The Lost Things Club

by J. S. Puller

  Our first show wasn’t until noon. Everything was set to go. Violet, TJ, and Michelle would operate the puppets in the box. My job would be to introduce the show and to fly in some of the scenery we’d whipped up. Nothing special. A cardboard sun on a stick. A fluffy cloud made of lint, dangling from a string. A shooting star, lined with broken necklace chains.

  My first almost-on-camera appearance.

  Michelle was working on last-minute adjustments to the stage, regluing the lint and making sure the socks weren’t coming loose and draping over our name. Violet’s older sister, Katie, had agreed to lend a hand. Michelle greeted her warmly, although I noticed a tinge of sadness in Michelle’s smile.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked her.

  “Nothing,” she said. “I just wish Jamal were here.”

  “He’s not coming to the fair?”

  “He doesn’t like leaving his room, you know.”

  “Yeah, but for a few hours he could—”

  “No.” She shook her head. “Not at all.”

  I hadn’t realized how serious she’d been. “Oh, I’m so—”

  “It’s all right,” she said, turning away from me to continue working on the booth.

  “Isolation.” “Social anxiety.” The words from Aunt Lisa’s lists jumped to the forefront of my mind. I wondered if Michelle’s mom had lists of her own.

  Lists for Jamal.

  I went to join Violet, who was busy checking out the crowd. Violet, of course, seemed to know everyone there, calling out and waving to classmates and neighbors, until suddenly, she grabbed my arm, her nails digging into my skin.

  “What?” I said, looking at her.

  “Over there,” she whispered, nodding her head to the left.

  I looked over. “What?” There was a frenzy of activity to the left—not to mention to the right and straight ahead—so I didn’t have a clue what she was looking at.

  “Do you see that woman?”

  I saw several women. And Aunt Lisa.

  Violet seemed to read my mind. “No, no,” she said. “Not her. The woman your aunt is talking to.”

  She was wonderfully tall, with light brown skin and super dark, black hair. It was neatly arranged around her head in a crown of braids. She wore a bright red blazer on top, with a pair of skinny jeans.

  “Who is she?” I asked.

  “She’s Julie Bruen.”

  “Julie Bruen?”

  “Yeah.” Violet rested her chin on top of my head, staring at Julie. “She’s a reporter on WGN. There are pictures of her face all over the sides of buses.”

  “She looks cool,” I said, squirming a little under Violet. Her chin, like the rest of her, was sharp and pointy.

  “She’s amazing,” Violet replied. “My family watches her New Year’s Eve TV special every year. It’s the best. She goes to Millennium Park and interviews all the guests. She once was onstage with Dina and the Starlights.”

  “Sounds like the kind of job you want to have someday.”

  “No kidding.”

  I smirked. “No wonder you like her.”

  “I don’t like her,” Violet said. “I love her.”

  “Well, that’s a good thing.”

  “Why?”

  “Because she’s coming this way.”

  I heard Violet swallow a shriek. She immediately started smoothing down her hair. Both of us had allowed Michelle to braid keys into our hair so that we all matched. Violet started tugging at one now, taking quick, shallow breaths.

  Aunt Lisa and Julie were, in fact, walking our way. Trailing behind them was a large man in a baseball hat, wearing a black shirt that had “WGN” across the front. Hoisted up on his shoulder was a gigantic camera. He dragged a cord along the ground. It slithered across the pavement, like a serpent.

  “Here they are,” Aunt Lisa said, as she got closer. “As you can see, Oak Lake is very proud of our own local celebrities.”

  “This is great,” Julie said, looking at our puppet stage. She had the slightest hint of an accent, but I couldn’t tell what it was. English, maybe. Or Australian or South African. I always got those three mixed up.

  “Michelle, TJ,” Aunt Lisa called, “come out here. There’s someone I want you to meet.”

  Michelle came out from behind the stage. “Yeah?”

  “Where’s TJ?”

  We all turned around to face the stage. “Hedgehog?” I said.

  A small blond head poked out of the side of the box.

  “There you are! Come over here, sweetie,” Aunt Lisa said, beckoning.

