Brendan Buckley's Universe and Everything in It (12 page)

CHAPTER 21

Sunday came and went (thankfully Gladys wanted to stay home because she’d been to our house Friday and Saturday), then Monday. Still, I couldn’t seem to get the words out of my mouth that I’d gone with Ed on the expedition. Every time my parents came around, my tongue turned to cement. I kept telling myself I’d already been grounded for two weeks—how much worse could it get?

My birthday was coming up. What if they said I couldn’t have a party—or there’d be no presents? I couldn’t tell them.

Tuesday night was my purple belt exam. I spent most of the day in the basement, going over my forms. Mom and Dad came with me to the
dojang.
They sat in the back next to Khalfani’s dad.

“How’s prison life?” Khal whispered when I joined him on the mat. I hadn’t even told Khal that I’d gone with Ed DeBose to hunt thunder eggs, but he knew that I’d been grounded for going to see him before.

“All right,” I said, then fixed my eyes to the front, where Master Rickman was introducing the first testers—little guys who couldn’t have been older than five or six. The
cho bo ja
—beginners—wore white belts symbolizing innocence. A very long time ago, or so it seemed now, that had been me.

We had to sit cross-legged and watch all the groups before us: white, yellow and blue. Just when I thought my butt couldn’t take any more, Master Rickman called for the blue belts with purple stripes. Khal nudged me. We walked to the front.

Khal and I went first. I bowed, then stood in ready position. Each form we’d mastered required us to demonstrate a series of kicks and punches, in the correct order. Master Rickman gave us the signal, and we started to move through the
hyungs
for each level.

Chon-ji
came so easily at this point that I didn’t even have to think about it. Just like riding my bike.

My bike. Would I ever get it back? My parents were letting me earn extra allowance by doing more chores so I could buy a new one, which I’d do after I sent Ed money for the pick.

I forgot where I was in the sequence. I hesitated, feeling my ears get warm. I glanced at Khalfani, trying to remember what to do next, then jerked back into motion, hoping my mistake hadn’t been too noticeable.

We moved on to
dan-gun
—planting the seeds. Then we were sprouting—
do-san
—the form for the yellow belt. Then on to
won-hyo
and
yol-guk.

Finally I reached
joong-gun,
the pattern I’d learned after I received the purple stripe on my blue belt. I flowed through it like the water in the stream at Olympic View Park. It was a cinch.

After that, Khalfani and I had to demonstrate our kicks and punches in a sparring match. The hardest part was not touching each other. Our school of Tae Kwon Do uses noncontact sparring as a way to promote discipline. I spun, jumped and kicked. I blocked every one of Khal’s punches. I finished with the “killing blow”—my fist an inch away from Khalfani’s head.

The last thing we had to do was pass the
kyepka
—the break test. Master Rickman placed a board in the holder on the wall. Khal turned to the side, balanced himself and shot his leg through the wood.
Snap!
He’d gotten it in one try!

I wanted to high-five him, but I kept my cool.

It was my turn. I stepped into position and focused on the board. Just as I was about to raise my leg, I caught Dad’s eye in the mirror. Suddenly I felt like Superman in front of kryptonite. I kicked in a feeble attempt, but I knew: I didn’t deserve the purple belt.

Master Rickman let me try two more times. I broke the board on the third attempt, but still I knew. I couldn’t take the belt, even if it was offered.

I bowed and returned to my seat on the ground. “What happened?” Khal asked. I just shrugged. The room was crowded and hot, the floor as hard as brick. My
do bok
seemed to have shrunk on my body. It felt two sizes too small. The belt was suddenly too tight.

By the time the brown belts got up to test, I wanted to run out of the room. At the end of this exam, Master Rickman would call my name, bow to me and present me with my new belt. A belt I couldn’t accept.

I hadn’t been noble at all. I’d snuck out of my house, almost gotten Ed killed, and then not told my parents what I’d done.

I’d found a way to feel okay about it before, but now, about to be honored as a purple-belt Tae Kwon Do warrior, I knew I was wrong.

I held myself still, feeling like a melting candle as sweat dripped down my face and sides. My deodorant was failing me big-time.

When Master Rickman invited me forward, I bowed, then stepped close and whispered in his ear. He put the belt back on the table and I returned to my seat, seeing my parents’ confused stares.

When I went over to my parents afterward, I kept my head down.

“What was that all about?” Dad asked.

“I went with Ed again. To look for rocks.” I held still, waiting for Mom to tell me what big trouble I was in, but she didn’t say anything. “And because I needed to ask him for the truth. About what happened in the past. Because that’s what scientists do. They search for the truth.” I looked at them. “And Tae Kwon Do warriors are supposed to tell the truth. I’m sorry I wasn’t honest.”

