The Remarkable Journey of Charlie Price

by Jennifer Maschari

“This wouldn’t have happened with Mom,” Imogen mumbled. She was ripping her bread into tiny pieces, letting them fall like snow on her uneaten spaghetti.

  “Imogen, please,” Dad said. Though Charlie knew that he must have been thinking the same thing.

  Charlie speared some noodles and twirled them around the tines. He shoveled the forkful into his mouth. It was sweet and salty at the same time, but in all the wrong ways. It did taste as bad as it looked. They didn’t have her recipe. They didn’t have garlic. They didn’t have ground beef to make Mom’s meatballs.

  “This doesn’t taste anything like Mom’s,” Charlie yelled. He pushed the plate back, rattling the table. Imogen shifted away from him in her chair. He spit the mouthful out in his napkin.

  Charlie picked up his plate, and Imogen’s and Dad’s, and slammed them all in the sink. He looked around the kitchen. Sauce was splattered all over the stove top. The counters were littered with spice tins and leftover turkey chunks and sticky noodles.

  “Charlie,” Dad tried. “Come on, buddy. It’s okay.”

  But it wasn’t. Charlie’s chest constricted and his breathing grew shallow. Tiny sparks of light danced in front of his eyes.

  Grabbing the jar of ginger, he hurled it against the wall. The glass shattered and sprayed across the room, nicking one of his arms. The tightness dissipated.

  Behind him, he heard a gasp. He turned.

  Imogen had grabbed her script off the counter and clutched it tightly to her chest. Her birthday crown had fallen to the floor. Tears dripped down her face.

  Charlie reached out his hand toward her. “I’m sorry.”

  And all the feelings that Imogen had balled up inside spilled out. “This is the worst day ever. I wish Mom were here,” she said. “I want to be with her. Not with you and not with Dad.”

  With those words, Charlie felt the ground under his feet shift just for a second—like how he imagined an earthquake tremor might feel. But he grabbed onto the counter with both hands and righted himself. The ground was sturdy again.

  “What was that?” Charlie asked.

  Dad stood frozen, his arm reaching out for something. Charlie or Imogen, maybe. “What?”

  “That shaking. Did you feel it?”

  Dad shook his head. He looked exhausted.

  “Must have been nothing, then.”

  As Imogen’s chair clattered to the ground and her footsteps echoed through the hallway, Charlie sank to the floor. He wished he could take it back. He’d rewind time back before he threw the jar, back before the spaghetti, back before Mom had left them and taken everything with her.

  A SURPRISE VISITOR

  Dad put his hand on Charlie’s shoulder. “She’ll come around. Things will be better tomorrow, you’ll see.” Charlie hoped so. “Why don’t we clean up the kitchen and give her some space?”

  Together, they scrubbed the pots and pans. Dad arranged the dishes in the dishwasher while Charlie wiped down the wall as best he could. He swept the glass into a dustpan and threw it in the trash with the rest of the spaghetti.

  Dad surveyed the kitchen, hanging up the last dish towel. “See, good as new.”

  “Do you want to play a game or something? Or watch a movie?” Charlie asked, but Dad’s hand was already on his briefcase. It lingered there for a second, like Dad was trying to decide.

  After a moment, he sighed. “I wish I could, but I have to finish a bunch of paperwork for tomorrow’s meeting.” He paused. “But if I finish, I’d love to.” He looked older, somehow. “Thanks for making dinner.”

  “Sure.”

  Maybe Charlie could get ahead on homework or something. He unzipped his backpack tucked away under the kitchen counter and pulled out the Mathletes folder Mr. Spencer had given them today. “Hey, Dad,” Charlie started. He popped his head into the family room. Dad was already surrounded by papers, a pencil nestled over his ear. “I have some Mathletes stuff for you to sign. Coach says he’s happy I’m on the team again.”

  “I’m really glad, too,” Dad said. “Why don’t you put it all on the counter? I’ll sign everything as soon as I’m done with this.”

  “Okay, thanks.”

  Clicking off the kitchen light, Charlie walked to his room at the end of the hallway. It was right next to Imogen’s. Her door remained closed, and she was probably still angry. And Dad was going to be busy the rest of the night.

