Navigating Early (2 page)

Then the captain pulled out a set of sheets from the closet and swiftly made my bed with military precision. Crisp hospital corners at forty-five-degree angles and sheets tucked in tight enough to bounce a quarter on. I’d slept in a bed made by my father before, and it was a little hard to breathe.

Even after the past couple of months, it still felt strange being alone with him. He’d been gone for so long, and now all of a sudden he was back—but only sort of. He seemed far away—like he was uncomfortable being off his ship and his sea legs hadn’t adjusted to dry land.

I’d already pleaded my case for staying back home with Grandpa Henry and my mom’s bachelor brother, Uncle Max, but the decision had been made to put me close to my dad. Nobody seemed to understand that I could be standing right next to him and he would still be a million miles away.

“Do you have all your gear?” he asked.

Gear?
He made it sound like I was getting ready for boot camp. Maybe that was what he wanted. To put me someplace where I’d get whipped into shape and turned into a real navy man.

“I have everything I need,” I said quietly.

I lifted my suitcase to put it on the shelf in the closet, but it wasn’t completely empty. I pulled out the stack of my favorite monthly magazine put out by the National Geographic Society. I’d been a member since I was seven and had dozens of issues at home, but I’d grabbed only a few to bring along. I thumbed through to see which ones were in the stack. January 1940—“Whales, Porpoises, and Dolphins.” October 1941—“Daily Life in Ancient Egypt.” September 1942—“Strategic Alaska Looks Ahead.”

Then I realized that the rest of the magazines were old comic books I thought I’d left back home. Superman. Batman. Captain America. These figures, who had once been part of my daily life, now seemed as foreign to me as ancient Egypt. And I didn’t feel like getting reacquainted. Superheroes were for people who hadn’t grown up yet. I shoved the whole stack of magazines in the bottom drawer of the desk against the wall.

The last item in the suitcase was a small box. I had put tissue paper in it, but the contents still rattled. I could see
the red-and-white pieces of broken china without lifting the lid, so I quickly hid the box back in the suitcase and stuck the whole thing in the closet.

The captain suggested we get a bite to eat in the cafeteria. I said I wasn’t hungry. So we said an awkward goodbye that involved a salute and a handshake as he told me to take care of myself. I winced. He’d told me to take care of my mom when he left four years earlier. Was he giving me a reminder that I’d failed? I wondered as I watched the jeep sputter off.

I stared at my newly made bed and was reminded of the time I built a car for the annual soap box derby. It had a roomy carriage with perfectly balanced wheels for a fast, smooth ride and was decked out in shiny red paint. I knew I’d win the big race. The only problem was, I left it outside the day before and the car got waterlogged and warped, and the shiny red paint peeled off.

My father was put out that I had left it in the rain and said, “Well, son, you made your bed, now you’ll have to lie in it.”

But my mom shook her head at him and said to me, “Yes, you made your bed, but for heaven’s sakes,
don’t
just lie in it!”

I stared at her, lost in my attempt to figure out what she was getting at. My mom had a way of using expressions that were as mysterious and confusing as an upside-down map.

She folded her arms. “Jackie, if you don’t like the bed you’re in, take it apart and make it right.”

It took all night to make it right. To strip down that soap box car and rebuild it with new wood and fresh red
paint. I don’t even remember finishing it and almost fell asleep at the wheel the next day at the race. I came in second.

Standing there, looking at my crisply made bed, I took a deep breath. But just then I didn’t have the wherewithal to take it apart and make it right for
me
. So I left the room.

The dormitory was deserted. Most of the boys wouldn’t arrive until the next day. I didn’t like the way my footsteps echoed in the hallway, and I needed some fresh air. That was it. Seeing the ocean, feeling the salty spray I’d read about in books, would help get the quease out. So I took off my socks, cuffed up my pant legs, and headed down the dirt path to the shore.

Suddenly, there it was. The ocean. With its never-ending swells and lapping waves. Its heaving movement that made everything around it look like it, too, was in sympathetic motion. I took one look at the swells and bent over—and that was when I threw up.

Once I was sure the waves wouldn’t come and swallow me whole, I lifted my head but tried to keep my gaze off the moving water. I looked up the shore. It startled me to see someone, but there he was, surrounded by sand and trying to fit it in neat little bags. Stacking them to form a wall.

He didn’t say anything, so I guessed he hadn’t seen me. I turned and walked away. It might have been silly, walking away like that, but school hadn’t even started yet, and who wanted to be known as the new kid from Kansas who couldn’t hold his lunch just because he’d laid eyes on the ocean?

Besides, the sand made me think of my mom. She always
described my hair as sandy brown, and noticing the different shades of brown and taupe and even red, I could see why. I felt the tears coming, and I gave in to a moment of remembering her.

My mother was like sand. The kind that warms you on a beach when you come shivering out of the cold water. The kind that clings to your body, leaving its impression on your skin to remind you where you’ve been and where you’ve come from. The kind you keep finding in your shoes and your pockets long after you’ve left the beach.

She was also like the sand that archaeologists dig through. Layers and layers of sand that have kept dinosaur bones together for millions of years. And as hot and dusty and plain as that sand might be, those archaeologists are grateful for it, because without it to keep the bones in place, everything would scatter. Everything would fall apart.

I glanced once over my shoulder, but the boy was gone.

2
 

T
he next day was filled with boys, boxes, and bulletin boards. Suitcases, books, and pillows. And everywhere there were moms giving bosomy hugs and tear-filled kisses.

I spent most of the day in the library, wandering from shelf to shelf, breathing in the familiar smell of books and wood polish and India ink. It felt good to be closed in among the stacks, which didn’t pitch and sway. They were solid and stable. Maybe that’s how cows feel when they come into the barn after a day in the open field.

