The Third Mushroom

by Jennifer L. Holm

  My mom and I like to go grocery shopping at night. There are no lines at the checkout, and people are usually happier. Probably because no one’s rushing home to make dinner.

  Tonight is no different. The aisles are deserted except for a random businessman staring at the single-serving-size dinners in the frozen-meals aisle.

  I start filling our cart with things on my grandfather’s list: oatmeal, yeast, confectioners’ sugar, red wine vinegar, coffee filters. When we pass the barbecue chips in the snack section, I think of Raj and feel bad about the chess tournament. I grab a few bags of chips to make it up to him.

  Then we’re at the fresh fruit and vegetable section. I head for the bananas and grab four of the brownest bunches I can find.

  “By the way, I talked to your dad,” my mom says. “He’s going to be in town in a few weeks.”

  My father is an actor, and he’s in the touring production of Les Misérables. I miss him a lot, but we text all the time. He’s better at it than my mom; she has no idea how to use emojis.

  “Great,” I say as I put the bananas in the cart.

  “Are you making more banana bread?” she asks.

  “They’re supplies for the science project Grandpa and I are working on,” I explain. “For the science fair. I’ll get extra credit.”

  My mom shakes her head.

  “Speaking of extra credit, I could really use your help at the theater this weekend,” she tells me. “The art department is way behind.”

  “I’ll help out if you buy me the supplies,” I bargain.

  “Deal,” she says.

  “And some doughnuts, too,” I add. “I’m pretty sure there are powdered doughnuts in the experiment.”

  She rolls her eyes.

  * * *

  —

  Mr. Ham is in the science lab when we arrive with our supplies the next day after school.

  “So what are you two doing for your project?” he asks.

  “We’re breeding fruit flies!” I tell him.

  “I like it,” Mr. Ham says.

  “And we’re going to make our own media,” my grandfather adds. “I have an excellent fruit fly culture media recipe.”

  “Very impressive,” Mr. Ham says. “There’s a blender in the cabinet you can use.”

  “Thank you,” my grandfather says.

  “I gotta run,” Mr. Ham tells us. “Faculty meeting. Have fun whipping up the fruit fly media!”

  We get out the blender, and my grandfather hands me his recipe for the fruit fly media. I combine the bananas, confectioners’ sugar, oatmeal, and vinegar and blend it to a soft consistency. It looks pretty good, actually, and I try it: it tastes a little bit like banana pudding.

  “How long will it take for the fruit flies to grow?” I ask him.

  “About two weeks,” he says.

  After the media is ready, my grandfather sets some glass jars on the lab table. He suggests that we put plain media in one jar and axolotl blended with media in another jar.

  “Can we do a third jar?” I ask him.

  “I don’t see why not. What do you propose we add to it?”

  “A chicken nugget.”

  “Why a chicken nugget?”

  “I’ve always wondered what was in them,” I say. “I saved one from lunch.”

  “Why not?” he says.

  I hold the first jar while my grandfather pours in the media mixture, filling the jar a quarter of the way. He sprinkles on some yeast, then takes a paper coffee filter and crumples it up and puts it on top. He shakes in some fruit flies from the starter container, puts a wet paper towel over the jar, and seals it with a rubber band.

  I stare at the jar. The flies don’t look right—they look like fleas.

  “Something’s wrong with our flies,” I tell my grandfather. “They don’t have wings.”

  “This strain of Drosophila melanogaster is wingless.”

  “Why?”

  “Easier to study. They don’t fly away. Also, they’re what most pet shops carry. People use them to feed frogs, reptiles, birds. They’re a very good live food source.”

  I feel bad for the flies. They don’t have wings and they get eaten? It’s like being stuck in middle school and then served up for lunch.

  By the third jar, we’ve got it down. We make a good team.

  “Have you heard of the Herschels?” I ask my grandfather. “Mr. Ham mentioned them to me.”

  My grandfather looks up and adjusts his glasses. “Of course.”

  “Can you tell me about them?”

  “Caroline and William. William was the older sibling. He was an astronomer. He actually made his own telescopes.”

  “What about his sister?”

  “Caroline was famous for discovering comets.”

  I wonder what their home life was like. Did William hang up his towel? Did he put the seat down on the toilet? Did he borrow his sister’s zit cream?

  “Did they share a bathroom?” I ask.

  My grandfather looks momentarily puzzled.

  “I don’t believe there were bathrooms in the seventeen hundreds,” he says.

  “There weren’t? Then what did they use?”

  “Chamber pots,” he says.

  “What’s a chamber pot?”

  He gives me a weird look. “Why are you so curious about all this?”

  “Because they were a family. Doing science.”

  He tilts his head.

  “They looked at stars. We’re making fruit flies,” I say. “We’re just like the Herschels.”

  He blinks. Then smiles.

  “Yes,” he says. “Yes, we are.”

  In the Bay Area, people always talk about earthquakes. We do earthquake drills at school and keep fresh batteries in our flashlights and bottled water in the garage.

