Last Meeting of the Gorilla Club

by Sara Nickerson

  Mr. K was nice, but he made Josh remember Mr. Lombardi, from kindergarten. How sometimes, even the nicest grown-ups didn’t know that there were different rules for kids.

  Still, it was all easier than Josh thought it would be. His pants didn’t mock him. His nose didn’t itch so there was no danger of Kleenex. Except for the initial introductions, no one paid much attention to him at all.

  THE ROPES

  Lucas had been hunched over his desk, doodling on his brainstorm sheet, but when the new kid walked into the classroom, his body automatically straightened—like the ears of a dog when it picks up a sound no one else can hear. Lucas quickly added that—dogs’ ears—to his Marvelous Mysteries brainstorm sheet. Then he turned back to the boy.

  The boy wasn’t wearing the red raincoat, although upon closer inspection, Lucas did see that he was holding it in his hand, so low that it dragged on the floor. Anyway, Lucas would have recognized him without it. There was something about him.

  Mr. K was trying to be nice, but Lucas felt bad for the lump of a kid standing there, clinging to his red raincoat. His eyes darted around the room, like he was hoping to find a magic portal instead of an empty seat.

  Mr. K was making small talk and jokes about the rain. When he asked the new kid about Chicago, no one could hear what he said. Something about cold. Or maybe he said hot? Then Mr. K told the new kid to pick a seat, any seat, and try not to sit in the same seat the next day.

  “Isthatarule?” the kid mumbled.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Isthatarule?” he tried again. Someone laughed and the kid basically turned to petrified wood.

  “Is it a rule?” Mr. K finally managed to decipher. “No. It’s not a rule but a policy. It gives you the chance to see the world in a different way, every day. Right class?”

  “Right, Mr. K!”

  The boy mumbled something else and waited, but Mr. K looked confused again so the boy just shuffled down the closest aisle, looking for a seat. Everyone used that as an excuse to start talking.

  Mr. K clap-clapped. “Ready-set?”

  Clap-clap. “You-bet!” the class answered.

  “Okay, who would like to volunteer to be Josh Duncan’s buddy? To show him the ropes this week?”

  Lucas thought about raising his hand, but he didn’t really know what the ropes were and he didn’t want to look stupid. He was considering anyway, just because Josh Duncan looked so sad, but Liddy Franklin, who volunteered for everything, already had her hand in the air.

  “Thank you, Liddy. I know you’ll do a great job of showing Josh around and making him feel welcome here and . . .”

  Mr. K was still speaking, but something happened that made Lucas forget all about the rope talk. It was the shadow—the weird shadow he’d seen the day before, when the boy was running past the window. It was there again. Following Josh Duncan.

  Wait, no. That wasn’t completely accurate. Lucas didn’t see it as much as he felt it. But could a person feel a shadow? Could a shadow move on its own, away from the person it’s supposed to be attached to?

  Even though Mr. K said there was no such thing as a stupid question, Lucas believed some questions really were sort of stupid. Like the shadow questions. He studied yesterday’s entry on his brainstorm sheet: Shadows on a day with no sun.

  When he glanced back, Josh Duncan was dropping his pencil and stepping on his coat and making an all-around disaster of trying to sit down. Lucas no longer saw a shadow, but he did see Maxie Moon.

  Maxie was watching the new kid with a keen interest, like a cat, maybe, staring at a mouse. For the first time, Lucas had the terrible realization: Maxie Moon might hang around for the rest of his life. Or at least until she got what she wanted from him.

  He wrote, What does she want from me?

  “People!” Mr. K had the Marvelous Mysteries presentation schedule sheet out and was waving it in the air. “People! What’s going on? No one has signed up. We need to get this ball rolling! How about a volunteer for tomorrow?” He peered over the glasses sliding down his nose. Somehow, miraculously, he didn’t look silly.

  Lucas added, Why do some people look funny with their glasses sliding off their noses, but others don’t?

