Absolutely Almost (17 page)

W
e had a birthday dinner on Saturday, just me and Mom and Dad, because I said I didn't want a party. I didn't want a party because Erlan couldn't come anyway because of filming stuff, and Betsy was still mad at me, and Calista had that day off, and I hated pretty much everyone else, so who cared. We had Chinese food. Big whoop.

When Mom asked me how everyone at school liked the cupcakes, I said, “They were great.” Which was a lie, but so what.

Mom got me a book. Something about a hatchet, whatever that was. “Because you loved
Johnny Tremain
so much,” she said.

Dad's present was in a big box. “I think it's something you'll really love,” he told me. I got excited when I first pulled back the wrapping paper, because I saw a wing, an airplane wing, on the cover of the box, and I felt my heart leap up in my chest. It was a new model airplane, I knew right away. Another airplane just like my A-10 Thunderbolt, maybe a bomber or one of the gliders, and Dad was going to help me work on that one too and then we could display them both in the living room, and it would be awesome.

It wasn't another airplane.

Well, it was an airplane. But not another one.

“A real live A-10 Thunderbolt!” Dad said, smiling like he thought he got me the greatest present in the whole universe. “Isn't that marvelous? It's just like the plane in the museum you liked so much. Don't you remember, Albie? I thought we could put it together, just you and me. Albie? Where are you going?”

I didn't even say anything. Just slammed my bedroom door.

I
t turned out that dumb old A-10 Thunderbolt from the Sea, Air, and Space Museum didn't fly at all. I don't know if it was because I put it together all wrong, or maybe it was never going to fly in the first place, but all I know is that when I cranked open my window and shoved it outside, it slammed right down to the ground eight stories below without even trying to soar. A man on the sidewalk who was walking right nearby looked up and cursed, but he couldn't tell it was me who did it, and anyway I wouldn't've cared if he could. All I could think was how I spent a whole year and a half working on that stupid airplane, all by myself, and now it was smashed to bits on the sidewalk. Pieces everywhere.

Good.

I hoped Dad would say, “Hey, Albie, I just remembered I
already
bought you an A-10 Thunderbolt a year and a half ago. Where is it? I'm ready to help you finish it now.” Then I could say, “I threw it out the window. It's nothing but smithereens now.” And then I could see the look on his face.

But Dad would never ask. I knew he'd never ask.

I decided I didn't like birthdays anymore.

W
hen I woke up the next morning and opened the door, that new A-10 Thunderbolt from Dad was sitting right outside my bedroom in its box, with the bow still on top.

I thought about throwing it out the window. I really did.

Instead I scooped it off the floor and put the box on the top shelf of my closet and put five towels on top of it so I couldn't see it. Then I closed the closet door.

• • •

When I propped up the cardboard TV Calista made against my bedroom doorway and lay flat on my stomach, I could see all the way down the hallway, straight through to where the Living Room Channel was playing.

Dad on his treadmill, that's what was on that channel. Running, running, running. Getting sweaty under the armpits. Not answering the phone when it rang. Not noticing the drippy faucet in the kitchen that would've driven Mom crazy. Not asking what happened to the A-10 Thunderbolt box with the bow on top. Not seeing me, for twenty minutes, lying on the floor of my bedroom, staring at him through a cardboard TV.

I pushed all the buttons on Calista's cardboard remote, but the channel never changed.

B
efore I even tugged down the covers on Monday, I knew it would be a day not even donuts could solve. I told Calista that when she came over early to help get me ready for school.

“It'll be all right, Albie, I promise.” That's what Calista said. “Get up, okay? We have to leave soon or you'll be late. And I'll be there to pick you up when school gets out, and I have a special birthday present for you, and we can get donuts too if you need them. Three kinds.”

I curled tighter into a ball under the covers. “No,” I told her.

“Albie . . .” Calista sat down on the foot of my bed.
You're being silly.
That's what I thought she was going to tell me. That's what Mom would've said.
You don't have a choice, so just get out of bed already.
That's what Dad would've told me.

Calista didn't say those things.

Instead, she pulled the covers gently back from my face, and when I felt her do that, I opened my squeezed-shut eyes to look at her, even though she was blurry from the tears I'd been trying not to cry.

“Oh, Albie.” That's what she said. “What happened?”

And so I told her. I sat up, and I sniffled, and I wiped at my face, and maybe I even cried a little bit more while I said it all, but right then I didn't even really care that much. I told Calista everything.

I told her about the stupid baby who didn't even know the Vulcan salute.

I told her about how much I missed gummy bears.

I told her about how it stunk to not be a famous TV star, even though I never knew before I wanted to be one in the first place.

I told her about how I hated Darren Ackleman more than a million hissing cockroaches.

I told her about the A-10 Thunderbolt, the first one and the second one, and the smashing and the smithereens.

I told her about the cupcakes.

I told her about “retard” and “freak baby” and “dummy.”

I told her that I couldn't go to school. Not again. Not ever.

And when I was done with all the telling, I got back under my covers and curled into a ball, my knees against my stomach, and Calista rubbed my back in tiny circles, and I let her.

“You're right,” she told me softly. “This is too big for donuts.”

• • •

After Calista left me under the covers, I kept waiting and waiting for her to come back and tell me it was time for me to get ready already. But she never did. And after a while, I was pretty sure it was past when we should've been out the door. And after a
long
time, I knew it was past then. But Calista never came to get me. So I just stayed under the covers, curled into a ball, knees to stomach, and I cried.

After a while I ran out of tears, so I pushed back the covers and looked around my bedroom. No Calista. I set my bare feet down on the floor and walked to the door and peered into the hallway. No Calista. I walked down the cold hall into the dining room.

