Only Child: A novel

by Rhiannon Navin

  I tried to walk with careful steps because I didn’t want to step on the graves with the dead people in them. It was creepy to walk and to think about that there were actual dead people under the ground. But these graves were really old, so there were probably only bones left and no other parts of the bodies, because everything but the bones turns back into earth.

  The wind was making the bushes and trees move around, and they made a scary sound like someone was whispering and making shushing sounds. I thought about the old dead people under me and I listened to the whispering and shushing, and it was giving me a bad feeling in my stomach, so I started to walk faster and I looked for the way over to the other part of the cemetery, where they put the new dead people. When we were there for Andy’s funeral, it was a little pretty, even though it rained the whole time. There were lots of flowers everywhere on the other graves, and the wet leaves from the trees made the ground look colorful and shiny, and everything smelled good from the rain.

  I walked up a little hill, and on the other side was where the other, prettier part started. It looked much bigger than how I remembered it from the funeral. Also I didn’t look at it from this side before, so now I wasn’t sure anymore where Andy’s grave was. The wind was blowing harder, and it made my forehead hurt, and my eyes got tears in them from the coldness. I got out my hat and gloves from the big pocket in my backpack and put them on, and I pulled the hat all the way down to my eyes to get my forehead warmer. Then I started to walk around to look for Andy and his grave.

  There was no one in the whole entire cemetery, so that was good, because if someone came they were probably going to think it wasn’t right that a boy was at the cemetery alone, and then they were going to ask me about it and find out that I came here all by myself.

  I stopped a lot of times to look at the gravestones, and I actually didn’t know what Andy’s looked like because it wasn’t there yet at his funeral. It takes a long time to make gravestones, and so they’re not ready for the funeral and get set up later.

  I saw the road at the end of the cemetery where we parked our car at Andy’s funeral. I went down there and turned around and then I recognized the cemetery better and I knew Andy’s grave was going to be all the way on the right side and not very far in.

  There were a lot of walkways around all the graves, and the gravestones were new-looking and shiny, and I could read all the names on them and the numbers. The first number is the birth year from the people in the graves, and the second number is the year they died, and that way you can tell how old they were when they died. Mommy told me that when we went to the cemetery in New Jersey where Uncle Chip’s grave was and we brought flowers to put on his grave, it was exactly one year ago that he died, and that was only like a couple weeks before Andy got killed from the gunman.

  I looked at the gravestones to find Andy’s name.

  HERMAN MEYER

  1937–2010

  ROBERT DAVID LULDON

  1946–2006

  SHEILA GOODWIN

  1991–2003

  I counted from 1991 to 2003 and that was only twelve, so Sheila was twelve when she died. That was just two years older than when Andy died, and I wondered why Sheila died when she was only twelve. I walked and I walked and I read the names, and sometimes I stopped and checked to see how old the people were when they died. I started to get tired, and the backpack was starting to feel really heavy on my back. Maybe it wasn’t on the right side where Andy’s grave was, but on the left? Now I wasn’t sure anymore.

  Then I remembered the big tree next to Andy’s grave from when we were there for the funeral, the one that looked like it was on fire from all the orange and yellow leaves. Now there weren’t any leaves left on the trees because it was going to be the first day of winter next weekend. But I looked around for tall trees, and there was one close to me, so I walked over. And then I saw it, right next to the tree: Andy’s grave. Andy’s gravestone was blackish grayish and very shiny, and at the top it was the shape of a heart. The letters and numbers on it were white, and my throat started to hurt when I read them. I whispered even though there was no one there to hear me: “Andrew James Taylor 2006–2016.”

  The wind was swooshing around me like it was picking up my words and whispering them back to me and carrying them up and all around. I liked the sound now. It wasn’t giving me a bad feeling anymore. It kind of made it feel like Andy’s name was all around me. Now I thought it was good that I came, and maybe now I was going to feel Andy again and talk to him like in the hideout—when he was still in there.

  I checked Andy’s watch and it said 3:45. The man from the news said that Charlie was always coming in the evenings, and it wasn’t evening yet, so I still had to wait for him to come. My belly started to feel hungry again, and I remembered I never ate the granola bar because I got scared about the bad guy in the white van and I dropped it in the parking lot. So I decided to take out all the things I brought and eat something. It wasn’t dinnertime yet, that was going to be around six or seven, so only a snack for now.

  I untied the suitcase strap and rolled out Andy’s sleeping bag next to Andy’s gravestone and I sat on it crisscross applesauce like when I was in the hideout. I got out everything from the backpack and laid it out next to me: the Buzz flashlight for when it got dark, my book, my water bottle that I filled up all the way, four granola bars, three bags of Goldfish, two string cheeses, a ham and cheese sandwich that I made after lunch today and that was going to be for dinner later, and an apple. Everything was laid out, and it looked like I was having a picnic.

  The last thing I took out from the backpack was the picture of me and Andy, and I put it in between two pages of the book. I opened a bag of Goldfish, and for that I had to take my gloves off. Right away my fingers started to feel cold from the wind.

  After the Goldfish were all finished, I picked up the book again and put the picture in my lap and found the page where I stopped reading at home.

