The Astonishing Maybe

by Shaunta Grimes

  “Arbor Day?”

  “I like trees,” she said. “Do you like to read?”

  “Yes.”

  “Me, too.”

  “Favorite book?”

  “The Hobbit.”

  I blinked. “Really?”

  “Yes,” she said, a little defensive.

  “Me, too.”

  She looked at me different, like that answer meant something more than I was a nerd who liked old books that none of my friends had ever read. Then she nodded like she’d come to some kind of decision and said, “What’s the scariest thing that’s ever happened to you?”

  That question was quite a lot deeper than the others and I felt myself closing up. I wished I was back home—not next door in a house that didn’t feel like mine, but back home in New Jersey. “I don’t know.”

  “Yes you do,” she said.

  I did. I could have stood up, shoved my wet feet into my flip-flops, and left, but something kept me there—as if the plastic chair had melted to my butt and glued me to it. “You go first.”

  Roona’s mouth tightened into a flat line as she considered the proposed break in the rules. Finally she said, “My mom almost died when I was in the third grade.”

  I opened my mouth, but nothing came out. I was expecting a story about someone jumping out at her on Halloween or maybe something closer to my own scariest story. I had never even really thought about one of my parents dying. Never once in my whole life. I finally managed to ask, “How?”

  “She took too much medicine.”

  This was the very definition of Too Much Information, and I wasn’t sure what to say. I had a vague idea that taking too much medicine was something that might be an accident, but might not be, too. I couldn’t ask about that. It was too personal. “What did you do?”

  “I had to go live with my aunt Jane for the rest of the school year.” Roona leaned down and scooped a fly out of the pool, flinging it into the yard. “My aunt Jane has eight kids. Gertie, Amaleah, Tucker, Lola, Everett and Morgan, Harvest, and baby Joe. They ran out of names, I think.”

  “Oh.” I squirmed and tried to come up with something neutral to ask. “Where do they live?”

  “On a farm in Boise with chickens and goats and a pig named Bruiser. He pulls the kids around in a cart.”

  “The pig does?”

  “Yes.” Roona shifted in her chair. She looked uncomfortable, like there was something more she wanted to say, but she just sat back. “Your turn.”

  I was so taken aback by her story that mine just came blurting out. “I got lost once.”

  “Where?”

  She wasn’t supposed to ask another question. That wasn’t part of the game, but I answered anyway because I’d asked extra questions, too. “At a gas station.”

  “How old were you?”

  “Four,” I said. She didn’t ask another question. She didn’t say anything at all, which had the same effect. I kept talking to fill the silence. “I didn’t really get lost.”

  “You were left?” she asked quietly.

  I’d never told anyone, not even my dad. I’d never talked about it with my mom. She probably thought I didn’t remember. It took years for me to get old enough to understand what had happened that day.

  You aren’t supposed to remember much about being four years old, but I remembered. I didn’t get lost. She forgot me. We stopped for gas halfway to Grandma Ellen’s house in Philadelphia and she let me out to stretch my legs. After she filled the tank, she got back in the car and drove away while I stood on the curb between the pumps.

  “Did she come right back?” Roona asked.

  I shook my head. I’d only heard her talk about it once. When I was in the second grade she told a friend that she didn’t remember me until she’d hugged her mother, who asked where’s my baby boy? It gave me a weird, sick feeling in my gut.

  “Someone called the police. They fed me a Happy Meal while they tried to find someone who knew me.” I swallowed. “Your turn.”

  Roona inhaled, then exhaled slowly. “Did you see my blanket last night?”

  “Tied around your neck?”

  “Yes.”

  “It was hard to miss.”

  “It saved my life when I was a baby. I was bundled in it like a burrito when our house caught fire. My dad busted in and picked me up, right out of the flames.”

  She had a way of telling a story that felt equal parts absolutely true and totally made-up.

  “I would have burned up or smoked like a sausage,” she told me. “I would have, but my blanket saved me long enough for my dad to get me. Sometimes I think I can still smell smoke on it.”

  I didn’t know what to say, so I stayed quiet and she kept talking.