  “Scholars! Scientists! I need a volunteer!”

  This was one of those times when no one made eye contact with the teacher. How did they all know to do that, as a group? Was it an understanding people were born with? Was it from the animal kingdom? Lucas picked up his pencil again and sighed as he added it to his brainstorm sheet. He was starting to think that everything in the world was a Marvelous Mystery.

  He snuck a quick glance at Mr. K, not long enough to make eye contact, but long enough to see why he was being so quiet. Mr. K was just perched there on the edge of his desk, with his silly-not-silly glasses. Lucas wanted to raise his hand and say, “Mr. K, your glasses might fall off the end of your nose if you don’t push them back,” but he was afraid Mr. K would think he was volunteering to go first. How could he go first? He wasn’t even done brainstorming!

  Liddy Franklin stuck her arm in the air again. Mr. K clapped enthusiastically. “Liddy! Wonderful—”

  “No, Mr. K.” She waved her hands in a panic. “I’m not volunteering. I have a question.”

  “Okay, Liddy. What’s your question?”

  “It’s just that we’ve never done anything like this before. And you didn’t really give us any direction or worksheet—”

  “You have a topic brainstorm sheet.”

  “I know. But I mean, there’s no outline. You know, for our presentations. Like, it can really be anything? Because whenever I ask you what the presentation should be like, or how long, or if we should make a poster or bring in props, or like do a PowerPoint or something, you never answer.”

  Heads around the classroom nodded. Vigorously.

  The moment she said it—and as much as Lucas didn’t want to agree with anything Liddy Franklin ever said—he knew it was exactly what he was feeling. And why he just kept adding to his list instead of starting his project. No one had shown him how to put together a project with no outline or rules or assigned topic.

  Mr. K swept his eyes across the room. “Liddy,” he said. “It looks like you’ve spoken for the class.”

  More heads nodded.

  “And you are right. But I’ve deliberately kept this project open because I want you to let your topic be your guide. You can do anything. Really. Anything. Anything that seems like it best represents the Marvelous Mystery you are trying to share. Does that make sense?”

  Heads froze.

  Mr. K let out a long, low whistle, then startled them all when he jumped up suddenly. His glasses fell off his nose and clattered on the floor, but he didn’t pick them up. “Okay, how about this. How about I go first? I’ll take the first slot tomorrow. Would that help?”

  Everyone said it would, yes, for certain, that would be great.

  “But remember, what I do is not what you will do. In fact, if everyone ends up following my lead, then this won’t work.”

  “We’ll get a bad grade?” Liddy again. But it could have been anyone.

  “How about—” Mr. K paused for a moment, to pick up his glasses. “How about just this once we don’t worry about grades? How about we dive into our mysteries with open minds, ready for discovery? Ready to share what we find in whatever way makes the most sense for our findings? How about that?” He perched his glasses back on the bridge of his nose and beamed out at the class, but everyone was suddenly busy looking down at their desks again.

  Lucas wrote, Eye contact.

  Then, because he couldn’t help it, he snuck a glance at the back corner seat. Maxie Moon had turned all her attention on Mr. K. Her eyes were shining and for a moment, just one moment, a deep feeling of sorrow swept over Lucas. A wave of sorrow and a flash of memory for the girl she’d
once been, the friend she’d once been.

  His best friend.

  If a Marvelous Mystery project could answer the question of Maxie Moon, then his brainstorming would be over. That’s the one he would choose. But he knew it was impossible. Maxie Moon was a different kind of mystery. A secret mystery. A tragic mistake. The kind that kept him looking the other way.

  DEAD MELANIE

  “Next!” the cafeteria lady shouted. Josh stepped up to the counter with his lunch card.

  “You want two slices?”

  He nodded.

  “Pepperoni?”

  Even though he wanted plain cheese, he nodded again, mostly because of how disastrous it had been when he’d tried to talk in Mr. K’s class. It was like all the words had been rolled in Elmer’s Glue.

