The Yo-Yo Prophet (2 page)

I wake with an aching neck and the imprint of the keyboard on my cheek. Overhead, the floorboards creak with Gran's footsteps. The sun is peeking through the blinds, trapping dust in its beams.

I groan and stretch. Then I turn off the computer and hurry upstairs to dress. As I brush my teeth and flatten my spiky hair, a series of tricks begins to form in my mind. A double or nothing. And I'll do reach-for-the-moon. That will be good for a crowd. I can imagine that Silver Bullet in my palm already.

At school, I avoid Rozelle and her gang as much as possible. I sit in the front row in math and science, the two classes I have with them, and I eat in the cafeteria, a place they'd never be caught dead. I hope they've moved on to fresh targets. I hope Rozelle's forgotten me.

At home I practice my tricks in the living room, performing for the royal faces on Gran's collection of souvenir plates, teacups, mugs and saucers. Mounted on walls and cluttering the tabletops, the hand-painted china makes me jittery, but my room is too small for looping tricks. I haven't broken any of Gran's stuff yet.

When I get too hot—and too worried about crashing a yo-yo into royalty—I move to the alley behind the store. The smell of rotting food drifts from the Dumpster, and the laneway is coated with grease from the diner next door.

Van sits out back on an old kitchen chair, taking a break from the shop. She's second in command after Gran, and I know that for the last few months she's held the shop, and Gran, together.

Van claps after every trick. Her cheeks dimple. “Your bà must be so proud!”

I shrug. “I haven't shown Gran.”

Van was my mother's childhood friend in Vietnam.

She's as soft on me as I imagine my mother would be.

Even when my yo-yo spins out of control, snaps its string and whacks against the Dumpster, Van praises me.

“I only hope my new grandchild will be as fine as you!” Van smiles. Her daughter, who lives in Vancouver, is about to have another baby. Van is young for a grandmother, way younger than Gran.

“Thanks, Van.” I examine my yo-yo for cracks, frowning.

Van heads inside. “See you later,” she says in Vietnamese, even though I hardly understand the language.

When I'm sure my yo-yo isn't broken, I head up the back stairs, brooding. Van makes me feel good—almost like my mother did—but she's a lousy audience. I need a tougher sell to see if I'm good enough to take it to the streets.

As I restring my yo-yo, I think about showing my routine to Geordie. I met Geordie back in September when we started grade nine. He's pretty much my only friend, since most of the people I knew in middle school are too cool to talk to me now. They go to ravine parties that I'm not invited to and talk about who wants to hook up. Since no one's asking to hook up with either of us, Geordie and I hang out together, mostly at lunch. Geordie is really tall, pimpled and crazy about his comic collection. He fits in about as well as I do. If I show him my routine, maybe he won't laugh.

I bring my yo-yo to school three days in a row before I even try to show Geordie. What if Rozelle sees me yo-yoing? What will she do to me then?

I convince Geordie to eat lunch behind the portables because it's out of the way. He paces across the strip of weedy grass between a portable and the parking lot, talking about which superhero has the coolest powers.

“I mean, I wouldn't mind superstrength or mind control.” Geordie speaks slowly, like he has to chew each word before he says it. He hunches his shoulders, which doesn't make him look any shorter, and his oversize T-shirt hangs over his skinny chest. “Flying is all right, but you can't fight anyone with it.”

I grip the yo-yo in my pocket, willing myself to say it: Check this out. Then I'll launch into my routine, and Geordie will fall over in shock. I've never shown anyone at school what I can do.

But my hands tremble so much that I know I'll fail.

It has to be Gran. She'll be my practice audience.

I approach Gran in the shop late Saturday night, after Van and the others have gone home. She's bent over a sewing machine, wearing blue jeans and a pink T-shirt. Her pale skin and white hair give off a ghostly glow under the glare of her table lamp. Tall and heavyset, with blue eyes and a slight mustache, Gran looks nothing like me. With my Vietnamese features, it's like I'm not related to her.

