Josh shook his head, side to side, and stood there with Great-Aunt Evelyn, toe to toe. He sucked in a tight, wheezy breath. “You are not really here,” he said firmly, straight into the one eye that managed to meet his own. “And if you come around again, I will have to bury you. In my backyard. I’ve done it before.”
She nodded wildly, like a half-broken bobblehead doll. “You can bury us all. But until you do what you need to do, we’ll come back. Each and every one of us.” She started to hum.
“What do I need to do?” Josh was practically crying. “What is it?”
“My Jackie would have liked that ten dollars. He never even knew about it. He thought I just gave him a book of poems. He was my favorite nephew. I’d like him to know that.”
Josh went to slide the bill back into the book, but her raspy voice stopped him. “You can fold it. Put it in your pocket and keep it there. You never know when you might run into him. When you do, give him the money. From me. Keep the book for yourself. Because you are a good boy.”
With trembling hands Josh folded the bill and shoved it deep into the front pocket of his khaki pants. The old lady’s one good eye shone gratefully into his. “Thank you,” she said, but there was no longer any sound. Just her lips moving, her mouth opening and closing, and then she was gone.
Josh wanted to leave the book behind but was afraid she would come back if he did, so he slipped it in his backpack, along with the four other left-behind books that were already there. And even though Great-Aunt Evelyn was not real, not real, he ran in a big circle around the place she had been.
DISAPPEARED
“Did you do it?”
“I tried. I went over there, when it started to rain. But he wasn’t on the bench. He had already gone. It was like he disappeared.”
“Do you still have the note?”
“Yes.”
“Tomorrow. You need to do it tomorrow. Capiche?”
“I will. I will. And then you will go away, right? Like you said? And you won’t come back again?”
Maxie Moon didn’t answer. She was already gone.
MILES TO GO
Josh should have told his mom, right away. The minute Big Brother first appeared again. He should have told her before the sparkly girl and the scary old lady in the tracksuit. He should have told her everything.
But . . .
He would tell her now. He would ride like the wind on his SpongeBob bicycle and he would march right in and show her the book of poetry. And he would tell her about the ten-dollar bill and Great-Aunt Evelyn and everything else he’d been hiding since the move.
Josh dropped his bike on the front lawn, sprinted for the door and burst inside. “Mom!” he shouted. “Mom!”
She must have heard the panic in his voice because she ran, too. They collided in the hallway and Josh fell back against the wall.
His mom grabbed him by his shoulders and held on tight. “Josh! Are you okay? What’s the matter?”
He opened and closed his mouth, like a fish that had jumped out of its tank. “I’m fine,” he gasped. “But—”
“Come on.” She helped him out of his wet raincoat and led him down the hallway into the living room. “You need to catch your breath first,” she said, guiding him to the couch. “Just relax, honey. And then tell me everything.” While she waited, she patted his back, like when he was little and having an asthma attack.
“Where’s your inhaler?”
Josh motioned to his backpack. Then he did the regular stuff to calm himself. He ran through the multiples of 3 up to 99, named the fifty states in alphabetical order backward, and sang “Mary Had a Little Lamb,” all in his head.
And it was starting to work. Just being on the couch, safe with his mom, the other stuff didn’t seem so bad. “Okay,” he said. “I have something to tell you.”
Josh’s mom looked straight into his eyes and smiled, but it was the quivery brave smile. “You know you can tell me anything, honey. We can deal with anything that’s going on with you.” She scratched her wrist.
To avoid the terrible smile and the rash peeking out from the end of her sleeve, Josh glanced around the room. It was mostly still filled with labeled boxes, but one was open. And there were photographs hanging on the wall. “Hey,” he said. “What did you do?”
His mom’s mouth managed to keep its quivery brave shape when she said, “What do you mean?”
“The wall.”
“I unpacked our photos today. I put them up.”
“Did you finish the kitchen?”
She shook her head.
His mom had a thing about photos on the wall. Josh thought it was her way of proving that they were a normal, happy family.
There was Josh as a baby, taking his first steps.
Josh on his first day of kindergarten.
Josh and Dad fishing.
Josh in third grade, with his brand-new SpongeBob bicycle that he got for his birthday. There were all his school pictures, lined up in order.
His neck twitched. “Why did you hang them like that?”
“What do you mean?”
“Every picture is in the exact place it was before. It’s like we never moved.” As he said it, he thought again about the inspirational posters in his own room, how he’d done the same thing. “What’s the point of moving if nothing changes?” Josh’s voice was an octave higher than he thought it could go.
“Josh, honey, what do you need to tell me?” He looked down and saw her hand, patting his knee. He wondered if the nervous rash was contagious. Even if it wasn’t, he didn’t want it to touch him.
He opened his mouth to speak, but took another look at the wall of happy family photographs. The Thanksgiving when Gran and Pops were still alive. The time when it snowed so much that Dad stayed home from work to make a snow fort.
