The Third Mushroom

by Jennifer L. Holm

  “Humph,” he says. He makes a face as if to say he totally disagrees with my mother. But then again, my grandfather has never really agreed with her about anything. He’s a die-hard scientist, and she went into theater. Talk about oil and water.

  “I can’t believe you’re here!”

  “Yes, well, I had laundry to do,” he says.

  “Laundry?”

  “I’ve been living out of a suitcase for the last year. I have a lot of dirty laundry.”

  I look past him at the laundry room. He’s not kidding. There’s a towering pile of dirty clothes sitting on top of the washing machine.

  “Also, I missed you,” he says gruffly.

  There’s a loud knocking on the front door. When I open it, a police officer is standing there. She’s tall and looks serious.

  “You called 911?” she asks.

  “Uh, yeah. Everything’s fine, though.”

  My grandfather comes to the door. “Who is it?”

  “It’s the police,” I whisper. “I called 911 before I realized it was you in the house.”

  “Who are you?” the policewoman asks, taking in my grandfather’s long hair.

  “I’m her cousin,” he says.

  This was the cover story he used when he lived here last year after he first turned himself young.

  I think quickly. “My grandfather dropped him off, and he forgot his key.”

  “I see,” she says. “Well, remember your key next time, okay?”

  I answer for him. “He will!”

  I watch as the patrol car drives away, my heart beating a million miles a minute. But my grandpa seems completely unfazed.

  “Do you think there are any more of those frozen burritos left?” he asks me.

  * * *

  —

  My grandfather stands at the kitchen counter eating another burrito.

  “By the way, have any packages arrived for me?” he asks.

  “One came a while ago. It was from the Philippines.”

  It arrived in a cooler with strict instructions to freeze it.

  His face turns ashen. “What did you do with it?”

  “I put it in the garage. In the deep freeze,” I tell him.

  “Good girl,” he says. “By the way, have you seen my blog?”

  “You have a blog? What’s it called?”

  “Www.MelvinSagarskyHasTwoPhDs.com.”

  That’s a pretty good name for a blog.

  Just then I hear the clunky rolling sound of the garage door opening. A minute later my mom walks in holding a bag from our favorite Chinese takeout place. Her hair is bleached white, and she’s wearing one of her standard outfits: a fun plaid skirt paired with tall black boots and a T-shirt that says:

  HAMLET: I SEE DEAD PEOPLE.

  “Ellie! Did you leave that huge pile of stinky laundry on top of the washing machine? You know better than…” Her voice trails off.

  “It’s mine,” my grandfather says.

  My mother’s mouth drops open. “Dad! You’re home!”

  “Excellent powers of observation,” he says.

  She shakes her head in bemusement. “You know, there’s this crazy invention. It’s called a cell phone. I seem to remember giving you one.”

  “You people spend your lives with your heads buried in those things. I can’t be bothered. Also, the screen broke.”

  Still, my mom seems vaguely pleased to see him and gives him a hug.

  “I think you got taller, Dad,” she observes, ruffling his hair.

  “Well, your skirts have gotten shorter! I can see your knees!”

  My mom grimaces. “Then again, maybe you haven’t grown up after all.”

  * * *

  —

  We settle around the kitchen table. My grandfather fishes through the takeout boxes. A cozy feeling settles in my stomach at seeing him sitting there.

  “No moo goo gai pan?” he grumbles.

  “We weren’t exactly expecting you, Dad,” my mom says.

  He dumps a pile of lo mein onto his plate and starts picking around the noodles. “Where’s the meat?”

  “Ben’s a vegetarian, so now we’re all trying it,” my mom says.

  We’re eating a lot of tofu these days. I’m not a huge fan; it’s bland.

  “Why don’t you just try eating insects instead? Taste about as good,” my grandfather mutters. “Where is this new husband of yours?”

  “Ben’s in India,” she says. “It’s just a short-term thing.”

  Ben’s a video game designer, and he’s supervising a studio of programmers in India working on their next major game. It’s a big opportunity for him, but I know my mom misses him. I miss him, too. When Ben’s around, we sit down as a family for dinner and actually talk. Since he’s been gone, my mom and I have fallen back into our girls-only routine of eating too much takeout in front of the television.

  Jonas sidles up to the table and leaps onto the empty chair, like he has a perfect right to be there. Then he meows loudly.

  I put a piece of tofu on the table in front of him.

  “Where did that beast come from?” my grandfather asks.

  “His name is Jonas. After Jonas Salk,” I say, knowing it will impress him. Jonas Salk is my favorite scientist. He developed the polio vaccine.

  “I’m not a big believer in pets,” my grandpa says. “Especially at the dinner table.”

  “You don’t have to tell me. I spent my entire childhood begging for a dog,” my mom says, losing some of her good humor. “So, how long are you planning on gracing us with your presence?”

  “A few months,” he says. “Maybe longer. It’s hard to say.”

  I pass around the fortune cookies. My grandfather opens his and tosses the fortune onto the table, eating the cookie.

  “How do they get the fortune in the cookie? It’s like magic,” I say.

