Last Meeting of the Gorilla Club

by Sara Nickerson

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah. Who was she?”

  “Let’s see your notebook,” Big Brother said, slyly changing the subject. “Did you pick a Marvelous Mystery topic yet?”

  “Not yet.” Josh pulled out his notebook and flipped it open, to a page with a drawing of a baby monkey. “Liddy Franklin gave her presentation today.”

  “Wasn’t she your buddy? Your show-the-ropes buddy?”

  When Josh laughed, a glob of cheese flew out of his mouth and landed on his shoe. “Right. My buddy.”

  Big Brother said, “So what’s with the monkey?”

  Josh shook his head. Liddy had tried to find something similar to Mr. K’s marvelous gorilla experiment, but her presentation had made the whole class want to cry. “Trust me. You don’t want to know.”

  “Hey,” Big Brother said. “If you can’t tell your big brother about it, who can you tell?” And that’s how Josh Duncan found himself sitting on a dead girl’s bench, describing a monkey experiment that happened back in the 1950s.

  “The experiment—it was all about loneliness,” he started. “And it was old. Liddy had found an old film online. In black and white.” The look of it had made most of the other kids laugh. To Josh, though, something about the old film seemed more real than color. Or maybe it was just that the scientists, who wore stiff white lab coats, looked totally sinister when the light glinted off their black-rimmed glasses.

  “What happened was, they took the baby monkeys away from their living mothers and gave them wire mothers. The wire mothers all had bottles of milk attached to them, so the babies wouldn’t starve. One group of wire mothers was covered with soft cloth, and the other was just plain wire, like a bunch of coat hangers in the shape of a monkey.”

  Josh flipped to a new page in his notebook, with more pictures he’d drawn. “The baby monkeys who got the soft cloth mothers turned out okay. They could even rejoin society and make friends with other monkeys. But the ones who had the cold, plain wire mothers couldn’t be socialized. Ever.” He closed his notebook. “That’s all.”

  “That’s awful,” Big Brother said.

  “It was bad,” Josh agreed. “One kid cried.”

  “I’m sorry about the monkeys.”

  Josh swallowed. His throat was tight. “Me too.”

  “You are not a monkey,” Big Brother said finally. “You have an invisible big brother who followed you across the country because he loves you.”

  Josh smiled. Big Brother knew what he was thinking.

  “You will not be a sad monkey,” he continued. “You will be a happy monkey. Okay?”

  Josh nodded.

  “And you know how? How you’re going to be a happy monkey?”

  “How?”

  “You’re going to make a friend.”

  “I’ve been trying.”

  “What’s your next class?”

  “PE.”

  “What are you doing in PE?”

  “It’s the running unit. A mile around the track.”

  “That’s great.”

  Josh shoved the last of the pizza in his mouth. “You know I don’t run. I got Mom to write me a note.”

  “You ran that first day, remember? You were fast.”

  Josh shrugged. “That was for survival. To get away from this place. And there was no one around to make fun of me.”

  “I think you should give it a try,” Big Brother said. “And also, you should join a club.”

  Josh laughed out another glob of cheese. He reached down to pick both globs from his shoe. “Gorilla Club,” he said, remembering the sparkly girl.

  When he sat back up, Big Brother was gone. “Hey!” Josh said. “Where are you?”

  He scooted down the bench and peered through the green leaves of the rhododendron plant. He didn’t see Big Brother but he saw kids all around. And then he saw her again—the girl. She was on the other side of the Hello Walk, still wearing her sparkly rainbow T-shirt and mismatched shoes.

  Something about her made Josh nervous. He’d never felt that before, with any of them. When he leaned forward for a better view, she turned and stared right at him. A strange smile formed at the corners of her mouth. She held up her finger and pointed.

  It started to rain and there was a mad dash to the Hello Walk for cover. But Josh stayed on the bench, frozen by her stare and pointing finger. Then her finger curved. It beckoned.

  Follow me.

