My Biggest Surprise Ever!

Have you ever noticed how some things are indelibly stuck in your memory? Maybe it would be more clear if you’d had a hi-res video camera going at the time, but not much.

This particular morning was about two weeks into school, so about the middle of Sept. It was my first year at Linda Dunn Elementary, but I already had some friends before school started, so I was okay. Beyond that, I wasn’t the only new boy in the class, and Allen and I had already bonded.

It had become our habit, every morning, to talk about what had been on TV the previous day. Remember, this is long before the day when cable was available in rural Texas, and there were no VCRs outside of TV stations. Instead, when we got home from school, we watched re-runs of old cartoons and sit-coms, but would discuss them as if they were new. They were to us.

It seems like it was David, Allen, Jamie, and I discussing the important things in life, like how come the Beaver and Dennis the Menace never got spankings, when Ron came running up.

"Jackie! I think they want you in the office." Ron called.

Being sent to the office was never a good feeling, but I had a pretty clear conscience back in those days. Since school hadn’t even started yet, I wasn’t too worried. On the other hand, every time a boy got to a new school, he’d hear all the rumors that the principal or one of the teachers paddled with pants down or even bare, so going to the office to buy a pencil was enough to give some of the naughtier or more nervous boys indigestion.

I could see the secretary standing by the front door, so I walked over to her. As I approached, I could see she was talking to some little kid. First or maybe second grade. When I got close enough, she glanced over at me.

"Excuse me, Ma’am. Were you calling me?"

Mrs. Leming looked down at me, then replied, "I don’t think so. Who are you?"

"Jackie Wells. John Wells."

She turned to look at the little kid. "I thought you said you were John Wells…" she said, half in question, half in accusation.

Okay, I knew it couldn’t be a joke with one of my friends because everyone knew that Mrs. Leming didn’t have a sense of humor. So, either the little kid was trying to get me in trouble for some reason, or he was just a stupid first grader who didn’t even know his own name. (This was a long time before Google, and it never occurred to me that anyone besides my father and I might share that name.)

"It is!" He asserted, desperate for someone to believe him. It probably didn’t help his nerves that I was looking bloody murder at him. I’m sure that first graders were no less scared of the ‘big kids’ than I’d been a few years before. (And geeze! Had I really been that tiny?)

Mrs. Leming glanced at me, then back at the squirt. "Well, I don’t know what’s going on here," she informed us, "but I know what we can do about it. Let’s go to the office."

Oh crap. I didn’t care if the kid was just stupid. I was going to kill him for this one. Even if you didn't do something (maybe especially if you didn’t do something) to deserve it, getting escorted to the office was both humiliating and nauseating.

Mrs. Leming didn’t give us a chance to argue. Seizing us by the scruff or our necks, we were marched away for sentencing, when I didn’t even know what the problem was. If it involved being taken to the office, I was willing to let the kid be John Wells. I wasn’t that attached to the darned name.

On the way, without even using thumbscrews, Mrs. Leming managed to draw the name of our homeroom teachers from us. Then I saw salvation descend from the most unlikely of sources. Mrs. Underhill came strolling out of the office with some mimeographs and a cup of coffee. Since Mrs. Leming had just heard that she was my homeroom teacher, she saw a way to clear up the mess.

Mrs. Leming quickly explained the situation, and I was never so happy to hear my name in a teacher’s mouth as when she assured Mrs. Leming that I was, indeed, me. Unless of course there was trouble involved, in which case I’d probably wish to be someone else.

We went past the office towards the little kids’ classes and found Mrs. Durflinger’s room, where we were informed that the squirt was also John Wells. He, however, went by his middle name - Matt.

Mrs. Leming seemed a little nonplussed, when she admitted to us, "Well, John is certainly not an unusual name, and while Wells isn’t exactly common, it’s not rare, either. I wonder if you two boys are cousins or something. You do rather resemble each other, you know."

