The Great Googlini

by Sara Cassidy

  She opens the “birthday chest,” which is really just the bottom drawer of her filing cabinet, decorated with pink ribbons. “Do you still like dinosaurs?”

  “They’re all right.”

  I’ve been reaching into the surprise chest since kindergarten. Back then I’d yank the drawer open without even saying hello. By third grade I’d learned to wait until the drawer was open and Principal Jansen was out of the way. Now I don’t even look as she opens the drawer. Instead I watch two seagulls fight over a forgotten lunch bag in the schoolyard. They tear the bag open, and Goldfish crackers spray into the wood chips. Fish and chips!

  It’s not that I’m less excited about the birthday surprise. I’ve just learned not to look excited. Fifth-graders don’t jump up and down. But inside I’m jumping up and down.

  Principal Jansen nudges me toward the drawer. “Take a look.”

  Wind-up cars, paratroopers, finger traps, snap bracelets. I put in a hand and rummage gently. No dinosaurs. I plunge farther in and pull up a handful from the depths. Two dinosaurs! But the wrong kind. I get my second hand involved and bulldoze double scoops, sifting the toys through my fingers.

  “Looking for anything in particular?”

  “Nah,” I say, churning through the toys.

  I pull on the handle to see if the drawer opens any farther. There’s a rumor that there are still full-size chocolate bars at the very back, left over from the last principal. But I’m not looking for those. I pull up another giant fistful of toys. One toy bounces out and under Principal Jansen’s desk. I peer into the darkness.

  There it is, enveloped in a dust cloud, stubby legs in the air—the elusive Stegosaurus. The holy grail. I get on my belly and reach. I wiggle my fingertips, stick out my tongue.

  I get it! I worm out from under the desk, coming up too early and bumping my head. The noise is huge.

  I’m sweaty, my head is pounding, and the front of my shirt is brown with floor dirt.

  “So that toy is okay?” Principal Jansen asks.

  “Yeah, it’s okay.” I shrug. I’m clinging to the Stegosaurus so hard its plates dig into my hand.

  “Have a big year, Filip.”

  Every year Mom forces me to have a birthday party. I’ve tried pouting, crying, kicking things—the works—but she has never backed down. On Wednesday, while Uncle Mato and I kicked the soccer ball back and forth, I told him I really, really, really, really didn’t want to have a bunch of kids over.

  “I heard you at the first really,” he said.

  Uncle Mato suggested “peace negotiations.” An hour later Mom and I faced each other across a table at The Paprenjak while Uncle Mato, calling himself an “arbitrator,” jotted notes on a napkin.

  “I don’t get a lot of chances to throw a birthday party,” Mom protested. “I’ve only got one kid. You.”

  “Throw a party for Dad. Or for yourself,” I said.

  Mom shook her head. “Adults are no fun. Anyway, what kind of mom doesn’t throw a birthday party for her beloved child?”

  “A mom whose kid doesn’t want to have a birthday party.”

  Uncle Mato wrote furiously on the napkin. He wagged his marker. “Filip, here’s the thing. Your mother wants to do something nice for you.”

  “She always does nice things for me.”

  Mom fluttered. “I do?” She smiled. “Well, I try to.” Then her eyes hardened. “Listen, if you don’t have a birthday party, the other kids won’t invite you to theirs.”

  “Awesome!”

  Uncle Mato translated. “Sister, Filip isn’t interested in attending other children’s birthday parties.”

  Mom tried a different angle. “You’ll hurt people’s feelings by not inviting them to your party.”

  “But there’s no party that I’m not inviting them to.”

  Uncle Mato drew a tick under Logical Arguments.

  “Anyway,” I said, “the only kid who cares—who might care—is Ivan.”

  Uncle Mato scribbled a few words, then multiple exclamation marks. “How about this?” he said. “You have a birthday party—”

  Mom brightened.

  “—with one guest. Ivan.”

  Mom bobbed her head, as if she was swishing the idea around in her brain.

  “And your uncles.”

  “Yes,” Mom decided. “That is okay with me.”

  “Filip?” Uncle Mato asked.

  I didn’t want to give in too quickly. “If I can have smoked sausage. And cheesy potato. And baklava.”

