by James Bird
I hurry over to the gate, but halfway there, something slams into my head. The impact knocks me off my feet. I hit the ground for the second time today. My head throbs. I scan all four directions, but I don’t see anyone. Then as I lie there, in the dead grass, I look up and see the tree house. And from the window, a girl is perched, leaning out, looking directly at me … wearing a guilty smirk.
It takes a few blinks for my double vision to merge her into one person. I focus in on her face. She looks like an angel … if angels had no wings and lived in tree houses. Her eyes reflect like diamonds, sparkling back at me, but I am not sure if it’s her sparkle or the water built up in my eyes from the impact. Her skin is a different shade of flame than my mother’s, like hers was dipped in gold before it was set ablaze. Her long black hair is straight and pulled into two braids, like two powerful black snakes protecting her neck, but what grabs my attention most is her mouth. Why? Because she’s tightening her jaw, barely able to contain herself. And then it happens. She erupts into hysterical laughter.
I stand, keeping my eyes on her. Now that I have a better look, it is confirmed … She is by far the prettiest girl I have ever seen. Before this moment, Jenny in my sixth-grade class had that trophy. But this strange girl, whoever she is, just took gold. Sorry, Jenny.
“Did you just throw something at my head?” I shout up to her.
“Maybe,” she replies.
“Five. Why?”
“Five nothing. It’s for your dog,” she says, and disappears back into her tree house.
“Twenty-four. Wait!” I shout even louder, but she doesn’t reappear.
I look down and see a worn-out baseball near my feet. This girl hurled a baseball at my head. I mean … who does that?
“Hello?” I shout up to her.
Nothing. I could climb the tree, but that would just be creepy. After all, I am technically still trespassing. Plus, I don’t climb trees very well. I couldn’t even successfully hop a fence.
I rub the lump forming on my head. It stings. I can’t believe she threw a ball at me. Who does she think she is? I mentally play back our conversation for clues. You’d be surprised by how often people’s words reveal things about themselves without them knowing. I may not be much of a burglar, but I’m a pretty good word detective.
She said “maybe,” but then admitted it was her who threw the ball, which tells me she’s not a liar. That’s good. Honesty is important. But when I asked why she threw it, she said it was for my dog. Maybe she accidentally hit me while she tried to do something nice like give Seven a ball to play with?
I turn around and see Seven sitting there staring at me, obviously waiting for me to throw her the ball. All I know about this girl now is she either has great aim or poor aim. Depending on which was her actual target, Seven or my head. Whichever is the case, she has a great arm.
I toss it over the fence, back into our yard. Seven darts toward the gap in the fence and easily jumps through. I take another look up to see if I can get one last glimpse of the girl in her tree house.
“Thank you,” I shout.
I walk back toward the fence, laughing to myself because I just thanked a girl for firing a baseball at my head. As I step into my yard, Seven is waiting with her brand-new ball in her mouth. I’m still trapped outside and now doubly injured … but I guess it’s still playtime. I launch the ball across the yard and watch Seven chase it. I wonder if she’s imagining the ball as the furry ajidamoo that got away.
CHAPTER EIGHT
HOW TO BEAT A BULLY (27)
“I said get to know the house, not fight it.”
I open my eyes to my mother standing over me. It takes me a second to realize where I am, and to count (twenty-one). It’s nearly sundown, and I’m still lying in the backyard, using Seven as my pillow. The temperature has dropped, and my entire upper body feels like a Popsicle. I sit up.
“I must have fallen asleep,” I say. “After I fell off the fence,” I add as I follow her eyes toward my injured leg.
“Are you hurt?” she asks.
“No. But the fence is,” I say.
She doesn’t even look at the fence, almost as if she’s been through this same scenario a hundred times before.
“And you just wanted to … take a nap? Out here? Shirtless in the cold?” she asks curiously.
“Grandma locked me out,” I say, which causes my mother to laugh.
“Oh, that’s funny?” I ask as I put my shirt on.
“Well, isn’t it?”
“Not really. I was locked out all day.”
“Well, I’m sure she had her reasons,” she says, and walks back into the house.
“Twenty-six.” I quicken my pace toward her as she pretends to slide the door shut and lock me out again. “Very funny.”
Inside, a zoo of delicious flavors immediately races up my nostrils. “What’s that smell?” I ask.
“Dinner.”
“It smells amazing.” I peek my head into the kitchen. “Where’s Grandma?” I ask.
“She’s around.”
“I’m going to ask her why she locked me out.”
“Good luck with that.” My mother releases a giggle.
“Sixteen,” I shout as I begin my search.
But after walking through the entire house, I come up empty-grandma’d. The only room left is my mother’s bedroom. But her door is shut. I look back to make sure my mom is still in the kitchen before I grip the door handle and turn it. It’s unlocked. I know I shouldn’t go into her room without permission, but it’s the one place left where my grandma could be hiding. So I push the door open and step inside.
The walls are decorated with dozens of photographs. I step farther in to get a better look at them. It is a time line of my brother’s life, running from left to right. I see Aji as an infant, toddler, little boy, and then as a teenager. There are photos of him with friends, climbing trees, on a basketball team, and even one of him in a colorful costume, which I assume is traditional Ojibwe attire.
