He paused, thinking for a moment. “I just don’t know why I can’t remember. Imogen and I are going to go down again tonight to visit. Maybe I’ll ask Mom then.”
Charlie stood up but then fell to the steps again. Ruby had latched onto his pant leg with her teeth.
At first he laughed. He scratched her again right where she liked it. “Come on, girl, time to go.” But she still wouldn’t let go of his jeans. Finally he said, “Ruby, stop playing. I need to get inside, and you need to get back to Edna.” He yanked his pants leg away. “I don’t know why you’re acting so weird.”
This wasn’t the Ruby he knew—from the sleeping on the porch to the growling and now this.
“Okay, go home now,” Charlie said. But when he closed the front door behind him, Ruby hadn’t moved an inch.
SLEEPING BEAUTY
Imogen was still asleep. It had been almost two hours since Charlie had left the house, and it was now one thirty. Rohan always bragged to the rest of the Mathletes about how long he could sleep in on the weekends, but this was way past that. And this was Imogen.
He flipped on the light in Imogen’s room. “Imogen, it’s time to get up.”
She didn’t answer.
He walked up to her and shook her shoulder. She stirred, rolled over, and opened her eyes. For the second time that day, he breathed in sharply. When she looked at him, it was like she was looking past him. Like she couldn’t see him at all.
“Is it time to go visit Mom again?” she asked groggily.
“No, not yet,” he said.
She rolled back over. “Wake me up when it is.”
Charlie pulled her toward him. “Uh, no, no, no. You need to get up now.” He had been tired when he had woken up earlier, but nothing like this. What was going on?
He pushed Imogen up in bed so she was sitting. She flopped back down. “Imogen,” Charlie said. He tried to make his voice sound stern. “I’m going to go start the shower for you, and when I get back, you need to be out of bed.”
Maybe Imogen was feeling sick like he had this morning. When they hadn’t felt good, Mom always had them take a shower or a bath, and it somehow made them magically feel better. Charlie hoped it would work this time for Imogen.
He turned on the water and tested it to make sure it wasn’t too hot. Then he counted to twenty, just to give her more time, and walked back into her room. She had managed to pull a sweatshirt and polka-dot pants from her drawer, but they were now on the floor and she was back in bed.
This time, he yanked her up and forced her to stand. She kind of collapsed into him, her arms barely touching the tops of his shoulders. He grabbed her clothes from the floor and dragged her to the bathroom, her feet making track marks in the hallway carpet.
At the bathroom door, he gently pushed her in and set her clothes on the bathroom rug. “Okay, Imogen,” he yelled through the door. “This is as much as I can help. But you can’t just lie on the floor in there. You actually have to take a shower.” He pressed his ear against the wood and waited to hear the curtain be pulled aside and for her to step in. After a minute or two, she did. He let out a big breath.
He sank to the carpet. His afternoon with Elliott had lost some of its shine. His mind kept returning to the moment at lunch with her and the spaghetti and why he couldn’t remember what she remembered.
And Imogen kept acting more and more not like Imogen. He kept thinking about that, too.
He wished he could stop being so logical about things. He wished that they could all be together—Mom and Dad, Imogen and Charlie—but like the old versions of themselves, not these disjointed strange ones.
He stood up and pulled down the photograph of them at the beach, so he could remember, and he blinked.
He blinked again.
Something was wrong with the picture.
He walked to the end of the hallway. There was better light there.
He held it up, catching a bit of the sun. His brain wasn’t playing tricks. There they were—Dad and Mom and Charlie and Imogen. The beach and the gray sky. The shore in the background. But Imogen—while the rest of the photograph was still sharp and colorful, and the outlines of Dad and Mom clear—Imogen was muted, faded, almost as if she were disappearing into the background.
While Charlie wasn’t quite as faded as Imogen, the lines around his body had softened as well, his coloring a little less bright.
His mind went through the obvious explanations.
