Notes from the Life of a Total Genius (21 page)

2. Any dead miners (below you)

3. A ladder (above you)

4. The pickaxe you dropped before you got stuck (below you, I hope)

Pick up the pickaxe. You may need it. Attach it to your jaunty snakeskin belt that you got for Christmas.

Now, take the dead miners, and stack them on top of each other until you have reached the bottom of the ladder. This next part may make you a bit queasy, but you need to step on the other people to get to the ladder. Once you reach the bottom rung, grab it with your hands. Now climb the ladder.

As you climb, you may notice that it’s getting lighter above you. That’s a good sign. If it’s getting darker, then you are going down the ladder, and you must reverse direction.

The ladder may not go all the way to the top of the hole. That’s OK; just keep breathing normally. Pull out your pickaxe from your jaunty snakeskin belt. Dig the pickaxe into the crusty dirt wall in front of you (where the ladder would be). Pull yourself up, until you see the smiling face of your wife, Dodie Oderdonk, peering down at you. When you see her, put one arm up and scream as loud as you can, “GET ME OUT OF HERE!!!”

Arthur,

I knew I could count on you to make this exercise in practical writing an exercise in pointing out the ridiculous.

If you take out the narrative that you’ve created for Odie Oderdonk, you’ve done a nice job on the practical writing here. However, I would like to see more focus on the task at hand, and less on building Odie’s backstory. I know you can spin a good yarn; now show me how you can scale that back and hone specific writing skills needed for the real world.

Ms Whitehead

Dear Ms Whitehead,

I know what you’re saying, but I think that telling stories is an important skill for the real world. I’m planning to leave the boring writing to other people. I bet Agatha Christie never had to write computer manuals.

Yours truly,

Arthur Bean

June 6th

Dear RJ,

I looked through all the Leg Breakers scripts that we were going to perform. (Not that there’s that many left. With so many people dropping out, we were down to three plays anyway.) I think I’ve figured out what we can do. If we make the guns into swords in my play, then there won’t be any gun violence, and we can still do it. Plus, Millie and I can teach everyone a few fencing moves, and we can make it look really good, I think. In fact, I’m not sure why I didn’t think of it before! It will be way more theatrical this way. I’ll have to play one of the parts, but that’s OK. I already know all the lines. Then if we do Ben and Latha’s play, we just have to take out the swear words, and pretend like it’s an R-rated movie that’s on TV. Hopefully the others agree. Please don’t have them kick me out!!

I just hope that Kennedy realizes what we’re giving up for her. I’m sacrificing my principles to the principal!

Yours truly,

Arthur Bean

June 8th

Dear RJ,

Two things. First: The Leg Breakers met today, and we made some changes to our plays, so hopefully Kraleigh says OK and lets us go ahead with them. I’m going to talk to her tomorrow, and Ben and Von are going to come with me this time. Von’s the only one who seemed annoyed by the fact that I talked to her without telling anyone. He thinks we are selling out, but I don’t think he even knows what it means to sell out. Plus, everyone seemed kind of relieved. Maybe I’m just assuming they are relieved because I am, but I don’t care.

Second: Yesterday at dinner, my dad started talking about the summer and how this is my last summer where he doesn’t expect me to work. He kept talking about getting a summer job, and starting to make my own money, and I told him that I was trying to get a job at Flying Spirit as a camp counsellor. But he told me not to bother. Then he pulled out two plane tickets to Whitehorse. So I guess we’re going to the Yukon to go camping for a month! I asked if we could rent a dogsled to get around, but apparently you can only do that in the winter, so we’re renting a truck. I don’t even know what to expect. What is Yukon like in the summer? Are there going to be a lot of bears? How many books do I need to bring for a month of camping?

It’s a pretty cool thing that he did that. I was even thinking today that even if Mom were around, she wouldn’t have come. Camping is just this thing for me and my dad.

I half-wish Robbie or Luke could come with us, but still. It should be pretty cool. There’ll be twenty-four hours of daylight there. Is it manly to buy an eye mask for sleeping? As of today, I’m going to sleep with the lights on in my room to get ready for the summer.

Although that’s probably why I’m still awake and it’s two in the morning.

Yours truly,

Arthur Bean

June 9th

Dear RJ,

She said no! She said that we hadn’t gone far enough with our changes. I showed her how many lines we changed, but she said that “two lines per play” was not a sufficient compromise. I thought we had it! I was sure that if we took out most of the swears, it would be fine. She said, “You’re on the right track, but I need to see more.” I bet she wants us to take out every joke too!

I really, really wanted to tell her what I really thought about her refusal, but Ben kicked me under the desk as I started to talk, and then he said that we would revisit the work and come up with something else.

Instead, we’re going to ask Hark to help us. I can’t tell what’s OK anymore anyway. I just hope he knows.

Yours truly,

Arthur Bean

Hey, Artie,

What are you thinking of doing for your final article? It’s a big one! This is your chance to pass on some of your hard-earned knowledge before heading off to high school. Kennedy’s working on a double-page spread about the grad, and she’s written a great little piece about hope and believing in yourself. So what do you think? Maybe an exposé about the music teacher getting the kids to read band books? (Please don’t actually write that. That was a joke!)

Cheers!
Mr. E.

June 13th

Dear RJ,

Kraleigh finally agreed to our modified plays. We changed the swords to lightsabers (so now we have to add in some lighting cues to make it dark onstage!), and for Von and Nigel’s play, we took out the middle scene where the doctor eats the girl’s intestines. That cut kind of sucks, since it’s a big part of the play (it’s called “Intestine Care Unit”), but their play isn’t very good anyways. But now we can perform them at lunch the last week of school (which means that we can only do two a day, instead of a festival of all of them). But we get to perform them, which is good. Hark seemed really happy about it too, and said that we were being very mature. It still feels really weird, and I don’t know if anyone will come, because people might still be mad about the grad stuff. But grad is back on, and Kennedy and her friends still get to decorate the gym and make their dumb slideshow of themselves or whatever else they are planning.

I’m a little mad about it, because Kennedy didn’t say anything to me when she found out grad was back on. She could have thanked me or something. You know, I’ve tried all year to be nice to her and have her realize that I’m a good guy, and she never cares. I wish I didn’t care so much about what she thought of me. Cool guys never care what people think of them.

Yours truly,

Arthur Bean