by Ali Benjamin
On the cup was a picture of a green mermaid, long hair cascading over her chest. There was a crown on her head, with a star on top. Sea and sky meeting on a cardboard cup. Even though it was just a dumb old logo, it still felt like Rocco had just handed me a message, something that said, We understand.
The cocoa was delicious. For a while, we simply sat there on the floor, sipping our drinks and not-talking.
Then I saw my envelope of money peeking out of the suitcase. “I stole,” I said, and the words felt terrible coming out of my mouth. “I used Dad’s credit card.”
Then I picked up the envelope of cash and handed it to my mom. “And a lot of this is yours,” I said. I turned to Aaron and Rocco. “But some of it is yours.”
I explained about taking the money from their living room.
“We already knew, Zu,” Aaron said. He glanced at Rocco. “We had a fight about it, actually. It was his portion of the grocery money. Rocco swore he’d left it there for me, and I swore he couldn’t have, because it wasn’t there. Then we noticed the picture missing, and the key sitting there. That was the only explanation.”
I looked down at the floor. “I’m sorry.” I was surprised by how small my voice sounded, how young.
Rocco, who had missed my explanation, asked, “Was it for a good cause?”
“It was,” said Aaron.
Rocco placed a hand on mine. “You know, there are worse misdeeds than those that are done for a higher purpose.”
I wiped my nose. “Who said that?”
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“Is that a quote?”
He shook his head. “No, Suzy Q. It’s just the truth.”
I lay down with my head on my mom’s lap, which was warmer and softer than I remembered. It reminded me of a fact from Jenna’s presentation—that a mother dolphin does not stop swimming for the first several weeks of her newborn’s life. The newborn calf doesn’t have enough blubber to float, so it needs to be carried along in its mother’s slipstream. If the mother stops swimming, even for a short time, the calf will sink.
It must be tiring, being a mom.
At a nearby waiting area, I noticed a television running a news clip of a beach full of people holding up cameras and phones. Whatever was happening, they all wanted to record it. Close to shore, three kayaks followed an object that bobbed in the water.
It was a person. A person swimming toward shore.
Some words appeared: HISTORIC CUBA-FLORIDA SWIM.
I stood.
NYAD COMPLETES 103-MILE SWIM ON FIFTH ATTEMPT.
Without even thinking, I began moving toward the television.
“Oh,” Mom said, following me. “I read about this.”
Diana Nyad was just a few yards from shore. Just a few more strokes to go. If she stood now, she could walk right out of that water.
“Wow,” Rocco said. “She made it.”
He whistled through his teeth. “Fifth time’s the charm, I guess.”
Nyad hovered in the water, not moving at all. Then she slowly stood and stumbled forward, her steps so stilted it was almost as if she couldn’t remember how to walk. All around her, supporters held their arms out, ready to grab her if she fell. But they let her take those final steps out of the water unaided.
The crowd applauded wildly.
“She’s so brave,” I murmured.
We watched quietly as EMTs helped Nyad into an ambulance, and the ambulance drove slowly away from the beach. The crowd walked behind the ambulance, still cheering.
That’s when Aaron turned to me.
“Zu?”
“Yeah?”
“Can we take you home now?”
I felt my face crumple, felt the tears again, but this time they weren’t just sad tears. They were the other kind, too. The love kind.
The four of us walked toward the parking garage. When the sliding door opened and we stepped outside, there was a great burst of traffic and cold air and bright light. It hit me hard, as if I’d been holding my breath underwater and I’d finally lifted my head above the surface.
It was like gulping fresh air for the first time in a longtime.
Conclusion
What did you learn from your research? Take a step beyond your own investigation to consider the implications for future questions. What else is there to learn? Where might your inquiry take you next?
—Mrs. Turton
They are still out there, those jellyfish. They are still out there with their twenty-three stings every five seconds. They will be out there for the rest of my life. Maybe even for the rest of life on Earth.
I think about the immortal jellyfish, the one that can grow younger. I wonder: Is it possible that there is more than one way to grow younger? Is there some way humans can grow younger, too?
Like, what if we could return to the feeling we had when we were little, that sense that anything is possible?
Back in 1968, people saw Earth rising over the moon and believed they mattered. They believed they could accomplish anything.
What if we could feel that way again?
There are so many things to be scared of in this world: blooms of jellies. A sixth extinction. A middle school dance. But maybe we can stop feeling so afraid. Maybe instead of feeling like a mote of dust, we can remember that all the creatures on this Earth are made from stardust.
And we are the only ones who get to know it.
That’s the thing about jellyfish: They’ll never understand that. All they can do is drift along, unaware.
Humans may be newcomers to this planet. We may be plenty fragile. But we’re also the only ones who can decide to change.
That evening was a flurry of phone calls. My mom called my dad to tell him what happened. My dad and my mom got on a conference call with the credit card company first, and then with the airline. I listened as they were transferred from person to person.
I heard my mom tell the story over and over again, stopping occasionally to say things like That’s right. Twelve. She made the reservation online. Yes, by herself. No. No, I didn’t know.
