by Paul Griffin
18
THE MAGIC BOX
Kayla was her name. She was five, I was almost ten. She was my shadow. I was the oldest in the group home and I read to the little kids a lot. She had asthma too. We’d be in the kitchen together, on the nebulizers. They’re these machines that help you breathe better. Lots of kids had asthma in that neighborhood. We were just downwind of the power plant.
Anyway, this one time, between puffs of medicine, Kayla and I were gabbing away, which you’re not supposed to do when you’re hooked up to the machine, but Kayla was all psyched because Christmas was coming. Santa appeared to her in a dream and said he was bringing her a box filled with magic. I was like, “What kind of magic?”
“The real kind,” she said. “He told me it’s the greatest treasure.”
So I already had the box, this old wooden jewelry case I found on the street on garbage night, which is where I found a lot of my books too. This box was perfect, Halley, I swear—dark blue velvet inside. So what if the top was a little cracked? I could glue it back together, right? But I was like totally freaked for the next two weeks, trying to figure out what I was going to put in that box. I mean, what can be the greatest treasure? The only thing you’ll ever need to be happy? It doesn’t exist.
Then, two days before Christmas, I figured it out, and of course it was a book. The Little Prince. That was the book that got me into sci-fi, this kid flying around the solar system, trying to find out what makes life so beautiful, right? And you learn that your eyes aren’t really the things that let you see. That you can only truly see with your heart. Anyway, I figured it was as close as I could get to real magic, reading that book to Kayla. So my foster caregiver took me to the bookstore. I had just enough allowance saved up to get the book, and it fit perfectly in the box.
Christmas Eve came. Every year we had a Santa, and this time it was a Santa magician, and he was flat-out terrific. I mean he turned candle smoke into a goblin head. He made coins spark and vanish and reappear in the kids’ hands. I was beginning to think this guy was for real, that magic was real. I was beginning to believe. Then he made a book flap its covers and flutter like a dove, and that’s when I got the idea that maybe he could do the same thing with The Little Prince, so Kayla really would think it was the greatest treasure.
All the kids were oohing and ahhing, except I was beginning to get the idea Magic Santa kind of didn’t want to be with us, a bunch of rejects, because he kept looking at his watch. Pretty soon he was rushing through the show, one trick into the next, no break for applause. He made me his assistant, simple stuff, hold this, get me that. I was standing next to him the whole time, and his phone kept buzzing. Finally he said he had to step out for a sec, Mrs. Claus was calling, he’d be right back.
Our caretaker could tell the guy was stressed, and she told me to bring him a cup of hot cider. So I did, and he’s in this huge fight with his girlfriend, practically yelling into the phone, “What do you want me to do? It’s a hundred bucks. I just have to give them the stupid presents, then I’m out of here.” Then it was, “Fine, good, spend Christmas by yourself.” He stuffed the phone into his pocket and noticed me. He sighed. “Sorry you heard that. Let’s get back in there and finish up.”
“Can I ask you a favor?” I said, and then I asked him if he could make The Little Prince fly.
“No way,” he said. He told me the other book wasn’t really a book at all but a bunch of cardboard rigged special with super-thin wires.
I was a little heartbroken, I have to admit. It made me realize everything else he did was fake too. I mean, that awesome trick with the coins? Who doesn’t want to believe things can vanish and then come back? “It all looked so real,” I said.
He rolled his eyes. “Why do you need the book to fly?” he said.
So I told him about Kayla and the magic box and how she’s expecting this thing inside it to be a surprise that takes your breath away. Those were the exact words I used too. He repeated them, “A surprise that takes your breath away. Okay,” he said. “I’ll make it a big deal. She’ll flip.”
“What are you going to do?” I said.
“Just trust me,” he said. “It’ll leave her breathless.”
So I went back in and rounded up the kids for the grab bag. Everybody got something they loved, except Kayla. You could tell she was about to cry, until Magic Santa said, “Now wait, I almost forgot, I have one last present here, a most special present, a magic box for Kayla.” He reached under his big red cape and presented it like with a flourish, you know? Kayla was so flipped out her eyes went from almonds to circles. He held the box in front of her and told her to lift the lid, and before she did, she said, “See Ben? Magic is real.”
