My Cousin's Keeper

by Simon French

  Mom set the backpack on the kitchen table and began emptying out the contents. She did it slowly, as though each item of clothing were going to tell her a story about Bon, and maybe about his mom. I mentally compared each item to my own things stowed neatly in my bedroom dresser, wrinkling my nose at faded colors, ragged threads, and holes. The worst thing I spotted was a wool hat. It had the sort of rainbow colors a preschool kid would wear, with an elf point at the top and five or six pom-poms hanging all around.

  I snorted and laughed. “He wears that?”

  Mom looked at me and shrugged. “If it’s something he likes, it’s quite OK.” She put it over her hand and turned it around. “This isn’t from a store; someone knit it. I wonder who.”

  “Aunt Renee?” I suggested, but Mom’s eyes grew wide and disbelieving at that.

  “This is sweet, actually,” she said, almost in a whisper.

  “Sweet,” I repeated, muttering the word like a poison.

  The last things from the backpack were a paperback novel from our school library and a sketchbook. I recognized it as the one I’d seen Bon hunched over at school.

  Mom looked at the scrawled writing on its cover and read, “Bon’s Book of Maps and Inventions.” She flicked through a few of the pages and smiled.

  “What’s so good about that?” I asked.

  “It’s interesting,” she answered. “And he’s good at drawing. I never would have guessed.”

  “But his writing is disgusting,” I commented, not curious at all about his silly drawing book.

  Mom stopped at a page and then read, “We traveled to a new and distant village, found lodgings, and began to observe the people and their ways.”

  “He could have copied that from anywhere, Mom.”

  “Bon might have a good imagination and thought it up all by himself. What’s the matter, Kieran?”

  “Why does he have to sleep in my room?”

  “Because it’s important. He’s our guest and he’s your cousin. I’m not going to park him on the sofa or on the floor somewhere. He has to feel welcome.” I frowned. Mom said in a stern voice, “I’m not going to argue with you about it, Kieran. Look —” She pointed at the clothing spread across the table. “These are what Bon calls his essentials. It’s a little snapshot of his life — everything secondhand, close to worn-out, and not recently washed, either. Poor kid. Go and get some of your pajamas.”

  “Why?”

  “To lend to Bon, because he’s got none here of his own, and because I’m planning on throwing everything he does have into the wash tonight, including whatever he’s wearing right now. We have to organize more clothes for him, something better to wear to school, something to get out and play in.”

  I chose my least favorite pajamas for Bon.

  In a cartoon I had once seen, a kid had drawn a chalk line down the middle of his bedroom floor, which his sister wasn’t allowed to cross. I felt like doing the very same thing, but knew I’d be in trouble for at least two different reasons. Unlike Gina, I hadn’t had a friend stay over in a long while. I tried not to think too much about the last time, because it was someone who had moved away and I didn’t see anymore.

  So later, when Bon walked hesitantly into my room after a shower, dressed in the borrowed pajamas, I waved a pointed finger across to where the trundle bed had been set up beneath the window. “That’s your side of the room,” I said, hoping it sounded like an instruction to be obeyed.

  Bon looked down at the trundle bed, which sat on an empty rectangle of carpet. “OK,” he said quietly, but I saw him glancing across at the medieval castle, and I knew he was longing to touch and play with it.

  “Don’t even think about touching anything that’s not yours,” I added.

  Bon didn’t argue back. He looked away and started rustling inside his backpack, which was empty of everything now, except for the silly drawing book and the even sillier wool hat. It was the drawing book and a black pen Bon pulled out. He turned away from me then and stretched out along the trundle bed, with the open book cradled away from my sight.

  I looked across at my castle. I hardly ever touched it anymore, though sometimes I’d rearrange the figures to make things just a bit different.

  “Have you grown out of it?” Mom had asked once or twice. “Do you think it’s time to pass it on to someone else?”

  But I couldn’t. The castle and its figures had been special birthday gifts, and they reminded me of a friend I still missed.

