The Graham Cracker Plot

by Shelley Tougas

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  For Samantha, my little daisy

  CONTENTS

  Title Page

  Copyright Notice

  Dedication

  The First Part

  The Second Part

  The Third Part

  The Final Part

  The Part Where I’m Supposed to Write to You

  Back to the Final Part. Again.

  The Actual Final Part

  One More Thing

  Acknowledgments

  Copyright

  THE FIRST PART

  DEAR JUDGE HENRY,

  I will tell you three things right now.

  Number one: I’m almost twelve years old. I do not want to go to prison, even if it’s a prison for kids.

  Number two: Nobody calls me Aurora Dawn Bauer, not even my grandma, and she’s the most legal person I know. Everyone calls me Daisy.

  Number three: Your face looks like squirrels flopped their tails where your eyebrows should be. I can’t tell if your eyes ever laugh, but you were all business when you told me to write this, and—

  UGH. Mom just peeked over my shoulder and said, “Erase that stuff about his weird eyebrows or we’ll have more trouble. I mean it!” I went to my room and slammed the door. She’s a snoop.

  You told me to write everything I think and feel. Everything. And I will.

  Mom’s afraid. If I screw this up, she says, the County will never get off her back.

  I won’t screw it up. I’m going to do what you said and use the brain God gave me to explain myself instead of causing more trouble.

  Mom thinks I could finish this paper in a couple of nights if I work hard. She has no idea how much I have to say. Sometimes you hold stuff tight inside until a judge makes you let it out, and the stuff starts a spark and the spark starts a fire and the fire burns big and terrible. The Chemist says you can’t stop a big and terrible fire with a regular garden hose.

  So who caused this mess? Not the Chemist. I swear on everything I’ll ever have—every single Christmas present and birthday present from every single Christmas and birthday. The Chemist didn’t know we were going to break him out of prison. It’s not his fault.

  You should blame my mom and her boyfriend, Alex, for running off to Mexico. Or Kari, the worst babysitter in the world. Or Grandma’s crying. Or Ashley and that dog whose name may or may not be Fred. And most of all, you should blame my never-friend Graham Hassler, aka Graham Cracker, and his stupid Idea Coin. If you broke up this story into one million pieces of blame, only two of the pieces would be mine and 999,998 would belong to Graham.

  Why do you think we called it the Graham Cracker Plot?

  DEAR JUDGE HENRY,

  The Chemist is my dad, but he’s not the kind of dad who lives in your house. He doesn’t drive me to school or fold socks or put away dishes. My parents were never married, so he didn’t learn that stuff.

  The Chemist’s the kind of dad who buys presents and lets you watch zombie movies and gives you ice cream even though you already had cookies. Mom was like that, too, back when she’d put booze in a travel mug and pretend it was coffee. But now, she’s all, “Eat your peas and do your homework and that’s enough T V for one day.”

  So my dad and I were eating mozzarella sticks at the Rattlesnake Bar and Grill when we gave each other new names.

  “Guess what I did at school today?” I said.

  “Played with Graham?”

  Nobody seemed to get the Graham thing. I said, “He’s an after-school friend.”

  “What’s that? A part-time friend? Like a part-time job?”

  “We don’t hang out at school.” Something about Dad’s face said, “Buckle up for a guilt trip. Poor Graham doesn’t have a dad and goes to special reading classes and probably won’t ever get braces for his crooked teeth.” I wanted that look wiped off his face quick. I said, “Graham pulls my ponytail and makes fart noises with his armpit.”

  “Oh, come on. Armpit farts are hilarious.” He laughed and laughed. Then he wiped his eyes on his napkin and said, “The ponytail thing means he likes you.”

  “Hello! I said I have a story to tell! Guess what I did at school today?”

  “You took over the cafeteria from the crabby old ladies? And you threw away the veggies and made marshmallow sandwiches!”

  “That’d be awesome. But, no. We were in the media center and we looked up our names to learn their meaning and where they came from. What were you thinking when you named me Aurora Dawn?”

