Addison Addley and the Things That Aren't There (4 page)

The next morning we had a chapter review on fractions. I don't know why they call it a review. Review means to go over something you already know, like reviewing the seven steps you need to take to get to the dragon in my favorite video game, or going over every flavor of ice cream three times before deciding on which one to get. I don't mind reviewing my game plan to become a famous inventor some day. But I definitely couldn't review fractions because I didn't understand them in the first place.

Besides, everybody knew that “review” was just a fancy word for “test.” Teachers thought they could get away with sneaking one in if they called it something different.

I stared at the numbers on the page.

1/3 + 1/3 =

Did that equal 1/6? Or 2/3? Or 2 1/3? The only number that I was sure about was the zero I was going to get on that review.

That night I started writing my speech. I quit after ten minutes. I'd done quite a bit for one night. I had written two lines and I didn't want to burn out. I needed to pace myself.

Miss Steane, honorable judges, and fellow classmates, Do you ever wonder if something is really there?

I put away my speech and headed downstairs to get something to eat. Writing works up an appetite. I grabbed some pita bread stuffed with meatless meat left over from supper. I threw out the meatless meat and stuffed the pita with peanut butter. No use wasting the good stuff on me.

Mom was out on the deck looking at the stars. She was holding up one hand with her fingers spread out. It looked like she was trying to put a spell on the sky.

“What are you doing?” I asked her as I jumped into my old hammock under the pine tree that overhung the deck.

“I'm trying to measure the distance between the stars,” she said, passing me a plate of flaxseed and honey cookies. “Did you know that if you hold your hand outstretched like this, the span from your thumb to your little finger is about twenty-five degrees, which is the length of the Big Dipper?” she asked.

I nodded, pretending to be interested. I picked the flaxseeds out of the cookies and dropped them through the holes in the deck for the birds. “Don't you think you should be using something better to look at the stars with than your fingers?” I asked. It looked pretty weird to me, like some voodoo thing that I'd seen on tv.

“Sure, a telescope would be nice,” Mom said. “Maybe if we had a little more money to spare we could look into buying a used one.”

Or maybe she could borrow one from the astronomy club if she got elected, I thought. Heck, maybe she could borrow one for me too so that I could spy on that new kid across the street. Every morning he looked taller. He seemed to grow an inch a day. Mom said he was probably going through a growth spurt. How come these growth spurts didn't happen to me? I wondered where I could pick one up. Too bad they didn't sell them at the store. I sure hoped that kid used up his growth spurt
before next fall, or he'd probably take the spot I was trying out for on the basketball team. I was sure that there had to be more to it than a growth spurt though. I bet that kid did some sort of weird exercises at night or had some sort of medieval stretching machine in his attic. I'd find out soon enough if I had a telescope.

Mom moved her hands to measure a different section of the sky.

She was as excited about the astronomy club as I was about fishing or video games. I guess everyone likes something different. I once heard that Becky, the shy kid in my class, has a really weird mother. She likes to collect paper clips. I mean, how many different kinds of paper clips can there be? Wouldn't you get totally bored after a while? I guess you could make a paper-clip fishing pole or a paper-clip leash. It would be a pretty weak leash though. It would probably do for a hamster or something, but I don't remember seeing too many hamsters with leashes. Maybe I could add that to my invention list. Then there's Jake's mom. She likes to collect garbage. Well, not all garbage. Just the kind that you can make art with, like foam trays and old cans. I caught her going through our recycling box twice last year.

I shook my head as I imagined Becky's mom and her paper-clip necklace and Jake's mom and her garbage art. Nope, having a mom who was interested in the stars was a whole lot better than having one who was fascinated by that other weird stuff.

I decided to tell Mom about my speech topic. I was right in the middle of describing things that weren't there when a giant pine cone hit me smack in the middle of my forehead. Maybe it was reminding me not to think too hard.

I looked up at the pine tree way above my head.

“Gravity,” Mom said, laughing. “It's an unseen force.”

“Things that aren't there!” we both said at once.

I nodded again and looked at the stars. I stretched my hand out in front of me and squinted. Maybe this astronomy thing wasn't so bad after all. I'd found another idea for my speech. Plus I'd learned a new trick of measuring. I wondered how many fingers wide Tiffany's brain was. I didn't think there could be anything that small. Maybe an atom. But it wasn't there. Or was it?

I didn't think about my speech again until Sunday. Sometimes chores, like returning video games or finding baseball gloves, get in the way of real life. By the time I'd conquered the last level in the new game I rented on Sunday afternoon, it was time to go fishing. Sam and I had decided to go fishing on Sunday instead of Monday this week. Sam thought I should use Monday and Tuesday nights to practice my speech, since I'd be giving it on Wednesday. Like I said, he always looks out for me. What a guy.

