Mind Games (4 page)

So that's how we ended up in Mr. Ennis's Mad Science Club. Mr. Ennis signed us up without asking us. That's okay. But why he'd want to spend more time than he has to with Claire and Ji is a big mystery to me.

Mad Science isn't as bad as it could be. For one thing, there's this girl named Marina. She has the nicest-smelling, prettiest hair. It's thick and curly and black. But her eyes are blue—just like a cat's. I like cats. I would like to be called Kat, but nobody ever remembers to. Except Marina. Marina lets me smell her hair when Claire isn't looking. It makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

Another good thing is that our project is about ESP. Nobody knows this, but I've always thought I have ESP. Like how I dreamed about Diane Sawyer, and then my name got to be on the first WCTV show. Also, I can always tell what my dog, Sunshine, is thinking. Like when she stands by the cupboard and whines, and Mom thinks she wants a dog biscuit and Claire thinks Kibbles 'n Bits, but I know she's asking for a spoonful of peanut butter. I'm good to Sunshine, and she's good to me. She always knows when I'm sad. Then she'll curl up next to me and lay her chin across my face and kiss me so that it tickles and I have to laugh. Claire says tears taste good because they're salty and that's why Sunshine pays attention to me. But Claire's just jealous because Sunshine likes me best.

Claire thinks she can read my mind, but she can't. I can read hers, though. I know she wishes she didn't have a dumb old twin like me.

How's that for a problem?

Oh, about the science fair problem. ESP.

Is there ESP? That's the problem. It's not a very hard one, is it? We solve lots harder ones in special ed. Every single day.

T
ASK
: Each time the phone rings, guess the name of the person who is calling. Count the number of correct guesses.

P
URPOSE
: To document evidence of clairvoyance if it should happen to appear.

T
OTAL
C
ORRECT
: 8 out of 19 (42.1 percent)

E
XPLANATION AND
A
NALYSIS
: I would not admit this except for the sake of science, but here goes. After my mother moved out, I would on occasion focus on the phone and will it to ring.

I remember in elementary school how anxious Mom felt that my friends should call me. That my friends should
exist
. I'm afraid I proved a terrible disappointment to her in this regard.

Mom now has a female infant who will assuredly satisfy her needs for unexceptional, socially interactive offspring. Her interest in my life has waned accordingly.

While my brain is powerful, it cannot do the impossible—it cannot make my mom call me when she does not want to. This fact is clearly documented above.

I am accustomed to people not wanting to talk to me, and that is perfectly acceptable. It has afforded me tremendous opportunities to focus on my scientific pursuits, uninterrupted and without distraction.

However, I began to be distracted by the phone eighteen months ago, when the probability approached
90
percent that a given caller would be Rick Robles. I have remained distracted throughout Mom's leaving us and marrying Rick Robles and causing the probability to approach 0 percent that our phone would ever ring again.

This has changed in the month of October, when I have received an unprecedented nine calls from classmates and Mom has demonstrated a renewed interest in my life as of the twenty-seventh. Due to the superficial nature of her concern, I will not tell her of my sudden popularity.
¹
At any rate, it would be unwise to get one's hopes up. The callers will go away. So will my mom. One does not need paranormal powers to know these things.

T
HE PROBLEM IS, IS THERE
ESP?

We took a vote to figure out what our hypothesis would be. It was three to three. Me and Marina and Kathleen, we said yes. Claire and Ji and Benjamin D. Lloyd, they said no.

Since Kathleen is retarded and Marina doesn't speak English and my grandma says I don't use the sense the good Lord gave me, we didn't figure it was worth bothering to have a tiebreaker.

But Claire said we should be fair. So she got dice, and I called it even, and she rolled. Maybe it was an intuition on my end, I don't know, but she threw a two and our side won.

So we had our hypothesis. But Mr. Ennis said we had to have a reason for our hypothesis—more than just a two of dice, or whatever you want to call it.

I told him I'd take care of the reason.

To tell you the truth, I don't care too much for this whole Mad Science deal. For one thing, I signed up for the basketball club. I bet I'm the only person in the whole school who didn't get in the club they signed up for. I'm also the only person in the school who's grandma is the principal. Coincidence? I don't think so.

For another thing, ESP is just about the dumbest subject we could've picked for a project. Benjamin D. Lloyd would've done all the work for us if we'd played it right. But no, we had to go and vote for the only experiment he
didn't
want to do.

Personally, I'd like to have seen us do bread mold. Just to see the look on Grandma's face. She's against dirt, dust, and green things growing in the refrigerator. She's not too used to having a boy in the house yet.

Mr. Ennis, he's cool. He gives me tips sometimes on how to handle Grandma. For example, she's particular about things like grammar. I admit my grammar needs some work. But Grandma needs a little vocabulary help, too. Like when I said "hang time," she thought I meant on the corner of Fayette and Paca. And when I said "run and gun," she about had a heart attack. That's when Mr. Ennis took us both to see a Wizards game. It helped some.

I thought Mr. Ennis might talk to Grandma about getting me in the basketball club. Talk to her yourself, he said. Like I didn't try that already. Grandma said I could play winter ball and rec league and summer league, too. But school is for learning. And I need science help. Besides, I like spending time with Mr. Ennis, don't I?

