I wandered, looking, listening. She’s a chatterbox. Chances were I’d hear her before I saw her. But it was something else I heard. Two shadows and a bobbing red spot brushing past me, man and woman voices whispering excitedly. One word separated itself from the others: “Horsehead.” I stopped in my tracks. I went after them. I’m not usually bold with people, but I just barged in: “Did you say Horsehead?”
“Yes,” said the man. “It’s unbelievable. I can’t believe we saw it.”
“Incredible,” said the woman. “And I don’t know a star from a moon.” She giggled. “He can die happy now.”
I was breathing fast. “Where?”
The man pointed the flashlight, but of course the beam just puddled behind the red cap. “That way. Straight ahead. On the right. You’ll see it. Big as a bathtub. On a trailer. Meade LX200.” He wagged his head. They walked on.
I turned, walked. The Horsehead Nebula. It’s, like, the Holy Grail. Mi-Su and I have been wanting to see it for years. I have a poster of it on my bedroom wall. We’d never seen it for real. It’s a huge cloud of cold hydrogen gas and dust, way bigger than the solar system. It’s visible because of starlit gases behind it, and it has the shape of a horse’s head.
I didn’t know what to do. Sister? Horsehead? Sister? Horsehead? My stomach felt like it was coming loose. And suddenly there it was, the monster scope, big as a bathtub, on a trailer behind an SUV—and the longest line I’d seen all night. Everybody wanted to see the Horsehead. It would take a half hour just to get to the head of the line, a half hour I’d gladly have spent, except for a missing sister….
I wanted to cry, scream. I stomped off, spit hissing into the night: “Tabby! Tabby!”
At last I heard her voice, chattering away. I found her. She was with someone wearing an Indiana Jones hat. An old lady. “Well, hello there,” she said. “You must be the big brother Tabby’s been talking about.” She held something out to me. “Like a snort of hot chocolate from my thermos here? We have an extra cup.”
“No, thank you,” I said. I was so mad I could hardly speak.
The old lady chuckled. “Your little sister had been hoping for coffee.”
“She thinks she’s twenty-one,” I said.
Tabby piped: “Will, she has seven cats!”
“That’s nice,” I said. “Thanks for looking after her.” I took the cup from Tabby’s hand and gave it to the old lady. “We have to go now. Somebody’s picking us up.” I grabbed her hand and pulled her away.
She had to run to keep up. She squealed, “Where are we going?”
“To find Mi-Su.”
She yanked on my arm. “I know where Mi-Su is!”
She wasn’t lying. “Where?”
She wrapped her hand around my finger and pulled. “Follow me.”
She wound among the dark shapes as if it were our own neighborhood. She led me out of the thicket of scopes and on toward a moonlit crest—and there she was.
No.
There they were.
It seemed to be one shape, one silhouette on the hill, but I knew it was two, and I knew who they were. Mi-Su and BT.
Tabby tugged. “Will, are they kissing?”
I turned away. Tabby yammered beside me, but I wasn’t hearing, wasn’t thinking, wasn’t feeling. I don’t remember the next few minutes. I only know that I was back among the dark shapes and glowing red spots. I checked my watch. It was time. We walked out to the gravel road. Mrs. Kelly’s car was purring, parking lights on.
Mi-Su and BT were already in the car, Mi-Su in front, BT in the backseat. Tabby jumped in, climbed onto BT’s lap, put his baseball cap on her head. I got in.
Mi-Su said from the front seat. “BT is crazy. He skateboarded all the way out here.”
“I thought you didn’t like star parties,” I said.
“I was bored,” he said. “It was a good night for a ride.”
I waited a few seconds, then said it: “Somebody was showing the Horsehead.”
Mi-Su screeched. “The Horsehead Nebula?” She whipped around to look at me. “You saw it?”
“No. There was a long line.”
“Why didn’t you come find me?”
“We did!” piped Tabby. “But you were busy kissing BT!”
The purr of the engine poured into the silence. Mi-Su shot a glance at her mother. “I was not.”