  “There’s no such thing as magic,” he says.

  “Typical scientist. So cold and analytical. No imagination,” my mom says, and gives me a look. “See what I had to grow up with?”

  I definitely believe in science, like my grandfather does. But a small part of me is curious about magic.

  Because cats.

  There has to be something magical involved with creating them. The fluffy tails, the way they snuggle into loaf shapes and sleep in the sun. Most of all, the purring.

  “What’s your fortune say?” I ask my grandfather.

  “Pfft,” he says. “I’m not reading that thing. It’s nonsense.”

  My mom plucks it up and reads it. Her eyebrows rise.

  “Well?” he asks her.

  “It says, ‘You are going to be doing your own laundry.’ ”

  The next morning, I’m ready to head out the door for school, but my grandfather is nowhere to be found. There isn’t even a question of him not going to school. My mom’s a teacher; she can’t have truants in her own house. She’s written a note to the middle school secretary explaining that “Ellie’s cousin Melvin” has returned and will be attending again.

  Finally, I find him digging through the large deep freezer in the garage.

  “We don’t have time to make burritos,” I tell him.

  “I’m not looking for burritos,” he snaps. “I’m looking for my specimen!”

  He shuffles some frozen peas. “Ah, there it is!” he exclaims, and pulls out the box. There’s a packing slip with a note, and he reads it.

  “Hmm,” he says. “Billy thinks this is a jellyfish of some kind.”

  It was a secret formula created from a rare jellyfish that turned my grandfather young.

  “We’re going to miss the bus,” I say.

  “Fine,” he says, and puts the box back in the freezer.

&nbs
p; As we sit on the bus on the way to school, my grandfather stares out the window.

  “Your mother’s wrong, you know,” he says abruptly.

  “About what?”

  I know she’s wrong about a lot of things. Especially when it comes to making me turn off screens at night. Nine o’clock is way too early.

  “What she said last night at dinner. About scientists being cold and analytical,” my grandpa clarifies.

  “They always make scientists look that way in movies,” I say.

  “Well, it’s a ridiculous stereotype. Scientists are not robots! We’re human! We feel things deeply!” he says. He shakes his head. “It’s just that nobody understands us.”

  I know exactly what he means: grown-ups don’t understand teenagers, either.

  When we get to school, I drop my grandfather at the office so he can register. I’m heading to my first period when I run into Brianna. She’s my old best friend from elementary school. We drifted apart when we started middle school. But it’s strangely okay now. These days we’re more like cousins who see each other at family reunions. We only remember the good times.

  “You cut your hair!” she observes. “I like it!”

  “Thanks,” I say. She’s always been good about that sort of thing: noticing.

  She studies my hair. “You know, I think I still have this cute clip that would work for you.”

  When we were kids, we both had long hair. We shared ribbons and hair accessories and spent hours doing our hair.

  “Really?”

  She grins. “I’ll bring it in tomorrow.”

  The bell rings and we walk away from each other, untwining like separate strands in a braid.

  * * *

  —

  One thing has never changed since the first day of kindergarten: lunch can be either the best part of the day or the worst. This year hasn’t been too bad. That’s because of Raj.

  Across the lunch court, he’s holding a seat for me at our usual table. He slides a bag of barbecue chips to me when I sit down. We always share a bag at lunch; it’s kind of our thing.

  “Guess what?” I say. “My grandfather’s home!”

  He looks surprised. “Melvin’s back?”

  Raj is the only one besides my mother who knows the truth about my grandfather. Maybe that’s another reason we’re best friends. Who else could ever possibly understand me? It’s like when people talk about being together during an earthquake. Only we know what happened when the ground started shaking.

  “Yeah,” I say. “He came home yesterday. He broke into the house because his key didn’t work. I thought he was a criminal! The police came and everything!”

  “Crazy,” Raj says, and looks past my shoulder. “Oh, hey, here comes your criminal now.”

  I turn around to see my grandfather storming toward us with his tray, looking annoyed.

  “Hey, Melvin,” Raj says.

  “Raj,” he says. “Sticking rings in your nose is not very hygienic. You might want to brush up on germ theory one of these days.”

  My grandfather sits down and stares at his tray. He got the chicken nuggets.

  “It’s terrible!” he says.

  “I wouldn’t eat those chicken nuggets, either,” Raj agrees. “They taste like Styrofoam.”

  “Not the nuggets. I’ve been held back!” my grandfather announces.

  I’m confused. “From what?”

  “Ninth grade! I was enrolled in eighth grade last time I was here, and they won’t matriculate me. I have two PhDs, and now I have to repeat eighth grade for a third time? I’m going to have to read that infernal Catcher in the Rye again!”

  “Should be an easy A, then,” Raj tells him.

  My grandfather glares at him.

  “So,” Raj says, “why did you come back?”

  This is part of what I like about Raj: he’s blunt in a nice sort of way. In middle school, everything anybody says has some hidden meaning. But I never have to guess with Raj.

  My grandfather slumps a little. “I was tired of traveling. And I was sick of buses. You think the bathrooms are horrible here? You should try one on a moving bus.”

