Bigger than a Bread Box

by Laurel Snyder

  I would probably never find the owners of the crumpled dollar bills, but the spoon … I snuck out of my room and into the den, where Gran had her desk. I turned on the computer in the darkness and Googled “Adda and Harlan.” There was only one entry—one single entry in the whole entire world. At last, some luck!

  I sat there at Gran’s big rolltop desk, staring at the glowing screen, and felt giddy, and thankful that “Adda and Harlan” weren’t “Betty and Joe.” I pulled a sheet of paper from the trash and tore off a tiny piece. On it I wrote in my smallest handwriting:

  Adda and Harlan Tompkins

  4561 Camellia Drive

  Clarkston, GA 30021

  I folded up the tiny bit of paper and put it in my locket.

  On Saturday I was miraculously better. I woke up to the sun shining through my window and felt great. I put on my clothes, brushed my hair, and went into the kitchen for breakfast, like everything was normal.

  “Guess what!” I said, reaching for a cereal bowl. “I feel better!”

  “Well,” said Gran. “Isn’t that just the funniest thing, how a body always feels better on the weekend!”

  I pretended not to hear her and took my Cheerios into the living room. Lew followed me. We watched Mary Poppins under a blanket, even though I’d seen it a million times before. Lew hadn’t, and it was nice, sitting on the couch together, laughing. It was how Saturday mornings are supposed to be.

  CHAPTER 14

  Later that day, I offered to take Lew for a walk. It was still cold, but I was itching to do something after my day in bed. I bundled up and walked fast to keep warm, pushing Lew’s stroller quickly along the uneven sidewalks of the neighborhood. I didn’t think about much of anything. My face was crammed down into my scarf, and my breath made the inside of it all hot and wet. That made me think that maybe mufflers are called mufflers because they muffle anything you might want to say. I felt nicely muffled. Lew stared at everything we passed from under a hat of Gran’s that was way too big for him.

  We walked past the park and the zoo, south to where the houses got smaller and uglier. The dogs we passed had scars and no collars, and their fur was reddish from lying in the Georgia clay. We walked past vacant lots overgrown with viny green plants. As we passed a bus stop with an overflowing trash can, a skinny lady came up, with bare legs in that winter weather, and asked us for a dollar.

  For a minute I thought about handing her a thousand dollars and a diamond, but then I got scared and shook my head. “I … I don’t have any money,” I said, then turned the stroller around and headed back the way I’d come, almost running.

  I was lost in my thoughts, mostly thinking about the bread box, trying to decide if the box was altogether bad. I was pretty sure there was nothing wrong with finding my mom’s keys for her when she lost them. But I knew I couldn’t use the box to get stuff I wanted anymore. I couldn’t pretend I didn’t know how the box got things for me.

  While I was doing all this thinking, Lew was staring at everything we passed with a glazed expression. He looked cold.

  “You cold? You want cocoa?” I asked him.

  “Ess,” I heard. Lew looked up at me, upside down in the stroller. My hair was falling in his face, and he giggled.

  So I pushed the stroller into an unfamiliar coffee shop, unbundled us both, and ordered two hot chocolates from the tired-looking girl working behind the counter. She wore her blond hair in two braids that looked like she’d slept in them. They were all lopsided and messy. I wondered why she didn’t take a minute and brush her hair. It wasn’t like she was working very much, since the place was basically empty.

  As soon as I paid for our drinks, the waitress sat down and started reading a big book with a highlighter in her hand. She looked like she was studying hard. She stared down at her book and chewed the end of her pen. She looked pretty stressed out.

  Lew and I went to the back of the coffee shop, where we climbed up onto the best couch, snuggled together, and sipped our frothy hot chocolates. I thought about … well, all the things I had to think about. Lew thought about whatever Lew thinks about. Batman, probably, or puppies or something.

  After a while I turned to him and said, “Lew, do you think it’s wrong to steal?”

  “Ess,” he said, blowing into his drink so that it splattered a little onto his face. I wasn’t sure if he understood what I’d asked him, but it didn’t matter. I was mostly just thinking out loud.

