Patrick Griffin's Last Breakfast on Earth (13 page)

“Fifty yies ago.”

“Oh, wow,” said Patrick, his head spinning. Could it be true? Ninety-nine percent of the entire world had died? And the people who made it, these Anarchists, were still around? No wonder Bostrel had been so worked up in his speech just now.

“So you didn't have a Pandemic on Earth?” asked Kempton.

“I don't think so,” said Patrick.

“But you have the sport? What does the carrier symbolize for you, then?”

“Symbolize?” asked Patrick.

“It's symbolism, you know—the person carrying the ball is the one carrying the virus. That's why they must be stopped!”

“Oh,” said Patrick. “I think the ball's just the ball on Earth.”

“Well, you see, here on Ith, playing the sport helps make sure we'll
never forget
.”

“That makes sense.”

“Plus”—Kempton brightened—“it's
awesome
fun! Here, let's go get picked!”

They had come to the edge of the boys' echelon-six crowd, just then divvying itself up into teams. The two captains were tall, broad-chested, and—despite the heavy lipstick and purple eye shadow they wore—were obviously handsome and self-confident. Also, the only difference between them appeared to be the color of their shirts. One wore blue, the other red.

“Twins?” Patrick asked Kempton as they attached themselves to the line of still-unpicked kids.

“Yes, Breeden and Carl Luntz. Either would be the most athletic and popular boy in the class but there are two of them! Can you believe it?!”

Patrick had seen harder-to-believe things even in the past ten minutes but figured there wasn't much point saying so.

“Say,” he said, “where are all the adults?”

Now that the provost was no longer at the podium, it struck Patrick there wasn't a single coach, referee, or teacher outside with them.

“Inside doing work, of course,” said Kempton.

“But who's going to keep an eye on things?”

“What do you mean?”

“What if there's a fight or something?”

“A fight?”

“Sure, or bullying.”

“What?”

“What if somebody gets hurt?”

“Then responders will come,” said Kempton, raising his binky.

“They really let you do sports and stuff without
any
grownups around?”

“Why not?”

“Your team gets Kempton, we get Patrick Griffin,” interrupted the red-shirted twin.

“No way, Breeden,” said the blue-shirted one. “
Your
team gets Kempton.”

“Those guys,” whispered Kempton to Patrick. “They're trying to make you feel welcome.”

“Tell you what,” said Patrick, a little put off at how they were treating Kempton and realizing that here was a place where he could take advantage of this being a dream—and
his
dream at that.

“How about,” he said, “
I
get to pick which team I join?”

The two boys—and every other sixth-echelon student—looked at Patrick with surprise.

“Who's got a coin?” asked Patrick.

“A coin?” replied Kempton.

“You know—a quarter, a dime, a penny…” Patrick's voice trailed off as he absorbed the looks of bewilderment around him. A few kids unholstered and began examining their binkies.

“Don't you guys have any change?”

“Change?” asked the blue-shirted twin. “You mean, like, alter the rules?”

“Money,” said Patrick.

“Like pirates' doubloons?” asked a kid.

“He means coin money from the dark ages,” said another, looking up from his screen.

“You guys don't have money at all?” asked Patrick.

“Umm,” said the blue-shirted twin.

“No-o,” said the red-shirted twin.

“‘Money,'” said Kempton, reading from his binky, “‘is an archaic system used to measure and mete out power in many suboptimized, nontransparent social organizations.'”

“Nerd!” said somebody.

“All right,” said Patrick, realizing that this conversation was going no place fast. He stooped and plucked a blade of grass. “I've got a piece of grass and I'm going to put my hands behind my back and whoever picks the hand with it gets me on their team. And Kempton goes to the other. That's fair, right?”

Most of them seemed to agree. Patrick put his hands together behind his back and—so nobody could see—transferred the blade to his left hand, and then back to his right.

“Who gets to pick?” asked Kempton.

“It doesn't matter—you guys decide.”

“You pick, Carl,” said the red-shirted twin to the blue-shirted twin.

“Fine by me, Breeden,” said Carl.

“All right,” said Patrick. “Right or left?”

“
Your
right or left, or
his
right or left?” asked Kempton.

Patrick sighed and looked to Carl. “How about
your
right or left. Or, why don't you just
point
?”

“Don't let me down and give me Kempton, 'kay?” the jock replied with a mascaraed wink.

Somebody started chanting “Poo-ber! Poo-ber! Poo-ber!” and soon pretty much the whole crowd had joined in.

Three things became clear to Patrick in that moment. First, he might not be Kempton's biggest fan, but he didn't quite hate him, either. Second, the playgrounds of Ith were not much different from those of Earth—if he'd seen one, he'd easily seen a hundred jocks-laughing-at-wimps moments like this. And, third, if Breeden and Carl were to move to Hedgerow Heights, they'd probably become instant best friends with Neil and his idiot lacrosse-playing friends.

When the chanting and laughing had somewhat subsided, Carl reached out and tapped Patrick's right shoulder.

And then Patrick did something he'd never have done in a million years in real life: he raised his arm toward Carl and, instead of opening his fist and revealing the blade of grass it contained, he gave him a hand gesture that, had a teacher back home seen, would have earned Patrick detention. Here and now on the dreamed-up fields of the Educational Complex, however, his raised finger didn't seem to cause anything but confusion.

“Does that mean he didn't pick the grass?” asked Breeden.

Patrick felt his face flush hot.

