The Absolute Value of Mike

by Kathryn Erskine

  I yelled the first thing that came into my head. “Why don’t you go jump in a lake!”

  I slammed the door after me, took the porch steps in one leap, and headed for Tyrone.

  I pulled Misha’s photo out of my pocket and put it on Tyrone’s dash for good luck. With a deep breath, I put the keys in the ignition and turned on the engine. I’d warmed up our car for Dad before. How much harder could it be, really, to drive? Besides, it was dark and no one would see me. Who would even know?

  Tyrone was parked in a spot where I could pull straight out, so leaving the parking lot was pretty easy. Staying on the road was a lot harder. From behind the steering wheel it looked like Tyrone took up the entire road. And I mean the entire road. I don’t know why they have that line down the middle because, basically, a car needs both lanes. Every time I tried to keep Tyrone to the right, he’d hit the gravel of the shoulder and lurch left again. And there must’ve been something wrong with his headlights because they kept moving around the road like he was trying to follow a tennis match in the dark.

  Still, I thought I was doing pretty well until I saw the flashing lights and heard the siren. I let fly a string of colorful words.

  I ground to a halt on the shoulder and put my window down, cringing as I watched the officer in the side mirror striding up to Tyrone, knowing that “objects in mirror are closer than they appear.”

  I smelled the garlic before he opened his mouth. “Evening, Moo—Hey! What the—! Who are you? And where’s Moo?” He stuck his whole face in the window—dark, pointed eyebrows and large, sharp nose. And garlic.

  “She’s okay—she’s at home.”

  “So you stole her car from under her nose?”

  “I’m not stealing it! I’m taking it back to her.”

  “Oh, I get it. You’re just borrowing it, huh? Well, kid, that’s still stealing.”

  “No—”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Mike Frost. I’m her—”

  “Mike? Jeez. Her grandnephew? And she thought you were some kind of miracle. Who would’ve thought her little miracle would steal from her?”

  “I’m not! She can’t drive anymore because the eye doctor said she has macular jee—gen—jee—” I was having as much trouble talking as Moo. “Mac-u-lar de-gener-a-tion.”

  “Uh-huh, okay. Did you stop and think to, oh, say, maybe have an adult drive the car?”

  I was so mad at his attitude that I wasn’t scared anymore and spat out my response. “Oh, sure! Like who? Poppy?”

  “Is he still frozen?”

  “Think iceberg.”

  He shook his head. “Even so, Mike, what made you think you could drive a car? I mean, you don’t look old enough to have a license. Am I right?”

  My shoulders drooped and I nodded.

  He sighed. “Stay here.” He took a step toward his patrol car, then his head was back in Tyrone’s window. “On second thought, give me those keys.”

  I took them out of the ignition and handed them over. He walked back to his patrol car, muttering, “Maureen will never believe this one. Maybe she’s right—I should write a book!”

  I heard the radio crackling in the patrol car and sighed, staring at Misha’s picture on the dash. What were his eyes telling me? I imagined what he might say. Like maybe I’d completely blown his chances. If I got arrested, who would take care of saving him?

  When Tyrone’s door opened, I jumped.

  “Slide over, Mike.”

  “What?”

  “You don’t mind if I drive, do you?”

  I scrambled over to the passenger seat. “Are you arresting me?”

  “Why? Do you want to be arrested?”

  “No. But—where are we going, then?”

  He shook his head, grinning, as he started Tyrone. “Back to Moo’s. Where do you think we’re going? Disney World?”

  I turned and looked out the back window. “What about your patrol car?”

  “Well, the only car thief in town is here with me.”

  “I’m not a car thief!”

  “Oh, yeah, I keep forgetting. You know, Moo has had a rough time lately. She doesn’t need more heartache from you.”

  “Me?” I snorted. “I’m trying to help her! Which is a whole lot more than Poppy’s doing.”

  “That’s too bad he’s not snapping out of it. I’m real sorry about that.”

  I looked over at him. He was frowning and shaking his head, so I figured he understood. As a cop, he must’ve seen all kinds of losers.

  “What do you do with people like that?” I asked him.

