Egg-Drop Blues (5 page)

Looking at the egg carton and the scissors on the kitchen table reminded me of that day with the alien pencil; it was like looking at something a Martian left behind. All I could think about was running across the park's field and laughing
when a boy named Ray-Ray slid across the line on his knees, making two big rips in his pants. I stared at the egg cartons. I knew my original idea was floating around somewhere in my head, but I just couldn't catch it.

Jury came in and sat down. He was still grinning, still happy about the silly game.

"Jury, did I tell you what I was going to do with the egg carton?"

"Nope."

"You have no idea?"

"None."

I sat down too. We both looked at the egg carton.

"I was thinking," Jury started, "why don't we get one of those plastic eggs that Mama's pantyhose comes in, fill it up with confetti—a whole pound of which I just happen to have under my bed—and drop it from the ladder?"

"You have a whole pound of confetti?"

"Yup, a whole pound." He eased back in his chair with his hands clasped behind his head. He looked very pleased with himself, like he was the only one who thought to squirrel away valuable confetti before the coming of the worldwide confetti shortage.

"Why, Brother?"

"Stop with that 'brother' stuff. I bought the
confetti just before Ayreal left. I was going to throw it around at the going-away party. You know how I was always sarcastic with her. I was going to pretend that I was happy she was moving to California."

Ayreal was a girl who went to school with us for a few months at the first of the year. She and my brother really had a thing going. Even now he looked sad when he said her name.

"Why didn't you do it?"

"I thought about it and I figured I better not do anything that could be misinterpreted. I didn't want her to think about it later and decide that I actually was happy."

"You really did like that girl, didn't you?"

"I sat down here to talk about your stupid egg drop!"

The real Jury was back. "Okay, that sounds good. I think it's kind of what I had in mind to do with the egg carton. Maybe we're twining."

Twining is something my mother likes to talk about. It's like when we all go our separate ways at the mall and Jury and I come back with the same thing, bought at different stores. When we were little, our father would take one of us while Mama took the other to buy our Christmas gifts. Then we would meet up and switch parents and
buy a gift for that parent. At least twice we bought them the same thing.

"I'll go get the confetti, Einstein."

"Hey, I asked you not to do that."

"This is the last time I'm going to say it. I don't think you're dumb, stupid, or any of that. If you ask me, I don't even think you have a learning disability. I just think you try too hard. I am not going to stop calling you names related to intelligence because it hurts your feelings. To thy own self be true."

He went to get the plastic egg and the confetti.

I smiled. He doesn't think I have a learning disability. He said it was the last time he was going to tell me, but as best I can remember, it was the first. So when he calls me stupid he means it the same way he means it when he calls the rest of the posse members stupid. I sat back in my chair with my hands clasped behind my head.

Monday was a very strange day, even for me. It all started at first recess. The bell had rung and we were all coming back from the west field and a good game of pom-pom tackle. Tommy rounded the corner and ran smack into Mr. C., who was standing by the water fountains. Everybody started laughing because Tommy did a pratfall, like running into Mr. C. had knocked him out. Tommy can fall better than anybody I know. He's great to have on a baseball team because whenever the ball gets a little too close, Tommy grabs his arm or chest and falls and, of course, he gets to walk to first. He got real hurt a couple of months ago during a game of pom-pom tackle and, that time, it took me a few seconds to realize it wasn't just one of his pranks.

"That's enough of that, young man," Mr. C. told Tommy, which, of course, made us all laugh even harder. The group had started walking away when Mr. C. called Jury's name. Jury stepped up to him and Mr. C. nudged even closer.

"Don't think I don't know what you boys have been up to out on that west field. If I catch any of you playing pom-pom tackle between now and the Einstein Rally, I'm putting you on suspension, and suspended kids can't participate in extracurricular activities."

"Why are you telling
me?
"

We were all shocked. Jury was almost shouting, and he's not a back-talker at school—our parents wouldn't stand for that.

