Very Rich

by Polly Horvath

  “You’re hardly old,” protested the agent. “I don’t consider myself old at fifty-three and I’m far older than you.”

  “No, you’re not,” said Turgid. “You haven’t been born yet.”

  “He must have been born,” protested Rupert, and tried to do the math, but his head was spinning with all the tricky time figuring.

  “I meant old lady as hyperbole, of course. Although fifty-three is hardly old either,” said Aunt Hazelnut, casting a gracious, glittering smile on the agent. She clearly had no intention of divulging her exact age. “It was beginning to seem like a rather lonely birthday. I’m happy, of course, to have ended up here. It is an excellent place to commence this next chapter of my life. I should have really done it years ago and I feel like for the first time I’m stretching my limbs, as if I’ve been cramped in some stall like a horse that never leaves the barn. I want to race about and whinny. I didn’t tell any of you where I was going, Turgid, because I didn’t want you all descending on me with family visits or feeling you had to make any effort to reconnect or crowding me with your advice. People do so like to give you advice when you’re alone.”

  “I know!” interrupted Turgid, suddenly excited. “Rupert has a wretched life. You’re all alone. You can adopt Rupert! That’s why the time machine took us here!”

  “NO!” shrieked Rupert and Aunt Hazelnut before they could stop themselves. Then they both recovered their composure and Aunt Hazelnut glared at Turgid.

  “For heaven’s sake, Turgid,” she went on irritably, “that’s exactly what I’m talking about. You can’t help horning in with ideas about what I SHOULD do. People, despite what you think, want their own lives in all their imperfect glory, rather than some idealized version where there’s no dimension. People want good things, bad things, as long as they’re THEIR things. Now, I told Rupert about moving here, but, of course, it never occurred to me he’d show up with family members and time machines and whatnot. I mean, why would he? Anyhow, it’s been a breath of fresh air, this place to myself. No one to tell me what to do or comment on my life. But the downside to that is, quite naturally, a bit of emptiness. It is hard not to feel a bit empty when you’re alone. That everything’s a little sterile. I enjoy watching the sun set into the ocean every night by myself. Or that’s what I keep trying to tell myself, but it’s a lie. I see the beauty of the sunset all right, but it turns out you can’t just see, you have to be seen.”

  John Reynolds looked at her with admiration.

  “Perhaps you’re missing pudding,” said Turgid.

  “Don’t get smart,” said Aunt Hazelnut.

  “But I still don’t understand how you knew Rupert would be here on his birthday,” said Turgid, who had no interest in Aunt Hazelnut’s pensées or John Reynolds’s google eyes.

  Aunt Hazelnut started to speak when Rupert, who had suddenly understood, interrupted her. “No, don’t you see, she was celebrating her birthday, she doesn’t know it is mine too,” he finished lamely in barely a whisper, for he suddenly realized he was announcing his own birthday.

  “Oh, that’s what Turgid was getting at when he wondered how I knew you were coming,” said Aunt Hazelnut. “Well now, that is a coincidence, Rupert. Then we must blow out the candles twice and you must make a wish too.”

  She struck a match and lit the candles, politely insisting Rupert go first. Rupert closed his eyes and wondered what to wish for, and the image that came, the image that seemed to be hanging there always right behind his eyelids, was a big juicy hamburger. All to himself. And maybe two. I wish for hamburgers, he thought, and blew out the candles. Then Aunt Hazelnut relit the candles, closed her eyes, wished and blew them out again.

  “What did you wish for?” she asked Rupert after she’d opened her eyes.

  “I would like some cake,” he whispered, hoping she would mistake this for his wish. Even he knew that you weren’t supposed to tell anyone your wish or it wouldn’t come true.

  “What did you wish for?” John Reynolds asked Aunt Hazelnut, but at that moment a loud whirring sound began and the floor vibrated.

  “EARTHQUAKE!” cried Aunt Hazelnut.

  “Quickly, stand in a doorway, it’s the strongest part of a building,” said John Reynolds, who, of course, as a Secret Service agent, knew these sorts of things. Then he did something extraordinary. He ran around the table, picked Aunt Hazelnut up as if she weighed nothing at all, and carried her to a doorway.

