The Lost Things Club

by J. S. Puller

  “It was a flying machine that carried me here. I built the cabin out of an old bathtub. The kind they used to have, way back when. The kind with feet. And I put a boot on each foot. Strapped to the bottom of the tub were a thousand bottles of hair spray. They were only half-empty. But the rich ladies who bought them threw them out before finishing them up. That was the key to the escape, you see. I needed something for propulsion. I tied a string around the spray buttons and pulled it up through the drain of my tub. And once I was inside, with an old blanket over my head, I pulled the string and… vroosh! The hair spray let loose, spraying all at once. And the force of all that air sent my tub shooting up into the sky!

  “I went up, up, up, and I saw the world. It’s so much prettier from above. You don’t see the trash and the decay and the waste. And how lost so many people are. You see blue and green and blue and green. It’s perfect from up there. Nothing out of place. Nothing forgotten. Everything flowing together perfectly, the way it was designed. No lonely bits or pieces that didn’t fit. Everything just manages to belong.

  “I could have stayed up there forever, but I was going to run out of hair spray eventually. So I used an old encyclopedia as an oar and I steered my tub, going to the brightest and biggest cluster of buildings I could see. Which was Chicago, of course. And I landed in Millennium Park. The boots on each foot of the tub cushioned the landing. Smoother than any seven-forty-seven.

  “Problem was, when I left, my two daughters lived in the city. By the time I got back, they were gone. Suppose their mama took them away. I looked everywhere for them. Searched high and low. But I realized we traded places. I came home, and they went away. Maybe to the Land of Lost Things. So I guess Chicago wasn’t really home. I tried looking for a home. Tried lots of different places. But none of them were where my daughters were. Until, finally, I found this here doughnut shop under the train tracks. And made myself a home of sorts. The next best thing. Lots of friends. My bottle caps. And all the doughnuts I could eat. Perfect pastry, really. One with a hole in it. For when there’s a hole in your heart.”

  Without warning, I was reminded of something Violet once said to me: Every person has some kind of story.

  I think all of us were reminded of that fact.

  Violet’s arms had fallen to her sides, Queenie’s head upside down.

  Michelle had a hand over her chest. Francis was pressed up against her shoulder.

  TJ stood there with his mouth hanging open.

  Morgan paused, wetting his chapped, cracked lips. And then looked up at me, his eyes cloudy. “How’s that?” he asked.

  “That’s…” I couldn’t find the words I wanted. Instead, I felt a wave of emotion breaking over me. It was too much. I didn’t want to feel all that. I was afraid I was going to cry. I swallowed it back, as best I could. But my best didn’t feel good enough, because the feeling lingered inside me.

  “That’s good, Morgan,” I said, once I was sure my voice wouldn’t break. “That’s a great story. Really, really great.”

  Except that it wasn’t a story at all. Not exactly.

  He smiled, dipping his head. “Thanks, Cousin.”

  Violet cleared her throat. “We should… we should work on the knighting. That’s what happens next, right?”

  “Yeah,” I said.

  Michelle immediately jumped in with ideas, drawing on the movies she’d seen about knights and crusades and courtly ladies. I tried to follow her, but out of the corner of my eye, I saw TJ. He was staring at Violet, with a sort of thoughtful expression on his face.

  She noticed it, too.

  “What is it?” Violet asked him, turning around and squatting down to his level.

  “Do you think…” TJ trailed off, lost in some other world, his shoulder hunching up toward his ear.

  “What, TJ?”

  “You’re really smart, Violet,” he said.

  She blinked in surprise. “Uh, thanks?”

  “Do you think it’s possible that other people also escaped from the Land of Lost Things, like Morgan?”

  Violet shrugged. “I don’t see why not,” she said. “It’s a world, not a prison, after all. Doors open both ways.”

  “So how come more people don’t talk about it?”

  “About what?”

  “Escaping.”

  “Well,” she said. “Maybe they don’t think we’d believe them.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah.”

  He considered this for a moment. Slowly nodding to himself. “Yeah,” he said. “That makes a lot of sense. And that makes it even more important.”