  “Baklava?” Mom asked. “Birthday candles stand up better in hot cross buns.”

  “Hot cross buns are for Easter.”

  “Right. Well, I’m not sure about baklava.”

  “The honey will hold the candles in place,” Uncle Mato cooed, licking his lips. “You heard the part about the uncles being invited, right?”

  Ivan and I have a few hours to hang out before Uncle Mato, Uncle Boris and Uncle Boris’s boyfriend, Kai, arrive for my birthday supper. We feed Hito her birthday bloodworms.

  I got Hito for my birthday three years ago, which means our birthday is on the same day. Bloodworms are her standard birthday present. (I didn’t realize Hito was a girl until a year after I named her.) Normally she just gets earthworms from wherever I dig them up.

  After that Ivan and I play Minecraft, then mess around on Google. When the uncles arrive, Kai shows us a few tricks created by Google programmers. If you type in do a barrel roll, the screen starts to spin. Search Zerg rush and a bunch of circles try to gobble up everything on the screen. You have to click each circle three times to get rid of it.

  “Time to get off the computer,” Mom says after a while.

  “You’re getting googly-eyed,” Kai says. “Get it? Google-y-eyed!”

  “What does google mean, anyway?” Mom asks.

  “A google is a number,” Ivan explains. “A big number. As you know, a million is a one with six zeroes, and a billion is a one with nine zeroes. Well, a google is a one with a hundred zeroes.”

  “It’s so huge, there isn’t a google of anything in the world,” I say.

  “Not even blades of grass?” Mom asks.

  “No.”

  “Grains of sand?”

  “Nope.”

  “Bread crumbs?”

  “No.”

  “How about bread-crumb crumbs? Like, if you step on a crumb and it breaks into smaller crumbs.”

  “No.”

  “Atoms?”

  “No.”

  Mom plants a kiss on my forehead. “Well, my love for you is bigger than a google.”

  I glance at Ivan. He just smiles. “My dad says stuff like that too.”

  “Happy birthday to you

  Happy birthday to you

  Happy birthday, dear Filip

  Happy birthday to you!”

  Dad puts the “birthday cake” in front of me—ten sticky baklava triangles, each one pierced with a birthday candle waving a flame.

  “Make a wish!” Uncle Boris booms.

  I fill my lungs, but I can’t think of a thing to wish for. The candles slump into wax lumps. I finally blow.

  The first nine go out easily, but the last one is stubborn.

  I close in on the tenth candle flame and choke out my last puff of breath. Whoo. The flame vanishes. A plume of smoke swirls up from the black wick.

  “What did you wish for?” Ivan asks.

  “Don’t tell,” Kai advises. “It won’t come true.”

  I say nothing.

  My wish was the ultimate flake out—I wished to save my wish for later.

  Uncle Mato starts singing “Happy Birthday” in Croatian. He has a sparkly voice to go with his sparkly smile. Normally everyone would join in, but today everyone listens, forks frozen halfway to their mouths. Uncle Mato’s voice winds through the room.

  “Sretan rođendan ti

  Sretan rođendan ti

  Sretan rođendan, dragi Filip

  Sretan rođendan ti!”


  When Uncle Mato finishes, Dad’s face is red and shiny, and he makes a sound like he’s choking on his baklava.

  Dad’s crying!

  Rap-rap. Mrs. Zupan taps on our kitchen window with her fishing pole. Dad wipes his eyes on his sleeve.

  Mrs. Zupan holds out a present. “Sorry I couldn’t make it to your party, Filip, but I couldn’t miss my Happy Joints exercise class.”

  “What is it?” I ask, reaching for the soft bundle.

  But I know exactly what the present is. I tear away the thick, velvety wrapping paper, which I suspect is wallpaper. When Mrs. Zupan isn’t cooking, she’s pasting up wallpaper. Her apartment is getting smaller and smaller.

  “Go on, open,” Mrs. Zupan urges.

  It’s a…sweater vest!

  Mrs. Zupan has knitted a sweater vest for every one of my last four birthdays. They’re kind of…incredible. I never wear them out of the house. What I do is wear them at the computer, where she can see me. They’re actually really warm. And I am growing out of last year’s. This year’s is maroon. With yellow diamonds. And a wide orange waistband.

