Downside Up

by Richard Scrimger

  —

  I was careful going back and forth between worlds. Fortunately the drain was in an isolated part of Sorauren Park, so no one ever saw me climbing in or out. And I made sure to change clothes and wash my hands when I got home, so Mom never found out.

  She noticed something about me though. “You’re smiling again, Fred,” she said, maybe a week later, at dinner. “You’ve been smiling a lot lately, haven’t you.”

  “Maybe,” I said.

  “What do you think, Izzy? Isn’t your brother smiling more?”

  My sister shrugged.

  “I’m finished,” she said. “I’m going to Harry’s house, okay?”

  So Mom and I were alone with dessert. She reached across the table to pat the back of my hand.

  “I’m glad you’re feeling better these days, honey,” she said. “You’ve been so quiet. So low. Ever since…”

  She didn’t want to say it.

  “Ever since Casey,” I said.

  She opened her mouth and then closed it, like she was surprised by my answer. I smiled at her around a bit of ice cream. How surprised would she be if I told her that I’d taken Casey to High Park two hours ago? He’d chased this one gray squirrel around and around an oak tree, continuing to circle the tree as the squirrel climbed. When the rodent was out of sight, Casey took two dizzy steps and fell over. Freddie and I had to hang onto ourselves we were laughing so hard.

  Mom took a bite of apple pie.

  “I didn’t want to be sad,” I said. “But I couldn’t help it.”

  “Oh, honey, I know. I get sad too,” she said.

  “Yeah, I guess you do.”

  I might not have noticed this if it wasn’t that Freddie’s mom seemed so much happier than mine. Was my mom that happy before Casey died?

  “I try to hide it,” she said. “I don’t want to be crying in front of you kids. And there’s the office too. Mrs. Loewen depends on me.”

  Mom works for an insurance company, doing something with claims. That means she gives people money when they get run over by cars or fall off ladders. Mrs. Loewen’s her boss. Mom didn’t always work. I remember her being home when I went to junior school. But she works now. She says she likes it.

  “Dr. Nussbaum will be pleased when he sees you tomorrow,” she said. “You’ve come a long way in a couple of weeks.”

  “Do I have to keep seeing the doctor?” I asked. “If I’m feeling better and all.”

  “Let’s let him decide that, okay, honey?”

  She smiled. Not a chuckle. A hopeful kind of lip-lift. If only she could have as much fun as Freddie’s mom, then maybe I’d have as much fun as Freddie.

  That thought made me feel disloyal.

  “This is good pie,” I said. “Really good. Thanks, Mom.”

  “Bought it myself,” she said.

  Dear Freddie,

  Can’t meet you today. Sorry. Doctor’s appointment.

  Hug Casey for me. See you guys tomorrow.

  Fred.

  PS—We have to work out a message system.

  I wrote this when I woke up. I planned to give it to Freddie at lunch, so he wasn’t hanging around the drain waiting and waiting for me after school. But when the bell rang, I couldn’t find the note. I searched my whole binder, but it wasn’t there. I quickly scribbled another one, stuck it in my pocket with the tennis ball and headed for the vacant lot.

  I was used to the up-down thing. Hardly felt sick at all. I was getting the hang of the lighter gravity too. I just zoomed to school and stood outside the fence, trying to spot Freddie in the crowd of kids hanging out after lunch.

  There was a basketball game going on. Blue shirts and white shirts. Miss Stapleton, the gym teacher, was refereeing. The players on the white team were from 6D, my class and Freddie’s. Blue team was 6A. Freddie had the ball. He tried a pass to Mike, but Lance Levy intercepted it, raced down to the other basket and scored an easy layup. When the ball went through the net, he pumped his fist.

  “Hey!” I called through the fence. “Hey, kid!”

  He was by himself. He usually was. His name was Purvis Stackpole. I pretended not to know his name. “Come here, kid,” I called.

  He came over to the fence.

  “Do you know Freddie Berdit?” I asked.

  Purvis sniffed up a long one. He did that a lot. One of the reasons why he was usually alone.

  “Yeah, yeah, I know Freddie,” he said. “He’s my friend. He makes me laugh.”