  The no-Bon side of the room still felt uncomfortably close to the Bon side. And while the no-Bon side had all the things I owned and liked, somehow the Bon side seemed to creep across the floorboards, ready to take over my whole room. I clicked on the reading light above my pillow and tried to concentrate on one of Dad’s sports magazines.

  There would have been complete silence in my bedroom, except for the frantic scratching of Bon’s pen as he worked in his book. I put up with the noise for as long as I could stand it, which was about three minutes.

  “What’s all that stuff you’re drawing?” I grumbled, keeping my face buried inside the magazine.

  “A map,” he said, his voice a little muffled. I guessed that he wasn’t looking at me, either. “I like drawing maps of imaginary places. And I draw dragons and castles, and write clues for where to find treasures —” He stopped abruptly. For a moment, he had sounded bright and almost cheerful, but must have remembered it was me he was talking to.

  I lowered my magazine. “How can you even read what you’ve written? Your writing’s disgusting.”

  Bon didn’t look up. “Miss McLennan says my brain works faster than my hand.”

  “Does Miss McLennan ever mistake you for one of the girls?”

  I could see his eyebrows creasing into a frown. I knew I was being mean, but couldn’t stop myself.

  “Because of your hair,” I said. “That stupid braid.”

  “This is how much my hair has grown in four years,” he answered, as though making an announcement. “Native American braves used to wear their hair long because it showed that they were strong.”

  “Strong? Is that why you’re doing it? I’ve never seen you play any sort of game at school, and I’ve seen you trying to ride a bike here at home. I could beat you at anything.”

  Bon was silent for a moment. “Not at drawing maps of imaginary places. Or knights on horseback,” he said, his pen scratching on the page. “Or at drawing inventions.”

  “Inventions?” I laughed back. “You’re weird.”

  “I’ve got an invention for solar-powered interactive television, and a mousetrap that doesn’t kill the mouse,” he said.

  I snorted in disbelief. “You are weird. Anyway, someone’s already come up with that kind of mousetrap and most likely the television as well. Solar power’s been around for ages.”

  “Not my kind of mousetrap or television,” Bon answered, keeping his eyes on his pen and his page.

  Curiosity got the better of me, and I sprang off the bed to steal a look at whatever Bon was drawing. I had enough time to see two figures in armor riding two horses. Each rider had their helmet off and their hair blowing behind them, and I was surprised at how realistic the picture looked. It wasn’t only underwater scenes, like the one on Nan’s fridge; Bon could really draw. I had to admit that. Above the picture was a scrawled sentence, and in the moment before Bon slapped the pages shut, I managed to read Bon the Crusader and Julia the Fair.

  “How come you’re always hanging around Julia?” I demanded. “It must drive her nuts having you following her everywhere.”

  Bon looked up at me again, but took a long moment to actually say anything. “Because we’re friends,” he answered at last.

  “Friends? I think she just feels sorry for you.”

  “Well, we are friends. We like the same things, and we talk about the same things.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like . . . things. About ourselves and what we’re thinking.”

&nb
sp; I wanted to say more. I wanted to turn Bon the Crusader into a clever insult, but Julia the Fair would be caught up with the insult as well. I looked over at my medieval castle and its army of figures, realizing that Bon had stolen my toys two years before to draw them, and that he must have practiced lots and lots in the time before he had brought them back.

  We are friends. We like the same things, and we talk about the same things. Jealousy flooded over me. Julia hadn’t talked to me since the morning at the garage sale. I wondered what it would be like having her here at my house, instead of Bon, and wondered what we would talk about. There was nothing I could think of talking about with Bon.

  I would much rather have had Mason or Lucas here for a sleepover, but they always seemed to be busy with something else whenever I’d asked. Instead, I had a cousin I barely knew or liked here in my room.

  “Huh,” I mumbled behind my magazine. If Bon had heard me, he didn’t let on, and for once, it felt like forever until Mom came to the doorway.

