Goodbye Stranger

by Rebecca Stead

“Why would anyone do that? Fake it?”

  He laughed. “Ever hear of Sputnik?”

  “No,” she said.

  Their English teacher, who had been reading aloud from a textbook, interrupted himself to say that he had the attention of 70 percent of the class, and that 70 percent was a “dismal figure.”

  “Anyway,” Sherm said quietly, “people fake stuff all the time.”

  —

  Bridge’s homeroom played dodgeball during gym class, the girls against the boys. This time, the girls took their shoes off and were out for blood.

  SPUTNIK

  “I’m not saying they couldn’t have faked it,” Bridge’s mom said that night, passing the taco shells. “I’m saying I don’t believe they faked it.”

  “But it’s possible.”

  “Possible? Sure. I mean, today it would be easy, with digital effects, but back then, in the sixties? It would have been staging.”

  “Staging?” Bridge passed the black beans to her father, who passed them directly to Jamie. Their father didn’t “believe in” beans in tacos.

  “Like for a play, or a movie—they would have gotten a bunch of rocks and sand to make a fake-moon floor, set up some lights, dressed up in the suits, and taken pictures. Like a photo shoot.”

  Bridge thought. “And they might have had a giant fan, right? Because in the pictures it looks like the flag is waving, but there’s no wind on the moon.”

  “Really?” Her mom nodded. “Sure, they could have had a fan.”

  “Or maybe,” Jamie said, “they dragged a fan to the moon. Ever think of that?”

  “That’s dumb,” Bridge said.

  “Not as dumb as what you’re talking about,” he said. “Seriously? The moon landings were all faked? Someone should take away your Internet.”

  “It’s not from the Internet. What’s Sputnik?”

  “Sputnik,” their father said, “was the Russians—the Soviet Union, back then. They put the first satellite into orbit, in the 1950s. A very big deal, at the time. The Americans had never done that. It was kind of a challenge—you know, to our national pride.”

  “So Sputnik was the satellite?”

  He nodded. “It was up there for a few months, I think. People here could actually see it in the sky, with the naked eye. And a lot of them didn’t like it one bit. That’s why Americans were so desperate to get to the moon before the Russians. They called it the Space Race.”

  “Who wants to go for ice cream?” Bridge’s mom said. “We’re celebrating. I got a big job today.”

  Their dad smiled. “A fancy wedding. A celebrity wedding.”

  “Aren, don’t be silly—they’re only famous for being rich.”

  “Bo-ring,” Jamie said.

  “Boring but lucrative,” their mom said.

  “I want ice cream,” Bridge said. “I definitely want ice cream.”

  Jamie looked at his pedometer. “I have enough juice, I think.”

  “Juice” meant steps. Jamie was always saying “I’m almost out of juice” or “I need to burn up some of this juice.” So far both he and Alex had hit the number ten thousand every single day.

  —

  On the way home from the ice cream place, Jamie, with his chocolate–peanut butter twist, and Bridge, with her banana caramel, walked a few steps behind their parents.

  “Are you guys having these intruder drills at your school?” Bridge said.

  “Intruder drills?”

  “Yeah. I think it’s like what to do if a lunatic breaks in? I don’t know. We’re doing the first one next week.”

  “Never heard of it. Sounds freaky.”

  When Bridge didn’t respond, he looked at her. “Are you freaked?”

  “No.” Bridge shrugged.

  “Good.” Jamie went back to work on his ice cream cone.

  “You still haven’t told me what you bet Alex,” Bridge said.

  He shook his head. “I told you, I’m not losing this time. So it’s irrelevant.”

  They stopped short at a corner just as a truck sped through the intersection in front of them. There was a loud bang, like a gun going off, and Bridge’s body locked itself down. She couldn’t move.

  Jamie looked at her. “That was a bottle,” he said. “The truck hit a bottle and smashed it.” He pointed to a large, curved shard of glass rocking in the middle of the street. “See it?”

  “Yeah.” Bridge looked at the broken bottle. “I see it.” Their light was green, but she couldn’t move yet. She saw their parents waiting on the other side of the street, trying to look casual.

