Beetle Boy Read online

  For the first time since I moved in with her a month ago, she looks afraid. Of me. I ease my cast down off the ottoman so that I can sit more normally. She is wearing a floral T-shirt and a skirt to her ankles, relatively dressed up. Her cheeks are flushed.

  “I thought you were just getting groceries,” I say. “What took you so long?”

  She twists her hands, grimacing. What am I feeling? An old dread. Something new, coming to crush me.

  Okay, I didn’t actually go to the store. I went … I went … to a concert instead, Charlie. A violin concert in Grand Rapids by all these young local musicians. And there was one boy playing the violin, and he had a solo. And his name was Liam.

  “So what?” I snap, suddenly angry. “I told you my brother was a musician.”

  Oh my God, Charlie, he played the most beautiful sonata. It was Bach. It was to die for.

  “Where are you going with this, Clara? Are you upset that I don’t play a musical instrument?”

  Charlie, I stayed in the auditorium after the concert because I wanted to see him up close. And then I milled around backstage and people were leaving and there I was basically spying on this boy, this boy who doesn’t look anything like you, but then I saw this older woman come up to him and she gave him a hug, and Charlie, when she turned around, I knew it was your mother. Her hair, her eyes, her mouth. I knew it was her.

  “So what, Clara? You saw my mother, so what?”

  I don’t know … it was just … haven’t you ever wanted to just call her?

  She already knows the answer to this question. She is shaking her head, disagreeing with my answer. I know what is coming. I know the sort of thing Clara would have done at the first sighting of my brother and my mother. Helpful, kindhearted Clara. I picture her moving in her skippy, bright-eyed way over to them. They would hold back at first—reserved and uncertain—Charlie’s girlfriend? But she would convince them and win them over—it would happen quickly, especially Liam. I close my eyes, unhappy beyond words at this picture in my mind.

  Anyway … I told them I’m your girlfriend. I told them that you’re staying in my apartment while your leg heals.

  I picture Mom. I hear her voice. “How did Charles break his leg?” She was the only person who ever called me Charles. Clara would explain, “He was running out of a house, and he stumbled and tore his Achilles tendon and just fell down in the street.” She would touch her own ankle, her expression grave.

  Your mom seemed upset to hear about your leg, Charlie. She couldn’t even speak for a minute. I thought she was going to cry. I felt so bad for her.

  “Spare me.”

  Your brother didn’t say anything. He was just watching your mom. Like he was concerned for her. Then she sort of pulled herself together, and she asked me how long we’ve known each other.

  Clara would have updated her happily. “We met at Rite Aid, where I work. We liked each other right away. Then Charlie tore his Achilles tendon, and he’s in a cast so he needed to move in with me. Now, we live together, and we know each other in the biblical sense.”

  No, Clara would not have said this part, although she could have; Mom would have no business objecting, despite her religious beliefs. She has no parental authority over me. She has no right to act like my mother.

  Clara is getting more nervous, sensing my disapproval of what she is telling me. Sensing my unwillingness to picture a scene that includes this impossible threesome. Her voice fades to a whisper, and she is starting to grimace, tic-like. All very out of character. The Porters have infected her with their powerful germs.

  “Would you just stop cringing and get to the point?”

  This centers her. She calms down. She steps to the plate. She swings.

  The point is that I invited them to come over to see you.

  “Oh, no, you didn’t,” I say. “That is not possible. Not a chance. Not gonna happen.”

  They said yes, Charlie! They both said yes right away, like there was no question in their minds—

  I close my eyes. I cover my ears. Not here. Not like this. Not with my leg in a cast. Not both of them together.

  Charlie!

  Clara sits beside me on the sofa and does something that kills me. She takes my hands away from my ears and lowers them to my lap and then puts one of her small hands right over my heart.

  I will help you with this. We’ll move things forward a little bit, that’s all. You and me. That’s all I’m asking.

  “Clara, NO!”

  Let them come here with me by your side. Then never again, if that’s what you decide. Just this one time. To move us forward.

