by Beth Vrabel
Then Dad went and got an offer for a yearlong assignment in Alaska. The untamed wilderness part of Alaska. You know, the part without schools. Without buildings, really. This is where Dad always wanted to study, ever since, as Mom put it, I was knee-high to a grasshopper. And Mom? You’d think she would’ve been on my side. After all, it was supposed to be her turn on the schedule and she worked hard to nail that cushy office job in Washington. Sure, I had a hard time picturing my always-on-the-move dad biding his time in some urban place. But it still stung a little how quickly he shucked away the idea of being a stay-at-home dad for the school year. Seriously, all it took was me saying, “Are you sure?” once and “Too bad there isn’t a way for both of you to do research at the same time” the next day, and Dad looked at me like, well, like a buffalo looks at prairie grass. Before I knew it, he had pulled me into a rib-crunching hug and started talking about how maybe his dad could take us in for a few months; how I was such a trooper and how much I’d get a kick out of the old man. It wasn’t like I agreed to it. I just sort of nodded and Mom congratulated me on being so mature while Dad spouted off buffalo facts.
So here we were, Mom and me, moving in with Gramps, who lived about forty-five minutes outside DC. Rather than rent an apartment like we’d planned, Mom and I were shacking up with Gramps for the next year.
And speaking of that school year, ironing out all the details for this new move-in-with-Gramps plan meant that I’d be starting classes two weeks after classes started for everyone else. So much for “normal.”
I glared out my window at Gramps’s house. Dad and Gramps aren’t exactly close; this was the first time I was seeing his place. Picture a long, sprawling, bright yellow ranch-style home, with one wall red-bricked and a giant metal star embedded on it. That was my first clue that Gramps might have an odd sense of style. Second clue, and I’m not even joking here, was the yard horse.
“What is that?” I pointed to the cement horse standing in the middle of a circle of pansies. It was more of a pony, I guess, standing upright as if about to jump or neigh or whatever horses do when they rear up. The body was painted brown and eyes black. Whoever painted it wasn’t light with the brush. The black eyes were drippy and scary looking.
Dad sighed. “It’s our yard horse.”
Mom and I stared at him until he continued. “Your grandma had a thing for horses. Always wanted a pony.” He shrugged, like a cement yard horse was a normal thing. Like it was a natural conclusion when you want a pony but lived in the suburbs.
“Why is it wearing a sunhat?” I asked. Its little triangle ears popped out from a yellow bonnet tied under its chin. A matching little yellow apron hung down from its waist.
Dad huffed again. “When my mom was sick, Dad dressed it up for the seasons to make her laugh. Became a habit, I guess.”
“Oh,” I said, noticing the gardening tools hanging in the horse’s apron pockets. “Because that’s not bizarre or anything.”
“Forget the horse, okay.” Dad’s voice boomed in the little car. “Clearly, Gramps could use the company.”
“Why? He has a yard horse,” I grumbled. I knew I was pushing it, but I felt this was one of those occasions where I was entitled to be a bit of a jerk. After all, I was about to move in with an old man who dressed up horses.
Dad waved his massive hand in the air like he was scattering my question. “He’s looking forward to getting to know his only grandson.”
If I could’ve rolled my eyes, I would’ve. He and Mom were totally playing Gramps and me. I heard him on the phone with Gramps a week or so ago, saying, “Ryder’s going to need a steady figure at home.” At the same time, he spouted off to me that the old man was the one who needed someone around.
“Can’t I come with you?” I whined. “I could help you with your research.”
“Now, Ryder,” said Mom, her hand landing lightly on my shoulder, “for months you’ve been droning on about wanting to go to a regular school again. Here’s your chance! And besides, the only way not to fall victim to swarms of Alaskan mosquitos is to not shower for a week at a time. It won’t be pleasant.”
I shuddered.
