The Life of Ty

by Lauren Myracle

  Baby Maggie blinks.

  I thrust my right arm into the air and do wiggle fingers. My feet go dance-dance-dance, and I say, “Yeah!”

  Baby Maggie gurgles and does her own wiggle fingers. She lifts her chubby legs and does wiggle feet, too.

  “Ty,” Mom says.

  “All right, all right,” I say. In my head, I add, Hold yer horses, lady. I’ll do one more move, and then I’ll set the table.

  For my finale, I do a super-duper double high kick and plop one of my super-duper new high-tops on the granite counter by the stove.

  “Boom!” I proclaim, spreading my arms wide. I bounce a little on my other foot for balance.

  “TY! Get your foot off the counter!” Mom yells.

  I jump. I lose my balance and fall backward and land on the floor.

  “Mom, you scared me!” I say. Then I smile and give her a thumbs-up. “Good one!”

  Teensy Baby Maggie blows a spit bubble and throws up. It’s awesome.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  On Thursday, Mom tells me I can’t get a hedgehog or a jackalope or even an armadillo.

  “Pooey,” I say. I eat a bite of toast and drink the last of my orange juice. “Can I have more juice, please, and how about a camel? If we got a camel, we wouldn’t even need a litter box, because camels hardly ever pee.”

  “Yes to the juice, no to the camel,” Dad says, jumping into the conversation. He hasn’t left for work yet. He refills my glass, and then he refills Winnie’s glass. Teensy Baby Maggie is in her bouncy seat on top of the table, and Dad pretends to refill her juice, too. But Baby Maggie doesn’t even have a juice glass. Silly Dad.

  “We don’t need any more pets, bud,” he tells me. “We’ve got Sweetie-Pie.”

  “Why does everyone keep saying that?” I complain.

  “Because it’s true,” Sandra says, strolling over to the table and swiping what’s left of my toast from my plate. “Also, we’ve got you.”

  “Hey!” I say.

  “Hey what?” she says. “You don’t like crusts.”

  “‘Hey’ I’m not your pet,” I say. To Dad I say, “And Sweetie-Pie belongs to Winnie. Why does Winnie get a pet, but not me or Sandra or Baby Maggie?”

  “Because no one else wants a pet,” Sandra says in her normal voice. In my ear, she says, “And like I said, I’ve already got y-o-u.”

  Her breath tickles. I push her away.

  “Baby Maggie does so want one,” I say. “She told me in secret baby language. So how about a mouse? A mouse would be no trouble at all. I promise.”

  “Yeah, because Sweetie-Pie would eat it,” Sandra says.

  “Sandra!” Winnie protests. “Sweetie-Pie would not eat a sweet little mouse!”

  “What if it was mouse pie?” Sandra says.

  “It wouldn’t be,” Winnie says. “It would be a plain old mouse. Right, Ty?”

  “What if Mom cooked it? What if Mom cooked it by accident?” Sandra says.

  “Not a plain old mouse. A cute mouse,” I say.

  “Like a rat, you mean?” Sandra says. She leans back in her chair. “Hey, Mom, would you make rat pie if Ty got a rat?”

  “I would not,” Mom says from the sink, where she’s washing dishes.

  “Ellen, let me do that,” Dad says, stepping behind her and taking the pan from her hands. “And kids, enough. Ty? No pets. Sandra? No pie.”

  “Not even boysenberry?” Sandra says.

  “Poison berry!” Winnie says. She puts her hand to her heart.

  “No poison berry,” Dad says. “And all of you, listen up. I want you to help your mom out tonight. I have to stay late at the office, so she’ll be on her own.”

  Mom pushes her hair off her forehead with the back of her hand. “Alone?” she mutters. “Hardly.” When she realizes that I heard that, she smiles. “We’ll be fine. We’ll have fun.” Her tired look comes back. “I just have to figure out something for dinner.”

  “Mouse pizza!” Sandra cries.

  “Poison pizza!” Winnie cries. Then, “Kidding, Dad.”

  In her bouncy seat, Teensy Baby Maggie waves a fist in the air. She kicks her foot. Her sock is half off. It always is, except when it’s all the way off.

  “Oh, and Ty,” Mom says. “I can’t believe I haven’t told you . . .”

