Just one week until the Spring Fling, and the day of the Spring Fling would also be the—
day of the chess tournament finals, and J.P. had not been thinking about chess, not been playing practice games, not been reading chess magazines. In the old days—before Angela—J.P. frequently, and secretly, tried out a Russian accent, pretending to himself that he was Boris Spassky, former Soviet champion. Now the only accent he used was his fake James Bond, a vaguely Scottish-British affectation, which made him feel glamorous, dangerous, and desirable as long as he avoided looking into a mirror. He would use his James Bond accent in one week, on the day of the Spring Fling when he would be forced to meet—
Angela's father, Dr. Galsworthy, who would probably, as they shook hands, be secretly trying to feel his pulse. Before that day, just one week from now, J.P. would have to think of methods to create symptoms of triple framosis. He knew that he could trip over his feet and walk into doors, because he did that all the time anyway. But it wouldn't be enough, not for a distinguished British specialist in genetic disorders. J.P. would have to create a pale complexion, perhaps a low-grade fever, a racing pulse, all of those things probably familiar symptoms to the family of—
Raymond Myerson, whose parents, whom he had never met and never seen and never really even heard of until the day he read the plaque outside of the science lab, would be visiting the Burke-Thaxter School on the day of the Spring Fling. J.P. would have to figure out how to deal with that. He knew that the only answer might be moving to a different state and changing his identity. He wondered how excruciating it would be to burn off his fingerprints with acid. He wondered whether, after he had eaten away his fingertips and changed his facial features by plastic surgery and taken a new identity and moved to a small town in North Dakota, he would be able to get in touch with a very few selected people who would not give him away. His mother, for one. His father, in Des Moines. And maybe, just maybe—
Angela Patricia Galsworthy, who, only a few minutes before (J.P. grinned, remembering) had agreed to be his partner on the day of the Spring Fling.
He had asked her just as school ended, just as all the kids were crowding through the front doors of the building, calling to each other, shoving and poking and laughing. Asking her there, in the crowd, in the confusion, would have given him a chance to fade away and disappear, if she had said no.
But she had said yes. And then, smiling, she had waved to him and dashed off down the steps with some girls from their class.
And so, despite his other worries, and his very real fear that he wouldn't adjust well in North Dakota and that burning off his fingerprints with acid would so reduce the sensitivity of his fingers that he would never ever, if he wanted to, be able to read Braille, use an abacus, or play the violin—despite all of those concerns, J.P.'s steps were light and his shoulders straight as he headed home, through the park.
Because Angela had said yes.
Ralph was there, on the same bench, wearing today a pair of mottled green-and-brown camouflage trousers and a sweatshirt that said NEW ENGLAND PATRIOTS. Even J.P., who ordinarily cared very little about clothes, could see that the mix-and-match was not successful.
Ralph looked up matter-of-factly, as if he had been expecting J.P., and said, "So, kid. What's your D?"
J.P. had prepared. He was planning to say dandruff. If Ralph wanted proof, he was planning to lean his head over Ralph's lap and run his fingers through his hair. The camouflage pants might be a hindrance. But J.P. really did have dandruff, and he was certain it would show.
But he found, when he began to speak, to answer Ralph, that he didn't say dandruff. Instead he said, to his own surprise, "Deceitfulness."
Ralph stared at him with a long, squinting, thoughtful look. Finally he said, "We'll do character flaws next. Right now we're dealing in the strictly physical. I'll ask you again: What's your D?"
"Dandruff," J.P. replied, with a sigh, and Ralph nodded, accepting the answer.
"What's yours?" J.P. asked.
"Huh?"
"I said, 'What's yours?' What's your D, Ralph?" J.P. repeated.
"What say?" Ralph cupped one hand behind his ear, tilting his baseball cap a bit.
J.P. grinned. "WHAT'S YOUR D?" he bellowed.
"Deafness," Ralph said, and adjusted his cap.
"Why don't you get a hearing aid? This kid at school, Kevin Kerrigan, has a hearing aid, and he uses it like a weapon." J.P. glowered, thinking about Kevin Kerrigan, who was such a pain.
Ralph shrugged. "Maybe if it gets worse," he said. "Right now it comes and goes. Now for E. Gimme your E."
J.P. hadn't thought ahead to E. But, thinking quickly, he remembered back to the pre-Angela days, back when he was still paying a lot of attention to his chess game. He remembered those hours of sitting and staring at the chess pieces, occasionally rubbing his eyes with weariness and with—
"Eyestrain," he announced to Ralph.
Ralph made a face, twisting his mouth into a skeptical look. "Eyestrain?" he asked dubiously.
"And earwax," J.P. added quickly. "Excessive earwax. What's your E, Ralph?" he asked politely, hoping to divert Ralph's attention away from his own E, which even J.P. had to admit was not as well thought-out as it might have been.
"Emphysema," Ralph muttered gloomily. "Forty years of cigarettes. Now I can't even breathe. Listen." He drew a deep breath, or tried to, and it ended in a wet, choking cough. J.P. could hear the gasping wheeze behind Ralph's breathing. He cringed. He had already, long ago, decided never to smoke. Now he renewed that decision.
"We're up to F," he said to Ralph, who was still trying to stop coughing.
Ralph nodded, slapping his hand against his knee as he struggled to catch his breath. "You go," he said.
"Framosis," J.P. announced in a stricken voice. Then he continued, "Also, fabrication and fraud."
"I told you," Ralph said impatiently, when he got his breath and his voice back, "character flaws are a different competition. And what are you talking about, framosis?"
"Triple framosis," J.P. muttered.
"No such thing. You got an F, or not?"
J.P. sighed. If even an old bum on a park bench knew that there wasn't such a thing as triple framosis, how on earth would he fool Angela's father, the famous doctor?
"Let's get on the ball, here, kid. I asked you: You got an F?"
"Facial hair?" J.P. suggested. "I've got a little if you look close."
"Listen," Ralph said wearily, "I like you, kid, so I'm going to help you out a little here. Facial hair is not an affliction, it's simply a condition of the male half of the human species, sometimes even the female half as well. I had an aunt once who had a full mustache. And my wife, when I had one, did an occasional pluck in the chin area. It's no disease, kid.
"But lemme ask you this: Do you ever see little spots drifting across your line of vision? Like pieces of dust inside your eyeball?"
J.P. thought about it. He looked up at the sky; and there, against the expanse of blue, as J.P. stared, a small spot flickered across and disappeared. "Yeah," he said in surprise to Ralph. "I just saw one."
Ralph nodded. "Okay. You got floaters. Most people do. Won't kill you, won't make you blind. But floaters are a legitimate F. I got 'em myself."
He stood up, smoothed his Patriots sweatshirt, and stretched. "I've got you beat on F," he said, "because I suffer from flat feet and flatulence, both. But you're doing okay, kid. You're keeping up, now that you got the hang of it. I'll see you Monday. We'll be on G then."
He turned and began to walk away. Then he stopped and looked back at J.P. "Listen," he said, "about the character flaws. Yours seem to be falling into a pattern, see. For G, you're gonna wanta say guile. It goes with that other stuff: deceitfulness and fraud. But the thing is, kid, you don't hafta have character flaws like that. That's why I don't sympathize with 'em, see?"
Ralph turned again and shuffled off along the path while J.P. watched. He looked back one more time and called, "Floaters, you're stuck with those. No getting rid of floaters!"
He waved briefly and disappeared down the curving path.