We work double hard mainly because it’s later in the day and the snow, which started off light and powdery, is now heavy and wet and takes way more effort to actually lift. “If she tries to feed us, just say no. I don’t trust her ingredients,” I yell to Marshall, who answers back with a snowball that smacks my parka with a dull thud. Wearing so many layers, I don’t even feel it. But I like the sound it makes.
The very last thing to do is the steps to her door, and I say that I’ll do them even though I know once I finish, we’ll have to go inside her house, which is starting to make me feel like I want to just go home.
“Almost finished,” I shout down to Marshall, who is putting the finishing touches on the driveway.
“We are awesome!” he yells back. “And rich!”
And I agree with him because together we made twenty-five dollars, which isn’t as much as our original hopes but still is enough money to do some serious Pit Stop damage.
I’m pushing the snow off the top step when I feel the metal shovel edge hit something solid. In my brain I wonder if I’m about to uncover a treasure or a body part—or more likely a package left in the snow that is now frozen solid. It takes me a second to realize (duh) that this is the welcome mat.
I chop at the caked-on snow with the steel tip of my shovel until I free the mat from the cement. But the mat is still trapped in a layer of frozen snow, so I decide the best thing to do is to lift the whole thing up and then drop it so that the rest of the snow will crack off. It’s a lot heavier than I thought, but I get it up over my head and then let the mat fall hard against the top step. And as soon as it hits, I freeze because the thing doesn’t say welcome on it. It says home, and there’s something about seeing that word staring back at me that makes me feel warm and cold at the same time.
And that’s when the door opens—and the weird lady is standing there smiling out from the inside saying, “Great job!” And then she says, “Come on in.”
She’s holding two steaming mugs of something, which of course has to be hot chocolate even though she calls it “cocoa,” and then Marshall is right next to me and he’s smiling so I smile too, even though for some reason I don’t want to.
I find it a little strange to actually be on the inside of the weird lady’s house, especially because I have spent all year looking the other way every time I see her and ignoring her waves at me.
Boots off. Snow pants, too. We are finally free of the winter armor, and that alone is cause for celebration. The lady hands us the cups of “cocoa” and she’s put marshmallows on top and they are already turned gooey.
“You two sure work hard,” she says, showing us to the kitchen, where I smell the cookies before I even know they exist. And I see she’s used a store-bought kind where you just slice the dough from a log, but I smile anyway because I can tell they taste good just by looking at the plate of chocolate chip cookies on the table.
“I hope you boys are hungry,” she says, and even though I really am, I try to pretend I’m not. Marshall doesn’t pretend anything, and two cookies are already in his mouth. It’s a small kitchen painted yellow, which is one of those colors that I hate. The fridge is covered in lists and funny magnets and a few drawings obviously done by a kid of some kind.
“My grandkids love to send me pictures,” she says, almost like she’s reading my mind, which creeps me out.
I look away, hoping to break off her mind-vibe powers, and I stare at the wall next to where we sit instead. I’m amazed the whole wall is covered with framed pictures, and they are mostly photographs of the lady and a man, who are standing in different places all around the world.
“That’s me and my husband,” she says. She points to the picture closest to my face. “That’s Paul and me in Paris. And that one,” she says, pointing to the picture next to it, “that one is in Cairo.”
“Cairo. Cool,” Marshall says, filling his mouth with another cookie, and only I know he has no clue where Cairo is, which is Egypt.
I just nod and keep scanning the wall of pictures, and I can’t believe she would waste so much time putting so many pictures in one place. The thing that really gets me is that every picture is the same: Just the two of them standing in one place or another. Sure, they’re different ages in some of them; but otherwise, the whole wall could be one picture of two people just with different backgrounds.
There’s lots of pictures, and as I try to guess where on a map each photo was taken, I feel the lady isn’t looking at the picture wall anymore but at me, and turning around, I see that I am right. She’s watching me, so I quickly say, “Where is the bathroom?” And then off I go.
Sometimes I say I have to “go” because I really need to; and sometimes I say it when I just want to get away for a minute, and that is this kind of time.
Inside the bathroom the wallpaper is shiny like tin foil and it has a flowery smell that is definitely old-lady smell, but that’s no surprise. The toilet seat is covered in a flowered cushiony thing that I don’t want to touch, which makes me thankful I don’t really have to use it.
I know I can’t stay in here too long, so I flush the toilet and then go to wash my hands so the lady won’t think I’m one of those gross germy kids you see on TV commercials. I see that the soap dish is full of those tiny seashell soaps that smell weird and are impossible to actually use, so I just wet my hands in the sink, and because the hand towel looks brand new, I wipe my wet hands on my pants and then I go back to the kitchen.
“I dunno. I think pretty good,” I hear Marshall saying to the lady who has taken my chair, and as soon as they see me, they both stop talking, which I think means I am either in trouble or they were talking about me.
“Well, Milo,” she says, getting out of my chair. “I guess the time has come.”
And I have no idea what she means, but I am hoping it means it’s time to get out of there. But all that happens is she holds out her hand, and I see it’s just a little bit wrinkly and I guess I stare at the veins just a little too long because the next thing is, I hear her voice. “I’m Sylvia. Sylvia Poole.”
