I remember when my little sister first came home. But I don’t remember trying to put her in a box so we could mail her back to the hospital.
My parents enjoy telling people that story.
I’m not even sure why Crenshaw was a cat, and not a dog or an alligator or a Tyrannosaurus rex with three heads.
When I try to remember my whole entire life, it feels like a Lego project where you’re missing some of the important pieces, like a robot mini-figure or a monster-truck wheel. You do the best you can to put things together, but you know it’s not quite like the picture on the box.
It seems like I should have thought to myself, Wow, a cat is talking to me, and that is not something that usually happens at a highway rest stop.
But all I remember thinking is how great it was to have a friend who liked purple jelly beans as much as I did.
8
A couple of hours after the mysterious jelly bean appearance during cerealball, my mom gave Robin and me each a grocery bag. She said they were for our keepsakes. A bunch of our things were going to be sold at a yard sale on Sunday, except for important stuff like shoes and mattresses and a few dishes. My parents were hoping to make enough money to pay some back rent and maybe the water bill, too.
Robin asked what is a keepsake. My mom said it’s an object you treasure. Then she said things don’t really matter, as long as we have each other.
I asked what were her keepsakes and my dad’s. She said probably their guitars would be at the top of the list, and maybe books, because those were always important.
Robin said she would bring her Lyle book for sure.
My sister’s favorite book in the world is The House on East 88th Street. It’s about a crocodile named Lyle who lives with a family. Lyle likes to hang out in the bathtub and walk the dog.
Robin knows every word of that book by heart.
Later, at bedtime, my dad read the Lyle book to Robin. I stood at her bedroom door and listened to him reading. He and my mom and Robin and Aretha were all squished on her mattress. It was on the floor. The wooden parts were going to be sold.
“Come join us, Jackson,” my mom said. “There’s lots of room.”
My dad is tall and so is my mom and Robin’s mattress is tiny. There wasn’t any room.
“I’m good,” I said.
Looking at my family, all there together, I felt like a relative from out of town. Like I belonged to them, but not as much as they belonged to each other. Partly that was because they look so much alike, blond and gray-eyed and cheerful. My hair and eyes are darker, and sometimes so is my mood.
Emptied out, it didn’t look like Robin’s room anymore. Except for her pink lamp. And the marks on the wall that showed how much she had grown. And the red spot on the carpet where she’d spilled cranberry-apple juice. Robin was practicing her T-ball batting and she got a little carried away.
“SWISH, SWASH, SPLASH, SPLOOSH…” read my dad.
“Not sploosh, Daddy,” Robin said.
“Smoosh? Splish? Swash?”
“Stop being silly,” she said. She poked him in the chest. “It’s ‘swoosh’! ‘Swoosh,’ I tell you!”
I said that I did not think a crocodile would enjoy taking a bath. I’d just read a whole library book about reptiles.
My dad told me to go with the flow.
“Did you know that you can hold a crocodile’s jaws closed with a rubber band?” I asked.
My dad smiled. “I wouldn’t want to have been the first person who tested that theory.”
Robin asked my mom if I had a favorite book when I was little. She didn’t ask me, because she was pouting about my bathtub comment.
My mom said, “Jackson really liked A Hole Is To Dig. Remember that book, Jackson? We must’ve read that to you a million times.”
“That’s more like a dictionary than a made-up story,” I said.
“‘A brother is to help you,’” my mom said. Which was a line from the book.
“A brother is to bug you,” said Robin. Which was not a line from the book.
“A sister is to drive you slowly insane,” I replied.
The sun was beginning to set. The sky was tiger-colored, with stripes of black clouds.
“I have to get my stuff ready for the yard sale,” I said.
“Hey, stick around, dude,” said my dad. “I’ll read A Hole Is To Dig. Assuming we can find it, that is.”
“I’m way too old for that book,” I said, even though it was the first thing I’d put in my keepsakes bag.
