Read Is This Tomorrow: A Novel for Free Online Page B

hard,” but instead, it was the same easy work, the same admonitions not to ask so many questions, and after that, Lewis just stopped trying in school and busied himself thinking about what he wanted to learn. He kept quiet and filled his notebook with things they weren’t doing in class, plans on how to build a ham radio, facts about ten different kinds of whales. One day, he was working on a drawing, comparing a beluga whale with a blue whale, when a shadow fell across his paper. He looked up and Miss Calisi’s brow was buckled in anger. “I asked you a question and you didn’t even hear me,” she said. “What are you doing?” She lifted up his notebook and peered at the page in astonishment. Lewis hunkered down in his seat. “This has nothing to do with long division,” she said curtly. She flipped some of the pages and then tucked the notebook under her arm, making him worry he wasn’t going to get it back. He watched her at her desk, scribbling something, while the other kids twisted in their seats to stare at him. Then she came down the row and handed him a note. “I want your mother to sign this,” she said. “Now open your arithmetic book.” She stood over him, waiting until he did. He sat there, listening to her drone on about long division, and in his mind, he heard humpback whales singing mournfully.
    There was no way he would give this note to his mother. His mother was always telling him how important it was that he do well in school, that he had to get good grades because that was how he’d get a scholarship to college. But he couldn’t see what was so important about college. He made a list of everyone famous who had never gone to college: Henry Ford. Andrew Jackson—and he became president. George Washington. Gandhi. Hitler. He crossed out Hitler because that seemed like an argument for why you should go, so you wouldn’t be like him. He ticked off all the different politicians, leaders, inventors. You could do anything. He had a whole notebook of things he himself wanted to do. Be a doctor. Study animals. Maybe be a scientist. And he could figure out how to do it without this dopey school. Anything he needed to learn was right here in the library. His dad had been like that. “I’m a self-made man,” Brian had always told Lewis, and he had won all these trophies and prizes for being the best salesman to prove it.
    He’d sign his mother’s name on the paper.
    Now, Lewis wandered the library stacks. The biography he really wanted was Houdini. Harry Houdini was Jewish like he was, and he was cool and the one thing Lewis wanted to do tonight, rather than meet his mother’s boyfriend Jake, was to disappear. Jake. What a name. Like jerk. Like stupid. Like stay out of my life.
    His mother had told him that Jake was going to take them both out for ice cream, a special treat on a school night. “He’s a friend. We’ll have a great time,” she had insisted. Lewis had asked her, well, what about his father? How about what Mr. Gallagher across the street had told him—that people were married forever in the sight of God, like he and his wife Tina were? A child, like their little Eddy, who was always swatting a baseball bat at the bushes, was the covenant. That was why divorce wasn’t a real thing. Ava had narrowed her eyes at him. “Divorce is very real,” she told him.
    He hated thinking about his mother and this new guy. What if she really liked him? Every time he thought about it, he had to sit down and make lists. He thought of running away, but then where would he go? How would he live? If he could just find his father—but he hadn’t been able to yet. He knew his father had had to leave because of his mom, because of the way they were fighting, and the few times his dad had called, Lewis could tell how happy Brian was to talk to him just by the sound of his voice. He didn’t know why his dad didn’t visit or call him, except that it had to have something to do with his mom and