For a minute or two we sat in the car in silence, windows rolled down and sweat beading on my forehead. A high-pitched grunt to my right—my blind spot—made us turn our heads toward the sound. I had to shift entirely around to see what made the noise. If I had been at Addison, I would’ve popped out my fake eye and rubbed it against my shirt to show how surprised I was by what I saw. Because there, on the front lawn beside Gramps’s house, was a girl about my age. She held a huge stick-like thing, as tall as her and thinner than a broomstick. She whipped it around and stabbed it outward. The girl’s chin-length hair swirled around her face as she twirled and jumped in the most incredible dance I had ever seen. But it wasn’t a dance at all, I realized. It was like something out of a kung fu movie.
Dad whistled low. “At least we know the neighborhood’s safe.”
I slunk into the seat when Dad opened his car door. The girl stopped her routine and glanced over at us. Maybe she didn’t see me, I thought, forgetting for a minute that, of course, she saw me. I mean, I was twisted around in the wrong direction, staring at her with my mouth hanging open. I am nothing if not smooth, right?
I lay across the back seat and groaned.
“Come on, buddy. It’s just one year,” coaxed Mom, mistakenly thinking my groan was about my entire life and not just the pretty girl next door.
My parents had offered to enroll me again at Addison, something I hadn’t even told Alice. But I couldn’t swallow the shame of heading back after the big send-off everyone gave me. So here we were, stuck with Gramps. All I really remembered was his laugh, the way it sounded like a crow. Cah, cah, cah.
It echoed through me again just thinking about it. Cah, cah, cah.
Then I noticed Dad twisting his jaw around—a look usually reserved for me—and realized I was hearing Gramps’s laugh for real.
“There he is,” said Gramps, throwing open the back door to Mom’s car and holding out a huge wrinkled hand. “My grandson! Let me get a look at you.”
I grabbed his hand to shake and screamed as a jolt swept up my arm.
“Cah, cah, cah!” The crazy old man cackled. “Got you! I got you good!” He turned his hand to flash a round disc with buttons across the top. “The ol’ electric handshake. Got you good.”
I twisted my neck so fast to see if that girl was watching me and got the hot juice in my neck. You know, when you turn your head too quickly, something pops and boom! Hot juice trickles down the inside of your neck. Never happened to you? Lucky dog. Anyway, sure enough, there she was, arms crossed, leaning against that long staff and not even trying not to laugh.
I squinted at Gramps as he chuckled so hard he failed to notice no one else joined in. He was about my height, about five feet six inches. The little sprigs of hair he had left were combed down across the top of his head. He had Dad’s bushy eyebrows and brown-almost-black eyes and my skinny build. All I can say is, I guess Grams, may she rest in peace, must’ve been enormous, because Dad certainly didn’t get his Hulk-like build from this guy.
Mom darted forward, dodging Gramps’s outstretched hand and kissed his wrinkled cheek. “Hi, Richie. It’s nice to see you again.”
Technically, my name is Richie, too. In fact, sometimes Mom and Dad slip up and call me Richie, even though I’ve gone by my middle name of Ryder since sixth grade. (I mean, seriously, if you could go by Richie or Ryder, wouldn’t you choose option B?) I know what you’re thinking: Richie Ryder? Who the heck names their kid Richie Ryder? My parents. That’s who. Richie Ryder Raymond. Say it three times fast. I dare you.
“So, Richie, we’re going to be roomies, eh?” Gramps slipped the buzzer into his pocket.
“The boy prefers to be called Ryder now,” Dad huffed as he pulled my enormous suitcase from the trunk.
“That so,” Gramps replied. I didn’t like the wink he shot my way.
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“No, really,” I said. “My name’s Ryder.”
“Yeah. ’Course it is,” Gramps said, waving his hands like he was shooing away a fly. “No problem … Richie.” I thought I heard a tinkling laugh from next door but refused to look.
Dad slammed his huge hand on my shoulder, making me feel an inch shorter. “Bye, son.”
Part of me wanted to turn away from him, to load him down with guilt for leaving. But he looked so sad. I couldn’t do it.
“See you, Dad. Hope the buffalo are real … I don’t know. Whatever buffalo are supposed to be.”
Dad’s eyes welled up. “Thanks, Ryder,” he said and turned to Mom, wiping at his eyes.