I slept hard that night. In the morning, my mom didn’t wake me for school. I was glad about that. If Mom had any house-showing appointments, she must have canceled them, because when I finally came downstairs for breakfast, she was standing in the kitchen in flannel pajamas. She had the phone cradled to one ear, a steaming cup of coffee in her hand.
“Great,” she said into the phone. She winked at me. She looked tired, like she hadn’t slept much at all.
“Great,” she said again. “You’ve been so helpful. Thanks.”
She hung up the phone. “Good news, Zu,” she said. “The airline is going to refund the charge to Dad’s credit card.”
I looked at the floor.
“All of it?”
“All of it.” Then she muttered under her breath, almost as much to herself as to me, “They should, too. They can’t sell a ticket to a twelve-year-old.”
I walked outside, still in my pajamas, and watched my breath in the cold air.
If things had gone as planned, I would have been arriving in Cairns right about now. I’d probably be checking into the Tropicana Lodge Motel at this very second. It would be nighttime now, and summer.
And here I was, in Massachusetts on a winter morning, shivering in my pj’s on the front stoop of the only house I’d ever known.
When I really thought about it, that was the only thing that made any sense.
Mom appeared in the doorway. “Zu? I think you owe your dad a phone call.”
I shook of my head.
“Honey,” she said. “He and I talked last night, and again this morning. He’s upset, but honestly he’s more worried than anything.”
But I couldn’t call. Not yet.
I mean, how does a person just begin again, especially after all that?
I didn’t plan to go to the Heroes and Villains school dance. I didn’t think about the dance all day long. Not when Aaron a
nd Rocco stopped by with lunch. Not when Aaron turned on a soccer match, and we all watched as a team called Liverpool beat a team called Tottenham in the final minutes of the game. Not after they left, while my mom made chicken with rice, which is my favorite.
But as I was eating, the phone rang.
Mom picked it up. A moment later, she shook her head. “I’m afraid you have the wrong number,” she said. “There’s no Belle—”
I looked up then, eyes wide.
A second later, she laughed. “Oh, Suzy. Okay, sure, she’s here. . . . No, she’s not out of town.”
She winked at me. “She was away, but she’s back now. . . . Yeah, okay, hold on.”
She raised one eyebrow and looked at me slyly. “Someone named Justin would like to speak to you, Zu.”
She waved the phone at me and mouthed the words Come on.
But I didn’t take the phone from her. She sighed.
“She can’t come to the phone right this second. Is there a—? Got it. Okay. Yes, I got it. Awesomesauce. Right. I’ll tell her.”
She hung up the phone and gave me a funny look. “Justin”—she emphasized his name—”has asked me to tell you that his costume for the dance is ‘awesomesauce.’ He hopes you’ll come so you can see it.
The Heroes and Villains dance. Of course. That was tonight. My stomach did a little flip-flop just thinking about all that music. All those kids.
Mom leaned in. “Who is Justin?”
“He’s a—”
I thought for a moment, not sure how to describe him. “Well,” I said. “He’s . . . a friend, I guess.”
The word felt funny in my mouth, but as soon as I said it, I knew it was true.
Somehow, that was enough.
It didn’t take long for me to get my costume together. I walked into Aaron’s room, opened his closet door, and found an old paint-splattered Red Sox cap—the one he wore a few summers ago when he helped paint houses and came home every evening covered in green and yellow drips. I also grabbed a gray T-shirt with a pocket. It was long enough to be like a dress on me, and it actually looked pretty good over a pair of leggings.
I went into my room and sat on my bed. My suitcase was on the floor, still packed. Just seeing it there gave me the same feeling inside that listening to my mom talking on the phone had: like I was very, very young.
I reached down and pulled out the photo of Aaron, the one I’d swiped from Aaron and Rocco’s apartment. It was nice, in a way, knowing that he’d once been so young and weird-looking.
Maybe he’d once felt like an outsider in his own life, too.
I took the picture out of its frame and placed it in the pocket of the T-shirt.
Then I took a deep breath, went downstairs, and asked my mom if she could drive me to school.
If it’s true what some scientists think—that all moments in time exist simultaneously—then this is real, and it is happening now, just as it happened before:
We are under the big tree in my backyard, on that patch of dirt where we used to build fairy houses from moss and sticks and scraps of birch. It is late afternoon. All around us is golden light.
We have been together all day, in our cutoff shorts and bare feet.
It is the start of fifth grade, the start of being the oldest in the school. Next year, we will be the youngest all over again. But not yet.
We are playing that hand-slapping game, the one we like to play at recess. You hold your hands out, palms up, and I place mine lightly on top. You pull yours out and try to slap mine. You hit air three times. On the fourth try, your hands make contact with mine.
We laugh.
I hold my palms faceup, and your hands touch mine, ready to pull back. I can feel the heat of your fingers, which is the heat of your blood pulsing through your veins.
Your face blocks the sun, which hangs low in the sky. The edges of your face, your arms, glow white. It is as if someone has traced you with a glow-in-the-dark marker. You shift, and the afternoons rays break through from behind your head. I squint, and you disappear into a silhouette. You shift again, and there you are again, your freckles, your light hair glowing like a halo.
