Half Brother Read online

  “I can’t say I think much of the company you’re keeping,” Dad said.

  “Tim’s okay,” I told him, hesitantly. “He’s got a good heart,” Mom said.

  Dad raised an eyebrow. “I wouldn’t say it’s a friendship that has much of a future.”

  “‘Cause his dad’s a plumber?” I asked. I don’t know why I said it exactly, except that it was the kind of thing Mom and Dad argued about sometimes, with Mom accusing Dad of being a snob, or too uptight. It just came out.

  “That kid’s going nowhere,” Dad said.

  “Richard! Don’t tell him that! He’s going to be at school with these boys.”

  “I don’t think so,” said Dad. “I talked to the headmaster of Windermere today, and he offered Ben a place.”

  Mom looked at Dad in astonishment. “You didn’t tell me about this.”

  “I was going to tell you both tonight.”

  “No, but you didn’t even tell me you were pursuing this,” said Mom firmly.

  “I think it’s a better fit for Ben—”

  “Ben might’ve liked a say—”

  “I’m okay with it,” I said, thinking of Jennifer Godwin’s legs. “Good,” said Dad. “I don’t think the Windermere kids spend too much time setting fires at construction sites.” There was a knock at the door. I looked at Mom and Dad, my heart racing. “Well, let’s see who it is,” said Dad.

  I trailed after him and Mom. It was Tim. He’d walked my bike back for me. He looked pretty sheepish when he saw Dad.

  “Sounds like you boys were up to no good,” Dad said. Tim just hung his head and nodded. “Thank you very much for bringing Ben’s bike back,” Mom said.

  “It’s okay,” he mumbled.

  Dad just walked away, like he was too disgusted by the whole thing to say any more. I went out to Tim and took my bike. Mom left us alone.

  “So what happened?” I asked. “Anyone going to jail?”

  Tim gave me a little grin. “Nah. We just ran off. That guy didn’t even chase us. He just stood there shouting. Said if he ever saw us again, there’d be big trouble. Is your dad gonna call my dad?”

  “I doubt it.” He’d never done anything like that before. “Good. I should get home. See you.” “See you. Thanks.”

  That night, I couldn’t sleep. My mind was still swirling with all that had happened. Leaping through rings of flame like some circus performer. Running for my life through a construction site. Going to Windermere. Going to Windermere with Jennifer Godwin.

  Later, I heard Mom and Dad talking from their bedroom. I heard my name a few times, so I crept closer to my door to listen.

  “Can we even afford it?” Mom was saying. “Oh, sure,” said Dad. “On my new salary, that’s not a problem.”

  “I just don’t see why it’s necessary,” Mom said. “Even after tonight?” Dad said.

  “He’s a thirteen-year-old boy. You never did foolish things when you were that age?”

  “You know it’s not just that,” Dad said. “I don’t want a repeat of last year. And I think he’d benefit from a more disciplined school environment.”

  Mom’s voice was angry. “The way you talk about him sometimes. He’s a good boy, Richard.”

  “I know he is. But he also needs a good kick in the pants. I want him with the right sort of kids, and I want him to start taking school more seriously. Windermere will sort him out.”

  The next morning, Mom and I were in the kitchen, feeding Zan mashed-up banana in his high chair. I sat beside him, spooning it into his mouth. He loved banana. He loved pretty much everything we fed him—hot cereals and mashed vegetables and Jell-O.

  “Eat,” I said, and made the sign, touching the tips of my fingers to my mouth. “Zan eats.”

  Not that he needed any encouragement. His mouth would open for more even before I’d loaded up the spoon. If I was taking too long he’d make an impatient high-pitched bark.

  He was tiny in his high chair, much smaller than a human baby of the same age. His little head was barely above the tray, but his coffee-coloured eyes were, as always, incredibly alert and eager.

  So far Zan hadn’t made any signs, but he was sure good at imitating us. When I widened my eyes, he widened his. If I stuck out my tongue, he did the same. And if I patted my head, he sometimes patted his own.

  “Drink?” Mom said when he was done his food. She made the sign, touching her thumb to her lips. Zan’s hands shot out, as if to hold a bottle, even though Mom hadn’t shown it to him yet.