  In a house full of people, he felt alone. So he stuffed his feet into his sneakers, tugged on a sweatshirt, and let himself out the door.

  Ruby was waiting for Charlie on the front porch.

  She startled him. He didn’t see her furry tail until he had almost tripped over it. “Ruby, what are you doing here?” He scratched the spot behind her ear like he always did. It was raining now. She was a little damp, but Charlie found the wet dog smell comforting somehow.

  Ruby cocked her head to the side, like she was listening, but kept her eyes on Charlie. Even though they had never had a dog, Charlie knew that most of them had a basic understanding of words like sit and stay and treat. Sometimes, though, like now, he thought that Ruby got what he was really saying. “Why aren’t you at Edna’s?”

  Ruby’s tail only thumped against the porch in answer.

  “We’ve got to get you home,” Charlie said, and he tried to take Ruby by the collar, but her body grew tense and she leaned forward, like she had spotted something out in the distance. She let out a low growl and bared her teeth.

  “What is it?” Charlie leaned over the porch railing and peered out into the darkness. All he could see were the splatters of rain and the occasional headlights of a passing car. “Do you see a cat?” Maybe one had gone under the porch, and that was why Ruby was acting so spooked. Ruby continued to growl, the hair on her back standing up in a little Mohawk.

  Charlie shivered, but not from the cold.

  “There’s nothing out there, Ruby,” he said. “Edna will be worried about you.” But Ruby only lay down right in front of the door, shifting her weight so that Charlie couldn’t pick her up.

  “All right.” Charlie sighed. He’d call Edna, but the bakery was closed now. He wished he could bring Ruby inside, but he wasn’t sure what Dad would think of that, so he did the next best thing. Charlie opened the front door and grabbed some old picnic blankets from the hall closet. Then he arranged them on the front porch like a nest, and Ruby settled down right in the middle of them.

  He stroked the top of her head. Ruby could have blended in with the darkened skies except for her white bushy eyebrows, cherry-red collar, and the white-and-gray speckles around her face and ears that seemed to multiply every time Charlie saw her. Imogen always said it looked like Ruby had been dusted with powdered sugar. Charlie thought she looked like she had been sprinkled with stars.

  Charlie sat with Ruby, her head resting on his knee, until the streetlights finally pinged off and her breathing became level and easy.

  “Good night, Ruby,” Charlie said.

  And he couldn’t quite tell, but it looked like Ruby smiled. The best a dog could, anyhow.

  THE DRAGON

  The house was dark and quiet, except for the low buzz and glow of the TV. Dad had fallen asleep in front of it again. Charlie took the notepad and pencil Dad still clutched in his hands and set them on the side table. He turned off the television.

  Charlie tiptoed into the kitchen and flipped on the light. His stomach rumbled, and all at once the spaghetti disaster came back to him. His stomach twisted—of course he was hungry. Imogen must be hungry, too. But before he could root around in the pantry to see if there were any snacks, a flash of yellow caught his eye. There was something tucked right in the corner of the hallway leading to their rooms that hadn’t been there before.

  Ignoring his stomach, Charlie walked over and picked it up, turning it over in his hands.

  It was a hand puppet. It had a smooth porcelain face with pink-dotted cheeks. Bright-yellow curls sat on top of its head, and it wore a faded red dress. Until thi
s moment, Charlie had forgotten that these even existed. It was a puppet Mom had made in her image. She had made Imogen a whole set for Christmas one year, maybe when she was in kindergarten. There was also a Dad puppet and an Imogen puppet and a Charlie puppet.

  He couldn’t remember the last time Imogen had played with these.

  Maybe she had wanted to play puppets with him. He had promised her that he’d practice lines. The knot of guilt that had settled in his stomach twisted tighter. He hadn’t meant to upset her with the spaghetti and everything else. Sometimes he just felt so wound up, like a stretched-tight rubber band, ready to snap.

  Imogen’s door was still closed, and there wasn’t the normal sliver of light that peeked through underneath. Still he knocked.

  No answer.

