Mind Games (9 page)

Therefore, the day after my conversation with Ben I placed a call to Joanna Robles in the newsroom at the Waverly Times. She remembered who I was from our basketball interview. She listened politely. My assessment of her niceness was totally correct. She agreed to come talk to us about our project. She agreed happily.

"What are you doing here?" is the way Ben greeted his mother when he found her in Mr. Ennis's classroom on the day of the big telepathy experiment.

"That's no way to talk to your mother," Brandon said.

I thought for a minute he was kidding. He wasn't.

Joanna Robles smiled at Ben. She explained that I'd invited her to join us. I'd even given her some background information to read, so she would know what was going on. The parts of our report that were written so far—all but mine and Ji's and Brandon's—including the Paranormal Pursuits.

She said she liked the Paranormal Pursuits. They offered a lot of useful information and insight. She thought maybe they should even be included in the final report. To give it a little personality, a little pizzazz.

Ben said science did not need pizzazz. The rest of us voted to listen to the professional journalist.

Joanna Robles picked up her notepad and pencil. I noticed that she could write without looking down. That was helpful, because no matter who was talking or what was happening, she was watching Ben. Ben in charge.

Ben had Kathleen borrow a kids' dictionary from her special ed class. It was full of easy words with pictures. Then Kathleen and the dictionary got locked in the library.

I wasn't there for this part because I had to be isolated in Mr. Ennis's room. But I'm told this is how it happened.

Ben instructed Kathleen to close her eyes and open to a random page. He told her to point to a random entry, then think about that word and nothing but that word.

Next, Ben went to the supply closet and took out one piece of drawing paper, which he brought to me in Mr. Ennis's room. Mr. Ennis made sure we did not speak or communicate with each other in any way.

I sat in the room by myself for a long time—minutes, probably—and tried to tell myself this was not stupid. I could do this. I was thinking about everything. Joanna Robles and her newspaper article and Ji and Ben and Mr. Ennis and my Spanish homework. I was thinking about everything and nothing at the same time. Of course nothing happened. Nothing.

I put my pencil point on the paper, like maybe the word would draw itself. Then I looked at the empty lizard cage. That's how my brain felt, I thought. Empty.

I caught a glimpse of my reflection in the glass. My face, so different from Kathleen's.

Looking at your twin was supposed to be like looking in a mirror. Like looking inside yourself.

Kathleen could be so distracting on the outside, it was hard to see past that. Hard to look into her, and even harder to go past that—into me.

I was squeezing the pencil so hard that my fingers felt numb. I looked down.

The page lost its blankness. The picture appeared right before my eyes. Not all at once. It came in pieces—the edges first, and then the middle. Then it came in a flash of brightness that hurt my eyes. It came so clear, it startled me.

It was a sailboat, with a white sail. I couldn't read the name on the boat, but it had six letters. The bay was the Chesapeake. The passenger was waving at someone on shore.

The pencil moved so fast. The drawing was so much faster than the thinking part.

When I was finished, I took my drawing to the library to see how I'd done. I did okay. Kathleen's word was boat.

Joanna Robles dropped her pencil.

But Kathleen didn't seem surprised. Not even a little bit.

"When can we try again?" was all she said.

"I'm free tomorrow," Joanna suggested. Her newspaper deadline was soon, I guess.

Joanna came back the next day, and we tried again.

It happened a little faster this time. Faster and surer and plainer. My fingertips felt warm and tingly as they drew out the picture of a big-footed golden retriever with a ball in her mouth.

But Kathleen's word was not
dog
or
ball
or even
big.
It was
Sunshine
.

When she saw the drawing fluttering in my fingers, Kathleen threw her arms around me and purred deep in her throat. "You smell all sunshiny and lemony and golden," she said. "Like a golden retriever."

"That's a compliment," I heard Ben whisper to Joanna Robles.

That's when Ji walked into the room.

Kathleen let go of my hair.

When I saw Ji's face, my words came out before I remembered we weren't speaking. "What's wrong?"

