Nervous System (The System Series Book 1) Read online

  “I didn’t know…the SEALs…you’re dealing with a lot of stress for a six-year-old.”

  I shrug. “It would be nice to have a few friends to talk to. You know.”

  She nods sagely, as if in perfect understanding. “Do you not have any close friends yet?”

  I swallow hard and try to make a joke. “Abbey threw a crayon at my head the other day.”

  Mrs. Gardener smiles, but no one else does.

  “Okay then, here it is.” Principal Wasserman selects a piece of paper from the mess on the table and pulls out a pen. “Your primary goal for this semester is to make one close friend.” She writes as much on the paper under the comments heading. “Even though you have reached all the first-grade academic goals, and though your mother is in charge on that front, we are still an academic institution, and I cannot let you get away without any academic goals whatsoever. Ladies,” she says, “and gentleman, of course, what say you?”

  “Thomas?” Mom asks me, and I appreciate it.

  “Well, I have a little anxiety…I mean, it’s not much to speak of, really, but it might be considered an area in which I need some improvement…”

  Mom pokes me.

  “Public speaking. I don’t like it. Makes me nervous.”

  “Excellent,” Principal Wasserman says, scribbling some more on the paper. “What else?”

  “How about anatomy?” Mom says. “You’re very interested in the human body.” She winks at me, so that I’m the only one who can see her.

  “I like that,” the principal says. “How about learning the bones of the body?”

  “I know all 206 bones,” I say, “but I have been planning to do some research on the nervous system. How about that?”

  “How about we tie the two things together?” Mrs. Gardener says. “You make me an outline about the nervous system with nine major topics. And each week, you can give the class a speech about what you’ve learned. You can be the teacher that day.”

  “Really?” I ask. “I can teach the class?”

  “As long as you use words they’ll understand,” she says, smiling.

  “What about his homework?” Mom asks. “It’s fine with me if you want him to do the assigned work, but can I give him work of his own?”

  The three of them launch into a discussion of curriculum, areas where Mom can give me harder homework, and how she and Mrs. Gardener can collaborate to make sure I’m learning.

  I’m not really listening.

  I’m thinking about the nervous system and how to present it in nine succinct lectures.

  Chapter Four

  Dad comes home today, Flight 227 United Airlines, arriving at 11:09 AM.

  Mom lets me stay home from school.

  I finish vacuuming my room for the third time, and I wrestle the behemoth thing back down the hall and into the closet of the laundry room. I have to wipe the sweat from my brow, the damn vacuum’s so heavy.

  I grab two rags from the laundry cabinet, along with the Pledge, and head back to my room. I spray every exposed piece of wood I can reach and wipe and wipe some more.

  My room smells lemony fresh.

  I think about reorganizing my books alphabetically, but Mom calls out to me instead.

  “Thomas! Time to go!”

  I snatch up the dirty rags and can of polish and rush out.

  

  Mom says she used to be able to meet her parents at the gate and watch them step out of the airplane tunnel.

  I wish we could do that now, but since I support the extra security at the airport in light of 9/11 and other terrorist threats, I have no room to argue.

  So we stay in the car and circle John Wayne Airport, waiting for Dad to appear outside of baggage claim. On our third pass, I spot him.

  He cuts an imposing figure. Standing 6’4” tall, muscular without looking like the Hulk, he leans forward on his duffel bag, world-weary yet strong. He’s wearing clean fatigues, “Van Zandt” stitched across the breast, but the “Z” is gone, a ragged hole replacing it.

  Mom gasps, and I know she’s seen the hole.

  She pulls over directly in front of him—even though it’s crowded, no car has claimed that space, whether out of deference for his uniform or in caution of the dangerous-looking man, I’m not sure—and Dad leans in my window as I lower it.

  “Hey, Champ,” he says.

  “Dad!” I unbuckle my seatbelt as fast as my stubby fingers allow and throw the door open. Dad steps back just in time to avoid me clocking his kneecap.

  I hurl myself into his arms. Dad sighs into my neck.

  “You smell like french fries,” he says, chuckling. “I could use some of that.”

