The Notations of Cooper Cameron

by Jane O'Reilly

  Cooper’s heart breathes. “Okay,” he says. He hurries to the lapping shore for more water. “O, Tezorene, Tezorene . . .”

  A black dot on the horizon grows out of the water like time-lapsed photography. Egg, larva, bug. Bigger, blacker, bobbing. Cooper sets down the bucket. Cups his hand to his brow. “What’s that?”

  Caddie sits up in the sun. Evens out her beach towel. Tugs at her bathing suit and looks across the lake, squinting. “Maybe it’s the Loch Ness Monster.”

  Cooper thinks of The Grinner. Of the smashed castle. Of Amicus the Great. Of Caddie’s white eyes in the dark. “It could be,” he says when he returns to Tezorene with a bucket of water. “You said he lives on the lake.”

  First Caddie says, “What?” and then she says, “Cooper! How did you know Todd lives on the lake?” She lies back down with a big harrumph. “You were listening, weren’t you? I knew it. See what I mean? You have to mind your own business. For a lot of reasons.”

  Cooper watches the growing bug cross the lake. Bigger and blacker. A boat maybe. Zooming toward them. Who is it? Who would be coming to their cabin? What would they want? He stomps his right foot one, two, three times. Stomps his left foot, one, two . . .

  “Don’t, Cooper. You’ve been doing so well.”

  “But I don’t know who it is.”

  “That’s because we don’t know who anybody is up here. We might as well be the last people left on Earth.” Caddie rolls to her back.

  “What if we are?” Cooper says.

  “Cooper!”

  The black orb persists, bigger yet. A fancy fishing boat guided so carefully, so slowly, it barely leaves a wake. The boat hums smoothly, makes a beeline for the dock. A tall boy with dark hair mans the steering wheel, standing up. “I think it’s the Earthling known as Mike,” Cooper says.

  Caddie pops back up. “Are you sure?”

  Cooper bows toward his sister. “Do not worry, my lady. He is the safe one. And he travels alone.”

  “Cooper! What did I just say?”

  “Ahoy!” Mike calls from the boat. The motor sputters. Shuts off in a cloud of exhaust. Mike leaps to the dock. Loops a rope around a stanchion like a pro. “Mind if I come ashore?”

  “You already did,” Cooper says.

  “Cooper, shh!” Caddie says. She pulls a T-shirt on over her swimsuit.

  “Hi,” Mike says, stepping off the dock into the sand.

  “Hi,” Caddie says.

  “Ahoy,” Cooper says.

  Mike carries something small in one hand, swings the other. “I brought you a present.”

  “A gentleman with a gift for a lady,” Cooper says. He bows toward Mike. “I approve.”

  “Cooper,” Caddie whispers, “I’m warning you.”

  A pink wave, like fresh sunburn, sears Mike’s dotted cheeks. Stops at the black shadow beneath Mike’s right eye. Mike has a black eye. A battle scar. “No, it’s for you, Cooper. It’s a book.”

  “For me?” Cooper stands taller.

  Caddie strains to see the cover.

  “I mean, you can read it too, Caddie, if you want.” He holds out a curled paperback book. Its cover is torn. “Have you read it?”

  “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer,” Cooper says. He reaches for the book. “No, but I have heard it is a good and famous book. How did you know?”

  “Know what?”

  “I have been wanting to read another work of classic literature.”

  Mike’s lips try to form words, but nothing comes out. He looks at Caddie and then at his feet. He puts his hands in his pockets. Kicks at an acorn in the sand. “It’s my all-time favorite. I figured if we both like Dante, you’d like Mark Twain too.”

  “Mark Twain is his nom de plume,” Cooper says. “His real name is Samuel Langhorne Clemens.”

  “I know,” Mike says. He frowns before he smiles.

  “We had to read it in school last year,” Caddie says. “I don’t know, Cooper. I think it might be too old for you.”

  “It is not a very big book,” Cooper says.

  “But it might have things you’re not ready to understand.”

  “I can read anything you put in front of me.”

  “Reading and understanding aren’t the same. Besides, times were different way back then, Coop. People treated people differently. Unfairly. And called them names.”

  Names, Cooper thinks. Like “That Boy” and “Weirdo.” Times are the same now. He pulls his notebook from his pocket. Holds it against the book. Writes quickly.

  People are like bugs. They start out small, grow bigger, and fly away.

