Today’s Tom Sawyer
March 25, 2024 – Liberty, Missouri, USA
Jack Rockwell sat alone in his kitchen holding a copy of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. It was the first day of spring break and Jack was not allowed to leave his house. He stared at the picture on the book’s cover showing two boys holding fishing poles and on their way to a good time. The picture mocked Jack’s unfair situation.
Jack’s troubles started at school. During lunch, some kid was showing off a new electric scooter and Jack asked if he could take a turn. When Jack used the scooter to chase his friend, Lucas, who was showing off his own scooter, Jack did not expect Lucas to leave the school grounds. While Jack may have followed him, it was Lucas’s fault. Same thing with missing class for the rest of the afternoon. It was Lucas who decided they should follow the entire length of a nearby bike path.
The business about Jack stealing the scooter was a big misunderstanding. He returned it, like he always intended. It may have been a little dinged up, but everything still worked just fine. The truly unfair part was that Lucas’s mom did not seem to care what he did. Neither did Lucas’s homeroom teacher. But Jack’s mom and teacher freaked out. His mom asked for extra work Jack could do to make up for all the trouble. The teacher immediately pulled out Tom Sawyer and said Jack should spend his spring break reading and writing a report.
As Jack drifted between his kitchen and bedroom staring at the book cover, he could not find a comfortable reading position. He tried laying on his back and then his stomach. He leaned on a pile of pillows and sat cross-legged. Nothing worked. He got no more than a few pages in before his entire body stiffened up.
Jack turned to the back of the book to check the page count. He was never going to finish in only a week without some miracle. He let the book fall to the floor as he stared up to the ceiling, daydreaming of a way to escape the house. He would need to slip past his nosy neighbors. No doubt his mom told them he was not supposed to leave until his book report was finished.
Jack was imagining how he might jump the back fence when his doorbell rang. He hurried to investigate, hoping someone interesting had arrived. Standing on his porch was another one of his friends, Zander Clarke.
“I heard you’re in trouble and your mom locked up your Xbox. I brought mine over.” Zander gestured toward his backpack.
Jack’s face broke into a bright smile. He waved Zander inside and said, “Hurry up. And don’t let any of my neighbors see what’s in the backpack.”
Zander happily followed Jack’s orders and began the search for a TV that might connect with his Xbox. He was a Fortnite fanatic, eager to play with anyone at any time. Jack guessed that Zander showing up at his house meant he could not find anyone else to play with. All their other friends had probably left town for spring break.
The reason Zander liked Fortnite so much was because he could buy all the cool, in-game accessories he wanted. His mom gave him real money he converted to Fortnite virtual money, or V-Bucks. Zander’s V-Bucks bought him character personas called skins and accessed special privileges. Jack had to earn his few V-Bucks through in-game achievements. He felt a little lame playing next to Zander’s super rare character skins. It was better than reading Tom Sawyer, but Jack would have preferred playing with someone without V-Bucks to throw around.
Zander moved to the TV room and quickly pulled out cords and looked for a power outlet. “I’m gonna unplug this lamp,” he told Jack.
Jack did not argue. He was not worried about the lamp or the tangled nest of cords Zander created. But he was a little annoyed that Zander simply assumed Jack had nothing better to do than play Fortnite. Zander could be clueless when it came to friends. In school he always finished assignments early and kissed up to the teacher. It was like he cared more about her opinion than what people his own age thought.
As Zander struggled with cords, Jack’s resentment over the V-Bucks grew. Then suddenly he had one of the best ideas of his life. It was one of those “two birds with one stone” kind of ideas.
“It’s all connected,” Zander announced. “You ready?”
“You’ll have to play alone. And keep the sound muted.”
Zander gave Jack a stunned look. “Why?”
“I’m reading this book,” Jack replied, holding up Tom Sawyer.
“Yeah, right,” Zander said with a laugh.
“I’m serious.”
“No book is better than Fortnite.”
“This one is. It cracks me up.”
