Page 15 - Nutshell 4

Back in school the next Monday, he realized his situation had not
changed. The bullies and hecklers continued their abuse, often
waiting until the teacher’s back was turned to caricature and
exaggerate his difficulty performing simple activities like holding a
pencil or catching a football. Tommy tried to tune them out, but it
was impossible. What was there to stop them, when he was such an
easy target? He knew that being normal was nothing to brag about,
and that the immature kids teasing him were acting out some inner
insecurity. Ah, but knowing that and not feeling the shame and
embarrassment were two different things: sticks and stones may
break my bones, he repeated to himself like a mantra, but words will
never harm me. His academic success meant nothing to these
adolescents; they could only be impressed by some sort of physical
superiority. He was defenseless.
And that began to wear on him again. His only refuge was during
the lunch break, when he could go to the school library and study. It
was barely enough respite to build up the courage to return to class.
Tommy had recognized the self-reinforcing cycle of feeling bad and
doing poorly. And he would have to wait another two years for any
kind of relief! It was daunting, and he doubted he could hold out that
long.
Then one day, during the noon period, while he sat in the library
with his books, he could not concentrate on his lessons and needed
distraction from his distress. He got out of his chair and idly browsed
the books shelved along the walls of the reading room. They were
organized by topic; and there, among the reference volumes, his eye
fell upon a title boldly stamped in red on a tall book’s spine: The Near
Beer Book of Records, it proclaimed. Tommy was unfamiliar with it. He
clumsily pulled it from the shelf, hoping no one would notice his
hands. Back at the library table, he began skimming through its pages,
aided by the glossy paper on which the book was printed. And
suddenly he saw it on page 147: the record for nonstop thumb-
twiddling: two hours, seventeen minutes and thirty-two seconds. It
had been set twelve years earlier, by a man in India. Tommy looked at
the book’s publication date: it was the previous year. So 2:17:32 was
undoubtedly still the longest anyone could twiddle their thumbs!
A broad smile broke out on Tommy’s face, as he carefully closed
the book and replaced it. He could break that record: shatter it for all
time, in fact. The rules did not exclude people with more than two
thumbs. He could use all ten of his in five pairs, one from the left