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

by Jeff Jacobson

  ‘Yeah, well look how long yours lasted,’ he thought to himself.

  “Your mother was nuts about that doll Celeste when she was a little girl. She had the doll itself, plus her clothes, two dollhouses, the works,” Beverly said, shaking her head. “Somewhere along the way she stopped playing with all that stuff, but for some reason she never let the lunchbox go.”

  Charlie nodded. He reached down and pressed the metal button near the worn plastic handle. The lid popped up an inch or two, releasing the smell of stale grape candy and pencil shavings.

  Where had his mother kept this lunchbox? He knew every inch of their house in Clarkston, every nook and cranny. Or thought he did. But then he reminded himself how much she had kept hidden from him.

  ‘Whatever,’ he said in his mind, trying on an attitude of nonchalance. It didn’t seem to fit him as well as the shirts and pants, the jackets and the shoes that he had tried on earlier that day.

  Beverly leaned over the box with Charlie. “Oh my God, I forgot about all that stuff!” she exclaimed.

  Inside were pastel-colored gel pens, bright fruit-shaped erasers, a few pencil stubs, and a tattered notebook. There were two photographs. One of them was obviously a school photo of his mother, maybe from high-school. The second, curled from age, showed two young girls standing on a rocky beach, blue water shining in the background. They stood arm in arm, smiling at the camera, though the sunshine in their eyes forced them to squint. Both of them were wearing bathing suits.

  “Who’s that?” Charlie asked.

  Beverly picked up the photo and laughed. “Look at them! Oh, they’re so little. That’s your mother, Charlie, on the right. She’s probably about eight years old there. With her best friend Jeanine. Jeanine Petrovich. That must have been on one of the camping trips Jeanine’s kooky mom Sue took the girls on. Sue was a single mom, and used to have gatherings at her house where she tried to get her friends to buy vitamins, or candles and whatnot. My parents didn’t like her. They tried to keep Lizzy from spending too much time there.”

  Beverly sighed, then shook her head. “You know, I think Lizzy liked going over to Jeanine’s house because she felt normal there. Not just because Sue and Jeanine weren’t witches. As much as my parents used to badmouth Sue, I’m sure she was very welcoming to Lizzy. To all her daughter’s friends. Our house…well, it was a cold place. My mother was a nice woman, but things could get pretty tense, as your mom and I told you the other day. Dad, when he wasn’t busy running meetings and stirring up trouble, was a stern father. He drove us pretty hard. I think Lizzy probably felt loved at the Petrovich’s, in a way she never could at home.”

  Sadness spread over Beverly’s face, replacing the delight that had been there moments before upon discovering the contents of the lunchbox.

  Charlie looked down at the two girls in the photograph. He tried to find his mother in the image of the young girl, but couldn’t. She was skinny and had shoulder-length red hair, but that was where the similarities stopped. There was a squirrelly joy exuding from the girl, a goofy confidence in the way she stood. It was hard to imagine that his mother was ever this age, let alone someone who stood on a beach with her hip jutting out, arm around the waist of her best friend, who had dark brown hair, was soft where his mother was bony, with a round belly protruding above her bathing suit bottom. It was hard to imagine his mother having a best friend.

  A bright color from inside the box caught Charlie’s attention. There was a yellow sticky note on top of the notebook. It must have been hidden by the photographs.

  Charlie, the note began. He felt his stomach flip. Not another note from his mother. He dreaded what else she might have to say.

  Charlie, read this notebook. I’ve marked which pages. It might help explain some things better. Love, Mom.

  He looked up and saw Beverly watching him. For a moment, neither of them spoke.

  Even though he knew he would read the notebook, and would talk about it with Beverly and Randall, for a moment he thought about closing the lunchbox and handing it over to his aunt, saying, “No thanks. No more curve balls. Mom’s done enough already. I don’t want any more of this.”

  “Well,” Beverly said, her smile reminding him of his dentist’s smile, the one she gave him before injecting him with novocaine. “Looks like you have some reading to do.”

