The Remarkable Journey of Charlie Price

by Jennifer Maschari

  Nothing about Charlie’s morning with Imogen added up.

  Imogen insisted she had seen Mom. Sure, she loved stories and playing pretend, but Imogen wasn’t a liar. But there was no way she could have seen Mom.

  And so he was back to the beginning.

  When they studied geometry last year, they had created Möbius strips—strips of papers with a curve in the middle that seemed like two-sided objects. But when you traced your finger around it, you found it only had one side. It didn’t make sense, but it was true. Imogen’s story didn’t make any sense.

  Was it true, though? It couldn’t be.

  Maybe she had seen Mom in a dream. Dreams could seem pretty real. Or maybe—

  “Charlie.”

  Charlie glanced up, his eyes meeting the waiting ones of Mr. Spencer, who was standing at the board, chalk in hand. He looked around. All the students had turned toward him. He was in math class. He needed to focus.

  “See if you can tackle this problem.”

  He studied the board, numbers whirling around in his head, mentally shifting and sliding them back and forth. After a moment, he replied, “Seven.”

  Mr. Spencer smiled and nodded. “Indeed it is. Come on up to the board and show the rest of the class how you arrived at the answer.”

  Charlie pushed himself up from the desk with a sigh and began to shuffle to the front of the room.

  If only all problems were so easy to solve.

  “Charlie. Charlie. CHARLIE!” Charlie looked up the third time. Miranda motioned at him impatiently. The Mathletes. All sitting behind a table in the cafeteria that was decorated with a giant sign that said Bake Sale.

  Charlie squeezed his eyes shut. The bake sale. How could he have forgotten? His mind went to the store-bought birthday cookies Imogen had left on the counter this morning. If he hadn’t been so confused by everything, maybe he would have remembered. He could have brought those. Dad was right—they were better than nothing.

  Charlie lifted his hand in acknowledgment, grabbed some chicken fingers from the hot bar, and headed over. “Where are your cookies?” Miranda asked as soon as Charlie sat down in the last empty chair.

  He shrugged, trying to play it off. “I forgot.”

  Miranda groaned. “Don’t worry,” June piped up, surveying the table. “I think we’ve got plenty.”

  “If Rohan would stop eating everything,” Miranda said.

  “Brain food,” Rohan replied, popping another sweet into his mouth. “Brownies make me smart. Brownies are the key to success.”

  “Yes, if people pay for them.” Miranda pulled something out of her backpack. “This is what we’re working for.” It was a brochure, bright and shiny with blue and red letters at the top. There were a bunch of smiling people with their hands around one another’s shoulders on the front.

  Charlie was confused. “The University of Dayton? What does that have to do with this?”

  “It’s where States are being held this year,” June explained.

  “We’d get to stay in the residence halls,” Miranda said. “Overnight!”

  Rohan unfolded the brochure. “And eat in the dining hall. They have everything.” He began to read from the list.

  “Mr. Spencer told us when we were setting everything up,” June said. “He just got it in the mail.”

  Charlie leaned back in his chair. Normally the state competitions were held in some high school gymnasium with concession-stand food. Now, if they made it, they’d get to stay at a real college. Eating real college food. He hadn’t thought that Mathletes could be any greater, but he was wrong.

  This was exactly the kind of distraction he needed.

  “Cookies for sale,” Charlie called out with a grin. “Brownies. Help send us to States!”

  Besides Mr. Spencer’s room, the library was probably Charlie’s favorite place in the school. First, Miss Logan ran the library. She wore these cool combat boots every day, and Charlie and his friends were pretty sure she had a tattoo because Rohan swore he saw it peeking out once over her right sock. But the best thing about her was that she always knew how to find you the right book.

  After Mom died, Miss Logan had actually tracked Charlie down in the hallway and pushed a stack of books into his hands and said, “Read these when you’re ready.”

  He hadn’t read them yet, but he liked knowing that they were there.

  In addition to Miss Logan, there was this awesome loft area in the library that looked like a tree house, complete with a giant tree painted on the wall. It was decorated with papier-mâché apples and birds and other woodland creatures that they had made last year in art class.

