The Storyteller

by Aaron Starmer

  THE CANDY CANE GIRL

  Some people can’t have babies. It’s sad but it’s true. Their bodies aren’t built for it. Some of those people also can’t adopt babies. Just as sad, maybe sadder, and just as true. Their lifestyles aren’t built for it. But most people want families. Most people need families.

  Everyone can have candy canes. If they want them, at least. Even diabetics, because there’s insulin for that, right? Around Christmastime, there are candy canes everywhere, available for free. In glass jars at banks, hanging from pine branches, tossed by Santa from fire trucks. If you took every single candy cane you saw, you’d have about a hundred pounds of them in a few days.

  You wouldn’t take every single one you saw though, would you? That’s because you aren’t Hazel and Howard Clumpet. The Clumpets liked candy canes. A lot. Every December they filled their bathtub with them. And while they did eat a fair amount of their loot, they always had more than they needed.

  Maybe that was the problem. They weren’t healthy people, the Clumpets, and it’s a good bet that a diet consisting mainly of peppermint and sugar isn’t the best for making babies. In any case, they couldn’t have babies, and the adoption agencies rejected the Clumpets as soon as they visited their home and found the furniture buried in candy wrappers.

  “We’ll always have each other,” Hazel told Howard after they were rejected by every adoption agency they could find.

  “Each other isn’t good enough, is it?” Howard exclaimed. “This family won’t be complete without a daughter! Don’t you understand that?”

  Hazel did understand that. The man told her that every stinking day. “Well, why don’t you build us a daughter out of candy canes, then?” she hollered at him.

  “Maybe I will!” he hollered back.

  Howard rarely made threats—mostly because he was too lazy to make good on them—but when he did make threats, they were rarely idle ones. As ludicrous as it seemed, he became determined to build a girl out of candy canes.

  Do we need to mention again that Howard was lazy? Because that’s important. Lazy guys aren’t the best builders. When they sit next to a bathtub full of candy canes, licking them until they’re sticky and then sticking them together until they form arms, legs, hair, spleens, and all that other body stuff, they do it lazily. And they end up with dripping, deformed things, staining the white bathroom tiles candy cane–red.

  “She’s hideous,” Hazel cried when she saw what Howard had made.

  “Her name is … Candy,” Howard said. “I love her. And you will too. Because she is our daughter.”

  “I won’t love anything that can’t say it loves me back.”

  “Fine,” Howard said. “Then I’ll teach Candy to talk.”

  Rather than instruct the misshapen sugar girl himself, he propped Candy up on the sofa and made her watch sitcoms with him. He’d laugh at all the bad jokes and slap her on the back, saying, “Well, that was a humdinger, wasn’t it? Learning to talk yet, my love?”

  Candy wouldn’t respond. She wouldn’t even move. She sat. And dripped.

  “Eat her already,” Hazel said after a few weeks.

  “You’re a monster,” Howard said. “How could you say that?”

  “Oh, come on,” Hazel said. “Like you haven’t thought of it.”

  Actually, he had. Every night, sitting there, smelling the peppermint, Howard was tempted. When Hazel wasn’t looking, he even nibbled.

  A wee bit off the toe, that’s all I need.

  How about a little hair? We’ll consider it a haircut.

  She won’t miss an earlobe. Who misses an earlobe?

  Soon it became obvious what he was doing. Chunks were missing all over Candy’s body. He tried to hide them by covering her in a quilt, but Hazel became wise to his tricks.

  “The jig is up!” she howled. “Let’s eat her and be done with it. She’s a pile of candy canes, for crying out loud!”

  With a sigh, Howard agreed. And they both strapped on some bibs, because they were slobs, but not total slobs.

  For a few hours, they chomped away on Candy. Her hands, her feet, her striped kneecaps. “Scrumptious,” Hazel moaned when they had eaten as far as her head. But just as they were about to eat her face, a sound snuck out from the thin striped lips.

  “Gur Ferm Griggid.”

  “Amazing,” Howard gasped. “She said I love you.”

