by Andrea Beaty
I FOLLOWED GRANDMA MELVYN DOWN THE HALLWAY TO THE MAIN ENTRANCE of the school. Mom was waiting by the office in a crowd of noisy parents. A knot of snakes twisted in my stomach when I saw her. It was first-grade math to figure out why she wasn’t in her seat at the show. She had been too busy helping Ape Boy and Grandma Melvyn and cleaning up candy messes to get there on time. Mom looked tired.
“Mom,” I said. “I …”
Mom didn’t say anything. She wrapped her arms around me and hugged me tight. Then she leaned back and looked at me.
“You were magnificent, kiddo,” she said, blinking away tears. “Just magnificent.”
She hugged me again until someone yelled something about a kid climbing a flagpole. Then Mom laughed and let go.
“C’mon,” she said. “Let’s get your brother down and grab a treat on the way home.”
We bought a box of chocolate cupcakes with white squiggles and a gallon of chocolate milk and ate them at the kitchen table. Dad called from Shanghai to hear about the show, and I told him all about it. Except the part about the janitor and the hatchet. Hey, I didn’t want to ruin all the surprises. I hate spoilers.
Eventually, Mom and Ape Boy went to bed, but Grandma Melvyn and I stayed in the kitchen. The day hadn’t started out so well, but it ended up being the best day of my life, and I wanted it to last forever. Grandma Melvyn was too busy to go to bed. Her brain was on fire with ideas for her new act. A new act with her new assistant. Guess who!
Yep. It’s me. But don’t worry about Cat. Grandma Melvyn said there was plenty of assisting to go around and that Cat could help, too.
Grandma Melvyn worked like she was on a mission, making up for lost time. She sat at the table doodling in a battered spiral notebook. She sketched a cabinet with a big wheel on the door. Here was the idea: A member of the audience would spin the wheel and the assistant in the cabinet would turn into a bird or a cat or a beach ball or whatever else the wheel decided. Between you and me, I think she got that idea from Wheel of Fortune, but it didn’t matter, because she crossed out the whole picture, flipped the page, and started over.
“Levitation!” she said. “That’s the thing.”
She sketched a new cabinet and covered it with tangled arrows showing where she and I would move and what we would do. After about thirty seconds, it looked like a bowl of spaghetti.
“No, no, no!” she snapped, crossing out the drawing.
“We need a hook,” she said. “Grab those Trixies by the collars and don’t let go!”
We sat together in the circle of light from the lamp above the kitchen table. The world beyond was dark and silent. I watched Grandma Melvyn doodle and think and talk to herself and doodle and think some more. Every couple of minutes, she tilted her notebook to show me her latest idea, and almost as fast she pulled it away, crossed it out, and started over.
Maybe it was the long, long day catching up with me, or maybe there was something calming about watching Grandma Melvyn work, but as I sat at the table and the shadows edged closer and closer, I relaxed and my body got heavier and heavier, and I rested my head on my arm, and it was so comfortable. I watched Grandma Melvyn draw and think and scribble ideas and flip pages and start over, her voice swirling through the air like a faraway song, faint and familiar and just out of reach. Once in a while, her words found me, then her voice faded again.
… stand right there … levitate …
I breathed deeply and slowly.
… maybe a lever … signal …
I blinked and blinked again, and I closed my eyes one last time—
… Thank you, Robbie …
—and I slept.
I WASN’T KIDDING WHEN I SAID THAT GRANDMA MELVYN WAS LIKE A WOMAN on a mission, making up for lost time. By Sunday evening, she had filled her notebook with scratched-out doodles and started a new one. She was serious about putting together a new act, and on Monday, we started training. We practiced card tricks and closeup magic and talked about Grandma Melvyn’s next big act. No matter how hard I worked, she worked twice as hard. Sometimes Cat came over and helped or watched Wheel of Fortune while we worked. Grandma Melvyn smiled every time Cat yelled at the vowel people, but she kept working at the kitchen table instead of watching TV. She knew dozens of card tricks, and her sleight of hand was amazing, but she grumbled that she had lost her edge, so she worked even harder.
