The Danger Box Page 3

  When I read or hear a name I like, I put it in the list book marked N. Then I look it up and see what I can find about the person. Some of my favorites are Al Capone, Marie Curie, Django Reinhardt, and Black Elk. It’s sort of like a treasure hunt.

  If Mrs. Fufty is watching, I use books before the computer. She loves to say, “The Internet is Not Always Accurate,” and the way she says it makes it sound like a weird song.

  If she’s not around, I jump right in. The Search Box allows anyone to become a spy.

  * * *

  The Gas Gazette: Issue Two

  A FREE NEWSPAPER ABOUT A MYSTERIOUS SOUL

  ~I made up this code and wrote it down in a notebook when I was somewhere between ten and twelve.

  Who am I?

  Can you write your name in my code?

  NEXT ISSUE TO COME.

  FREE!

  * * *

  WE DON’T HAVE a TV at home. It broke when I was little, and my grandma was glad. When it worked, I had to sit a couple of feet away to see it. She says being that close to electronics can scramble your brains, and she doesn’t want mine to turn into an omelet.

  Once one of the other kids in the Special Room, a guy who’s much bigger than me, grabbed my Daily List Book and dropped it down his pants. Then he ran into the bathroom and flushed the toilet about ten times. I think he just wanted me to pay attention to him and not my notebook, but it didn’t work. My notebook broke the toilet. Then my stomach got so jittery I couldn’t do anything but stand in one place and tap my chin like mad until Gam arrived. She brought me a new notebook and I sat down again and wrote ~Start New List. That was my only Really Rough Day at school.

  I like being home because I can relax and I know where everything is and when stuff will happen. And I never have to worry about being understood.

  At least, I never did until my discovery. A secret can be a Deep that is really hard to see. That’s what I was doing in the toolshed with the Danger Box. Trying to do the right thing.

  Sometimes I think it would be good to be an already-exploded firecracker: It would be a relief. Even with Gas and Lorrol around.

  BANG! No decisions. No worries about things getting broken.

  I WOULD HAVE exploded long ago without:

  ~Gam and Gumps.

  My grandma’s real name is Alice Turner Chamberlain. Because I see people up close and in sections, not all at one time, I picture them as being like something smaller. Sometimes I also picture a person as a color.

  Gam is shaped just like a teapot, only she’s squishy. Squishy in a sofa pillow way. And she’s smooth like baby powder. She smells like lavender. I help her plant lavender along the side of the house every summer, once the soil is warm. Lavender flowers are secretive and very purple, so they are my favorite flower. Unless you’re a bee or a boy with Pathological Myopia, you might miss these flowers completely. You have to be up close to see them.

  My grandma’s inside color feels like green, the gentle kind you see on a maple seedling. She knows how to say and do things that land in the right spot, like they belong. Even the way she screws the top on or off a jam jar seems perfect: the twist, twist, and firm letting go. This looks magical to me — I’m always bumping and tripping, and need to touch stuff before I decide what to do with it. I guess Gam understands most puzzles instantly. She makes the world seem like a safe and happy place, a place where many things are possible and there’s always a hug waiting. A hug plus a hodilly-hum. And some homemade blueberry jam, the kind with whole berries in it.

  My grandpa’s real name is Ash Baker Chamberlain. He and Gam were both born in Three Oaks, and their families go back for generations. Our family business, Chamberlain Antiques and Whatnots, started off as my grandfather’s father’s business. It’s been on Elm Street, next to the Gun Shop, for much longer than anyone living can remember. Gam took a job dusting in the store when she was in high school, and things went on from there.

  Gumps is loud, big, and unsquishy. He has a wrinkly forehead and neck. I think his perfect color might be a strong blue, like the flowers that grow wild at the edge of the cornfields in summer. He makes me think of a big scrubbing pail, maybe because he’s strong and smells like metal, and once in a while he clanks. There’s steel inside his left arm, and he wears an aluminum foot on his right leg. He was blown up in the Vietnam War, which was a long time ago. I think that’s why he doesn’t like firecrackers. The war is also where he lost a lot of his hearing.

