by Bob Bannon
Jonah only took a fleeting glance at the small fountain near the door. “Bus money,” he thought to himself.
X
They got into Mrs. MacIntyre’s car, a white Toyota Prius. Jonah took the back seat and Eric slid the front seat up more so he could have some room.
“So what does your father do, Jonah?” Mrs. Macintyre asked as they left the parking lot.
“He’s a scientist,” Jonah blurted out without thinking.
“A scientist? Wow!” She said, not fully believing it. “Where does he work?”
“Clapton,” he answered. It was the first thing that popped in his head.
“Oh, you mean he works at the college over there,” she said. That made a lot more sense to her.
“Um, yeah,” he replied.
“That must be exciting. Such a commute though. I can’t imagine.” As an aside she added, “You know Eric’s going to astronomy camp there in a few weeks, just over winter break.”
“Maybe,” Eric said a little too loud. He tried to deflect what this might say about his personality. He didn’t want Jonah to judge him too harshly.
“Maybe?” She said. “You’re already signed up. No maybe.”
Eric sat back in the passenger’s seat and looked out the window.
“That sounds kind of cool actually.” Jonah said, just to erase the pressure.
“Really?” Eric asked over his shoulder.
“Maybe you can both sign up.” Mrs. Macintyre said.
“I’m not really that good with science. I don’t know anything about astronomy,” Jonah said.
“Oh that’s right, you go to school at home, don’t you?” She said. “I’d actually like to hear about what you learn at home. I’ve never known anyone who was home-schooled before. I mean, if you don’t mind talking about it sometime.”
“He has tutors and stuff,” Eric butted in.
“Yeah,” Jonah said, agreeing with his own lie. “Two of them.”
“And where do you live, Jonah?” She asked.
“Drury Road.” He answered. It was the street he had found the five dollars on.
“Oh, that’s nice. I like that neighborhood over there, the trees are so pretty,” she said.
They were driving up a steep hill into a neighborhood Jonah hadn’t been to before. The top of the hill flattened out and was filled with homes that all seemed to look alike in one way or another. There were only subtle differences in color or shape. Each had a small yard in front, some had fences around them.
Mrs. MacIntyre pulled into the driveway of a dark gray house with rock accents all over the walls. The windows were painted white, creating a sharp contrast. The house had a dark slate roof and a small veranda that went all the way around the house with a white fence and white posts that went all the way to the roof. The garage was painted in the same fashion. It had a second floor that was accessible by a white, wooden staircase toward the back and a flat roof.
She parked the car in the driveway and everyone piled out.
“I like your house,” Jonah said as they went in. It was very charming and looked warm and inviting.
“Well thank you, Jonah,” Mrs. MacIntryre said, impressed again by good manners.
Once inside, there was a small front hall. Off to the left appeared to be a family room, off to the right was a formal dining room. The walls were painted an off while color and the floors were a dark, rich wood which appeared to extend throughout the house. There was an Oriental rug runner that led to the back of the house and a stairway that led to the second floor covered in tan carpet.
Mrs. MacIntyre dropped her briefcase next to a small hutch in the hallway and looked in a mirror on the wall right in front of her. She took the pen out of her hair and dropped it on the hutch. Her red frizzy hair fell to her shoulders.
Eric dropped his coat on the floor and headed up the stairs. “C’mon,” he said.
“Hey!” His mother said, and picked up the coat and held it out.
Eric blew his bangs out of his eyes and walked down the three stairs he had climbed. He took the coat.
“Thank you,” she said, as if he had any choice in the matter.
He walked up the stairs dragging the coat behind him. Jonah unzipped his coat and followed.
The tan carpet from the stairs extended throughout the second floor. When you came up, there was a wall right in front of you, which made you turn left or right. To the right, there was a rather large bathroom. To the left, you walked down a small hallway, passing a closet and a smaller room that looked like an office. If you continued straight, there was a bedroom at the end of the hall. There was a small path around the railing that ended at a closed door past another hutch against the wall.
