by Amy Piers
Antecedent: Squirrel runs across the sidewalk.
Behavior: C races to catch squirrel, is prevented by leash.
Consequence: ZF pauses walk until C is calm.
When we arrive home, I decide that it’s high time this guy learned how to roll over. I begin the process with a hand-over-hand prompt, physically rolling his body before giving him a treat. I do this five times, then introduce a hand gesture with the roll. After five more times, we practice with Cinnamon rolling independently. He masters the trick on the one hundred and fifty-seventh try, as I look outside and see the sunset.
I can’t believe I spent my whole day making Cinnamon roll.
[I see red.]
Today is the tenth day that I have lived at Starlight, and I have talked to Zoe zero of these days. When I close my eyes, I see the house that we will own together. It’s a tall one, connected to the houses on both sides. We have nice neighbors—one is a music teacher who will teach me every single instrument ever, and the other owns a bounce house company. His backyard is full of bounce houses and so is ours, because we were nice enough to let him store some in our yard. Zoe and I jump from one side of the fence to the next, from 9:00 am to 9:30 am, because it’s written on our schedule.
We have a hot dog cart outside our new house, too. Whenever we get hungry, we just go outside and get a fancy hot dog wrapped in bacon, which is called a Mission Style Hot Dog—everyone in San Francisco knows that. We climb on the roof after we eat hot dogs, and Grey comes down from heaven for a visit. We play zombie games on Zoe’s phone, and she never ever gives us a time limit. Grey tells us all about heaven, and explains how God's face looks like. Grey says that God is the nicest guy who ever lived, and when you look at God’s face it’s so bright that you can’t see. Grey tells us that God isn’t scary, and he’s the kind of Dad who stays at your house and never leaves. He’s the kind of Dad who plays baseball with us, and teaches his kids how to swim properly so they never drown. Grey says he can’t stay on Earth, but he will visit us every day as long as we are on the roof after we eat hot dogs. They’re his rules.
Suddenly, someone’s hand is on my back. The turtle pokes his head from its shell, and sees Alicia.
“It’s lunchtime, Dallas.”
“I’m not hungry,” I say, going back to my house with Grey and Zoe.
“You have to eat, or we’re going to need to give you an operation where we put a feeding tube down your nose. Your body needs food for fuel,” she says.
“No!” I scream.
“You want to know how to win this one? Eat. Winners eat food, Buddy,” Alicia explains, leaving a plate with a hot dog beside me. She walks away, leaving me to complete the challenge. It’s not Mission Style, but I can't expect Wyoming to have San Francisco things. I am hungrier than ever, because I haven’t eaten in lots of days. I reach out for the bun, and take a quick bite. I tuck my head back into my sweater like a turtle, then poke it out for the next bite. By the end of the hot dog, I walk out of the room to find Alicia.
“Can I have more hot dogs?” I whisper in her ear.
She smiles, “Of course you can!”
I sit down at the table with Alicia and one other crazy kid. My hood is over my face, but at least I’m out of bed.
“Dallas, this is Louis,” she says, pointing to the stupid nutso kid. He’s flapping his hands and goes to grab my fork.
“No!” I yell, “You don’t even need forks for hot dogs!”
Alicia swipes the forks, and puts them in her pocket. “You’re right Dallas—we don’t need any silverware, Louis.”
I close my hood over my face so that there’s a hole only for my mouth, and it’s the size of a hot dog. This turtle only eats hot dogs, but dreams in his head about climbing on the roof with his new Mom, to visit with his ghosty brother.
[I see you.]
“Have you made any contact with Dallas yet?” Ezra asks.
I shake my head, “I will… but not yet.”
I sip cola through the straw of a supersize cup, as we wait for our movie to start. It’s been years since I have had soda, and the carbonation burns my tongue. I reach into a bag of pick ‘n mix candy and pull out a sour gummy worm. I haven’t had this much sugar for a long, long time.
“I can’t believe I’m eating these,” I laugh. “We have gum, right? For straight after the candy? I can’t afford a dentist right now, and these guys are just cavities in the making. Not to mention—”
Ezra places a hand over my mouth, “Just enjoy the moment.”
