the two levels

by Jonathan R. Miller

  I watch as Mr. Emmanuel makes his way through the cosmetics section, jogs down the main aisle and stands right in front of me. It feels like he’s too close. I’m reminded of how tall he is—he towers over me like a redwood.

  I decide to stay where I am, even though I feel like backing away.

  I also decide that I’m not going to talk first. I’m going to wait for him to say what he wants to say.

  I wait.

  But nobody says anything for what feels like a hundred eons.

  “I’m sorry,” Mr. Emmanuel says quietly. “For your mum, I mean. I’m sorry.”

  I glare at him.

  Mr. Emmanuel breaks eye contact, looking over my head at something behind me. He suddenly seems like he wants to be somewhere else.

  “I heard your mum is in a bad way,” he says.

  “Who told you that?” I ask.

  “My sister did. Christiana.”

  Miss Christiana is Mr. Emmanuel’s sister?

  That’s weird.

  They seem totally different from each other.

  “My mom just got hurt,” I say, nodding. “But she’ll be okay once I help her.”

  Mr. Emmanuel makes eye contact with me again. He doesn’t look uncomfortable anymore; now he looks confused.

  “I think hurt is the wrong word, pikin,” he says. “A bullet to the gut goes well beyond hurt.”

  “Can you stop? I don’t even want to talk to you.”

  Before Mr. Emmanuel can say anything else, I break into a run for the exit.

  • • •

  I leave Macy’s and keep running.

  I pass store after store, searching for the stairway with the Go Back tape at the bottom, the stairway with the boxes of supplies piled on the landing.

  I find other ways down to the first floor—one is even a stairway that looks almost exactly like the one I want—but I can’t find the stairway that I’m looking for.

  I can’t find it anywhere.

  I eventually give up and stop running.

  I sit down in a corner next to a pretzel shop and rest my head on my knees. I can feel the tears building up, but I blink and wipe my eyes until they stop.

  I have no idea what I’m supposed to do now.

  “Jasmine,” a voice says.

  I almost jump right out of my skin.

  I look up and see Mr. Emmanuel standing nearby.

  He smiles at me. I’m surprised by how friendly he can look when he decides to try.

  Maybe he’s not as terrible as I thought.

  “Why are you running crazy out here?” Mr. Emmanuel asks. “You look like a wild shopper on a rampage, looking for the cheapest price.”

  I know that’s supposed to be a joke, but I don’t laugh. I don’t even smile back at him.

  Mr. Emmanuel seems to be waiting for me to talk, but that’s too bad. I’m not going to. I put my head back down on my knees and stare at the floor.

  “Jasmine. If you tell me your plans, maybe I can help you,” he says quietly.

  Mr. Emmanuel could help me?

  That sounds pretty good, actually.

  I could really use some help right now. Especially from a grownup.

  I look up at him. “Yeah. Okay.”

  Still smiling, Mr. Emmanuel approaches the spot where I’m sitting and leans up against the metal gate covering the front of the pretzel shop.

  “I always loved this,” he says, pointing.

  I’m not sure what he’s pointing to. The gate?

  “Loved what?”

  “Pretzels,” he says. When he says the word, it sounds like pret-ZELS. “This special kind that they have here. The big, soft ones you get from the shops. Salt the size of small rocks. A lot, lot of butter.”

  I can’t help but smile because Mr. Emmanuel is so right about this.

  “Can I sit with you?” he asks.

  I think about it.

  I imagine how I’ll feel if he were sitting next to me.

  I still don’t really like Mr. Emmanuel. But I like him a little bit more now that he smiles and likes pretzels.

  “Yeah,” I answer. “Okay.”

  Mr. Emmanuel sits directly across from me on the tile floor with his long legs pulled in close to his body.

  It’s weird. He kind of reminds me of a spindly spider right now.

  “So,” he says. “You must have a plan, I think. Am I right? Or are you just running around the shops for exercise?”

  I force myself to smile a little bit this time.

  “I’m finding things I can use to help my mom with,” I say. “That’s my plan.”

  “What things?”

  “Medicine. Bandages. Anything I can find,” I answer, shrugging.

  “The chemist is downstairs on the first floor,” he says. “Is that your plan? To break into the chemist and steal what you need?”

  What did he just say?

  Chemist?

  “I don’t even know what a chemist is,” I answer.

  “It’s the place—I don’t know exactly how say it. I suppose it’s the place where you go to buy things for your health. Like aspirin, vitamins, Pepto-Bismol. You know?”

  “You mean Walgreens?” I ask.

  Mr. Emmanuel smiles. “Yes. Like Walgreens,” he says.