  “Told me what? That it’s a yes to the jackalope?” I thrust my arms into the air. “You are the best mommy ever!”

  “No, Ty, it’s—”

  I get up and shake my booty. “Wh-hoo! A jackalope!”

  Winnie laughs.

  I fling my arms around Mom’s waist and talk on top of her. “Best! Mommy! Ever! Thank you, my bestest mommy!”

  “Hmm,” Sandra says, making a thinking face. “A jackalope will change the family dynamic, sure, but . . . oh, what the heck. I suppose I can get behind a jackalope.”

  “And get kicked?” Dad says.

  “Huh?”

  “Jackalopes also have strong legs. If you stand behind one—”

  “Hardy har har,” Sandra says.

  “My jackalope won’t be the kicking kind,” I say into Mom’s stomach.

  “True, because your jackalope will be the invisible kind,” Mom says.

  “Oh, Mother, I am so disappointed in you,” Winnie says.

  I grin at her, because she’s funny. That’s why she’s my favorite sister.

  Except Sandra showed me the rainbow, so sometimes Sandra’s my favorite sister. And Teensy Baby Maggie is so cute! And so are her teensy baby socks! I tried to make ear mittens out of them once, but they fell right off.

  You’re my favorite sister, too, I tell Baby Maggie, using my brain power. And I’m working VERY HARD on getting you a pet, and I promise it won’t be a boring invisible jackalope. You can count on me, bitsy Mags!

  Mom pushes me off of her.

  “Ty?” she says.

  I lock my eyeballs with hers. “Yes, my mommy?”

  “I have terrific news—and please don’t interrupt.”

  “When do I interrupt? I never interrupt!”

  Mom arches her eyebrows.

  Sandra snort-laughs.

  “Joseph’s coming home,” Mom says.

  The world stops.

  I don’t breathe.

  Then Winnie draws her hands to her mouth, and Baby Maggie kicks her leg, and her sock flies off her foot and onto my plate.

  “When?” I whisper.

  “Hopefully this weekend,” Mom says. “He is ready to leave the hospital, and as long as he doesn’t get a last-minute cold . . .” She takes my hands. “Pretty awesome, huh?”

  I feel funny. I think it’s because I’m breathing in a funny way. Like, in and out and in and out, but more quickly than normal. Like, if I were blowing up a balloon, I’d be unblowing it at the exact same time.

  I want Joseph to come home. I want him to come home so much it hurts.

  But . . .

  “How would he get a last-minute cold?” I say.

  “Oh, baby, he won’t,” Mom says.

  “What is a last-minute cold?” I say.

  Mom ruffles my hair. “Forget I said that. There’s no need for you to worry.”

  “Ty always worries,” Winnie says.

  Maybe Mom sees how fast my chest is going up and down, because she says, “Baby. Sweetheart, please.”

  My brain thinks bad thoughts. Flying clogs, dead flies, last-minute colds. Lexie’s howl when her leg was trapped by the electric chair. Joseph’s hospital bed, which is fun to play on—and I should know, because I’ve played on it tons. But real beds are better. House beds, even if they don’t move when you push a button.

  “Dude,” Sandra says. She leans toward me, tilting her chair onto its back legs even though it’s against the law. She snaps her fingers in my face
.

  I blink.

  “Does Joseph have a cold right now?” she asks.

  I glance at Mom, who shakes her head.

  “No,” I say.

  “What about you? Do you have a cold right now?”

  I start to answer.

  She talks on top of me. “Or, wait, let me put it this way. Has your leg fallen off this morning?”

  What she’s asking is just plain goofy, but I lift one leg and wiggle it. “No.”

  “And your head. Has your head rolled off your neck and gone bouncing across the floor?”

  I try to lift my head off my neck, but it’s on good and tight.

  Mom shoots Dad a look.

  Dad shrugs.

  “Just as I suspected,” Sandra says. She bangs her chair down, and the shock wave makes Teensy Baby Maggie’s arms and legs flail.

  We all laugh, and laughing makes my chest loosen. We’re not laughing at baby Maggie, though. She just looks so cute. She waves her arms and legs some more, like a blobby sea creature in pink pajamas.

  “Sorry, Mags,” Sandra says. “But do you see, Ty?”