“We need something big,” she said.
I liked the way she said “we,” even if it was really her doing the planning. I suggested ideas, and she nodded and said they were great or interesting or “What’s Trixie making for dinner?” but she never wrote any of my ideas down, so I don’t think she meant it. (Except the dinner part.) And you know what? That was okay. Grandma Melvyn knew more about magic than I might ever know. For now, it was enough to learn from her.
She started telling me things about her life as a magician. The glamorous parts: Living in expensive hotels and performing for bigwigs at fancy nightclubs. The curtain calls and seeing her name in lights. The newspaper reporters and fan clubs. She also told me about the not-so-glamorous parts: Greasy food and sleeping on trains and buses and waking up in a different city every day. Though I’m not exactly sure what was bad about that. It sounded better than waking up each morning and going to the booger mines. And what’s wrong with eating burgers and fries every night?
She told me about the handsome man whose smile had magically melted her heart and how they were supposed to get married. When she talked about him, she looked like maybe her heart was melting all over again. Then she’d crab at me because I was handling the cards all wrong or wasn’t fast enough with my sleight of hand, or she’d yell at the nearest Trixie to tell them to stop doing whatever they were doing. It was her way of changing the subject. Grandma Melvyn was a magician, and she didn’t want to be mushy. Nobody wants to hear a magician talk about their feelings.
Grandma Melvyn never told me about Trixie or the New Year’s Eve that ended it all, and I didn’t ask. I just listened. And maybe that was what she needed.
Besides, Grandma Melvyn and I were busy. Days flew by. Her operation was coming fast, and it was going to change everything. She’d have to stay in the hospital for two days, and when she came back, she would be in lots of pain.
I used to want Grandma Melvyn to go home more than anything in the universe (next to being a world-famous magician), but now it didn’t seem so important to me. Or to Grandma Melvyn. I know she missed her house, but in a way, I think our house was her home now.
Anyway, there wasn’t much time to think about it. There was lots to do, and the closer the operation came, the harder we worked.
MOM TOOK GRANDMA MELVYN TO THE HOSPITAL FOR BLOOD TESTS THE DAY before her operation. It must have been exhausting, because Grandma Melvyn came home and went right to bed. I didn’t even get a chance to wish her good luck on her operation or to give her the present I had made for her. And, no—it did not involve green glitter. It was a journal for her ideas. I wrote a note on the first page to wish her good luck and tucked the notebook and pen inside Grandma Melvyn’s suitcase by the door. Mom and Grandma Melvyn were leaving the house before I got up for school in the morning. Her operation started at six thirty, but she had to be prepped for surgery before that.
I had a hard time paying attention at school. Well, harder than usual. I spent most of the morning doodling ideas for a disappearing money trick. In the afternoon, I read my notes wrong and got an idea for a disappearing monkey trick, which was more fun to think about. By the way, if you know anyone with a monkey they’d like to loan out, I’m interested.
When school finally ended, I biked to the hospital, which was just beyond the drugstore where I got the cane and glitter. I popped inside the drugstore and bought a bag of peanut butter cups for Grandma Melvyn.
When I finally got to the hospital, the red-haired nurse at the main desk said Mom had already left, and I couldn’t go to Grandma Melvyn’s room without a badge, and those were onl
y for adults. She said it with a go-away-and-stop-bothering-me-because-kids-don’t-belong-here-and-you-are-really-annoying-me kind of look that made me mad.
I only wanted to say hello to Grandma Melvyn, but I couldn’t do that because I wasn’t old enough to vote? Why do grown-ups always assume kids will do something bad? What was I going to do? Cause a fire? Okay, bad example. But you know what I mean.
Lucky for me, there was a stack of visitor badges sitting on the counter in front of the nurse. It was also lucky for me that there was a box of Kleenex on the counter behind her.
You know what else was lucky for me? That I was a fifth grader. Remember how I said that mucus was a fact of life in fifth grade? Well, you don’t live through a fifth-grade cold season without learning a thing or two about sneezing. Besides, if you recall, I had a chance to witness all kinds of fake sneezes very recently, and I knew what worked and what didn’t. See what I did there? I learned from my experience. That’s what magicians do.