  The loft was where Charlie found Elliott. Her tongue peeked out of her mouth on the left side, just a bit, which it always did when she was concentrating. She had her head down in the big book of puzzles Charlie had gotten her for her birthday, and tapped her pencil on her thigh. “Okay, if Ron is taller than Louisa but Mary lives in the red house, who is Isabelle’s brother?” She didn’t even need to look up to know Charlie was there.

  “Um, Kyle?” The beanbag chair exhaled as Charlie sank down into it.

  “No, not Kyle. He’s not even in this puzzle.” She muttered to herself a minute, her pencil tapping at various places on the page. “Bob. It’s Bob, which means that Ron and Louisa are related, too.” She raised her pencil in triumph.

  Elliott loved puzzles. Especially the logic ones—the kind where you made x’s and o’s on a grid, trying to figure out who was taller or who owned the blue house or how old different people were. Elliott liked thinking about the way things fit together. Sometimes she wanted to work on the puzzles with Charlie, but he’d get frustrated when he couldn’t get the answer right away or would have to erase his work and start over. Elliott didn’t mind getting things wrong.

  “What’s up?” Elliott asked, marking her place with her pencil and closing the book.

  On the way to the library for study hall, Charlie had thought about telling her about Imogen and what had happened that morning, but talking about it would make it seem realer than it was.

  So instead, he asked a question that surprised him. “What do you think happened to Frank? Like, really happened?” He didn’t know why he asked it. Maybe everything that had occurred this morning was so strange it was making his world feel tilt-y and out of control.

  Even though Frank had been gone for months, since March of sixth grade, Charlie felt like he was still everywhere. In the bright-orange Cheetos and grape soda that Frank and Charlie both loved, in Dr. Miller’s tiny grief group room, in the red robin Frank had created for the loft tree that was right next to Charlie’s lumpy squirrel. Charlie had never known anyone who had gone missing before Frank.

  It was a different kind of gone than with Mom. With Mom, he knew she was never coming back. With Frank, well, sometimes he expected him to walk back in the door, ready to solve math problems and stuff their faces with sugar cookies at Edna’s bakery. And Frank would laugh at the plaque the school had put up of him in the front hallway by the trophy cases. They had used his school picture. He was wearing a plain collared shirt, his hair was slicked to the side with gel, and he looked so serious. It wasn’t Frank-like at all. Not the Frank who Charlie used to know.

  Elliott sighed. “I don’t know. It’s like the one puzzle I haven’t been able to figure out. Things don’t fit together. It just doesn’t make sense that he ran away, you know?”

  Charlie knew.

  After Frank had gone missing, there had been wild rumors. Rohan thought Frank had been abducted by the aliens he thought lived on the moon. Miranda, who Charlie’s mom said watched too much TV, thought he had been taken for ransom money. Channel 5 still ran news stories on him every once in a while—complete with the dramatic music and same headline each time: FINDING FRANK SHIN.

  “Do you think he could still come back?” Charlie asked quietly.

  “I’d like to think so,” Elliott replied. “With everything that’s gone on, I thin
k the universe owes us.”

  Frank going missing was another Möbius strip.

  And all Charlie could picture was the last time he saw Frank. He could see the half-moons that had formed under Frank’s eyes—even through Frank’s thick glasses. And he could see the way Frank looked all messy, with his hair sticking out in every direction and part of his sleeve rolled up and the buttons on his shirt askew. But the thing that got Charlie most was the glassy look in Frank’s eyes as he stared straight ahead.

  It was the exact same look he had seen in Imogen’s eyes this morning.

  CUPCAKES IN TUXEDOS

  After school, Charlie made a detour into Edna’s bakery, Crusty’s, on the corner. Every Friday, he and Mom and Imogen would walk down after school to pick out something from the tall, curved glass cases.

  Mom always picked the sticky bun, smothered in candied nuts and caramel glaze. Charlie stuck with the oversize chocolate-chocolate chip cookies, where the chips were the size of quarters. Imogen, though, loved the cupcakes that were covered in black-and-white frosting. She said they looked like tiny people dressed up in tuxedos, waiting in line for a fancy party.

