Absolutely Almost

by Lisa Graff

  It was a long ride to the Bronx Zoo. Long and gray and quiet. There was hardly anyone on the train, because it was a drizzly Monday at ten o’clock in the morning, probably. When the subway popped up aboveground, it was even grayer in the Bronx than it had been in Manhattan.

  When we finally got to the zoo, the man at the ticket booth looked surprised that anyone was there. The rain was starting to turn into snow, tiny slushy flakes, and I was cold, and I was starting to think that coming to the zoo was probably the worst idea Calista had ever had, and if I were in school right now maybe Darren Ackleman would be calling me names but at least I’d be warm. But Calista paid the ticket man for both our tickets, and when he gave me a funny look, she said, “School in-service day.” Whatever that meant.

  I’d been to the Bronx Zoo before, about five times probably, so Calista said I could pick where to go first. I picked the Congo exhibit, because that one was my favorite. Calista read her map, and she found the way pretty quick.

  There was no one else but us at Congo, so we could watch the gorillas for as long as we wanted, without anybody or their baby pushing in front of us. One mom gorilla smashed her face right up against the window so me and her were face-to-face, and she slobbered all over the glass. Calista said she must’ve been trying to give me kisses, and that made me laugh.

  “This is pretty fun so far, huh, Albie?” Calista said.

  I stopped laughing. “I thought you weren’t going to try to cheer me up,” I told her.

  “No, sir,” she said. “I wouldn’t dream of it. This is your sad day.”

  “Good,” I said. “Because I’m still sad.”

  After Congo, Calista picked the reptile house, which was warm warm warm—so warm that the glass in front of the snakes and turtles was half steamed up. But that was okay by me. Me and Calista peeled off our coats and shook all the slushy snow out of our umbrellas and got to work being sad.

  “Albie, look at this!” Calista shouted all of a sudden while I was watching some tortoises. That was another good thing about going to the zoo on a gray, gray day—no one cared if you shouted. “You have to see this.”

  I ran over, and I saw it. Probably the grossest, coolest thing I ever saw in my whole life. Behind the glass where Calista was pointing, there was a python, big as a tree and long as one too. And I’d never believe it if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes, but I swear that python was eating a pig. The pig was already dead—Calista said the zookeepers probably put him in frozen, like a giant pig pop—and that was a good thing for him, I bet, because he was getting swallowed. The python had his jaws stretched wide, way way past his eyeballs, and the pig was already halfway down. All you could see was the pig’s back legs sticking out past the python’s fangs, plus its pink piggy tail.

  “Whoa,” I said.

  We watched for probably a full hour, till our breath steamed up the glass too much to watch much more and our feet started to get sore. That python was such a slow eater that he still hadn’t even finished by the time we left the reptile house.

  “Bye, snake,” I said as we left. “Bye, pig.”

  “I think you mean ‘bye, lunch,’” Calista told me.

  For a second that got me laughing so hard I almost forgot it was a sad day.

  • • •

  On the subway ride back home, I told Calista, “That was a good sad day.”

  She smiled. “I’m glad, Albie.” She looked at the zoo map in her hand for a second and then held it out to me. “You want to keep this, as a souvenir?” I took it. And I was looking for the reptile house on the map when Calista told me, “You have to go back to school tomorrow, you know. This was your only sad day.”

  “I know,” I said. Because I did. You couldn’t let every day be a sad day.

  “It’s probably going to be tough,” Calista told me, “at school tomorrow. But you’ll get through it. You can be brave, right? You’re good at that.”

  I pushed my nose closer to the map. “Caring and thoughtful and good,” I said.

  “What was that?” Calista asked.

  I shook my head.

  “Hey, Calista?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Should I tell Mom and Dad?” I asked her. “About going to the zoo today for my sad day instead of going to school?”

  Calista bit her bottom lip for a while before she answered me. “I would never tell you to lie to your parents, Albie,” she said at last.

  “But if I don’t lie,” I said, thinking things through, “then they’ll probably be mad at you because you didn’t make me go to school.”

  “Probably,” Calista agreed.

  “And you’ll probably get in trouble,” I told her.

  “I would imagine so, yes,” she said.

  I looked back at the map. My brain was feeling fuzzy a little bit, like when I tried to figure out Wei’s tip for Chinese food. “I don’t think I’ll tell them,” I said.

  Calista didn’t say anything about that, just stared out the window at the black of the subway tunnel passing by as we rode. I folded up the zoo map and put it in my pocket.

  the surprise

  in the fridge.

  Albie, what’s this?” Mom asked when she opened up the fridge to start dinner after Calista had gone home.

  “I don’t know,” I said, without even looking. Because how would I know what was in the fridge?

  “It’s for you,” Mom told me. And that made me look up.

  For me?

  I rushed to the fridge, and sure enough, there was a big brown box on one of the shelves. All the lettuce and cheese had been pushed over to the side so it would fit. On the side in bubble letters it said, Happy Birthday, Albie!

  Calista’s handwriting.

  “My present!” I told Mom. I couldn’t believe I’d forgotten. I’d never forgotten about a birthday present before in my whole life. “Calista said she brought me something.”

