The Evolution of Ethan Poe, page 25
Before I can figure anything out, Gregory gets on the bus, his head bandaged to cover the area beside his left eye. The skin around the bandage is bruised and puffy. From my side of the bus, a lot of kids clap and cheer. Almost immediately, some kids across the aisle yell “Boooo!” and “Get off the bus!” Gregory looks like he’s trying to dissolve into the nearest open seat on my side, and I feel myself shrinking as kids around me respond to the jeers.
The bus has started to pull onto the road again, but then it stops, and Mrs. Wallace, the driver, stands up and faces us, hands on hips. She’s a large woman, tall and broad, navy blue windbreaker and work boots all she needs to keep warm. Her voice is as big as she is.
“Hey! All of you! Knock it off!”
Most kids settle down, but not all, and Mrs. Wallace thunders down the aisle, slapping at a shoulder here or the side of a head there. Back at the front, she faces us again. “If I hear one more peep out of you kids, I’ll start taking names. You don’t want to know what I’ll do with them.”
One more heavy glare and then I feel rather than see her land in the driver’s chair. The gears grind a little, and we go on in silence.
I allow myself to breathe at this point, glad Kyle is still at home for this, glad Mom isn’t here, glad Etta didn’t see the Brearlys’. We’re at the school before I realize Jorja isn’t on the bus.
And at school, there’s more upheaval. The teachers try to keep kids in homeroom classes so we won’t see, but the buzz is too loud and we all follow in the general direction of the loudest noise. Someone, or some group of someones, has trashed everything they could damage in Sylvia’s classroom. Ripped-up books are thrown everywhere, her see-through plastic insect and animal bodies with colored organs are in shards where they landed after being heaved at walls, and the whiteboard is covered in meaningless scrawls of black paint. The desk itself is tipped up on its end, black spray paint around the edges marks a crude outline of a gravestone, and slanting from top left to lower right in black is the word WITCH.
Sylvia herself is there, and she must have had time by now to decide what her response will be. She’s watching the janitor sweep up the mess, arms crossed on her chest, jaw set and eyes glaring. I’m watching from just outside the door, peeking around heads at the mess and wondering what Sylvia will do.
“Coming through,” I hear behind me, and the assistant principal goes in carrying metal easels, and behind him is Coffin with some of those large pads of white paper to go on the easels. Looks like Sylvia will be holding class as usual. I have to admire her guts.
Principal Glasier’s voice comes over the PA system.
“All students proceed to your first-period classes. Repeat, all students proceed to first-period classes.”
It takes some time, but we eventually settle into chairs, and it’s a little less obvious to me who is in which camp today. I don’t understand this, but it’s true.
By the time I get to Biology, just before lunch, things have been put into some semblance of order. The desk is where it’s supposed to be and we can’t see the paint on top of it. The black-scrawled whiteboard is still there, but in front of it are three easels with the big paper pads. They’ll probably have to just replace the board. Sylvia looks grim and determined. Max looks nervous; so do most of the kids.
“Welcome, class. Welcome to all of you, even those who might have some sympathy for what happened in here last night.”
She walks slowly back and forth in front of her gravestone desk. “This is Biology, a subject that is important to each and every one of you. It’s important not only because you need to pass the class to graduate, but also because each of you is living inside a biological structure. Everything about your life is biological. Biology rules how you sleep, how you wake up, how you eat, drink, eliminate waste, walk, see, hear, and think. Yes!” She wheels on us, knowing someone is going to protest. “How you think! Your brains would not function if there were no activity across nerve synapses, and all that happens because of enzymes, hormones, molecular movement—all of it dictated by biology. And all of it”—she glares around the room—“existing as it does today after roughly four-and-a-half billion years’ worth of changes that took place very slowly, with many failures along the way.”
Naomi waves her hand in the air, and Sylvia calls on her. “That’s not the only way it could have happened. It could be that we’re all here today as humans because this is the way it’s supposed to be.” She stops, flushed and breathing loudly through her nose.
Sylvia calls on Marra next. “You’re assuming you know how it’s supposed to be.”
Naomi is looking rather like one of those blind fish, mouth in an odd O shape, eyes looking sightless and weird.
Sylvia says, “Evolution progressed without regard to whether one mutation was right or wrong. Each change either enhanced or prevented survival and integration into the physical world at that time. Blindness in birds, for example, would be something that would severely discourage survival. But then we have bats, which are nearly blind. How do they survive, flying as birds do, avoiding collisions with trees and buildings, finding food? Ethan?”
Yes, my hand goes up. How could it not? Bats . . . “Echolocation,” I nearly shout.
“So bats see in a different way, and over millions of years their ability to detect things in this way allowed them to avoid competing with birds that are dependent on daylight, and it allowed them to have nearly sole hunting rights for nighttime insects and to avoid the crowds at the fruit trees. They survived, their genes were passed on, and their numbers increased.”
Bryan’s hand shoots up. Guess everyone on the debate teams is getting in a little practice. “But it doesn’t make any sense that all that happened without a plan.”
Sylvia: “Why not?”
“It . . . it just doesn’t!”
