Kindness for Weakness Read Online Free Page B

assignments. I told this to Mr. Pfeffer, but he waved his hand and said, “It’s voice and perspective, not experience. There are plenty of books by charming bastards who can’t get out of the way of their own talent. The world needs more voice and perspective. Yours will do, when you’re ready.”
    I pick my head up, rubbing my eyes, grateful that my favorite teacher, a man I admire and look up to, likes me, even if I don’t understand why.
    “Here.” He pulls two bottles from a mini fridge under his desk. “Have a root beer, and let’s talk like real men about
The Sea Wolf
.” He assigned the book by Jack London last week, daring any student to prove to him that it’s not the absolute greatest American adventure novel ever written. It’s about Humphrey Van Weyden, otherwise known as Hump, an intellectual and self-described sissy who gets plucked out of the sea by a sealing schooner. Van Weyden thinks he’s been saved … until he meets the captain, a brutal madman named Wolf Larsen, who forces him to stay aboard and serve as cabin boy. I’ve only read a fewchapters, but I can tell Van Weyden is going to have to fight Wolf Larsen for his life. It’s that kind of a book, which is to say, it’s awesome.
    I twist off the bottle cap. The ridges dig into my hands, and I do my best not to show that it hurts. “Do real men drink root beer, Mr. Pfeffer?”
    “
I
drink root beer,” he says, thumping his barrel chest with a meaty fist. “You saying I’m not a real man?”
    “No, sir.” I laugh.
    “Good. You might pass yet. Now, about that book …”
    I take a swig from my bottle; it’s cold and delicious and wakes me right up.
    “At the beginning,” he says, “when Wolf Larsen tells Hump,
‘You stand on dead men’s legs. You’ve never had any of your own. You couldn’t walk alone between two sunrises and hustle the meat for your belly for three meals,’
what does he mean?”
    It’s an easy question, a gift to get the conversation started. “That Wolf has no respect for Hump, because he doesn’t do any real work. He’s living off the work of others.”
    “Right,” Mr. Pfeffer says. “But what’s he
really
saying?” This is how Pfeffer works, a simple question followed by slightly tougher ones.
    “That Hump’s not a man.”
    “And how does Hump respond to the challenge?”
    “He shrinks from it, because he’s afraid.” I open my copy and read from a spot I had underlined earlier:
“ ‘What was I to do? To be brutally beaten, to be killed perhaps, would not help my case. I looked steadily into the cruel grey eyes. They might have been granite for all the light and warmth of a human soul theycontained. One may see the soul stir in some men’s eyes, but his were bleak, and cold, and grey as the sea itself.’ ”
    Pfeffer smiles broadly. “Ahh, well done, boy!” he says. We clink our bottles together as a couple of kids come in and loiter around their seats. Mr. Pfeffer leans in close. “But read the rest of this book carefully,” he says. “It’s got some good stuff in it. Secrets. Do you know what I mean?”
    I shake my head, a little freaked out at the way he’s staring at me, dark eyes blazing, focusing too intently, like they’re trying to see into me. Maybe he’s suspicious about the bruise on my face, thinking I’m getting punked in the locker room. Or maybe he knows that Ron kicks my ass.
    “Listen,” he says. “There are certain books that should be read at specific times in your life. I think this is the book for you.”
    “Okay,” I say, even though I still don’t understand.
    Mr. Pfeffer leans in even closer, so close that I can smell his aftershave and the root beer on his breath. “There are things in this book that you need to know,” he says. “Like when Hump finally stands up to Wolf Larsen—and he does finally stand up—Hump says a real man is one who is brave
and
scared. He says that heroes with no fear aren’t really brave; they’re just