  Mom is standing a few paces away on the curb, waving a McDonald’s bag in his direction.

  “Big Mac, super-size fries, Coke extra ice,” she says.

  Dad releases me, kisses the top of my head, and moves to Mom.

  “I knew I married you for a reason,” he says.

  “Wasn’t for my cooking,” she says.

  The bag rustles as Dad envelopes her. I see her eyes close, her face buried in his collar, hear Dad sigh the sigh of homecoming.

  Then the ritual begins.

  “You smell of salty grease, Cherry Blossom body spray, warm nights…” he catches his breath, “…cool sheets, promises.”

  Mom speaks through her sobs. “You smell like dust, sweat, victory and defeat, hope…and promises.”

  They pull back at the same moment and draw back together as though one is a magnet, the other iron. Their lips meet, almost a smack, but they’ve done this too many times to mess it up. They mold and then they meld.

  I smile.

  Dad’s home.

  

  We cuddle up in Mom and Dad’s bed, Mom and I resting our heads on Dad’s shoulders. He has an arm around each of us, and it takes Mom about two minutes to start snoring.

  For her, the difficult part is over. Dad is home, he’s alive, there’s nothing else to worry about.

  It’s not that simple for us guys.

  I can feel Dad’s weariness radiating from every muscle in his body. I can feel his tension, too, coiled within those muscles, ready to spring to action at a moment’s notice.

  “Dad, what’s it like in Afghanistan?” I ask him.

  Dad isn’t moving, but I feel him go still.

  “Why do you think I was in Afghanistan?”

  “I haven’t heard of any special ops in North Korea, except for those documentary people taken hostage, and I don’t think they’d waste you on that assignment.”

  “There are special ops going on all over the world,” he says.

  “Probably,” I say.

  He sighs. “It sucks. It just flat out freaking sucks.”

  I giggle.

  “I’m glad to be home, Thomas. You’ve grown.”

  I lift my head and look at him. “I have. Three and a quarter inches in the last fourteen months. Plus I’m gearing up for a growth spurt. Mom’s gonna have to buy more milk.”

  Dad chuckles. “She buy you that Wii yet?”

  The last time I Skyped Dad, about three months ago, he told Mom to buy me a Wii. She said it wasn’t in the budget, but maybe I’d get one for Christmas. They argued about money. Apparently, Mom’s been living off Dad’s regular paychecks, and saving up all his hazard pay in a special trust for me. Dad said he’d earned the right to spend the hazard pay on me now. Mom didn’t agree.

  “Not yet. Christmas.”

  “We’re buying one tomorrow. I want to play MarioKart with you.”

  Dad and I have never played video games together. We play poker when he’s home, and he makes sure that we hit the batting cages, and he even taught me how to drop kick a soccer ball. But Mom doesn’t like me in front of the television.

  “Mom might not be too happy about that,” I say.

  “She’ll come around. Every kid should play video games. She can even play with us.”

  I try to imagine
Mom playing a video game, but my imagination won’t go further than her turning the television on.

  “Maybe we should just wait. You’re not the one who has to live with her.”

  I immediately regret my words, but there’s no way to snatch them out of the air and stuff them back in my mouth. Dad stiffens and pulls me tighter against him. I lay my head back down, and it bobs up and down with Dad’s stoic sobs.

  Chapter Five

  Dad’s been home for three days, and it’s been the best three days of my life. No school, no Abbey, no schedules at all. Just the three of us, sleeping late, wearing pajamas until noon, eating ice cream and pancakes and Dad’s favorites treats for dinner.

  It can’t last. I know that. I go back to school tomorrow, and I know that without me home as a buffer, as the object of my parents’ attention, things will begin to get tense. I’m dreading it.

  My parents love each other. I don’t doubt that. But there’s a dynamic to our lives that becomes unbalanced when Dad gets home after being away for a while.

