Gordon Korman A Semester In The Life Of A Garbage Bag v02

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Ashley glowed. "You're right, sir. This is the one and only Gavin Gunhold."
"Wow!" whistled the worker. "Can I have your autograph? It's for my sister."
Readily, Gramp produced a pen. "Certainly, my good man."
"Great!" The man peered over Gramp's shoulder. "Make it to Ernie. Wow!" He
turned back to the job site. "Hey, Louie, guess who this is? Gordon Gunfield!"
"Who's that?" a voice called back.
Ernie was indignant. "What are you - an idiot? Everyone knows Gordon
.Gunfield. You know - 'the registration day moose looked at me.' On
television! He's really famous, you moron! If you hurry up, you can get his
autograph, too!"
Sean grabbed Gramp and Ashley. "Come on, let's get out of here!" A few blocks
down, he bought Gramp a pair of sunglasses from a street vendor, and
instructed him never to take them off.
But the sparkle in Gramp's eyes practically showed through the shades, so
overjoyed was Patrick Delancey with his newfound fame. Sean had never
understood that distant gleam in his grandfather's eyes, not until he'd become
Gavin Gunhold, and the gleam had turned into a dance of light.
"I knew it all along" was Raymond's opinion. "The very first time I saw Gramp
heave that bagel through the salami at the deli, I said to myself, 'Jardine,
this is a totally cool guy.' So what if he's eighty-eight? All he needed was a
way to shine, and we gave it to him."
"We got him involved in a plot," Sean amended.
"We took a fantastic old guy who was going out of his mind with boredom and
made his life fun again. You may not realize it, Delancey, but we're
considerate and loving grandsons to do this for him."
On Friday night, Raymond, under strict instructions laced with death threats
from Sean, took Nikki to a movie, Burger King, and then home. On Saturday
morning, Nikki telephoned the entire population of the ninth grade to tell
them about it.
Raymond himself said, "She's really a pretty nice
girl, Delancey. Jardine had a halfway decent time. She talked all about how
her big brother pushes her around too much."
"Hah!" snorted Sean in disgust. "My sister is Genghis Khan in training!"
To avoid Nikki floating around the house on cloud nine, he decided to go
upstairs and help Gramp with his fan mail.
"Listen to this. 'Dear Mr. Gunhold. Who do you think you are? Who cares if you
can play with a yo-yo? Your poems all stink, and you are an obnoxious crazy
old man. Signed Norbert Freeland.' Hmmm." Gramp paused thoughtfully, then
began to scribble on the FROM THE DESK OF GAVIN GUNHOLD stationery Ashley had
bought for him. Dear Mr. Freeland, Blow it out your ear. Yours very truly,
Gavin Gunhold.
"You're not going to send that, are you?" Sean asked, sifting through more
letters.
"Watch me," said Gramp, sealing and stamping the envelope.
"Here's one," said Sean. " 'My husband and I are your biggest fans. We are an
elderly couple, and we greatly admire how you show that older people are quite
capable of doing extraordinary things. Thank you, and good luck in your
career. Edward and Emma Crabtree.' "
"Good people," said Gramp positively. He looked confused as he examined
another letter. " 'Greetings, Mr. Gunhold, baby. Your poetry does
radioactivity to my thinkometer, zipping my nut with holographic images. The
vub orbs me so positive that I had to fling this communication - "
Page 77
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
"Here, Gramp, let me try." Sean scanned the
letter and, sure enough, it was signed Leland Fenster. He shuddered. If even
Leland was a Gavin Gunhold fan, the dead Canadian poet could be nothing less
than a household word.
Leaving Gramp to his adoring public, he descended to the TV room and switched
on the set.
". . . and in The Bargain,' Gunhold is commenting on the American consumer,"
said a prominent NYU professor.
"Very similar to the symbol of the stuffed moose in 'Registration Day,'"
agreed a colleague from Yale.
"I disagree," said the third specialist. "Gunhold's poems are nothing more
than astute commentary on human foibles. Consider 'Household Security, where
the attack dog - "
Head spinning, Sean switched over to a hockey game. How much longer could he
keep all this from his parents? Just yesterday, the family had entertained the
argon-neon laser salesman and his wife. Mrs. Argon-Neon had spent the whole
evening staring at Gramp, saying she was positive she'd seen him somewhere
before.
Even more important, how long could the whole deception go on? Did someone
really have the missing obituary from the New York Public Library? If yes, why
hadn't he shown himself? And if no, how long would it be before word of poet
Gavin Gunhold would travel up to Toronto, and to someone who knew the truth?
Eleven
The poetry assignment, although relegated to the background in all the
excitement over Gavin Gun-hold's career, was almost finished. Raymond had lost
interest ever since "What SACGEN Means to Me," feeling that the project was no
longer a factor in getting to Theamelpos. It was Ashley Bach, once described
by Raymond as a "death sentence" to the project, who was doing most of the
work. Steve Semenski's little sister had agreed to do the typing at $1.25 a
page.
There were still only seven Gunhold poems, but this was easily explained.
Gunhold's sudden popularity left him little time for original work. The
project contained analyses done by all three partners, and included many
opinions supposedly belonging to the poet himself. In addition, there was a
videocassette of all the Gunhold TV interviews, and copies of all his press
dippings. This made up for the fact that the written work came to.only sixteen
pages instead of twenty-five or thirty, according to Raymond.
"The bottom line is, who cares?" he commented. "My essay on the windmill is
coming out great."
Monday was the deadline for "What SACGEN Means to Me," and by the time Sean
arrived at school, Raymond had already made his submission, skimmed through
some of the competition, and estimated how many potential entrants he had
scared away with his poisonous snake rumor. (There were two hundred and
seventy-three essays. He figured at least that many had opted out.)
"I put my paper about a third of the way down the pile," he told Sean. "Not at
the front, but not so far back that Q-Dave'll be bored when he reads it."
"Oh, there you are." Mindy O'Toole jogged up to them. She was trying to act
casual, but was clearly unnerved by Raymond. "Danny wants to know how the
plans are coming along for the Christmas activities."
"They aren't coming along," said Raymond.
Mindy frowned. "Danny said you guys are helping him on this."
"No," Raymond insisted. "We're not 'helping' him with anything. Tell him to [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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