I Kill the Mockingbird (2 page)

“Fries would be—” Mr. Nowak stopped. He stepped back. He put a hand on his chest. “Good.” He took a breath. “Fine.” He looked around the cafeteria. “Wonderful.”

He sounded almost wistful, which is when I knew something was wrong because St. Brigid’s fries are good, but they do not inspire wist.

“Mr. Nowak?” I asked. “Are you okay?”

His face was bright red. His breathing sounded suddenly difficult.
For some reason, he turned toward a shelf filled with a whole bunch of pre-wrapped sandwiches. Most of them were egg salad. “Lucy,” he said, “I’ve been teaching for a lot of years, and let me tell you something.” He tried to take a deep breath. “You’ve got to enjoy every sandwich.”

“Mr. Nowak,” I said, “I don’t like eggs.”

I wish I had responded with something a little more meaningful, but at
least it made him laugh. He leaned against the cafeteria wall. “Don’t be afraid, Lucy.”

I still didn’t understand what was happening. “Afraid of what?”

“Anything. Everything. Be brave.” He took a cell phone out of his pocket. “And now I’m going to call 911.”

I felt my pulse began to race. “What are you talking about?”

He stared at his phone and then laughed again. “This is going to sound crazy,
but I think I forgot the number for 911.”

“It’s nine—”

Before I finished speaking, a massive heart attack dropped him to the floor. He went down like a boxer on the wrong end of a knock-out punch. “Help!” I shouted. From there, I remember ambulances and stretchers and sirens in our school. None of it mattered. Fat Bob was dead.

Miss Caridas arrived not long after that. She is young and pretty.
She graduated from college at the end of last May. Sometimes she doesn’t seem much older than us, but she is much stricter than Mr. Nowak ever was. I think she thinks that she has to be. Now she takes a neon-orange yardstick from the ledge and taps it against the board. “You will choose at least four titles from your summer reading list to enjoy once at your leisure, and then you will review them
again before ninth grade begins. Each work contains its own symbolic vocabulary that … blah, blah, blah…”

I stare at the space above Miss Caridas’s head that used to say W.W.F.B.D?

WHAT WOULD FAT BOB DO?

Mr. Nowak definitely would
not
have served up a long list of summer reading options. “
To Kill a Mockingbird
is the only book I will assign over your next summer vacation,” he told us back in
September. “By then you’ll be good enough readers to appreciate it.”

I remember thinking,
I’m already a good reader
.

“You might be thinking that you’re already a good reader,” Mr. Nowak said.

More than a couple of us shifted in our seats.

“It’s not enough to know what all the words mean,” he continued. “A good reader starts to see what an entire book is trying to say. And then a good reader
will have something to say in return. If you’re reading well,” he told us, “you’re having a conversation.”

I raised my hand. “A conversation with who?”

“With the characters in the book,” said Mr. Nowak. “With the author. With friends and fellow readers. A book connects you to the universe like a cell phone connects you to the Internet.” He tapped on the side of his head. “But it only works if
your battery’s not dead.”

That made us laugh. Mr. Nowak liked to make us laugh. He told us stories about his life before he became a teacher. He actually had a short career in the Canadian Football League. After that, he had some success as a professional wrestler. “In the high stakes world of professional wrestling,” Mr. Nowak told us, “Fat Bob was six feet eleven inches tall. He weighed four
thousand pounds. He was feared on seven continents, and he was a three-time International Smackdown Champion of the Universe. Several nations classified Fat Bob’s left hand as a lethal weapon.”

“Is any of that true?” we asked him.

“Every word,” he promised.

“You don’t really weigh four thousand pounds,” we told him.

“Catholic school does not require my full fighting weight,” he explained.

“You’re not six feet eleven inches tall.”

He shrugged. “Old age makes you shrink.”

When he died he still needed a casket that was as long as a minivan and as big across as two double-wide refrigerators. On the day of the funeral, the huge box rested on a set of broad blue straps stretched across an aluminum frame over an open grave. Father Wrigley, our pastor at St. Brigid’s, led us through final
prayers. A dark-suited funeral director approached the coffin and stepped on a small lever in the grass. Slowly, Mr. Nowak lowered into the ground. As the box descended, Father Wrigley said, “This day is not just an ending. It is—”

The priest was interrupted by a loud
SPROING!