  TJ already had Staples on his hand. He crawled out of the box slowly, taking his time standing up straight, before shuffling over.

  Aunt Lisa smiled at him, then turned to Julie. “These are the creative geniuses behind the videos. Violet Kowalski, Michelle Green, my niece Leah Abramowitz, and my little boy, Toby Isaac Cantor Jr. We call him ‘TJ’ for short.”

  Julie had amazing teeth. When she smiled, they were a little like looking at the sun. “Nice to meet you,” she said. “Ladies, I love your hair.” She offered her hand to each of us. Violet shook it a little too eagerly. It was far from the handshake she’d always practiced, and I had to cover my mouth to hide a smile. But TJ was standoffish, half ducking behind Michelle when he was offered the chance to shake Julie’s hand, shrugging his shoulder up to his ear and turning to one side.

  “He’s shy,” Michelle said, putting a hand on TJ’s arm.

  “I can see that,” Julie said. She bent over, putting her hands on her knees, looking at him face-to-face. “Are you the boy behind Sir Staples the hedgehog?”

  TJ nodded.

  “You should know,” Julie said, “he’s my favorite character.”

  Violet gaped. “You watch our videos?” she asked.

  “Watch them?” Julie laughed, straightening out. “I love them!”

  I thought Violet might faint. Her cheeks turned bright pink and, for maybe the first time in her life, she was actually at a loss for words.

  “Thank you,” I said, covering for her.

  “You’re welcome.”

  “Julie was hoping that she might be able to ask you kids a couple of questions,” Aunt Lisa said.

  “And we’d like to record part of your show today,” Julie added.

  Michelle lit up. “You would?”

  “We want to do a segment for the evening news on the crafts fair,” she said. “And given how popular your videos are, we thought we’d focus on your appearance here.” She paused. “If that’s all right with you.”

  “Yes! Yes, it’s all right!” Violet said. “Definitely all right. More than all right, really.”

  Julie laughed again. “I like that enthusiasm.”

  “Our show doesn’t start until noon,” Michelle said.

  “That’s fine. I’d actually love to talk to you before the show. Before you get rushed, I’m sure, by all your adoring fans. How would you kids feel about having an interview with me right now?”

  “We’re in!” Violet said.

  “Fantastic.”

  I had no idea how complicated it was, sitting for an interview. But the cameraman—whose name was Jorge—first had us go to one side of the street, then the other. Trying to line up a shot. Trying to figure out a way to get the fair and the stage in the background.

  “Pay close attention,” he said to me, as he set his camera on a tripod. “You’re the director for the Land of Lost Things, aren’t you?”

  The director.

  I’d never thought about myself by that word before, but I kind of liked it. It felt very sophisticated. Very important, somehow.

  Special.

  And it felt right.

  “Yeah,” I said. “Yes, I am. I’m the director. It’s what I do.”

  Jorge winked at me. “Well, come over here. Take a look in the lens. This is how you line up an exterior shot.”

  I stood up on my tiptoes and watched the way he adjusted the camera on the tripod, while Julie stood i
n different places, the light on her face changing, depending on the way it filtered through the trees.

  When Jorge was finally happy with the angle of the camera, he had all of us stand in a line beside Julie. Julie was holding a handheld microphone, with the big WGN logo on it, but Jorge clipped battery-operated microphones to the front of our shirts. “It can be hard to hear with all this background noise,” he told me. “These should pick up everything you say that the handheld misses. And I’ll tell you the ultimate secret to this kind of shoot.”

  “What?” I asked.

  He reached into his pocket and pulled out three double-A batteries. “Always have extras. Just in case.”

  A second person in a WGN shirt, a woman with long green hair, came over to Julie, applying a bit of powder to her nose and forehead. Violet watched the whole thing with such an intense longing that the woman offered to give her a touch-up, too. She used a soft pad and quickly brushed some makeup on Violet’s face.

  “All right,” Julie said, what felt like hours later, “I think we’re more or less set up. We’re not going to film this live, so don’t worry. If you mess up, just say you want to start again and you can start again. We’ll edit the whole thing later.”