  Her father joined the air force soon after and she’d never seen him again. She didn’t remember any of it. Not the fire. Not her father saving her. She had no memories of her father at all.

  “Don’t they let soldiers come home sometimes?” I asked.

  Roona shrugged and I wished I’d kept my question to myself. “I think he must have a super-important job. He’s going to come home soon, though. I know it.”

  I bit my bottom lip, holding back my next question. But then I had to know. “Were you waiting for him last night? When you were skating on your porch?”

  She was. Her mother had told her the story of her father’s bravery and how the blanket had protected her. She wrapped Roona in the blanket every night for years. Told her that it made her Wonder Roo and gave her superpowers. It didn’t fit around her anymore, so now she wore it like a cape.

  “It’s still got power,” she said. “It still makes me Wonder Roo.”

  Tooth Fairy magic, I thought. Santa Claus magic. Hobbit magic. The kind of magic that I maybe believed in, but probably not. But I didn’t say so. The truth was, I wasn’t quite sure.

  She’d told two scary stories, one about each of her parents, and I was desperate to balance things out with another story of my own. But I had nothing exciting or scary or adventurous that had happened to me since I was four years old.

  I was a Quinton, through and through. I’d never wanted more excitement or scariness or adventure in my life. But I wanted to believe in Wonder Roo, the same way I wanted to believe in Middle-earth. So I came up with one more story.

  “My grandma Ellen is magic,” I blurted out.

  Roona’s eyebrows shot up. “What?”

  “She is.” I felt my sudden burst of bravery popping like a soap bubble. Oh God. This was a bad idea. “She is magic.”

  “What kind of magic?” Roona asked.

  I’d started down this path and I kept moving down it, like I wasn’t in charge of the words coming out of my mouth. “She can pull quarters out of my ears.”

  Roona stared at me for what felt like an hour, but was probably five seconds. Long enough for me to think: she’s going to laugh at me, and this is going to be the most horrible, boring summer of all time.

  Then Roona did laugh. But it was an eye-crinkling, bent-at-the-waist kind of laughter that made me think I’d do almost anything to hear it again.

  Three

  Before we moved, my parents argued (a lot) about whether or not to let me finish my school year in Wildwood. Mom was worried that I’d spend the whole summer moping around with no friends if I didn’t finish the school year in Nevada. Dad was worried that being the new kid at the end of the school year would scar me for life.

  In a rare turn of events, Dad won. It was what I wanted, but now I was in the desert facing a long, hot, dry summer with no friends except the curious girl who lived next door, who may or may not have superpowers.

  To say I was intrigued would be putting it mildly. Without much of anything else to occupy my mind, I couldn’t stop thinking about Roona.

  That afternoon, I watched out my bedroom window while Roona skated in circles on her front porch, watching the street. I wanted to talk to her some more, but she never looked up at my window. I was way too shy to leave
my own hobbit-hole and go to her house, uninvited.

  The next morning, I got my wish. Roona crossed back over into my home territory. She banged on our front door and when I answered it, she said, all breathless, “Want to go to the movies?”

  I looked over my shoulder, but Mom didn’t come out of the kitchen.

  “My mom’s taking us.” Roona’s face was lit up like a Christmas tree. She grabbed my hand. “You don’t want to miss this.”

  I looked down at her fingers tight around my palm and suddenly, I really didn’t want to miss it. I’m going on an adventure. “I’ll ask.”

  I left her at the door and went to the kitchen. Mom was making gluten-free banana bread—her glass-half-full response to learning that bananas lasted approximately a day and a half in the Nevada heat.

  “Mom.” When she didn’t answer right away, I said, “Mom. Mom.”

  “Gideon,” she said. “Gideon. Gideon.”

  “Can I go to the movies with Roona and her mom?”

  Mom wiped her hands on a towel. “I don’t know, honey. We still have a lot of unpacking to do.”

  “It’s just a movie. I promise I’ll help when I get home. Please?”