“If that’s true, Bryan, then let’s put together a hypothesis around it. What you’re saying is that somewhere there’s some intellect we can’t see, hear, feel, or touch, and that this intellect made countless decisions about how every form of life would be formed. Do you know how many kinds of insect species there are?”
“No; we haven’t figured that out yet.”
“Correct. But we’ve discovered massive—and I mean massive—numbers of species so far. There are more than three hundred and fifty thousand different kinds of beetles alone. Each species is different from each of the others in many, many ways, and decisions would need to have been made about each of them. And not just decisions as to what the differences would be, but decisions as to why each difference exists.”
“And you’d need to be pretty intelligent to do that!”
“Well, it seems to me that the huge numbers of species and differences are more easily explained by a process like evolution, where changes in environment and survival techniques correspond to the differences, but that’s my subjective perception. And so is your position that it would require intelligence.” She looks around; no more hands. “I’ve been talking all week about the data, tests, and proof around evolution. Your turn. What data do you offer to demonstrate the presence of this intellect that’s making all these decisions?”
“Just look around you!” Bryan shouts.
“I am not saying, Bryan keep your tone reasonable please, that an intelligent plan is out of the question. But until and unless we can provide—broken record, here, but you need to get this—until we have data, repeatable tests, and consistent, predictable results, it’s not science. It’s faith. So I encourage any of you who subscribe to the intelligent design idea to keep working on it. You’re not there yet, though, so I won’t present it as a scientific theory.”
Max tries to come to her rescue. “If this design is so intelligent, why do men have nipples?”
I’m blushing, stifling laughter, unable to look at Max, so I look at Sylvia, who also seems to be smothering an impulse to chuckle. She clears her throat.
“That’s a good question, Max. And I’d also like to ask this agent why we have tonsils, and appendices, and why whales and snakes have vestigial legs that make sense only if they evolved from some animal that had them, or if they evolved into an animal that could use them.”
In the silence I know the ID kids are trying to come up with some denial to that. I decide to change the direction with something Etta said. “When science does its testing, isn’t it trying to prove an idea wrong? I mean, to make sure it’s right?”
“Yes. That’s an excellent point. Does everyone know what Ethan means? When I give you your first big test next week, I won’t be trying to prove that you’ve paid attention. That will be your job. I’ll be trying to disprove it. And this approach is essential for science to be science. If you want to prove a plan exists, your tests should be designed to disprove that it exists. If you can’t disprove it, and your data-driven tests keep proving that it is there, then you have science.”
Someone behind me says, “So scientists have tried to prove evolution is wrong?”
“Absolutely. And because we haven’t failed at this, we call it a theory.”
That seems to silence them all, at least for now. Plus, the bell is about to ring, which usually brings discussions to a close, anyway. Sylvia assigns some homework that doesn’t sound like it’s specifically around evolution, and I feel a huge relief.
At lunch I look around for Jorja, wondering if maybe she came late and cut Biology deliberately, but I don’t see her. I get corralled by Max and Marra, anyway, and led over to where Gregory is sitting, off to the side, and M and M compete with each other for who can recount the most points that we’ll use at the debate. Gregory and I are just chewing and swallowing, and I wouldn’t be at all surprised if he feels kind of like I do. There’s no way we’re going to prove anything to anyone by having a debate. Even though I see more clearly every day why the debate exists, even though I understand so much better than I used to why each side thinks it’s right, there’s not going to be any resolution. No one is going to win the debate. Kyle is right.
I’m still feeling like this when I get back to Sylvia’s room for our debate meeting, and I don’t contribute very much to the discussion. Gregory doesn’t look good; his face is almost gray, and his eyes are at half-mast. Max and Marra pretty much run the session, and Sylvia keeps closing her eyes and breathing deeply. I guess it’s been a pretty intense day for her, too.
Marra tries taking me to task. “Ethan, will you show some leadership? You’ve hardly said anything!”
Sylvia sticks up for me. “I don’t think he can get a word in edgewise, with you two.” She looks at Gregory, kind of slumped over, eyes fully shut now. “Gregory, I want you to go to the office and have them call someone to come get you. Now. Ethan, walk with him, will you?”
It’s a slow walk. We don’t talk at all, just shuffle along, and I start to worry about the guy. But at the office, the nurse says it’s just exhaustion, and she takes him off my hands. I make my way to American History, wondering what drama will occur in there today, wondering if I can take any more.
Outside the classroom, I watch for Naomi to ask her about Jorja. I can’t say why I’m worried about Jorja. God knows she’s not likely to be worried about me for any reason. And I’m still mad at her for dropping that slave bracelet on the bus floor. I try to tell myself she just has a cold. Once upon a time, though, she would have described her suffering to me in painful detail on the phone the night before, or these days she might have left, like, seventeen messages on my iPhone. But lately she’s not speaking to me. I have no reason to think there’s anything serious. Like I said, I don’t know why I’m worried. I just know I am.
I see Naomi from a distance, and she sees me. She walks right up to me. “Ready to capitulate?”
I just blink at her, and only after I ask her my question do I realize she means the debate. “Do you know why Jorja’s not in school today?”
