The Evolution of Ethan Poe, page 21
“What? How?”
“I think that if we could just present the facts to enough people, they’d understand why ID isn’t science. They’d understand what a true scientific theory is and why ID is an idea and a belief, but not much more. We need to present these facts, and they’ll understand. It’s the only logical approach.” She stops long enough for the silence to echo before she goes on. “I’m not talking about denouncing religion, in case you’re worried about that. What I want to do is make it really, really clear to everyone what science is, so they can understand what it is not.”
I look at Mom. She’s watching me, but I still don’t know what Sylvia wants. I say, “So, why are you here?”
She grins and sits up very straight. “I want you to captain a team at school that will debate another team. Your team will support evolution. Theirs will support ID. The topic is, ‘What Science Is.’ ”
I’m shaking my head before she even finishes talking. “Oh, I don’t think so. I told you, I don’t like to take sides. I don’t think I’d even want to be on that team, let alone lead it.”
“Before you answer,” she says, as though I didn’t just do exactly that, “let me tell you what it would mean. I’d coach you and the evolution team. Mr. Ivers, the geography teacher, has agreed to coach the ID team. Max will be on your team, and there will be a few other students, and all of us will research the topic, collect salient facts on both sides, and you—as captain—and I will prepare our position. Our team members will practice by debating each other, taking turns arguing each side, so we can be prepared to respond to what the other team might say. At the debate itself, as captain, you would speak first for the team, but the rest of the team will participate. It won’t all be up to you.”
I rack my brain for a way out, and my glance falls on Max, who looks almost as excited as Sylvia. But—hadn’t he just called the school board campaign an “erectoral vote”?
“Why doesn’t Max captain the team?”
“That would look like nepotism.”
“Who’s captain of the other team?”
“That’s still under discussion. But decisions will be made by tomorrow. We have to move quickly if we want to have the debate before the election, which is a week from this Tuesday. The debate will take place a week from tonight, next Sunday.”
I just stare at her. Then Max says, “What if Ethan and I go up to his room to talk about it? Give him a chance to breathe.”
Mom gives me a stern glance. “For a little while.” Her voice is prickly with warning.
I’m not even sure I want to go, given what Max wants to talk about, but he stands and heads toward the stairs. I look at Mom again and follow reluctantly, making sure the music Kyle’s playing in his room is loud enough to cover at least some noise from mine.
Of course Max is all over me as soon as the door is closed. I try to enjoy this, but I don’t know what’s coming afterward. Somehow I pull away and sit at my desk, so it’s harder for him to influence me physically while we talk.
He sits on the bed and grins at me. “So, will you do it? Say yes.”
“Why do you want to do this at all? I thought you didn’t care about this whole thing. You’re not even going to the meeting on Wednesday.”
He waves a hand, dismissing my point. “I changed my mind about it. Sylvia and I were talking this afternoon when I helped her bring some more of her stuff over to the house. She says if we can get people focused on science, on facts instead of gut reactions, it’ll help us, too. I mean, guys like us.”
I blink. “You mean . . . gays?”
“Yeah. Look, people who don’t like us don’t have any valid reasons. It’s just gut reaction. If they thought about it scientifically, if they knew the facts, they could get over it.”
“I don’t think so. And, anyway, you don’t even want anyone to know you’re gay!”
“Duh. Of course not, not when they’re still allowing their gut reaction to rule their minds. This will help!”
I’m convinced he’s repeating Sylvia’s phrases; allowing their gut reactions to rule their minds doesn’t sound like Max. “But this debate isn’t about being gay. It’s about evolution.”
“Yeah, I know that. But if we can get people over ID with science, we can get them over us, too. Don’t you see?”
“I must be missing something, here. How’s it going to do that, exactly?”
“Don’t worry; it’ll all come out in the research. I have it all planned.” He gives me his sexiest smile. “Do this? Please? For me? No, wait—for us.”
I’m squirming, inside and out. “Why can’t I just be on the team? Why do I have to be the captain?”
He looks disappointed, and I feel like a shit. “It would be so much better if the captain is gay. That way you’d understand the whole picture, not just the evolution corner of it.” He waits, but I just sit there. “Okay, how about this. Just say you’ll be on the team. We can decide about the captain a bit later. Will you do that much?”
My right heel starts to vibrate up and down. I see Edgar behind Max, next to my pillow, and it seems like my brain is a bat, but not in a good way. It’s trapped inside the room, and it’s flapping around frantically trying to find an escape route, using senses that aren’t adapted to this kind of situation, like I can’t even tell what escape looks like. Up? What good is that here? The only Up I see is not to get involved at all, but that’s what Max won’t let me get away with. Maybe I should join the other team? I waste a few seconds considering that before Max decides to bring the walls of my trap closer.
He stands and moves toward the door. “Fine. You won’t help. You know, this is really important to me. It doesn’t feel very good that you—”
My kingdom for a duck blind. “All right! All right.”
He turns back. “Really? Oh, charmer, I knew you would!” And he lifts me into a bear hug. The kisses are not from a bear, though. With the decision made, for good or ill, I allow myself to enjoy Max’s attentions now.
