Chapter 5 Bouquet for Algernon - Discharged

Bouquet for Algernon - Discharged Progress Report 8 "March 15th" I was discharged from the hospital today, but I didn't go back to work right away.Nothing seems to have changed since the surgery.I still have a lot of different tests to do and a lot of different races with Algernon.I hate that rat to death, it haunts me every time.Professor Nima said that I must play these games and do these tests all the time. Those mazes are really boring, and so are the pictures.I like those pictures of men and women, but I don't look at the people in these pictures and lie. I have never been able to solve those puzzles.

I get a headache every time I think about it too much.Dr. Strauss promised to help me recall, but never did.He also didn't tell me what to think, or when to be smart.He just told me to keep talking on the couch. I came back here at the College from my discharge, and Miss Kinnian came to see me again.I didn't change anything when I told her, I don't know when she will be smart.She said Charlie, you have to be patient, it will take some time, you will get smarter and you won't know it yourself.She said Bert told her I was doing well. Even so, I still think these games and tests are very boring, and writing these progress reports is also very boring.

"March 16" Bert and I had lunch in the school cafeteria today.There are all kinds of delicious food there, and I don't have to pay for it.I love sitting there and watching college boys and girls.They would walk here and there sometimes, but most of the time they sat and talked like the masters in Doner's bakery.Burt said they talked about art and politics and religion.I don't know what these are, but know that religion is God.Mom used to tell me stories about God and how he created the world.She said I should always love God and pray to him often.Now I have forgotten how to pray to him, but I remember when I was a child, my mother used to ask me to pray to him, saying that he should bless me to get well and not get sick.I think when she says sick she means I'm not smart enough.

Burt said that if the stone test is successful, I will understand what the students are saying.I asked him if I could really be as smart as them.He laughed and said that these students are not that smart.You pass them as if they were standing still. He introduced some students to me, and some of them looked at me strangely, as if I was not from the school.I almost blurted out that I'm about as smart as anyone else.But Bert interrupted me and told them I was the janitor for the psychology department's stone lab.Burt later explained to me that the matter could not be made public.Which means it's a secret.

I don't understand why I keep it a secret.Burt said it was because he was afraid that if the stone test failed, Professor Nemur didn't want to make others laugh, especially the people from the Weinberg Foundation who paid for him to do the stone test.I said I don't care if people laugh.A lot of people laugh at me and my friends, but we still have a good time.Burt put his hand on my shoulder and said, you won't worry, but Professor Nemur will, he doesn't want people to laugh at him. I don't think people will laugh at Professor Nima, because he is a scientist in the academy.But Burt says his colleagues and graduate students don't think scientists are great.Burt said he was a graduate student himself, and the Lord said it was like "Psychology" written on the door of his stone laboratory.It is very strange, how could the Lord speak in the school.I thought the Lord was speaking only in the church.

Anyway I hope I get smart soon because I want to be like a college student and learn everything in the world, everything about art and politics and God. "March 17th" When I woke up in the morning, I thought I was smart, but I didn't.Every time I wake up I think I'm smarter.In the end nothing happened.Maybe the test didn't work out, I won't be smart, and I have to go to the Warren Foster Home.I hated the quizzes and the mazes, and I hated Algernon. I used to be so young that I was dumber than a mouse, I don't want to write any progress reports anymore.I forget things, and even when I write them down in my notes, sometimes I don't recognize what I'm writing, which is really cool!Miss Kinnian told me to be patient, but I felt sick and tired myself.Frequent headaches.I want to go back to working in the bakery and I don't want to write these progress reports anymore.

"March 20th" I'm going back to work in the bakery.Dr. Strauss told Professor Nima that it would be better for me to go back to work in the bakery, but I still can’t tell anyone about the operation after I go back, and I have to go to the stone laboratory for two hours after get off work every day. Testing and writing these uninteresting progress reports.They paid me every week to do this work, as if I were doing their day labor for them, because it was part of the stone inspection that the Weinberg Foundation paid them to do.I'm not too young to know what a Weinberg is, and Miss Kinnian explained it to me, but I couldn't understand it.If I'm not smart, why would they ask me to write a progress report, but if they are willing to pay me, I will still write it, although it is very difficult to write.

