The Tutor

by Peter Abrahams

  Julian picked up the burning log with tongs from the fireplace tool rack, dropped it on the fire, jerked the ottoman out. He moved so fast: sliding shut the windowed pocket doors to the rest of the house, throwing open all the windows, plus the French doors to the deck. Zippy trotted around after him, wagging his tail. The smoke started clearing right away. The shrieking stopped. Then it was very quiet and everything was all right, just like that. The fire blazed merrily away, burning clean.

  Ruby got to her feet, kind of stunned, almost the same feeling as when the roller-coaster ride was over. Julian was examining the ottoman. “A bit scorched.” He looked at her. She’d never seen eyes quite like Julian’s; they seemed to be carrying on a conversation of their own. “You’re not hurt?”

  “No.”

  His gaze went to the Tin Man. “Where’s Brandon?”

  “I don’t know.” Her voice sounded loud. Here she was, back in normality; she tried to make her voice normal too. “Was there a lesson tonight?”

  “At seven.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Hardly your fault. You’re by yourself?”

  “And Zippy.”

  His eyes went through two or three changes. “Do you like playing with matches?”

  Ruby shook her head, was suddenly close to tears. She was in trouble, the biggest trouble of her life, by far. She could have burned the house down, would have if Julian hadn’t turned up. He knew it too: probably why he looked so—not mad, but serious, maybe, or thoughtful.

  Julian picked up the ottoman, picked it up easily although it was very heavy. “Where does this go?”

  “Over by the leather chair.”

  “That green one?” he said.

  “Yeah.”

  He carried the ottoman over to the leather chair, put it down. “A bit scorched,” he said again, looking up at her “so the placement will be crucial.” He turned the ottoman a little so that the scorched part was up against the front of the chair, invisible.

  A crucial placement, the scorched part invisible: Ruby got it. “You’re not going to tell?”

  “Do you want me to?” said Julian.

  “No.” Ruby felt her stupid lip trembling.

  He nodded. “Then we’ll need the vacuum cleaner, paper towels, soapy water.”

  Ten minutes later, or even less, the living room was back to normal too, no evidence but a little damp patch on the rug where she’d spilled the water. Maybe not even Sherlock Holmes could have figured out what had gone on. Julian glanced around, Zippy at his side like a prize dog waiting for the next command. The living room looked perfect to Ruby, the way it did after Maria left, but Julian spotted something on the far side of the wood box, scattered pages—“The Speckled Band.”

  He picked them up, leafed through. A little smile appeared on his face. “Ah,” he said, “the bell rope.” He peered over the top of the pages. “I deduce that you’ve been reading Sherlock Holmes.”

  “How do you know it was me?” Ruby said.

  “Good question.” He didn’t answer it. “The puzzle is—why has it been cut from its binding?”

  “I don’t like snakes.” That popped out on its own, a little surprise.

  Then came a bigger one. “Well, then,” he said, and tossed the story into the fire. Poof: it was gone.

  They closed all the doors and windows, went into the kitchen. Ruby’s dinner waited on the table.

  “Want a hot dog?” she said.

  “I’m not hungry,” he said. “Thanks.”

  “Sprite?”

  He shook his head, looked down at his watch.

  “Brandon should be here any minute,” Ruby said, feeling that not just Brandon but somehow the whole family was being rude. She’d offered food and drink. What else did you do to entertain guests, not including playing the sax for them? That was out. Then she remembered that visitors liked to see the renovations for some reason. “How about a tour of the house while you’re waiting?”

  “That might be nice,” Julian said.

  “Great,” said Ruby. “Over here’s the mudroom, and—”

  She stopped. Hanging on Brandon’s peg was his jacket, the red-and-black varsity jacket with West Mill Tennis on the back.

  “Hey,” she called, going to the foot of the stairs. “Brandon?”

  No answer.

  “Brandon? Are you home?” Silence. She went back to the mudroom. His backpack wasn’t there, or his boots. “That’s weird,” she said.

  Julian wasn’t paying attention. He was giving Zippy a nice scratch between the ears. Zippy was in heaven.

  Maybe the mudroom wasn’t that impressive. “Want to see the entertainment center?”

  “Anything you say.”