I move my hands, and you pull yours away, just in time. Our laughter escapes from us, unnoticed. It floats into that golden light around us. If we tried, we could reach out and grab that laughter, the way a person can catch sparks flying out from a campfire, or dandelion seeds carried by the wind. We could squeeze that laughter in our hands, feel its warmth, like stones that hold the day’s heat on a summer evening.
I move again, and just graze the top of your hands.
“Missed,” you say.
And I say, “I got you.”
And you say, “Nunh-uh.”
And I say, “Yah-huh.” Then we do it again, and I get you this time, and our laughter makes us round our shoulders. Our shadows grow longer as the sun sinks toward the horizon.
Our knees touch. We begin again.
Sitting in my mother’s car, I watched as kids streamed into the building in their heroes and villains costumes. I saw several Harry Potters and just as many Voldemorts. There were Katniss Everdeens, a bunch of classic superhero types with capes and tights, and a couple of masked men, dressed in black, like the kind of bad guys you’d see in an old Western movie. Dylan Parker walked past dressed as a priest, of all things.
I didn’t get out of the car.
“Hon?” Mom asked. “You okay?”
Two kids—both dressed as Avengers—passed in front of our car.
I imagined the gym, dark and covered with streamers.
What had I been thinking, coming here?
“I think I want to go home,” I said.
Mom sighed. Then she reached into her purse and dug out her phone. She pressed it into my hands.
But I still didn’t get out of the car.
“Suzy,” she said. “How long does it take to get from here to the house?”
A Batman and a Joker walked past. I couldn’t tell who they were.
“Zu?” Mom said. “How many minutes?”
“I dunno,” I said. “Maybe five minutes?”
“And how many seconds is five minutes?” she asked.
“Three hundred.”
“Right,” she said. “So here’s what I want you to do: I want you to walk in there and give this dance at least three hundred seconds. If you really can’t stand it, you can use this phone to call me. I’ll come get you. Okay? But at least walk through that door, Zu.”
Three hundred seconds. That was all she was asking.
“Honey, just yesterday you were ready to fly to another continent.”
Yes, but I failed.
She took my chin in her hands and looked in my eyes, just for a moment. “You are brave, Zu. Braver than anyone I know. You can do this.”
I squeezed my eyes shut so that I wouldn’t start crying all over again.
When I opened them, I looked down at the phone in my hands. I wanted so much to be able to do this—for Mom’s sake, even more than for my own.
Then, as if she could read my mind, she said, “For me, Zu? Please just give it a try?”
I pulled the door handle, just enough that the light inside the car came on. Then someone thumped on my window.
“Belle!” Justin waved. He was dressed normally, but he had these huge furry mittens on his hands, like animal paws.
I was so relieved to see him I burst out laughing.
“Is this Justin of the awesomesauce costume?” Mom asked.
I nodded.
“You coming or what?” Justin called to me through the window.
I turned to my mom. “You promise? You’ll answer the phone when I call? And you’ll come right back to get me?”
“Yes, Zu.”
“And you won’t stop anywhere between here and home? So if I call you after five minutes, you’ll be home by the phone?” I promise.
Three hundred seconds.
I took a deep breath. Clutching my mom’s
phone in my left hand, I stepped out of the car.
“What are you?” Justin asked, looking at my Red Sox cap. “A baseball player?”
I shut the door and watched my mom’s car pull away from the curb. I swallowed hard and then looked at him.
“Just a regular guy,” I said. “Can’t a regular guy be a hero?”
“Hmm . . .” He stroked his chin with his furry paw. “Doesn’t happen often, but I suppose it can happen now and then.”
I heard the music start inside the building, some song I didn’t know. But apparently other kids did, because a bunch of kids cheered and rushed toward the door.
“Hey,” Justin said, pointing to the parking lot. “There’s Mrs. Turton.” He waved his furry mitts like a crazy man. “Hey, Mrs. Turton!”
Mrs. Turton wore silver sparkle sneakers, which I thought was funny. “What are you dressed as, Mrs. Turton?” Justin asked.
She unzipped her coat, placed her hands on her hips, and stood with her chin thrust upward, superhero-style. Beneath her coat, she wore a T-shirt that read I TEACH SCIENCE. WHAT’S YOUR SUPERPOWER?
“And you, Mr. Maloney?” she asked. “Are you a werewolf?”
“Nope,” Justin said. “But I’ll bet Belle here knows what I am.”
“Yeah, I know what you are,” I said.
They both waited.
“He’s the Beast,” I said. Justin beamed.
“Ah,” Mrs. Turton said. “Well, I hope the Beast is ready to boogie, because Mrs. Turton is ready to dance. Look,” she added, wiggling one of her sneakers in the air. “I’ve even got my dancing shoes on.”
Justin and Mrs. Turton walked toward the front doors. When Mrs. Turton opened one of the doors, loud music spilling outside, Justin turned back to me.
“Come on, Belle,” he said.
I imagined the scene inside the gym—circles of kids, hopping up and down to the beat. All those costumes. All that noise and motion.
“I need to make a phone call first,” I said.
I turned away from the entrance. I counted to three hundred.
Three hundred seconds, which was 1,380 new jellyfish stings.