  He asked the waitress for two more beers—a real one for him and a root one for me. “Your mom picked Aurora, and her favorite aunt was named Dawn. It’s a great name. It’s unusual. Now my name? It sucks. Do you know how many Jacobs are in this world? Probably millions.”

  “Guess what? Aurora means the dawn! My name is Dawn Dawn! Do you know how dumb that sounds?”

  He thought about it. “Really? Are you sure?”

  “Yes! I found it on the Internet. I couldn’t write that on my paper. Dawn Dawn. Dawn Dawn!”

  “So what’d you say?”

  “I wrote that it means Daisy.”

  “I gotta tell you sweetie, Daisy Dawn Bauer sounds pretty silly, too.”

  I shrugged. “Time was up, and I was thinking about the wallpaper in Grandma’s bathroom with the little daisies. It’s better than Dawn Dawn.”

  “Better than Jacob, too,” he said. We tended to agree on most everything.

  He pulled the last mozzarella stick in two pieces and gave me the bigger half. That’s when I got the idea. “How about I go by Daisy, and you go by something that’s like you. How about Video Game Man?”

  “I do like video games. But it doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue, does it, Daisy?”

  “Carpet Cleaning Man!”

  “I quit that job.”

  “Mom said the job quit you.”

  “She gets things mixed up, doesn’t she?” He took a gulp of beer and said, “Well, I was good at chemistry in school. I took two chemistry classes before I left college, and I’m kinda into that.”

  “Chemistry Man?”

  “The Chemist.” He smiled. “Yeah. The Chemist.”

  * * *

  A few months later, the Chemist went to prison. You weren’t the judge who did that to us. I already asked Grandma, and she’d know because she paid the lawyer bills. If you were that judge, who punished my daddy for an accident, I’d use all the bad words I promised the Chemist I wouldn’t say until high school.

  DEAR JUDGE HENRY,

  It was Graham’s idea to run away. But it was Grandma’s idea to break the Chemist out of Club Fed. That’s what Grandma and the Chemist call the prison, and it’s a joke, because it’s not a club.

  Judge Henry, you probably know that Club Fed doesn’t look like a movie prison. No bars, no handcuffs. But did you know Club Fed used to be a small college, and when the college closed, the Club Fed people made it a low-security prison? I guess judges don’t go to prisons on account of prisoners not liking judges. But you should go anyway, with your little desk hammer and black robe, to make sure bad prisoners don’t beat up nice prisoners.

  The first time I went to Club Fed with Grandma, I could hardly believe it. The prison looks like a college—just a bunch of brick buildings and a big lawn. Except it’s surrounded by a fence.

  Grandma is how I get to see the Chemist. Mom told Grandma it would scar me to see the Chemist in pris
on. Grandma said I’d be scarred if I didn’t see him. Nobody asked what I thought, Judge Henry, but since you wagged your finger at me and said to tell you everything, I will! I thought, Mom and Grandma should stop giving each other scars. Why’d it matter anymore whether Mom broke the Chemist’s heart or whether the Chemist broke hers?

  Seems to me they both got broken. And that’s what would happen to me if I couldn’t see the Chemist. I’d be broken.

  So Grandma got a lawyer and a legal paper that says I have to spend the third weekend of every month with her. We drive thirty miles to the prison in Waseca and see the Chemist.

  Every time we go, Grandma reminds me killers don’t go to Club Fed. No shooters, stabbers, or stranglers. The men at Club Fed didn’t pay tax money and hacked into computers and accidentally blew up a house while mixing a chemistry experiment, like the Chemist.

  Every time we go, Grandma laughs the whole time we’re in the visiting center. Her eyes shine bright, and she tells funny stories about being a stylist.

  And every time we leave, when it’s just us in the car, she cries about how unfair it is. I ask why a judge would punish someone for an accident, and she just blows her nose and fixes her makeup. Then she puts on a happy face and says, “McDonald’s time.”

  But our visit in March changed everything. It was so bad, so scary, that Grandma said, “Daisy, I have to do something. I’ve got to get my baby out of that nightmare.”

