Half Brother (16 page)

But the dictionary said you had to be human to be a person.

Maybe the dictionary was wrong.

Tuesday after school, Peter and I were doing a four-to-eight shift together in the backyard. Dad had compromised about the new schedule. Four evenings a week, we had Zan on our own, and the other three, students were with him and would give him his dinner and put him to bed. On Sunday no students came at all. Dad wasn’t happy about it, but Mom had insisted. This time, she’d won.

It was May and the days were pretty warm now. Zan liked to play in the sandbox for a bit before we gave him his dinner.

Peter was still fuming about the learning chair. “Why not just run some high voltage through it and call it an electric chair,” he said. “Yeah, I’d learn really well, bolted into a chair like that.”

“You won’t quit, will you?” I’d been worrying about it constantly the past couple days.

He sighed and filled another bucket of sand for Zan, signing
bucket.
“I don’t want to,” he said to me. “But that chair …”

So far, it hadn’t been a success. But Dad, and even Mom, had warned us it would be rocky at first. Zan hated being strapped in. He’d hated it on Monday, and he’d hated it earlier today. Apparently he hooted and then shrieked. He struggled. He wouldn’t sign.

Peter said, “I wonder if the whole project’s screwed up.” He looked at me carefully. “We’re pals, right? You wouldn’t rat me out to your dad.”

I shook my head.

“Yeah, I trust you. You’re a good kid. I’ve just been reading a bunch of stuff on animal testing lately. And it’s pretty awful. I mean, I used to think the space chimps were really cool. You’ve heard of them right?”

I nodded. “Ham and Enos. NASA blasted them up in rockets before humans.”

“The chimponauts,” said Peter.

“They were on the cover of
Life
magazine,” I said.

“But you know how they got those chimps?” he asked.

I shook my head.

“Well,” said Peter, “African hunters would track down mothers who had new babies. The chimps would be up in the trees and the hunters would shoot them down. The mothers would clutch their babies as they fell. Most of them died together when they hit the ground. But apparently some of the mothers tried to fall backwards so their bodies would shield the babies from the impact.”

I didn’t say anything. It was too horrible.

“Any babies that survived,” Peter went on, “the hunters tied up to a pole by their hands and feet. They’d walk them through the jungle to sell to European traders. Then they’d crate them up and ship them to the United States. I read that only one in ten babies survived the voyage. And those got to be guinea pigs for the astronauts.”

He told me about one test where they put the chimp to
sleep, glued an oxygen mask over his face and crammed him in a capsule filled with water. Then they blasted him along the ground in a rocket sled, just to see how the body would react. That chimp never woke up. And Peter said there were lots of other tests they put the chimps through before Alan Shepard first went up.

Peter shook his head. “Everyone says, ‘Oh, but isn’t it better the chimps died than the humans?’ And I know we’re all supposed to agree. But it’s not like the chimps had a
choice.
Ham and Enos didn’t have a way to say yes or no. Zan
does.
And maybe when he says
no,
we should listen. Otherwise it’s a kind of slavery.”

“Slavery?” The word seemed so extreme. “You don’t think we treat Zan well?”

“Sure, we mostly treat him well,” Peter said. “But he’s here for a reason. And it’s not because your parents wanted a chimp.”

“I know that,” I said. “But apart from the learning chair, it’s pretty good for him.”

“Better than a zoo, anyway,” said Peter. “Still, he doesn’t really have any kind of freedom. Not like he would in the wild.”

“In the wild he could get eaten or starve to death,” I pointed out. I’d heard that one from Dad, and it seemed like a pretty good argument. I didn’t know why I was suddenly using Dad’s lines, thinking from his point of view. I guess we were still a family, and I wanted it to be a happy one. It made me nervous when someone outside criticized it.

“Look,” Peter said, “I don’t know if you’re interested, but
there’s this guy coming to give a talk at the university next week. I guess you’d call him an animal rights activist. He thinks we shouldn’t be using animals in any kind of experiments.” “Even one like ours?” I said.

“Maybe. I don’t know. That’s why I’m going to hear him. You want to come?”

“Dad wouldn’t like it,” I said.

“No, your Dad thinks this guy’s a lunatic.”

“I’ll go,” I said.

“You want to come over after school?” Jennifer asked me on Thursday.

