The Half-True Lies of Cricket Cohen

by Catherine Lloyd Burns

  The rock’s young adulthood was spent under ice a thousand feet thick. Sediment and trees and boulders were dragged by glaciers across Manhattan. Umpire Rock had deep grooves that looked like claw marks made by a giant animal. Scars left by the Wisconsin Ice Sheet. Every rock had an interesting life story if you knew how to read its marks.

  Cricket loved thinking about the way the world was before she was in it. Sometimes she sat on Umpire Rock imagining dinosaurs wandering around where she was sitting. Central Park was full of ginkgo trees, and dinosaurs loved ginkgo leaves. Dino footprints had been discovered just up the Hudson River Valley from New York City. Dinosaurs totally could have been here in Manhattan.

  Even though rocks told you when and how they were formed, they might not be able to tell you the whole story. The Wisconsin Ice Sheet, for example, left evidence of its presence for geologists and explorers to find. But it also vandalized parts of what came before, because as a glacier travels across land, the debris it drags along transforms what is below, sometimes erasing older evidence. True, dinosaur fossils hadn’t been found in Central Park. But dinosaur tracks had been found near New Haven, Connecticut. Maybe dinosaurs were here but the Wisconsin Ice Sheet erased the proof.

  Maybe Cricket would be the geologist who discovered a clue about the New York City dinosaurs. Maybe she’d team up with a paleontologist. Maybe they’d fall in love and discover all kinds of incredibly important fossil evidence. Cricket adored science because the more scientists figured out, the more there was to know. That was the point in science—to keep going. Her parents liked to tell her that things were or they were not. But rocks were living proof that life was lots of things, sometimes all at once.

  “Cricket Cohen,” a familiar voice called up.

  9

  VERONICA!

  Veronica Morgan and a little dog were looking up from the ground, smiling.

  “Young lady,” Veronica said. “You’re too high.”

  Veronica and Cricket had shared so many experiences together, so many days and nights and years together, that Veronica could transport Cricket to another place and time. She was a human time machine. Cricket was now back in first grade again, being chastised by Ms. Whitman, a teacher who didn’t approve when Cricket and Veronica refused to play with the other children. On their class’s frequent field trips to the park, Ms. Whitman always scolded Cricket for climbing too high on these dangerous rocks.

  Back then it was Veronica’s job to stay on a relatively flat section of the rock, about midway up, which they’d designated their shop. Veronica organized the merchandise in their Central Park jewelry store, and Cricket’s job was to collect mica and quartz and hopefully the odd emerald. It was demanding work, but Cricket was an explorer, so she didn’t mind. The rule that Ms. Whitman tried to enforce was that no one climb higher than the teacher’s head. But Ms. Whitman was very short and Cricket was goal oriented even then, which meant that every day she wanted to climb a little bit higher than the day before. Something might be up there—a bald eagle or maybe the other side of the world—and she needed to see it. Plus the emeralds. There obviously weren’t going to be any emeralds low down. That would be too easy. The emeralds had to be way high up, out of the way.

  Cricket was a good climber. She used whatever rock she was scaling like a ladder, wedging one foot in a crack, gaining purchase with her hands, and then advancing a bit. She set little markers for herself along the way so she could track her altitude. Veronica never climbed. She hated to get in trouble so much that she always followed rules. Veronica was afraid of falling. Cricket was not afraid of falling. Even that would count as an adventure. And she was an adventurer.

  The day that Cricket did fall, there was a lot of blood. Cricket would never forget it because Andy Gregg had always told everyone they were ignorant about the true color of blood. He said blood was blue. He said veins were blue because that was the color of real blood. Well, Cricket’s blood was red and the amount of it made Ms. Whitman nearly pass out. Mr. Littleton, the principal, had to come. Mr. Littleton scooped Cricket into his arms and carried her out of the park all the way to an emergency clinic near Columbus Circle. Cricket knew that she and Mr. Littleton would marry when she was old enough and he would always come to her rescue. Bunny met them at the clinic. She ran thirteen blocks, in high heels.