  The fact that since the last time I was with Roona I’d spent my time committing that cardinal Quinton-family sin—absolutely nothing—probably played in my favor. Mom looked through the kitchen into the living room at Roona bouncing on her toes, bursting with excitement to hang out with me, and said, “Well, okay. Take ten dollars out of my wallet. Don’t buy candy.”

  * * *

  I did try to do as I was told.

  I bought buttered popcorn and a Slurpee suicide. That’s a little of each flavor. It was pure sugar, but not technically candy. Mom wouldn’t have allowed it. Not in a million years.

  It was Mrs. Mulroney who pulled a handful of Pixy Stix from her purse. Roona kept half and gave me the other half. I didn’t buy the candy. Mom didn’t say anything about eating it. “Thanks.”

  “Have you seen this one?” Mrs. Mulroney asked, leaning over Roona.

  I snapped one of the Pixy Stix with a flick of my wrist, to send the sugar to one end, as I shook my head. We were sitting in the very, very front row, even though most of the seats were empty. I had never sat in the front of a theater before. I had to tilt my head back to see the whole screen. “We’ve been busy, you know, moving and all.”

  Mrs. Mulroney sat back as the lights dimmed. I opened the paper tube and poured a pile of sour sweetness onto my tongue.

  “We’ve seen it six times,” Roona whispered.

  I swallowed and coughed a little when the powdery candy went down funny. “What?”

  She shushed me, waving a hand as the first previews started.

  There had been no discussion about which movie we’d see. Mrs. Mulroney didn’t even ask for my ten-dollar bill. She just bought three tickets to a cartoon about forest animals who try to rescue their friend who winds up in the suburbs. Who sees a movie like that six times in the theater?

  It took about fifteen minutes, and two more Pixy Stix, for it to become very clear that Mrs. Mulroney really had seen this film six times. And she liked it. A lot.

  She started to sing. Not under her breath, either. She sang loud and clear, as if she really was a girl raccoon who was about to accidentally hitch a ride in a picnic basket.

  I slunk down in my seat, cheeks burning. It wasn’t that she sang poorly. In fact, she had a nice voice. But I thought about my own mother doing anything at all, especially in public, with so much gusto, and so loud, and I wanted to crawl under my seat.

  I was embarrassed for Roona, but she wasn’t embarrassed at all. She smiled up at her mother, then started to sing, too.

  Mrs. Mulroney stood up as the song built to its high point. The audience behind us started to hiss at her. She shook her hips and raised her arms over her head, singing the girl raccoon’s song at the top of her lungs. She grabbed Roona and pulled her to her feet. Roona reached back and grabbed my hand.

  I tried to pull it back. “I can’t.”

  “Come on, Gideon,” Roona said, stretched between her mother and me, already starting to dance. “YOLO!”

  “What?”

  “You only live once.”

  If I didn’t get up, she’d let go of me. She’d dance in front of the movie screen with her mother and neither of them would care whether or not I joined them. Someone yelled sit down! and I came to my feet with my heart in my stomach. I wanted to be part of their fun, even though the idea of it scared me more than anything I’d ever done before.

  Roona’s face lit up and she started to sing with her mother again.

  Oh God. Oh God. I shifted my weight from one foot to the other, the best I could manage as far as dancing was concerned. The first line I tried to sing caught in my throat.

  Then something Tookish woke up in me and overcame my natural Quinton reserve. My bones let loose and my throat did, too. The second line came out more easily as I found my groove.

  Management came down the aisle before the song was over. Mrs. Mulroney squealed and picked up her purse. She grabbed Roona by the hand. Roona grabbed me, and we cracked the whip toward the exit at the front of the theater. Mrs. Mulroney pressed her weight into the bar and the door opened, triggering an alarm that caused the whole audience to cry out.

  We ran like lunatics to the parking lot.

  “Now what?” Mrs. Mulroney asked when we were in her little yellow VW bug, red-faced and hiccuping with laughter. I was caught somewhere between mildly in love with both of them and half-dead with shock at my own nerve. “I can’t believe that just happened.”

  “Fro-yo!!” Roona said.

  “Fro-yo,” Mrs. Mulroney agreed.

