“That your little brother?” asks the voice. A boy voice. A voice Cooper remembers. A voice that burns across his skin like a smoking match.
“Yeah,” Caddie says. “This is Cooper. He’s a little shy at first. Cooper? Cooper, turn around.”
Cooper does not turn around.
“Here’s the one I saved for him.”
That voice again. Cooper is certain of it. The voice goes with a tan and cut-off shorts. And a grin that never stops.
“Be polite, Cooper.” Caddie pulls on Cooper’s shoulder. He shifts a little. Looks up. Looks straight into the eyes of The Grinner. The Grinner holds out a flailing green turtle. “He’s a fast one,” The Grinner says, grinning. “I guarantee it.”
Cooper looks down at the muddy grass. Puts his foot in someone else’s footprint. Someone bigger, stronger. Brave.
“Cooper!” Caddie says with more mad in her voice than noise. “You say thank you, Cooper. Right now.”
Cooper can’t say thank you. He can’t speak at all. He turns away. Hurries to a picnic table outside the tent and sits down. He turns his back, but he can still feel Caddie talking to The Grinner. He feels her anger beneath her smile. Anger for him, a smile for The Grinner. From the corner of his eye, Cooper can see Caddie bounce like a puppy as she turns away from The Grinner.
“Hey, Caddie,” The Grinner yells after her. “See you tonight. The one with the red mailbox. Mills, right?”
“Yup!” Caddie calls back. “Seven-thirty sharp.”
“Don’t forget!”
Cooper turns his head toward Caddie. He feels his stomach turn upside down. Feels his world turn from east to west.
Some forces in the world are too powerful to be stopped.
“I won’t forget,” Caddie shouts over her shoulder, smiling a smile as big as the ones the models smile in her magazines. She is moving in slow motion, smiling, with red lipstick on her lips and the wind blowing back her blond hair. With the slightest tilt of her head she could lift off and fly away.
But where will Caddie land?
What if he isn’t there in time?
What if he cannot catch her?
Cooper can feel The Grinner’s grin creep all the way across the muddy grass. And someone else tiptoeing up behind him. Someone worried and frustrated. It’s That Boy. That Boy knows: The Grinner is not to be trusted. And now Cooper can’t stop himself.
He rubs his hands as if he is washing them. Rubs and scrubs as if water is pouring forth from the pump and it is safe and clean and everlasting. He holds his arms over his head and washes them in the air.
In the blur and splash, Cooper spies Tall Boy carrying buckets. Buckets and buckets. He hears the scratching of tiny claws on plastic. Desperate claws. He hears Tall Boy call, “Hey, Todd. I’ve got five more.” Tall Boy’s head turns. His eyes target Cooper, then Caddie, then Cooper again. Cooper scrubs harder and harder. Reaches higher and higher. He stands. Looks up. Maybe the sun will dry his hands.
“Don’t, Cooper. Please stop. Everyone is watching. Please. Todd will see you too. Please stop. You’re embarrassing me.”
Stop it now before you embarrass yourself. The Father’s words pound in his head. Pound. Pound. Pound. But Cooper does not care about embarrassing himself. Only cares about Caddie. He must save her. He must, must, must save Caddie from The Grinner.
Caddie holds out the turtle. “Take the turtle, Cooper.”
Caddie’s face is red. Beet-red. Flag-red. Blood-red.
Turtle water drips on Cooper’s foot. Turtle legs wave in the air. He must save the turtle too.
“Please.” Caddie is desperate.
The turtle is desperate.
Cooper grabs the wet turtle from Caddie, runs across the parking lot. Carries the turtle like a football. He runs across the train tracks. Runs across the road. Hears the car’s brakes before he feels the blaring horn vibrate in his chest.
“Cooper, stop!”
He keeps running. Past the gas station. Past the playground. Into the woods. He runs and runs. Runs to save the turtle. Hears Caddie running behind him.
“Cooper, please stop!”
Caddie stops. She needs to catch her breath.
Cooper keeps running. Runs to put the turtle in the reeds by the edge of the lake. Runs to save all the turtles that do not know why they are in the hot sun, watched and laughed at and yelled at by strangers, when all they want to do is be left alone to find their way home safe and sound.
