Gifted by Beth Evangelista

think long and hard before he would ever ask for my help again.
    I would dazzle him with my ineptitude.
    I read a poem once on how the best laid plans of mice and men almost never pan out for them, written by a poet who must have spent considerable time with Mr. Zimmerman, for he would assign me only simple tasks, such as painting his submarine-tank a basic gray, that even I couldn’t foul up, try as I might. I gave the submarine-tank two lavish coats and left it to dry, then painted other boards whatever colors Mr. Z had directed—somethat would represent atmospheric conditions with Sky Blue paint, tempestuous seas on other boards with Pollution Green paint—and I let these bake away in the sun. It was mindless work, really. My brain relaxed, and I forgot all about the world around me, until I climbed onto the tailgate to help load the dried boards into the truck and saw that the world around me had edged in a little closer than I would have liked.
    I could see the Compound, and there were dozens of kids nearby, but my corrective lenses held my focus on only two—
Sam Toselli with his bulky arm draped across the delicate shoulders of Allison Picone
. Mr. Zimmerman had wandered off after mumbling something like “Okay, that’s it, George. You can get down now,” which I didn’t really hear, and I stood there leaning on the particle-boards, watching the two share what appeared to be an intimate laugh—until everything went dark. In my emotional anguish I had relaxed my grip on the backdrops, and the heavy boards came crashing down, knocking me over the side of the truck.
    I lay there, dead in the sand, looking up into black space until sunlight emerged in a kind of spinning spiral. I knew then that I couldn’t be dead after all, because the gruesome face of Brooke Walters suddenly formed the eye of the spinning spiral, and after a long career in Sunday school, I knew that a face such as hers could never be found in Heaven. I tried blinking the apparition away, but it leaned right over me, so I brought myself painfully to a sitting position and Brooke started squealing.
    â€œAllison wants you to stop looking at her. She thinks it’s weird.”
    What? She saw me staring? She must have seen me fall!
    â€œI wasn’t looking at her,” I lied, reddening.
    â€œYou stare at her every day of your life, George. Stop it! She thinks you’re WEIRD!” Then she made a face even more horrible than her normal one and strutted away.
    Weird?
I thought.
How am I weird?
I looked down at the ink sketch of the snail’s reproductive parts on my knee. My pants had ripped there, and the snail seemed to be mocking me now.
Oh my God!
I realized.
I
am
weird!
I groaned and flopped back down on the sand, then groaned a second time when the big clumsy feet of my music teacher tripped over my legs. He went crashing to all fours, like a cartwheeling hippopotamus, sending a volley of sand into my face.
    â€œGeorge!” he cried after he’d stopped wheezing. “What happened? Did you fall down?”
    I might have asked him that, but I didn’t, because there was sand up my nose. So I just offered him a gurgle.
    Now, you’re not supposed to yank an accident victim by the arm and haul him to his feet and then start whacking him with your flabby palms to get the sand off him, but Mr. Zimmerman must have missed the class on basic first aid because that’s exactly what he did.
    â€œDid you lose your balance up there?”
    I nodded slowly.
    â€œWell, nothing seems to be broken. Do you want me to take you to the nurse?”
    I shook my head vigorously. I did not want to go out into the Compound and have people look at me, one person in particular. For Mr. Zimmerman had been wrong, part of me
had
broken, and Nurse Kobb would never have been able to fix my broken heart, not even with a dozen Ace bandages.
    â€œThen why don’t you just rest awhile,” he said.