Looking for X

by Deborah Ellis

  “I’ll only eat half of it,” I decided, but by the time I decided that, the whole sandwich was gone.

  Now what? With no food, X would never come back with me. Without a peanut butter and corn syrup sandwich to pass across a bench to her, X might not even recognize me.

  I had caused Tammy worry and made her even more angry, and for what? For nothing.

  My face hurt from trying not to cry.

  Should I go home empty-handed, and hope Tammy would forgive me?

  Should I just keep traveling? Maybe I could stow away on a steamship, or hide out on a freight train.

  In time, Tammy would forget about me. She could even have another daughter, one who liked pink and trying on dresses.

  I started walking again.

  I couldn’t see clearly because my eyes kept tearing up. I stumbled along the street, paying no attention to who I passed, or who passed me. If X was close by, I didn’t notice.

  Somebody bumped into me. I wiped my eyes and screamed.

  I was staring at a monster! He had blood all over him and an eyeball slipping down one cheek.

  “Please excuse me,” the monster said. “It’s a little hard to see through this mask.” He walked on.

  Of course — it was Hallowe’en! I suddenly noticed that Church Street was filling up with strange creatures — gorillas, clowns, more monsters, men dressed as butterflies, and women with moustaches.

  Tammy and I loved Hallowe’en. Mom adored dressing up, and Hallowe’en was the one night of the year she could do it without embarrassing me. We’d dress the twins up, too, and we’d go to the Hallowe’en party at the Regent Park community center. We’d take Juba with us, although she wouldn’t dress up. When we got back home, Tammy would make popcorn, and we’d stay up late. Sometimes Tammy would read aloud from Edgar Allen Poe. Sometimes we’d make up ghost stories of our own.

  I sat down on a low wall around a parking lot, watching all the people go by in costume. They all looked like they were having a great time.

  Tammy and the boys were probably at the community center having a wonderful time at the Hallowe’en party. I wondered if they even missed me. I started to cry. I couldn’t help it.

  Once I started, I couldn’t stop. I cried and I cried.

  Then a van pulled up beside me, and Elvis stepped out.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  RETURN

  Another Elvis followed the first one, and another after that. I counted them as they piled out. There were a dozen Elvises standing around in the parking lot.

  “Hey, look! It’s our fan club!” one Elvis said, pointing at me. I was even more surprised. Elvis was a woman! They were all women!

  “I suppose she wants an autograph,” another Elvis said. “Oh, the price of fame!”

  They laughed and joked like that for a minute. Then one of them said, “Hey, she’s crying! What’s wrong, honey?”

  I wiped my face quickly, but it was too late. The Elvises gathered around me. One of them put her arm around my shoulders. It felt so much like Tammy’s arm that I started to cry again.

  “It’s okay. You can tell us what’s wrong.” “Maybe we can help.”

  I tried talking, but the sobs choked off my voice.

  “She can’t talk until she stops crying.”

  “Let’s do one of our numbers for her. That will cheer her up.”

  “Or make her cry harder.”

  “Would you like to hear one of our numbers?” Elvis asked me.

  I nodded.

  “She said yes! Places, everybody! I’ll introduce us.”

  Everyone took their places. “Ladies and gentlemen,” she began. I looked around. There was no one watching but me.

  “We proudly present — The All Girls Elvis Group!”

  “T.A.G.E.G. for short.”

  “A one and a two and...” They started belting out “Jailhouse Rock.”

  The All Girls Elvis Group was really terrible, but they did stop me from crying. They sounded even worse than I do when I sing the soup song.

  They took their bows as I applauded.

  “Now, my dear. Tell us what’s wrong.”

  I told them the story. What else could I do? When a bunch of women make fools out of themselves to help you feel better, you kind of have to trust them.

  I told them everything, about Mom and my brothers, the fight with the skinheads, the broken windows, and my need to find X. I talked until I ran out of words.

  “Come with us,” Elvis said. “Let’s go call your mother. Then we’ll drive you home. We’ve got plenty of time before our performance.”

  “Yeah, and no one’s all that anxious to hear us, anyway.”

  I could believe that. “But I can’t go home!” I protested.

  “Yes, you can,” Elvis insisted, and at that moment, I knew she was right. I could.

  “There’s a pay phone right across the street.” Elvis pointed. “As soon as Dracula finishes his phone call, we’ll call your mom.”

  “We don’t have a phone,” I told them. “It was disconnected.”

  “That sounds familiar,” one of them said. “Well, we’ll just drive on over there, then.”

  “I live in Regent Park,” I said, in case she didn’t want to drive there.

  “Perfect,” she said. “So does Elvis over there.”

  “Yup, Elvis is alive and well and living in Regent Park,” said the Regent Park Elvis.

  The Regent Park Elvis gave me her address and phone number, and I told her where our apartment was. All the Elvises gave me a hug. Then the driving Elvis and I climbed into the van and headed for home.

  Elvis came up to the apartment with me. Mom was waiting at the open door. I felt her arms go around me, and I knew everything would be all right.

  Mom was so glad to see me she almost forgot to thank Elvis for bringing me home, and that’s very glad, because Mom’s big on thank-yous!

  The boys were still awake. We all went into the living room, and Mom and I hugged and cried, and the boys played with their button collection, and that was the end of the adventure.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  ROUND-UP

  Nothing ever really ends, though. Things go on and on. They change shape sometimes, but they still go on and on. After we got through crying, Mom and I talked until we fell asleep next to David and Daniel, right in the living room. We started talking again as soon as we woke up the next morning.