  “No,” I answer. “I’m not breaking into Walgreens to steal things. I’m going to the staircase. That’s where the stuff is. I just can’t find it right now.”

  Mr. Emmanuel stares at me for a while without saying anything.

  “There are a half-dozen ways to reach the first floor besides stairs, pikin,” he says, getting to his feet. “Come. I’ll show you.”

  He doesn’t understand what I mean.

  “I need my staircase,” I say.

  “Yours?”

  I nod. “Yes. That’s where the stuff is.”

  Mr. Emmanuel sits down again, pulling his spidery legs into position.

  “You’ve lost me completely,” he says. “I think I need you to start over.”

  I decide to tell Mr. Emmanuel almost everything.

  Just like I did with Miss Christiana.

  I even tell him a little bit more than I told her.

  I tell him about the retreat happening on the first floor.

  I tell him about the employee-only area, called Home Base.

  I tell him about the Rug-Rat Room and Miss Trina.

  I tell him about my friend Hadley.

  I tell him about the Supply Room and the products inside.

  And I also tell him about the staircase with the Go Back tape at the bottom and the stash of supplies on the landing.

  When I’m finished, Mr. Emmanuel doesn’t speak for what feels like forever. He stares off into space like he’s either concentrating hard or daydreaming.

  Eventually he smiles at me.

  “Let’s go find your staircase,” he says. “I will help you.”

  • • •

  With Mr. Emmanuel’s help, I find the staircase with the criss-cross tape at the bottom in no time.

  When I reach the top of the steps, I look down at the landing, expecting to see the boxes I found there, but the landing is completely empty.

  The boxes of supplies are gone.

  Without the supplies—medicine and bandages—I can’t do anything to help Momma get better.

  I burst into tears.

  Face in my hands, I sink down onto the top step.

  Mr. Emmanuel sits down next to me. “It’s all right, Jasmine,” he says.

  Why do grownups always say that everything is all right when it really isn’t?

  Either they don’t understand how bad it really is, or they’re just lying all the time.

  He puts an arm across my shoulders—it feels heavy, like my dad’s, but not quite as heavy. And it’s a different kind of weight, too. With my dad, the weight of his arm reminds me of a blanket’s weight. With Mr. Emmanuel, it feels more like I’m trapped.

  “What’s the matter?” he asks.

  I u
ncover my face and look up at him.

  Seriously? How could he not know what’s wrong right now?

  “Everything is gone,” I say.

  “Yes, it is. So your old plan is gone also.” He shrugs. “That means we make another plan and we go on.”

  “But I don’t have another plan.”

  “I said we.”

  • • •

  Mr. Emmanuel and I walk back to the corner by the pretzel shop—he says we need to get out of the open—and we sit down in almost the exact same spots as we did last time.

  He even sits in the same daddy-longlegs position as before.

  Once we get settled, he spends a long time explaining his plan.

  I mean, my plan.

  You see, even though all the ideas come from Mr. Emmanuel, he keeps telling me that the plan is mine.

  That it depends on me.

  That it will only work if I can remember it exactly.

  I don’t get it. If you come up with all the steps and then tell the other person what to do, isn’t the plan really yours?

  I eventually decide that it doesn’t matter whose plan it is, as long as it’s a good plan. And this plan seems pretty good to me.

  There are three parts.

  Here’s what they look like:

  First, I will go downstairs and sneak into the Employee Only section of the mall.

  Because the door can only be opened with a key card (I saw Mr. Jim use one), Mr. Emmanuel will have to figure out a way to unlock it. After that, I will go back to the retreat without anybody knowing.

  Secretly I’m a little bit excited about that part.

  It means I’ll get to see Hadley again, which sounds good right now.

  Hadley treated me like a friend, and even though there are kids up here on the second floor, they aren’t very friendly. They stare at me like I’m something gross that they found under a rock.

  Yep. Seeing Hadley again will be fun.

  Unfortunately, the second part of the plan will not be fun. In fact, I think I will be really afraid when I do it.

  Once I’ve rejoined the retreat, I’m supposed to sneak into the Supply Room and take the things I need to help my mom: bandages and medicine.

  Just take them.

  Without Mr. Jim or anyone else seeing me.

  I ask Mr. Emmanuel what medicine I should choose from the Supply Room. He tells me not to worry—I should just take as much as I can carry.

  Now, the third part of the plan is just weird.

  While I’m in the Supply Room getting medicine and bandages for Momma, I’m also supposed to get some things for Mr. Emmanuel.

  Watches.

  Phones.

  Jewelry.

  Tablet computers.

  I ask Mr. Emmanuel how I should decide which watches, phones, jewelry, and tablet computers to take with me.

  He tells me not to worry—I should just take as much as I can carry.