  “What?”

  “Our charter.”

  “Telling people about the Land of Lost Things?”

  “Yeah. Because, that way, once everyone knows, then everyone will believe it. And all the people who escaped, no one will be mad at them or anyone who sent them there.”

  Sent them there?

  I wanted to ask what he meant by that, but Violet stopped me.

  “Well, then,” she said. “I guess that means we better get to work on this new video. How’s it coming over there, Michelle? Leah?”

  “We can do it just like they do it at the renaissance fair,” Michelle said.

  “You’ve been to the renaissance fair?” TJ asked.

  “Of course!” she said. “Who doesn’t go every summer?”

  “We went twice last year,” Violet said, looking a little grumpy about it. “My sister is obsessed. But, come on. We’ve got a job to do and a video to finish.”

  “Yeah!” TJ whooped.

  I should have felt just as excited as the rest of them. But instead of soaring, I felt my heart sinking. Morgan’s story was about a man who had failed in this world. A world that had failed him. That much I understood, even if I didn’t know all the actual details of his life, all the steps along the path that had led him to the lonely little shop under the tracks. But where I was saddened by the story, TJ was excited.

  Did he understand?

  He was old enough to know that life wasn’t fair.

  I’d certainly known at his age.

  I’d figured it out the day my dad left and I taught myself not to cry.

  But something was wrong. And what bothered me more than the fact that something was wrong was the fact that I couldn’t put a name to it.

  Then TJ and Violet and Michelle were calling me over. We had a video to produce. And they couldn’t do that without the camera.

  That was my job.

  I was in charge.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Well, only sort of in charge.

  It didn’t last that long.

  Back in the apartment, I quickly learned who was really the boss.

  “Leah.” Aunt Lisa’s expression was tight. “Your uncle and I need to talk to you. In our room, please.”

  Nothing good ever followed a sentence like that.

  It was a couple of days after we filmed with Morgan. TJ and I had spent the entire morning with Violet and Michelle. Francis was in desperate need of repair, after his dryer-sheet feathers got caught on a strip of Velcro inside one of Michelle’s bags. It was a surgical procedure. Accompanied by a story from Michelle. About how many lost cures and remedies made everyone in the Land of Lost Things well again.

  No one died from disease.

  It was truly an immortal land.

  TJ really liked that part.

  We came back home in time for dinner, but I noticed that Uncle Toby and Aunt Lisa kept cutting their eyes at each other. It wasn’t their usual lovey-dovey googly eyes, either. And while Uncle Toby was as boisterous as ever, telling us about the dragon he’d slain at work—who would have guessed that being a mathematician was such a hazardous job?—Aunt Lisa was noticeably quiet.

  Which usually meant she was thinking.

  When I was helping clear the table, Aunt Lisa pulled me aside.

  “Leah. Your uncle and I need to talk to you. In our room, please.”

  I felt
an invisible hand start to squeeze my throat. I was pretty sure it was fear, but I didn’t want to be afraid, so I tried to ignore it.

  Uncle Toby and Aunt Lisa’s room was at the very end of the long hallway of the apartment. They had a canopy bed, four high wooden posts with a gauzy white veil draped across the tops, drooping down in the middle like their own personal cloud. They sat me down on the foot of the bed. The two of them sat on a small love seat, on the opposite wall of the room, facing me. Uncle Toby had a bottle of orange pop in his hand, but Aunt Lisa didn’t seem to care. She only had eyes for me, at the moment.

  I somehow felt exactly the same way I had the last time I’d been sent to the principal’s office.

  “Leah,” Uncle Toby said, leaning forward to plant his elbows on his knees. “We want to talk to you about—”

  “About that video!” Aunt Lisa said.

  Uncle Toby looked back at her. “Right. The video.”

  Oh no.

  “Video?” I asked.

  “Don’t play dumb,” Aunt Lisa said. “I always see right through that.”

  She really must have been a nightmare for her students.

  “But—”

  “HannahCantor777. I already spoke to your mother. She said that she never posted the video, but that you had her account password.”

