Half Brother Read online

  Dad had this terrifying stare. I wasn’t sure if he knew he was doing it, but he’d look over the top of his glasses and just lift his eyebrows a bit and wait. I was pretty impressed with Peter, standing up to Dad. I didn’t think I could’ve done it.

  “He doesn’t really like sitting at the desk,” Peter answered. “It’s probably, like, his least favourite place. In fact, he hates the desk.” He looked around at the other students. “Come on, guys, let’s be honest. How long can you get him to sit in a chair?”

  Dad smiled pleasantly. “I’m sure we can think of ways to modify his behaviour at the table. He’s making significant progress, and I wouldn’t want to see that change.”

  Dad was in full Doctor mode, using all his scientific words. Significant progress? I would’ve said fantastic or amazing, but to Dad it was just something to note down and chart on a graph.

  “The desk might actually enhance his progress,” Ryan commented.

  “We’ve brought him to two-word phrases,” Dad said, “and his rate of sign acquisition is increasing sharply. He’s smart. And he’s older now too, so I think he should be able to work at the table for an hour in the morning, and an hour in the afternoon, after a good long break.”

  Zan wasn’t even a year old and Dad wanted him to sit at a table for a whole hour? But I shouldn’t have been surprised. Zan wasn’t allowed to just be Zan. He needed to produce data.

  I looked over at Susan, who was still nodding and smiling. Peter said nothing more, but he was busy making notes. He seemed to be writing an awful lot, and he looked angry.

  “Zan’s at twelve signs now,” Dad was saying. “If he continues at his current trajectory, he should be at twenty, twenty-five signs by his birthday. Twenty-five words for a one-year-old. That’s pretty good for a human child. You’re doing great work, everyone. Well done. Any other questions?” No one had any.

  On Wednesday morning, I got to homeroom early and left the record on her desk, wrapped up with a little note inside that just said: For your listening pleasure. Happy Birthday. Ben.

  And then I sat down and waited, with my History binder open so it looked like I was studying. From the corner of my eye I watched as she came in and saw the present. Her eyes went all wide. She unwrapped the record, gave a gasp, said, “No way!” and then read my note. She turned and gave me the best smile.

  “You are so nice!” she said.

  I’d gone back to the store and bought the live ABBA album she’d admired. Now that I was getting paid for Project Zan, I had some money to throw around. I couldn’t think of a better way to blow it.

  “Hey, no problem,” I said. “The guy said it was probably the only copy in Canada.”

  “You’re kidding!” she said, clutching the record.

  “That’s what he said. A friend of his bought it in Sweden.”

  “This is so cool. Thanks, Ben!”

  And right there in class she looked at me and made the sign for kiss, just like I’d taught her.

  TEN

  REMARKABLE RESULTS

  “How do you feel about your math marks, Ben?” Dad asked.

  It was Saturday. Mr. Greensmith had sent home a letter yesterday, because I’d nearly failed two tests in a row. Dad had been out late at some work thing, and hadn’t seen the letter until this morning. We were getting Zan’s room ready for a teaching session, moving the table and chairs into position for the cameras, loading up the fun box.

  How did I feel about my math marks?

  It wasn’t Dad’s style to come right out and say he was disappointed or angry. It was some kind of psychologist thing, I guessed. He wanted to know how I felt about the marks—as a self-improving exercise. He wanted me to look deep into myself and make the startling discovery that my marks were crap, that I’d messed up, and that I needed to try harder next time.

  I took a breath and said, “Well, to be honest, they exceeded my expectations.”

  He looked up at me sharply. “They did, did they?”

  “I was pretty sure I was going to flunk both of them. But I scraped through.”

  “And you feel okay about a C minus?”

  I shrugged. “I’m no good at math.”

  “No. You don’t care about math. Honestly, Ben, a chimp could get better marks than this.”

  “Why don’t you teach Zan, then?”

  “If you need help, you just have to ask me,” he said.

  That made me angry. Dad did sometimes help, but he wasn’t around much, even in the evenings. He had meetings and a night class, and he was all tied up with his own work. Anyway, I didn’t like the way he helped me. He’d sit there and tell me I was messy and get me to erase things and start again more neatly. And he almost always shouted.

