by Paul Pen
“It was me,” Mom said.
“Fetch the first-aid kit,” he replied. Mom tried to add something, but Dad interrupted her.
“Fetch the first-aid kit, please,” he said again. “I’ll see to the boy later.”
Mom pushed me into the hall. When we passed my cactus’s carcass, I stopped. She crouched down beside me. She kept an eye on Dad on the sofa. His breathing was tense. She took the cactus by one of its spines and lifted it. In the light from the television, we both saw the extent of the damage. Both balls had burst, revealing a soft pulp under the split skin covered in spines, most of which had bent, making the cactus wound itself. A drop of slimy liquid hung from one of those wounds. It sparkled in the light before falling to the floor.
“I’m sorry,” Mom whispered. Then the spine with which she was holding the moist remains came off. The cactus hit the floor again.
Mom tried to make eye contact with me, but I shied away.
I looked at Grandma on the sofa. I remembered the words she’d said to me when the cactus appeared in the basement. While this cactus is OK, we’ll be OK. I picked up a piece of the pot and ran to my room.
“It’s starting to work,” I heard my father say.
“Nothing’s working,” Mom added.
I closed my eyes before entering the bedroom. But not because I was afraid to see my sister’s face as I had been for years, but because I didn’t want to cry again. I sat on the floor, resting my back against the door.
“What’ve they done to you now?” she asked.
I showed her the piece of plant pot I’d recovered.
“No way,” she said. “Your cactus?”
Only when I knew that I’d have the voice to speak, I said, “I can’t wait for the Cricket Man to come.”
The springs on my sister’s bed squeaked. I opened my eyes. She was lying on her side, her head supported by a hand, her elbow pressing into the mattress. She smiled.
“He’ll be here very soon,” she said. Realizing she had the mask on, she lifted it to repeat her words with her face uncovered. “Very soon.”
I went to the cabinet at the foot of my bed. I opened the drawer. The fireflies were fluttering around inside the jar. I picked up the T-shirt nest that held the shell of the egg the chick never hatched from. I put it on top of the cabinet and placed the piece of plant pot beside it.
I observed the two bits of important things in my life that had broken. Something much more important had broken inside me.
As I climbed the ladder to my bunk, I looked at my sister through the bars that acted as steps. “How do you know he’ll come?”
The muscles in her neck tightened. “I just know,” she answered.
And it was true that she knew.
The Cricket Man returned to the basement five calendar boxes later.
33
The night that the Cricket Man returned to the basement my sister woke me up by speaking in my ear.
“He’s coming,” she said. Sleepiness delayed my response. She shook the bunk bed’s frame. “The Cricket Man’s coming,” she said again.
Then I reacted. I opened my eyes, my stomach tight. I pricked my ears, gripping the pillow, and waited to hear his footsteps. Or the sack dragging along somewhere up above the ceiling. I listened.
“Are you sure? I can’t hear him.”
“Tonight’s the night you’ve been waiting for,” she said.
“But I can’t hear anything,” I insisted, the sheet up to my chin.
“You still don’t believe me?” She returned to the bottom bunk, making the springs squeak in an exaggerated way.
“Oh well, we’ll have to abort the plan, then,” she said. “Two weeks of preparation for nothing. We’ll just stay in the basement forever. Although, I’ll let the Cricket Man know you’re here. As soon as he comes.”
I was aware of the intensity in her voice. She continued to murmur things about how disappointing my attitude was until she fell silent. I took the chance to prick my ears again, hoping to hear one of the sounds that always gave away the Cricket Man’s arrival.
Nothing.
Just the cistern’s constant dripping.
Then a bang reverberated inside the room. The wall to my right shook. As did the sheet I was holding in my hands.
“The Cricket Man,” I whispered.
My sister’s face emerged over the side of my mattress.
“See?”
She freed my hands from the sheet finger by finger, tense as they were from the fright.
“You must keep calm,” she said, “otherwise you won’t be able to control yourself when he passes by you.”
She was referring to the moment when the Cricket Man would go through my parents’ wardrobe, almost brushing against me because I’d be hidden among the clothes. I imagined the articulated sound of his limbs as he moved. I thought of all of the parts of the plan I didn’t feel prepared for.
“Come on,” she said.
I began to climb down the ladder. Halfway down, I molded the pillow to imitate the shape of my body. I made the straight angle of a pair of bent legs and the curve of a back in the fetal position. When I’d finished, I jumped down from the step. I landed on bare feet. “How am I going to walk outside?” I asked.
My sister was pacing around the room.
“Normally. Like you always do.”
“All I have on is underpants.”
She sighed. Then I heard her rummaging through the shelves of the wardrobe I shared with my brother.
“I can’t see a thing,” she said into the darkness. Seconds later she knelt in front of me.
“Arms up.” A T-shirt came down over them. The garment’s neck resisted until she passed my head through the hole.
“Now your feet.” I lifted my left foot, holding on to her shoulder. It took her a while to get a slipper on.
“I never wear those,” I said.
“What does that matter now? What matters is you can walk up top.”
“Dad might suspect if he sees me wearing them.”
