by Karen Foxlee
He asked Davey to take his clothes off and Davey sat there in his small office in just his underpants while he was examined. Professor Cole examined Davey’s spine and his arms and his hands. His legs and his toes. He measured Davey. He measured him from his feet up to his head and from his head down to his feet. He measured the depth of his chest. He got him to blow into a machine to measure how big his lungs were. Davey blew the needle off and it pinged across the floor and rolled to a stop.
“Sorry, sir,” said Davey.
“That’s fine, young man, no need to apologize,” said Professor Cole and he ruffled Davey’s hair and I could tell he liked Davey. The way everyone did.
Professor Cole measured and documented every inch of Davey. He measured him like he was going to build him a suit of armour. That’s what I thought sitting there. Our mother sat watching. Her hair in a fountain. Her tired face. Golden Living Retirement Home hands, red and worn, wringing over and over soundlessly.
“Mrs. Spink,” said Professor Cole at last.
She jumped a little in her chair.
“I’ve looked after quite a few giants, you know,” he said.
She shook her head side to side. It was a negative. It was a don’t-call-my-son-a-giant.
“Yes, indeed,” said Professor Cole, like he was going to settle back and tell us a long story. “I’ve stopped them growing as best I could. Children can be different depending on where the tumour is. Is it on the pituitary or is there some other extra-pituitary cause? Almost ninety-nine percent certain it will be the pituitary. Do you know where the pituitary is and what it does?”
Things had changed direction fast. We thought we were settling back for a story and now we were on a quiz show. Everyone ignored the word tumour as best they could.
We didn’t have the P issues of the Burrell’s Build-It-at-Home Encyclopedia set but we did have the brain one. The entry was a page long, with a large diagram of a colour-coded brain. The colour-coded brain was in the silhouette of a man’s head. It looked like he was wearing a fancy shower cap. The pituitary was pink. It was small and lay very deep.
My mother opened her mouth. She was going to try and answer the question.
“It’s the mastermind,” said Professor Cole. Mother closed her mouth. “It’s in charge of all the hormones in the body. It makes women women and men men. It makes the milk that women feed their babies. It makes little boys and girls grow or not grow or grow too big.
“It’s the mastermind,” he said, very softly, again, and he took Davey’s head in his hand and held it like he might be able to look inside. He smiled at Davey.
“Yes, I’m ninety-nine percent sure this will be a tumour,” said Professor Cole, “so our job is to see what we can do with the tumour to stop you from growing and growing, young man. Because that’s what you’ll do. You’ll just keep growing until your head hits the ceiling and that won’t stop you either.”
We all thought of Mrs. Gaspar’s dream.
Professor Cole took the pages where he had drawn and measured Davey and stacked them neatly on a desk.
“Can he still go to school?” asked Mother.
“Of course he can,” said Professor Cole. “That’s the best thing he can do. In the meantime, I’ll arrange some more blood tests and the surgery and send you a letter.”
He looked at my mother kindly. The kindness made her cry. A sudden eruption, all bubbly and snotty.
Professor Cole said, “I’ll fetch the nurse for you.”
G:
Giants
5’ 5”
MARCH 1976
We caught the afternoon bus home. The new knowledge sat inside, an extra heavy piece of luggage. An unclear and murky knowledge. We were 99 percent certain something was inside Davey, but we really couldn’t understand what, or how, it would be removed. If I tried to ask questions, Mother shushed me. She shushed me like a circus clown with a whistle. I just had to open my mouth and she shushed me. I snuck out words, why, how. She shushed me wildly. I went hard and rattled out a whole sentence—“But how do they open up?”—and she shushed me so hard I thought I’d fall over.
Mrs. Gaspar came to hear the news and Mother took her away into the kitchen to tell her. We heard Mrs. Gaspar wail. Davey raised one eyebrow at me and it made me laugh. He said he felt okay. “I feel just fine,” he said.
