The Absolute Value of Mike

by Kathryn Erskine

  Moo must’ve said, “I didn’t see them at all!” about fifty times before I finally got her up the front steps and into the living room. Poppy stared at her while I explained what happened, but he didn’t say a thing.

  I knew what had to be done, and I resented the fact that it was me doing it when it should have been Poppy. I took a deep breath and sat Moo down on the living room couch, hoping that Poppy might jump in and save me. Ha!

  “Moo. You really need to go see Dr. P. You’ve got to get your eyes checked.”

  She bowed her head, nodding slightly, and pressed her lips together.

  I glared at Poppy.

  She sniffled, and when she spoke, her voice wavered. “I’m scared of what he might say. I don’t want to lose—” Her voice rose to a squeak. “Tyrone.” She stood up quickly. “I need to vacuum now.”

  I glared at Poppy again. He blinked and looked at Felix.

  As Moo vacuumed upstairs, Poppy flicked the TV on. A Jeopardy! rerun started. I couldn’t believe that he could just sit there and watch TV while Moo was falling apart.

  I so wanted to give Poppy a hard time, but I wasn’t sure how.

  Alex Trebek provided the answer. He was just starting to read the question from a particular category: Vegetables.

  I sat down on the couch. “Hey, Poppy, look! It’s your category.”

  I saw his eye twitch, so I kept at it.

  “Yep, I’d go straight for the thousand-dollar question, because you’re an expert in the vegetable department.”

  Another flicker.

  “Do you want to try it out? Then say, ‘I’ll take Vegetables for a thousand, please, Alex.’ And remember to phrase your answer in the form of a question.”

  I couldn’t believe how mean I was being. And how easy it was.

  When one of the players picked the vegetable category again, I acted all excited. “Listen to Alex, Poppy! Here’s your chance to really score big.”

  Alex read the question. “This building, made entirely of corn, is constructed each year in South Dakota.”

  I jumped off the couch. “Corn Palace! I know this one! Sasha went there last year. Dude, say, ‘What is the Corn—’ Oh, man! Too late! Judy already answered. Come on, dude, you’re going to have to answer faster than that if you want to get anywhere in Jeopardy!”

  Poppy’s jaw clenched and his feet wiggled in his duck slippers.

  I could still hear Moo blowing her nose over the noise of the vacuum and the TV. I glared at Poppy, who turned up the volume.

  Alex read another vegetable question.

  “Come on, Mr. Potato Head,” I said to Poppy, “try this one.”

  He didn’t answer, and his eyes narrowed even more when I called him “Broccoli Brains.”

  In Double Jeopardy, there was an ethnic foods category. “Hey,” I said, “this could be your lucky day, because that scrapple, dude, that is one ethnic food, all right.”

  Alex read a question about some delicacy including sheep’s eyeballs. “See, it’s scrapple! Am I right or am I right?”

  Poppy’s hand clutched the arm of his chair and he snorted. He glared at me and I glared right back. It was a staring contest and I won it easily.

  By the time I turned back to the TV, a contestant was saying, “What is ‘Go jump in a lake,’ Alex?”

  “Correct!” Alex said. “And now you see the importance of phrasing your responses in the form of a question. Imagine how I’d feel if you just said, ‘Go jump in a lake, Alex!’ ”

  The contestants and audience started laughing. Meanwhile, I could hear Moo crying even over the sound of the vacuum. I stared at Poppy and got all mad again that he wouldn’t do anything or even react to anything. So when Alex asked a literature question and the answer was Rip Van Winkle, the guy who fell asleep for twenty years, I yelled, “See! Just like you, YOU OLD STIFF!”

  Only, Moo was in the living room by then and shut off the vacuum just in time to hear me yell, “YOU OLD STIFF!”

  “Mike?”

  “It’s—uh—Jeopardy! I was just, you know, answering one of the questions.”

  She didn’t say anything. But she looked over at Poppy and it was, well, a kind of tough look, like maybe she was getting sick of the way he was acting, too. She turned and headed for the kitchen, but I was hoping Poppy was withering inside like when the principal gives her Death Stare that, even if you shrug it off on the outside to look tough, still leaves you shaking on the inside.