  And I realize something about Clara. She isn’t only cheery sweetness. She gets an idea, and she stays with it. She has a position. She believes in family. She has always wanted a brother. She has forgiven my unforgivable mother. It’s a grave complication. I don’t know where to go with it.

  “No,” I say, but it was like it wasn’t even me saying it anymore. It was too late. It was done.

  Later, I have the most vivid memory of being in Mrs. M.’s house, almost like a vision. Why? Because Liam and Mom are moving toward me? While Mrs. M. is gone? I was there, in her kitchen, making the morning coffee. Mrs. M. had taught me how to make it—beans ground in a grinder, filtered water, a good brand of coffee, but not too dark roasted. I grew to like it her way—my dad drank only generic already-ground coffee from a tin, bitter and weak at the same time. He drank the terrible stuff all day. But Mrs. M.’s morning coffee was wonderful.

  Her kitchen had Asian-inspired wallpaper—cartoon cranes and rabbits and lotus blossoms—and she had a little green vinyl booth in one corner, like a personal restaurant. This was where I would sit and sip coffee and get ready to face the school day. There was a high window above the booth that showed a maple tree. Birds flew back and forth from the tree’s lower branches to the window feeders, and Mrs. M. knew the names of all the birds—I swear, anything that flew by—she could tell me what it was. She wasn’t crabby in the mornings, and she seemed to like that I had learned to make her coffee exactly right. She always wore an old bathrobe that was a faded purple plaid and her hair would be matted in the back because she slept on her back and her face would be softer and her voice huskier.

  Are you ready for school, Charlie? Did you have a good day? Do you need anything before I go to bed?

  I am falling into sleep. No beetle dreams, I instruct my unconscious. But of course there is a dream.

  I am in Clara’s kitchen, my own age, but in this dream I haven’t written the books yet and I know I have to write them because I need money. I am under tremendous pressure to get all eight of them written in a few days or else I will have to move back in with Dad and Liam. I am trying to begin when I realize that it is impossible for me to write the books without Mom. Then I am on a train, and I am going to Wisconsin to get beetle stories directly from Mom. The train turns into a rowboat. I have nothing with me but an old trash bag full of clothes and one book—Franklin Firefly, the one where Franklin has a cold and he can’t stop sneezing out his lights. I open the book to the first page, and there is a message for me in Mrs. M.’s handwriting, instructions for what to say to my mother. The message says, Tell your mother you will bring the biggest beetle to her house and she will have to take care of it. I close the book, very nervous in the boat now, unable to row, unsure that I will be able to deliver this message to my mother, unsure of how I could ever get the gigantic beetle to Wisconsin, upset with Mrs. M. for giving me an impossible task instead of helping me.

  TWELVE

  I can’t safely stand on a footstool with my cast, so instead, I tap the edge of the box above me with the end of my crutch, patiently, firmly, until it moves far enough forward to fall into my arms. My project: relocate boxes before Clara comes home. I open the box in my arms, flipping through its contents, straightening the items that were mixed up in the fall. Then I close the lid, tuck the box under one arm, and reorient myself with my crutch.

&
nbsp; As I am backing out of Clara’s closet, I brush against a long dressy skirt made of black velvet—a fabric I hate. In fact, the sensation of velvet against my arm sends me reeling into another memory—I am nine years old and inside my new costume, and there is no escape, no way to get myself out of reach from my dad’s latest idea for selling books—a beetle costume hand-sewed by someone named Dorothy, who also made several sets of ugly curtains for us before Dad got tired of her.

  The costume probably earned Dorothy an extra two weeks of attention from Dad—it was carefully designed and sewn with six black legs, a thickly padded body, and black velvet wings. On my feet were black sneakers. Dorothy had also created a black helmet that tied under my chin and had thick pipe cleaners at the top of my head for antennae. Dad was thrilled—he made me put it on immediately and watched me skulking around in it, all the while grabbing and snuggling with Dorothy, who was beaming with pride, not noticing or not caring that I was itching my neck and generally acting miserable.

