The Incredible Magic of Being

  It makes my throat hurt just thinking about it. That’s the sister I miss. Joan says she’ll be back again when she becomes more like herself. But if we keep treating her like she’s not herself, when will that happen?

  From my tree room I hear all three of them arguing and Joan calling Pookie the Princess of Darkness again, which makes me scrunch up my face and close my eyes.

  Mom says she should’ve taken me to the pediatrician long ago and Joan says I was just there a few weeks ago and I was fine. Mom calls the pharmacy and puts the recording on speaker. I know that recording by heart. I don’t even have to go to the doctor for antibiotics anymore. Mom just calls the pharmacy and they say, “Oh, it’s for that Julian kid? Antibiotics is his major food group!”

  I try to shut out the yelling by meditating, but all I see is Mom clutching her plastic Target bag of stuff, Joan with the sack of bottles rattling on her back, and Pookie sinking under the weight of her cauldron.

  Finally, I hear, “Knock-knock” from the bottom of my tree.

  I look down. “Oh, hi, Joan.”

  “Hi, kiddo. Just letting you know that I’ve talked your mother out of whisking you off to the hospital.”

  “Thanks.”

  “But you’re supposed to tell us if you feel sick or weak or dizzy or can’t breathe or—well, you know the drill.”

  I nod. “Hey, Joan?”

  “Yup?”

  I go down to her because I don’t really want anyone else to hear what I have to say. I’ve been thinking about it for at least an hour, which is how long it has taken for Joan to calm Mom down.

  “What is it, kiddo?”

  I almost cringe. “Do you want to go sit on the patio?”

  “That’s not our patio.”

  “Mr. X doesn’t mind.”

  She stares at the patio for a moment and grimaces. “Fine.”

  I sit on my regular glider chair and she sits on the edge of the bench where Mr. X usually sits, but she keeps looking at it like she thinks there’s bird poop all over it.

  I roll and unroll my life jacket straps and Joan says, “What’s up, kiddo?” which makes me cringe again and I just blurt out, “Could you maybe please sometimes call Pookie kiddo instead of the Princess of Darkness because, I mean, I know she acts that way all the time but—”

  “But it’s name calling,” Joan says, “and probably makes her behave even worse.” She lets out a swear word.

  “Are you mad at me?” I ask her.

  “No. I’m mad at myself. And embarrassed. I just got schooled in parenting by a nine-year-old.”

  “You get an A-plus in all the other parenting stuff, though.”

  “Thanks, kidd—” but she stops herself.

  “It’s OK, you can still call me kiddo, too.”

  “All right,” she says, rubbing her hands together, “let’s put this new plan into action!”

  I breathe a big sigh and follow Joan inside. I like how Joan doesn’t make a big deal out of stuff. Mom would look at me with teary eyes and go all gushy about how sweet and sensitive I am, which always makes me want to blow a really big fart noise on my arm to prove I’m just a regular kid.

  I also like how when Joan says she’ll do something, she does. And right away, too. “Special lunch!” she yells as she pulls food out of the fridge, telling everyone to come in the kitchen.

  Pookie stares at the sandwich stuff. “This is the special lunch? I’m not eating that!” She turns and stalks back to her pantry.

  “It’s build your own sandwich day! Then we’ll go out for ice cream. How does that sound, kiddo?”

  Pookie doesn’t answer.

  “She’s talking to you,” I tell Pookie.

  She turns on me but then sees Joan smiling at her. “I thought you were talking to him,” she says in her sneer-y voice. “He’s the kiddo.”

  “You’re my kiddo, too,” Joan says, still smiling, and her eyes have this way of holding you in a tractor beam and it makes you feel safe.

  “That is so stupid,” Pookie says and rolls her eyes.

  But guess what? She walks over to the counter and even though she says, “This is the wrong mayo” and, “I hate this kind of bread” and, “Ew! There’s gristle in this ham,” she builds her own sandwich.

