The Absolute Value of Mike

by Kathryn Erskine

  I pulled my eyes away from the kid’s. “A ton of money? Really?”

  “Definitely,” said Past. He closed his eyes, smiled, and let his head drop back like he was basking in the sun. “I love porch pals.”

  “What are porch pals?” I asked.

  Guido startled. “What are porch pals? You’re not from around here, are you, Me-Mike?”

  “He’s from our nation’s capital, remember?” Jerry said.

  “Which just goes to show you how out of touch those people are. A porch pal is like a large stuffed buddy. The guys and I”—he pointed to Jerry and Spud—“we make them ourselves. You put him on your porch. You put him in your car. You put him wherever you want.”

  I felt my heart sinking. It didn’t sound like a “ton of money” kind of product. “Why would people buy them?”

  “Why? You got an instant pal!” Jerry said.

  “And people pay good money for them,” Guido added. “I heard of one person in your area with a porch pal.” He chuckled. “The guy uses him so he can take the express lane during rush hour because you have to have at least two people in your car. Cuts his commute time in half. Now, that’s worth a lot of dough.”

  “How much do you sell them for?” I asked.

  “About thirty bucks.”

  I tried to do the math. Thirty . . . they’d have to sell . . . way over a thousand. Was there a market for that many porch pals? “Where do you sell them?”

  The three stooges looked at each other.

  “That’s the problem,” said Guido. “The local market is flooded . . . so to speak. The guys and I loaded up my school bus and drove a bunch of porch pals over to the Johnstown Flood Museum gift shop. But one of the volunteers freaked, saying they looked like bloated flood victims, so that’s a no-go.”

  Jerry and Spud shook their heads sadly in agreement.

  “Why don’t you advertise and sell them on the Internet?”

  “Good idea,” Guido said. “I have no idea how you plan to do that, but go for it. Glad you’re in charge.”

  “Me?”

  Past seemed to snap out of his porch pal stupor. “That’s an excellent idea!”

  “I don’t even know what they look like!” I protested.

  Guido and Jerry eyed each other and both pointed to Spud, who smiled broadly.

  “And just look how fun they can be!” Jerry said, moving Spud’s arms and legs in various poses, even manipulating his face while Spud obligingly changed his expression.

  My toes tingled and my brain started to kick in. Porch pals might actually appeal to some people. The three stooges didn’t know how to sell online, Moo would have no clue, and I couldn’t ask a homeless guy to do it, so it really was up to me. I could build a website . . . except I didn’t have access to a computer . . . I could get to Facebook and MySpace on Moo’s cell phone if we drove around and found working Wi-Fi . . . but that wouldn’t reach as wide an audience . . . eBay? Craigslist? I’d have to open a PayPal account—again, I’d need computer access . . . YouTube? That could work. Buyers could send a check to Moo’s address and we could mail them porch pals . . . of course, I’d need a camera and a way to upload a video—

  “Incoming!” Spud shouted, startling me all the more since I wasn’t sure he knew how to talk.

  Past stood up quickly, pulling me behind his cart. “Take cover!”

  Moo pulled up in Tyrone, jumping the curb, but not close enough to be threatening.

  “Yoo-hoo! Mike!” Her little yellow sneakers ran over to the bench.

  As soon as they saw Moo, all three stooges started mooing like cows.

  “Hello, boys,” said Moo, waving at them. “They’re always doing that,” she whispered to me. “I don’t know why.”

  “They’re being cows!”

  “Well, I know that, dear. I just don’t know why they do it, that’s all.”

  “Because your name is—”

  “Name! That’s what I wanted to tell you! You’d better sit down, Mike. In fact, I need to hold on to something.”

  Past guided Moo over to the bench and sat her in his spot. She looked at his cart behind her and pointed to the photo of the Romanian orphan. “Do you know his name?”

  I suddenly realized I’d never heard his name.

  “That boy’s name,” said Moo, “is Misha. Do you know what Karen just told me?” I shook my head.

  Her owl glasses stared at me and she took a deep breath. “Misha means ‘Mikey.’ His name is Mike. Just like yours!”

