Ms. Bixby's Last Day

by John David Anderson

  There is a long, quiet moment, and then Brand reaches across the aisle with his fist. “I’m sorry about your sketchbook.”

  I look at Brand’s fist, hovering right in front of my face. For a moment I think Topher is going to leave him hanging. For a moment I hope he does, but then Topher rolls his eyes and finishes the bump. I have to lean back to avoid getting punched.

  “You’re a total dufkus,” Topher says. Dufkus is a Brand word. Like dork and doofus and a few other things all rolled into one. It’s not a good thing, but it’s not near as bad as being a flipwad. “And you’re so buying me a new one.”

  “It was fourteen ninety-five,” I say. I know because I’m the one who bought it for Topher’s tenth birthday. That and a set of charcoal pencils. He told me it was the coolest present he ever got and promised his first sketch would be of me. It wasn’t.

  “In that case, I regret to inform you,” Brand says, “that I just spent all my money on cheesecake.”

  “It’s all right. You can just owe me,” Topher says.

  Up ahead the bus driver finally calls out our stop. The lady with the juice-stained shirt collects her children and ushers them out the door, trailing cracker crumbs behind them. The three of us stand, Topher tucking both halves of his sketchbook in his bag, zipping it tight, me shouldering the cheesecake again, taking my place in the back of the line as I follow the path of crackers off the bus, trying hard not to think about the thing Topher told me I was thinking, about Ms. Bixby and how he didn’t feel about her. About crushes and living forever.

  Cecelia Flowers had a crush on me once. I know because she gave me a folded piece of pink construction paper with a strawberry scratch-and-sniff sticker on the front and a message inside. The message read: I lik you.

  We were five, so I didn’t hold her spelling against her. Instead I told her I liked her back, in part because her pigtails reminded me of tornadoes, but mostly because it seemed like the polite thing to do and I was taught to use good manners. We held hands during recess that afternoon, and I let her borrow my favorite Transformers Optimus Prime pencil. The next day, I tried to hold her hand again and she stuck out her tongue at me. I assumed that meant she didn’t like me anymore. I asked for my pencil back and she said she lost it.

  She was my first and only girlfriend.

  I understand Newton’s laws of motion, and HTML, and basic trigonometry, but girls are confusing. They don’t follow set patterns. They are an equation full of variables: x + y = z, where x = q and y is constantly changing and z is whispering about you behind your back. I know because sometimes I catch girls whispering about me behind my back. I know because I overhear my sister on the phone complaining about all the kids at her school, even the ones she insists are her friends. Except she doesn’t whisper, which is good, because otherwise it might be hard to hear, even with my ear pressed up against her door.

  From my experience, boys are easier to get along with. We have basic needs: potato chips, video games, and movies where national landmarks blow up. That makes us compatible. Compatible means going together without conflict. Strawberries and whipped cream are compatible. Sunshine and swimming pools are compatible. Hydrogen and oxygen. Han Solo and Chewbacca. Cereal and milk.

  My sister and I are not compatible. Only five years separate us, but she sometimes pretends it’s more like twenty. Ever since I was born, I’ve literally felt her standing over me, starting when I was first learning how to walk and she followed right behind with both hands on either side, ready to catch me. When I was growing up, she quizzed me and corrected me, told me when I was coloring outside the lines, and pointed out words I didn’t know. My parents thought it was sweet the way she hovered over me, tying my shoes, correcting my homework, saying, “No, Steven,” the same way my mother did. They thought it was her way of showing affection, but I knew it was her way of letting me know which one of us was in charge. From those first moments stumbling through the kitchen as a toddler, unsure of my footing, wobbling and having her arms wrapped around me—I’ve never questioned it.

  Dad says there are tigers and there are sheep. My sister is a tiger. I can only assume I’m a sheep. Not compatible.

  My parents aren’t either. That’s why my mother spends the weekends in her garden, weeding the flower beds, tending to the strawberry plants, or just sitting on the patio looking at the sky. My father spends that time indoors. They are like vinegar and bleach: highly toxic when combined. It doesn’t take much to trigger a reaction—an unemptied dishwasher, a random remark—and the shouting begins.