“The bathroom’s there,” Eric said, pointing to the right of the stairs. Then he pointed toward the room past the hutch. “That’s my mom’s room.” And finally, he opened the door to the bedroom at this end of the hall. “This is mine.”
Eric’s room was a swirl of activity. Two of the walls were off-white, but the wall behind his bed was a deep red. It matched his bedspread which was red and black. The fourth wall was dominated by a large closet that had mirrored sliding doors. The room had off-white carpeting that was very thick. The queen-sized bed took up most of the room, but there were two dressers right next to each other, one tall and one short, each had drawers open with clothes half stuffed into them. A desk took up a lot of another wall. It had a computer and a printer and paper everywhere. Hanging from the ceiling was a mobile of the solar system and a ceiling fan spinning slowly.
“Have a seat,” Eric said, offering the desk chair.
“Wow, I really like your room. There’s no way my dad would let me have my room this color,” Jonah said, clearly in awe.
“My mom didn’t like it, but we were having the whole upstairs painted, so she let me pick it,” he said. “It took some arguing.” He threw his coat on the bed and started trying to close dresser drawers. “I have the ‘Kat Skratch’ blog up if you want to check it out.”
Jonah turned around and clicked the mouse. There on the screen was the game logo and a page full of comments and responses from gamers.
Jonah paged down, scanning the topics. “Hey, did you know you can unlock a secret character in level seventeen,” he asked.
“No!” Eric said “Where?” He forgot the drawers and sat on the edge of the bed looking at the computer. The rest of the time was spent scanning through topics and trying to make mental notes until Mrs. MacIntyre called them for dinner.
They both bounded down the stairs. Jonah had taken off his coat and left it on the desk chair. The green gem was bouncing around inside his sweater as he came down. He stopped on the stairs, turned around and jammed it in his pocket. Eric beat him to the kitchen by a few feet.
The kitchen was quite large. A sink and cabinets took up a whole wall. There was a long window over the sink that looked into the back yard. On another wall there were more cabinets and, over those, several shelves. Everything was painted white, except for the gray marble counter tops.
In between was an island that, at the moment, was covered in food. There was a plate of soft tortilla shells, bowls of tomatoes and shredded lettuce and shredded cheese. There was a large pan of beans and another large pan of ground chicken. In the center of it all was a mound of tortilla chips dripping with melted cheese, salsa and guacamole. There was a small bowl of sour cream.
“What do you want to drink, Jonah?” Mrs. MacIntyre asked. Her body was half in the refrigerator. “Can you have soda, or I have milk?”
“Soda’s fine, thanks.” Jonah said.
“We only have diet soda,” Eric whispered. “Some kind of ‘less sugar’ kick she’s been on lately.”
She took three diet sodas to the table, shutting the refrigerator door with her foot. “Okay,” she said. “Have at it boys.”
Eric made himself two tacos with just lettuce, cheese and sour cream and heaped what looked like half the plate of nachos
onto his plate. Jonah made himself one taco with lettuce, cheese and tomatoes.
“Gross,” Eric said. “I hate tomatoes.”
“You’re eating half the salsa,” Jonah shot back. “It’s the same thing.”
“No it’s not,” Eric retorted, shoveling in three tortilla chips dripping in salsa.
“Maybe,” Mrs. MacIntyre chimed in from making her own plate, “you two could have a conversation about manners while you’re doing your homework after school.”
“Whatever, Mom,” Eric said, and headed for the table.
Jonah giggled.
While eating, they discussed music and games and strategies for ‘Kat Skratch’ and Mrs. MacIntyre was just lucky to keep up. She got the occasional question about school in, but only got one word answers in between more interesting conversation.
Eric went back to the island twice, Jonah went back once.
All three of them cleaned up the kitchen after the meal. Mrs. MacIntyre put Eric on washing and Jonah on drying. She told him to just stack things where he could and she’d put them away.
“Hey,” Eric said. “Do you want to stay over?”
“Yes!” Was what Jonah wanted to say, what came out was “I don’t know if I can.”