  I knew it! I stared at the photo of the kid—of Misha. I knew there was something special about him. Beyond his eyes and his missing tooth and my Buzz Lightyear T-shirt and the LEGO bridge. There were just too many coincidences. This kid was . . . just like me!

  “It’s a sign,” I said.

  “A sign?” Past said. “You just happen to have the same name. Michael is a common name in many cultures.”

  “But it’s more than just a coincidence,” Moo said. “Don’t you think it’s a miracle?”

  “Not really,” said Past. “If the name were something unusual, like Igor, that would be a miracle.”

  Moo glared at him and looked at the three stooges. “And here’s another sign. Do you know who else was adopted from Romania? Mike’s best friend, Sha-sha.”

  “Russia,” I corrected her, “and it’s SA-sha.”

  “Whoa, Me-Mike. You are a stud,” said Guido.

  “SA-sha is a guy!” I said.

  Guido stared at me. “Strange name for a guy.”

  I stared back. “He’s from Russia! It’s not a strange name over there.”

  “Exactly,” said Past. “Just like Misha is not a strange name over there.”

  Guido didn’t blink. “What’s your point?”

  Past exhaled loudly. “Mike . . . Misha. Just a coincidence. Not a sign.”

  “I still think it means something,” Moo said.

  Past rolled his eyes. “It means you’re all getting carried away.”

  The others argued as I stared again at Misha’s eyes. Burning into me. I stuck my hand in the pocket of my jeans and felt the LEGO brick. It was strangely warm. Maybe because it was a warm day. Maybe because it was against my leg, which was also warm. Or maybe it really was a sign.

  11

  DEPENDENT EVENT

  —an event whose outcome is affected by the outcome of previous events

  Guido told Moo how I was going to “Internet the porch pals,” adding, “I tell you what, I was beginning to lose hope. I mean, forty thousand dollars in three weeks seemed like a hopeless cause, but now that Me-Mike is here, I think we might actually save this kid.”

  “Heaven knows Karen deserves a child. Anyone who’s been through the horror of three miscarriages and a dead husband like she has . . .” Moo shook her head and sighed. “Karen is always there for us, and now it’s our turn to be there for her.” Moo’s owl eyes fixed on me. “I know you can do it, Mike.”

  I stared at Moo and the three stooges, nodding in the background.

  I heard a quiet whistle from Past. “No pressure, though.”

  “Oh, of course not,” Moo said. “We’re all helping. It’s not completely up to you.”

  “Uh, thanks,” I managed, my throat dry. I quickly told Past my YouTube idea. “I need some decent video equipment. Fast. Do you know how I could get that?”

  Past thought for a moment. “Moo,” he called, “is it okay if I take Mike over to Dr. P?”

  Moo looked at us, fingering her glasses. “Are you having eye trouble, Mike?”

  Past shook his head. “We need to borrow his camera equipment. Mike’s going to make some videos and put them on the Internet to make money for Misha.”

  Moo’s owl glasses looked at me. “You know how to do that?”

  “Sure.”

  Her eyes moved to Past. “See? There’s another sign for you.”

  Past sighed, muttering, “If they were both named Igor, that would be a sign.”

  “Wo
uld you boys like a ride?” Moo asked. “I could drop you off on the way to my other errands.”

  “No, no, that’s okay,” Past said quickly. “I—I need to bring my cart.” He looked at me. “Come on, Igor, let’s go.”

  I followed Past and his shopping cart over crumbling sidewalks in front of derelict buildings. He slowed down in front of one store, Natalie’s Natural Products, where there was a picture of Misha. His eyes were burning into my brain. I heard Past take a ragged breath and I tore my eyes away from Misha.

  Past was blinking at the window. It was just the kind of store he’d like, being a health nut, but it was closed. In fact, when I looked closer, I saw it was out of business. I was about to point that out to him when I noticed how pale his face was. When he saw me looking at him, he shook himself, cleared his throat, and walked on.

  Except for the park, and the occasional poster of Misha staring at us, it was a depressing town. And poor. No wonder they’d only raised a couple of thousand dollars. We had to reach a wider audience.