  “Do I see what?”

  “This!” Sandra says, pushing lightly on Maggie’s rib cage and making her bounce in her bouncy seat.

  “I agree,” Winnie says.

  “With what?” I say.

  “Yes, girls,” Mom says. “With what?”

  Winnie shrugs. “Well, you can’t worry about the past, and you can’t worry about the future. Or rather, you can, but what good would it do?”

  “You have to live in the now,” Sandra says. “Like Maggie.”

  “Yeah, because she doesn’t know how not to,” Winnie says.

  They look at me. Everyone in the room looks at me, except for Maggie. Maggie’s more interested in the ceiling.

  I want to make them happy, so I say, “Maggie lives . . . in the now?”

  Winnie’s expression softens. “Yeah, because Maggie doesn’t worry about anything. She just lives.”

  “Exactly,” Sandra says. “This little bitsy”—she gestures at Maggie—“she is life. Okay?”

  “Ohhhh,” I say, even though I have no idea what they’re talking about. I wave at Baby Maggie. “Hi, life.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  At school, I give Lexie a thousand-dollar bill I made. Instead of Lexie’s head in the middle, I put a picture of Cyber Grape, who is big and purple. I invented him.

  Lexie says, “Thanks,” and in my maniac voice, I say, “You’re welcome,” which makes Lexie laugh. My maniac voice always makes her laugh.

  Then Taylor comes over and says that I’m in love with Lexie, WHICH I AM NOT.

  But when I say, “No,” he says, “Yes you are, because you’re blushing!”

  “No!” I say again. “I’ve been doing my maniac voice. That’s why I’m blushing.”

  “You admitted it!” Taylor crows. He dances around and points at me. “You admitted you’re blushing! Ha-ha!”

  I scowl. I’m mad at myself for saying the word “blushing,” because I should have said, “And my face gets red when I do my maniac voice, that’s all.” I’m also mad at Mrs. Webber for leaving the classroom to get more construction paper. Taylor always acts up when she’s gone.

  “Ty lo-oves Lexie!” Taylor chants. “Ty lo-oves Lexie!”

  “I don’t,” I tell Taylor.

  I look at Lexie, who’s clutching Breezie’s arm and giggling.

  “I don’t,” I tell Lexie, and I think about how lucky Teensy Baby Maggie is. She’s too young for crushes and teasing and being danced around by annoying Taylor.

  Sandra and Winnie said I should be more like Maggie, because Maggie waves her arms and legs and doesn’t worry about things. But when Maggie is seven, will she still wave her arms and legs and not worry about things?

  If she does, people will think she is extremely strange.

  Taylor skip-hops over to me. “Say you love Lexie. Say it, or I’m going to do the neck-pinch on you!”

  “Do it!” Lexie cries. “Do it, do it!”

  Does she want Taylor to do the neck-pinch on me, or me to say I love her?

  I don’t want either to happen. I clench my hands into fists and say, “Taylor? This is why you don’t have any friends! Because you’re being bully-ish, that’s why!”

  Taylor stops in his tracks. His hyperness whooshes out of him. He grows smaller, right in front of my eyes, and a huge rubber band squeezes my chest because I know I said something mean.

  I’m still hot. I’m still mad. But I feel horrible, too, because I was just a bully. Me. Not with my fists, but with my words. If someone said “this is why you don’t have any friends” to Teensy Baby Maggie, she would cry.

  “Yeah, Taylor,” Hannah says. “I’ve told you that so many times. If you want people to be nice to you, you have to be nice to them.”

  “Like bringing doughnuts for the whole class,” Chase says.

  “Only not the cake kind,” Elizabeth says.

  “Or the ones with nuts on top,” John says.

  “The glazed ones,” Elizabeth says. “Those are the best. But Ty, are you in love with Lexie? And Lexie, are you in love with Ty?”

  “No!” cries Lexie.

  “Are you sure?” Chase says. “Because look—now Lexie’s blushing!”

  Then everyone talks at the same time, words words words, and most of them fighting-ish. Elizabeth goes to Lexie and Breezie, and Breezie pushes Elizabeth away. Hannah gets in Chase’s face. Chase sneezes on her, and I think it’s on purpose. John says that some cake doughnuts are good, and Elizabeth says, “Ew! You are so gross!”

