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Authors: Alice Hoffman

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BOOK: At Risk
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“Polly!” Claire said.
“That’s what you should have done,” Polly said.
By the time Al came back, nine days later, Polly hated him. He was visiting a friend, he said, but Polly knew it was a lady friend. She had a little house in Blue Point, with a lawn and a hedge of evergreens. Al had actually taken Polly there once, and she’d waited in the car for nearly an hour, finally falling asleep with her cheek pressed up against the scratchy upholstery.
“Great fishing in Blue Point,” Al said when he came back.
“I’m sure,” Claire said.
“I couldn’t stay there,” Al said.
“So I see,” Claire said and, because it was nearly dinner, she took out some carrots and potatoes to peel.
“That’s it?” Polly had said to her mother. “You’re taking him back?”
“Don’t think you understand everything about grown-ups, because you don’t,” Al told Polly.
Polly ignored her father. She watched as her mother searched through a drawer for her vegetable peeler. She hated her father, but what she felt for Claire was worse. She didn’t know what it was called, but it was pity, and it changed something between them forever. Even now, Polly cannot look at her mother without thinking of the night her father came home, and so she stays away. She sees her parents as little as possible, and she prefers to go visit them instead of having them come up. That way, she can always leave. But tonight, as she sits in her own basement, she thinks more kindly of her father than she has in years. She thinks of what he taught her: how to change a washer, how to check the underside of a painted dresser drawer and know if it’s made out of oak or pine, how not to be afraid of dark basements, of the noise steam pipes make when they moan and send up heat. Tonight Charlie is asleep in her old room, where the pattern of headlights on the wall used to be as comforting to Polly as fireflies are now, and Polly hopes that tonight, at least, her son sleeps well.
In the morning, no one has to wake Charlie or call him for breakfast. He’s dressed and ready by eight, and he’s one of the first inside the Museum of Natural History. It’s nice and cold in the museum, and Charlie’s breath fogs up the glass as he peers into cases of fossils. He loves coming to the museum; it’s the best part about visiting his grandparents, who live just two blocks away. Usually, his grandfather lets him wander around by himself. Today his grandfather accompanies him from room to room, but that’s all right. It’s not as if he were with his mother, who would talk the whole time.
Charlie’s grandfather appreciates the museum, the smell of it, the darkness, the way footsteps echo. Charlie has begged his parents to let him come to New York on the bus, and they’ve always said no, but now his mother was the one to suggest he go alone. He plans to get Sevrin something from the gift shop, as an apology for not phoning to let him know he wouldn’t be around to take care of the newts. Sevrin has never been to New York and has only been to the Peabody Museum in Cambridge. Charlie plans to get him a patch his mom can sew on his jacket, something tremendously cool—he’s seen some that glow in the dark.
“Look at those bones,” Charlie’s Grandpa Al says every once in a while, as they move from the brontosaurus to the allosaurus. Finally, in front of the tyrannosaurus, he adds, “What a monster.”
When they have been in the museum fur a little more than two hours, Charlie’s grandfather says, “My feet hurt. Let’s take a break.”
They haven’t gotten to many of Charlie’s favorite exhibits, haven’t even taken a peek at the mammals, but Charlie’s grandfather can’t be talked into staying. The one thing Charlie insists on is stopping at the gift shop. There he buys a tyrannosaurus patch for Sevrin and then, on impulse, another just like it for himself. It’s not exactly to show they have a private dub; they’re too old for that sort of thing. It’s just a badge of their devotion to science. Charlie pays the cashier, then finds his grandfather, who’s waiting for him at the door.
“Can we come back later?” Charlie asks.
It’s hot outside and, after the darkness of the museum, Charlie and Al both blink in the sunlight. The smell of soot and gas fumes hits them.
“Maybe,” Al says. He’s never been a good liar. “Probably not.”
“Okay,” Charlie says. “What about tomorrow? We could spend the whole day here tomorrow.”
“Let’s sit,” Al says.
They head for some benches and Grandpa Al sits. Charlie intends to sit, but it’s impossible to resist the ledge behind the bench. Just as he’s about to climb up, Al pats the bench with the cupped palm of his hand.
“Right next to me,” Charlie’s grandfather tells him.
Charlie sits right next to him, and Al puts his arm around him and squeezes his shoulder.
“I got a call from your mother,” Al says. “I’m going to drive you home tomorrow.”
Charlie looks at him, feeling betrayed. He just got in last night, and this is what he gets? Two hours at the museum?
“This isn’t fair,” Charlie says.
“No,” Al says, “it isn’t.”
This is exactly why it’s impossible to have a fight with Grandpa Al; he always agrees with you.
“Amanda is sick,” Al says. “That’s why I’m taking you home.”
Charlie is wearing old high-topped sneakers. He suddenly realizes that his sneakers arc too small. He can feel them cutting into the flesh above his ankle bones.
“How sick?” Charlie says.
“It’s very bad,” Al tells him. “It’s a virus called AIDS.”
Charlie stands up and faces the museum. “I know what AIDS is, I know it’s a virus.”
“She got it from a blood transfusion,” Al says. “Before they knew about AIDS, before they tested for contaminated blood.”
Charlie bites his lip until he draws blood. He is an idiot. He should have known something was wrong when his mother let him come to New York alone. Al comes up behind Charlie and stands close by. Charlie can feel the subway beneath them, he can feel the heat from the sewers. He cannot help wondering if there’s been some mistake.
