Belle picked up the economy jug of chewable vitamin C she kept behind the register and shook it at me. I nodded, and she tipped four of them into my hand.
“What’s up?” she asked.
“Not much.”
“Got some time for the story?”
“Sure. Where were we?”
“Aunt Beast.”
“Right. Aunt Beast. So Aunt Beast’s planet is perfect—it smells great and the food is wonderful and everything is soft and comfortable. But Meg can’t stay there. She has to go back and save her little brother. They left him behind, with IT, remember?”
Belle nodded. “She has to go back by herself?”
“Yes. She’s the only one who can do it, because she’s closer to her brother than anyone. It has to be her.”
Belle nodded.
“So she goes back there, to Camazotz, and her brother is totally under ITs control, and he’s saying all these awful things to her. And IT is trying to suck her in too, to take over her brain. She’s trying to resist, but it’s hard. And then, at the last second, she figures out that there’s only one thing that can defeat IT: love. IT doesn’t understand love.”
“Ooh,” Belle said. “That’s deep.”
“So Meg stands there and thinks about how much she loves her brother—her real brother, not the IT-brother who is standing there with his mouth hanging open and his eyes twirling. She starts yelling over and over that she loves him, and poof, he becomes himself again. That’s how she saves him. It turns out to be really simple.”
Belle surprised me. “Well, it’s simple to love someone,” she said. “But it’s hard to know when you need to say it out loud.”
For some reason that made me want to cry. “Anyway,” I said. “Then they’re suddenly back home. They land in the vegetable garden outside their house, in the broccoli. That’s the end.”
Of course I couldn’t help thinking of what Marcus had said, about how if they’d gotten home five minutes before they left, they would have seen themselves get back home before they even knew they were going. But it was better not to drag Belle into all that.
“What’s the name of this writer again?”
I spelled it out for her.
Belle had to ring up a few kids buying their after-school junk food, so I wandered around the store. I was thinking I would swipe a few grapes, but they looked old and soft. I took a bottle of chocolate milk out of the refrigerator, checked the date on it, and brought it up to the register with a five-dollar bill I had taken from Mom’s coat pocket that morning.
“Weirdest thing,” Belle said, taking my five. “You see that guy out there?” She pointed through her front window and across the street to where the laughing man was pacing back and forth on my corner, doing his kicks.
“Yeah.”
“Well, check this out.” She lifted the plastic tray out of the register drawer, and I looked in. It was full of two-dollar bills. Wavy, bent-looking two-dollar bills.
“A couple weeks ago, that guy out there suddenly starts coming in every day to get a butter-on-white and a banana, and he always pays with these two-dollar bills.”
I was staring into the drawer.
“You want a couple for your change?” Belle asked.
I nodded, and she handed them to me. “Sorry,” she said, smoothing them out, “they’re crumpled. He gives them to me all folded up into triangles, if you can believe it. The first time, I didn’t even think it was real money. I started telling the guy to get lost!”
My brain was doing that thing where it yells at me. It was yelling, “The laughing man stole Jimmy’s Fred Flintstone bank? The laughing man?”
“The guy is looney,” Belle said thoughtfully, “but also generally polite. Polite is always worth something.”
When I walked by him a minute later, the laughing man was shaking his fist at the sky and kicking his legs out into the traffic rushing up Amsterdam Avenue. A few cars honked at him. When he saw me, he pointed and yelled, “Smart kid! Smart kid!”
I popped my last two vitamin Cs and imagined the wrapped-in-a-blanket feeling I’d had when Mom was with me. Then I calmly walked by the laughing man, thinking, Yeah, really polite.
Colin and Sal were in the lobby, making a total racket with the skateboard and the basketball so that any second Mrs. Bindocker would probably come charging out of her apartment, yelling that they were scaring her cat.
“Hey!” Colin said when he saw me. “I thought you lived in this building. Want to skate a little?” He picked up his skateboard and held it out to me.
I glanced at Sal, who was concentrating on his basket ball like the whole concept of bouncing had just been invented and was really very amazing and deserving of attention. He had developed a way of waving at me without making eye contact—it was kind of like a no-look pass.
“No thanks,” I said, “I have to go.”
But Colin is Colin. If he can read a vibe, he never lets on. “Can I see your place?” he said. “We’re shooting baskets in the back—have you been back there? It’s cool. Want to come hang out?”
I told Colin that my mother was sick upstairs, and that I was just rushing home from the store.
“You got her chocolate milk?” he asked, pointing at the bottle in my hand.
“Yeah.” I headed for the stairs. “She loves it.” And I sprinted up to the second floor before he could say anything else.
When I unlocked our door, the apartment felt like a warm hug—the refrigerator was humming, the light was streaming through the living room windows, and the voice in my head said “Safe” and then got quiet. I went to the kitchen, opened my chocolate milk, and took the last bag of Lay’s. Those pregnant jailbirds were out of luck.
