Brendan Buckley's Universe and Everything in It

by Sundee T. Frazier

  “I don’t care. Just stay away from him. You hear me?” Mom wasn’t hard to hear. “Stay away.” She pounded her fist on the hood.

  When I looked back, Ed had rolled up his window. He didn’t look at me. He just drove off.

  Mom fell into the car and slumped over the wheel. Her shoulders shook as if she was crying, but she didn’t make any sound.

  I’ve only seen my mom cry a few times—when she broke her ankle sliding into home plate at a police department picnic, when one of the pregnant girls she had helped killed herself and at Grampa Clem’s funeral.

  The seat and everything around me felt like sandstone, like if I spoke, the walls might crumble.

  After what felt like a really long time but according to my watch was only two minutes, Mom sat up, wiped her nose with the back of her hand and got out of the car.

  “Where are you going?” I asked.

  “Same place as you. Get out.”

  She led me by the elbow to the front door and rang the bell. Khalfani’s mom answered.

  “Kate, you’re early. Is something wrong?”

  I kept my eyes down.

  “Brendan, I believe you owe Mrs. Jones an explanation. And an apology.”

  “We didn’t go to the library,” I said quietly. I stared at the small stones that made up their porch. “Sorry.”

  “Then where did you go?” Mrs. Jones’s voice stayed steady, calm. Then suddenly, “Khalfani!” She turned and looked toward the stairs.

  “I went to see my grandpa,” I said. “Khalfani just took me to the bus stop. He only did it because I asked him to.”

  “I’m so sorry about this, Doreen. Brendan will be punished, don’t worry.”

  Mom was silent the whole way home. When we pulled into our driveway, she turned off the car and sat. “You’re not seeing him anymore.”

  My face got hot. “What do you mean?”

  “Exactly what I just said.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I said so. He’s a mean man.”

  “You’re the one who was mean.”

  Her head turned so quickly, I was surprised she didn’t break her neck. “You don’t even know the half of it.”

  “Because you won’t tell me.”

  She put her hands over her face and exhaled loudly. Her hands dropped in her lap. “I don’t want you around him. And that’s final.”

  My hands balled into fists. “You can’t tell me what to do, because he’s my grandpa!”

  “Well, I’m your mother, and I still know what’s best for you. That cranky old man in his run-down truck doesn’t.”

  “I like his truck better than your stupid car.” I almost said that he’d let me drive it, but I stopped myself just in time. “And he’s a scientist. Like me!” I got out and slammed the door as hard as I could.

  I was going with Ed on that expedition. Nothing would stop me now.

  CHAPTER 16

  I was grounded for two weeks. I couldn’t go to Khalfani’s. I couldn’t even go beyond our front yard, except to attend Tae Kwon Do. Dad would call every hour when he and Mom were at work, and I had to answer the phone.

  I spent Saturday morning in my room. A knock came at my door. I could tell it was Dad. He knocked like a police detective.

  If it had been Mom, I might not have answered, but if I did that with Dad, I’d get into worse trouble than I already was in. “Come in,” I said. I sat at my computer, reading on the Internet about caring for a pet salamander.

  Dad sat on my bed. “You’re old enough to know the truth,” he said. “Your mom finally agrees with me.”

  The truth. What I’d been searching for all along. What every scientist was after. What every Tae Kwon Do warrior defended.

  I turned and faced Dad. He put his hands on his knees and looked me in the eyes. “Your grandfather didn’t want us to get married because I’m black. When we did, he cut off ties with your mom and they haven’t spoken since.”

  “But—” My insides felt like a sleeping bag stuffed into a small sack and cinched tight. I wanted to say, “He’s been nice to me, he’s given me his minerals, and he plays chess with Mr. Henderson.” Those things didn’t change the facts, but couldn’t Ed have changed?

  I slumped back in my chair, trying to make sense of this new data. Hard data that couldn’t be denied.

  Ed DeBose had been like those bullies in the park. Even if he was different now, at some point he hadn’t thought black people were as good as white. The hypothesis I hadn’t wanted to consider was the correct one after all.