  Rupert, Turgid, and Aunt Hazelnut looked more stunned by this than the earthquake.

  “No!” said Turgid. “Not earthquake! Look at the time machine! It’s vibrating. It’s going to leave without us if we don’t hurry.”

  The boys ran for the box and scampered into it.

  “Put Aunt Hazelnut down, Mr. Reynolds,” said Turgid. “You can’t stay here or you’ll be stuck. You’ll never get back to your own time.”

  “I think…” John Reynolds paused, making no move to join them. He was still holding Aunt Hazelnut even though they now knew they weren’t having a quake.

  “Yes, do…” said Aunt Hazelnut, looking into his eyes. But whether she was saying do stay or do get in the box, the boys would never know, for the box began shaking harder, and the next thing they knew they found themselves on the floor of the Riverses’ attic.

  “Now he really is stuck,” said Turgid. “He should have jumped in when he could. Aunt Hazelnut has no time machine to help him back to his own time.”

  “It didn’t look like he wanted to return to it,” said Rupert. “Do you think Aunt Hazelnut wants him there or not?”

  “Who cares?” asked Turgid. “He’s silly to stay in this time. Now by the time I’m president he’ll be dead.”

  This was a strange and sobering thought.

  “Well, it’s a crap time machine if you ask me,” Turgid continued. “We said there’s no place like home and it didn’t even take us home, it took us to Mendocino.”

  “Yes, I’ve been thinking about that and maybe it was because the agent was hanging onto the box. Maybe it took him to what will be his home. Maybe even if things don’t work out with Aunt Hazelnut, he’s meant to be in Mendocino at this time for some reason. Or maybe it’s nothing to do with him, maybe the time machine would have taken us there whether he clung to the box or not so that Aunt Hazelnut wouldn’t have to spend her birthday alone.”

  “Or maybe it was so you got a piece of birthday cake before your birthday was over.”

  “But I didn’t get any cake,” protested Rupert.

  Turgid began pacing the attic floor. “I just hope they don’t blab to anyone about who is going to be president. What if she tells everyone she knows and someone tells the newspapers and it gets back to Steelville? I would die if anyone found out.”

  “Why would anyone believe them?” said Rupert. “And don’t worry, I’ll never tell.”

  “Probably not, but let’s write it in blood,” said Turgid, scouring the attic for a knife. He finally found one in an old tackle box. “Here. This will do. Stick out your finger.”

  “I don’t want to cut myself with that thing,” said Rupert. “It looks rusty. We’ll get lockjaw.”

  “Not me. I’ve had a tetanus shot. Oh, all right,” said Turgid, throwing the knife on the floor. He went hunting again in boxes and old dresser drawers until he came across a sewing kit. “Well, here’s a needle then. Prick your thumb and I’ll prick mine.”

  Turgid wrote in pen on a bit of scrap paper he found that neither of them would breathe a word about the presidency. Then they both made an X in blood by their names.

  “There,” said Turgid when they were finished. “Now you are my brother.”

  “Really?” said Rupert.

  “Or at least a very good friend. If you ever need anything, anything at all, you can come to me. Ever since Christmas when you participated in the games, you’ve become like one of us. You’re a family member practically.”

  “Wow,” said Rupert. He was so touched he felt like crying.
Partly, he suspected, this was because he hadn’t eaten in so long.

  They sat and looked at the momentous document they had just signed.

  “Who will hang on to it?” asked Turgid.

  “It had better be you,” said Rupert. “I don’t have a place to keep things private.”

  “All right,” said Turgid.

  “TURGID!” Mrs. Rivers called from downstairs. “Dinnertime!”

  “That clever box got us home in time for dinner,” said Turgid.

  “I’ve got to change back into my clothes,” said Rupert, who still held the bag of old clothes as if for dear life. Now he put them back on and put the suit and new shirt in the bag.

  “Come on,” said Turgid, and they went downstairs. He led Rupert to the front door.

  “See ya,” said Turgid.

  “See ya tomorrow,” said Rupert.

  “Yeah, see ya at school,” said Turgid.

