Up High in the Trees (30 page)

Cass walks close to me with her hand on my back, and inside, she pushes me with her to a high desk where there's a woman wearing light blue hospital clothes. I look back at Leo. He's staring down at his feet.

Stephen Lane, says Cass.

Yes, says the woman and she takes us to a blue room.

Dad's sitting on a soft, blue chair. His bad hand is wrapped in a bandage and his beard is shaved off. His face looks soft and new like a baby face.

Cass pulls me over to the blue couch with her. I hold the plate of cookies on my lap. We look at Leo standing by the door, biting his lip. He comes and sits down next to me.

It's good to see you guys, Dad says.

Yeah, says Leo. He leans forward and grabs a very green plastic plant off the table in front of us. He shakes it and then laughs at it.

We miss you, Cass tells Dad.

Leo's holding the plastic plant on his lap, pinching and poking at its leaves. What's the point of these things? he asks. I mean, everyone knows they're fake, he says.

Dad leans back in his blue chair and puts his feet up on the table. He's not wearing any shoes, but he has on clean white socks.

I've gained seven pounds, Dad says, and I'm feeling better.

That's great, says Cass. She lets go of my hand.

I'm staring at Dad's feet. I want to touch his new socks. I want to sit with Dad in his soft blue chair. I want to touch his new face.

Sebby's going back to school, says Cass. She looks up at the ceiling. This lighting is terrible, she says.

Dad looks up at the ceiling, too. He shrugs, then looks at me.

Good for you, he says, I'm proud of you.

I bring him the plate of cookies and he peels back the tinfoil.

Wow, he says.

This lighting makes skin greenish, Cass says. She's holding out her arm, looking at her skin.

We're in a goddamn hospital, says Leo, what do you expect?

Cass turns to him and rolls her eyes. He's still holding the plastic plant on his lap.

Then I jump on Dad. A big puff of air and a low noise comes out of him.

Sebby! Cass yells at me. She stands up. What are you doing? she says. You have to be careful.

I'm okay, Dad says. He holds up his bad hand and puts his elbow down on the big arm of the chair. Dad's breath smells like toothpaste.

I scoot back into his lap and that makes the plate of cookies fall.

Shit, Cass says. Sebby, for Christ's sake.

Cass gets down on the floor to clean up. She sets the plate on the table and starts picking up pieces of cookie, putting them back on the plate. Dad tries to lean forward to help her, but he can't really, because I'm on his lap.

Cass says, I got it, Dad.

I put my hand on Dad's cheek. It feels soft and cool.

Dad, I say, do you want to come home with us now? The cat is at home, I tell him.

He can't, says Leo. He puts the plant back on the table and moves it so it's in the right place.

How's the cat? Dad asks me.

Good, I say.

Dad's watching Leo.

How you doing? Dad asks him.

Fine, Leo says, school's fine, everything's fine.

There's a knock on the door and then it opens. The woman in blue hospital clothes smiles and tells us the visit is half over. She closes the door again and leaves us alone.

You know about Somalia? Cass asks.

Yes, says Dad, Operation Restore Hope.

At the bike store, I pick out a green ten-speed. The green paint sparkles like the kind of sidewalk that has pieces of glass mixed in.

Good choice, says Leo.

The bike store man takes it off the rack for me. He says, Do you want to try it in the parking lot?

I tell him no.

Are you sure? he asks.

I nod at him. He's wearing the tight kind of clothes for riding bikes, so I can see how big his muscles are.

Leo finds a green and brown camouflage helmet. He puts it on me and tightens the straps. Then he knocks on my head three times. Knock, knock, knock. I can't feel anything.

I'm putting all my pictures in a red photo album. This was Ms. Lambert's idea. She said that if I wanted to, I could make an album and then bring in my pictures to show her. She called this morning to make sure I'm going back to school tomorrow, because tomorrow is Wednesday. It has been four days.

All of my pictures only fill up seven pages, I tell Cass. I counted and the album has fifty pages.

You can take more, Cass says.

I walk around the house to see if I want to take more pictures or not. I try to look for bright spots where Mother touched that haven't been touched by anyone else yet. If I can find a bright spot, then I will take more pictures.

I'm looking all over. They're hard to find. I look in Mother's room and inside her closet. I look in Mother's bathroom and then I find one on the tile wall above the bathtub. It's big, the size of a whole handprint.

I get my camera and take a picture of the bright spot. I write the time, 3:14
pm
, and the date, December 12.