  “I don’t get it” was all I could think of to say. I stared at the rocks in my window.

  “You know what Tae Kwon Do teaches about parents.”

  “To respect them,” I said. “But what about Mom and Ed?”

  “For now you need to do what she has asked. No more visits behind our backs. She may come around eventually…if you still want to see him.”

  I glanced at Dad, pulled my lips to one side. Did I? I didn’t know.

  Dad patted my shoulder, then left the room.

  I pulled out Ed’s magnifying glass and held it over my arm. I looked at the black hairs growing like grass out of the tiny holes in my skin. I tried to see inside the holes to what was underneath. But all I could see was brown.

  Brown. The color Dad had painted our house. The color of Mom’s healthy pizza crust. And the root beer I loved to drink. And like Grampa Clem’s skin, except lighter. Milk chocolate.

  Or the color of dirt.

  Ed had told me that without soil, we couldn’t live. There’d be no trees and plants, no oxygen.

  I looked at my skin again. If the brown on my skin had been dirt, I could have washed it away. Was that what Ed DeBose wanted? For us all to be the same color? Then would he have loved me enough to find me, instead of the other way around?

  That night, Gladys came over so Mom and Dad could attend a police fund-raiser. If my parents had told her about my secret visits to Ed’s, or about me getting into trouble, she didn’t say anything, thankfully.

  Sitting at the table eating Mom’s pizza, I asked Gladys again why some white people thought black people weren’t as good as them.

  She pushed her glasses up on her face. “I used to ask myself that question all the time. Clem never did, but I did. And you know what I figured out?”

  “What?”

  “There is no explanation. So I stopped asking, and went on living. Just because someone can’t appreciate beauty doesn’t mean God’s gonna stop making it.” She put her hand on my arm. It felt rough against my skin. “Look at you.”

  I was brown, but I came from white people, too. A mixture. Like a rock more than a mineral.

  Ed DeBose liked minerals better. Because they were pure.

  After dinner, I went to my room. I opened my Book of Big Questions. Next to my question “What makes white people be mean to black people?” I wrote, “No answer.”

  Even as I wrote it, though, my palms itched and my stomach fizzed. I didn’t like not having answers. Not having an answer was like Gladys not being able to figure out the last word on her crossword puzzle, or one of Dad’s screwdrivers not being in its place. None of us could do anything else until that space was filled.

  If I asked Ed DeBose this question, what would he say? Would he have an answer for me? I would ask him, straight out. As Grampa Clem would say, no more beating around the bush.

  CHAPTER 17

  At the police fund-raiser, Mom and Dad won a fancy overnight getaway at some expensive hotel. Gladys would spend the following Friday night and all day Saturday with me.

  It was my chance. I would sneak away—one last time, I promised—and ask Ed for an explanation of what he’d done. I would be disobeying Mom, but I needed an answer to my question. And she wasn’t going to let me see him—at least not for a very long time.

  Plus, what if Ed had changed his mind about Mom and Dad’s marriage but, like Gladys said, was just too stubborn to admit it? Maybe he k
new things were broken and he just didn’t know how to fix them, like me with the pick in my closet. But maybe I could help bring everyone back together again.

  I also wouldn’t mind having that thunder egg I wanted.

  On Monday, I called Ed. He didn’t pick up, and no answering machine came on. I tried five more times that week before I finally reached him Thursday night. I had to whisper because my parents were home.

  “Didn’t think I’d be hearing from you again,” he said.

  “I’ve called you six times. You should get an answering machine.”

  “Don’t need one,” he said.

  I didn’t have time to argue. “This Saturday.” I felt like one of the undercover detectives Dad works with. “Can we go on the expedition?”

  The line buzzed between his phone and mine.

  “I don’t know about that, now. Your mom—”

  “She’s going away. It’ll work.”

  “Well…I guess if you really want to go. It’s hard for me to turn down a request to hunt thunder eggs. Six a.m. At the end of your street.”

  “Six a.m.,” I repeated.