“Lyle one more time,” Robin said. “Pleasepleasepleasepleaseplease?”
“Dad,” I asked, “did you buy some purple jelly beans?”
“Nope.”
“Then where did they come from? The ones in Robin’s T-ball cap? It doesn’t make any sense.”
“Robin went to Kylie’s birthday party yesterday,” said my mom. “Did you get them there, sweet pea?”
“Nope,” Robin said. “Kylie hates jelly beans. And anyway, I told you they were magic, Jackson.”
“There’s no such thing as magic,” I said.
“Music is magic,” said my mom.
“Love is magic,” said my dad.
“Rabbits in a hat are magic,” said Robin.
“I would put Krispy Kreme doughnuts in the magic category,” said my dad.
“How about the smell of a new baby?” asked my mom.
“Kitties are magic!” Robin yelled.
“Indeed,” said my dad, scratching Aretha’s ear. “And don’t forget dogs.”
They were still going at it when I shut the door.
9
I love my mom and my dad and usually my sister. But lately they’d really been getting on my nerves.
Robin was a little kid, so of course she was annoying. She’d say things like “What if a dog and a bird got married, Jackson?” Or sing “Wheels on the Bus” three thousand times in a row. Or steal my skateboard and use it for a doll ambulance. The usual little sister stuff.
My parents were more complicated. It’s hard to explain, especially since I know this sounds like a good thing, but they were always looking on the bright side. Even when things were bad—and they’d been bad a lot—they joked. They acted silly. They pretended everything was fine.
Sometimes I just wanted to be treated like a grown-up. I wanted to hear the truth, even if it wasn’t a happy truth. I understood things. I knew way more than they thought I did.
But my parents were optimists. They looked at half a glass of water and figured it was half full, not half empty.
Not me. Scientists can’t afford to be optimists or pessimists. They just observe the world and see what is. They look at a glass of water and measure 3.75 ounces or whatever, and that’s the end of the discussion.
Take my dad. When I was younger, he got sick, really sick. He found out he has this disease called multiple sclerosis. Mostly he has good days, but sometimes he has bad ones when it’s hard to walk and he has to use a cane.
When he learned he had MS, my dad acted like it was no big deal, even though he had to quit his job, which was building houses. He said he was tired of listening to hammering all day long. He said he wanted to wear fancy shoes instead of muddy ones, and then he wrote a song about it called “The Muddy Shoes Blues.” He said he might work from home, so he taped a sign on the bathroom door that said OFFICE OF MR. THOMAS WADE. My mom put a sign next to it that said I’D RATHER BE FISHING.
And that was that.
Sometimes I just want to ask my parents if my dad is going to be okay or why we don’t always have enough food in the house or why they’ve been arguing so much.
Also, why I couldn’t have been an only child.
But I don’t ask. Not anymore.
Last fall we were at a neighborhood potluck dinner when Aretha ate a baby’s disposable diaper. She had to spend two nights at the vet’s until she pooped it out.
“Poop in, poop out,” my dad said when we picked her up. “It’s the
cycle of life.”
“The cycle of life is expensive,” my mom said, staring at the bill. “Looks like rent’s going to be late again this month.”
When we got to the car, I came right out and asked if we had enough money for stuff. My dad said not to worry. That we just were a little financially challenged. He said sometimes it’s hard to plan for everything, unless you have a crystal ball and can see the future, and if I knew someone with a crystal ball, he would love to borrow it.
My mom said something about winning the lottery, and my dad said if they won the lottery, could he please get a Ferrari, and she said how about a Jaguar, and then I could tell they wanted to change the subject.
I didn’t ask any more hard questions after that.
Somehow I just knew my parents didn’t want to give me hard answers.
10
After I got ready for bed, I lay on my mattress and thought things over.
I thought about the stuff I’d put in my keepsakes bag. Some photos. A spelling bee trophy. A bunch of nature books. My teddy bear. A clay statue of Crenshaw that I’d made when I was in second grade. My worn-out copy of A Hole Is To Dig.
