Jeremy Fink and the Meaning of Life

by Wendy Mass

  “Let’s bring it closer to home now,” Dr. Grady says happily. It’s great watching someone who loves what he does. Dad was like that, at the comics store. Mom loves the library, and Lizzy’s dad loves the post office. I wonder if I’ll ever find something I love as much. I tune back in to hear Dr. Grady say, “Our own solar system was formed 4.5 billion years ago. It took about another billion years until the surface of the earth cooled. Pretty much as soon as life could begin, it did. Out of the primordial soup—some basic chemicals and gasses mixed with UV radiation and lightning—arose the building blocks of life: amino acids. These were followed by bacteria, then single-celled organisms, multicelled organisms, plants, invertebrates, vertebrates, reptiles, and mammals, all adapting to their ever-changing environment over billions of years.”

  A group of teenagers dressed in white lab coats approaches, trailing after an older woman who looks like the female version of Dr. Grady. The kids each carry a clipboard. Lizzy nudges me and whispers, “That’s you in five years!”

  “Very funny,” I whisper back. But I stare at their faces as they file by. Their eyes look eager and bright. It wouldn’t be so bad to look like that.

  Dr. Grady waits for the group to pass and continues. “It may be not very appealing to think that we came from the same sludge that produced the amoeba, but we all have a common ancestor; our DNA shares the same chemical structure. You, I, and the fruit fly all have the same blueprint for life. All life on this planet is connected—some people can feel it more than others, on a spiritual level. If there is life on other planets, it will likely have evolved very differently from us. The chance of duplicating what happened here is close to zero.”

  “How come?” I can’t help asking.

  “Trust me,” Dr. Grady says. “We are here because over billions of years, countless variables fell into place, any of which could have taken another path. We are essentially a beautiful fluke, as are the millions of other species with which we share this planet. Our cells are composed of atoms and dust particles from distant galaxies, and from the billions of living organisms that inhabited this planet before us.”

  He pauses here and wipes a little tear from his eye. To be polite, Lizzy and I look away.

  “So now you know the scientific explanation of how we got here,” Dr. Grady says, clearing his throat. “As you can see, it also answers the question of why we are here. Physics tells us we’re here because gravity keeps us from floating away into space. In the most basic biological terms, we’re here because some of the earliest inhabitants of this planet—bacteria—allow us to be. Our bodies would not be able to function without the jobs they perform for us—in the air around us, on our skin, and inside our organs. We think we’re the most powerful species on the planet, but we’re far from it. We would not live for one day without them, but bacteria are so adaptable, they will be here when the sun burns out. Bacteria and cockroaches!”

  I look at Lizzy, who has started squirming. I have no doubt she’s thinking about the bacteria living on her body. Somehow I thought the answer to why we’re here would be a little more, I don’t know, glamorous?

  Lizzy begins scratching. Long red welts appear on her arms.

  “I fear I have rambled too long,” Dr. Grady says, consulting his watch. “I hope I didn’t overwhelm you.”

  “No, it was great,” I tell him honestly. I have a million questions to ask, but I’m pretty sure Lizzy will kill me if I do. “Oh,” I say, suddenly remembering the bargain Lizzy made, “your telescope came from—”

  He puts up his hand to cut me off. “I changed my mind. Let it be a mystery as to why it has returned to me after fifty years. I’ve spent my life trying to find rational explanations for life’s mysteries.”

  “Okay,” I say with a smile. Lowering my voice, I ask, “Maybe someday I could… come back?”

  “Of course,” he says, slapping me on the back and grinning. “And you won’t even have to bring me anything.”

  We shake hands, and I turn to Lizzy. “Are you ready to go?”

  She nods frantically.

  “Are you all right, Lizzy?” Dr. Grady asks, his brow crinkling in concern.

  Lizzy nods again. “I’ll be okay as soon as I can get into a really hot shower.”

  He laughs. “Remember, bacteria are friendly, for the most part. You don’t want to wash, or scratch, them all away.”

  Lizzy hastily sticks her hands in her shorts pockets to keep from scratching anymore. I know she’s not convinced. We head for the archway that will lead us back to the dinosaur exhibit and James.