“And how are those free books coming along?” asked Nanny Flora down the phone line.
“They’re fine,” I said.
“What letter you up to?”
“We’ve nearly finished F.”
Feathers, fathers, firemen, fans, Millard Fillmore, the law of falling bodies. I said nothing. I gave Nanny Flora nothing.
“That all? What if you need to know something about Niagara Falls?”
I shrugged.
“Don’t shrug,” said Mother. “Your grandmother can’t hear a shrug.”
“How’s school?” asked Nanny Flora.
“Good,” I lied.
“And you look after Davey there, right?” she asked. “You’re his big sister, remember.”
She didn’t know the half of it.
What if I told her?
What if I described it to her?
What if I said I was ashamed of him sometimes? Everyone loved him but I was ashamed of how big he was and how he needed a grown-up chair and how much he leaned and how he was so loud and happy when he talked about tractors. And what if I told her the shame of being ashamed was even worse than the shame? The shame of being ashamed made me feel hot and sweaty and wild, like I was growing fur, like I was a werewolf. I was a monster for thinking such things. That’s what it felt like to be ashamed of being ashamed of Davey.
“And your mother told me he’s having an operation?” said Nanny Flora.
“Yes,” I said.
“They set a date yet?”
“Not yet,” I said.
“And it’ll stop him growing, right?” she asked but her voice sounded far off and clean and uninvolved with all of it.
I shrugged again and Mother snatched the phone out of my hand.
When we got home from the city, there were several volume covers waiting for us and a letter from Martha Brent. Mother read the letter out loud.
March 1, 1976
Burrell’s Publishing Company Ltd
7001 West Washington Street
Indianapolis, Indiana 46241
OUR GIFT TO YOU IS THE GIFT OF KNOWLEDGE
Dear Mrs. Spink,
We thank you for your recent correspondence regarding the Burrell’s Build-It-at-Home Encyclopedia volume covers. The Burrell’s family values all of our customers and we wish to inform you that you will now receive all volume covers as part of your prize. The additional year books are not part of this plan. In addition, we’d also like to provide you with three months’ free access to our triple-issue plan so you can see just how easy it is to build your encyclopedia at home! That’s right! You’ll receive three issues per week for three months completely free of charge! And we also send our best wishes for Davey on his trip to the doctor’s. I hope the news is good news. The falconry issue should be by now safely in his hands.
Yours sincerely,
Martha Brent
General Sales Manager
* * *
Mother smiled while we clicked issues into volume covers.
“I knew Martha would do the right thing,” said Mother.
“She sure is kind,” said Davey.
“I wouldn’t go that far,” said Mother.
The banished beetle issue came back out of Mother’s bedroom so it could be fastened into the B volume cover. I was relieved to see those pages again. Something settled when I saw all those antennae and serrated legs, all the shells, big and small.
“I just don’t understand,” said Mother, shaking her head, but I could tell she was trying.
“I just want to know about them,” I pleaded back. “I just … want to know.”
Davey showed the covers to Mr.
King when he came for Friday dinner. Mr. King rolled his eyes like he was looking at something useless. His fruit is full of worms, I said to myself silently, his fruit is full of worms. It was like whispering a curse and it made me feel calmer.
He acted familiar now, almost like he owned the place. He plonked himself down on the sofa and waited for his glass of milk. He said, “Who is the freak in the suit next door?”
“Not in front of the children, Mr. King,” said Mother.
“Oh sorry, Mrs. Spink,” said Mr. King and Mother giggled nervously, but distractedly, because she had a lot on her mind. Davey’s brain, for instance. I imagined Mr. King getting attacked by the abominable snowman and then embalmed, all while I stared politely into space.
“Hey, Davey,” said Mr. King. “How’s your noggin?”
