Clues to the Universe

by Christina Li

“If you missed us, you would have found a way to visit us,” I said sharply. I looked up at him. “Do you even know how hard it was to track you down? But I did. I came all the way to Los Angeles, and you didn’t even want to talk to me.”

  My dad shook his head. “I’m sorry,” he said. He looked ashamed of himself. “I don’t know what to say.”

  If I wanted to, I could have stood up and stomped out of this diner and away from my dad forever. I could have run over to where Ro and her mom and Mr. Voltz were sitting and asked to go and not look back. I could walk out of his life the way he walked out of mine.

  My dad was never meant to be some hero or creative genius who left clues for me in his comics. He was just some guy who married my mom and then left us. That was all.

  I glanced over at the other table and locked eyes with Ro for a split second before she looked down. I turned back. I took one deep breath. Then another.

  He was my dad. And he was alive. He was here.

  “You got a pen?” I asked.

  He nodded and pulled a fountain pen from his pocket. I reached over for a napkin and wrote our phone number down.

  “You can call me sometime,” I said.

  He grinned, relieved. “I’ll do that.”

  “Promise?”

  He reached his hand over the table and I shook it.

  “Now spit on it to make it official.”

  He looked horrified.

  “Kidding,” I said. “Why does everyone fall for that?”

  He leaned back. “Now tell me,” he said, tucking the napkin in his pocket. “How exactly did you find me?”

  I grinned. “Long story,” I said. “But I found you through your comic books. I didn’t even know that you’d written them. But then I found some artwork around the house that matched yours. And then I tried to look through your comic books for some clues because you weren’t in the phone book. And then I thought you were in New York, but you weren’t. And then I found out that your movie was premiering here.” I shrugged. “Pretty simple, actually.”

  He laughed. “I didn’t exactly make it easy to find me, did I? I mean, I live here in LA, but you made a decent guess. That’s pretty good detective work.”

  “It wasn’t all me,” I admitted. “My friend Ro over there was the one who helped me figure a lot of it out. She found the newspaper article about your premiere.” I looked over at the other table, where Ro was staring down, her head in her hands. I felt a twinge in my chest. “Actually . . .” I turned back to my dad. “Would it be all right if I talked to her for a bit?”

  He took a deep breath and then relaxed his shoulders. “Sure thing, kiddo.” He got up. “I’ll get her. If you need me, I’ll just be over there with . . .” He looked over at Mr. Voltz and Ro’s mom, puzzled. “I take it those are your friend’s parents?”

  “Well, her mom. And then there’s Mr. Voltz, the guy Danny works for. He’s real friendly, actually.”

  He nodded. “Got it.” Before he stood, he scribbled something down on a napkin and handed it to me. “And that’s my phone number if you need it. Call me anytime.”

  I gingerly folded the napkin and tucked it into my pocket. “I will.”

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Ro

  I SLID INTO the booth. “You wanted to talk to me?”

  Benji nodded. “Yeah.” But he just left it at that. He fiddled with his straw, not quite meeting my eyes. He looked at the table as if searching for words to say.

  I wondered if we were going to let this silence stretch on, like if I just started counting in my head from one, I would count to infinity without us saying a word to each other.

  One Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi, four—

  “Okay—”

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  Benji looked up.

  “I’m so sorry I made you do this,” I burst out. “I never thought I was making you do something you didn’t want to. I just—” My words caught in my throat. “I just . . . wasn’t thinking. Or listening. I feel awful about this.”

  Benji didn’t say anything for a second. Then: “I wanted to.”

  That stopped me. “You did?”

  “I was tired of not knowing who he was,” he said. He glanced up. “You’re right, you know. I was always too scared to do what I wanted. Like standing up for you to Drew. I should’ve said something after that science class.”

  I shook my head. “It doesn’t matter now.”

