Charlie tried to unlatch the window and push up on it. One, two, three times. The window wouldn’t budge. So he turned on his heel and raced out the bedroom door, narrowly missing Mom’s outstretched hands and ignoring Imogen’s confused cries.
He unlocked the front door and stumbled out onto the porch, his chest heaving. He looked to the left and then to the right. The street was empty again.
“Frank!” Charlie yelled, sinking to his knees.
He’d seen Frank—Frank who had been missing. Frank who he hadn’t seen in months. This Frank wasn’t wearing his favorite gray cap, but still Charlie was sure it had been him. Just like he was certain he’d seen a star disappear from the sky. A star that disappeared just as he got that headache. Just as he couldn’t remember any other times that he had looked at the stars with Mom.
Imogen. He had to get Imogen out now.
Charlie hopped to his feet and ran back into the house.
Mom and Imogen were waiting in the family room. Charlie grabbed Imogen’s arm and tried to pull her to her room so they could enter the hatch and go back to the real world. He needed Imogen to be safe.
“What are you doing?” Imogen asked, yanking her arm back. Her eyes were big. “I don’t want to go.”
“Please, Imogen,” Charlie pleaded. “It’s not safe here for us. Frank’s here. He’s maybe been here the whole time. We could go missing, too.”
Imogen grabbed Mom and clung onto her waist. “No, Charlie. I’m not going anywhere. I want to stay here forever.”
FOREVER
The words echoed in Charlie’s head. I want to stay here forever.
Mom had stood there quietly this whole time, a little smile on her face, but at Imogen’s words, she leaned in. “Oh, that would be wonderful,” she said slowly, as if she were considering the idea. “I’ve missed you so much, Imogen!” She put her hand on Imogen’s head. Imogen only held on to Mom’s waist tighter.
Another alarm sounded in Charlie’s head. There was nothing right about this. Before Mom had died, she had asked Charlie and Imogen to take care of Dad and to take care of each other. She wouldn’t want to separate them. She wouldn’t want them to leave Dad and everything else they loved forever.
Charlie mustered up every bit of courage he had and said, “You are not Mom.”
“Charlie!” Imogen said. “That is not very nice. Of course it’s Mom.”
Mom ignored his accusation. “I’d love for you to stay down here, too, Charlie. We can all be one happy family again.”
Charlie shot forward. “NO!” He grabbed Imogen’s other hand and pulled her up, away from Mom. Imogen tried to yank her arm away again, but Charlie held tight. “Something is going on here that is not normal, and we need to get out.”
“But what about our memories, Charlie?” Mom took a step toward him. “Don’t you want to relive them here with me?”
“I do!” Imogen said. She reared back and kicked Charlie in the shin. Charlie stumbled back but managed to keep a grip on her arm. Imogen bucked like a wild pony. “You’re hurting me, Charlie!” she said through gritted teeth.
He pulled her out of the family room. Her heels dragged on the carpet, and she let her body go limp. Man, she was heavy when she wanted to be.
“Charlie?” Mom tried again.
For a moment, Charlie stopped. He loved Mom. He missed Mom. But then his gaze settled on the hallway. And the pictures. And everything this world had subtracted out.
On the hardest problem of his life, Charlie was finally ready to buzz in. Mom was trying to subtract Imogen and Charlie out from the real world.
She must have seen something change in his face, because her mouth became a thin line and her eyes narrowed and now Mom didn’t even look like Mom anymore.
Imogen’s fists continued to rain down on his chest, and he braced himself for another kick to the shin. “I’m not going with you!” Mom now stood in the corner watching them, arms folded over her chest, silent.
“Imogen, please,” he said. Beads of sweat formed across his brow. “We have to go now.”
For a second, he wondered why this was so easy. Sure, he’d have nasty black-and-blue marks down his legs tomorrow morning, but Imogen was the only one putting up a fight. He’d have to think about it later. Right now, he had to get her out.
His hand encircled the doorknob of Imogen’s bedroom just as her fist connected with his ear. His head vibrated like a struck bell. The only relief came from the fact that the hatch was near. Keeping one arm around Imogen, he braced the other on the door and summoned all his strength to pull both of them into her room and down into the hatch.
