Tom sits down next to Danny and throws a few scraps of bread on the sand. Danny does the same, taking pieces from his sandwich, mostly crust, but not chunks with a lot of peanut butter. He eats those. The ducks get mostly jelly chunks, and they swallow everything.
Tom stops throwing bread and says, “Whoops. Sorry, pal. It’s against the law to feed the ducks.”
He doesn’t know if Daddy is joking. Danny likes to laugh at his jokes. Jokes are powerful magic words because they make you laugh. But when he’s not sure if it’s a joke or not, Danny thinks life is too full of magic words.
He laughs a little and says, “Good one, Daddy.” Danny is pleased with his answer, even if it’s wrong.
“No really, it says so on that sign.” Tom points to a white sign with red letters nailed into their tree. Danny can’t read yet. He knows his letters but not how they fit together.
Ellen says, “That’s weird. A state law against feeding the ducks?”
Danny knows it’s not a joke. It is a law. The word law is scary, like the older kids in the water.
Danny says, “Mommy, pretend you didn’t know it was against the law to feed the ducks.”
“Okay. So, I can just go order a pizza and some hotdogs for the ducks, right?”
“No. You can’t feed the ducks. It’s against the law.”
Danny eats the rest of his sandwich, swinging his feet beneath the picnic table bench. The scary older kids come out of the water and chase the ducks, even the babies. Danny wants to know why it’s not against the law to chase the ducks, but he doesn’t ask.
Their cottage has two bedrooms, but they sleep in the same bedroom because of the bears. Danny sleeps in the tallest bed. There’s a ceiling fan above him and after Daddy tells a story about Spider-Man and dinosaurs, he has to duck to keep from getting a haircut. That’s Danny’s joke.
Beth is asleep in her playpen. Everyone has to be quiet because of her.
Danny is tired after a full day at the beach. His favourite part was holding onto Daddy’s neck while they swam out to the raft.
Danny wakes up when his parents creep into the bedroom. He is happy they are keeping their promise. He falls back to sleep listening to them fill up the small bed by the door. He knows his parents would rather sleep in the other bedroom by themselves, but he doesn’t know why.
Danny wakes again. It’s that middle-of-the-night time his parents always talk about. He hears noises, but gets the sense he’s waking at the end of the noises. The noises are outside the cottage, echoing in the mountains. He hears thunder and lightning or a plane or a bunch of planes or a bunch of thunder and lightning and he is still convinced you can hear both thunder and lightning or he hears a bear’s roar or a bunch of bears’ roars or he hears the cottage’s toilet, which has the world’s loudest super-flush according to Daddy or he hears a bomb or a bunch of bombs. Bombs are something he has only seen and heard in Spider-Man cartoons. Whatever the noises are, they are very far away and he has no magic words that will send his ears out that far. Danny falls back to sleep even though he doesn’t want to.
Monday
The beach lot is only half full. Ellen says, “Where is everybody?”
Tom says, “I don’t know. Mondays are kind of funny days. Right, pal?”
Danny nods and clutches the magic yellow paper and doesn’t care where everybody is because maybe this means Daddy and him can spend more time out on the raft.
They get the same spot they had yesterday, next to the tree with its against-the-law sign. They dump their stuff and boldly spread it out. Beth and Ellen sit at the shore. Beth tries to eat sand and knocks her head into Ellen’s. Tom sits in the shade and reads a book. Danny takes advantage of the increased running room on the beach and turns into Speed Boy.
By lunch, the beach population thins. No more young families around. There are some really old people with tree-bark skin and a few older kids around, but they are less scary because they look like they don’t know what to do. The lake is empty of boats and Jet Skis. The ducks are still there, swimming and safe from renegade feeders.
Tom swims to the raft with Danny’s arms wrapped tight around his neck. Somewhere in the middle of the lake, Tom says, “Stop kicking me!” Danny knows not to say I was trying to help you swim. Danny climbs up the raft ladder first, runs to the middle then slips, feet shooting out from beneath him, and he falls on a mat that feels like moss. Tom yells. “Don’t run, be careful, watch what you’re doing.” Danny doesn’t hear the words, only what’s in his voice. They sit on the raft’s edge, dangling their legs and feet into the water. Daddy’s long legs go deeper.