I didn’t know. I’d been more worried about the situation than the kid. Looking at him now, I saw a kid a little short maybe, though I didn’t usually pay attention to first graders, except to be sure not to step on them. He wasn’t skinny, but wasn’t fat either. He had dark brown hair that looked like it needed to be combed, sticking up in the back and curling where it lay over his ears. A slightly prominent chin and round cheeks, with lips that were maybe a little pouty. His nose was just a little broad with a small button on the end of it and eyes that were slightly recessed beneath his brow. Fairly pale skin that made me think he sunburned easily. I had to admit he was pretty cute (and I wondered for a minute how he got spanked) and he did look familiar for some reason, but I just couldn’t place him. He had really deep, dark brown eyes that I really liked though.

"Well," Mrs. Leming continued, "I’m not sure which one of you this is for. Do either of you bring your lunch?"

Okay, I was a bit happier now, since that didn’t sound like trouble. I reached into my backpack and pulled mine out. "Yes, Ma’am."

"Oh, well, if you have one, then it must be your mom that dropped one off. Come with me, we have it for you in the office."

Little John -- Matt, I mean, followed Mrs. Leming to the office and I went back to my buddies, for the last few minutes before school started.

As we walked into class, the weirdest thing happened. People had seen Mrs. Leming taking me to the office, but I wasn’t getting teased about that, like I’d expected. Tina Sinor, a girl that was usually okay, because she could run faster than anybody in our class except Rudy, could throw a football as good as anybody in our class period, and knew almost as much about comics as I did, ruined it by talking like a girl.

"Hi, Jackie. Your little brother is so cute!"

"Ummmm…." I replied thoughtfully, "I don’t have a little brother."

"But who was that kid I saw you with? He looked just like you."

I was a little offended. Me and that kid didn’t look anything alike. My eyes are blue and I comb my hair when I get up. "Some kid," I said and moved on to the intelligent side of the room (cooties must kill brain cells or something). Mrs. Underhill had already separated me and David, so I was sitting between Allen and Ron now, and got my place before the bell rang.

As I was sitting down, Mrs. Underhill turned her attention to me. That didn’t bother me. I didn’t care about being teachers pet, but I always had all my homework done, which generally meant she’d leave me alone if I read an occasional comic in class (even though she had the entire collection of Hardy Boy books and was willing to let me go to the library any time I finished my reading assignment early, I still sometimes needed a comic book fix).

"Did you and your little brother get everything worked out, Jackie?" Mrs. Underhill asked.

Being that she was a teacher, and that she had no problem asking Mr. Jensen (the fifth grade teacher across the hall) to handle any ‘rude or unruly’ students in the traditional manner, I managed to bit back my response. Instead of rolling my eyes or yelling, as I really wanted to, I just calmly informed her that, yes, we worked things out, but he wasn’t my little brother. Judging by the look she gave me, I might not have been quite as calm as I’d intended, but she let it pass.

The rest of the day went a little more smoothly. After I’d had a few minutes to get over being irritated at that twerp, who hadn’t actually done anything wrong, and calm down from the entire ‘office fright’, it actually became a bit funny. Of course, my friends really didn’t think it was that funny, but they hadn’t been there.

---

I knew I’d seen the kid before, so when school was over, I walked out the way I normally did, but then slowed down in front of the main building. Sure enough, a few minutes later, Matt came strolling out. He waved at a couple of boys heading towards the bus, then he headed down the same street I normally took. No wonder he looked familiar. I’d probably seen him ever day coming or going, but not really noticed him before.

"Hey, kid," I called out to him. "Matt!"

He turned at his name, then saw me and waved. I caught up to him and asked how his day went. He droned on for a minute about Dick and Jane and counting apples, then told me that his teacher had thought I was his big brother.

"Weird. My teacher thought that to."

We both agreed it was funny, then I helped him catch some papers that the wind had snatched from him.

I’m not even going to pretend to remember what most of it was anymore. If you’ve seen any first grade papers, you’ve seen them all. However, I do remember that he had a fairly decent drawing of Superman, and that started us talking about comic books. It was a pretty windy day, so I stuffed the papers in my backpack to keep them from getting away from him again.