“That’s why you didn’t accept your belt?” Mom asked.

“Purple stands for noble.” I lowered my chin again, feeling my eyes get watery.

Mom pulled me into her arms. “Oh, Boo, sometimes people do things and don’t know why. I guess it’s time we talked about Ed.”

I looked up at Dad. “Are you mad?”

“I think I can understand why you did what you did.”

“Are you mad at Ed?”

“I was mad. But in the end it was his problem.” He put his hand on my back.

“Science is supposed to be unprejudiced,” I said, “but I guess that doesn’t mean scientists always will be.” Mom squeezed me again.

Dad patted my shoulder. “Your color is not who you are. Understand?”

I pulled back from Mom.
The streak test.
Hematite was black, but its streak was red. “Color is just a part of who you are…like a mineral,” I said. I remembered what that boy had said at the park, and the truth that everyone bleeds red. That was sort of like hematite, too, and like me. Black on the outside, red on the inside.

Dad rubbed my back. “An important part, but only a part.”

Mom swiped my sweaty hair away from my face. “Now go get your belt,” she said. “You’ve told the truth.”

Back home, Dad went to the kitchen to make his specialty, macaroni and cheese, in celebration of my purple belt. I grabbed my
Book of Big Questions.
Mom and I were finally talking about Ed, and I had plenty to ask. Had Ed met Dad before he decided he didn’t like him? Had he ever asked to meet me? Why did he think the way he did about blacks and whites getting married?

I wanted to know the real deal about Ed. It didn’t make sense to keep the truth covered up. It’d been covered up all these years, and that hadn’t helped anything. I would dig for answers as if I were back on that mountain looking for a thunder egg. And I would accept what I heard, even if it felt like taking an
ap cha gee
—front kick—to the gut.

Mom put her feet up on the coffee table. She patted the couch next to her. “What’s that?” she asked, pointing to my notebook.

“Brendan Buckley’s Book of Big Questions About Life, the Universe and Everything in It.”
I sank onto the brown leather.

“Life and the universe, huh? Those
would
be some big questions.” She rested her head on the back of the couch. “So, what kinds of questions does my curious kid have?”

I opened my book. “Well, for one, what makes bananas taste so good and peas taste so gross?”

“I’d be very interested to know what you find out about that.” Mom doesn’t like peas, either. “I guess you’ve probably got a few about your grandpa in there.”

I nodded, scanning my list. Over the past couple of months, I had written down more questions about Ed than anything else. “Did Grandpa DeBose even meet Dad before he said you couldn’t marry him?”

Mom shook her head.

I’d had a feeling that was the answer I’d get.

“They met the day we got married.” She pushed herself up and put her feet on the floor.

“Ed was at your wedding?” It still felt weird to call him Grandpa.

“Not exactly. I told my parents your dad and I were getting married at City Hall, and they were welcome to come if they wanted. My father came—to stop us. He and your dad”—she hesitated—“exchanged some words.”

Ed and Dad had had it out?
Whoa
. “Were Gladys and Grampa Clem there?”

She nodded.

That was how Gladys had known what Ed looked like. Apparently, Ed hadn’t remembered
her
as clearly.

Mom continued. “Gladys wasn’t exactly excited about your dad and me, either, but Grampa Clem helped her see that it would be all right. They stood by us when we said our vows, and from that day forward, they treated me like their own daughter.”

“You said Ed knew about me. How?” The question wasn’t in my notebook, but it would be soon, along with the answer.

“I sent my parents a letter after you were born. I guess I just wanted them to know.”

I stared at my notebook. “Why didn’t you take me to see them?”

She gazed in the direction of the chandelier over the table. “I was angry, and hurt….”

“Did Ed ever ask to meet me?”

Mom looked at her feet. “He did.”

“But you wouldn’t let him?”

“I was angry, and hurt. Maybe keeping you from my father was my way to get back at him.” She put her hand on mine. “I never meant to hurt you, sweetie.”

I felt like one of Ed’s chess pieces. Mom had used me like a pawn, trying to win the game. In the end, no one had won anything. We had all lost out.

“Did you
try
to make up with him?” I asked.

“As far as I was concerned, it was his responsibility to make up with me. He was the one who caused the problem. He needed to be the one to fix it.”

I remembered the fortune I’d gotten at Mom’s office. I still had it in my desk drawer. “The one who forgives ends the argument,” I said.

Mom’s eyelids lowered. She smiled. “When did you get so grown-up?”

“I’m almost eleven, you know.”

She sighed. “I know.”

“And that stuff about forgiveness is from a fortune cookie. Remember?” I grinned.

Dad poked his head out from the kitchen. “Grub’s on in five.”