Tom takes a breath, the one that signals the end of something, and says, “It is kind of strange that hardly anybody is here.” He pats Danny’s head, so everything is okay.
Danny nods. Commiserating, supporting, happy, and grateful to be back in Daddy’s good graces. He’s also in his head, making up a face and body for a stranger named Hardly Anybody. He can’t decide if he should make Hardly Anybody magical or not.
They wave at Mommy and Beth at the shore. Ellen’s wave is tired, like a sleeping bird. Ellen wears the same shirt and shorts over her bathing suit. Danny wonders how long it takes for his wave to make it across the water.
They leave the beach early. On the short drive back, Tom makes up a silly song that rhymes mountain peaks with butt-cheeks and it’s these Daddy-moments that make Danny love him so hard he’s afraid he’ll break something.
Back at the cottage. Beth is asleep and Ellen dumps her in the playpen. Danny sits at the kitchen table and eats grapes because he was told to. Tom goes into the living room and turns on the TV. Danny listens to the voices but doesn’t hear what they say. But he hears Tom say a bad word, real quick, like he is surprised.
“Ellen?” Tom jogs into the kitchen. “Where’s Mommy?” He doesn’t wait for Danny’s answer. Ellen comes out of the bathroom holding her mostly dry bathing suit and wearing a different set of T-shirt and shorts. Tom grabs her arm, whispers something, and then pulls her into the living room, to the TV.
“Hey, where did everybody go?” Danny says it like a joke, but there’s no punch line coming. He leaves his grapes, which he didn’t want to eat anyway, and tip-toes into the living room.
His parents are huddled close to the TV, too close. If Danny was ever that close they’d tell him to move back. They’re both on their knees, Ellen with a hand over her mouth, holding something in, or maybe keeping something out. The TV volume is low and letters and words scroll by on the top and bottom of the screen and in the middle there’s a man in a tie and he is talking. He looks serious. That’s all Danny sees before Tom sees him.
“Come with me, bud.”
Daddy picks him up and plops him down in a small sunroom at the front of the cottage.
Tom says, “Mommy and Daddy need to watch a grown-up show for a little while.”
“So I can’t see it?”
“Right.”
“How come?”
Tom is crouched low, face to face with Danny. Danny stares at the scraggly hairs of his moustache and beard. “Because I said it’s only for grown-ups.”
“Is it about feeding the ducks? Is it scary?”
Daddy doesn’t answer that. “We’ll come get you in a few minutes. Okay, bud?” He stands, walks out, and starts to close sliding glass doors.
“Wait! Let me say something to Mommy first.”
Tom gives that sigh of his, loud enough for Ellen to give him that look of hers. They always share like this. Danny stays in the sunroom, pokes his head between the glass doors. Ellen is to his left, sitting in front of the TV, same position, same hand over her mouth. “Mommy, pretend you didn’t know that I could see through these doors.”
Mommy works to put her eyes on her son. “So, you won’t be able to see anything in here when we shut the doors?”
“No, I can see through them.”
Tuesday
It’s raining. They don’t go to the beach. Danny is in the sunroom watching Beth. His parents are in the living room watching more grown-up TV. Beth pulls on Danny’s shirt and tries to walk, but she falls next to the couch and cries. Ellen comes in, picks up Beth, and sits down next to Danny.
He says, “This is boring.”
“I know, sweetie. Maybe we’ll go out soon.”
Danny looks out the front windows and watches the rain fall on the front lawn and the dirt road. Beth crawls away from Ellen and toward the glass doors. She bangs on the glass with meaty little hands.
Danny says, “Mommy, pretend you didn’t know we were in a spaceship.”
There’s a pause. Beth bangs her head on the glass. Ellen says, “So, we’re all just sitting here in a cottage room, right?”
“No. This is a spaceship with glass doors.”
Beth bangs on the glass harder and yells in rhythm.