They don’t understand.
No one understands.
“Touchdown!” Cooper yells from the edge of the lake. He wants Caddie to laugh.
Caddie catches up to him. “What is wrong with you?” She shouts. “That car almost hit you!”
Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Everything is wrong. Too much is wrong. So wrong Cooper does not know where it will end. Does not know where to begin. Happy thoughts are impossible.
Cooper sits down and pulls out his notebook. Writes, breathlessly,
Sometimes right is wrong and wrong is right.
Caddie pulls Cooper to his feet. To the edge of the road. She watches the traffic. Waits for the big giant motorhome to go by before she pulls him to the parking lot. To their mother’s van parked in front of the Pizza Pie and I pizza parlor.
“Right on time,” their mother says. “How was everything?”
“Great,” Caddie says. “Just great.” She gets in the van. Slams the door. Rolls down her window and leans on her elbow.
The van picks up speed on the main road.
Caddie watches the trees go by.
Cooper watches the trees go by.
Trees that blur to nothingness.
His mother glances in the rearview mirror. “Cooper? How about you?”
“Great,” he says.
Caddie says “great” because she is mad. And because she doesn’t want to talk about it.
Cooper says “great” because he is scared. There is so much to worry about. And time is of the essence. But no one understands.
He is scared for the turtles. The not-ugly turtles that look just the way they are supposed to look. They know they are in danger and they want to be safe. If they are safe, no one can see them. If no one can see them, no one will know what they look like. No one will call them ugly.
Mostly, Cooper is scared for Caddie.
He opens his notebook.
Humans do not have tough shells. They do not have camouflage.
They stand out where they don’t belong.
Caddie does not know she is in danger.
The wind is still in her hair.
Eavesdropping
Cooper sits on the sofa reading. His never-ending book, Inferno by Dante, is getting heavier. Heavier than a bucket of sand. Heavier than the ice cream maker full of blackberries and rock salt. Too heavy to read. Cooper reads one more sentence. The sentence about the “just man,” whose face is outwardly kind.
Kind, kind, kind. Cooper thinks of Mr. Bell. His old face is grumpy, but his eyes are kind. He puts his finger on the comma. Comma, comma, comma.
Caddie’s bedroom door opens. She walks through the living room. Scowls at Cooper. Then she goes into their mother’s room and shuts the door.
A mystery. A secret. Cooper needs to know what is so mysterious.
He closes the book on Canto XVII. Tiptoes to his mother’s closed door.
“No, Mom, he’s getting worse. You should have seen him. I’ve never seen him do that before—like he was washing his hands in the air. But there wasn’t any water.”
Cooper strains to hear what his mother says. Cannot hear a word. He pictures his mother in her closet, putting away clothes. He watches a big black ant crawl from a crack in the wooden floor. Caddie pauses, talks. Talks as if she is talking to herself. “It was worse than ever.”
A whisper. His mother?
The black ant crawls along the baseboard. Slips into another crack.
Cooper puts his ear to the door.
“I am not being selfi
sh,” Caddie says. “I play with him. I took him to the turtle races just like you wanted. But if he embarrasses me one more time, I’m not going to do it anymore. He needs help.”
His mother’s soft steps approach the door. “You know we’ve tried everything.”
“But, Mom, you can’t give up.”
His mother’s footsteps recede. “I’m not the one giving up.”
Caddie sighs. “Maybe he needs to go someplace.”
Cooper can’t bear to listen. But he cannot move. No, he thinks. No, no, no. I’ll be good. I won’t count. I won’t. I won’t. I won’t. But how will he protect them? They don’t understand. They don’t understand how good he already is. How careful he has to be for them.
He remembers chewing without counting. He remembers reading words and sentences and pages once and only once. He remembers being happy. He remembers having friends. He would like to have a friend again.
I can be good again. I know, I know, I know I can.
Cooper will try. Try harder than ever. He will try with all his might not to count, not to touch, not to wash. He will try to find more happy thoughts and make them stick in his mind.