  The Chemist is her baby. Everyone was a baby once, even people in Club Fed.

  Then she said, “Daisy, I’m afraid he’s going to get hurt. He’s not like them. He’s a sweet boy. He wouldn’t shoo a fly off a piece of watermelon.”

  After that visit, I was afraid, too.

  * * *

  The morning before the scary visit started like every third Sunday of the month. Grandma fixed me cheesy eggs. Then she styled my hair. French braids. She did my fingernails, too. Passion Purple, covered with a layer of glitter polish.

  Then we hopped in her car with coffee for her and a disgusting vegetable juice for me. “Grandma,” I said. “Don’t you think it’s weird there are houses across the street from the prison?”

  “Those houses used to be across the street from the college admissions building. The prison came after the houses.”

  “They’re nice houses, too. I wouldn’t want to live there.”

  She pushed her cigarette through the crack in the window. “Hon, it’s safer than your mom’s trailer park. I’d bet good money on that.”

  “Grandma, it’s a mobile home park. Trailers are for hauling. Besides, if she marries Alex, we’ll probably move into his house.”

  “The boy toy owns a house?”

  I groaned. “Gross! Stop calling him that.”

  “Does he have teeth?” Grandma played innocent, but I knew a dig when I heard it. Still, I laughed. Then I said, “Grandma, he’s not so bad. He plays Monopoly and Uno with me. He came to my school concert, and I think he actually liked it. He said I sang the loudest.”

  Grandma took out a second cigarette. That means she’s upset. “Does he really own a house?”

  “He rents one half of the house to his brother and he lives in the other half. It’s a duplex.”

  Grandma wanted to know more; I could tell. But I didn’t say anything else. The Chemist told me a long time ago to be careful about giving information about Mom to Grandma and information about Grandma to Mom. “Nothing worse than women at war,” he said. Grandma blames Mom for the Chemist dropping out of college, but Mom says he failed his way out of there. Then Grandma says Mom’s wrong, and Mom says Grandma’s wrong. Sometimes I wish my ears would fall off.

  “Where’s the house?”

  I shrugged. I’m not going to say on the corner of Fourth and Plum because then she’ll ask, “Is it nice?” and I’ll say, “It’s okay,” and then she’ll ask, “How many bedrooms?” and I’ll say, “Three on each side,” and she’ll ask “What color is it?” and “Does it have air-conditioning?” and “Does your mother spend the night there?” and “How much money does he make as the tire store manager?” and it will NEVER END. And then when I get home, Mom will ask what Grandma asked me and what I told her and what Grandma said after I told her the thing I told her.

  I changed the subject. “Can I get a candy bar from the machine when we get there?”

  “You’re going to get a big belly. That’s where carbs go. Belly fat,” she said. “But I guess I can spring for a candy bar.”

  “I had eggs for breakfast!”

  “You’re a pretty girl, but you’ve got roly-poly in your mom’s side of the family. You’re going to have to watch what you eat.”

  Grandma can talk for hours about working out and low-carb diets. She likes to point out she’s in better shape than Mom. The Chemist always says Grandma’s happiness is directly related to Mom’s weight.

  * * *

  Grandma drove into the visiting center parking lot. I studied the tall fence that surrounds Club Fed. “Do you think it’s electric? Like if we touched the fence, would we get electrocuted?”

  “God no. It’s not Alcatraz.”

  “What’s Alcatraz?”

  “It was a horrible prison for the worst of the worst. They put it on an island off California so nobody could ever escape.”

  “So nobody ever escaped Alcatraz?”

  “Actually, they did. A couple of guys made it out. They were never found. It was such a big deal that Hollywood made a movie about it.”

  I made a mental note to rent that movie. “Think anyone ever escaped from Club Fed?”

  She held my hand as we walked to the door. “I think about it every day.”

  That’s what she said, and she hadn’t even seen the Chemist’s face yet.

