Boy21 (7 page)

“This really is pretty amazing,” I whisper to Russ, but he doesn’t answer—he has his hand over his mouth, like he’s trying not to get sick.

When a picture of the space shuttle appears on the screen, Boy21 yells, “I don’t want to see this anymore!”

Several people make the
Shhh!
noise, and then Russ is out of his seat, climbing over people’s knees, trying to escape the theater.

“Sit down!” someone yells through the darkness, but Russ keeps moving.

I stand and try to follow him, to make sure he’s okay, because it’s dark, the steps are steep, and Boy21 seems really upset, but Mr. Gore says, “Stay here, Finley!” and then he chases after Russ.

I figure Mr. Gore will take care of the situation, so I return to my seat and try to get lost in the movie, but I can’t.

Why did Boy21 get so upset?

The astronauts float around inside the space shuttle’s cramped quarters, where there is no gravity. I watch them put on space suits and fix the Hubble Space Telescope. Some pictures of the cosmos are really truly amazing. It messes with my mind a little, seeing how much there is out there, how big everything is. Leonardo DiCaprio says there are billions of galaxies, each with billions of stars. Hard to imagine. From time to time, I wonder where Russ and Mr. Gore might have gone and what they are talking about, but mostly I just watch the movie.

When the film is over, Mr. Jefferies herds us all out of the Franklin Institute and we eat our bagged lunches under the huge columns on the steps, where we watch a fountain shoot into the air between the Philadelphia Free Library and some skyscrapers. When I’m halfway done with my tuna sandwich, I spot Boy21 and Mr. Gore walking toward us. They cross the street and climb the steps. Our classmates are talking and laughing, so I’m really the only person who notices Russ’s return.

“You okay now?” Mr. Gore asks. His hand is on Russ’s shoulder—like they’re old friends.

Russ nods and sits down next to me.

Mr. Gore walks toward Mr. Jefferies, leaving me alone with Boy21, and the silence feels awkward—even to me. So I say, “You missed a good movie. Stars look really different up close than they do from far away. And some of the clusters—it almost looked like some giant stuck his enormous finger into the universe and swirled everything up, or something. Does that sound weird?”

Russ looks at the cars passing by and doesn’t answer me.

“Why did you leave?” I ask.

“I don’t really want to talk about it, okay?”

“Sure.” I understand about wanting to keep quiet—I really do.

LATE SEPTEMBER IS THE FIRST TIME
the lunch ladies serve carrots. I wait for the dumping to begin, keeping my eyes on Terrell, but this other kid I don’t know approaches first. He’s looking sort of tiny in an oversize Eagles jersey, but he has this cocky look on his face. When we make eye contact he says, “Time to feed the rabbits.” He tries to scrape a mushy orange mound onto my food, and Russ screams, “WE ARE NOT RABBITS!” He’s not frantic, like he was at the IMAX Theatre. He’s just mad. He’s intimidating, with a fierce look in his eyes and a wild edge to his voice. Not to mention his size.

The kid jumps back and drops his plate on the floor.

Everyone in the lunchroom turns and faces us.

Dead silence.

My eyes are wide open, and then I’m smiling. I don’t need to worry about my new friend. He can take care of himself—and maybe me too.

No one tries to dump carrots on Boy21’s or my food ever again.

Through the fall, Boy21’s by my side every second of the day. Even on weekends, he comes to watch Erin and me practice, but he never once touches a basketball and he never really says anything of consequence to either of us.

He’s just always there.

We take him to the mall and to the movies a few times. I wonder if something will set him off again and make him get all angry like he did about the carrot dumper, but his facial expressions never seem to change. He doesn’t laugh when we laugh. He doesn’t smile when we smile. He just sort of hovers around us, and since Erin and I are pretty easygoing people, we don’t really mind, but we start to get curious.

Alone on my roof Erin asks me questions about Boy21, but I only shrug. I don’t tell her what Coach revealed to me, which isn’t much. I promised him I wouldn’t and so I don’t.

“Does he say anything interesting when I’m not around?” Erin asks.

“Not really,” I say. It’s the truth, maybe because I never ask him any questions.

“What’s wrong with him, do you think?”

“Some people are just quiet. Like me.”

She smiles. “Quiet can be sexy.”