  “Me? I just shoot ’em.”

  “What!”

  “I’m kidding.”

  “Dude, you shouldn’t say stuff like that!”

  “Uh-huh, and you’ve never done anything you shouldn’t have? Like, oh . . .” He whipped his head to the right to glare at me. “Drive a car?”

  I looked away. “What’s going to happen to me?” “Nothing. Unless . . .”

  “Unless what?”

  “Moo decides to press charges.”

  I let out my breath. “She won’t. I was just wondering . . . what happens when someone drives without a license.”

  “Oh, that. Yeah. Thanks for reminding me.”

  Why didn’t I just shut up?

  “Depends. I think in your case we’ll assign community service.”

  I knew it was a good deal, but I was wondering how I could do anything beyond Do Over Day.

  He coughed. “I’m thinking you could work on, you know”—he pointed at Misha’s picture on the dash—“getting ready for Do Over Day.”

  I felt my whole body sigh with relief.

  He turned his head to look at me. “Sound okay?”

  I nodded, trying to contain my smile.

  We turned into Moo’s driveway and I braced myself for the crash into Poppy’s Suburban that never came.

  “You’re a little high-strung, aren’t you, Mike?”

  A patrol car pulled in right behind us, its siren piercing the night for just a moment, and I jumped.

  He grinned. “Don’t panic. That’s just my ride.” He tossed me the keys. “Inside. Now. No driving. Next time, I’ll lock you up.” He held his hand out to shake mine. “I’m Tony, by the way. You can call me Officer Giancola.”

  I shook his hand. “Yes, sir, Officer Giancola.”

  “And Mike?”

  “Yes?”

  “Good luck bringing that kid home.”

  23

  ATTRIBUTES

  —characteristics or qualities of an object

  When I got inside, Moo was standing in the kitchen doorway, pulling on her hoodie strings.

  “Mike?”

  “I’m okay. So is Tyrone.” I hung the keys on the peg near the door.

  She nodded but kept yanking the strings. “Where’s Poppy?”

  “What?” I looked over at his chair. Empty. It was an unusual sight, and creepier than it was with Poppy in it. It even made the hairs on my arm stand on end.

  “Mike?” Moo’s voice was almost a wail.

  “Maybe he’s in the bathroom.” Even as I said it, I knew it wasn’t true.

  Moo made a halfhearted effort to look up the stairs to the bathroom and shook her head. She knew it wasn’t true, either.

  “Maybe he went to bed early?”

  She shook her head again, not even bothering to go and check. We both knew he wasn’t there.

  I swallowed hard. My heart was beating fast. I never thought I’d care if Poppy was gone, but I felt really cold and suddenly freaked, like when you’re in one of those underground caverns and you’ve already got goose bumps from the cold and then they turn the lights out and you’re not sure for a moment if they’ll come back on again.

  “Where is he, Mike?” Moo whispered. “Where would he go?”

  Go? Where would Poppy go? Suddenly, I felt even colder. And my toes started wiggling in my Clarks. Did he go where I told him to go? Why don’t you
go jump in a lake! Like . . . Lake Revival? Oh, jeez!

  “I’ll be right back,” I said, running past her and opening the kitchen door to the backyard.

  “Where are you going?”

  “To find Poppy.”

  “Mike?”

  I turned to look at her.

  “Thank you for being here. I don’t know what we’d do without you.”

  I ran all the way down the hill in the dark, stumbling and tripping so many times I lost count. I didn’t care; it was all forward progress whether I was running or rolling. I felt sick thinking about what Moo had just said. Was she thanking me for drowning her . . . I didn’t even want to think of it. I had to find him.

  When I reached the lake, I saw them. Duck slippers. Their little heads were facing the water as if yearning to go in, to follow the big duck that had gone off alone.

  Oh, no. “Poppy! Poppy!” I yelled across the lake, then up the shore and down. “Poppy!”

  No answer. I threw the Clarks off my feet. One of them hit a duck slipper, which gave a sick, plaintive squeak before it keeled over on its side. I swallowed hard, tore my gaze away from the duck, and waded into the lake.