  * * *

  On Sundays, the guard at the entrance was Aaron. His big belly made the buttons on his shirt stand at attention. If he laughs too hard, one of those buttons is going to pop and someone is going to lose an eye, and let me tell you, Aaron laughed a lot. He’d tell me I’m going to be as pretty as my mother someday; then he’d swoop his eyes at Grandma. She’d smile, run her fingers through her frosty, blond hair, and remind him I’m her grandbaby, and he’d act shocked. He always said, “I didn’t know it was possible to be a grandmother at twenty-five!” And he laughed, and Grandma laughed, and I laughed because I thought he’d be nicer to the Chemist if I made him think he’s funny.

  We had to leave coats, purses, bags, and stuff in a locker. We could bring money for the vending machine if it was in a clear sandwich bag.

  Grandma told me if I had something lumpy in my pocket, Aaron would bring me to a special room and do a pat-down. At school, we’d call a guy like that a creeper, but at Club Fed, he’s security.

  After we cleared out our things, we walked through the metal detector and pushed through two heavy doors to the visiting center.

  It was a big room with lots of windows, tables, and folding chairs. It used to be the student union, which means the student hangout. Against the wall were magazines, books, and board games. There were two Ping-Pong tables in the back. And kids. Lots of kids. I high-fived Derrick and Shane and Luci. I just waved at Juan-the-Nose-Picker. And I bent over and patted Calvin’s head.

  Then I saw him.

  The Chemist waited at a small table by the window. At first I thought it was the sunlight hitting the glass, that somehow the bright light made the left side of his face look puffy and red and almost purple. Then he smiled. Only half of his lips moved. The other half was frozen.

  Grandma sat down in a lump. “What the hell happened?”

  “Looks way worse than it feels.” The Chemist winked at me with his puffy brown eye, but the lid didn’t quite close.

  “Jacob? Really. What happened?”

  “It was late, like midnight, and I got out of bed to take a leak and I walked into the wall!” He laughed. But it was a half laugh because his cheek was stiff.

  Grandma’s face went red. She slapped t
he table and said, “Stop with the crap. What happened?”

  “Mom, it’s nothing.”

  “Jacob Bauer. Tell me what happened.”

  “You know how we take classes? I accidentally welded my head. Clumsy, eh?” The Chemist smiled at me. I tried to smile back, but I couldn’t make my face work.

  “Jacob—”

  “Mom! Let it chill, okay? No reason to worry the rug rat.” He winked at me again. It was gross. His eyelids couldn’t come together on account of their puffiness.

  Grandma nudged me. “Daisy. Go find a magazine.”

  “I don’t want a magazine.”

  “I want to talk to your father for a minute.”

  The Chemist stood up and gave me my first hug. You get two at Club Fed: one at hello and one at goodbye. But you can’t linger because if you linger Aaron yells, “No lingering!”

  “Daisy. Magazine. Now,” Grandma said. “Be a good girl.”

  “But I want to talk to him, too!”

  “Aurora Dawn Bauer! Go get a magazine from the rack. Find a long article and don’t come back until you’ve read it twice. March!”

  I marched. I picked a magazine with a sports car on the cover, held it nose level, and watched them. The back of the Chemist’s head was still, but Grandma’s mouth moved like the wings of a hummingbird. Occasionally she’d slam her hands on the table or cross her arms. Then she started dabbing the corners of her eyes with her sleeves, and I could see mascara smudges. I marched right back.

  “Daisy—” Grandma began, but I blurted out, “Eco-friendly sports cars!”

  “What?”

  “I read it twice. Eco-friendly! Sports cars!”

  She sighed. “Hon, I’m not feeling so well. My stomach’s all twisted up. We have to go soon.”

  “But I didn’t even talk to him!”

  The Chemist leaned forward and put his hand over my fist. “We have our Wednesday night phone date, right?”

  Grandma stood up. “I’m going to the bathroom to fix my face. You two say goodbye.” Off to the bathroom she went.

  The Chemist pulled his hand away and crossed his arms just as Aaron called out, “No touching.”