Read Online Whirligig by Paul Fleischman - Free Book Online Page A

rummaged madly through his mind, in vain.
    â€œOttawa, right you are,” supplied the clerk. “And what year did England wrest control of your fair country from France?”
    Brent knew this fact was nowhere in his memory.
    â€œSeventeen sixty-three, right again,” said the clerk. He handed Brent a pen and gestured grandly toward the register. “Welcome.”
    He gave Brent a tour and showed him to the room he’d share with three other males. Floating up the stairway came the faint peeping of a concertina. Brent had glimpsed the player in the dining room, a bearded man, eyes closed, his fingers punching out the melody on their own. After coming out of the bathroom, Brent stood listening to the cheery, reedy sound. He envied the man his power to entertain himself and others. There seemed no end to his stock of tunes. He thought back to the cyclist, admirably self-contained as well, not simply with his dome tent and gas lamp, but with his Go game and his thick book on the subject. By comparison, his own life seemed unfurnished with skills and interests. He desired to become the man he was impersonating.
    He woke to find himself alone in the room. He smelled bacon. Like gravity, the scent pulled him irresistibly downstairs. The hostel served a free continental breakfast. Those who’d bought their own groceries were cooking more substantial fare in the kitchen. Cautiously, he entered the fray, nonchalantly poured some coffee—a drink he’d tried only once—grabbed a pastry, and took a seat. A minute later a young man sat across from him and asked, “Where are you from?”
    â€œCanada.” Brent kept his voice low. He sipped his coffee, fought back a grimace, and reached for the sugar bowl.
    â€œWhat part?”
    â€œBritish Columbia,” he mumbled, praying there were no Canadians present. He ate his sweet roll nervously. The lies were piling up: that he was a coffee drinker, a Canadian, and, most serious, that he was a mere tourist, not a convicted killer on a mission of repentance. Not only his every word, but his every bite and breath was counterfeit. Prison, where no pretense was needed, suddenly seemed the better choice.
    His tablemate was German, a year older, traveling before starting college in the fall. Brent was amazed that he had no accent. After one year of French and three of Spanish, he could neither understand nor speak a sentence in either language. His companion mentioned that he’d just finished Two Years Before the Mast and would pass it on to him. Brent sensed from the boy’s comments that he knew more about American history than Brent himself did. The boy was tall, with strawberry-blond hair. The two could be mistaken for each other at a distance. Brent studied him in secret admiration, thinking that he might easily have been born into his body instead, might speak his three languages and know all that he knew. When the German asked if he wanted to see the sights downtown with him, Brent at once abandoned his plan to start the next whirligig. A half-hour later they were boarding a city bus.
    The Pacific in the distance, the red tile roofs, the palm trees and countless Mexican restaurants all made Brent feel gloriously distant from Chicago. Mexico was only twenty miles away according to the German boy. He introduced himself as Emil. They got off the bus at Balboa Park, headed for the San Diego Zoo, and spent the rest of the morning strolling through mesas, rain forests, and aviaries. Emil would be studying biology at his university and provided a constant commentary on bird plumages and migration, European snakes, the evolution of the elephant. Fantasizing he was beholding his own double, Brent watched raptly when Emil made sketches and jotted notes.
    â€œI’m sorry if I’m talking too much,” he said to Brent. “Both my parents are teachers.”
    â€œNo problem.”
    â€œThey would like me to become one as well. ‘A