  When I walked up the steps to go to bed, I was sure Poppy was glaring at me. I felt the daggers in my back. Then I saw a duck slipper soaring through the air and felt it clip my shoulder. It hit the bottom step and let out a squawk. Yeah, I was finally getting to him.

  21

  ARGUMENT

  —a variable that affects the result of a function

  The next morning was the Fourth of July. There was no time for barbecues or fireworks because we had work to do. At Past’s office, I uploaded the videos of Gladys singing while he filled me in on what had happened at Big Dawg’s.

  “I smuggled in the video camera. If I know one thing about abusive people, it’s that they don’t want their actions recorded for posterity. Or for the police. Gladys was embarrassed and left, and Numchuck pretty much clammed up because even he isn’t stupid enough to show his true colors on camera. Of course, the bouncer kicked me out because of the camera . . .” He stopped and looked at me. “So, what’s eating you this morning, Mike?”

  To be honest, I was mad at Dad for what he’d said about Misha. But I figured Past would give me some kind of lecture I didn’t want to hear, so I told him the other bad news, about the almost-accident and Moo having to get her eyes checked and maybe even having to give up Tyrone.

  “It’s time, though, Mike,” he said. “It’s not safe for her to be—”

  “She’s coming!” Guido hissed, running up to Past’s bench.

  Past jumped up, quickly checking the street. “Moo?”

  “No,” said Jerry, “the blond bombshell!”

  Spud said nothing but had a grin from ear to ear, just like a porch pal’s.

  “Who?” I asked.

  “Oh, right!” Past said. “The reporter! She wants to interview you because she’s amazed you’re so young.”

  Jerry was right. She was a blond bombshell in red spiky heels and a short, tight beige dress that made her look naked until you took a second look. And you wanted to take a second look. At least at the chest area, which was, shall we say, abundant.

  I stood up, too, and all five of us stared.

  “Hi,” she said in a sexy voice. “I’m Whitney. An elderly woman told me I could find you here.” She smiled at me.

  “Moooo,” I mumbled.

  She stopped smiling. “Excuse me?”

  “Moo—Moo—my great-aunt. That’s what we call her.”

  The three stooges all murmured their Moos, which didn’t help the situation. Whitney was looking less and less friendly.

  Fortunately, Past saved the day. “We spoke on the phone, Whitney. Thank you so much for coming.”

  Whitney’s face melted as he shook her hand and she was caught by his Bono eyes.

  I leaned against Past’s cart, which was beside his bench.

  It was a mistake. Being a reporter, Whitney noticed. She looked at the shopping cart, then at us, suspicion in her eyes.

  Past played it cool. “Ah, yes.” He smiled and looked across the street. “The soup kitchen is over there. We feed a lot of homeless. This is a public park and . . .” He shrugged at the cart.

  “I understand,” she said. “They have to have someplace to go, don’t they?”

  He kept smiling smoothly, although he started blinking rapidly.

  “So,” I said, in an effort to get her suspicious eyes off of Past, “you wanted to ask me some questions?”

  “Yes.” She turned to me. “What got you interested in adoption, Mike?”

  “Uh . . .” My mind had gone blank. “Well, he needs a family
, right?”

  “Misha?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What’s his story?”

  “He has no parents, or they can’t take care of him.” I folded my arms. “Or won’t. I don’t really know the whole story.”

  “What’s your story, Mike?”

  I looked around at the others for help. “I—I don’t know.”

  But Whitney was a reporter. That wasn’t good enough for her. “I mean, what would drive a fourteen-year-old boy to work so hard on an adoption? There has to be some reason,” she persisted.

  I swallowed hard. “I just think a kid should have a family. That’s all.”

  Her eyes were boring into me. “Why?”

  My face was burning. I swallowed again and almost choked. My eyes darted around and I saw the photo of Misha on Past’s cart. That was it! Divert attention. I pulled the photo of Misha with his LEGOs out of my pocket and showed it to her.

