The Absolute Value of Mike (17 page)

I stopped reading. And gave him his answer.

I shut down the IM window and stared at the wallpaper I'd put on the laptop—Misha's face.

—a branch of mathematics that deals with systems that appear to be orderly but in fact have chaotic behaviors

 

 

M
oo was fretting about Gladys as we drove home in Tyrone, but I barely heard her. All I could think about was Misha. And Dad. And how he made me feel worthless. Even worse, now I felt like my goal was out of reach. I mean, I was academically challenged, a complete failure with numbers. It was a joke for me, a kid with dyscalculia, to be in charge of a project with so many numbers. Trying to raise
money
? By a certain
date
? For a kid some number of miles away but I still couldn't tell you
how many
?

I hung my head and touched my thumbs and forefingers together in my lap, making a circle. Like the sun. I remembered the orphanage video, with Misha's earnest face perfectly framed in his hands as he held them up and shouted, “Sun!” so proudly. I just couldn't let the kid down. It would kill me. Slowly, I held my hands up in front of me as “The Itsy Bitsy Spider” played in my head, and I tried to see Misha's face.

I stared through my joined hands, but what I saw through Tyrone's windshield wasn't Misha. It was another kid.

“Moo! Look out!” I grabbed the wheel just in time for Tyrone to miss a woman pushing a stroller with a little kid in it across the street.

Moo was hysterical, even worse than the mom, who explained that her son had colic, so she had to walk him at all hours of the night, but she “didn't expect to be
killed
.” It took a while for me to get everyone calmed down enough for the mom and kid to go on their way and Moo to drive home at about fifteen miles per hour.

Moo must've said, “I didn't see them at all!” about fifty times before I finally got her up the front steps and into the living room. Poppy stared at her while I explained what happened, but he didn't say a thing.

I knew what had to be done, and I resented the fact that it was me doing it when it should have been Poppy. I took a deep breath and sat Moo down on the living room couch, hoping that Poppy might jump in and save me. Ha!

“Moo. You really need to go see Dr. P. You've got to get your eyes checked.”

She bowed her head, nodding slightly, and pressed her lips together.

I glared at Poppy.

She sniffled, and when she spoke, her voice wavered. “I'm scared of what he might say. I don't want to lose—” Her voice rose to a squeak. “Tyrone.” She stood up quickly. “I need to vacuum now.”

I glared at Poppy again. He blinked and looked at Felix.

As Moo vacuumed upstairs, Poppy flicked the TV on. A
Jeopardy!
rerun started. I couldn't believe that he could just sit there and watch TV while Moo was falling apart.

I so wanted to give Poppy a hard time, but I wasn't sure how.

Alex Trebek provided the answer. He was just starting to read the question from a particular category: Vegetables.

I sat down on the couch. “Hey, Poppy, look! It's your category.”

I saw his eye twitch, so I kept at it.

“Yep, I'd go straight for the thousand-dollar question, because you're an expert in the vegetable department.”

Another flicker.

“Do you want to try it out? Then say, ‘I'll take Vegetables for a thousand, please, Alex.' And remember to phrase your answer in the form of a question.”

I couldn't believe how mean I was being. And how easy it was.

When one of the players picked the vegetable category again, I acted all excited. “Listen to Alex, Poppy! Here's your chance to really score big.”

Alex read the question. “This building, made entirely of corn, is constructed each year in South Dakota.”

I jumped off the couch. “Corn Palace! I know this one! Sasha went there last year. Dude, say, ‘What is the Corn—' Oh, man! Too late! Judy already answered. Come on, dude, you're going to have to answer faster than that if you want to get anywhere in
Jeopardy!
”

Poppy's jaw clenched and his feet wiggled in his duck slippers.

I could still hear Moo blowing her nose over the noise of the vacuum and the TV. I glared at Poppy, who turned up the volume.

Alex read another vegetable question.