She lifted the lid and this burst of crackly red smoke shot out, all the way up to the ceiling, in like half a second. Everybody jumped back, but then we’re clapping, because it was such a cool surprise, right? And we’re all covered in this red glitter. And then everybody stopped clapping.
Kayla was on the floor. She rolled up like a pill bug, and she was breathless all right. She couldn’t breathe. Everybody was yelling call the ambulance, she has asthma, and the magician was like, “But it’s not real smoke. It’s just glitter. It’s harmless.”
But it was the fright that triggered the attack, and it was a really bad one. She was so shocked and panicked her throat started to close up. I was trying to make her breathe off of my inhaler, but she couldn’t do it. The nebulizer was no good either. By the time the paramedics got there her chest was all puffed up because she couldn’t get the air out of her lungs, and she’s passing out and there’s this shriek. Her wheezing. Like somebody’s screaming, far away. Like you can’t see them but you know they’re being murdered.
19
FIRE ALARMS AND FIRE ESCAPES
“She died?” Halley said.
“No, I did,” I said. “To her anyway. They took her to the hospital. They let me visit her once, and then the next day she was moved to this special unit, and you had to be family to get in, except nobody believed me when I said I was her family. She was in there for a week, and then of course a new kid came to take her spot in the house, and they moved her to a new home, they said. They couldn’t tell me where, of course, her being a minor and all. They keep all that stuff private until you’re sixteen. I wrote her letters. My caretaker promised she sent them, but I never heard back.”
Halley traced the backward numbers written into her palm. The ink was fading, and pretty soon none of it would add up to a hundred and eleven. She frowned and nodded. “I’m doing the time line in my head. You were almost ten, you said, when Kayla—when this happened. You must have been adopted pretty much right after.”
“I couldn’t talk from the minute I found out Kayla wasn’t coming back to the house. I don’t know why. I mean, I was always really quiet, but after that I just forgot how to do it. To make the sounds. I knew what I wanted to say, but I couldn’t get the words from my brain to my mouth. They sent Mom in to help me.”
“How’d she do it?” Halley said. “How’d she get you speaking again?”
“She visited me three times a week. She’d ask me how I was doing today, and I’d try to talk, and nothing would happen, so I’d just nod my head. She didn’t push me. She told me to tap it into her laptop, what I wanted to say. She asked me, ‘What do you like?’ and I typed books. ‘Which ones?’ Science fiction mostly. ‘Have you ever read Dune?’ That’s one of my favorites. ‘Mine too,’ and we’d go back and forth like that. She’d bring in the books and read to me for a little bit. She had this awesome voice, like totally calm. There was a fire alarm drill, and everybody was all like, line up, hurry, eyes front, no talking, march, and meanwhile Mom whispers to me, ‘This is a good time for you and me to sneak out to Dunkin’ Donuts.’
“So maybe about the third week, I tapped into her iPad that I couldn’t figure out where the words were getting st
uck. I had this feeling that if she could show me where in my brain they were gunking up, like maybe show me on a picture or something, I could push them through. I just didn’t know where to push. And then she does this thing. It was true magic, no offense to your dad. She puts her hand on my head and says, ‘I’m so glad you told me this, Ben. We’re home free. The words aren’t stuck here.’ She taps my forehead. ‘They’re stuck here.’ Now she rests her hand on my heart. ‘Oh,’ I said. That was it. She didn’t go crazy or anything, like screaming about the fact she got me to talk. She just messed up my hair a little and said, ‘So why don’t you tell me about Kayla?’ And I did. Look, I know it wasn’t totally my fault, okay?”
“Who, Kayla? It wasn’t at all. The Little Prince. That was so awesome. It wasn’t the Santa dude’s fault either. I know you know that too.”
“I guess,” I said. “No, I know. He was flipping out.”