  She led him downstairs.

  10

  “. . . off the satellite,” Ruby said. She switched it on to show him how good the picture was. “A hundred and something channels, and that’s not including cable.” She hit the up-channel button on the remote, kept it pressed down to watch the hundred-and-something channels rip by. “Emeril, Springer, German tiger guys, Sipowicz, WWF, Yosemite Sam, Hitler, shopping, trial, Hitler again, that old nun, the other shopping, police chases.” That was the way to watch TV, all right, like one big channel, really fast. “What’s your favorite show, Mr. . . .”

  “Sawyer,” Julian said. He was staring at the screen: political arguing, bootie shaking, golf tips, kitchen remodeling, more political arguing—the one with the nasty little guy in the three-piece suit—more Hitler, the one when he’s in Paris. That reminded her of “Springtime for Hitler”—she’d been rolling on the floor.

  “You can call me Julian,” Julian said. “I like the nature shows.”

  “Me too,” said Ruby; except when they did snakes. “What animals do you like?”

  “Birds.”

  Not really animals in Ruby’s mind, but she let that go. First of all, he was turning out to be really nice. Second, she kind of owed him.

  “We’ve got a cardinal that comes to the feeder.”

  He was looking through the doorway to the unlit furnace room, maybe didn’t hear her. The furnace was on. Through the shadows Ruby could see the little blue flames down at the bottom.

  “Gas?” said Julian.

  “Huh?”

  “Is your house heated with natural gas?”

  Ruby had no idea, but she liked that expression, natural gas.

  Was Julian psyched for seeing more? Maybe not, but Ruby showed him around anyway. She was having fun, opening doors, giving a quick little shpeel or spiel or whatever it was, moving on.

  “That’s about it,” she said at the end, having saved the best—her room—for last: her stuffed animals, the framed original cell from One Froggy Evening, the prism in the window. Julian watched her from the hall. She realized he had manners, was too polite to come in her room.

  “Very nice,” he said. “What’s up there?”

  “Up where?”

  “At the end of the hall. Up those little stairs.”

  Ruby went into the hall. There had to be a proper name for that room up the little stairs. The spare bedroom? The guest bedroom? Those names fit, but no one ever used them. Whenever that bedroom at the end of the hall came up in conversation it was always Adam’s room. “That’s Adam’s room,” Ruby said. “My brother who died.”

  Julian, who’d been gazing down the hall, now turned and looked down at her. My God! He had one of those soul patches. How could she just be noticing something so obvious? The gap between her and Sherlock Holmes had to be wider than the goddamn Grand—

  “I’m sorry,” Julian said.

  “About what?”

  “Your brother dying.”

  “Oh,” said Ruby. “Thanks.”

  Was that what you said at times like this, thanks? Thanks meant the next step was for the other guy to say you’re welcome, and that seemed to be taking the whole thing further off the rails—anytime, not at all, think nothing of it, so kind.

  “It was a
long time ago,” Ruby said. “Before I was born.”

  “Nevertheless,” he said.

  Nevertheless what? He didn’t go on, turned his gaze on the little staircase again.

  “Do you want to see it?” Ruby said.

  “Just a quick peek,” Julian said. “Now that you’ve shown me the rest of your very charming house.”

  Charming. Yes. It really was. Like in a fairy tale, with the red chimney, the feeder, the woodpile, the forest: 37 Robin Road, Paradise. What’s the zip for Paradise? Ruby thought as she skipped up the stairs, opened the door to Adam’s room. Empty, of course, except for the bedding, all rumpled from her sleeping in it, a detail that had slipped her mind. Would he think it hadn’t been made in eleven years? Should she say something?

  “Like an artist’s garret,” Julian said.

  “Is that good or bad?”

  “Oh, good,” Julian said. “The most charming room in the whole charming house. Next to yours, of course.”

  Ruby giggled, a silly little giggle just like Kyla’s.

  “How did he die?” Julian said.

  Ruby stopped giggling.

