Box of Shocks

by Chris McMahen

  There’s a buzz of chitchat around the room, but no one raises their hand—not even the kid. I know he doesn’t have a pet—unless he catches some of the mice running loose in the old house. And it’s pretty unlikely he can borrow one. As far as I can figure, he has no friends and his only relatives are his crazy parents. But the kid’s arm doesn’t move. He isn’t going to raise his hand.

  That doesn’t matter. I have a plan.

  Thirteen

  Mrs. Franzen sends a letter home to our parents explaining our new assignment. Mom and Dad are all excited about it.

  “How wonderful! Such a creative project!” Mom says. “You’ll really have to put your imagination to work!”

  They can’t stop going on and on about what Bubbles might be thinking, and what I could say about his life. I’m tempted to ask them to come to school and do the presentation for me.

  While they babble on and on about the assignment, I’m thinking about something else. A plan is slowly unfolding in my mind, so I say to Dad, “After school tomorrow, can we go to Grandpa Golley’s place? I haven’t been there for a while, and I figure it’s time I check in and see if he needs any help with the animals.”

  “Why, that’s very thoughtful of you, Oliver,” Dad says. “You’re absolutely right. We haven’t checked in on him in a while. Plus, he might be able to give you help with your assignment!”

  “Yeah! Right. That’s exactly what I was thinking,” I say.

  The next day, about two minutes after we arrive, Grandpa Golley puts me to work shoveling dog poop in the backyard while Dad carries a few giant bags of pet food in from the garage and then cleans out some birdcages.

  When Dad finishes helping Grandpa Golley, he calls from the back door, “How’s it going out there, Ollie?”

  “I’m pretty much done!” I say as I carry about the hundredth shovelful of dog poop across the yard and dump it in a garbage can.

  “Thank you so much, Oliver,” Grandpa Golley says. “You’re such a big help.”

  Dad and I look at each other and smile. He and I know it’s a different story at home. I’m not the best kid in the world at getting my chores done. But today at Grandpa Golley’s, I’m happy to shovel all this dog poop for one special reason. Dad would call it an “ulterior motive.”

  As I’m washing my hands in the kitchen sink, I say, “Can I ask a small favor, Grandpa?”

  “Of course, of course, of course!” Grandpa Golley says, slapping me on the back. “For all the work you’ve done for me, how can I refuse a small favor?”

  “You’d better wait to find out what he wants before you agree to anything,” Dad says with a smile.

  “So? What is this small favor?” Grandpa Golley says.

  “Could I please borrow one of your pets tomorrow? Just for the day?”

  “Is this for your project at school?” Dad says.

  I nod my head, looking down at the floor. I’m hoping to provide as few details as possible so Dad doesn’t find out what I’m really up to.

  “Can’t you take Bubbles as your pet?” Dad says. “Don’t fish qualify?”

  “Well…,” I say, still staring at the floor, not sure what to say.

  Luckily, Grandpa Golley bails me out. “Perhaps Oliver would like to take a more unusual pet for his project than a plain old fish,” he says.

  “Yeah, that’s it!” I reply, looking up and nodding like crazy.

  “How would you like to take my newest addition? It would do him good to get out into the world and experience life a little.” Grandpa Golley nods his head and tugs at his earlobe—a sure sign he’s happy with one of his own ideas.

  He waves me into the living room. In the corner, hanging from a hook, is a large birdcage. Perched in the cage is a parrot.

  Grandpa Golley puts his face right up against the bars of the cage and says, “Say hello to Oliver!”

  The parrot opens its beak, but nothing comes out.

  “Oh, come, come!” Grandpa Golley says. “You’re a parrot. Surely you can say something for Oliver.”

  Again, its beak opens, but nothing comes out.

  “This is not your average parrot,” Dad says.

  “No, I’m afraid not,” Grandpa Golley says. “I got him for a really good price from the pet shop. The owner of the shop warned me that the bird’s never said a single word in his life—not even his own name. I’m hoping I can somehow get this bird to act like a real parrot.”

  “It doesn’t matter if he can’t talk for Mrs. Franzen’s project,” I say. “If it’s okay with Dad, we can pick him up on our way to school and I’ll bring him back to you at the end of the day.”

