The Astonishing Maybe

by Shaunta Grimes

“Where?”

  “To Harper’s new school.”

  I sat up and frowned. “It’s June.”

  “The PTA is holding a meeting for kindergarten families.”

  “Why do I have to go? Can’t I just stay here? I’m almost done with my book and—”

  “Get dressed, Gideon.”

  * * *

  The real reason Mom made me come to the school with her became obvious about three minutes after we walked in the door. The parents all sat in chairs at one side of the room. The kids were gathering around lunch tables on the other.

  She stopped at the door and I saw her take a breath. For the first time, it occurred to me that she was in as new a situation as I was—and she didn’t know any more people than I did. She looked at me and said, “Keep a good eye on Harper for me.”

  Uh-huh. I looked around for somewhere I could sit and read, and still make sure my little sister didn’t burn the place down.

  “Come on, Giddy.” Harper took my hand and walked toward a group of girls sitting around a cafeteria table with a pile of coloring pages and buckets of markers and crayons. I followed, because I didn’t have anything better to do.

  Literally, nothing.

  I could read at that table just as well as anywhere else, and maybe Harper would be occupied with new friends and leave me alone for a while.

  But I smelled trouble before I saw it. Fresh chocolate chip cookies. The scent was undeniable. Like our house when Mom baked for Christmas, only better. Much better.

  A lady carried a plate over and set it in the center of the table where Harper was just settling herself between two other girls.

  They practically dived for the cookies. I grabbed Harper’s arm before she could take a bite.

  “Let me go,” Harper said.

  “Wait a minute.” I looked around for Mom and saw her talking to a lady wearing jeans and a Logandale Lions T-shirt. They each held a cookie with a big bite out of it.

  The lady who’d brought the cookies was fussing with one of the little girls, tucking stray ends of her hair into a ponytail.

  “Excuse me,” I said. “Did Mrs. Mulroney bake these?”

  “Oh yes. Make sure you get one. You’ll never taste a better cookie.”

  “Oh no.” The cookies weren’t blue, of course. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad. Maybe the cafeteria wouldn’t fill up with tears and my little sister wouldn’t float away—

  I looked back at Harper. She’d picked up a second cookie in her other hand and smiled at me through a huge bite. I let go of her.

  It started with some kids who found the musical instruments stored along the back wall.

  One boy, with chocolate smeared around his mouth, banged on a huge bongo drum, and another found the xylophone mallets and went at it like a maniac. They both whooped and hollered. Two women came running toward them, probably their mothers.

  “Aiden, you stop that,” one of the women said. “Stop that right this minute!”

  The kid with the mallets played harder.

  Another group of five-year-olds started fighting over the dress-up clothes that someone had set up near the milk cooler. Before I could figure out what was happening there, though, a purple marker hit me smack in the center of my forehead.

  All of a sudden the room exploded in flying markers and Legos and princess dresses, screaming little kids, embarrassed parents, and reprimanding teachers.

  I stood in the center of it and noticed: everyone had a cookie. Everyone. Including my mom, even though I was pretty sure those cookies were full of gluten.

  I didn’t really believe that Mrs. Mulroney baked what she was feeling into her cakes and pies and … apparently, cookies. No one could do that.

  But the PTA meeting was going off the rails and everyone was eating the cookies. If what Roona said was true, what was her mother feeling when she baked these?

  “Where’s your sister?” Mom asked me as she shoved the rest of the cookie into her mouth. I had never seen her shove anything into her mouth before.

  Quintons had notoriously good table manners.

  Harper was under the coloring table with two other girls, shooting crayons at people’s ankles like poison darts. They had a plate of chocolate chip cookie crumbs between them.

  Mom reached under the table and grabbed Harper by the arm. “Have you lost your mind?”

  Harper screamed and went loose, slipping out of Mom’s grip and collapsing at her feet. Maybe she got away with more than I could, but she was also small enough to be picked up and carried out of the cafeteria. She reached over Mom’s shoulder toward another little girl who was being carried in the opposite direction by her mother.