  Rupert walked home. Turgid had said they were friends! He had a friend! It was the best birthday present imaginable. It changed everything!

  When he got home his mother was just coming in the door and heading to the kitchen to start the evening oatmeal and kitchen scraps. She looked at him as usual, as if she couldn’t quite focus in her fatigue. He smiled anyway and ran upstairs. He would have liked to show her the suit, but he felt instinctively that she wouldn’t want to see it. That it would only make her angry that he had it. Where to hide the suit? The only things he owned besides his clothes were the raggedy blanket and pillow kept under the bed. It was the only place he might put the suit and be sure none of his siblings would come across it. The pillow had no case, but he went downstairs and took a kitchen knife and made a slit in the pillow. Then he jammed the suit in there. The rest of the family were watching TV. He went downstairs to join them. His mother was passing out bowls of oatmeal. On Rupert’s she had made a smiling face with raisins she had bought on the way home for the occasion.

  “How come he got raisins?” asked one of Rupert’s brothers.

  “It’s his birthday,” said their mother gruffly. “So leave him alone. And after dinner I’ve got a special treat for you, Rupert.”

  “What’s he getting now?” asked another brother.

  “A bag of menthol eucalyptus chips!” said his mother. “All for him!

  RUPERT AWOKE the next morning with a sense that something had changed. It was the feeling you have when it has been winter for months and you wake up to the spring sound of birdsong and notice the first budding of the bushes. Something new and better has come along. It took Rupert a few minutes to remember what this was and to realize it wasn’t just a post-dream delusion. Something had changed. He would see Turgid at school today. He had a friend.

  Rupert ate his thin oatmeal while daydreaming about what this might involve. Perhaps they would sit next to each other in the lunchroom. Maybe Turgid would even share his sandwich, which Rupert decided wasn’t really charity. Not when it was your friend. Of course, Rupert had nothing to share in turn, but perhaps you didn’t keep count with friends. Or perhaps Rupert would come up with equally valuable things for Turgid. Maybe he would come up with the idea that would help Turgid circumvent the presidency.

  Rupert hurried out the door. He wanted to get to school early and find Turgid to at least say hello before the bell rang. He found himself running until he was in front of the Riverses’ house. Then he slowed down to walk past the high hedges. Now he knew what those hedges hid, uncles and cousins, a random librarian, a time machine, and a mother who used to sneak out every Tuesday night hoping to become a chef. Rupert wondered if she had found a new restaurant to work in.

  Even though Rupert lingered a bit in front of the hedges, there was no sign of life, so he ran on until he got to the schoolyard. Buses were unloading and the children who were driven to school were leaping out of cars; others had balls and were playing four square. There was the usual commotion on the playground and the usual gang of little toughs drifting about together looking menacing. Rupert realized he had no idea of Turgid’s before-school routine, so he had no idea where to look for him and the bell rang before he could. Never mind, thought Rupert, he’d find Turgid at lunch. Surely he would be in the lunchroom.

  Rupert waited impatiently all through the morning lessons. However, at lunchtime Turgid was not to be found in the lunchroom or his classroom when Rupert worked up the nerve to peek in there as well. And although he walked the perimeter of the school during lunch, Turgid wasn’t outside either. Perhaps he hadn’t come to school at all. Perhaps he was ill. Rupert felt a great sense of letdown but then thought, oh well, now that they were friends, they had many many school days thereafter to hang out.

  However, the next day came and it was the same. Turgid was nowhere to be found. When he hadn’t come all week, when Rupert realized he hadn’t, in fact, seen any of the Riverses, he began to wonder. He had looked for Sippy in the wing of the school that housed the younger grades, but hadn’t found her. He had asked Elise if she had seen her or any of the Riverses about that week.

  “Sippy Rivers?” asked Elise. “Why?”

  “I’m just wondering,” said Rupert. “If you see her could you ask her if Turgid is sick?”

  “I don’t know her,” said Elise, who was even shyer than Rupert.

  “Well, could you ask her?” asked Rupert.

  “Okay,” said Elise in a small voice, but Rupert doubted she would.

