Navigating Early (6 page)

I wish I had a better boat
.

Then I heard a noise and drew back my hand. There was a rustling sound in the corner. I peeked around another boat, and there was Early Auden. What
was
he? Some kind
of second-rate genie? His back was to me, but he spoke as if he were looking at me.

“You row crooked.” He reached into a canister of wax and pulled out a glob. “You’re left-handed, and you pull harder on that side. That makes you go crooked.”

“Is that so?” I asked, the spell of the boathouse broken. I went to look for the
Sweetie Pie
’s stall or rack or whatever fancy name they might call it, since they had a different word for everything. It would probably be in an out-of-the-way spot that wouldn’t be a source of embarrassment to the other boats. Sure enough, there was an open rack next to the workbench where Early Auden was kneading some honey into the wax.

“Your body is stiff and your shoulders are too tight. You’re working against the boat instead of with it.”

“Uh-huh.” I hoisted one end of the
Sweetie Pie
before Early helped me with the other end. He wasn’t very strong, so it was still an ordeal to lift the boat onto its rack.

“And you slouch.”

“Great.” I slammed the boat in place. “Maybe next time you should just hop on and give me your instructions the whole way.”

“Okay,” Early answered. “But we’ll wait a few days. Tomorrow you’ll be too sore. You’ll still walk funny, but here, this will help.” He scooped dollops of the wax and vinegar and honey concoction into a jar.

“What?” I said. “No, I didn’t mean—”

“Put your arms out. Like this.” He spread my arms out to the sides in a T, then took a tape measure from a drawer and
began measuring. My arm span, height, and legs. “You’re tall. And your sculls are too short.”

He handed me a pair of shiny wooden oars with brightly painted paddles.

Right
. Sculls
equals
oars.
Got it
. But at that point I didn’t care.

“You need longer sculls so you can have a wider rowing span.”

“Look,” I said, “I appreciate it, but … I didn’t mean I really wanted … What I’m trying to say is, I don’t need your help.”

Early smiled. “That’s what
he
said.”

“What who said?”

“Pi. Remember that part I told you, when he set out on his voyage? Remember that, Jackie?”

It hit me like a wave of ice-cold water, and I found myself holding my breath. My mom was the only one who called me Jackie.

“Remember, he wanted to set out. To be the first navigator. But it wasn’t easy for him at first either.”

My jaw tightened. “Yeah, I remember. But I don’t want to hear another story about numbers right now. And my name is Jack.”

“Jack Baker. I know you. You’re from Kansas. Do they not have boats in Kansas?”

“Of course we have boats in Kansas. Only we use them to fish, not just row around in circles. Besides, the boat I got stuck with is lopsided, rickety, leaky, and ugly. And it has a stupid name. What kind of name is the
Sweetie Pie
? I’m surprised it doesn’t have a pair of red lips smacked on the side.”

I took a breath after my rant.

Then Early said, “If you don’t like it, take it apart and make it right.”

I kept my back to him. I didn’t want his help. I didn’t want his advice. What did he know, anyway? He was just an odd kid who nobody listened to.

Still, I remembered my mom’s words about the soap box derby car that I’d left out in the rain. The same words Early had used.
If you don’t like it, take it apart and make it right
.

Then I turned around, but Early was gone. Only the jar of waxy goop remained. My muscles were already starting to tighten up, but I didn’t need Early’s help, so I headed back to the dorm to get ready for class, leaving the jar in its place.

I woke up the next morning and could barely get out of bed. The muscles in my arms, shoulders, back, and legs ached as if I’d just walked the Appalachian Trail, then swum the English Channel, then gotten hit by a bus. It even hurt to open my eyes. But I did, and that’s when I saw the jar of honey-colored ointment on my desk.

I sat up and tender-footed my way across the cold tile floor and reached for the jar. Opening it would be another matter. My hands had been clenched so tight on the mismatched oars of the
Sweetie Pie
throughout my zigzag course of the day before that now they felt the way my grandpa Henry’s gnarled, arthritic hands looked like they must feel. But I made them clamp on the lid and twist.

The smell was shifty. It wafted up first as honey, then snuck up on me with a stiff vinegar-and-menthol punch. I
quickly put the lid back on to keep the odor at bay. After a painful and fairly awkward trip to the bathroom, I went back to my room and thought about whether or not to use Early’s ointment. Reasons for using it: Early said I’d still walk funny, but it would make me feel better. And the smell would keep vampires away. Reasons against: I’d stink to high heaven, and the smell would keep everyone else away.

But after the pool incident and then my latest embarrassment in trying to row the
Sweetie Pie
, I didn’t figure I’d have too many guys wanting me to join their table at lunch anyway. So I stuck my fingers in the goop jar and applied it to my sore spots, which pretty much covered my whole body. Then I put on my khaki pants and blue oxford shirt and walked out of my dorm room to brave the sniffs and snorts of the students of Morton Hill Academy.

Semper Fi
.

7
 

B
y the time I got to math class, the boys were giving me a wide berth. I slipped in the back row and took out my textbook.

After a lesson on congruent triangles, during which I struggled to keep my eyes open, Sam Feeney raised his hand. “Mr. Blane, I read an article about that professor you mentioned and his theory of pi ending. He’s presenting his theory at the Fall Mathematical Institute, in Boston. How do you think he’s going to show that pi ends?”

“Well, I’ve read quite a bit about it myself, and his theory is based on a trend that he has noticed in the most recently calculated digits of pi. Right now, we know pi to over seven hundred digits after the decimal point. But as you know, mathematicians are continuing to calculate more and more numbers.

“Professor Stanton has discovered that in the last one hundred digits of the most recent calculation of pi, the
number one no longer appears. He believes that this trend will continue and that the numbers will continue to cease to appear until the entire number pi collapses in on itself and ends.”