“Must be something wrong with the bobbin, Your Majesty,” Gran says. She opens a door in the side of the machine and pulls out a silver bobbin, tangled with thread. She tugs at the thread to unravel it, pausing when a cough overtakes her.

I cringe at the sound of her cough. “Gran?”

“Give me a minute, Richard.”

“It's me—Calvin.” I sigh. “Dad's not here, remember?”

“I'm just finishing up with Her Majesty.”

I grit my teeth, wondering who she's talking to. I remember when her thoughts were clear. When she could answer all the questions on Jeopardy—her favorite game show—before the contestants did. When she'd tell me stories about my father getting into trouble around the shop as a kid. He almost suffocated in a plastic dry-cleaning bag when he curled up inside, pretending to be a goldfish in a bowl. Gran also told me how my parents met when she hired my mother. How my father asked my mother out every day until she said yes.

I moved in with Gran six years ago, after my mother died and my dad disappeared to “run the bases,” as Gran called it. “He's wandering the world, looking for a place to belong, forgetting that he belongs right here with us,” she used to say.

Now, her mind sometimes gets cloudy and her watery cough never goes away. Not that she's old. Only sixty-eight. But she seems much older.

My chest hurts when I remember how she used to be. Only a few months ago, she could finish the newspaper Sudoku in half an hour. She managed the shop as if she were the Queen of England and still had the energy to go to flea markets on Sundays, looking for more royal china to add to her collection.

“Mr. Spider wants to buy it, Your Majesty,” Gran rambles on, as she replaces the bobbin in the machine. “I finally found a purchaser. After all this time.”

“Mr. Spider?” I touch Gran's rounded shoulder. “Gran, what are you talking about?”

Gran pats my hand absentmindedly. Her skin is dry and loose, like it's too big for her bones. “I did it for you.”

“Did what, Gran?”

Gran swivels in her chair. Her crinkly eyes find mine. “Sold to Mr. Spider, of course.”

There she goes again, I think.

“Gran, I need to talk to you,” I begin. “Listen.” I wait as she slides her glasses to the tip of her nose and her eyes seem clearly focused on my face. Then I tell her everything: how I earned money doing yo-yo tricks on the street when I wasn't even trying, how I practiced a routine of string and looping tricks with my best yo-yo, how I need someone to tell me if my routine is good. I even tell her how terrified I am that I'll fail.

Gran watches my routine three times, frowning when I miss a trick and nodding when I succeed.

“Not bad,” she says. She goes to the cash register, opens it and offers me a five-dollar bill.

I refuse it. “Do you think I should do it?”

“You'll be great, Richard.”

I turn away, my eyes burning. Just when I think she may be getting better, she gets confused again. A lot of the time now, she has no clue who I am. Gran can't help me. Still, I have to try street performing. I need to chase that rush one more time. Even if I fail. Even if they laugh me off the street.

3

On Monday in science class, I trip over Geordie's backpack, stumble and hit the floor with my hands raised to break my fall. My legs are splayed across the aisle between the desks. Shock waves pulse through my arms and chest, and I gasp for air, inhaling dust and the scent of industrial floor polish.

The laughter starts with a muffled snort from the back of the classroom. Whispers and giggles spread as fast as a computer virus. My face heats up.

“Sorry, Calvin,” Geordie mumbles. “You okay?”

Geordie's size-twelve basketball shoes appear beside my head, but I can only blink. The yo-yos in the pockets of my hoodie press into my gut.

“Get up, Mr. Layne,” calls my science teacher, Ms. Kinsela. “We have bean plants to measure.”

I groan and push off the floor. Twenty-nine sets of eyes are on me. Potted bean plants sit ignored on the desks. Geordie towers over me, making me feel puny. I duck my head, but I can't avoid the weight of all those eyes.

My hoodie hangs slack off one shoulder. As I yank it back in place, the neon yo-yo spills from my pocket. It clatters across the floor and twirls to a stop three desks back—at Rozelle's feet.

