by Barbara Park
“Okay, okay. It’s the word that comedian kept saying on that HBO special we promised your mother we wouldn’t watch the other night.”
You could almost see Zoe’s mind clicking down the choices. But as soon as she hit on the right one, she just shrugged it off. Cuss words don’t impress Zoe one way or the other.
“He’ll be over it by lunch,” she said.
I knew she was probably right. No matter how hard he tried, Mick could never stay mad at me. Like even at his most furious, the longest he could last was a couple of hours.
That’s why I wasn’t surprised when he came running up behind me as I was walking out of the cafeteria that day.
“Hey, Phoeb! Wait up! I need you to do me a favor, okay? I need you to ride my bike home from school. Dillon Rigby’s mother is taking a bunch of us to his house so we can rehearse the announcement for Friday’s basketball game. He’s got one of those Mr. Microphone things.”
He tossed me the key to his bike lock.
I tossed it back. “Sorry. I’ve got soccer practice after school. Plus I’ve got a ton of books to carry home tonight.”
He looked at Zoe, but she was already walking away. “Can’t do it either, Mick. If I don’t take my science project home this afternoon, Mr. Garcia’s going to drop me a whole grade. He says it’s starting to stink up the science wing.”
Mick rolled his eyes. “Great. Wonderful. Now I have to ride over there all by myself and I don’t even know where the kid lives.”
“Aaah, no big deal. You’ll be fine,” I said, casual as anything.
Then I just walked away.
I didn’t even say goodbye.
I’M RUNNING SPRINTS at soccer practice when I hear the siren. I stop right away and stretch my neck to see if an ambulance is coming.
It bothers me that I’m kind of hypnotized by the sight of an ambulance. I don’t want to be one of those creeps who gawk at accident scenes. But I am, I think. Because as soon as I see the flashing red light appear over the fence, I can’t take my eyes off it. And so like always, I just cover my ears and watch it come.
The ambulance is getting close to the soccer field now. But instead of speeding past, it seems to be slowing down. Then it slows even more and turns the corner in front of the building.
My stomach starts to churn. I don’t like having the ambulance turn there. By now it should be speeding off to someone else’s neighborhood. A neighborhood where I don’t know anyone.
But even after another minute or two, the noise of the siren hasn’t faded at all. And with my ears still covered, I walk to the sidelines and sit down in the grass. “Just turn the damn thing off!” I scream inside my head.
Then they do. But the noise it makes as it winds down is worse than the siren itself And I can’t understand how some of the girls on my team have already started running sprints again.
Then all of a sudden, the door of the gym flies open and one of the school secretaries comes rushing out. The old one. Only she’s moving pretty fast—sprinting practically—over to my coach.
A few seconds later, Coach Brodie is running full speed in my direction.
I’VE REPLAYED that scene in my head a hundred times since the day it happened.
But every single time I get to the part where Coach Brodie’s arms go around me, my muscles still tense just like they did that afternoon.
“PHOEBE, HONEY. It’s Mick,” she says.
And for the second time that day, I am shocked by what comes out of my mouth.
I say, “I know.”
THINKING BACK, I’m not exactly clear what happened after that. It’s sort of like the film in my mind speeds up and there’s just a blur of people walking me to the office. And bits and pieces of conversation. Mick’s name. The name of the hospital. Talk about how fast the ambulance got there.
And it’s strange, you know? Because the only thing that I really do remember is the feeling that none of it was really happening. It’s more like it was a play or something, and I was acting out a role. Like, “The part of the victim’s sister is being played by Phoebe Harte.”
So I sat in the principal’s chair. And I sipped at the water the nurse gave me. And I let people smooth my hair.
And I remember thinking how weird it was that instead of crying, I kept focusing on stupid stuff. Like how the nurse’s zipper was halfway down. And how the principal, Mrs. Berryhill, could use a Tic Tac.
