Last Meeting of the Gorilla Club

by Sara Nickerson

  He tried again. “You can stay. Right? Stay just like this?”

  “I don’t think so, Little Bro.”

  Josh said, “The photograph. Of the baby. Is that why you came back?”

  “What do you think?”

  Josh shrugged. “I thought maybe you could tell me.”

  “Tell you what?”

  “Tell me about you.”

  “I’m your big brother,” he said, ruffling Josh’s hair. “Tell me what you want me to say.”

  Josh changed the subject and asked him what kind of Lego world they should build this time. Big Brother said castle—it had always been his favorite. So Josh worked on the castle and didn’t look at him. They sat like that for a long time, until the room got dark and the castle was nearly complete.

  Then he said, “Well, Little Bro, I need to get going.” And it felt different to Josh—different from all the other times he’d been ready to leave.

  Josh said, “I don’t want to grow up if it means I can’t see you.” He started to cry.

  Big Brother moved in close and put his arm around Josh and the two just sat there until things didn’t feel so sad. Josh wiped his face.

  “You’ll be okay,” Big Brother said.

  Josh took a deep breath. “Where are you going exactly?”

  Big Brother shrugged. “You know that girl?”

  Josh remembered the night of the football game. Two shadowy figures walking together across the field. “From the game?”

  “Yeah. We’ve been hanging out. We’re just going to take off for a while.”

  “Oh.”

  “Be good to Mom and Dad,” he said.

  “I will.”

  “Stay out of burning closets.”

  Josh laughed. “I will.”

  “Push at your own edges.”

  Josh laughed again, even though the tears were back again. He could tell Big Brother was almost gone. “Hey!” he called. “Big Brother—”

  “Yeah?”

  “The girl—the one you’ve been hanging out with. Does she have a name?”

  “Of course she does, doofus.”

  “What is it? What’s her name?” Even before he said it, Josh knew what the answer would be. He knew.

  “Melanie,” he said. “Melanie Price.” And then he was gone.

  Josh sat for a few minutes. His neck twitched once, and he waited for the next one but it didn’t come.

  “Go, Big Brother,” he whispered. “The happiest years of your life.” Then, when his legs stopped shaking enough to stand, he went downstairs to find his mother.

  NOTHING IS MISSING

  She was sitting on the couch. Josh stood in front of her. “Mom—” He tried to sound normal. “Remember when you made me bury my imaginary big brother?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “Why did you do that? I mean, why was it such a big deal to you?”

  “Kids at school were teasing you,” she said. “It was interfering with your social skills and development—”

  “I know all that. But I’ve been thinking. I had other imaginary friends. But Big Brother was the one that always bothered you.”

  “You were too old—”

  “I know,” he said. “But what was it really? Why did he bother you the most? What about the old captain? With the wooden leg? You weren’t so worried about him.”

  She pulled her eyes away and stared at the photo on the wall, the one with the baby. “It just made me sad,” she said finally, in the smallest voice Josh had ever heard coming from her. “You should have had a big brother. You did have a big brother.”

  “I know that. And you used to talk about him. When I was little. But then you stopped. It was like you wanted us all to forget him.”

  “He would be almost sixteen now. Learning how to drive.”

  Josh went right over and sat next to her.

  “I keep track,” she said. “I try to picture him, growing up. I can see him so clearly. And sometimes that’s almost worse than not seeing him at all.”

  “Is that why you stopped talking about him? And only have that one photo of him on the wall?”

  She looked at Josh quickly and reached over to push back his hair. She told him things, sad things. She said she’d always felt their family was incomplete, and that Josh was missing something. She said that when he had first made up Big Brother, it had been like a dagger to her heart. So she just stopped talking about him, hoping that would keep the imaginary big brother away.

  Josh looked over at the photo on the wall, at his mom, so happy with her new baby boy, the one who did not live to his first birthday. He said, “Nothing is missing, Mom.”

  And they just sat together like that. They didn’t say anything, but were both missing him together, each in their own way.

  She put her arm around Josh’s shoulder and gave him a squeeze. “You’re getting so strong, Josh. It must be that bike riding. I’m so proud of you.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah.”

