Fish in a Tree: Chapters 39-51

“Your name is a homonym.”

Her face says she’s trying to figure out if she heard me right.
“Yes!” I say, nodding furiously. “Mom! They voted me class president. The kids in my class! Not the teacher. The kids did!”

It’s a full page of cursive writing.

“Okay, we are going to begin a unit on persuasive writing,” Mr. Daniels says.

“The first thing I thought of was antibiotics.”
“Really?” Mr. Daniels steps forward, putting his hands in his pockets.
“There are many who can’t afford medications, so I would like to give them out to people who need them. All over the world.”

Then I pat Albert on the back. “Just wanted you to know that you can always count on us.”
"Well, that would make you either a set of fingers or an abacus.”

“Elephants do have good memories,” he says. “But that isn’t why I chose it as my symbolic name.”

“Well...I’ve become a pachyderm.”

I imagine myself at a podium in front of thousands of people, arms in the air, declaring my answer.

“Albert Einstein was born in Germany on March 14, 1879. He is considered the greatest human mind to ever have lived in the fields of physics, mathematics, and philosophy. He changed all of science with his ideas. My father says that the field of science was like Pinocchio as the puppet, and Einstein changed it into a real boy.”

Then he looks at me. “And how smart you have to be to persevere."

“Did the world just fall off its axis or what? Did I just see what I think I did?”

"Well,” he says, “there is an explanation. Ally is a catalyst.”

“You know, Albert, you kind of talk like those guys who narrate the movies at school. From the History Channel and stuff.”

I hand him the tattered piece of paper that says possible.