Grover G. Graham and Me (12 page)

I
scooched to the edge of the aisle and peered around the corner.

“Po! Po!” Grover clutched a toy phone. He shook his head so fiercely his yellow curls bobbed.

“Please, Grover,” said Tracey.

Still shaking his head, the kid skedaddled down the aisle. Tracey followed, clutching Lambie Pie. She swiped at the phone. Grover speeded up, turned.

Saw me.

“Beh! Beh! Beh!”

He came at me full tilt. Nose-dived into my knee—
whack!
—with the force of Charmaine’s wagging tail.

“Hey, big guy.” I palmed his head.

“You.” The word slapped me. Frowning, Tracey strode up the aisle.

“Po! Po!”

“I suppose you were spying on me.” Tracey tried to
loosen Grover’s grasp on my leg. “Sneaking around. Trying to find out what I’m doing wrong.”

“Po!” screamed Grover.

As fast as Tracey lifted the fat little fingers, they’d clamp down again. The octopus grip.

I waited for the old anger at Tracey to hit me. It wasn’t there.

Instead I felt almost sorry for her. Her face was as red as Grover’s. As the kid shrieked people turned to stare. Shoot, I knew what she was going through. Grover had screeched “keam” in the same piercing way.

“Want me to try?” I asked, hunkering down. I held my fist to my ear. “Brring. Brrring.”

Grover closed his mouth, blue eyes on me.

“Hello. Hello.” I nodded, listening to my fist. “What? You want to speak to Grover?”

The kid’s eyes lit up.

“Wait, I’ll see if he’s here.” I held my fist out to Grover. “Call for you, big guy.”

Grover brought my fist to his ear. “Hel-wo.” The toy phone dropped. Tracey pounced on it, placing it high on a shelf.

“Hello, Grover.” I put on a deep voice. “This is Mr. T.”

“Tee!” cried Grover. He blinked, waiting for more. His whole body trembled with excitement.

“Um,” I said.

Tracey stroked Grover’s head. “You’re stuck now,” she told me, but it didn’t sound mean.

Then Grover brought my fist close to his chest. “Beh!” he cried, hugging it.

His shirt was apple-juice damp and sticky, but I let the
hug go on. “Yeah, okay,” I mumbled. “It’s nice to see you, too.”

Tracey crossed her arms, squishing Lambie Pie. The pitiful toy was now missing an eye. “You could have hurt him, you know,” she said suddenly. “Where would he have slept? What about food?”

I thought of the yellow room and animal stencils and meals full of pancakes and Jif. A dream I knew I couldn’t make real.

Tracey smoothed Lambie Pie’s ribbon. “Food, rent—I think about them all the time. Insurance, clothes, new shoes. Sometimes I wake up at night—”

“You left him alone,” I broke in. “You hurt him, too.”

“Yeah.” Tracey’s face closed over. “I made a mistake, a big one.” She reached for Grover. “Time to go, baby.”

Rrriiipp.

“Oh, Grover. No.”

“Po,” he said defiantly.

That fast, he had grabbed and opened a box. He hauled out the plastic horse inside.

Tracey reached for the toy. “Honey,” she said, “we can’t afford—”

“Neigh, neigh.” Grover galloped the horse through the air.

I thought of my horse salt and pepper shakers at Gram’s. “Let me buy it for him,” I said.

Tracey’s jaw tensed. “I don’t take handouts.”

“Neither do I.”

The girl tried to stare me down, but I stared right back.

“I still won’t let you see him,” she said.

“I know,” I answered. “I just want to buy him a present.”

When I got back to the Torglemobile, my twenty-dollar bill was down to a few pennies and dimes. Mr. T. pointed to my bag. Something for the twins, I explained. I didn’t say anything about Grover, the toy horse, and Tracey. I wanted to puzzle that out myself.

Tracey hadn’t wanted to take that toy horse from me. But she did. For Grover. Mrs. T. had said we competed over Grover. I remembered how I’d tried to keep Tracey away. I liked it when Grover pushed her aside and reached for me. Maybe I was jealous. Maybe I had taken Grover that day because I wanted to get back at her. I wanted to protect the kid, yes, but I also wanted to hurt Tracey. Show her what a lousy mother she was. Prove she should never have left him.