“I bet,” Halley said. “Poor guy.”
Flip nudged Halley’s hand and then did his boxer trick. Halley smiled and kissed him but she wasn’t ready to stop being sad yet, which is why I didn’t want to tell her the story in the first place.
“Thanks,” I said. “There’s only one other person I can talk to like this. Could talk to.”
“She’s still with you,” Halley said.
“Sure.”
“She is. She’ll always be with you. Kayla too.”
“Tell me the rest of your book.”
“Not now,” she said.
“When?”
“Soon.”
“I’ve really been wanting to ask you about it. What kind it is. I just don’t know how.”
“You just did,” she said.
“No, your, you know.”
“Cancer? It isn’t mine.”
I nodded, feeling like a jerk.
“I want to tell you about it,” she said. “I will, okay? I know it’s not fair, you telling me about Kayla, about your mom, and me not telling you about it, but it has to be noisy.”
“Like how?”
“Like in traffic, so it gets eaten up by the horns or the squeaks the train brakes make. You can’t talk about it here, by the water. It’s too nice here. I just want to say I think you’re awesome. Don’t say anything. I always have to get the last word.” She put her head on my shoulder and turned her face up to the sun and closed her eyes and pet Flip blind.
• • •
When I got home, nobody was at the dinner table. Tonight was delivery food from the Palace of Enchantment, except it was all laid out real neat on platters. Mom and I usually ate right from the cartons. Leo was eating in front of the TV, some ESPN show. Aunt Jeanie was in the other room, at Mom’s desk, eating in front of her iPad. “Sorry I’m late,” I said.
“C’mon, champ,” Leo said, “you don’t have to worry about that with me.” I fed Flip and then myself, and then we loaded the car with boxes and bags. I turned back for a last look at the apartment building, my bedroom window, the fire escape where the pigeons used to bunch up in the early morning. The old man upstairs threw out crumbs at sunrise. I closed my eyes and pretended really hard that I heard the cooing, that I heard Mom’s voice. You and I will never disappear. We are forever. I opened my eyes and she wasn’t there of course.
Aunt Jeanie fussed with my hair. She wasn’t a musser. More of a fixer. “You forget something up there, Ben?”
“Nothing.”
“Don’t cry,” she said, crying.
“Don’t worry,” I said. “I won’t.” And I didn’t. We got into the car and left.
20
THE HOUSE BY THE CEMETERY
“You think you’ll be all right in here, champ?”
It used to be Aunt Jeanie’s workout room. We moved her treadmill and exercise balls down to the cellar. “I don’t want to push you out of here,” I said. “I’d feel better in the basement.”
“Absolutely not,” Aunt Jeanie said. “Your asthma. There’s no air down there. I mean, of course it’s fine for when I run for a few minutes.”
“I don’t know why you don’t run outside, babe,” Leo said.
“This is a total pain for you,” I said. “Flip and me barging in on you like this.”
“Nah, c’mon, now,” Leo said.
“I just want to say thanks. Seriously. I’ll pay for Flip’s food, mine too.”
“Champ, relax.”
“I make around fifty bucks a week from my coupon deliveries.”
“Now, now,” Aunt Jeanie said. She looked like she wanted to say more but didn’t know what to say. She chewed her lip. She patted my back, leaning away. “Well, if you need us, we’re right down the hall.”
Leo yawned and stretched on his way out. “So happy to be home,” he said.
The room was a lot smaller than my old one. The window looked over the cemetery. It sounds crummy, but it was okay, lots of pine trees. I couldn’t see them so great in the night, but their shadows were sparkly in the moonlight. Mom got cremated, so now I wouldn’t be able to visit her. They take the body after the funeral, and you don’t see it again. Then later they send you her ashes, except how can you be sure they’re hers? They were supposed to come back any day now.