I make eye contact with him to establish dominance, and shove a handful of candy into my mouth. I laugh with my mouth full, regretting the calories ingested, but proving that I can seize the day.
“What are you doing for Thanksgiving?” Ezra asks.
“No plans,” I shrug.
“Will you come spend it with my family?” he stammers.
“Sure,” I smile, knowing that my Mom is going to die if I go to Santa Cruz without seeing her. “We might need to visit my parents for a minute, though.”
“You’re asking me to meet your parents? So soon!” Ezra jokes, considering he’s known them since the day he was born. I elbow him in the side, and he puts his arm around me as the lights dim.
And so, the movie begins.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
What Are You Thankful For?
[I see red.]
Today is the nineteenth day that I have lived at Starlight, and I have talked to Zoe zero of these days. Today is also what’s called Thanksgiving, where people eat turkeys and say thank you to guys with belts on their hats. Zoe and me would be eating turkey on the roof instead of hot dogs, and I would say a BIG thank you to God for letting Grey visit us every single day. Grey growed up in heaven, and now he’s nine, and he has big boy teeth. I would show him how my grown up teeth are growing too, and we can be twins, but born on different days. I am older than he ever was on Earth, but I'm pretty sure he’s still the big brother. You don’t stop growing when you get to heaven, except when you’re old. Then you have to stop growing, or you’ll die of being old when you’re already dead, and dying only happens one time. I think Grey will get twenty-five and just stay that many.
I am outside on the trampoline in my mind, but at Starlight in real life. Alicia taps me on the shoulder.
“Dallas,” she says. “It’s time for the special Thanksgiving Dinner.”
“Dinner time is six,” I say through my hood.
“Thanksgiving is a weird kind of dinner. It’s like dinner food at snack time,” she explains. “Did you ever have Thanksgiving with your Mom?”
I nod my head.
“What kinds of things did your family do?”
I shrug, “I don’t remember.”
“I wonder if you had turkey?”
I poke my head from my sweater, and say, “Duh. Everybody has turkey on Thanksgiving.”
“That’s not true,” Alicia replies. I sit up and look at her face.
“Poke out your tongue,” I demand.
She laughs, “Why?”
“Because if you’re lying, your tongue will be black—or forked like a snake!”
“Who told you these things?” she giggles, and pokes out her tongue. I take a very long look at it, and it’s pink. Also, it is not forked, it’s only normal.
“OK, so who doesn’t eat turkey on Thanksgiving?” I ask, still a bit suspicious.
“Vegetarians,” Alicia smiles.
“That makes sense,” I agree. “Are you a vegetarian?”
“No, but I used to be.”
“Well, what did you eat on Thanksgiving?”
“Enchiladas,” she says. I make a face with one eyebrow higher than the other, and then we start laughing. I am laughing so much that I almost pee on myself.
“Oh, Dallas,” she says. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you laugh.”
Uh-oh. If I act happy, does that mean they’ll keep me here because they think I like it? I throw my hood back over my face an
d run to the couch. I slide myself between the wall and the back of the couch where nobody can ever find me. I close my eyes and get Grey down from heaven as fast as I can.
“GREY!” I yell in my imagination.
“Dallas!” him says and squeezes me so tight he picks me up.
“Don’t leave me again,” I say. “I don’t like the Earth without you.”
Alicia pulls the couch away from the wall. “Dallas?”
“GO AWAY!” I scream.
“I don’t understand what made you upset,” she tells me. “Can you help me know what’s wrong so I can say sorry?”
“I DON’T LIKE YOU. YOU’RE MAKING MY LIFE WORSER!” I yell so loudly. Alicia sits on the couch and waits.
“We can talk when you’re calm, Buddy,” she says.
“YOU. AREN’T. ZOE!” I scream. “STOP TRYING TO BE ZOE!”