  “Sleep time, lights out,” she said, coming over and giving me the usual good-night kiss. I flinched and hoped that Bon wasn’t watching, but he was — in fact, he was staring, as though a good-night kiss were something he’d never seen before. And then Mom was over with him, kneeling down beside the trundle bed. “Good night, Bon. There’s a flashlight under your pillow if you need to get up in the night. Will you be OK?”

  She leaned over and gave him a kiss as well. It felt strange to see that happen, and Bon looked so surprised at first. Then his face softened into something that was almost a smile.

  In the darkness afterward, I could hear him murmuring to himself. It was as though he were having a conversation with someone.

  “Shut up,” I said at last. “Go to sleep.”

  There was a moment more of his whispering. “Good night, Kieran,” he said softly, and then was quiet.

  I didn’t reply.

  In the morning as we got ready for school, I looked at Bon with quick, sneaky glances, because there were things I was suddenly curious about. He peeled his pajamas off in an absentminded kind of way and then slowly assembled the things he needed for school. I glanced sideways and cautiously, almost expecting him to look different in some strange and surprising way — that maybe he had a sprawling birthmark, a terrible scar, or no belly button, or that he wasn’t actually a boy at all. But in truth, he was just like me: skinny and pale, the same height, and with all the same details. I felt embarrassed then for looking, and I said to him gruffly, “Get dressed, or you’ll make us late for school.”

  Mom had three packed lunch boxes lined up on the kitchen island.

  “Is this mine?” Bon asked when Mom handed him the third one.

  “Of course it is. I wouldn’t be letting you starve, Bon. Hasn’t Nan given you a school lunch when you’ve stayed with her?”

  “Yes, but . . .” He turned the box over. “It’s got my name on it.” He sounded a little amazed.

  “Because I wrote it,” Mom answered. “It’s yours to keep.”

  I shook my head, remembering Gina getting excited over having her own lunch box and drink bottle when she’d started kindergarten. Someone Bon’s age getting excited about a lunch box seemed really strange. “Haven’t you ever owned a lunch box before?” I snorted.

  Mom frowned at me. I’d expected that, but not Bon’s answer. “No,” he said.

  When it came time to start out for school, Bon made one more trip to get his backpack from my bedroom, and I almost followed him to make sure he didn’t touch or take something. He reappeared, wearing the wool hat with the pom-poms.

  “You’re not wearing that to school!” I exclaimed.

  “It’s cold,” he replied. “It’s my favorite hat and it keeps my head warm.”

  “I like it,” Gina remarked.

  “You would, because it’s for little kids,” I said.

  Gina told Bon, “Kieran has a ski hat with flames on it. When he puts it on, it looks like his head is burning.” She giggled, and I got annoyed because I thought I saw Bon smile. Then Gina pleaded, “Can I have a turn wearing your hat tomorrow? Please, Bon?”

  I felt horrified at the thought of being seen with someone wearing such a weird thing on their head. The tallest pom-pom stuck high above Bon’s forehead, and the longest drooped down almost to his shoulders. It made him look like an elf, or, worse, kind of a baby.

  “Can I ride my bike to school?” I asked Mom desperately.

  She shook her head. “You’ll walk with Gina, just as usual.”

  “Bon can walk with her; he’s here today.”

  “What’s wrong with the three of you walking together? When Gina’s old enough, she can ride her bike to school and then so can you.”

  I didn’t want to be seen arriving at school with Bon and his silly hat, and I could imagine now what would happen — kids laughing, hands grabbing, and the hat being thrown from hand to teasing hand, until it wound up on the ground or on a classroom roof. And Bon would be reaching out uselessly, saying, “Give me back my hat, please,” in his precise voice.

  So we stayed together for as long as I knew Mom would be watching from the front gate, but as we walked around the corner onto Hanley Street, I let myself fall behind Gina and Bon. I could have worked up a good speed if I’d been able to ride my bike. I would have beaten them to school and been well away on the playground with my own friends. Instead, I was stuck with both of them, my little sister and my strange cousin. I trudged along behind as though my sneakers had soles of concrete.