I remembered riding high with Grover on that Greyhound bus, escaping Greenfield just like my mother. Only she had left me behind.

T
hat evening I asked Mr. T.’s permission to use the phone in their bedroom. I said there were two calls I needed to make.
In private
, I added, with a glance at the twins.

Of course Charmaine had to follow me and lie panting at my feet. “Okay,” I said, “but don’t blame me if you hear yelling from the other end.”

I picked up the black phone and quickly punched in the number. As soon as a voice answered, I said the words before I could chicken out: “I’m sorry.”

“Who is this?”

“Ben Watson.” I took a deep breath. “I’m sorry.”

Silence on the other end, then: “I don’t want you to call.”

“I just wanted to say what I did.”

“And that’s supposed to make everything all right?”

“I didn’t think—”

“You still can’t see Grover.”

“I know,” I said. “That’s not why I called.”

More silence, then
click … click … click.
I pictured a blue-moon fingernail tapping the phone.

“Jenny says maybe I’m being too hard.”

Stubborn can make you tough or hard
, I remembered Jenny saying. I had been hard, too.

Tracey continued, “And Eileen Torgle told me you’ve been knocked around a lot.”

I was surprised. “That’s what Mrs. T. says about you.”

“Ha.” Tracey’s bark of a laugh. “Everyone’s a shrink.”

Click … click … click.

“You going to steal Grover again?”

“Not unless you leave him alone.”

A long pause. I waited for Tracey to hang up, but instead she said something so low I had to strain to catch it. “We both did something we won’t do again,” she said. “Let’s leave it at that.”

I could hear “Po! Po! Po!” in the background.

After hanging up, I rested my head on the wall. “One call down,” I said to Charmaine, who thumped her tail. The dog was like my own private cheerleader. Even without yelling, the next call was going to be hard.

I hated to lay out my plans and not follow through. I hated not wanting to say good-bye. That busted-chest feeling was back. Shoot, I hated that, too.

I dialed superfast and, when I heard “hello,” rushed out all my words.

No sooner had I finished than Ms. Burkell started talking. I pictured the bounce-bounce-bounce of her beads. She said she would deal with the paperwork immediately. Then she asked what the Torgles had said.

I swallowed. “They don’t know.”

“You mean they haven’t asked you to stay past the summer?” Ms. Burkell sounded surprised, then her voice softened. “Ben, this arrangement was just temporary, you know. I’ve heard the hardware store could close any day now. What if the Torgles can’t take you for more than an extra month or so?”

“Then that’s all the time I have.”

“Okay,” she said finally. “At least you can ask, right? Meanwhile, I’ll keep looking for something more permanent.”

I wanted to tell her not to bother—I was used to impermanent—but I knew she was just doing her job. Besides, there was something else I wanted to say.

“Um,” I began, “about your beads.”

“The ones you hate.”

“I don’t
hate
them,” I said.

Ms. Burkell laughed. “Ben, when I ask you a question— any question—your answer is usually ‘nothing.’ I was glad to hear you say anything else.”

“So you’re not insulted?”

Ms. Burkell laughed again. “You should hear what my mother says.”

That night in Jake’s room I tried to work out the asking-to-stay scene with the Torgles in my mind. I tried it A, B, C. Then I tried it B, Z, Q. I had the trophy guys act out different parts. I must have worked that scene a hundred possible ways. Who would say what when. How the Torgles would look if they said yes. What I would do if they said no.

The reality was chaos with a capital
C.

I’d decided to talk to the Torgles at breakfast. Except
Kate and Lenora were fighting over how to spend their dad’s forty dollars. Charmaine was woofing at a speck on the floor. And Mrs. T. was leveling some tone at her husband because the screen door
still
wasn’t fixed.

I must have tried to break in a hundred times: “I wonder if you …” “How about if…” “What would you say …”

Finally I took a deep breath. “I want to stay past the summer,” I practically hollered. “If that’s okay with you.”

Then it was chaos with all capital letters:
C-H-A-O-S.
Underlined. In fact, only one person said the words I’d imagined. Mrs. T. kept repeating, “Okay?
Okay?”
The twins jabbered and leaped. Charmaine barked like a crazy dog. But Mr. T., with his hands on his knees, winked and made the very sound I’d hoped for. He said, “Ahhh.”

