by Lisa Tucker
“Ah, you’re doing it with me, too. Touché. However, I do hope at some point you’ll realize you don’t have to bother. Nothing you could say would shock me. It’s one of the advantages of refusing to play the game.”
New Grandma talked about The Game constantly, but it wasn’t a normal game like Monopoly or baseball. William figured this out, though he wasn’t sure what it did mean ‘cause she said it so many ways, like anything could be a game, even being a grandma. On Wednesday morning when they were late to school, before she came inside to say she was sorry to William’s teacher, she winked at William. “It’s time to play the grandma game. Don’t worry, I’ve always been very good at handling peons.”
When he got home, William remembered to ask Pearl what a “peon” was. His sister said it meant worker, like a foot soldier. He asked Pearl if a peon could be in a game and she said sure. “Pawns are peons. Dad used to call them peasants, remember?”
He did remember, but he didn’t see what any of this had to do with being late for school. Maybe he would’ve if he were better at playing chess, like Pearl was, but then he might be stuck playing with New Grandma all the time, like his sister. Grandma had a whole shelf of silver and gold trophies that she won playing chess, though William remembered what Daddy said about them. The trophies were one of the first things William had noticed when his father brought him to this house for the escape Challenge, ‘cause they were so shiny and cool-looking, way better than the stuff they gave out at school for the spelling bee. But Daddy said they were “worthless” and then took William upstairs, where he taught him how to pick a lock, in case he ever got locked inside a room somewhere and needed to get free.
Staying in this house, William missed Daddy worse than ever. Somehow New Grandma figured that out—it was another of those things she called her “observations.” And William hadn’t said one word about Daddy to New Grandma, ‘cause Pearl had warned him not to. So how could New Grandma know? He wasn’t going to ask, but she told him anyway. She said she could read his mind!
“And now you’re afraid, aren’t you?” She laughed. “And you’re more afraid that I knew you were afraid.”
She was right, he was really scared and clearing his throat like crazy. Since she’d never said anything about his tic, he didn’t even try to control himself. He figured maybe grandmas were too old to hear stuff like tics unless they had one of those brown microphone things in their ears, like his grandma in New Mexico had.
“I could always tell what your father was thinking, too.” She touched William’s shoulder. “We were so close. I think I can safely say that for most of his childhood, he considered me his best friend.”
William knew this wasn’t true. Daddy had said a thousand times that Aunt Lila was his best friend when he was a kid. But before he could say one word, New Grandma had figured out what he was thinking again! It was so creepy. She also said he was wrong ‘cause Daddy and Lila weren’t that close. “Oh, your father liked to pretend that he and his sister had some mystical twin bond, but the truth was, he was far more like my side of the family than Lila ever was. Until they were teenagers, your father was only kind to poor Lila out of guilt. Then she bewitched him, but I can’t blame him for that. Whatever problems she may have had, Lila was a beautiful girl.”
New Grandma was smiling, but it looked wrong somehow. Later, when William was trying to explain all this to Pearl, he kept messing up the parts he didn’t understand, but he did know New Grandma’s smile looked like she just ate a spoonful of pepper. Pearl whispered, “I told you not to talk to her about Dad and that goes for Aunt Lila, too. She can’t—”
“What’s the secret?” New Grandma said. She was standing in the doorway of the kitchen when one second before she’d been upstairs in the bathroom. William had heard the water running with his own ears. He felt the hair rise on the back of his neck.
Pearl’s eyes were darting around, but she didn’t sound scared or nervous when she came up with a big fat lie. “I was just telling him I hope we don’t have leftover mushroom ravioli for dinner because I really didn’t like it. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you this before. I didn’t want to be rude.”
“And so we’ll have something else,” Grandma said. “Your candor is refreshing, Pearl. Most children would have made something up.”
Their grandma looked happy, which William didn’t get at all since she’d said she’d spent hours making that ravioli while he was at school. Plus, she winked at him when Pearl wasn’t looking, like she knew Pearl was lying about the secret. Later that night, when New Grandma was on the phone, he tried to warn Pearl, but his sister gave him a dirty look and hissed, “I already told you she can’t know what we’re thinking. She may be smart, but she’s not Santa Claus.”