And just because this particular moment couldn’t get any worse, that’s when Mom and Dad locked in a passionate embrace.
“Goodbye, my darling,” Dad boomed.
“I will miss you tremendously,” Mom cried. Dad pulled her against him as she sobbed into his massive chest.
I know, I know. Parents who love each other are a blessing, right? A good thing. But while Mom and Dad were certainly used to leaving me behind—ahem, at boarding school for the past two years—they were totally out of practice on being without each other.
If I wanted to know what my disgusted oh-geez-now-they’re-kissing face looked like, all I had to do was glance at Gramps.
“That’s just wrong,” he muttered. He slapped his hand on my shoulder and turned me away. “This is one of those times when you should be grateful you only have one eye, Richie.”
“It’s Ryder,” I snapped. “And I don’t think we’re at the point in our relationship where you can make one-eye jokes.” And here was the thing: I wasn’t even kidding. Just who did this guy think he was?
“Cah, cah, cah!” Gramps held his rolling stomach with his other hand. “Good one, kid. Good one.”
Not able to take another second of listening to Mom and Dad smooching or Gramps crowing, I grabbed my bag and threw open the front door to what would be home for the next year.
Then I quickly walked back outside, rubbed my eyes, and tried again. Clearly, Gramps’s front door was a portal to another dimension, one set in the 1970s. That’s the only explanation for what I saw before me.
Everything—and I mean everything—in Gramps’s house was straight out of the 1970s. Not familiar with the ’70s? You are so lucky. Here’s a run-down for you, from the ground up: vinyl paisley swirled linoleum flooring in olive green and gold, except for the orange shag carpeting in the living room. More orange on the wood-paneled walls.
I forced my feet to take more steps inside and fell onto a mustard yellow couch to take it all in. Rock hard. You’d think by now it’d at least be broken in. The nubby fabric made the underside of my sweaty knees itch. The coffee and end tables looked like huge pieces of wood dipped in about a thousand coats of clear nail polish. I think it’s called lacquer. All of this was jazzed up with mirrored panels inlaid on about every wall.
I heard the screen door swing open behind me and the sharp intake of Mom’s breath.
“Home, sweet home!” Gramps clapped his hands together.
I twisted to see Mom’s face. Her eyes were bugging out as she looked around the room. “We had planned to keep most of our furnishings in storage,” she finally whispered. “But maybe we could bring some here. You know, update things a bit.”
“Nah,” Gramps said. “Ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” He sat next to me, his arms extending out over the stiff top of the couch. “These are classic lines. Built to last. Can you believe this living room set has held up since Marlene decorated back before your father was born?” he asked me.
I numbly nodded. “I can believe it.”
I heard the ping of a text and grabbed my phone from my pocket. Gramps was sitting to the left of me so I sort of had to elbow him a little to read it.
“The lady friend already checking on you?” Gramps elbowed me back. I shuddered on the inside a little, realizing he thought I had been nudging him so he could see the text. It was from Alice.
How is it going?
I turned my body so my back was to Gramps.
My gramps is a disco-era-loving freak.
The ping from Alice’s return text sounded in seconds. One of the benefits of Addison School for the Blind: despite her eyes, Alice was now plugged in like the rest of our generation, using an app that let her hear both incoming messages and her own keystrokes as she types replies.
Can’t be so bad. You must’ve just gotten there.
I quickly typed back.
Remember when we went for that road trip with James and Sarah to the nature reserve and Tooter ate all the beef jerky from our backpack?
Alice pinged back a y for yes.
Remember how it started pouring. We had to put the windows up?
Another y.
And then Tooter started farting?
Small pause.
OMG.
And then he got diarrhea?
Uh-oh.
I sighed as I typed.
Yep. That’s how bad my life stinks right now.
Mom hoisted her suitcase into the guest room across from the living room. “I hear all those messages coming in, Ryder. You better connect to the Wi-Fi before you use up all your data for the month.”
And that’s when things went from bad to worse. Because there were no Wi-Fi options. “Gramps,” I asked in a shaky voice, “what’s your Wi-Fi network? I can’t find it on my phone.”