  “Oh, that is so sweet,” Whitney said in a baby voice.

  I didn’t like the way she made him sound like a puppy. “He’s building a bridge,” I said.

  “A bridge?”

  “Yes.”

  She examined the picture more closely. “Maybe it’s a house. Yes, that’s what it is, don’t you think?”

  “No. I think it’s a bridge.” I felt my teeth clench. Didn’t she see the cars in the photo? What made her think she knew what was going on inside his head?

  “Mike,” Past whispered. “Why don’t you tell her how much money we’ve raised and how much we still need? And the deadline?”

  “Yeah,” I said, except my mind was blank. I couldn’t think of any numbers at all.

  Fortunately, Past filled in the blanks for me and continued chatting with her about Do Over Day. All I could do was stand there stupidly and stare at the photo of Misha.

  I finally snapped out of it when Whitney got in my face and asked, like maybe she’d asked the question once or twice already, “How did you get a homeless man to give up his shirt?”

  I looked at Past, then quickly looked away. “Uh, he’s really nice and he wanted to help.”

  “That is so touching.” I swear there were tears in her eyes.

  “It is,” said Past, straight-faced.

  “I wonder if I could do an interview with him.”

  I looked at Past. Past looked at the three stooges. The three stooges looked at each other.

  “I think he’s pretty busy,” Guido offered.

  “Yeah,” I said. “A lot of these guys have jobs, you know. They just don’t make enough money to have a place to live.”

  “Yeah,” said Past, “and I happen to know he’s working to get himself off the street.”

  Whitney looked disappointed, but she wasn’t getting anything more out of us. After telling us the article would appear in Friday’s paper, she assured us that the local TV station would want to cover Do Over Day.

  The three stooges assured her that she needed a tour of Do Over, and possibly lunch, so they escorted her off.

  When she was out of earshot, Past said, “Well, I think we’ll get a story out of that.” He cleared his throat. “I’m not sure exactly what kind of story, but we’ll get something.”

  I realized then that I still didn’t know Past’s story. He seemed to know a lot about me. All I knew was that he was homeless. I turned and looked at him. “How did you become homeless, anyway, Past? What happened?”

  He didn’t answer.

  “You’re obviously smart. You’re educated. What gives?”

  He shook his head, his jaw set, and looked at his Clarks.

  “I mean,” I pressed him, “you just don’t seem . . . homeless.”

  He took a deep breath, then said very quietly, “I’m not homeless.”

  I remembered Moo saying that, but then . . . “Okay,” I said slowly, “so if you’re not homeless, then why—”

  “I just don’t want to go home.” He said it so softly, I could barely hear him.

  What did that mean? He sounded like a kid who’d run away from home. “Why not?”

  He took another deep breath and let it out slowly. His eyes were blinking so rapidly, he finally closed them altogether. “Because she’s not there.”

  She? Who was she? His wife? His wife left him? What, he was divorced and couldn’t handle it? People got divorced all the time. And handled it. They just divided up their stuff and dealt with it. “So, you’re saying you have a house?”

  He nodded, his eyes still closed.

  Wait. I knew what happened if you didn’t make your monthly mortgage payments on your house. The bank would take it back. And if he hadn’t been working . . . “Are you losing your house because you haven’t been paying the mortgage?”

  He winced and shook his head slowly. Finally, he spoke. “Others have been making the payments for me.”

  “Others? Who others?” Who pays for somebody else’s house? When he doesn’t even live in it?

  “Poppy and Moo, for one. Karen. The guys you call the three stooges. And—”

  “Whoa, whoa! Back up a minute. Moo? Moo is paying your mortgage?”

  He nodded.

  “Moo, who’s busting her butt and can barely scrape enough money together to feed herself—you’re letting her pay your mortgage? And Karen? Who’s trying to make money to adopt Misha? She’s paying your mortgage while you’re—you’re out on the street . . . finding yourself or something? Dude! Are you out of your mind?”

