Technically, it was called Le Tooter. That was what the box it had come in said. Sam had shouted it at us enough times. “I’m a big pooter, with Le Tooter!” But Dad only ever called it the Damn Fart Machine. Sam had loved this awful thing. He’d gotten it for Hanukkah a year and a half ago from Grandpa Dan on a rare visit from Des Moines. Sam had taken it everywhere. The car, the park, the dinner table. He’d had it confiscated at school. But then . . . I’d stolen it.
How had I forgotten this? I’d stolen it the day before we left for camp! I just hadn’t been able to stomach the idea of that horrible thing, that dumb plastic noisemaker, farting away in the woods, at the lake, by the campfire. I knew it would embarrass me, so I’d stolen it from Sam’s bedside table and hidden it away in my junk drawer.
I stared at it in my hand and remembered Sam, dashing around the house, as we loaded the car to leave for camp. “I’m not going without Le Tooter!” he’d cried.
“Like fun, you’re not,” Dad had said with a grin. And he’d picked Sam up and carried him, kicking, to the car. It had all been a joke. A big, silly joke. I’d followed the two of them out to the car, where Mom was waiting. I’d been laughing too. Except that now I remembered what else Dad had said. “The Damn Fart Machine will be waiting for you when you get back. The Damn Fart Machine isn’t going anywhere.”
Now I turned the Damn Fart Machine over in my hand. I stared at it. I pushed the button, and out came the stupid sound I remembered so well. Thbbbbt!
“Oh, God,” I said. “Oh, God, Sam.”
I didn’t even try to stop myself from crying this time. It felt good to cry alone. There, in my empty room. Heavy sobs. Big and loose. Like running very fast down a hill, when you can’t stop your feet even if you try. It was like I’d flipped a switch the night before, and now I couldn’t turn myself off. I cried about Sam, and I cried about being in trouble. I cried about losing my phone, and not seeing Jasper. I cried because the walls were so bare and the house felt too quiet. I cried because of everything, everything, everything. I cried myself limp.
Just as I was getting to that shuddering place, when the crying is stopping but your face is still all wet, the door opened and my mom peeked her head around the corner.
“Leah?” she said, opening the door a little wider. “Are you . . . ?”
I held the toy out to her in my hand. “I found this,” I blubbered. “The Damn Fart Machine.”
“Oh, dear,” Mom said. She walked over to stand beside me and put a hand gently on my head. “Oh, honey.”
I wiped my face with an arm. Mom was blurry through my tears. I took a deep breath. “I’m not in trouble. I swear I’m not doing anything bad.”
“I want to believe that,” she said. “I really do.”
“Please, Mom,” I said. “Please don’t say I can’t see Jasper. She’s my best friend. And I was so . . . lonely.” On that word, I shuddered. “Before I found her, I mean. I’ve been so lonely, ever since . . .”
Mom knelt down beside my chair, and it seemed for a minute like she might cry too. There was something careful and fragile about her too, as though she thought she might shatter if she moved too fast. But she didn’t cry, only pushed a piece of hair out of my wet face, and then she sighed. “Look, Leah,” she said. “Even if you’re not doing anything bad, you could still get in a lot of trouble. Bad things happen to good kids.”
“I know,” I said. “But I’ll be careful, and—”
“Serious trouble,” she said. “It scares me. You sneaking out, like that. It’s not safe. And it’s my job to keep you . . . safe.”
“But—”
“Maybe Jasper isn’t a bad influence, and maybe she is. Maybe you’ve learned a lesson and you’ll never sneak out again. Maybe she’s a good kid, the best in the world. But if you want to spend time with her, I’ll need to meet her. . . .”
I nodded furiously, sniffing back tears. “Okay,” I said. “Okay.”
“And also her mother,” said Mom. “That’s just a rule. This is not some weird idea I came up with, Leah. It’s a standard-issue Mom rule.”
“But it’s . . . complicated,” I said.
Mom stood. Not so soft anymore. She stepped away from me. “No, it really isn’t. In fact, it’s very simple. This is a normal request, and any good mom would do the same. I’m your mother, Leah. I love you best and know you best.”