  For Cricket, it had been a great day. The blood, the romance, the doctor who sewed up her head like an old shoe, the stitches, the bandage, the way everyone was scared of her the next day at school. She’d had to get forty-nine stitches in her little-girl head. She was made of tough stuff. She was awesome.

  “Hello, old friend,” Veronica said, carrying the dog up the stairs in the middle of Umpire Rock. She was still the cautious one.

  “Wait,” Veronica said when she was about halfway up, “is your mom here?”

  “No, she’s home with the air-conditioning on and the windows closed. Who’s your new friend?”

  “Claude.” Veronica lifted one of Claude’s paws and made him wave. His big paw looked out of proportion to the rest of his body.

  “Claude is cute. And a careful climber, like his mother. Are you his mother?”

  “Hmm. I’m kind of his sister. Or his aunt? It’s a long story. Remember that necklace we shoved in here? Where did it go?” Veronica asked. She rummaged around in the cracks, poking them with a little twig, hoping to find it.

  “I guess the pirates came.”

  “Those were some mad pirate days. We were lucky to escape without being kidnapped. We were lucky your mom didn’t kill us.”

  “Swashbuckling was not her idea of age-appropriate play.”

  “Poor Bunny.”

  “Poor Bunny? Why?”

  “It’s hard to be worried about your daughter all the time, Cricket.”

  “My mom is always thinking about the children of the public school system. Believe me, she isn’t thinking about me. Ever.”

  “Oh, Cricket. You always think people don’t like you. You know what my parents, the ever-so-inappropriate psychiatrists, think? They think your mom blames me for you falling off that rock and getting seventeen stitches in your head.”

  “Forty-nine.”

  “Cricket, tell the truth.”

  “My head was really little. Seventeen stitches in my head then would probably be like sixty-one stitches now. And I’m rounding down. Wait, Cadbury had puppies?” This dog was much littler than Veronica’s other dog, which she’d seen at the park one day.

  “Well, it’s a long story and even Cadbury doesn’t know,” Veronica said. “This is Cadbury’s son.”

  “Are you serious? How old was he? It’s weird how early animals can have families.”

  “I know, like sometimes parents are only six months older than their puppies.”

  The puppy nuzzled Cricket. Cricket wanted a dog. Dog ears were so soft.

  “Remember when Cadbury got mud prints on your mother’s coat?”

  “Yes. I think that might be why I’m allowed to go to the park alone now. I will love Cadbury forever. What are you doing this summer?” Cricket asked.

  “You’re looking at it,” Veronica said. “You know my family never goes anywhere. Except to the farmers’ market.”

  Maybe Veronica could come out to the Hamptons. They could look for rocks on the beach and make stuff up. There’s nothing like an old friend, a real friend.

  Cricket was about to invite Veronica. But her parents always wanted her to hang out with the kids in the Hamptons, the kids whose families had money to give to their fund. Plus they were so scared about not getting their deposit back, they didn’t want any extra people in the house.

  If Cricket invited Veronica, Bunny’d force her to make up some reason why she had to disinvite her.

  It’s one thing to make things up because you want to. But it’s another thing to make things up because your parents force you to.

  10

  BRAIN SURGERY

  Bunny Cohen didn’t understand t
hat just because a person didn’t want to rewrite a memoir, or do a math packet, or read and log a bunch of kids-dying-of-cancer books, that person was not necessarily lazy. Cricket was not lazy. She was not a dawdler, a procrastinator, or a time waster. Cricket was anything but a time waster. In fact, if Cricket must be labeled, she was an overachiever. If only Bunny knew the truth. How many other eleven-year-olds on summer vacation were about to perform brain surgery on their turtles, for heaven’s sake?

  The turtle was prepped, and Cricket had arranged all the other stuffed animals on her dresser so they had a good view of the operating theater. This was a teaching hospital, after all. How could the residents learn if they couldn’t see? Cricket’s schnauzer assistant arranged a pair of nail scissors, tweezers, a glass slide from the microscope kit she’d gotten for her birthday, and a needle and thread on her nightstand.