I cry so much that my tears and snot go through my hood and onto my hands. As fast as I can, I run into my imagination, so Grey doesn’t go back to heaven before I say goodbye. When I get to the roof I’m all by myself again—even Zoe is gone. I can’t find my people, even in my mind I am all alone. I made Grey die; I am bad, I made my parents stop loving me. I did this to my own self.
[I see you.]
We set out at 9 am, with hopes to reach Santa Cruz by noon. Ordinarily, we can make the trip home in less than two hours, but there’s usually heavy traffic on Thanksgiving. I just hope it’s not too long for Cinnamon to hold his many bodily fluids on the inside—he’s still working on his ability to ride in cars without accidents. Ezra smiles like the Cheshire Cat as his perfectly crafted playlist unfolds, revealing a string of songs he’s been saving for the drive. Each one is ever-so-subtly telling me that he’s madly in love, and I blush a little more with each new track.
“Your parents know I’m coming, right?” I ask.
Ezra laughs, “Not unless Julia blabbed.”
“What?” I yell, punching him jovially on the shoulder. “That’s so awkward. You’re supposed to RSVP for guests. Basic social skill, Ezra Holmes.”
“I do this kind of thing all the time, my parents expect it,” he justifies. “Once I brought a friend to my cousin’s wedding without RSVP-ing a plus one. We pulled up a chair to the bridal table.”
Oh. My. Word. I bury my face in my hands, “Ezra! That’s so awkward.”
“Yeah, he’s in jail now,” he shrugs. I want to laugh, but I don’t know if it’s appropriate. Ezra is an unusual mix of oblivion and fun: two things I severely lack. He holds my hand and kisses it.
[I see red.]
I poke my head above the couch and Alicia is still there.
“Why you didn’t leave me alone?”
“I was waiting for you.”
“Don’t wait for me,” I sniff. “Eat the turkey.”
“I don’t want turkey without you,” she says, and she sounds more like Zoe with every word.
“Then starve,” I whisper.
“Bud, that food tube operation will still happen if you give up eating. It’s not a punishment; it’s just a consequence. Without food, you’ll get very sick. Look at how your bones stick out of your chest.”
I look at my ribs, and they really poke out too much.
“You could play the guitar on those ribs, boy,” she says with a straight face. I try not to laugh, but I do… then I start playing air guitar on my ribs. She laughs, and I laugh too.
“I didn’t know how skinny I got,” I say, looking at my arms and legs what are just like sticks now. I look like a skeleton with skin on.
“If you want to be a winner, you need muscles. You get muscles from protein like turkey,” Alicia says. I look at her with a suspicious face.
"Are you real?" I say, and she nods. Then I agree, “I'll eat, as long as it's just you and me.”
Alicia holds out her hand, and I don’t take it. I can’t make myself be close to her because she’s not my person. I don’t look at her face, but I give her my pinky instead, and she loops it in hers. We walk to the kitchen to get turkey and bring our plates outside. We sit together in the cold outside air, looking over the huge, huge Earth with snowy mountains. I forgot the name of this land, which is so big, and we are so small.
“Alicia,” I say. “What land are we in?”
“Starlight?” she replies.
“No, what land?”
“Lovell?”
“No… like California is my land. What land is this?”
“Wyoming.”
Wyoming and the whole wide world is so big, and we are just so small. Maybe I am only a little bit alone today. Maybe Alicia is nice. Maybe I need to eat the whole turkey so my ribs go away and my muscles get big. I finish the food on my plate, and Alicia has only taken a couple of bites.
“Can I get more food?”
“Sure,” she says, as we go inside together. She leaves her plate outside, and we pile more things on mine.
“Come on!” I say. “Let’s go back to our picnic.”
I hold my hand out, and Alicia takes it. For a second, I forget that she isn’t Zoe. I forget that Zoe left me here in Wyoming land. I forget that I am absolutely scared of being a little kid who is all alone in a weird land, with hundreds of weird kids who pee the bed.
“How many are you?” I ask.
“What do you mean?” she says.
“How many candles on your cake?”
“Oh, twenty-three.”