  “Still does. Friends stand up for each other. And I was an awful friend.” He folded a packet of salt and then unfolded it. He straightened up. “And I just finally wanted to do something. I was tired of being scared. I wanted to see my dad.” He picked up his milkshake and shrugged. “I mean, it was kind of a disaster. I’d always imagined this whole thing where he’d spot me from far away and then I’d run to him and everything would be perfect.” He shook his head. “But instead I made a fool of myself. Everyone was looking at me like I was crazy. I almost got into a fight with a security guard. And my dad . . . just looked confused.” He paused and put his head in his hands. He mumbled, “And he’s married to someone else.”

  I slumped back in my seat. “Oh.”

  “I’m glad it happened, though.” Benji looked around the diner. “In a weird way. I’m glad I came all the way down to see him, even if he was kind of a jerk about it. I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life wondering what would have happened if I’d met him.”

  He went quiet for a moment. “Plus,” he said. “It really could have been worse.”

  I looked at him. “How?”

  “At least I got to meet my dad.” A corner of his mouth curled up in a small grin. “Our plan worked.”

  I grabbed a couple of fries. “I guess that’s true. At least you got here in one piece.”

  “I wasn’t sure if I was going to make it back, though,” Benji said. “I lost the map I had.” He paused. “Oh, we might make the news tomorrow. For, you know, crashing a movie premiere.”

  “Benji!”

  He laughed. “I’m sorry I got you all in this mess.”

  I shook my head. “This is all my fault.”

  Benji looked at me. “Hey, you’re not taking all the blame for this.”

  “Okay, maybe ninety percent.”

  “Sixty.”

  “Eighty-five.”

  “Fine. Let’s call it an even fifty-fifty.”

  I glanced up at him and smiled. “Deal.”

  He leaned back. “Hey,” he said after a second. “Have you ever tried dipping fries in a milkshake?”

  “A fry dipped in what?”

  “I’ve heard it’s actually pretty good.” He glanced up at me. “Wanna try?”

  I shook my head.

  “Come on,” he said. “You never turn down a science experiment.”

  I gave in. We each dipped a fry into his vanilla milkshake. “This actually isn’t bad.”

  “See?” Benji took another fry. “Now let’s try your strawberry shake.”

  “No way,” I said, but curiosity got the better of me. I tried it. “Ugh!”

  When I looked up, Benji was laughing. “You forgot that I’m willing to eat anything and everything.” He turned the fry box to me. “Last one?”

  I shook my head and smiled, and took the fry. I glanced up, meeting his laughing eyes, and knew that everything was somehow okay.

  Benji shook his head, smiling. “I can’t believe I actually came to Los Angeles.” His eyes widened. “I mean, yesterday I was still sitting in that awful detention with Drew, you know? There was no way I was gonna come in a million years.” He sighed. “Thanks for helping me find my dad. I know I was kinda difficult about it—”

  “Believe it or not, I understand,” I said. “I did tell you to run away across half of California.”

  “Yeah, but it ended up being worth it,” he said. He grinned a little. “I’m glad we made that deal of ours. And I know I wasn’t the most helpful on the rocket, but—”
/>   His expression froze.

  “What?”

  “What . . . date is it?”

  “Friday.”

  “No, date.”

  “March sixteenth.”

  Something dawned on him. “Science fair is on the seventeenth, isn’t it?”

  I paused. And then I nodded at the table, exhaling slowly. “Yeah. Yeah, it is.” I looked up at him. “It’s okay. I knew we’re probably going to miss it, anyway. I mean, I gave up on it back when Drew ruined our poster board.”

  “You knew? You . . . were going to miss your science fair? For me?”

  “I mean, of course I would. You’re my best friend. I had to find you.”

  He stood up. “Wait, no. We’re going. We have to get there.”

  “Science fair starts in less than twelve hours, Benji. It took us six and a half hours to get here. We’re not going to make it.”

  “We have to,” Benji said, putting his hands on the table. “We made a deal.”

  “Benji.” I was going to tell him that it was okay. That it was okay giving up science fair because I’d found him, and that’s what I wanted most. “The deal doesn’t matter anymore. The board is ruined—”

  “So we’ll remake it.” Benji didn’t back down.