It had faded in the sun. But the hallway didn’t have direct light, and if that was true, wouldn’t the entire photograph fade?
Charlie hurried to the other photographs lining the hallway.
He bounced from one to the other in a rapid motion, as if he were stuck in a pinball machine. And in each one, he and Imogen had both faded. He had no idea what this meant.
Charlie didn’t assume that finding Mom in the other world and the strangeness in the pictures had anything to do with each other. They could simply be coincidences.
But still, he once again found himself in a place where he didn’t like to be.
A place where he didn’t have all the answers.
OUT OF BALANCE
A little later that afternoon, Charlie and Imogen sat on the couch. Charlie had been attempting to study for his invertebrates test on Monday, but after he had reread page fifty-four in his textbook three times, he put it aside. The only things he could think about were getting back to Mom and Imogen. Imogen did look a little better. She had some color back in her cheeks and was actually awake, which seemed like a pretty big step at this point.
“Is it time to go see Mom?” Imogen asked. This was the fifth time she had asked over the span of an hour—Charlie had counted.
“You remember what Mom said. We can’t be gone all the time, or people will start to wonder. Dad has to actually see us.”
Imogen frowned.
Charlie knew he needed to change the subject. “We could practice for the play. I could be the Lion or the Tin Man. Or even the Wicked Witch of the West.” He bent his hands into claw shapes. “I’ll get you, my pretty,” he cackled. Then: “I’m melting. I’m melting!”
Imogen didn’t crack a smile. “I don’t really feel like it.”
Charlie tried again. “You could invite Lily over and maybe Min—she’s playing the aunt, right? We could do a whole show here in the living room. Mrs. Talley was worried about you on Friday. You’ve got to be ready for Monday’s practice.”
“I don’t want to invite anyone over, and I’m not going Monday.”
“But you have to go Monday,” Charlie said.
Imogen picked at the blanket on the couch, separating out each piece of fringe. “It’s just not important anymore.”
It’s just not important anymore. The words echoed in Charlie’s ears. Wasn’t that what Frank had said once upon a time about Mathletes and Chess Club? And even though he didn’t want to make the connection, he had to. Finding Mom and the strangeness in the pictures and now Imogen’s words. This was a third thing. Not all of these things could be coincidences. They had to be related in some way.
During the Mathletes district championship last March, there had been one final problem to win the entire thing. As soon as the judge read it out loud, Charlie’s brain began moving information around. Grouping. Regrouping. Crossing things out. Adding numbers together. Rethinking. Reworking.
Until finally, he realized he was missing something very obvious. And then all the pieces fit together and the answer clicked into place and Charlie buzzed in.
Charlie felt like that now. He wasn’t quite ready to buzz in. Yet. But he knew there was something to know. Pieces to be fit together, answers to click into place.
Before he could think more on it, the garage door opened. A moment later, Dad walked into the room and collapsed on the chair. “What a day!” he said. He closed his eyes for a moment and then opened them, right at Charlie.
“Hey, did you know that there’s a dog on our front porch?�
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Charlie nodded. Ruby. She must still be out there. He looked at Imogen. He hadn’t told her about Ruby. Old Imogen would have run outside that very second to smother her with kisses. Not this Imogen. This Imogen didn’t even seem to register what was going on.
“So I thought that maybe we could get some pizza tonight,” Dad said. He hadn’t noticed Imogen’s silence. Or maybe he had and had chosen to pretend it wasn’t happening. “We haven’t had LaRosa’s in a long time. We could call it in or even go eat there.”
At this, Imogen’s ears did perk up.
“We’re not that hungry, Dad,” she said.
Charlie turned to her, his jaw slack. Dad wasn’t working or sleeping in front of the TV or forgetting something—he was actually asking to do something with them. Something that they used to do. Something as a family.
But Imogen narrowed her eyes and motioned with her head toward her room, just slightly, so that only Charlie picked up on it.
Charlie hesitated, but Imogen’s stare only intensified.