  Right. I should have seen it coming. The video was posted under my mom’s name, after all. Well. Both videos.

  Wait.

  There were two videos.

  Which one were they talking about?

  I cleared my throat gingerly. At the very least, I was sure I could wheedle that information out of Aunt Lisa, possibly without revealing that there were two, if she didn’t already know. I had to try, anyway. To see the bigger picture of exactly how much trouble I was in.

  “Are you talking about the video with the…” I intentionally trailed off.

  And she took the bait. “With Morgan, yes!” Aunt Lisa said.

  I guess Violet was right. Everyone did know Morgan, after all.

  But this wasn’t good.

  The video had turned out well. Really, really great, in fact. And by now, it was outpacing the first one. Leaving it in the dust, actually. I texted it to Nicole first, of course. She loved it immediately:

  Sending this to literally everyone I know right now!!

  And she did. Again, it rippled through our friends to friends of our friends and on to their friends as well. Then, somewhere along the line, I guess someone showed it to their parents. All of a sudden, it was the parents who were passing it along instead. There was something about the puppets made of lost things, talking to a lost soul, that spoke to people. It was getting picked up and shared far beyond Deerwood Park now. Already, I’d caught wind of several Chicago celebs—the deputy mayor and the dean of Roosevelt University—sharing it out, saying it was some kind of lesson in compassion for vets. It wasn’t what we’d meant to do. It didn’t ever occur to me that Morgan even was a vet. Not until someone else said it. But Morgan’s story had struck a chord. It was sending echoes into cyberspace.

  And Morgan, of course, was a stranger.

  Even if everyone knew him.

  We’d broken every single rule of stranger danger.

  And been caught in the act, by Aunt Lisa, a teacher, no less.

  I should have figured it would come back to bite us.

  I was already playing defense. “I know that it’s not appropriate for us to be—”

  “Tell me,” Aunt Lisa interrupted, her voice getting a little shrill. “Who was Francis the flamingo?”

  “Easy does it,” Uncle Toby said to her, setting his bottle to one side. He took her hand between both of his and gave it a gentle squeeze.

  “Uh.” I blinked in surprise. I’d sort of expected the yelling to start now. “Uh, that was Michelle Green.”

  “Who?”

  “Michelle Green. Her mom owns the laundromat on Frank Street.”

  “Oh!” Uncle Toby said. “Squeaky Green?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I see,” Aunt Lisa said, slipping her hand away from Uncle Toby. “And Queenie? Who was that?”

  “Violet Kowalski.”

  “The girl from across the street,” Uncle Toby said. “The one who lives in the parking space?”

  I nodded.

  Aunt Lisa rubbed her hands together. She set them on her knees. Then set them in her lap. She didn’t seem to know what to do with them, so she folded them, interlacing her fingers. “And Staples?”

  I heard a hitch in her breath.

  And I knew I had to tell the truth.

  “That’s TJ,” I said.

  She took a sharp breath. And Uncle Toby put his arm around her waist, pulling her gently against his side. “TJ,” she said, looking up at Uncle Toby.

  A tear rolled down her face, leaving behind a mascara stain on her cheek.

  Oh no. What had I done?

  “I’m so sorry!” I blurted out, sliding off the bed and rushing over to them. I dropped to the floor in front of them, grabbing Aunt Lisa’s hands. Begging for mercy felt like the best option. “I’m sorry. I know he shouldn’t be talking to strangers. But we were making our video and—”

  “You did it,” Aunt Lisa said.

  I stopped. I opened my mouth. Then shut it again. “Did it?”

  “You got him to talk.” She sniffled wetly. “He was talking!”

  “Not just talking,” said Uncle Toby. “He was making jokes. That was one funny hedgehog.”

  “How did you do it?” Aunt Lisa asked.

  I looked back and forth between the two of them. In their eyes, I saw the same reaction that I’d had the night I followed TJ to Squeaky Green for the first time. The night I’d heard his little voice. I’d been caught completely off guard.

  The only difference was that I’d had time, now, to get used to it.

  Everything was completely new to them.

  I should have said something before.