  The story of Adam’s death was kind of confusing, and at the same time her earliest memory. She and Brandon had been down in the basement, back before the entertainment center. She remembered a green rug, an empty tennis ball can she kept things in, like her magic ring with the huge ruby—what had happened to that?—and a pillow fort. She must have climbed to the top of the pillow fort and tried to stand, because she could remember Brandon looking up—he was wearing pajamas with a baseball print—and saying, “Gonna break your leg and die, just like Adam.” So she’d found out about Adam and his dying all at once, only not accurately. Adam had in fact broken his leg but he’d died of something else, the word for it terrifying her for years, a word her eyes still shied away from whenever she came across it.

  “First he broke his leg,” Ruby said. “Then he died of leukemia.”

  Julian nodded, kind of like he’d expected that.

  Leukemia: it could have been the name of the mother-ant creature in those Alien movies, movies she zipped by at warp speed whenever she came across them in her channel-zipping excursions.

  Mom came in through the garage door, snowflakes in her dark hair and on her dark fur collar. Ruby and Julian were at the table, Ruby polishing off her second hot dog, Julian turning the pages of The Complete Sherlock Holmes. He rose. Had Ruby ever actually seen a man rise when a woman came into the room? Not in real life. Men rising when a woman came into the room: maybe the best idea she’d ever heard of. What had happened to it?

  “Hi,” Mom said. “Brandon taking another evaluation test?”

  “Um,” said Ruby, her mouth full. “Not home yet.”

  Mom’s fingers froze on the top button of her coat. “Not home yet? But it’s . . .” She checked her watch. “For God’s sake. Did he call?”

  “I don’t know,” Ruby said.

  “What do you mean, you don’t know?” Ruby knew right away Mom had had one of those tough days. “Did you speak to him? Is there a message on the machine?”

  Might have missed a call while I was burning the house down. Ruby didn’t say anything. Meanwhile Mom was at the phone on the counter, stabbing through the messages. No Brandon. Then, as though Ruby’s skull was transparent and Mom could look in whenever she wanted, she sniffed the air and said, “Do I smell smoke?”

  Silence, like between the lightning and the thunder.

  “I lit a fire,” Julian said. “I hope that’s all right.”

  No thunder: Mom’s voice lost that tough-day edge. “Of course, Julian. I love fires.” She unbuttoned her coat. Then came the sound of the mudroom door opening, and in walked Brandon, also with snow in his hair, and on the shoulders of his new black Unka Death T-shirt. His eyes went to Mom, Julian, Mom. Then they closed, just for a microsecond. That was dismay, Ruby realized. He’d simply forgotten about the lesson. Observation and deduction: she was back in action.

  Mom fired a series of questions that seemed to pin Brandon right there in the doorway: Where have you been? Do you expect me to believe detention lasts until seven-thirty? Is this a nice way to treat Julian? Why didn’t you call?

  Brandon had no good answers. Ruby spread a little extra relish on her hot dog, took another bite. Guilty as sin.

  “And why aren’t you wearing your jacket?” Mom said. “It’s winter.”

  “Left it at school,” Brandon said.

  Huh? Ruby paused in midchew. Was he drunk or something? The jacket hung on the hook, practically at his elbow. He hadn’t even worn it to school and—maybe hadn’t been to school at all! Off with his head.

  “What’s with you, Brandon?” Mom said. “It’s right there.”

  Brandon turned, saw the jacket. His eyebrows went up. That would be surprise. Then his eyebrows scrunched together: confusion. Then he actually touched the jacket, like it wasn’t his or something. But of course it was his. It said Brandon, right on the sleeve. Drunk out of his mind, that was it. All the little sisters knew what went on.

  Brandon turned to Mom. “I guess I . . .”

  Julian picked up his green folder. “Why don’t we get started, Brandon?” he said.

  “Distance,” said Julian, sitting at the head of the dining-room table, “rate and time. Not your strong suit, according to the diagnostic.”

  Mom, passing by on her way to the living room, closed the double doors. That fucking jacket. What a weird day, full of surprises, except for screwing up on distance, rate, and time.

  “Two northbound trains leave the same station one hour apart from each other on parallel tracks,” Julian read from the test booklet.

  Had to be Ruby, out with Zippy in the woods. Found the jacket and just hung it up there with no warning, like a booby trap. What was wrong with her? Other kids had normal sisters.

  “. . . ten miles an hour slower than the second train.”