  They all look different until you look at them closely.

  And then you can see they are mostly the same.

  Mike is quiet. He kicks at the sand. “But it’s about friends too,” he says. “Unlikely friends. And their adventures.”

  “I see that,” Cooper says. “It says so on the cover.”

  “Next thing you know, you’ll want to build a raft and sail away.” Mike winks at him. Smiles. “That’s what I always wanted to do when I was your age.” Then Mike looks at Caddie. Caddie is picking at her flaking hot-pink nail polish. When she looks up, Mike looks away.

  Cooper squeezes the book. Presses his toes into the sand. The last thing he will ever want to do is build a raft and sail away. He holds the book tight. Keeps it shut. He does not want to see the words. Does not want to read the words three times three in front of Mike.

  Mike is waiting.

  Caddie sighs, more bored than ever. “Say thank you, Cooper.”

  “Thank you, Cooper.”

  Mike laughs, but Caddie frowns. She does not like stupid jokes.

  “Finish the book and I’ll take you fishing. I know all the best spots.” Mike turns to Caddie. “Maybe you’ll come too.”

  Fishing? Not fishing. Never fishing. Ever. “Caddie doesn’t like to fish,” Cooper says.

  “Cooper!”

  Mike puts his hands on his hips. “You spend your summers on the lake and you don’t like to fish?”

  “She’s a girl,” Cooper says.

  Mike laughs. A short burst of a laugh.

  Caddie kicks sand at Cooper. Suddenly a sandstorm swirls over Tezorene. “Ow!” Caddie yells. She blinks and stands up. Presses her fingers to her eye.

  “Don’t rub it or you’ll abrade the cornea!” Cooper shouts.

  “Cooper!” Caddie blinks wildly, then closes her sore eye again. She wraps her towel around her hips, hurries across the hot sand.

  “It’s true! I read it in a book!” Cooper shouts up the hill. Caddie is silent except for small sticks snapping beneath her feet. “Ow,” she says again.

  Cooper turns his back to Mike. But just for a second.

  It is hard to mind your own business if you think you can be of help to someone.

  “I better get back to work,” Mike says. He watches Caddie disappear over the top of the hill. Shrugs his shoulders. “I hope your eye’s okay!” he shouts.

  Caddie doesn’t answer. Mike’s face is splotchy red again. As red as a bloodshot eye.

  “Maybe she got sand in her ears too,” Cooper says.

  Mike laughs again. Stops laughing. Pretends he didn’t laugh at all. He picks up a small rock, throws it at the lake. The rock touches down one, two, three times. Cooper picks up a rock. He curves his arm like Mike’s, swings the rock at the lake. It climbs high and falls. Drops straight to the bottom of the lake.

  “You gotta hold your arm straight,” Mike says. “Throw the rock across the top of the lake. Skim it. Kind of like a jet ski.”

  Cooper has never ridden a jet ski. He picks up another rock. Holds his arm straight. When he throws this rock into the air, it plops like a dropped fish.

  “It has to be a flat rock if you want it to skip,” Mike says. “Look for a flat rock.”

  Cooper looks at the ground. He doesn’t want to skip rocks anymore. He can’t make a rock skim the lake like a jet ski and he doesn’t want to practice in front of Mike.
“Where do you work?” he asks.

  “My dad’s bait shop on North Bay. By all the other shops. Where else?”

  Where else? Where else? Where else? Cooper would like to ask Mike more important questions, but he doesn’t know what to say. He doesn’t know how to talk to Mike. He thinks of the Tezornauts on Tezorene. Knows he is an alien being. Knows he would need an interpreter to communicate on their planet.

  “See ya ’round,” Mike says.

  “Okay,” Cooper says.

  Mike walks down the dock to the boat. Yanks the rope from the stanchion.

  “Hey, Mike!” Cooper yells. “Thanks for the book.”

  “Sure, Cooper.” The motor starts quietly, with one smooth pull. Mike waves and turns the boat seaward.

  “Hey, Mike!” Cooper yells one more time. “See ya ’round.”

  Mike waves again, without looking. A ripple follows the stern, and Mike gets smaller and smaller until Mike and the ripple disappear and all that is left of Mike is The Adventures of Tom Sawyer in Cooper’s sweaty hands.