And she waits until I figure out she’s waiting for my hand, so I quickly wipe it again on my pants just in case it’s still a little wet, and then I put my hand in hers and say, “I’m Milo.” Which is way dumb because she obviously knows that.
She smiles. “There. We did it. Now maybe when I say hello, you can say hi back.” She winks, which seems kind of creepy, but I still hold her hand and it’s warm and not in a way that makes me want to let go. “But if you don’t say hi . . . that’s okay too.”
“Oh, man!” Marshall sees the wall clock and freaks out. It’s after four, so we quickly put our snow clothes back on, and if you ever had to wear snow pants and big boots, you know that it takes a ton of time to get those things back on, especially after you have just had cookies and cocoa.
Sylvia gives us the extra cookies all wrapped up in foil, and then she dials Marshall’s mom on the phone and says we are on our way and that it was her fault we are late, which actually was a cool thing for her to do. “Don’t be strangers!” she calls to us before closing the door.
And the last thing I see before we grab our shovels and run all the way back to Marshall’s house—where we have just heard it is meat loaf and applesauce night—is the word on the welcome mat, the word that welcomes me back anytime I want:
new year’s baby
THE TWO-NIGHT VACATION AT MARSHALL’S goes by way too fast, and it’s strange to be back in my own house again, which is the reverse of how it’s supposed to be.
I try talking to my dad. Sort of, anyway. “How’s it going?” I ask him while he sits at the kitchen table doing a crossword puzzle in the newspaper.
“Fantastic,” he says back without looking. “I hope you had a great time.”
“It was pretty okay.” I don’t go into any details because I don’t want to tell him how good it felt being someplace that wasn’t here. All I add is, “We had waffles.”
&n
bsp; Silence.
“Four-letter word for Norse god. Any guesses?” I watch him chew the pencil tip while he scans the kitchen as if the answer is written in special ink and hidden next to the cupboards or by the sink. “Four letters. ‘O,’ blank, ‘I,’ blank.”
But I’m blank too and just shrug, feeling like I’ve let him down somehow.
“Your sister called,” he says, already filling in some other empty boxes with letters that will eventually make sense. “She said she misses you.”
And I laugh inside because I know two things: (1) My dad is the one who did the calling, and (2) my sister is in Florida with a friend from school and the last thing she is missing is me.
But I don’t say anything except, “Cool.”
The doorbell rings. My dad and I look at each other with the same puzzled stare, and I swear we both want to hide under the kitchen table—but maybe that’s just me.
The bell rings again. Twice. Ding. Diiiing.
My dad turns to me:
So I shuffle off to see who it is.
It’s cold in the small entrance hall and I want to get this over with fast, so I swing the door open and it’s Hillary Alpert standing outside my door and she holds a small package and it’s wrapped in green tissue paper, so instantly I know I am in trouble because I am sure it is for me.
“Hey, Milo,” she says, smiling. “We just got back.”
And I have to search the part of my brain that holds on to useless information, but no lightbulbs go off. I really have no idea what she is talking about, so I just stare at her and watch her breath make small cotton-ball clouds in the freezing night air.
She tries to give me clues just like my dad and his crossword. “From vacation. Remember? My cousins in Texas?”
And then I remember the last note she gave me right before school ended, and I can say a normal thing like, “Terrific.”
She steps inside all on her own, and secretly I’m glad because my toes have gone numb and I’m sure I have frostbite, which means they will have to be cut off before morning.
“I got you something. Hope it’s okay.”
And now she hands me the green tissue paper thing, and I quickly look around the entrance hallway where we stand to try to find something I can give her back, but all I see are two mismatched gloves, yesterday’s newspaper, and a tennis ball that Patches has chewed so much that it looks like it has a pink bald spot where the yellow fuzzy stuff used to be.
Reluctantly, I take her gift and can feel that whatever is inside is small and light, but there’s no way I can open it. “I don’t have anything for you.” I feel about an inch tall and wish she would disappear and take her present away with her unless it’s something I might actually want—in which case I’d be happy to hold on to it for safekeeping.
“No biggie. It’s just something stupid.” She smiles, and I see that the tip of her nose is all red from the cold. “I saw it and thought of you. That’s all.”
My first thought is that she said it was something stupid . . . and it reminded her of me. Great. But then I open it and see it’s one of those plastic snow-globe things that you shake and then watch the snow swirl inside. What makes this one funny is that inside the plastic globe it’s not a ski slope or the Empire State Building. It says texas snowman, and all that’s inside is water and a small plastic carrot and a top hat.
It takes me a second to get it, because my first thought is you can’t make a snowman in Texas.
“Wow, Hillary. It’s really funny.” And I mean it too. “Next time I go anywhere, I’m definitely getting you something stupid.”
“Okay,” she says. And then, “I have to get home. I just wanted to give you the present.”
I look down at the snow globe and shake it up. The carrot and hat swirl around inside kind of like they are chasing each other. Then I look back at Hillary. “Thanks again. It’s awesome.”
She nods and pulls her down coat tighter as she gets ready to face the cold. She opens my front door and then pushes herself into the winter air. “Oh yeah,” she calls back right before I close my door. “Happy New Year.”
