No Fixed Address

by Susin Nielsen

  “They won’t. They’re away on vacation. I did my research.”

  “So you planned it this way. Hic!”

  Astrid pushed the door open. We were greeted by a high-pitched whine.

  An alarm system. My bowels loosened.

  But Astrid just punched a code into the alarm pad and the high-pitched sound stopped. “Böna, it’s okay. Soleil will never know we were here.”

  We wound up spending the entire afternoon there. Astrid did all our laundry. Then, in the guest washroom, she filled a bath with bubbles for me. My reluctance melted away when I got into that tub. It was glorious. While I was soaking and shampooing, she filled the Jacuzzi tub in the master bathroom for herself.

  I’m kind of ashamed to admit this now, but we also raided their freezer. A frozen lasagna was calling out to us. So we cooked it and ate it. Astrid found a plastic container in one of Soleil’s drawers and put in the leftovers for me to take for lunch.

  It was actually pretty awesome, being inside a real house for the first time in a month. So after dinner we still didn’t leave. We sat in the family room and watched TV, including Who, What, Where, When, my favorite. It’s like Jeopardy! on steroids. Unlike Alex Trebek, the host of Who, What, Where, When, Horatio Blass, waves his arms and speaks in a booming voice and says “Wooooo-hooooo!” a lot.

  I shouted out the answers before the contestants. I was almost always right. This is not a brag; it is simply that I have a strange knack for storing facts. And since my mom has studied everything from anthropology to world history to English literature, I’ve picked up a truckload of facts over the years. “You are a sponge,” a teacher said to me once after I’d quoted, from memory, Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech.

  While we watched TV, my gaze drifted to an enormous black-and-white family portrait that hung above the fireplace. Soleil, her husband and their twin sons were wearing almost identical outfits; off-white crewneck sweaters and dark pants.

  I felt a twinge of envy, I will not deny it. They looked so happy. So rich.

  We didn’t want to draw attention by putting on the lights, so we left as darkness started to fall.

  I feel it’s important to mention that we left the place spotless. Cleaner, perhaps, than it had been when we arrived. And all we took was the lasagna. And the plastic container. And a beer for Astrid and a soda for me.

  I’m pretty sure it was simply a strange coincidence when, a week later, my mom was wearing a sweater I hadn’t seen before.

  Off-white. Crewneck.

  * * *

  —

  Astrid gave me a final once-over before I left for school. My hair was, as always, a massive pouf of blond, and it was silky clean and smelled magnificent. I wore jeans, bought at Value Village—why anyone shops anywhere else is beyond me—and my favorite T-shirt, which had a Canadian flag on it and the words MEMBER OF THE “EH” TEAM.

  “You look great,” Astrid said. “I hope it’s a wonderful day.”

  “Same to you.” She was going job-hunting. She wore a pair of gray dress pants, ballet flats and one of her pretty blouses. Astrid knows how to make a good first impression. It’s the later impressions that are sometimes a problem.

  I walked the few blocks to Blenheim. It was a beautiful day. Chestnut trees lined either side of the street, their leaves rustling in the breeze. My stomach burbled because I’d only eaten a banana for breakfast; I was too nervous for anything more.

  When I walked through the front doors of the old yellow brick building, I tried to carry myself with a confidence I didn’t feel.

  My eyes just happened to land on a boy farther down the hall. He looked like he’d gotten out of bed five minutes earlier. His striped T-shirt and jeans were wrinkled, he had a wicked case of bed head, and he’d accidentally tucked his shirt into his underpants.

  I recognized him immediately.

  It was Dylan Brinkerhoff, my old best friend.

  * * *

  —

  “Dylan, hi,” I said, my voice cracking.

  He turned around and looked at me blankly for a moment. My heart sank. Then his lips parted into a big grin, revealing a mouthful of metal. “Felix!” He threw his arms around me and gave me a hug. “Are you here for Late French Immersion?” He spoke with a slight lisp thanks to the braces, like they were pulling on his tongue.

  “Yes. Please tell me you are, too.”

