody.

  He called Felix, then went to school and took his speech final. It was ridiculously easy, as he knew it would be, with only multiple choice and true/false questions.

  He didn’t go to economics. There was no point. He hadn’t read the last three chapters.

  His feeling of regret was so strong that he actually felt pain walking away from the school building, but he’d made a decision and he knew he had to stick to it. He felt bad about letting Jack Dunlevy down too. Other people complained about their bosses, but Jack had been more than fair with him.

  But when someone like Kaira DeLeon invited you to San Francisco, how could you not go? He could hear her voice singing in his head.

  Got no rearview mirror

  And none on either side.

  Ain’t no lookin’ back, babe,

  When I take you for a ride!

  Who knew, he might never have to work again. Whether or not he graduated from high school wouldn’t mean a whole heck of a lot.

  A horn honked. He turned as the car made a sudden U-turn, then came right at him. It stopped against the curb, with its back end sticking out at a forty-five-degree angle.

  Felix and Moses came out from either side.

  “I want the letter now,” said Felix.

  “I told you Monday.”

  “I know what you told me. I want it today. I don’t appreciate being strung along.”

  “I’m not stringing you along. Look, it’s like you said. You talk to the police, everybody loses. You wait till Monday, everybody wins.”

  Moses’s fist slammed against the side of Armpit’s head, spinning him backward.

  Armpit managed to keep from falling. He raised his hands with his palms out. “Just wait.”

  Moses didn’t want to wait. He came at Armpit again, but this time Armpit saw him coming. Armpit ducked under the swinging fist, then charged like a bull headfirst into him.

  Moses’s cowboy hat flew off as he fell back against Felix’s car, cracking a headlight.

  He was lucky it was the headlight and not his head.

  Moses got back to his feet, rubbed his hands together, and smiled at Armpit.

  Armpit readied himself.

  Moses took one step toward him, faked with his right, then slammed his left fist into Armpit’s gut.

  Armpit doubled over but fended off the next blow, and the two of them fell to the ground and rolled into the gutter, fists flying as they traded punches. Armpit took several blows to the head, but Moses’s punches only got weaker, while his own seemed to gain power.

  A horn sounded from the street, and Armpit looked up to see a long white limousine stopped in the middle of the road. “I called the police!” the driver shouted, pointing to his cell phone.

  Armpit rose to his feet. He took a couple of steps backward as he watched the limo drive down the street and turn the corner.

  “Just give me till Monday,” he said. “You’ll get the letter.”

  Moses pulled himself to his feet using the side mirror for support.

  The cowboy hat lay on the ground, white with a brown band. Armpit, remembering X-Ray’s glasses, stepped on it.

  He walked the rest of the way home without once looking back over his shoulder.

  The white limo was now parked in front of his house. The driver stood beside it, but when he saw Armpit, he got back inside and locked the doors.

  Armpit knocked on the window.

  The driver showed him the cell phone and started pushing the buttons.

  “It’s me! Theodore Johnson. I’m the guy you’re here for. Just let me get my stuff.”

  He hurried into the house, unsure if the driver would still be there when he returned. When he saw himself in the mirror he was even more doubtful. He looked like a wild man. Sweat and blood dripped from his face onto his torn clothes. Even he would cross to the other side of the street if he saw himself coming.

  There was no time to shower. He took off his shirt and splashed his face and upper body with cold water, then sprayed himself with Sploosh. A knuckle on his right hand was bleeding, so he put a Band-Aid on it.

  He put on a clean shirt and put three others in his backpack, along with a pair of long pants and some socks and underwear.

  In the bottom of his sock drawer was Kaira’s letter and the money from the ticket sales, almost a thousand dollars. He took it all, including the letter.

  He went into the kitchen, and, looking out the window, he was a little surprised to see the limo still parked out front. He wrote a note on the pad next to the telephone.

  Dear Mom and Dad,

  I won’t be back until Sunday night. It’s just something I got to do. Don’t worry.

  T

  He didn’t know what else he could say. He realized he should call Jack Dunlevy, but there wasn’t time and he didn’t know what he’d say to him, either. He just had to hope that X-Ray would cover for him. He grabbed his backpack and went outside.

  The limousine driver came around and opened the door for him. “Welcome, Mr. Johnson,” he said. “Sorry I didn’t realize who you were before.”

  “I’m just glad you’re still he
re,” Armpit said, settling into the backseat.