  Mom raises her eyebrows. Joan winks at me and we all pass a smile around behind the new kiddo’s back.

  I feel like the astronaut Neil Armstrong: That’s one small step for Pookie, one giant leap for our family. I’d like to suggest a telescope party but I don’t want to push my luck. I think I just have to wait until I uni-sense the right time.

  THE FIRST PERSON ON THE MOON

  Actually, what Neil Armstrong said was this: That’s one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind. He was the first guy on the moon and he knew everyone would be listening to him because no one on Earth had ever been to the moon before so he spent a long time thinking of something special to say. I think he did a pretty good job. He’s saying you start out small but once you start you can do great things. It applies to space exploration and even to life.

  That night, when I’m heading back from my telescope—no comet—Mr. X is on his patio, but I walk right past him without saying a word because I’m still mad that he ratted on me about swimming. The totally awesome dog tag he gave me is cancelled out by the totally not awesome swim goggles.

  He makes his rumbling sound.

  “I’m not talking to you right now,” I say, even though, technically, I just did.

  I can feel Mr. X stand up. “I know I can be annoying sometimes but it’s for a good cause.”

  I stop. I hate when my own words are used against me. It makes me feel like I have to listen because if I thought those words were important enough to say then it’s kind of hypocritical of me to ignore them.

  I sigh and turn around. “OK, I’ll talk to you, and I know you’re trying to be helpful but I’m NOT ready to talk about swimming.”

  He bows his head and holds a hand up, palm out. “Truce. We’ll call a moratorium on swimming talk for the moment.”

  I go sit on my usual glider chair and he sits on his bench.

  He claps his hands together slowly and softly. “Sooo, what do you want to talk about?”

  “Dogs. But not the if you swim we’ll get a dog kind of dog, just dogs in general.”

  “OK,” he says, “you first.”

  “We need a dog because dogs are natural love sponges. They soak up love and when you hug them, love squeezes back out again.”

  He nods and swallows.

  “When a dog kisses you it means thank you and please at the same time.”

  He nods again.

  “There’s magic inside a dog. They have antiseptic properties in their saliva and that’s why they lick their wounds. That’s not why they lick their butts. Who knows why they do that?”

  His mouth goes into a line, which is sort of like a smile, at least for Mr. X. I can uni-sense that he’s feeling warm and fuzzy and gushy so I say, “Can you tell me about Taurus, the dog in all the pictures?”

  So he tells me lots of Taurus stories. They’re everything I ever imagined about having a dog for a friend. Even the naughty stuff.

  Mr. X squints at the patio door and points to one of the dog sketches on the wall. “See that smirk? I drew that one right after he chewed up something or other.”

  “You drew that? Did you draw all of them?”

  “Yeah.” He shrugs like it’s no big deal.

  “You’re an artist!”

  He snorts. “Nah, I just draw what I know. I knew that dog. Real well.” He starts to talk about when Taurus died but stops. And pinches his nose. He looks all sad again.

  I try to deflect. “Dogs are like life. They’re an amalgamation of good and fun and sweet and even a little bit sad but they’re worth it.”

  “Amalgamation?”

  “It’s a fancy word that means Chex Mix.”

  “Amalgamation is quite a word for a kid. English teache
rs must love you.”

  “Mostly. Sometimes I’m not very good with assignments. Like when they ask, Why did the author say this? There could be a million reasons why. I can think of lots. You can narrow it down, but nobody can say exactly why the author said something except the author. And sometimes I bet they don’t even know. I don’t always know why I say something.”

  “I changed my mind. Teachers must find you annoying.”

  “No, most teachers are OK with thinking. They believe in asking questions. School systems don’t like it, though. They want one answer bubble to fill in on the electronic score sheet and that’s it. Done. But the universe is not that simple. Maybe some people think it is, but I don’t. My answers don’t fit inside a bubble.”

  “Your mother says you’re gifted. Doesn’t that mean you have all the answers?”