  Dad doesn’t say anything. He nods and gives me a suspicious glance. I have a feeling he knows I’m up to something.

  Once the first part of my plan is taken care of, it’s time for the second part—the dangerous part. I have to sneak back into my old house again. It wouldn’t be so bad if I could just leave Bubbles inside the back door, but I’m pretty sure the kid’s parents wouldn’t let him have a pet fish. The only way to make sure the kid gets Bubbles is to deliver the fish right to his bedroom. All the kid’ll have to do is hide Bubbles from his parents overnight, then bring him to school for the project the next morning. After the trouble I had the last two times sneaking into his bedroom, I know it’s risky, but it’s a chance I have to take.

  When Dad and I get home, I race up to my room and check the clock radio. 5:30 PM. I’ll have to act fast.

  I rummage around in my cupboard and find the cardboard box from the new ski boots I got last winter. It looks just about the perfect size. I reach up to my bookshelf and carefully slide Bubbles and his fishbowl off the shelf, lower the bowl into the cardboard box and shut the lid. As I pick the box up, I can feel the fishbowl slide from side to side, and there’s a damp spot where the water’s slopped out of the bowl. I go into my sock drawer and take a few of my thick woolen winter socks and stuff them around the sides to wedge the fishbowl in place.

  The next part of my plan won’t be easy—how to get out of the house without my parents seeing me. I open the door of my room and check the upstairs hallway. The coast is clear, so I grab the box and tiptoe into the hall. I reach the top of the stairs and listen. The kitchen door swings open; Mom is heading right toward me! I spin around and shove the box into the linen cupboard near the top of the stairs.

  Luckily she turns and walks into the dining room. As soon as the dining-room door swings shut, I pull the box out of the linen cupboard and scamper down the stairs. I hear a bit of sloshing, and the sides of the box are getting wet, so I slow down.

  As I reach the bottom of the stairs, Dad steps out of the garage and into the hall. There’s nowhere to hide, and if I run back up the stairs, he’ll know I’m up to something. All I can do is try to talk my way out of this.

  “Hi, Dad. Home so soon?” I say, giving him a feeble grin, hoping he’ll ignore the box.

  “What have you got in the box, Ollie? Looks like something’s leaking,” he says, stepping toward me.

  “Oh, it’s…it’s…Bubbles,” I say, as he lifts the lid of the box.

  “Are you taking him somewhere?” he says.

  “Oh, well, I thought I might take him out for a walk,” I say. Right away, I know this is a bad answer, but it’s all I can think of.

  “Interesting,” Dad replies. “This wouldn’t have anything to do with Mrs. Franzen’s project for school would it?”

  “Well…sort of,” I reply. For once, I’m actually not telling him an out-and-out lie.

  “So let me get this straight. You have to take Bubbles out for a walk because it sort of has something to do with Mrs. Franzen’s project, even though you also have a parrot for the project,” Dad says, tugging at his chin thoughtfully. I see a little smile on his face. It’s the same smile he gets every April Fool’s Day when he’s just about to play one of his tricks on me.

  I’m worried he’s going to ask for more details, but then he says, “Well, you go a
head and take Bubbles out for his walk. And be careful. Are you sure you don’t need a leash for him?”

  Again, Dad gives me that mischievous smile. “It’s okay, Dad,” I say. “I’ll make sure he stays in his bowl. Tell Mom I won’t be long.”

  I slip back through the garage and head across the street, cradling the box in both hands. As I cross the street, it starts to rain. But rain won’t bother a fish, and I don’t care if I get wet. I take a quick right and cut into the alley behind my old house. It’s time to make a fishy delivery.

  Fourteen

  Itake a couple of deep breaths. I always do that when I’m nervous. The last two times I sneaked back into my old house, I nearly got caught. The kid and his parents aren’t supposed to come home for a while, but you never know. That’s a chance I have to take.

  Holding the cardboard box with Bubbles and his bowl in one arm, I turn the knob on the back door and push.

  The door doesn’t budge. I put the box down on the porch, turn the knob with both hands and push again. It still won’t open.