My sister took off the slipper. “Then you’ll have to go as you are.”
“Will I be able to walk barefoot?”
“You’ll have to.” My sister carried on pacing around the room. Murmuring. I went to the cabinet at the foot of my bed and opened the drawer. The pencils inside the jar hit against the glass. The greenish light from the fireflies began to glow.
“What do you need from that drawer?” said my sister.
The light went out. “The jar with the—”
“You don’t need anything,” she interrupted. “You can get it later when you come back. Along with the shell. And the piece of plant pot. You can take the bunk bed as well if you want. But right now you don’t need anything.”
I moved my face near the drawer. “Don’t listen to her,” I whispered to the fireflies. “I’ll come back for you. I need you to get out.” I tapped the jar a few times with my finger, some taps quicker than others. I knew they’d understood me because they didn’t answer.
“Come on,” my sister said. “It’s time.”
I heard her adjust the mask’s elastic strap to her head. I recognized the echo that the orthopedic material gave her voice when she said the next sentence. “Fetch the book.”
We’d left it to one side in one of the bottom sections of the bookshelf. I found it without difficulty even in the dark. I went up to my sister, kneeling by the door. I stepped on a piece of material.
“Are you dressed?”
“I put on a skirt.”
“Which one?”
“You’ve never seen it on me. I hadn’t put it on again until today. It’s brown.”
“And why today?”
She didn’t answer. “We have to hurry,” she said. “Before the Cricket Man comes down. There’s no going back now.”
I took a breath so deep it made me dizzy. The room danced around me.
My sister reeled off the stages of the plan, so we’d both remember it. �
�I go into the room. I pick up the baby. I scream. You run to the end of the corridor. I take the baby to the kitchen. When Dad comes out of the bedroom, you put the book in the door.” She repeated it all from memory in a constant whisper, like I did to learn the Latin names of the insects.
“After leaving the book in the door, you go to the kitchen. You say you’re going to sleep. But you hide in the wardrobe.” My sister held me by the shoulders. “Is that clear?”
I nodded. Her sweaty hand stroked my face.
“I’m going to turn on the light.” I heard her take in air before noisily breathing out through her mouth. “Let’s go. One, two, three . . .”
She hit the switch.
When the door opened it hit me so hard that it knocked me over. The book slipped from my hands. The sudden contraction of my pupils only allowed me to see the brown trail of her skirt going out of the room. Then she opened another door, the one to Grandma’s bedroom.
I searched for the book on my hands and knees. I got to it just as my Grandmother yelled something. I leapt to my feet. I had to be in position before Dad came out of his room.
I crossed the hall in the direction of the window with the bars, the one that most of the fireflies had come in through.
The baby burst into such a high-pitched wail that it forced whoever heard it to go to his aid. Grandma yelled again. My sister responded with an even louder scream. The floor began to shake. My brother had also gotten up. I positioned myself by my parents’ door, on the opposite side to where they would head when they came out. I held the book in my hands.
My sister emerged from the bedroom with the baby in her arms.
“I can’t stand it anymore!” she shouted. “I hate this baby!”
She made for the living room. When she turned on the light, I could see the brown skirt she was wearing flying behind her. The old material was torn in several places. Grandma ran behind her, barefoot. A breeze smelling of talcum powder floated to where I was. Then my brother appeared.
That was when my parents’ door opened.
I pressed my back against the wall.
First he came out. Then my mother soon after.
I heard my sister turn the faucet in the kitchen.
“I’m going to drown him!” she yelled. Her voice reached the end of the hallway clearly over the racket that broke out in the living room.
Before my parents’ metal door closed on me, I put The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by the frame. The door hit the book and bent it, but it managed to stop the latch from clicking into its slot.
Then I ran to the living room.
My father, mother, and grandmother had surrounded my sister. The constant burble of water as the sink filled blended with the baby’s high-pitched screams.
“Let me take care of this!” my father shouted.
He moved my mother aside. Grandma retreated without being told. My brother watched from a distance.
With the boy still in her arms, my sister jammed her elbows in the sink to put up more resistance. Water brimmed over. The baby’s diaper was soaking wet. Dad slipped on one of the puddles that formed. He was left sitting on the floor, gripping my sister’s skirt. He grunted and pulled on her to get up. One of the tears in the skirt opened up horizontally along her backside. Dad fell backward onto the floor again. My sister was left barelegged. I saw her underpants. The creased material disappeared between her buttocks, leaving the left one in sight.
The baby ran out of air. His crying stopped for the instant during which he hiccupped. Then the snotty screams returned with more force.
Watching the scene, I feared for the baby’s safety. I thought about revealing that it was all playacting. Confessing to Mom and Dad that my sister and I were staging a gigantic lie.
But then I looked at the kitchen door. One of the biggest lies they’d told me, when they said it’d always been open.
Dad tried to get up again. My sister kicked out to stop him. She managed to make him slip again.
I approached Mom. I tried to get her attention by touching her shoulder.
“I don’t want to see this,” I said. The sad face I was supposed to feign as part of the plan came naturally. “I’m going to my room.”