“Yes, you were! You were! Wasn’t she, Will? We saw you, on the hill!” Tabby was bouncing up and down on BT’s lap.
More awkward silence.
Mrs. Kelly said, “Sounds like I better cover my ears.”
More awkward silence.
We were leaving French Creek State Park, passing dark fields on the way to town. I saw tiny flashes beyond the fences, tiny sparks in the dark. It was late October. Wasn’t it too late for fireflies?
PD30
I was in my room when my cell phone rang. She was calling about algebra homework. We talked about that and then she said, “You’re acting funny.”
“I am?”
“Yeah.”
“So, why aren’t you laughing?”
“You know what I mean. Strange. Different.”
“I seem the same to me.”
Silence. And from downstairs, the smell of my mother’s famous Granny Smith apple pie.
Finally she said, “Is last night bothering you?”
“Why should it bother me?” I said.
“You tell me.”
“Yeah, I guess it bothers me.”
“I knew it.”
“It bothers me that because of my sister I missed seeing the Horsehead. Who knows when I’ll ever get another chance.”
She laughed. “I knew it! I knew it! You’re freaked out.”
“Did I say that?”
“It’s not about your sister or the Horsehead. It’s about me and BT, that’s what. We freaked you out.”
The word “we” hit me like a dart. Tabby strolled by, stopped at my doorway, put on her snooty face, said, “Bob, you smell bad,” moved on.
“What was there to get freaked out about?”
Wait—don’t answer that.
Too late.
“Oh, just him and me kissing, that’s all.”
“Wow, that’s what you were doing? And here I thought you were watching the stars.”
She laughed. “Good one, Will. No, as a matter of fact, we were kissing under the stars. As you well know.”
“Actually, I was busy watching the stars. That’s what they’re for, I thought.”
She paused. “Yeah. Sometimes. But sometimes they’re for kissing under, too.”
“Really? So that’s what all those people were doing to their telescopes. Kissing them.”
Tabby stopped in the doorway again, the faintest grin on her face. She stepped into my room, turned to the bookcase—the chess trophy—reached out with one pointed finger and tippy-touched the head of the king piece, grinning at me. I leaped from the bed. “Get out!” She screamed, ran.
“Good grief,” said Mi-Su. “What’s going on over there? Let me guess. Your adorable little sister.”
“Bingo.”
“So…as I was saying, stars are for kissing under.”
“If you say so.”
“I do say so. And here’s where you’re all wrong—it wasn’t about me and BT.”
“Did I say it was?”
She ignored me. “It was about me and BT and all the rest of it. The place. The night. The stars. Good grief, how could you not kiss somebody on a night like that?”
“If you’re with Tabitha Tuppence.”
She howled. “Touché. But really, it was the time and place more than the person. It just happened. He was there, I was there, that’s all. I don’t even remember…who…”
“—made the move?”
“Yeah. Who knows? Who cares? It was just, like, it’s a crime to waste this moment. This moon. I would have kissed anybody.”
“Glad I wasn’t there.”
Should
n’t have said that. I knew what was coming…
“Are you, Will?”
Saved by a clack! in the basement…
“Gotta go.” I hung up. I raced down two flights of stairs, through the kitchen cloud of Granny Smith apple pie. Black Viper was in the middle of the basement floor, not where it was supposed to be.
The phone rang. It was still in my hand.
“What happened?”
“My sister was on my skateboard in the basement. She ran when she heard me coming.”
The basement door was open.
“Crisis over now?”
I picked up Black Viper. “I guess.”
She didn’t speak again until I was back in my room. “Will?”
“Yeah?”
“I never told you—that was sweet of you to come looking for me to see the Horsehead.”
“No big deal. I just thought you wanted to see it.”
“I did. I do. When’s the next star party?”
“Spring.”
“Spring. Long time to wait.”
“The sky’s not going anywhere.”
I got the feeling she wanted to say something, but there was only silence. Then: “Well, see ya.”