  I don’t expect you to understand unless you have a parent in the military. See, when Dad’s gone, Mom and I have our routines. We have our rituals. We get to decide how we spend our time, what we want to eat, when we want to go to bed (or Mom decides, at least). Then suddenly there’s a new person in the mix, someone who is used to giving orders rather than taking them. Someone whose own routine is the complete opposite of ours, someone who likes things a certain way. He’s not wrong. I know Dad has to do things a certain way just to survive. It’s just that it’s different.

  And keep in mind, he’s only home for a month. We have to wiggle and shift and compromise and make room for this gigantic personality, and quite suddenly, he’ll leave us again. And we’ll have to go back to our pre-Dad routines, trying to fill the void of his absence.

  It’s tough. Glorious, and tough, all at the same time.

  Dad hasn’t had a month of leave in over three years. Usually he just has a week. I wonder why he suddenly has this chunk of downtime—maybe the hole in his uniform has something to do with it.

  So three and a half more weeks, and Dad’s taking the opportunity to do things he’s never done before. Like visit me at school. He’s actually going to spend an entire day in my class with me, helping out. I have mixed feelings about it. I like that he won’t be out of my sight, and I like that my mom will have some time to herself. I don’t like the possible repercussions of having my “daddy” around for a whole school day. I cannot predict how the other kids will react. Dad’s pretty cool, so it could be good. Or it could be disastrous for me.

  Dad hasn’t exercised since he’s been back, probably a record for him. So we decide to walk to school. He holds my tiny hand in his large one, and he quizzes me about school as we stroll.

  “So tell me about your friends,” he says.

  “Um, there are twenty-six kids in my class,” I say, hedging. “In alphabetical order, there’s Abigail, Brian, Britney, Casey—”

  “That’s nice,” he says, “but I’ll never remember them all. Tell me about the ones you play with. Your close friends.”

  “Look at that,” I say, pointing to a bush growing beside us. “Honeysuckle. Can you smell it?”

  Dad squeezes my hand a little too tight—he doesn’t know his own strength, like I do. “Thomas,” he says.

  I sigh. “I’m not too close with any of the kids,” I admit. “I don’t have much in common with them.”

  Dad knows that, but I don’t think he expected me to be a loner. He doesn’t call me on it, though.

  “Well, who are the nice kids, then?” he asks.

  “Tessa,” I say, a little too quickly. And Dad flashes me a grin.

  “She cute?”

  “In that girl-next-door kinda way,” I say. “She wears glasses, which I’m quite fond of. They make her green eyes look like stars twinkling in her face. Blonde hair to her shoulders. Sprinkle of freckles across her nose. Cute.”

  Dad chuckles. “And she’s nice? Smart?”

  “The best reader in our class after me. And when Abbey called me a freak a couple of weeks ago, she told Abbey to shut up.”

  “Some kid called you a freak?” Dad asks. His voice is tight with anger, and I realize my mistake.

  “Oh, I, it’s no big deal. I did something stupid. It’s over.”

  “You are not a freak. You need to stand up for yourself, Thomas, or people will run right over you.”

  I study the sidewalk. “I know that. I do stand up. I do.”

  “This Abbey. Is that the only incident you’ve had with her?”

  “No, sir,” I whisper. I think furiously, trying to come up with a way to diffuse this situation. I do not want my father confronting Abbey.

  “Hmm,” he says, swinging our arms between us. “Well, there’s an idiot in every bunch. We’ll see if we can knock some sense into her.”

  I grimace, but hide it from Dad. I’m not sure what his idea of “knocking some sense” into Abbey might entail.

  

  We line up outside of class at the bell, and Dad senses the potential awkwardness of the day, I think. He hovers off to the side at the back of the line, as if he doesn’t even know me. I don’t know whether to be hurt or grateful.

  After we settle into our seats, Mrs. Gardener takes roll, and then she motions Dad to the front of the class. He walks straight and proud to her side, dwarfing her by a good foot.

  “Class, this is Captain Van Zandt, Thomas’s father. He is an officer in the Navy, and often travels around the world for his job, keeping us and our country safe. He’s been gone for a long time, and he hasn’t had a chance to see our school or to visit Thomas’s class before, so he will be staying with us today to help out.”