  “No. I have a lot of questions. I hardly have any answers.”

  “Then why do they call you gifted if you’re not that smart?”

  “Because it’s not that kind of gifted. It’s emotionally gifted. That means I think about things a lot and care about people’s feelings and know what they’re thinking and know what they’re going to say or do and it takes me a long time to make a decision because I think about the effects of every possible thing I say and do.

  “Like on the playground when kids say, Do you want to play tag? they expect you to answer in less time than they give you on Jeopardy!, which is five seconds, I counted. It’s like they don’t even think. I have to feel my body and how other people are feeling. And I have to check the weather because if I play tag some people will get mad if I stop to look at the clouds. Or if it’s a good day for swinging I might want to do that but if the swings are crowded I might as well play tag. Which kids are playing tag is important, too, because if it’s rough kids you risk getting knocked down. And if it’s the popular kids, which it usually isn’t because why would they ask me, but if it is, who else is getting left out? Will they be sad? Will they be mad at me because I’m a traitor to the not popular kids? So it takes me a long time to answer and then kids think I’m stuck up or stupid, but actually Do you want to play tag? is a very hard question.”

  Mr. X stares at me for a long time.

  I shrug. “It’s the way my brain works. It’s not fun. At all. It just is.”

  He pinches his nose. “In my day they called that neurotic.”

  “I’ve heard that before. I guess they changed the name.”

  “Guess so. Gifted, huh?”

  I nod. “Sometimes I’d like to regift it and get another gift instead.”

  “Like what?”

  “A comet.”

  “That’s a pretty tall order.”

  “It can happen! And it will.”

  “Yeah, OK. What else?”

  “I want my family to look through my telescope and find the Dog Star and appreciate the magic of the universe.”

  “Boy, you really aim high, kid, don’t you? What else?”

  I sigh. “A dog.”

  “That one’s doable.”

  “Not really.”

  “What would you say if I could get you a dog—and your family to accept it?”

  “I would say you’re a magician. But the good kind who makes real magic happen, not fake magic.”

  “It wouldn’t take magic.”

  “Have you talked to my mom about this? Because she’ll say no.”

  “I’ll take care of it.”

  “Will you take care of Joan?”

  He nods. “I have a plan. You hold up your end of the bargain, which is to think about swimming.”

  So I do hold up my end of the bargain.

  FEMTOSECONDS AND ASTRONOMICAL UNITS

  A femtosecond is one-quadrillionth of a second. That’s one-millionth of one-billionth of a second. It’s really small. That’s how long I think about swimming.

  An astronomical unit (AU) is the distance between Earth and the sun: ninety-three million miles. It changes a bit depending on where Earth is in its orbit around the sun, but basically it’s still really, really, really far. That’s how far away I’d like to be from the stupid lake.

  When I get to my tree I find another rock. It looks like it’s from a meteor, straight from outer space. For a second I wonder if it might be Mr. X who’s leaving me rocks. I wave over at him and yell, “This rock is awesome!”

  He kind of shrugs and waves back.

  OK, maybe it’s not him.

  I take my new rock to bed with me. Now I have two magical* rocks on my chest.

  *They’re magical because I don’t have the drowning nightmare at all!

  Even though Mr. X said he’d give me some time to think about swimming, he only gives me three days and he’s pacing on his patio, arguing with me.

  “You’re not being rational!”

  “Mr. Anxiety isn’t known for being rational,” I explain.

  He stops pacing and stares at me. “What?”

  I let out a big sigh as I unroll my life jacket strap. “It’s not ME, it’s Mr. Anxiety talking.”

  “Well, I don’t want to talk to Mr. Anxiety! I want to talk to Julian!”

  “I’m sorry, he’s not available right now.”

  Mr. X lets his breath out fast and loud. “So you’re not going to talk to me?”

  I keep rolling and unrolling the straps of my life jacket. “I might be talking to you. We might be talking in a parallel universe at this very moment. You never know.”