"I beg your pardon?" Apparently Mr. C. thought he was smarting off, too.

Much calmer, Jury said, "I'm not saying anybody was playing the game, but if somebody was it would have to be more than one person, so why are you only saying it to me?"

"I know who the leaders are."

We continued on to class, but the rest of the day everybody teased Jury, calling him "fearless leader" and bowing to him—stuff like that.

At lunch Angela and Faye got in on it. Somebody told them what had happened and they both were, in the words of Angela, "incensed." Faye wanted to do something, like start a petition or send around the word that everybody should be late to class after first recess on Tuesday.

"My mother says the reason students don't get any respect in the nineties is because they don't demand it," Faye told us.

"Yeah, but what would she say if you got kicked out of school because of a protest?" Tommy asked.

"Actually, I think she might consider it my finest moment so far."

Everybody was really impressed that Faye's mom was like that, but that wasn't going to help me and Jury if we got kicked out. I noticed Angela was quieter than usual. She likes the sound of her voice too much to ever be completely silent, but she didn't have as much to say as you'd expect. Lunch was almost over before I realized what was up with her. Mr. C. is her friend; she really likes the guy. I asked her about it on the way to class.

"That's very observant of you. I do feel torn." Angela, typically, was being dramatic. "He's always gone out of his way to be nice to me."

"Yeah, but you've known Jury longer."

"Oh, there's no contest, Judge. I want to be part of whatever action we plan."

God, I wish I could talk like Angela.

Jury didn't want anybody to "do" anything.

"We'll just have to be even more careful not to get caught playing," was all he said.

I was worried. This wasn't just about him getting kicked out of school. My grade depended on us being in that stupid rally, being in the rally depended on us staying out of trouble, and us staying at Faber depended on all of it.

"It's not just about you," I told him.

"I know that."

"Act like you know it."

"What do you want me to do?"

"We have to stop playing the game for the next two weeks," I told him.

"Why do you always have to take things to the extreme? We don't have to quit playing, we just can't get
caught.
"

"Why aren't you getting this!" I shouted.

Jury put his hand on my shoulder. "Just chill. It'll be okay."

I went on with whatever I was doing, but I thought about it the rest of the school day. I'd rather argue with Jury and know what he plans
to do than just sit back and let it happen. I don't think he has enough fear. Fear keeps you from doing stupid stuff.

The next strange thing happened when we got to the roof for egg-drop practice. I'd put the containers we made at home up there before school. Ms. Hennessey told us to do that so they wouldn't get broken during the day. We didn't have to bring eggs; the school provided them. When we got to the roof, Randall Gifford and Dan Brungardt were already up there with a few other people.

Randall ran up to Jury. "Do you still want that bet, Jenkins?" he asked.

"Yeah. Why, did you get some kind of great inspiration over the weekend?"

"I don't need great inspiration to beat you. Let's double the bet."

They shook hands.

"What was that about?" I asked.

"I bet them that we'll place higher than they will."

"How much?"

"Was five, now it's ten."

We walked over to the corner table where I had stored our stuff. The student teacher was
standing by the table and she had something in her hand, holding it like it stunk or something. As I got closer, I could see that it was the container we had made from the pantyhose egg. It was smashed in a trillion pieces.

Jury groaned from the pit of his stomach. I saw him drop his book bag and sprint toward Randall and Dan. I don't know how I knew what he was about to do; we must have been twining again. I grabbed him by the shoulders and we locked in mid-flight.

"Let me go! I'm going to kill them!"

"Don't, Brother. We'll get kicked out."

"You just stay out of it."

"I can't, you know that." There was no way I could just stand by and watch my brother fight two guys. Not to mention my mother would kill me when she found out about it. She was always telling us, "You two take care of yourselves and each other."