  “Give this to Freddie and say it’s from his cousin.”

  Purvis squinted at me. His glasses were twisted.

  “Who’s Freddie’s cousin?”

  I’d gone too fast for him. “I am,” I said.

  “You’re Freddie’s cousin?”

  “Yup.”

  He nodded a bunch of times. “Cousin, huh? Yeah. You look like him. Are you funny too?”

  “No.”

  That made him laugh. “Yes you are!” he said. “Yes you are! You are funny!”

  He stared at the note in his hand.

  “This says Freddie on it,” he said.

  “Yes. It’s for him. He’s playing basketball over there. See?”

  Purvis nodded, sniffed again and headed across the playground holding my note.

  Lance was at the foul line. He sank two shots, pumping his fist after each one.

  The bell rang.

  I ran, back to the vacant lot, down and back up again, reaching my own school with no time left, joining the end of the line just as it snaked its way through the double doors. I was puffing like a whale after running the three blocks up Sorauren and along Westminster. Things were heavier in the right-side-up world. I moved slower, weighed more, worked harder.

  All the way back I thought about Purvis. I had hardly said two words to him all year. Freddie was a nicer guy than I was.

  —

  Mom and I took the subway downtown. It’s my favorite way to travel. You hear the train in the distance, squealing. Then you feel a rush of hot wind. You see a light in the distance, getting bigger, and hear a rushing sound as the train hurtles at you. The future is coming. Scary and cool.

  “Stand back, Fred!”

  Mom grabbed me as the train pulled in. I shook free.

  “Okay,” I said. “Okay.”

  Dr. Nussbaum’s waiting room was painted bright yellow, with posters of Flynn Goster and other cartoon heroes on the wall. There were toys and picture books and stuffed animals. I picked up a Phlegm comic. Mom sat beside me and stared straight ahead of her. Something was wrong, and I didn’t know what. She wore the smile that meant she wanted to scream. I hadn’t seen that one in a while.

  The inner door opened and a teenager came out shaking his head. Mom told me to wait and went into the inner office to talk to the doctor without me.

  The teenager stared at me. “What are you laughing at?” he said. “You crazy? Is that why you’re laughing?”

  I didn’t say anything. I wasn’t laughing.

  “I’ve been reading about crazy people. I know how their minds work. Do you have frogs living in the bottom of your toilet tank?”

  “No.”

  “You sure?”

  I blinked. “Pretty sure.”

  “Do you worry about meteors falling onto your house?”

  “No.”

  “Do you believe that microscopic bugs eat your skin off of you every night—all of it, even between the toes—and a new skin grows in its place?”

  “Ew,” I said.

  “Yeah. Ew is right.”

  He was smiling now. I smiled back.

  “Maybe you’re not crazy, after all,” he said. “Do you want a mint?”

  He took a packet from his pocket, squeezed one out for me and then left.

  —

  Dr. Nussbaum’s office was set up like a playroom, with all sorts of games on the shelves and floor. When I first came to see him, we played with dolls the whole hour long. He had a whole family of dolls—a mommy and a da
ddy, a boy and a girl, a baby, and a dog and a cat. He’d asked me to make up a story about the family. The dolls were real-looking, with browny-black hair and soft skin, wearing clothes and shoes that did up with Velcro. The dog was dark, like Casey.

  No dolls today. We sat on comfy chairs and talked. Mine was oatmeal colored. He took his usual worn brown leather desk chair, with wheels.

  “Your mom says you’re starting to smile a little bit more than you were,” said the doctor. “Maybe have a little more fun. You think so too?”

  I nodded.

  “Do you still think about your dog very much?”

  Dr. Nussbaum was a big sweater guy. I mean he wore big sweaters. Today’s had triangles on it. He pushed up the sleeves and leaned back in his leather chair.

  “You want me to say no, don’t you?”

  “Nope,” he said. “I want you to tell the truth. It’s normal to miss your dog when he dies. Hey, I had a dog named Kerry when I was a boy. A Weimaraner—gray, with floppy ears. I used to rollerblade with her all the way down to the Beaches and back. When she was hit by a car, I cried for days. I don’t cry anymore, but I still miss her, thirty years later.”