He does not want to go someplace.
Ever.
Cooper sneaks across the cabin, into his room. He retrieves the magnifying glass, a pencil, and his notebook and returns to the closed door.
“Now you sound like your father. Like he’s some kind of freak. Do you want to think of your little brother as some kind of freak?”
A freak is a mutation. A glitch in hereditary material.
A mutant. A subspecies. People are not subspecies.
Cooper is not a freak. It’s That Boy. If That Boy would just go away. Leave him alone.
He doesn’t want to hear anything more, but he must listen to every word. His heart beats hard. Still, he will remain brave. He must pretend he has not been sliced in two by the laser-hot words.
Eavesdropping is a daring act of heroism. The listener must keep all the words to himself. Like swallowed food.
“. . . can’t be happy like this.” Cooper hears the words sneak under the door. Who can’t be happy like this? He has missed important words, but it doesn’t matter. Cooper knows this one certain sadness: no one is happy. He writes these words on the next page:
Sometimes people pretend to be happy with jokes and ice cream and games.
“He’s just a little boy. You know what the doctors said. He might even grow out of it. We just have to be patient.”
“That’s like saying a dog will turn into a cat. Maybe if you wait two million years.”
“Oh, Caddie . . .”
“I mean it, Mom. I can’t take it anymore. If he pulls anything tonight, I’ll commit him myself.”
“Where is he, by the way?”
“Where else? He’s reading. In the living room.”
“I think he’s better up here,” his mother says.
“Sometimes he’s better. Like when we made ice cream. He even wanted to take some to Mr. Bell. But—”
“Poor Mr. Bell. He’s in the hospital. Lung cancer. Ninety-seven years old. He knew my dad, you know.”
Poor Mr. Bell. Poor Mr. Bell. Poor Mr. Bell.
“No, Mom. I mean, yes, I know he knew your dad, and I’m sorry he’s sick, but that’s not what we’re talking about right now. We’re talking about tonight.”
“You said it’s a barn dance?”
“They call it a barn dance, but it’s in town in the old fire station by the lake.”
“Where they hold the fireworks?”
“Yeah.”
“Dad’s coming back up this afternoon. Maybe we can all go. I mean if he finishes his project on time. He has a lot on his mind right now.”
“You’re not coming to the dance, Mom. It’s just for kids.”
“I meant the fireworks,” she says.
Another big black ant crawls out of the floorboards.
“Mom, you’re not even listening to me.”
“Yes, I am, but tell me again. Who’s driving?”
“Mike’s dad.”
“And Mike is . . . ?”
“Todd’s best friend. Todd is the one I’m going with. I met him at the turtle races. He lives across the lake. His dad owns the liquor store. And he’s really cute. I think he likes me, but Cooper wouldn’t even say thank you. God, Mom, it was so embarrassing.”
“You leave Cooper to me.”
Cooper does not want to watch the fireworks. What if the world cracks open? What if the ground catches on fire? But he must go. He must protect his mother and Caddie at all costs.
Footsteps cross the room. Even without his magnifying glass he can see the shadows of feet under the door. Caddie’s? His mother’s?
The best way to be good is to pretend you are doing something else.
Pretending is different from lying. Pretending is a different kind of truth.
Cooper picks up the magnifying glass. He holds it close to the baseboard. Monitors the crawling of another big black ant with folded wings. She must be the queen.
The queen.
Every queen needs a king. Caddie is the queen. Tonight Cooper will be her king.
When his mother’s door opens, Cooper is ready to pretend. “I believe we have an infestation,” he says. “Of ants.”
“We’re in the middle of the woods,” Caddie says. “Get over it.”
“Now, Caddie,” his mother says and steps over Cooper’s legs.
“How long have you been lying there?” Caddie asks.
“Time is a concept of spent energy,” he says.
“That doesn’t even make any sense. And you better get up before someone trips over you. Like me.” She nudges his leg with her foot.
“Ow,” he says, pretending.
“Yeah, right,” Caddie says.