I wish I had his life. He looked so happy and confident, but the photo line ends abruptly with a picture of him as a young man in a military uniform. I can see how much my mom loved him, enough to line the walls in her bedroom with his life; his death must have been earth-shattering. This is the saddest room in the world, I think. He’s dead, and my mom keeps a daily reminder of him. That must hurt her every single day. But it would probably hurt even more to take these photographs down and wake up every morning not seeing her boy.
On the next wall, another time line of photographs catches my eyes. I see a baby in a sink, getting washed by … Wait! I know that face. It can’t be. But it is … That’s my face! This time line is mine. How is this possible? My mom has been watching me grow up my entire life without me even knowing it.
I see a few more of my baby pictures, then two more of me as a toddler able to walk. Then another of me in a Ninja Turtles shirt. I remember that shirt. I wanted to be a Ninja Turtle so bad. I even painted my face green and wore a pillow in the back of my shirt to school once. No one thought it was a shell. They just thought I was a strange green kid with a pillow on my back.
Wow. What’s going on?
I step farther down my life line. There are a few pictures of me drawing animals as a little boy, sprawled out on the carpet in my favorite dinosaur pajamas. I don’t remember my dad ever taking pictures of me. And yet he’s been sending pictures to her this entire time. What the hell?
My time line ends with my fifth-grade school photo. I remember this day. The photographer nearly had a conniption trying to direct me. “Say cheese,” he’d say. “Nine,” I’d reply. This went on for almost five minutes before he finally snapped the photo and told me to get lost. I was so embarrassed. Now it just seems pretty funny. And look at my bowl cut. I was such a nerd.
“You used to be so cute. What happened?”
My mom is standing right behind me. I can see underneath her smile a familiar look of pain—the same hap
py-sad smile she wore when she introduced me to my brother.
“I was just thinking the same thing,” I say, and try to make her smile last a bit longer.
She steps up to one of my baby pictures, and I watch her finger trace my little infant mouth.
“I would go to sleep holding this photo against my chest so I’d dream of holding you.”
I count her letters before her words sink in.
“Did it work?”
“Some nights.”
“What was Aji like?”
Her smile blooms across her face as she looks up. Are her memories of her son floating near the ceiling?
“Did you ever see The Godfather?”
“The really old movie? Yeah, it was my dad’s all-time favorite, right beside Rocky. Why?”
“He was like that.”
“A fat old Italian man with a violent streak that liked to leave horse heads in people’s beds?” I ask.
She laughs. “Excluding all of that, of course. Just the part where everyone in the neighborhood looked up to him. Kids would come to him for advice, sometimes for protection from bullies. And all the girls fawned over him,” she says, sweeping a tear from her eye before it melts into her cheek.
“I could have used a brother like him growing up.”
“He wasn’t always Mr. Popular. He was picked on as a kid, too, you know?”
“Really?” I ask.
I stare at his picture and doubt her words. He had muscles those Greek gods have in paintings. Who would ever mess with him?
“Sure. He would come home from school in tears. Sometimes it was because he wore glasses, sometimes it was because of the way he talked, and sometimes it was for nothing at all. Kids can be cruel. As you know,” she says.
“So what did he do about it?” I ask.
She sighs. I can’t decide if it’s out of joy or sorrow. Maybe both. Her body turns toward the hallway. “I’ll show you,” she says, and walks out of her room.
I follow her through the house and into the garage. It’s dark. I haven’t explored this part of the house yet. Maybe Grandma is hiding in here?
She flips on the light and steps inside. It looks like the training room for The Karate Kid. There is an old rusty weight bench in the center of the room. Two sacks of stones hang from both sides of the bar to act as the weights. And farther down hangs a punching bag, the kind that Rocky Balboa used in the movie. It is covered in dust, but I can still see the silver bands of duct tape keeping it together. Aji must have packed quite a punch. The walls are lined with bookshelves, and each shelf is packed to the brim with books. This garage is half dojo and half library. Two places I wouldn’t think of mixing.
“This is where he learned to fight back,” my mother says.
I run my finger along the dirty weight bench, coating my fingertips with dust.
“I’m not much of a fighter,” I say.
Her eyes shift to the bookshelves.
“There are many ways to fight. He used the weights to get his body in shape, but he used the books to get stronger. There is nothing more powerful than the mind,” she says, and steps out of the garage, leaving me to explore it on my own.
I’m realizing my mother says what she needs to and then splits.
I approach the punching bag. Two red boxing gloves rest atop it. I pull them down and shake them loose, just in case there are spiders hiding inside of them. I slip them on and clench my fists, securing my grip.
I punch the bag with my left hand.
It sways only slightly. I push it to redeem myself, and it rocks back and forth a bit more. The chain creaks back to life. I don’t think anyone has punched it since he last did. I punch it again, this time with my right. It hurts my hand more than it moves the bag. I can only imagine how my dad would react if he saw me now. I take off the gloves before I can visualize his glare of disappointment and turn toward what I’ll have better luck with … the books.