  “Isabella!” Harper moaned. “I want Isabella.”

  “Harrrperrr!” the other girl cried. Only it came out Hawwwpawww. That kid was definitely going to be in Speech when school started.

  “You stop that right now, Harper Marie Quinton.” Mom grabbed my arm with her free hand as she walked past me and hustled us both toward the door. “Right this minute.”

  We went outside. Harper called out for the other little girl again, then slumped against Mom’s shoulder.

  Once my sister was buckled into her booster seat, Mom leaned in and said, “I certainly hope, young lady, that I didn’t just see an example of how you plan to behave when you start school.”

  She walked around the car and got in. She waited for me to buckle myself up before starting the engine. She didn’t pull away from the sidewalk, though. She turned over her shoulder and looked at Harper. I looked, too.

  Harper’s bottom lip quivered. “I want to play with Isabella.”

  “I have never—” Before Mom could finish her sentence, the school door burst open and two dads came out, each one holding a little kid by the arm. The two men were yelling at each other over the tops of their kids’ heads.

  Mom hit the button that locked all of our car doors with a solid click.

  More people came pouring from the school. Teachers. Parents. Kids. I saw a mom screaming at a teacher, kids chasing one another around and around the pillars in front of the school.

  And then in the distance, sirens.

  “Okay, that’s it.” Mom put the car in reverse and backed out of her spot. Harper’s head bobbed over and rested on my shoulder.

  “I’m sorry, Mama,” she said.

  The whole way home, Mom kept saying things like I’ve never seen anything like that and I can’t believe that just happened.

  When we got home, she stopped in our driveway and just sat there, both hands on the wheel.

  “Mom?”

  She shook herself and cut the engine. “I think I’m going to lie down with Harper.”

  “Can I go to Roona’s?”

  “Sure,” she said. She didn’t even say anything about whether or not Mrs. Mulroney was home.

  * * *

  Roona came outside and shut the door carefully behind her. “Hi.”

  “Did your mom make chocolate chip cookies for the PTA?”

  Roona covered her face with her hands. “Oh no.”

  “Oh yes. The police came. It was crazy.”

  Roona’s bottom lip quivered and tears fell down her cheeks. “I’ve never seen her like this, Gideon. Not even when—”

  “Not even when what?”

  She shook her head and sniffed. I was angry when I knocked on the door. It would have been easy for Roona to warn me about the cookies (even though I had been avoiding her, and I didn’t know I was going to the PTA meeting until my mother made me get dressed). Now she was crying, though, really crying, and I had to do something.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  Roona looked back at her front door, then took my arm and led me down off her porch.

  “She didn’t sleep last night. Not at all. She—”

  “She what?”

  “My dad’s leaving,” she said.

  “What do you mean? You said you haven’t seen him since you were a baby.”

 
; “I haven’t.” She bit at her bottom lip and looked at me for a long moment. “If I show you something, do you promise not to tell anyone?”

  “What is it?”

  “Something about my dad. Do you promise?”

  I wondered if I needed to call my dad at work. This day was getting seriously weird.

  “Well,” she said, “do you?”

  “Fine. I promise.”

  Roona spit in the palm of her hand and held it out to me. I took a step back. “What are you doing?”

  She waggled her fingers. “Come on. Spit swear.”

  “Ew.”

  “I’m serious. Spit swear, or I can’t show you. Just do it.”

  I sighed and looked at her spit-slick hand. “Fine.”

  I spit in my own palm and winced as I pressed it against hers. “This better be good.”

  She let go and I wiped my palm on my pants. “Wait here.”

  She went inside her house, and a minute later came back with an envelope. “I found this.”

  “What is it?”

  “A letter from my dad.” She held it against her chest for a minute, then out to me.

  I took it and looked at the envelope. It was addressed to Miranda Mulroney from Curtis Mulroney. The return address said Nellis FPC, a long number, and a Las Vegas address.