Before we go downstairs we’ve managed to sneak in a quick hand job each without fully undressing. I offer my pillowcase for cleanup, giddy that I’ll have that to enjoy later.
Max gets into the living room ahead of me and announces, “He’ll do it!”
And before I can say that all I’ve agreed to do is be on the team but not the captain, Sylvia extends her right hand, a huge smile on her face. “Congratulations, Captain! Welcome to the good fight. We’ll knock ’em dead!”
After Sylvia and Max leave, Mom gives me a long hug. She says, “I’m so proud of you, Ethan.”
Despite the pillowcase, I don’t sleep very well.
Chapter 10
This is the week. The week for origin of the species. I remember when Etta had asked me over lunch at the Bingham diner about what we were studying in Biology, Sylvia had talked only about Darwin’s life by that point. Now, it seems, we’re plunging ahead. The class is mostly silent as Sylvia tells us what chapter to open our books to, because she gives not only the chapter number but also the title, which includes the word evolution.
For a while, silence rules, except for Sylvia’s lecture. It’s like no one wants to say anything about this topic, and I’m guessing it’s because anyone who speaks will be seen as being on one side of the issue or the other, and most of us aren’t ready to do that yet. Hanging in the air for me are images of Sylvia’s mangled Darwin fish, the sit-in at Coffin’s, and Sylvia’s stone-shattered windows. And I wonder whether anyone in here, or any of their parents, could be responsible for the threats Etta’s getting.
It becomes evident to me now why Sylvia hadn’t just gone through the book in order. Before she started down the origin of the species path, she made sure she had presented us with a picture of nature’s diversity without any particular order to it. Now she’s ready to reorder it, pulling in stuff she’s already gone over about a number of species so that we can see a progression from the earliest fossils to man.
Every so often I steal looks at some of the other kids in class. Most of them seem like they’re trying not to make it obvious whether they’re buying into the science or are thinking evil things about it, but there are a few kids who are not hiding their perspectives. And the facial expression and body language of each of these kids tell which perspective it is.
It isn’t until close to the end of class that someone—Jorja, of course—has the guts or whatever to challenge what she’s heard. Kyle would have been proud of her. “Everything you’ve said makes no sense if you take the most important thing out of the picture.”
Sylvia, like she doesn’t know what Jorja’s going to say, asks, “What’s that, Jorja?”
“If you don’t have God watching over this process, bringing intelligence into it, all you’ve got is some weird idea that fish chose to go blind so they could live in an underground cave where there’s no light. They’re not going to do that.”
“That’s putting the cart before the horse, actually,” Sylvia says. “What happens in cases like that is that the fish who don’t rely on vision survive when they end up in total darkness, where sighted predators can’t find them. They’re genetically blind, and because they stay alive, that’s the genetic material that they pass on to their offspring.”
Jorja doesn’t wait to be recognized again. “That’s crazy! It would take forever for genetic traits to become standard if they’re only good in total darkness.”
“Don’t forget that evolution, through natural selection, has been progressing for billions of years—”
“Wrong! Six thousand!”
I hold my breath, but Sylvia heaves a long-suffering sigh. “No, Jorja, I’m sorry. I know that some religious beliefs hold the earth to be only that old, but we can prove it’s far, far older than that.” Jorja glares at Sylvia and starts stacking her books. “Jorja, you can’t win an argument by leaving in the middle of it.”
Over her shoulder Jorja says, “I don’t need to win any arguments. God will do that.”
I turn toward Sylvia. Will she take steps Coffin had not? Now that Jorja’s making a habit of this, will there be consequences? All Sylvia does in front of us, though, is assign some homework that, unfortunately, seems to involve thinking.
Sylvia has moved very quickly, it seems, with this school debate idea. By afternoon study hall she’s already got permission to pull out a few kids we might want on our team. She says she and I will caucus (her word) after this interview session to select the ones we want. So I sit in the science classroom instead of study hall, watching snow pour down on the other side of the windows, half listening to Sylvia grill the other kids in the room, the thinking part of my brain focused on who I might be able to talk into being captain. I settle on Marra Whitfield, the girl Max had called a douchbagette because she thinks she’s better than everyone else. Her attitude could play to my advantage; it could make her want to put herself forward as captain if she’s given half a chance. She’s really smart, and she’s not afraid to say whatever she thinks to whomever might be in earshot. Seems like a natural.
Even though Sylvia has said she and I would “caucus,” it turns out to include Max. I guess I’m not surprised. Perhaps he’s really the de facto captain here, anyway, which could help explain why Max wants me in that role so badly. Sylvia agrees with me about having Marra on the team, even though Max tries to keep her off. But when I suggest her as captain, Sylvia shakes her head.
“Ethan, the captain isn’t necessarily the loudest mouth on the team. The captain is someone who knows how to take a more balanced stance, to think of the team as a team, and do what’s best for the team’s objective. Marra has lots to offer, but leadership’s not on the list.”
I heave a sigh. I’m going to be the most backseat captain I can be, that’s for sure.