  “What if stealing got us back home, to Dad?” I asked, without thinking about it very carefully.

  Lew turned around and dropped his drink. It hit the coffee table and splattered onto the floor. At the same time, he put his arms up to me and started to cry the way little kids cry, just full-on bawling suddenly. He leaned over and wiggled into my lap and lay there crying, with his head in the elbow of the arm that was holding my own steaming cup of cocoa. I couldn’t move him without spilling my drink too, and his cocoa was spreading on the coffee table and the floor. I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t put the cup down, and I was afraid I’d burn him. We were just a terrible mess, but I wanted to hug him, so I just leaned my head over so that it touched him, making sure not to tip my drink, and said, “Shhhhhhhh …” He fell asleep like that, all twisted around, facedown in my lap. I guess he was pretty cold and tired.

  The whole time the mess was spreading, and the waitress was studying at the other end of the room, clearly trying to ignore us. I sat and waited for the situation to be something I could deal with, but it only got worse. Finally I put my cup down on the wet puddle of a table. I stood up from the soaked couch and placed Lew back into the stroller. I didn’t even strap him in or wipe myself off; I just covered Lew with his coat and made a break for it, leaving the wet disaster behind me.

  As I passed by the register, I thought of something and stopped. The girl with the messy braids wasn’t looking when I reached into my backpack, which was hanging off the handles of the stroller, and grabbed all the money I had with me. I shoved the massive wad of bills into the tip jar, rubber band and all. I tipped all of it. A thousand dollars, give or take. It seemed crazy, but we were leaving a big mess behind for the girl with the braids to deal with, and I hoped maybe the money would make her a little less stressed out. With a quick glance over my shoulder, I pushed Lew out of the coffee shop and back into the cold.

  Back on the street, with the money gone, I felt less worried, better. If I hadn’t returned the money to its rightful owner, at least I’d given it to someone who might need it, and at least I didn’t have to think about it anymore. I wished I’d thought of giving it away sooner.

  Pushing Lew, who was still sound asleep, home up the hill, I thought that it might be nice to collapse and sleep like that. To have someone take care of me when I couldn’t go any farther. To be carried and pushed along. I couldn’t remember ever being that little.

  The walk back felt like it took forever, but we didn’t get lost, and I moved fast. By the time we neared the house, I was almost running. I was very cold and wet from the cocoa and ready to be home. My fingers were freezing. I dashed up the sidewalk to find Mom and Gran peeking out through the front window at us. Mom looked worried, and I hoped it was just that we’d been gone so long and not that Gran had found her phone and gotten a message from the school.

  Either way, I braced myself for a fight as I pulled the stroller slowly up the steps. If I was in trouble, I only needed to get through the yelling part and the crying part, and then I could apologize. After that I’d be grounded and things would be okay. I could go to sleep.

  The door swung open, and there was silence on the other side. No yelling and no crying. Just silence. Mom held the door and motioned me in, back down the hallway to the kitchen.

  “Lew’s asleep,” I said. I didn’t explain that he’d fallen asleep late in the afternoon because he’d been crying so hard.

  “I’ll put him down,” said my mom. “You’re late. Wash up.”

  I did.

  It
was weird to eat dinner without Lew. In the whole month we’d been in Atlanta, I’d never had a meal with just Mom and Gran. It felt strangely grown up. I noticed Mom’s eyes were red. She didn’t eat her spaghetti but just ripped her bread up into little pieces and ate them slowly. I couldn’t stop shaking my leg under the table. I didn’t finish my spaghetti either.

  Gran was acting funny too, a little too chatty—to make up for Mom, maybe. She talked for five straight minutes about lily bulbs she wanted to plant, as if Mom and I cared.

  Right after dinner, Mom excused herself to disappear into her bedroom. When I passed by the door, it sounded like she was talking on the phone in a hushed voice. I put my ear to the old brass keyhole in the door. “No, don’t,” I heard her say. “Please don’t. I’m not ready. It won’t do any good. Not yet, anyway.”

  Was it possible that she was maybe, finally, talking to Dad? I almost hoped not. She didn’t sound happy.