  “He certainly understands a lot of things,” said Mom, screwing on the top of the bottle and bringing it over. She took Zan out of the high chair and held him as he drank. He loved being close to people, and was still almost always attached to one of us.

  “In the wild,” Mom said to me, “the babies stay with their mothers for four or five years. They get carried everywhere for the first year or so.”

  “You know way more about chimps than Dad,” I said.

  She had piles of books everywhere, by people like Jane Goodall, who studied chimps in the wild. I read bits of them sometimes. It was really interesting.

  “Well, Dad’s been busy designing the whole experiment, but someone has to learn about them as animals.”

  Dad was in charge of Project Zan, but Mom was in charge of actually taking care of him. Which was perfect, because Mom’s thesis was about cross-fostering. That’s what they called it when you raised one species as a different one. There were lots of cases of kittens growing up thinking they were dogs, or chicks identifying more closely with sheep than other chickens. Zan was being cross-fostered as a human, and Mom wanted to find out just how similar the two species were. What made a chimp a chimp, and what made a human a human? She figured there might be some things that were purely chimp-like, and even if we raised Zan as a human, he’d never lose them.

  Dad wasn’t very interested in this part. What he cared about was whether we could teach Zan language.

  Zan finished his bottle and Mom put him down on the kitchen floor. He liked to walk around on all fours, pulling up on the chairs and cupboards. He still wasn’t strong enough to climb onto things yet. After a while he scampered over to Mom’s foot and sat on it, his long arms tight around her leg.

  Mom walked around for a while like that, laughing, and then reached down and lifted Zan up, where he snuggled happily against her chest.

  We talked about Windermere and the uniform and what private schools were like, and how I shouldn’t ever think the kids there were smarter or better than other kids. I loved talking to Mom because I never felt like she was trying to study me. With Dad I sometimes got the feeling he wanted me to think something, or realize something, or admit something. Mom and I just talked.

  When Dad got home from the university he called out hello from the front door and came into the kitchen. He gave Mom a big hug and kiss, and Zan went really weird. He started hooting and pushing at Dad’s arms—like he didn’t want him to be touching Mom. At first Dad laughed and Mom did too, but then Zan seemed to get even more upset, and I saw his mouth open and before I knew it, he bit Dad on the wrist.

  Dad pulled his arm back. Zan shrieked at him.

  “No, Zan!” said Dad. “No biting!”

  But Zan ducked his head lower, trying to bite Dad’s hand again.

  As I watched in astonishment, Dad leaned down swiftly, grabbed Zan’s shoulders, and bit him on the ear.

  Zan squealed and flung himself against Mom, clinging tight, peeing through his diaper all over Mom’s shirt.

  “You bit him!” I yelled.

  “Yeah, I bit him,” said Dad. “Now he’ll know not to bite me ever again. It’s a tip I got from the chimp handler at the Chicago zoo.”

  I rushed over and looked at Zan’s ear. There wasn’t any blood. There wasn’t even any mark.

  “He’s fine,” Dad said. “A bit of a shock, that’s all.”

  Mom frowned at Dad. “They’re very protective, Richard. He might have thought you were
attacking me.”

  “We can’t have him biting,” said Dad.

  “He’s terrified of you now!” I exclaimed.

  “He needs to be scared of me,” said Dad. “He needs to know I’m the dominant male.”

  I shook my head, not understanding. “But you said we were raising him like a human. When I was a baby you didn’t bite me on the ear.” I looked over at Mom. “Did he?”

  “Of course not,” Dad said. “But he’s not human, Ben, all right? We can raise him like a human for the purposes of the study, but he’s still a chimp, and we need to be able to manage him.”

  “You didn’t need to bite him,” I muttered, and looked at Mom, hoping she’d come to my defence. She looked sad, but not angry.

  “Your dad’s right, Ben,” she said. “If we let Zan bite now, it’ll be harder to get him to stop later, when his teeth come in. Chimps want to dominate. Dad needs to be the dominant male. Now, I need to change my shirt.”