  Cooper carries the book into the cabin. Into the kitchen, where he hears noises. Caddie holds her head under the pump, blinking and blinking and blinking. Water spills across her cheek, splashes on the counter. Splatters Cooper. “I think he likes you,” Cooper says.

  “I think he likes you,” Caddie says.

  “Me?”

  Cooper hopes Mike does like him. Hopes that this is the most believable thing Caddie has ever said in her whole life.

  Cooper fans the pages of his new good and famous book. He thinks of Mike’s red cheeks. And his black eye. He remembers the big stick, and Mike’s fight with The Grinner. And today, Mike’s shrugged shoulders. And sand in Caddie’s ears. Cooper and Mike have a private joke between them.

  Sometimes you make friends when you least expect them.

  By accident. Like getting sand in your eye.

  Cooper isn’t sure about reading The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. He wishes the new good and famous book were a guidebook to how friends work.

  Trichoptera

  Caddie hops out of the van as soon as they pull up in front of the grocery store. “You’re coming with me, Cooper,” his mother says.

  But Cooper doesn’t want to go grocery shopping. He doesn’t want to see the rows of milk and grapefruit today. He doesn’t feel up to the spices and soups that might be out of order. It’s too much work. His mother moves so quickly, it’s hard to keep up. And if he can’t keep up, something terrible might happen. “I don’t want to go with you,” he says.

  “Don’t think you’re coming with me,” Caddie calls over her shoulder as she crosses the street.

  His mother sighs. “What do you want to do, Cooper?”

  Cooper looks at the sign boards up and down the street—the candy shop, the souvenir shop, “Moccasins Sold Here,” Ron’s Bait Shop. Ron. Mike. Cooper feels a small smile appear on his face. All by itself. He pulls his notebook from his pocket.

  Smiles are like dandelions growing between two rocks.

  They cannot be stopped.

  “There.” Cooper points at the sign, Ron’s Bait Shop. “I’m going there.” He looks left, looks right, looks left again. He lets the red van pass before he crosses the street.

  A tiny bell tinkles overhead when he opens the door to Ron’s Bait Shop. The store is a library of messy things. The shelves are tall, busy, and green. Cooper closes his eyes. The air smells like a storm. He has been here before. With his grandfather. He remembers the clock on the wall with leaping fish for hands. Tick. Tick. Tick.

  “Hey! How’s it going? How do you like Tom Sawyer?”

  Cooper opens his eyes. “I reckon I do,” he says. “Done started last night.”

  “Should I call you Tom from now on?”

  Cooper shakes his head.

  Mike smiles. “How far are you?”

  The words and the lines and the pages appear like a memory of a dream. I, I, I. Reckon, reckon, reckon. There, there, there. I reckon there ain’t one boy in a thousand, maybe two thousand that can do it the way it’s got to be done. Aunt Polly, Aunt Polly, Aunt Polly. “Not very far,” Cooper says.

  Mike sits on a tall stool at the counter. His hands are busy. Busy, busy, busy. Cooper moves closer. “What are you doing?”

  “Tying flies.”

  Cooper knows of this craft. He has seen the instructions in a book. Mike is making fake bugs called trichoptera. Sticky bugs with wings like tissue paper that sputter across still water like tiny raindrops. Grandpa’s book on fishing in Colorado says fish like to eat them. “You have an infestation,” Cooper says, pointing at the pile of finished bugs on the counter. “Of caddis flies.”

  “You know your bugs,” Mike says. He wraps a hook with wire, then with delicate thread. He twists and ties and clips, like a robot. Dabs one end with clear fingernail polish.

  “Caddie has some of that,” Cooper says.

  Mike’s eyes blink fast and blink again before he smiles. “How’s her eye?” he asks. He puts another bug in the pile.

  “I believe she has made a full recovery,” Cooper says.

  “Can you say hi to her for me?”

  “I reckon I can,” Cooper says.

  A bell tinkles every time the door opens, and Mike glances up. Says hi. Every time. Then he wraps, ties, plucks another bit of hair and fur, wraps some more and ties. Clips. Pulls another length of thread. Wraps and ties.

  “I thought fly fishing was a sport of the mountain streams,” Cooper says.

  “Mountain streams and Minnesota quarries. They stock ’em with trout.”

  “You mean it’s pretend?”

  Mike whispers, “Don’t tell anyone. It’ll just be our little secret.”

  “Really?”

