Raising Rufus (3 page)

“Hey, Gordo! Think fast!” a voice boomed out.

Martin's dad looked down just in time to see Ben Fairfield fire a football in his direction. Instinctively, he reached through the fish's mouth and made a smooth catch.

Mr. Fairfield grinned impishly. “Still got those great hands.”

“Tell it to this bolt.”

“Ha haaa!…Hey there, Murphy! What's the good word?”

“Hi,” Martin mumbled. In his head he was bemoaning his bad luck, but even more than that he felt a little embarrassed for his dad, because he knew that football was kind of a sore point for him. Years ago his “great hands” had made him a star wide receiver on the Menominee Springs High football team. He was so good that he had earned a full scholarship to the University of Wisconsin. But it all came crashing down when a serious knee injury in the last game of his senior year put an end to the scholarship, his college plans, and his dreams of making it to the National Football League. He ended up marrying his hometown
sweetheart—Martin's
mom—right after high school, and went to work at the Trout Palace.

Luckily, Mr. Fairfield changed the subject. “Come on down. I want to show you guys something.”

As Mr. Tinker dislodged himself from the fish and descended the ladder, Martin, hoping for a quick escape, edged backward. “I have to, um…”

His dad quickly shook his head and motioned for Martin to follow. They walked with Mr. Fairfield across the Trout Palace floor, past all the busy workers setting up the game booths, concession stands, and nature displays.

“Just came in this morning,” Mr. Fairfield said. “This one's gonna pay your outrageous salary all by itself.”

Mr. Tinker played along. “I like it already.”

Mr. Fairfield forced a short cackle that ended quickly as he spotted one of his young employees painting a few last details on a popcorn booth. “Hey! That thing is sticking out too far. I told you that twenty times already!” As the kid struggled to push the booth into a better spot, Mr. Fairfield muttered, “Numbskull,” just a bit too loudly. “Yeah, it's gonna be a big year, Gordo. Our biggest ever. This place'll be busting at the seams.”

“You haven't been wrong yet, Ben.”

“Hey, genius is a burden, am I right? Ha ha! Okay. You ready for this?”

He grabbed the corner of a large tarpaulin draped over something that looked about as big as the Tinkers' front porch. Then,
swoosh!
He pulled the tarp away to reveal…well, Martin wasn't sure exactly what. It was a really big box—a room, kind of—open at one end, with a three-dimensional woodland scene at the back and, at the opening where they stood, a toy rifle mounted on a post. A big, arc-shaped sign over the front announced proudly:

“Geez. Will you look at that,” Mr. Tinker said
unconvincingly.
He and Martin traded sidelong frowns.

“You give the man a dollar…and…” Mr. Fairfield stepped up to the rifle, pushed a big red button, and took aim as the forest scene sprang to life—papier-mâché deer and bears popping up and down among the trees, creaky plastic ducks taking off from the brush, smiling cutout fish jumping out of a “stream” that was nothing more than a bunch of tinsel blown by a fan.

Mr. Fairfield fired away at the animals as they quickly appeared and disappeared, the fake
boom
of the gun sounding more like a cannon blast than a rifle shot. Mr. Tinker could only scratch his head as Mr. Fairfield's score rapidly mounted on an electronic counter, with a helpful
ding
announcing each hit. Mr. Fairfield was thoroughly absorbed, snickering like a third grader, but as far as Martin was concerned, the demonstration went on way longer than it needed to. All he could think was
How long do I have to keep watching this?

Thankfully, the show came to an end when the rifle suddenly broke off from its mounting.

“Ah, criminy,” Mr. Fairfield muttered. “Anyway, you get the idea.”

“What can I say, Ben?” Martin's dad said. “You've done it again.”

“U-Bag-Em! They're gonna come all the way from the Twin Cities to play this one. Am I right, Murphy?”

Martin plastered on a fake grin, though he couldn't help thinking that people in the Twin Cities—and everywhere else, for that matter—could get a higher level of entertainment right at home on their PlayStations and Xboxes.