  Jamie waited while Bridge mentally unlocked her muscles, one at a time.

  She took a step. “Yep. All good.”

  She saw him give their parents a quick thumbs-up, and then he checked his pedometer. “Oops, running on empty.” He began taking enormous steps, trying to cover as much ground as he could with each one.

  They passed a family whose kids turned, giggling, to watch Jamie lunge down the street.

  “Sorry,” Jamie said to Bridge. “Is this horribly embarrassing?”

  Bridge licked her ice cream and smiled. “Well, yeah,” she said. “But only for you.”

  “Maybe they’re staring at your cat ears,” Jamie said, lunging again.

  “Possible,” Bridge said. “But I’m pretty sure they were laughing at you.”

  Then Jamie grinned. Bridge knew this particular grin. It was his Hermey-the-elf grin.

  “Oh no,” she said.

  “ ‘I don’t need anybody,’ ” Jamie said. “ ‘I’m independent!’ ” It was a line from Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, the Christmas special. They both knew the whole thing by heart because when they were little they liked to act out scenes for their parents. Jamie was always Hermey, the elf who wants to be a dentist, and Bridge was always Rudolph.

  She picked up the scene where he had left off: “ ‘Yeah? Me too. I’m…whatever you said. Independent.’ ”

  “ ‘Hey, what do you say we both be independent together, huh?’ ”

  “ ‘You wouldn’t mind my red nose?’ ” Bridge asked.

  “ ‘Not if you don’t mind me being a dentist,’ ” Jamie said, lunging again.

  Bridge ran to catch up with him, then stuck out her hand to shake. “ ‘It’s a deal.’ ”

  THE NINE THOUSAND THINGS

  “Aw!” Bridge said, handing the poem back to Emily. “It’s sweet.” They were standing at their lockers before fourth period.

  Emily had written about her little brother, Evan, who was into fortune-telling and robots. The last line was about how he always slept in the bottom bunk of her bed when he had bad dreams, and reading it made Bridge remember that she’d had a nightmare the night before, the usual one, where she was wrapped up tight like a mummy. By the time she’d fought her way out of it, kicking the sheet and blanket off her bed, her mother was next to her, touching her forehead and reminding her to replace the scary picture in her mind the way they’d practiced, with an image of a cold blue sky and clouds moving across it.

  Em gazed fondly at her paper. “Yeah, I wrote it this morning in math. When you’re weak on effort, it helps to be big on heart.”

  “That is so cynical!” Tab said.

  “Does he really come to your room when he has a nightmare?” Bridge asked.

  “Only since the divorce.”

  Em’s parents were the kind who wanted to talk about everything. Her mom wanted to know what Em’s friends were “into.” She did mother-daughter manicures on Saturdays, and noticed a girl on the train with a thin braid pulled to one side and then practiced so she could do it for Emily. And Em’s dad reminded Bridge of Em’s mom—he watched reality TV and always knew what meme was going around. They were more alike than any other parents Bridge knew. So it was weird that they were the ones who got divorced.

  “Let’s say everyone has nine thousand things about themselves,” Em had explained to Tab and Bridge in sixth grade, “and say two p
eople fall in love because it seems like all their things match up. But what they don’t know is that only like a thousand of their things actually match up. My mom says most people who get married don’t even know those other eight thousand things about themselves yet. So it could happen to anyone.”

  Now Em belonged to the school’s Banana Splits Book Club, for kids whose parents had split up. They read books about other kids whose parents had split up, and talked about them. When Bridge asked her about it, Em just shrugged and said, “Hey, it’s free cookies. Mr. P gets black-and-whites from Nussbaum’s.”

  That meant she didn’t want to talk about it. But she did say that after her dad moved out, her parents started getting along much better. They even had dinner together once a month.

  —

  “You guys.” Em slammed her locker. “I’m calling an emergency meeting. Today. At lunch. I need you.”

  “I can’t,” Tab said. “I have Hindi Club at lunch on Wednesdays, remember?”

  “Bridge?” Em put her hands together under her chin. “Please?”