  “It’s not like your second-term report card was any great shakes either,” Dad said.

  “I guess no one cares about the A I got in gym,” I mumbled.

  “You’re a smart kid, Ben. You should be getting much better marks.”

  I wasn’t convinced I was that smart; and I didn’t know how much better I could do. Or even how hard I wanted to try.

  “Maybe we’re asking too much of you with Project Zan,” Dad said.

  I looked at him, wondering if this was a threat. “No, I like doing it,” I said.

  “I know you like doing it. But your schoolwork should take priority.”

  “Okay, yeah,” I said miserably. “I’ll try harder.” “And what about all these detentions? Six this term. What’s that about?”

  I just shrugged. There was no way I could tell him about my strategy of being a dominant male. It was working, but sometimes there was a price to pay.

  “We’re going to keep a very close eye on your grades,” Dad said.

  He kept saying “we,” but I wondered if Mom was really in on this too.

  “And if we don’t see an improvement, we’re going to scale back your time with Zan.”

  Suddenly I was furious. He was using Zan like a reward! Zan wasn’t something that you could take away or give. He was part of the family. Just because my marks were crappy, he couldn’t separate me from Zan.

  I said, “You’re the one who wanted me to go to Windermere.”

  “You didn’t seem to mind the idea,” he said.

  He was right about that, but I wasn’t going to admit it. “It was more important to you. So you could look good with your boss.”

  One of the things I’d learned from Dad was how to watch and listen and figure out how to get under someone’s skin. It worked.

  For the first time, Dad looked angry. But he managed to keep his voice calm.

  “Ben, I am not paying these fees so you can goof off. If I don’t see some major progress I’m taking you out. You can say goodbye to David and Jennifer Godwin, and go straight to Brentwood public school and hang out with your construction site pals.”

  “Maybe you should accept you’ve got a stupid son,” I said, and wanted to add: But there’s probably an experiment you can do to make me smarter.

  “That’s enough, Ben,” he snapped, and I knew it was time to stop.

  Just then Mom came in with Zan, walking hand in hand. He’d finished his breakfast, and was all cleaned up. “You guys all ready?” Mom asked. “All ready,” Dad replied.

  Zan looked from me to Dad, then back to me again, and it was like he knew exactly what had passed between us. Maybe he could sense or smell it. He reached out his arms to me for a hug. I picked him up.

  “Don’t pick him up unless he signs,” Dad told me.

  I put him back down.

  Dad flicked a switch on the wall and started the cameras. It had been two weeks since we’d started filming everything, and Zan was signing less. Peter had noticed it, and everyone else had too. So Dad wanted to take Zan through a session himself and evaluate the situation.

  We got Zan seated on his chair, opposite me and Dad. Dad wanted me around because Zan usually misbehaved when he was alone with him, and Dad knew I’d help keep him seated and
happy. I thought it was pretty rich that Dad ticked me off for not doing better at school, and then expected me to help him with his research.

  Zan always looked a bit forlorn sitting in his chair. He was still so small and his head barely cleared the table. He signed out to me, but I shook my head and told him to wait.

  From the fun box on the floor, Dad took out Zan’s favourite baby doll and put it on the table. Usually this would trigger all sorts of signs. You could give the baby and hide the baby and put the baby up and put the baby down and hug the baby.

  But Zan just looked at it like he’d never seen it before in his life.

  He turned to me and signed out again. He wanted to play outside.

  Dad waited a minute and then signed baby himself, trying to cue Zan.

  Zan stared at him blankly. And suddenly I wondered if he was punishing Dad for being mean to me. Was he saying, I’m not doing squat unless you start being nicer to Ben. It was crazy, probably, but thinking it made me feel kind of happy.

  Then Zan got off his chair. Dad picked him up and put him back on.

  “Sit, Zan,” he said, making the signs.