“You can read later. C’mon, I brought my Xbox over for you.”
“Hey, no one asked you to. You play if you want, but I’m gonna keep reading.”
Zander eyed Jack suspiciously. “If the book’s so good, what’s it about?”
Jack looked down at the cover. “You know, adventures. This kid named Tom Sawyer. It’s like the best book ever written.”
Zander was sure Jack had to be joking and would soon join him on the Xbox. He started into Fortnite as Jack sat nearby, smiling and turning book pages. Every few seconds he giggled. Periodically, he broke into a belly laugh.
“What’s so funny?”
“You just have to read it. I can’t explain.”
“Read me some of the funny parts.”
“No. You’ll have to read it yourself.”
Zander tried to concentrate on muted Fortnite, but Jack continued to laugh behind the book. He whispered things like, “Oh no, I can’t believe this.”
“C’mon, just tell me what’s so funny!”
Jack shook his head like he was too engrossed in the book to pay any attention to his friend.
“Here, you play and let me read just a little. Please, I’ll read out loud,” Zander begged.
“You won’t understand. You’ll have to start from the beginning.”
“Then I’ll start from the beginning.”
“I’ve already read the beginning. You reading it over will waste my time. I wanna get to the end. It’s too good to stop.”
“C’mon, it’s only fair that you share. I’m sharing my Xbox with you.”
“Anybody can share an Xbox. There’s millions of them. This book is hard to find. It’s rare.”
Zander tried to turn his attention back to Fortnite, but he could not ignore Jack’s laughter. Every chuckle and cackle tortured his ears.
“There has to be something I can do so you’ll let me read it.”
Jack pretended to strain his brain in thought. “Maybe we can trade. What have you got to trade?”
Zander considered for a handful of seconds. “You’re always talking about my Fortnite skins and stuff. What if I linked our accounts so you can borrow some things?”
Jack acted skeptical. “I don’t know. I’ve played a lot of Fortnite. I’ve never read this book before.”
“C’mon, please!”
“Could I use some of your V-Bucks?”
Zander sighed. “Maybe. If you promise not to use too many.”
Jack seemed to struggle with the decision. “I don’t know. I guess I would do it if you write a summary and answer some questions about what you read.”
“Why would I do that?”
“It’s something my teacher wants. It was the only way she’d let me take the book home.”
“Then you should write your own summary.”
“Fine with me. I’ll just keep reading and you’ll never see what’s in the book.”
Zander groaned. “Okay, okay. I’ll do the summary.”
“It’s gotta be done by tomorrow,” Jack replied.
After Zander worked out how to merge his Fortnite account with Jack’s, he handed over the Xbox controls. Jack passed him the book as if it was a golden dagger covered in jewels.
For the next three hours, Jack freely borrowed all of Zander’s in-game accessories and raided his stash of V-Bucks. Sitting next to him, Zander quickly dived into Tom Sawyer. He enjoyed it, but maybe not as much as Jack did. Zander mostly chuckled at the funny parts instead of belly laughing. While he may have questioned whether he made a good trade, he never said so out loud.
Zander made it through the first 100 pages in which Tom gets into trouble at school. Then Tom tricks his friends into whitewashing a fence by pretending the job is fun. His friends even give him trinkets in exchange for a chance to help with the fence. Tom uses the trinkets to trade for a prize Bible to impress Becky Thatcher.
“You should probably go before my mom gets home,” Jack announced. “We don’t want her finding out you brought your Xbox. But you can take the book so you can finish your report.”
Zander packed his game console and the book into his backpack and returned to his own house. Left on his own, he lost his motivation to do more reading. He looked up a Sparknotes summary to finish the promised report the next day and sent Jack a file. Along with an explanation of the book’s plot, he answered the required question about how the book compared to modern life. The fence whitewashing story was still on his mind.
Zander’s writeup concluded with the following sentences: “Tom Sawyer tricked his friends, but people in the old days were a lot easier to fool. Something like that would never happen today.”
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