“Nope. But I do know she just got replaced on the ID debate team. We don’t have time to wait for people who don’t even let us know when they’re not coming. So now it’s me, Cathy, Bryan, and Monique Burns.”
This stumps me. “Monique? But she . . .” My voice trails off.
“She what? She’s black, so she can’t be smart enough?”
“That’s not what I meant!” Naomi circles around me and into the room while I stand there trying to juggle too many thoughts at once. Jorja is out, and we don’t know why; she’s been taken off the ID team, and she probably doesn’t even know it; Monique has taken her place; and Monique, because she’s black and because of all the stuff Coffin told us about this week, should understand that being on the side of believing someone else is wrong just because you believe it’s wrong is like believing black people are stupid just because you believe that.
It occurs to me that I need to devote some gray matter to this last point; maybe Monique doesn’t realize that she thinks ID is right just because she wants to believe it. But my brain is broken from everything that’s happened today, and all I can focus on is that I’m still worried about Jorja.
I move rather mindlessly toward the empty seat beside Max, kind of automatically gravitating toward something that feels right, but he looks up at me intensely and, just barely, shakes his head.
Christ. I don’t even have the energy to be pissed. I move forward a few seats and fall into a chair. I manage to take a few notes during class. Coffin is going on about the assignments we’ve handed in, about why the Brits couldn’t have beaten us into thinking we were wrong even if they’d won the war, raking through some of the rational and some of the irrational things kids said in their papers, without naming names. I perk up at one point when he says something good about something I know I wrote, but then I’m back into my stupor again. I’m just starting to wonder whether concussions are contagious when the final bell rings.
I make sure I leave the room beside Max. “Sit with me on the bus, at least?”
“Dude, be real. It’s bad enough we’re both on the debate team. I’ll be sitting with you tonight, okay? Don’t call attention. Anyway, Sylvia’s looking for me.”
I shake my head. Whatever. Maybe this is just his way of dealing with the stress, but I don’t much like it. I get on the bus and sit squarely in the middle of the side most of the non-ID kids will sit on and lean against the wall below the window. I’m watching through some kind of haze as kids pour out of the school doors, my gaze fixed more on the white lines between the red bricks than on the people. It’s occurring to me, not for the first time, that this relationship with Max is not turning out quite like I want it to. I mean, okay, I get that he doesn’t want to advertise that we’re together. I don’t either. But he’s, like, paranoid about it. We should be able to sit together on the bus sometimes, and the fact that we’re both on the debate team should give us an excuse to sit together, not cause suspicion when we do. And even when we’re alone, he says things that make me feel stupid. So things are cool with us only when we’re alone in the back of his parents’ Sequoia? And it’s all about sex?
Don’t get me wrong; it kind of is all about sex. But—there’s more, too. Or there ought to be.
Mrs. Wallace, at the wheel, is making noises like she’s getting ready to pull the bus away from the curb. I haven’t been watching who got on, and I gaze around just to see if Max is sitting with anyone at all. I don’t see him. Maybe he’s behind me someplace, but I don’t have the energy to turn around and look. Eyes back on the school doors, I see nobody at them except some kid who looks like Gus Robichaud hanging out over to the side. All the other buses have left already; Mrs. Wallace must realize she’s missing a few kids, and she’s giving them more time. But Gus is the only person she can see. She calls to him.
“You getting on?”
He shakes his head.
Okay, so he’s riding with Mitch. But where is his partner in crime? As the bus starts moving, I do see someone inside the school, heading toward the doors to come out, and I can tell it’s Max, alone. He’s going to miss the bus, but—to hell with him, anyway. He can ride with Sylvia. I’m not going to yell to Mrs. Wallace that he’s there. Don’t call attention, right, Max? Out of the corner of my eye I can see his arm start to rise, trying to get Mrs. Wallace’s attention, but she’s already got her eyes on the road. And then I see another motion. Gus pushes away from the wall he’s been leaning against and heads toward Max. And then there’s yet another motion. From the other side, where I hadn’t seen him, Mitch is moving toward Gus. Toward Max.
Fully alert now, I twist so that I can watch. I can’t see out of the dirty windows very well, and the bus is pulling away and distorting the scene, but I can see well enough.
“Hey! Stop the bus! Stop the fucking bus!”
“Young man!” Mrs. Wallace shouts back.
I’m out of my seat, dashing to the front. “Stop! Goddamn it, stop!”
Christ, but everything is happening so slowly! I can see that Mrs. Wallace is looking in her outside rearview mirror, which is capturing a clump of three bodies engaged in something decidedly wrong. She gets up, throws the handle to open the door, and she and I kind of tumble out together and run toward the clump. I see Max’s face for a microsecond, twisted in fury and distorted with effort.
Mrs. Wallace, still moving forward, has grabbed my arm. “Get inside. Find help.” She pushes me to the side just before we get to the battle, and she wades in. I’m thinking that Gus and Mitch will certainly stop now, and I turn toward the doors to do as I’ve been told. But then I hear a sickening thud and a groan, and I turn to see that one of the guys has slugged Mrs. Wallace, and she’s down.