  THE NOTE

  It was the one thing Lucas needed to do and then she’d go away. Forever. That’s what she promised.

  “Easy-peasy, stick to the plan,” Maxie Moon whispered in his ear. “Capiche?” But Lucas did not capiche, not exactly. He knew what he needed to do, but it was hard to break away from his friends. He didn’t want a lot of questions. He didn’t want to explain anything about the note. He didn’t want to even think about it.

  When the rain started, it was one of those downpours that turns on full blast and without warning. His friends all pulled up their hoods and dashed for the cover of the Hello Walk. That’s when Lucas saw his chance. He pulled up his own hood, but turned the opposite way, toward the bench where Maxie Moon told him he’d find the kid.

  Lucas had the note in his pocket, the one she’d carefully dictated—word for word—while she looked over his shoulder and breathed in his ear. “And draw the map,” she said. He drew the map.

  He would hand it to Josh Duncan and then he’d be done. Because that’s what she promised. She promised to go away if Lucas did what she asked.

  There was a question, of course, of what she really wanted. The contents of the note made Lucas worried for the red raincoat boy. But Maxie Moon made a vow—a pinkie promise—that she wouldn’t hurt the kid or do anything destructive (“What can I do, anyway?”) and that she’d go away and leave him, Lucas, alone if he helped her.

  “All I need to do is write this note and give it to Josh Duncan?” he asked, for the third time.

  “That’s all you need to do.”

  Easy-peasy, right? Except the closer Lucas got to the bench, the slower he moved. Was he really going to hand the note to the kid? What was he supposed to say when he did it? And what about the poor kid—did he really want him to do what Maxie had planned? And what was Maxie Moon’s plan, anyway? Her real plan?

  These thoughts and questions were like thick muck Lucas had to wade through. They made him walk so slowly he almost felt he wasn’t moving at all. Like a cartoon character. Finally, though, through the thick muck of his thoughts, he reached the rhododendron plant. He still didn’t know exactly how he would explain the note, but he was ready to hand it over. Did he have a choice?

  Taking a deep breath, Lucas stepped around the overgrown bush. He opened his mouth to speak, but the boy in the red raincoat was gone.

  Lucas stood in the rain, clutched the note in his hand, and stared at the empty bench with the sad engraving. MELANIE PRICE—WE WILL NEVER FORGET.

  DO NOT ENTER

  Hello, hello. Hello, hello.

  Hands, feet, eyes. Elbows, mouths, hair. His first time actually going through the Hello Walk was every bit as bad as Josh had imagined. And the shifting tectonic plates—Josh could practically feel them rumbling deep underneath the cement slab.

  Still, he kept going, pushing past kids who didn’t notice him, keeping his eyes on the sparkly shirt. He had to know what she meant by the things she said. He had to follow that beckoning finger.

  Wherever a gap appeared, Josh squeezed through. Finally, he made it to the other side. But when he looked around, the girl was gone.

  Why would she motion for him to follow, and then disappear? Where would she go?

  Mr. K’s gorilla experiment suddenly came to mind. It takes careful attention to see what is really in front of you. Josh closed his eyes. Then he opened them. And that’s when he saw t
he door—the door to the stairwell that led up to the old library. He’d been standing right in front of it the whole time without actually seeing it.

  DO NOT ENTER.

  He took another quick look around. She had wanted him to follow her. Is this where she went? The old library?

  Josh’s parents had lectured him about the dangers and pitfalls he was about to encounter as he approached his teenage years. He knew that “The only way to get through was to get through” (Dad), and that you should “Never put off until tomorrow what you can do today” (Dad), and that “Heroes are made not born” (poster from Dad), and that only he could “Be the hero” of his own story (poster on locker room wall that he hoped his dad would never see), and “Don’t do anything that will put you in the hospital” (Mom). But Josh didn’t have a quote to help him through a situation like this one.

  Or did he? Weren’t all those quotes (except for his mom’s) telling him to put himself out there? Take a risk? Open a door? He stared at his limp hand, which didn’t seem at all like an inspirational-poster hand.