Suddenly Erin’s lips are on mine and my mouth is all hot and slippery. Then she pulls away again and says, “I don’t mind quiet, but Russ is always around. We’re hardly ever alone anymore.”

“Does that bother you?”

“Yeah, a little. But at least he doesn’t invade our roof time.”

We’re kissing again. Hot sweetness.

After ten or so minutes of making out, my thoughts drift and I begin to wonder why Boy21 hasn’t mentioned outer space since the first time we met, but I also figure it’s probably best not to bring the subject up, because he’s surviving his Bellmont experience nicely and I don’t want to jinx that. Just surviving around here can be hard enough. Plus I don’t want to trigger another IMAX Theatre–type experience.

I respect privacy.

Also, I like kissing Erin, so I decide to concentrate on the present moment.

ONE NIGHT IN LATE OCTOBER
, on my way home from Erin’s, Boy21 pops out from behind a tree and says, “Can we sit on your roof?”

It’s late, but it’s also Friday night, so I nod.

I’m no longer surprised to find Boy21 following me. It’s just what he does. And like I said before, he gives Erin and me space when we need it.

We head to my house. He’s carrying a white box tied with string, plus his over-the-shoulder bag. He looks a little fidgety and keeps opening his mouth extra-wide, as if he’s stretching out his jaw or yawning like a lion, only he doesn’t look tired at all.

My dad’s putting on his jacket, getting ready to leave for work, when we go inside. He’s wearing that resigned miserable face he dons whenever he thinks I’m not looking, or when he’s just too tired to fake it. When he sees us, he says, “Do your grandparents know you’re here, Russ?”

“Yes, sir,” Boy21 says. “My grandfather’s coming to pick me up in an hour.”

“What’s in the box?” Dad asks.

“Cupcakes,” Boy21 says.

“Seriously?”

Boy21 nods.

“Well, I’m off to work.”

Pop’s passed out in his wheelchair again, dead to the world with a beer can in one hand, Grandmom’s rosary beads wrapped around the other, and the TV remote in his lap. On the TV is an infomercial for some cleaning product endorsed by Magic Johnson, who keeps saying, “This is just like me—
magic
!” every time the hostess wipes a stain off a couch or rug with the “magic” wand cleaner.

“Wish I could watch the Lakers’ greatest point guard of all time humiliate himself on a cable infomercial station, but somebody has to pay the bills around here, so heigh-ho! Off to work I go!”

Boy21 laughs at Dad’s joke, which makes him smile and raise his hand. They exchange a dorky dad-type high five, and then Dad is gone.

“Be gone, old cleaning products!” Magic Johnson says as he shoots old bottles like basketballs into a faraway trash can. “Magic is here. Magic! Watch out, stains! You don’t stand a chance! Magic! Magic! Magic!”

Magic Johnson looks old.

“Let’s go,” I say.

Boy21 follows me up to my bedroom.

I pop open the window and we climb out onto the roof. It’s cool, but not too cold up here. Maybe like opening-a-refrigerator-door cool.

Once we’re seated he opens the box and, surprisingly, a small package of birthday candles. The two cupcakes are store-bought. Because the light is still on in my room, I can see that someone has drawn space shuttles on the cupcakes with frosting. I start to worry because of Boy21’s freak-out at the IMAX Theatre.

He sticks a candle deep into each cupcake so that the wicks stick out where the flames would exit each space shuttle.

He uses a lighter to ignite the wicks and then says, “STS-120. T minus ten seconds. Eight seconds. T minus five. Four. Three. Two. One. And liftoff of
Discovery—
opening harmony to the heavens and opening new gateways for international science.”

Boy21 starts singing “Happy Birthday.” His eyes look wild, crazy, manic.

“Happy birthday, dear Boy21. Happy birthday to you,” he sings, and then blows out the candles.

He hands me one of the cupcakes and says, “I got you a vanilla and me chocolate,” and then takes a big bite out of his cupcake.

I wonder if the vanilla and chocolate comment was a joke. He’s not laughing, so I say, “Happy birthday. If I had known—”

“One day short of completing my fifteenth trip around the sun, my father doesn’t drive me to my high school,” Boy21 says in this really serious voice. “In fact, we drive in the opposite direction. When I ask where we’re going, he just smiles and laughs. We end up at the airport and when we check in, I realize we’re headed to Florida. So I say, ‘Dad, are you delivering on your
promise?’ When he winks at me, my heart starts pounding, because I know exactly where we’re going. We land in Florida and hit a hotel. He doesn’t even have to confirm it for me, because I know we are about to fulfill his lifelong dream and mine.”

