by Elly Swartz
We rock for a while until Dillon comes in.
“Heard about your new turtle and about the changes in the squad,” he says, following the swirls on the carpet with his big toe. The one with no toenail. It popped off about a month ago after some kid with ginormous feet came down hard on his foot during a basketball game. Dillon’s toenail turned black and then just fell off.
“Bert’s cool. You’ll like him. He’s superfast, like you,” I say.
“Who do you think will get bumped?” he asks.
My insides crumble thinking about losing one of the Original Five.
“Don’t know,” I say even though that’s not entirely true. I worry it might be Belle. While Sam’s had a few bad rounds recently, Belle’s been the weakest shooter overall since she joined the squad. But I don’t even want to think it, because I don’t want to risk putting it into the universe. The best thing you can do if you really want something is to send it into the world. Tell the universe. But if you don’t want something, you say nothing. You don’t even think it.
Dillon takes three sticks of bubble gum from his pocket and stuffs them in his mouth.
Then my phone rings. In my bedroom. “Hey, will you hold Izzie so I can grab that?” I ask.
He shakes his head no while blowing a double bubble.
“Please. I’ll be superquick.”
He inhales the bubble before it pops. “Nope.”
“Why not?” I honestly don’t know how he could not want to hold her.
“This kid is part-time. Her mom gave her to us, total strangers, the same way the people who work at Nature’s Food give out free samples of dried mango.”
“You can’t compare Izzie to dried mango. We’re not strangers. We’re family.”
My phone stops ringing.
“Family’s not something that lasts days or weeks. It’s an always thing.”
That’s something we agree on.
“Look, I’m fine with her being here,” he says. “I just don’t want to be involved. Besides, all she does is eat, poop, and sleep.”
And love.
Batman walks in and licks our baby’s little toes, and we both laugh.
My phone starts ringing again.
I seize the moment, hand Izzie to Dillon, and hold my breath.
Just feel her soft, buttery skin.
Look in her eyes.
And then tell me you don’t totally love her.
“Fine, get your phone.”
As I head down the hall, I hear Dillon talking to Izzie. “So, do you like basketball? I taught Maggie a solid left-handed layup. Wonder if you’ll be a righty or lefty.”
I smile.
The phone’s no longer ringing when I get to my room. I look at the missed calls. They’re both from Ava. I text that I’m with Izzie and will call later. I tuck my phone in my pocket and head back. Dillon quickly hands Izzie to me like he wasn’t just talking to her. Like he doesn’t wonder if she’ll be able to do a left-handed layup.
“Do you think she’ll remember us?” I ask him. I’ve been thinking about this a lot. Mom said we don’t do this to be remembered. We do this because it’s important work. Because we have love to give. But still. The thought of Izzie forgetting me—like Nana did—hurts. All the way through my bones.
“No,” he says. “She’s too little to remember anything. And it’s not like it really matters. She’ll be gone soon.”
I nod.
But in my whole heart, it matters to me.
9
Spaghetti and Meatballs for Six
Dillon leaves to practice his three-point shot. I kiss a sleeping Izzie’s forehead the way Nana used to kiss mine and go back to my room. This time, I grab one of the boxes from under my bed. I like the feel of the cardboard next to me. I open the lid and drop in the rock I took when I scooped up Bert at the field. It lands next to Izzie’s sock. I close the lid. Tightly. My box is just for me.
To hold.
My stuff.
For keeps.
Mom calls upstairs that it’s dinnertime. I leave my room, head to the kitchen, and run smack into random fact #147.
“Do you know the longest pasta noodle ever was twelve thousand three hundred eighty-eight feet and five inches?” Charlie asks.
I look at my parents, wondering whose gene is responsible for this.
“Are you sure?” Dillon asks.
“Yep,” Charlie says. “Saw it in the Guinness World Records book that Nana and Gramps gave me for Hanukkah last year.”
No one corrects him, but the air is filled with Nana-wasn’t-here-for-Hanukkah-last-year. She had died two months earlier.
I reach for Gramps’s hand under the table, and he gives mine a little squeeze.