“Call your dad and ask.” Eric said.
“You really should call your father and tell him where you are, Jonah.” Mrs. MacIntyre said.
“Can Jonah stay over, mom?” Eric asked.
“I don’t have a problem with it,” she said. “As long as it’s okay with your father and I get to talk to him. You can use the phone in the hallway, Jonah.”
He almost called the whole thing off. He tried to make up some excuse and found he had nothing. Maybe he could just say no. What he found himself doing was moving toward the hallway.
He picked up the phone. He could hear Eric and his mother talking. Should he just fake a conversation? He didn’t know. What was he doing?
After a few minutes, Mrs. MacIntyre came out with a dish towel over her shoulder.
“Okay, dad,” he said “Thanks” and put the phone down a little too hard.
“Oh, you didn’t let me talk to him.” She said.
“He said it’s okay, but he couldn’t talk. He has a conference call with Japan.” He said it really fast. What just came out of his mouth?
“That’s so interesting!” She said. “Japan, wow!” Then she said, “Well, if he said it’s alright, I guess you’re ours tonight.” She took his arm and led him back to the kitchen. “I at least want to talk to him just to say hello sometime though, okay?”
“Sure, Mrs. MacIntyre,” he said.
“So can you stay?” Eric asked when they entered the kitchen.
“Yeah, I can” Jonah answered.
“Cool.” Eric said.
They finished up the kitchen and Mrs. MacIntyre started sorting left-overs, what she was going to put in the refrigerator and what she was going to throw out.
“Mom?” Eric asked.
“Um-hmm,” she answered absently, putting some plastic wrap over the remaining tortillas.
“Will you keep those tomatoes?” He asked.
“Why?” She asked curiously, looking up from the plate. “You don’t eat tomatoes.”
“But they match your hair,” Eric said in a high voice. “Your shiny, shiny hair.” He finished with a huge grin.
There was dead silence in the kitchen. Eric’s mother was confused. The boys were staring at each other. Eric looked like he was going to turn purple if he didn’t burst out laughing.
“You’re so dead right now,” Jonah said. He threw down his dishtowel and went after Eric. He went one way around the island, Eric went the other and out the door. Mrs. MacIntyre heard them clamoring up the stairs.
Later, they settled into the T.V. room. There were two overstuffed, brown leather chairs with matching ottomans and a long tan couch. Eric had stretched out on the couch, so Jonah took one of the chairs. This room was carpeted with a deep off-white carpet and there were two brass lights that curved around and softly glowed down on each chair. A big watercolor painting sat framed on one wall, while thick, cream-colored curtains covered a long window on the other wall above the couch. The painting was a landscape of a clear blue lake with a number of soft green trees surrounding it.
Mrs. MacIntyre had changed clothes; she wore pink pajamas and a white, fluffy robe that looked two sizes too big. She was curled up in the other chair reading the newspaper.
The boys flipped through ON DEMAND movies. They were allowed to order one movie, possibly two if it didn’t get too late. The boys talked about which movies they’d seen and which movies didn’t interest them. Jonah had seen most of the major blockbusters streamed from a movie-rental website and played on their television. Eric, of course, had seen them all in theatres. Jonah had seen some old classics that his dad made him sit and watch with him that Eric had never seen, but some that Mrs. MacIntyre had.
They finally agreed on “Dragonian”, a sword and sorcery science fiction movie about a knight who had to kill a dragon, but the dragon turned out to be the knight’s younger brother put under a terrible curse. It looked bloody.
“Go change first,” Mrs. MacIntyre said. She folded the paper down. “Jonah, you can wear something of Eric’s.”
The boys raced upstairs. Eric sorted and pulled clothes out of several drawers in his dresser, making a mess of the stuff he had tried earlier to put back in. Once again, the drawers wouldn’t close.