  She tried to pass Zan to me, but he clung tight and wouldn’t let go. I felt a little hurt that he wouldn’t let me comfort him, but I guess it was natural he’d want his mother right now. She went upstairs with him.

  Dad put his hand on my shoulder. “It’s all right, Ben,” he said.

  But I didn’t want to look at him, and the Dominant Male went off to mix himself a drink.

  FIVE

  BEAVER LAKE

  Jennifer Godwin and I lay side by side on the sand.

  It was the day after Dad had bit Zan. David had called me up and asked if I wanted to go to Beaver Lake with him and Jennifer. Maybe his father had put him up to it. I didn’t know. I didn’t care. I was here. Beside Jennifer.

  David’s older brother, Cal, had picked me up in the station wagon. He was seventeen and had his licence. He’d brought one of his own school friends, and they didn’t have much to say to us. At the lake, they didn’t even want to put their towels near us. Right now they were down in the water, throwing a football around, showing off how hairy their chests were.

  David was stretched out on my other side, tanning his front.

  I was pretty nervous, being in my bathing suit around Jennifer Godwin. She was wearing a red one-piece. I was relieved to see she didn’t have really large breasts; I think that would have finished me off. She wore her hair in a ponytail.

  Being so near her, I couldn’t really relax. I had a magazine, but I was just staring at it, not reading. It was all just letters and colours on the page. I couldn’t get over all her bare skin, all of her, stretched out on her stomach. She was reading a book called I Capture the Castle.

  “Is it good?” I asked.

  She nodded. “Pretty good.”

  “What’s it about?”

  “These two sisters who live with their crazy writer father in a castle. They both fall in love with the same guy.”

  “Your back’s getting a bit red,” I told her.

  She raised herself up on her elbows and looked over one shoulder to see. “Where?”

  “Just near the middle, where it, uh, scoops down.”

  She passed me her bottle of suntan lotion. “Could you put some more on, please?” she asked politely.

  “Yep,” I said, trying to sound like girls asked me this practically every day.

  I squirted some lotion onto my hands and rubbed them. I didn’t want my hands to be cold on her skin. When I touched her back it felt really hot, and amazingly soft and smooth. I didn’t push too hard. I rubbed the lotion in carefully. I wanted to make sure I covered every inch of exposed skin.

  “I think that’s good,” she said, without looking up from her book.

  “Yeah, I didn’t want to miss any spots,” I said. “It really is pretty red.”

  “Thanks,” she said, and turned the page of her book. She seemed pretty involved in it.

  David and I did most of the talking. He told me stuff about Windermere, which teachers were cool and which ones were total goofs. I was looking forward to going there now. I liked David, and Hugh and Evan had seemed nice too. It was good knowing I already had a couple of sort-of friends.

  Later, when Jennifer went down to take a dip, I said to David, “Is your sister going out with anyone?”

  “Why, thinking of asking her out?” he asked.

  The way his lips curled told me I’d made a mistake.

  “No, no, I was just wondering.”

  “She’s not allowed to date till she’s sixteen. House rules.” “Oh, sure—that’s a pretty good rule,” I said. I didn’t care. I’d put suntan lotion on her back. We were practically dating.

  A couple of days later, I woke up with the feeling something was wrong. I checked my clock radio and saw it was 7:20 a.m. Since Zan had arrived, I’d been waking up whenever he did, because the university had hooked up this radio monitor between Zan’s bedroom and Mom and Dad’s. When Zan woke up in the night, or in the morning, we’d hear him crying out for us, and someone would go down to him.

  He was usually awake by seven, but I hadn’t heard a peep from the monitor. It was Saturday and Mom and Dad were sleeping in.

  I waited another ten minutes and then went downstairs and let myself into his suite.

  He was still asleep, which was unusual. Before I even touched his little body I could feel the heat coming off it. He stirred and made a moaning sound. When I picked him up he was limp, and trembling. Right away I carried him upstairs to Mom and Dad.

  “I think Zan’s sick,” I said.

  Mom and Dad sat up in bed, and I passed Zan to Mom. “He’s got a fever,” said Mom. “A big one.” Dad was looking really worried, and he almost never looked worried. That made me freak out big time. “Call the vet!” I said.