  “Hey, Andy,” I said. “Want me to read you some more?” I looked at the picture and I looked at the gravestone with Andy’s whole name on it, and I waited to see if it was going to feel like Andy was listening to me. “OK, I’m going to tell you what I read so far so you know what you missed, and then I’ll keep reading. OK, Andy?”

  [ 49 ]

  Friendly Ghost

  “SO, IN THIS ONE Jack and Annie go to Antarctica to try and find the fourth secret of happiness for Merlin, and they find a research station where researchers from all kinds of different countries work. Jack and Annie hide behind their goggles and masks and go on a trip in a helicopter to a volcano with some of the researchers. So I’m guessing someone’s going to find out they’re kids and they will probably get in huge trouble, don’t you think?”

  I waited for something to happen. For something to change and make it feel like Andy was listening to me again. Nothing happened.

  I read two more chapters out loud, but it was getting hard to turn the pages because my fingers were so cold. When I looked up from the book, it was like a surprise, because I was only thinking about what I was reading and I forgot about where I was and I didn’t notice that it was getting a little dark all around me.

  I checked Andy’s watch: 4:58. I looked all around, but I didn’t see Charlie anywhere, so maybe it was still too early. I put my gloves back on and blew my warm breath inside the gloves, like Mommy always does to help me with cold hands. I started to feel sad a little when I thought about Mommy, so I tried to keep reading to stop thinking about her, but it’s not even possible to turn book pages with gloves on.

  My whole entire body was feeling very cold, so I opened the sleeping bag and put my legs in, and that helped my legs but the rest of me was still cold.

  When I was planning for my mission, I didn’t think about the darkness. I packed Buzz, but I didn’t think about how that was going to be when it got dark outside
and I was at the cemetery all by myself. I only thought about how I was going to be here with Charlie and then we were going to go to my house together.

  That’s not how it actually was now. It wasn’t all the way dark yet, I could still see all the gravestones around me, but in between the trees it looked dark and spooky. And all of a sudden I thought about what if Charlie wasn’t coming today? I could feel my heartbeat all the way up in my throat, and I moved closer to Andy’s gravestone and leaned against it. I pulled my backpack close and looked for Clancy.

  Clancy was not in the big pocket. I checked the middle pocket and the little pocket and no Clancy anywhere. I looked all around me, because maybe he fell out earlier when I took out my other supplies, but he was nowhere. I forgot him or I lost him, I didn’t know which. No Clancy, no Charlie, no Mommy, no Daddy. Just me.

  I felt like crying, and I thought I wanted to go back home, but I was too scared to get up or do any moving. I started thinking about the dead people in the graves and I couldn’t stop it. I thought about their bones in the caskets and also maybe that the dead people turn into ghosts after it gets dark. I thought about the bad guy in the white van and the scared feeling got bigger and bigger.

  From the book, I pulled out the picture of me and Andy, and I could still see it a little bit in the darkness. “Andy,” I whispered. My chin was moving up and down fast and it made my teeth click together. “Andy, are you there? Can you please please be there? I really need you.” Nothing happened again. Then I remembered the angel wing charm in my pants pocket. I took one glove off and tried to stick my hand inside my pocket, but it was hard because I couldn’t even move my hand anymore, it was like stiff from the coldness. Finally, I got my hand in and I rubbed and rubbed the angel wing. “Your brother is not gone. He’s looking over you, too”—that’s what Miss Russell told me—and I tried to say this to myself over and over again in my head: “Andy’s not gone. He’s looking over me. Andy’s not gone. He’s looking over me.”

  I was holding the picture of me and Andy in my other hand and all of a sudden a big wind blew against me, and I wasn’t holding the picture tight enough, and the wind ripped it out of my hand and blew it on the ground. It rolled on the ground and flew up against a gravestone and got stuck there.

  “No!” I shouted and I jumped out of Andy’s sleeping bag and ran over to the gravestone to grab the picture, but the wind snatched it from me again and made it fly farther away. I tried to keep my eyes on it so it couldn’t get lost in the darkness. I ran after it and then I bumped into someone.

  It was a big surprise because I didn’t see anyone before. Maybe it was a ghost. The ghost held on to both of my arms, and I started kicking and screaming: “NO! Let go of me!”

  “Zach, is that you?”

  I looked up, because it was another big surprise that the ghost said my name and it wasn’t a ghost. It was Charlie. Charlie’s face looked very surprised.

  “Zach?” Charlie said. “What…what are you doing here?” He looked up and behind me. “Why are you running like this? What’s wrong?”

  It was hard for me to talk because my breath was going in and out fast from the running and kicking and screaming. I tried to tell Charlie about the picture: “It blew away…from the wind. My picture…”

  “A picture blew away? Where?” Charlie asked.

  I pointed to where it flew over in between the trees, where it was really dark and scary now.

  “OK, let’s check,” Charlie said. He held on to my shoulder, and my scared feeling started to get better with him there. We looked all around for the picture and then there it was, stuck in a bush.

  “Can I see it?” Charlie asked, so I showed him the picture. Charlie looked at it for a little while and did a little sad smile, and then he gave it back to me. My hand was shaking a lot from the cold when I took it from him.