  Garbed in purple latex-free exam gloves and a surgical mask the nice hygienist had given her on her last visit to the dentist, Cricket was ready to begin.

  “O’Malley,” Cricket said to the schnauzer, “I’m making the first incision. Scissors.” Gently, but with the confidence required of a surgeon, Cricket cut. Below the surface of the fabric lay a tangle of white, swirled innards.

  “Can everyone see?” she asked the residents when she’d gotten the turtle’s head open. “This stringy, cotton-like matter is what we must send to the lab. Tweezers.”

  Working carefully with the delicate silver tool, Cricket extracted some brain matter from beneath the flap opened by the incision. She arranged some brain tissue on the glass slide. Using an eyedropper, she placed biopsy fluid on the white fluff. Instantly the fluff collapsed and Cricket covered the slide with another piece of glass.

  “Who will run this to the lab for further inquiry?” she asked.

  All the animals volunteered. They all wanted to be on Dr. Cohen’s good side. It was touching.

  “Who are you talking to?” Bunny asked from the other side of the door. “Are you writing your memoir?”

  Bunny was impossible and relentless. Not to mention so inappropriate. Dr. Cohen looked out at her students and her patient. She was very embarrassed. Did Bunny actually think this assignment from Mr. Ludgate was just going to fly out of her daughter’s mind? It wasn’t. Cricket wished it would, but she was very much aware of the pressing matter of her memoir. But summer homework was no reason to stop performing cutting-edge surgery. She had responsibilities to her patients and to the medical community.

  And yet Bunny wasn’t leaving. Perhaps the residents could finish the stitching. They had to learn sometime.

  “Fannigan, you lead the team from here. I want nearly invisible stitches, like these, see?”

  “Cricket, what on earth are you doing?” Bunny said through the closed door. Then Bunny entered the OR. Without clearance or scrubs or even a mask. Outrageous.

  “I’m in the middle of surgery,” Cricket warned, trying to maintain her professionalism.

  “Darling, please stop playing and write that memoir. Please just get it over with. Oh! Good news. I got the supply list for surfing camp!”

  That Bunny thought this was good news was depressing.

  “You don’t seem very happy. Honestly, Cricket, it is a very first-world problem to be less than thrilled about learning how to surf. I really wish you’d write that memoir. Everyone is counting on you,” Bunny said, and left the room.

  The best revenge would be to get it out of the way. Better yet, Cricket thought, she’d let Bunny bug her nonstop, not telling her that the memoir was finished.

  Cricket took off her scrubs and got out her notebook. Maybe she’d write about how annoying her mother was. Actually, she’d love to write about her work with stuffed-animal brains, but it was made up and that didn’t count. You don’t need to pretend to be someone you’re not, Mr. Ludgate had said. But if she was good enough she wouldn’t have to redo this assignment. She started to pace. If only everyone weren’t so obsessed with memoirs being honest. It would be fun to write about visiting Dodo in California. She and Dodo always invented stories about why a young girl was traveling alone across the country.

  One story was that her parents were famous actors and she got sick to death of being away on location, on safari. Another story (Dodo’s idea) was about a national spelling bee championship. Even though the Africa story was more far-fetched, the plane crew bought it. Not the spelling bee story, though. On that flight the attendants treated Cricket like a liar. Until Dodo showed up at the gate with a huge sign that said CONGRATULATIONS FEVER LIGHTNING SPELLING BEE CHAMPIONS. One of the flight attendants almost choked when she saw Dodo and the sign. But of course those stories were off-limits for the memoir. The truth was so complicated.

  The view from her desk was dark and gloomy because that was what life in an air shaft was like. “Life in an Air Shaft: The Cricket Cohen Story.” Why was titling memoirs so much more fun than writing them? Good question. And possibly a good title for something one day.

  She peered through the grimy window, hoping to catch a glimpse of something in motion. Something happening. There were people who were lucky like that. They looked at the right time. Just as a shooting star was falling, or a murder was taking place, or someone was vacuuming in the window across the air shaft. Timing was everything. Cricket’s timing was awful.