  “I am! Does this mean you’re back in the neighborhood?”

  “It does indeed.”

  “That’s so great! Where do you live?”

  I blinked rapidly. I hadn’t expected the question so soon. “On the west side, but barely. Long bus ride.” I told myself it was an Invisible Lie.

  “Who’s your teacher?” he asked.

  “Monsieur Thibault.”

  “Same. What are the odds?” I was about to say the odds were pretty good since there were only two late immersion classes, but I didn’t. “Oh man, this is so awesome!”

  I could not have agreed more.

  * * *

  —

  Dylan and I found seats in the middle of the classroom. It felt like a safe place to start. I counted twenty-eight kids, an even split of boys and girls. There was none of the normal first-day chatter; most of us had come from different schools for the program, so we were all new, which was, frankly, a relief.

  A man walked into the room. He looked like he was maybe twenty-five, and he had big, thick arms and a broad chest. He sported a black beard and a carefully manicured handlebar mustache. And he had tattoos. Lots and lots of tattoos. “Bonjour, je m’appelle Monsieur Thibault. Hello, I’m Mister Thibault.”

  Dylan and I glanced at each other. Monsieur Thibault looked more like a Hells Angel than a teacher.

  He told us, in English, that he’d been born and raised in Quebec City, and that he had nine—nine!—brothers and sisters. He reminded us that we were all in the same boat, so there was no need to be nervous. My P.O.O. told me he was going to be great. “For today and today only we will speak English. Starting tomorrow, everything will be en français. Now, let’s go around the room and introduce ourselves. Tell us why you chose to be in this program.”

  He started at the back and worked his way up. When it was Dylan’s turn, he said, “I’m Dylan Brinkerhoff. My older sisters, Cricket and Alberta, did this program. They said I should do it, too. I guess that’s why I’m here.”

  I was next. “I’m Felix Knutsson. I’m half Swedish, but I never learned much Swedish, and I’m a quarter Haitian and a quarter French, but I don’t know Creole or French. And I like languages, and I like to challenge myself, so…here I am.”

  Most of the introductions were like ours, short and in English. Then Monsieur Thibault got to the final student, who sat (predictably, in retrospect) in the front row.

  Winnie Wu.

  Winnie’s long black hair was coiled into a French braid, which I only later realized was intentional (French braid. Get it?). She wore a white blouse and a plaid skirt with red knee socks and black leather shoes. Around her neck was a gold chain with two pendants; a jade heart, and a little gold cross. On her head, tilted artfully, was a red beret.

  “Je suis ici parce-que j’aime beaucoup tous les choses françaises. J’ai acheté les ‘listening tapes’ pour étudier.”

  Silence. Most of us could barely count to ten in French; we had no idea what she’d just said. But Monsieur Thibault broke into a delighted grin. “Excellent, Winnie—”

  Winnie wasn’t finished. “Mes parents m’ont emmenée à Las Vegas l’hiver passé et j’ai vu la Tour Eiffel, et vraiment, c’était l’amour au premier regard! Maintenant j’aime tous les choses françaises—la cuisine, la culture, le cinéma. Quand nous aurons assez d’argent nous irons visiter le vrai Paris. Et, un jour, je veux vivre en France.”

  Mon
sieur Thibault gave us the condensed version: “Winnie became a devoted Francophile after seeing the Eiffel Tower.” Then he coughed. “In Las Vegas.”

  And it was like two years hadn’t passed since I’d last seen Dylan because we looked at each other and cracked up; but in our special way, that only we could hear.

  * * *

  —

  We spent the rest of the day playing games to get to know each other. When the final bell rang, Dylan asked, “Want to come over?”

  I wanted to so badly. But I was anxious to find out how my mom’s day had gone. “I can’t today. How about tomorrow?”

  “Sure.”

  We walked together to our lockers. “Hey, do you still have your poltergeist?” When I first met Dylan, he’d been convinced that their house had a friendly but mischievous poltergeist named Bernard, because his things were always going missing.

  “Yes! I’m pretty sure he took a sock just this morning!”