O
ctober. It’s been two months since I made those two phone calls.

Mr. T. and I are off this afternoon to downtown Greenfield. Of course, the twins are as jealous green as two grassy lawns, but Mrs. T. sweet-talked their sulks away by promising to help make new Barbie clothes.

“It’s not fair,” Kate grumbled at breakfast.

“Ben always gets to see them,” whined Lenora.

“Not
always.”
Mrs. T. smiled at me. “In fact, this is the very first time.”

Hopefully it won’t be the last.

Mr. T. hums as he drives. The trees along the road are now sporting colored leaves. October is the one month when Greenfield might become Goldfield, say, or Redfield. And the sweetgum tree in the Torgles’ yard is now fancy as a party. Its five-pointed leaves have turned all different shades: yellow, dark purple, and
red. Today that pitiful thing looks like a bouquet of stars.

The trees we’re passing get me thinking about the family tree, that stupid school assignment that’s due on Monday. My tree, all bare but for three named twigs. Well, at least I won’t have to stay up all night trying to finish it.

October. The twins are starting to talk Halloween. Or maybe I should say yell Halloween. Kate wants them to dress as princesses; Lenora refuses. They argue about how to spend the last few dimes of their father’s money. Blabbing and boo-hooing, they constantly barge into my room.

It is chaos with a capital
C.

Mrs. T. is fast-forwarding to Christmas, when Saint Jake Jock will visit. I wonder how he’ll feel about a stranger in his room. One day I had returned from school to find the twelve trophy guys gone. When I asked, Mrs. T. replied, “It was time I put them away. This
is your
room now.”

I have started to put a few things—my things—on the shelves. To keep my flashlight company. Mrs. T. keeps asking if I would like a new bedspread, but I am used to that brown plaid. A new spread might give me the feeling I’ve moved again. And I plan to stay at Number Eight for a while, thank you very much.

As the Torglemobile rattles down the highway, I try to keep my thoughts from jumping ahead to this afternoon. I let them bounce: D. M. Z. Q.

“We’ll go to your hardware store first,” I say. “Then the library and Safeway.”

“Aye, aye, sir.” Mr. T. salutes.

I settle back, glad the hardware store has managed to
hang on this long. I want it to be part of today. This day I have planned so carefully: A, B, C.

We’ll finish at Uddleston’s. Vanilla shakes and red straws for the three of us. Mr. T., Grover, and me.

See, about two weeks after that first phone call, Kate came giggling into the living room. “Phone for Ben. It’s a girl.”

When I picked up, I heard a familiar voice. “Don’t get any ideas.”

I gripped the phone. Tracey Graham.

“All day I’ve heard nothing but ‘po, po, po.’ I tried the toy phone. No luck. Jenny tried books. Grover threw them. Nothing, I mean
nothing
, will distract him.”

Sure enough, “Po! Po! Po!” came from the background.

“We’ve run out of people to call,” she said. “You want to talk to Grover?”

And then I heard “Beh! Beh! Beh!”

In the weeks since that call there have been others. These days Grover is so phone obsessed I talk to him a few times a week. Perhaps
talk
is not quite the right word, since Grover babbles in a language I’m still translating:
po, Beh, Ma-ma, La, Tee, Ah-den
(Aunt Jenny), and about a hundred others, from
neigh
(horse) to
oos
(shoes).

And once Grover finishes, do you think that poor phone gets a rest? Not a chance. Tracey has to talk to Mrs. T., or Mrs. T. to her, the twins jabber for their turn, Mr. T. aahs around the kitchen, Charmaine follows like the man’s tail-thumping shadow.

It is chaos with all capital letters:
C-H-A-O-S.

For example, the other day Jenny asked my advice about pancakes and then Tracey took the phone and grilled me about toys—trikes versus wagons. Suddenly, out of nowhere, she said, “You know, Grover named that outlet thing you gave him.”

“The night-light?”

“He calls it Boo Beh,” said Tracey.

Blue Ben. How about that.

I still worry sometimes about Grover. Yeah, I know his sheets and faucets are okay, but what if, say, his mother died? And his aunt? What would happen to him?

Those questions—well, they keep me awake some nights. If I can think them through, lay out the answers like a trail of stones, then hopefully Grover can’t get lost. The thinking is hard, though. No sooner do I have one question figured out than another comes along.