  Dad put the baby away. From the fun box, he took a cup, and a bottle of ginger ale—Zan’s favourite drink. Usually just the sight of the bottle was enough to start him begging. Today he stared at it without any interest. Dad poured himself a drink, raised it to his mouth, and had a sip, making appreciative smacking noises.

  Zan scampered off his chair.

  Dad put him back on and said, sternly, “Sit, Zan!”

  Zan sat.

  Dad got out the music box, which we were using to teach Zan the sign for listen. Zan loved it when we wound it up and the tune came scrolling out from somewhere inside the box. But today, Zan couldn’t have looked more bored.

  “I don’t think he’s in the mood,” I told Dad.

  “Clearly not,” said Dad, looking at me like I was somehow responsible, like it was something Zan and I had cooked up just to annoy him.

  Part of me wanted Zan to perform, because I was suddenly scared that if he didn’t, Dad might punish him. Make him sit in the chair all morning, or go without lunch.

  And the other part of me was full of admiration. Zan could talk, but he was choosing not to.

  He was saying he didn’t feel like it. He was saying no.

  He was giving my father the finger.

  I wished I had Zan’s courage.

  A couple of days later, Peter called in sick, so Mom had to fill in for him. When I got home after school, she was wiped out. She’d done a double shift, and Zan had been acting up all day. He’d thrown his food and ripped off his diaper and peed on the floor, and he’d been aggressive with one of the new students.

  That night I put him to bed, and he was so exhausted he was asleep the moment he was in his pyjamas and had the bottle to his lips. Looking at his small, sleeping body it was hard to imagine he was capable of such mischief.

  Later that night, I woke up to Mom and Dad having an argument in their bedroom. They always seemed to have them at night, I guess so I wouldn’t hear. But usually I woke up anyway, and stood by my door so I could hear better.

  Sometimes I wondered if they liked fighting. Mom was pretty dramatic and usually did most of the talking. Dad was calm and soft-spoken. When I was younger, I used to feel sorry for Dad, because I’d hear him talking less and less, and I’d imagine him getting kind of worn out and saggy. But I was wrong. Dad was like a camel. He paced himself. He could go on forever with very little food or water and save his energy and stay strong. It was hard to know who won most of the fights, but I figured it was usually Dad.

  “You never play with him,” Mom was saying.

  “He doesn’t need me to play with him,” Dad said.

  I was confused. Were they talking about me?

  “And when you do,” Mom went on, “it’s to test him. I don’t think that’s healthy for the relationship.”

  “What’s this really about?” said Dad, in his infuriating psychologist’s voice. “You had a hard day. I appreciate that, Sarah. Zan acted up and you had to take an extra shift, and you’re exhausted.”

  “You can’t dismiss it that easily, Richard,” Mom argued. “You set this thing in motion, you can’t just walk away from it.”

  “How on earth am I walking away?” he said. “I’m overseeing this entire experiment. I don’t need to be in the trenches every day collecting data. That’s what the students do.”

  In the trenches? Was that really how Dad saw spending time with Zan?

  “This experiment,” said Mom, “relies on cross-fostering. Raising Zan human. You are supposed to be his father. Now, how would you describe being a father, I’m just interested to know. What kind of obligations and responsibilities and activities does that entail? In your esteemed opinion?”

  She was sounding pretty sarcastic, and I heard Dad give an impatient sigh. “In the wild, the fathers don’t have anything to do with the babies. They don’t even know who the fathers are mostly. Zan gravitates more naturally to his mother and siblings. Ben, Peter, the others—they’re surrogate siblings and playmates. And he’s got you. That’s what he needs. That’s natural.”

  “But teaching him human language is not. You can’t have it both ways, Richard. Are we raising him like a chimp or a human?”

  “You’re suggesting I’m a weak father figure for him.” Was that amusement in Dad’s voice?

  Mom said, “He certainly hasn’t bonded with you. That doesn’t bother you?”

  “No,” said Dad.

  Mom muttered something that sounded like “no surprise there.”

  “Look, I’m sorry you had a hard day.”

  There was a pause and I was hoping he’d say something nice—not so much about Mom, but about Zan. What he said next was, “I regret not getting a female.”