The wind blows and the few dry, brittle leaves still hanging on to the trees rattle. I shiver a little.

“The next day we drive to the viewing spot and I can see it—space shuttle
Discovery.
It stands huge on the tower, and only a small body of water separates us. We wait for what seems like forever for it to take off, wondering if there will be complications. But it takes off twenty minutes before noon and there is this awesome noise when the rockets are ignited—and then these massive clouds explode from the bottom of the ship and billow out forever and ever along the horizon and then it rises real slow… pushed upward by what looks like a bright cone of orange lava, and a long tower of clouds forms in its wake. It may have been the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. And I remember my father putting his arm around me as we stood and watched. When it was over neither of us said anything for a long time. We just stood there smiling. It was the best birthday I’ve ever had. The best day of my life.”

When Boy21 finishes his story, I don’t know what to say. So this is why he freaked out on the physics field trip.

“Eat your cupcake,” he says.

I eat the whole thing in just a few bites. Vanilla. Rich. Moist. So sweet it makes my teeth ache.

We sit in silence for a long time.

“You want to see that launch?” Boy21 asks.

“How?”

“YouTube,” he says while pulling a laptop out of his bag. “I downloaded it before I came.”

We watch the short video. Boy21 was quoting verbatim whoever was announcing the launch on the YouTube clip—all the talk about harmony for the heavens and gateways. I wonder how many times he’s watched this video.

“Your dad,” I say. “He was interested in outer space?”

“Fascinated by it. He used to read endless books. Was a big
Star Trek
fan. He loved the final frontier. We had several high-powered telescopes too. Still do, in storage out west.”

Boy21 looks into my eyes and I start to feel as though he’s making a decision. It’s weird. This is the most he’s ever said about his past. I feel as though he’s already let down his guard far more than he had intended. But then his facial expression changes and he’s gone again, just like that.

“My father sent me a telepathic birthday card today. He says he has a present for me, but due to an unforeseen meteor shower in a galaxy that you Earthlings don’t even know exists yet, he anticipates being a few Earth days later than he had originally planned, regarding the pickup. So it looks like you and I will be spending some more time together, Earthling known as Finley.”

Part of me wants to call him on the charade and put some direct questions to him, especially after all he’s revealed tonight. He came here uninvited. He freely offered up the story about his father. He obviously wants to talk about all this stuff. But for some reason I don’t ask him anything. Maybe it’s just my nature to remain mute when I am unsure, which is always, but I feel like
I should be asking questions—that conversation would help—and yet, I realize he’s probably talking to me because I
don’t
ask questions and just let him exist as he wishes to exist. I don’t mind him being Boy21, but I sort of like Russell too.

Instead of talking we simply lie on our backs and look up at the sky, even though it’s cloudy and we can’t even see the moon.

When his grandfather pulls up to my house, Boy21 says, “Thanks for eating cupcakes with me, Earthling.”

I walk him through my room, down the steps, and out the door.

Just before he gets into the car, Boy21 turns around and says, “I wish you and I could travel through the cosmos together, Finley. You have that calming presence. Happy birthday to me—and thanks.”

“See ya, man,” I say, and then he’s gone.

I’M IN MY ROOM TRYING TO READ
The Merchant of Venice
for English class, which is proving to be pretty hard, when something hits my bedroom window. The splat remains of a snowball are sliding down the glass. I open up the window and cold air rushes into my room just before I get blasted in the face with another snowball.

“Snowball fight!” Erin yells from across the street.

I throw on my jacket and shoes and race downstairs.

“Where’s the fire?” Dad says as I pass him in the living room.

Erin drills me in the chest just as soon as I exit through the door.

The flakes are falling huge and fast and the whole neighborhood is coated in white. Something pretty magical happens whenever it snows around here. The neighborhood gets very quiet and all the trash, broken glass, and graffiti are hidden under the white, at least for a little while. It seems too early for snow, which makes this night even more beautiful—like an unexpected present.