Captain Obvious

The spring semester was breezing by, and there didn’t seem to be much talk about the move these days.

Dewey never could bring himself to do that school paper interview of his dad or ask him any more questions about what he had discovered. He was deep into a science project at school. He’d also been busy, of course, at work, because where you found kids, you always found parents who needed some assistance to be, shall we say, their best selves.

For his project, Dewey wanted to look at what burned more quickly: 91% isopropyl rubbing alcohol, the petroleum hydrocarbon Tiki Torch fuel they used to fill the Tiki torches in the yard when they had company, or tequila.

His teacher had done a whole two days on fire safety first, but try to tell his mother that.

“Dewey, I’m telling you. I don’t care what Mr. Stewart says. I’m not having you run experiments with blowing things up at home.”

“I’ll go outside,” shrugged Dewey.

“Thank you. I much prefer our house to burn from the outside in. No,” she remained adamant, an afghan draped around her shoulders.

“But, Mom,” Dewey pleaded. “It’s my project. I’ve done all the research and steps leading up to it already.”

She pushed her hair out of her face. “Do you like my eyebrows, Dewey?”

“What?” That seemed random, Dewey thought.

“My eyebrows?” she asked, refocusing him back on what she said. “Look at them. Do you like my eyebrows?” Each word was enunciated clearly like he was a foreign exchange student.

“Sure. I guess so. Yeah.” Truthfully, he’d never even really thought about the fact that she even had eyebrows, but they looked fine to him.

“I like yours, too. And I don’t really want you walking around without any because you singed them while flambéing our lawn chair.”

Just then Dewey’s dad came in.

“Dad. Help!”

“Karen. It’ll be fine. Dewey and I will do it on the driveway in the front. Don’t worry!”

“Uugh! Don’t leave burn stains on my driveway!” she called out after his dad, who headed out the door, one arm around Dewey’s shoulder and the other reaching for the bottle of tequila.

“This is all a cover for your father to have a margarita party in the driveway,” laughed his mom to Stephanie, who’d been sitting at the table trying to drown everyone out as she did her homework.

“Save me a taco,” Stephanie mumbled.

“I wuant a taco!” called out Pooh Bear from the other room.

“Ha! I know what we’re doing for dinner tonight,” laughed their mom. “They better not blow something up. I’m going to kill them if they kill themselves.”

🖊

The next day Dewey was working on some of his predictions and trying to graph them on his computer when his mom dropped a small package on his desk.

“You got a letter from Auntie Susie,” she said.

She hung around waiting for him to open it. He stopped what he was doing, eager to tear open the small package, but he worried about what she might see.

“Well, aren’t you going to open it?” she asked.

“Sure. Yeah,” he could see no way to stall.

Dear Dewey,

I hope this isn’t too late for your school project. This is a diary from your dad when he was about your age. I probably should hand it over to him, not you, but what the heck—you’re my only nephew, and we’ll call this sweet revenge for all the times he tortured me!

Please do take care of it, though, as I would like it to get back me in good shape when you’re done. Someday, I plan to torture him myself with it and read parts of it aloud—like at his fiftieth birthday party.

Hugs and Kisses,

Auntie Susie

“Wow,” said his mom. “Let me see that!”

“Hey! She sent it to me.”

“But this is quite an artifact. What project? How about we read it together tonight at bedtime?”

“OK,” agreed Dewey. “It’s not really a project. It’s nothing. I was going to maybe write an article about our family going to Alaska for the school paper, and I sent Auntie Susie some interview questions about Dad as a kid. I don’t really think the school paper gives a rat’s behind about Dad taking us to Alaska.”

“Really?” asked Dewey’s mom. “I would think that might make a great feature piece.”

“Yeah, maybe,” Dewey said just to move the subject along.

No one cared and Dewey didn’t care to think about it anymore. He’d just cured Alexander Bravo’s mother of her embarrassing habit of dressing like a teenager with her heart and flower tank tops, short shorts, and leather boots. Now that was something to write home about.

When his mom left the room, Dewey went back to his science project. But as he entered his data into the computer, his mind kept wandering back to the diary on the desk next to him. He picked it up and opened it up randomly to a page and began to read. He flipped around and read another and another.

He couldn’t believe it. It was the most boring drivel he’d ever read. Incredibly, each page read the same. School was fine. His dad hoped he didn’t have to run in PE. He didn’t like a girl named Dee Dee. He did like a girl named Dee Dee. No, he didn’t. Yes, he did. He had to run in PE.

At the end of each entry he ranked the day. “All in all today was a ‘B’.”

July 4: It is the fourth of July. The Blatts and Joneses came over. It was fun. We swam all day and ate a lot. There’s not very much else to say. All in all, today was a B+.

Seriously? He wrote on the entry for July fourth, ‘It is the fourth of July’? Ha! Thank you, Captain Obvious!

September 6: Today I worked in Pop’s office. It was boring. Then I got my hair cut. It really doesn’t show. Four more days until school starts. Uugh. I got into Drama Honors and I didn’t even have to try out because the class wasn’t full. All in all, today was a “C.” P.S. Anthony (my dog) really likes to lick ear wax.

Dewey flipped through looking for the “A” days and, frankly, they were so dull, he thought he’d put a bullet through his head.

Wow. Could his father have led such a dull existence?

Maybe he was just a poor recorder of history.

When his mom tried to read it to him that evening she laughed, and they both agreed Alexander Dumas’s The Three Musketeers made better reading than Don Fairchild’s “One Musketeer,” and they moved on.

Still, after his mother left, Dewey got to thinking again. His aunt had said his dad had wanted to be a math teacher. And clearly, he was one bored kid in school. There had to be something Dewey had not uncovered yet. What could it be?

That night, Dewey had a dream that he and his dad were going on a vacation together. They were going to take a jeep ride, but first they had to go over this huge big bump that he worried the jeep couldn’t handle. Then it would be smooth sailing.

The jeep went over the bump fine, he guessed, because the dream just skipped to another part, and they were now driving along the water’s edge. It was beautiful, but Dewey worried they might fall into the water in the dream, so he asked his dad to open a window so they could swim out if the jeep fell in.

As they were driving along, he realized that they’d taken these trips before. He loved taking them with his dad and how they traveled together on the open road. In his dream they were driving together and Dewey felt happy—because they were together.

When he woke up, darkness filled his room, but the light of the moon seeped through the sides of his blackout shades. He wrote the dream down by turning on his phone and emailing the details of it to himself, so he wouldn’t forget it in the morning.

“I’ve got it,” he said aloud to the moonlit darkness. “I know the solution.”