  On other days, he and Frank would stop by on the walk home. They’d pick a table toward the back of the shop and spread out their homework. Edna would yell at them for taking up space (even though there never seemed to be any other customers), but she’d still bring them samples of new treats she was trying out.

  Then one day Frank didn’t want to go anymore. He told Charlie that he had to be home right after school. Every day. So he quit Mathletes and he quit Chess Club and he quit homework time with Charlie at Crusty’s. Charlie started to come less often then. The empty table only reminded him of what used to be.

  Ruby was waiting for him underneath the red-and-white awning over the door at Crusty’s. She’d do this thing when she saw him. Her tail would start to wag, and then the wag would travel through her whole body so she’d eventually look like she was dancing.

  “Hey, Ruby!” Charlie said. He stooped down to scratch her under her chin. “Did you tell Edna where you were last night?”

  “She certainly did,” Edna called from inside the shop. Her voice was rough like sandpaper. After a moment or two, she appeared at the doorway. She was moving slower these days and her back was stooped, almost curving into a question mark. She wiped the flour on her hands off on her apron, but her gray hair remained polka-dotted with it. “But Ruby has a sense for these things, you know. She goes where she’s needed.”

  “What do I need?” Charlie looked at her in puzzlement.

  Edna huffed and turned back inside. “How am I to know that? I’m not Ruby.”

  Charlie gave Ruby one last pat and followed Edna into the bakery. He pressed his nose and fingertips against the glass case. Everything looked so good.

  Edna swiped at him with her towel. “Hands off. I just cleaned it.”

  Heat flushed Charlie’s cheeks as he took a step back. “But I need to get Imogen a cupcake. I made her mad last night. And I think I made things worse this morning.”

  “Ah,” Edna said. “And you think a cupcake can make it better?”

  “I think it’s a start. And it’s her birthday today.”

  “You need an I’m Sorry/Happy Birthday cupcake? Seems to me you’re going to need a pretty big cupcake. I don’t know if I’ve got one of those.”

  There were rows and rows of all kinds of treats. Charlie surveyed them, finally landing on one. “Maybe the black-and-white one. In the front.” He pointed to the largest one, whose top looked like it was going to burst out of the paper wrapper.

  Edna placed the cupcake into a white bag scalloped at the top and sealed it with one of her fancy stickers. “That’ll be four-fifty,” she said, holding out her hand.

  Charlie dug through his pocket and placed the contents on the counter. One rumpled dollar bill, three dimes, a penny, and a button. He’d thought he had more. The tips of his ears started to burn.

  “Never mind,” he mumbled. He reached out to take his money back when Edna slapped her hand down on it.

  “You just leave that right there. Except the button.”

  They stared at each other for a moment. Charlie shoved the button back in his pocket. He felt the smoothness of it under his fingertips.

  “It’s your lucky day, Charlie Price. There is a one-time special on cupcakes. This one is a dollar thirty-one.” She looked around and lowered her voice, even though they were the only ones in the shop. “But don’t you go telling anyone. Else everyone will want a sale.”

  She winked.

  Charlie nodded. Edna handed over the bag. It crinkled in his hand.

  Charlie had a plan now. He’d pick Imogen up at play practice. Together, they’d come up with some kind of reasonable explanation for what had happened last night, and then they’d split the cupcake and everything would be better.

  UNWELCOME SURPRISES

  Imogen wasn’t at play practice.

  Charlie had snuck in one of the back doors of Imogen’s elementary school, keeping the bag hidden behind him. He wanted it to be a surprise. But it was Charlie who was surprised when he didn’t see her ruby slippers on the stage.

  Mrs. Talley was in front of the gymnasium, counting time to a dance number. “No, no, you’re off, Munchkins,” she said. “It’s one-two-three and then one.”

  Charlie walked up to her, and when Mrs. Talley took a break in between directing the Lollipop Guild and practicing a song number with the flying monkeys, he whispered, “Where’s Imogen?”

  Mrs. Talley let out a deep breath, blowing so hard that her bangs flew up with the effort. “She told me that your dad needed her to do something at home. She couldn’t stay. I’ll tell you, Charlie, that’s tough. We’re doing a run-through of the first two acts, and we need her.”