  My mom jokes that when the Big One hits, I’ll sleep right through it. And she’s probably right. Because these days, I could sleep all day. I didn’t used to be this way. In fact, I used to be an early bird. But now it doesn’t matter how early I go to bed; I can’t seem to wake up. My mom says this is the true sign of being a teenager.

  So it’s no surprise that it’s almost noon when I wake up on Saturday morning. Jonas is a warm lump under my duvet; only his pale-pink toes are visible. He loves to sleep. Maybe he’s a teenager, too.

  The house is quiet. My mom’s already at the theater for rehearsals. I peek into the den and see my grandfather’s hair sticking out from under the blanket on the couch.

  When I walk into the kitchen, I spot the note my mom has taped on the dishwasher:

  BROKEN. DO NOT USE!!

  THE SERVICEMAN HAS BEEN CALLED.

  * * *

  —

  The theater is buzzing with energy when I arrive. There’s a comforting feel to it because I know my way around this place: the catwalks, the wardrobe closet, the hot stage lights. I grew up here.

  “You made it,” my mom says. She’s holding a clipboard. “Where’s your grandfather?”

  “He was tired,” I say.

  “Typical,” she says. “Anyway, can you help in the art department, please? I really need that background flat to be finished today.”

  “Sure,” I tell her.

  I’ve seen The Tempest a few times. It’s one of my mom’s favorite plays to stage. She says it’s the perfect Shakespeare play for high school because it’s got everything: revenge, love, magic, family, and sword fights.

  What I’ve always liked about the play is that it’s not angsty. There’s no blood and death like in Macbeth or Hamlet. There’s no tragic romance like in Romeo and Juliet. Everything works out in The Tempest. People apologize for being mean. Families are reunited. Young lovers get married. It’s all good feels.

  And sometim
es you need good feels, especially when you’re in middle school.

  The art department is working on a huge background flat of the opening scene: a storm at sea. Even though I’m not great at drawing, I love painting scenery. Someone else outlines it, and you just have to color in the lines. Sometimes I kind of wish life was like that.

  As I paint, I watch my mom give the actors direction.

  “The most important thing to remember is to get out of your head and listen to the other actors onstage. Acting is just like life: it’s a collaboration. Not a solo effort.”

  Then they start the run-through.

  My favorite character in the play has always been the old wizard, Prospero. Probably because he’s bossy and reminds me of my grandfather. Unfortunately, the kid who’s playing the part of Prospero is lousy; he doesn’t know his lines.

  After rehearsal, my mom and I stop at a pizza place to pick up dinner. We peruse the long list of toppings.

  “How about mushrooms?” my mom asks me with a straight face.

  “Very funny,” I tell her.

  We end up getting a pizza that’s half mushroom, half plain, and a second pizza, with pepperoni, for my grandfather because he eats so much.

  As we wait, Mom asks me, “What did you think of the kid playing Prospero?”

  “He wasn’t very good,” I say.

  My mom sighs. “They all want to be on Broadway, but they refuse to memorize their lines.”

  “Miranda and Ferdinand were great,” I tell her. They’re the young lovers in the play. “They look like they’re really in love.”

  “That’s because they are.”

  “Really!”

  She nods. “They’re dating. The stars in their eyes are real.”

  “How romantic!” I say.

  “Until the production’s over and they break up. Then it’s gonna be tears.”

  “Maybe they won’t break up. Maybe they’re soul mates. Like Romeo and Juliet.”

  My mom gives me a look. “That didn’t turn out so well, remember?”

  “Oh, yeah,” I say.

  * * *

  —

  When we walk into the house with the pizzas, we hear banging. And then a loud curse.

  My mom and I share a look.

  “We picked up pizza, Dad!” my mom says, and then gasps.

  My grandfather is sitting on the kitchen floor, surrounded by an open toolbox, screwdrivers, and scattered parts. The dishwasher has been pulled out and taken apart.

  “What are you doing?” my mom shrieks.

  “It should be perfectly obvious. I’m fixing the dishwasher,” he says.

  “But you don’t know how to fix dishwashers!”

  “I have two PhDs. I can figure it out,” he insists.

  “Like that time you figured out how to fix the dryer when I was in high school?” she scolds.

  “It wasn’t my fault! I didn’t have the right part!”

  As their shouting gets louder, I grab a slice of pizza and slip away to my room, with Jonas trailing after me.

  Talk about drama. Even Shakespeare couldn’t write his way out of this one.

  I love horror movies. Especially the ones involving science. The experiments always seem to go wrong in Hollywood. Ants turn giant. Blobs take over towns. It’s thrilling.

  Our experiment is the complete opposite. The jars are full of fruit flies, and they look totally normal. I was hoping maybe they’d glow in the dark. Or turn into werewolves. (Were-flies?) I don’t care, really; I just want something to happen.

  I want a Happening.

  Today when we go to the science lab after school, the flies look the same as always. Ordinary.

  It’s more like a Not Happening.

  I make an annoyed sound.

  “What’s wrong with you?” my grandfather asks, looking up from his note-taking.

  “This is so boring.”

  “Boring?”

  “I was expecting something more exciting! A monster-movie situation.”