Pretend. Pretend. Pretend. For Caddie, Cooper must pretend his hardest. Caddie cannot be privy to the idea he hoards. The feat he must undertake. The plan to fend off The Grinner and Tall Boy begins now, with the red tablecloth in the bottom drawer in the kitchen. Cooper stands up. Straight and tall. And brave. Brave like Amicus the Great.
The rest of the afternoon, Cooper works in the garage. Grandpa’s garage, filled with boards and paint and the long workbench with the anvil. The garage smells like turpentine and burnt rubber. And pipe smoke. Rakes, shovels, a pitchfork, and a hoe rust together in one corner. Cooper works hard. In silence. Just like his grandfather worked.
Sometimes it is possible to smell history.
“What are you doing?”
Cooper jumps. Drops his pencil. His mother stands in the doorway. Cooper was unprepared. Didn’t hear her coming. “Making something,” he says.
“What is it?” she asks, coming closer, stepping over a stack of long boards.
“A costume.”
“Really?” She gives him a hug. “It’s nice to see you out here. Reminds me of my dad.” She smiles. “Dinner’s almost ready,” she says before she leaves. Then he hears the screen door squeak open and snap shut.
Tools dangle on the garage wall. He chooses the needle-nose pliers and the awl and a hammer. Finds wire and clamps. The orange hard hat will work perfectly. The whole time he bores and bends and twists, the pitchfork stands ready behind him.
He eats dinner with a secret on the tip of his tongue.
Caddie hurries to her room to get ready.
“Dad should be here any minute,” his mother says, reaching for Caddie’s dirty plate.
Cooper sneaks back to the garage.
Words and clanks float through the open kitchen window, past the cobwebs and dead bugs on the sill, to the depths of the garage. “I think we’ll let the pots and pans soak awhile,” he hears his mother say. The lake is calm, the air hot and silent. Golden sunlight crawls beneath the tree branches. The towering Norway pines stand watch, their shadows long and still.
Poised in a corner of the garage, Cooper breathes the ancient fumes of another world. The red cape and
hard hat are donned. Horns bared. Pitchfork at the ready.
He waits.
And watches.
A white SUV rolls slowly down the driveway. Tall Boy drives. A man sits next to him. The Grinner’s long blond hair bounces near the window in the back seat. The vehicle stops beneath the giant Norway pines.
The cabin’s door squeaks open—squeaks again, louder. Cooper waits, expecting the old spring to snap. But the door slaps shut. Followed by the sound of footsteps as Cooper’s mother and Caddie step across the cement stoop to the sidewalk and onto the sandy path. Caddie comes into view. She is dressed like a princess in a white sundress.
Car doors painted with leaping fish open and slam. One, a man. Two, Tall Boy. Three, The Grinner.
The man puts his left hand on Tall Boy’s shoulder, holds out his right hand to Cooper’s mother. “Hi. I’m Ron. Mike’s dad.”
“Ellen. Caddie’s mom,” his mother says, shaking Ron’s hand. Then she turns to Tall Boy. “You’re Mike, then.”
“Yeah,” Tall Boy says. “Nice to meet you.”
Next is The Grinner.
“So you must be Todd.”
That word. Todd. It’s urgent. Like a cue. Cooper darts forward, pitchfork first. He jumps and lands in their midst. Plants his feet in a firm stance. Horns pointed to the sky. He thrusts the pitchfork high overhead. Shouts line nine from Canto III: “Abandon all hope, you who enter here!”
The foes step back.
“Cooper!” Caddie whirls around. Her face is the color of Cooper’s cape. “Mom, you promised.”
But Cooper must stand his ground. He must protect Caddie at all costs.
The Grinner sneers. Turns for the car.
But Tall Boy smiles. He extends his hand toward Cooper with the chivalrous gesture of a fine gentleman. And then he wrinkles his face with worry. But Cooper can see that he is pretending. “Master,” Tall Boy says, “make clear their meaning, which I find too hard to gather.”
Cooper knows these words. He knows all of Dante’s words in his good and famous book. He has read them three times three. He tests Tall Boy to be sure: “All fear must be left here and cowardice die.”
The Notations of Cooper Cameron Page 7