The Boy Who Couldn't Fly Straight (The Broom Closet Stories)

by Jeff Jacobson

  “Yeah, I think I could find her attractive,” he said. This made him feel happy. And a little hopeful too.

  People were outside watering their lawns and hanging flowerpots. He still wasn’t used to a neighborhood like this, with houses so close together, with sidewalks and people who greeted him as he walked by. His home back in California sat alone at the end of a lane. The nearest house was about two miles away. He loved to walk around on their acreage, or cross the state highway nearby and go up into the hills. It was seldom that he ever saw anyone else near the house, unless it was in a car, driving by.

  Here, every moment seemed to bring with it so much new information. Last night he’d learned that his aunt and uncle, his mother and he, were rich. Or had a lot of money. He didn’t even know how to think about it, other than that it was weird. He should feel relieved, right? I mean, isn’t that what everybody wanted? More money? He didn’t know what to do with the news, except add it to the growing pile of things that were now supposed to be true about him: having a family in Seattle and a mother who was a witch who had hidden him from bad people by lying about her background; going to a prep school and learning Chinese; having lots of money.

  His head spun with it all. He wanted some things to be normal. Or regular. Or even better, if everything could slow down a little bit, he’d feel like he could catch his breath. He found himself wondering what his mother was doing right now. The raspberries along the south side of the house still needed to be picked. Maybe she was making jam with them. Or maybe…but the now familiar mixture of pain and confusion pounded into his heart when he tried to picture what she was doing, making it difficult to think; he pushed the thoughts out of his mind and instead looked at his surroundings.

  To his right he saw the Olympic Mountains, far beyond the Puget Sound, snow still capping their peaks this late in the season. Did his aunt and uncle like to hike? Maybe they could all go camping up there one day and look around.

  One thing that hadn’t changed was his desire to explore his surroundings. Whenever he’d finished his chores back in Clarkston, he’d spent as much time as he could wandering the rolling hills near his house. He liked to be alone in nature. This was only his second time walking the eight or so blocks to school and back. Maybe he’d take off after class today and go around the neighborhood. Beverly had said there was a nature preserve down the street from them.

  Then a thought brought him up short:

  Was it safe to be by himself in nature?

  Was it safe to be by himself anywhere? Would something try to get him?

  An image of a four-legged creature, teeth sharp, maw wide, smelling of wood and fur, flashed through his mind.

  He shuddered as panic arose, marring his previously calm, contemplative walk to school.

  Then he remembered Beverly, looking out the window in her bathrobe, saying, “I use my muscles. They are very strong.”

  And just like that, the panic subsided a little.

  Maybe there was nothing to worry about?

  He shook his head to clear his thoughts, then glanced at his watch and saw that he only had fifteen minutes before the first bell rang. He hurried his steps and crossed Admiral Way (“At the crosswalk, please,” his aunt had said. “It’s a busy street.”) then switched over to Forty-Sixth Avenue. Soon he saw cars pulling up to the curb, dropping kids off in front of Puget Academy. Yesterday he overheard a boy in one of his classes say that he lived on a nearby island, and had to take the ferryboat every day to cross over the Puget Sound to get to PA. Charlie couldn’t imagine taking a boat to school.

  “Well, you couldn’t imagine being a rich witch living in Seattle either, and here you are doing it,” he muttered to himself.

  “Charlie!” he heard someone yell his name. He glanced up and saw Loreen, the girl from his Chinese class, waving at him. He took a deep breath, put on a smile, and headed into his second day of school.

  ––––

  As he walked home later that day, he found himself yawning, and debated whether or not he should go for a hike. His homework load had grown in two days, and he finally understood why all the teachers had talked to him about keeping his head above water. If things kept going the way they were, he’d soon be drowning in homework.

  Even though he still had trouble finding each of his classes, and he couldn’t remember all of his teachers’ names, everything had been more familiar today than yesterday. That was a relief.