“My noggin’s great,” said Davey. He stood up and showed Mr. King his new pants. Miss Finny the seamstress had made them because she could put a lot of seam allowance in, not like store-bought clothes. Miss Finny liked working with Davey. She never saw him as a problem. Her little ebony face could have fit inside his hand. Miss Finny liked all the lengths of Davey, his one leg longer than the other.
“Well, you give my brain a good gallop around the park,” said Miss Finny when she measured him. “You don’t need no fancy tailor, now, do you, Davey? You don’t need no store clothes. You just need good old Miss Finny.”
“You’ll be a magnet for the ladies,” said Mr. King.
“Mr. King,” said Mother, exasperated.
Your fruit is full of worms, I said to myself silently. May your fruit always be full of worms.
That night I heard Mother say, “I’m really tired, Harry.”
I heard him pleading for her to stay up a little with him.
“No, really,” I heard her say. “It’s been … there’s been a lot …”
The door closed harder than usual that night.
After he was gone, I got out of bed and knocked on Mother’s door just to check on her.
“Are you okay?”
“I’m okay.”
“Why’d he slam our door?” Unsaid: Why’d he sit on our sofa, why’d he look down at our encyclopedia, why’d he eat our pot pie?
Mother shook her head. She smiled.
“Don’t worry,” she said. “Just go back to bed, Lenny.”
“I’m worrying,” I said.
“What are you worrying about?” said Mother.
“I’m worrying about Davey’s brain,” I said.
“It’ll be okay,” said Mother. “He’ll have the operation. Everything will be fine. They’ll send us the date soon.”
She said it like he would shrink back into the shape of a normal boy. But I knew Professor Cole never mentioned a shrink gun. She smiled again, but she was a liar. I could tell she was having dark heart feelings.
Peter Lenard Spink. Peter Lenard Spink. Peter Lenard Spink. I whispered it back in bed. Did he ever think about me? Was he lying on a bed somewhere, thinking about me? I didn’t like that thought, that thought made me almost cry. I back-pedalled fast. Peter Lenard Spink. Peter Lenard Spink. Peter Lenard Spink.
You worry too much, has always been your problem, was what I imagined him saying to me.
The first three G issues arrived on the same day that the letter from Professor Cole came. I held the G issues and Mother held the letter in our building foyer. She held the letter like it contained a great and monumental secret or reward, like she might open that letter and find a cheque for one million bucks, not a date for brain surgery. She held the letter and stared.
“Seriously, just give it to me,” I said and then Mr. Petersburg walked in from the street and stopped still when he saw us.
Now, I had seen Mr. Petersburg a few times before, but nothing could ever really prepare you for it. He was tall and his thin shadow fell over us staring at that letter from Professor Cole. He had pale skin and white hair but his eyes were dark. It was like those eyes belonged to the original him, the beginning him, only that had all faded away.
“Haunted eyes.” That’s what Mrs. Gaspar had said and it had snatched my breath right out of me.
“Why?” I had gasped. “Why are they haunted?”
It was exactly the kind of thing I loved about Mrs. Gaspar.
“Because he has seen something terrible. Or he remembers something terrible,” she had whispered and then blown a plume of cigarette smoke forcefully up toward the ceiling. “Or he has done something terrible.”
Davey had never seen Mr. Petersburg until that day in the foyer. I heard his gasp.
“Wow,” Davey whispered. “Is that really you, Mr. Petersburg?” “Hush, Davey,” said Mother. “Good afternoon, Mr. Petersburg.” I don’t know if Mr. Petersburg replied. There might have been a whisper of a word. A small desiccated hello. But Mother was already taking Davey by the shoulders and was bustling us away and up the stairs. Davey kept turning back and me too, of course, once, twice, three times before we went around the corner. Mother wrenched Davey by the arm when he stopped to crane his neck over the bannister.
“Stop that,” she hissed.
“But he’s still there,” said Davey.
“Stop it,” she hissed again.
“Holy Batman, I saw Mr. Petersburg,” said Davey at our door, joyful astonishment all over his face.