  “People!” I say. I glance anxiously at the door. I glance anxiously at Taylor, only he’s still deflated, so no more looking at that deflated boy.

  I raise my voice. “People! Mrs. Webber is coming!”

  Everyone shuts up. There are three seconds of silence, or possibly four, but no one hears Mrs. Webber coming down the hall.

  “Wrong!” Hannah calls, and all the noise starts up again. Hannah talks over it. “And Chase? If you have germs, and you sneezed them into my mouth—”

  “Crushes are stupid. But if I did have a crush on anyone—”

  “What about blueberry cake doughnuts?”

  It’s a madhouse. It’s a madhouse without Mrs. Webber, and it’s a madhouse even with Mrs. Webber, when she finally comes back into the room.

  “Class!” she barks.

  We clam up for real. Well, I’ve already clammed up. Taylor, too. But the other kids clam up with us and freeze where they are.

  Mrs. Webber lectures us. She reminds us of Trinity’s rules, and she makes us recite them: Keep yourself safe. Keep your friends safe. Keep your school safe.

  “All right?” she says.

  We nod.

  “Good. Now I want you all to—”

  Taylor raises his hand.

  Mrs. Webber presses her fingers to the spot between her eyebrows.

  Taylor waggles his hand. He waggles it harder. He waves his entire arm back and forth like he’s an airport worker guiding in an airplane.

  Is he going to tell Mrs. Webber what I said to him? I feel sweaty, so when Mrs. Webber closes her eyes, I step toward him and whisper, “I’m sorry I said you don’t have friends.”

  Taylor keeps his hand in the air.

  “And you are sometimes bully-ish, but not always.” I take a breath. “And I was mean to say that, so . . . I’m sorry.”

  Taylor’s hand drops an inch or two, like a kite. “Really?”

  I nod. I don’t want to be Taylor’s best friend, and I don’t want to invite him over to my house. But I am sorry for making him feel bad.

  “Okay,” Taylor says, and he puts his hand all the way down. Just like that.

  Mrs. Web
ber opens her eyes, and—just like that—Taylor jams his hand up again.

  “Ooo! Ooo!” he says. “Pick me!”

  “Yes, Taylor?” Mrs. Webber says, sounding as tired as Mom sometimes sounds.

  “How about mooning?” he asks. “Do you know what mooning is? It’s when someone flashes you with his bottom. Want me to show you?”

  Everyone laughs, or almost everybody. Breezie might not. But I do, because it’s just like Taylor to ask about mooning.

  “No, Taylor, I do not want you to show me,” Mrs. Webber says. “Keeping your school safe includes keeping your teachers safe, and you need to keep me safe from that sight.”

  “But—”

  “I don’t want to see your bottom.”

  “But—”

  “End. Of. Story,” Mrs. Webber says. “And when I say ‘end,’ I am referring to your end, Taylor. So zip it.”

  Lots of people laugh, and after school, when I tell Mom all about it, she laughs.

  “He’s such a rascal,” I tell her, meaning Taylor. “He asks inappropriate questions—like about mooning—all the time. Like, one per second.”

  “Goodness,” Mom says. We’re sitting side by side on the sofa. She rubs her fingernails up and down my arm the way I like. “I’m glad you don’t do that.”

  “I don’t,” I say. “But Taylor isn’t bad. He just makes bad decisions.”

  “That’s right,” Mom says. “I’m proud of you for saying that, Ty-bug.”

  I feel happy, and I say, “Do you think you should buy me a koala bear to say ‘yay’ for being such a good boy?” I ask. “Koala bears eat leaves, and if we had one, I’d eat leaves, too. Like salad. Wouldn’t that be great, Mom?”

  “Interesting proposition, but no,” she says.

  I exhale. Thinking about Baby Maggie helped me at school today, and I want to do something to tell Maggie thank you.

  “I could make you a snack, though,” Mom says. “How about a delicious salad? You could pretend to be a koala bear.”

  I look at her. My look says, Really, lady? Really?

  “Cookies and milk it is,” Mom pronounces, kissing the top of my head.

  She stands and heads for the kitchen. I consider following her to make sure she doesn’t do the delicious salad thing, but at the last second, I change my mind.