by Erin Teagan
I can’t get used to the idea of this estate sale. All these people, touching all of Grandpa’s stuff, pulling things off shelves, dismantling beds and carrying them off to who knows where. Probably a good thing Grandpa’s not alive to see this.
My stomach throbs.
“Does this still work?” A girl stands in front of me, wearing a shirt that says e=mc2.
I can’t believe what she’s holding in her hand. “Where’d you get that? Not for sale,” I say, taking the gold clock away from her. She probably took it right off Grandpa’s desk, the little thief. It even has his name on the base from when he retired: DR. LEONARD LITTLE, BIOCHEMIST. There’s no way Dad would sell this, right?
She’s holding a bag of gummy bears in her other hand, and now she’s looking over the table and pushing things around. Her fingers are probably sticky.
I stand up. “Most of these things are not for sale, actually.” I don’t know what I’m saying. I look over my shoulder at Mom, who is busy picking through Grandpa’s books by the fireplace.
“Really?” The girl stops chewing. “Even these things with price tags?”
“Two-minute rule,” I say, starting my amoeba timer. “Two minutes to look around, and that’s it. You know, for sanitary reasons.”
The girl laughs like I’m making a joke, and I want to push the whole table over.
“I’m Riley,” she says. “We just moved here. Gummy bear?” She has a whole armful of bracelets that clink as she holds out the bag. I shake my head. She holds up a plastic beaker with a burn hole in the bottom. “Okay. I’ll just buy this, then. Need it for my experiments.”
“Making a volcano?” Because all kids who think they’re scientists make volcanoes and collect rocks, two very unscientific things. I’ve never collected a rock in my whole life.
“No volcano. I’m really good at experiments,” she says. “I love space, too. I just got back from Space Camp.”
“The real Space Camp?” The one I’ve begged to go to for my entire existence?
She pops another gummy bear into her mouth. “Of course. I’m going to be an astronaut.” This girl sure knows how to brag.
“My birthday is on Astronomy Day this year.” I’m blinking way too fast. I take a breath and see she’s still holding Grandpa’s beaker. “Well, that’ll be one thousand dollars.”
“It says ten cents.” She points at the price tag.
Mom and Dad are going to notice I’m not selling anything. That I keep putting things in my own bag. Even though I already have a science collection pouring out of my closet and creeping out from under my bed.
“It’s like ten cents times ten thousand, actually.”
More people are filtering into the house now. Through the open front door I can see shoppers outside trying out the camping chairs and dipping their hands in the fountain that’s for sale. Brooke’s best friend is there, and I wonder where my own best friend is. Or maybe Elizabeth’s too busy with her new fancy summer reading list for her new fancy private school, New Hope. It will be my first day at plain old Jasper Johns Middle School tomorrow. Home of the Mighty Barn Owls. Hoot! Hoot!
My stomach has gone from throbbing to churning. Riley is still staring at me. “Are you all right?” she says.
I fan myself with a Scientist Today magazine, trying to breathe the fresh air coming in through the front door. One of Grandpa’s standard operating procedures is still taped to the old wall phone nearby.
How to Call Your Son.
Step 1. Pick up the receiver, which is the blue handle-looking thing with a spirally cord.
Step 2. Dial 5-5-5-0-2-0-4 in that exact order.
Step 3. Tell your son to buy his daughter a telescope.
(I wrote that last step.)
If anyone needs a standard operating procedure right now, it’s me. I make up my own SOP in my head: How to Get Rid of Someone.
Step 1. Casually mention a horrifying and terrible disease.
“We just got back from South Africa,” I say, straightening up and folding my arms across my chest. “Really sad about that bubonic plague there.”
“South Africa doesn’t have the plague,” she says. “Nobody does.”
“It kills just about everyone. We were probably exposed.”
Step 2. Cough loudly. Do not cover your mouth.
Mom is over by the fireplace. “You okay, Madeline?”
Step 3. Excuse yourself to the hospital.
“It’s like the most contagious disease on record. Maybe I should go to the emergency room.” I cough again.
Riley looks unconvinced. “If you really had the bubonic plague, your body parts would start turning black, and you’d have red bumps all over you.” She puts the beaker on the table.
Red. Like blood. My blood is actually feeling too hot, filling my fingertips and pulsing in my ears.
“Anyway,” she’s saying, “I don’t have a thousand dollars for a used beaker. Maybe I’ll see you in school tomorrow.” She leaves through the front door and I stand at the table for a good ten seconds before I feel sick for real. My stomach lurches and the room spins.
I wipe my nose, then grab the burned-out beaker and hold it to my chest, expecting to smell the lab in it. But it only smells like melted plastic and char. And then I grab three more beakers, the crucible, a Bunsen burner with a frayed gas line, two funnels, and a pack of unused petri dishes. I sit in my chair, my arms so full I can barely see over my loot, until Dad comes, feeling my forehead and peeling my hands apart, making me put everything back on the table.
“How about a break? You don’t want to overdo it. Come on,” he says, and tries to smile.
I follow Dad, who gets me a glass of ice water from the kitchen and then heads up the stairs. Everything’s feeling wrong and backward somehow. There’s a painting propped up against the wall, and I hang it back up where it belongs. In the bedrooms there are more shoppers circling Grandpa’s treasures.
I wish more than anything that there was an SOP for all of this. A simple three-step procedure that would fix everything. Grandpa would know how to write it. But now that he’s gone, it’s up to me.
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About the Author
Author photo by Patty Schuchman
ERIN TEAGAN is a former research scientist and the author of several novels for kids, including The Friendship Experiment and three American Girl books about Luciana Vega. She lives with her family in Virginia.
Visit her online at erinteagan.com
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