Ellen says, “If we’re in a ship, what about Daddy?”
“We’ll come back for him later.”
“Good idea.”
Ellen and Beth stay at the cottage. Tom and Danny are in the car but they don’t listen to the radio and Daddy isn’t singing silly songs. Danny holds the magic yellow paper even though he knows they’re going to the supermarket, not the beach.
They have to travel to the center of Moultonborough. Another long and obviously magical word that he’ll say inside his head. There isn’t much traffic. The supermarket’s super-lot has more carts than cars.
Inside, the music is boring and has no words. Danny hangs off the side of their cart like a fireman. He waves and salutes to other shoppers as they wind their way around the stacks, but nobody waves back. Nobody looks at each other over their overflowing carts.
The line isn’t long, even though there are only three registers open. Tom tries to pay with a credit card. Danny is proud he knows what a credit card is.
“I’m sorry, sir, but the system is down. No credit cards. Cash or check.” The girl working the register is young, but like the older kids. She has dark circles under her eyes.
Danny points and says, “Excuse me, you should go to bed early tonight.”
Tom has a green piece of paper and is writing something down on it. He gives it to the register girl.
She says, “I’ll try,” and offers a smile. A smile that isn’t happy.
In the parking lot, Danny says, “Go fast.”
Tom says, “Hey, Danny.”
Danny’s whole body tenses up. He doesn’t know what he did wrong. “What?”
“I love you. You know that, right?”
Danny swings on those marionette arms and looks everywhere at once. “Yeah.”
Then Tom smiles and obeys and runs with the full cart. Danny melts and laughs, stretching out and throwing his head back, closing his eyes in the brightening haze. There are no other cars between the cart and their car.
Wednesday
They spend the day in the cottage. More sunroom. More grown-up TV. When Tom and Ellen finally shut off the TV they talk about going out just to go out somewhere anywhere but the TV room and sunroom and maybe find an early dinner. Danny says, “Moultonborough.” They talk about how much gas is in the car. Danny says, “Winnipesauke.” They try to use their cell phones but the little LCD screens say no service. Danny says, “Pretend you didn’t know I say magic words.” They talk about how much cash they have. Everybody in the car. Tom tells Danny it’s his job to keep Beth awake. There are no other vehicles on the dirt road and more than half of the cottages they pass are dark. Beth is falling asleep so Danny sings loud silly songs and pokes her chin and cheeks. They pass empty gravel driveways and the blue bug-zappers aren’t on. Beth cries. Danny is trying not to think about the bears in the woods. Ellen asks Danny to stop touching his sister’s face and then says it’s okay if Beth falls asleep. They don’t have to look left or right when pulling out of the dirt road. Danny still works at the keep-Beth-awake job Daddy gave him and there’s something inside him that wants to hear her cry and he touches her face again. They’re into the center of Moultonborough and there’s less traffic than there was yesterday. Beth cries and Ellen is stern but not yelling. She never yells telling Danny to stop touching Beth’s face. Maybe the bears are why there aren’t as many people around. Beth is asleep. There’s a smattering of parked cars in the downtown area but they don’t look parked; they look empty. Danny gently pats Beth’s foot and sees Daddy watching him in the rear view mirror. The antique stores, gift shops, and hamburger huts are dark and have red signs on their doors and red always means either stopped or closed or something bad. Tom yells did you hear your mother keep your hands off your sister! They pass a row of empty family restaurants. Ellen says Tom like his name is sharp like it hurts and she says I only asked him to stop touching her face I don’t want him to be freaked out by his sister he’s being nice now why are you yelling when he was just doing what you asked him to do you have to be consistent with him and she is stern and she is not yelling. They pull into a lot that has one truck another empty restaurant this one with a moose on the roof and they stop. Then Tom is loud again this time with some hard all rights and then I hear you I get it okay I heard you the first time. Tom gets out of the car and slams the door and an older man with white hair that could mean he’s magic and a white apron walks out the restaurant’s front door. Danny waves. The older man waves them inside. Ellen gets out of the car and whispers but it’s not a soft whisper not at all it’s through teeth and it has teeth she says don’t you dare yell at me in front of the kids. Beth wakes up and points and chews on her rabbit. They go inside. The older man says they are lucky he was just cooking up the last of his non-frozen food so it wouldn’t go to waste and it was on the house. Danny thinks about the moose on the house. They walk by the bar and there’s a woman sitting on a stool staring up at a big screen TV. Tom asks if they could shut that off because of the kids. The old man nods and uses a big remote control. Danny doesn’t see anything again. The old man serves some BBQ chicken and ribs and fries and then leaves them alone. The lights are on and nobody says anything important in the empty restaurant.