  “Nellis,” I said.

  “That’s the air force base.”

  I opened the envelope and pulled out a folded sheet of paper. It wasn’t a very long letter, only a couple of lines scrawled across a sheet of plain white paper.

  They’re moving us to Moriah. I’m sorry, Miranda. I’m so damned sorry. Maybe it’s for the best. I’ll miss you.

  I turned the paper over in my hand. “That’s it?”

  Roona nodded and took the letter back from me.

  “What’s Moriah?”

  She reread the letter and answered without looking up. “A little town up near the Idaho border. I Googled it.”

  “What’s the big secret?” I was missing something. “You don’t see him anyway, do you?”

  That was the wrong thing to say. I knew it as soon as it came out of my mouth. Roona’s face tightened as she carefully put the letter back in the envelope. “I think my mom does, though. He says right there, he’ll miss her.”

  The letter didn’t say anything at all about Roona.

  “Why would he see her and not you? That doesn’t make sense.” I couldn’t imagine my dad not seeing me and Harper, ever. For years.

  “I think this is why my mom’s … why she’s not herself.”

  “The cookies,” I said. I was still shaken by what I’d seen at the PTA meeting.

  Roona nodded again. “And the pie. We have to find him and tell him. If he knew how much she needs him, he’d come. I know he would.”

  “What do you mean we have to find him?”

  “I’m really worried about my mom, Gideon. I’m afraid that she’s sick—like she was before. When she took too much medicine.”

  “Maybe I should go get my mom,” I said. “She was a nurse before I was born. She’ll know—”

  “No!” Roona grabbed my arm. “You swore not to tell. You spit swore.”

  I did spit swear. I wiped my hand on my pants again. All I knew, in that moment, was that I needed to make Roona stop crying. I had to do something, anything, to help her.

  “Okay,” I said. “All right. But what are we going to do?”

  “Will you help me find my dad?”

  I knew this was bad. Very bad. I closed my eyes and could not see a way for this to go that didn’t end up with me grounded until I graduated from high school. “Find him how?”

  “We have to go to Las Vegas.”

  She might as well have said we needed to slingshot ourselves to the moon. “Las Vegas? Like the Las Vegas?”

  “It’s not that far. Only sixty miles and—”

  “Sixty miles? Are you crazy? I’m not even supposed to cross the street.”

  “You went to the old folks’ home with me.”

  I laughed and hoped she’d laugh with me. She didn’t. “We can’t go to Las Vegas, Roona. Why don’t you just call him?”

  She finally did laugh then. And she shrugged, like it wasn’t a big deal. Like she wasn’t crying a few minutes before. “Never mind. I’ll go on my own.”

  She held up her hands, still holding the letter, as she backed toward her house. She started up the stairs to her front door and I don’t know what came over me. I couldn’t walk away.

  “I have a hundred dollars.”

  She turned slowly back to me. “Really?”

  “From my birthday. But, for the record, I think this is a really bad idea.”

  * * *

  Buying two Greyhound bus tickets required some maneuvering.

  We rode our bikes to the grocery store first. It was about a half mile past the old folks’ home, so I was breaking the rule again. It was easier this time. Maybe getting away with something always made it easier. I wondered if that was how people became criminals. I really hoped not.

  I saw Miss Oberman’s truck in the handicapped spot as we passed.

  Mom was still asleep when I’d gone in to get my stash of money. I hoped she’d just assume I was still at Roona’s, and wouldn’t come looking for me before we got back.

  I really did feel like Bilbo Baggins on a Tookish adventure and it was exciting to the point of making me feel dizzy.

  “We need to buy a gift card,” Roona said when we pulled up in front of the store. “Like a credit card, you know, that we can use to buy bus tickets online.”

  “Do they sell those to kids?”

  She tilted her head from shoulder to shoulder. She didn’t know. Neither of us knew what we were doing and I felt my stomach do a slow, nauseating flop. Roona just smiled and said, “Let’s go.”