  I was up to my thighs when I realized my jeans felt incredibly heavy. I figured I’d swim in my boxers, but when I started to pull my jeans off, they were so wet they got stuck. It was an effort just to yank them up again. I kept waddling forward and finally dove into deeper water.

  There’s something weird about swimming in a lake in the dark. When you’re underwater you’re not quite sure which way is up. It’s dark above you and below you and if you’re swimming freestyle so fast you’re overturning, and practically corkscrewing, you get disoriented and feel like you’re floating in space. Even the feel of the air and the water start mixing and being the same because you hit pockets of cold and warm in both of them. You don’t know what’s up or what’s down. You’re pushing through space in a different kind of universe. And you don’t know which way to turn.

  I stopped, gasping, and treaded water. “Poppy!” I pushed the wet hair out of my eyes and blinked. I turned around in place, trying to let my feet do all the work to keep me afloat so I didn’t make noise splashing. “Poppy!”

  I heard a swooshing rush of water and spun around to face the noise. “Poppy?”

  There was just enough dim moonlight to see what looked like a bent-over figure, maybe two figures, on the shore. Maybe one of them was Poppy. Or maybe it was an animal. Disoriented as I was, I figured out it was the other side of the lake from where I’d entered. I couldn’t see the shape anymore and figured it had collapsed. I tried to fix my eyes on a particularly tall tree near the point I’d seen the form and swam at it as fast as I could, hoping that it was Poppy, hoping that it was still breathing, hoping that it would stay alive until I got there. I ran through CPR instructions in my head. Repeated chest compressions. Press chest down two inches each time. Stay calm.

  When I got out on the other side, there was no lump on the shore. But I did see some dark marks in the moonlight, like huge wet footprints. I followed the marks, wobbling because my bare feet weren’t used to walking over pebbles. I reached the line of trees and heard a particularly loud creaking sound above the random creaking of branches in the breeze. I looked up.

  It would’ve been a funny sight, this old man sitting up in a tree with his legs dangling, a porch pal on the branch next to him, sitting as still as he was. Except it was scary. Because what was he doing up there? Getting ready to jump?

  I didn’t want to startle him if he was thinking of jumping. I spoke in a soft voice. “Hey, Poppy. What’s up?” I cringed after I said it. I had to avoid words like up . . . and down.

  Poppy put his arm around the porch pal. “Name’s Doug.”

  Oh, man. He’d lost it. Now he thought he was Doug. Or did he think the porch pal was Doug? His dead son?

  “Right,” I said, positioning myself under the tree where I could see Poppy and the porch pal through the branches, the moon lighting them up like they were under a spotlight. Maybe if he saw a person below him, Poppy wouldn’t jump. Or maybe I could break his fall. I moved closer in to the tree. “Hi . . . Doug.”

  Poppy lifted the porch pal’s arm and waved it at me. The porch pal dripped on my head.

  I ducked momentarily, then looked up again, in time to get a drip in my eye. I stepped away from the tree to get a better view and avoid the dripping porch pal. “Why don’t you climb down?”

  Poppy’s face was pale and ghostly in the moonlight. He lifted the porch pal and sat it on his lap. When he spoke, his voice sounded different, kind of pouty and . . . like a kid. “My tree. I can do whatever I want.”

  I tried to make my voice sound casual. “Can I come up and join you?”

  “Nope. My place. Nobody can bother me here. Not even my dad, dang pain.”

  “Yeah,” I said, “I know what you mean.”

  I heard the branch creak as Poppy looked down at me. He’d lost his devil horns. I guess the water had plastered his hair down flat. But I imagined his face was still grim.

  “My dad is a pain, too,” I said quickly. “Probably worse than yours.”

  “Nope. He’s mean.”

  “Oh. Mine’s . . . clueless.”

  He didn’t say anything for a while, and I thought I’d better keep him talking. “And mine’s always in my face, wanting me to be an engineer.”

  “You’re lucky.”

  “How’s that?”

  “My dad was too busy for me. On the road all the time. Barely talked to me.”

  What could I say to that? It sounded like Poppy, all right.