  “Nice!” Ivan says. “Put it on.”

  I pull the vest over my head. Mrs. Zupan sizes me up. “Handsome!”

  “Would you like a piece of birthday baklava?” I ask.

  “Yes, please. I worked up quite an appetite doing wrist roundabouts.”

  I extend a baklava across Apatosaurus Chasm, but halfway there the fork slides off the plate. Ivan and I stare as it tumbles down, flipping and glinting, getting smaller and smaller—then shhkk.

  “Yes!”

  We race down the building’s echoing stairwell.

  The fork is three centimeters deep in the dirt, tines first, a silver flag.

  Ivan and I high-five each other. “Sick!”

  “What’s so exciting?”

  A voice like fast water. Frances June D’Allaire. She’s home from the pool, curly hair still wet, goggle imprints around her eyes, a perfume of chlorine. I breathe in deeply.

  “A fork?” I squeak.

  Ivan nudges me forward. He has this crazy idea that I have a crush on Frances June.

  “We were just looking at how it landed—”

  But Frances June isn’t listening. She’s staring at my vest.

  “Oh. Mrs. Zupan—”

  “I know all about it,” Frances says. “She made me a swimsuit cover-up to keep me warm between races. It’s pink and brown.”

  “It’s Filip’s birthday,” Ivan blurts.

  “Happy birthday!” Frances says. Then she turns and runs toward her building, where her mother is holding the door.

  “You too!” I shout.

  The door closes behind her.

  “You too?” Ivan asks.

  “Well, it could be her birthday,” I mumble.

  “Yes, it is statistically possible…” Ivan’s voice trails off as he starts arranging numbers in his head. “Actually, more possible than you’d think…”

  Back at the apartment, Mrs. Zupan and Mom are eating their baklava and chatting. Mom has pulled a chair up to our kitchen window, Mrs. Zupan to hers.

  I drop the fallen fork in the sink. When Mom and Mrs. Zupan hear the clink, they stop talking. Which is weird. Mom and Mrs. Zupan never stop talking. In fact, everything I know about adults is from listening in on their conversations.

  Mom winks. “Nice vest. You look very noble.”

  Mom often says she would prefer a “noble” son to a “Nobel” son. She doesn’t realize that I hope to be both noble and win the Nobel Prize.

  Before I can answer, Dad, Uncle Boris, Kai and Uncle Mato swarm me. They grab me by my feet, my arms and my armpits and lift me in the air until my nose nearly touches the ceiling. Then they basically drop me on the hard kitchen floor.

  Bump! Ow!

  And up again. And down again.

  Bump! Ow!

  Bump! Ow!

  Bump! Ow!

  Bump! Ow!

  Bump! Ow!

  Bump! Ow!

  Bump! Ow!

  Bump! Ow!

  Bump! Ow!

  “And one for good luck!”

  “No!” I scream.

  “Oh, you want two for good luck?”

  “Noooo!”

  They give me three for good luck. Then they give me a present—a model kit of a turbine invented by Nikola Tesla. Ivan turns pale, he’s so jealous.

  While Uncle Boris and Kai get their coats on, Uncle Mato finds me in the living room and squats down. This worked when I was little, so we could be at eye level, but now that I’m taller it feels silly, since Uncle Mato has to look up at me. “I may not be able to play soccer this week,” he says.

  “I’ve been replaced by a nurse?”

  “Sort of. But you and I will hang out soon, okay?”

  “Sure.”

  Uncle Mato gives me a long, serious hug.

  “Why such a long, serious hug?” I ask.

  Uncle Mato shrugs. My stomach clenches up like it’s preparing for a punch. But Uncle Mato just kisses the top of my head. “Happy birthday, double-digit Filip.”

  Ivan and I work on my turbine model until Ivan’s stomach growls and he heads to the kitchen for another piece of baklava.

  When he returns, he’s shaky.

  “Did you break a glass or something?”

  “No.”

  “What then?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Uh, obviously something.”

  “Okay, something.” Ivan gnaws his tongue. “Your parents are talking at the supper table.”

  “That’s kind of normal.”

  “They’re talking about—” Ivan swallows.

  “Me? It’s okay. I’m used to it.”