Aunt Jeanie had made the bed so it was tucked really tight. I remembered the day we had the big talk, Mom, Jeanie and me. I can’t remember why Leo wasn’t there. The talk where Mom asked Jeanie if she would take care of me if she died. Jeanie clutched her heart—always clutching her heart—and her eyes got wet. “I’m so touched, really,” she said. “That you think I would be a good, you know, that I could take care of Ben. Leo and I, kids, we just never had the time. Well, you know.” “I know, sweetheart,” Mom said to her. “But you make the time, and they give you more time than they take. Good time, they give you. You have a huge heart, Jeanie. Bigger than you know.” “It’s such an honor to be asked,” Jeanie said. “So I’m gonna put you down for a yes then,” Mom said. “Not that I’m planning on going any time soon. Just in case. Right, Ben?” She mussed my hair, and then Jeanie fixed it, but they both winked at me, and the same way too, like only sisters can. It was nice, except, just like Mom said, none of us really imagined it would happen. Not before I grew up anyway. Before I went out on my own.
I stared at the empty wall of my new room and wondered where I ought to hang my Chewbacca poster. Flip looked from me to the wall, trying to figure out what I was staring at. I set the big picture of Laura on the desk. I had a small one of me and Mom with the beach in the background on a sunny day. I pushed the pictures together. Laura was like twenty times bigger than me and Mom. I looked away and started to get mad at myself for getting teary. Never let the hill slow you down, Traveler, Mom used to say, except she wouldn’t have minded me being sad. Then again, she would have cheered me up. I just didn’t want to get started on that whole thing. You know, feeling sorry for myself. Once you start up on that, it’s harder and harder to stop, and then before you know it you’re a zombie.
I went to the kitchen to get Flip a bowl of water. Leo was eating over the sink. “There’s crumb cake but no milk,” he said with his mouth full.
“Thanks, I’m okay,” I said.
Flip sat behind me and stared through my legs at Leo.
“He’s pretty goofy-looking,” Leo said. “He know any tricks?”
“Flip, box,” I said, and Flip got into a match with his invisible opponent.
“That’s hilarious.” Leo got down on the floor and feinted jabs with Flip. And then he connected with a soft but quick slap across Flip’s muzzle.
Flip ran behind me and kept sneezing. Leo crawled like a lizard toward Flip and Flip whimpered.
“I don’t think he likes that too much,” I said.
“We were just playing.” He mussed Flip’s head and stood up a little out of breath. “It’s weird, you not calling me anything, you know? Da
d would be weirder though, right? Unc? No? How’s about just call me Leo then, okay? You want to watch TV or something?”
“School tomorrow.”
“Hey, I can take of care of him for you. Trip, I mean. While you’re at school.”
“Thanks, but you don’t have to.” What, like I’m going to leave Flip with him after he just slapped him? Was he out of his mind? “I walk him for a long time in the morning and then when I get home. Um, I don’t mean to say anything, but his name’s, like, Flip.”
“I never had a dog before,” Leo said. “C’mere, pup.” Flip didn’t.
“He’ll just sleep on the bed till I get back here,” I said. “You don’t have to worry about him at all. Really, Leo. I appreciate it though.”
“I guess you have it all figured out then.” He shrugged. “Sleep good.” He went into his office, which was packed with boxes. He sold golf stuff on eBay, mostly those loser hats with the flap that covers your neck, shirts with humorous sayings, except I didn’t get why they were funny. Like the one he was wearing that night was:
His specialty was gently used clubs, he said.
Flip and I settled down on top of the covers. No way was I going to be able to make that bed as perfectly as Aunt Jeanie did. I texted Halley the address of the therapy dog certification place. Leo was watching TV on the other side of the wall, and he laughed really loud. Flip shivered and hid in my armpit.
I called Chucky. “Is your mom there?”
“This isn’t some wink thing, is it?”
“Chucky, be realistic for like a third of a second.”
“You saying my mom’s ugly?”
“Of course not. Your mom’s really pretty.”
“Watch it, Coffin.”
While I was talking to him, my phone blipped with a text back from Halley:
• • •
I didn’t sleep. I watched my phone alarm tick down toward 4:30. Somebody was opening and closing cabinets in the kitchen. After that stopped I got up and made Flip breakfast.