  “There’s water and a newspaper,” the driver pointed out.

  “Thanks.”

  The Austin American Statesman lay on the seat next to him, and there were two bottles of water in side cup holders. Armpit finished the first bottle before the car made it onto the highway.

  In the panel above him were the radio and temperature controls. Armpit studied the knobs, then turned the air conditioner to MAX.

  “I’ve got an envelope for you with your travel documents,” the driver told him. “Apparently your fax machine wasn’t working.”

  Armpit smiled.

  Kaira’s voice came over the radio.

  A sad circus clown who has hopes to inspire

  The love of the long-haired, blue-spangled trapeze highflyer,

  Kicks off his floppy shoes and changes attire,

  Just like Clark Kent, or Tobey Maguire,

  And goes up the circus ladder, higher and higher,

  ’Cause a clown is someone she could never admire,

  But there ain’t no net beneath the high wire.

  Nearing the top, he starts to perspire.

  He’s climbing out of the frying pan . . .

  And into the fire!

  29

  There was a long line at the ticket counter, but Armpit breezed right past it and went to the one for first-class passengers, where there was almost no wait. The ticket agent called him Mr. Johnson.

  He went through security without being searched, which surprised him because they stopped a middle-aged bald guy with glasses. Even Armpit knew he looked more dangerous than that guy did.

  A couple of hours later he was flying over the Rocky Mountains and eating a caramel sundae. The man beside him lived in San Francisco.

  “You ever been in an earthquake?” Armpit asked.

  “Lots of times. Nothing to worry about. You just duck under a desk or stand in a doorway until the shaking stops.”

  Armpit had an image of himself cowering under a desk with plaster and bricks crashing around him, and big gaps in the floor opening on all sides.

  The plane landed ten minutes early, at exactly one o’clock Pacific daylight time. Armpit took the escalator down to the baggage claim, where he spotted a man holding a sign with THEODORE JOHNSON on it. The man had a baggage cart, but Armpit told him that all he had was his backpack, which he carried himself to the limo.

  It was hot and sunny at the airport, although nothing like the oppressive heat of Texas, but when he arrived at the Wellington Arms Hotel in downtown San Francisco twenty-five minutes later, fog had filled the air and the temperature was downright cold. It was hard to believe this was the middle of July. He wished he’d brought a jacket.

  Ginny will never believe it, he thought as he took a breath of ocean air. It was like the whole city was air-conditioned. There was also a freshness to the air that he didn’t get in Texas, where it seemed that the same hot and humid air stayed in one place all summer long, becoming more stale and stagnant by the minute.

  A doorman asked if he needed help with his luggage, but Armpit told him no thanks, showing that his backpack was all he had.

  When he walked through the revolving door, it seemed like he had stepped into a palace. Once again he thought of Ginny. He wished she could see this. “Grand” and “spectacular.” Those were the words he’d use when telling her about it. All around were giant chandeliers and ornate mirrors. “Ornate.” That was another word he’d use.

  A thin, attractive Asian woman wearing a blue pantsuit approached him. “Mr. Johnson?”

  “Yeah, that’s me.” She was the fourth person to call him Mr. Johnson that day.

  “It’s a pleasure to have you with us. I’m Nancy Young.”

  He shook her hand. A brass name tag attached to her blazer had her name and the words VIP GUEST RELATIONS.

  “Let me know if there’s anything you need.” She gave him an envelope with the keys to his room and minibar. “You’re on the twenty-first floor. Everything’s already been taken care of. Do you need a bellman?”

  “No, I just have my backpack is all.”

  She explained that he was on a restricted floor and would need to use his room key in the elevator. “Would you like me to show you how that works?”

  “No, that’s all right.” He thought about asking her what he should do in case of an earthquake but didn’t want to sound like a wimp. The twenty-first floor was pretty high up. It didn’t seem like ducking under a desk would do much good if the whole building fell over.

  He looked around for the elevators, then started off in the wrong direction, but Nancy Young stopped him. “The elevators are right over there,” she said.

  Now that he saw them, he wondered how he had missed them in the first place. They were right out in the open. “Sorry, I’ve never been in this hotel before.”

  “Yes, it can be quite confusing,” she said without even a hint of sarcasm in her voice.

  She walked with him to the elevator, then showed him how to insert his room key card into the slot to gain access to the twenty-first floor.

  “Enjoy your stay.”