  “You’re a real bug now, Charlie!” Dad crowed. “We are going to kick so much ass at the next author program. Excuse my French, Dorothy.”

  “It’s irritating my neck,” I pleaded.

  “It’s perfect, son. Stop sniveling and thank Dorothy for all her hard work on your costume.”

  “When is his next official author presentation?” Dorothy asked hopefully. She had never seen one and expected now to be invited as the costume designer. She didn’t know that she would be out of the picture before the end of the month.

  Dad had scheduled me for a big author festival at an elementary school in Kalamazoo, right after the school year started. This got me off to a very bad start with my third-grade teacher, who—big surprise—did not approve of me missing school, even if I was the world’s youngest published author. The necessity of defying her, along with the size of the audience (my first auditorium), and the added discomfort and humiliation of the costume, made me a quaking, sweating, skin-erupting mess in the minutes before my presentation. Through a haze of fear, I saw the familiar A-lined shape of Mrs. M., dressed in black, talking to a librarian. I flitted over to her and tugged at her skirt.

  “Mother of God,” she said, looking down at me. “He’s making your wear a costume now?” She looked around for him, ready to fight.

  “Don’t say anything about it,” I begged. “He’s in a really bad mood.”

  Then I started to really cry. I took hold of her skirt with both hands and put my face into the fabric and just broke down. Mrs. M. saw that I was at the end of my rope. She leaned down and lifted my face gently away from her skirt, which now had a big shiny circle on it from my tears. She cupped my wet chin in her hand and put her own face right up close to mine, shutting out the rest of the world, the kids in the hall, the smiling teachers, the fawning librarian, the angrily approaching father. Her hand on my chin was warm. Her breath in my face was warm. She spoke very calmly, just to me: “I will make this work for you today. Stay close to me. If you feel confused about what to do, just look at me. I’ll make it work. I am in charge of you today.”

  I am in charge of you today.

  “Okay,” I blubbered.

  “Wipe your tears now,” she said, handing me a Kleenex from the pocket of her black cardigan. “No one has seen them but me.”

  A shadow fell over us. “Get away from my boy,” Dad growled.

  Mrs. M. gave the side of my face one last meaningful pat, and then she straightened up and addressed my father. “Are you talking to me, Mr. Porter? Are you TALKING to me? I thought we had an agreement about that, sir.”

  “I said stay away from my BOY.”

  “I am PERFORMING with him, Mr. Porter. We are scheduled to perform TOGETHER. So I can’t very well stay away from him, can I?”

  She took my hand and said to the librarian: “Lead on, dear! We are ready to inspire your young readers!”

  We were led away, down the hall, heading to the auditorium. Behind us, I could hear my dad exclaiming and asking angry questions about why I was performing with another author instead of alone. Mrs. M. held fast to my sweaty hand. The tears had dried on my cheeks. I let myself be led. If she had picked me up and carried me in her arms onto the stage, I wouldn’t have objected. I felt—what can I say?—rescued. I was with Mama Bug.

  We walked into the spotlight together. There was a mic on a stand and a wireless mic. Mrs. M. attached the wireless mic to my costume and looked deeply into my eyes, asking me word-lessly if I was ready to begin. The auditorium had gone completely silent. I nodded.

  “My name is Martha Manning,” she said grandly, and she threw open her arms, embracing all the kids in the auditorium—about two hundred first-, second-, and third-graders. They broke into spontaneous applause. “And THIS,” she paused dramatically. “This is my special friend, Beetle Boy. Is he not magnificent, with his black wings and his quivering antennae?”

  I was leaning into Mrs. M.’s skirt like a four-year-old. I gave the audience a little wave. Again, applause.

  “Beetle Boy is here to tell you a story! A story from his life under the ground, before he came here today to your wonderful school.”

  She turned to me again, clasping her hands in delight at the story I was about to tell. The story I had spent half the night memorizing. Of course, I had forgotten every word. I looked at Mrs. M. in alarm, communicating this, and somehow, somehow, she understood and produced a copy of Meet Beetle Boy, pulling it from the floppy pocket of her cardigan. She opened it as though it were a sacred scroll and held it up in the air. “Do you want to hear how our story begins?” she asked the students.

