Rocket Science Read Online Free Page A

house,” warned Mrs. Bellamy. “Besides, poor Archie died of the influenza down there in Florida along with all them other boys.”
    “He was serving his country,” grumbled Mr. Bellamy. He set down his knife and glared at me. “Which is more than I could say for some people at this table. Your parents never did have a candle in their window for you, did they Varney?”
    I flushed a deep, hot red. My brother Ricky may have died in the Philippines, but all the bombers built in America would never make up for the fact that I wasn’t allowed to serve. Not to people like Mr. Bellamy. Never mind that Mom was gone too.
    Mrs. Bellamy came to my rescue. “Alonzo Hartwig Bellamy, you apologize to poor Vernon right now. He did his best for our boys in the war, with his bad leg and all, which is more than you did when poor Archie went off to die, or during the Great War, either.”
    “I served my country!” bellowed Mr. Bellamy, picking up his carving knife. He started off into another coughing fit and collapsed into the tureen of gravy next to his plate.
    “Vernon, I’m so sorry,” fluttered Mrs. Bellamy as she helped her husband up, dabbing at him with a napkin.
    He seemed disoriented as they walked slowly out of the dining room. I could hear him muttering, “Never know what Floyd sees in that Volney boy anyway...”
    Floyd shrugged and smiled at me. “Hey, Vern, I’m sorry, too. I guess I shouldn’t have asked you to stay for dinner, but I was excited.”
    I felt distant, sad. I understood how hard it was to be Floyd, beneath the bluster and the charm. “Is he always like this now?”
    This wasn’t the Mr. Bellamy I remembered from my childhood, who taught me how to drive when Dad was busy and Mom wouldn’t get in the car with me. I realized how out-of-touch I’d been with Floyd’s folks while he was fighting overseas. I was preoccupied with Mom’s death and Dad’s drinking, but that was no excuse.
    “Yeah.” Floyd toyed with his chicken, using his fork to shove it around. “Uncle Archie died of the flu in a camp in Florida. Daddy never got over it, I guess.”
    “Archie was your Daddy’s brother?”
    “Yeah,” said Floyd. “They were twins. There’s a picture of the two of them at the 1896 Kansas State Fair in the upstairs hall.”
    “I always wondered who those boys were.”
    “Hey,” said Floyd. “He didn’t mean that stuff — about not being in the service and no candle in the window. Mama knows about your brother and everything. And Daddy’s just old and confused. Some days he’s fine, some days he thinks he’s Woodrow Wilson.”
    “I know. I’m used to it, Floyd. The worst thing that could happen to a fellow in the war was to get killed. Back home, we just went on living and living, and the young guys like me that couldn’t go...well, it wasn’t much of a life.”
    He laughed. “You’re crazy. You had the jalopies, the jills, the jobs. Heck, I’ll bet you got three squares a day all through the war. You should see what we ate over there.”
    “Yeah, maybe I had a job, but half the town thought I was a coward and the other half thought I was a fool.” I slammed a fist into the table, setting the plates to rattle. “I can’t even walk straight up a flight of stairs. There’s people said I should have lied about the polio. Like I could have hid my game leg from an Army doc? And none of the girls wanted anything but a soldier to date. No action here.”
    Floyd smirked. “Not like the action we saw in Europe, that’s for sure.”
    I knew exactly what he meant — Belgian girls and French wine. I don’t think Floyd ever saw a bullet in Europe. Not even with his Battle of the Bulge story. Floyd worked on bomber engines, and they park those nice, expensive airplanes a long way from the front lines. Nevertheless, he was over there while I was safe at home in Kansas.
    “Besides,” Floyd continued, “without you fellows home building tanks and planes, I’d still be hip deep in a