A Theory of Relativity (51 page)

“What does that mean? A ventilator? Is that temporary?” Craig was asking, as his mother rocked faster, faster, faster.

Mark made a grab for Keefer, bobbled her wriggling rump, and knocked the shoe to the floor.

“What do you think?” Mark asked urgently, looking hard into Gordon’s eyes, a look that was steady, young, ready to dare anything.

“Let’s go,” Gordon told his father, scooping up Keefer with one arm, pressing her face against his shoulder, turning the knob on the door with his free hand. “Leave it. Leave the shoe. It’s not bad luck. It’s not on the table.”

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My name is Keefer Kathryn Nye. K. K. N. I live in Madison, Wisconsin. I am
almost ten. My birthday will be right before spring vacation. I want to do
paintball. My dad is saying no, because it is guns, but it is not guns. He also
says that all the other kids would not be able to come, because their parents
would think they would get blind in one eye. Hugh got to do paintball, and he
is only a kid, but I guess it’s different when you are a boy.

Is that fair?

I am going to write the story of my entire life. I have all night.

My mother died when I was a baby.

It’s Tuesday right now. It’s night. I had to take Monday and Tuesday off
for a medical emergency. My dad was out of town. He went to a meeting in
Kansas or California or someplace. He never goes to meetings, so why now?

He is not a tenor, so they pay him peanuts. But he is going to get out of school
pretty soon. He says I am paying for his education, but then he is going to pay
for my education. I would rather have a mansion on Lake Mendota than his
education. My friend Alaya has a mansion on Lake Mendota with a bowling
alley in the basement. Our house is this big dump. It has five bedrooms and a
porch all around and seven birch trees. It looks much better on the outside
than on the inside. But it is a rotten color. My father says it is shi-you-know-what bristol green. My dad’s car used to be that color. We got it for the neighborhood, but we only have the chairs and couches we got from my grandma
and grandpa. At least the bank doesn’t own the chairs. We are going to get
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another house later. Even my aunt Lindsay says our house is a dump. And
she is my best aunt. She is so nice, she would not lie about something like that.

I don’t remember my mother, because I was only a baby when she died. She
was pretty famous. My grandma McKenna has a big book of pictures and stories about my mother, and one was in
People
(not
Teen People
) and there is
a tape that was on the old-time show that was like
20/20
. I get to keep it
when I’m twelve. My cousin Hugh’s mom died when he was a baby, too, so we
have gone through the same things. Once Mrs. Mallory said I thought I could
get away with a bunch of stuff because I thought people would feel sorry for
me because I didn’t have a mother. This was a big, fat, stinking lie.

I have to do two days of journaling because of this medical emergency. It
makes up for everything I’m missing in homework, even science and math.

I’m learning a lot of science here in the hospital. You bet! I’m the only one to
help out. Okay, so first we went to the hospital on Monday, and we just sort of
sat around, dum-dum-dum. Nothing happened. My dad called on the phone
and said, read something. I said, like what? My dad says that if I don’t learn
to read for pleasure, he will have to get me my own shopping cart when I
grow up, so I can push it up and down State Street with my little chihuahua
sitting on top of the plastic gallon milk jugs. I know what he means by this,
and it is not funny.

And so, now it’s Tuesday, and I am out in the hall, because they won’t let
me in the room yet. I’m not sterilized. My dad died when I was a little baby,
too, but not my dad now. It was Ray. I don’t think I ever met him. We live in
Madison because my dad has to always go to more school, more school, more
school! It is ridiculous. I would quit school right now if I could, because I do
not apply myself. I would like to ride a racehorse for my job. I am a pretty
good rider, because I took lessons at Barnstable Ridge. Also, I am the shortest
one in my class except for Ames Smith, which doesn’t count because he has a
wheelchair. He is a pretty good kid. He’s coming to my birthday. He couldn’t
do paintball, though, because he can’t stand up. He gives me rides in the
wheelchair all the time because I only weigh fifty-two. My grandma always
says, eat something. But she is short, too. Eating does not make you taller. My
other grandma is a lot taller, and she can do the swan dive. But she has
migrating headaches.

Hugh and me got in a pretty good amount of trouble in our lives. Actu-Theory[222-351] 6/5/01 12:12 PM Page 345

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ally, it was mostly my idea, but Hugh goes along with everything I say. He
does everything I tell him to, even if I don’t totally mean it.

Is that fair?

I would get sent to the counselor, which is how I met Miss Tyson.
Miss Tyson
! Ha! Ha! She was a training counselor. She was only in our school for
one month, then she was going to move on to another school. She said they
gave her the potential criminals. So she could see what she was getting into.

Right away, she was calling my dad. Answering machine! What does she
think, he’s home? He has to work. But that was a long time ago.

MISS TYSON: So, are you taking away the little kids’ Mothball cards?

K. K. N.: We traded.

MISS TYSON: What did you trade?

K. K. N.: Rubber bands.

MISS TYSON: Rubber bands?

K. K. N.: Big rubber bands. The blue ones. I collect them. You could use them
for a slingshot.

MISS TYSON: Do you think that was a fair thing to do?

K. K. N.: It was like the pioneers trading beads with the Indians. For their
furs and land.

MISS TYSON: It was EXACTLY like the pioneers trading beads with the
Indians, which is what makes it so terrible! The first-grader parents are
calling up, and they are mad as hell! They are saying they paid ten dollars for those cards and you ripped those little kids off. You have to give
them all back.

I don’t care about the rubber bands, so there.