Baby Izzie stares wide-eyed at my little brother. She has no idea about Nana or the forgetting or the amount of obscure stuff Charlie has stored in his brain. Last week, he told me if I’m ever stuck in the jaws of a crocodile, all I need to do is push my thumb into its eyeball and it will let me go instantly.
A yellow knit cap sits on Izzie’s tiny head. It was one of the few things that came with her. I’d walked in from school and saw her sleeping in Mom’s arms. She had a tuft of acorn-brown hair, ocean-blue eyes, and the tiniest toes. So beautiful.
I looked at this teeny human who my mother was holding.
She didn’t feel like a stranger.
She felt like she was exactly where she belonged.
Charlie springs up from the dinner table. “Can I hold her? Please, please, please,” he asks, walking over to Baby Izzie. She’s lying in a bouncy seat that’s covered with blue dolphins and a big yellow sun.
I look at Mom and Dad. Then at Gramps, who’s twirling his spaghetti. I wasn’t going to be the one to grant permission. The last time I gave Charlie something precious to hold, he was four. I handed him my trapshooting medal for placing second in the junior club championship, and he flushed it down the toilet. Mom had to call Larry the plumber.
“Charlie, if you sit back down in your seat, I’ll rest Isabelle on your lap,” Mom says.
Charlie brushes the curls out of his eyes and eases himself into his chair, arms out. Mom gently places my new sister in his lap. In my head, I know she’s not my sister, but in my heart, she’s all mine. Charlie stares at Izzie and says, “I think her whole body is smaller than the ears on the rabbit with the longest ears.”
“How long are his ears?” I ask, unsure if this is another Guinness World Records book fact.
“Thirty-one inches,” Charlie says, stroking Izzie’s little feet.
“Izzie is smaller!” Dad says, then jots something down in his little notebook. I wonder if those pages know who’s being cut from our team.
He told me this book is where he saves his greatest story ideas for his podcast, Go On, Change the World! Dad’s a radio producer for WBGT, and when he’s not at the station, he’s recording his podcast in the linen closet where Mom keeps all the towels. Last year he lined the walls of the closet with sound-absorbent foam and piled blankets on the floor, and when he’s recording, he pops a sign on the door that says RECORDING IN PROGRESS. NO TOWELS NOW. So on those days, I shower in the morning.
“I think she likes me,” Charlie squeals. “She’s smiling.”
“Pretty sure that’s gas,” Dillon says.
Charlie looks up at me with his chocolate-brown eyes.
“No way. That’s a real smile,” I say. “She totally loves you.”
I grab my phone off the counter and snap a pic of my little brother with my new baby sister.
When I met with Rita, she said that photos are an important part of Izzie’s Life Book. I didn’t even know Izzie had a Life Book. But Rita said it holds the pictures and letters that we’ll send with Izzie when she gets adopted by her forever family. She said these things will tell her story from the day she was born. So far, I have a photo of her in the bouncy seat. Batman with the blue toy whale he drags everywhere. Dad drinking coffee from his I ♥ MY DAD mug. Mom sitt
ing at the table in the office reading over her students’ college essays. Dillon shooting hoops in Dad’s Larry Bird jersey. Gramps weeding his garden. And each one of us holding her. This way, when she leaves to go to her new family, she’ll take a little bit of us with her.
I get the cutest picture of Charlie hugging Baby Izzie. Then Mom gathers her up and returns her to the bouncy seat.
Back to spaghetti and meatballs for six.
“Who wants to go first?” Dad asks.
“Not me,” Dillon says, sneaking a look at his phone.
Charlie’s hand shoots in the air. “I do.”
“All right, let’s hear it.”
“What made me happy today was making a card for my new baby sister.” He looks at Mom. “I mean, my new baby foster sister. This one had pictures of an elephant and a hippopotamus. No pom-poms. Just some feathers.”
Dad smiles at Mom.
“What made me sad was remembering that Izzie isn’t my baby sister for keeps.”
Mom nods.
“What made me mad was thinking about Emma Rose not letting me play four square at school.”