  “I don’t know,” she added. “Maybe never. Don’t push me.”

  I headed for my room, where I sat on the bed all tense and jittery, like a windup toy that’s been wound too far. I felt ready to explode. I waited for my mom to come and explain what was going on. I waited for Gran to come and yammer at me about nothing. I just waited.

  But after all that, nothing happened. Nobody showed up. I sat there trying to read another mystery, but the story kept drifting away from me. So I paced my room instead, listening to the house quiet down for the night. I felt like I was going crazy. Hours passed and Mom went to bed. I heard her door close. I saw the porch light blink off through my window. I heard Gran brushing her teeth and then watching TV in the living room, like she always did right before she went to sleep. It was infuriatingly normal, and it all made me worry. What was different? What was Mom so upset about? What was going on? Was she talking to Dad? What were they saying? It was driving me nuts! What did he want to do that she didn’t want him to do? Why didn’t anyone seem to remember that I was here? Nobody even came to say good night.

  I heard the TV click off and the soft shuffle of Gran’s slippers in the hallway. Still I waited another couple of minutes before I climbed out of my bed and tiptoed across the floor to stand in front of the bread box.

  I tried to rethink all my wishes. I backtracked. I considered everything that had happened so far. Because now I knew just what the box did, and I knew that if I made a wish, if I chose to ask for anything at all, I was stealing. I was choosing to steal.

  Even so, I knew there was one wish I was willing to make. No matter who I had to steal from to get it. No matter what. If I was going to get rid of the box, or destroy it, or abandon it, or whatever, there was one thing I had to try first. Because what else could I do?

  Everything felt like it was closing in on me, shutting down. I couldn’t go back to school. I wouldn’t talk to my mom, and now it seemed like she didn’t want to talk to me either. Mom, who had always talked and cried and shared too much, was shutting me out.

  I had no friends, and Dad was far away, and although Gran was great, she was just Gran. She was for treats and presents and giggles, but not for real. Really, I only had Lew, and he was almost too little to be a person. Something had to change everything—had to change things fast. Something. Now or never. It was up to me. Even though the wish hadn’t worked before, I had to try again. I had to believe that the magic could help me. I had to believe that something could.

  So I wished.

  I took a deep, nervous breath before I whispered softly at the box, “I wish for whatever will make my parents get back together.” I gave the box an extra pat.

  I waited before I opened the box. I felt shaky. I wanted it to work so badly. I needed it to work! My hand shook when I reached for the door. I squeezed my eyes shut.

  And when I opened the box, and then my eyes …

  The box was empty.

  Of course it was.

  There was no hope left. Nothing that would make them be together again. The box knew that, even if I didn’t.

  I snapped the box shut. I wanted to scream.

  Why had I thought it would work this time? How had I been so stupid? Nothing was any different. Nothing had changed at all. It was the same horrible wish, and it would be the same horrible wish forever. My wish would never change. Would I ever stop wishing it? Would I ever be okay with the way things were now? Would I ever want to be okay with it? That was maybe the scariest thought. That I could adjust, learn to be okay. That I might want to be happy anyway, without Dad.

  I guessed I had to be nuts to try the same thing over and over, to stand there in the darkness and make the same wish again and again. I’d have to try something different, but what? What else could I wish for? I only wanted one thing.

  Then something hit me, a thought I hadn’t had before. A wish I could make that was a little different, but only a little.

  I took another deep breath. I closed my eyes. This time I said, “I wish for something that might help my parents get back together.”

  I opened the box a crack, holding my breath.

  Inside, something seemed to be glinting. This time the box wasn’t empty!

  A few twenty-dollar bills and a handful of loose change. More money? I didn’t need money! I’d already given away more money than any kid my age had a right to. Money wouldn’t tell me how to help my parents. I was just stealing again from some poor stranger. What could possibly be different about this money?

  Then I reconsidered—this time the money meant something. This time the cash was a glimmer of hope. The box had not been empty, and the difference between “empty” and “not empty” was everything. This meant there might still be a chance, if I could figure it out. The box was trying. It was just confusing. Might made everything loose, open, hard to figure out. Might was a glimmer; it wasn’t a promise, not really. Might was another kind of puzzle. I thought about that for a minute.