  Sometimes he tries to nip Gam on the nose, and she shoos him away like a bad fly. He always waits until he sees her busy with both hands in the dishes or kneading the bread, something like that.

  “Watch out!” I yell if I see him creeping close, but it’s usually too late.

  He tries to sneak up on me and wrestle with my ears. That’s because my hearing is so good, and he says he wants some of it. Sometimes we do thumb wars on the kitchen table until Gam makes us stop because the table is bouncing.

  “You boys!” she’ll say. “You’re hopeless creatures!”

  Then Gumps always says, “I aim to take advantage,” which for some reason sounds very funny and we all laugh.

  My grandparents have lived in our house on Oak Street since they were married. My grandma was born in the house. It’s the only place she’s ever lived.

  When Buckeye turned up at the kitchen door one evening a few weeks ago, it felt like the world tipped and the floor lost its flatness.

  It seemed like the sugar bowl spilled and no one even noticed.

  GAM GASPED AND covered her mouth with the dish towel. I was standing at the sink, passing her the wet plates.

  Gumps had just tied the garbage bag and was getting ready to take it out. He boomed, “Good Lord above! Well, if turtles have wings!”

  My stomach dropped into its panic mode — it felt like a bug trapped in a jar. I suddenly knew who this was, and I ~didn’t, ~didn’t, ~didn’t want to go jittery-splat in front of him. I held my breath and began tapping my chin.

  I felt Gam’s hand on my shoulder, and the next thing I knew, the man was giving her a hug. He reached across me, turned on the cold water, and bent over to drink right out of the tap. He gulped and swallowed for what seemed like forever. I could see the stubble on his neck sliding up and down, up and down. He smelled like an old adhesive bandage, one that hadn’t dried after a soak in the tub.

  I was still tapping.

  Next thing I knew, I heard him saying, “Who’s this? Neighbor’s kid?” Then he made a nasty, choked-up sound and spat into the sink. He had messy hair that looked like he’d been sleeping inside a bramble patch. It was the same color as dead grass.

  Right then Gumps boomed, “Let’s go out to the garden, son! Lots to catch up on.” And the back door slammed.

  Gam gently pushed me down in a kitchen chair. “You can get out your list book now” was all she said.

  I DID, AND wrote ~Buckeye Walks In, squashing it in tiny letters between ~Eat Dinner and ~Take Shower. Then I crossed it off. My hand was so sweaty it was hard to hold the pen.

  Gam ran hot water in the sink where Buckeye had spat. “Well, good heavens,” she said. “This is certainly a surprise!”

  Usually she then says stuff like, “Surprises are a necessary part of life, just like a winter storm,” or “Surprises are like a bit of eggshell in a cake — you gotta love them, because they go with what makes the cake so good.” She was full of those kinds of sayings, things that made life smoother … but not at this moment.

  Next we heard shouting coming through the open window.

  “How the HECK should I know?” Buckeye’s voice sounded crusty. Some nasty words were followed by, “No WAY! You’re an old fool if you think —”

  Gam reached over quickly to turn on the radio just as Gumps roared, “Dang-blast it all! What on EARTH is wrong with you?”

  Buckeye shouted, “I DON’T KNOW! That make you happy?”

  Gam said in a shaky voice, “Can’t imagine what this fuss is all about,
” and tried to smile at me. She gripped the back of a kitchen chair with both hands, and I could see the tips of her fingers go from pink to white.

  Suddenly the shouting was over and the voices stopped. I watched my grandma set plates for dessert and pull out a half of a strawberry-rhubarb pie. Then she plunked down the Cool Whip and stuck a trembly spoon in it. I got up and peeked out the kitchen window, but couldn’t see far enough to tell what was going on. Shapes moved in front of something bright red.

  Gam looked out, too, and said, “Buckeye unloaded a box from his pickup. Your grandpa stuck it in the garage.”

  Suddenly I realized what that might mean, and my stomach started doing its bug-in-a-tight-spot routine. Neither of us said anything like, “I hope he can stay for a while,” or “Isn’t it great to have him home!” It seemed like the kitchen was so full of worries there wasn’t room for words.

  THE TWO MEN came back inside. Gumps said, “Buckeye brought us some things for the store.”

