award or a plaque or something she just laughed.
That was Tuesday.
Wednesday wasn’t much better.
And all I’m going to say about Thursday is that I was nowhere near Barely O’Donahue when the hamster bit him.
It didn’t matter to me that Friday was rainy and cold. It didn’t matter to me that Budgie took my hat on the bus, and the fact that I thought Montevideo was a movie rental place and not the capital of Uruguay only seemed to matter to Ms. Dickson. As far as I was concerned, all that mattered was that it was Friday and the school week was finally over.
When I got off the bus it wasn’t really raining that hard anymore and by the time I got home it had stopped completely. Water filled the holes in the empty driveway. I let myself into the house and hung up my jacket and kicked off my shoes and dropped my book bag in the corner.
“Aunt Josie? Hello?”
I went to the pantry and got a Chocolate Ka-Blam. Then I went to the fridge and took out the milk and sat down at the table. I unwrapped the Ka-Blam, took a bite, and washed it down with a swig of milk from the jug. They tasted best that way. It was a scientific fact.
When I was done licking the last of the crumbs out of the wrapper and had taken a final gulp of milk, I put the cap back on the jug and put it back in the fridge. I saw the note when the door shut. It was stuck there with a magnet that looked like a baloney sandwich.
Derek—
Aunt Josie’s car is finally fixed. I took her to pick it up. Be back soon. If you’re going to have milk pls use a glass ok? And remember—no TV.
Love you—
I looked into the living room and could see part of the television. I looked out the kitchen window and could see part of the driveway. I wondered how soon “be back soon” was. I took a couple of steps toward the living room, stopped, and looked back. The driveway was still empty. I took a few more steps. Pretty soon I couldn’t see the kitchen window anymore. Pretty soon after that I was sitting on the couch.
I stared at the television. I rubbed my hands on my pants and swallowed. My heart was beating so fast I thought it would explode out of my chest. I squinted my ears and listened for Mom’s car in the driveway or the banging of the storm door but didn’t hear either of them.
I picked up the remote and pointed it at the television. Was I really going to do this? My thumb hovered over the red power button for a second or two like I was giving someone or something a last chance to stop me. I listened for Mom’s car again and didn’t hear it. I closed my eyes and slowly pressed the button.
Mom must have been watching the news before because when I opened my eyes I wasn’t looking at
I slumped back into the couch and sat there staring at the screen. Fine. I might not have been able to watch TV but if Mom thought that would get me to do homework instead, she was crazy. I switched back over to the news channel. The last thing I needed was for her to turn on the TV and have it be on one of the channels she’d blocked. I’d learned that one the hard way.
I wasn’t sure it was the same channel Mom had been watching because all those news people look the same to me. The same numbers and little symbols moved across the bottom of the screen. The only thing different from before was that there was a picture of a soldier in the corner.
He was wearing desert camo and looking at the camera with a serious expression on his face. I bet he had a code name. I bet it was Sandstorm or something cool and desert related like that. The soldier looked kinda familiar, too, but I couldn’t place him.
Then I pictured him without his helmet on and instead of jeeps in the background I imagined our backyard and the way it looked when he held me by the wrists and swung me around until my feet came off the ground and I couldn’t hear anything but the roar of the wind and the sound of my own laughter.
“Mom! Mom! Come quick,” I shouted, jumping up and banging both knees on the table. The remote fell from my hand and struck the table in such a way that the batteries came flying out. “Dad’s on TV! I think he won the war!”
I was so excited to see my father I’d forgotten I was the only one in the house but I didn’t have time to feel embarrassed. I didn’t have time to put the batteries back in the remote either so I scrambled over the table and launched myself at the television, flipping open the control panel and searching like crazy for the volume button.
The news people were talking about my dad and I was missing it. I tried to read their lips while I stabbed blindly for the volume button with my finger. I was pretty sure they’d just said my dad had not only won the war all by himself but he had also saved the president and they couldn’t say it on TV if it wasn’t true.
I could feel my smile bumping up against the boundaries of my face, pushing against them, threatening to break through. Maybe Dad could come home now. Maybe it could be for good this time. I found the volume button, pressed it, and held it down. It was easier to read lips with the sound turned up. They weren’t talking about the president after all.
When my mom came home I was still sitting there. A minute could have passed. Or a day. Or a week. At some point she must have pulled into the driveway but I hadn’t heard it. The storm door must have banged when she’d come inside but I hadn’t heard that either. I almost hadn’t heard her put the groceries down or call my name—once in anger when she saw I was watching TV and another time in sadness when she saw what I was watching. She came to me quickly and scooped me into her lap, putting herself between me and the television.
“Oh no,” she said. “Oh no. Oh no. Oh no.”
And she kept saying it, too, until the words just came together and weren’t really words anymore. I don’t think she even stopped to breathe. My face was pressed into her neck and when I lifted up my head I was looking at the world through the auburn curtain of her hair. On TV a girl in a raincoat with an umbrella and a microphone was standing in front of our house looking wet and serious.
“Mom?”
“Yes, baby?”
“Our house is on TV.”
“I know.”
“Why is our house on TV?”
“Because they’re vultures!” spat Aunt Josie, storming into the room and stabbing the television off with her finger. The telephone rang and Aunt Josie stomped off to get it. I overheard her say a few words I probably shouldn’t have. Mom was sobbing now and it was hard to tell who was holding who anymore.
I could see myself reflected in the blank TV screen—my small, white face peeking over my mom’s shoulder and my hands clasped around her neck. Even in the reflection you could tell she was shaking.
Words floated in my head—words the news people had said—words I knew the meaning of but wished I didn’t. Words like “missing” and “body.” There were others, too, like “rocket.”
And “dead.”
I let go of Mom and stood up and found the batteries and put them back in the remote. Then I sat on the couch, pointed it at the television, and pressed the power button. The news came back on. My dad’s picture was back in the corner. The news people were talking about him.
“Derek, don’t,” Mom said. Her voice was tiny and weak and for some reason I thought of baby birds, alone