“Yes, son, you go.” She pushed me to make me leave.
“I’m going to bed,” I said again.
“I heard you,” she said. “Go on, go. I don’t know what you’re still doing here.”
“Good-bye, Mom.”
She pushed me again with her eyes fixed on the struggle.
I pulled her arm. I got her to look at me.
“Good-bye, Mom.”
Her nose whistled. I was struck by a feeling I couldn’t remember having since the first night I wanted to open the kitchen door. An unexpected feeling of loss. As if the good-bye I’d just said was final. Then I remembered that my sister had promised me that I could come back to the basement after leaving. That my family would still live here after the other people came to find us. I didn’t have to be sad. This good-bye wouldn’t be the last one.
I hugged my mother.
A scream from my sister interrupted the hug.
“I can’t hold on much longer!”
I understood the meaning of her words: I had to carry on with the plan. I separated myself from Mom, and once more I repeated what my sister and I had agreed I had to make clear. “I’m going to bed.”
Dad had managed to get up, and he was covering my sister’s body completely. I ran to my parents’ room. The book was still keeping the door ajar. Before going in, I remembered something. The firefly jar.
“Don’t take me to my room!” my sister yelled in the kitchen.
They were coming.
But I couldn’t leave the basement without my fireflies. I’d always imagined that they’d be the light that would make me visible to the world. I returned to my bedroom. I leapt to the cabinet and opened the drawer with trembling hands. I took out the jar and held it under my arm.
Positioning myself by the door, I heard Dad shouting in the living room. I had no way of knowing whether he was somewhere he could see the hall from. And I had no idea where Mom was. Or Grandma. Or my brother.
My sister screamed. “Let me go!”
A hurried series of bangs crossed the main room diagonally, from the kitchen to the place where the television was. My sister had managed to slip from Dad’s grasp. And she knew where the best place to go was. In that corner, the entrance to the hallway wasn’t visible.
It was time.
I crossed the hall.
I pushed the door that the book had kept open. I went into my parents’ room just before their voices were amplified with the characteristic echo that the hallway made.
“Leave me alone!” my sister cried.
“Be quiet,” Mom whispered. “Your brother will hear you.”
I did hear her. Not from the bunk bed like she thought, but from the other side of the door to their bedroom. My mother’s words took effect. For a short period of time, a cloud of silence muted the basement.
A loud bang up above the ceiling broke it apart.
The Cricket Man.
“He’s coming!” yelled my sister.
My mother shushed her.
I ran to the wardrobe. I wanted to hide from my parents, but, most of all, I wanted to hide from the Cricket Man. On the way there, doubt stopped me. I couldn’t remember whether my parents had left the light on or I’d just flicked the switch when I came in. I turned my head as if I could find the answer somewhere in that room. Something caught my attention on my mother’s bedside table. It was her photo on the rocks. The one that I found her looking at once in the kitchen. The one that showed her about to be soaked by a big wave. I observed that smooth, unfamiliar face as if it belonged to a stranger. But this time it sparked off a different feeling from the one I’d had the first time I saw it. I took just a second to understand why: it was a very similar face to the one I’d discovered behind my sister’s mask.
I hea
rd my bedroom door close.
My sister’s screaming was muffled. Even so, I could make out a sentence from the imaginary conversation she had with me inside the room.
“And look at you sleeping there as if nothing’s happened!” she screamed. She continued to speak, but I didn’t understand anything else. It didn’t matter. My parents would be hearing it. And that was the reason for her performance: to make them think I was in the bunk bed with her.
But in reality I was in the middle of their bedroom, unable to decide what to do with the light. I remembered one of the rules in the manual. Act quickly. I chose to turn it off. I reached the switch in one leap.
In the hallway, my mother was talking to my father about what’d happened in the kitchen.
They were about to come in.
When I tried to grab the wardrobe handles, the firefly jar slipped. It rolled toward the bedroom door, the pencils hitting the glass in a perfectly audible rhythmic sequence.
I froze. Listening to the voices in the hallway.
Another of the Cricket Man’s bangs made me react.
Barely touching the floor, I grabbed the jar by the lid and escaped into the wardrobe.
I disappeared inside.
I closed the door behind me just as my parents came into the room. They turned on the light without suspecting. I’d made the right decision.
A draft of moist air blew among the hanging clothes. I felt it on my skin. I knew then my sister hadn’t lied to me. It was much more than just a wardrobe.
Another noise up above the ceiling gave away the Cricket Man’s position.
“Something always has to happen when he’s coming,” Mom said in the bedroom.
It became clear to me at that moment. Mom knew, too, that the Cricket Man really existed. Even though she’d always denied it to me.
Then, from a place lost in the vast darkness of the wardrobe, the creaking of some unknown hinges reached me.
The ground shook with a loud bang.
A light shone in the distance. Much farther away than what should’ve been the length of the wardrobe. The light glimmered, sifted by the clothes. It had to be the oil lamp Dad had told me about.
The next thing I heard was some knees clicking.
The Cricket Man’s knees. As they bent back-to-front with each step he took toward me.