Then there was a
SNAP!
And a
PING!
And a
WHIRRRRR!

The straps supporting the coffin started to unwind like a fishing
line hooked into Moby Dick. Fat Bob, who’d been going down about an inch a minute, accelerated into the pit with all the force that gravity can muster on an almost four-thousand-pound man. In case you’re wondering, that’s a lot of force.

“Sweet Jesus,” said the funeral director.

The casket roared into the ground like a fighter plane crashing out of the sky. The box disappeared from view, but
the straps buzzed and whined until a muffled
BOOM!
brought everything to a halt. There was a cloud of dust. I was dimly aware of shouts and chaos. A woman standing near Father Wrigley stumbled back in a faint.

Our whole class moved forward to stare into the grave. Shiny pieces of metallic blue casket lay scattered below. All four sides of the coffin had burst apart. It looked as if a Lincoln
Continental had exploded down there.

“Oh my,” said Father Wrigley.

Dad stood as open-mouthed and shocked as the rest of us. Standing in a cemetery beneath a bright blue autumn sky was the last thing my father or I wanted to be doing that day. Nobody but Michael and Elena knew, but my mother had just entered the hospital to start getting filled with cancer drugs and radiation treatments.

Timing
, Mom says when she’s shooting wedding photos,
is everything
. Standing over Mr. Nowak’s open grave, it struck me that the rule might also apply to funerals. I wouldn’t be surprised if it comes up in other situations too.

“Mr. Jordan?” one of the Clooney twins said to my dad. “What should we do?”

My father looked down at our big dead teacher. Dad studied the bent and broken casket. Finally, he
turned to the Clooney boy. “What Would Fat Bob Do?”

It wasn’t really a question. It was more like a challenge or even a dare. And I knew exactly how to respond.

Don’t be afraid! Be brave! Enjoy every sandwich!

But I could not speak. I stared into the grave and said nothing.

Now, the last bell of the school year interrupts my thoughts. Suddenly, my classmates are wide awake. In fact, we are
all on our feet and moving toward the door. “Have fun this summer!” Miss Caridas calls after us. “Be safe! Don’t forget to read!”

There’s excitement and yelling and laughter as we exit the classroom. There is also some mumbling and complaints.

“Do you think she gave us enough to read?”

“Are there movie versions of these books?”

“School is over. I’m not doing homework.”

I’m swept up in a crowd
of kids heading toward the doors. “Mr. Nowak said that
To Kill a Mockingbird
was pretty good,” I remind my classmates.

“I’m spending my summer at the beach,” a boy replies. “If you want to spend it at the library, go ahead.”

I stop walking and the crowd flows past. “You know what,” I say. “Maybe I will.”

3

Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia

On the first day of summer vacation, my mother stands with her hands on her hips staring across our backyard at Elena and me. “Honey,” Mom calls to Elena, “the Virgin Mary’s head should not look like a portobello mushroom.”

Elena grins. “Sorry, Mrs. Jordan.”

Mom crosses the yard, grabs the blue bedsheet wrapped around Elena’s head, and gives the
fabric a tug. Somehow the adjustment makes my friend look a lot more biblical. “Much better,” Mom says, then returns to her camera.

Every year, right after school lets out, Mom sets up a life-size birth-of-Jesus scene beneath the pine trees in our backyard. She uses it to create photos that she’ll sell for church calendars and Christmas cards. Last year, Michael, Elena, and I posed as shepherds.
The year before that we were the Three Wise Men. This year it’s just Elena and me. I’m dressed as Joseph, and Elena is pretending to be Mary.

“Lucy,” Mom asks me, “why does Joseph look like somebody just died?”

Beneath my Joseph costume—a tattered wool blanket, a gray thrift-store wig, and a fake beard taped to my face—I am a sweaty mess. “Joseph is about to pass out.”

Mom stares at me through
her camera lens. “You can blame Michael for that.”

Michael is supposed to be the one wearing the Joseph get-up, but he’s playing baseball today. In fact, he’s supposed to have two games this morning. Dad says that Michael is good enough to play in college. Maybe he’ll even be in the pros one day. I just wish he was here with us now. It’s tradition. On the other hand, Mom would have kept Elena
in the Mary outfit, Michael would have played Joseph, and I would have had to pose as a camel or a cow or something equally attractive. “Were there giraffes in Bethlehem?” I wonder out loud.