Every day, Pearl seemed to get grumpier and grumpier, but William figured it was because she never went anywhere or saw her friends or did anything but hang around New Grandma, who kept beating her at chess. So far, Pearl had lost every game and Grandma said she would continue to lose until she thought about the game differently. This was on Friday afternoon, when William was already feeling happier ‘cause he knew he wouldn’t have to ride with New Grandma for the next two days. Then she told William that someday he would be a much better chess player than his sister, and he couldn’t help feeling a little proud. Nobody had ever said that to him, not even Daddy. But when New Grandma asked him if he liked chess, he said, “It’s okay.”
“Nicely done,” she said. “It’s always best to keep your true feelings to yourself. This is why your sister is failing. She shows all her disappointments to her opponent. Even when she believes she’s hiding her motivations, she goes too far the other way to be convincing.”
Grandma went on about Pearl and chess until William lost interest, but he couldn’t do much besides look out the window. This was the problem with New Grandma’s talking and talking and talking: he couldn’t multiply numbers in his head or think about Daddy’s reminders or even daydream ‘cause her voice was so sharp, the words felt like pokes in the ribs.
“For instance,” New Grandma said, “look how hard Pearl is working to hide the fact that she doesn’t like me.”
Maybe he was kind of daydreaming. He thought she was talking about chess. He could feel her looking at him and his face felt as hot as when he was a kindergartner and he got sunburned at the shore.
“Ah,” she said, “so I am right about that.”
He knew she was reading his mind again, but this time it was worse than ever ‘cause he didn’t even know he was thinking Pearl didn’t like New Grandma until New Grandma said that. He was so scared, he yelled, “It’s not true. Pearl wanted to come stay here! It was her idea and everything!”
“Poor boy, are you worried I’ll tell her about this? I know your sister would be angry with you, and even if she wasn’t, she would undoubtedly consider you stupid for admitting this, when we both know you are at least as smart as she is.” She turned into the long driveway. “This can stay our little secret, agreed?”
He spit out “yeah” ‘cause he didn’t want his sister to be mad at him and he really didn’t want her to think he was stupid. But he felt so nervous that he ran into his room and shut the door without even saying hi to Pearl, even though he hated his room more than any other part of the whole house. Grandma called it the “brown guest room,” but the curtains and the sheets and the comforter weren’t really brown; they were like a swirly pattern of brown and white and black that made William think of dead animals. The bed was gigantic, but it was a lot harder than his bed at home and so high up that he couldn’t move away from the center for fear he’d fall out. The only good thing was he had his own bathroom and it was just boring brown, not the dead animal pattern. He spent a lot of time in the bathroom, looking out the window, wondering if he could walk all the way home before New Grandma or the social worker caught him and made him come back. He was pretty sure he knew the way, but he hated the idea of being out there alone on the little road throug
h the woods. If only he hadn’t chickened out when Daddy wanted him to stay in the woods by himself, maybe he’d be brave now.
He was lying on his bed, chewing up little balls of paper because his throat hurt, and thinking about his mom. Every time the social worker came to check up on them, she said Pearl and William could call their mom anytime. But Pearl told him he couldn’t ‘cause it would mess up her plan and she made him swear he wouldn’t without checking with her first. He was worried about Mommy, but he knew she’d still be sad even if he did call, ‘cause she couldn’t be with him and Pearl. Daddy had killed himself ‘cause he couldn’t see them, even though Daddy got to talk to them on the phone all the time.
William had swallowed dozens of spitballs, but he didn’t feel any better. He couldn’t think about Mommy without being scared she’d kill herself. He couldn’t think about Daddy without crying like a stupid baby. He didn’t want to think at all ‘cause it made him nervous, but there was nothing else to do. This place didn’t have any TV or Nintendo or even any toys other than the ones he’d packed, and he’d played with them a zillion times. He could have listened to his boom box, but he felt too embarrassed after what New Grandma had said yesterday. “Your musical selection suits you. It’s from the romantic period, very emotional. And you’re certainly not a normal boy.”