  Chapter 21

  Nov 1, 1995: Well, they’re here again. Dad’s got ‘em all downstairs. Still not sure what they’re doing, but I gotta find out.

  Nov 3, 1995: Mom’s so lame. Left her grimoire out again. Maybe she’s doing it on purpose, knowing that her sneaky daughter will look at it. Probably feels bad I’m not getting the “education” Bev got. But I bet there’s something in there that will help.

  Nov 3 (later): It worked! It said I had to use an seriema feather. Who ever heard of that? So I just used one I found down on Alki

  ‘Alki?’ Charlie wondered. It was strange to read the word, knowing that it was a real place, just a few minutes’ drive from Beverly and Randall’s place. A place that his mother had been to before.

  He looked out the window of his bedroom for a moment, wondering if his mother used to sit here, on this window seat, watching her neighbors come and go. Maybe she even wrote in her diary on this seat.

  He had looked at several of the pages in the notebook before the spot that his mother had marked with the sticky note that read “Begin here.” It was mainly just a bunch of stuff about school, about hanging out with Jeanine Petrovich, or about how Beverly was bossy, her mother was stupid, and her dad was mean.

  Charlie took a deep breath and continued reading.

  So I just used one I found down on Alki Beach. It’s not from a seagull, though I have no idea what it is. It’s white. That must have counted for something. Anyways, I couldn’t figure out half the spell, but I just kept saying it until the Words came out, and used the feather over the water in the scrying bowl. I wasn’t sure if it worked until I walked downstairs and not even Maggie could tell I was there.

  God, this is a long entry! Anyways,

  ‘It should be ‘anyway,’ not ‘anyways.’ Wasn’t she always correcting him when he said it wrong?’

  I went downstairs, where Dad was talking with Mr. Corcoran, Ms. Kahn, and Sir John (I HATE that guy!). I didn’t go in Dad’s office, but I could hear them inside. He usually closes the door, but this time, I was lucky.

  They were all, Demetrius, how do you know it’ll work and how can you trust her? And you know Dad. He was all Of course it’ll work, don’t worry about it. Such the salesman.

  He kept saying Matt buddy (and I couldn’t believe Mr. Corcoran was in on it), it’ll be fine, have I ever steered you wrong? And Mr. Corcoran wouldn’t answer. Sir Creepy John with that nasty pervert voice kept laughing and saying they were all going to get screwed.

  You know how Ms. Kahn gets. Demetrius, what are the hard facts? Where’s the data? And Dad kept on going Phoebe, Phoebe, what facts? What hard data? She’s a pioneer. She’s out there doing what no one else has had the guts to do. The data will come later when people like you watch it and can run studies.

  This was his mother talking? It didn’t sound like her. The person who wrote in this notebook sounded like a snotty teenager who…but wait. That’s right. She is a teenager. Or, was a teenager, when she wrote this stuff. Charlie was finding it difficult to reconcile the words in the diary with the stern, quiet person he knew his mother to be. What had made her change? And just what, exactly, had been going on down in the basement?

  So they keep on going, blah blah blah. I don’t know what they’re talking about, but I know who. It’s Grace. They’re all so spellbound by her. Well, not literally. But everyone thinks she’s so great. I don’t like her. There’s something wrong with her. Bev said I was just jealous because she’s so pretty. I told her to eff off (though I didn’t just say “eff” ha ha ha) but maybe Bev is right. Or a little. You should see Grace. It’s ridiculous. Like something right out of Vogue.
And she’s so nice to everybody and stuff. But I don’t buy it.

  Nov 5, 1995: I snuck downstairs again. They’re going up to Edmonds, to Grace’s place, for some sort of meeting, or to see whatever it is Dad thinks is such a good idea. He left the address just sitting there. I hope he doesn’t know I snuck in and got it later.

  I checked out the bus schedule. It’ll take me like forever to get there, but I can’t take Mom’s car, or she’ll know I’m up to something. Same goes for a broom. Mom can always tell if one’s been used. But I’m going. I gotta figure out what this is all about.