  His hotel room turned out to be a two-room suite. A fruit and cheese plate had been left for him on a coffee table in his sitting area, compliments of the hotel. He cut off a slice of very hard cheese and put it on a cracker. It tasted bitter, but he figured it was supposed to taste that way. He popped a couple of red grapes into his mouth.

  There were two television sets, one in each room, and he counted five telephones: two in each room and one in the bathroom. “Now, that’s class,” he said aloud when he saw the one in the bathroom, easily reachable from the toilet.

  He was taking a shower, his hair full of jasmine-avocado shampoo, when the phone rang. No problem. He opened the shower door and reached for the phone.

  “Hello.”

  “You’re here! Why didn’t you call me?”

  “I’m just getting cleaned up.”

  “Well, hurry. I’ve been waiting all day! God, I can’t believe you’re really here. I can’t wait to see you. I’m going out of my mind!”

  “Me too.”

  “Call me as soon as you’re ready. I’m in room 2122. My name’s Lisa Simpson.”

  He rinsed the soap out of his hair, brushed his teeth, and used the complimentary mouthwash to get rid of the cheese taste. He put on long pants for the first time in nearly two months, then called Lisa Simpson, who said she’d meet him in the lobby.

  He was on his way to the elevator when Kaira’s business manager stopped him. “Welcome, you must be Theodore.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Armpit had seen him twice before: first at the concert, then in the lobby of the Four Seasons.

  “Jerome Paisley, Kaira’s father.” He extended his hand.

  Armpit remembered Kaira saying something about him being married to her mother, but she never referred to him as her father. He shook the man’s hand.

  “Your flight okay?”

  “Yeah, it was great,” Armpit said. “Thanks. I really appreciate you bringing me out here and everything.”

  The man smiled. “Happy to do it. If there’s anything you need, you just let me know.”

  “I’m fine. Everything’s really great. Thanks.”

  “You like baseball?”

  The question caught Armpit by surprise. “I guess.”

  “C’mon, I want to show you something.”

  Armpit had no choice then but to go with Kaira’s manager. He didn’t want to be rude.

  Jerome Paisley opened the door to his hotel room. “I’ll just open the door. You walk right in,” he said.

  It was a strange thing to say, and he said it in a strange way, but Armpit went inside.

  The suite was identical to Armpit’s. Kaira’s stepfather slid open a closet door and pulled out a baseball bat, holding it by fat end. “Take a look at this baby!”

  Armpit took the bat. “Cool.” He didn’t know
what else to say.

  “See the initials, B.B.?”

  The letters were above the label.

  “Barry Bonds,” said Kaira’s father. “Go on, take a few swings.”

  “That’s okay,” said Armpit.

  “Go on, you won’t break it.”

  Armpit took the bat, made sure he had room, then took a half swing. He felt silly.

  “Feels pretty good, doesn’t it?” said Jerome Paisley. “You could hit a lot of home runs with that baby.”

  Armpit didn’t know all that much about baseball, but he was pretty sure that it wasn’t the bat that hit the home runs, but the person who swung it.

  “You know, I used to play pro ball,” Kaira’s manager told him. “Just one season in the big leagues before an injury ended my career.”

  One season was an exaggeration. Jerome Paisley played in the major leagues for just eighteen days in September, when teams are allowed to expand their rosters. The so-called injury was more mental than physical. After having been hit in the face by a pitch, he couldn’t swing a bat without closing his eyes.

  Armpit set the bat down.

  “But it all worked out in the end, didn’t it? Look at me now. Making more money than most ballplayers. And how long does a ballplayer’s career last? Ten years if he’s lucky. I’m a lot better off than they are, am I not?”

  It took a second before Armpit realized that Jerome Paisley was expecting an answer. “Yes, sir, you’re doing great,” he said. “Look, I got to go. I’m supposed to meet Kaira downstairs.”

  “Hey, have fun. Don’t mean to hold you up.”

  “Thanks. Thanks for showing me the bat.” He backed out of the suite, then hurried down the hall.

  Well, that was weird, he thought as he rode the elevator down to the lobby.

  Kaira was waiting just outside the elevator. “It’s not nice to keep a girl waiting,” she said. She was all in flannel and denim, like a lumberjack.

  Fred was standing a few steps away from her, but this time Armpit didn’t let that stop him. He went right to Kaira, grabbed her, and kissed her on the lips.

  She returned the kiss, letting it linger for several seconds. Then they smiled at each other.