Our team ends up being me, Max, Marra, and a guy I don’t know very well, Gregory Pines. Max says he’s a “good hang,” which I take to mean Max approves of him generally. We’ll meet every day in here during study hall, which bums me out because eliminating study hall means I’ll have to do all my homework at home, cutting into my free time in a big way. Then Sylvia announces we’ll go as a team to the school board town hall on Wednesday. I’m in it now. Nothing I can do.
The atmosphere in American History, my last class, is full of static. Part of it might be the dry, cold air brought by the snowstorm, but there’s a tense undercurrent that I’m thinking must be coming from the fact that the ID team also just finished their own selection process. Jorja won’t even look at me. I don’t know why.
By the time we get outside after school, there’s about half a foot of wet snow on the ground. I nod to Max and then look around for Jorja, thinking maybe I can get something out of her on the bus ride home, which is sure to be a long one through all this snow, but I don’t see her. Then I hear what sounds like kids shouting. I step away from the clutch of kids at the door, dodging flakes that hit me, anyway, and see what looks at first to be a good snowball fight. I’m not the only one interested, and other kids step away from the building to watch.
One of the snowball throwers, a guy in a lime green parka, gets hit hard on the side of his head. Then I see blood, and the guy collapses. I stand there like an idiot, not knowing what to do, expecting that the fight will stop. But it only gets worse. It’s the worst kind of snowball fight, where they’re packing snow around stones. I start backing toward the building as the throwing stops and the punching begins. Pretty soon there are maybe seven guys at each other, with more approaching to join in. I turn and run into the building to find someone who can help stop this, because I sure as hell can’t, but I don’t get very far before I see Mr. Glasier and a few other teachers, including Mr. Coffin, running toward and then past me to get to the fight. I follow them out and watch, a painful tension in my chest, as they wade through the snow and into the fray. Sylvia goes around to all the bus drivers, telling them to wait.
Mr. Coffin is the first teacher to head back toward the school, an unconscious Gregory Pines in his arms. The blood streaming from his head and the lime green parka tell me he was that first casualty.
Sylvia comes over to me. “Ethan, do you have a cell phone on you? Mine’s inside.” I nod. “Call 9-1-1 and get an ambulance over here. Maybe two. Tell them there could be a few injuries.”
I’m cold standing out here in just my leather jacket, but that’s not why my hand shakes as I dig out my cell and call in an emergency for the second time in only a few weeks. As soon as I end the call I see the person I’d been looking for earlier. Jorja. She’s coming away from the crowd that was rooting for the kid who threw the rock at Gregory.
Suddenly Max is beside me. “What did I tell you.”
For the first time, Max and I sit together on the bus, which finally leaves the school grounds almost an hour late. I’ve already phoned Mom to let her know what’s going on. She wants to come get me, but I tell her no, stay with Kyle, I’m fine.
As I expect, it’s a long ride home. I won’t pretend I don’t like the way my thigh and Max’s press together, or that I don’t feel tingles just thinking about how close his face is to mine, but even so the nearly silent bus ride is eerie. The worst part is that the bus seems divided down the middle, not just by the aisle between the rows of seats. It’s also divided by this chasm, this crack in the earth between the kids who had been with Gregory and the kids Jorja had joined. Max and I are on Gregory’s side of the bus, even though he’s not here. There are kids who aren’t obviously on one side of the debate or the other sitting wherever they end up, but the rift for the rest of us is pretty clear.
Jorja is a couple of seats ahead and across the aisle. The crack. The chasm. She’s sitting with Naomi Fallon, something I wouldn’t have predicted in a million years, even though I’d seen Naomi at that one Teen Meet I attended. But I guess now they have even more in common. Now they hate us.
I’m in the aisle seat, and I’m looking at Jorja when she turns and gives me this ugly look. She stares at me as she takes the slave bracelet off, and even in the gloom of the bus I see flashes of light from the black and purple links as the sparkling mass falls to the floor.
I can’t take it. I get up, ignoring the frantic grasp of Max’s hand, and pick up the bracelet. “What’s going on?” I ask Jorja.
Through gritted teeth she hisses, “Don’t talk to me. Go back to your friend.”
Louder this time, “What’s going on?”
She turns to me sharply, glaring. “You know very well! How can you do this? You’ve betrayed me!”
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
“Bad enough that you’re even on that heretic team. But you have to be captain! And now”—she gestures toward Max in a way that’s nearly obscene—“you’re with him. I can’t believe I was ever friends with you.” And she turns away again.
The hand that’s holding the bracelet coils into a fist. There’s a corner of my brain that wants to protest, that wants to say I got roped into the debate, that I looked for her today, and that if she hadn’t walked past me I’d be sitting with her now. But there doesn’t seem to be any space to say these words into.
I don’t remember getting back to my seat, my mind struggling to figure out how anyone could have figured out already that there even are teams, let alone who’s on them or who’s captain. I drop the bracelet in my pack and pull out my iPhone and text Max. I don’t feel safe talking aloud to him. I say, how do they know already
In return, they started it
started what
the debate thing they had thr team since last wk
what???
it’s true
is jorja on it
not sure but we know who she cheers for
i thot this was sylvias idea did ivers start it
not sure how he got involved but sylvia agreed to do it if old lady glasier isnt the other coach
shes not even a teacher!