He was saved from having to say something by the breathless approach of a teenage girl in a yellow T-shirt with
TROUT PALACE STAFF
emblazoned across the front.

“Mr. Fairfield! One of the beavers got loose and he's in the restaurant.”

“So? Catch him.”

“We can't find him.”

Mr. Fairfield rolled his eyes, then grumbled as he headed off with the girl. “Bunch of helpless babies working here…” He made a half turn back to Mr. Tinker. “Fix that gun, will you, pal?”

“Oh, Ben…” Martin's dad flipped the football back to Mr. Fairfield.

“Nah, you keep it. Here y'go, Murphy. Go long.”

He chucked the ball toward Martin—who ducked out of the way just in time. As the ball bounced down the midway, Mr. Tinker gave him a sour look. Martin looked back at him sheepishly. “I wasn't ready,” he lied. They both knew his football skills were pretty much nonexistent. He really did wish he were better at it, but somehow he never could relate to that odd-shaped ball. It was a shape better suited for…well, a frozen fossil, for one.

“Here's your keys. See ya.” He tossed the keys to his dad and made a quick U-turn.

As Martin scurried off, fervently hoping to avoid what he knew was coming next, his dad went to retrieve the football. “Hey,” he called after him. “I'll give you some pointers later. We'll try a new approach. All right, pal?”

“Sure thing, Dad,” Martin called back, rounding a corner.

For now, he'd made his escape. But somehow he knew that “Sure thing” would come back to haunt him.

M
elissa Gunders got the first good laugh of the day. All she had to do was stand at the front of the class while her long blond hair slowly rose off her shoulders and stood straight out like a spiky yellow halo. Nothing magical: she had reached this glorified state by resting her hand on a silver ball on top of a thick, cylindrical shaft while Mr. Eckhart, the young science teacher, cranked a handle on its side.

Amid cackles and hoots from the class, Mr. Eckhart let go of the crank and got down to business. “Okay. Who can explain what's going on?”

Everybody had gotten the entertainment value, but obviously not the lesson; no hands went up. Well, actually, there was one hand in the air at the side of the room, near the back. Mr. Eckhart didn't bother to look.

“Anybody besides Martin?”

Martin hated it when he did that. But he understood that Mr. Eckhart was just trying to get everybody else to get their brains out of neutral.

All the class could come up with, though, was blank stares—until the silence was broken by a loud, raspy voice from the fourth row.

“She's holding in a big one.”

The laughter started right up again, which drew a self-satisfied smirk from the guy who said it, Donald Grimes. Donald was a stocky kid with a buzz cut and a crooked grin who liked to think of himself as the class comedian. To Martin, though, he was nothing but an annoying jerk who picked on him all the time.

Other kids jumped in with their own theories.

“A bug flew up her nose.”

“She's got really bad head lice.”

“She's an alien from Uranus!”

Martin rolled his eyes. But for the rest of the class, each wisecrack was good for another round of big laughs, and even Mr. Eckhart grinned a little. “Okay, save it for creative writing class. I need a scientific explanation.”

Again, no hands. “All right, Martin,” he said with a resigned sigh. “Enlighten us.”

Martin spoke in a soft voice, but with no hesitation. “The static charge causes the protons in her body to flow into the ground, leaving a surplus of electrons. Since the electrons repel each other, each strand of hair is pushed away from all the others.”

“Bo-o-o-o-o-oring,” Donald Grimes hooted.

“It happens to be correct,” Mr. Eckhart said. “Better remember it, amigos. It might be on the test.” Everybody groaned, but he couldn't hide a tiny smile, and they knew he was only teasing. “Tell you what. No test if anybody can tell me what this is called.” He put his hand on the silver thing with the crank.

Not even Martin could come up with that one. All he could think of was how much the silver ball reminded him of that egg-shaped thing back in his lab.

Donald offered his theory: “An electro-zap space blaster.”

The class had another good laugh, and Mr. Eckhart squinted at Donald. “Just for that,
two
tests.”