  I thought about going into the store with her, but changed my mind. I wanted as little to do with this as possible. It was cowardly and I knew it, but the high I’d felt riding my bike with my birthday money in my pocket did not last. My Bilbo Baggins moment faded when I realized that I wasn’t prepared to follow Roona into the store.

  “I’ll stay with the bikes.” I offered the little stack of tens and twenties I’d been given in birthday cards from my aunts and uncles and Grandma Ellen.

  I had been saving it since February, in case my parents made good on their promise to take us to Disneyland. Saving it, but not holding my breath. Now I was just throwing it right down the drain.

  Roona took it and said, “Okay. Wait here.”

  If I actually took a Greyhound bus to Las Vegas with Roona, there was no way I was ever going to Disneyland or anywhere that wasn’t school or my bedroom until I was as old as Miss Oberman. Or maybe Mrs. Oberman.

  * * *

  Roona came back ten minutes later. She got on her bike without saying anything.

  “Did you get it?” I asked. She started to pedal away, back toward our street. I had to hustle to catch up with her. “Roona!”

  “I got it,” she said over her shoulder. “We need to hurry.”

  I looked over my shoulder, too, half expecting a security guard or someone to come after us. “Why?”

  She followed my gaze and then rolled her eyes. “We’re not in trouble, Gideon. My mom’ll be home soon. I need to order our tickets.”

  Crap. I was on a runaway train and all I could do was hang on and ride. I didn’t think it was going to do any good, but I had to at least try to slow things down. “Are you sure this is a good idea?”

  Roona pedaled faster. She wasn’t wearing her baby-blanket cape, but I swear I heard an echo of it snapping in the wind.

  Six

  I sat on Roona’s porch and watched my own front door. It was so quiet over there, I was sure that Mom and Harper were both still asleep. Roona had gone into her house, with my birthday money in gift card form, and didn’t even invite me in.

  My heart raced, but the honest truth was that I was enjoying this. I
’d never had an adventure before. Not a real one. Driving across country and seeing things like the world’s largest bottle of hair tonic was as close as I’d ever come.

  This blew that away.

  I thought about the chaos I’d seen at the school and had the strange sensation of the whole world tilting, as if I was on a ship.

  Roona believed her mother’s feelings baked into her cakes and pies and cookies. It seemed impossible, but I had seen the whole old folks’ home in tears, and the PTA meeting gone crazy.

  I couldn’t say I didn’t believe it, either.

  When I was eight years old, Jackson Emery told me that he didn’t believe in Santa Claus. I had my doubts by then, of course. But it was the first time any of my friends had ever said it out loud. It was like a soap bubble bursting—only I didn’t realize it was as fragile as that until it was broken.

  Roona and her mother were like that Santa bubble, only in reverse.

  I didn’t think I believed in magic, until it was right in front of me, fragile as a soap bubble. Maybe. And what if it was true?

  What was going on with Roona’s mom that made her cookies—full of her emotions—make a whole roomful of kindergarten kids and their parents behave the way they had?

  What had made Roona believe that she needed to go all the way to Las Vegas on a Greyhound bus to find her dad, instead of doing something normal like calling him?

  I had just about talked myself into calling my dad, because I was in way, way over my head, when Roona’s front door opened.

  She sat down beside me with two pieces of printer paper in her hands. “The bus leaves tomorrow morning at eight.”

  This was too much. “I’m not even allowed to go to your house before eight.”

  “The Greyhound station is pretty far,” she said. “We better leave here by seven. We’ll have to park our bikes at the station, so don’t forget your lock.”

  “You aren’t listening to me.”

  Roona leaned forward, elbows on her bare knees. “I have to go, Gideon. With or without you.”

  With or without you. It was the refrain of my mom’s favorite song. Great. I closed my eyes. “This is a bad idea. You know that, don’t you?”

  “I haven’t seen my mom like this since—” She folded the tickets neatly. Lengthwise, hot dog–style, then widthwise, hamburger-style. “Since I had to go live in Idaho.”