I looked around the room to see if everyone else was as befuddled as I was. They were.

“Imagine, if you will,” Mr. Blane continued, “a pool table. There are fifteen numbered balls on the table. Each time one of the numbered balls is sunk in a pocket, that number ceases to play a part in the game. If balls continue to be knocked into pockets, eventually there will be no numbers left, and the game ends.”

Robbie Dean’s hand went up. “And Professor Stanton can prove that numbers will continue to disappear until the whole number pi ends?”

“That remains to be seen at the Fall Math Institute.” Mr. Blane’s eyes flashed with excitement. “It might make for a great field trip, if any of you are interested. There will be mathematicians there from all over the world. It could be the equivalent of Sir Galahad discovering the Holy Grail—or, rather, discovering that the Holy Grail doesn’t exist.”

“What if he’s wrong?” I asked. “How would someone disprove Professor Stanton’s theory?” I wasn’t really all that interested in Professor Stanton’s theory and didn’t really care if he was right or not. But in my mother’s words, I was being contrary, and it felt good to challenge what everyone else was so excited about.

“That would be called a proof by contradiction. Someone would have to find one of the numbers that is supposed
to have disappeared. It would be like finding one of the missing pool balls. If it could be shown that a missing number was back in play, Professor Stanton’s theory would be contradicted and rendered invalid.”

There was a buzz around the room as boys considered the prospect. Then the bell rang.

“Class dismissed, gentlemen.”

I didn’t think Mr. Blane’s revelation would spark such discussion, but that evening in the dormitory, a few boys congregated in Sam and Robbie Dean’s room, relaxing on their Friday night. Granted, it didn’t start out as a discussion of pi, but rather as a sort of pie-eating event. Robbie Dean’s mother had sent an apple crumble pie for him to share among his friends, and there was a great deal of dispute over how big a slice each boy should get.

From the talk I overheard from my room next door, mainly through the vent that opened into both rooms, I gathered that Sam was insisting he should get a bigger piece because there was more of him to feed. Robbie Dean said his mother meant for him to share slivers, not full-fledged pieces. And Preston Townsend said that he had always been a favorite of Robbie Dean’s mother, and he was sure that she meant for him to have a healthy portion.

I sat reading a
National Geographic
magazine on Machu Picchu, trying to convince myself that I preferred having a room all to myself and that I enjoyed the quiet. But the noises from next door, the eating, the chatter, the banter, presented me with a head-on proof by contradiction that I was fooling myself. I was lonely.

“It’s too bad
this
pie isn’t never-ending,” said Preston. “I
wonder what Professor What’s-His-Name would have to say about that. The one who believes that pi ends. Stanford? Sanbridge?”

That’s when I was called in.

“Hey, Baker,” Sam called. “Put your
National Geographic
down and come here.”

I shut my magazine and shoved it under my pillow, wondering how he knew what I was reading. It was true that most of my free time lately had been spent with my nose in a
National Geographic
, so it was a pretty safe guess. I poked my head in next door, trying to look casual and disinterested.

“Douglas Stanton,” I said, giving away the fact that I’d been listening. Glancing around, I saw that the room was identical to mine—two beds, two closets, a sink, and a desk. But their bedspreads were red, there were pictures on the wall, and—I breathed in deeply—it smelled of apple crumble pie.

“Yeah, well, if he’s like Sir Galahad, I’m a monkey’s uncle,” said Preston. “There aren’t very many people I’d put in the same category with
him
. Who would you say?”

“Robin Hood,” said Sam.

“The Three Musketeers,” countered Robbie Dean. “Four, if you count d’Artagnan.”

The three of them looked at me. “What about you, Baker?”

“I don’t know. I guess I’d rather pick somebody real, not just a character from a book.”

“Oh, well, that’s easy,” said Sam.

Then the three spoke in unison, saying one name.

“The Fish.”

I knew I was going to sound dumb, but I said it anyway. “Who’s the Fish?”

They looked at each other, confirming that I was both stupid
and
an outsider. Robbie Dean took on the role of the explainer. “The Fish—Number 67, class of 1943. He’s only the greatest athlete ever to walk the halls of Morton Hill Academy.”

Number 67. The boy in the trophy case.

“They retired his number, and that’s his boat in the Nook,” Sam added.

My eyes grew wide in disbelief. “The blue one? The
Maine
?”

“That’s the one,” said Robbie Dean. “We were all sixth graders that year. He was all-state in football, track, and rowing. But those pale in comparison to what he did in the Steeplechase.”

I took a breath, knowing I was only going to make myself look worse. “Steeplechase?”

This time they rolled their eyes and groaned. Preston spoke up. “For crying out loud, Baker, what rock have you been living under? Oh, yeah, you’re from Kansas.” He said it as if Kansas were in some remote tribal region inhabited by illiterate natives like the ones in my
National Geographic
magazines.

“Shut the door,” Preston ordered. I did and immediately regretted it. “Jeez, Baker. You smell like a medicine cabinet.”

“Sorry, it’s a kind of lotion for sore muscles,” I said, leaving Early’s name out of the mix.

The boys leaned forward with an air of secrecy as Robbie Dean set about relieving me of my ignorance. “The Steeplechase was a competition that used to be an annual event among the senior boys. It was named after the horse races that started in Ireland and England where the horses would run a course from one church steeple to another, jumping fences, ditches, creeks, and everything in between.”

“We’d be hard-pressed to use horses here”—Sam picked up where Robbie Dean left off—“because we don’t have any. But it’s the same idea. You start at the chapel, then head to Dinosaur Log—”

Robbie Dean smacked him on the back of the head. “Don’t tell him the course, you idjit.”

“If it’s an annual event, why is the course such a big secret?” I asked.