  He smiled, lips only, no teeth.

  “It’s okay to miss Casey. You don’t have to be brave to please your mom. Or me. Or anyone. Okay?”

  “Okay,” I said.

  “So are you really feeling happier, Fred? It seems so to me, looking at you now. There is a sparkle in your eye. Your mom says she heard you singing a TV commercial around the house a couple of days ago. Is that right?”

  I nodded.

  “That’s great. Real progress. But I guess you don’t like your piano lessons, eh?”

  “I don’t?”

  “Your mom says you’ve skipped your last few lessons. Your teacher called to ask where you were.”

  I shut my mouth. Mom never mentioned it.

  “And then there’s this note.”

  He leaned forward. Held out a familiar piece of paper. “Your mom found it in your room. Seems like you wrote it to someone named Freddie. You want him to hug Casey for you. Who’s Freddie?”

  He waited. I didn’t say anything.

  “Freddie’s your name. A version of your name. What can you tell me about Freddie?”

  I didn’t know what to say.

  “Well, how about this. Do you like Freddie?”

  “Sure,” I said, without thinking.

  “Good. So he’s a person, Freddie. Someone you talk to.”

  This was a minefield. I was afraid to take a step.

  “Uh,” I said.

  Dr. Nussbaum has a way of making his voice soft and yet piercing at the same time. Like a golf commentator. He spun around in his chair, leaned toward me and put his hands on his knees.

  “Tell me more about Freddie,” he said. “Is Freddie you?”

  I didn’t know what to say. I mean, I really didn’t know.

  “Oh my gosh!” said Freddie, when I told him the next day. “Oh, that is amazing! And hilarious. And awful. What did you say to this doc?”

  Freddie’s family doctor was Dr. Davila, like mine, but he didn’t go to Dr. Nussbaum.

  “What could I tell him? The truth? ‘Freddie is a parallel version of myself living in an upside-down world, where my dead dog is alive.’ ”

  Freddie laughed. “Maybe not.”

  “I said I wrote the note because I was sad, and that Freddie was someone to talk to, like an imaginary friend. He said that writing down thoughts and feelings was a good idea, and was there anyone else I wanted to write to? He asked if I ever felt like I was outside my body, watching myself do stuff. I said no. I said that I really was feeling happier. Then we talked about Casey some more. Then it was time to go.”

  “You know, I think that’s the most you’ve ever said at once, Fred.”

  He spoke through a mouthful of Cap’n Crunch. We were in his bedroom. He was on the bed. I lay on the floor with my head on Casey’s back and my empty bowl beside me.

  “Well, you’re easy to talk to.”

  “Like an imaginary friend?”

  “No, like the real thing.”

  We smiled at each other.

  “What about the piano lessons?” he asked.

  “Mom asked if I liked playing piano, and I said not really. So she said I didn’t have to go anymore.”

  “Okay then! Fantastic. It’s a winner!”

  “Maybe,” I said.

  “For sure!”

  Maybe it was a winner. No more scales or claw hands. But it’s never fun when your mom’s upset. It was a real quiet trip home. All evening long she’d watched me out of the corner of her eye.

  —

  Freddie’s mom and sister were downtown, shopping. That’s how I thought of them—his family. I liked his mom, what I heard from her. I wished my mom could be more like her—more fun loving, happier—but I never thought of her as mine. Same with his Izzy, who spent a lot of time with the boyfriend she called Handsome Harry. She was my friend’s big sister, not mine. Casey was different. He was both of ours. We shared him.

  Anyway, it was afternoon, and we had the house to ourselves. The place looked almost the same as mine, but not quite. This bathroom tap dripped, like ours did, but the stopper for the sink was still attached to the metal chain and ours had fallen off. Izzy’s room here had busy wallpaper too, the right color but a different pattern. Freddie’s mom had twice as much stuff as mine—there were clothes all over.

  Freddie had the same video games I did. We played Badge of Glory and Zombie Killz and NBA Tonite. Our skill levels matched exactly, like our height and arm length. Same number of kills, same number of shots, same score every time. When we played on the same side, we totally kicked our opponents. The zombies went down like grass under the mower. Our last NBA game—Raptors versus Lakers—was 140–40 for us.