“Maybe another time, Dad. We’re actually really tired—I think we might go to bed early.”
Imogen yawned in emphasis.
“It’s only five o’clock.” Charlie could see the confusion on Dad’s face, and a little bit of him crumpled inside.
Imogen shrugged. “You’re not normally home by now.” She got up from the couch, stretched, and walked past Dad without a backward glance. Charlie stood to follow her.
“Next weekend for sure, Dad,” Charlie said.
Charlie hated leaving Dad like this. But he also couldn’t wait to see Mom, even though he had more questions than before.
STORE-BOUGHT POTATOES
Frank’s grandma had really loved infomercials on TV. His family was always getting some kind of package in the mail—the Spicy Shelf, a self-cleaning fish tank (even though they didn’t have any fish), and a fine pair of pajama jeans, which, according to Grandma, were quite comfortable. It struck Charlie how much the hatch was like the commercial for one of the products. Before Imogen was full of yawns and drooping shoulders and eyes that seemed glassy and dazed. But one trip through the hatch and presto chango, New Imogen emerged with smiles and enough bounce that she seemed to be filled with soda bubbles.
Once again, the other house smelled delicious. If Mom’s spaghetti was a 10, then her meat loaf was a 9.7. She would always put the crunchy onions on top and serve it with mashed potatoes that she had smooshed up herself. After she died, Charlie tried to make potatoes from a box one night after everyone was asleep. He just wanted to taste them one more time.
They weren’t the same.
“Meat loaf!” Imogen exclaimed. She pulled out her chair and immediately sat down, fork in hand. “I’m ready!” she added, in an especially loud voice.
“Hold your horses!” Mom laughed. “Don’t I get a hug first?” She rounded the counter and leaned down to embrace Imogen. Then she turned to Charlie, who was still leaning against the kitchen wall. “And now my boy, whose hair has gotten so long!” She reached out to ruffle his hair, but Charlie found himself ducking away. He couldn’t seem to stop thinking about the strange connection between Imogen and Frank and the pictures in the hallway and the not being able to remember things.
A look crossed Mom’s face that he couldn’t quite read. Was she annoyed?
Charlie chided himself. Of course she was. Here he was avoiding Mom, who before last night, he hadn’t seen for months. Because she had died. He pushed the thought down, down, down through his body and forced himself to extend his arms.
But this hug? It was kind of like the mashed potatoes from the box. It wasn’t quite the same.
From the way his teeth were clenched, Charlie knew his grin was strained. Luckily, though, Mom didn’t seem to notice. Instead she put two steaming plates of meat loaf and mashed potatoes and the good kind of rolls on the table.
“Aren’t you going to eat?” Charlie asked. He glanced up at her.
There was that look again! But as quickly as it appeared, it vanished.
“I had some before you both came,” Mom said. “You took so long to get here.”
“I know,” Imogen said between bites. “Charlie said we had to wait till Dad got home, and then he was trying to make me take a shower and talk about the play, but I was just so tired.”
“How do you feel now?” Mom asked.
“Much better,” Imogen said. “I love being with you.”
“What about you, Charlie?” Mom asked.
Charlie thought for a moment. Last night, when he had first traveled here, seemed like light-years away. “I love seeing you, Mom.” His voice trailed off. He really did love seeing her. But maybe what he didn’t love was everything else that seemed to come with it.
They finished dinner in silence, with Imogen not taking her eyes off Mom, Charlie concentrating extra hard on his meat loaf, and Mom looking at Charlie with a raised eyebrow he could see in the reflection off his plate.
Charlie offered to do the dishes after dinner while Mom and Imogen set up the Scrabble board in the family room. Just before they entered the hatch, Imogen had asked him to grab it. It had been one of their favorite things to do. He picked up the first plate and set it down in the sink. The pain in his head had started right after dinner again, but this time it hadn’t dulled like before. He watched the water run over his hands and down the drain. Where did the water in this place go? This time, he didn’t ignore his brain when it said, Look closer, look closer. Leaving the water on, he crept past the door to the family room, shooting a quick glance at Mom and Imogen. They were only unpacking the tiles from the bag and wouldn’t expect him to be done for a few minutes.