  She slid two thick slices of pepperoni pizza onto a paper plate and set the plate on an orange tray. “Here you go.” She was wearing a hairnet, like Josh’s cafeteria lady back home.

  “Thank you.” The words came out sort of normal sounding so Josh added, “This is my first day.”

  She smiled. “Welcome. You’ll love it here.”

  “Really?”

  “Of course. These are the happiest years of your life.”

  “Oh, good,” Josh said. “Thank you.” He turned and faced the cafeteria. All the tables were full, with even more kids pushing through the doors. He saw Liddy, the girl who was supposed to show him the ropes, but she was already at a table with a bunch of friends. Somehow, as soon as the bell rang, she’d abandoned the rope thing.

  Josh didn’t mind too much. Except that the cafeteria had always been his least favorite place. Rules existed, but not ones that he could totally understand. And there were just too many things coming at him: eyebrows and braces and laughter and backpacks and the mixed-together smell of sour milk and green beans and tater tots. Josh saw nothing and he saw it all. His legs stopped working. Elbows and earrings and some of the eighth graders were as big as grown-ups and was that a mustache even? His heart pounded. Someone was quacking like a duck. He hoped it wasn’t him.

  At his old school he’d eat lunch in a classroom with one of the nice teachers who would let kids do that. Sometimes, when the teachers were in a meeting, he’d sneak into the library, even though no food was allowed. He wished he’d planned ahead for this moment, this terrible moment with lunch tray in hand and bodies all around.

  Mind racing, he considered the media center, but it was too new and wide-open. What about the old library—the alien-ship building above the Hello Walk? The sign said DO NOT ENTER, but was the door actually locked? And just how haunted was it?

  Someone bumped his shoulder, turning him sideways. He spotted Ms. Yoshida at the far end of the cafeteria and almost dropped his tray. A voice in his ear whispered, “Ditch the tray.”

  Josh spun around. Big Brother!

  “Ditch the tray and follow me.”

  “Ditch the—” he started, but Big Brother put his finger to his lips and pointed to the orange tray. “Just bring your plate.”

  Josh set the tray on top of a nearby garbage can. He followed Big Brother out the door, back toward the main buildings, and around the perimeter of the Hello Walk. There, in a forgotten-looking corner hidden by bushes, was a bench.

  “It looked like you needed a moment,” Big Brother said. “To catch your breath.”

  “You’re right.” Josh thought back to the first day, the very first day. The Kleenex day. Big Brother had saved him then, too.

  On the backrest of the bench was an engraved plaque with swirly letters. Josh bent closer to read: MELANIE PRICE—WE WILL NEVER FORGET.

  “Never forget what—” he started. And then, “Hey! This is a dead girl’s bench!”

  “So?”

  “So it’s creepy. Don’t I have enough creepy in my life?”

  Big Brother snorted. He sat down and leaned his back against the swirly letters that spelled out a dead girl’s name. “You can always go back to the cafeteria.”

  Josh stared at the bench, then down at his lunch. Grease was seeping into the paper plate, circling the pizza like a moat. A fat, slow bumblebee, probably left over from summer, lumbered next to his foot.

  Big Brother said, “Eat up.”

  “How do you think she died?”

  “Seriously, sit down.”

  Josh sat, and the cement bench was cold through the cotton khakis of his old school uniform pants. “Do you think she’s buried here?”

  “What? No! It’s just a bench. They put it here so her friends will remember her.”

  Josh picked off the thin slices of pepperoni and stacked them on the side of the plate.

  “You okay?” Big Brother asked.

  Josh nodded. Things hadn’t been that bad. They’d been surprisingly pretty easy. But it was just so much to take in. “It’s not like I expected to make a bunch of friends right away,” he said. “But—” He shook his head. “Everything is fine. No one teased me, or called me a name.”

  “Not really a poster quote.”

  Josh shrugged.

  “What about friends?”