  Topher knows. He’s been over when my parents are arguing. That’s usually when we sneak out the door and bike through the neighborhood. Sometimes we go back to his house. Sometimes we walk down to the pond and try to capture tadpoles, armed with nets and empty margarine tubs. That’s where we were the day Topher swore off marriage forever.

  My parents were arguing over the credit card bill. We could hear them from my bedroom. Christina popped her head in, giving me a look that was both annoyed and concerned. “I’m going to Nat’s house to study. You dweebs want me to drop you off somewhere?”

  I shook my head, hoping to leave it at that, but Topher said, “We would, Chris, but I really doubt there’s room for three on your broomstick.” My sister drives a Subaru, actually, purchased for her sixteenth birthday. She also hates to be called Chris. She and Topher have that in common, at least.

  “You’re such a turd,” Christina said, then looked at me. “You okay?”

  I nodded again and she left, but not without trading glares with Topher again.

  “How do you stand her?” Topher asked.

  “Could be worse,” I said. “The sand tiger shark eats its own siblings while it’s still in the womb.”

  “Yeah, well, it’s a good thing you two aren’t twins,” Topher said. Then he suggested we go hunt for tadpoles.

  We grabbed our stuff, cut across several backyards, and walked down to the water’s edge, avoiding the nettles and whacking at the cattails with sticks. Topher insisted they were sprouting swamp monsters, and I went along.

  “They sure do fight a lot,” Topher said, meaning my parents, not the swamp monsters, which just stood there and let us decapitate them, like cattails would.

  “Just when they are in the same room,” I joked.

  Topher didn’t laugh. He sometimes didn’t get my humor. “People who get married are asking for it,” he said.

  It seemed like a strange comment, coming from him. In the pictures on his living room walls, Topher’s parents were always smiling. “Your parents get along,” I said.

  “Yeah, if you can somehow manage to get them together.”

  Topher’s father worked most of the day; his mother worked most evenings. One of them was almost always at home whenever I came over, but seldom both. For the most part they stayed out of Topher’s business. I envied that, though I think it bothered him.

  I followed Topher down to the stones that crossed the creek and we found the least wobbly ones to stand on. It was too early in the year to find tadpoles. The water was still too cold, and the frogs were just now laying their eggs, but I didn’t want to tell Topher that. He’d call me a know-it-all. It was better to just let him discover it himself. I stood beside him, crouching down, pretending to study the slowly rippling water.

  “If movies teach us anything, it’s that you absolutely should not get married,” Topher continued. “Take The Princess Bride, for example.”

  We had just watched the movie two nights before. For the fourth time. It was one of Topher’s favorites. He could quote most of it on cue. Whenever we had a stick-swordfight he would always start with his left hand, just so he could say he knew something I did not know, even though I knew exactly what he was going to say next. Topher poked at the water with a tree branch. “Sure Westley and Buttercup get together in the end, but they don’t get married. They just kiss. That’s it. The one time she even thought she was married, she tried to stab herself in the
heart. What’s that tell you?”

  “That there’s a shortage of perfect breasts in the world?” I ventured. I knew quoting the movie would make Topher smile, and it did.

  “What it tells you is that love is okay, but marriage sucks.”

  That’s the moral of the story, as Ms. Bixby would say. “What about the old couple? Miracle Max and the witch? They were married.”

  “Are you kidding me?” Topher said. “They hated each other. Called each other names. Chased each other around the hut. And not just them. Look at Anakin and Padmé. They got married, then he tried to choke her to death using the Force. Superman. Indiana Jones. Katniss Everdeen. All happily unmarried.”

  “Actually, Katniss gets married,” I corrected. I’d read the entire Hunger Games trilogy over Christmas break. It was good, but I couldn’t picture Christina ever taking my place in the reaping. Or maybe she would, just to show me up and score some brownie points with Mom and Dad.