Miss Bailey ran over and grabbed Jury's arm. I let go of him. My father told me a story once about a fight he got in when he was a kid and one of his older brothers held his arms, trying to stop him from fighting. His brother ended up giving the other guy a chance to hit my dad with a couple of good sucker punches.

"Jury, somebody climbed up here and destroyed
all
of the containers," she said, loud enough for all of us to hear.

I looked over at Randall and Dan, then I tapped Jury on the shoulder. Randall was holding something that looked like a broken-up mudball.

"I guess they got them, too."

"I guess."

When we got home from school, there was a package for me on the porch. My mother was working mandatory overtime so it had been outside since around noon. We have one of those mailboxes that is really just a slot next to the front door. It's a good way to get your mail because you don't have to get dressed on Saturday morning when your mom tells you to go get it, but packages and sometimes magazines end up on the porch. It's not that I'd expect some hardened criminal to steal off our porch—it's not that kind of neighborhood. I just can't help but wonder if Jury's cassettes from his music club wouldn't be tempting to some kid passing by.

Maybe I'm a worrier, like my brother says.

I spotted the package first because I ran home. It's still cold out. We didn't have much of a winter as far as snow and freezing rain goes, but it's
been cold enough to see your breath. And I
hate
cold weather. Cold weather means football and football means conversations about football games. Although now I know why I have such a hard time following football games on television, it's still very confusing. One team has the ball, they do something, the other team does something else, and at the same time the announcer guys are talking about what the guy with the ball did while he was still in college. I can watch it in person, but if I have to watch it on television I have to turn the sound off.

I knew the package was from my father as soon as I saw the handwriting on it. My mother and father have penmanship that's easy to spot. My mother prints everything, and my father has big curlicue writing that I usually associate with girls. In fact, all he'd need to do is dot his Vs with a heart and it would look just like some schoolgirl sent me something.

Jury hovered like a hawk while I ripped off the grocery bag paper.

"It's a tape recorder! This is so bogus!" Fast-reading Jury read the box and was making his comments before I knew what was happening.

"Look, he sent an article." I scanned it. It was something some doctor at the University of Michigan had written about "helping the learning-disabled child." My father had underlined a part that mentioned buying the kid a tape recorder. That was as close to writing a note as he gets. He lives in Nashville, but we still see him just about every other weekend and we talk to him about three times a week.

Jury took the article from my hand. "Check this out; Daddy underlined it. It says kids who remember better by hearing should read and record their text chapters and play them back later. I guess he thinks you should do it too." We went inside.

Jury took the recorder out of my hand and took it over to the kitchen table. "This isn't fair. I've been asking for a CD player and they both keep saying, 'Why, you don't have any CD's,' and then you get this for failing a test. I wish somebody would tell them it doesn't make sense to buy any CD's if you don't have anything to play them on."

I started laughing. Then he played my laughter back for me on the machine and we both cracked up.

The next couple of days were pretty quiet. Everybody in our class was worried about the big science test on Friday. Even the brains—Tommy, Faye, and Angela—were talking about studying for it. I'd been reading a chapter or two into the recorder each night. It was fun the first night, but by Tuesday it was just another way to do something that was boring, plus Jury was complaining that he was learning more than he wanted to know because I played my chapters back at bedtime.

"There's such a thing as overlearning," he kept saying. I'm beginning to think he says stuff like that so he won't be disappointed if he doesn't do well, or as he says, "to cushion the blow." Jury cares about grades more than he lets on. I've seen the look on his face when he gets a C and he was expecting something better. The sad part
about his act is that he's the reason he gets C's. I know the only reason he got average grades last year was because he set the teacher up to believe that he was an average student. I think teachers get a mindset and then they keep giving that grade no matter what you deserve. Our fifth-grade teacher was like that; she took a lot of shortcuts. She was the first teacher who tried to separate us.

"When I was a child they always separated twins," she told our mother at back-to-school night. "I'm going to talk to the principal about getting them placed in different rooms."