  He pushed on the door so that it was slightly ajar. The room was dark except for the quiet glow of the night-light in the corner.

  “Imogen?” he called in, his voice rising barely above a whisper. Maybe he could apologize now.

  The room remained silent and he didn’t want to wake her, so he just set the puppet gently on the floor of her room and shut the door.

  Back in his room, Charlie pulled off his sweatshirt and lay down on his bed. He stared up at the ceiling. Bright glow-in-the-dark constellations spanned out across the dark-navy paint. He had been nine, and after a trip to the planetarium, had been completely obsessed with outer space. Mom and Frank had taken a whole day to help him paint and affix the stars to exactly match the map he had bought.

  Frank loved the stars, too, and bought Charlie a book about the constellations for one of his birthdays. Sometimes, Frank would come over at night and they’d use the telescope Mom had gotten him and scan the night skies. Frank always hoped they’d see aliens. “We don’t even know what other kinds of things exist,” he said. “You never know.”

  There was one night, after Frank’s grandma died, that the moon was particularly full—perfect for seeing the craters imprinted in the surface (or possible aliens). When Charlie asked him to come over, Frank told him in this kind of blank voice that he didn’t want to. It was the first sign to Charlie that something wasn’t quite right.

  Charlie missed Frank. He missed Mom, too. It was amazing how the sky, which had so many stories, could hold the stories and memories of the people he loved, too.

  Mom had loved to tell stories—maybe it was where Imogen got it from. “It’s just a small story,” she’d always start. But to Charlie they always seemed so big—like they could really happen, even though they were about Greek gods and animals that only existed in fairy tales.

  His favorite story was about Draco, the dragon constellation. He remembered the first time she told it. It was a sweltering summer night. He could still feel the heat bearing down on him and the moisture forming on his brow and the cold, sweating sodas they had brought to cool off. He closed his eyes and tried to remember the way she told it, the sound of her voice.

  In this story, Zeus, the Greek god of sky and thunder, had taken a girl and hidden her away. The girl’s father told his son to find her and bring her home. So the boy traveled to the ends of the earth looking for his sister. He never found her. Knowing he couldn’t come home because he had failed his father and sister, he built a new city in which to live. Then, seeking revenge, he fought a giant dragon that protected Zeus’s caves. He buried the teeth of the beast in the ground, and they grew to be great warriors.

  When Mom first told the story, Charlie had tucked it away. It was one of so many stories Mom had shared. But now, he’d find himself thinking about it when he didn’t expect it. Thinking about what he’d do if he was in the brother’s place. What it would feel like to lose Imogen.

  He wouldn’t. If he was the boy in that story, he wouldn’t just defeat the dragon. He’d save his sister, too.

  REVELATIONS

  The next morning Ruby was gone. Charlie had checked the porch right after he got out of bed. The nest of quilts was still there, and warm, but when he ran down the porch steps to look down both sides of the street, there was no sign of her. He didn’t know where she had gone.

  What Charlie did know, however, was that he needed to eat. After yesterday’s dinner disaster, he was pretty sure Imogen was starving. He knew he was.

  Luckily, eggs, unlike Mom’s spaghetti, were pretty easy to make. Crack them in the pan and cook them until they were solid. Charlie served up two eggs onto a plate along with a buttered piece of toast. He put the last bit of jam on Imogen’s piece. He’d just stick with butter.

  “Breakfast!” he called. He had even gotten out the floral place mats Mom loved. Compared to their usual granola bars on paper towels, this meal was downright fancy. He’d have set out a plate for Dad, but he’d already left for work. Charlie had heard the coffee machine running much earlier that morning, before he’d even gotten out of bed.

  “Happy birth—” Charlie started when Imogen finally emerged from the hallway, but he stopped when he saw her. She wore floral pants and bright-blue socks and a striped sweatshirt that appeared to be inside out. Her hair was rumpled and thrown up in a half ponytail.

  “Morning,” she mumbled.

  Every day, Imogen had made sure that her hair was just so and her outfit always matched. She and Lily would even talk on the phone sometimes and coordinate bow colors. She probably had the most organized drawers and closet of any fourth grader he knew.