Charlie knew exactly where he wanted to look first. He rounded the corner into the front hallway, where the pictures lined the walls. They were the same ones from the real house. Imogen on her first day of kindergarten. Charlie holding up a Mathletes trophy. Their family at the beach.
In each of the pictures, Imogen and Charlie’s shapes were still faded, though Imogen’s lines were a bit sharper here than in the real world. While Charlie still looked ghost-like, Imogen looked more like she belonged.
There was something else different, too. Something bigger. Mom. Imogen. Charlie. And instead of Dad, there was a Dad-sized hole where he should be. He rubbed his eyes and looked again. Still no Dad.
He looked at another picture—the one with him and Dad at the Mathletes tournament. But this one just had Charlie.
Dad wasn’t in any of these pictures.
Before he could think on it further, he heard a noise in the kitchen. The dishes! How long had he been out here?
He raced back, his socks sliding on the linoleum. He skidded to a stop against the counter when he saw who was waiting for him. Oh man.
“Where were you, Charlie?” Mom asked. There was an edge to her voice.
He would ask her. He would ask her about the pictures in the hallway, and she would explain everything, and it would make total sense. But something in his gut told him not to. He wanted to figure out more on his own. “The bathroom.” He shrugged. “I had to go.”
Now he recognized a new look on her face. Suspicion.
“I’ll just finish up in here and will be out in a second. Don’t start without me.”
Mom looked like she wanted to say something else but didn’t. Instead, she turned and walked back into the family room. Charlie let out a sigh that was swallowed up by the running water.
He had all these different pieces that seemed to be adding up to a whole lot of nothing. Even with that, though, Charlie knew one thing for sure—his brain had won out.
Dad liked to use this phrase—there’s no such thing as a free lunch. And he’d say it at the most annoying times, like when Charlie was really excited about getting this free airplane kit in the mail. Dad meant that everything had a price.
Charlie had been so excited to see Mom.
But now, he wondered what it was costing him and Imoge
n.
TRIPLE WORD SCORE
M-E-L.
No, that wouldn’t work. L-E-M. He looked at his remaining letters. An N but no O. He clenched his fists as the letters ran together in front of him. He couldn’t concentrate. Especially not with Imogen talking to fill the silences between him and Mom.
How quickly things could change. One minute Mom was alive. The next she wasn’t. One minute he was thrilled to see her again. And the next—he was weirded out and didn’t know what to think.
“M-E-N,” Charlie said, laying his tiles on the board. What a lame next move.
“Ooh, good word, Charlie!” Imogen said brightly. Her voice sounded fake. It wasn’t a good word. “Five points!”
Charlie wished he had enough letters to play the words he really wanted to.
CONFUSED. Fourteen points.
FREAKED. Fifteen points.
WHAT THE HECK IS GOING ON? Ninety million points. Triple word score. Win the whole game.
“Oops,” Imogen said. A broken pencil point sat on the notepad. “I’ll go get a new one. I know where they are.” She laughed a little. “This is our house, after all.” She started to stand when Mom jumped up instead.
“No, you don’t need to!” she said in a rush. “You both sit.”
“No really, Mom,” Imogen said, grabbing onto Mom’s arm and not letting go. “I’m happy to. Or we could go together!”
Imogen started to stand up again, but Mom shook her hand away. “No, I’ll go get it.” Mom’s voice was tinged with something that Charlie couldn’t quite recognize. He thought it was strange that she was so insistent about getting a pencil.
“Don’t leave me again,” Imogen whispered. She had a wild look in her eye. Mom was out of the room by the time Imogen finally put her reaching arms down.
Charlie had to take advantage of this moment to talk to Imogen alone.
The Remarkable Journey of Charlie Price Page 7