“I’ll be back, Mom! I promise!” Imogen yelled.
Charlie slammed the door shut over the top of them, but right before it closed, he heard Mom say, “I know.”
ACCUSATIONS
Imogen wouldn’t leave the hatch in the real world. So Charlie had to grab hold of her sneakers while avoiding her kicks and lift her up and over the edge. He wanted to collapse on the floor. His arms hurt and his brain hurt and his heart hurt. But he couldn’t be done yet. Not when he knew the danger that he and Imogen faced from the other world.
He pulled Imogen into the garage. He couldn’t leave her in the room alone or else she’d go straight back down to Mom. She had gone with him somewhat quietly, which unnerved him. “Why are we in here?” she asked. Her voice was blank, scary.
When he grabbed a box of nails and a hammer from the workbench, her eyes flashed with sudden recognition. “Charlie, no!”
He didn’t say anything and instead ran for the bedroom. She chased after him, scratching at his arms and pulling at his legs. He shrugged her off and grabbed a nail from the box. He fell to the floor and, positioning the nail, began to drive it into the wood. Imogen would understand later. She’d have to. This was the right thing to do.
Pieces of wood splintered off as he hammered. He put one in his pocket. He had to remind himself that this was real.
“You can’t do this!” Imogen wailed, trying to stop the hammer mid-swing. “Mom’s down there. You don’t love her anymore, Charlie. You’ve forgotten about her.”
The accusations hit Charlie square in the chest. He did love Mom. He did trust Mom. But what he knew about this Mom scared him. This wasn’t Real Mom, the one they remembered, the one they loved. This was some Mom replacement, some Not-Mom who stole their memories and wanted them to leave this world forever.
And Frank. Frank was down there. The thought almost made Charlie stop hammering. He couldn’t leave him there. But he didn’t want Imogen to disappear, too. Right now, all he could do was keep her safe.
Charlie pounded in another nail. And between every pound he held his breath, waiting, hoping that Dad would hear it. Or hear Imogen’s yelling or the kicks she landed on his legs. That he’d storm in and ask what was going on.
But Dad never came.
By the time Charlie had the door sealed as best he could, Imogen had crumpled into a tired heap in the corner of her room. Her face was blotchy red and her hands were flat against the hardwood as if at any moment, she might try to peel the boards up.
Charlie wanted to curl up just like Imogen. His arms and head felt heavy. His shoulders were practically hunched up to his ears, and his eyes blurred what was in front of him, like he was seeing things underwater. But there was still more he had to do. He stood and braced himself against the bed once again. It hadn’t been so long ago that he was moving it away from the hatch. Now, he was moving it back.
The bed’s legs loudly scratched across the bedroom floor, though his noodly arms could barely budge the bed an inch. Turning around, so that his back was against the mattress, he pushed and pushed until the bed was finally in place, centered directly over the small door.
Charlie collapsed onto the bed with a groan and stuck an aching arm behind him to grab one of Imogen’s pillows. He tucked it under his head. He clutched the hammer to him as if it were a stuffed bear and flipped over. He kept one eye on
Imogen and one eye on the hatch.
He’d stay here tonight. Because even with the nails and the bed and the hammer, it didn’t quite seem like enough to protect Imogen.
And as he drifted off to sleep, Mom’s voice still echoed.
I know. I know. I know.
THE HEALING HEARTS PICNIC
At school the next day, Charlie ended up in the very last place he thought he’d ever go on a voluntary basis.
Dr. Miller’s office.
He paused outside the door for a moment. It was almost all the way open, but Dr. Miller didn’t seem to notice him as she sat hunched over her keyboard, typing furiously. Her messy hair was thrown into a bun, which bobbed up and down as she typed. The pencil she could never find was tucked squarely into it.
The room was small. Practically a janitor’s closet, minus the cleaning supplies but adding in the “feel good about yourself” junk that cluttered the walls. If Charlie was in charge of making counselors’ offices, he would make them huge to allow for the most distance between himself and Dr. Miller as possible.