The thought of going back to work in the bakery makes me happy because I miss working in the bakery and the friends I had there and how happy I was there. Dr. Strauss said I should keep a notebook in my pocket to jot down things I remembered so I wouldn't have to write daily progress reports but only when I thought of something special or something special happened.I told him that I had never encountered anything special before, and this stone test didn't seem to bring anything special.He told me Charlie don't lose heart, it will take some time, nothing special will happen right away, and you won't notice right away when it happens, he said that Algernon also spent time when he was three times smarter than before. for a long time.

The southern monster Algernon can try to trick me every time in the maze competition. It turns out that it has also undergone the same operation as me.It's a very special mouse, the first animal to stay smart for a long time after surgery, I didn't know it was a very special mouse, so things were different.Maybe I'll try to run the maze against normal rats, maybe I'll beat Algernon someday, if that's the case, it's going to be awesome.Dr. Strauss said that by now Algernon looked as though he would always be smart, which he said was a good sign because we both had the same surgery.

"March 21st" had a good time in the bakery today.Joe?Cap says hey, look at Charlie after his brain surgery.I almost told him the secret that I was about to become smart, but then I thought that Dr. Strauss and Professor Nemur told me not to tell it, so I didn't tell it.Frank saw me open the door and said, I almost burst out laughing seeing how hard Charlie opened the door.These are my friends, and they really like me. There's a lot of work to do when I get back.The place wasn't cleaned when I lived in it, which used to be my job, but they hired another boy named Ernie to deliver the deliveries, which turned out to be my job too.Mr. Donner said he wouldn't fire him for a while so I could get more rest and not work so hard.I told him I was in good health and it was okay to deliver and clean at the same time as before, but Mr Donner said he would keep the boy anyway.

I asked him what I would do after that, and Mr. Donner patted me on the shoulder and asked me, Charlie, how old are you now.I say thirty-two but it's almost my thirty-third birthday.He asked me again how long you have been working here.I told him I couldn't remember either.He said you have been here for seventeen years.Your Uncle Herman who was called by God is my best friend, he brought you here and told me to give you a job and take care of you as much as possible, so two years after his death your mother sent you to Warren House , I ran to ask them to let you out to work here.It's been seventeen years, Charlie, you know, the business of the bakery is not as good as it used to be, but as I always say, you can work here for a lifetime.So don't worry about me calling someone else to do your old job, I won't let you go back to Warren House. If he only needs Ernie to deliver and work here, and I can also deliver packaged food here then I don't have to worry.Mr. Donner said Charlie, that boy needs money, so I'm going to let him stay Ji Xu as an apprentice and learn to be a baker.You can also be his assistant, and you can also help him deliver the goods when he needs help. I've never been an assistant in all this time here.Ernie is smart, but the people in the bakery don't like him very much.They are all my good friends, we often joke together and have a good time. Sometimes someone would suddenly say look at Frank, or look at Joe, or Kimpy, does that guy really look like Charlie?Gordon.I don't know why they said that, but seeing them all laughing, I laughed too.Kimbie, the baker foreman this morning with a sore foot and a sluggish look, yelled at Ernie when he dropped a birthday cake and said my name.He said God, Ernie, you want to be with Charlie?Is Gordon the same?I don't know why he said that, I never dropped a whole bag of bread. I asked Mr. Donner if I could also be an apprentice like Ernie, learning to be a baker, if he would give me the chance, I would do it. Mr. Donner looked at me for a long time after hearing this, and he looked very strange. I think it was probably because I seldom spoke.Frank couldn't stop laughing when he heard it, and he didn't stop until Mr. Doner told him to shut up and go back to work by the fire.Mr. Donner told me that it will take a long time for Charlie to learn this. The work of a baker is very important and complicated. You should not worry about this. I want to tell him and the others what surgery I had, and I hope it works soon so I can be as smart as everyone else.