  As he approached Beverly and Randall’s place, he looked up at the house. He couldn’t believe how big and beautiful it was. Two full stories, a sweeping deck at the back with a full view of the Puget Sound and the Olympic Mountains beyond, a large flower garden on the north side of the house and an even bigger one, filled with herbs and late summer vegetables, in the back. Most of the houses in the street were big, but Beverly and Randall’s house seemed to be almost twice the size of its neighbors. True, no one had four acres out here, like they’d had in Clarkston, but the lots seemed pretty spacious for the suburbs.

  He walked up to the front porch and unlocked the door with his own key.

  “Hi Charlie,” his aunt called from somewhere in the house. “Hey, look, I’m glad you’re home. I was just about to write you a note. I have to go to a meeting. Help yourself to snacks in the fridge, okay?” She rounded the doorway from the kitchen, slipping her purse over her shoulder. She was dressed in cream-colored pants and matching jacket.

  “I’m running a little late. You okay to be here by yourself?”

  “Oh sure. Yeah.”

  “Great. I thought I’d take you out to dinner tonight if you’d like. There’s a new Japanese restaurant in the Junction that I’ve wanted to try. How would that be?” she said as she grabbed her keys from the small table in the foyer.

  “Fine. Yeah.” He’d never had Japanese food before, nor did he know what the Junction was. “Um, I thought I’d go explore that nature preserve you told me about and maybe take Amos with me. Is that cool?”

  “What? Oh sure. He’d love it. His leash is in the coat closet. Just walk to Admiral, take a right and follow it down about four or five blocks. It’s called Carson Park, and it’s on the left-hand side of the road.”

  She opened the front door, and then looked over her shoulder. “I should be back around six thirty or seven, okay? Eat anything you want, but don’t spoil your appetite for dinner tonight, all right? See ya!” And with that, she smiled and closed the door.

  He stood in the foyer, listening as the engine of her Volvo started up. He heard her back down the driveway.

  And then there was silence. It was the first time he’d been in the house alone. He was surprised how quiet it was. And how relieved he felt. As much as he liked his aunt and uncle, he wasn’t used to talking to people so much. The quiet felt thick, like sunlight, like sinking in to bed after a full day of picking fruit in the orchards. He set his backpack down on the floor and stood there, letting the light from the window above the door warm the top of his head.

  Thinking about picking fruit made him think about his mother. Thinking about his mother reminded him that he had a new cell phone. He pulled it out of his backpack and looked at it.

  Maybe I should call her. See how she’s doing. See if she’s okay.

  Was she safe back home by herself? If she’d let her witchcraft weaken over the years, how could she protect herself if something happened?

  The more he thought about it, the less scared and the more frustrated he grew.

  “She left me,” he said out loud. “She should call to see how I am!”

  He put his phone back in his backpack, trying to convince himself that he was doing the right thing.

  Fifteen minutes later, after dropping his stuff off in his room and changing out of his school uniform, Charlie ate some chicken and an apple, then grabbed his house keys. He opened the coat closet and removed Amos’s leash. Before he could call out, he heard the click click click of the dog’s nails as he ran along the wooden floor from
the dining room to the front door. Charlie smiled It looked like he wasn’t the only one who wanted to get out and explore today.

  ––––

  Carson Park was less of a big square lawn, like the one in the center of Clarkston, and more a series of small hiking trails that ran from the entrance at Admiral Way into a very dense canopy of trees. Charlie saw that there were a few cars parked along the street near the main gate as he and Amos walked in, but there weren’t many people actually hiking today.

  ‘Maybe Fridays are quieter around here,’ he wondered.

  The landscape was completely different from anything he was used to in California. In Clarkston at this time of year, everything was brown and dried. There were large oak trees, fields of grass baked hard from the relentless summer sun, and the dusty smells of sage and pine.

  Here, everything was green. Even this late in summer. There were huge leafy ferns bordering the sides of the road. He couldn’t identify most of the trees. Many of them were covered in moss.