  “I’m supposed to be at that Tech Crew meeting,” Bridge said.

  “Just tell us now, Em!” Tab said. “Quick! Before the bell rings.”

  “I can’t tell you—I have to show you.”

  “Recess?” Bridge said.

  Em shook her head. “It’s on my phone. They love snatching phones in the yard. Julie Hopper lost hers on Monday. For two weeks!”

  “After last period, then.” Tab started walking backward. “Okay?”

  TECH CREW

  “Okay, people, let’s gather stage right. Stage right is on your right if you’re standing on the stage facing the audience. Facing the audience! Good, here we all are. What nice shiny faces. Hungry? Have some more pizza. This is not school-budget pizza. Budget pizza is only for show nights. I bought this pizza, and I’m not rich, so after today our lunch meetings are brown bag all the way. Got it? Good. C’mon, use the paper plates and the napkins, guys, that’s what they’re there for.

  “Now, there are sixteen of us, and we’ll usually meet in two separate groups of eight, a Monday group and a Wednesday group, and then every once in a while we’ll all come together, like today.

  “First thing I want you to do is form a line—great, nice line, I can tell you guys are pros. Now, one at a time, you’re going to strut out onto center stage—yes, strut—and face the audience. I know there’s nobody out there—just pretend. This is the world of pretend. We are artists and we are servants of the stage, and I take both jobs very seriously. As artists, we work as a collective—all for one and one for all. As servants, we work for those who venture out alone, otherwise known as the performers.

  “I want you to know what it feels like to be standing onstage in front of five hundred and fifty people with those lights shining in your eyes. It’s scary, people. And if your microphone cuts out or you trip on a cord in front of those five hundred and fifty people, that’s more scary. By the way, I say five hundred and fifty people because that’s full capacity in this theater—I do not want to hear it referred to as an auditorium! And we always sell out our shows. All five hundred and fifty seats. Always.

  “Strut, stand, and imagine. No, don’t look away, don’t look down, look out there. Yes, just like that. What did you say your name was?”

  “Sherm.”

  “No squinting, Sherm. Let those lights smack you right in the eyes. I want you to feel vulnerable. Do you feel vulnerable? Nod once if you feel vulnerable. Good. Do you know why the actors can let themselves feel vulnerable in this theater? Because of us. They may feel alone, but they are not alone. Because we are here, taking care of them. Got it? Good. Who’s next?

  “Another thing! Everyone wants to know about the black T-shirts. Yes, the shirts are cool. But the shirts, much like today’s pizza, are not in the budget. So if you want one, and I hope you do, you have to bring in eight bucks. Shoot, was that the bell already? Last thing! Everyone be quiet. Okay, I’ll wait. Good. Listen up. This theater is our sacred space. I said sacred. That means whatever may be going on out there—in the classrooms, in the yard, in the hallways—means nothing to us in here. Here, we have each other’s backs, no matter what. Got it? Everybody nod once if you got it. Good. Class dismissed. Toss your plates in the garbage on your way out.”

  —

  “Wow,” Bridge said, walking next to Sherm as the group filed out of the auditorium. “That kid was right—Mr. Partridge is kind of intense.”

  “Yeah,” Sherm said, blinking double-time. “And I think I’m blind now.”

  —

  At recess, Sherm ran into the middle of Bridge’s kickball game, looking high over his shoulder for a flying football. He missed, ran after it, and picked it up.

  “Hey,” Bridge called from the outfield. “Do you mind? We’re playing a game here!”

  “Sorry!” The whole kickball game watched Sherm jog back to the other side of the yard with the football pressed against his stomach. Turning at the last second, he yelled, “I feel so vulnerable right now!” And Bridge laughed.

  Em stared after him. “What was that?”

  “Inside joke,” Bridge said.

  —

  The weird thing was that Sherm’s flag-on-the-moon theory was all over the Internet: Bridge had looked it up. Lots of people had already talked about it. And it turned out that the astronauts packed a special flag on Apollo 11, with a wire worked into the material so that it would stick out like that. They knew it would just hang down otherwise.

  Of course they knew.