  “We’re . . . going to remake it? Are you for real?”

  “A hundred percent serious,” Benji said. “You helped me find my dad. I’m not letting you give up on your dream. Come on.”

  I paused for half a second before I said, “Okay.”

  We ran over to the table where Mr. Voltz, Benji’s dad, and my mom were sitting.

  “We have to leave now,” Benji said. “Science fair starts tomorrow at ten o’clock.”

  My mom’s eyes bugged out. Benji’s dad checked his watch. “You’re crazy, kid. It’s eleven o’clock, and you’re all the way in Los Angeles. You might as well get a hotel here and head up in the morning.”

  “We can’t miss it.” Benji turned toward my mom. “We have to drive up tonight. Please.”

  If someone had asked me at the beginning of the year what the odds were of Benji practically begging to go to the science fair, I would have laughed and said zero without a moment’s hesitation.

  “Mom,” I said. “The science fair really matters to us.”

  “You’re going to make Mr. Voltz drive in the middle of the night?” Mom crossed her arms. I saw a hint of fear in her eyes, how her lips were pressed tightly together. “No way.”

  We all turned toward him.

  Mr. Voltz gave Benji and me a hard look. His bushy eyebrows knitted together. He took a deep breath and exhaled. “This clearly means a lot to them. I’ll do it. I’ll drive.”

  “No,” Mom said.

  My heart sank.

  She looked right at Benji. “First, I’m calling your mom and telling her we’re heading back. And then we’ll drive. In shifts.” She grabbed her bag. “Come on. Let’s go.”

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Benji

  WE HURTLED BACK toward Sacramento at exactly twelve miles per hour over the speed limit, with Mr. Voltz blasting music on the radio to stay awake. Ro’s mom shrank back in her seat, clutching her map until her knuckles turned white. After she’d spoken to my mom, she didn’t talk to us much. She’d just told us she wanted us to get home as soon as possible. “I told her I’d get you back by the morning,” she said to me. “And then you might have some explaining to do.”

  I’d nodded, my heart sinking.

  But right now, on the way home, I tried to calm myself down. I hummed along and drummed my fingers a little. During the guitar solo I leaned toward Ro. “This guy,” I said, “is way cooler than I thought he was.”

  “I heard that,” Mr. Voltz said.

  She simply nodded and stared out the window.

  I leaned over. “Everything okay?”

  “It’s just,” she said. “This is crazy, Benji. We’re totally unprepared for tomorrow. We haven’t rehearsed. And the thing is, the rocket failed. I thought I had it all figured out, how high it was supposed to reach and how far it was supposed to fly. And none of that happened.” She looked at me. “How am I ever supposed to build a real rocket if I can’t even build one for the science fair?” She put her head in her hands.

  I sighed. “It’s okay,” I said. “Nothing that we planned really turned out like we wanted it to.”

  She glanced up. “You can say that again.”

  “I mean, I went all the way down there to reunite with my dad, and all I did was crash a Hollywood movie premiere. You know what? It was so bad that the security guards thought it was a prank.”

  She laughed. “Hey, I’m still proud of you.”

  “I know. I couldn’t have made a bigger fool of myself if I tried.”

  “Not that,” she said. “You finally got to see your dad.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “I guess I did.” I glanced at her. “And you built a rocket. That’s still really cool. We both had big plans, and we both pulled them off. Mostly.”

  She nodded. “I guess sometimes there are just things we don’t really account for.”

  I leaned back. I guess so. “Okay,” I said. “What’s next, then?”

  Ro glanced at me. For a moment her eyes were still wide with excitement, but then her shoulders deflated a little. She leaned back against the headrest. “We really have to redo it, don’t we? There’s no way we can fix it, is there? I mean the poster we had . . .”

  Was buried under a heap of slime goo, thanks to Drew.

  “Yeah,” I said softly. “I guess there’s no other way.”