  Aunt Lisa, standing behind Jorge, gave us two thumbs-up.

  “Just act natural,” Julie continued. “Don’t worry about the camera. Just look at me. And remember, have fun. You aren’t getting graded or anything. There are no right or wrong answers.”

  Violet was drinking it in.

  “Okay,” Jorge said. “We’ll start rolling in five, four, three…” He didn’t say “two” or “one.” He just held up his hand and pointed to Julie.

  Julie transformed in an instant. Her posture was straighter, her shoulders level and formal. She smiled a big toothy smile, staring into the lens of the camera she’d told us to ignore. “Julie Bruen here. I’m visiting one of the many fantastic, local summer events to check out this year. I’m at the Oak Lake crafts fair with some very promising young Chicagoans. Joining me is the creative team behind the Land of Lost Things, the popular video series making the rounds on YouTube. With their quirky characters and their world made entirely out of the lost-and-found box, these stories are capturing the hearts of—”

  “Not stories.”

  It was TJ. He looked up at Julie with a fierce glare.

  Again, I remembered that term I’d read in Aunt Lisa’s binder again. “Trigger words.” Julie had just used one.

  Julie’s camera persona faded and she looked down at him, puzzled, but not upset. “What?”

  “They’re not stories. Don’t call them stories.”

  Aunt Lisa took a step up, rising on her toes over Jorge’s shoulder. “I think he prefers it when you call them ‘videos,’” she said, with that forced lightness in her voice.

  “Oh.” Julie nodded. “Well, all right.” She looked at Jorge. “Where do you want to pick up?”

  “Go from ‘Joining me,’” Jorge said.

  She nodded. And composed herself again. Like a light, she was “on.” “Joining me is the creative team behind the Land of Lost Things, the popular video series making the rounds on YouTube. With their quirky characters and their world made entirely out of the lost-and-found box, these videos are capturing the hearts of thousands.” Julie turned to us. “Why don’t you introduce yourselves?”

  “I’m Violet Kowalski,” Violet said. “I’m twelve years old, and I’m going to be in seventh grade, and when I get older, I want to be—”

  “And who do you play, Violet?”

  “I play Queen Queenie the Fifth,” she said. I noticed that she was holding herself up straighter. Copying Julie’s posture.

  But Julie shifted, turning to Michelle. “And you are?”

  “Michelle Green,” she said. “I’m Francis the flamingo.”

  Julie turned to me. “And?”

  “Leah Abramowitz,” I said. “I’m… the director.”

  Jorge gave me a thumbs-up with his free hand.

  “And certainly the youngest director I’ve ever seen,” Julie said. She smiled over at TJ. “And you are?”

  TJ just stared at her.

  Quickly, Michelle leaned over. “This is TJ Cantor. He plays Sir Staples the Brave.”

  “Hello, TJ,” Julie said. She straightened up again. “The Land of Lost Things has put a spotlight on the Oak Lake neighborhood. Viewers are transported to an imaginary land called the Land of—”

  “No,” TJ cut in.

  Julie looked at him again. “No?”

  “It’s not imaginary.”

  “TJ!” Aunt Lisa said.

  He ignored her, glaring at Julie in a way I’d never seen before. The way he’d yelled at his parents in their bedroom was nothing compared to this. Maybe because she was a stranger. Or maybe because something was changing in TJ.

  “It’s not imaginary,” he said. “Redo it. Take it back. Pick another word.”

  I had to do something.

  But what?

  Julie looked over at Aunt Lisa. And then at TJ. “All right,” she said. “Is there another word you’d like? How about ‘fictional’?”

  “No,” he said.

  “‘Make-believe’?”

  “No.”

  “‘Fantastic’?”

  “Stop it!”

  TJ shouted. Actually shouted. The kind of shouting that happened with his whole body. Mouth wide, feet planted, face red. A couple of fairgoers passing by paused, looking over. But TJ didn’t care.

  “Stop using words like that,” he continued, his voice only getting louder. “Stop using words that make it sound like it isn’t true!”