  Move, he said to the hand. Just do it.

  Because there was one more thing, a bigger thing that Josh was beginning to feel. It wasn’t about being a hero. As much as he wanted it to be, this wasn’t his hero story at all. It was about being alone. Sometimes alone is fine and sometimes it is not. Right then, Josh was a tiny boat out on the vast ocean without an anchor. It reminded him of another thing his dad quoted from Benjamin Franklin: “A small leak will sink a great ship.” It was exactly that—the small leak of loneliness—that was sinking his ship. Josh knew it. He felt it. And at that very moment, he was the only one who could plug it.

  Even though she wasn’t a part of the real world, Josh had liked it when the girl talked to him. But it was confusing, too. The Gorilla Club and Lucas Hernandez seemed like scattered pieces from different puzzles. And Big Brother. He was from another puzzle, too. And yet somehow, they seemed like they should fit together. Josh had the strange feeling that she might know how.

  He counted to seven because seven was a lucky number. He needed the luck of an unlocked door. And then he counted to fourteen, because that seemed like it would be double lucky.

  He heard a bell ring, and it must have meant something to all the kids running to class. But right then it meant nothing to him. Because right then, Josh was testing his luck. He pushed on the handle of the door and it opened with a click.

  Life is a glorious adventure.

  Or it is nothing.

  GREAT-AUNT EVELYN

  With each step up the concrete stairway Josh heard another step—an echo step behind his own. It sounded so real that he finally stopped and looked back, but there was nothing. Just the swirling dust from his own shuffling feet.

  Because of his alien-ship first impressions, Josh had expected to discover something spectacular at the top of the plain gray stairwell. Instead, he was disappointed by the small foyer with plain gray walls, dusty tile floors, and double-glass doors that led to the old library. Standing there, he couldn’t even tell he was aboveground.

  It was quiet, though, in a spectacular kind of way. If there was such a thing as a negative quiet, that’s what it was. For a moment Josh felt he wasn’t even a part of the world anymore. The real world, at least.

  He stepped close and pressed his nose against the glass door. Even though the room was dark, the longer he stood like that, the more he could make out shapes. He saw tables and chairs. Bookshelves with a scattering of left-behind books. He didn’t see the sparkly girl.

  Still, he stayed and stared at the shapes of left-behind things. It was like studying those pictures of Pompeii after Mount Vesuvius blew up and all those people and dogs and loaves of bread were petrified. And then he caught a glimpse of his own reflection and it startled him. He looked like someone else, someone he didn’t know. Quickly, he pushed open the door.

  The dirty skylights, along with a few high windows, let in enough light to help navigate around random tables and stacks of chairs. Josh found a light switch and almost turned it on but stopped himself. Someone might see.

  He stumbled over to the nearest wall and inched along, running his hands over the scattered spines of books left behind. “Hello?” he whispered. “Hello?” But except for old wooden furniture and dusty books, the library was empty.

  He stopped in the far corner, which was the darkest part of the library. He felt off balance and clutched the dusty shelf. He pictured the Hello Walk below. What if an earthquake hit? Why hadn’t he thought of that?

  The idea was suddenly so real in his head that his legs wobbled and he had to sit down. After a moment of sitting in the dark, the silence of the library did some sort of magic on him. He felt calm.

  He knew he needed to go back down, but he didn’t want to hear his feet echo through the empty hallway, and he didn’t want to walk into class fifteen minutes late with everybody looking—or not looking. Either way. So he leaned his back against the bookshelf. As his eyes adjusted to the dark, Josh reached behind and pulled down a stack of books, blew off thick layers of dust, and made a neat pile. One by one, he went through them, setting aside the books he wanted to check out.

  There was one about Harry Houdini, the most famous escape artist of all time. Josh and his dad had big debates over Harry Houdini, because Josh thought he was a hero and his dad said he was just a guy who knew a few tricks. Josh slipped Harry Houdini inside his backpack.