On the way back to the cottage they see a lonely mansion built into the side of a mountain. Looking dollhouse-sized, its white walls and red roof surrounded by the green trees standout like a star even in the twilight.
Danny says, “What is that?”
Tom says, “That’s called the Castle in the Clouds.”
“Can we go see it?”
“Maybe. Maybe we’ll even go and live there. Would you like that?”
Danny says, “Yes,” but he then he thinks the Castle is too alone, cloaked in a mountain forest, but too open, anyone can see it from this road. He doesn’t know what’s worse, being alone alone or watched alone. Danny doesn’t change his answer.
It’s past Danny’s bedtime but his parents aren’t ready to put him to bed.
Ellen is on the couch reading a magazine that has a tall, blonde, skinny woman on the cover. Tom sits in front of the TV, flipping channels. There’s nothing but static. The TV is like their cell phones now.
Tom says, “Well, at least they’ve stopped showing commercials for the War of the Worlds remake.”
Danny wants to laugh because he knows it’s what Daddy wants. But he doesn’t because Mommy isn’t. Danny has a good idea what war means even though no one has ever explained it to him. Tom shuts off the TV.
There are pictures of other people all over the cottage. Now that Danny is allowed back in the TV room, he’s looking at each one. Strangers with familiar smiles and beach poses. He looks at the frames too. They have designs and letters and words. Maybe magic words. Danny picks up one picture of a little girl and boy hugging and sitting on a big rock. He doesn’t care a
bout those kids. He wants to know what all the letters etched onto the wooden frame say. Those letters wrap all the way around the photo.
“Read this please, Daddy.”
“Children are the magic dreamers that we all once were.”
“Mommy, pretend you didn’t know I was a magic dreamer.”
“So, you dream about boring, non-magical stuff, right?”
“No. I’m a magic dreamer. Are you a magic dreamer?”
Ellen sleeps with Beth in the small bed next to the bedroom door, Danny sleeps in his Princess-and-the-Pea tall bed. Tom sleeps in the other bedroom. Alone alone.
Thursday
A perfect summer day. The corner Gas ‘N Save is open. The pumps still work. Tom fills up the car’s tank and five red two-gallon containers he took from inside the market. Danny is inside, running around the stacks. No one tells him to stop. He climbs onto an empty shelf next to some bread, though there isn’t much bread left, and he lies down, breathing heavy from all the running.
Tom makes multiple trips from the market to the car. On the last trip, he plucks Danny off the shelf. He says, “Hmm, this melon doesn’t look too ripe.” Danny giggles and squirms in Daddy’s arms. “But I’ll take it anyway.”
The older woman behind the counter is smoking a cigarette and has a face with extra skin. She looks like the girl from the supermarket but 1000 years older. Tom extends a fistful of money and asks, “Is this enough?”
She says, “Yes,” without counting it. Danny thinks she is lying and that she just wants them gone like everyone else.
Tom buckles Danny into his seat. Danny says, “What would you do if you were a giant?”
“A giant? Well, I’d use a mountain as my pillow and the trees as a mattress.”
Danny thinks about a Giant Daddy lying on a mountain, crushing all the trees and bears and other animals and the Castle in the Clouds with his back and arms, and his legs would be long enough to crush Moultonborough and the other towns too, maybe his feet would dangle into Winnipesauke and cause huge waves, drown the poor ducks, flood everything.
In the Mean Time Page 18