  She said, “Your dad is coming home tomorrow.”

  “Really? Tomorrow?”

  “I was going to surprise you but—” She shrugged.

  Josh almost told her then. He almost told her about the house in the woods, and Lucas Hernandez and Maxie Moon. He almost told her about Big Brother. How he had returned and helped Josh through this time. About his kindness and his cool hair.

  But instead he just said this: “Mom, I’ve been lonely before, but I know I’m not alone.” And as soon as he said it, he knew it was true. And he knew it was because of him, Big Brother. And he knew that, even if he never saw him again, he would always feel him close by.

  Josh’s dad would be home and he wondered if he really would notice the difference in him. Would he be able to see that he’d pushed at his own edges? That he’d become the hero of his own story?

  The thing about being the hero is, it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter if anyone else can see it or not. It doesn’t matter if anyone believes it or not. It is enough just to be.

  Which is exactly what Big Brother had said to him, in so many ways.

  Josh still didn’t understand how the world worked, any of it, but he knew there was more to it than he could see. Which is why he knew that for the rest of his life, he would carry a ten-dollar bill in a book of poetry with him, just in case he someday met a person named Jackie.

  And why he would try to see what was right in front of him, every day. And hopefully that would lead to a banana slug.

  He would also look for benches. Benches with names and dates and messages. Benches with plaques written in swirly letters and straight.

  Because that’s the other thing he learned. Benches were everywhere. They were on cliffs overlooking the ocean, and along hiking trails deep in the woods. They were in city parks and next to shopping malls. And whatever the names and dates on the plaques, whatever the words, each bench really said the same thing:

  You were here.

  In this world.

  And you mattered.

  And we miss you.

  Instead of a cliff or park or place near a shopping mall, Josh decided he would carry his bench with him. And because he had too many words to ever fit on a plaque, it would just say this:

  Thanks, Big Brother. I will never forget.

  Acknowledgments:

  This started with a ghost story told by my dear friend Steven Hamada. That story led to a trip to Hawaii to research other ghost stories. Thank you Steve, Matthew, and Judy, for making that trip happen. And thanks to everyone who so generously shared homes, meals, and stories: George Masami Tachibana, Florence Satoko Tachibana, Georgiana and Albert Kobayashi (and Chibi), Denise Kutsunai, and Amy Tamura. You helped me understand the ghost stories in my own life, and why I’m drawn to them.

  Hel
lo and thanks to Harry Kuboi, wherever you are. And to Guy.

  Julie Strauss-Gabel: Thank you for your belief in this story, as well as your clear and bright vision. I’m so glad you saw the gorilla.

  Andrew Karre: You are a Zippo lighter in the dark and I’m grateful I had the chance to work with you on this.

  So many thanks to everyone at Penguin Young Readers that helped to make this book and get it into the hands of readers, including: Anna Booth, Rob Farren, Melissa Faulner, Maria Fazio, Rosanne Lauer, and Natalie Vielkind.

  Liza Pulitzer-Voges: Thank you for your unwavering encouragement and support.

  I’m grateful for SCBWI and my writing community. Special thanks this time around to: Dolores Andral, Allison Augustyn, Martha Brockenbrough, Megan Chance, Sarah Conradt-Kroehler, Carol Crews, Wendy Hathaway, Tina Hoggatt, Stephanie Kuehnert Lewis, Maureen Doyle McQuerry, Alix Reid, Kyle Reynolds, Suzanne Selfors, and Jolie Stekly.

  Thanks to Lindsey Galovin, Luis Garcia, and Suzie Thomas.

  To Simon and Jasper Schwartz: Thank you, lovely sons, for the helpful talks and birthday dinner when I was working to meet a deadline.

  And to the marvelous Matthew Reid-Schwartz: Thank you for being the very first member of the Gorilla Club. You win the prize for that, and for everything else.

  About the Author:

  Sara Nickerson is the author of The Secrets of Blueberries, Brothers Moose & Me and How to Disappear Completely and Never Be Found. She started her career as a writer and producer for television and film. During a screenwriting class at the University of Washington, she wrote her first novel. She lives in Seattle with her husband and sons.

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