“Shhhh,” said Mother, but by then even she had the giggles.
“He’s not that scary actually, Lenny,” said Davey when we were inside. “He looks kinda nice.”
“If you don’t stop talking about him, I’m going to get real cranky,” said Mother and she sat down on the sofa. She had the letter in her hand, still unopened. I felt like seeing Mr. Petersburg was an omen, but I didn’t know if it was a good or a bad omen.
She opened the letter carefully, neatly, and in the voice of someone handing out a prize at the Academy Awards, read out the date of the operation. “Operation date is May 6th, 1976,” she said. “Transphennoidal surgery for excision of pituitary tumours.” She let out a whoosh of air.
“Transsphenoidal?” I said. It sounded bad. Trans–sphen–oid–al. It sounded like something a bad wizard would say holding a wand, in a booming deep voice.
And the little s at the end of tumours. That hung in the air between Mother and me.
“Oh man, I can’t believe I saw Mr. Petersburg,” said Davey.
G contained giants. It was a smallish entry as though no one could be much bothered with them. Martha Brent, in her cloak, had swirled down the stone staircase and said, “We can skimp on giants. A paragraph is all we need.”
There was no illustration, although the giant buttercup had one right beneath it. There were many giant things. Giant armadillos and giant bamboos. Giant clams and giant garlics, giant water bugs and the giant tortoise of the Galapagos Islands. At least that was comforting, the rate at which nature threw up big things.
G contained all the giant things and all the great things. G contained wonderful things. Yuri Gagarin and galaxies. Galileo and gannets and three pages on geese. Geiger counters and gases and three colour plates filled with gems. G contained golden eagles.
“Imagine if you had an eagle and in the morning you opened your window and let it fly out and you watched it go flying through the buildings but you knew it would come back,” said Davey on the way to school.
“You couldn’t keep an eagle in our apartment,” I said.
“Just imagining it,” he said.
“Eagles need to eat rabbits and such,” I said. “I haven’t seen any rabbits lately, have you?”
“What about rats?” he said. “There are plenty of rats.”
It was true, sometimes we watched them scampering across the road from the Greyhound bus station.
“We need the Northwest Territories for your eagle,” I said. We hadn’t mentioned it for weeks.
I could see him picturing it all the way to school: Timothy hovering above us as we walked through the forests.
At the sc
hool gate, Davey waved at some first-grade girls. The cute-as-pie types. They giggled behind their hands. I glared at them just in case they were making fun of him, and they looked afraid of me.
“You’re all red again,” said CJ.
“No I’m not,” I said.
I stared down Matthew Milford, daring him to disagree. He knew better. He handed me a matchbox with a little yellow bug inside. It was the prettiest thing I ever saw. I went to give it back and he said, “No, I c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c …”
“Caught it for me?”
My face turned a deeper mauve. I wanted to punch Matthew Milford right on his big hairy mole. Someone giggled. I shoved it in my bag, that matchbox, and pretended I didn’t care. “Trans-sphen-oid-al,” I said to myself slowly.
“Maybe I should try and let your father know?” said Mother at the dinner table the next night. Davey’s peas fell off his spoon, a small avalanche.
“Let him know what?” I asked.
“That Davey is having an operation on his brain,” said Mother.
Davey went about picking up his peas.
“How do you know where he is?” I asked. “I thought you didn’t know where he was?”
There was a rising tin-whistle in my voice. I was my mother’s daughter.
“He had a brother around here,” she said. “His brother’s family lived on … it was either Sycamore or Maple. I think. I could try and look in the phone book. There was a sister too but she lived somewhere north.”
She mentioned them casually, that brother and sister, but her hands shook. She put her knife and fork down.
“I mean, what do you think, Davey?” she asked. “Do you think we should tell your dad you’re having an operation?”
Davey’s peas fell again.
I knew he would say, I don’t know.
Davey always said, I don’t know.
“I don’t know,” said Davey.