  “Hollywood always gets science wrong,” he scoffs. “They want explosions and puffs of smoke!”

  I kind of want that, too. Also, I’m a little concerned about something else.

  “What about the science fair?” I ask him. “What are we even going to have to show?”

  “What did you think would happen? What was your hypothesis?”

  “Well, I figured the flies that ate the axolotl would change in some way.”

  He points to the jar. “What does the data show?”

  “That nothing happened.”

  “So, what’s your conclusion?”

  “That this is a complete waste of time?”

  He shakes his head. “The point of having a hypothesis is not to be right. It’s about the data. Sometimes the data takes you in a direction you never imagined, and you have an interesting result. Like with penicillin.”

  “You mean the medicine? The stuff that tastes terrible?”

  “That terrible-tasting stuff changed the world. Before penicillin, people died from simple infections. And its discovery was completely accidental.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Alexander Fleming was growing bacteria in petri dishes and didn’t bother to clean them before he went on vacation. When he returned to his lab, the bacteria had been replaced by mold. The accidental mold—penicillin—had killed the bacteria.”

  This was kind of interesting. And gross.

  “So penicillin is basically mold?” I ask.

  “Yes,” he says.

  “No wonder it tastes so bad.”

  “Good scientists learn from their data.” My grandfather taps his notebook. “Also, science takes time. You need to be patient.”

  I look at him.

  “Okay,” I say. “I’ll try to be more patient.”

  He smiles approvingly. “Good.”

  “But I still want something to happen.”

  * * *

  —

  It turns out that my grandfather and Alexander Fleming have something in common: they’re both messy. My grandfather leaves his dishes all over the place, and he doesn’t pick up his socks. It’s driving my mom nuts.

  Everything comes to a head at breakfast on Saturday.

  I’m experimenting with eggs and tofu. I usually make my scrambled eggs with ham or bacon, but since the vegetarian thing hit the house, meat is out. I figure I’ll give tofu a shot, and I regret it immediately. The tofu falls apart in the pan, and the end result does not look appetizing. Even my grandfather won’t touch it.

  “What is that?” he asks, looking at the plate.

  “Scrambled eggs with tofu,” I say.

  “I wouldn’t feed that to a dog.”

  My mom marches into the kitchen holding a wet towel. “This has got to stop!”

  “I couldn’t agree more,” my grandfather says. “I don’t know how you people live without steak.”

  She shakes the towel at him. “You didn’t hang up your towel!”

  “Sorry,” he says. “It must have slipped.”

  But I know by the look on my mom’s face that she’s just getting started.

  “You’re a pig. Even my college roommate was neater than you, and that’s saying something!” She points to the den, where my grandfather’s been sleeping.

  The area next to the couch is out of control. There are piles of unfolded clothes, an apple crate filled with black socks, stacks of newspapers, a shoe box, crumpled tissues, dirty coffee mugs, empty water bottles, and towers of library books. Our house is small, so any clutter makes a difference. My mom and Ben talked about buying us a new house this year, but then real estate prices shot up.

  My mother waves her hands. “Ben is coming home in a few days. You ha
ve to get this situation under control!”

  “What do you expect me to do?” my grandfather asks, sounding like a grumpy teenager. “Maybe I’ll just get a place of my own.”

  She props a hand on her hip. “Really? I’m sure a ton of landlords would love to rent to a fourteen-year-old.”

  * * *

  —

  I’m the one who helps avoid World War III by suggesting that my grandfather put his stuff in my closet. I have plenty of space. Also, I secretly love organizing things. I like order. Maybe it’s the scientist part of me.

  “Hey, look,” I tell my grandfather. “I’ve organized my closet like genus and species. Genus Pants, species leggings, then species shorts. Funny, right?”

  “Humph,” he says, hanging up a shirt.

  I stare at his side of the closet. He’s hanging all the hangers backward. Not that there’s a hard-and-fast rule on how to hang things, but I’ve spent enough time straightening the wardrobe closet for my mom’s theater to know that you don’t put the head of the hanger backward. You can’t grab things easily.

  “Why do you hang everything backward?” I ask him.

  He looks at me. “This is the way your grandmother always hung things.”

  I didn’t know that. But then, I don’t know a lot.

  My grandmother died when I was little, and my memories of her are fuzzy. I don’t know if they’re real or if they’re just stories I’ve heard my mom tell. Some of the memories are sweet. Like how my grandmother always had a jar of pretzels in her kitchen for snacking. And some are odd. Like how she kept batteries in the refrigerator.

  We manage to get all my grandfather’s clothes into my closet and box up his other stuff. I clear a space on the top shelf for the boxes. I’m putting the last shoe box up there when I lose my grip and it falls out of my hand, the contents scattering everywhere.

  “Sorry!” I say.

  He sighs. “It’s fine.”

  We start picking things up. There are old photos, a birth certificate, shiny buttons, programs, papers, and a lock of hair tied to a thin ring. But mostly there are books. Not the classics, either: old, yellowed paperback romance novels. Silhouette and Harlequin. The illustrations on the front covers feature couples staring at each other. I pick up one called Captive of Fate.