  Great! For once they decide to lock the stupid door! Luckily the back-door key is still hidden under that rock in the backyard. I run and grab the key, put it in the lock, jiggle it a few times and give it a turn. When I turn the knob and push, the door doesn’t budge. “Come on, you stupid door! Open!” I growl, pushing a couple more times with no luck. It must be jammed or something.

  I don’t have much time, so I’m not going to fight with the door. Instead, I pick up the box with Bubbles and scoot around to the side door. I hope no one sees me as I step up to the door and give the doorknob a turn. Unlike the back door, it swings open easily and I scurry into the house. There’s no time to snoop around, so I head straight up the stairs to my old room.

  I walk up the stairs carefully, taking them one at a time so Bubbles won’t get sloshed around too much inside the box. At the top of the stairs I turn left, head down to my old room and push the door open. Nothing’s changed. The room’s still as empty as it was the last two times I was here.

  I take Bubbles’ bowl out of the box and look around for a good place to leave him. It’s not like there’s a desk or a table or even a shelf. And I can’t just leave the fishbowl in the middle of the floor.

  What about the windowsill? It’s wide enough to balance a fishbowl—the perfect place to leave Bubbles.

  As I take a step toward the window, I stop.

  Did I hear something?

  I listen.

  Yes, I did. And it’s the last sound on earth I want to hear. I’d rather hear an erupting volcano or a hurricane tearing the house off its foundation than the coughing, sputtering sound of that old car. The gravel crunches under the tires, the engine belches, then dies. There’s the squeal of a car door opening. Then there are voices. Angry, loud, raspy, nasty voices. So here I am, one more time, stuck inside their house!

  The last two times, I was lucky to get away. I don’t like the idea of trusting my luck a third time in a row.

  I hear the side door squeak as it opens and the sound of heavy footsteps in the hall. There’s only one way for me to escape from this room. I run toward the window, but my foot catches the corner of the mattress.

  As I fall, the fishbowl slips from my hands. It hits the floor and explodes into millions of pieces of glass; water spreads out in all directions across the bedroom floor. In the middle of it all is a tiny Siamese fighting fish, flipping and flopping for his life.

  I lunge toward the fish, pouncing on Bubbles, trying to gather him up and make my escape before the parents can catch me. But fish are slippery, and catching Bubbles isn’t easy. I try to cup him in my hands, but he flips and slips between my fingers, slithering out across the floor.

  There are footsteps coming up the stairs. Along with the footsteps, there’s shouting. I make one more grab for Bubbles—if I don’t catch him this time, I’ll have to decide between leaving my pet fish to die on the floor or getting caught by the kid’s scary parents.

  Another lunge. I’ve got him! I can feel the small fish wriggling between the palms of my hands, but this time I won’t let him slip through.

  As I step toward the window to make my escape, the bedroom door swings open. I whirl around and see the kid staring at me across the room. Behind him is the slow thump, thump, thumping of his parents, wheezing and shouting as they climb the stairs. He looks scared, but I have a feeling it’s not me he’s afraid of.

  I hold out Bubbles in my hand and say, “Here. Take him. He’s yours.” The kid reaches out and gently picks up Bubbles with both hands. For one short second, he smiles—the same smile I’d seen every lunch hour when he ate the food I left in his locker.

  But the smile’s gone as he glances behind him. Now he’s looking scared. Really scared. He kicks his foot back, banging the bedroom door shut. Then, he nods toward the window, and whispers, “Go!” It’s the first word I’ve ever heard him say. He presses his back against the bedroom door and stretches out his legs, bracing himself with all his strength. “Go! Go! Go!” he says.

  I run to the window, yank it open and step out onto the rainy, wet roof. Before closing the window, I take one more look back into the room. The kid’s pushing back against the door, and I can hear his parents banging the door and shouting.

  “Go! Go! Go!” he says.

  I hold on to the window ledge, not trusting my footing on the wet wooden shingles. Already I can feel my feet slipping. I know as soon as I let go of the window ledge, I’ll be rocketing down the roof like I’m on a water-slide. But it’s not like I have many choices. I have to move away from the window before the kid’s parents get through the door and into the bedroom. I can’t let them see me.