Maybe it should have happened to him.
That night, Charlie has trouble falling asleep, and when he does he dreams he is no longer human. He dreams there are red stars overhead and bursts of fire. The earth shakes with something deep within itself. He thinks
water,
because he can smell it. Water means warm, so he tracks the smell. He is lucky to be alive; the eggs of the others like him were more exposed to the cold, and each one froze.
He has trouble remembering anything before now. What it was like following the thing that was like him but bigger, feeding on whatever it left behind, panicking whenever he lost the scent of the thing that was like him but bigger because he knew, if he lost it, it would never turn around to look for him. Turning around, stopping, means the end.
At the very beginning, there were the eggs of the others for him to eat until he could follow the thing that was like him but bigger. They were together until the thing that was like him but bigger wouldn’t let him near its kill and he struck out at it. He heard a roar from his own throat, and he was so hungry that he wouldn’t give up. The thing that was like him but bigger ran away, leaving behind a pool of blood. He was alone then, he no longer followed the thing that was like him because it was no longer bigger.
He knows enough to keep going. Sometimes, he is almost tricked by sunlight. He lies down and feels it soak into his body, feels it could nourish him, but if he stays in one place too long the cold will kill him. There are times when he kills his food, but more often he eats what he finds. Things that no longer move because they have been frozen. He breaks his nails tearing apart their frozen hides. He searches inside their bodies for some warm core, perhaps a den of flesh to sleep in, but he finds nothing that brings him comfort.
Everywhere he goes there were once swamps, water so warm steam rose from the reeds. Things were alive. There was heat, things smaller to kill and eat, endless green plants. That was before his time. He has always been cold. He feels black inside; outside, scales fall from him and freeze as they hit the ground. He doesn’t look up anymore when he hears things explode in the sky. He used to run and hide. He used to claw at the hard, cold earth. Now he just keeps moving. Now he is going toward water. He is looking for something warm. He cannot eat enough to fill his huge body. When he sees others like him he is ready to fight if he has to, but he doesn’t want to use up his strength, so he waits and often the others look at him and flee.
Tyrant lizard is what he will be called,
Tyrannosaurus rex.
But he is no tyrant; he has trouble lifting his legs to walk because the cold starts at the bottom and goes all the way up. Water. He can smell it. He keeps following the scent, the same way he used to follow the thing that was like him but bigger. The earth he walks on is as cold as ever; a thin layer of ice clings to his back and tail, but somewhere, deep inside him, there is still heat.
Charlie wakes near dawn, terrified by the sound of his own heart pounding. He puts his hands on his chest; his skin feels hot through his pajamas. He counts backward from one hundred and, as he does, his heart stops racing. He falls back into a dreamless sleep, and later, when he wakes up, he’s still tired. He can’t stop thinking about his dream. He dawdles over breakfast, he watches TV till noon, he takes his time at lunch and forces himself to have two grilled cheese sandwiches not because he’s hungry, but to waste time.
Late in the afternoon, Charlie’s grandmother sews one of the tyrannosaurus patches on his denim jacket, while his grandfather gets the cooler and packs apples and c heese and beer for the ride. The apartment has old air conditioners, which hum loudly. The slipcovers on the couches are bordered with large pink roses. Charlie’s grandmother will not be driving up with them. She has pointedly not been invited. Claire knows Polly is afraid she’ll break down; Polly has never forgiven her disappointments that happened so long ago Claire doesn’t even remember what they were.
Charlie notices that his grandmother’s hands shake as she sews on the patch. She was once a seamstress at Bendel’s, but her stitches are not as small as they used to be. Charlie kisses her good-bye when she finishes the jacket.
“Don’t you dare turn around and drive back tonight,” Claire tells her husband.
“Do you think I’m crazy?” Al says, and he winks at Charlie. Charlie’s grandfather has been the building super for thirty-five years. He has his own parking space in the small underground garage, he knows nearly everyone on the block, at least the old-timers, and he can fix almost anything or, at least, make it seem that he has until the next time it breaks down. He built Charlie his first hamster cage, out of wood and chicken wire, and he has several strange habits: he drinks hot water with lemon at breakfast, he refuses to watch a movie made after 1952, and he always drinks a beer when he drives out of Manhattan. The beer is the tangible object that separates the city and Al’s never-ending duties as super. It is what, before today, has always seemed like freedom. Once they’ve gone over the Triborough Bridge, Al asks Charlie to open a bottle of beer.
“It’s just as well your grandmother’s not coming with us,” he tells Charlie. “She doesn’t handle illnesses well. Although, as far as she’s concerned, doctors can cure anything. I always tell her she should have married a doctor. Mind if I smoke a cigar?”
The smell makes Charlie sick, but he says, “Sure,” and gets one from the glove compartment. His grandfather isn’t allowed to smoke at home; he has to sit in the basement if he wants a cigar. Al hands Charlie the cold bottle of beer to hold, then takes the cigar and lights it.
“Do you think she’ll die?” Charlie says.
“Well, son,” his grandfather says, “we’re all going to die, aren’t we?”
“Don’t talk to me like I’m a baby,” Charlie says.
“You’re right,” Al says. “I forget how old you are. As far as I can tell, it doesn’t look good.” He glances at Charlie to gauge his reaction. “Want to try that beer?”
BOOK: At Risk
8.94Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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