Lunch was almost over and we were standing in the quad with David and Shannon and Hugh—and Kelly Browne, who hadn’t been far from Hugh since the last dance. I guess they were technically going out now.

“Sure,” I said, trying to sound all casual. Jennifer had never invited me to her house before, and I felt a rush of excitement. “Who’s coming?”

“Not me,” said Hugh. “I’ve got rugby practice.”

“Yes, we all know you have
rugby
practice,” Jennifer said, rolling her eyes. Hugh had just been promoted to the grade nine A team. And he’d been working it into conversation quite a bit.

“You sticking around?” Hugh asked Kelly.

Her mouth turned down at the corners. “To watch you practise? It’s kind of muddy out there.”

“Nice team spirit,” said Jennifer. Kelly gave her a sour smile. “I’ve got piano,” said Shannon.

“Oh, right,” said Jennifer, like it had slipped her mind. “And Jane’s got a doctor’s appointment, right?”
Mono,
I thought hopefully.

“Oh well,” Jennifer said, with a careless shrug. She looked from Hugh to me, then brushed my hand. “Looks like it’s just us, then.”

The Godwins lived really close to the school, and I walked home with David and Jennifer.

The last two periods had passed in a blur. It was like the teachers were speaking in a variety of different languages, only some of which existed on Earth. I had no idea what we covered. All I could think was:
Jennifer has invited me over to her house.

She knew Hugh couldn’t come. She knew Jane couldn’t come. I was pretty sure she knew Shannon couldn’t come either, because Shannon always had piano lessons after school on Thursday.

So really she was inviting just me.

Her father would not be home yet. Her mother was out playing golf until six. Yes, David would be there, but he said he had a ton of homework, so maybe he’d disappear to his room to work.

We walked down the shady streets, talking about the glam
rock scene in the U.K., and Evel Knievel trying to jump his car across Snake River Canyon.

“Hasn’t he already broken every bone in his body?” Jennifer said.

“Except his neck,” I said.

“Actually, I think he broke his neck once,” said David. “This time he’s got a jet engine to help him make the jump.”

“The guy’s nuts,” I said. But if Jennifer had been waiting on the other side of Snake River Canyon, I would’ve done it.

David let us into the house. I called Mom and told her I was over at the Godwin’s and would catch the bus home later.

We hung around the kitchen a bit, getting drinks and toasting Pop-Tarts. Then we went down to the rec room. David clicked on the TV and we all slumped in a row on the chesterfield. We caught the tail end of
Happy Days,
and then
The Flintstones
came on.

David sighed and stood up. “As much as I’d like to watch cartoons with you kids,” he said, “I’ve got an essay on fascism to write.” He trudged upstairs.

We were alone. Sitting side by side on the sofa. I tried to think up lines from my logbook, but couldn’t.

“You want me to change the channel?” Jennifer asked.

“Absolutely not,” I said. The dominant male took charge. “I love
The Flintstones.”

“Really? Me too!”

“I had a crush on Betty when I was younger,” I admitted. She looked at me, lips parted in surprise. “You’re kidding.” “No. She’s a fox. I like her cave dress, too. Have you noticed she never changes it? Same one every episode.”

Jennifer wrinkled her nose. “I’d never thought of that.” “Come on,” I said, “be honest. You probably had a thing for Barney.”

She gasped in outrage. “I
never
had a thing for Barney!” “Okay, he is a bit short. How about Fred, then?” She was laughing pretty hard. “You are such a
weirdo!
Did you a have thing for Wilma too?” “Nope. Just Betty. I like brunettes.”

She was still laughing when I kissed her, but then her mouth relaxed into mine and we turned towards each other on the chesterfield. Fred Flintstone was shouting, “Yabba-dabba do!” At first she tasted like cherry Pop-Tart but as we kept kissing, I stopped noticing. I felt like some desert wanderer who’d finally reached a well. My hands grazed her cheeks, her hair. She had both hands around my neck. When my tongue touched hers, I wanted more—wanted everything about her.

She pulled back and, for the first time, I felt I could really look at her—without having to worry about being rude, or her friends noticing. The freckles across her nose made her more beautiful. Her mouth looked swollen and delicious.

“Your lip gloss is definitely smushed,” I said.