  Bon’s wool hat did not wind up on a classroom roof. But it did get pulled from his head and passed around like a football, until eventually someone threw too hard and the hat dropped to the ground. Mason, Lucas, and the rest of us took turns stamping our feet on it, as though we were killing a venomous spider. When that became boring, we walked away. Even with fierce Mrs. Barnes on playground duty not too far away, we had made it all look like a game. I had expected Bon to make a fuss or to cry even, but he danced awkwardly around the outside of our circle as his hat was thrown from hand to hand. He had not said a word. Focused on the fun, I avoided looking at his face, but I felt guilty and wondered if he would say anything to Nan or Mom.

  “Uh-oh,” Mason said. “Here comes Gay Boy’s friend.” And we walked away together, avoiding Julia’s approach. When I looked back, she was on a playground seat beside Bon. She dusted off his wool hat and gave it back to him to put on again. I turned away quickly so that our eyes would not meet, and I laughed at Mason’s comments about weird new kids at our school.

  I often spotted Bon on the playground sitting with her, or walking around and talking with her. I saw how he tagged along behind the friends she had made, but always seemed to be outside the conversation circle, until Julia made sure he was included. Sometimes, he’d give up and go sit down somewhere with his book of maps and inventions. I wondered if Bon actually knew how to make friends.

  Julia did. She was like a magnet to the other kids in her class and had quickly stopped being the new girl. People wanted to be her friend. I heard her talking about this school as though it were an interesting project she had taken on. Why doesn’t your school do this? Or, Why doesn’t your school have this? Julia had plans and schemes for games, activities, and the way the playground was set up, and the ideas she came up with became some of the things we talked about in class. The little kids have jungle gyms, but what about the big kids? Can we do horseback riding for a school sport? Can we camp out in tents on the playground one night? Can we go on a field trip to the beach?

  But I knew that Julia hadn’t been to school wherever she had lived before, even though she seemed to know a lot about other schools and other places. She hadn’t meant to tell me that, and I hadn’t mentioned it to anyone else. I wondered if she had ever been to school anywhere. There was a mystery about Julia that I quite liked, but it bothered me, too. I wondered how much she had told Bon.

  Away from Julia, Bon said not much at all. Boy
s would call out Rapunzel or Hey, Gay Boy; they would sometimes bump into him on purpose or put a foot out to try to trip him. I did the same things as well, and then would ignore his blank, unblinking eyes when he stared at me. I tried not to think of it as an accusing look. But Julia always seemed to know.

  One day we found Bon sitting alone on the seat outside the library, and Mason gave Bon’s braid enough of a tug to make Bon cry out. When Bon stood up and tried to walk away, Lucas put a foot out to make Bon stumble. Knowing Mason was watching, I did the same thing. Bon said nothing. He simply stared at us and tried to keep walking. It was all set to happen again, until Mason said, “Uh-oh, here she comes again, Rapunzel’s friend.” He made it sound like an insult.

  From wherever Julia had been on the playground, she had seen what was happening and strode across.

  “You guys are being bullies,” she said, standing face-to-face with Mason and Lucas. “This school has a bullying problem and you are it.”

  This was greeted by ooooohs as Julia’s statement was laughed away by Mason, Lucas, and the other boys from my class. I tried to melt into the back of the group and not be seen or heard.

  “And this school,” replied Lucas, “has a busybody issue.” He pointed a finger at Julia and smirked. “And you, Julia Barrett, are it.” There was a chorus of cheers.

  Julia stood her ground. “Pathetic. All of you. You think you’re cool, but you’re not. Ganging up like idiots. You’re the dumbest boys I’ve ever known.”

  “Like we care what you think.” Mason laughed. “You don’t run the school.”

  “You don’t run the playground. Leave Bon alone. He’s got as much right to be here as you, or anybody,” Julia replied.

  “Yes, Mom,” Lucas sneered. “Anything you say, Mom.”

  Then came the one thing I didn’t want to happen.

  “Kieran,” Julia said. It was a pointed, scolding voice. “Bon is your cousin. You should be looking out for him, not just copying what these losers are doing.”

  I began to walk away. She followed.