I freeze.

Rozelle rests an elbow on the desk she shares with Sasha. She glances down at the yo-yo and raises one eyebrow, her dark eyes measuring mine. “You sendin' me a gift, Low-Cal?”

“Uh…” A shiver of panic crawls up my back. Will she tease me about playing with a toy? Pretend it's not yours, I think. But then I'd never get it back.

Sasha smirks. “Maybe he likes you.”

My eyes dart away and back again. I'm sure my face can't get any redder.

“All right.” Ms. Kinsela raises her head from her marking. “You should be recording your observations in your growth chart now.”

I head toward my seat, shoving my second yo-yo and spare string deeper into my pocket. Ms. Kinsela has a drawer full of stuff she's taken from students. Did she see my yo-yo go flying? Will she take it? Will Rozelle?

I have to rescue it.

When Ms. Kinsela returns to her marking, I scoot down the aisle, my body awkward, like I'm just learning to walk.

Rozelle is whispering to Sasha, and as I get closer I can hear what she's saying. “So I told my brother he's gotta learn the music business. You know, get his name out there. He's got a sweet sound. He could be frickin' huge.”

Avoiding eye contact, I try to casually crawl under Rozelle's desk as if it's something I do every day. My neon yo-yo rests beside Rozelle's black combat boots; her chunky legs are barely contained by a jean miniskirt. I tremble. This is territory I never expected to encounter.

“Calvin! Get out! Ms. Kinsela!” Sasha lets out a phony scream; she can't possibly be afraid of me. I jump, whacking my head on the underside of the desk.

My head throbs. I reach toward my yo-yo. Rozelle's chair slides back, and her face appears under the table.

“Are you peepin'?” She sneers. “Teacher's not gonna like that.”

I cringe. Peep at Rozelle? Never. My chest is pounding. I grab my yo-yo before Rozelle can snatch it, and then I shimmy backward, out from under the desk.

Ms. Kinsela is waiting in the aisle, her arms crossed over her lab coat, one heel tapping.

“I'll see you for detention, Mr. Layne.”

I leap up, swallowing the wave of acid burning my throat. I nod at Ms. Kinsela and pray that Rozelle won't point out the yo-yo behind my back.

“Did you see him, Ms. Kinsela?” Rozelle fakes a wounded voice. “He tried to look up my skirt!”

I stand rigid, hands clammy with sweat.

Sasha joins in, ever faithful to her leader. “He was right underneath us! What did he think he was doing?”

I flush again. It's too much humiliation.

“Enough, girls.” Ms. Kinsela silences Sasha. “I'll address the situation after school.”

“But I feel so vi-o-la-ted,” Rozelle says, drawing out each syllable. “Maybe he should be suspended.”

“I said that's enough, Miss Jones. Now get back to work. All of you.” Ms. Kinsela stares pointedly at me.

I scurry to my desk and drop into my chair. I slip my yo-yo back into my pocket, wipe my hands dry on my shorts and hunch over the desk, wanting to disappear. So what if Rozelle knows I have a yo-yo? Maybe no one else saw. Maybe no one will care.

Geordie slouches into the chair beside mine, folding his legs under the desk. “Was that a yo-yo?” he whispers.

“Um, yeah.” I stiffen. “But it's not mine.”

“Then why is it in your pocket?”

I glance down at my pathetic bean plant. Its brown leaves are withered, and a dank smell of rot rises from it.

Geordie's long, lush plant winds around its bamboo stake.

“It's for…my cousin.” As if I have anyone other than Gran.

Geordie nods. He ducks his head as Ms. Kinsela marches to the front of the room.

Does he believe me? I'll never know because Ms. Kinsela is surveying her domain, forcing our conversation to end.

I pick up my ruler and begin measuring my scrawny plant. I have to be smart. Smarter than everyone else. Smarter than Rozelle. That can't be so hard, can it?