  “Hedgehog—” I started.

  He ignored me. “The Land of Lost Things is real. You can’t say that it’s not real. It is real! It is!”

  “Toby Isaac Cantor Jr.,” Aunt Lisa said, stepping around the camera. “You know better than to—”

  “I do know better!” TJ said. “I know better than all of you! I know it’s real!”

  Julie seemed at a loss. She signaled for Jorge to stop filming. He put his hand in front of the lens.

  “It exists!” Tears were streaming down TJ’s face all of a sudden, glistening in the sunlight. “The Land of Lost Things is real!”

  Aunt Lisa looked mortified. “You know that it’s not—”

  “I know!” TJ shouted. “I know and it’s never going to be not real! It’s always going to be real! Always!”

  With that, he grabbed the microphone pinned to his shirt and ripped it off, throwing it down on the sidewalk. He turned and ran, darting between a man walking his dog and a couple admiring a booth of photographs.

  “TJ!” Aunt Lisa screamed.

  But already, he’d disappeared into the crowd. He was so little, it was all too easy to lose him.

  I looked at Violet and Michelle.

  An understanding passed between us.

  “We’ll get him, Aunt Lisa,” I said, taking off my mic and setting it down gently.

  The three of us took off.

  Somehow, I knew this was what I’d been dreading.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  It was hard to keep running through the fair. There were just so many people, going in a thousand different directions all at once. Violet, Michelle, and I kept having to dodge around them, jangling like wind chimes caught in a storm. We got separated and came back together. We had a few near collisions, as people walking their bikes across the road blocked our way. As hard as I tried to hold on to Violet and Michelle, we kept getting ripped apart.

  And we were operating on pure instinct.

  None of us could see TJ.

  It was useless to call out his name. There’s no way he would have heard us.

  And even if he had…

  Well. I knew he wasn’t going to answer.

  But I kept running, pumping my arms to either side, determined not to lose him. If I’d ever put this much effort into running in gym, I would have passed the Presidential Y
outh Fitness Program for sure.

  But that didn’t matter.

  This did.

  We tore past the stage, where Holly and the Millennials were singing, crashing through a group of kids dancing in our way.

  In for a penny

  In for a pound

  You can’t really lose

  What was meant to be found

  “Sorry, Samantha!” Violet called over her shoulder, at an annoyed redhead with a Hula-Hoop flipped over her shoulders.

  We plunged into the cool shade of the train tracks, colliding into a group of college students in matching purple-and-white shirts who’d just walked down the stairs from the train platform.

  And that’s when someone said, “Hey, Cousin!”

  It was Morgan.

  He was arranging a couple of jelly-filled doughnuts in a pink box for a woman in a big floppy hat, looking surprisingly at ease. He gave me one of his crooked smiles, waving me over with two fingers.

  I shook my head. “I’m sorry, Morgan. We can’t talk right now.”

  “We’re in a hurry!” Violet said.

  “Looking for little man?” Morgan asked.

  “Yeah,” Michelle said.

  Morgan nodded. “I saw him go by.”

  “Do you know where he went?” Violet asked.

  “Sure do,” Morgan said. “And you do, too.”

  We looked at one another. And reached the same conclusion at the exact same moment, I think. “The laundromat,” I said.

  And we were off and running again.

  Squeaky Green wasn’t part of the fair. No, the fair ended right by the tracks. But there were a ton of people hanging out on the sidewalk outside, anyway. People who hadn’t been able to find a place to sit and eat in the fair itself. People coming. People going. And, of course, people just having their regular days, who didn’t care about the fair at all.

  We cut through them, grabbing one another by the hands, as we dove into the front door of the laundromat.

  Sir Staples the Brave was abandoned on the floor in front of us, his quills pointing in a hundred different directions.

  The silver brave heart had fallen off him, trampled and crinkled, it seemed, by tiny, running feet on a tiny, running boy.

  A few of the laundromat regulars were there. But none of them were chatting or separating or folding. They stood along the sides of the walls, staring at the back wall of dryers. Dryer number five was open wide, its mouth gaping and yawning.