There were really about four separate ways you could walk from Dunn to my house, and none of them were a lot longer than the rest. He and I started off the same way, and when he turned down a side street that would be about the same for me, I stayed with him. Even in fourth grade, I didn’t find a lot of kids that really knew comics (plenty who read them, but not many who knew the real details) and this kid at least knew the difference between Earth-1 and Earth-2.

We finally got to his house and I said good-bye and kept going. About a half block later, I was wondering how good he could do if he was looking at something, instead of drawing it from memory, when I realized I still had his papers. No big deal, since I’d seen which house he’d gone into. I went back and rang the doorbell.

A lady answered the door - his mom, I presumed. I explained the situation and handed her the papers and she invited me in for milk and cookies. Hey! I never turned down free snacks, but explained I’d have to call my step-dad. She pointed me to the phone, and Ralph said it was fine with him.

Matt jumped up when I came in and his mom asked how we knew each other. I started to explain what had happened, but Matt said, "He’s my brother."

That shocked his mom, so I explained how we found out we had the same name, "…except he’s John Matthew Wells, and I’m John Patrick Wells."

When I said my name, she looked at me a bit funny, but I was too busy eating homemade sugar cookies with candy sprinkles to really notice. As an adult, I would have immediately become suspicious at her obviously casual tone, when she asked me, "Is that your whole name?"

"No, ma’am," I responded, "I’m a junior."

She had to explain that to Matt, and I turned my attention back to those cookies, but she wasn’t ready to let it go.

"I’ll bet your mom went to school around here, didn’t she?"

I shrugged. I was still at the point where I didn’t believe my mom (who was all of 26 at this point), was ever young enough to have gone to school.

"There’s a woman I went to school with, who has a son about your age, with the same name. Is your mom’s name Natalie?"

I nodded.

"I haven’t talked to her in years. We went to high school together. Maybe I should call her this evening. Do you mind giving me your phone number?"

I didn’t and did. I would have done most anything so Matt and I could get back to comics and cookies.

As soon as we’d put our dishes in the sink, Matt insisted on showing me his room. It wasn’t a lot different than mine. Basic kids furniture - twin bed, dresser, toy box, desk, a small bookcase, a bean bag chair, and a night stand. He had some posters up on the wall, but I can’t remember of what. The main thing I noticed was that he had a decent stack of comics and a good collection of toys (I guess being an only child pays well).

We talked for a little while and he showed me a few of his favorites, but Ralph had told me not to stay gone too long, so I took off after a few minutes. As I was leaving, his mom thanked me for walking him home, and he made me promise to come back sometime when I could play.

That evening, after dinner, I was laying on my bed, looking at a comic, and trying to draw Captain America, when there was a knock at my door. That was unusual, since Mom and Ralph usually just yelled when they wanted me, and my sister usually avoided my room, but I just yelled ‘come in’ instead of trying to figure it out. Matt came bursting in, much to my astonishment.

"Hi, Jackie! Your mom said I could come back here. My mom and your mom went to school together and my mom said she wanted to talk to your mom and so I could come see your room if I wanted to. This is nice, is that Godzilla?" (I’m not sure if he took a breath during the whole speech.)

"No, it’s just a T-rex, but it’s walks if you push that button. My grandma gave it to me for my birthday. Pretty neat, huh?"

We got it down and walked it around for a minute, before he looked around at the rest of my stuff. I might not have been an only child, but I’d been around longer than he had. As he was oohing and aahing over my comic collection, we were called into the living room.

I led the way with the twerp right behind me, trying to hold my hand, which was not going to happen unless we had to cross a busy street or something. In the living room, Mom and Mrs. Goldstein (she’d explained that her husband was Matt’s step-father, like David had been for me), were sitting in the easy chairs, and had us sit on the couch (Ralph was already gone to work for the evening).

I did not like being called from my room and told to sit, it seemed to much like a lecture was about to happen.