  “Zach?” Charlie asked. “What are you doing here? Are you here to visit your brother?”

  “Yes,” I said. “But mostly I came because of you.”

  “Me? Because of me? How did you know I would be here?” Charlie asked.

  “They said it on the news,” I told Charlie. “They said you come here every day when it’s evening.”

  “I see,” Charlie said. He pointed at a gravestone and we walked over to it. In the almost-dark I could see:

  CHARLES RANALEZ JR.

  1997–2016

  “I come to say good night to him in the evenings,” Charlie said. “My boy.” His voice sounded like the saddest voice I ever heard.

  [ 50 ]

  Going Home

  WE STOOD IN FRONT of Charlie’s son’s gravestone, and I looked up at Charlie’s face.

  “Charlie?” I asked.

  “Yes?”

  “Why did he do that? Why did he come in the school and kill Andy and all the other people?” I asked.

  Charlie put his hand over his mouth and then he wiped his forehead with his hand, up and down, up and down. He made a long breath go in his mouth and looked up at the sky. I looked up, too, and I saw the moon right over us. It looked like a full moon, except maybe on the left side there was a piece missing. Then Charlie let his breath come out long and slow.

  “I don’t know,” he said, and it was hard to hear because his voice came out so quiet. He was still looking up at the sky and put his shoulders up and down. Then he started talking again, and his voice sounded like something was stuck in his throat. “I don’t know, Zach. I honestly don’t know. I’m asking myself that same question every single day.”

  “Daddy said it’s because he didn’t know it was wrong. It’s because he had a sickness,” I said.

  Charlie shook his head yes and wiped his hand over his eyes a couple times.

  We were quiet for a while and then Charlie said, “Why did you come here to see me, Zach?”

  Now was the part where I was going to tell Charlie about my mission. “I wanted to talk to you,” I told him. “I don’t know where your house is, so I came here.”

  “It’s almost dark. Do your parents know where you are?” Charlie asked.

  “I didn’t tell anybody,” I said.

  “What did you want to talk to me about?” Charlie asked.

  “I want you to come with me, to my house. I want us to talk to Mommy together and then all the fighting can be over.” I was talking really fast because Charlie had a sad smile on his face, and it looked like a no smile and not a yes smile.

  “So can you come? Please?” I asked.

  “Oh, Zach! I wish I could. I wish that…but I can’t. It’s…I can’t do that,” Charlie said, and he started to put his arm around my shoulders, but I didn’t let him.

  All of a sudden I didn’t feel cold anymore. My whole body got really hot.

  “Why?” I yelled, and tears started coming in my eyes. “Why can’t you? Everything…everything’s bad there. We have to talk to Mommy or she’s going to take you to court, and then you have to go in jail,” I told Charlie. I was making big crying sounds and my teeth were clicking together from the coldness.

  Charlie didn’t say anything. He put his arm around my shoulders again and pulled me close to him, and I let him this time. It felt good that Charlie was hugging me tight. It made me not so cold anymore. We stayed like that for a long time, me with my head against Charlie’s belly and crying, crying the whole time, and Charlie petting my head. After a while my crying got better and my whole head hurt from the crying and my whole self was very tired.

  Charlie took his arm off my shoulders, and right away I started to feel colder again. Charlie went down on his knees and took out a tissue from his coat pocket, not the paper kind, but the kind that’s like a little napkin like Uncle Chip had with his letters on it, C.T., and Charlie wiped all the tears off my face. Then he put his tissue back in his pocket and said in a quiet voice, “Zach. My best buddy. I think it
’s time to get you home. Your parents must be worried.”

  He helped me pack up my things. I put the picture back in the book and put the book back in the backpack. We walked to his car that was parked down on the cemetery road. Charlie opened the back door for me. He turned up the heat in the car, and my teeth stopped clicking together. Charlie drove very slow the same way I took when I walked here, and it still only took a little more than five minutes to get to my road. I checked on Andy’s watch, and it took me one whole hour when I walked that same way earlier. We didn’t say anything in the car. Then Charlie stopped by the middle school bus corner and he turned around to me.

  “I think it’s better if I drop you off here,” Charlie said.

  “Can’t you please come in my house with me?” I asked. “Please? That was my mission—that you were supposed to go in the house with me and talk to Mommy. Then maybe she’s not going to be so mad at you anymore. OK?”

  “I’m sorry, Zach. I can’t do that. It wouldn’t be…it’s not appropriate, me showing up there with you,” Charlie said.

  I could feel tears coming back in my eyes, and I didn’t want to start crying again, so I put my arms in front of my belly and looked out of the window. I tried to not blink my eyes, so the tears weren’t going to spill over.

  “Zach?” Charlie said, but I didn’t say anything back because there was a big lump in my throat. “Please, Zach? Please don’t be mad at me. I know you are trying to help and it’s…you are such a good boy, do you know that? Listen to me, Zach,” Charlie said. “Can you please look at me?”

  I moved my eyes from outside the window to Charlie, and I could see he had tears in his eyes, too, but he let them spill over on his face.