  “She didn’t say nothing,” Hazel said as she licked sugar from her fingers.

  “Gur Ferm Griggid,” Candy said again.

  “That does it!” Howard stood up. “We’re getting more candy canes and making her whole again.”

  “Gur Ferm Griggid, Gur Ferm Griggid,” Candy said.

  “Sounds more like I am delicious!” Hazel said, puckering her lips. “Let’s finish her off.”

  “No!” Howard shouted. “I am her father and I want her to grow old and wise, just as I have.”

  “Ha!” Hazel shouted. “Wise? That’s rich.”

  The two shouted at each other for hours, while Candy kept saying “Gur Ferm Griggid” over and over again until the saliva from her lips melted her face and the liquid soaked into the sofa.

  SATURDAY, 11/25/1989 … CONTINUED

  AFTERNOON

  Another story without much of an ending. Sorry.

  Double sorry, actually, because I guess I didn’t tell you how this morning ended either, did I? How the rest of the day went? I’m a total jerk like that. Well, let’s just say when your brother has been mute for what seems like forever (five days) and then finally speaks, it’s monumental, right?

  Yes and no.

  So I brought up the candy cane story and, more importantly, the glowing wombat story and Alistair started talking and Mom immediately hugged him like he’d graduated high school or something and Dad put up a hand, a sort of slow down, give him a moment.

  “I need to talk to Keri,” Alistair told them. “Alone.”

  It’s strange. Twelve-year-old boys don’t usually get everything they ask for, at least not in this house, at least not until today. But even though Mom started to say, “Wait, but we—” Dad cut her off with a hand on her shoulder and a whisper in her ear and before I knew it, they were in the dining room and I was sitting alone with my brother in the kitchen.

  “How do you know about the wombat?” he asked me.

  “You wanna know about … wombats?”

  “Yes. I do.”

  “Umm … They’re marsupials and they live in Australia and—”

  “Your wombat. You said his fur glows. Is that right?”

  “Her fur. And yeah. It’s kind of her thing.”

  “Who told you about the fur?”

  “Who told me?” I said as I noticed Mom’s head peeking around the door frame and Dad coaxing her back into the dining room. “No one told me.”

  Alistair scooted his chair closer and leaned in so he could whisper, “If someone didn’t tell you, then you came up with it yourself, and if you came up with it yourself then that really means something, doesn’t it?”

  I almost said Well, it means that girls can be creative too, you male chauvinist pig, but I wasn’t sure the time was right for being a wiseass, so I said, “I don’t know what it means. I don’t know what any of this means.”

  Alistair nodded sympathetically. Then he pulled a small padded envelope out of his pocket. It was addressed to someone named Jenny Colvin. I didn’t recognize the name of the street or town, but it was someplace in Australia. As in the country. Of Australia!

  “It’s stamped and ready to go,” Alistair said as he handed me the envelope. “I need you to slip it into the mail. Too many people are watching me. I’d rather you handle it.”

  “Your handwriting is out of practice,” I said, because it looked like it had been addressed by a six-year-old.

  “I wrote it with my left hand,” he said. “Didn’t want Mom to spot it if she was at work sorting mail.”

  “Smart,” I said, but I didn’t know if it was
smart at all. Like this entire conversation, it was mainly weird. “So who’s Jenny Colvin? Your girlfriend? Who conveniently lives halfway around the world?”

  I regretted the girlfriend crack instantly. I was pretty sure Fiona was Alistair’s girlfriend. With her gone, and with his best friend gone, it was beyond cruel to joke like that.

  If it bothered him, he didn’t show it. “I don’t know who Jenny is,” he said. “Not really. Only that she’s very smart and very capable. A few other bits and pieces too. Her address and a phone number. Oh yeah, that’s the other thing. I’ve been making some long-distance calls. Talking to operators in Australia to find out that information. I don’t like lying, so when Mom and Dad get the bill, do you mind saying it was you who made the calls? They’ve got so many other things on their minds that they probably won’t bug you too much about it.”