  “And we took weeks to make that poster, Benji. And now we have”—she glanced at her watch—“Around five hours once we get home. I mean, is it even possible?”

  We were both quiet for a moment. I glanced up and met Mr. Voltz’s eyes in the rearview mirror. He raised his caterpillar eyebrows and, so subtly I almost missed it, gave me a little nod.

  It was going to happen. We were going to make it happen. “Listen, you’re friends with someone who still thinks aliens are real, used to think that people had secret superpowers, and just ran away across practically half of California. Not that I would recommend the last part. But after all this, anything is possible, really.” I leaned forward. “We’re gonna make the science fair. I promise. We just need a plan.”

  A small smile slowly crept into Ro’s expression. “Benji Burns with a plan?”

  I grinned. “Looks like you’ve rubbed off on me after all.”

  She sat up. “You want to remake the poster board when we get home? For real?”

  I nodded. “A million percent.”

  Ro’s mom glanced at us. “Benji, not you. You can’t be remaking the poster board.”

  “But Mom, our poster board was ruined. He has to help—”

  “Enough. Ro, he’s in enough trouble as is. Do you know how scary it is when your own kid goes missing for a day? I promised his mother I’d get him home—”

  “By the morning,” I said. “Please, Mrs. Geraghty. I have to do this. We’ve worked so hard on this, and we’re really proud of what we’ve done. We need to make the science fair.”

  Ro’s mom stared at us.

  A million seconds seemed to pass.

  “Well,” she said, very quietly. “I did tell her it might take all night to drive you back, given how long it took for us to get to LA.” She paused. “But we seem to be moving faster than we were before.”

  “Much faster,” Mr. Voltz added, his eyes trained on the road. “There’s practically no traffic out here. We might even be home by four thirty.”

  Ro’s mom was silent for a while. Finally she looked up. “You may stay at our house to finish your science fair poster. But the instant the sun rises, I am taking you home. Understood?”

  Ro and I nodded. She grinned and turned to me. “Okay, I still have all the numbers in my notebook, so it shouldn’t be hard to copy them down. We might have to rewrite parts of the poster, but I’ve got t
he drafts in my folder. We have some leftover cardboard for the poster board, and some of the construction paper to cover it.” She turned to me. “You think you can replicate your drawings?”

  Her eyes had lit up. I could practically see her mind working furiously to make it all come together, break it down to a perfectly written step-by-step list, and make the impossible possible again. I smiled. “Absolutely.”

  The science fair was back on.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Ro

  BENJI AND I hadn’t spoken all week, but once we were back, it was like no time had passed between us.

  Mom had turned to Benji the moment we walked through the door. “You have until morning to work on this poster, and then I’m sending you home.”

  We raced through the dawn. Benji grabbed the markers and set to work on re-creating his drawings. I cranked up the radio to keep us awake. Mom brewed us some of her extra-strong jasmine green tea. The rocket had been sitting in the corner of my garage, collecting dust. I polished it off, set it on its stand, and started copying down the figures.

  I was through my second cup of green tea and still copying down my calculations when I leaned back.

  Something didn’t look right, and I couldn’t quite figure out exactly what it was.

  Wait a minute.

  I thought about what I’d said to Benji on the car ride home, about things we don’t account for. It was almost as if something was sticking at the back of my mind. Something was missing. I knew it.

  I clapped my hands over my ears to block out the loud music so I could think better. I squeezed my eyes shut. Things we don’t account for . . .

  “Ro?” Benji asked.

  “I’m okay,” I said. “Just thinking.”

  I tried to think back to the rocket launches. I pictured us setting up the rocket on the launchpad. Pressing the ignition button. Watching as the rocket hurtled up for a thrilling few seconds, and then slowed its ascent, until it finally coasted and the parachute deployed. I felt Benji tapping my shoulder, but I squeezed my eyes tighter, imagining the rocket wobbling on its descent, buffeted by the wind—

  Wind resistance.

  That’s it.