  “Never forget,” Dr. Grady says as we enter the exhibit, “as immense as the universe is, and as much as we will never know about it, there is only one Jeremy Fink, one Lizzy Muldoun. One Amos Grady. That makes each of us special and unique beyond comprehension. Why are we here? In my opinion, we’re here because we won the evolutionary lottery. We’re here because as far as we know, this is the only place we can be.”

  “So basically what you’re saying is,” Lizzy says, scratching her thighs from inside her pockets. “We’re here because we’re here?”

  “Precisely!” Dr. Grady says.

  Lizzy pinches me on the arm. “Does that work for you, Jeremy? Or is your existential crisis gonna continue?”

  My brain is still spinning from all Dr. Grady has said. But spinning in a good way. “You know it takes me a long time to sort through things,” I reply. “I can’t make decisions at the drop of a hat like you can.”

  “How true. Once,”Lizzy begins, scratching her belly now as we walk, “when we were six, Jeremy’s parents took us for ice cream. It took him so long to decide between chocolate and vanilla, that eventually the guy had to close the shop and he didn’t get anything.”

  I sigh. I liked it much better when Lizzy was consumed with tearing away layers of her skin. Dr. Grady chuckles and says, “Coming to terms with why we are here and the meaning of it all can be a lifelong quest. Someday when you two are old and married, you’ll look back at—”

  “AAAAH!!” we scream in unison.

  “We’re not getting married!” I exclaim.

  “At least not to each other!” Lizzy adds.

  At that moment, the life-size dinosaur skeleton looms into view. No doubt anxious to change the subject, Dr. Grady says, “If a meteor hadn’t struck the earth and made that guy extinct, mammals wouldn’t have grown any bigger than a large rat or a small pig. You and I wouldn’t be here. So it worked out well for us.” He looks up at the dinosaur fondly. “Not so well for him, though. There’s your friend,” Dr. Grady says, pointing to James. James is standing behind one of the dinosaur’s huge front legs. He’s leaning over the railing and peering so close that his nose is almost touching it.

  “It’s not real,” Dr. Grady says when we approach.

  “No?” James says, clearly disappointed.

  Dr. Grady shakes his head. “But the other leg is.”

  James immediately rushes over to that leg and peers closely again. I follow him. “I didn’t take you for a dinosaur guy.”

  James nods. “My father used to collect fossils and bones. He once found a mollusk that was over a million years old.”

  “Wow!” I say, truly impressed. “My dad’s greatest find was a scratch-off lottery ticket worth twenty-five bucks stuck inside a book he found on the street!”

  “Hey,” James says, cocking his head. “What’s wrong with Lizzy?”

  I turn to see Lizzy in the corner of the exhibit, scratching her head crazily. She has pulled her ponytail out, and her hair is now sticking up in every direction. “Oh. That’s because Dr. Grady told us that bacteria basically cover us from head to toe, inside and out.”

  “We’d better take her home,” James says.

  I look for Dr. Grady to say good-bye, and find him engrossed in a conversation with a father and his two young boys. He waves and salutes as we leave.

  In the car on the way home, Lizzy curls up on the seat, occasionally twitchin
g, and I realize that I feel much better. The dark cloud that was pressing down on me isn’t there anymore. Mr. Oswald was right. Knowing how we got here helps. Even though it is totally overwhelming how huge the universe is, and what a small part of it we are, it’s comforting somehow to understand where we fit in. And it’s exciting to think of how many more H.O.J.s I can fill learning more about it. I’m tempted to torture Lizzy by making her do a recap with me of everything we learned today, but I decide to spare her.

  No matter how much I’ve learned this week about life, the universe, and everything, I’m not sure I’m any closer to knowing what’s in Dad’s box. I reach into the mini-fridge and pull out a soda. I’m about to pop the top when an idea hits me—something I should have thought of the day Mom handed me the box. It’s so obvious!

  I lean forward and shake Lizzy on the leg. She moans. I take that as a sign that she’s listening.

  “How’d you like to go to Atlantic City?”

  She opens one eye. “Are there bacteria in Atlantic City?”