  I smiled. I loved that Dylan still believed in Bernard.

  We said our goodbyes. I walked back to the van and did the special knock on the side. Astrid slid the door open. “How was your first day?”

  I told her all about my new school, and Dylan.

  “That’s wonderful, Felix.”

  “How was yours?”

  She smiled. “I got a job. At a coffee shop in Kerrisdale. Bean There, Donut That. I said I had a lot of experience serving coffee, which is essentially true; I serve myself coffee every morning.”

  We high-fived. “Astrid, that’s fantastic.”

  “Pay isn’t great, but it’s lots of shifts, and I get to keep whatever goes in the tip jar. It’ll do till something better comes along, and in the meantime we can start looking for a place. I’ll be able to give a work reference and show my pay stub in a couple of weeks.”

  We celebrated. Astrid heated up two cans of vegetarian chili on the stove. I gave Horatio extra lettuce. We set up our collapsible lawn chairs in the park across the street and ate our chili alfresco, along with some raw carrots and cucumber. We had apples and store-bought cookies for dessert.

  By ten p.m. we were in our beds, reading by headlamp, when there was a tap on the van door.

  Astrid sat bolt upright. “Who is it?”

  “Just a concerned neighbor,” said a man’s voice. “You guys have been parked here for a few nights in a row. Just wondering who you’re visiting.”

  “Our friends,” Astrid said smoothly. “We sleep out here to give them space.”

  “I see. Which house do your friends live in?”

  “The flesh-pink one.” Flesh-pink houses were everywhere in this neighborhood.

  “The Woodbridges?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Okay. I’m just going to knock on their door to confirm.”

  “Please do.”

  I peeled back one of the curtains and watched him walk down the block. My mom climbed into the driver’s seat. “Sorry, Felix. We’ll need to find a new spot for tonight.”

  The man glanced up as we drove past.

  Astrid gave him the one-finger salute.

  I went to Dylan’s house after school the next day, even though I was pretty pooped. After we’d found a new place to park the van, it had taken me a long time to unwind. I’d had to list all the United States in alphabetical order in my head, from Alabama to Wyoming, and go through the entire table of periodic elements, before I’d finally drifted off to sleep.

  Still, I was excited as we walked the five blocks to his house. It had been a long time—I mean a long time—since I had been to a friend’s place, since at my last couple of schools I’d been lacking the key ingredient (i.e., friends).

  The Brinkerhoffs’ home was exactly as I remembered it. The porch still looked like it was caving in. The neon-yellow paint was peeling. The grass was brown and patchy. There were old children’s toys on the lawn, even though Dylan, the youngest, hadn’t played with them in years. Inside, you could barely see the hardwood floors for the discarded shoes, socks, sweaters and books. They had dust bunnies that were bigger than Horatio. When I went into the kitchen there was a stack of dishes piled high in the sink that looked identical to the stack that had been there years earlier. My socks stuck a little bit to some spots on the floor, just like they had before.

  It was wonderful. So full of life.

  An enormous orange cat waddled into the kitchen and rubbed against Dylan’s legs. “This is Craig,” Dylan said as he scooped him up. “He’s two. We got him last year.” He held the cat out to me and I took him. Craig purred happily in my arms.

  “Whoa. He must be twenty pounds.”

  “Twenty-one.”

  Dylan’s older sister Alberta wandered in. She looked the same, too, with her long brown hair, lazy eye and unique T-shirt collection. This one read WHAT DOESN’T KILL YOU MAKES YOU STRONGER. EXCEPT FOR BEARS. BEARS WILL KILL YOU. “Ooh, how sweet, Dylan’s already made an ickle friend.” She took the milk out of the fridge and drank straight from the carton. “Wait a sec. I’d recognize that hair anywhere. You’re Bionicle Dork.”

  I blushed just a little. “That’s me. But I prefer to be called Felix.”