The problem was, I couldn't very well practice something that wasn't there. I still had only two lines to my speech. So far my speech was a thing that wasn't
there. Somehow I didn't think Miss Steane would appreciate the joke.

“I saw this guy on tv who said he could see people's auras,” Sam said as we settled down on the bank of the creek.

I dumped my half of the worms into my shoe this time and gave Sam the carton. “You mean like the aurora borealis?” I asked. I knew that was a fancy name for the northern lights. Mom's astronomy lectures were beginning to rub off on me.

“No,” Sam corrected. “Every living thing is supposed to have this energy that surrounds it. Some people claim they can see it around people's bodies like shimmering lights and colors. You kind of have to squint to see it. You can't prove it's there or it's not there. It's really quite interesting.”

Sam saw me yawn. “I guess you have to have an open mind,” he apologized.

My mind was open—wide open. Ideas just flew right out of it before they had a chance to stick.

We spent the next ten minutes squinting at the trees across the stream to see if we could see their auras. I saw an old blue kite stuck in the top of the trees. I saw the squirrels racing across the branches.
Mainly what I saw was a bunch of ants trying to find something to eat.

That reminded me of the party on Wednesday. “Mom's punch is going to score some points with the Lamp's mother,” I told Sam. “I even like it, even though it's good for me, so I can just imagine what she's going to think.”

“Do you want some help making it?” Sam asked.

Normally I would let someone else do the work, but I wanted to handle this one on my own. Besides, it was straightforward. I knew the recipe was for eight people. There were twenty-four of us in the class, so Sam told me I would just have to multiply it by three. I was sure most of the ingredients were already at home. Even I couldn't possibly mess this one up.

Even though I'm not great at multiplying, I am pretty good at subtracting. I don't know why. I guess it's because I'm used to counting down the days until summer vacation or Christmas holidays. I had three nights to finish and practice my speech. Take one night away because of the baseball game on tv tonight. That left two nights. If I forced myself, I could probably manage to write two lines a night. Two nights, two
lines each. Four lines. Hmmm. I doubted I could win the trophy with that.

Then I remembered the two lines I had already written. That would make six lines altogether. Six whole lines. Yep, I felt a lot better after that. A whole lot better. So good, in fact, that I almost forgot about my dentist appointment the next morning. Almost.

I don't know why I hate the dentist so much. It's not that I can't take the pain of the needle or drill, because I really am the toughest guy on the baseball team. I don't back down from anyone, not even the mean pitcher on the Wildcat team, who has to be at least eight feet tall. Last year I even played one game with a sprained ankle. We won.

It's just that when you're at the dentist's, you don't know what's in store for you. At least when you have a cavity you know what you're in for. It's the checkups I hate. You never know what's going to happen at a checkup. They could say, “Everything looks great. Good work.” At least that's what they say in my dreams. I don't hear those words too much in real life.

With me it's usually silence and then someone says, “Tsk, tsk.” They scribble something down on their charts and say, “We'll have to take care of that.” That's a nice way of saying, “We'll have to stick a needle in your mouth and drill half your tooth away.”

It's not knowing if those stupid little cavities are there or not that bugs me. I wish I knew before I went into the office. I guess they're sort of like the stuff on my speech list. Are they there or aren't they? This time I was pretty sure they would come under the category “Things That Are There.”

I don't like the look of the dentist office. I don't even like the way it smells—like cleaning fluid or vinegar. And I really don't like the dentist's hands. Why do dentists always seem to have fat fingers? I guess it's so they can grab the giant needle and gigantic drill better.

Dr. Plain—or Dr. Pain, as I call him—gave my teeth one final pick and took his big hand out of my mouth.

There was silence. I listened to myself breathing.

“Tsk, tsk,” he said. “It's just a small cavity, but we'll have to take care of that.”

How did I know he was going to say that?

I must have looked at him like a caged animal because he patted me on the shoulder and said, “How about we do that right now?”

Good old Dr. Pain. He knows I don't like to think about coming to the dentist. He knows I'd rather just get it over with right then and there. Besides, like I said, it's not the actual filling that I hate. It's the checkups.

“We'll just do a quick X-ray to make sure everything else is okay,” he said.

I thought about an X-ray as he put some cardboard wedges in my mouth. I was pretty sure they might be things that weren't there, so I asked Dr. Pain.

“X-rays are a type of radiation, just like light,” he explained. “Our eyes can see normal light, but we can't see the shorter wavelength of X-rays. We use X-rays to make these films, and then we can see if you have any more hidden cavities.”