  “I love basketball,” he said. “I just wish I was better at it in real life.”

  “I saw you on the intramural team at lunch.”

  “Oh yeah? We’re lousy, eh? Did you see much of the game? We were playing 6A. They killed us. Lance must have scored twenty points.”

  “Lance Levy,” I said.

  “Yeah. The human fist pump. Was he in your class last year? You know he would celebrate when he spelled a word right.” Freddie cleared his throat. “Perspective. P-E-R-S-P-E-C-T-I-V-E.” He said this in a kind of whine, like Lance talked. “And Mrs. Bjork would nod and Lance would go, Yesss! And pump his fist.”

  I laughed. Freddie was a funny guy, just like poor Purvis said.

  “I like basketball too,” I said. “I didn’t go out for our class team, though.”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t feel like it.”

  “Do you want to play now?”

  “Uh…”

  “Come on!”

  —

  It took me a while to get used to the game here, for an absolutely awesome reason. The ball and court were the same, but I wasn’t. I was way better. I went up for my first layup and found myself staring at the rim. That’s right—the rim of the basket was at eye level. I hadn’t even jumped hard and I was ten feet in the air. I was so surprised that I threw the ball right over the backboard.

  Freddie stood back at the foul line, his mouth open.

  “Can you do that again?” he said.

  “I’ll try.”

  So I did. He threw me a pass, and I took it and went up and up. I tried to stuff the ball, but missed, and ended up clinging to the rim with both hands.

  “I love it!” he said. “Do it again, Fred! Come on. I’ll feed you the ball.”

  Third time I concentrated on the basket getting closer and closer as I floated up. I brought my hands over my head and dropped the ball through the hoop easy as whistling.

  Freddie applauded.

  “You’re amazing!” he said. “How do you do that? It was like at the park the other day, going after Casey. I was running as fast as I could, but you w
ere, like, already a football field ahead. Zoom! Zowie! You’re some kind of superstar, Fred. You should be playing for your class team! You should be playing for the city!”

  I had to smile at his enthusiasm.

  “Things are different here,” I said.

  The sun went behind a cloud. Casey was barking at a nearby seagull, straining at his leash, which we’d tied to a garbage can. Time for me to go.

  “I won’t be around after school tomorrow,” he said. “Velma and I are working on our water cycle project. We’ll be at her house. Maybe the next day, or the one after that?”

  “I don’t know. I have to see Dr. Nussbaum again this week,” I said.

  “Well, let me know when you can come. I’ll check the shed.”

  We had decided to use Freddie’s backyard shed as our post office. There was a shelf where we could leave notes.

  Shadows were lengthening across Sorauren Park. I was sitting with my legs dangling down the open drain, tickling Casey behind his ears.

  “Quick, someone’s coming!”

  I hugged the dog and dropped into the dark.

  While I fell, I wondered if Freddie liked Velma as much as I did. An afternoon at her place? Not bad, I thought. Not bad at all.

  —

  I saw Dr. Nussbaum again on Friday. And twice more the week after that. He thought we were getting close to something. He gave me a mirror. The kind you hold in your hand. He wanted me to look in the mirror and tell what I saw. Weird, huh? He asked again if there was someone I wanted to write to. I shook my head. You sure? he said. He wondered if there might be something I was holding back.

  I couldn’t—just couldn’t—tell him the truth. How would it sound? I fell through a hole in the earth. Crazy is how it would sound. Frogs in the toilet tank.

  Speaking of that, I saw that kid a couple more times. His name was Max. He was a year older than me. His stepfather owned a grocery store. Max had stolen a bunch of sardine cans from the store, opened them and dumped them into the family swimming pool. Now everyone was mad at him.

  I smiled when he told me this. It was a funny picture, a pool full of sardines.

  I asked the doctor when I would be cured. He said that it wasn’t a question of me being sick. But there was something blocking me, and I couldn’t move on until I’d got past it. “It’s as if a dead tree has fallen across the road,” he said. “You’ve got to get around it before you can continue your journey.”