Even when Zoe and her mother came into the office to take me home, I didn’t fall apart or anything. I didn’t even stand up right away. I just sat and waited until Mrs. Santos had finished signing me out. Then, calm as anything, I followed her and Zoe out to their car.
The Santoses live across the street from me. So when Mrs. Santos took a left out of the parking lot, instead of a right toward home, a signal went off in my brain that we were going in the wrong direction. And I automatically turned and looked out the back window.
That’s when I saw it.
The truck, I mean.
And Mick’s bike.
Still lying in the gutter where he had fallen.
I remember making a noise then. This awful noise that didn’t sound like me at all—but like one of those old women that you see on the news sometimes. One of those crying old women at the scene of some terrible natural disaster.
Zoe’s arms went around me. But when she tried to talk, her voice was shaky and it kept breaking. “Oh God, Phoebe. Please don’t cry. Everything is going to be okay. I swear it is.”
I pushed her away.
“Stop it,” I said.
It sounds mean. I know it does. But the idea that anyone could comfort me was almost insulting, if you want to know the truth.
My brother’s bike was in the gutter. And I didn’t want to be hugged. Or held. Or even touched for that matter.
I just wanted for it not to be Mick.
So I closed my eyes, and I did the only thing I could.
I prayed to God that it was all a terrible mistake and Mick hadn’t been the one riding it.
I prayed it had been one of his friends.
I’m sorry for that. I swear I am.
But still, that was my prayer.
WHEN WE GOT to Zoe’s house, there was a message on the answering machine from Pop. He told Mrs. Santos to keep me there until he came. That’s when I was forced to face the fact that it was really Mick who had been hurt, and right away I started begging Mrs. Santos to take me to the hospital.
She didn’t give in, though. She was nice about it. But she didn’t give in. So finally I went to Zoe’s room, climbed up onto the top of her bunk bed, and started praying like crazy. Ordering God to make my brother okay.
I couldn’t lie still. Even while I was praying, I kept tossing and turning and looking down at the clock on Zoe’s dresser. One time my arm dangled over the side of the bed, and Zoe reached up from the bottom bunk and held on to my fingers.
It almost made me cry when she did that.
Mrs. Santos tiptoed into the room a few times, bringing stuff to eat. I told her I wasn’t hungry. But I don’t think my hunger had much to do with why she kept on fixing food. Grating cheese for nachos just helped make the time go by for her, I think.
After her third trip, I remember looking over the edge of the bunk to see what all she had brought in. Besides the nachos, there was a pitcher of lemonade, chips and homemade salsa, four blueberry muffins, a bunch of grapes, and a package of Ho Ho’s.
I’m not kidding. It was like a meal that Henry VIII would eat or something. Henry VIII was that big fat glutton king of England with all the wives. You’ve probably seen actors playing him on TV. He’s almost always shown gnawing on a turkey leg or with a slab of roast beef hanging out of his mouth or something.
I wouldn’t be such an expert on him, but Mick was Henry VIII for Halloween in fifth grade. That was the year he attached his beard with Super glue and ended up wearing it to school for a week.
Mick always dressed up as people you’d never t
hink of in a million years. Like in sixth grade he went as Clarence Birdseye, the father of the frozen food industry. And last October he was Thomas Crapper, the guy who invented the modern-day flush toilet.
It killed me remembering that.
“Remember last Halloween? Remember Mick?”
I’m sure Zoe was sort of shocked by the question.
She didn’t answer. I mean she couldn’t, you know? Not without laughing.
“Come on, Zo. You remember.”
I don’t know why I wanted to hear her say it. I just did.
Finally she made the attempt. “Thomas Cra—”
But even before the Crapper was out of her mouth, she busted out laughing. And then I did too.
Which probably sounds terrible and all. But I promise it wasn’t.
The Serengeti
Sucks
IT WAS AFTER SEVEN when I finally heard the doorbell ring. I ran into the living room just as my father was coming inside.