  “No, the university arranged to have a medical doctor for him,” said Dad, hopping out of bed. “I’ve got the number …”

  He went to his study, and I heard him talking on the phone.

  Mom and I got dressed. We tried to give Zan a bottle but he seemed too dopey to take much of it.

  It seemed forever before the doctor arrived, but when I looked at the clock I saw it was only forty-five minutes. He examined Zan in the living room.

  “Pneumonia,” he said. “He’ll need antibiotics.”

  It seemed strange that he could have pneumonia in the summertime.

  “I can give a liquid form,” said Dr. Jakes. “Is he taking his bottle?”

  Mom shook her head. “Not properly.”

  “We’ll need to set him up with an IV, then. It’s in my car.”

  “Is it serious?” I asked him, my voice shaking.

  “Yes,” said the doctor, “but he’ll be okay.”

  He had a hard time getting a needle into Zan’s thick skin; I winced every time I saw the tip jabbing him. Zan was too sick to do more than whimper. Finally the doctor managed to get the needle into the vein, and he set up the IV stand. Soon a plastic bag of antibiotics was dripping into Zan.

  “I’ll come back at the end of the afternoon,” said Dr. Jakes. “Call me if there’s any big change, though.”

  I couldn’t eat my breakfast. I felt guilty. Maybe we should’ve been dressing Zan more warmly when we took him outside into the backyard. His body was made for the tropics, not for Victoria, even though it was a nice warm summer.

  Dad stayed home all that day, and seemed just as concerned as Mom and me. Zan kept sleeping, which Mom said was good, because he wouldn’t be ripping out the IV, and the drugs could do their work making him better.

  Mom held him on the sofa and I held him too. His little body was hot and limp. I was worried he’d die. He seemed so helpless. He didn’t have a real mother or father any more, or brothers or sisters. He really needed us. I looked at him and I didn’t think: Chimp. I just thought: Zan.

  The next morning, Zan was more alert when he woke up. By noon he’d ripped out his IV. I got really worried then, because how was he going to get his medicine—every drop counted. But when the doctor came by an hour later, he was delighted, and said Zan was o
bviously on the mend. He left us with some liquid antibiotics to put in his milk.

  Mom went into the kitchen right away to fix him a bottle and a dose. When she came back to the sofa to feed him, Zan took the bottle eagerly in his feet, sucked for a minute, and then reached out for me with his arms.

  Mom smiled. “I think he wants you to feed him.” “Really?” I said, smiling.

  She passed him into my lap, where he sat, happily sucking away.

  And then I did something I’d never done before: I kissed him on the head.

  SIX

  SCHOOL BEGINS

  In the last week of August, Dad and Mom started interviewing students to work with Zan. The idea was that Zan would have someone with him from eight in the morning till six in the evening, taking care of him and playing with him, but all the while teaching him sign language.

  Even though it was Dad’s project, he wasn’t going to be spending much time with Zan. He’d be at the university, teaching courses, and going through the data everyone collected. Day by day it was Mom who’d be running the show, doing a five-hour shift, training and overseeing the students, and working on her doctoral thesis. Mom and Dad figured they’d need at least ten research students.

  Mom wanted the interviews to be at our house, so the applicants could meet Zan. And Zan was picky. There were lots of people he didn’t like, especially guys. He wouldn’t come close to them, or he’d be aggressive and pull at them and shriek. A couple, he tried to bite. Maybe he saw them all as trespassers. Chimps were very territorial, and Zan seemed to think the house was his to rule. He didn’t want any more males in it.

  And Dad was almost as picky. He thought most of the students were flakes he wouldn’t trust to fill up the car. Luckily there didn’t seem to be any shortage of people wanting to work with Zan. Dad said the entire university was buzzing about the experiment, and lots of students were eager to play with a baby chimp, and earn some extra money and course credit.

  But as September crept closer, they’d hired only six people.

  Peter McIvor arrived for his interview on a Tuesday afternoon, fifteen minutes late. I was the one who opened the door. He had long brown hair in a ponytail and a beard, and his clothes were very hippyish. He actually wore a Peace button. He looked rumpled, and smelled musty.