Anyway, I wasn’t going to let a stupid rule keep me out.
“Excuse me,” I said. “I’m going to … ah … ahhh … ahhhhhh—”
The nurse whipped around, grabbed a Kleenex from the box, and had it in my hand before I could say “—choo!”
“Tank-ooo,” I said, blowing my nose. “Id derr a batroom?”
She pointed down the hall, and I followed her directions, holding the Kleenex to my nose with one hand and the bag of peanut butter cups with the other. When she turned to help a doctor with a chart, I threw away the Kleenex, pulled the visitor pass from my jeans pocket, stuck it to my shirt, and ducked down the hall toward Grandma Melvyn’s room.
I HATED THE HOSPITAL. THE HALLWAY WAS TOO WARM AND THE LIGHTS WERE too bright and the smell was too clean. I suppose that it’s good for a hospital to smell clean, but it made me queasy.
I finally found Grandma Melvyn’s room. The door was cracked open just a little. I knocked on the metal door frame, but there was no answer. I waited a couple of seconds and knocked again. There was still no answer. Grandma Melvyn was probably asleep from painkillers, so I decided to leave the candy on her table and go home. I pushed the door open and peeked inside. It was a small room with only a hospital bed, a tiny table, and a dresser in the corner.
I expected Grandma Melvyn to be asleep with her leg propped up, but she wasn’t. Instead, she was sitting on the edge of her bed in her VIVA LAS VEGAS sweat suit, staring out the window.
“Grandma Melvyn?” I said.
She didn’t move.
“It’s Robbie,” I said.
She sat still as stone. I stepped into the room and saw that her knee was not bandaged or wrapped up. She had not had the operation.
She stared blankly out the window, watching cars roll through the gate at the parking lot exit.
“How are—”
The red-haired nurse burst into the room.
“You’re not supposed to be here!” she said. “Kids can only visit rooms with adults.”
Grandma Melvyn whipped around and cast the Wicked Wobble Eye upon her.
“Am I adult enough for you, Trixie?” she asked.
“I … uh …,” the nurse stammered, backing out of the room and closing the door behind her.
Grandma Melvyn turned back to the window and stared blankly into the parking lot as if nothing had happened.
“I brought you some candy,” I said.
I held up the bag of peanut butter cups, but Grandma Melvyn just kept staring out the window, so I put them on the tiny bedside table and stood there not knowing what to do next.
“Sit down,” Grandma Melvyn finally said without looking at me.
There was only one place to sit in the room, so I sat on the bed next to her.
“Nice room,” I said, even though it wasn’t.
I don’t think Grandma Melvyn even heard me, or if she did, she didn’t care. She followed the cars with her eyes as they left the parking lot and drove down the road. I sat and watched them, too. Finally, she spoke, and her voice was almost a whisper.
“Why do people buy boring tan cars, Robbie?” she asked. “If they’re trying to be invisible, it’s not working. They’re just wasting time.”
Grandma Melvyn’s voice told me that she wasn’t looking for an answer, so I didn’t say anything. I sat next to her and we watched the cars. Red. Red. Blue. Tan. Blue.
Finally, Grandma Melvyn took a deep breath and lifted her head and sat up straight.
“It’s some trick, Robbie,” she said. “Best I’ve seen.”
“What trick?” I asked.
“Perfect misdirection,” she said, “and I didn’t I see it coming.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“I’ll show you,” she said, pointing at her knee. “Ladies and gentlemen, here is an ordinary bum knee in need of an ordinary operation. Watch it closely … closely … First we schedule the operation and take some blood tests … Don’t take your eyes off the knee … Watch it … Watch it … and …”
She tapped her index finger to her forehead.
“Ta-daaaa!” she said. “A tumor.”
The word hit me like a bucket of ice water.
“What?” I asked.
“Didn’t see it coming either, did you?” she asked. “Never know what a blood test will turn up.”
She cleared her throat and tears welled up in her eyes.
“Some trick—” she said, but her words caught inside and tears rolled down her cheeks.