  I wished again. I said, “I wish for something else that might help my parents get back together.”

  This time I got a phone charger.

  But not just any charger. I laughed sadly when I saw it. It was Mom’s. Of course. Mom was terrible about letting her phone run down, and it drove Dad crazy. They fought about it all the time. But what good would it do me? This was only any use to Mom. It was her charger, to her phone. I couldn’t do anything with it.

  I took out the charger and closed the box again. I crossed my fingers and said, “I wish for instructions to go with my phone charger. I don’t know what to do with it.”

  When I opened the box, I didn’t get instructions for how to get my parents back together. I only got instructions for the charger itself. A little booklet, in three languages. I could tell that at some point, long ago, Mom had stuffed the booklet into the junk drawer in the kitchen at home, because when I picked it up I caught a whiff of Juicy Fruit gum and glue sticks. I knew that smell. It made me sad. I dropped the booklet on the floor.

  I wanted to wish again, but I felt thickheaded, like when I haven’t studied for a test at all and have to randomly guess at the answer to a question, knowing I’ll get it wrong but trying anyway because although it’s unlikely I’ll pick the right answer, it isn’t actually impossible. The capital of Idaho might be Springfield.

  At the same time, I had this sense that I was finally getting somewhere. I was learning—if I could only learn fast enough. Unfortunately, I was also getting tired. I decided to try one last time. “Isn’t there anything that will get me home? Please?” I asked the bread box. I stood there looking at the box for a minute before I opened it.

  When I opened the box this time, I found a bus ticket. To Baltimore. I had wished sloppily.

  “That’s not what I meant,” I hissed at the box. “It isn’t good enough. I meant that I want my parents back together. I want everything back the way it was! Can’t you help me?”

  The box just sat there, gaping at me, useless.

  I was tired, incredibly tired of trying and failing at everyth
ing. I set Mom’s charger on the dresser so I’d remember to sneak it back to her room in the morning, and then I tore up the bus ticket. I put the money in my backpack.

  I got into bed and stared at the bread box from across the room.

  Magic—big deal. What good was magic?

  CHAPTER 15

  The next morning, Mrs. Cahalen stopped by while she was out walking her dog. “Unofficially” and “off the record” and “just to be helpful” on a Sunday morning. She said she was popping in to say hello because Gran hadn’t been answering her phone, and since the office didn’t have a number for Mom, they hadn’t been able to get in touch at all.

  Mrs. Cahalen didn’t just tell them I’d cut school. She stood there in the house and told them everything. She said that Hannah had generously come forward on Friday to “explain about the incident,” because she felt “bad for Becky,” who was having “such a hard time adjusting.” Mrs. Cahalen, being a “good friend,” wanted to check in with Gran—and Mom, naturally. Then, I guess, she took her dog and went home. Really, I don’t care where she went.

  I didn’t see Mrs. Cahalen or the dog for myself. I was still sleeping when this all happened, but Mom came in and wrenched me out of bed. She marched me to the kitchen, still groggy and confused. She tossed me into a straight-backed chair and stood above me with tears in her eyes as she repeated everything Mrs. Cahalen had said.

  At the end of all that, she said, “We are so disappointed in you, Rebecca. What’s going on? How did this happen?”

  At first, I was too asleep to process what she was saying. I just ran my tongue over my fuzzy, unbrushed teeth and tried to look like I was feeling really sorry, which I almost was. Her voice got more and more quivery, and at last she said, “Things are hard enough for me right now, Rebecca. I’m alone, on the edge—the edge. Do you understand? I don’t need this. I can’t believe this!” Her voice shook. “I have a lot on my mind right now. I am juggling so much and I am overworked and I just wanted a little time to think things out for myself. Everyone seems to need something from me or want something, and I don’t even know what feels right or wrong anymore, and there are so many people to think about.” She paused for a breath. “I don’t want to have to worry about you too! You’re usually so … so fine. Usually you’re the one I don’t have to worry about!”