She shrugged. “Oh well.”

We talked for a bit, and then we heard David coming downstairs, already tired of fascism and wanting to watch
I Dream of Jeannie.

Next week, on Tuesday, I signed myself out of school early and took the bus to the university campus. I was worried I’d run into Dad, or even Mom, so I kept an eye out as I made my way to the Tenney Auditorium. Peter was waiting for me in the lobby and we went in to get seats.

It was a pretty upsetting talk. The guy’s name was William Eckler and he showed slides of all sorts of tests being done on animals. Mostly they were small animals like mice and rats and rabbits. He was very calm and matter-of-fact. He said a lot of the time the tests were for things like makeup, and not medicines that might cure people.

“But even if they were,” he said, “should we be torturing animals so we can heal humans? Is that fair?”

I guess I’d always assumed humans were more important than animals. We killed and ate animals all the time—unless you were vegetarian, which I wasn’t—so it seemed hypocritical to start worrying about animals’ feelings or how we treated them. I found it hard to worry too much about a rat or a mouse.

At the end of his talk, Eckler showed a movie of the inside of a medical research facility. It was called the Thurston Foundation. The movie had no sound and it was black and white. The picture was all shaky, like they’d smuggled a hidden camera inside, and filmed in a hurry.

I saw rows and rows of cages filled with all sorts of animals. The camera got in really close to one of the cages, and inside was a chimpanzee. He was little, maybe three months old, and much skinnier than Zan was at that age. It looked like some of his hair had fallen out. He was rocking back and forth really fast, his huge eyes blank.

I felt my stomach start churning, and was glad when the film ended.

“Scientists like experimenting on chimps,” said Eckler. “They’re the closest species to us on the planet, so they think if a drug works on them, it’ll work on us. That little cage you saw is called an isolette. It’s so small the animal can hardly turn around and it’s kept in strict isolation. The animals have usually been injected with some kind of virus so scientists can test a new drug or vaccine. They might not develop any symptoms, or they might get really sick. Sometimes they die. Now, that little chimp you just saw—you lock up a living creature, especially one as smart as a chimp, and it suffers not just physically, but psychologically. It was hugging and rocking itself for some kind of stimulation. Chimps are very social. They need company.”

I’d read that too. Something like: “One chimp is no chimp.”

There were some pamphlets you could take at the end, and I shoved some into my knapsack.

Peter walked with me to the bus stop. I kept thinking of that little face behind the bars of the cage.

“Zan has a way better life than that,” I said.

“He sure does,” Peter agreed.

It was strange, but the talk actually made me feel better about Zan. We were worried about strapping him into a chair—but in the lab they were locking them in boxes and poking them with needles and giving them diseases.

“That lab they showed,” I said. “Was that the kind of place Zan was born?”

Peter shook his head. “Borroway’s not a biomedical facility,” he said. “They’re Air Force. They don’t do medical tests,
not exactly. Just stuff to see how chimps will react to certain conditions.”

“Like that rocket-sled test you told me about.”

“Right. So maybe it’s not so different.”

“It was a good thing we rescued him, then,” I said.

Peter shrugged. “Well, he was taken from his own mother when he was eight days old.”

“I know that,” I said, “but if he’d stayed at the base, he might’ve ended up dead in some experiment.”

“Yep.”

“So we rescued him, really,” I said.

“He’s still a prisoner, though,” Peter said. “Zan’s just lucky his prison guards are nice.”

“I’m not one of his
prison
guards,” I said, annoyed. “He’s more like my brother.”

Peter just looked at me. “People don’t usually get paid for playing with their little brothers.”

A few weeks ago I’d told him I was getting paid for my shifts with Zan, and now I wished I hadn’t.

“Kids get paid for babysitting their little brothers and sisters,” I said, using Mom’s argument. “Anyway,” I added after a few seconds,
“you
don’t work for free.”

Peter chuckled. “Nope. I’ve gotta pay my way through school.”

“So only I shouldn’t get paid?” I said.

Peter smiled apologetically. “Hey, I’m sorry, man. I know you love him. I love him too. My head’s just full of this stuff and … I’m just thinking out loud. Forget it, okay?”

“Okay.” I couldn’t really get mad at Peter; I liked him too much, and he was always kind to me.