Free Banjo of Destiny by Cary Fagan Page B

proud.”
    Jeremiah knew he was sunk. If he tried to argue, his father would remind him that he had once washed windows for a living. His mother would tell him again how she had once sold hotdogs.
    â€œMy life,” Jeremiah Birnbaum said aloud as he lay on his bed and looked up at the copy of Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel on his ceiling, “is a very expensive nightmare.”

2
    O Beloved Fernwood!

    EVERY MORNING the Birnbaum chauffeur, whose name was Monroe, drove the limousine up to the front of the house. Jeremiah would come down the grand staircase carrying his briefcase and wearing his school uniform — blazer, striped tie, gray pleated trousers and shiny black shoes. His parents would be waiting at the bottom to inspect him. They would make sure his tie was knotted properly, his shirt had no spots of juice on it, and his socks matched.
    Monroe was supposed to hop out of the limousine and open the back door, but he knew Jeremiah hated that. So he let Jeremiah open the door himself. Unless, of course, his parents were watching.
    â€œWhere to, Jeremiah?” Monroe said one morning in October. He was supposed to call Jeremiah “Master Birnbaum,” but he knew Jeremiah didn’t like that, either.
    â€œAnywhere,” Jeremiah said. “São Paulo, Brazil.”
    â€œTempting. How about school, instead?” “Can’t you be like a chauffeur in a movie? The cool kind who just does what the kid wants?”
    â€œI’m sympathetic, Jeremiah, I really am. But we don’t have enough gas to get to São Paulo. And I do think you need at least a grade-school education.”
    The Fernwood Academy had been founded 103 years earlier by Lincoln Fernwood iii, the richest man in town. It rose up on a hill above the town and looked like a gigantic haunted house with narrow spires and leaded windows and gargoyles.
    Every morning at assembly the students sang the school anthem:
    O beloved Fernwood
    We pledge our hearts to thee!
    Do teach us well, so that one day
    We’ll run this fair countree…
    Parents paid outrageous fees to send their children to Fernwood. But there were also a small number of scholarships for bright students whose families could not afford the tuition. One of those students, Luella Marshall, was Jeremiah’s best friend. His only friend, actually.
    Jeremiah and Luella met in gym class while picking sides for a baseball game. Jeremiah was used to being picked somewhere near the end, if not last. But Luella, who was the captain of one team, picked him second. (“Because you looked so sorry for yourself,” she told him later.) He was so surprised, that she had to point to him a second time.
    Being chosen gave him an unusual spark of enthusiasm for the game, but even so he struck out three times, dropped a fly ball and missed two grounders.
    â€œSorry,” he said to her when the game was over. “I guess I let you down.”
    â€œNah, I like losing fourteen to nothing. But you can make up for it by buying me a root beer after school.”
    â€œI’d really like to but I’ve got a lesson. I could give you the money and you could buy one yourself.”
    â€œDon’t be a jerk. What kind of lesson?”
    Jeremiah hesitated. “Ballroom dancing.”
    â€œBoy,” Luella said, “you need me even worse than I thought.”
    Luella’s own family lived in a perfectly nice if rather small house, and Luella took the Number 6 bus to school. Jeremiah had never taken a bus anywhere. He envied her independence.
    When he took Luella to his house for the first time, she said, “Wow! Is that a real elevator? You’re not just rich. You’re stinking rich!”
    The great thing about Luella was that she didn’t care. Yes, when she came over she was happy to cannonball into the pool, or try to hit tennis balls over the net with her eyes closed, or throw balls down the private bowling alley while hopping