  I looked at my feet to avoid the urban blight, and that’s when I noticed Past’s shoes for the first time. Brown leather Clarks. Like mine. How could a homeless guy afford Clarks? Maybe he just lucked out. Somebody bought the wrong size? Or outgrew them fast?

  The last time Sasha asked me why I kept buying Clarks, I almost told him. But just as I was about to spill my guts, Julia Albasio giggled up to him and he was in girl heaven. The truth probably would’ve sounded stupid, anyway.

  I’d gotten dragged shoe shopping with Dad when I was nine, and old Mr. Friedman at the shoe store said he remembered that my mom used to bring me in there. Suddenly it didn’t seem so bad to be in Friedman’s Shoes with my dad wondering out loud why on earth Rockport would’ve changed the style of the perfectly good shoes he’d bought four years ago. I sat on every one of the yellow plastic chairs because I thought, just maybe, my mom might have sat in one. I asked Mr. Friedman what kind of shoes my mom bought me. “Clarks,” he’d said. “She was a smart lady, your mother.” I’d followed him to the register like a stray dog looking for scraps. I knew so little about my mom. Dad never talked about her, so I was desperate to learn anything I could. “She came in one day when you were maybe two years old,” Mr. Friedman told me, “and she says, ‘I’ve done the research, and from now on, I don’t want my son wearing any shoe but Clarks.’” I asked what color Clarks she bought me. “Sable,” he said. “It’s just brown, but they say sable, so they charge twenty dollars more.” I didn’t leave the store that day until Dad bought me a pair of brown lace-up Clarks. I hadn’t worn anything but Clarks brown lace-ups since. Except for sports and PE. I mean, I’m not a total geek.

  Past pushed his cart into a crosswalk and pointed down the street. “That’s where we’re headed. Eye Associates of Pennsylvania.”

  As we got closer, I confirmed what my eyes had first read:YE ASS

  OF PENNSYLVANIA

  “It doesn’t say ‘Eye Associates.’ It says—”

  “I know. Talk to ye doctor about it.”

  I looked at the poster of Misha in the window as we walked inside. A stout bald man in a white lab coat rushed toward us from the back of the store. His glasses were so shiny, they reflected the front windows and the fluorescent lights in the ceiling. “Hello, Past! What a pleasure! And who’s your young friend?”

  “This is Mike, otherwise known as Igor”—I glared at him—“Moo’s grandnephew.”

  He extended a hand to me. “I’m Dr. Perrello, two r’s, two l’s.”

  I shook his hand. “Mike Frost. Hi.”

  He smiled and began polishing the lenses of the sample frames on the rack along the wall beside us, without taking his glasses off of me. “Mike. Maybe I can enlist your help in getting Moo to come for a visit. She hasn’t set foot in here for three years.” The polishing cloth stopped for a moment and he lost his smile. “I’m a little worried about her.” The cloth started again. “How is your eyesight? No problems as you’re growing? That can happen in adolescence.”

  “No, I can see perfectly fine. In fact, I was looking at your sign and it says—”

  He chuckled. “I know. To tell you the truth, I get a lot more business now than I did when it was correct.”

  “Business? People just walk in and decide they need glasses?”

  “Not my business. My wife’s. She sells fruit spreads and cakes. After the sign got . . . rearranged, she changed her label to ‘Ye Ass Homemade Goods,’ and business really picked up.

  He pointed to the counter beside the cash register with a huge basket full of plastic-wrapped packages next to a pyramid of jam jars.

  Past was over at the counter faster than a speeding shopping cart. “Lydia’s fruit spreads are great!”

  “Yup,” Dr. Perrello said proudly, “all fruit, no sugar.”

  Past whistled, staring at a label. “Blueberry, huh?” He whipped his head around to face the eye doctor. “Fresh or frozen?”

  “Fresh, of course.” The doctor glared at Past over his glasses.

  “Lots of antioxidants in blueberries.” Past rubbed his chin. I started tapping my foot impatiently. “How much are they?” he asked.

  “Four dollars.”

  Past dropped his head like a brick had hit it.

  “Aw, go ahead and take one,” said Dr. P. “Lydia would want you to have it. And take a couple of her fruit squares while you’re at it.”

  “Hey,” I said, seeing an opportunity, “would your wife like to sell some of those for Misha, the kid Karen’s adopting?”