“Why?” Dillon asks, dumping two more gigantic meatballs onto his plate.
“She told me it was a new kind of four square that she just made up and I didn’t know the rules.”
I see the sadness leak into my little brother’s eyes.
“Tell her you’re a fast learner. Just like you’re a fast finder.”
Charlie smiles. Mom whispers something in his ear and kisses his forehead to make his whole world better.
“You’re up, Maggie,” Dad says. We’ve been doing the happy, mad, sad thing every night at dinner since I was Charlie’s age.
“What made me happy was rocking with Izzie, finding Bert, and shooting a 20/25 at trap. What made me sad was thinking about saying good-bye to my baby sister. What made me mad was Dad breaking up our trap family.”
“I’m not breaking up the squad, Maggie. I’m just making adjustments. That’s all,” he says.
It’s Dillon’s turn, but he’s texting.
There’s a strict no-phone policy at the dinner table. It’s a rule. A Mom Rule.
Mom opens her hand, and Dillon puts his phone in her palm. He says his happy is Pasta Wednesday. He has no sad. His mad is understood.
10
Happy Mode
Turns out we’re able to get an appointment with Dr. Yang the next day after school. Mom can’t make it, but Dad’s free to take me and Bert. When we walk in, I spy a photograph of a giant bullfrog on the wall and wonder if it’s one of Dr. Yang’s patients. The waiting room is filled with one shaggy dog, two cottontail rabbits, a guinea pig, a fat hamster, and a black mouse climbing up the arm of his owner.
I peek into the turtle carrier that Dad and I made this morning before school. Mom doesn’t know it yet, but she donated a plastic container and a blue towel. Dad cut holes in the top, and we misted Bert with water before we left. Then I added a worm and some leftover squash.
“You okay?” I say.
Bert pokes his neck out when he hears my voice. Then quickly tucks it back in when the shaggy dog starts barking.
The door opens, and a mom and her son come in. “My gerbil just had babies. Lots and lots of babies,” the boy says proudly as he shows the inside of his shoebox to a woman with a bun who’s behind a counter. As I’m watching the little boy, who reminds me of Charlie, I feel something tug at my right sneaker. When I look down, there’s a very large turtle nibbling on my bright-green shoelace.
I hear a man laugh. “Oh, that’s Pepper, the office’s sulcata tortoise. He loves colored shoelaces.” The man reroutes the tortoise and shows us into room 1.
Dr. Yang is waiting in there with her spearmint breath and parrot charm necklace. “So, Maggie, who do we have here?”
“This is Bert,” I say. “An eastern painted turtle. I found him over by the pond near the trap field.”
“May I?” She holds out her hand, and I put my new friend in her palm.
“He’s beautiful. I love his orange belly and his distinctive marking.” She points to the heart-shaped spot on his shell.
“Me too. What do you think the marking is from?”
She runs her hand over his shell. “Most likely he got into it with a coyote.”
“Is he okay?” I ask.
She nods. “He’s tough. And his shell is strong.”
I look over at Dad, who’s smiling. I know he wants me to be able to keep Bert, too.
“Some things you need to know about this little guy,” Dr. Yang says. “He’s surprisingly fast and well camouflaged.” She points to his brown shell. “If you bring him out of his habitat, don’t take your eyes off him. He can move between twenty and thirty feet in only thirty seconds.”
“Wow! I knew he was speedy, but that’s superspeedy! Anything else?” I ask.
“Wash your hands after you hold Bert, clean his home regularly, don’t put him in a sink or bathtub, and steer him away from the kitchen. Also, when your dad called to make this appointment, he mentioned there’s a new baby in the house. Keep him out of the baby’s room and off her things.”
“Got it.” I give her and Dad a thumbs-up.
“We used to feed my turtle cooked hamburger and greens,” my dad says. “Is that something this guy would like?”
“Sure. Mix in some flowers and lettuce, and it’ll be a feast.”
We all laugh.
She puts Bert back into his carrier. “Take good care of him, love him a lot, and he’ll be around for a long time. These guys can live up to fifty years.”