Calista was sitting at the table, reading one of my dad's magazines about money. She jumped up when she saw me. “Oh, good!” she said, and she seemed really happy to see me, not mad that I probably almost definitely was late for school. “You're up!”

“I think I'm late,” I told her.

Calista looked at the clock. “Yup,” she said. “About forty minutes.”

I scratched at my hair, which was still messy from sleeping. “Then I guess we should probably get going so I'm not even later, huh?”

Calista tilted her head to the side, like
she
was the one who was confused. “I thought you said this was bigger than a donut day,” she said.

“Well, yeah, but—”

“Everyone deserves a sad day once in a while,” Calista told me. “Sometimes things are too big for cheering up. Sometimes the best way to make things better is just to let yourself be sad for a little bit.”

I sat down at the table, and Calista pushed a plate of toast at me. She'd already spread jam on it—strawberry, my favorite. I took a small bite.

“Thanks,” I told her.

She watched me chew for a while.

“What do people do on sad days?” I asked when I was pretty much done with my toast. “If they can't be cheered up?”

Calista thought about that. “Did you know I've never been to the Bronx Zoo?” she asked me after a while.

• • •

I didn't think going to the zoo on such a gray, gray day would be any fun, because for one thing there wouldn't be anybody there. But Calista said that was exactly why it would be fun, because we'd have the zoo all to ourselves. So after I finished all my toast and two glasses of orange juice too, I changed into my warmest clothes plus my puffy jacket, and Calista grabbed two umbrellas, and we headed to the subway.

It was a long ride to the Bronx Zoo. Long and gray and quiet. There was hardly anyone on the train, because it was a drizzly Monday at ten o'clock in the morning, probably. When the subway popped up aboveground, it was even grayer in the Bronx than it had been in Manhattan.

When we finally got to the zoo, the man at the ticket booth looked surprised that anyone was there. The rain was starting to turn into snow, tiny slushy flakes, and I was cold, and I was starting to think that coming to the zoo was probably the worst idea Calista had ever had, and if I were in school right now maybe Darren Ackleman would be calling me names but at least I'd be warm. But Calista paid the ticket man for both our tickets, and when he gave me a funny look, she said, “School in-service day.” Whatever that meant.

I'd been to the Bronx Zoo before, about five times probably, so Calista said I could pick where to go first. I picked the Congo exhibit, because that one was my favorite. Calista read her map, and she found the way pretty quick.

There was no one else but us at Congo, so we could watch the gorillas for as long as we wanted, without anybody or their baby pushing in front of us. One mom gorilla smashed her face right up against the window so me and her were face-to-face, and she slobbered all over the glass. Calista said she must've been trying to give me kisses, and that made me laugh.

“This is pretty fun so far, huh, Albie?” Calista said.

I stopped laughing. “I thought you weren't going to try to cheer me up,” I told her.

“No, sir,” she said. “I wouldn't dream of it. This is your sad day.”

“Good,” I said. “Because I'm still sad.”

After Congo, Calista picked the reptile house, which was warm warm warm—so warm that the glass in front of the snakes and turtles was half steamed up. But that was okay by me. Me and Calista peeled off our coats and shook all the slushy snow out of our umbrellas and got to work being sad.

“Albie, look at this!” Calista shouted all of a sudden while I was watching some tortoises. That was another good thing about going to the zoo on a gray, gray day—no one cared if you shouted. “You have to see this.”

I ran over, and I saw it. Probably the grossest, coolest thing I ever saw in my whole life. Behind the glass where Calista was pointing, there was a python, big as a tree and long as one too. And I'd never believe it if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes, but I swear that python was
eating a pig.
The pig was already dead—Calista said the zookeepers probably put him in frozen, like a giant pig pop—and that was a good thing for him, I bet, because he was getting
swallowed.
The python had his jaws stretched wide, way way past his eyeballs, and the pig was already halfway down. All you could see was the pig's back legs sticking out past the python's fangs, plus its pink piggy tail.

“
Whoa,
” I said.

We watched for probably a full hour, till our breath steamed up the glass too much to watch much more and our feet started to get sore. That python was such a slow eater that he still hadn't even finished by the time we left the reptile house.

“Bye, snake,” I said as we left. “Bye, pig.”

“I think you mean ‘bye,
lunch,
'” Calista told me.

For a second that got me laughing so hard I almost forgot it was a sad day.

• • •

On the subway ride back home, I told Calista, “That was a good sad day.”

She smiled. “I'm glad, Albie.” She looked at the zoo map in her hand for a second and then held it out to me. “You want to keep this, as a souvenir?” I took it. And I was looking for the reptile house on the map when Calista told me, “You have to go back to school tomorrow, you know. This was your only sad day.”

“I know,” I said. Because I did. You couldn't let every day be a sad day.

“It's probably going to be tough,” Calista told me, “at school tomorrow. But you'll get through it. You can be brave, right? You're good at that.”

I pushed my nose closer to the map. “Caring and thoughtful and good,” I said.

“What was that?” Calista asked.

I shook my head.

“Hey, Calista?”

“Yeah?”

“Should I tell Mom and Dad?” I asked her. “About going to the zoo today for my sad day instead of going to school?”

Calista bit her bottom lip for a while before she answered me. “I would never tell you to lie to your parents, Albie,” she said at last.

“But if I don't lie,” I said, thinking things through, “then they'll probably be mad at you because you didn't make me go to school.”

“Probably,” Calista agreed.

“And you'll probably get in trouble,” I told her.

“I would imagine so, yes,” she said.

I looked back at the map. My brain was feeling fuzzy a little bit, like when I tried to figure out Wei's tip for Chinese food. “I don't think I'll tell them,” I said.

Calista didn't say anything about that, just stared out the window at the black of the subway tunnel passing by as we rode. I folded up the zoo map and put it in my pocket.