“See ya.”
I hung up.
Like a song on replay, the conversation kept running over and over in my head. It occurred to me that it’s not true that the Horsehead isn’t going anywhere. Actually, it’s flying away at thousands of miles a second. Everything is. The Brimley clock. Mi-Su’s smile. My mother’s Granny Smith apple pie. We live in a silent explosion. Everything is flying away from everything else…flying away…flying away…
PD32
It’s been over a month since BT became the first human to skateboard down Dead Man’s Hill. No one else has tried it.
It’s been three days since the star party. Since the silhouette on the hill. Was that a first for him also? Or has it been happening all along right under my nose? Exactly how much don’t I know? Are others kissing her, too?
PD35
I ride Black Viper but I go nowhere. No matter what day it is, no matter what time, no matter where I am—I’m always at the star party, staring at the silhouette on the crest of the hill, wishing that one dark shape would split in two. But it never does.
PD44
Two Saturday nights have passed since the star party. We still play Monopoly as if two of the three of us have never kissed and a proton never died. BT comes late and buys everything he lands on and runs out of money. Mi-Su gives him loans and still he loses. We eat pizza and roll the dice and move the tokens around the board.
I keep looking for clues of something between them but I don’t see any. Do they secretly meet? Since that one phone call, Mi-Su has clammed up. Is she afraid of hurting my feelings? Does she think I like her that way?
Do I?
I don’t know.
I don’t know.
I don’t know.
PD49
The wheels of Black Viper crinkle over the autumn leaves.
PD55
I’m regressing. On Saturday mornings I go to the basement and do what I did when I was little: I watch Yosemite Sam and Daffy Duck cartoons. Tabby has discovered this, and so she joins me every Saturday morning. Here’s how it goes. As I watch the cartoons I hear a sound behind me: plink…plink…plink. I know what it is. Jelly beans. Tabby is dropping them into the wastebasket, slowly, deliberately, so I’ll hear. And not just any jelly beans. Black ones. Why? Because the only jelly beans I eat are the black ones, which I love. And so whenever she comes into some jelly beans, she heads for the wastebasket nearest to me and begins dropping the black ones: plink…plink…plink. Of course she’s hoping that I’ll turn and scream at her or something, but I don’t. I just sit there and boil to myself, and when the last cartoon ends she runs up the stairs. The fact that she gives up her own Saturday morning cartoon-watching tells you all you need to know about how much she loves to torment me.
PD71
Top-floor dormer. Looking out the window. It was snowing. Well, just flurries actually. Thin dry flakes that weren’t really falling but just sort of drifting by mistake into this Saturday in early December.
Our house has four floors, five if you count the basement. It looks pretty modern inside, but outside it’s a big brick boxy thing with a porch that starts in front and goes around the side. It was built in 1913. The fourth floor is this one big dormer. It’s cold in winter, hot in summer. It’s my favorite part of the house. I come up here to be alone, to look out the window, to think. I call it dormer-dreaming.
We use the dormer as an attic. Out-of-season clothes. Junk. Christmas gifts are already piling up in the corner. I wonder if one of them is my atomic watch. I don’t feel any temptation to sneak a peek. My parents love that about me. They know they could put a Christmas present on my pillow in July and I wouldn’t open it until December 25. They could put that on my tombstone too:
HE COULD WAIT
My sister is another story. She has no more discipline than a shark smelling blood. That’s why everybody’s gifts are kept up here except hers. Nobody but my mother knows where they are. Tabby has already started pestering about them. She still believes in Santa Claus, of course, but she thinks, because she’s so special, he dumps her stuff off at the house a month early.
There are other gifts up here, too, and that’s a whole other story. They’re mostly in silvery wrapping with silver ribbons. They’re in a neat stack on a card table against the far wall, fifteen of them by actual count. They’ve been up here for eighteen years, since before I was born. Before that they were at Aunt Nancy’s house. In the family, they’re known as the wedding gifts.