  A weird day, starting with the wastebasket fire in the boys’ can by the guidance office. They had wastebasket fires two or three times a year, always leading to a complete evacuation of the building. The same little group of assholes did it every time but never got caught. This time, waiting out in the parking lot for the bell to summon them back in, Brandon had found himself next to Trish Almeida, chewing a stick of her gum.

  “I’m going to get out of this town if it’s the last thing I do,” she’d said.

  “What’s wrong with it?” Brandon hadn’t gotten that at all. Get out of West Mill? It was a great place to grow up, everyone said so. Then he remembered about her living in those apartments behind the Rite-Aid.

  But maybe that wasn’t what bothered her, because she’d said: “I don’t want to be a one or a zero.”

  “Huh?”

  “Like in a computer program, everything’s a one or a zero. That’s this town.”

  That was kind of interesting. “You want to be a two?”

  “Or any other number. But they don’t let you do that in West Mill.”

  “Where do they?”

  “New York, of course,” Trish said. “Tell me about that bar in Soho.”

  “Been to Soho?”

  “I’ve never been anywhere.”

  Julian came around the table. “Can I see what you’ve done so far?”

  Brandon turned his worksheet so Julian could see what he’d done on the train problem. From a tiny shift in Julian’s eyes, Brandon realized Julian had smelled the booze on his breath.

  “I’m going to give you a shield,” Julian said.

  “A shield?”

  “For protection,” he said. A tiny pause, like an extra space between words in a sentence, and he added, “From distance, rate, and time.” He took the pen from Brandon’s hand, gently, and in the middle of the page drew a shield, a beautiful one, actually, suggesting the curve of it and everything. The booze on his breath? Somehow Brandon knew it was cool with Julian. How old was Julian anyway? Still young enough to remember what it
was like, right?

  On the shield, where the coat of arms or whatever it was called would be, Julian wrote in big Gothic letters:

  D

  RT

  “Take your orders from the shield,” Julian said. “If they want distance, put your finger on D.”

  Brandon put his finger on D. They’d ended up going over to Trish’s cruddy apartment behind the Rite-Aid. Trish had a bottle of Jack Daniel’s, kind of a surprise.

  “What does it say?”

  “RT.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Rate and time.”

  “And means ‘plus.’ ”

  “Rate times time?”

  Julian nodded. His eyes got a little distant, like he was watching everything fall into place. “What if they want rate?” he asked.

  Brandon put his finger on R. “D divided by T.”

  “The DRT shield,” Julian said. “Try the trains again.”

  Brandon reread the problem. Two trains on parallel tracks. A cruddy apartment, but Trish’s tiny bedroom was amazing. She’d painted a mural on the walls, all about West Mill High, a very cool mural with lots of recognizable people in it, including himself. Some of them were doing disgusting things, like Mr. Kranepool, the parking lot monitor, down on his knees licking the hairy leg of Ms. Belsey, the principal.

  “What is the core of the question?”

  The core. Brandon read it again, took a flyer. “How many hours?”

  “And therefore?”

  “Let the number of hours the second train travels equal T?”

  “Now just put it all in sentence.”

  “A sentence?”

  “A number and letter sentence, with equals in the middle. They’re all pretty much the same.”

  All the same: Brandon was getting it, felt it coming, like a shifting of blocks inside his head. This was a kind of translation, from English into math. He’d never gotten it before, never answered a distance-rate-time question right in his life, except by accident.

  He made a sentence with equals in the middle: 85T = 75(T + 1). An amazing room, and somehow they’d ended up on Trish’s bed, surrounded by the whole cast of West Mill High—Ms. Belsey, Mr. Kranepool, Mr. Monson, reading his Cliffs Notes Macbeth while he jerked off on the toilet, Frankie J and Whitney dressed as homecoming king and queen, but holding burning crosses in the air for some reason, and he himself standing on the auditorium stage juggling tennis balls. Surrounded by all that and much more on Trish’s bed, where she’d given him a blowjob, not ready for real sex yet, she’d said, and he’d reached up under her skirt and felt around inside her, even considering going down on her, maybe not real sex either, but he wasn’t ready for that yet anyway. If ever.