Dr. Miller said the close space invited Community and Understanding and Compassion. Charlie thought it invited things like Claustrophobia and Unwanted Sharing and Forced Closeness. He also wondered if those were things Dr. Miller told herself to make her feel better about having the smallest office in school, but he didn’t have any evidence to back that up.
Charlie decided to knock. It felt more formal, less make yourself at home and get comfortable.
When Dr. Miller looked up from her desk to see who it was, her face lit up in a giant grin. “Charlie!” she called. She smoothed her pants and adjusted her glasses in anticipation. He was surprised she didn’t clap her hands. This moment of “seeking help” must be what counselors lived for. At group, Dr. Miller always made these large, exaggerated arm gestures and said, “Let’s share ourselves. Let’s be OPEN with each other.” She must have thought he was going to be OPEN with her. If he was, he’d never get out of counseling.
She closed her laptop lid. “Come in. Come in. You’re always welcome.”
Charlie pulled his lips up into what he hoped looked like a smile. “Uh, thanks.”
Dr. Miller patted the worn yellow chair next to her. “Sit. Sit.” She had this odd habit of repeating words and phrases while nodding her head thoughtfully. It might have been a counselor thing.
“So, I had a question,” Charlie started. He kept his back straight as a board and hands folded in his lap.
Dr. Miller grabbed her notepad off her desk. If it had been any other time, Charlie would have loved to see what she wrote about him in there. Probably angry kid, messed up, can’t be helped, but it wasn’t another time. He had other stuff to worry about. “It’s not that kind of question.”
Dr. Miller’s face fell a little bit, and she put the notepad back. “Oh. Of course. Of course.”
“So, I wondered if I might be able to bring my little sister to the grief picnic on Friday.” He tried not to think about how Imogen had ignored him this morning. How she wouldn’t even look at him.
“You mean the Healing Hearts picnic, Charlie,” she corrected, pointing at the flyer on her bulletin board (next to the dumb smiling flower poster). “Remember, working through our grief will eventually heal our hearts.” He could tell from her satisfied smile that Dr. Miller had thought that one up herself.
“Uh, yeah. The Healing Hearts picnic.”
All morning, Charlie had gone back and forth about going. He needed to be home for Imogen to keep her safe. But every time he considered skipping it, he pictured Elliott’s disappointed face and her having to hang up all the decorations they’d made by herself. The next best option was bringing Imogen along.
Dr. Miller clapped her hands. “Oh, Charlie, that’s a wonderful idea. I only wish I had thought of it myself. Of course she can come.” He braced himself for what he knew would follow.
“You know, I feel like this is a little bit of a breakthrough for you.”
Charlie nodded, hopeful that if he kept nodding at even intervals, he wouldn’t have to say any more. He watched the clock as it ticked by, and Dr. Miller as she gestured with her hands, and waited until she took a breath.
“So, I’ve got to get to class.”
“Oh yes! Absolutely!” She looked at him for an extended moment. Charlie wriggled in his seat. “You’re going to be okay, Charlie. I just know it.”
He hoped that Dr. Miller was right.
Elliott was waiting outside the office, standing up straight against the hallway wall. Her cheeks flushed when she saw Charlie, and her eyes went to his shoes.
“Umm, hey!”
Charlie nodded, and her face grew even redder.
“So, I was coming to ask Dr. Miller about some things we’ll need for setup and I saw you were in there and so I decided to wait here for you so we could confirm the decorations and stuff and then you were taking a while and I thought leaving would be awkward but staying would also be awkward and I had to make a choice, so here I am! I wasn’t listening in or anything.”
Normally Charlie would laugh, but he couldn’t now. The moment he saw Elliott, the secrets he had been keeping threatened to break free. Each one took up so much space that they stretched his skin thin like a balloon, and it was just a matter of time before he popped.
He had to tell someone besides Ruby about what was going on. Especially about Frank. Imogen was safe now, he hoped, but he couldn’t leave Frank down there. Frank had been his best friend. No, Frank was still his best friend.