“I’ve been thinking about that, too,” says Elena.

“You have?”

She rolls her eyes. “No. But there is something I’ve been meaning to ask you.”

“What is it?”

“Michael likes you.”

I feel as if the star of
Bethlehem has just fallen out of the tree branch above us and knocked me in the head. “You know,” I say, “a question is supposed to have a question mark in it.”

“I think you like him, too.”

“We’re friends.”

“You know what I mean.”

I glance down at Elena. “Do you even know what a question is?”

Mom leans away from her camera. “Tilt your heads up,” she tells us. “And pull your shoulders back.”
She glances at a few bright rays of sunlight beaming through the trees. “Those are going to give me some angle of incidence issues,” she mutters.

“You’re speaking math again,” I call out, but she ignores me. Her arms still look like twigs, and her skin is the color of vanilla ice cream. I don’t think she should be out in the sun yet, but it’s not like I can tell her what to do.

“So?” says Elena.

“So what?”

“So what are you going to do?”

I take a deep breath to try to slow down my pulse rate. “I’m going to try to avoid having heatstroke.”

“I’m talking about Michael.”

I lift the hem of my shawl and wipe it across my face. “I’m not.”

Elena swivels her hips, reaches between her legs, and adjusts her costume. “If it makes you feel any better, this Virgin thing isn’t too comfortable either.”

“What’s going on?” Mom calls from the other side of the yard.

I rub a drop of sweat off my nose. “The Blessed Virgin has her shorts in a twist.”

“I need the two of you to stand still.”

Elena and I get back into our Joseph and Mary poses. “But seriously,” she whispers to me. “What are you going to do?”

“Why do I have to do anything?”

“You don’t.”

“That’s right.”

“But you should.”

“Like
what?”

Elena throws her hands up. “I’m the Virgin Mary! How am I supposed to know?”

“Now what?” shouts Mom.

“Nothing!” says Elena.

“Sorry!” I say.

“Can we get serious?” asks Mom.

“Okay.” Elena sticks a somber drama club expression on her face. “I am serious.”

“You look terrified,” I mutter.

She nods toward a plastic baby doll that Mom’s placed on a bale of hay. “I am portraying a teenage
girl with a baby here. Terrified is the appropriate emotion.”

“I need you to look like you’re filled with wonder,” Mom calls to us.

Elena considers the instruction then turns to inspect the plywood shed and the stuffed farm animals propped around us. “If I am the Mother of God, then I
wonder
why I just gave birth in a barn.” She turns to me. “Joe, you couldn’t do a little better with the accommodations?”

“You fell for the first angel that came along,” I say. “This is what you get.”

Elena gazes up at the sky and sighs. “He looked like Johnny Depp, and he promised he’d show me heaven.”

A loud laugh interrupts us. It’s my father standing on the back porch.

“Hey, Mr. Jordan!” calls Elena.

Dad waves. He has a coffee cup in one hand and a newspaper in the other. Despite his black-rimmed glasses
and the flecks of gray hair, Dad carries himself like the all-star athlete he used to be. He can still grab a glove, a stick, or a racquet and give just about anybody in West Glover a run for the money. Dad glances at Mom and gives her a quick once-over. “How are you feeling?” he asks her.

Mom stands up straight. She runs a hand through her hair. “Fine.”

Mom’s regained a lot of strength, but
she’s not back to her old self yet. I want so badly for her to be well. Also, a guarantee that there will be no cancer in her future would be nice. Actually, I want to turn back time and stop her from getting sick at all. Since that’s not possible, maybe I could grab a gigantic megaphone and shout at God, the world, and everybody, “HOW DID YOU LET THIS HAPPEN?”

“Girls,” Dad calls to us, “can
we get this done?”

Elena pumps her hand in the air and shouts as if she is running for president. “Yes, we can!”

Mom rubs her chin and smiles a little. “Elena,” she says, “it’s a good thing you’re cute.”

The Virgin Mary squeals. “I’m cuuuuuuuuute!”

Mom leans back toward the camera. I adjust my blanket. Elena fixes her sheet. From there, we settle down and do our best to look serious or wonderstruck
or whatever. It must be working because Mom gets all the photos she needs in less than fifteen minutes.