He handed Jonah a gray pair of sweats and directed him to the bathroom, but when Jonah put them on, the sweats were, at the very least, a size too small. The shorts were okay, they were baggy enough, even though they didn’t drop all the way to his knees the way they were supposed to. The sweatshirt was a different matter; the sleeves cut off just shy of the wrist and it was tight around his chest. Eric was a good couple inches smaller than him.
“I don’t think this is going to work,” Jonah said as he walked back into the bedroom.
“Guess not,” Eric said with a giggle. He went back into the drawers and pulled out a gray t-shirt. “Here, this one’s too big on me.”
Jonah went back into the bathroom and, after a struggle with the sweatshirt, came back out much more comfortable. When he walked back into the room, Eric was searching the closet. It sounded like there was a lot of stuff in there. Finally, he emerged with a sleeping bag.
“You get the floor.” He said, and tossed Jonah the sleeping bag.
“No problem.” Jonah said, and unrolled the bag and placed it at the foot of the bed.
They went back downstairs and started the movie. About fifteen minutes in, Mrs. MacIntyre demanded to know what the movie was rated. Eric assured her it was PG-13. Later, while making popcorn, he confessed that he’d long ago disabled the parental control after his mother gave him her ATM card to run and get some cash. He figured the code would be the same, and it was, but he wouldn’t blatantly watch an R-rated movie with her in the room.
During the movie, Jonah only picked at the popcorn and hardly drank his soda, he was much too full after dinner. He had gotten downright cozy in the over-stuffed chair and was beginning to doze off by the end of the movie, even though it was pretty intense.
There was something else; he felt safe. He felt totally secure in this house. All the guards that he had up twenty-four-hours a day had melted while he was sitting in the over-stuffed chair.
As soon as the credits started to roll, Mrs. MacIntyre said “Alright, time for bed.”
“But,” Eric started.
She cut him off. “Not buts. Time for bed. Clean up your mess.”
Eric rolled off the couch, Jonah had to drag himself up. Mrs. MacIntyre snapped off the T.V. and began shutting off lights.
The boys took the popcorn and soda cans to the kitchen. Mrs. MacIntyre was waiting by the stairs when they got there. She snapped off the front hallway light and they all went upstairs. She kissed Eric on the forehead and said good night to them both,
then went to her room.
Laying in the dark at the foot of the bed, Jonah stared at the ceiling fan going round and round. “Eric?” He asked in something more than a whisper.
“Yeah?” Eric responded groggily from the other side of the room.
“I don’t really have a dad,” He said quietly.
Jonah took a long, slow breath and recounted his tale. The explosion, the caves, the nest in the warehouse, the strange notes, the blanket, the food and why he had to get to Clapton. He left out miscellaneous details like hot chocolate and the glowing green gem. When he was finished, he took his eyes off the ceiling fan and looked toward the bed where Eric’s head was peering down at him.
A moment passed, and then Eric said “I don’t have any friends.” It was the first time he’d said it out loud, maybe the first time he had admitted it even to himself. Then he moved back to the head of the bed. He’d said it because he didn’t know how else to respond to Jonah’s story, so he replied with a secret of his own.
“You’re wrong,” Jonah said from his sleeping bag. He held up his fist toward the end of the bed. “You got me.” Eric moved again, pounded Jonah’s fist, and then quickly returned back to the head of the bed.
“Hey, Hell Kat?” Eric asked.
“Yeah, Danger Man,” Jonah responded.
“I can call Emma Wong if that’ll make you feel any better.”
They laughed long and they laughed hard. Each time one would subside, the other would break into a cackle and send the other reeling. It went on for some time. When it stopped, both of them were sound asleep.
XI
There was a knock on the bedroom door the next morning. Jonah sat bolt upright in the sleeping bag on the floor at the foot of the bed, shocked awake by the noise. Eric didn’t move.
“Time to get up,” Mrs. MacIntyre said as she opened the door.
Jonah had slept like a rock for the first time since losing his father. For the first time, his waking thoughts weren’t trying to judge whether pain was coming. In fact, he almost forgot where he was. He looked at Mrs. MacIntyre as he tried to process.