  “Make sure you bring a hat. The sun can get hot.”

  “Okay. Um, Ed?” It was the first time I’d called him anything. He didn’t respond. “Are you glad?”

  “About what?” he asked.

  “That I’m your grandson.” I held my breath.

  More silence. The buzzing sound moved into my head.

  “Sure I am,” he said.

  My heart jumped into my throat.

  “Saturday morning, then,” he said.

  “Saturday morning.” The expedition was on.

  Friday night, I told Gladys I didn’t feel well so I could go to bed early. I even skipped ice cream to make it seem more convincing. She tried to get me to suck on the thermometer, but I talked my way out of it. I would feel better if I just went to sleep, I said.

  In my room, I ripped a piece of paper out of one of my notebooks. I needed to write Gladys a note. I didn’t want her to do something crazy like call the police, which she would do if I disappeared with no explanation. And if she did that, the police would contact Dad in a nanosecond.

  I sat at my desk and wrote.

  Dear Gladys,

  You might be mad when you read this, but try not to be. You always say you like surprises, right? SURPRISE! I’ve gone on a rock expedition with Ed DeBose. I don’t know if Mom and Dad told you, but I found out where he lives and I’ve gone to see him a few times.

  Now I need to ask him about something very important. So don’t worry, and if my mom calls, please don’t tell her. I don’t mean to make you an accomplice, but this is just something I have to do. If you help me out, I will buy you one of your favorite Peanut Buster Parfaits at Dairy Queen (even though there are way too many peanuts per square inch in those things). I will be home before dark.

  Your Milk Chocolate,

  Brendan Samuel Buckley

  I folded the note and wrote Gladys’s name on it. Then I put my question notebook, my Tacoma Rainiers cap and some money from my tackle box into my backpack and lay down to sleep. When I closed my eyes, though, all my thoughts whirled around my head like atoms.

  I got up and put Ed’s black bundle into my backpack—broken pick and all. It was time for me to give it back to him and tell him I was sorry I’d let it get busted.

  Then I stretched out on my bed and waited for the sun to rise.

  When the alarm on my watch went off at 5:15, I shoved my arm under my pillow to muffle the sound. A gang of wild geese could probably land on Gladys’s head and she wouldn’t wake up, but I didn’t want to take any chances.

  I brushed my teeth quietly, then grabbed my backpack and tiptoed into the kitchen to get a root beer. I pulled on the fridge door and a bottle of salad dressing fell over, setting off a chain reaction. The crash sounded like a multicar pileup in the silence of our house.

  I held my breath, waiting to hear Gladys’s door open and her croaky voice asking me what I was doing up so early. I peeked around the corner. Nothing.

  I grabbed a root beer, then decided to take two, one for Ed. I put my note to Gladys on the counter and slipped out the door into the early gray light.

  When I got to the end of my street, my watch said 5:57 a.m. Ed had said you can’t be too early. I watched for his truck to come over the hill. At 5:59, it appeared. My body felt like it was having an earthquake. I couldn’t tell if I was cold or nervous or both.

  What if Mom and Dad came home early? What if my note spontaneously combusted and Gladys didn’t know where I’d gone? It could happen. I’d read stories about spontaneous combustion—where something, or someone, suddenly caught on fire for no apparent reason. I knew there must be a reason and science could explain it, but so far no one had figured it out.

  The green truck pulled up to the curb. “You’re on time,” Ed said as I got in. P.J. barked from the back. He jumped up and put his front paws on the window between us. His breath steamed the glass.

  “I have an alarm on my watch,” I said. “It works underwater up to five hundred feet.”

  “That’s handy. In case you ever need to meet someone at a sunken ship. You wouldn’t want to be late to that.”

  I couldn’t tell if he was being serious or making fun of me. We drove in silence. I looked out the window a lot. Was it okay just to be quiet? Grampa Clem and I were always quiet when we went fishing, but it didn’t matter, because we were used to each other. Ed DeBose and I weren’t so much.

  Plus now I knew the secret about him, the reason I hadn’t known him all these years. The truth hung in the air, unspoken. I could almost feel it, like a boulder sitting between us.