  “Yeah, well, it’s no fun disappointing your dad all the time. It’s better if he doesn’t realize you’re not what he wants.” I swallowed hard and looked up at him. “Not that you’re not what he wants, of course.”

  “Never even went to Kmart together.”

  I squirmed. I didn’t know if it was Doug who felt bad that he didn’t get to go or the dad, Poppy, who felt bad for not asking him. “Well, most kids don’t really like shopping.”

  Poppy sighed. His voice cracked. “I miss him. I really miss him.”

  He gave Doug a squeeze and it was as if a small rain had started, splattering me with water from Lake Revival. Poppy’s voice was barely a whisper as he said again, “I miss him.”

  I still wasn’t exactly sure who Poppy was talking for—himself or Doug. Whoever it was wanted me to say something. I thought about what it would be like without Dad. I wondered if he’d noticed that I hadn’t been IM’ing him. If so, he could’ve called. I’d given him the cell phone number. I kind of knew how Doug and Poppy felt, so I said what either one of them would want to hear. “Yeah, well, I bet he misses you, too.”

  “You think so?” He answered right away, like he’d been waiting for me to say something.

  “I know so.” At least, I hoped so.

  Then it was quiet. For a long time. I kept an eye on them to make sure there was no movement, but all I heard around me were the other sounds of life: crickets, frogs, owls, the breeze picking up, leaves rustling, branches creaking. That last sound made me think that Poppy should get down from that tree soon.

  I saw lightning in the distance and heard the low rumble of thunder. It actually smelled like rain. Heavy and wet. I could even smell the pine of the trees around me, along with the slight scent of vinegar from my wet U2 “Vertigo” T-shirt.

  I looked at Poppy’s tree more closely and saw remnants of pieces of wood, like ladder rungs, nailed to the trunk. So that was how an old guy could get up there. “Hey, Poppy? I mean, Doug? Is this the tree house you guys built?”

  “Was.”

  “This is so cool! I saw a picture of it.” I thought of the photo of Poppy and Doug in happier times. “That’s something you guys did together.”

  “About the only thing.”

  “That’s a pretty big thing. If you did that, I can’t believe you never did anything else.”

 
He grunted. “Sometimes we played ball.”

  “See? You guys had some fun together.”

  “We never had fun. Never horsed around.”

  Jeez, there wasn’t anything I could say to make him feel better. How long was this going to go on? The breeze picked up and I started shivering. I figured Poppy must be, too, and that it probably wasn’t good for an old guy to be up there all wet. When the creaking of branches grew louder, I knew I had to make a move. I called up to him over the stiff breeze, “How about climbing down now?”

  “Not ready.”

  I saw more lightning. “Sometimes you don’t feel ready, but you have to move anyway.”

  “Don’t have to. My tree. My life.”

  A flash of lightning followed by a clap of thunder sent a charge right through me and I suddenly felt my heart racing and my teeth gritting and my hands balling into fists. I didn’t feel worried about Poppy anymore. Or sorry for him. I was angry. I wanted to shake him. I wanted him to get down from that tree so I could shake him into action. Enough with the self-pity already! He had to stop. Because what he did, or wouldn’t do, wasn’t just about himself. It affected other people.

  “What about Moo, huh? What about Misha?” I yelled up at him.

  Even my yelling didn’t get his attention. He just shrugged.

  That made me even madder.

  “This isn’t just about you, you know!” Then it hit me. “You’re doing it all over again!”

  This time he actually looked down at me, along with Doug. I didn’t even mind Doug dripping on me.

  “You’re mad at yourself—or your dad—because of not living life and sitting around ignoring things, even when there were plenty of opportunities to do something. Well, guess what. That’s exactly what’s happening now!”

  I gave him a little time for that to sink in as I paced in front of the tree and listened to the sound of thunder moving closer.

  When I heard another sigh and more drips from Doug, I stopped, put my hands on my hips, and stared up at the two of them on the branch. My patience was gone. I could tell because my voice was sharp now. “It’s time to move, Doug.”

  I heard Poppy let out a long breath. “Doug’s gone, Mike.”