Then the phone rang.
“Hello?”
“Have I reached the Sinclair residence? May I please speak with Miranda?”
I rolled my eyes. “Hi, Julia,” I said. “It’s me.”
That first time, we only talked for five minutes. Julia said her mom had a recipe for a flourless cake we could make for Annemarie’s birthday. Without knowing whether I really wanted to, I agreed to go over and make a practice cake with her after school the next day.
It was dark outside when there was a tap at the door. I sat up on the couch. A tap on the door was a strange thing. Everyone rings our doorbell, except for Louisa, who always knocks her regular knock. I was afraid—your notes had done that to me.
Another tap.
“Hello?” I called.
Silence. I got up and looked through the peephole.
Colin stood there, holding his skateboard in front of him like a shield, looking not exactly like himself.
I opened the door. “What’s wrong?”
He took two steps forward and kind of hovered right in front of me for a second, and then he kissed me. And then he stopped and waited. And then I kissed him back. He smiled and ran down the stairs.
There are days when everything changes, and this was one of those days.
Things That Are Sweet
Julia’s mother had a whole shelf full of books about cooking: No-Fat Cooking, Cooking Extra-Extra-Light, Skinny Cooking.
“My mom is always on a diet,” Julia said, pulling a book from the shelf. “I think she bought this one by mistake. It actually has the word ‘butter’ in it.” She laughed and held out the giant bag of Fritos she had bought on the way home.
I shook my head. I’d eaten too many already. “Should we start making the cake?”
I had to call Mom at work three times to ask her questions like how many tablespoons are there in a stick of butter, and is it okay to use a potato peeler to skin an apple. The third time I called, she said, “Hold on, Mira. Are you planning to use the oven? Is there an adult in the house?”
When I said I thought Julia’s mother was home, though technically I had not actually seen her, Mom said, “But is she watching you? Where is she?”
“Where’s your mother?” I whispered to Julia.
&
nbsp; “She’s meditating,” Julia said.
“Here?”
“Yes—in the … closet. And she absolutely cannot be disturbed.”
“Um—did you just say your mom’s in the closet?”
Julia looked down at the French pot holder in her hand. “It’s a walk-in closet,” she said quietly.
Mom said we couldn’t light the oven until Julia’s mother came out to supervise us, so we put our clumped-together cake batter in the fridge and went to Julia’s room to watch television.
Julia’s room was like a ruffled version of Annemarie’s—ruffled curtains, ruffled bedspread, lots of ruffled pillows. And books all over the floor, some stacked in piles, some worn-looking, some brand-new, some splayed upside down, some sliding off the pink bedside table next to the lamp with the orange fabric shade.
I tried to think of something to say about all the ruffles. “Nice lamp,” I said.
She put her hands on her hips and looked at the lamp. “Really? Because I think it’s kind of ugly. My mom picked it.” She waved one arm across the room. “She picked out all this stuff. And she won’t let me put up my outer-space posters. I had to hang them in my bathroom!” She jerked a thumb toward a door. Her own bathroom.
Something very familiar caught my eye. It was on the bedside table, under the ugly lamp. It was my book—or maybe it was my book’s twin sister, just as old and beat-up-looking as mine, but with different creases and one corner ripped off the cover. I went over and picked it up.
“Yeah,” she said. “I notice you carry yours around. I leave mine at home.”
“I got a first edition for Christmas. That means it’s one of the original—”
“You did? You are so lucky,” she said. “All I ever get is clothes. And jewelry.”
I stared at her. “I thought you liked all that stuff,” I said.
“Yeah, actually, I do.” She smiled. “But I like other stuff too.” That was when I noticed her Mysteries of Science poster leaning up against a wall. Hers was called “Is There Intelligent Life in Outer Space?” Her bubble letters were a lot better than mine.
She flopped down on her shaggy pink wall-to-wall carpeting, glanced at her digital clock, and reached out automatically to turn on the TV. And I realized that we probably spent our afternoons the same exact way. Except I can at least get my mother on the phone. Julia’s apartment is a lot nicer than ours, but I’m pretty sure there’s no phone in the closet.
I stretched out on the rug and rested my head on my arm. Julia looked me up and down. “Hey, you know what color your hair is?” she asked.
“My hair?” I touched it and made a face. “It’s brown.”
She looked at it thoughtfully. “No. When you see it in the light, it’s really more of a caramel.”
Caramel.
The Last Note
I’m up to the part about what happened on the corner. If I ever do write your letter, I’ll tell this part very carefully.
I was walking home alone after school, thinking about what to get Annemarie for her birthday
It was cold but not too cold—the boys were standing outside the garage making noise, as usual. They were also throwing potato chips at each other.
Sal’s class must have been dismissed a few minutes before mine—he was walking a little ahead of me. I did not run to catch up.
I watched him pass the boys outside the garage; they said some stuff to him like they sometimes do. I saw a couple of potato chips hit him on the back.