I thought about Crenshaw and the surfboard.
I thought about the purple jelly beans.
Mostly, though, I thought about the signs I’d been noticing.
I am very observant, which is a useful thing for a scientist to be. Here’s what I’d been observing:
Big piles of bills.
Parents whispering.
Parents arguing.
Stuff getting sold, like the silver teapot my grandma gave my mom and our laptop computer.
The power going off for two days because we hadn’t paid the bill.
Not much food except peanut butter and mac and cheese and Cup O Noodles.
My mom digging under the couch cushions for quarters.
My dad digging under the couch cushions for dimes.
My mom borrowing toilet paper rolls from work.
The landlord coming over and saying “I’m sorry” and shaking his head a lot.
It didn’t make sense. My mom had three part-time jobs. My dad had two part-time jobs. You’d think that would add up to two whole actual jobs, but it didn’t seem to.
My mom used to teach music at a middle school until they cut her job. Now she worked as a waitress at two restaurants and as a cashier at a drugstore. She wanted to get another job teaching music, but so far nothing had come up.
After my dad had to quit construction work, he started a handyman business. He did small fix-it stuff, but sometimes he wasn’t feeling well and had to cancel appointments. He also gave private guitar lessons. And he was hoping to go to community college part-time to learn computer programming.
I figured my parents had a plan for making everything okay, because parents always have a plan. But when I asked them what it was, they said stuff like maybe they could plant a money tree in the backyard. Or maybe they could start their rock band up again and win a Grammy Award.
I didn’t want to leave our apartment, but I could feel it coming, even if nobody said anything. I knew how things worked. I’d been through this before.
It was too bad, because I really liked where we lived, even though we’d only been there a couple of years. Swanlake Village was the name of our neighborhood. It didn’t have any real swans. But all the mailboxes had swans on them, and the community pool had a swan painted on the bottom.
The pool water was always warm. Mom said it was from the sun, but I suspected illegal peeing.
All the streets in Swanlake Village had two words in their names. Ours was Quiet Moon. But there were others, like Sleepy Dove and Weeping Wood and Sunny Glen. My school, Swanlake Elementary, was only two blocks from my house. It didn’t have anything with swans on it.
Swanlake Village wasn’t a fancy place at all, just a regular old neighborhood. But it was friendly. It was the kind of place where you could smell hot dogs and burgers grilling every weekend. Where kids rode their scooters on the sidewalk and sold lousy lemonade for a quarter a cup. It was a place where you had friends you could count on, like Marisol.
You wouldn’t have thought it was a place where people were worried or hungry or sad.
Our school librarian likes to say you can’t judge a book by its cover. Maybe it’s the same way with neighborhoods. Maybe you can’t judge a place by its swans.
11
I finally fell asleep, but around eleven I woke. I got up to go to the bathroom, and as I headed down the hall, I realized my parents were still awake. I could hear them talking in the living room.
They were thinking of places we could go if we couldn’t pay the rent.
If I don’t become an animal scientist, I would make a great spy.
My mom said how about Gladys and Joe, my dad’s parents. They live in an apartment in New Jersey. My dad said they only had one extra bedroom. Then he declared, “Plus, I couldn’t live under his roof. He’s the most pigheaded man on the planet.”
“Second-most pigheaded,” said my mom. “We could try borrowing money from our families.”
My dad rubbed his eyes. “Do we have a rich relative I’ve never met?”
“I see your point,” said my mom. Then she said how about my dad’s cousin in Idaho who has a ranch, or her mom in Sarasota, who has a condo, or his old buddy Cal, who lives in Maine in a trailer.
My dad asked which of those people would take in two adults, two children, and a dog who eats furniture. Besides, he said, he didn’t want to accept anyone’s handouts.
“You do realize we can’t live in the minivan again,” my mom said.