  Mom said nothing.

  Dad went on. “I heard they were more compliant—but what could I do? All they had available was a male, and we couldn’t wait forever.”

  I felt sick. Didn’t Dad feel anything for Zan? How could he just wish for another chimp—an easier chimp—just like that?

  “Zan’s not the problem,” said Mom. “You’ve got to be more involved.”

  “I don’t have time. Anyway, I’m not an animal person, you know that.”

  “Zan thinks he’s human.”

  “We talked about this at the outset,” Dad said. “We talked about the risks of getting sentimental about the subject.”

  “Sentimental,” said Mom disdainfully. “Is every kind of emotion sentimental for you?”

  “We knew it would interfere with the experiment,” Dad persisted.

  Mom snorted. “I don’t think that was ever a risk for you, Richard. But, yes, it’s a risk for me, and it’s certainly a risk for Ben.”

  “Ben will adjust,” Dad said.

  I wasn’t quite sure what they were talking about, and I frowned, listening hard. But they must have moved off into the bathroom, or they were talking more quietly now, because I couldn’t hear any more.

  I went back to bed, but it took me a long time to get to sleep.

  The next morning I woke up early. It was six-thirty and the house was quiet. I didn’t hear any hooting noises coming from the baby monitor, so Zan must’ve been asleep too.

  But I remembered how he’d been sick in the summer, and I felt anxious after all of Mom and Dad’s arguing in the night. Still in my pyjamas, I went downstairs, unlocked the door to Zan’s suite, and quietly went in. I thought he’d like it if I was there when he woke up. It would be a surprise, and I could imagine his eyes going all wide and how he’d give an excited pant-hoot and fling himself into my arms. I wanted his body against me.

  I walked through the playroom and silently opened the door to his bedroom. The sun was on the rise and even though the curtains were still drawn, there was plenty of gentle light in the room.

  I was surprised to see Zan already awake, sitting up in his bed, his
back to me. He was playing with his dolls. He’d arranged them in a semicircle around himself: the baby, the chimp, the chick, G.I. Joe.

  He was signing to them.

  With one hand he offered the chick his empty bottle of milk, and with his free hand he signed drink. He held the bottle to the chick’s mouth for a moment, then dropped it impatiently and signed hug. He picked up the chick and clutched it to his chest.

  As I stood there, watching in wonder, Zan turned to look at me. His expression said: Can I help you?

  I almost felt like I should apologize for interrupting, and come back later. I was hoping he’d turn back to his toys and keep signing. But now that Zan had seen me, he lost interest in his dolls. With a hoot he stood and scampered towards me, arms raised to be picked up. I waited until he signed hug before I lifted him.

  I changed his puffy diaper, my mind buzzing the whole time with what I’d just seen. He’d been talking to his toys, trying to teach them language!

  I heard Mom in the kitchen, and right away carried Zan out to tell her. She seemed as excited as I was, and we hurried upstairs to tell Dad. He was in his boxer shorts, buttoning up his shirt, when we all barged in.

  “I’d love to get that on film,” he said. “I wonder if we can rig up a camera in his bedroom.”

  “It means he’s not just imitating us,” said Mom.

  “Or doing it for reward,” he added excitedly. “He’s applying it spontaneously, in different contexts.”

  “He really is remarkable,” I said to Dad. “Isn’t he?”

  Dad looked at me for a moment, then winked. “He is, Ben. He’s remarkable.”

  ELEVEN

  NEW DATA

  She let me kiss her. It’s weird, but that’s how I thought about it. Not we kissed or she kissed me back but: she let me kiss her. It was at the dance, Friday night.

  Earlier, when Mom had dropped me at the Cordova Heights Rec Centre, I’d spotted Jennifer way back in the parking lot, with David and Hugh and some of their other friends. Maybe they were doing a bit of drinking before they came inside. I thought about going over, but I didn’t want it to look like I was squeezing in on them, uninvited. I wondered why they hadn’t mentioned anything to me. Hey, Tarzan, meet us back in the parking lot for some liquid refreshment. So I just headed for the main doors and went inside.