  Mike’s busy fingers stop. “Oh, no,” he says. “They know. I mean, I was just kidding about the secret.” Cooper looks away. He does not see the point in pretend fishing.

  A motor hums and water gurgles. It sounds like a radio left on in a different room. Cooper tracks it down. The hum comes from a black box next to a big claw-foot tub in the corner. The black box is a pump that circulates water around and around in the tub. Cooper peers into the water. Into the churning water where the minnows swim in circles. Plastic buckets full of black dirt hang from the rolled edge of the tub on twisted black coat hangers. Cooper wants to turn off the motor. Stop the whir. Set the minnows free.

  Suddenly, That Boy is standing next to him. Cooper hasn’t seen him in hours and hours and hours. He thought he left him behind at the cabin. He touches the twisted wire. Cooper does not want to count the hangers. But That Boy needs to count them. One, two, three . . .

  The bell tinkles.

  Cooper is saved. He puts his hand in his pocket.

  “Hi, Mike,” a voice says. The customer is an old man. Like his grandpa. But not as old as Mr. Bell. His bulky vest has a hundred pockets, and Cooper thinks of all the things he could carry in those pockets: his rocks, magnifying glass, maybe even Amicus. Pencils. His notebook. And books. A vest just like it hangs high in the window.

  It doesn’t really have a hundred pockets, but a vest with a hundred pockets is a happy thought. And Cooper needs a happy thought. Right now.

  “Hey, Jack. How’s it going? Any big ones yet?” Mike asks.

  “Nope. But I’m not giving up.”

  Jack shops the row of fishing rods. Lifts one and bounces the rod. Spins the reel. Puts it back in the rack where it belongs. “Thought I’d try some soft-hackle caddis this time.”

  “Got ’em right here. Can’t tie ’em fast enough.” Mike nods at the growing pile of caddis flies on the counter.

  “And some night crawlers,” Jack says. “For my grandson.”

  The bell tinkles again. “You got fishing licenses?” the big man in the orange cap asks.

  “Sure do,” Mike says. “Hey, Cooper, can you help me while I write this up?”

  Cooper stands over the pool of minnows, watching. Watching the minnows swim t
heir circles. He feels the rhythm. Up, down, and back. Knows the repetition. Senses their fear. One minnow drifts low in the tub. Rolls with the fake tide. That minnow is dead. Like his grandfather. Nothing you can do about it now.

  “Cooper? Can you get Jack here some night crawlers?”

  “Sure,” Cooper says, but he doesn’t know why he says sure. He doesn’t know how to get night crawlers in Ron’s Bait Shop. He imagines himself in the dark earth beneath the cabin where the water drains from the pump at the kitchen sink. He is the night crawler. Crawling. Hurrying. Curling into a ball.

  Afraid.

  That Boy won’t leave. And he won’t leave Cooper alone. He counts the minnows, but they swim so fast he can’t keep up. One, two, three . . . Upstream, downstream. He loses track. Starts over. One, two, three . . .

  “Cooper?” Mike stands next to him. Whispers, “The night crawlers are in the buckets.” Mike sinks his hand into the plastic bucket. Pulls out mud that squirms and seethes. “See?” He reaches for a small cardboard box. Counts out twelve giant worms that duck from the light and wrap around his fingers. The worms are holding on for dear life. He pushes them off, closes the lid.

  Cooper wants to wash. Wants to count. Please, he whispers to That Boy. Not in front of Mike. He remembers what Caddie said. Be polite. Remembers how badly he needs a friend. Cooper shakes his head. “No, thank you, Mike. I prefer the fake flies.” He stands by the counter. Picks up a fire-red fly from a different pile. Rolls it back and forth with his fingertip.

  “Where’s your dad today?” Jack says.

  Mike rings up Jack’s soft-hackle caddis flies and night crawlers. “Over at DJ’s. They had another break-in.”

  “Have you guys been hit this summer?” Jack asks.

  Mike shakes his head. Counts out change from Jack’s twenty-dollar bill. “Not yet.”

  “Must be a bigger market for beer than there is for worms,” Jack says and laughs at his own joke. “I hope I don’t have to come back for any more woolly buggers.” Jack laughs again. Jack is happy. The bell tinkles. Jack is gone. Gone fishin’. Cooper laughs in his mind at his stupid joke. A Tom Sawyer joke. But only for a second. He cannot forget what he is doing.

  Watching. Waiting. Ready.