  Nov 7, 1995: Oh my god oh my god OH MY GOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I don’t know what to…You can’t even believe it. I gotta get out of here. It’s all so terr

  The entry ended there. Charlie turned the page, only to find it blank. He skimmed through the rest of the diary, but it was blank too. Nothing.

  Did his mom make it up to Grace’s place? If so, what happened? Did she figure it out? Did Demetrius catch her?

  He tried to remember what the adults had said about Grace. All they’d really mentioned was that she was bad, and that other people worked for her. Or something like that.

  Charlie sat back on the window seat and sighed. He didn’t know why his mom had given him this stupid lunchbox. The diary didn’t tell him anything. Well, that’s not true. It had some clues in it, he supposed. But nothing was clear. It was even murkier now than ever. So his mom spied on her dad and his friends. So what? So she snuck up to Grace’s. What did any of this have to do with him?

  He felt so angry at his mom. Why did she have all these secrets? About who she was? Who he was? About what happened before? Why did she have to be so tight-lipped about everything?

  Charlie slammed the diary shut and put it back in the lunchbox. He flipped the metal catch near the handle. It made a satisfying snap sound.

  “Who was Maggie?” Charlie asked Beverly later, after she read the notebook, and they were sitting at the kitchen counter having tea. “And what’s a ‘grimorey?’

  “Maggie was our cat,” she said without looking at him. She was staring out the window, though Charlie didn’t think that she was actually seeing anything.

  “It’s not ‘grimorey.’ It’s ‘grimoire.’ A French word. It’s just a fancy name for a witch’s spell book.”

  Charlie could hear the ticking of the large grandfather clock in the entryway. He sat still, afraid to ask more, but for once in his life more uncomfortable with the silence between him and another person than he was with breaking it.

  “Beverly?”

  “Yes?” she said, now looking at him, her eyes clouded in thought.

  “What do you think happened? Why did she stop writing?”

  “I don’t know, honey. Your mother left the lunchbox with me the night before she left. She said it would help you understand things, and asked me not to go through it before you did. I thought there would be more information, but…”

  “Do you think she made it up to Grace’s? She, uh, she said that she was going to sneak up to Grace’s to try and figure out some stuff. Some stuff that involved her dad. Uh, your dad, too.”

  Beverly looked at him for several moments before she spoke. “If I had to guess, I would say she did. She must have discovered something, something so terrible that she would run away from home.”

  Charlie had thought the same thing. His aunt’s answer only confirmed it.

  “The last entry in it was November seventh…”

  “November seventh, nineteen ninety-five.”

  He nodded.

  “That was the night she ran away. I’m sorry, Charlie. Your mom has chosen once again to keep us in the dark. I’ve tried to call her a few times, even though she asked me not to. She hasn’t picked up or returned any of my calls. Now with this,” she said, pointing to his mother’s notebook lying on the counter, “I want to try her again, but I have a feeling she’ll keep ignoring us. Don’t worry. I know she’s safe. If something happened to her, I’d know. It’s a witchy sister thing,” she finished, then smiled to reassure him.

  Beverly shook her head as if to clear it of bad thoughts, then shrugged. “Looks like we’ll just have to be patient, huh?”

  Chapter 22

  The Sunday Farmers Market filled the space of two large parking lots. There were booths with white awnings displaying art, fresh pork and lamb, fruits and vegetables, a couple of cheese stands, and several little kiosks selling things like soap and shampoo.

  The market bustled with people. Charlie was surprised. The weekly markets in Clarkston covered more surface area, and even had livestock for sale, but were nowhere near this packed.

  “God, this place is nuts,” Randall said as he waited for an elderly man to finish loading his car with purchases and vacate his parking spot.

  “Well, it’ll be one of the last weekends of great weather before it starts raining. Everyone wants to enjoy it while they can,” his aunt replied as her husband backed into the space. The three of them stepped out of the Volvo and headed over to the market.

  They began to peruse each booth, his aunt and uncle planning the evening’s meal while choosing produce. They were having some friends over for dinner that night, and wanted to make something special.