  I collapsed back in my seat. I’d just experienced more excitement than I had in my entire life. The Quintons did not sing and dance at movies. We didn’t even sing and dance in our own living room. And we certainly did not get chased out of theaters or set off alarms. We did not eat Pixy Stix and frozen yogurt in the same day.

  We were more of a sit-quietly-in-the-back, watch-singing-and-dancing-on-TV-without-leaving-the-sofa, whole-wheat-spaghetti kind of family. Or we were, until Mom stopped eating gluten. Now we were a quinoa-and-broccoli kind of family.

  Mrs. Mulroney drove us to a frozen yogurt place. The kind where you can add your own toppings. They piled marshmallows, teddy bear graham crackers, and chocolate chips in their bowls. Guilt caught up with me and I went for strawberries and walnuts.

  The two of them sang the songs from the movie while we ate. I didn’t know any of them, so I was just on the outside looking in, basking in the strange energy that radiated from Mrs. Mulroney and seemed to infect Roona.

  Between the Slurpee, the candy, and the frozen yogurt, plus the adrenaline rush, I was feeling a little woozy by the time we pulled into their driveway an hour later. I wasn’t worried about Mom finding out what I’d been up to. She’d never believe it, even if I told her.

  “I have to make a blueberry pie tonight,” Mrs. Mulroney announced after she cut the engine.

  For some reason, the energy of the day plummeted. Roona sat up straighter and shook her head. Mrs. Mulroney sighed and it was as if all of her laughter and raccoon songs blew out with her breath.

  “Not tonight,” Roona said. “Tomorrow.”

  “Miss Oberman is expecting it, first thing in the morning.” Mrs. Mulroney opened the car door. “For her mother’s birthday.”

  Roona sat back while her mother got out and walked toward the house. “This is bad.”

  I leaned forward, between the front seats. “What do you mean?”

  “Blueberry is always bad.”

  “Why?”

  She didn’t answer.

  * * *

  “You went on a date with Roona,” Harper said.

  “No I didn’t.”

  She wheeled her scooter around me in a circle as I tried to walk toward our house. “Oh yes, you did.”

  “Shut up, H
arper.” I brushed past her and walked faster.

  “Giddy and Roona sitting in a tree … K-I-S-S-I-N-G…”

  “You are so stupid!” I went inside and slammed the door.

  Mom and Dad were unpacking books in the living room and they both stopped and looked up at me.

  “Hey,” Dad said. “What did that door do to you?”

  I shook my head. “Why can’t I be an only child?”

  He thought for a moment, then said, “We knew you were going to need to learn patience and resilience. Really, we did you a favor.”

  “Resilience?” I asked.

  I should have known better. Mom picked a book off the shelf she was filling and handed it to me.

  A dictionary.

  Ugh. “I’ll just Google it.”

  “How was the movie?” she asked.

  I didn’t know how to begin to tell her the truth, so I just said, “It was okay.”

  Four

  The next morning Roona bypassed our front door altogether and knocked on my bedroom window. I opened my curtains, rubbing sleep from my eyes.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “Miss Oberman already picked it up,” Roona said.

  “What?”

  “The blueberry pie. We have to stop her before she delivers it.”

  “Why?”

  “Just come over, okay?” She looked down at my dinosaur pajamas. “Get dressed first.”

  Mom wouldn’t let me leave our house without eating breakfast and she wouldn’t let me go to anyone else’s house, not even our next-door neighbor’s, before eight a.m.

  After I ate some banana bread, I sat at the kitchen table fully dressed, with my shoes on, watching the clock tick slowly, slowly from 7:34 to 8:00.

  The instant it did, I went into my parents’ bedroom. It was Friday and Dad didn’t start his new job until Monday. He was going to work in marketing at a casino on the outskirts of the most outskirt town in the world. So they were both in there. They’d made a little two-person chain: Mom pulled clothes out of a box and put them on hangers. Dad hung them in the closet.

  “Can I go to Roona’s?”

  “Your room,” Mom said.

  “I promise to finish it after lunch.” I looked at Dad. “Please?”