"I was looking for Marina," Ji whispered. It was Thursday afternoon. Thursday afternoon, when Ji worked in the principal's office.

Then Brandon's grandmother appeared in the doorway. She tried to take Marina outside, but Marina was already crying. Before Mrs. Mathews could say a word. Before she could tell her that her grandmother—Babushka—had had a heart attack and died that afternoon. At the hospital, she said. A peaceful death.

Brandon kicked the desk. His eyes darted around until they found the door.

But before he could move, Marina grabbed his hand. She put her head against his chest and sobbed into his sweatshirt.

A moment went by. Nobody moved.

Then Kathleen leaped up. She grabbed my purse, and the sound of the zipper ripped through the silence.

I realized I was crying, too. Not for me, but for Brandon and Marina and Ben, whose mom was right there but still as far away from him as the moon.

Kathleen pressed a tissue into my hand. I looked into her eyes and saw my own staring back at me. They were green and sparkling with tears.

Mrs. Gershwin tiptoed over to us with a big box of tissues. Brandon took one and blew. Mrs. Gershwin flinched at the noise that filled her library.

Brandon squeezed Mrs. Mathews's hand. I am lucky, I could almost feel him thinking.
I am lucky to have a grand ma like you.

Ji didn't cry. She never was a crier. She ran out of the library without saying anything to anyone. She always was a runner.

Then Ben went. Ben's mom right after him.

Pretty soon it was just me and Kathleen. Kathleen and me. We did not say a word. We didn't need to.

W
HEN
I
FIRST COME TO
A
MERICA IT IS SUMMER
-time. In front of our apartment there are pink roses and tall oak trees, and my sisters and brother turn cartwheels on the wide ribbon of sidewalk.

Our sponsor gives us a party right away to say welcome to this happy place. We gather together and tell stories and learn about the Jewish faith. At home we practice right away for our first Passover party in springtime. I drink the blackberry wine, so warm and sweet, and when it is finished I notice the glass next to mine which yet remains filled. When all eyes are closed for the hiding of the matzah, I take a small swallow. Just very small.

After the meal Mama says see how the wine is less in the glass. She has been reading about the faith and says this is because the prophet, Elijah—dead more than 2,000 years—has joined us at table and tasted the wine we have left for him, just as he does for every Seder supper in every year.

Babushka, she does not believe this has happened, especially when it is not even Passover. The wine is the same, not touched, she says. And my elder sister Yelena, she says when we have Passover for real she will measure the liquid in the glass. Yelena reminds me of Ben just a little bit.

I say this will do nothing. If you have not belief it can happen, you cannot see when it is before your eyes.

Of course I cannot now tell that I am the one to taste Elijah's wine. But I know I have not done this in old years. Is it possible that Elijah
shares
with me this
glass tonight?
I ask myself. Because I do not really think I drink so much as these missing milliliters.

It is like when Mr. Ennis changes the water to wine. He makes a trick with those chemicals. But I hear about this Jesus who changes water to wine long ago before chemicals are invented. This cannot then be a trick.

G is the one who tells me in Mad Science this particular story about Jesus. She says she does not know if she can believe it is true, when how can it be proved? Just as how can you prove God created the world in seven days? How can you prove there is God? How can you prove there is heaven? And if there is heaven, will Jewish people not go there?

Do Jewish people believe in heaven? she asks me then.

I say to her, Jewish people say we will see. We will open our hearts to the idea.

Babushka cannot understand these new ideas since we come to America—nice grocery stores with so much fresh fruit and vegetables; these lost Jewish customs that she never hears about until now when she is old. She says there is hard life and there is hard work and that is all. But I know one thing. If there is heaven, my Babushka will be the first to make her home there. I hope she will like it better than America.

And I, who have touched my lips where Elijah touched his, do believe there is heaven.

M
R
. E
NNIS TELLS US HE WILL BUY PIZZA IF WE WIN
this science fair.

