Pay Attention, Carter Jones: Chapters 5–11

I could hear them practicing, and after Annie’s progress providing and pronouncing practically every pr word in the language, the Butler proposed she prosper her study through prompt and profuse private attention to the list, and then he came to my room, where there was a whole landscape of balled-up pieces of paper.

I could hear them practicing, and after Annie’s progress providing and pronouncing practically every pr word in the language, the Butler proposed she prosper her study through prompt and profuse private attention to the list, and then he came to my room, where there was a whole landscape of balled-up pieces of paper.

“Progress seems preempted,” he said.

“A teacher whose primary aim is instruction,” he said. “Are you meant to write about the antics of absurdly powerful characters in strangely colorful costumes?”

“Much more suitable to discuss than the unlaundered debris—which you will later attend to. But your sentences prattle on. Practicing economy, and preceding your verbs with some semblance of a proper subject, would—”
“You’re doing it again.”

“Much more suitable to discuss than the unlaundered debris—which you will later attend to. But your sentences prattle on. Practicing economy, and preceding your verbs with some semblance of a proper subject, would—”
“You’re doing it again.”

“Your mother,” said the Butler, “is performing last rites for the Jeep.”

Annie did not smile her pain-in-the-glutes smile, but she was a little disappointed too when the next stop was Madeleine’s House of Music, where the Butler bought her a metronome.

“It is,” said the Butler, “what most everyone in the world, with the lamentable exception of the citizens of certain less civilized countries, would immediately recognize as a bat.”

“You see my point. Young Master Jones, it is a bat in every part of the world where elegance is cherished, where communal memory is honored, where mannered people reign.”

“Young Master Jones, last night you immersed your chocolate-glazed chocolate doughnut in your Coca-Cola.”

“And had I not intervened, you would have inserted the straw in your chocolate-flavored Coca-Cola into your left nostril.”
Okay, that was true.

The Butler’s eyes almost closed. He began to smile. And he said, as if in a kind of trance, “The most lovely and sportsmanly game that mankind has yet conceived—or ever will conceive.”

“As you will remember, young Master Jones, mockery is the lowest form of discourse. Mockery of cricket, however, is akin to blasphemy, and will not be spoken in my presence.”

“As you will remember, young Master Jones, mockery is the lowest form of discourse. Mockery of cricket, however, is akin to blasphemy, and will not be spoken in my presence.”

I mean, maybe he didn’t get the email. Or maybe he was out on a mission. Or maybe it was really late at night there. Or maybe they were on lockdown or something and the base had gone dark because of an imminent threat.

The umpire is the ultimate arbiter of fair play, from the moment when the coin is tossed to begin the game through the final counting of the runs, an expert on the rules of cricket, the umpire brings to the contest fairness, close observation, and a sense of the game’s tradition.

“It is such a cool car.”
“Your grandfather would have agreed, though his diction might have differed....”

The Butler smiled a little and said, “Quite sure, young Master Carter. Now, as you are here, Miss Anne is struggling with setting the timing on her metronome. Perhaps some brotherly assistance would be apt.”

Two pieces of toast standing in a rack. A dollop of orange marmalade—I hate orange marmalade—in a white bowl.

“And young Master William, if you would be so good as to carry in the long case and the rather cumbersome bag you’ll find on the back seat, I’d be so grateful.”

We donned them, and by the time we were finished putting on white sweaters and white hats, Annie and Charlie and Emily—who were on the stoop—had almost collapsed, giggling.

“And if you were doing something shameful, you would be properly embarrassed. However, since cricket is a game internationally played and internationally broadcast—as opposed to the insular, provincial, and misnamed football games played in this country—you must feel you are embarking upon a great global tradition.”

“And if you were doing something shameful, you would be properly embarrassed. However, since cricket is a game internationally played and internationally broadcast—as opposed to the insular, provincial, and misnamed football games played in this country—you must feel you are embarking upon a great global tradition.”

“And if you were doing something shameful, you would be properly embarrassed. However, since cricket is a game internationally played and internationally broadcast—as opposed to the insular, provincial, and misnamed football games played in this country—you must feel you are embarking upon a great global tradition.”

“How convenient to have your names printed so prominently on your jerseys. Young Master Krebs—yes, it all comes back, doesn’t it?—young Masters Krebs and Hopewell—a most forward-thinking name—you will be slips, and you will stand here and here around the pitch...."

Now, young Masters Carter, de la Peña, Klatt, Barkus, and Yang—who together sound much like a firm of solicitors—you will represent that opposing team and prepare to bat.

“We will practice our batting only at this point. Running between the wickets will come later—though young Master Barkus, to give us some sense of the lovely camaraderie necessitated by this game, perhaps you would take your place at the wicket behind me, imagining a run across the pitch if young Master Carter were to strike well.”

“We will practice our batting only at this point. Running between the wickets will come later—though young Master Barkus, to give us some sense of the lovely camaraderie necessitated by this game, perhaps you would take your place at the wicket behind me, imagining a run across the pitch if young Master Carter were to strike well.”

“So, once more into the breach,” said the Butler, and he came running at me with his hand looping over his head, and the ball sped out of his hand and it hit the ground and bounced and I kept my bat straight and my knees slightly more bent so I was ready to react quickly to the ball as it came to me and I watched the ball into the bat and I swung...

“Young Master Carter, since there are references to cricket in England in the mid-sixteenth century—that is, when the largest English settlements on your American shores comprised two or three fishing hovels leaning together—I believe I may have the advantage over you in terms of understanding how my bowling is judged to be ‘right.’”

“Young Master Carter, since there are references to cricket in England in the mid-sixteenth century—that is, when the largest English settlements on your American shores comprised two or three fishing hovels leaning together—I believe I may have the advantage over you in terms of understanding how my bowling is judged to be ‘right.’”

“Shall we see if young Master Krebs still has the knack of it?” said the Butler.

Krebs grinned. “I saw him play once. He gave me his bat after the match.”
“A noble gesture indeed! Thus the advantage of two years’ living in New Delhi. Perhaps you will be so good as to show young Master Barkus the proper hold on the bat, and we will proceed.”

Anyway, the art exhibit was a lot better—a whole lot better—than Sunday night, when the Butler announced that funds had been set aside in my grandfather’s bequest for an education in the arts, and so he was taking me and Emily and Charlie to a ballet exhibition in the brand-new Marysville Civic Auditorium, and so we went, and I won’t even tell you what people did up on their toes, on the stage, right in front of everybody.