  Before letting go, I take one last look into the room. The kid’s still bracing himself against the door. Then he lifts his hands and…what? Was I seeing things, or did the kid just pop Bubbles into his mouth?

  Suddenly, my wet fingers lose their grip on the window ledge. My feet fly out from under me, and I take off across the shingles, sliding on my butt, skittering down the roof, rocketing toward the edge. There’s no time to think—everything’s happening so quickly. At the edge of the roof, I make a grab for the rain gutter.

  I catch it with my fingers and hold tight as my legs slide over the edge and swing down. I’m hanging from the gutter, my feet dangling high above the ground, and my fingers are losing their grip. I’m just about to fall down into the darkness and land who-knows-where. At least last time, I had the bush to slow my fall. Even then, I nearly broke my ankle, but this time, it could be worse. Way worse!

  My fingers are cramping, and I can’t hold on. Suddenly, I feel something grab my legs! “YAHHHH!” I scream. “Let me go!”

  But then I hear, “Shhhh! It’s okay, Ollie! Just let go. I’ve got you!” It’s Dad’s voice.

  Fifteen

  Once I’m on the ground, I expect Dad to ask me a whole bunch of questions. I expect him to ask, “What in the world were you doing up on the roof?” or “Didn’t we say you couldn’t go back to your old house?” But the only question he asks is, “Are you okay, Ollie?”

  “Sure, Dad, I’m okay,” I reply. He squeezes my shoulder a little harder than usual as he walks me back to our new house. As we cross the street, I’m wondering, How did Dad know I was up on the roof? And how did he get there in time to rescue me?

  When we reach our front door, I’m not looking forward to facing Mom. But even though I’m soaking wet, she doesn’t yell at me about getting her carpet dirty or dripping on the new hardwood floors. She doesn’t say a word, but wraps me up really tightly in a gigantic towel that feels like it’s right out of the dryer. Then she gives me a hug that’s harder than she’s ever hugged me before.

  “You run upstairs and get changed,” she says finally, “and I’ll put the kettle on for some hot chocolate.”

  So Mom didn’t fire any tough questions at me either. She doesn’t even seem mad at me for doing something really dangerous and stupid. Somet
hing’s different.

  After I’ve changed into dry clothes, the three of us sit around the kitchen table drinking hot chocolate. Mom asks me for about the hundredth time, “Are you sure you’re okay, sweetie?”

  And as I answer for about the hundredth time, “Yeah, I’m fine, Mom,” I realize that Mom and Dad must have known I was going back to our old house. Normally, they wouldn’t let me go. Normally they would have stopped me. I wonder why they didn’t?

  “We know how difficult the move has been for you,” Mom says. “Dad and I could tell you’ve had a lot on your mind these past few weeks.”

  “You could?” I reply. They both nod and smile in a way that tells me they must know a lot more than I think they do.

  That’s when I decide to tell them everything. Almost everything.

  I tell them all about the kid across the street who only brought crackers for lunch. I tell them how the kid didn’t have a pet for Mrs. Franzen’s project, and how I was taking Bubbles over for him to borrow.

  For once, I decide not to lie. I actually tell my parents the truth.

  I tell them how the kid works late at the bottle depot, and how scary his parents are. I tell them how I wanted to leave Bubbles in the kid’s room, because his parents would probably not let him have a pet. Then I tell them how the family came home way earlier than normal, and I tell them everything else that happened up in his bedroom until I escaped out the window. Dad knows the rest of the story.

  There’s something I’ve just got to know, so I ask, “How did you know I was over at our old house?”

  Dad and Mom look at each other, then Dad puts his hand on my shoulder and says, “Let’s just say taking Bubbles for a walk wasn’t one of your better excuses.”

  “Then why did you let me go?” I say. “Normally you’d never let me go to a stranger’s house. And if you knew I was lying about taking Bubbles for a walk, why did you still let me go?”

  “I wasn’t at all happy about you going over there,” Mom says. “And you’re right. They are strangers. We don’t know a thing about them.”