  Rupert’s sense of letdown grew even greater. He had thought in the back of his mind that even if he didn’t see Turgid, Uncle Moffat might come looking for him to finally complete their date at the Union Club or give him the six shirts that had been made for him, but he had not come by. Rupert thought that Turgid might have even told his family that it was Rupert’s birthday and Mrs. Rivers might have made him a belated cake. Ever since he had done the unlikely and become friends with Turgid, ever since Turgid had told him he was like a member of the family, he thought anything was possible and had begun to entertain a whole slew of fantasies.

  But now Rupert was beginning to feel that the Rivers family might not be as enamored of him as Turgid had led him to believe. On the other hand, he thought hopefully, it could be that the entire family was ill with a terrible flu and they’d all taken to their beds. Yes, he thought, that was the most likely explanation, and his adventures with them would begin anew on Monday when they were all feeling better.

  But Monday came and Rupert saw neither Sippy nor Turgid at school, and no Rivers came for him with lunch plans or jewels to visit or restaurants to eat in or time machines to transport them. Rupert even found himself thinking somewhat resentfully that Mr. Rivers was the only adult in the family who apparently felt no guilt about Rupert losing all his prizes. As if, after all, he were entitled to the Riverses’ atonement. He even found himself fantasizing about what form Mr. Rivers’s atonement would take and hoping it involved food. But by the end of Friday when nothing new or exciting had happened, Rupert went home deflated. All week his fantasies had grown bigger and bolder until he had imagined them all begging Rupert to become some kind of family consultant, perhaps with a small salary, so had he risen in their estimation. Now he doubted anything like this would happen.

  And to make matters worse, April, in the capricious way of spring, took a sudden turn from lush and warm to nasty and cold, and a gentle snow drifted down over all the budding bushes and sprouting daffodils.

  Could this week get any worse?

  But when he got home he realized it could, because the first thing he saw as he approached his house was his mother sitting on the sagging front steps, holding a mug of coffee between her raw red hands, and staring despairingly out into the drifting snow.

  She didn’t seem to notice Rupert approaching. She had snowflakes on her nose and a frozen expression.

  What in the world could be up, he wondered? His mother never got home before six o’clock at night.

  “Rupert!” she snapped suddenly as if coming awake. “I su
ppose you’re wondering what I’m doing home. I suppose you are thinking I lost my job. Well, I did. But not for the reasons you probably think. Not because there was anything wrong with the way I cleaned. I was the best darn cleaner in that whole place, Rupert. The best darn cleaner in Steelville. I made those offices sparkle. And don’t think I didn’t!”

  “Okay,” said Rupert.

  “I don’t know what we’ll do for money now. It’s always been up to me. I don’t know how we’re going to eat. I don’t know where we’re going to live if we can’t make the rent payments or what we’re going to do. I haven’t even been able to find your father to tell him yet.”

  This was odd too, thought Rupert. He’d never known his father to be anywhere but on the couch watching TV or in the driveway working on his Trans Am.

  “And why did I lose my job? Because the steelworks is cutting back on employees and one of the cleaners had to go, they told me.”

  Rupert sat on a step next to his mother.

  “What will we do?” asked Rupert anxiously. He realized that someday he might look back on these as the good old days when he got to sleep under a bed.

  “We’ll starve, I guess,” said his mother, in her despair making no attempt to sugarcoat things. “Life isn’t fair, Rupert.”

  Rupert’s heart began beating triple fast. What would they do? There was little enough money for food as it was. Could he quit school and get a job? But who would hire an eleven-year-old?

  “The part that really stings is that I got fired while some flibbertigibbet who only just started cleaning there two years ago got to keep her job. And why? Because she knows the Riverses. She’s not even friends with them, but she used to deliver their newspaper so she gets to stay on. No consideration for the breadwinner of a large family. They’re horrid, those Riverses. Oh, why couldn’t I be the one who knew them? It’s all about who you know in this rotten old world, Rupert. And I never knew anyone. And I’m never likely to know anyone.”

  “But I do!” said Rupert, leaping to his feet. “I’m friends with a Rivers. With all of them really. And Turgid said that if I ever needed anything I could come to him.”