The Saturday Boy

The beeping in the background suddenly seemed louder. I could even hear the sound of the intercom even though I couldn’t understand what it was saying. Mom hadn’t said anything for a while and her silence was starting to scare me a little. I hoped I hadn’t disappointed her.

“Mom? Hello?”

“What did it say?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t opened it yet.”

“Why not?”

I told her everything that I’d been thinking about. Mom listened without saying anything.

“Is that weird?” I asked when I was finished. “Am I weird?”

“No, of course you’re not weird. Why would you think that?”

“I don’t think most people think the same way I do. Most people would just open the letter.”

“You’re not most people, Derek, and y’know what? I’m glad you’re not most people. Sometimes it’s better not to do what everyone else is doing. Take lemmings for example—” She stopped and took a breath. “The important thing—the only thing really—is how you see yourself. In the end, that’s all that matters. Opening the letter is your decision, okay? And I won’t think you’re weird if you decide not to.”

I thought about that for a second, picturing hundreds of lemmings as they charged over a cliff into the ocean except for one that was struggling to go in the other direction.

“I think I’m going to open it,” I said. “But not because it’s what everybody else would do. It’s what I want to do.”

“Good.”

“Plus Dad may have included some special, secret army codes for me to crack, you never know.”

“No you don’t, do you?” Mom said. “I hate to say this but I have to go now. Are you going to be okay?”

I pictured the lemming again. It wasn’t any bigger or stronger than the rest but it kept going no matter how many times it got pushed back or run over.

“Yeah, Mom. I will. I’ll be okay.”

She hung up and I hung up and I sat there on her bed for a minute not feeling like I might be weird anymore. And so what if I was? If people thought I was weird that was their problem. I got up, went to my room, and tore the envelope open, but when I shook it to get the letter out a picture fell out instead.

My dad. In his flight suit. His helmet under one arm. Smiling. Giving the thumbs-up. The sun glinted off his sunglasses. The Apache helicopter was a ginormous black hornet behind him. I remembered this one time Dad told me that the ground troops always said they felt safer when they heard an Apache overhead. Now I knew why.

I looked at the picture for a little while. Then I turned it over to see if he’d written anything on the back but he hadn’t so I put it aside and slid the letter out of the envelope. I hadn’t taken a breath in what seemed like a long time. For some reason the letter was trembling as I unfolded it.

Derek—

Guess who’s not grounded anymore?

I’ll be flying a sortie in a little while and wanted to write before I left to wish you good luck in your play. I’m sorry I won’t be there to see it. I know you’ll be great and I’m proud of you for trying something new (even if it’s only because there’s ghosts in it).

I was sorry to hear from Mom that Budgie’s giving you some trouble. I bet she’s telling you to be the bigger person, right? It’s a good idea but honestly, an idea won’t stop him from bugging you. Don’t give up though—every problem has a solution, even if it’s not clear at first. You’ll find it.

Zeroman sounds really cool. I can’t wait to watch it with you. It might not be for a little while, though, so you’ll have to fill me in on all the details when I get home, O.K.?

Love,

Dad

P.S. How do you like my chopper? Her name’s Buttercup.

When I finished reading it I read it again. I studied the way each letter ran into the next, the way his n’s sometimes looked like h’s and how there were some letters that didn’t look like letters at all but were weird squiggles instead and the only way to figure out what he meant was by reading the stuff around it. I had joked with Mom about it but Dad’s letters really were written in a kind of code. It was just a code I’d gotten used to cracking.

I put the letter and the picture back into the envelope and put the envelope under my pillow. Then I lay back with my hands behind my head and stared up at the hook where my Apache helicopter used to hang. Maybe it was because it was directly overhead or maybe it was because it was the only spot on my ceiling that didn’t have a model hanging from it but the empty space seemed huge. If it were a voice, it’d be yelling. I didn’t like being yelled at.

I got up, went to the linen closet, and found the hook-ended stick we used to pull down the attic stairs, reminding myself to get out of the way this time. The door sproinged downward and the steps came clattering out.

“Derek!” Aunt Josie called from downstairs. “Are you okay? What was that?”

“Nothing!” I shouted back. “I’m just getting something from the attic!”

“The attic? Why? What are you getting?”

But I was already halfway up the stairs and pretending I didn’t hear her. It was cold in the attic and my breath came out of me in little clouds as I felt around for the pull string that would turn the light on. I almost went back down for a sweater but then my fingers brushed the string and I grabbed it and gave it a tug. The light came on, dim at first, but getting brighter as it warmed up and I watched the shadows retreat into the corners. I wasn’t scared—I just hoped what I was looking for wasn’t back there in the dark.

It wasn’t.

The Apache helicopter had fallen behind some boxes and the fishing line was all knotted and tangled but luckily nothing was broken. I picked it up and used part of my shirt to dust it off, figuring I could untangle the fishing line in my room where the light was better. Then I clicked the light off and hurried down the stairs before the shadows could jump out and get me.

* * *

Untangling the fishing line didn’t take long and when I was done I got a sock from my dresser, put it on my hand, and wiped the rest of the dust off the helicopter. Then I took the chopper into the bathroom, got a Q-tip, and cleaned the spaces in between the missiles where they attached to the wing pylons and where the rotors snapped into the body—anywhere I hadn’t been able to reach with my dusting sock. I held the helicopter up and the light seemed to bounce off of it. I’d swear it was cleaner than it had been when my dad and I had first put it together.

I went back to my room, sat at my desk, and went through my drawers until I found my modeling paints and a brush. Using white paint, I very carefully wrote the word ‘Buttercup’ underneath the cockpit on both sides, twisting the bristles into a point with my fingers each time before dipping it in the paint so the letters would be sharper. It was taking a long time but I stuck with it. I mean, drawing the scales on the piranhadiles had been harder and this meant way more to me than that did. After the paint was dry I stood on my bed and put the helicopter back on its hook. I looked at it for a while as it twisted slowly back and forth and was so focused on it I almost didn’t hear the tapping at the door.

“Derek?” Aunt Josie said. “You’ve been up here for a while. Everything okay?”

“Yup.”

“Can I come in?”

I opened the door and we looked at each other for a moment or two without saying anything. Aunt Josie searched my face while I looked at the ring in her nostril, deciding it must’ve hurt when she got it even though she’d said it hadn’t. She must have found what she was looking for because she smiled.