  This was probably true, though these days I could use a little bugging. Still, who am I to complain? It was a fib, at best. A white lie, which are the good ones. And while I don’t really like lying either, I agreed. Because that’s what you do when your brother needs you.

  “Okay,” I said. “So who was I supposed to be calling?”

  “Same person. Jenny Colvin. You can say she’s your new pen pal. Or whatever seems to make the most sense. You’re creative. You’ll think on your feet.”

  Loyalty combined with flattery will rope me into just about anything, and he must have known that. “What’s in the envelope?” I asked.

  “A tape,” he said. “A message for her. If I call her, she can hang up. But if she has this tape, she’ll be tempted to listen.”

  “Will she try to get back in touch?” I asked.

  “I hope so,” he said. “If she calls, I might want you to talk to her for me.”

  “Why?”

  “Because she’ll be afraid of me.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I’m someone she should maybe be afraid of.”

  I shook my head. The weirdness was too much. I had to ask. “What in the hell happened to you, li’l bro?”

  “I’ve grown,” he said.

  Tilting my gaze, I looked him over from head to toe. “What are you, five foot five, five foot six now?”

  He tapped a finger on his head. “Up here. Up here it goes on forever.”

  NIGHT

  The dam released and he’s been speaking all day. He hasn’t said anything about Fiona, Charlie, or Kyle, or anything else about the wombat or Jenny Colvin. He’s acted relatively normal. “Pass the ketchup” and that sort of thing. I don’t know what it was about our strange chat, but it set him at ease. Or at least made him more approachable. Dad can sense this, obviously. It’s his job to sense. A few minutes ago, we were all watching some stupid show and Alistair was laughing at something and Dad picked up the clicker and turned off the TV and said, “Now it’s our turn.”

  That was his way of saying, Good night, Keri. Skedaddle.

  SUNDAY, 11/26/1989

  MORNING

  They left early, before the sun was even up. Mom, Dad, and Alistair—back to the police station. Presumably because Alistair is ready to talk. About wombats?

  I’m home alone, which isn’t unheard of (I’m fourteen, you know), but considering that there’s still a crazy person out there stealing kids and shooting people in the stomach, I’m surprised they think this is a good idea.

  Unless they think Alistair is that crazy person. Which from what he was telling me, maybe …

  God. This is so messed up.

  I’m not really alone, for the record. Mandy is here. If that counts. She came over as soon as the others left, and I guess that was enough for my parents. She’s in the bathroom, which means she’ll be a while. She treats bathrooms like crime scenes. She doesn’t come out until there is absolutely no evidence that she’s been in there.

  When she got here, she hugged me right off the bat and said, “I love you.”

  Girls say stuff like that to each other all the time, but Mandy rarely says it to me. So it means something. That she loves me, I guess. I hope.

  I love Mandy too. I do. How could I not? We’ve been friends forever, and do you know what love is? It’s when you try to picture your life without someone and you can’t.

  I love Mom. Dad. Alistair. Mandy. They all frustrate me, but life without any of them would be impossible. I have to remember that when I think about the Dwyers and the Loomises. Their families are facing lives without the ones they love. Apparently, Kyle is stable and the coma he’s in is actually caused by doctors, who did it to keep him alive. They’ll probably be able to wake him up when they’re ready.

  But Charlie? Fiona? Still not a word about them.

  Or maybe a lot of words, pouring from Alistair’s mouth into the tape recorders at the police station.

  Worst-case scenario:

  “Where are they, son?” says the cop.

  “Buried by Frog Rock,” says Alistair.

  “Why’d you do it?” says the cop.

  “Because a wombat named Jenny Colvin told me to,” says Alistair.

  Best-case scenario:

  “Where are they, son?” says the cop.

  “Wombats,” says Alistair.

  “What in the Sam Hill are you talking about, son?” says the cop.

  “Wombats,” says Alistair. “It’s a resort in Australia run by Jenny Colvin. They’ve got phosphorescent stuff in the water there. Very romantic. Those two fell in love and ran off. First Fiona left, and then Charlie. So people didn’t suspect it. Don’t worry. They’re fine.”