Everybody yowled and groaned, but they abruptly went quiet as the door opened and Ms. Olerud, the regular classroom teacher, poked her head into the room. She threw Mr. Eckhart a thin smile, pointing to her watch.

“Once again, science bows to brute authority,” he said, picking up his books. “Okay, crew. See you Thursday.” He pushed the silver contraption, which was mounted on a little wheeled platform, in front of him as he headed for the door. “Van de Graaff generator,” he half whispered to the class, then nodded to Ms. Olerud and disappeared into the hall.

Ms. Olerud had been the sixth-grade teacher for the past five years, and pretty much everybody liked her. But she was definitely more of a stickler for classroom order than Mr. Eckhart was, so everyone knew they would have to settle down and get back to business now.

“Everybody, you have a new classmate,” she said as a freckle-faced girl in a mismatched plaid skirt and purple-striped top followed her into the room, eyes darting around nervously. She had a yellow number 2 pencil behind her ear, and the brightest red hair Martin had ever seen.

“This is Audrey Blanchard,” said Ms. Olerud. “She just moved here from…Oshkosh? Is that right, Audrey?”

“Yes,” Audrey almost whispered.

“Please make her feel welcome. Why don't you sit there, dear?” Ms. Olerud pointed to an empty desk in the fourth row, then turned away to write on the board as Audrey walked stiffly up the aisle. Watching her out of the corner of his eye, Martin could relate to how uncomfortable she obviously was, being stared at by the whole class. If there was one thing worse than being the class geek, it was being the new kid, especially so near the end of the school year.

Just as Audrey sat,
somebody
—yes, Donald Grimes—broke the silence with a half-covered, goofy-voiced: “Oh look, it's Tippi Tomato!”

The whole class burst out laughing. Tippi Tomato was a funny red-haired character they knew from Saturday-morning cartoons.

Ms. Olerud wheeled around, glaring icicles.

“Who said that?” Her eyes swept sternly across the suddenly innocent faces. “That is very unkind, and we do not do that in this classroom. Understood?” After a thick silence, she quickly got back down to business. “Geography books! Chop-chop.”

As everybody dug for their books, Martin snuck one more glimpse at the unfamiliar face in the room. But when Audrey took a sidelong glance right back at him, he quickly looked away. Eye contact? With a
girl
? Not for Martin Tinker.

For the rest of the day, Martin found himself thinking more and more about his big frozen stone. He'd never gotten a chance to get back to it the night before, and now the ball on that Van de Graaff generator had put it at the front of his mind again, and he was eager to get home and start working on it.

But as usual, he also got more and more nervous as the end of the day approached. For Martin, leaving the school building was something to dread, not look forward to.

When the bell rang at 2:50, kids streamed into the schoolyard on their way to the bus or, for the ones like Martin who lived reasonably close by, their homes. For Martin, this meant taking a few extra minutes for some careful planning. If he timed his exit from the building just right, he might be able to avoid an encounter with Donald Grimes, who seemed to have made it the main mission of his life to ruin Martin's.

Donald had been held back a grade, so he was a year older than everybody else, and somehow he felt that made him king of the sixth grade. And to prove it, he went after the easiest target, which was, quite obviously, Martin Tinker. Sometimes, if Donald was feeling especially devilish, he would challenge Martin to a “wrestle,” which was really just an excuse to twist his arm, clamp him in a headlock, kick him in the butt, deliver a noogie, spin him around, and pin him on the
ground—preferably
in a muddy spot. Martin didn't really fight back; for one thing, Donald was stronger than he was, and for another, he knew that if he did, Donald would give him an even worse working over.

Today, though, it seemed like things might go a bit better. When Martin pushed the door partway open and peeked out, he saw Donald and two of his buddies, Nate Stoller and Tyler Braun, chatting in the schoolyard as Donald repeatedly chucked a tennis ball against a wall, catching it on the rebound. It looked to Martin like they would be distracted enough to leave him alone, so he prepared his escape.

As he slipped out the door, he could hear the boys' conversation, which, as usual, was deep and philosophical.