It wasn't Mr. Ennis I was worried about. It was those other five people who wanted to study science in their free time.

***

I have a hypothesis, I told Mr. Ennis. I have a hypothesis that this science club is gonna suck.

Prove it, he said to me.

I didn't care to bother.

Like I said, ESP is about the worst topic we could've picked for a project. Especially for me.

See, my little brother is named after a prophet in the Bible. Hosea. I think Ma must've had ESP when she named him, because he's just like that. Always thinking he knows what he doesn't have any business knowing.

When Ma told him about Santa and the Easter Bunny, he didn't believe her. They're not real, he said to her. Oh, honey, but they are, Ma said.

Finally Hosea went and found my baby teeth in Ma's jewelry box. He was like four years old then. Maybe even littler. Grandma took him to the library, and he asked for a book about the Tooth Fairy. Wanted to do research, he said.

Ain't no such thing as the Tooth Fairy, he told me that night. No Santa or the Easter Bunny, neither.

Now I guess I really knew before he told me. But it still wasn't any of his business to say it out loud. If he told Michael, I said I was going to beat him up good. For once he kept his big mouth shut.

Hosea and Michael used to sleep in the same bed when we lived in the old row house on Greenmount. Hosea was real restless. Always talking and kicking and pushing Michael out of bed in the middle of the night. Michael wouldn't even cry. He'd just sleep right there on the floor. He can sleep through anything.

Michael slept through it that night Hosea sat up in bed, screaming about Ma dying. Ma's dead, Ma's dead!

I jumped up so fast, I whacked my head on the basketball hoop Ma stuck up over my bed.

Darius—that's Hosea and Michael's dad—he went in and shushed him. Ma was at work, he said. On the late shift at Mercy Hospital.

Hosea kept on crying. Couldn't Darius go out and find Ma? Make sure she was okay? I felt the hair stand up on my arms. I felt like something was really, really wrong. Because we all knew how Hosea could feel things and know things he shouldn't be able to.

Then we heard these footsteps in the hallway, real soft. I about jumped a mile.

It was Ma.

We didn't hear you come in, Darius said. That's when I saw his hand up by his waist like he was gonna pull his gun. But he was wearing his boxers, of course, so the gun was locked away in the secret hiding place. I thought, Darius is a cop and he was scared, too.

Ma said she was trying to be quiet so she wouldn't wake us up. She took out a tissue from her pocket—a good nurse is always prepared—and wiped Hosea's nose. He kept sniffling and snotting all over her uniform.

Ma rocked Hosea so he'd go back to sleep and give the rest of us some peace. But he wouldn't. He said he was afraid he'd have the same dream over again. The dream that she was dead.

The next day we went to Kim's market and it got robbed.
Mr. Kim handed over all the money from the register. Then the robber ran away, and Mr. Kim chased after him. Next thing I knew a bullet came right through the glass, went flying by my head. Busted open a jar of pickles on the shelf next to me. Kosher dills. Ma always hated pickles, but she kissed all that pickle juice off my forehead.

That's when Darius said he was moving us out of the city. We didn't want to go, none of us. But he got us a nice little house in Woodlawn. Just like it sounds, with a little lawn in the front, a little woods in the back. Little basketball court in the driveway.

It wasn't so different from the city. Except Ma learned to drive so she wouldn't have to change buses fourteen different times to get to work. They signed up Hosea for a soccer league where he could put his kicking foot to good use. Michael got his own bed and his own room. As for me—my life didn't change too much. Not till the day somebody hit Ma's car on the JFX and she died at Mercy Hospital where she worked.

Obviously, I don't live in Woodlawn no more. I live in boring old Waverly with my grandma. You could take the bus for a hundred stops and never make it to the city. The bus doesn't even come way out here.

Darius doesn't have any obligation or anything since he's not my real dad, but he probably would've kept me if I acted respectful. A cop's son can't be in trouble for shoplifting and stuff, he kept on saying. I understand why Darius was mad. He said he wanted to help me, but he didn't know what to do. He said I was almost a teenager and needed to learn some rules, some respect. If anyone could teach me about tough love, it was Grandma.

Grandma said she got where I was coming from, but it wasn't Darius's fault, or Hosea's, that Ma's dead. I know it wasn't. But I can't help thinking, Darius is the one who moved us out to Woodlawn, made Ma get that beat-up old car. And if it wasn't for Hosea making us all so jittery with that dream, we'd still live in the city.

Ma died this past January 13. That's one year to the day after Hosea had his dream. To the day.

And that's why it's my hypothesis that there is such a thing as ESP.

(as told to James Ennis, teacher)

I
LIKE TO IMAGINE WHAT IT WOULD BE LIKE TO BE
somebody else. Well, not somebody, exactly. I would like to be a dog. Dogs are smarter than most people think. But even with having brain damage, I'm smarter than a dog. Dogs are just more huggable and kissable and lovable. Especially Sunshine.

Sometimes I think I'd like to switch places with Sunshine. She has red hair like mine. She likes to share Popsicles, and she sings with me in the shower. We're like real sisters.

Still, there are some good parts about being human, like being able to sing words and ride roller coasters and laugh at a clown. It is also good to live longer than ten or twelve years.

That's why I thought it would be nice to be Sunshine for just a minute. To get away from being me and be Sunshine instead.