Babushka says many times that pizza is the only good thing in all of America. This always followed by: "I go back to Russia now."

There is at least one good thing in America more than pizza, I like to believe, and that is me.

When I cannot bear to hear one more time that Babushka still wants to go back, finally I throw harsh words back at her. "You want to leave me? Then go!"

The next day, she goes.

To heaven, G tells me.

Perhaps. But if it is not like Russia, Babushka will not find happiness there, either.

Kathleen and Claire tell me they make prayers for my family in their Catholic church. So, too, pray those nice people at temple. Those same people who say pepperoni is bad to eat. I tell them that is not why Babushka died—because she ate the wrong thing. They say oh, no, of course not. Please do not believe that.

I wish I could believe that. They do not know I am thinking a much worse reason for her to leave me.

Brandon says do not blame myself that Babushka has gone. I yell at him to go away from me. He is not like Babushka. He stays.

I whisper my prayers in the quiet of the night as I touch the Star of David, so warm against my chest.
God, I ask, do you hear me? Babushka, do you hear me?

No one answers me.

When Mrs. Parrot says in P.E. class that we cannot have jewelry, I will not play if I must let go this necklace.

Brandon is mad at me because our team loses. "Your grandma would not like the way you're acting," he says to me.

"You do not know my babushka," I tell him. "You never talk to her once."

He shows me the definition of ESP: The process of accumulating knowledge that cannot be gained by the use of our five known senses.

"I know you," he says. "That's enough."

"How? How is that enough?"

Brandon shrugs his bony shoulders. "Am I wrong?"

He is not wrong. Babushka would hate that I do not play. She would hate that I cannot think of her and smile.

"I wish I make you meet her," I tell Brandon. "She like the way in that faculty-student game you jump so high to make every rebound."

"Thanks," he says. And then he smiles. "My mom used to say I could touch the sky."

"You are her star."

He looks at me. "I told you she called me that?"

"No."

"Well," he says. "Well."

Perhaps I do bad on the ESP test. But I always do know—Brandon is a star.

M
Y GRANDMA ASKED ME THE OTHER DAY IF
I'
M STILL
mad she made me do this stupid science project. I told her I'm richer. My foul shot's better. I guess I'm not mad.

Thing is, when Marina's grandma died it made me super mad. Marina's a nice girl and all, but right then I wished I never met her. I don't care how much my foul shot improved.

I didn't want to hear about dying. I didn't want to hear Grandma say those words again. There wasn't so much difference between the library, you know, and Mercy Hospital. Plastic chairs your legs stuck to, janitor mopping the halls, cafeteria smell in the air. People all around but oh so quiet.

It was like going back in time. And don't try and tell me that's not supernatural.

Marina says her grandma died of a closed-up heart. Maybe she meant heart attack and got her words messed up. That's really what a heart attack is, you know, when your arteries get all hard and close up. You don't get any blood to your heart and it just stops. Ma told me that once.

But I had this flash of intuition that Marina meant about how her grandma was always thinking of Russia and wanting to go back and feeling sad inside her heart, because things here were so different and all.

I can see how that could kill a person.

If I could go back, I would. Back to Baltimore, back to two years ago. Seems like all I can think about
sometimes.

I wish Michael could believe in the Tooth Fairy till he's eighty. I wish he could grow up thinking somebody's always going to take care of him and love him, and do magic to take away the hurt. Michael's seven years old, and he already knows there's no Tooth Fairy.

Ma was the Tooth Fairy. I wonder if Darius knows he's supposed to take care of that now.

My heart feels hard when I think about it, and sometimes I get these pains. Right where I think my heart must be. I wonder if that's how Marina's grandma felt before she died.

I talked to my grandma about it. She's getting up there, and maybe her heart isn't so good. I worry that maybe she's going to leave us, too.

I asked her, does she get those heart pains like I do?

She said yeah. She does. She does get them sometimes when she thinks about Ma. But it hurts less and less these days. Once in a while she can think about her and it doesn't hurt even a little.