  Yesterday an air conditioner had fallen out of a midtown office building window. It landed on the busy sidewalk without hitting anyone. A woman in a taxi captured the whole thing on her cell phone. It was a fluke, but she and her footage had been all over the news. That kind of stuff never happened to Cricket.

  Everything stank. The idea of surfing camp was crazy. And going with Lana Dean would be horrible. She’d have to figure out a way to get out of it. What if she wrote her memoir about the way her parents didn’t let their daughter make her own friends? They would deny that, of course. But why else would Bunny have signed Cricket up for surfing camp with Lana Dean this summer? Lana Dean’s aunt was a Rockefeller or something, that’s why. Bunny hoped to make the most of Lana’s parents’ guilt about transferring Lana to private school next year by proposing a huge donation to the fund.

  Cricket stopped pacing and decided to tell her mother that she could take surfing camp and shove it. Or maybe a better tactic would be to tell her parents to save their money since they were so worried about being broke all the time.

  She padded down the thickly carpeted hall, overhearing parts of her parents’ argument spilling out from the kitchen.

  “Your mother missed the appointment,” Richard said. “She should pay for it. We bought her the apartment, for goodness’ sake. We have to buy her a dentistry practice, too?”

  Since they’d quit their previous jobs and started the Enrichment for the Public Fund, living on the edge of financial ruin was their favorite topic. The reward of changing a rigged system was supposed to be worth being broke. But they hated being broke.

  “She pays, we pay. What’s the difference?” Bunny said. “The point is, I bought her her own calendar. It’s in her apartment. I go over it with her every Monday when we review the week. It is like having another child. If I don’t get that tooth fixed she’s going to look like a homeless person who crashed the gala.”

  Bunny fanned herself with a napkin. Cricket had heard enough.

  “Good afternoon and salutations,” she said, announcing her existence. “No more arguing, please.”

  “Oh, darling, we’re talking about Dodo. No one is arguing.” Bunny put her arms around her daughter. “Go write your memoir.”

  “I am!” Cricket said. She didn’t leave the kitchen, though.

  They weren’t owning up to fighting, so she wasn’t owning up to a blank page.

  11

  THE WORLD’S YOUNGEST PROFESSOR OF GREEK

  The first day of Cricket’s summer, Bunny asked Cricket to set the table for dinner. Cricket hadn’t finished breakfast yet. She hadn’t even started breakfast yet.

  That
, in a nutshell, was what living with Bunny was like. Some people referred to Bunny as a force of nature. But Cricket found nothing natural about accomplishing what Bunny accomplished in a day. What had her mother just crossed off her to-do list? A power walk with the mayor? Finishing a bunch of things that didn’t need to be done until later?

  Cricket was in the middle of teaching her Greek 101 class, but she left her students and went to the dining area. She got out the place mats and the napkins and put them on the table. She was arranging the napkins when she remembered that Bunny liked the beige place mats with the off-white napkins. She’d have to switch one of them. Since the napkins were less work to switch, she took them off. She went to the kitchen and got the glasses Bunny liked best. After setting the glasses on the table she went and got the plates. Then she remembered that she’d left her stuffed animals taking their Greek final. She ran back to the classroom and collected the tests. If any of them had cheated, they hadn’t benefitted. It was doubtful anyone had even passed the test.

  “If you’re the geologists you say you are,” Cricket said, “you can’t help picking up a little Greek; it’s everywhere. Geo is the Greek word for earth, after all.”

  Total silence. Teaching stuffed animals anything was very frustrating. A lot of the time they literally just sat there.

  “Geo-logy, the study of the earth. Come on. Meta? Who knows what meta means?” she asked. “You guys, this is basic.”

  There was a knock on the door from Bunny.

  “Did you set the table?” she asked.

  “Yes,” Cricket said.

  “Are you writing that memoir?”

  “Yes,” Cricket said, looking under the manatee for a notebook and a pen.

  “Cricket, you can’t break your word. You gave Mr. Ludgate your word. Did you set the table?”

  “Yes!”

  “Don’t drag it out. Come in the kitchen, I want to show you something.”