  Josh pulled out his notebook and opened it to a page with names from his class, including relevant details that might be useful as conversation starters. He said, “There are prospects.”

  Big Brother stared at the notebook. “It’s easy for some people. It’s hard for others.” He said it in a nice way, which is sometimes harder to hear than a mean way. It made Josh embarrassed about his notebook, and how he’d written out the names with such hopeful penmanship.

  Why, Josh wanted to ask. Why was it so hard? Because really. No one had ever explained that and Josh really wanted to know.

  Big Brother said slowly, “I think it will get easier, when you get older. I think you’ll find your way and meet people who see the world a little differently, too. You’re a good kid. You’re kind and smart. You’re brave.”

  “I am?”

  “Sure. Like how you showed up today? Brave.”

  Josh said, “Going to school is just normal stuff.”

  “Normal stuff requires bravery, for some people more than others. You could do that for your Marvelous Mystery project. Bravery.”

  Josh shook his head. “It’s not that kind of project.”

  “It can be anything you want.”

  Josh was annoyed. The Big Brother he remembered was for playing at recess and building Lego cities. Not for being a homework boss. What did he know, anyway? It was easy for him, with his new big biceps and excellent hair. What did he know about the real world? Josh closed his notebook.

  “You have grease on your chin. Don’t you have a napkin?”

  Josh wiped his face with the back of his hand. “You sound like Mom. And anyway, no one has even noticed me. Even my rope person forgot about me the minute the bell rang.”

  “Yeah, but walk around with grease on your chin like that. And keep talking to yourself. Then they will. They’ll notice you.”

  “You know what? You know what?” He was this close to crying, so he closed his eyes. “I’m not talking to myself. I’m talking to you. And I’m only talking to you because you showed up.”

  When Josh opened his eyes, Big Brother was gone. “Good riddance,” he muttered, and even as it came out of his mouth he realized it was something an eighty-year-old woman would say, which was probably part of the problem, at least socially, but—good riddance anyway!

  Josh opened his notebook and ripped out the pages with his name chart and notes. He grabbed his pizza plate and dumped the whole mess of grease and goo and relevant information into the trash. Good riddance, he thought again.

  The first bell rang, but Josh stayed where he was, halfway hiding behind the garbage can and a large green rhododendron bush. Which is where he was when he saw her, for the very first time.

 
She was at the edge of the Hello Walk, standing alone but near a group of kids. Josh recognized a few of them from Mr. K’s class, but couldn’t remember any names. He wished he had his name chart, but it was in the trash.

  “See?” he whispered. “Relevant.”

  Maybe the girl stood out to him because her shoes were two different colors, or because her shirt had a sparkly rainbow. Or maybe it was just the strange way she hovered there, on the edge of everything.

  Or maybe it was because of the twitch.

  Sometimes bodies know before brains do. Bodies will send prickles on the back of a neck, or goose bumps up and down an arm. As Josh moved closer to peer through the bushy green leaves of the plant, he felt that shift in his body. His hands got clammy and his neck began to twitch.

  SOS, his neck said.

  And when she turned to look straight at him, he knew. It wasn’t just Big Brother anymore. The crack was wide-open.

  THE CRACK

  They used to show up everywhere, at the park and at school. At the grocery store while Josh trailed behind his mom in the frozen food aisle. He pictured a crack in the universe, one that Big Brother had made on that first day of kindergarten. Once the crack was there, the rest of them had spilled out, like insects from a rotting log.

  It was always the same. First, they would stand at a distance, blinking in a surprised way. Then, when they spotted Josh watching, they would approach slowly, eyes shifting sideways, like stray dogs will sometimes do. Josh, not knowing any better, would always be friendly and welcoming. “Hello,” he’d say. “Come to my house.”

  Because they were fun. They wanted to play.

  Well, most of them. Some took a quick look around and slipped right back from where they came. Some hung out for a while and then were gone. The kids stayed the longest—they played on the monkey bars and came home for dinner. Had pillow fights in Josh’s room at night.