“He seems upset,” said Carl.

“I guess he didn't want to be on your team,” said Breeden.

“I guess you didn't
not
want to be a dillhole,” said Carl to his twin brother.

“Look—Patrick Griffin's ears are turning red!” shouted a small boy, pointing. Kids began oohing and ahing, and taking videos with their binkies.

“They're like big, purple
seashells
!” said a flat-faced boy.

Patrick turned and aimed his finger at him.

“You really don't know what this means?”

“‘You're number one'?” guessed the boy.

“No,” said Patrick.

“Does it mean ‘no grass'?” asked Carl.

“No, it doesn't mean ‘no grass,' Jock-o.”

“What's ‘jock-o' mean?” asked Kempton.

“Forget it,” said Patrick, opening his fist to reveal the grass. “Let's just play.”

“In that case, your team is up,” said Kempton, gesturing for Patrick to follow Carl and the other boys onto the field.

“Here,” said Patrick, starting to undo his binky belt, “where do we put these?”

“What are you
doing
?” asked Kempton.

“You wear these even when you play kill the carrier?”

“Why would you take it off?”

Patrick guessed binkies must be more rugged than the cell phones he knew from Earth.

It seemed like a good theory at the time.

 

CHAPTER 22

Crackin' Up

Patrick's father and older brother, Neil, were on their way back from the Tool Town Superstore in Paramus where an investigation of hose gaskets had been cut short by a call from Mrs. Griffin. Mr. Griffin wasn't saying what was going on beyond “Your brother's done something stupid,” but that was good enough for Neil. Patrick
never
got in trouble, so between that and the fact that they'd only had to spend five minutes inside that monumentally boring hardware megastore, the morning could have been going a lot worse.

But while the prospect of some justice coming down on his little brother was pretty cool, what he'd just heard on the radio almost made him forget the entire situation: the news dude had just said the first interesting thing in his entire droning, epically boring life.

Neil reached for the volume knob so he could better hear over the squeaky wipers.

“What do you think you're doing, Neil?”

“Shhh!
Architeuthis
, Dad,
Architeuthis
!”

“What?”

“
Architeuthis
,” repeated Neil impatiently, “the giant squid, Dad! Shhh!”

Scientists from Branledore University have rescued a juvenile
Architeuthis sanctipauli
, the legendary giant squid, from a fishing net near the Comoros Islands. The creature was alive and has been placed in a high-pressure tank aboard the research vessel
Christy Jenkins
. Mission leaders hope to transport the cephalopod—the first giant squid successfully kept alive in captivity—back to a permanent facility in Corpus Christi, Texas, for study and public display.

The largest invertebrate creatures on the planet, giant squids have been known to grow more than forty feet in length. They are believed to range throughout the deeper portions of the world's major oceans. This specimen, it is reported, is just over fifteen feet in length.

And now the weekend weather: it looks as if a high—

“They're going to kill it,” said Neil, turning down the volume.

“Would you believe this joker?” asked his dad, gesturing at the tricked-out Range Rover in front of them. The big SUV had stopped just shy of the intersection. “That is known as a
yellow light
, not a
red light
!” he yelled at the windshield.

“Can I borrow your phone?” asked Neil.

“My phone, why?” said Mr. Griffin.

“I want to look up about this squid.”

“Not right now, Neil,” replied his father, sucking air through his lower teeth like he did whenever he was feeling impatient.

“The pressure only matters somewhat—it has more to do with the environment,” said Neil. “And there's no way they're going to get that right in an
aquarium
.”

“So what's the big deal with this squid, kiddo?”

“It's a
giant
squid, Dad.”

“Ah,” said Mr. Griffin, drumming his thumbs on the steering wheel and glancing over at his son. “Okay, so how giant is giant?”

“Well, this one's a juvenile so it's not humongous. They said fifteen feet, and that's got to mean including the tentacles so, really, its body's probably just five or six feet long.”

“That's still pretty decent, I guess,” said Mr. Griffin, pausing to make his leaking-bicycle-tire noise again. “How big do the grownups get?”

“With tentacles extended, probably more than fifty feet.”

“That's a lotta calamari!”

“Might as well be,” said Neil, frowning. “Those idiots are going to kill it.”

“That's too bad, buddy,” said his father, his attention migrating back out the windshield.

“Can I go to Texas to see it?” asked Neil.

“Sure, whatever you want,” said his father,
really
not paying attention to his eldest son now as he stared up at the light, trying to see if it had turned yellow for the cross street. “If this bobo doesn't get moving, I'm going to lay so much horn on him he's going to think he's been stomped by a moose.”

“Antlers, Dad.”

“What?”

“A moose has antlers; a bull has horns.”

“Right,” said his dad. “Stomped by a
bull
.”

“Anyhow, it's probably not worth bothering,” said Neil. “I bet they don't keep it alive more than a week.”

Neil sat back and tried to calculate his odds of being able to swipe the phone from its cradle without his dad noticing.

The light changed and the Range Rover's left signal began to blink.

“Are you turning?!” yelled Neil's dad. “You conspicuously consumptive piece of nouveau riche, resource-hogging, impractical, humanity-hating soulless yuppie garbage!?”

The car behind began to honk.

“You have got to be kidding me,” said Mr. Griffin, looking in the mirror. “A freaking Prius? Honking at me? Do you not see the mountain of waste ahead of us, my green little self-righteous, tailgating friend!?”

“Chill, Dad,” said Neil.