  Tammy apologized to me for not believing me about the windows. They found the kids who did it. They didn’t even go to that school. They didn’t know they were breaking Miss Melon’s windows. They didn’t know Miss Melon.

  She also said she knew me well enough to know that I wouldn’t leave in the middle of the night to find somebody named X unless there really was somebody named X. She said she was sorry she hadn’t believed me.

  The principal phoned Tammy and said they’d be glad to take me back. Tammy told him to go suck an egg, or words to that effect.

  I told Tammy about the fight with the skinheads, and she wanted to go right out with her rolling pin to teach them a lesson, but I convinced her not to. The whole thing already seemed like a long time ago.

  I was with Mom the day the social worker drove us and the boys to the group home. They were going to live there.

  The social worker wasn’t as bad as I thought. Her fangs weren’t nearly as long, and she wasn’t as slimy as she was when I first met her. She treated the boys well, and they seemed to like her, and that’s the important thing.

  The group home was really nice. It was a big house on a small farm out in the countryside, near a small town. It was quiet, with hardly any cars around. It was also right next door to a provincial park, so they could go for long walks. The staff liked special kids like Daniel and David, and they planned to teach them to do things.

  Coming back to the apartment the night after the boys moved out was awful. Juba came over, and I called the Regent Park Elvis and she came over (although she didn’t look li
ke Elvis anymore). That got us through the first night, but there were a lot more to come that were just as hard.

  Tammy enroled me in a new school, but I didn’t like it any better than the last one, and they didn’t like me. Tammy didn’t know what to do with herself during the day. For five years, David and Daniel took up all her time, and now they were gone.

  We tried to pretend we were cheerful, but we weren’t fooling each other. If we could have seen the boys regularly, it would have been different, but there was no bus service from Toronto to the group home, and the social worker was too busy to drive us there.

  Everything I used to love fell flat — Saturday morning breakfast, working the weddings, going to the library, even looking at my atlases — everything. Even the soup song didn’t sound right without David and Daniel around to hear it.

  One night at supper, Mom put down her fork and said, “I can’t do this anymore, Khyber. I can’t stand not being able to be with the boys.”

  “You mean we can bring them back here to live with us?”

  Tammy shook her head. “No, we can’t do that. I still think they’re in the best place for them right now.” She started to smile. “How would you like it if we went to live near them?”

  It didn’t take me long to decide I would like it very much.

  Once again, the Elvises came to our rescue. The driving Elvis drove us to the small town. We found a house with an apartment for rent over the garage. It’s one mile from the group home and one mile from the town. The Elvises are helping us move in a couple of days.

  Mom’s talking about going back to school.

  When I went to work last Saturday, I told Valerie we were moving. Carolyn and Hammond are working there now, part-time, in exchange for a bed in the basement and three meals a day. Valerie complains about the dog, but I saw her feeding him when she thought no one was looking.

  “Your mom already told me you were leaving,” Valerie said. “Here, take this. It’s a goodbye present.”

  I started to cry. Valerie had bought me the greatest backpack in the world.

  Valerie tried to be rude when I said goodbye, but instead she started to cry, too, and gave me a great big hug in front of everyone in the restaurant! She’ll probably never live that down.

  Juba cried, too, when we told her we were leaving. We all cried, and for a little while, I wished we weren’t going.

  “I wish Juba could come with us,” I said to Tammy. “I wish Valerie could come, too. She could work in the restaurant in town. She would have a whole new crowd of people to be rude to.”

  “For an explorer, you sure like things to stay the same,” Mom said, and I guess maybe I do.

  That’s about it, except for one thing.

  I saw X a few days ago. I hadn’t seen her since the night the skinheads beat us up, but suddenly, there she was, in the park in her usual spot, waiting for me.

  We met up in Allan Gardens. We sat in the greenhouse, since it was too cold to sit outside. I passed her a sandwich.

  “We’re moving,” I told her. “We’re leaving the city to be near my brothers.”

  X looked closely at her sandwich.

  “A lot has happened since we saw each other last. Everything’s all packed up. We’re moving in a few days.”

  She didn’t say anything. I complained to her about school, for old time’s sake as much as anything else. She started eating.

  When she was finished, I slid a folded-up piece of paper over to her. “It’s a map,” I said. “It shows you how to find us. The secret police will never think of looking for you there.”

  I stood up to go. “Goodbye, X,” I said, holding out my hand. “Thanks for being my friend.”

  Slowly, slowly, X reached out her hand until it was holding mine.

  “Goodbye,” she said. Then she picked up her blue suitcase and walked away.

  Life will never be the same again. No more bothering people at weddings, no more grumpy Valerie on Saturday mornings, no more sliding peanut butter and corn syrup sandwiches across a park bench for X. But there will be other things, new things. That’s how it is with change. You leave one thing behind, and there’s something else to take its place.

  It will be like that when I finally get to go exploring. No matter how much I like a place, I’ll have to leave it behind before I can go on somewhere new.

  I’m going to turn myself into a walking, talking backpack — full of pockets and secret compartments for tucking away memories of each place I visit.

  And when I finally take my place in the middle of the Khyber Pass, I’ll have bits and pieces inside me from people and places all over the world, and everyone who meets me will go away thinking they’ve met someone very interesting indeed.