I wished really hard that red fire ants would swarm Lyle. Their sting hurts as much as wasp stings. The problem is there aren’t many red fire ants around here. They’re usually where it’s warmer. Then I started thinking that maybe with global warming, they would begin a giant march north and eventually end up here.
This made me think about climate change and how the earth is heating up. Scientists say that if it heats up by more than two degrees, we’ll all be in big trouble, and it’s heating up even faster than anyone thought. Thinking this made me feel shivery inside. When I told Bird I was feeling worried, he tried to distract me by getting me to pretend the teachers could shoot laser rays out of their eyes and we should dodge them. But I just didn’t feel like it.
I tried putting a stick between my teeth to make my mouth into a smile, but it didn’t work. Bird said I looked like a jack o’ lantern, and then he put a stick between his teeth too. When he did that, I saw something black crawling toward his mouth.
I said, ‘Umm, Bird, I think you should take that stick out of your mouth.’
He said, ‘Why?’ but it sounded more like Eiiii.
Then I said, ‘Because there’s something about to crawl into your mouth, and it’s something that people might eat in Cambodia but we don’t eat them here.’ Actually, 80 percent of the world’s people eat insects of some kind, which means they can’t be all that bad for you, but just as I was about to mention that to Bird, he saw the beetle too. He flung the stick really far, and it hit a Grade 5 kid on the back. That kid turned around and pushed the kid behind him, who must have been confused. Bird started dancing around and shivering. He was still shivering and saying, ‘Gross, gross, gross,’ when the bell rang. That made me smile a little bit for real.
We mostly did boring stuff the rest of the day, so to keep myself from falling asleep, I made up a game to play each time Mrs. Wardman told us to take a Duo-Tang out of our desk. The game was if I reached in with my eyes closed and pulled out the right one on the very first try, I got fifteen points. If I got it on the second try, I got ten points. Third try was worth five points and fourth try got a big fat zero. The goal was to get at least fifty points by the end of the day. I only got to forty-five.
The only good part of the afternoon was silent reading, when I got to read a book about dolphins. I learned that a dolphin mother sometimes has a dolphin midwife with her when she gives birth. The midwife pushes the baby up to the surface as soon as he’s born so that he can get a breath of air. I also learned that if you plug a dolphin’s blowhole, that feels to a dolphin like how covering your mouth and nose at the same time would to you. I wondered what that would feel like. I tried holding my breath to see what it felt like, but I didn’t really think that would be the same.
After school, my mother showed up to take me home but I told her that I wanted to walk home today.
She said, ‘But, Phinnie, I’m already here.’
I said, ‘But I really want to walk home.’
My mother sighed and said, ‘Fine then, walk home.’
It was a good thing I did because on the way, I saw a plastic shopping bag on the side of the road. I picked it up and put it in my backpack because it could blow out to the ocean and a sea turtle or an albatross could choke on it. Albatross babies are fed things like plastic lids and Lego blocks by their mothers, who find them floating in the ocean and mistake them for food. Every year thousands of babies die because plastic gets caught in their throats and esophaguses, which makes them choke or starve to death. I wondered why the person who littered the plastic bag didn’t think of that.
When I got home, my mother wasn’t there. In a few minutes she showed up and told me that she had had a little talk with my teacher. This is never good news. I sucked in my breath and held it as long as I could. I remembered the rule of threes when I did this. The general rule is that you can live three minutes without oxygen, three days without water and three weeks without food. I was careful not to hold my breath for longer than the count of fifteen, because I wasn’t sure that rule was completely accurate.
My mother still hadn’t said anything else, so then I took another big breath and did the same thing over. She said, ‘Phin, what are you doing?’ I didn’t say anything right away because I was still trying to let out the air I had breathed in and didn’t want to break the pattern of it. She crossed her arms.
When all the air was out, I said I was just breathing, waiting for her to get to the point. She said she was getting there but was waiting for my full attention. I said I could never give her my complete full attention because some of it had to be used for things like breathing and blinking my eyes. She said most people could do those things without paying attention. I said not me because I had to keep part of my mind on those things in case they got out of control.
My mother said, ‘I heard you used a few select words today, Phin. What was that all about?’
‘Lyle pushed me. Twice.’
‘Well, I hadn’t heard about that part. Did you tell Mrs. Wardman?’
‘No.’
‘Well, you should have. Lyle needs to learn a lesson. You’d actually be doing him a favour by telling on him.’
‘I don’t want to do him any favours.’
‘You know what I mean, Phin. You’d be doing everyone a favour,’ said my mother.
Then I told her that Lyle had pushed me before today too. She got really quiet, and I could tell she was mad. She said that she would talk to the teacher about it and that I should stay away from that kid like she told me to before. I said I was trying to, but the problem is Lyle has legs too. And also a few times Mrs. Wardman made me do group work with Lyle – even though I told her my mother said I should stay away from that kid.
Then came the part I was hoping wouldn’t come. ‘What did you call Lyle?’ asked my mother.
‘Lady,’ I told her.
‘You called him lady?’
‘Yes.’
‘Since when is lady a bad word?’
‘Since fourth grade.’
‘Oh,’ she said. ‘Well, how about next time you insult Lyle you call him man instead?’
I just rolled my eyes at her. Sometimes she just doesn’t get it, but I was glad to get off that subject.
Then I said, ‘Mom, if I lie down on the couch, could you sneak up on me and cover my nose and mouth at the same time?’
‘Why?’ asked my mom in a surprised voice with a surprised face.
‘Please. Just do it, please.’
‘That’s kind of a creepy request, Phin. I need to have a good reason for doing something like that.’
‘What’s creepy about it?’
‘Well, Phin, it sounds a little like a smothering and, you know, I rather like you. Besides, I don’t want to spend the rest of my days in the penitentiary. I’ve written stories about some of those inmates, you know, and I don’t think they’d be very nice to me.’
‘Yeah sure, Mom, sure.’
‘Seriously, why do you want me to do that?’
‘Because I read in a book today that if you plug a dolphin’s blowhole, that feels to him like having your nose and mouth covered at the same time would to you. I want to know how that feels exactly.’
My mother said, ‘Oh, okay.’ So I lay down on the couch and closed my eyes. A few minutes later, she covered my nose and my mouth with her hand – but only for a couple of seconds. She wouldn’t do it for any longer than that, but I think I know a little bit better what that feels like to a dolphin.