  He says some of Joan’s swear words.

  “Mom wouldn’t like to hear you swearing like that.”

  “Mom doesn’t need to know, then, does she?”

  “Mom didn’t need to know about swimming but you told her anyway.”

  “Oh, for—” He stops himself and makes his grumbly sound instead.

  I guess I’m still kind of mad at him about the whole swimming issue so I add, “And anyway, that was a dumb thing to send Joan.”

  “A local Maine dinner basket is dumb?”

  “The only kind of fish Joan likes is Filet-O at McDonald’s.”

  “That wasn’t fish! That was an expensive lobster!”

  “Well, she doesn’t like it. Or wine.”

  “Fine! What does she like? Flowers?”

  “Are you kidding? She says it’s the gift that keeps on giving chores. First you have to find a vase, then you have to mix up that packet of solution so the flowers don’t die right away, then you have to pick up the petals that keep dropping, then—”

  “OK, OK, I get the idea. How about chocolate?”

  I nod.

  “What kind?”

  “Pretty much any kind as long as it’s chocolate.”

  What I don’t know is why Mr. X is sending Joan stuff. Doesn’t he know she’s already married?

  “Joan was a Merchant Marine,” I blurt out. I’m not trying to scare him, exactly. Just make him aware.

  It gets his attention. “Really? There aren’t that many women in the Merchant Marines.”

  “Well, she was. She’s really strong.”

  He nods. “I like strong women.”

  I start rolling and unrolling my life jacket straps double time.

  Mr. X squints at me. “Is something wrong? Other than your usual nervousness?”

  “You know she’s married to my mom, right?”

  He grumbles. “No. I did not know that.”

  “So she’s not available.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You can’t date her.”

  “I don’t want to date her! First of all, I’m probably forty years older than she is!”

  “Mom says old men are always making fools of themselves going after younger women.”

  He grunts. “I’ve made a fool of myself in lots of ways, but that’s not one of them.”

  “Then how come you’re being so nice to Joan?”

  “I have my reasons.”

  “Like what?”

  “You want a dog, don’t you?” he snaps.
br />   I nod and stop rolling my life jacket straps. “How come Joan isn’t nice back to you?”

  “She has her reasons.”

  “What are they?”

  “No idea.”

  Mr. X looks so sad I try to think of something nice to say. “Mom liked the Maine dinner basket. A lot.”

  “She told me. She didn’t mention Joan hated it, though.”

  “Of course not, that would be rude. Then she’d probably have to add a manners book to the Target bag she hauls around, and that thing is already pretty heavy.”

  “What Target bag?”

  “Oh. Never mind. It’s too long to explain.”

  He looks almost relieved. “I’ll take care of the chocolates and tomorrow we start swimming lessons.”

  “Tomorrow?” I clutch my life jacket. “I was thinking next week.”

  “Tomorrow. And ditch the life jacket.”

  I can’t help it. I clutch my life jacket even harder. “Why?”

  Mr. X lets out a long breath. “It’s a swimming lesson. What would you need a life jacket for?”

  “I thought lesson one would be an overview.”

  “An overview?”

  “An overview is the talking part. We can do that right here.”

  “It’s swimming. What’s there to talk about? You get in the water!”

  “Aren’t you going to give me any instruction?”

  “Yeah, when you get in the water!”

  “But what about pre-learning?”

  “You learn by doing! In the water!”

  “I don’t function as well that way. I might freeze up and drown.”

  Mr. X bugs his eyes out at me.

  “I’m just trying to save you from being a complete failure as a teacher. And the embarrassment of having to bring my cold, limp body to my family.”

  After some swearing, he calms down a bit and we come up with a compromise:

  Lesson one will be on the dock but it is ONLY talking and I can wear my life jacket. I guess Mr. X will do OK once he figures out “what the Sam Hill pre-learning is.” Me I’m not so sure about.