Cass! I yell.

In here, she says. She's sitting at the kitchen table reading her college book.

Now I have to take a picture of your face, I tell her.

She puts her book down on her lap.

Okay, she says. Smiling or not?

Just regular, I tell her.

The square photo comes out of the camera and I shake it dry. I write, Cass, 3:22
pm
, December 12.

I know it's almost time for Leo to be home. I stand by the door with my camera, ready to take a picture of his face. I have to wait and wait, so in my head I think of more pictures to take: Mother's shoes in her closet, Leo's messy bed, the place in the backyard where I buried the piece of Styrofoam.

Then I hear Leo coming. He opens the door and I take a picture.

Hey, he says, what's going on?

In the picture, Leo's looking up at the ceiling. His face is red from the cold outside.

The classroom is decorated for winter with blue and white paper snowflakes hanging from the ceiling. When I left, it was still decorated for fall.

There's a card for me in my desk. The card has flowers and a tree on it—the kind that Mica draws. She's the best artist, so the drawing is very good and all the coloring-in is neat. In blue letters, the card says, Welcome Back, and inside it says, We Missed YOU! Everyone in class had to write their name. Katya wrote her name like a rainbow with every letter a different color. Ms. Lambert wrote in black pen and drew a little cat face.

The card makes me feel bad. I want to rip up Mica's flowers and her tree, too. I want to rip up all the names of everyone in class. I hide the card at the bottom of my desk.

Come on, Katya says. She's waiting for me by the door.

We walk to the cafeteria for lunch and sit together at one of the long tables.

Are you okay? she asks me. She brushes down the back of my hair with her hand.

I don't answer.

Since we can't play outside in the snow, half of the cafeteria is for eating and board games and the other half is for running and playing with balls. The room is too loud and the lights shining down make the floor very bright. I want to cover my ears and duck under the table to hide from all the balls flying around.

The girl named Jessica comes and stands in front of me.

Why were you gone? she asks. She has a purple fruit roll-up wrapped around one of her fingers.

Leave him alone, says Katya.

Jessica puts her fruit roll-up finger in her mouth and stares at us.

Go away, Katya tells her.

What, is he your baby? asks Jessica. When he cries do you hug him and kiss him and hold him like a baby? She turns around then and goes away. Her long blond hair hangs all the way down her back.

Katya's eating pieces of apple. She eats all the white part off and then puts the green skins back in her plastic Baggie. I look in my lunch and take out my turkey sandwich. The mayonnaise made the bread get mushy, so I carry it over to the brown trash can and drop it in.

Hello, says the lunch-duty lady who watches everyone eat.

Hi, I say. I don't look up at her. I know what she looks like. She has gray hair that sticks out in two sharp pigtails.

I'm glad you came back, she tells me.

I nod at her legs. She's wearing big pants that have red flowers all over them.

I go sit down next to Katya and open my bag of chips.

Can I have one? she asks me.

I hold out the bag to her and she takes more than one. I think about the card hiding in the bottom of my desk. I know it's there. I want to rip up Katya's rainbow name.

You're okay? asks Katya.

Leave me alone, I say and I walk away. I walk out of the cafeteria and back to Ms. Lambert's room. The door is open, so I go in. Ms. Lambert's not there. Nobody's there.

I take the card out of my desk and put it in the trash can at the front of the room. I look at the card in the trash and then I take it out. I rip it up into pieces. More and more pieces. I keep ripping it up.

Cass is waiting for me on the front steps.

How was school? she asks.

I lean my bike against the house.

I'm tired, I say. I want to be by myself in my room.

Are you hungry? asks Cass.

I do feel hungry, but I want to be by myself. Not now, I tell her.

I go upstairs to my room and close the door. Then I sit down on the floor. I take my photo album out of my backpack and look at all the pictures.

When I close my eyes and lie down, I can see all the pictures in my head, and even though I lost it, I can see the picture of Mother's face laughing. I can see her for as long as I want.

Sebby, says Cass's voice.

I don't say anything. I open my eyes and watch the door open.

Here, Cass says. She puts the cat down on the floor and then leaves. The cat's looking at me.

I pat my chest twice to tell him to come. He steps up onto my chest and pushes his face into my chin. I close my eyes and I can see Mother. Her face is happy.

The cat lets me pick him up. I carry him over to my bed and he sits next to me with his head resting on my leg. I read
The Guinness Book of World Records.
I'm on page 22, the part about Largest Bones.