  So this—whatever this was—didn’t make sense.

  “Are you going to get ready for school?” Charlie asked, grabbing a glass of juice.

  Imogen looked up at him. Dark half-moons had formed under her eyes, coloring her skin like bruises. She hadn’t looked that tired yesterday—had she?

  He leaned closer. The sharp blue of her irises, which were the exact same color as Mom’s, had dulled like a marble that had lost its polish. He startled. He had seen that look before, but on someone else.

  “What?” she replied. “I am ready for school.” She held out her arms and looked over her outfit. After a moment, she shrugged and flopped down in her chair. She could barely keep her nodding head from face-planting in her toast.

  “Couldn’t sleep last night?”

  “Oh, what? No, I slept fine.” At least he thought that was what she said. He couldn’t tell through her giant yawn.

  Charlie cocked his head to the side. There was something Imogen wasn’t telling him.

  “Well, you must be hungry. . . .” Charlie’s voice trailed off. There was so much more he wanted to say. I’m sorry, for one. I didn’t mean to get angry, for another. But his mouth just couldn’t seem to form the words.

  “Yeah,” she said. The uneaten toast at her place said otherwise.

  “Okay, Gen.” Charlie took the seat across from her at the table and waited until she looked at him. “What is going on?”

  Imogen looked back down at her plate. “You’ll be mad.”

  “I won’t get mad. I promise.”

  “You won’t believe me.” Her eyelids fluttered up so that she was half looking at him now.

  “Of course I’ll believe you.”

  This time she looked up and stared him in the eye. Her gaze didn’t waver.

  “I saw Mom last night,” she said.

  STORIES SERVED COLD

  Charlie nearly dropped his glass. “You what?”

  “I saw Mom.” She paused for a moment. Then another. “I knew you wouldn’t believe me.”

  “Like in a dream? Or were you looking at pictures?” Maybe there had been something bad in that spaghetti. Maybe ginger caused hallucinations.

  “No, like in person. She was under my bed.” She said it as if she were talking about her day at school or a book she liked.

  “I know you’re mad about yesterday, but making up stories is not okay. You didn’t see Mom.” The tips of Charlie’s ears began to grow hot and tingly.

  “I did. She smelled like flowers.”

  Charlie could practically smell the flowers himself—the earth
, the sweetness, the sunshine. No matter where she was, Mom had always carried that scent with her. His nose wriggled. Did he smell it now? On Imogen? No. No. That wasn’t possible.

  “Stop.”

  “And then we made cookies, the kind with the chocolate chips and the walnut pieces chopped up really small—”

  “Stop!”

  “—just the way I like them. I ate, like, fifty of them. That’s why I’m so full.” Charlie looked closely at her. Was that a piece of chocolate on the corner of her mouth? No, he was letting himself be drawn into this crazy, made-up story.

  “And then she poured me a huge glass of milk. I told her I’d split it but I drank the whole thing—”

  Charlie slammed his glass down on the counter. “Imogen, stop!” He closed his eyes and clenched his fists, holding them down by his sides. His muscles twitched.

  “And we played with my puppets. It was a surprise; she made them for me special. We pretended the puppets were different characters in the play, and Mom helped me rehearse my lines. She can do all the voices.”

  Charlie thought about the puppet he’d found last night. The one he’d put back in her room. Imogen was acting like she had never seen the puppets before. He thought about not opening her door all the way. If he had just seen her sleeping.

  “You. Did. Not. See. Her.”

  Imogen waited till he opened his eyes. “I did.”

  “Liar!” he yelled. “Why are you doing this?” And for the second time in less than twenty-four hours, Imogen backed away from him like a startled animal.

  She left the toast and eggs uneaten on her plate. In a rush, she grabbed her book bag from the floor, sending papers flying, and ran out the front door of the house.

  “Imogen, wait,” Charlie called weakly. “You can’t walk to school alone.”

  Charlie didn’t know what to say. He didn’t know how to deal with any of this. So he did the only thing he could think of: he grabbed his backpack and ran after her.

  SCENES FROM A SCHOOL DAY