  “Nope,” I lie.

  “Okay,” she says, and closes her eye again. A second later she opens it. “How are we gonna get to Atlantic City?”

  “I’ll think of something,” I reply. I wait for her to ask me why we’re going to Atlantic City, but she doesn’t.

  By the time Mom gets home from work, I still haven’t thought of a plan. I had spent most of the afternoon watching Ferret chase Cat around the fish tank. Dog and Hamster just swam by leisurely, looking amused. Needless to say, they didn’t give me any ideas. Many times I considered knocking on Lizzy’s door and asking for help, but she was taking the longest shower on record. And, she’s always the one who comes up with the plans. I should be able to do one on my own.

  Mom knocks on my door and then pushes it open. She’s wearing a button that says READING IS FOR WINNERS. “How was your day?” she asks, taking a sip of iced tea.

  “It was really good,” I tell her. “We went to the Museum of Natural History!”

  “That’s some rough community service you guys are forced to endure.”

  I grin. “It’s not all fun and games. Today in the limo they were out of Coke. I had to have Pepsi.”

  “But you like Pepsi better anyway.”

  “True, but I didn’t have a choice.”

  She shakes her head at me. “Before I forget, Aunt Judi has an art exhibit in Atlantic City on Sunday. Do you and Lizzy want to come?”

  I hear her say the words, but I can’t absorb them. I am never this lucky.

  “Did you say Atlantic City?” I ask, holding my breath.

  “I did. The show is at one of the casinos on the boardwalk. They’re trying to improve their image by supporting local artists.”

  Still not willing to believe it, I say, “Did you say the boardwalk?”

  She walks over to me, lifts up a lock of my hair, and peers into my ear. “Are you developing a hearing problem?”

  I shake my head, and my hair falls back into place.

  “Are you interested or not?”

  I nod enthusiastically.

  “So this is what it’s going to be like living with a teenager,” she says with a sigh. Then she tousles my hair like I’m five, and closes my door.

  Chapter 15: The Boardwalk

  Lizzy has pushed aside her coffee table and is practicing her hula-hooping routine.

  I toss her a banana from the bowl on the table. She catches it easily. “I still can’t believe you pulled it off,” Lizzy says, beginning to peel the banana. Her accompanying music is playing on the CD player. It had taken her hours to pick out the perfect hula-hoop song: “You spin me right round baby right round. Like a record baby right round, round, round.”

  “Honestly, I can’t take the credit,” I reply. “We owe it to Aunt Judi and her art show.”

  Lizzy shakes her head. “Somehow you made it happen. I don’t know how, but you did.”

  As much as I’d like to believe I could perform feats of real magic, I gave that up a few years ago when I stared at a spoon for two hours, trying to make it bend. All that happened was that I got a monster headache and felt really stupid.

  Lizzy tosses her banana peel over her shoulder, and accidentally brushes her arm against the hoop. It instantly falls. “Ugh,” she says, picking the hoop back up and placing it around her waist again. “I’m never going to be ready. And we’re not any closer to opening that box. But maybe we will be after tomorrow.”

  “How?”

  Lizzy picks up the hoop and places it around her waist. “We’ll just ask the fortune-teller when we find her.”

  “If we find her,” I reply, realizing Lizzy has known all along why I want to go. The whole thing really is a long shot. After all, the fortune-teller was already ancient when Dad met her. She’d be thirty years older now. I toss Lizzy the football, and it slides right out of her hands. We’re going to have to step up the practices if we want those Snickers bars.

  The next morning Mom wakes me up at the crack of dawn. “Aunt Judi will be here any minute,” she says, raising the blinds. I groan and put the alligator over my eyes. Who knew the sun was even up this early?

  She lifts the alligator off and places him on my desk, next to Dad’s box. Then she pulls a pair of shorts and a T-shirt out of my dresser drawer and tosses them on the bed.

  “I’ve been dressing myself for some time now, Mom,” I tell her, forcing myself to sit up.

  “Sorry,” she says, not sounding very sorry if you ask me. “We’re in a hurry.” She leans over and pounds on the wall with her fist. Then she lifts up the solar system poster. “Get up, Lizzy!” she yells through the hole.