  “Well, let’s see what it is.” And Mom pulled out the box and set it on the table. I helped her tug back the lid.

  It was a giant cake, shaped like a huge, perfect donut. Vanilla, it looked like, rounded on the sides like a real giant donut with a hole in the middle and everything. There was thick chocolate glaze dripping down the sides and sprinkles all over the top.

  “Cool!” I said.

  “Now, isn’t that sweet?” Mom said. I laughed, and she looked at me. “What?”

  “It’s a donut cake,” I told her. “So it has to be sweet!”

  Mom laughed, too, and hip-bumped me. “Looks like the perfect after-birthday dessert,” she said.

  • • •

  The donut cake was so delicious that for a second I forgot it was still a sad day.

  rain in

  new york.

  When it rains in New York, no one knows where to walk. The streets fill with rainwater at the corners of every block, and even though it doesn’t look too deep, if you step off the sidewalk in the wrong spot, it’ll swallow up your whole sneaker. So when it rains in New York, nobody crosses at the crosswalks. People walk right across the middle of Fifth Avenue in traffic, and the cars honk and the people shout and the rain slurs up all the noise.

  When it rains in New York, people rush rush rush with their necks hunched low in their jackets and men stand at every street corner shouting, “Umbrella! Umbrella, five dollars!” The price always starts at five when it’s just sprinkling, then goes up to fifteen when it’s really pouring. Which, if you ask me, is just too bad, because that’s really when you need an umbrella most.

  When it rains in New York, rich people’s dogs wear miniature raincoats and plastic slippers that pinch their paws, and kids giggle and shriek and splash in the puddles.

  When it rains in New York, the playgrounds are empty and the buses are full. People cram together under the awning outside the bagel shop and talk too loudly
on their phones.

  When it rains in New York, the garbage cans at every corner are stuffed with the twisted bits of broken umbrellas. When it rains in New York, everyone is happy that the building at 59th and Lex is under construction, when just the day before they said the scaffolding made their eyes sore.

  And when it rains in New York, people who aren’t paying attention, like Darren Ackleman, because they are too busy doing something else, like making fun of someone walking with his not-a-babysitter home from school, get sprayed right in the face by dirty rainwater splashed by a passing bus. Soaked, head to toe.

  I like when it rains in New York.

  putting

  it together.

  I didn’t mean to take that A-10 Thunderbolt down off the closet shelf. I really didn’t. I meant to leave it up there forever.

  But somehow, when I wasn’t thinking too good maybe, I took it down. And I opened the box. And I peeled the tape off the tops of the little plastic bags. Carefully, so none of the tiny pieces would spill out.

  And I started to put it together.

  It was easier this time, since I didn’t have to go so slow, waiting for Dad to help. It was easier this time, because I’d done it before. The directions made more sense. The pieces fit together right, exactly perfect.

  I didn’t mean to build a real model A-10 Thunderbolt. But every day, it got just a little bit bigger.

  smart.

  Calista and her boyfriend broke up. For real. She didn’t tell me at first, but I knew she was sad. Somehow I just knew. And when I asked her about it, she started crying, right there on the couch. Not grown-up crying either, but big, blubbery kid sobs.

  “I’m sorry, Albie,” she said. Tears were running down her face. “I’m such a mess today. Just ignore me, okay? It’s not a big deal. We’ll start on your homework.”

  But when Calista was in the bathroom washing her tears off, I snuck out of the apartment and down the elevator and outside to the bodega.

  “Can I have some ice cream?” I asked Hugo. “I don’t have any money, but I’ll stack lots of cups tomorrow. Three hundred. A thousand, even.”

  Hugo tilted his head to the side. “No donuts today?” he asked.

  “Calista’s sad,” I told him.

  And when I said that, well, Hugo practically jumped out from behind the counter and leapt to the ice cream fridge. “Here,” he said, handing me a pint of mint chip. “Or do you think she’d rather have chocolate? Oh, that sweet girl. Is she okay?”

  “I think she’ll be all right,” I told him. “But she and her boyfriend broke up.”

  Hugo shook his head. “That boy must be an idiot,” he said.

  I agreed.

  When I left the bodega, I had a plastic bag stuffed full of ice cream—mint chip and chocolate and cherry vanilla and caramel swirl and Heath bar crunch. Hugo said it was on him, I didn’t even have to stack cups for it.

  Calista practically chewed my head off when I got back inside the apartment. “Where on earth did you go?” she yelled at me. She had her phone in her hand. She’d been dialing someone. “You gave me nine heart attacks.”

  I held out the plastic bag. “It’s from Hugo,” I told her. I took the ice creams out, one by one, and set them on the table. And then, because I thought she might be worried, I said, “Even though this is ice cream, it isn’t an ice cream day. It’s a sad day. But I think it’s too late to go to the zoo.”

  “Oh, Albie.” And wouldn’t you know it, Calista started crying again. But this time it seemed like it was okay. “Come here.” And she stretched out her arms and wrapped me in a hug. A tight one.

  “You seemed like you needed a sad day,” I told her, through the pinch of the hug.