  “That’s nice. Thank you, son,” Gam said quietly.

  The four of us sat down at the kitchen table, and I sneaked a good look at Buckeye’s face.

  It made me think of a rotten zucchini, or a cucumber left out in the fields after the first frost. Buckeye had squishy-looking skin and black circles under his eyes. A dark, bumpy scar ran along one cheek. It jumped over his eye and went right up through his eyebrow, chopping it in half. I remembered when Gumps took me fishing once and cut a worm in half for bait. Both ends still wiggled. I wondered if Buckeye’s eyebrow worked the same way.

  He didn’t look anything like the boy in the picture, the boy with the lollipop.

  I wasn’t hungry. Buckeye bent over his plate and ate noisily, pausing every once in a while to shake his head. Then his chair creaked. He turned my way. I looked down at my notebook, which was always next to me on the table at mealtimes.

  Suddenly a big hand flew across my plate and grabbed the notebook. I froze.

  Buckeye read aloud, “‘Get up, Go to School’? ‘Buckeye Walks In’?” He snorted. “What is this kid, a nut?”

  I began tapping my chin at top speed, and then everything happened at once.

  Gumps stood up so fast his chair tipped over. “Hey! That’s ENOUGH!” Each word was louder than the one before.

  Gam said in a voice that sounded like scissors snipping paper, “Give. Back. That. Notebook. Now.”

  Buckeye’s arm flew out in a quick arc, and I heard the soft plonk of something landing in the garbage can by the back door. “Slam dunk!” Buckeye said. “Trash from trash!”

  Suddenly he was up and out of the kitchen, the screen door banging noisily behind him. We heard his truck revving, and then a squeal of tires and a thumpa-bump as he drove over the railroad tie that separated Gam’s flowers from the driveway.

  I was still tapping my chin when Gumps fished my notebook out of the garbage and wiped it off with a sponge. He handed it to me and I wrote ~Buckeye Leaves and put a line through that, too. My purple pen was shaking. Gam was still in her chair at the table. She whispered, “Lord God above. You know we love you, Zoomy.”

  I nodded.

  THAT NIGHT, LONG after I’d heard Gumps lock both the front door and the back, something he never does, I still couldn’t sleep.

  A wind came up, and the oak trees outside seemed to be moaning. I couldn’t help wondering if Buckeye was sad or mad or both because he wasn’t sleeping in his old room. Had my grandpa told him it was now my room? I hoped not. I wondered if Buckeye was sleeping in the truck. Then I also wondered how he’d gotten that big scar on his face. I felt a little sorry for him.

  A frightening thought popped into my head: What if Buckeye had been telling Gumps that I wasn’t his kid? But if I wasn’t his kid, what about the sign on the cat carrier? And who knew Buckeye well enough to know about his secret friend, Zoomy?

  Would I suddenly not be a real part of the family if I weren’t Buckeye’s son?

  The more I pushed the idea away, the more it came back, like snapping a rubber band over and over. I began tapping my chin.

  What - tap! If - tap! What - tap! If - tap! What - tap! If - tap!

  Sometime during the night, I passed out.

  At dawn, a hard rain pounded the roof. It left a puddle the shape of a horseshoe where Buckeye’s tires had sunk into Gam’s garden. A horseshoe should be lucky.

  * * *

  The Gas Gazette: Issue Three

  A FREE NEWSPAPER ABOUT A MYSTERIOUS SOUL

  ~I’ve always been a dreamer. Once I was walking along a high wall and thinking so hard about something that I fell off. I remember being amazed at all the thoughts I had during that second or two that I was falling.

  ~I started collecting things when I was little. At first it was stamps, coins, rocks, plant leaves, shells, and sea creatures.

  ~Later, I became fascinated by beetles. When I started a project, I never wanted to stop, even if other people did. I think my thoughts are the kind that get stuck and stay there for a while. Whatever it is I’m doing, I think it’s the most important thing in the world. Sometimes that’s a good thing.

  ~This is what I wrote about one collecting adventure: “One day, on tearing off some old bark, I saw two rare beetles and seized one in each hand; then I saw a third and new kind, which I could not bear to lose…. I popped the one which I held in my right hand into my mouth. Alas! It ejected some intensely acrid fluid, which burnt my tongue so that I was forced to spit the beetle out, which was lost, as was the third one.”