  “Remember how I said that Beverly’s community is made up of food snobs?” Randall had said while they were still back at home gathering their canvas shopping bags for the trip to the market. “Well, you just wait until tonight. They’ll be in fine form.”

  “And what, may I ask, is wrong with that?” Beverly asked, making sure that Amos had enough water in his drinking bowl before they left. “We’re foodies, that’s all.”

  Randall rolled his eyes at Charlie.

  “I saw that!”

  “You can’t get away with anything, living with a witch. I call it the Darren Stevens syndrome.”

  “I heard that!”

  All three of them had laughed, even though Charlie didn’t know who Darren Stevens was.

  Beverly and Randall ran into some friends near a booth selling fresh flowers. After introductions were made, the adults kept talking about the weather, the produce, and local politics.

  “We’ll be here forever talking about boring stuff, Charlie,” Randall said to him. “Why don’t you go have a look around? Take one of these bags with you in case you want to buy something.”

  “We can meet back up in thirty minutes, over by that fountain.” Beverly pointed to a low cement structure wedged between a bank and a pharmacy.

  Charlie nodded, looked around, then headed in the direction of the produce stands.

  People. So many people. Pushing and shoving to taste samples of late summer fruit, to fill their bags with purchases.

  “I’ll weigh those cucumbers for you!”

  “Really? Just add a few cups of the cider right into the bowl? Or do I have to heat it first?”

  “Excuse me, excuse me, I just want to try some of that.”

  He let himself be jostled about, surprised to find that he was enjoying the crowd rather than being afraid of it. He liked the feeling of being among so many people without anyone looking at him or asking him questions. And with so many noises, so many good smells, he was able to take his mind off of his mother’s journal and her frustrating mysteries.

  He walked over to a small booth that sold local salmon, both fresh and smoked.

  “Like a sample?” asked a tall man with a trim red beard standing behind the table.

  “Uh, sure.”

  The man spread something white over a round cracker, then placed a bit of fish on top.

  “This is our smoked chinook, the last of the season, with a little chive cheese.”

  Charlie bit into the cracker, which was hearty and thick. The cheese filled his mouth with a tangy richness. But what surprised him was the rich, oily taste of the salmon: slightly salty, but almost like it had been barbequed. He thought it might be the best thing he’d ever eaten.

  “Pretty go
od, huh?”

  He smiled and nodded.

  “A four-ounce package, that’s the small one, is thirteen fifty.

  ‘That’s expensive,’ he thought, on the verge of opening his mouth and saying so. His mother would never pay for anything that cost this much. Maybe she’d insist on catching the fish and smoking it herself, just to prove how ridiculous vendors could be, with their fancy products and outrageous mark-ups. Maybe she’d even make a few choice comments about the kind of people who bought extravagant, unnecessary things like this.

  But a flash of anger filled him; not indignation at the fish seller and his prices, but at her. She was the one who had up and left him in the middle of the night, without even saying goodbye. She had kept an entire world of secrets from him, knowledge of her own background, and therefore his own too. And somehow her little lunchbox was supposed to answer all of his questions?

  He had spent years listening to her prattle on about careless spending, about incapable people and their lazy habits. He had swallowed all of it whole, had sucked up her do-it-yourself arrogance without ever questioning the source.

  And yet who was standing here in front of him, offering him something good to eat? His mother? No, she had lied to him, lied to him about basically everything in life, and had been too chicken to admit to it, had instead dumped him off with random strangers and driven away, had acted worse than all the “stupid people” she had ever complained about combined, had…

  “How much is the bigger one?” Charlie heard himself ask, the words rushing out of his mouth before he could stop himself. He didn’t even hear the man’s reply of, “Twenty three dollars.”

  He felt a thrill rush through him, welling up, felt himself turning giddy. His mother wasn’t here, and for all he knew, might not be coming back anytime soon (Or ever? The thought tried to shove its way past his growing excitement, but he pushed it away.) She wasn’t here to police him, even if she wanted to. Maybe that’s what it means when your mother leaves you with strangers: that you can do what you want and stop worrying about her reaction.