  They did! They were already cheering to hear the beginning of my stupid story.

  Mrs. M. handed me the book with a flourish, opened to the first page. “Tell us your story, Beetle Boy!” she commanded.

  I took it from her and focused on the words, and I opened my mouth and out came the opening sentence: “One day, the dirt all around me was especially yucky, and I needed to be in some nice clean grass for a change. So I began to crawl.”

  Beside me, Mrs. M. began to swim through the air with her back hunched over. The kids went wild—like it was the funniest thing they had ever seen.

  “I crawled and I crawled and I crawled. Pretty soon, I saw the sun peeking through a hole in the dirt. Then I was in the sun and it was cool.”

  You get the picture. Stupid book, cute kid in a costume, crazy lady acting like a crawling bug. A total hit! The auditorium kept bursting into applause. When I finished reading my story, it was pandemonium. Then I answered questions from the audience, Mrs. M. smiling at me and leading the kids into easy, safe territory. She was in charge.

  Then we were finished! The school librarian gave me a big squishy hug, and even my dad didn’t seem angry anymore, although he wouldn’t make eye contact with Mrs. M., which I’m sure was fine with her. My dad got handed a big check from the librarian for seventy-five preordered books. After that, he was in a rush to leave, and he started pulling me by the arm from the gymnasium to the school entrance.

  I was looking around for Mrs. M., realizing she hadn’t even mentioned her own book during the presentation. I wondered if she needed to sell books to pay rent like we did. I wanted to ask her if she needed some of the money. But Dad was pulling me by the arm away from the school and into the parking lot, toward our car. Then I saw Mrs. M. off to one side of the parking lot, sitting inside her little blue hatchback with her head lowered over the steering wheel. She did not look up. I wanted so much to thank her, but Dad was basically dragging me to the opposite side of the lot. He was beside himself with excitement about selling seventy-five books at one school.

  He was probably thinking, How many schools could we actually hit in a single day … Four? Five?

  I was thinking, I didn’t die. I didn’t die.

  In the days following my auditorium triumph, the need to thank Mrs. M. grew inside of my heart like a weed. On a Saturday, I snuck some money out of the grocery fund an
d walked by myself a mile and a half to the downtown office supply store and bought her a present—a pen in a case with a row of diamonds on the clip. It felt like the perfect gift, one author to another. Thank you for preventing the total annihilation of my identity, Mrs. M.

  After the auditorium gig, my dad bitched for weeks about how that has-been had stolen the spotlight from me because she was so jealous and such an old hag and a few worse things. I, on the other hand, was hiding my present of ink and diamonds in the pocket of my coat, taking it everywhere I went. Each time I looked at it, I could relive that sweet moment when Mrs. M. had said, with her hot breath and her steely voice, “I am in charge of you today.”

  Clara set up the reunion quickly—for the next Thursday, her day off, at 3 p.m., right after Liam “gets out of school.” Like she is suddenly so aware of his schedule.

  Will your mom be free around that time?

  I do not know or care what Mom does with her days, but this is one of several things Clara is asking me and my answer is always the same.

  “No idea.”

  What kind of cookies does she like?

  “No idea.”

  Does she drink coffee or tea?

  “No idea.”

  Is she cool about us living together?

  This question puts me over the top. “Jesus, Clara! Do you think for one minute that I care what my mother thinks about us living together?”

  Don’t yell at me, Charlie! I’m doing this for you!

  I completely snap. “Oh my God! You are not doing this for me! You are so not doing this for me! This whole thing makes me want to jump out of a window and break my other leg! Maybe then I could be in a hospital, and I wouldn’t have to watch you getting all mixed up with stuff that’s none of your BUSINESS!”

  She put her hands up to her face as though I had slapped her, her face mushing into tears. God, I hate, hate, hate it when people cry. If I hadn’t been in a cast and unable to move quickly, I would have lurched for the door and run away.