  He also kept a book about the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens, of course. And one about land snails and slugs of the Pacific Northwest. And one about Muhammad Ali, who was most definitely a champion. He and his dad had no argument over that.

  It was when he picked up the next book that he heard the voice. At first he didn’t notice. But when he held it close to read the title, Beloved Poems by Robert Frost, he heard the voice again.

  “That’s the one.”

  Josh looked up. An old lady stood in front of him. His heart thumped and he clutched at his chest. He wondered if he was having a heart attack. Could an eleven-year-old have a heart attack?

  The old lady was one of those sporty types. Her Adidas tracksuit was so bright that, even in the dim light, it glowed red.

  “I’m sorry I’m up here,” Josh said, still clutching his chest. “I know I’m not supposed to be.”

  The old lady didn’t answer.

  “Um, are you the librarian?”

  She still didn’t answer.

  Josh dropped the book of poetry and started to stand, but the old lady held up her hand. It was knotted like an ancient oak branch. “The book,” she whispered.

  “What?”

  “The one you were holding.” Her tree-limb finger pointed to the ground. “The book of poems.”

  Josh picked it up.

  “Open it,” she said.

  Josh opened the cover to a shaky inscription: To my wonderful nephew, Jackie. Happy Birthday. With Buckets of Love from Great-Aunt Evelyn.

  “‘Stopping by Woods,’” she rasped. “Tell me the page.”

  Josh’s hands were shaking, but he managed to open the book to the table of contents. “Page twenty-four,” he said, because he didn’t know what else to do.

  “Well?”

  “Um—”

  “Open it.”

  Josh flipped to the poem and right there, like a secret bookmark, was a ten-dollar bill. What?! He looked up quickly. The old lady winked.

  Smooth and crisp with Alexander Hamilton’s revolutionary face, the bill looked like it had never been touched. The old lady leaned close. While one of her eyes wandered to the poem on the open page, the other stared straight ahead. Josh waited for her to speak.

  And waited.

  He remembered he might be having a heart attack. “Are you the librarian?” he finally stuttered. “Am I in trouble for being here?”

  “
You’re in no trouble with me,” she said. “I’ve been waiting for someone like you for a very long time. Read me the poem.”

  So he did. Because he didn’t know what else to do, he cleared his throat and started reading to the old lady.

  Whose woods these are I think I know.

  His house is in the village though;

  He will not see me stopping here

  To watch his woods fill up with snow.

  Josh paused. Did she want him to read the whole thing? When he looked up for clarification, her pale watery eyes were way too close to his own. He stepped back until the hard edge of a bookshelf pressed against his shoulder blades.

  “It’s for my Jackie,” the old lady whispered, her wandering eye landing on the ten-dollar bill clutched in Josh’s hand. “He never knew it was in there. He left the book here, in the library. He didn’t know about the money inside.”

  “Oh no,” Josh moaned when he realized. She was not the old librarian. She was not a teacher. It was the invisible crack again.

  Josh felt his chest squeeze even tighter. He dropped to his knees and fumbled with the zipper on his backpack. He needed his inhaler. He told himself, “I will close my eyes and when I open them, she will be gone. Because she was never here in the first place. She is not a real person in the real world. She does not belong here.”

  He took a breath. Opened his eyes.

  Great-Aunt Evelyn’s feet, marching in place.

  He looked up.

  Great-Aunt Evelyn in her red tracksuit.

  She was doing arm exercises, first little circles and then big ones. And she was laughing. Her mouth was wide-open, but no sound was coming out.

  He dropped the book, and the money, too, grabbed the strap of his backpack and bolted for the door.

  But she was right there, blocking.

  Each way Josh tried to go, the old lady was blocking. And she was no longer laughing. “I’m sorry,” she whispered firmly. “But I won’t leave you alone until you take the money. I will follow you forever. Just put it in your pocket, so you’ll have it if you ever run into my Jackie. He goes by Jack now, and he’s all grown up. But I call him Jackie. I always will.”