“Come on, Mr. Potato Head,” I said to Poppy, “try this one.”

He didn't answer, and his eyes narrowed even more when I called him “Broccoli Brains.”

In Double Jeopardy, there was an ethnic foods category. “Hey,” I said, “this could be your lucky day, because that scrapple, dude, that is one ethnic food, all right.”

Alex read a question about some delicacy including sheep's eyeballs. “See, it's scrapple! Am I right or am I right?”

Poppy's hand clutched the arm of his chair and he snorted. He glared at me and I glared right back. It was a staring contest and I won it easily.

By the time I turned back to the TV, a contestant was saying, “What is ‘Go jump in a lake,' Alex?”

“Correct!” Alex said. “And now you see the importance of phrasing your responses in the form of a question. Imagine how I'd feel if you just said, ‘Go jump in a lake, Alex!' ”

The contestants and audience started laughing. Meanwhile, I could hear Moo crying even over the sound of the vacuum. I stared at Poppy and got all mad again that he wouldn't do anything or even react to anything. So when Alex asked a literature question and the answer was Rip Van Winkle, the guy who fell asleep for twenty years, I yelled, “See! Just like you, YOU OLD STIFF!”

Only, Moo was in the living room by then and shut off the vacuum just in time to hear me yell, “YOU OLD STIFF!”

“Mike?”

“It's—uh—
Jeopardy!
I was just, you know, answering one of the questions.”

She didn't say anything. But she looked over at Poppy and it was, well, a kind of tough look, like maybe she was getting sick of the way he was acting, too. She turned and headed for the kitchen, but I was hoping Poppy was withering inside like when the principal gives her Death Stare that, even if you shrug it off on the outside to look tough, still leaves you shaking on the inside.

When I walked up the steps to go to bed, I was sure Poppy was glaring at me. I felt the daggers in my back. Then I saw a duck slipper soaring through the air and felt it clip my shoulder. It hit the bottom step and let out a squawk. Yeah, I was finally getting to him.

—a variable that affects the result of a function

 

 

T
he next morning was the Fourth of July. There was no time for barbecues or fireworks because we had work to do. At Past's office, I uploaded the videos of Gladys singing while he filled me in on what had happened at Big Dawg's.

“I smuggled in the video camera. If I know one thing about abusive people, it's that they don't want their actions recorded for posterity. Or for the police. Gladys was embarrassed and left, and Numchuck pretty much clammed up because even he isn't stupid enough to show his true colors on camera. Of course, the bouncer kicked me out because of the camera . . .” He stopped and looked at me. “So, what's eating you this morning, Mike?”

To be honest, I was mad at Dad for what he'd said about Misha. But I figured Past would give me some kind of lecture I didn't want to hear, so I told him the other bad news, about the almost-accident and Moo having to get her eyes checked and maybe even having to give up Tyrone.

“It's time, though, Mike,” he said. “It's not safe for her to be—”

“She's coming!” Guido hissed, running up to Past's bench.

Past jumped up, quickly checking the street. “Moo?”

“No,” said Jerry, “the blond bombshell!”

Spud said nothing but had a grin from ear to ear, just like a porch pal's.

“Who?” I asked.

“Oh, right!” Past said. “The reporter! She wants to interview you because she's amazed you're so young.”

Jerry was right. She was a blond bombshell in red spiky heels and a short, tight beige dress that made her look naked until you took a second look. And you wanted to take a second look. At least at the chest area, which was, shall we say, abundant.

I stood up, too, and all five of us stared.

“Hi,” she said in a sexy voice. “I'm Whitney. An elderly woman told me I could find you here.” She smiled at me.

“Moooo,” I mumbled.

She stopped smiling. “Excuse me?”

“Moo—Moo—my great-aunt. That's what we call her.”

The three stooges all murmured their Moos, which didn't help the situation. Whitney was looking less and less friendly.

Fortunately, Past saved the day. “We spoke on the phone, Whitney. Thank you so much for coming.”