  At times Amos pulled on the end of his leash, rushing ahead and whining as if he wanted to race up and down the trails. At other times the big dog would stop short to smell bushes and ferns along the side of the dirt trail. Charlie realized that if he didn’t keep them moving at a steady pace, they’d never get anywhere.

  Lost in the green wonder of it all, with no real thought in his head, Charlie was surprised as the narrow path, lined with thick berry bushes and fuzzy ground cover, curved to the right and opened up into a wide paved road. The air cooled noticeably, and he could smell salt water nearby.

  Suddenly, the hairs on the back of his neck stood up. He stopped. Amos ceased yanking on his leash and sat still near Charlie’s feet, a low rumble coming from his belly.

  Up ahead, a bend in the road ran off to the left. A large dog came into view from around the bend. Its teeth were bared. It was growling.

  Charlie stopped breathing. Fear chilled him as it flew like an ice storm up his legs and into his chest.

  The dog’s fur was pale, almost white, and it looked out of place as it walked straight at them, head down, tail held high.

  Amos’s growl grew louder. He rose up from his sitting position and stood on all fours, then stepped in front of Charlie.

  Charlie didn’t know what to do. The dog looked like it might attack them. He tried to remember what you were supposed to do in the event of an animal attack, but his mind was blank.

  A rustling sound in the bushes to his left caught his attention.

  Out of nowhere, an elderly woman, dressed in shorts and a polar fleece vest, and carrying a large walking stick, stepped out onto the path just in front of Charlie and Amos.

  “Hello there, young man,” she said to him, before turning to face the dog.

  “No! Be careful. There’s…” Charlie tried to warn her.

  But the woman paid him no heed. Instead she took a few steps forward and banged the butt of her walking stick on the paved road three times.

  “Shoo! Go on! We don’t want your kind here,” she hissed.

  The approaching dog stopped about twenty feet from them. It continued growling, but moved no closer.

  The woman took several more steps forward. She was now less than ten feet from the dog.

  “Go on! Leave! Now!” She raised the stick above her head.

  The dog made a short yelping noise, turned on its heels and ran, tail tucked between its legs, until it disappeared around the bend in the road. Charlie caught the faint whiff of something wet and woodsy, as if it had been raining in the forest.

  The woman turned back to him.

  “Th-th-thank you,” Charlie stammered.

  “My pleasure, young man. My pleasure,” she said as she walked back toward him, her voice warm and calm, as if she had just shooed a deer from her strawberry patch. “We should all be able to roam freely in these woods without that riff-raff trying to ruin a perfectly good day.”

  She was much older than Charlie had thought. Wrinkles covered her entire brown face, pulling at her mouth and gathering near the corners of her eyes, where she was smiling.

  “Okay, time to be off. Enjoy yourself in these woods today. You’ll have no more trouble,” she said, then pushed passed him and walked back through the thick foliage. He watched until he could see her no more. It was as if the berry bushes on either side of the path swallowed her up.

  ––––

  That night in bed, his stomach full of interesting and weird food with names like uni and nori and sunomono, Charlie thought about the dog in the woods. It had seemed very angry, like it was going to attack. He thought about the German shepherd again in his kitchen, with the same mean muzzle. Was that dog in the woods today one of the bad guys?

  He felt stupid calling the dog a “bad guy,” but he didn’t have any other words for it. He had tried to ask Beverly and Randall more about who these “bad guys” were, but his aunt had told him that more would be explained later. He had wanted to insist, to glean as much information as he could, but her tone of voice told him that he would get no more from her on the subject.

  If it had been one of those bad guys, then why had it come after him?

  Who was that old woman who had come out of nowhere and scared the dog away? Was she a witch?

  Why hadn’t he told Beverly about the dog? Probably because he figured she wouldn’t tell him anything about it anyway. Was that the only reason? He wasn’t sure.

  He fell asleep and didn’t stir until the sun shining in his face woke him up the next morning.