  “Epilogues don’t count,” Topher said. “They’re just a way for authors to tack on a happy ending. She was probably still miserable.” Topher dropped his stick in the water, and I watched the ripples work their way back to the edge. “Nothing here.” He sighed and set his empty Blue Bonnet tub on the bank and collapsed next to it. I sat beside him. We watched the clouds for a moment; then Topher turned and put both hands on my shoulders.

  “Promise me that you will never, ever, e-ver let me get married.”

  I couldn’t tell if he was being serious or not. With Topher it was always a toss-up. “Okay,” I said. Either way, it seemed like an easy enough promise to make. We were only twelve.

  “No, man. You have to promise. No matter what I say. Promise me you won’t let it happen. In fact, promise me you will never let any girl get between us, no matter what.”

  He let go of my shoulders and put out his hand. In the past he used to spit in his palm, until I confessed to him that I thought it was a little gross, but we still shook on our promises.

  “I swear,” I said.

  And for half a second on the banks of a tadpole-less pond in early spring, Topher and I held hands.

  The bus leaves us in another cloud of swirling dust and exhaust. We turn and cough and choke and find ourselves staring through the haze at the steaming sewer grates and dirty brick faces of downtown. The streets are dotted with broken bottles and yesterday’s news crumpled and tumbling about. The mail collection box is banged up, paint peeling. I’m not about to go anywhere near it, mostly because of the dead cat thing. The walls in this part of downtown are scrawled with graffiti. I’m sure if I asked him, Topher would say that the red and white spray paint you see everywhere is actually ancient Elvish, and that the symbols point the way to some magical world, but this place looks anything but magical.

  “The hospital is that way,” Topher says, checking the map. “And the park’s just beyond it. But the place we are looking for should be just down the street.”

  The place we are looking for is called What Ales You. It’s one of fifteen liquor establishments we have to choose from; it just happens to be the one closest to this bus stop. Also it carries a wide selection of wine, at least according to its website. I’ve never been in a liquor store before. My parents don’t drink, not even sake. They probably believe alcohol should be outlawed too, along with motorcycles and Halloween. Ms. Bixby, obviously, feels differently.

  The cheesecake is pulling the straps down on my shoulders, which already feel bruised. I don’t know why Brand can’t carry it. His backpack’s not much smaller than mine and he’s the biggest of the three of us, big enough to call Trevor Cowly names to his face, at least.

  “Tell me again how three sixth graders are going to acquire a bottle of wine?” I ask, stepping around a shard of broken glass. This, after all, was the hazy part of Topher’s plan, the one he was saving for later. It’s certainly the only part we could get arrested for. As far as I know you don’t have to be over twenty-one to buy a cheesecake, but a bottle of wine is different.

  Topher shrugs. “It’s simple,” he says. “We just hang around outside the liquor store until we find someone who is willing to go in and buy it for us.”

  Brand turns and stands in front of Topher, blocking the sidewalk.

  “That’s it? That’s your elaborate master plan?”

  “What? They do it all the time in movies!” Topher protests.

  “Not in any of the movies I’ve seen,” Brand tells him.

  It’s true. I hate to side with Brand, but I don’t remember Harry Potter bribing Hagrid to buy him a beer at the Leaky Cauldron.

  “Well, what did you think we were going to do? Slip the bottle under our shirt and walk out with it? That’s illegal!”

  “So is purchasing alcohol for minors,” I point out.

  “But stealing is more illegal,” Topher counters.

  I shake my head. I’m fairly certain there aren’t levels of this sort of thing. Something is either legal or it’s not, and this is definitely not. But Topher is insistent. “It will work,” he says. “All we need is a good story.”

  “Want to know what’s not a good story?” Brand mumbles. “Three Fox Ridge sixth graders were arrested earlier today for attempting to illegally purchase a bottle of wine. Tune in at six for details.”

  Topher huffs impatiently. “Listen. Nobody said this would be easy. You knew that when you signed on. But you said yourself, if we are going to do this, we are going to do it right or not at all.” He’s looking at Brand, who nods. “Then you guys are just going to have to trust me on this one.”