  “I don’t know,” I said. And I really didn’t. I guess I couldn’t take credit for it. It was more Michelle’s doing than mine. I’d just been nosy enough to be in the right place at the right time. Which was really more Violet’s fault than mine.

  “It’s a miracle,” Aunt Lisa said.

  “You’re not…” I paused. I had to swallow hard. “You’re not angry?”

  “Angry?” Uncle Toby said. He threw his head back and laughed. A full, rippling belly laugh that made the walls shake. “Why would we be angry?”

  “You got our little boy talking,” Aunt Lisa said. “Months with Ms. Weinstein haven’t been able to make even the slightest difference.” She broke off, swallowing back a sob.

  Uncle Toby kissed the side of her head. “It’s all right, bubbeleh. It’s all right.”

  “Yes,” Aunt Lisa said. “It’s going to be.”

  Through the thin wall, we heard someone in the bathroom, running the sink. “That’s TJ,” Uncle Toby said. “Wait here a moment.”

  He stood up and ambled out of the room.

  Aunt Lisa looked down at me, tears still shining in her eyes.

  “You’re really not mad at me?” I asked.

  She let out a noise. Halfway between a laugh and a sob. And reached over to grab Uncle Toby’s bottle, taking a big swig of pop before she put it back. “I was furious at first,” she said. “Until I realized what was happening.” She dragged the back of her hand across her eyes. She didn’t realize that her mascara was running, and she smeared some of it across the bridge of her nose. She sniffled. “Let’s just say you’re getting a free pass. No one’s getting grounded. This time. Just don’t do something like that again.”

  “I promise,” I said.

  Uncle Toby came back in through the door, with a hand on TJ’s shoulder, leading him inside. TJ shot me a look that I couldn’t read, but I tried to offer him a reassuring smile. It was all right. Everything was going to be all right.

  “Hello, sweetie,” Aunt Lisa said, holding out h
er arms to him.

  Hesitantly, he walked over and let her take his hands.

  “TJ, I am so proud of you,” she said, pulling him close and kissing each of his hands in turn.

  Uncle Toby sat down on the couch again, putting his hand on the side of TJ’s head. “We saw the video. It was really good.”

  “You were wonderful,” Aunt Lisa said.

  “Staples is my favorite character,” Uncle Toby added.

  “Mine, too.”

  TJ looked back and forth between the two of them.

  “They’re proud of you, Hedgehog,” I said, trying to help.

  But he still seemed blank.

  “Tell me,” Aunt Lisa said, kissing his temple. “Wherever did you come up with a story like that? It was so clever. I especially liked the part where—”

  “It’s not a story.” TJ spoke. Except, it wasn’t the TJ I’d spent the last couple of days with. It wasn’t the laughing, charming boy with the puppet and the look of adoration in his eyes as he stared up at Michelle. This was the voice of a hollow boy. An angry boy. He was practically glaring at his mom.

  From unseeing, colorless eyes.

  Aunt Lisa blinked. “What?” she said. I felt like I could almost hear her dreams shattering, like a glass falling on the kitchen floor. This wasn’t the TJ she’d been hoping for. The one she’d been trying so hard to get back.

  “It’s not a story,” TJ said again.

  “What do you mean, sweetie?”

  “It’s the truth,” he said. “All of it. There is a Land of Lost Things.”

  “Of course,” Uncle Toby said quickly. “We know that.”

  “Then why did you call it a story?”

  Aunt Lisa and Uncle Toby looked at each other. Aunt Lisa tried to pull him close again, but TJ yanked his hands free, taking a step away from her. “TJ!”

  “Say you were wrong,” he said.

  “What?”

  “Say that it’s not a story.”

  “It’s not a story,” Uncle Toby said.

  TJ looked at his mom. Her eyes passed from Uncle Toby to me, back to Uncle Toby again. Finally, she settled her gaze on her son. She pulled herself up to her full height and squared her shoulders. “It’s not a story,” she said. Her voice struggled with each word. So this was what it sounded like when Aunt Lisa told a lie. “It’s the truth.”