  Yes, yes, yes, I know. I’m making jokes when I shouldn’t, but what the hell am I supposed to do?

  Actually, here’s what I’m going to do: when Mandy comes out of the bathroom, I’m going to tell her that I love her, because I do, and I don’t tell her enough. Things have changed. They’re changing by the second. I have to hold on to everything I have.

  MONDAY, 11/27/1989

  AFTERNOON

  Mandy’s mom came over last night and cooked tacos for us and waited for my family to get home. It was about nine o’clock when they finally did, and Alistair went straight to his room and Mom and Dad stood in the hall with Mandy’s mom whispering. Mandy’s mom gasped and put a hand over her mouth. Then she hugged my mom, but it was an awkward hug because they aren’t really friends.

  My parents told me they had to sleep on some things and would explain stuff in the morning. Fantabulous, Ma and Pa! Like that’s the sort of thing that will help me calm down and get a solid eight hours.

  Seriously, though. I guess I understand. They were gone the whole day. A lot to absorb.

  I probably slept two hours of the eight I was in bed and then dragged myself downstairs for breakfast. Everyone else was up all night too. Floorboards were creaking at all hours and every eye was glassed over as Mom poured the OJ.

  “Dad will be driving Alistair back to the police station this morning, and I’m going to walk you to school.”

  “What?” I said. “Why?”

  “Because we need to talk through what is going to happen and we don’t need everyone chiming in.”

  I turned to Alistair. He didn’t look sad or happy or scared or relaxed. He was eating an orange, and his eyes were glued to the sink where Dad was washing last night’s dishes.

  “But I want Alistair to chime in,” I said.

  Alistair turned to me and said, “Mom will get you up to date. It’s better that way.”

  They were simple words, but he said them in a way that made it seem like I was his little sister instead of his big one. They were comforting and yet made me feel small at the same time. Whatever they were, they managed to shut me up.

  Minutes later, Dad and Alistair were out the door, side by side, wearing matching knit caps that Nana got them last Christmas.

  A few minutes after that, it was Mom and me walking outside. She didn’t really say anything until we were crossing the driveway. It was as if she was scared the house was bugged and w
e could only talk in the open air.

  She took a breath and said, “Your brother shot Kyle.”

  I kept walking because I expected her to say more. But she didn’t. I could hear her breaths, like a phone’s busy signal but in her chest.

  “So what’s going to happen to Alistair?” I asked.

  “Ms. Kern is his lawyer for now, but we might have to hire someone who’s more experienced in these situations.”

  “What type of situation is it?” On the inside, I was cursing myself for joking about this in my diary yesterday. On the outside, I was shaking. I put my hands in my pockets.

  “It was an accident,” Mom said. “He and Charlie had been playing with the gun in that old clubhouse of Kyle’s. Kyle tried to wrestle it away from them and it went off. Alistair ran home to call 911, and Charlie must have run off somewhere.”

  “Whose gun was it?” I asked.

  “Ummm…” Mom put a hand on my shoulder. “It was Alistair’s. With the whole Fiona thing, he was worried. He wanted to protect himself.”

  “How the hell did Alistair get a gun?” Mom hardly blinked when I said hell. What does a swear matter when your twelve-year-old son packs a pistol?

  “That’s the next step,” she said. “Figuring out who’s really responsible here. The person who gave Alistair this gun. He won’t say. He’s made up some story that’s too strange to believe. He’s probably scared to tell the truth, but it’s important that we find out. It might be the key to finding Charlie. So that’s what he and Dad are doing right now. Talking to the police about it.”

  I figured it had to be Kyle’s gun. Kyle was the type of guy to have a gun, the type to spin it around on a finger and wink at you and say, “Let’s get dangerous, toots.”

  Okay. That’s a weird thing to write. Do guys really call girls toots? Probably not, but the fact remains that if any guy around here would have a gun, then that guy would be Kyle Dwyer. But why would Alistair be afraid of admitting that? Kyle isn’t in the position to be doing much of anything to anyone.