  Topher smiles, and I’m sure it’s supposed to be reassuring, but I can tell he’s just as uncertain as I am.

  The sign for What Ales You hangs over the front door. There is actually a drawing of a man holding a bottle of something with Xs on the labels. He looks exceptionally happy, judging by the bubbles coming out of his mouth and ears. The walls of the building are cracked. There are bars on the windows. I feel the need to point this out. I think about the kinds of places that put bars on windows. Prisons. Insane asylums. Gun stores. I check the time on my phone. It is 11:18. If I were still in school, I would be in writer’s workshop right now, finishing my story about the astrophysicist who won the Nobel Prize and called his less-accomplished, underachieving older sister to rub it in her face. Instead I’m here.

  “Now what?” I ask.

  “Now we just find the right mark,” Topher says. I just assume mark means person who is stupid enough to buy alcohol for minors.

  We all sit there on the corner, out of sight of the barred windows so that it doesn’t look like we are loitering, and scan the scattered pockets of people crossing the streets. I point at a few passing pedestrians, but every time Topher shakes his head. Not him, he says. Nope, him either. Nobody in a suit. Not her. Nobody with kids. Nope. Too old. Too young. I point to one lady carrying several bags, moving slowly down the sidewalk. Topher looks at me funny.

  “She’s expecting a baby. Use a little common sense.”

  I glare at him. Common sense says I should be in room 213 right now, listening to Ms. Brownlee tell me about her pet dogs, rather than sitting on this curb, looking for someone willing to risk incarceration to help three kids get their hands on a bottle of booze.

  “Hold up,” Topher says. “What about that guy?”

  Hr points to a man, midthirties, though I’m not a great judge of age, wearing torn jeans and a blue T-shirt. He wears scuffed cowboy boots, which makes me nervous. I don’t really know anyone who wears cowboy boots. My father wouldn’t be caught dead in cowboy boots. Unlike the other people, who either walk in pairs or have their ears pressed to their phones, this man looks like he’s got nowhere in particular to be. I’m not sure that’s a good thing.

  “What about sparkling grape juice?” I ask. “We could pick some up at a grocery store.” But Topher dismisses me with a wave of his hand.

  “Nope. That is totally our guy,” he says. “Just let me do the talking.” W
e wait for him to get closer before Topher stands up and calls out. “Hey, mister. In the blue shirt. Over here.”

  For a moment the man in cowboy boots looks like he’s just going to keep walking, and I’m relieved, but then Topher calls out again. “Excuse me, sir. You got a second?”

  The man turns. “You talking to me?”

  I shake my head vigorously, but Topher nods and takes a step closer so that he doesn’t have to shout. Brand and I immediately flank him. Now that he’s close enough, I can see the man has a large scar on his chin running almost up to his lip. Most likely from a prison knife fight or a barroom brawl, if I had to guess.

  “Yeah. Listen,” Topher says, “this is going to sound strange, I know, but I have a favor to ask. My mother’s fortieth birthday is tomorrow, and I wanted to get her a bottle of wine. Except, as you can see, I’m not quite old enough.”

  The man has a tattoo running the length of his left arm. A green-and-gold dragon whose tail disappears into the sleeve of his shirt. I don’t know anybody with tattoos either. Even Ms. Bixby’s is make-believe.

  “Not quite,” the man repeats, fixing on Topher through squinting amber eyes. “What are you, ten?”

  “Thirteen,” Topher says, feeling the need to embelish everything. “So like I said, her birthday’s tomorrow, and we have money. We just need some assistance in the, um . . . acquisitions department.”

  The man in the blue shirt looks at each of us—I can feel his eyes on me—but I can’t bring myself to look back. “Why don’t ya ask your dad to get it for you?”

  “He’s dead,” Topher says without missing a beat. “Plane crash. Six years ago. On his way home from a dental conference in Albuquerque.”

  I can, however, look at Topher, who somehow says this all with a straight face. His father’s an accountant.

  “Albuquerque?” the man echoes, clearly not buying it.