And it hits me that it’s New Year’s Eve, and suddenly I feel like the snowman inside the globe as I melt into myself because I hate New Year’s Eve and had somehow managed to escape remembering what day it was.
“Uh, yeah,” I shout back. “Happy New Year to you, too.”
And then I close the door and let the quiet of my house swallow me up—because I know that everywhere else in the world people are making noise and dancing and going crazy with the excitement of welcoming a whole new year instead of filling in the blanks with a chewed-over pencil.
I go up to my room and look at the clock by my bed. 10:45 it blinks at me. I put the Texas snowman on my dresser and wish it were tomorrow already. I think about how if I could fly my own jet, I could totally avoid New Year’s Eve by crossing different time zones just to skip the actual second the old year ends and the new one begins.
10:46.
But I can’t really avoid the countdown, which by my calculations is still one hour and fourteen minutes away.
As years go, the old one has been not too awful. I’ve got a cool best friend who likes the same weird stuff as me, and I still have all my hair, unlike Mr. Shivnesky’s head. The way I see things, the new year is full of possibilities, like it’s possible I will make honor roll. It’s possible Marshall and I will finally beat Warfighter 4 on his Xbox, and it’s possible that Summer Goodman and I will have a moment where she sees how perfect we’d be together.
These things all could happen. And knowing this tips the scales in favor of the new year.
Bring it on, I tell myself, knowing that anything is possible now!
Lying on my bed, a memory of New Year’s Eve comes to me, and I see my family, the four of us sitting by the TV wearing those silly hats and holding party noisemakers in our hands. There are special snacks like tiny hotdogs soaked in a grape jelly sauce that you have to eat with toothpicks, and bowls of potato chips and an onion dip my mom and sister made from a mix. We watched the Times Square party on TV and I felt like I was the oldest kid in the world staying up until midnight and doing this together—all of us.
10 . . . 9 . . . 8 . . . 7 . . . 6 . . . 5 . . . 4 . . . 3 . . . 2 . . .
And we all shouted “Happy New Year!” and threw confetti and blew the noisemakers and it was just like being with all those party people on TV, only way better because it was our family that was hugging and laughing as the old year gave way to a new one that instantly felt shiny and perfect.
And then I remember that was the new year that became the worst year—the year she got sick and the year the fog came.
10:47.
I lean over to my clock and use the up and down buttons to make the digital numbers race ahead until it tells me the time is 12:01.
“Happy New Year,” I say to the melted snowman, whose missing smile agrees with my choice to zoom around the globe and beat the New Year’s Baby at his own game.
silent treatment
SOMETIMES A WHOLE SUPPER CAN GO by and the only words that get said are “May I please be excused?”
Okay. Maybe some words get said. Like, my dad might say, “More peas?” or “Wow, this is one juicy piece of steak.”
I don’t blame my dad for all the quiet. My sister doesn’t exactly say stuff either. I kind of keep my words stuffed inside the food that’s being chewed around in my mouth. I just can’t think of what to say that doesn’t sound wrong, which is why it’s just way easier to settle into the silence of one of the three suppers my dad knows how to make:
meat loaf
spaghetti and meatballs
steaks
Dinner used to be a circus. My mom loved to cook with the radio playing, and it always had to be music, which meant oldies or classical or even country-western songs. She didn’t care as long as it was loud and something you could make a chicken leg dance to.
Everything was stirred togethe
r: mixing bowls, pans hitting the counter, her singing along with the radio even without knowing the words while the Beatles wanted to hold her hand or some other guy wanted to do the twist. And if she couldn’t find a certain knife or the measuring cup wasn’t in the right spot, she’d tear the place apart searching for the missing thing, which usually was being played with by me on the floor.
My mom had a dozen different aprons, and each one was sillier than the next: Hawaii Apron. Daisies Apron. Dogs Chase Cats Apron. Kiss the Cook Apron. Sitting in the kitchen while she got supper ready, I’d close my eyes and try to guess which apron she was wearing, and even though I always guessed wrong, it was the game that was the fun part.
“Milo, help me measure,” she’d always ask, and I felt bigger than the refrigerator every time using the tablespoon that jingled next to the other measuring spoons all held together by the silver key ring.
“Not too much oil, honey,” she’d say, holding my hand to make sure nothing spilled, and it was never like we did any of this because we wanted to eat—it was more like we just liked being together.
“Now mix the eggs with the sugar,” and I would do it with the flat wooden spoon my dad would later just throw away.
It was her idea to have “upside-down suppers,” where you start with dessert and then eat backward to the appetizer course. And she was the one who gave both my sister and me one night a month where we could plan the dinner menu—and she’d make it no matter if we chose cookie dough casserole or chicken à la chocolate.
Back then the kitchen was never dull and boring and was always in between one meal and the next, and I’d give anything to bring that noise back into our lives.
2 good 2 b 4-gotten
I’M TELLING YOU, MILO. DON’T DO IT,” MARSHALL says, but I think I know better mainly because I have already stayed up way past midnight putting my carefully laid-out plan in motion.
Milo Page 7