  Abbey leans over her desk toward me. “Your dad doesn’t want to be around you, either,” she whispers a little too loudly.

  I’m stunned. If Dad hadn’t been there, I’d be bawling. But I simply clench my fists and ignore her.

  Mrs. Gardener is still talking—she missed Abbey’s remark. But I finally calm myself enough to look up, and I see Dad’s face, glued to Abbey’s. She’s oblivious. I’m the only one who realizes that the most dangerous man I’ve ever known has just targeted an enemy.

  There’s a bit of silence, then Dad clears his throat. “May I say a few words, Mrs. Gardener?”

  She smiles at him. “Of course.”

  Dad smiles for the class, and I squirm in my seat. Dad quells me with a sharp look. “I’m excited to be here today. My job is pretty dangerous, and it’s nice to be in a place where I feel safe. All of you are very lucky to be here, and to have such a nice school and a nice teacher. I spent the last year in a country where a lot of the kids don’t go to school at all.”

  Tessa raises her hand, and as it attracts my dad’s attention, I can see that he recognizes her from my description. “Yes?” he asks gently.

  “How do the kids learn if they don’t go to school?” she asks.

  “That’s a great question,” he says. “The answer is, they don’t learn. They don’t know how to read. They don’t know that places like this classroom exist.”

  Abbey blurts out without raising her hand. “They can just play all day. I want to go there.”

  Dad frowns. “I don’t think you do,” he says. “Because the people don’t learn, they don’t know how to do things. There aren’t many doctors, or dentists, or lawyers, or teachers. Many people are sick. They don’t know how to make money. They are very poor. They don’t have time to play all day—they are too busy trying to find food, trying to survive.”

  “Can’t they just go to the grocery store?” Abbey asks.

  “They don’t have grocery stores like we do. The land there is too dry for most food to grow. And you need money to buy food. Most of the people don’t have real jobs to make money. They have some skills—maybe like sewing—and so they trade their sewing skills for the things they need. But it’s never enough. Without basic edu
cation, the people don’t know how to do much.”

  The class is silent as they take that in. Dad clears his throat again. “But anyway, I want you to know how lucky you are. I’m happy to be here.”

  “Any other questions?” Mrs. Gardener asks us.

  Marco yells out, “Do you carry guns and stuff? Did you shoot anybody?”

  The class seems to hold its breath as it waits for an answer.

  Dad looks at Mrs. Gardener, who shrugs. “Yes, I am soldier, and we carry guns when we’re working. We don’t go around shooting people, though. We just try to keep everyone safe.”

  “But have you ever had to shoot anybody?” Marco asks.

  Dad goes still. I watch him prepare a lie, but Mrs. Gardener saves him.

  “Marco, let’s give Captain Van Zandt a break. He’s on vacation. And it’s time to go over the calendar.”

  Dad and Mrs. G exchange a smile, and she seats him at her desk while she starts class. I wish she hadn’t interrupted. It would be very useful to me for Abbey to know exactly how many men my father has killed.

  

  We are dismissed to attend to our reading centers. Monday is a free day, so we can pick whatever center we want.

  A lot of the kids wander over to Alphabet Bingo. Boring. Even in kindergarten, identifying letters would have been easy for most of the kids in my class. I cannot understand why they all want to play such a mindless game.

  If I don’t want to play bingo, I can choose Rhyming Poems, Sentence Writing, or a phonics game on the computer. Three kids have already claimed the computers, so I decide to write a poem. Maybe the fact that Tessa is sitting at the poetry table by herself has something to do with my choice.

  I sit beside Tessa, grab a blank lined piece of paper and pencil, and select a card from the top of a pile. The card says, “MAT.” Mrs. G really knows how to challenge us with rhymes.

  “What did you get?” Tessa asks me, leaning into my shoulder to look at my card. Dad sits beside me, perched uncomfortably on the tiny blue plastic chair. I’m surprised it hasn’t collapsed under his weight.

  I want to be close to her, but my body moves away from hers involuntarily. Unfortunately, nothing my body does is involuntarily.