“Network? We get at least four networks on the television. All you need is right there.” He pointed to the gigantic box television set in the middle of the room. I had missed it at first, thinking it was a giant dresser. But, nope. It was a television.
I swallowed down the panic rising in my chest. “For the Internet, I mean. How do you get online?”
“Pshcaw!” Gramps waved his hands like he was shooing a bug. “Only time I go online is senior citizen free donut day at the Stop N Shop Grocery. Lines like you wouldn’t believe.”
Mom was suddenly beside me, her face pale and eyes wide. “You don’t have Internet access in your home?” she hissed.
“No need,” Gramps said in an if-it-ain’t-broke-don’t-fix-it voice.
Mom sank into the couch on the other side of me with a thud. “How am I going to do my research from home?”
“How am I going to stay in touch with my friends?” I shook my head. Could this be possible? Could there really be people who aren’t online at all? I forgot to blink and Artie got a little wobbly in my socket. (By the way, that’s my artificial eye’s name. Artie. Like, artificial eye.) I rubbed it back into place.
Mom slapped her hands on her thighs. “Well, I’ll call the cable company right now. See if we can upgrade.”
“Don’t have cable either,” Gramps piped up.
I felt all the bones leave my body as I crumpled farther into the nubby couch.
“Then I’ll arrange for that as well,” Mom said. Her usual buzzing soft tone was gone. She sounded a lot like Dad, actually, all gruff and serious. She was on the phone with the cable company in less than a minute. She did this thing when she was on the phone where she flitted around the house, moving from room to room like a moth trapped behind a window. I doubt she even realized she did it.
While she paced around, I turned back to Gramps. “So, if you don’t have cable and you don’t have the Internet, what do you do all day?”
“Oh, you know, spend time with the General.” Gramps pushed out his bottom lip and nodded like what he said made any more sense than not having Wi-Fi in the twenty-first century.
“Who is the General?” Maybe this general was one of Gramps’s old-fart friends. I shifted on the couch, trying to find a comfortable spot. I stretched out my legs and crossed my ankles on the lacquered coffee table.
And was suddenly and viciously attacked!
A hissing ball of yellow darted out from under the couch and sank its teeth into that soft spot above my ankle. I think it’s
called the Achilles tendon.
“That’s the General,” Gramps chuckled. He pulled the still-hissing-also-howling beast away, but not before it raked my leg with its claws. “Richie, meet General MacCathur the Second.” He held up one of the cat’s paws in a wave. Its claws were still extended.
“Seriously?” I yelped.
The cat spit at me, its yellow eyes narrowed.
“What was General MacCathur the First like?” I asked.
“Oh, he was mean as the devil,” Gramps said. “General MacCathur the Second? She is much gentler.”
Chapter Three
“What’s the best kind of pet, Richie?” Gramps asked the morning of my first day of school.
“A dead cat,” I muttered.
“That’s right,” he said, having misheard me. “A kitty cat. They’re perfect. Get it? Purr-fect.”
At that moment, we were both looking at my new black backpack, which I had carefully stocked with eight notebooks—all black—a lunchbox—also black—and various pens, erasers, and flash drives. You guessed it, all were black. I was going to be the new guy, a man of mystery, right? Hence the black.
And, yeah, maybe buying only black things was a sort of silent protest. I don’t just mean because of the whole moving in with Gramps thing. More a protest against Gramps’s sense of style, or lack of style, that is.
The only thing of this decade in the house was the huge new TV set Mom installed in front of Gramps’s rust-colored recliner, the lines of cable wire running down to the basement, a new router, and, unfortunately, General MacCathur the Second.
Between the devil cat and the dark, horrid colors, dim lighting, and mirrors, my one eye was working overdrive. Even having been here for a few days, I was still getting used to the rooms. They all looked way bigger than they were, thanks to the huge mirrors hanging everywhere. I even walked straight into one on the way to the kitchen for breakfast! Gramps, of course, thought this was hysterical. Time-warped geezer laughed so hard I thought he was choking at first.