He knew “romantic” was some kind of love thing. That was bad enough, but the part about him not being a normal boy made him feel like a stupid sissy. He could never run as fast or hit the ball as good as the other boys. Everyone made fun of him ‘cause he was so short for his age and he had to wear those glasses all the time. But he’d always thought music like S-H-O-S-T-A-K-O-V-I-C-H was not just for girls. Why hadn’t Daddy ever told him it was this dumb romantic thing?
He was looking out the window, watching a squirrel darting up and around a tree, when he was finally so bored he closed his eyes. The next thing he knew, someone was knocking on his door, hard, and then Pearl was in the room. He was confused at first. He thought she was waking him up to go to school. But the clock by the bed said 5:17, and he remembered he hadn’t even eaten dinner yet. Plus, she was yelling at him to pay attention because she was only going to say this once.
“Shhh,” he said and pointed at the hall.
“She’s at the store,” Pearl said loudly. “And who cares anyway, when you’ve already done the stupidest fucking thing you could possibly do!”
His sister was pacing back and forth from the bed to the window. She was as mad as he’d ever seen her, way madder than when he spilled water on her cell phone.
“What?” he said, sitting up. He felt kind of guilty, but he didn’t remember why. He’d been dreaming about Daddy being in a bike race with some stranger man. In the dream, William was down at the finish line, holding a flag, hoping Daddy won.
“You told her I didn’t like her! And don’t give me that bull about her reading your mind!”
“But she did. She even said so.”
“She told me it was only a joke. A JOKE, just like I told you it had to be. And how could you believe something like that? Don’t you remember the millions of times Dad told us to use our reason, not superstition? What do you think he meant, huh?”
William had never been sure what his father meant by that. Daddy told him it was like the difference between really understanding numbers and just believing some numbers were lucky and could win you the lottery. “But you can still like six best,” Daddy said, and smiled. Six had always been William’s favorite number.
He was swallowing hard, hoping he could stop himself from saying something dumb and making Pearl even madder. He was so thirsty. He wished he hadn’t chewed up that paper. Mommy had told him over and over that it was bad for him.
“And then you just came up here and fell asleep like nothing happened.” Pearl leaned against the big dresser with the giant mirror. Her face looked like she hated him, but in the mirror, he could see the back of her head and the yellow ropes of her hair that smelled like flowers. “Why didn’t you at least tell me about this?”
“I’m sorry.” He looked down at the dead animal blanket. “Grandma said it was a secret and—”
“Perfect. Just fucking perfect.” Pearl stomped to the door. She sounded like she was spitting. “I never thought my own brother would keep secrets about me!”
And then she was gone. William jumped off the bed to follow her. He ran to the opposite end of the staircase, to the blue guest room where Pearl was staying, but she wasn’t there. He rushed all over the top floor and ran downstairs; he checked the kitchen and the dining room and the giant book room and the exercise room and the special chess room and even New Grandma’s bedroom, but just to peek in, because he was afraid to walk all the way inside. He was yelling his sister’s name at the top of his lungs and starting to cry, too, as he went from the front yard to the backyard, and then up the big hill where Pearl liked to walk. At the top of the hill he still couldn’t see Pearl anyplace so he kept going into the forest, even though it scared him. He yelled his sister’s name over and over until his throat was on fire. The sun was shining orange on the trees and he was about to go back when he looked up and saw something that was so surprising, he forgot about crying. It was a beautiful tree house, just sitting in the sky.
He’d always wanted a tree house, but his daddy had said no, it was too dangerous, and Kyle was too busy watching TV to build one, even though he kept saying he would. And now one had just appeared, like it was a gift for him. He might have been too scared to climb up if the tree hadn’t had all these wooden steps nailed in the bark, like a built-in ladder. It only took him a few minutes and then he was sitting in that tree house all by himself, on top of the world.