I couldn’t figure what else to say. In one way, I knew she was right. It was normal for her to want to meet Jasper. To want to call Jasper’s mom. Maybe even have her over for dinner. I could picture what my mom thought might happen. Two moms, laughing and gabbing and momming it up. I could imagine the conversation. These girls, what are we going to do with them, always up to something! But that conversation was never going to happen.
And the other thing was that Mom didn’t know me best, not anymore. She hadn’t bothered to know me since last summer. She didn’t know Tess and I weren’t friends anymore. She didn’t know Jasper, and she didn’t know the Vine Realm. She didn’t know any of the things that mattered most to me. Even if the Vine Realm wasn’t technically safe, nothing had ever felt so safe to me. I wished I were there, right now. Sitting on the steps, or on Jasper’s bed. Drinking a warm root beer and laughing. But the only way that would ever happen again was if I did as Mom said.
I dried my face on my shirt and stood up, faced her. “Okay, then,” I said. “I’ll bring Jasper around. Tomorrow. If you’ll let me go get her. She doesn’t have a phone, so I can’t call.”
Mom nodded. “I suppose that would be fine. You do seem to be taking this seriously.”
“I am,” I said. “I promise.”
“And then,” said Mom, “once we’ve met, Jasper can put me in touch with her mother, and we’ll get this all sorted out. Okay? Deal?”
Right away, I nodded. It was a lie, and it was easier to nod, for some reason, than say the lie out loud.
Mom pushed the same piece of my hair out of my face again and sighed. “Oh, Leah. This is all just because I love you. We both love you so much—your dad and me. You know that, right?”
“Sometimes,” I said.
“What?” Mom sat up stiffly. “What do you mean? You only know it sometimes? Or you think we only love you sometimes?”
I shrugged. “Both?”
“C’mon, Leah. You know better. We always love you, with everything we have, all the time.”
“You’re saying that,” I said, shaking my head, “but it doesn’t feel like it. I mean, I know it, I guess. Because that’s what parents are supposed to do. And I remember what it used to be like. But we’re never . . . like we used to be. It doesn’t feel like love. You’re just nervous all the time. And Dad . . . he barely talks to me. He just lives in his phone all day. I’m not sure he remembers my name sometimes.”
Mom stared at me dead-on, like she was trying to send me a message. “Leah, your father . . . he isn’t good at saying things in words. He never has been. It’s hard for him, to talk about the things that matter most. Can you understand that? He has other ways of expressing his feelings.”
I didn’t know what to say to that. I guessed it was probably true, but I didn’t know what those ways might be. If someone is expressing feelings, but nobody can understand them, does it count? Anyway, we were both tired, and I didn’t really want to talk anymore, so I just nodded again. It felt like another lie, but it was all I had in me. And it was something, that she’d let me go see Jasper. It was something, that Mom and I were talking. I looked around my bare room and felt a little less terrible.
Then Mom looked around too, glanced at the bare walls and empty bookcases, but she didn’t say anything. She just nodded back at me.
The Whole (Other) Story
I went over early the next day, as soon as Mom and Dad had left for work. I made my way up the creek to the now-familiar hole in the overgrowth. I pushed my way through, and into the Vine Realm.
Jasper was sitting in the sun, reading. She set down her book a
s I walked up. Her usual grin was gone. I sat down beside her.
“What happened?” she asked. “When you didn’t come back yesterday, I was worried your parents had literally killed you.”
“I almost wish they had,” I said with a grimace. “My dad’s lecture was one for the record books. I don’t think he took a breath for a full hour.”
“Ouch,” said Jasper. “So, what’s the damage?” she asked. “Are you grounded until you’re thirty?”
I shook my head. “They can’t exactly ground me, because they have to go to work. So they aren’t there to know what I do all day.”
“Good point,” said Jasper. “But then, what’s the punishment?”
“They took away my phone for a while,” I said. “And they gave me lots of disappointed looks. Also they want you . . . to come meet my mom.”
