Rob Thomas - Rats Saw God

Thanks to all my students who have allowed me to continue thinking like a teenager. Thanks to my agent, Jennifer Robinson, of PMA Literary and Film Management, for thinking this book was worth her breaking into the young adult market. To my editor and his assistant at Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, David Gale and Michele McCarthyI appreciate your talent, speed, flexibility, and willingness to talk to me for too long and at all hours. Thanks are also due to my friends, particularly Greg McCormack and Robert Young, who read the manuscript and offered suggestions and encouragement. Thanks to my former student James Dawson for the use of his sports column. Most of all, thanks to my friend Russell Smith for teaching me how to write.

SIMON & SCHUSTER BOOKS FOR YOUNG READERS

An imprint of Simon & Schuster Childrens Publishing Division

1230 Avenue of the Americas

New York, New York 10020

www.SimonandSchuster.com

Copyright 1996 by Rob Thomas

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

S IMON & S CHUSTER B OOKS FOR Y OUNG R EADERS is a trademark of Simon & Schuster.

Book design by Anahid Hamparian

The text of this book is set in 11-Point Industria and 10-Point Gill Sans.

Hand-lettering by Chris Raschka

First Edition

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Thomas, Rob.

Rats saw God / Rob Thomas.

p. cm.

Summary: In hopes of graduating, Steve York agrees to complete a hundred-page writing assignment which helps him to sort out his relationship with his famous astronaut father and the events that changed him from promising student to troubled teen.

[1. Fathers and sonsFiction. 2. High schoolsFiction. 3. SchoolsFiction.

4. DivorceFiction.] I. Title.

PZ7.T36935Rat 1996 [Fic]dc20 95-43548 CIP AC

ISBN 0-689-80207-2

ISBN-13: 978-1-43911-536-7 (eBook)

To Mom and Pop
for appearing interested
in every cornball thing Ive done.

R. T.

Though I tried to clear my head of the effects of the fat, resiny doobie Id polished off an hour before, things were still fuzzy as I stumbled into senior counselor Jeff DeMouys office. I had learned the hard way that Mrs. Schmidt, my physics teacher, was less naive than her Laura Ashley wardrobe suggested. I made the mistake of arriving in her class sporting quartersized pupils and a British Sterlingdrenched blue jean jacket. In a random sweep of her classroom, she paused at my desk, sniffed, ordered me to remove my sunglasses, then filled out the forms necessary to land me here.

Wakefield Highs powers that be, having exhausted all other options in their losing war against us stoners (including locker-by-locker searches, drug-sniffing dogs, and Untouchables -style police raids), were now playing hardball. By order of the principal, I was shuffled off to DeMouy, a UC Berkeley product reputed to be an earth goddessworshipping, bee polleneating, swimming-with-the-dolphins New Age flake. I braced for descent into a touchy-feely hell presided over by a lisping sage who would suggest I give myself a big hug. Go ahead, I could already hear him saying. You deserve your share of happiness.

To DeMouys credit, his office contained no posters of grumpy bulldogs or gorillas with I hate Mondays slogans on them. In this respect he had already exceeded the expectations I had for most educators. His office had more of a comfy, oolong-scented seventies feel: lots of plants and a humidifier purring away on top of a file cabinet. One of those environmental sound-effects recordings was evidently being played; I could make out the sounds of waves breaking on the beach, and we were a good three miles from the ocean. All in all, a grand spot to ride out the rest of my high. Through my pleasant dizziness and a potted cactus on his desk, I could see only the back of a manila folder labeled Y ORK, S TEVEN R.

Tea, Mr. York? DeMouy asked as he lowered the folder. It might help you come down a bit.

DeMouy looked nothing like I had imagined from the reports I had received from my brethren. This was our new hippie counselor? Surfer confidant? The man before me wore a woolly, regimental-striped tie with a teed-up golf ball monogram.

No, I said, trying to look impatient. Just put me in detention. Ill try to get in touch with my feelings there.

Humor me for a few minutes.

Okeydokey, I said, slouching a bit further down in my chair and staring unmistakably at the clock above him. DeMouy sipped an obscure Asian blend from a Far Side mug and read from my folder.

You dont much care for school, do you?

I deadpanned concern. Is it obvious?

Well, lets see here, he said, thumbing through my portfolio. In less than a semester youve tallied one in possession and three under the influences. This is doubly impressive when one considers the nine days of class youve missed ostensibly for health reasons.

He paused to see if I had a reaction. I didnt.

And then there are the comments on your report card: lacks motivation, doesnt turn in homework, falls asleep in class.

Look, this is helping me out quite a bit, but could you just get to the punishment part? Were at the end of World War Two in history, and I cant wait to find out who wins.

DeMouy shook his head. Youre not in my office because youre high, Steve. For that they just keep sticking you in detention until you see the error of your ways. What Im interested in is how this is possible.

He threw an envelope across his desk. I eyed it cautiously.

Read it.

The letter was addressed generically to Guidance Counselor, Wakefield High School; the return address said National Testing Service. It was a press release identifying two of Wakefields finest as National Merit finalists, some Allison Kimble as well as one presently detained pothead.

Those results could be your ticket into an Ivy League school, but the Cs youre making in the classes you still bother to show up for around here arent helping your case any, DeMouy said.

Four years without any activities might not have them scrambling for their acceptance forms either, I suggested, though I was busy picturing myself with a sweater tied around my neck, sailing with Kennedys, desecrating human remains in some arcane Skull and Bones initiation rite.

What happened in Texas?

What do you mean? I stalled, startled by the new direction of his questioning.

When this came in I was so sure they had the wrong Steve York that I did some checking into your records. According to your transcripts, you had a 4.0 through your first five semesters of high school. Near-perfect attendance. Then, the last semester of your junior year, it just falls apart. You even failed English III. Do you mind telling me how someone who makes a 760 verbal on his SAT fails English?

I couldnt make it all the way through The Outsiders again, I said. Suddenly I wasnt very comfortable in DeMouys office.

DeMouy continued digging through my folder. Your father is Alan York the astronaut.

Is that a question?

Was he the third or fourth man to walk on the moon? he said. That is a question.

Ill have to go home and check the trophy case. Though if you hear him tell the story, youd swear he was first. This third or fourth thing may come as a big disappointment to him.

You sound like you resent him.

I dont anything him.

Do you still think of Texas as home? DeMouy asked.

No.

I had moved to San Diego from Houston at the beginning of the summer. The astronaut had fought desperately for custody of me at the divorce hearing four years before. Sarah, my younger sister, was free to move with Mom to California, but the old man thought my future too important to trust to any non-hero. I was his heir. As such, I would be disciplined. I would study hard, excel in sports, choose my friends carefully, choose my college even more carefully. In short, bring glory to the York name.