My mom started the ball rolling. "Jackie, did you two tell people that you were brothers today?"

"No, Mom. Some people at school thought we were, but I never said it. Matt told his mom, but we told her the truth right away. We weren’t lying. I promise."

"It’s okay, honey. The thing is, you weren’t lying."

"I know, Mom. I know not to lie. We told her we were just joking."

"Jackie, you weren’t joking about it."

"I was Mama. I promise I didn’t tell any lies. Did I, Matt?"

Matt, apparently already aware of what happened to little boys how lie was beginning to look pretty nervous himself, at the course of the conversation, and assured the ladies that neither one of us had.

Before my mom could panic me anymore, Mrs. Goldstein stepped in. "Don’t worry, Jackie. We know you didn’t mean to tell a lie, and you’re not in trouble. Do you mind if I show you something?"

Satisfied, but still a little nervous, I agreed to look and she picked up a book. I’d never seen a yearbook before, so wasn’t sure what it was. She came over to the couch and sat between me and Matt, then opened the book to a page she’d had marked.

"Matt, do you recognize this fellow?"

Matt looked, then nodded. "That’s my Daddy. You showed me this picture before."

"That’s right. Now, count how many pictures he is down the row, then count down the names here, and it’ll show you what his name is."

I was looking as she explained that, and when Matt moved his finger down the list, I followed it. Matt couldn’t quite figure it out, but it was easy for me.

"That says Patrick Wells. That’s the same name as me and my dad."

"Jackie," my mom caught my attention again, "that book is of people that Jan and I went to school with. He doesn’t have the same name as you and your father… That is your father."

I was still trying to gather my thoughts, stunned at seeing a picture of that missing part of my life. Before I could think of anything to say, Matt took care of it for me.

"No, Mrs. Regal. That’s not Jackie’s daddy, that’s my daddy."

That’s when it clicked for me. That’s when I realized what they’d been trying to say. That’s when the light bulb went off. That’s when I realized why people who saw us together thought we were brothers. That’s when God granted half of my fondest prayer (and I guess it was too much to hope that he’d give me someone to make my life complete, and take Danielle, too). I turned to look at Matt, and I think I scared him, because I know tears were flowing down my cheeks.

"Matt. That is your dad. He’s also my dad. We weren’t joking or lying about being brothers. We really are."

It hit Matt almost like it had me. He was stunned. I’d never even known I’d had a little brother. I later found out he hadn’t known he had an older one. It was like some weird fairy tale and neither of us knew what to do.

After a minute, Matt turned to look at his mom, and she just nodded. When he looked back at me, tears were flowing down his face and then he tried to break my ribs. I usually did everything I could to avoid that kind of mushy stuff, but not that time. That time I wanted it.

For once, my mom showed a little sensitivity and she and Mrs. Goldstein went to get some more tea. (It would have been nice if they’d had a camera ready or something, but you can’t have everything.)

Matt and I just sat there. I know we talked, but can’t remember a thing we said. We sat very close to each other, and our hands were constantly drifting back and forth. As a matter of fact, for weeks, we couldn’t be near each other without finding some excuse to touch. It was almost like we both thought this was a dream, and we had to keep reassuring ourselves that the other was really there.

---

You should have seen the reactions of my friends the next morning when I came walking into the playground with the twerp holding my hand. They started to tease me, until I introduced him. At first, they didn’t believe me. As a matter of fact, David came over that afternoon just to ask my mom if I was telling the truth. And, of course, after showing him off to my friends, I had to go to the squirt side of the playground, so Matt could introduce me to his friends.

Over the next few months, I learned that having a little brother wasn’t what I’d imagined it would be like; but, in many ways, it was better. Over 34 years later, I still think of him as ‘the twerp’ and still love him as much as I ever did. He could be a pain in the rear, but my life would have been much emptier without him. Of course, I would probably have sat a lot more comfortably quite a few times, if I hadn’t met him, his Daddy Joe, and Joe’s son, Adam (who became the big brother I’d never had), but those are tales (and tails) for another day.