And the one sad one, the baby one.
A shiver ran up and down his back. In the photo his mom is looking down at the baby, her hair so long it nearly reaches his tiny face. One baby fist is raised in a cute and funny way. It had always been on the wall with all the other photos, but Josh had stopped seeing it years before.
Still, he knew the basic story. The baby was born four years before Josh. There was something wrong with his heart. He died before his first birthday.
His parents didn’t like to talk about him, so Josh had learned to stop asking. And then Big Brother had showed up on that first day of kindergarten, followed by all the others, and it wasn’t that Josh didn’t try to work out the pieces to the puzzle—it was more that he’d never seen there was a puzzle.
Now he leaned in for a closer look. When he did, he almost laughed out loud. Because there was Big Brother, up against the wall, posing! Like he was a wall photo, too. He winked and whispered, “Don’t do it, Little Bro.” Then he changed positions, so he was next to the photo of Dad and Josh with fishing poles. He held up his hands, pretending to measure his own enormous fish. That did it—Josh did laugh out loud.
His mom snapped her head. “What’s so funny?”
“Nothing, Mom.”
“Josh? What are you laughing at? What were you going to tell me?”
“Don’t do it,” Big Brother whispered again. “Don’t tell her. If you do, I’ll have to go away, and I’m not ready for that. You’re not ready for that.”
“Mom,” Josh said, closing his eyes so he wouldn’t have to see Big Brother’s face. “I haven’t been completely honest with you.”
“Little Bro,” he pleaded. “We’re not done yet. We have miles to go before we sleep.”
“What?”
“I didn’t say anything, Josh. You did.”
“Right. Mom. I know. As I was saying—” Josh opened his eyes and looked back at the wall of photographs. Big Brother had changed his position and was not trying to be a photo anymore. Instead he was ju
st looking at Josh in a pleading way.
He was his best friend. He was his brother.
Big Brother clasped his hands together and mouthed the word Please?
“It’s nothing terrible, Mom,” Josh said. “Just, well. I haven’t been eating in the cafeteria.”
“What?”
“That buddy thing never worked out and I couldn’t find a place to sit. So I’ve been sitting outside, on a bench—”
“Wait, you’ve been eating outside, on a bench? In the rain?” Josh had never seen his mom look so relieved in her life. She was so relieved she had to pretend to look concerned. “Is anything else going on? Are you hiding out again?”
“No, Mom. I mean, PE that once.”
“But you’re home early. Why? What happened?”
“Mom, nothing. I just—I’m sorry. I’m sorry I don’t have friends to bring home. And birthday parties to go to. I’m sorry.”
“Oh, Josh.” She pulled him close. “You don’t have to be sorry about anything. We can deal with this. Everything is going to be fine.”
Josh knew his dad would have something much more inspirational to say, and he was glad he didn’t have to hear it. “Thanks, Mom,” he said. He so wanted to tell her the truth, about everything. But he couldn’t. Not then.
He pulled back and made a move to leave. Then he noticed that his mom was staring past his shoulder at the wall of family photos. It was like she’d forgotten about him, and her face had an expression he couldn’t name. Worried, puzzled, startled, sad—he couldn’t tell what.
“What is it, Mom? What’s the matter?”
“Nothing. Nothing at all.” But she rubbed her arms and shivered, like some sort of shadow had filled the room.
“Mom? Are you okay?”
She nodded. “I think I’ve just been staring at old photos too long today.” She glanced at the baby photo and opened her mouth to say something more.
Josh held his breath, just hoping. Hoping they could talk about the baby and the box of baby things and all the invisible things they lived with, every day. But she scratched her wrist and said, “Do you have homework?”
“Yes,” Josh said. “I’m going to my room.”
“I’ll call you for dinner.”
That was it.
Josh went to his room but his room wasn’t big enough anymore. Like when Alice goes to Wonderland and eats that thing or drinks it—he couldn’t remember which—and then she grows until she’s completely busting out of the room. That’s how he felt.
“Big Brother,” he whispered, “I did what you asked. Where are you?” But he didn’t come.
He took the stolen library books from his backpack and stacked them next to his bed, with the poetry book by Robert Frost on top. Josh stayed that way, just getting used to it. It was a technique Dr. Ted had taught him, for being scared of things like dogs and spiders and crowds.
Finally, when he was used to the book being there, he reached over and opened the cover. He stared at the inscription, remembering those gnarled old hands and the crazy eye. To my wonderful nephew, Jackie. Happy Birthday. With Buckets of Love from Great-Aunt Evelyn.
Pulling the ten-dollar bill from his pocket, he flattened it smooth and slipped it back into the book. Then he read the first stanza of the poem again. He read the second stanza, too, whispering the words to himself and listening closely for some kind of clue, some kind of answer to his big questions about Big Brother and the sparkly girl and the old lady and his mom’s rash and his dad’s posters and the invisible gorilla and all of it.