“Oh, God.” Jasper’s eyes went wide. “Really?”
I nodded. “Yep. You can expect some hard questions. Consider yourself warned.”
“But what did you tell her about me?” she asked.
“Nothing,” I said. “I promise. Only that I was with you all night, talking. They were freaked out—they thought that I was off doing terrible things with boys and drugs, if you can believe that.”
“Okay, but I mean . . . what did you tell them about me?” demanded Jasper. “My situation?”
“I didn’t tell them anything! Just that you’re my friend. They know that we painted the wall of your bedroom. They know that you live in the neighborhood. So now they want to meet you.”
“I think it’s better if they don’t,” said Jasper. “It makes me nervous that they even know my name.”
“Only your first name,” I said. “I still don’t even know your last name.”
“Even so. Jasper’s not a very common name for a girl. I stand out.”
“Yeah, well, it gets worse,” I added. “They also want to talk to your mom.”
Jasper laughed. She was holding her knees in front of her, and she rocked back and forth now. “That would be hilarious,” she said. “If they met her, I don’t think it would help our case.”
“So then, you do have a mom?”
Jasper stopped rocking. She looked at me seriously and sighed. “I was going to tell you the whole story the other night, wasn’t I? Right when you had to go?”
I nodded. “Yeah,” I said. “I spent half of yesterday wondering about that.”
“I don’t know,” said Jasper. “It felt so right to tell you then. It doesn’t feel the same . . . now.” She squinted at me in the sunlight.
“Please?”
Jasper stood up and brushed off the seat of her shorts. “Well, okay,” she said. “But let’s get a snack. This might require some pickles.” She reached down a hand. I clasped it, and she pulled me to standing. “And also . . .”
“Yeah?” I said.
“It’s Cohen.”
“Cohen?”
“My last name,” said Jasper. “Jasper Jenna Cohen. At your service.”
“But Cohen’s a Jewish name,” I said. “You never said you were—”
Jasper held up a finger. “First things first. We require pickles.”
Five minutes later, we were sitting on Jasper’s bed, face-to-face, crisscross applesauce, the pickle jar between us. Despite the involvement of pickles, the moment felt very serious, like we were signing a pact or something. Jasper’s expression was grim.
“How bad can it be?” I asked. “Worse than mine?”
“Different,” said Jasper. “Plenty bad. Even if it doesn’t always look like it. For instance . . .” She took a giant bite of pickle and smacked her lips. “At this very delicious moment, do I look like a child in crisis?”
I just shrugged. I wasn’t sure what the correct answer was. Laughing didn’t feel right.
Jasper swallowed her bite. “Before I say anything, I need to be sure you understand that this is no joke. It’s super serious, and if you were to tell anyone at all, you’d seriously ruin my life. But you might also ruin other people’s lives. I know it might sound like I’m exaggerating, but I’m not, Leah. Not at all. You get that?”
“Yes,” I said. “You can trust me. I’m a vault.”
“I do,” said Jasper. “Trust you. But I haven’t told anyone my story before either. I’ve had to be careful. It feels weird to say it out loud, after working so hard to keep quiet.”
“I know exactly what you mean,” I said.
Jasper nodded, and took a deep breath, like she was getting ready to dive underwater. “You asked about my mom. And, yes, my mom is alive. But . . . she’s not a mom like your mom. She’s not okay. At all. She’s a mess.”
“What kind of mess?” I asked.
“Like a crazy-drunk mess,” said Jasper. “And not like a having-some-beers-and-dancing-barefoot-at-a-neighbor’s-house mess. Like the kind of mess you see in a sad movie. Like sometimes there’s an empty vodka bottle in her car because that was where she drank it. Like they took her driver’s license away.”
“Oh,” I said.
“Once, I came home from school and I found her asleep in the yard. Not passed out, just sleeping. Snoring and everything, like she was in bed. All the other kids from the bus stop walked away really fast when they saw her. It was terrible.”
“Oh, God. I’d want to run away from home too if that was my mom.”