The librarian introduced herself in a quiet, librarianly manner, saying her name was Miss B. She smiled and said it was short for Bookworm. I didn’t say much, so she gave me a quick tour of the library, showing me the fiction section and resource books, and she got particularly excited at the poetry collection. When I didn’t match her level of enthusiasm for Longfellow and Hopkins, she just smiled, encouraged me to have a look around, and returned to her
card catalog. I wandered around the stacks until I found the
National Geographic
magazines. Standing in front of those bright yellow spines all lined up in numerical order, it felt, for a moment, like I had a place, a tiny spot where I belonged.

Then the door was flung open and two boys poked their heads in. Glancing around, they apparently didn’t find who or what they were looking for and left.

There had been no opportunity for introductions, but even if there had, I wasn’t sure what I would have said.
Hi, my name is Jack. I’m from Kansas and I wish I was still there
. Still, it would have been nice to have had at least a couple of names to put with those faces. There was a large trophy case on the far wall of the library.
Maybe some of those boys’ pictures will be in there
, I thought.

The case was full of trophies and plaques from years of Morton Hill Academy victories. Basketball, football, track and field. Mixed in were pictures of young men in their team uniforms, smiling with the joy of winning and standing with arms over each other’s shoulders in a show of camaraderie. I studied the faces—ripe, ruddy, youthful, as if they were faces from history. That was pretty much what they were, as the dates stretched all the way back to the late 1800s.

As I walked the length of the trophy case, the faces spanned the years, one blurring into the next. Then one stood out.

An older boy stood in a picture all his own. His hair was slicked back, and he had a strong, handsome face. Written at the bottom in white ink were the words
Morton Hill All-Team Captain, Rowing and Football, Class of 1943
. The picture rested against a jersey with the player’s name and number on the back: FISH–67. But it wasn’t the jersey or the trophy that held my attention. It was his face. His smile. He smiled as if he held life in that championship cup and he could drink from it whenever he liked. He smiled as if that victorious moment would last forever.

Then I noticed my own reflection in the glass.
My
face was different. Not just because it was younger. Not just because I wasn’t smiling. But because the past summer had taught me a lesson that, from the looks of it, the all-team captain had yet to learn: life can’t be held in a cup, and nothing lasts forever. Suddenly, I felt sorry for Number 67 and all he didn’t know.

Monday morning came like a cool Kansas rain shower on a hot, humid day. In other words, it was a relief. Because now at least I had a schedule. I knew that history came first, followed by Latin, English, and math. Science and phys ed were held in the afternoon.

I figured if I knew what was coming, maybe I’d get my bearings. That was what I needed. Bearing. At home you could walk outside and see for miles in every direction. You could always figure where you were, based on which church steeple or windmill or silo rose like a beacon out of the horizon. They were landmarks that served to keep a person rooted. Grounded. But then it struck me: to have landmarks, you had to have land. And the salt air filling my lungs reminded me that most of what surrounded me in this
place was water. Constantly moving, changing water. I started feeling queasy again.

The history teacher was a short man with stubby fingers who seemed very excited about a bunch of Greeks who all must have been from the same family—Oedipus, Perseus, Theseus. His name was Professor Donaldson. He called roll, and every kid said “Here” except for one. Early Auden.

Latin. Mr. Hildebrandt. Same roll call. Same kid absent. Early Auden.

All the way until math. Then who showed up? Early Auden. And I recognized him. It was the kid from the beach. The boy with the sandbags. He was a little fella, about four foot something. His feet dangled just above the floor when he sat at his desk.

“Good morning, gentlemen.” The math teacher greeted us as he set down his mug of steaming coffee. “My name is Professor Eric Blane,” he said as he began writing on the chalkboard. “As many of you know, this is my first year at Morton Hill, and I’m looking forward to getting acquainted with each and every one of you.”

He turned to face us, and we all stared at what he’d written on the board.

The Holy Grail

“We all know from the legend of King Arthur about Sir Galahad and his search for the Holy Grail—that sacred, mysterious, and oh-so-elusive chalice used at the Last Supper. For centuries it has been revered as a miraculous vessel and has been sought after by kings and princes, humanitarians and tyrants. There is supposedly a brotherhood of
guardians to keep it
safe
. Or, might we say, keep its mysterious allure from being evaluated in the light of modern-day knowledge and skepticism.”

Mr. Blane sat on the desk at the front of the room. “We’re not here to discuss the authenticity of the Grail, but rather the nature and merits of a quest. Why does one embark upon a quest?” Mr. Blane looked down at his seating chart and glanced around the room. “Sam Feeney?”

A pudgy kid sitting next to me squinted an eye. “Arrgh. To find buried treasure, matey.”

The other boys laughed.

“Spoken like a true pirate,” said Mr. Blane. “But yes, to search for something. It can be treasure. However, it can also be a search for something less tangible. Ever hear of a quest for happiness? Or a quest for justice?”

“Buried treasure sounds a little more exciting,” said Sam.

“Maybe. But what about a quest for the truth? Perhaps that was really Sir Galahad’s goal. To demystify the miraculous. What if he was looking for the Grail—that miraculous vessel—to show that it was just a cup?”

The boys looked at the teacher with furrowed brows. “Jeez, Mr. Blane, you sure know how to take the fun out of a good story,” said Robbie Dean Meyer, a red-haired kid I’d sat by in Latin. “And besides, isn’t this math class?”

“Precisely. So what does this have to do with math?” said Mr. Blane. “What is the holy grail of mathematics? Something that is so mysterious as to be considered by many almost miraculous. Something woven throughout the world of mathematics. A number that is nothing less than never-ending. Eternal.”