I inhaled the smell of buttery cheesiness.
Mmmmm.
“So are you going to talk to him?” I asked.

Mom wrapped her arms around her middle as if she’d been cut in half and needed to hold herself together. “I’m not sure. Would you like me to?”

There was that question again. Did I want to see Ed anymore? I shrugged. “It was kind of nice having a grandpa again.”

Mom nodded.

“But I wish I understood why he didn’t want you to marry Dad, especially when he didn’t even know him.”

“That’s a big question, sweetie. And the answer is even bigger. But what you just said gets at part of it. People get caught up in appearances. We don’t look beyond to the person inside.”

I thought again about what minerals had taught me. A mineral’s color was important, but it was only part of what made it what it was. The color on the inside—what you learned by scraping the mineral against a hard surface—told you much more about what that mineral actually was.

Mom put her arms around me and I let her hug me as long as she wanted, even if I
was
almost eleven.

CHAPTER 22

A couple of Sundays later, Gladys came over for dinner as usual. She had just asked what we were going to do at my birthday party when the doorbell rang. Mom pushed back her chair. “You expecting someone?” she asked Dad.

“Nope.” He shook his head.

I sawed on my chicken. For my birthday the following Saturday, I’d invited Khalfani, Oscar and Marcus over for a pizza party, and I couldn’t wait. I hoped my parents would get me the salamander I’d asked for.

The door opened at the bottom of the stairs, but no one spoke. I stopped chewing so I could hear.

“Who is it, Kate?” Dad called out.

Mom didn’t reply.

“I—” A rough voice, like granite. I pushed out of my chair and rushed to the top of the stairs. Ed stood at the door. His mouth made a straight line like a zipped-up zipper. The wrinkles on his forehead were dark lines. He glanced at me, then back at Mom. “I came to give Brendan something.” He held a box wrapped in newspaper comics. An envelope poked out from underneath.

Mom stood in the doorway like a small giant guarding a castle. She didn’t move. “This is quite a surprise,” she said.

“For me, too.” He shifted on his feet.

“Are you going to come in?” I asked. It seemed dumb for them just to stand there staring at each other. Plus I wanted to know what was in the package.

Dad’s hand pressed down on my shoulder. Gladys came to my other side. “It’s about time,” she said under her breath, but loud enough that everyone probably heard.

Mom stepped back and motioned for Ed to come in. He stood in the corner while she closed the door, then followed her up the stairs.

“Ed,” Dad said.

Ed nodded at him. At the top of the stairs, he handed me the box and card. “Happy birthday,” he said.

“You remembered.” I stared at the present.

Dad pointed to the love seat and Ed perched on the edge. His face was as pink as rhodochrosite. He wrung his hands between his knees. Gladys leaned back in the rocker, and Mom and Dad sat on the couch.

I shuffled toward the love seat. Sitting next to Ed reminded me of being in his truck. I set the envelope on the seat next to me and ripped the paper from the box. “My first birthday present,” I said. “Just five days”—I looked at my watch—“four hours and fifty-two minutes until I’m eleven.”

Ed chuckled.

I held up a wooden box with a glass lid.

“I made the box,” he said, “but the real gift is inside.”

I looked through the glass. Two sides of a cut-open rock sat in a cloud of cotton. It looked like a small brain sliced open to show the insides. One half was almost a mirror image of the other, but not quite.

I opened the lid and picked up one half of the rock. I turned it over in my hand. “It’s the thunder egg we got!” I held it up for Mom, Dad and Gladys to see. “They know,” I said to Ed. “That we went, I mean.”

“Oh.” He kept his eyes on the rock. “Actually, it’s not a thunder egg.”

My shoulders slumped. “It’s not?”

“It’s agate. The rare Ellensburg Blue. Probably worth a couple hundred bucks.”

“Whoa,” Dad said.

Two hundred dollars? I’d never had that much money before, but I knew I would never sell this beauty—not even for a new bike.

I set it back in its place. Sitting next to each other, the two halves looked almost like a heart. In the center of the heart, black speckles like lead shavings made the shape of a cow’s head. A clump of pinkish white crystals grew in a hole on the left side. Bluish stone filled in the rest, sometimes dark, sometimes light, like ocean water surrounding and connecting everything it touched.

“It’s much better than the solid chunk I’ve got at home,” Ed said. “I think the mix of black moss agate and white quartz with the blue makes it even more special.” He winked at me. “What do you think?”

I picked up one of the halves and handed it to him. “I think you should keep half and I should keep half.”

He put his arm around me and patted my shoulder. “No, no, this one’s yours. I bet we can find us some more, though.” I glanced at Mom. Her lips looked like a shut-tight oyster. Ed spoke again. “Did you know the only other place where rock like the Ellensburg Blue has been found is in Africa?”