“How’s Mick? Is he okay, Pop? Is he gonna be all right?”
My father didn’t answer. Instead, he put his arms around me and pulled me close. Then he sort of cradled my head in his hand. Real gentle. Like I would break.
It made me scared as anything. I tried to push away to see his face, but he wouldn’t let go.
I pushed once more. Only harder this time.
It took him by surprise, I think. And he quick turned his face away from me. But not before I saw him wipe his eyes on his coat sleeve.
I froze with fear.
“Pop?”
He pulled me close again.
Then—in a voice so faint I could barely hear him—he whispered the words “He’s gone.”
WHEN WE WALKED across the street that night, I held on to my father with both arms. My feet kept tripping over his and twice we almost fell down. But I couldn’t let go.
The house was dark when we went inside. The only light was this dim glow coming from underneath my parents’ bedroom door. It gave me the chills to see that.
Right away I started turning on the lights. All of them, I mean. Every switch I came to. Even the little bulb over the kitchen stove.
I still hadn’t cried. It wasn’t that kind of pain yet. Mostly it was just this total feeling of emptiness in my gut. Like a cannonball had been shot cleanly through my middle. And I swear to God, I actually remember reaching under my sweatshirt and touching my stomach to see if you could feel the hole from the outside.
After all the lights were on, I went back to the kitchen where my father was. And he was just standing there, you know? Right in the center of the room. With his arms hanging limp at his sides.
He sat down for a second, then got right up again. “I should go check on your mother. The doctor gave her some kind of pill to help her sleep.”
I nodded. Then I watched him go down the hall. He was walking real slow, like an old man almost. Only when he got across from Mick’s room, he stopped all together, and started running his fingers through his hair. Like you do when you’re worried about some big, important decision you have to make.
Then his hand reached out and closed my brother’s door.
“NO! DON’T DO THAT! I DON’T WANT YOU TO DO THAT!” I screamed.
Pop pulled his hand away so fast it was like the doorknob had caught on fire.
I ran to where he was standing.
“Please, Pop,” I begged. “Please.”
I pushed Mick’s door open again. “Please.”
My father broke down then. Heaving these terrible sobs into his hands. I went numb when I heard that. I couldn’t move, couldn’t do anything to comfort him. It’s just so scary, you know? Hearing your pop cry like that. Even after he had gone into his room, I still couldn’t get the sound of it out of my mind.
I think that’s when it first hit me that we were in way over our heads on this one. This was one of those tragedies that needed a family that knew what it was doing. Like the Kennedys or the Queen of England and her whole bunch.
Not a family like ours that comes unglued if someone doesn’t follow the morning bathroom schedule.
I don’t know how long I stood there in the hall that night. All I remember is when I looked up, the lights from the hall were reflecting off Mick’s dresser mirror. And I saw the pictures of Wocket stuck all around the frame.
Wocket was our dog. Mick named her. It was before he could pronounce his r’s.
She was part basset hound and part beagle. We got her for Christmas when Mick was three. She was supposed to be for both of us. But the day before New Year’s, Wocket chewed up my Malibu Barbie and spit out the blond hair in her dog dish. So after that, the two of us weren’t all that close.
She really loved Mick, though. She followed him around like a shadow, practically. And when he finally started kindergarten, she’d carry his favorite stuffed animal—this dirty skunk named Stinky—in her mouth all day until he got home.
Wocket was more like a friend to Mick than a pet. He actually discussed things with her, I mean. And instead of teaching her dog tricks, he taught her human stuff, like how to untie his shoelaces and open the bathroom door.
He also taught her to wear a red cowboy hat. Which sounds stupid, I guess. But Wocket really came to love that hat. In the mornings she wouldn’t go outside until Mick put it on her head and pulled her ears through these special slits he had cut in the sides.
It’s been over a year since we had to have her put to sleep. She had bone cancer, and she was in a lot of pain. So it’s not like we had a choice or anything.