“No,” said my dad. “We can’t.”
“Aretha’s a lot bigger. She’d take up the whole middle seat.”
“Plus she farts a lot.” My dad sighed. “Who knows? Sunday at the yard sale somebody might give us a million bucks for Robin’s old high chair.”
“Good point,” said my mom. “It comes with extra Cheerios stuck to the seat.”
They fell silent.
“We should sell the TV,” my mom said after a while. “I know it’s ancient, but still.”
My dad shook his head. “We’re not barbarians.” He clicked the remote and an old black-and-white movie came to life.
My mom stood. “I’m so tired.” She looked at my dad with her arms crossed over her chest. “Look,” she said. “There’s nothing—nothing at all—wrong with asking for help, Tom.”
Her voice was low and slow. It was the voice she used when a fight was coming. My chest tightened. The air felt thick.
“There’s everything wrong with asking for help,” my dad snapped. “It means we’ve failed.” His voice had changed, too. It was sharp and hard.
“We have not failed. We are doing the best we can.” My mom gave a frustrated groan. “Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans, Tom.”
“Really?” My dad was yelling. “So now we’re resorting to fortune cookie wisdom? Like that’s going to help put food in our kids’ mouths?”
“Well, refusing to ask for help isn’t going to.”
“We have asked for help, Sara. We’ve been to that food pantry more times than I care to admit. But in the end, this is my—our—problem to solve,” my dad shouted.
“You’re not responsible for getting sick, Tom. And you’re not responsible for my getting laid off.” My mom threw her hands in the air. “Oh, what’s the point? I’m going to bed.”
I slipped into the bathroom as my mom stormed down the hall. She slammed her bedroom door so loudly the whole house seemed to tremble.
I waited a few minutes to be sure the coast was clear. When I headed back to my room, my dad was still on the couch, staring at the gray ghosts moving across the screen.
12
I didn’t sleep much after that. I tossed and turned, and finally I got up to get some water. Everyone was asleep. The bathroom door was closed, but light was sneaking out of the cracks.
; I heard humming.
I heard splashing.
“Mom?” I said softly. “Dad?”
No answer.
“Robin?”
No answer. More humming.
It sounded like “How Much Is That Doggy in the Window?” but I couldn’t be sure.
I thought about whether it might be an ax murderer. But taking a bath didn’t seem like an ax murderer kind of thing to do.
I didn’t want to open the door.
I opened the door an inch.
More splashing. A sudsy blob floated by.
I opened the door all the way.
Crenshaw was taking a bubble bath.
13
I looked at him. He looked at me.
I flew into the bathroom, shut the door, and locked it.
“Meow,” he said. It sounded like a question.
I did not say “meow” back. I did not say anything.
I closed my eyes and counted to ten.
He was still there when I opened them.
Crenshaw seemed even bigger up close. His white stomach rose from the bubbles like a snowy island. His enormous tail draped over the side of the tub.
“Do you have any purple jelly beans?” he asked. He had thick whiskers that poked out from his face like uncooked spaghetti.
“No.” I said it more to myself than to him.
Aretha scratched at the door.
“Not now, girl,” I said.
She whined.
Crenshaw wrinkled his nose. “I smell dog.”
He was holding one of Robin’s rubber duckies. He looked at the duck carefully, then rubbed his forehead on it. Cats have scent glands by their ears, and when they rub on something, it’s like writing, in big letters, THIS IS MINE.
“You are imaginary,” I said in my firmest voice. “You are not real.” Crenshaw made himself a beard out of bubbles.
“I invented you when I was seven,” I said, “and that means I can un-invent you now.”
Crenshaw didn’t seem to be paying attention. “If you don’t have purple jelly beans,” he said, “red will do in a pinch.”
I looked in the mirror. My face was pale and sweaty. I could still see Crenshaw’s reflection. He was making a tiny bubble beard for the rubber duck.