  ~You could say I don’t give up easily.

  Who am I?

  NEXT ISSUE TO COME.

  FREE!

  * * *

  “WHAT HAPPENED TO your chin, Zoomy?” Grandma Al’s voice was so kind that tears began prickling behind my glasses. Pretty soon a couple escaped. I stirred my cereal around in the bowl as if everything was fine. A tear ran past my chin and stung where the skin was sore from tapping.

  “What if I’m not really a Chamberlain?” I whispered. I wanted to say more, but was too jittery-splat and miserable to get any extra words out.

  Next thing I knew, Gam was hugging me. She called to Gumps. He thumped into the kitchen and squeezed my shoulder. The three of us had a talk.

  They told me some things they hadn’t seen any reason to share when I was younger. They told me that after Buckeye disappeared so long ago, the peach farmer he’d worked for said he soon realized that one of the girls at the farm, a young migrant worker from Mexico or Texas, was pregnant. Everyone said she was having Buckeye’s kid. She left the farm before the baby was born. Her boss didn’t know where she went, and she didn’t come back the next season.

  I guess the farmer always paid his workers in cash and never asked if they were living legally in the United States. That way he had help, they had work, and no one got in trouble. He only knew that her name was Abelina.

  Abelina. I felt like the word had !! after it. It made my brain sting.

  When Gumps asked Buckeye yesterday if he knew I was his kid, he thought that was crazy. He did remember a girl with that name, but he didn’t remember much else.

  “Yep,” my grandpa said, and rubbed his face in a tired way with the palm of his hand. “I’m afraid Buckeye is a heavy drinker, and it’s tough to help people like that accept responsibility for whatever they’ve been doing, because they can’t remember most of it.”

  Accept responsibility sounded bad…. Did that mean Gumps wanted Buckeye to suddenly turn into my dad? And if he turned into my dad, could he take me away? That couldn’t be what my grandpa wanted!

  The tear faucet started again, and when Gam grabbed my hand to stop the tapping, I whispered, “No No No NO!” over and over. They asked me a bunch of questions, but nothing was right.

  No, I wasn’t upset because Buckeye didn’t believe he had a son.

  No, I wasn’t upset because he wasn’t nice to me.

  No, I wasn’t upset because I might never meet my mom.

  No, no, N
O!

  Finally I blurted it out: “I don’t want Buckeye! I don’t want him to accept!”

  “Oh, Zoomy!” Gumps boomed. “I just meant I wanted him to grow up, that’s all.”

  Gam put her face down close to mine. “Don’t you wor-ry,” she said, cutting the syllables into tidy chunks. “You are our very own Secret from a Secret, our very own blessing, and that’s just the way we like it. Gumps and I would never allow anyone to take you. Never. Do you hear me, Zoomy?”

  I nodded. But I also noticed she didn’t say grandchild. For the first time ever, being a Secret didn’t feel perfect.

  ALL OF THIS talk had left a sprinkling of worries in my mind, even though I believed my grandparents.

  Gam calls them worry crumbs, those leftover bits of an uncomfortable idea. She fixes worry crumbs with sayings, and she has one to fit almost any size mess or confusion. Here are two of her favorites:

  ~Life is a blessing, and you get what you can handle. (That’s to help you plow ahead and not whine.)

  ~The Rule is simple: Always treat other people the way you’d like to be treated. (That means pretend you’re the other person and see how it feels.)

  But how did Buckeye fit in? Hadn’t he been taught all the same stuff when he was a kid? How could he have turned out so mean? I thought again about some of the things I’d just learned about Buckeye.

  My grandparents said he had started out a happy kid and then turned stormy, the kind of storm that blows up out of nowhere. “Until he was ten or eleven, he was fine,” Gam said. “Got along with everyone, even liked school. Then things started to fall apart for him. One moment he’d be riding his bike happily, and the next, everything was wrong, like someone had done something to him — kinda like the whole world was one huge mosquito bite and he couldn’t stop being upset about it.” She sighed, shaking her head.