It had the coolest window, just big enough for his face to squeeze through, like he was the lookout on a pirate ship. He didn’t see Pearl anywhere, but he did notice the big white car heading toward their house, meaning New Grandma was coming back.
He stayed in the tree house for a long time, pretending he was a robot on a spaceship, and then Batman in the bat cave, and then a spy who was hiding out from all the evil government bad guys like Daddy used to talk about. He pretended New Grandma was one of those bad guys as he watched her cooking in the bright white kitchen. He took a crumbling branch from the tree house floor and stuck it out the window, like it was a telescope to see her better, but then it turned into a gun and he shot her, bang, bang, bang, so Pearl would like him again.
He felt sort of guilty for shooting New Grandma, but even worse when he realized it was getting too dark and he had to climb down for dinner.
After Grandma told him Pearl was going to be eating in her room, he rushed upstairs to make sure his sister was really there and hadn’t run away or disappeared. He opened her door without knocking and saw her sitting on her bed, reading and eating from a tray made of wood. He felt better, until she yelled at him to go away.
Then he was all alone, and he walked back down to the dining room as slow as a turtle. He sat down to a plate of stinky fish he’d never seen before and eggplant, which he hated. He asked Grandma if Pearl was being punished and she said no. “But I do expect a certain level of civility.”
He wasn’t sure what she meant, but he was glad Pearl wasn’t in trouble. And he liked the idea of eating in his own room, but when he asked if he could, too, Grandma laughed. “You’re very civil, William. I can’t imagine you ever saying the cruel things your sister said to me this afternoon. I can’t imagine you screaming at her the way she just screamed at you.”
“She was mad ‘cause—”
“Please don’t make excuses for her. She needs to understand that in this house, everyone is expected to be rational. Healthy disagreement is wonderful, unreasonableness is not.”
He listened to a lot more talk like this while he moved the eggplant around his plate and cut the fish into little tiny pieces that didn’t smell as bad. Then he remembered to ask New Grandma why she told Pearl the secret.
“It
wasn’t your fault. Please remember that, no matter what your sister accuses you of.”
“But why’d you tell her?”
“Because I care about my son’s children.” She smiled. “Why else?”
He didn’t know what to say to that, so he kept swallowing the fish and wishing Pearl would come downstairs. But she didn’t, and when dinner was over, New Grandma told him she was going to teach him more about chess. He said he didn’t really want to learn, but Grandma said, “Of course you do. You’re a smart boy. What would your father say if you didn’t try?”
Daddy always said trying was super important, so he was trapped. New Grandma even made him clean his glasses. It was an awful night, except when Grandma said he had a “talent with bishops.” The bishop was his favorite of all the chess pieces ‘cause he liked diagonal lines.
The next morning started out bad, too. As soon as he came downstairs, New Grandma reminded him that the housekeeper was coming on Monday, so he had to make sure his things were put away. “She’s going to clean your room from top to bottom,” Grandma said, “including your closet.” Then she gave him that weird wink-smile, like she was saying, “You can’t hide anything from me.”
He’d woken up determined to remember that New Grandma couldn’t read his mind. Pearl said it was impossible and Pearl was really, really smart. Somehow New Grandma was tricking him, but he couldn’t think about that now; he was too worried she’d find the gun. Daddy had told him not to let anybody know about it, and even though it was in the toolbox, the housekeeper person might wonder what was in there and then she and Grandma might break open the lock.
He went back in his room to think about where to hide it, and then he thought of the perfect place. His new tree house. New Grandma was way too old to climb up there, even if she did figure out where it was, which she couldn’t anyway, ‘cause she really couldn’t read his mind. He moved it while Grandma was on her exercise machine and Pearl was still asleep. Nobody saw him take it out of the toolbox, he was sure. He wrapped it in the extra pillowcase with the dead animal pattern, stuck it under his shirt, and crept up the hill and into the woods. He didn’t stay in the tree house very long, ‘cause it was so cloudy, like it could burst out raining any second. He just left it in the corner, under a bunch of old boards with rusty nails sticking out, and on the top board, he wrote in magic marker: Stay Away Or Else.