  She laughed a tiny laugh. “You were right,” she said. She stretched out her arms to look at me. “How did you get so smart?”

  I just shrugged.

  • • •

  We ate ice cream sundaes instead of dinner. I didn’t ask, but it seemed like, by the time I went to bed, Calista was maybe feeling just the tiniest bit better.

  one word.

  I was leaving math club when Mr. Clifton stopped me. “Stay for just a second, if you would, Albie. I want to ask you something.”

  So I stayed.

  Mr. Clifton waited until the door had shut behind the last student and then he said, “Is everything okay?” I looked up at him. “You’ve seemed a little down the last few days.”

  I frowned.

  “Anything you want to talk about?” he asked me.

  I shrugged.

  I thought Mr. Clifton was going to let me go, but he just waited, like he thought I’d say something eventually. The bell rang, even, and he still kept waiting.

  I guessed I better say something.

  “This one kid,” I told him, “keeps calling me names. ‘Dummy.’ Stuff like that.”

  That wasn’t the only thing I was sad about, but it was one of the things. I figured it would be a good thing for Mr. Clifton. Teachers always liked to help with that sort of stuff.

  Mr. Clifton nodded for a while before he said anything. “Let me ask you something, Albie,” he said at last. “Would it bother you if this kid called you a three-toed yellow featherbed?”

  I didn’t mean to laugh, but I did anyway. A little snot came out of my nose, even. “No,” I said, wiping my face with my sleeve.

  Mr. Clifton reached behind him without looking and handed me a Kleenex. I took it. “And why not?” he asked me. “Why wouldn’t that bother you?”

  “Because I’m not a three-toed . . .”

  “A three-toed yellow featherbed,” Mr. Clifton finished for me.

  “Yeah.” I blew my nose. “I’m not one of those.”

  He nodded, like that made sense. Then he said, “So why does it bother you when someone calls you a dummy?”

  I stopped blowing my nose.

  “Look,” Mr. Clifton said. There were kids at the window in the door, waiting to come in for the next math club, I could see them, but Mr. Clifton held up a hand to tell them to wait. “I’m not going to say that other kids can’t be mean sometimes. Sometimes people say things that are just awful.” I looked down into my Kleenex. “But you know who you are, Albie. You know what you’re worth. At least I hope you do.” I folded the tissue over on itself once, then twice, then three times. “And you get to decide what words are hurtful to you. If you ask me, ‘dummy’ shouldn’t hurt you one bit.”

  When I couldn’t fold the tissue anymore, I unfolded it.

  “Does that make sense, Albie?”

  I nodded. “Can I go back to class now?” I asked.

  • • •

  On my way back to class, I thought about what Mr. Clifton said. I wasn’t sure he was right, that I got to decide what words hurt me. Because some words just hurt. But I let myself think about it anyway. Because Mr. Clifton was smart, so what he said was worth thinking about.

  Dummy, I thought to myself as I walked down the hall. Dummy dummy dummy. I thought about that word. I thought about the way it sounded, the m sound and the d and the end like in Albie.

  One little word.

  It did hurt when I said it in my head, no matter what Mr. Clifton told me. That word dummy poked me in the brain, in the stomach, in the chest, every time I heard it.

  Dummy.

  Dummy.

  Dummy.

  But about halfway down the hall, a funny thing started to happen.

  The more I rolled that word around in my head, the sillier it sounded.

  Dummy rhymes with mummy.

  I rolled it around some more.

  Dummy like a dumbbell.

  I rolled it again.

  Crash test dummy.

  Ventriloquist dummy.

  Dummy gummy funny sunny.

  By the time I got to Mrs.
Rouse’s room, I’d rolled that word around so much, I thought I might just have rolled its sharp edges a tiny bit smoother.

  getting where

  you’re going.

  I barely talked to Calista the whole way home from school that day. And when we got home, I didn’t even wait for her to make my snack. I went straight to my room and closed the door. Then I sat on the carpet, right in front of my dresser, and opened the bottom drawer.

  Under all of my pairs of swim trunks that were too small for me to wear anymore, that’s where it was. The letter. I pulled it out.

  “Albie?” Calista was knocking on the door. “Albie, you okay in there? What’s wrong?”

  I unfolded the letter and pressed out the creases, one, two.

  Dear Mr. and Mrs. Schaffhauser,

  That part was easy to read. The rest was harder.

  I’m writing in regards to the academic progress of your son, Albin Schaffhauser, which, as you both know, has been a matter of much concern for some time now.

  “Albie?”

  I didn’t have a lock on the door. I guess that was how Calista got in.

  “What are you reading?” she asked. She sat down on the carpet, right beside me. “What is that?”

  I set the letter down in my lap, and I think my eyes must’ve been blurry from reading too hard or tears or something, because all I could see was the name of the school in big red letters at the top of the page. MOUNTFORD PREPARATORY SCHOOL. I couldn’t read any of the other words.

  Not like I’d understand them anyway.

  “It’s from my old school,” I told Calista.

  She must’ve guessed I was upset, maybe by the way I was talking, quiet like a snowflake, because she started rubbing my back in slow little circles. And she didn’t say anything, just nodded.