  “I bet,” Raj says.

  “And it was getting boring. My whole life, I’ve had a purpose. Working, science, and now…nothing. I don’t know what to do with myself.”

  “So, you lost your mojo, huh?” Raj says.

  “In a manner of speaking,” my grandfather agrees. “Mostly, I miss my lab.”

  I imagine him wearing a white lab coat and standing at a stainless steel table, glass beaker in hand. It suddenly hits me.

  “I have a great idea! You can be my partner!”

  “In what?” he asks.

  “The science fair. We can be a team and do a project together.”

  “A middle school science fair?” My grandfather makes a face. “I think I’m a bit beyond that, don’t you?”

  “But if you do the project with me, you’ll get to be back in a science lab,” I say. “It’s brand-new.”

  He looks curious. “Brand-new, you say?”

  “They redid the labs over the summer,” I tell him. “I’m sure Mr. Ham would let us use his. He really wants kids to enter the science fair. What do you think?”

  “I don’t know,” my grandfather says. He doesn’t look convinced.

  I think back to this morning and the freezer.

  “We can do an experiment with that jellyfish in the freezer,” I wheedle. “It’ll be fun. Besides, you’ll get to do science with me!”

  He shrugs. “All right. How bad can it be?”

  Then he takes a bite of the chicken nuggets and makes a face.

  “Ugh,” he says. “This is disgusting.”

  “Told you so,” Raj says.

  Mr. Ham’s science lab is my favorite room in the school because it’s full of things kids aren’t usually trusted to be around. Cabinets lined with glass beakers and test tubes. Big freestanding lab tables with water faucets and gas lines. Wobbly high stools that can tip over.

  Mostly, I love the smell. It’s not the usual school odor of pencils and dry-erase markers and boredom. It smells like chemicals and rubber and discovery.

  “Ellie,” Mr. Ham says with a smile. “How’s your mom?”

  Of course he knows my mom. It’s a teacher thing.

  “Good,” I tell him.

  “What’s she staging this season?”

  “The Tempest.”

  “I love Shakespeare!” he says enthusiastically.

  To be honest, Shakespeare kind of puts me to sleep. It’s not Shakespeare’s fault. My parents used to read his plays to me at bedtime when I was little, and now I associate Shakespeare with being tired.

  “I’ll definitely be buying a few tickets,” Mr. Ham promises. “Now, what can I help you with?”

  “I’m going to enter the science fair. With my cousin Melvin,” I tell him.

  “Wonderful! You and your cousin? Just like the Herschels,” he muses.

  “The Herschels?” I ask him.

  “They were a brother-and-sister pair of scientists. Astronomers. You should look them up.”

  I nod. “Would it be okay for us to use the lab to work on our project? You know, after school.”

  He gives me a considering look. “Well, you are a teacher’s kid. I can trust you to use good judgment, right?”

  “Of course. My mom would ground me for life if I got into trouble.”

  He laughs. “All right, you can use the lab while I’m next door grading papers. Just be sure to clean up after yourselves.”

  I promise him we will.

  * * *

  —

  Like an animal freed from the zoo, my grandfather seems happy to be back in his natural habitat: the science
lab. He prowls around, running his fingers along the tables, looking through cabinets, checking the equipment.

  “This will do nicely,” he says.

  “What’s our project going to be, anyway?” I ask him.

  “I’m not sure,” he says, putting the picnic cooler on a lab counter. That’s how we brought the jellyfish to school. “It depends on the specimen.”

  He snaps on gloves and slices open the sealed plastic bag. A horrible smell wafts out of it: like sweaty gym clothes left in a locker.

  “This is a very odd-looking jellyfish,” my grandfather says.

  “Why?” I ask. The defrosting pink blob in the middle of the pan has layers of tentacles.

  He points to it. “Because it has legs. Jellyfish don’t have legs.”

  He takes a pair of tweezers and gently lifts a tentacle. It falls off.

  “Ahh, I see,” he says. “This isn’t a jellyfish at all.”

  “It isn’t?”

  “This creature was caught by a jellyfish. The tentacles were pulled off the jellyfish,” he says.

  “So the jellyfish killed it?”

  “Not a very nice way to go, I’m afraid.”

  He hands me the tweezers.

  “What am I supposed to do with these?”

  “Remove the tentacles,” he says. “This is a team project. I’m not doing all the work.”

  I pull off the tentacles, and it’s strangely satisfying in a gross way—like popping a pimple. The creature that’s revealed looks like a cross between a fish and a salamander. It’s got legs and a long tail.

  “What is it?” I ask.

  My grandfather studies it for a moment. “I believe it’s an axolotl. Notice the gills.”

  “So it’s a fish?”

  He shakes his head. “Technically, it’s a salamander, but it lives underwater. The axolotl has a very curious ability: it can regrow missing body parts.”

  “That’s pretty handy,” I say.

  “Indeed. But I’m a little puzzled about something.”

  “What?”

  “It has six legs. I’m fairly certain that axolotls have four legs. But I haven’t seen one in many years. In any case, let’s start documenting. Then we can head to the library and do some research.”