  I stare at her in shock, fully awake now. “You know about that?”

  She laughs. “I’m a mother. Mothers know everything.”

  “They do?” This is news to me.

  “Of course,” she says, holding up my T-shirt and shorts in an attempt to hurry me along. “Like I know that when we get to Atlantic City, you and Lizzy are going to come up with some excuse to leave the exhibit so you can look for the fortune-teller your dad met on his thirteenth birthday.”

  My jaw falls open. She leans over and pushes up on my chin.

  “Do you have ESP or something?” I ask when I am finally capable of speech.

  She smiles cryptically and doesn’t answer. Then she pounds on the wall again and pulls aside the poster.

  Lizzy’s muffled voice comes through. “I’m up! I’m up! Geez!”

  Twenty minutes later, Lizzy and I are crammed in the backseat of Aunt Judi’s station wagon. We are sharing the seat with ten sculptures wrapped in foam. The car smells like a combination of stale coffee and feet.

  “I miss James,” Lizzy whispers. I nod in agreement. The car isn’t even my aunt’s. It’s shared among all the artists working in her building. It is so old it honestly has an eight-track cassette player. We’re talking 1960s old. It will be a miracle if we make it to New Jersey without the engine overheating or all four tires spinning off in opposite directions. I am somewhat surprised that Mom would risk our lives in this thing. She doesn’t seem too worried though. She has her arm out the window and her hair is flying all around. Unlike me, she likes venturing out of the city. I’m always afraid water from the Hudson River is going to flood the tunnel. I really should spend an H.O.J. finding out how the tunnels were built.

  “Do you want me to put on some music?” Aunt Judi calls back to us.

  I shudder at the thought. Anything that is on eight-track is probably not something I want to hear. Still, if there’s no music, we’ll have to listen to Mom and Aunt Judi discuss “the role of the artist in today’s society.” I lean forward and ask, “What are our choices?”

  Aunt Judi shuffles through the cassettes on her lap. “Bread, KC and the Sunshine Band, or the Jackson 5.”

  Lizzy and I exchange quizzical looks. “Just to clarify,” I say, “those are musical groups?”

  She and my mother laugh. “Of course the
y are,” Aunt Judi says.

  “Surprise us,” Lizzy says, rolling her eyes.

  A few seconds later the sounds of disco cackle through the old speakers. I want to put on my my my my my boogie shoes. I settle far back in the seat for what will no doubt be a very long drive.

  “What do you mean they can’t come in?”

  Lizzy and I shrink back to the wall. When my mom raises her voice, which is rare, people cower. The casino security guard isn’t cowering though. He is folding his meaty arms across his wide chest.

  “No one under eighteen gets on the casino floor,” he booms.

  “They aren’t going to gamble,” she insists. “My sister is in an art exhibit. We only need to walk through the casino to get there!”

  He shakes his head and glances around. “I don’t see no art.”

  “She went in through the loading zone,” my mother says, clearly getting exasperated. “We are supposed to meet her now.”

  He shakes his head again. It occurs to me that if Mom already knows we’re going to make some excuse to leave, it might as well be now. I reach over and pull on the sleeve of her blouse. “Um, Lizzy and I can walk around the boardwalk and sit on the beach. We’ll meet you back here in a few hours?”

  She sighs and gives us both long looks. “All right,” she finally says. “But be careful. Stay together. You have your sandwiches?”

  I pat my backpack and nod.

  “Meet back here for lunch at noon, okay?”

  “Don’t worry, Mrs. Fink,” Lizzy says, throwing her arm across my shoulders. She has to stand on her tiptoes. “I’ll keep him out of trouble.”

  “And who will keep you out of trouble?” she asks wearily.

  “Who, me?” Lizzy asks. “My troublemaking days are all in the past.”

  While my mom searches for a response, Lizzy and I hurry to the exit doors and burst out onto the boardwalk. Since it’s barely 9:00, hardly anyone is around. We pass casino after casino, and a lot of hot dog and T-shirt stands. Most of them are still closed. “Where is everyone?” Lizzy asks.