Every single book I randomly pick up has my brother’s thoughts scribbled onto the pages. Some passages are highlighted, some underlined. Wow. He read a lot. The books range from philosophy to romance novels. No wonder everyone loved him. He was smart, strong, and sensitive. If I’m going to survive in a new school, I need to learn how to be at least one of those three.
CHAPTER NINE
EXPERIENCE WINS BATTLES (32)
I volunteer to wash the dishes after dinner, and my mom stands next to me to make sure I scrub them to her standards.
“You start school tomorrow,” she says over the running water.
I nearly drop the plate in my hand as I count (twenty-two). I picture it shattering into a million different pieces to match the million different reasons why I don’t want to go.
“Do I have to?”
“Don’t worry. I spoke to the principal. She knows about your numeric mind and has assured me that it wouldn’t be a problem. Get it? Numbers. Problem. I’m such a math teacher. Plus, you can’t stay around the house forever, Collin. You’ve got to get out there and, you know, learn stuff,” she says.
“I should warn you. School and I don’t have that great of a history together. I mean, the actual school part is fine, but the people in it … not so much.”
She turns off the water and leans against the sink.
“Your dad gave me the rundown, but that was then and there. This is here and now.”
“I hope you’re right.”
“I’m a mother. I’m always right.”
I place the last dish on the dry rack. But I don’t leave the kitchen just yet. There’s something I’ve been meaning to ask her.
She walks toward the living room, so I block her path, awkwardly.
“What is it?” she asks.
“What is what?”
“What you’ve wanted to ask me all dinner but chickened out every chance you had.”
Wow. She’s good.
“I keep forgetting you people read minds,” I say.
Her eyes squint at my choice of words, almost like a dagger just jabbed into her ribs and she’s trying to not show any pain.
“You people? Is that how you see me? Am I so different than you, Collin?”
“No. I didn’t mean you people, I meant, you know, you Native Americans,” I say, which out loud sounds even worse.
“Oh, so you think it’s a Native American thing, do you? Well, if we all could read minds, you think history would have played out the way it did for us?”
“I guess not. I’m sorry. I don’t know anything about Native Americans. Only what I’ve seen in the movies and read in school.”
“Apology accepted. Lesson one: Never judge someone by what color is wrapped around their bones. You judge them by the way they treat people. And animals. You can tell a lot about someone by how they act around things that can’t talk back to them. And lesson two … You are ‘you people’ too.”
Wow. Who knew that “you people” would hurt someone so much? I need to choose my words more carefully. My dad used that term all the time. I guess I picked up some bad habits from him. Hopefully my mom will teach me how to drop them off.
“Sorry, I’m still learning how to be Native American,” I say, which causes her to laugh. Well, good—at least she’s not mad at me.
“You’re already Native American, Collin,” she says. “Just be yourself.”
“I’ll try.”
“Now, what was it you wanted to ask me?” She snaps our earlier conversation back to the front of the line.
“Oh, it was nothing,” I say.
“Bawk bawk bawk,” she says, and even mimics a chicken walking.
I laugh, which causes her to laugh. I snap another mental photograph of us in the kitchen right now. This should have been my life. This moment right here and now. Laughing with my mom, like we’re a normal family. I don’t remember the last time I saw my dad laugh.
“Okay, okay—I was just going to ask you about school.”
“Welcome to Fibville. Population, one. Y
ou!” she adds.
“Fine. I was just wondering … I was curious to know … I guess I was…” I’m not ready to ask that question yet.
“Holy moly guacamole, just ask already,” she says, slapping her hands together.
She’s right. If I ever want to get an answer, I need to ask the question. Here goes nothing …
“Do you know who she is or not?”
A smile stretches from one hanging feather earring to the other. She knew exactly what I was going to ask.
“Of course I know who she is. She’s my neighbor.”
Oh, she’s milking this. She’s going to make me spell it out for her. Fine. There’s no point dangling my toes in the shallow end. I’ll just dive in and get it over with.
“Well, what do you know about her?” I ask.
She sees how excitedly nervous I am. And she stretches this moment even further. “I know many things. I know she’s smart. And very pretty. Did you notice that yet?”
“I didn’t really get a good look at her because she was so high up in the tree,” I say, and pick up the nearest plate from the sink.
“We never lie in this house,” she says, folding her arms. “Well, we lie in bed at night, to sleep … But other than then, we don’t lie. Got it?”
“Fine. Yes. I noticed she was pretty. So, what’s her deal?” I ask, and turn the water back on to wash one of the already clean plates.
“I can’t tell you her story. She has to tell it. Don’t you know how stories work?”
I shake my head.
“If you want to know her story, you have to be ready to tell her your story. That’s how they work. It’s a trade, and our people are very big on trading.”
“But I don’t know my story.”
“Sure you do. You’re the main character. Everywhere you go is your stage. And everyone around you has a part in your play.”
Her letters shuffle in and take their seats inside my head, like they are the audience to the play she’s talking about. But they don’t sit still and enjoy the performance. They are wild and unruly, and pop into numbers and float toward the stage, interrupting everything.