“I'm telling you, man. If you fart, burp, and sneeze all at the same time, you explode.”

“Get outta here.”

“Absolute truth.”

“You're full of it.”

“I've seen it happen.”

“Where?”

“In the McDonald's parking lot.”

“How come I never heard about that?”

“Probably because you're an idiot.”

As quietly as possible, Martin started down the steps. But he stopped when, out of the corner of his eye, he saw Audrey Blanchard walking along the building wall toward the gate.

Donald spotted her too. “Hey, Tippi Tomato! Think fast!”

When Audrey turned to look, he reared back and fired the tennis ball. It just missed her head, ricocheting off the wall behind her and bouncing back to Donald, who led his pals in a round of big laughs.

Audrey stood up straight and threw the boys a withering glare. “Very funny.”

“Hey, Tippi! Your head's on fire!” Donald hollered, and unleashed another fastball.

Audrey ducked out of the way. “Cut it out, you cretin!” she snapped. She tried to run, but Tyler and Nate, both cackling like chimpanzees, split up and blocked her escape in either direction. Now Donald started peppering her with a barrage of throws. She managed to dodge it each time, but the ball kept bouncing back to him.

“Faster! Think faster!” he squawked as she danced awkwardly, fumbling her books to the ground.

Martin stood frozen at the bottom of the steps, watching. He felt sorry for Audrey, having been in her shoes many times. But he also knew if he tried to do anything about it, the game would turn on him. He took a step away—but stopped when one of Donald's pitches glanced off Audrey's foot, and the ball bounced away and rolled right up to him.

“Throw me the ball, Tinker,” Donald said, not smiling.

Martin looked down at the ball at his feet, then slowly stooped and picked it up.

“Tinker, he said throw him the ball!” Tyler snapped.

Martin didn't move. Somehow the command to throw wasn't making it from his brain to his hand.

His hesitation gave Audrey just enough time to scoop up her books and dart out the gate. Caught off guard, the guys could only watch her scurry away.

Donald turned to Martin with a glower, and for what was only a few seconds but seemed like about a minute and a half, they stared at each other. Martin felt his stomach twist into a pretzel. Then—knowing exactly what would come next—he made a break for it. Unfortunately, his backpack full of books was weighing him down, and the others were faster runners anyway, and they headed him off before he could make it to the gate.

“Someplace you gotta be, Tinks?” Nate said with a grin as the three boys surrounded him.

“I could have sworn I said throw the ball,” Donald said.

“I heard you say it,” Tyler offered.

“Me too,” Nate added helpfully.

“So how come Tinker still has it?” said Donald. “He'll have to be punished. Hmmmm…what should we do?”

As the boys thought it over, dramatically exaggerating their thinking poses, Martin tried to map out an escape. If he ducked down low and darted between Nate and Tyler, he might be able to make it out the gate and into the bus driver's view before they could catch up to him. But just as he was about to give it a shot, the bus let out a belch of black exhaust and rolled off down the street.

Before Martin could even start on a plan B, Donald's face lit up. “Oh! Y'know what we haven't done in a
long
time, Tinker Bell? We haven't had a good wrestle.”

Nate and Tyler gurgled and chuckled with anticipation. Now Martin knew his only hope was negotiation. “Look, Grimes. If I wrestle with you, what happens? You just beat me up like always, and it doesn't prove anything new. Or else somebody catches us, or I get hurt, and then you get in trouble. Or maybe, by some really weird fluke of nature, I beat
you
up, and you have to live with the shame for the rest of your life. So what's the point?”

Donald gaped emptily at Martin, as though somebody had just tried to explain Einstein's theory of general relativity to him. “Gee, Marty,” he said, his face a picture of sincerity. “I never thought of it like that. Maybe you're right.” The smirks on Tyler's and Nate's faces faded a bit; even they didn't seem quite sure what was going on in Donald's bristly noggin. But Donald put a quick end to that as a big, goofy grin broke out on his face. “OR NOT!”