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
The air around Josh felt suddenly cold, but in a good way, like he was inside the poem and could see his breath make a puff of cloud on that winter’s night. Like from across the miles and years, Mr. Robert Frost was reaching out and speaking directly to him, Joshua Duncan, fifth grade.
“Mr. Robert Frost,” Josh said out loud. His voice sounded like a stranger’s voice as he continued to read the poem in a whisper.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
Miles to go? Before we sleep? Those were the exact words Big Brother had used when he was being all funny next to the photographs.
It was all so different than it used to be. It was like Big Brother wasn’t just hanging around to build Lego worlds and play moon landing anymore.
Josh jumped up and paced the room. Then he got out his huge box of Lego and dumped it on the ground for sorting. By the time his mom called him down for dinner he had all the blues in one pile and a good start of the reds, and the world felt normal—almost—again.
His mom made meat loaf for dinner. She was excited because she found a recipe website for one-pan meals. Josh wanted to ask why they didn’t just unpack all the kitchen boxes so they’d have more than one pan, but he had a feeling it would lead to more itching of the rash.
His dad called later, when they were washing the one pan and two plates. He was calling from Japan, where it was only lunchtime, but already the next day. “You’re like a time traveler,” Josh said, and his dad laughed.
“What have you been doing? How’s school?”
Josh told him everything was fine and that he was riding his bike everywhere.
“That’s great, Josh. What else has been going on?”
“I got some good books today. One about Muhammad Ali.”
“Float like a butterfly. Sting like a bee!”
Josh laughed. “And I got another one of your favorites.”
“Yeah? Who?”
“Harry Houdini.”
“Harry Houdini! You know how I feel about Harry Houdini.”
“You mean the greatest magician of all time?”
“I mean a guy who had a few tricks.”
Josh knew the conversation, practically word for word. It was as warm and comfortable to him as an old favorite sweater. They went back and forth like that, about Harry Houdini, until Josh forgot the big secret he was keeping. But then his dad said, “First thing when I get home? We’re going to buy you a new bike. What do you think about that?”
And Josh remembered that it was Big Brother who got him out riding. Big Brother—who wasn’t supposed to be there.
“That’s great, Dad,” Josh said. “Really great.” And it actually was great. He was not lying about that.
DEADLINE
It was Friday, and Lucas was supposed to give his Marvelous Mystery presentation the following Monday. Back during the first week of school, when the sign-up sheet was going around, October had seemed like years away. Lucas knew there’d be plenty of time to pick a topic and put together a presentation. But that was before everything got turned upside down with Maxie Moon.
Now Lucas couldn’t think about anything but Maxie Moon. And the note. And the new kid. “Why?” he’d asked her. “Why the new kid?”
“Because he saw the gorilla, too,” she said. “Capiche?” And that was it.
Even when she wasn’t there, buzzing in his ear, he was jumpy and nervous, just waiting for her to show up and freak him out. Anytime he saw something sparkly or a flash of light around the corner, he broke out in a sweat. Even in Mr. K’s class he had a hard time paying attention to anything anyone was saying.
There were a few giggles and when Lucas looked up, he saw that everyone was staring at him. “I’m sorry—” he started.
Mr. K stood at the front of the room. He waved his clipboard and sign-up sheet. “I was just asking about Monday, Lucas. I haven’t seen your rough draft or even your topic yet. Are you set for your presentation?”
Lucas nodded.
Why did he do that? Why didn’t he just ask for more time? Lucas stared down at his brainstorm sheet, but the words all blurred together.
Mr. K said, “Well, I’m looking forward to it. And to being surprised by your topic.”
“Oh, he’ll be surprised,” Maxie buzzed in his ear. “We all will.”
He went on to ask for questions. “Anything?” Mr. K said. “Anyone have any questions about their presentations?”
“I don’t know which topic I should choose. My brainstorm list is too long.” Several of his classmates shared that problem.
“Pick the topic that jumps out at you,” Mr. K said. And then, “Boo!” as he jumped forward at them. The class laughed. All except Lucas.
“Or pick the topic that seems the hardest. Challenge yourselves. Or one that scares you. Pick one you have no idea how it will come out.”
The problem, Lucas realized when the bell rang and he was putting his notebook away, the problem was that the biggest mystery in his life wasn’t one he could talk about. It wasn’t one he could research and study and understand. It was also a topic that he tried his best to forget.
For years, right around this very time, something would happen—something that made him remember her. He’d see an interesting rock and remember how they used to spend hours in the woods, looking for rocks to add to their shared collection. Or he’d hear a bit of Italian, and remember how Maxie’s nonna would try to feed them salami sandwiches every time they came home from school together.
And then, when the stories started about the house in the woods, it was impossible not to think about her.
The stories were frightening, and couldn’t be real. But with each new family that moved in, the stories continued. Stories of books dropping from shelves. Doors slamming in the middle of the night. And crying, always crying, coming from the walls.
Last Meeting of the Gorilla Club Page 10