  His eyes brightened through his shiny glasses. “She already is! She’s made a modest amount at the flea market. The thing is, lots of people around here make their own jam, so there’s not a huge demand.”

  “No problem. We can put them on the Web—eBay and anywhere else I can think of, like YouTube.” I asked if we could borrow his video equipment and explained it all to him. How I was going to record videos of porch pals, vinegar, whatever we could, and appeal for buyers or even donations. The videos would be short so people would actually watch them, sort of like public service announcements. Only more desperate.

  “You know who should go on the Web?” said Dr. P. “Gladys.”

  “Gladys from the bank?”

  “She used to do solos in church when she was a tiny little thing. What a beautiful voice. I was always sorry she didn’t keep it up. But her mother—I guess it was really her father’s fault—well, anyway . . . maybe you could ask her, since it’s for a good cause.” His eyes landed on Past’s cart. “Let me go get the equipment and load up the cart.”

  I walked over to Past, who was scrutinizing the ingredients list on a fruit square. “What’s the story with Gladys?”

  He didn’t take his eyes off of the label. “Sugar—but she doesn’t say what kind. Well, at least it’s not high fructose corn syrup. That stuff means instant diabetes.”

  “Past. What were her parents like?”

  “Stay away from that high fructose corn—”

  “Hello! Could you answer the question?”

  He looked up from the fruit square. “I don’t know Gladys’s story because I’ve only lived here a couple of years. I know she plays guitar and sings, that she has poor taste in men, and that Moo has tried to take her under her wing because Moo is this town’s savior of lost souls, but I don’t know Gladys’s past, okay, Igor?”

  Past finished rearranging the pyramid of fruit jars, now that he’d removed one, as Dr. P came out with an armload—camera, tripod, mikes, cables. “Happy filming!”

  Past opened the blueberry jar before we were even out of the store. I stared at him as he slurped the spread right out of the jar and purple juice dribbled down his chin.

  “Jeez, you attack it like my dad attacks a Snickers—like it’s going to run away if you don’t grab it.”

  Past eyed me from around the jar and slowly took it away from his lips. “Snickers have hydrogenated fat. He shouldn’t be eating those.”


  “There’s a lot he shouldn’t be eating.”

  “Is he overweight?”

  “Big-time.”

  “You’ve got to get him to go on a diet!”

  “Oh, right, like he’ll listen to me.”

  “You’re his son. You care about him. Of course he’ll listen to you.”

  I shook my head and continued pushing his cart.

  “You have to try. Promise me?”

  “Okay, fine, I promise. So, now that we’ve got the camera equipment, we need to find a laptop and somewhere that has a high-speed connection to upload the files.”

  Past used his finger as a spatula to get the rest of the blueberry glop. “I have Wi-Fi.”

  I eyed him. “Seriously?”

  Past gave an overexaggerated sigh. “Oh, ye of little faith.” Then he gave me a smile. “It’s from the lawyer’s office right by the park. Often people can get a signal, sometimes not.”

  I knew how to handle that. “I need a can of Pringles.”

  Past frowned. “Fruit would be a better snack.”

  “No, it’s for a Wi-Fi antenna to get better reception. Sasha and I built one out of a Pringles can so we could use his neighbor’s Wi-Fi.” I explained how, and Past assured me he’d get all the parts I needed for the antenna if I agreed not to eat the Pringles.

  We shook on it. “You are nothing if not resourceful, Mike.”

  I shrugged. “I still need a laptop to upload the pictures and videos.”

  “I’ll ask if I can use the soup kitchen’s laptop for the uploads.”

  “They have a laptop?”

  “It’s almost brand-new, just given to them by”—he started blinking rapidly—“someone . . . who wasn’t using it anymore.”

  “I can design a website to raise money for Misha by selling Moo’s vinegars, Mrs. P’s fruit spreads, porch pals—”

  “Porch pals?” He got that goofy look on his face that porch pals seemed to inspire in him, and nodded.

  “Good. Now, I just have to think of a video that’ll get people to buy porch pals.”

  “I’m sure you’ll find some sign, Igor.”

  “Would you stop calling me that?”