“The thing is,” said Jasper, “I didn’t. I didn’t run away from her. My mom is only the beginning of the story. When your mom falls asleep in the yard, people notice. And people help. Or that’s what they call it. They call the police. And then the police come and the house is a disaster or your mom is in her nightgown or whatever. And maybe not the first time, but the second or the third or the fourth, they take you away, because they think your mom doesn’t know how to take care of you. And then you have to go live with someone else.”
“So you went to live with your dad?”
“No,” said Jasper. “My dad hasn’t ever been in the picture. I have his last name and, like, some mixtapes he made for my mom when they were dating. And some pictures. Anyway, the point is, I’ve never met him. He got my mom pregnant and left. I think he lives in Ohio.”
“Oh, so you’re not Jewish, really?”
Jasper shook her head. “Not at all, no. Or anyway, I haven’t learned anything about being Jewish. But I’ve always been kind of curious. And, like, whenever there’s a Jewish character in a movie or something, a little flare goes up in my head, like I’m sort of connected to it, in a way. But that’s not really important. Anyway, when things got really bad with my mom last year, they sent me to live with my sister, who is fifteen years older than me, and also a mess, but in a totally different way.”
“What do you mean?”
“See, she is married to the biggest creep in the world, and they have these two kids, and he hits her.”
“Hits her?”
“He hits her,” said Jasper. “Not often, but enough that I saw it. More than once. And hard.”
“Like, with his hand?”
“Sure, that. But also like . . . once I saw him crack her across the arm with a dog leash. Choke chain and all.”
“Oh,” I said. My voice sounded weird and stiff, like my throat was dried out. “I don’t—”
“Yeah,” said Jasper when I didn’t go on. “You don’t. But here’s the thing—if you get sent to live with your mess of a sister, after they take you away from your mess of a mom, and her creep husband hits her in front of you, what do you think you’re supposed to do?”
“You tell your sister to leave him?” I guessed.
“Bingo!” said Jasper. “But if you do that, your sister tells you she can’t leave him. She’s afraid she won’t get to keep the kids, because he makes all the money and will have a great lawyer. So she stays with him.” Jasper paused and looked at me. “You still okay?”
I was stunned. I didn’t know how to respond. This was all so far past anything I’d ever experienced. T
hese weren’t kid problems. But I managed a nod.
“So after you tell your sister she needs to leave him or you’ll call the cops yourself, because you can’t stand to watch her get hurt like that, she tells you that if you can’t stand to watch it happen, you should just leave. And after a while, that is what you do. Your sister gives you some cash and her old phone, and warns you that if you get caught, she’s not taking you back. So you’d better keep your mouth shut or you’re going to a group home.”
“Group home?”
She nodded. “It doesn’t sound very nice, does it?”
I shook my head. “The whole thing sounds really bad.”
“Yep, it’s very bad,” said Jasper. “No doubt about it.” She reached for a pickle and took a big bite.
“So, but then how’d you end up here? How’d you find this place?”
“It was a total accident. My sister lives over in East Lake, and after we had our last fight, I just left the house and started walking. I walked and walked and walked, down Glenwood, over the highway, and past a bunch of houses, until I ended up in East Atlanta, at the coffee shop. Joe’s. The lady there was nice. She let me sit there a long time and gave me a piece of rainbow cake. I had my suitcase with me, but I don’t think she even saw it, or had any idea what was going on. I think she just could tell that I was having a bad day.”
“That’s Dawn,” I said, nodding. “She’s great. She’s like . . . everyone’s aunt, kind of.”
“Okay, so I was sitting there, and after I finished my cake, I noticed there was an old poster on the wall, about an Easter egg hunt at this farm. So I came to poke around, just because it sounded interesting, and I didn’t have anything else to do. But then I was exploring, and I found this abandoned house, and it seemed like maybe I could hang out here for a while, until I figured out what to do. Then I met you! My fairy godsister. And you fed me and fixed this place up and I’m not sure what would have happened if you hadn’t stumbled along the creek that day. And that is pretty much the whole story. The End.”
She sat there, staring at me.
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