  “Where are we going?” I asked.

  “Red Top Mountain.”

  “Have you been there before?”

  “A few times, but not to the place we’re going. My buddy told me about a new spot.”

  We were silent again for a long time.

  “Want a maple donut?” He pointed to a white bag on the floor by my feet. “Bought ’em fresh this morning.”

  I picked one out. The frosting oozed over my fingers. I bit into it and the sweet stickiness coated the top of my mouth and made my teeth shiver.

  “Kind of gooey, but they’re good,” Ed said, taking a bite of his own.

  I finished the donut and wiped my fingers on my pants. My eyeballs felt coated with a thin layer of sand and my eyelids drooped in spite of how hard I tried to keep them open. I leaned my head against the door and fell asleep.

  A bump to the side of my head woke me up. The truck was bouncing along a gravel road. Pine trees closed in on either side. The road grew narrower with each turn as we wound our way up a mountain.

  “How long have we been driving?” I asked.

  “Couple hours.”

  A couple of hours? I’d slept the whole way.

  We came around a bend and Ed slowed down. I sucked in my breath.

  Two gigantic animals, like horses with small heads, tiny ears and huge bodies, stood less than twenty yards away! Their reddish brown fur gleamed in the sunlight. They looked at us, then trotted up the road. Their rear ends were light tan.

  “What do you think about that?” Ed asked.

  “Are they moose?”

  “No moose around here. Elk cows. Females. See how they don’t have antlers?”

  I nodded as the elk turned sharply and disappeared down the hill to our left. When the truck reached the spot where the elk had been, I looked into the young pine trees, standing side by side like rows of Roman soldiers. The animals had been so large and yet, just like that, they had vanished, as if they’d never been there at all.

  “People go to London and Paris to see what they think are the wonders of the world, but I could stay right here and not see everything I want to before I die.”

  I didn’t like Ed talking about dying, but at that moment, I felt exactly the same way.

  The truck climbed and climbed
until I thought we would drive into the bright blue sky; then the road flattened and we drove along a ridge. Across the valley rose mountains like the one we were on. Trees, everywhere I looked. The pointy green tips crowded so close together, I could have been seeing double. I squinted. A giant green blanket covered everything.

  Ed pulled over at a wide spot in the road and we got out. “That’s where we’re going.” He pointed down the hill. “I love thunder eggs—like Christmas presents. You never know what you’re going to find inside.”

  He grabbed a huge pick from the back of the truck. It looked like the kind miners used. “Think you can manage this?” he asked.

  “Sure,” I said, rushing forward and taking it. P.J. nipped at the handle. Ed turned back to the truck for a shovel. The air smelled a lot better than it did in Tacoma, fresh and cold like ice water.

  A dark slash in the sky made me look up. A brown hawk dipped one wing and circled right over us. I pointed it out to Ed and we watched it together—dipping, soaring, floating.

  Then we crossed the road and started down the hill.

  Thunder eggs, here we come.

  CHAPTER 18

  Ed pointed to a fluorescent-orange ribbon tied to the top of a short pine. “My buddy put those up to mark the way,” he said.

  Without the ribbons, we would’ve been lost. I felt like Lewis and Clark. No path. Not even footprints. The brush came halfway to my knees and I had to pick my feet up high each time I stepped.

  Bushes rustled nearby and my legs jumped to action, ready to perform a yup cha gi—side kick. Brown and white fur flashed between the trees.

  P.J. I hadn’t been able to see him through all the growth. I exhaled, then kept tromping through the brush.

  I held the pick in front of me and used it to push tree limbs out of the way. Ed’s jerky movements caused branches to whip around everywhere. I used sang dan mahk kees—high blocks—to keep from getting smacked in the face. Dew soaked my shirt and pants. We kept going down.

  By now, Gladys had found my note. I could see her yelling at me, or more accurately, at the air. What if she called the police anyway? As long as I had my thunder egg and an answer from Ed by the time they found us, I didn’t care.