“Keefer, I didn’t have a mother, either,” Miss Tyson said. I hate when
teachers do this, but I sort of liked her because she didn’t treat me like a one-year-old. I was a brat, she said. She ran away two times. She smoked cigarettes when she was eleven. Like I care! You can get away with a lot when
people feel sorry for you, Miss Tyson goes. But you don’t really get away with
anything because you can’t get away from yourself. LECTURE! Then she told
me about the bread in the waters, which was more interesting. If you put
bread on the water, it will come back to you threefold, she goes. I was like
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eight, at the time, a lot younger, so Hugh and I actually tried this. Now I
know she meant, the bad things you do will come back and be worse. My dad
said the law of karma was horse you-know-what. But it makes sense to me.

So, after I was killed for the Mothball cards, my dad came to school. We
had a conference. I was sitting there when Miss Tyson told me who she was. I
think my dad already could tell because he was staring when he came into the
room. She is pretty. She is a babe. She has a textured cut. She said, “I am your
cousin Alex.”

I thought, right.

But she told me all about it. She did not know I went to this school, but
Uncle Craig used to be her stepfather. Her real father’s name is Jack. He is
pretty nice, but he is not the marrying kind. After Delia died, she went back
to live with Jack. They were bachelors, like my dad and me, except with a log
cabin.

Okay! Miss Tyson used to practically be my sister! That was where all the
Barbies came from. I still have all her Barbies. I’m too old for Barbies. But
they’re from the olden time and they could be worth something someday, my
grandma Nye says. Grandma Nye has all her dolls from when she was little.

The one with no arms is the most valuable.

We called up my grandma. My grandma, my dad’s mother, that is. We
both got on the extension. My dad was like, Can you believe this? It’s Alexis!

Then we called up my uncle Craig. My dad said, can you believe this? He
said more than that, actually. Unprintable. I said, why didn’t Uncle Craig
know where she was all the time? My dad said he knew she was in Madison
but not at my school. And he would not have known unless I got in so much
trouble all the time.

I had a dream and I remembered when Alex and I took baths.

Dad asked Miss Tyson over to dinner and made the broccoli pasta, which
is the only thing he can cook practically, but it’s good for cancer. My dad probably cooked once in my whole life besides this time. When I was just little, like
three, we had takeout every day. One time, he tried to give me some fried rice
and he said it was Thai, but I said, this is not Thai, this is Chinese. My dad
tells everybody this story, so why not you, too?

Hugh’s mother had a disease. So did my mother, but she was killed when
she fell from the bridge. They were different diseases. I used to think I killed
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her when I was a baby, by accident. Hugh actually did kill his mother, but it
wasn’t his fault. She died from complications. She had a fat artery in her
brain. They had to have her on a breathing machine, but just breathing didn’t
get her better. Her brain was blown out. She would have been a vegetable. My
uncle had two babies all of a sudden, me and Hugh, because my dad couldn’t
have me until they went to court and said he was in his right mind.

Alex went back to live with her dad and after a while she grew up. I never
saw her again until now.

It’s confusing!

Then she went to college in Madison, but we never saw her, because she
lived on the east side. Also, we didn’t have her phone number. She lived right
near the guy who makes the sculptures out of car motor parts. So, I got in
kindergarten. I used to call my dad by his first name. It was embarrassing.

Alaya asked me why. I said because my dad used to be my uncle.

I mean it!

My dad and my mom were brothers and sisters. She adopted him when
he was a little baby. And then, my dad adopted me when she died. Not
exactly. After Delia died. Which is Hugh’s mother, except that she is dead.

First they lived right by us, behind the Orange Tree store. Now, they live in
Oregon. Not the state, the town! Oregon, Wisconsin. My dad used to live
there when I was a baby, but now we can’t afford to. My uncle Craig sells
Jeeps. We can’t afford one! Hugh says he is going to get a horse, which is a
total lie. He came over all the time to cook out. We went to see the Brewers.

They stink. We went to Colorado rafting with Aunt Lindsay and Uncle Tim.

They’re the Upchurches. Two high churches. Uncle Tim always says he’s going
to steal me. But now they are having a baby so he won’t have to. He has a dog
named Taxi. My aunt Lindsay was in love with my father. My dad has a
weakness for red-haired girls. But they were too young. When she got old
enough, her and Tim got married. They lived in the same town. And we lived
in Madison. My dad had to move to Madison to take care of me. That was
how Hugh and me got to be friends, though he is only a kid. Eight. We have a
big picture of me and my dad with the cake. It says, Keefer, All Ours. There
was this big part grabbed out of the cake, which I did, because I was two. I got
to go to Florida by myself when I was six. My grandpa Ray let me drive the
golf cart. Alone. My grandma M. and Auntie Nora came down and got me
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for the honeymoon. They went to Ecuador. Now I can go there all summer,
not Ecuador, but Tall Trees, if I want. I’m old enough. My grandpa M. taught
me how to burn things with the magnifying glass, though it was Hugh who
burned up the recycling. We were both killed then. He used hairspray. I said,
don’t, Hugh!

WARNING! DO NOT READ THIS NEXT PART IF YOU ARE UNDER

SEVENTEEN!

The next time I got sent out in school was over Hugh’s weenie. I was not
in trouble for weeks. I had this idea. Everyone in third grade wanted to see a
weenie. Big deal. So I would split the fifty cents with Hugh. Fifty cents for one
look. It was a pretty good deal. Hugh was only in first grade. Hugh actually
has a pretty big one for a little kid because I have seen two others. I won’t say
who, but their initials are D. R. and M. P. That’s all I’ll say.