  “About your uncle Mato.”

  “About his new girlfriend?”

  “He has one? Cool! It’s about time too, hey? I mean—”

  “What were they talking about?”

  “Yeah, well, I guess, it seems, apparently, you know, like—”

  “Spit it out.”

  “He has cancer.”

  There’s the punch. But everything clicks into place too. Mom and Mrs. Zupan going quiet at the window. Dad crying when Uncle Mato sang. Mom at The Paprenjak, not wanting him to play soccer. How he met a nurse!

  “I’ll get your mom,” Ivan says, backing out of the room.

  A minute later Mom knocks at the door. She looks tired. “I didn’t want you to find out now. Definitely not on your birthday. Not until we know how bad it is. Or how not bad it is. You know, he could be fine. The lump could be benign.”

  “Lump?”

  “Near his bladder.”

  “Ugh.”

  “I’ll be heading off,” Ivan says. “Happy bir—well, not so happy, huh. Thanks for having me over. I’m sorry about your uncle.”

  I give him my worst look.

  “Hey,” Mom says. “Don’t dig a hole under the messenger.”

  “That’s not the expression, Mom.”

  “It isn’t Ivan’s fault, Filip.”

  I look at Ivan. His nose is red. That means he’s upset.

  “Sorry,” I say.

  “It’s okay. Let begonias be begonias, hey?”

  It’s our old joke.

  From before I was ten.

  From before Uncle Mato had cancer.

  After Ivan’s gone, I add the newest dinosaur to the shelf above my bed. I’ve got a full set now, one from every year at Bording Elementary: red Triceratops (kindergarten), green Tyrannosaurus rex (first grade), blue Brachiosaurus (second grade), orange Pteranodon (third grade), purple Velociraptor (fourth grade) and yellow Stegosaurus (fifth grade).

  I name each one for someone in my family—Mom, Dad, Uncle Boris, me, Uncle Mato. Then I dig four Playmobil forest animals out of the Fry’s Cocoa container to keep the dinosaurs company. They are Mrs. Zupan (elk), Ivan (bear), Kai (deer) and Frances (fox). I arrange them around the candle with the saved wish.

  I feed Hito the last of her birthday
bloodworms.

  Then I climb into bed.

  Pull the blankets over my head.

  And cry.

  When I wake up, nothing has changed. Uncle Mato still has cancer.

  “Is he going to die?” I ask Dad as we eat leftover cheesy potato for breakfast.

  “No.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I hope and I pray.”

  “But you don’t believe in God.”

  “I’m praying to everything. To this plate of cheesy potato even.” Dad takes a bite.

  “Come on, Dad.”

  “I am, Filip,” Dad says, his mouth full. “I’m praying to that bird up there. I’m praying to the floor. Let my baby brother be all right.” Dad swallows loudly and puts down his fork. “I can’t eat.”

  “Does it make a difference? Praying?”

  “It gives me something to do.”

  “He gets the results from the biopsy tomorrow,” Mom says on her way past with a cup of coffee. “That’s the cancer test. We’ll know whether the lump is benign or malignant. They took a piece of it last week to examine. Malignant means it could still grow and cause problems. Benign means it is not harmful.”

  I study the windowsill. There’s a long crack in the wood. With all my mental might I beam a message into the crack—benign.

  The school’s front door is as powerful as a drawbridge. Once I’m inside, I forget all about Uncle Mato. Well, a few times he comes to mind, and then my heart drops like a parachute with a hole torn in it. But then—z-z-z-zup—someone unzips a backpack, or—wham!—a door slams, and the page on my desk goes bright and calls to me, Hey, get to work.

  The walk home is harder. My head buzzes. Is Uncle Mato in pain? Will the lump be malignant? Will he die? Will we ever play soccer together again?

  I want everything the way it was.

  I’d even go back to being nine. Be nine. Benign.

  At home I head straight for the computer. I say, “Okay, Google. Cancer.”

  Up come the links—560 million results in less than a second.

  Cancer is a problem with cells. We start out as one cell. A tiny squishy egg thing. The one cell divides into two cells. Then those two divide, making four. Those four divide, making eight. And so on until you’re an adult with one hundred thousand billion cells. That’s a one with fourteen zeroes after it.