  He scraped the sidewalk with his Clarks and I wanted to stomp on them. “Believe me,” Past said, his voice a hoarse whisper, “I feel terrible about it. I just couldn’t handle things. I even had to send Joey away—”

  “Joey?”

  “He was the only family I had left, but—”

  “I don’t believe this! You left him? What a hypocrite!”

  His eyes flashed at me. Hurt. Bewildered. Guilty.

  “That’s not building a family! First you’re ruining Karen’s chances of building a family, and then you walk out on your own family?”

  “Joey’s being well cared for.”

  “You didn’t want to keep him yourself?”

  “Of course I did! I do! I just—the street is no place for—”

  “Then you shouldn’t be on the street! Especially when you have your own home! Jeez!”

  “Look, I can understand why you’d be upset.”

  “You understand nothing! You’re making poor people pay for your house while you hang around supposedly working on building a family when you left your own! You don’t get it at all!”

  “Mike—”

  “And telling Whitney some story about finding a job? That was all crap! You’re all crap!”

  “But—”

  “I don’t even want to talk to you. Leave me alone!”

  He tried to touch my shoulder. “Mike—”

  “Just—forget it!”

  I took off, my Clarks feeling like clumsy lead weights and my LEGO brick chafing my thigh.

  22

  FUNCTION

  —a special relationship between values

  I spent a long time walking and I didn’t even know where I went or how I got home again. All I knew was that it had to be late because it was almost dark. When I went inside, there were no lights on. I jumped back when I saw the shadowy figure, a miniature version of Poppy, sitting on the couch. After I found the light switch and flicked it on, I saw who it was. Moo.

  “Moo, what are you doing? It’s pitch dark in here.”

  “It doesn’t matter.” Her voice was dead flat. “I’m blind, anyway.”

  “What?”

  “Mac-you-lar jee-jen . . . jee-den—”

  “Macular degeneration?” That was bad. Sasha’s grandmother had that and wasn’t allowed to drive.

  Moo’s voice was shaky. “That’s it. I can’t see. I can’t drive anymore. I can’t do anything.” She sniffled. “I couldn’t even drive Tyrone home. He was so upset.”

  “Tyrone?”
>
  “No. Dr. Perr—Perr—Perrello. Two r’s. Two l’s.” Her voice was squeaking steadily upward. “No i’s!” She covered her eyes and burst into tears.

  Oh, jeez. I sat down on the couch and put my arm around her HOLY COMFORTER hoodie. She felt so frail as she shook with sobs. Moo without Tyrone? He was like a friend, especially since Poppy wasn’t.

  I felt like crap. Maybe if I’d just left things alone, she’d still have Tyrone, still have her life. She looked suddenly so old to me. Like a skinny elderly lady in an assisted-living place.

  She gulp-cried and shakily put Tyrone’s keys down on the coffee table.

  “Where’s Tyrone now?” I asked her, then immediately wanted to kick myself for asking. “At YE—Dr. P’s, right?”

  She nodded, crying so much she couldn’t speak for a moment, and I sat there feeling my throat swelling.

  “I don’t know how to bring him home!” she wailed.

  “Don’t worry, Moo, we’ll get Tyrone.” Somehow. “Why don’t you”—I ran to the closet and pulled out the Hoover—“vacuum.”

  She nodded, hobbled over to it, and dragged it into the kitchen.

  I heard a choking sound from Poppy before the whir and dust balls of the vacuum started.

  “What are you going to do about it?” I asked him, my eyes narrowed. “You could drive, you know, if you just got your butt out of the chair!” I grabbed the keys from the coffee table and stomped over to him, jangling them in his face.

  He jerked and took a deep breath. For a moment, I thought it was working. He actually raised his right arm but then let it drop on the armrest again and sank even lower into his recliner.

  “Come on! Go get Tyrone! Moo can’t! It’s one thing you could actually do for her!”

  I felt my breathing, heavy and fast. I heard the keys jangle in my hand because I was shaking so much. I smelled his scrapple and sweat.

  He scratched his head and turned away. “No,” he grunted.

  He finally spoke and that was all he could say? No?