My great-grandparents—Andrew and Margaret Tuppence—were missionaries. As the story goes, they met at seminary and fell in love. They got ordained and married on the same day. The next day they had to catch a boat to Africa, so there wasn’t even time for a reception. But that didn’t stop people from bringing gifts to the wedding. According to family legend, Margaret looked at the pile of gifts and laughed and said, “If I get any happier, I’ll burst. We’ll open them when we get back.” She told her mother to take the gifts home with her, and off they went to Tanganyika, now known as Tanzania. Margaret and Andrew. This was in 1930.
Everyone expected them back in five years, ten at the most, but it just never worked out that way. Margaret and Andrew had two children over there, both boys, and they set up churches and medical clinics (Margaret was a medical doctor, too) and the years went by.
In 1943 Andrew died of black fever. Margaret stayed on with the boys. They finally came home in 1951. Margaret’s mother, who was an old lady by then, still had the wedding gifts, but Margaret said she didn’t want to open them without Andrew. “We’ll open them together in Heaven someday,” she said.
Well, Margaret’s mother died, and then Margaret, and one of the boys became my grandfather and so forth, and the wedding gifts wound up at Aunt Nancy’s and finally at our big old house, there on the card table against the wall in the dormer. For eighteen years they’ve been sitting there. They always look new because my mother keeps dusting them. She says they’re history. They’ve become a sort of shrine, I guess. Some days in late afternoon the sun slants through the dormer window and nips a ribbon and it glistens like a tiny star.
Below the dormer window my sister was holding out her tongue and dripping Hershey’s chocolate syrup onto it from a squeeze bottle. She turned her face to the sky. With the snowflakes falling on her chocolate-coated, stuck-out tongue, she figured she was getting an ice cream sundae.
And I wondered, as I often do when I’m in the dormer: Why hasn’t my out-of-control sister ever torn open the wedding gifts?
I can see a lot from up there. I have my own telescope on a tripod. I slid it over to zero in on the clock on the tower of the Brimley Building. It was now an hour slow. I’ve noticed it seems slower every time I look. I’m surprised they’re not doing something about it. I wa
s about to focus in on Mi-Su’s roof when I realized the snow was no longer thin flurries but fat, falling flakes. Beautiful.
All of a sudden I felt like I wanted to cry, which was really strange because I’m not the crying kind. Why did I feel so sad? The flakes were landing on the dry brown grass and Tabby now had a maraschino cherry on her tongue and her eyes were squeezed shut with her tongue out to the sky and she didn’t know that Korbet Finn was sneaking up behind her. I felt bad for Korbet because he loves her and he didn’t know he was about to make a colossal mistake and he didn’t know that all the way from the maraschino cherry to the farthest quasar protons were dying, the snow was falling and protons were dying across the universe and tears were streaming down my face and Korbet Finn was scooping snow from the dry grass and sneaking up on Tabby and I had to turn away and go downstairs because I didn’t want to see.
PD77
We went to BT’s house after school. It’s a two-story dark green clapboard. The trim is supposed to be white, but the paint is mostly peeled off. The chimney is tilted as if it lost a battle with the wind.
But it’s the inside that really gets your attention. When you open his front door you don’t see a living room—you see a dump. Magazines stacked to the ceiling. Books, cereal boxes, cans, jars, soda bottles, bottle caps, clothes hangers, rubber bands, string, paper clips, candy wrappers, toothpaste tubes, spent balloons, old telephones, toasters, electrical cords and plugs, catalogs, movie tickets, telephone pole political posters, tin cans, sneakers, combs, jelly jars. Everywhere. Dining room table. Stairway. Bedrooms. Bathroom. It’s like the whole house is an attic.
It’s all Mr. Bontempo’s idea. He’s going to have a museum, he says. About twenty years from now, he figures, all this common stuff will start looking old and interesting. He says people will flock to his Museum of Yesterday, happy to pay admission so they can see what toilet paper wrappers used to look like. This is why there’s a sign over the front door:
Smiles to Go Page 4