I remember Gram’s will and the friend she left me to. Maybe Tracey’s will should name a bunch of folks that can watch over Grover. I would like to be one of them. If something happened to Tracey and Jenny, I would promise to stay around. After all, only the Watson half of me is footloose; the other is stick-it-out stubborn as Gram. And since I’m only eleven—not eighty-two—there’s a good chance I won’t be dying till I’ve seen him safely grown.

Gram. The strong branch on my family tree. Maybe I can be a sort of twig on Grover’s.

I remember the question Mrs. T. asked when I first came. Did I think of Grover more than I thought of myself?

Now I can answer that question: Yes.

Me, myself, I. The life of Ben Watson. I don’t want to think about that. I don’t want to think about all the homes it took to find this one. All the spoiled Chihuahuas and time-out closets, all the light-fingered boys and Safeway samples I had to pass through to get here.

Ms. Burkell wants me to talk all this out. Those are her words—“talk it all out”—like my mind is a sponge to be squeezed clean and dry. Like all that happened can be washed down the sink. She has set up an appointment with a fancy counselor. I tell Ms. Burkell she is shrink enough for me. She laughs but says all this talking will be healing for me.

Healing, huh. She makes me sound like Grover with a boo-boo on his knee. Right now, I don’t want to talk. It is enough to walk beside the twins to the school bus. To help Mrs. T. fix a meal. To set my own place at the table. It is enough to sit on the brown-plaid spread each night and gaze at the sky and watch the small lights breaking through. In the fall in Greenfield, the stars are very clear and close.

Ms. Burkell’s beads don’t get on my nerves half as bad these days, even though she keeps yammering about this new law. There’s a big push, she says, to promote adoption, to keep foster stays short, to place kids in permanent homes.

I’ll believe it when I see it.

Though Ms. Burkell hasn’t brought up Sarah Jewel again, sometimes I wonder about my mother. Maybe she had been knocked around, too, like Tracey. In my mind Sarah Jewel is always a dark-haired teenager staring out a bus window. But really, now, she would be grown up. A woman fixing meals, driving a car, working. Maybe she
would have other children. And my father? What about him? Someday I may try to find out.

Not now. My parents are twigs, broken off, blown away. I want to let them rest for a while.

Two days ago Tracey asked Mr. T. if he’d like to take Grover into town on Saturday afternoon. And she asked me if I’d like to go, too.

Tracey was letting me spend a day with Grover. How about that.
We both did something we won’t do again
, she had said in August on the phone.
Let’s leave it at that.
I guess that’s what she was doing.

I haven’t seen the kid since the day I bought him that little horse. I bet he’s taller now. And he’s probably running fast as a colt.

I think Tracey has decided that Grover needs some guys in his life. Guys to read him stories, to play horse and car, to shuffle beside him while he names every bug, stick, and leaf in his path.

An old guy like Mr. T.

A young guy like me.

Good thing I never sold that Dr. Spock book back to the library. It’s bound to come in handy.

I wonder if Dr. Spock has anything to say about family trees.

I think about the tree I inked up in class. Maybe what I need is not one tree but a little forest. A bunch of trees together on the same piece of paper. There would be a tree for Lenora and Kate and their broken twig of a dad. And one for the Torgles. And one for Grover and Tracey and Jenny. And my tree, too. Mine and Gram’s.

And maybe some of these trees would be mighty oaks and pretty maples. But a fair number, I bet, would be sweetgums. Yes. Because, as Mrs. Crawdich used to say, a sweetgum can surprise you.

But who wants to think about homework? My mind is filled with plans for this afternoon. And this is how I’d like things to start.

Today when Tracey opens the door to apartment 402, I will hand her a bag of Grover’s favorite fish crackers. I will hand her a big jar of Jif for Jenny, who’s studying for an exam. Then I want to give something to Tracey. I want to look straight at her. I want to look past the quick frown and gooped-up lashes and see her eyes, the same blue as Grover’s. And I want to say “Thank you.”

I think she will understand.

Of course, the afternoon may not start like this at all. It will probably be chaos with all capital letters:
C-H-A-O-S.
Underlined. And I will have to work the thank-you in when I can.