We all went to the vet with her that day. But Mick was the only one who went in the room with her when it happened. When he came out, his shirt was covered with Wocket’s fur from where he had been hugging her till the very end. He wasn’t crying, though. And I remember wondering how in the world he could stay so strong.
The next afternoon after Gilligan’s Island, the clock in the living room started to chime and Mick automatically got off the couch to go fix Wocket her dinner.
He was halfway to the kitchen before he remembered.
He stopped real sudden in the hall and just stood there a second. Then he ran into the bathroom and threw up.
My mother knocked on the door, but he told her to go away. As soon as she’d left, he went to his room and didn’t come out for hours.
That night, Mick came to the dinner table wearing Wocket’s red cowboy hat on his head. It wasn’t on purpose, I don’t think. He’d been wearing it all afternoon and had just forgotten it was there.
He talked about her the whole time we ate. Telling us his favorite Wocket stories and all. Then after dinner, he took me back to his room and showed me this little pile of her fur he had collected from off the rug and his shirt and other places. He’d put it in a baggie and had it on display on his bookshelf. It was just so touching, you know?
A couple of minutes later, he caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror and realized he was still wearing her hat. His face went totally sad.
“What if I forget her, Phoeb? If I forget her, it’ll be like she was never even here.”
So that night, me and Mick went through all the family albums, finding pictures of Wocket and sticking them into the sides of his mirror to make sure he’d never forget.
He didn’t either. From then on, whenever he went in his room, the first thing he’d do was look at his mirror.
“Hiya, Wocket. How ya doin’, girl?” he’d say. “You doin’ okay today?”
And I don’t think I ever loved my brother more than when I heard him talk to those pictures. I swear to God I don’t.
IT’S WEIRD REMEMBERING that now. Because after the accident, I was never once tempted to look through our family album for pictures of Mick. In fact, looking at his picture made me feel sick inside.
We didn’t tell our favorite Mick stories at dinner, either. We didn’t even eat dinner, really. None of us had an appetite. And besides, no one wanted to sit at the table with his empty chair right
in front of our faces. So we mostly just ate cereal standing up if we got hungry. Which was never. So no problem.
Our lives got simpler in other ways, too.
Like we didn’t talk that much because nothing seemed important enough to say.
And even though the TV was always on, we almost never sat down to watch it. Every show seemed stupid. Even the news seemed stupid.
Pop and I did try to watch the Discovery Channel one night. But it was all about the Serengeti Plain in Africa, and every scene had some animal being killed by some other animal. We turned it off just as a cheetah was about to pounce on one of those springy little antelope things. I mean who needs to see that, you know?
“The Serengeti sucks,” I said.
Usually I don’t say “sucks” in front of my father. He thinks it’s crude. But this time he nodded and said, “Yeah. It does.”
We both went to bed then.
It was eight o’clock.
My mother was already asleep, by the way. The pills the doctor had given her were still working their magic.
By the third night, her schedule had become pretty predictable. She’d take a pill right about six-thirty. And she’d be out like a light by seven. I wouldn’t see her again until ten or eleven the next morning.
She was in her pajamas all the time. She didn’t comb her hair. And her face was always puffy from a combination of sleep and crying.
It was pretty depressing. But I couldn’t really blame her for wanting to be knocked out. I mean grieving isn’t exactly the kind of activity that makes you want to leap out of bed in the morning and get “up and at ’em.”
I used to think that when someone dies, the family stays real busy making “arrangements.” But for us, it wasn’t that way at all.
Since Mick had wanted to be cremated, it was going to be a few days before we’d have his ashes back for interment (another name for burial, I learned). Meanwhile, there was a memorial service to plan. But after only one meeting at the house with our minister, even that had been taken care of.
We did get a lot of phone calls, though. Like I talked to my nana from Florida almost every day, practically. She was planning to stay with us after the memorial service and she was all worried about idiotic stuff like plane arrivals and how long she should stay.