Sal seemed to lose it. He turned and screamed “Shut up!” He was wearing his dark blue knit cap pulled down over his forehead again.
The boys just laughed. My heart started going very fast, but I wasn’t really worried they would hit Sal because it is officially beneath them to hit smaller kids. Torment, yes. Hit, no.
One of them reached out and pushed Sal in the chest—not too hard, but Sal stumbled back a few steps. He yelled, “Jerks!” and the boys all cracked up, but no one else touched him.
Sal pointed himself toward home and started walking again.
Marcus came walking out through the dented metal door next to the garage.
Sal saw Marcus and broke into a run.
Marcus yelled, “Hold up!” and started running after Sal.
I saw the laughing man, across the street on the corner. He was in his nutcracker position, facing us.
Marcus was catching up to Sal, yelling, “Hold up! Wait!”
This is where things got weird: I saw something next to the laughing man, like an old movie that flickered for just a few seconds and then went out. It was between two parked cars, and it looked like a man holding his head in his hands. He was naked. And then he was gone.
Sal kept running. Marcus kept running. I started running.
“Hey! Hey—kid!” Marcus yelled. Naturally he had forgotten Sal’s name.
Sal took one look over his shoulder and started moving faster. He was almost to the corner. Traffic was flying by on Amsterdam Avenue.
“Sal!” I screamed. “Stop!” But he didn’t stop.
“Wait!” Marcus yelled. “I want to—” Then he finally seemed to figure out that Sal was running away from him. He slowed down. “Hey, look out!”
Sal was in the street, still running and looking back over his shoulder.
I caught up to Marcus. I think we both saw the truck at the same time. It was a big truck, moving fast.
“Stop!” Marcus shrieked at Sal. He was pointing at the truck with both hands. “Watch out! Watch out!”
I have no idea what the truck driver was doing—checking his delivery list, maybe, or changing the radio station—but he didn’t see Sal in the middle of the street, and he didn’t slow down.
I started screaming and covered my ears. I always cover my ears when I don’t want something to happen, like if I drop a glass and don’t want it to break. I wonder why I don’t cover my eyes or my mouth. Or try to catch the glass.
I saw Sal’s head start to turn, and I knew the exact moment he registered the truck. It was practically on top of him. Going forward meant getting hit. He was moving too fast to turn back. Stopping on a dime might have saved him, but there was no way he could do it.
My brain boomed inside my head: “Sal is going to die.”
“SAL IS GOING TO DIE.”
SAL
IS
GOING
TO
DIE.
Suddenly, the laughing man was in the street, his right leg flying out in a mighty kick.
The laughing man’s foot hit Sal’s body.
Sal flew backward and hit the ground, hard.
The truck hit the laughing man.
Marcus sat down on the ground and started crying like there was no tomorrow. Really sobbing his head off.
I ran over to where Sal was lying very still with his arm tucked underneath him in a way that was not right. “Sal!” I screamed. “Sal!” He looked dead.
The truck made a long screeching noise, and then the driver came running out and shoved me away from Sal.
Someone (I found out later it was Belle) led me past a heap of something awful in the street, saying, “Don’t look don’t look don’t look.” She walked me over to the curb and sort of propped me up next to the mailbox on our corner, and then she ran back to where the truck driver was hunched over Sal, doing something to his body. There was a shoe lying upside down at my feet.
I found myself staring and staring at the shoe. It was a black shoe with a two-inch platform nailed to the bottom. It was Richard’s shoe.
Everything started to spin. I closed my eyes and leaned my head back against the cold metal of the mailbox. When I opened my eyes, I was staring at four words scratched into the blue mailbox paint. They were stacked one on top of another:
Book
Bag
Pocket
Shoe
“Book,” “Bag,” “Pocket,” “Shoe.” I read the words over and over. And then my brain showed me some pictures. I saw the schoo
l-library book with your first note sticking out of it. I saw the tall paper bag full of bread that hid your second note. I saw your third note, pulled out of my coat pocket with last winter’s dirty tissues. And then my brain pointed my eyes at the shoe lying upside down at my feet. The shoe that had been stolen from our apartment.
I reached down, picked it up, and slowly turned it over. Inside was a small square of stiff paper just like the first three:
This is the story I need you to tell. This and everything that has led up to it.
Please deliver your letter by hand. You know where to find me.
My apologies for the terse instructions. The trip is a difficult one; I can carry nothing, and a man can only hold so much paper in his mouth.
I heard Sal cry out, and looked up. The truck driver was on his knees next to Sal, saying, “Thank God, thank God, thank God, it’s a miracle.”
On the other side of the street I saw Marcus, still hunched over on the curb and crying hard. I could see him shaking. Behind him stood the boys from the garage, so still and silent that they looked like a picture of themselves.
Sal was not dead. The laughing man saved his life.
You saved Sal’s life.
You were the laughing man.
Rebecca Stead Page 10