My whole body springs into happy mode.
11
Mr. Spud
When we get home from the vet, I tell my little brother that Bert is officially a forever member of the Hunt family. “Yay!” he says, jumping up and down. “Did you know that Principal James has a turtle in his office and his name is Mr. Spud? Maybe they can be friends.”
“Maybe,” I say.
“Did you know that rats can’t throw up?”
I shake my head no.
Charlie blows Bert a kiss, and I return my turtle to a rock in his tub. I tell Charlie to go wash his hands. When he scampers back in, he has a tennis ball. It’s Break the Record Week at school, and he’s trying to beat the class best for the number of times in a row a student can bounce a tennis ball without dropping it. He told me the current record is fifty-two. He’s at twenty-three bounces when his ball rolls under my bed.
My whole body freezes.
He reaches for my blanket.
“Don’t!” I yell.
Charlie’s big brown eyes open wide.
“Drop the blanket and leave my room!”
He doesn’t move.
“Now!” I scream.
His eyes leak. “But my ball is under your bed. Let me just get it, and then—”
“Get out!” I feel the heat spread across my face.
He darts out of my room. I close my door and exhale the angry knot twisted inside of me. I look under my bed and see the ball next to my boxes. I snatch it, open my door, and toss it in the hall.
Sorry, Bear.
The words echo in my head, but I don’t say them.
I grab my boxes and tuck into the corner of my room. Surrounded by cardboard. And memories. I add small threads from Izzie’s baby blanket.
A keepsake.
To have.
Forever.
There’s a knock on the door.
I quickly slide my boxes back under my bed and pull the comforter down low.
Mom walks in with a pile of clean clothes in her arms. She puts them on my desk next to my geometry homework, my trap vest, and the last pile of clean clothes she brought in. “I heard you yelling. You need to apologize to your brother and clean up this place.”
Can’t everyone just leave my stuff alone?
“I’ll say I’m sorry to Charlie.” I look around my bedroom. “But I like my room this way. It’s cozy. Lived-in
.”
“It’s a mess.”
I shake my head. “It’s not a mess. I just have a different way of organizing than you do.”
“This is not organized,” she says. “Either you clean it, I clean it, or we clean it together. Up to you.”
None of the options really work for me, especially the last two. “I’ll apologize now and clean after I walk Batman. I told Ava I’d stop by, and Sam is meeting us there.”
Ava lives around the block in the brick ranch house on the corner. Mom agrees to the plan, but makes me promise to text her when I get to Ava’s.
I pop into Charlie’s room. He’s lining up his plastic toy animals in a parade across his floor.
I sit next to him.
“Did you know your face gets red like Gramps’s tomatoes when you’re mad?” he says.
I shake my head.
He puts his hands on his hips. “I don’t like when you yell at me with your red face.”
“I’m really sorry.” My mad flipped on when you moved toward my boxes under my bed, I want to say. And I couldn’t stuff it back in until you were far away from my things. But I can’t tell him that, because I don’t even understand it.
In a small voice he says, “I forgive you. But I’m still a little sad about it.”
“That’s fair.” Then I hold out my arms. “Love you huge, Bear.”
He moves closer, snuggles in, and hugs my neck.
I leave him and his parade, and head with Batman to Ava’s house. On the way, I give some love to Clover, the Altmans’ floppy sheepdog, before turning down Willow Lane and ringing Ava’s very loud doorbell. When I get to her room, I text Mom. Promise kept.
Ava’s working on a project for the school coding club, called Find Me—think dog sweater with a tracking device that links to an app on a phone to locate a lost pet. Apparently, they started it after Bruno, the club president’s hairless Chinese crested dog, went missing.
“How’s it going?” I say.
She gives me a thumbs-up, but her eyes stay locked on the computer screen. She told me when we met in second grade that she wants to be a coder, like her mom. She’s been saving her money for college since she started Walk with Me, her neighborhood dog-walking business. Sometimes, Batman and I join her on her walks with Max, Brady, and Maple, the beagle, golden retriever, and bichon that live on her block.