  “Isn’t that like stealing?” I ask.

  Mr. Emmanuel shrugs. “Is it called stealing when you take the gauze and pills to help your mum?”

  I don’t answer his question right away.

  I think about it.

  Is it stealing to take medicine and bandages from the Supply Room and use them to help Momma?

  When I imagine myself doing it—sneaking into the Supply Room and taking things I didn’t pay for—it feels a lot like stealing.

  But when I imagine myself using the things I took to help Momma—and when I make a mental picture of her smiling at me afterward—it doesn’t feel like stealing at all.

  “No,” I answer. “What I’m doing is not the same as stealing because I don’t have any money to buy the stuff I need. I would if I did. Plus I need the stuff to help my mom with. It’s not even for me.”

  Mr. Emmanuel nods. “I understand,” he says. “And I agree with you. I feel the same way about the things I am asking you to take for me.”

  He feels the same way as I do? About phones and jewels?

  I can’t believe what I’m hearing.

  “It’s not the same at all,” I say. “Watches and phones and diamond rings and necklaces and earrings? That’s totally not the same as medicine.”

  Mr. Emmanuel smiles.

  “Like you, I don’t have any money to buy the things I need,” he says. “And, like you, I need these things to help my mum.”

  Mr. Emmanuel and I talk about the third part of the plan—the stealing part—for a long time. We argue back and forth, back and forth, before he finally gives up.

  “How about a new proposal then,” he says. “A different idea.”

  I shrug. “Fine. Okay.”

  “Have I told you that I studied medicine back at USL? Back home?” Mr. Emmanuel asks. “Advanced first aid. Triage. EMT techniques. I was embedded with a group of RUF rebels during the war, so I know a thing or two about the body after it experiences a bad trauma. Believe me when I tell you this, child.”

  Actually, I don’t believe what I’m hearing at all.

  Mr. Emmanuel knows how to help people who get hurt really bad?

  That means he could’ve been helping Momma this whole time.

  “Why didn’t you tell me you knew how to help people?” I ask. My voice shakes when it comes out.

  Mr. Emmanuel raises his hands like he’s giving up. “Go easy, pikin,” he says. “Do you think your mum is the only one hurt from this event? I have been helping others as much as I can, but I cannot see to everybody at one time.”

  “You’ve been stealing,” I blurt out. “I’ve seen you do it. And you could’ve been helping people then, but you weren’t.”

  Oops.

  I wasn’t planning on saying any of that.

  Mr. Emmanuel stares at me.

  He doesn’t look angry at all, like I thought he would. He just looks icy.

  “Like I said, let’s make a new proposal,” Mr. Emmanuel says quietly. “You find the things I need from the Supply Room. In return, I do what I can to help your mum get well again. Yes? Do we agree?”

  I don’t answer right away.

  I think about Mr. Emmanuel’s new proposal.

  I don’t need to think about it for very long, though.

  It feels like I have no choice but to say yes.

  I nod. “I’ll do my best to get what you want.”

  • • •

  Before I start the first step of the plan—sneaking downstairs and rejoining the retreat—I need to get myself outfitted. That’s the word Mr. Emmanuel uses.

  We leave the pretzel shop and go to the camping store, crawl in carefully through the broken front window, and start walking up and down the aisles, looking for stuff that Mr. Emmanuel says I need.

  First, we find a backpack.

  I need a backpack for two big reasons.

  I need the backpack because it helps me fit in. Everybody else at the retreat has one, so I need to have one too.

  I also need the backpack because I need something to help me carry the medicine, the gauze, and the things that Mr. Emmanuel wants. I can’t hold all of those things by myself—I’d need to have, like, a hundred arms.

  Once we have a backpack big enough to carry a lot of stuff, we find a few things to put inside. Things that will help me fit in at the retreat even better.

  A travel toothbrush and a small tube of toothpaste.

  A hairbrush.

  A small towel.

  A set of long underwear—a shirt and pants—to use as PJs.

  Lastly, we find a kid-sized sleeping bag stuffed in a sack with a drawstring. The sack looks so full, I think it might explode at any second!

  I try to push the sleeping bag into the backpack, but it won’t fit. Not even close.

  “What should I do with this?” I ask, showing Mr. Emmanuel the sleeping bag.

  “You’re going to have to carry it with your hands,” Mr. Emmanuel says. “But only on the way downstairs. Once you’ve filled the backpack with things from the Supply Room—the things to hel
p my mum and the things to help your mum—then you come back upstairs as soon as you’re able. You leave the sleeping bag behind. Understand?”

  Yes.

  I do understand.

  The plan makes complete sense. But there is one part of the plan that’s still bothering me.