  Since it was a Saturday, and he didn’t have to go to school, his aunt Beverly took him shopping downtown for more clothes. He found himself less and less shy around her. She had a relaxed attitude about most things, and unlike his mother, or any other grownup he had ever known, talked to to him like he was a person who had opinions about things. Like he was an adult.

  She asked him what kind of clothes he liked. He wasn’t really sure. She took him to several different stores, giving him her opinion now and then, and also asking the salespeople what they thought.

  “You know, you’re very handsome, Charlie,” his aunt said to him once as he walked out of one of the many dressing rooms of the day, this time with a new dress shirt on. “That shirt shows off your hazel eyes nicely. And I think the salesgirl would agree with me,” she added, nodding out to the floor where the girl had gone to see if they had pants in Charlie’s size.

  It was the last thing he’d expected her to say. He felt his cheeks burning, and tried to stammer out an answer. “Oh, um, I don’t really, uh, think that…”

  “Oh Charlie, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to embarrass you. Look at me, just blabbing my big mouth off.”

  “Oh, it’s okay, really.” He tried to smile at her, but only succeeded in ducking his head to his chest, then walking back into the dressing room.

  After that, they didn’t talk much. Charlie was pretty sure his aunt had said that to try and boost his confidence. It seemed like everyone was always trying to boost his confidence. He didn’t like it. It felt like too much pressure, like he was supposed to act a certain way, different from how he was.

  And the comment about the salesgirl made him nervous. Did she really think he was cute? Should he have done something about it? Nothing like that had ever happened to him before. Did you just go up and give someone your phone number? Now that he had his own phone, maybe he should. Or could. Or would?

  “Hi, here’s my phone number. What’s yours?” he tried to imagine himself saying. But he couldn’t. It just seemed too embarrassing.

  Chapter 20

  “Charlie,” Beverly said after they’d finished carrying the last of the shopping bags into the dining room area and setting them down. Armed with a pair of scissors each, they had set themselves the task of cutting off tags and removing stickers from all of his new clothes. Charlie tried not to look at the prices. He could just imagine his mother saying, “You spent how much on a winter coat? That’ll barely
last you the season. And then what are you going to wear next year?”

  Charlie had been excited about all of the new clothes they’d bought. But thinking of his mother’s reactions to the purchases dampened his enthusiasm. Maybe they had spent too much money. Maybe he should have insisted that two pairs of pants were enough, not the six pairs that Beverly ended up buying him.

  ‘Maybe I should call her,’ he found himself wondering again.

  ‘But I don’t really want to.’

  Lost in his own thoughts, he was surprised to hear what his aunt said next. Had she been listening to his thoughts? Could witches do that?

  “Your mother left something else for you. It’s a small lunchbox that she used to carry around with her everywhere, even after she left middle school. We all thought she had outgrown the thing and should let it retire, but she wouldn’t part with it. She told me that she brought it with her to California.” His aunt stood up and walked out of the dining room. He could hear her footsteps echo down the small hallway past the kitchen. A door opened, most likely to one of the closets off the kitchen pantry.

  Why would his mother want to give him a lunchbox? Was there something witch-related in it?

  Beverly walked back into the dining room and sat down next to him. She placed the lunchbox on the table. “She asked me to give this to you after you settled in. I have no idea what’s inside. She said it might help you understand her a little bit more.”

  He looked at the lunchbox. It was, or at least had been, pink. The paint had faded and chipped in places, revealing the metal-plated finish beneath. The word “Celeste” was stenciled at the top in deluxe cursive font. Beneath the letters stood a bright-cheeked doll in a frilly dress.

  It reminded him of the lunchboxes kids used to carry to school when he was little, covered with pictures of superheroes, football players, angels. Inside would be thermoses of juice, egg salad or bologna sandwiches wrapped in plastic pouches, store-bought granola bars or chocolate kisses. He had always wanted one, but his mom made him carry everything in the canvas backpack she had made for him. “It’s much sturdier than one of those cheap boxes, Charlie. You’d just break one of them, and then we’d have to buy another one.”