  Charlie nodded like he was listening, but really, his mind was cycling through about a hundred different thoughts. Dad didn’t need her at home for anything. In fact, Dad had left a note on the fridge saying that he might be late again.

  “I’ll talk to her.” Charlie turned before she could say anything else and jogged to the door. The once-crisp fold of the cupcake bag was crumpled from him clenching and unclenching his fist. Imogen loved play practice. He didn’t know why she’d miss it; he didn’t know why she’d lie about it.

  When he got home, he unlocked the bright-red door that stood out among the other more muted doors along their street and let himself into the house. They had moved to this neighborhood just a few years ago, before they learned that Mom had cancer. When the Realtor had brought them to this one, Mom jumped out of the car and turned back to them, bright-eyed, her hair whipping around in the wind like a mini tornado, her cheeks flushed with pink. “This is it!” she exclaimed. Dad laughed, noting that they hadn’t even gone inside yet. “The door just screams happiness,” Mom replied. “It’s perfect.”

  And for a while it was. But now all Charlie could see when he looked at the door were the things that had been.

  “Imogen!” Charlie called, flicking on lights as he walked to the kitchen. He set the cupcake bag on the counter and hung his book bag on one of the chairs. “Where are you? I went to school to meet you, and Mrs. Talley said you never came to practice.”

  Imogen didn’t answer. Maybe she was still angry.

  “I have a surprise for you.” Still nothing.

  Charlie began to consider dinner. He wanted to have something ready for Imogen. He wanted to prove he could be there for her. After the spaghetti disaster, he’d stick with something simpler, at least for a while. He opened the freezer and took stock of the contents. Frozen vegetable lasagna. Frozen chicken marsala. Frozen tilapia and sauce. Examining each of the boxes, he settled on the two that didn’t have a smiling mom in an apron on the front.

  “Gen, you can choose between the delicious Salisbury steak and vegetable medley or everybody’s favorite, meat loaf with special glaze and rice pilaf. I heard the special glaze is really som
ething.” Charlie listened for Imogen’s answer, but it still didn’t come. “Where are you, Gen? I want to talk.”

  He thought about the attic, which had a little spot right in a square of sunshine that filtered in through the window, where she liked to sit and think. She was probably up there. He set down the frozen meals and turned the dial on the oven to 350 degrees.

  As he walked up the stairs, his footsteps echoed heavy through the house. “Imogen!” he called. When he got to the second floor, he pulled down the access panel, revealing another set of steps, these a bit more rickety.

  Slowly, Charlie began to crawl up them. He peeked his head into the space and called her name again. The pillow that marked her usual spot was empty. Not even the sun was there.

  A tiny flutter of panic began to beat its wings in Charlie’s chest. He jumped off the steps and pushed the access panel back up, allowing it to snap into place.

  “Imogen!” he called, sharper this time. The skin around his neck began to prickle and redden. He loosened the collar of his T-shirt.

  Maybe she was in Dad’s room. He pushed open the door. Unwashed clothes sat in tiny mountains along one side of the room. Half the bed was unmade, the pillows strewn about. The other side of the room was untouched. Mom’s side. Charlie tiptoed over to it, silent, as if he was entering some sacred space. He leaned over the bed, breathing deep, hoping Mom’s scent was still there on the fancy pillows she loved so much. He thought he caught a trace of the same mixture of wildflowers and earth he had smelled on Imogen that morning, but maybe he was just imagining it. Lately, it seemed like everything about Mom had been slipping away, like sand through his fingertips.

  “Imogen.” Her name escaped in one long breath. Still the house was silent.

  She had to be in her room.

  Imogen’s room was dark. He turned on the small lamp next to her bed. Her ruby-red slippers had been tossed next to her dresser.

  He inhaled slowly, trying to do the stupid breathing exercises Dr. Miller had taught him. When you’re angry, Charlie, try to think about what emotion you’re really feeling. What is the anger covering up? At the particular moment of that conversation, Charlie really had been mad. At Dr. Miller. For thinking she knew anything about what he had gone through. And now? He felt like he couldn’t quite shake the pressure tightening around his chest or the little voice in his head that whispered maybe, maybe. Maybe Imogen had been telling the truth.