Charlie looked down the hall to the left and then to the right and then in at Dr. Miller, who watched them curiously through her open door. He motioned for Elliott to follow him, and they tucked themselves away behind a set of lockers. The bell rang and students began to fill the halls, along with the sounds of excited chatter and screams and locker doors opening and slamming shut.
“I have something to tell you,” Charlie said. He looked around, making sure that no one was listening in. He pulled Elliott closer and whispered in her ear. “But I can’t tell you now. There are too many people around, and I don’t have enough time to tell you everything.” He paused. “You’ll need to hear everything.”
When Charlie pulled back, Elliott’s face was serious. “What is it? Are you in trouble? Do you need help?”
“Maybe,” Charlie started. “Yes, I think I need help.”
Saying those words relieved a little bit more of the pressure on his insides.
“Do you want to talk after school?”
Charlie nodded. “But I can’t talk at school. I have to leave right when the last bell rings to make sure I’m home for Imogen.”
Elliott’s eyebrows scrunched. “Doesn’t she have play practice? She was running around with that stuffed dog on a leash last week.” So much had changed since then, Charlie thought. Last week felt like light-years away.
“She quit.”
Elliott didn’t say anything for a moment, but her mouth made a tiny O shape.
Finally she spoke: “I’ll be there. I’ll drop my stuff off at home, and I’ll come right over after that.”
Charlie’s shoulders sagged in relief. He couldn’t bear all this alone anymore. He had done this one hard thing—inviting Elliott in. Now he had to do another.
THE PROPERTIES OF SUBTRACTION
Charlie found Mr. Spencer in the hall at lunchtime. He was tacking up a Mathletes poster on the corkboard strip outside his classroom. It advertised the upcoming tournament and invited the rest of the student body to come watch. It was done in huge bubble letters, and he could see parts of June and Miranda and Rohan on every inch of the poster. Only Charlie was missing.
Mr. Spencer had his back to him, so Charlie coughed to get his attention. “Charlie!” Mr. Spencer exclaimed when he turned around. “We missed you on Sunday. Is everything okay?”
Charlie’s stomach twisted into a tight knot. “That’s what I want to talk to you about.” He had thought and thought abou
t it and tried to find some other solution. But no matter how he added it up, this was the only one that made any sense.
Mr. Spencer guided him into the classroom. “Sit down.” He gestured to one of the student desks and took a seat at one himself. “What’s on your mind?”
Charlie took a deep breath. Someone had written loser on the desk in blue colored pencil. He traced it with his finger. That was how he felt right now. “I can’t be in Mathletes anymore.” The words kind of jammed together coming out of his mouth, so what actually came out sounded more like “Ican’tbeinMathletesanymore.”
Mr. Spencer leaned back in the chair and blew out a huge puff of air. “Man, Charlie. I’m going to be honest. I’m really disappointed to hear that.”
“I know, and I’m so sorry—”
Mr. Spencer held up his hand to stop him. “Not in you, Charlie. Sure I’d love for you to be on the team, and I thought we could win it this year. But I’m disappointed for you. I thought you loved Mathletes.”
Charlie’s eyeballs began to prickle, and he rubbed at one of them with his hand. “I do love it. But I have to get home sooner now after school. And I can’t do things on weekends anymore, so I won’t be able to do competitions.” What Charlie didn’t say was that he wouldn’t be able to watch Imogen if he was anywhere else. “It’s not fair to the rest of the team.”
“I respect that, but I really hope you reconsider.” Mr. Spencer paused, then leaned in closer. He had a serious look on his face. “This isn’t like you, Charlie. Is everything okay? Do you need to talk about anything?”
Charlie shook his head. “I’m all right.” He hoped it sounded believable.
“Do you want me to call your dad, see if there’s anything we can work out?”
“No, no,” Charlie sputtered. That was about the worst thing that could happen. He had to keep Imogen safe and find Frank. He couldn’t do that if Dad was asking questions. “You don’t have to do that. I’ve already talked to him about this.”
The Remarkable Journey of Charlie Price Page 10