Twenty-three is less than twenty-six, which is how many candles Zoe has. There are a lot of sames, and a lot of differents about Zoe and Alicia. For sames, them both are very patient without yelling. For differents, their hairstyles are not alike. Zoe's hairdo is like brown with some bangs on her face, and mostly, all her other hair is rolled into a ball on top of her head. Alicia's hairdo is like a thousand little ropes, and her always wears it hanging down.
“I almost have seven candles," I tell her.
“Ooh, did you know that seven is a lucky number?” Alicia says.
I shake my head. It seems a little less lucky when I remember I will live at this land for the entire year that I will be seven.
“When’s your birthday?” she asks.
“February 28th,” I tell.
“So you’re six and three quarters,” Alicia figures out. “You can stop telling people you’re six and a half now. You’ve grown up since six and a half; you’re becoming a whole new guy.”
I wonder about what she’s said. I wonder if I change being who I am, will Grey still recognize me when I get to heaven? If I let Alicia be my Zoe, then if Zoe comes back, she won’t be my new mom if I replaced her. Zoe doesn’t deserve me to be nice to her. She made me come to this land, and she left me here. I want to be mean to her by being nice to Alicia. I reach out my arms and hug Alicia, and as I do, I feel like I have been punched in the stomach.
I scream and run back to my bed. Alicia's plate flips over and turkey flies everywhere, as not-Zoe runs behind me.
“Wait! Dallas!” she yells.
I get to my bed first and roll my body into a ball, tucked into my sweater. I pull the blankets over my head and cry a loud, loud cry.
“Dallas,” she says. “I’m right here for you. Let’s talk when you’re calm.”
“NO! NO! NO!” I yell from under my hood, under the sheets, under the blankets.
Alicia says nothing; she just sits on the end of the bed. I kick my legs so she’ll get off MY bed, off MY sheets, off MY land. She sits beside the bed and waits. I pull the sheets down and look at her stupid face.
“You’re not Zoe!” I scream.
“I know,” she nods. “Zoe is your favorite.”
“No! She is the worst. She put me in here! Zoe bringed me in a helicopter and leaved me in a weird house where nobody likes me!”
“Can I tell you something?” she says.
“NO!” I yell, before wondering what she wants to say. Alicia says nothing, she just waits. She doesn’t look sad or annoyed, and she’s more patienter even than Zo
e. “Fine! Tell me something.”
“Zoe didn’t bring you here.”
“Well, for your big fat information, who else could have bringed me? I was at Discovery Country, then I was at a hospital and they sleeped me with medicine, and next minute I have no home or family.”
“It wasn’t Zoe.”
“Who was it then? The boogeyman? Him isn’t even REAL, Alicia.”
She looks mad and embarrassed. She lets me yell at her, but she is having a bad time being able to tell me who bringed me here. “Your Mom.”
“What?”
My stomach hurts again. Moms don’t send their kids away. Moms don’t give away their kids. Kids aren’t like presents—families are supposed to be together forever.
“I wasn’t supposed to tell you that,” Alicia tells me, as she looks behind her shoulder. “Don’t blame Zoe. Don’t blame your Mom either—I don’t think you’re able to understand why she sent you here. She didn’t have a lot of choices.”
“Why she didn’t have a choice? Moms should keep their kids!”
“Can I treat you like a seven-year-old for a minute?”
“Yeah,” I say, with my arms crossed and chest puffed out.
“Your Mom wants you to be safe. She isn’t able to keep you safe anymore. So her choice to have you live here was made so that you would live a long, meaningful life. You can grow into an amazing, incredible man—you know how I know that?”
I shake my head, with my arms crossed tightly over my chest.
“Because you’re like an acorn,” she says.
“You making zero sense,” I mumble with closed angry teeth.
“Hear me out,” Alicia says. “See those trees out the windows? They’re oaks. Do you know how oaks are made?”
“What is this relevant?” I yell, because I learned the word ‘relevant’ from Zoe.
“Get on my back,” she says, and I go like a piggy back. She brings me outside and gets something off the ground. It’s about an inch big, round and pointy with a little brown hat. She sets me on the ground.
“Acorns become oaks,” Alicia explains.
“No way,” I reply.