  “You guys used to run around in your Toy Story pajamas with your Bionicles, making laser gun sounds. Pyoom pyoom pyoom! Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-HEEE-haw!” Her laugh hadn’t changed, either. “You were adorable. Total nerd-bots.” She gave us both the once-over. “Clearly some things haven’t changed! Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-HEEE-haw!” Then she poured us both a glass of milk from the carton she’d just drunk from.

  It was heaven.

  * * *

  —

  You know how sometimes you don’t realize how much you’ve missed something until you get it back? That’s how I felt about having a friend again. It was like having blurry vision for a long time, then someone gives you a pair of glasses and you look at the world around you and go, “Wow! This is what I’ve been missing!”

  I went over to Dylan’s house almost every day those first two weeks. He never asked to come to mine; his place was so close to school, it just made sense. We did our homework. He caught me up on all things Bernard. “Just yesterday, okay? I left out Settlers of Catan on the coffee table ’cuz me and Alberta were midgame. I was winning. And this morning, all the pieces were moved around to make it seem like she was winning. I was all like, ‘Bernard, you sneaky rascal!’ ”

  We also ate. A lot. Their cupboards were full of jumbo-sized items from Costco. We nuked pizza pops and burritos and stuffed our faces in front of the TV. Since I’d been eating most of my food out of cans for over a month, this was seriously the best.

  One afternoon we caught a rerun of Who, What, Where, When. “What iconic American novel includes the character of Becky Thatcher?” asked Horatio Blass.

  “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer!” I shouted, a full three seconds before any of the contestants buzzed in.

  “What was the name of Hitler’s dog?”

  “Blondi.”

  “Who is the Greek god of wine?”

  “Dionysus.”

  At some point I realized that Alberta—who’d wandered in from the kitchen—and Dylan, were staring at me. “Wow. Egghead,” said Alberta.

  Dylan threw a cushion at her. “You’re good, Felix. Really good.”

  “Better even than my boyfriend, Henry,” said Alberta. “And he’s on the senior Reach for the Top team at our high school.”

  “Alberta was on the junior team, but she was too dumb to make the senior,” Dylan explained.

  Alberta threw the cushion back at him and left the room.

  “You should apply to be a contestant,” said Dylan.

  “I can’t. You have to be at least eighteen.” Craig hopped onto the couch and sprawled out on his back between us, purring loudly.

  “That’s
too bad. You could totally win!”

  “I doubt that,” I said. “But thanks.”

  I always left before Dylan’s parents came home. I liked the Brinkerhoffs, and I didn’t want to have to answer questions about my mom and where we lived and maybe have to lie. Unlike some people I know, I am a terrible liar.

  * * *

  —

  Astrid’s job was going well. Sometimes I would walk all the way to the shop after I left Dylan’s and stay until her shift ended. She would slip me a free hot chocolate, and if it wasn’t busy, she’d have simple conversations with me in French. This was helpful, since we had to speak French in class all the time now. It was hard for everyone.

  Except Winnie Wu.

  Near the end of our second week, Monsieur Thibault broke us into pairs and assigned us each a picture book. We had to write a short paragraph about it in French.

  “Felix, you’ll be working with Winnie.”

  I almost groaned out loud.

  Winnie Wu was a royal pain in the derrière, to use the French word. She just could not stop talking. Or asking questions. About everything.

  “Sir, have you eaten escargots? I tried them in Las Vegas Paris.”

  “Sir, will we not also learn about passé simple at some point?”

  “Sir, who decided which words would be feminine, la, and which words would be masculine, le?” She couldn’t let the smallest thing go by without having something to say about it, all in irritatingly good self-taught French. My P.O.O. told me that she even got on Monsieur Thibault’s nerves sometimes; when she’d asked her eighteenth question of the day, I’d see him inhale deeply, hold his breath for a few seconds, then exhale slowly.

  And now I had to work with her.

  Dylan grinned wickedly at me, showing off his hardware. Good luck, sucker, he mouthed.

  I sat across from Winnie. She was wearing a different blouse with a different plaid skirt and her beret was green. I also noticed she had impeccable posture, straight white teeth and naturally red lips, which never stopped moving.