Whitney's face melted as he shook her hand and she was caught by his Bono eyes.

I leaned against Past's cart, which was beside his bench.

It was a mistake. Being a reporter, Whitney noticed. She looked at the shopping cart, then at us, suspicion in her eyes.

Past played it cool. “Ah, yes.” He smiled and looked across the street. “The soup kitchen is over there. We feed a lot of homeless. This is a public park and . . .” He shrugged at the cart.

“I understand,” she said. “They have to have someplace to go, don't they?”

He kept smiling smoothly, although he started blinking rapidly.

“So,” I said, in an effort to get her suspicious eyes off of Past, “you wanted to ask me some questions?”

“Yes.” She turned to me. “What got you interested in adoption, Mike?”

“Uh . . .” My mind had gone blank. “Well, he needs a family, right?”

“Misha?”

“Yeah.”

“What's his story?”

“He has no parents, or they can't take care of him.” I folded my arms. “Or won't. I don't really know the whole story.”

“What's your story, Mike?”

I looked around at the others for help. “I—I don't know.”

But Whitney was a reporter. That wasn't good enough for her. “I mean, what would drive a fourteen-year-old boy to work so hard on an adoption? There has to be some reason,” she persisted.

I swallowed hard. “I just think a kid should have a family. That's all.”

Her eyes were boring into me. “Why?”

My face was burning. I swallowed again and almost choked. My eyes darted around and I saw the photo of Misha on Past's cart. That was it! Divert attention. I pulled the photo of Misha with his LEGOs out of my pocket and showed it to her.

“Oh, that is so sweet,” Whitney said in a baby voice.

I didn't like the way she made him sound like a puppy. “He's building a bridge,” I said.

“A bridge?”

“Yes.”

She examined the picture more closely. “Maybe it's a house. Yes, that's what it is, don't you think?”

“No. I think it's a bridge.” I felt my teeth clench. Didn't she see the cars in the photo? What made her think she knew what was going on inside his head?

“Mike,” Past whispered. “Why don't you tell her how much money we've raised and how much we still need? And the deadline?”

“Yeah,” I said, except my mind was blank. I couldn't think of any numbers at all.

Fortunately, Past filled in the blanks for me and continued chatting with her about Do Over Day. All I could do was stand there stupidly and stare at the photo of Misha.

I finally snapped out of it when Whitney got in my face and asked, like maybe she'd asked the question once or twice already, “How did you get a homeless man to give up his shirt?”

I looked at Past, then quickly looked away. “Uh, he's really nice and he wanted to help.”

“That is so touching.” I swear there were tears in her eyes.

“It is,” said Past, straight-faced.

“I wonder if I could do an interview with him.”

I looked at Past. Past looked at the three stooges. The three stooges looked at each other.

“I think he's pretty busy,” Guido offered.

“Yeah,” I said. “A lot of these guys have jobs, you know. They just don't make enough money to have a place to live.”

“Yeah,” said Past, “and I happen to know he's working to get himself off the street.”

Whitney looked disappointed, but she wasn't getting anything more out of us. After telling us the article would appear in Friday's paper, she assured us that the local TV station would want to cover Do Over Day.

The three stooges assured her that she needed a tour of Do Over, and possibly lunch, so they escorted her off.

When she was out of earshot, Past said, “Well, I think we'll get a story out of that.” He cleared his throat. “I'm not sure exactly what kind of story, but we'll get something.”

I realized then that I still didn't know Past's story. He seemed to know a lot about me. All I knew was that he was homeless. I turned and looked at him. “How did you become homeless, anyway, Past? What happened?”

He didn't answer.

“You're obviously smart. You're educated. What gives?”

He shook his head, his jaw set, and looked at his Clarks.

“I mean,” I pressed him, “you just don't seem . . . homeless.”

He took a deep breath, then said very quietly, “I'm not homeless.”