I shook my head.

“Not surprising,” Gladys said. “It’s a land of greatness.”

Mom crossed her arms. “What if something had happened to him? We would have had no idea where he was.” If only she knew how close we’d come to something bad happening. I hadn’t told her that part.

“You’re right,” Ed said. “It was irresponsible of me. Hopefully in the future we’ll go with your approval.” He looked at Dad. “And yours, too, of course. You’ve got one heck of a son.”

“Yes, we do,” Dad said.

“He’s a heck of a grandson, too,” Gladys chimed in.

Mom exhaled loudly, but at least she hadn’t said we could never go digging together. Seeing Ed and the rock we’d found, I knew I’d want to go with him again. “Don’t forget the card, Bren,” Mom said.

I tore open the envelope. On the front, a stork carried a baby by a blanket in its beak.
WELCOME, BABY BOY
, it said. I felt my forehead wrinkle. A baby card?

I opened it. It was signed “Love, Grandma.”

“Your grandma never had a chance…” Ed looked at his hands. “She loved you very much, even though she never met you.” He cleared his throat.

I stood and handed the card to Mom. When she opened it, she sucked in her breath. Her eyes watered.

“I have something to share with you, too.” I ran to my room, set the box on my bed and opened my desk drawer. I pulled out the library book I’d been reading the night before. My eye landed on the fortune from Mom’s office. “The one who forgives ends the argument.” I’d only applied it to Mom and Ed, but suddenly I realized it could also apply to me.

Back in the living room, I flipped pages, scanning the words. I felt everyone’s eyes on me. Finally, I found the sentence I was looking for. I read it out loud. “‘Rocks, as with most other things in nature, are seldom exactly one thing or the other…granite and basalt in varying amounts make up a group of other rocks with in-between colors….’”

I closed the book and stared at the cover. It was called
City Rocks, City Blocks and the Moon.
I’d picked it because of the “moon” part. I still hoped to figure out how to get a moon rock of my own.

“I’m an in-between color,” I said, “and I belong to both.” Dad, Mom, Gladys—and Ed DeBose. “Both black and white people.”

I looked Ed in the eye. “And I forgive you for what you did. And what you thought.”

Mom made a sound like air rushing out of a balloon.

Ed stared at the carpet, his elbows on his knees.

“I was wrong, Kate,” he said, finally, looking up at her. “I shouldn’t have kept you from your mother. Sam, I’m sorry for how I treated you, as well.” Then he gazed at me. His azurite-colored eyes looked like overflowing pools. Tears spilled out and ran down both cheeks like streams trickling down a mountainside.

“And you,” he said, “I missed seeing you grow up.” He pulled his handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his eyes and nose. “What a fool I’ve been.”

I sank onto the love seat. “I’m not
all
grown up,” I said, and then I was hugging him, smelling his clothes that smelled just like Mom’s clean laundry. “Grandpa…” I said it quietly, but I knew he heard me, because he squeezed back.

“Mom?” I asked. “Can he have dinner with us?”

Mom glanced at Dad. He nodded. She blew air out of her nose. “Would you like to join us?” She motioned toward the table.

Ed stuffed his handkerchief into his back pocket. “Well…I mean, are you sure?”

My heart beat like a hummingbird’s.

“I guess, well, if you’re offering,” Ed said. “I’ve never been one to turn down a good meal.”

Mom warmed up the food while Dad found a chair and set it next to mine. I got out an extra plate and silverware.

“So Brendan tells me detectives and geologists are a lot alike,” I heard Dad say.

Gladys poured Ed some of her Mountain Dew. “Your daughter only buys sugar-free,” she said as she headed to the table. “Better get used to it.”

Then we all sat down and ate together.

Later, in bed, I opened my
Book of Big Questions
. I read again the question I hadn’t been able to answer: “What makes white people be mean to black people?”

I didn’t think I knew the full answer, but it seemed to me that in Grandpa DeBose’s case, at least, it’d had something to do with a bad kind of pride, and maybe fear. Fear of what was different and of things he didn’t know about. I was glad that when I didn’t know something, I tried to learn more about it.

Like with dust and wondering where it came from. I remembered what I had learned. People create dust. And in a way, people
are
dust. We all eventually die—at least a part of us does. Maybe it was that dusty part that caused us to be mean and not very accepting at times.

But people could also change. Grandpa DeBose had changed.

I flipped back a couple of pages and found the reason I had opened the book in the first place. I checked off the question “What am I?”

Here is What I Found Out: I am a scientist, a mineral collector, a sometimes noble Tae Kwon Do warrior, a friend, a son, a grandson, someone who belongs to both black and white people, a mixture like a rock, my color but, much more, myself—Brendan Samuel Buckley.