Ever since kindergarten, Adam had kept his distance from other kids. In the classroom, he’d always pick the farthest seat possible from everyone else. He sat by himself at lunchtime. At recess, whenever someone asked him to join in a game, be it hide-and-seek, hopscotch, or freeze tag, he would adamantly shake his head. He kept himself inside an invisible cocoon, the way a caterpillar hides from the outside world.
The thing about isolating yourself is that once you do it often enough, people tend to avoid you in return. Eventually, kids started making up nasty rumors about Adam. Nicknames, too. His belongings started vanishing and turning up in the bathroom toilets. In sixth grade, a few classmates had taken up the hobby of shoving him into the school lockers whenever they had the chance.
Unfortunately for them, Adam was as nimble as he was invisible, and he usually managed to stay out of the bullies’ way.
The school counselor, Ms. Ginger, believed there was an easy solution to every problem. A fierce woman with fiery red hair, she frequently assessed Adam’s shyness and did not hesitate to offer Uncle Henry her unyielding opinion.
“As a professionally licensed counselor, I recommend Adam join an after-school club so he can meet children with similar interests. I myself am an honorary member of the Amateur Actors Association. (We have our first musical this summer, by the way. I’ll be playing the mermaid in the second act. Please remember to book tickets in advance.) Anyway, I know firsthand how wonderful after-school activities can be. Boy Scouts, for example, is a great way to build character. (Just ask my darling sons—did you know my eldest earned his second merit badge last month? Very proud of him.) Not to mention the splendid troop uniforms…”
But after-school activities meant spare time and money, neither of which Adam or his uncle had. So Adam did not wear a splendid uniform, but instead wore secondhand clothes from thrift stores. Uncle Henry owned neither a car nor a TV.
At least they never went hungry. Uncle Henry would make his own breads and pasta, since it was significantly cheaper than buying from the grocery store. They’d often finish leftover items from the bakery, soaking them in watery soup so the bread wouldn’t taste stale.
Adam understood his uncle was poor, and tried to help out whenever he could. He was fine with not getting an allowance like the other kids. On his last birthday, he didn’t complain when he received not a single present, much less the red seven-speed bicycle he’d been eyeing for months in the bike shop’s window. He skipped the bookstores and borrowed books for free from the public library. The one downside to that was all the fill-in-the-blank adventure stories and crossword puzzles tended to be scribbled in already.
It helped that Uncle Henry was one of the best bakers around, even if not enough people seemed to know it. Adam may have had to ignore the dollar ice cream line in the school cafeteria, but he had plenty of delicious sweets to come home to.
No, despite his financial situation, despite avoiding people in the school hallways, Adam was not a mean kid. You probably already guessed that when you learned how Adam spared Speedy’s life in the kitchen.
Ultimately, however, he couldn’t save the mouse.
Just like he couldn’t save his parents.
The first instance of loss, while tragic, was not peculiar. Although Adam didn’t know it, Speedy was already one and a half years old when rescued. And mice typically don’t live longer than two years.
As for his parents’ accident, there was no way Adam could have prevented that disaster. But we are getting ahead of ourselves.
About a week after the strange man in the raincoat visited the bakery, Uncle Henry broke the news to Adam: they were short on rent that month.
“There’s old stuff in our attic that we don’t need anymore,” said his uncle, avoiding eye contact. “If you wouldn’t mind picking out some things after breakfast, I can sell them to the pawn shop later…” He trailed off uncomfortably.
Adam nibbled the last bit of his toast and nodded, reluctantly. The tiny storage space was dusty, stuffy, and home to dozens of crawling spiders and other abominations with more than six legs. Adam wasn’t afraid of bugs, but he hated when they appeared out of nowhere. He hated when anything appeared out of nowhere.
After breakfast, he climbed the ladder in their apartment that led to the attic. Forgotten boxes and broken suitcases lay scattered across the creaky floorboards. Adam made his way across the room, guided by a shaft of muted white sunlight that streamed through a small circular window. After half an hour of searching, he set aside several promising items that he suspected would sell for a decent amount of money—mostly things like candelabras, extra silverware, old curtains, and rusty tools.
Then, inevitably, one of the boxes in the corner caught his attention. The cardboard was worn, and the handwritten label on the box had faded. But one could still make out the familiar name: Tripp.
Adam’s heart raced. That particular box was one he had gone through only a few times in his life—and for good reason. Today, though, he felt drawn to open it.
A stale cloud of dust greeted him as he carefully lifted the lid. His parents, international aid workers and avid travelers, had owned a large collection of paper maps and atlases. From what Adam knew, they’d been part of an explorers’ club of some sort. Several of the maps and thick books sat in the box, nested among souvenirs from all over the world. Adam picked up a carved wooden seashell from when his parents had visited the shores of Brazil. Beneath that was a volcanic rock from Hawaii, the jagged piece of earth looking more like a black, deformed kitchen sponge. His parents had reportedly climbed an extinct volcano when they visited the tropical island. Snuggled against the rock was a smiling porcelain cat