  VALENTINE’S DAY

  The cat has gone to sleep.

  You think about curling up next to her and letting the day slip away on fast-forward. But you can’t stay here anymore. Your mom might be springing for a cab at this very moment. That thought gets you moving.

  You move the plastic dry-cleaning wall to one side, crawl toward the closet door, and listen for footsteps. The apartment is quiet. The neighbor is gone.

  Quickly, quickly: you go to your room and grab a five-dollar bill, the only cash you have at the moment, from your desk drawer. Where’s your phone? Your idiot neighbor has taken your phone! Unless she just put it down somewhere? You start scanning for it, walking room to room: kitchen, living room—

  That’s when you hear the toilet flush in the hall bathroom. You freeze. She’s still here! You hear water running in the sink. Taking huge steps that are as quiet as you can make them, you cross to the front door, bend down, and pick up your shoes. Then, holding the doorknob so that there is no telltale click, you slip out and close the door behind you.

  You sprint down all twelve flights of stairs, hugging the banister on the turns to make them tight. You’re moving so quickly that your momentum pulls you faster and faster, like something getting sucked down a drain.

  In the lobby you try to walk casually, as if your scalp isn’t pinging with dizziness and fear. You scan the street: there are no cabs pulling up and disgorging screaming mothers. The sidewalk is empty.

  INNY

  The first intruder drill was scheduled for fifth period, and everyone was even noisier than usual walking into English.

  “We don’t have closets in this classroom,” Bridge’s teacher said, after clapping his hands for attention. “So when the drill starts, we’ll line up, walk to the back of the room, and crouch against the wall. Any questions?”

  Everyone in the class had the same questions: Closets? Crouch against the wall? But nobody asked them.

  The room was silent. Bridge looked at Sherm, and he looked back. She realized that Sherm’s eyes were the same green-gold mix as the eyes of Tab’s cat, Sashi.

  “What’s wrong?” Sherm whispered.

  “Nothing,” Bridge said.

  They listened to the drill announcement on the PA, and when it was over, there was a sound like a loud droning dial tone that made Bridge aware of every other person in the room, as if her body had involuntarily flung little Spider-Man threads t
o each one of them.

  The teacher took a set of keys from his desk drawer and calmly locked the classroom door. He unrolled a little black rectangle of cloth and somehow attached it to the door so that it covered the small window. Bridge wondered what held it there: Double-sided tape? Velcro? Then he switched off the lights.

  Their classroom was in the basement, but there was enough light to see by, coming in through a few small windows near the ceiling.

  “Quickly and quietly,” the teacher said. “Everyone to the back of the room. Don’t push your chairs in—leave them.” And these were the strangest moments, for Bridge, everyone standing up and walking away from their desks without the usual screech of a hundred chair legs against the floor. She stayed close to Sherm, following the pattern of his plaid shirt in the dim light. They squeezed into the line of kids that stretched across the back of the room.

  “Get lower,” the teacher said in a quiet voice. “Make your bodies small.” Bridge tucked her head down. She could hear Sherm’s breathing next to her and smell the smell of his shirt. It smelled like—bread, maybe? Or pancakes?

  Sherm appeared to be concentrating on his knees.

  Someone started doing the shark music from Jaws. There was some nervous giggling. But mostly they were quiet. She knew it was only a drill, but it got a little creepy, with everyone hunched in the dark. Bridge kept her eyes on the door. Her folded legs began to ache. Every once in a while, she glanced at Sherm, being careful to keep her body still, to move only her eyes. But he seemed to feel her looking, and always raised his head a little to look back at her.

  Then Sherm whispered. “Hey. What’d you have for breakfast this morning?”

  She whispered back. “Breakfast?”

  “Yeah. I had an egg sandwich. What’d you have?”

  “Oh—cereal. And cinnamon toast.”

  “I’ve never tried cinnamon toast.”

  “Are you serious?”

  He locked eyes with her. “I wouldn’t lie about a thing like that.”

  “Do you know where they have the best cinnamon toast?” Bridge whispered. “At the Dollar-Eight Diner.”