I didn’t know what to do. I grabbed Grandma Melvyn’s hand and squeezed it, and she squeezed back and held on tight like my hand was the only thing keeping her from being torn away by an invisible tornado that would toss her so far into the air she’d never find her way back again. We sat together long after the tornado had passed, and she found her breath again and hot tears filled my eyes and I blinked them away as we watched blurry cars roll out of the parking lot and drive away one by one. Some of them red and some of them blue and some of them tan.
“Wasted time,” Grandma Melvyn whispered. “So much wasted time.”
GRANDMA MELVYN STAYED AT THE HOSPITAL FOR TWO DAYS WHILE THEY ran tests and took pictures of her brain and tried to figure out what they could do to fight the tumor inside her head. After the second day, they said they couldn’t do much, but they should keep looking. She told them that they could look all they wanted, but she was going home.
She was sitting at the kitchen table, sketching in the notebook I’d given her, when I got home from school that Friday.
“Took you long enough,” she said.
“I’m not the one who’s been at the spa for two days,” I said, pulling the pack of cards from the drawer and handing them to her.
“They ran out of chocolate, so I left,” she said, shuffling cards and spreading them into a fan.
And that was all we said about Grandma Melvyn’s time in the hospital. She had stuck around long enough to learn they couldn’t do anything to stop the tumor or get rid of it, so she left. She had things to do.
In a way, leaving the hospital that way broke the rules of magic, like always knowing what’s going to happen next and being prepared for it. On the other hand, sometimes you just have to smile and keep going even when you know the trick isn’t going to work out the way you want. That’s what Grandma Melvyn did. So that’s what I did, too. Because what else are you going to do? Give up?
We worked every day after school until Grandma Melvyn got tired and had to sit in the chair and nap, which happened more and more. Sometimes her head hurt so much she took off her glasses and covered her eyes with a damp washcloth. She sat in the recliner with the TV on, and just when I thought she was sleeping, she’d yell at the vowel people. Sometimes she was too tired to do that, so I yelled for her. The bunch of Trixies.
And then one day she went back to the hospital. She didn’t want me to visit, so I didn’t. I could have. I could have gone with Mom or Dad, who came back from China. Or even with Aunt Trudy or Uncle Pete,
who came back from their trip. Someone was always at the hospital with Grandma Melvyn. And even if they weren’t, I could have stolen another pass and sneaked in if I’d wanted to. But she asked me not to, so I stayed home. Going to the hospital would have been like letting people come backstage after your final bow. Grandma Melvyn knew that never worked. People think they want to know how tricks work, but they don’t. They want to believe in magic. Let them. Isn’t that whole point?
And then one day, Mom came back from the hospital and before she said anything, I just knew.
“I’m sorry,” Mom said, and even though I knew it was coming and I thought I was ready for it, I wasn’t, and her words felt like an elephant crushing my chest.
My eyes burned and tears rolled down my cheeks, and I wanted to run far away and keep running, but I couldn’t move; and then Mom wrapped her arms around me and pulled me close and we stood there in the kitchen hanging on to each other until our tears stopped, and then we stood there longer than that.
At last, Mom wiped her eyes and reached into her bag.
“She wanted you to have this,” she said, and handed me the notebook I had given Grandma Melvyn. Mom kissed my cheek.
“Go ahead,” she said.
I opened the notebook, looking and hoping for a note or message from Grandma Melvyn. Hoping to find one final lesson. I flipped through sketches covered with notes and spaghetti arrows and giant Xs and exclamation points. I flipped past thirty pages of rejected scribbles, and then there was nothing. The rest of the notebook was empty. Grandma Melvyn had stopped. There was no lesson for me. No advice. No note.
No good-bye.
And then I flipped the notebook over and I saw it. Taped to the back cover was a picture of me and Grandma Melvyn standing together under the lights of the Hobson Elementary School auditorium, taking our bow and smiling like the whole world was ours. And under the photograph was a single word written in Grandma Melvyn’s chicken-scratch handwriting. Just one word that said it all. That said everything I needed to hear. Just one word.