Jake and Lily (8 page)

D
on’t worry, he loves you, they said.

He had an audience, they said. He was uncomfortable.

He’s being a boy, they said.

Okay, I figured, with the audience he wasn’t himself. Give him a second chance. Maybe a boy isn’t so much a boy when you catch him in his room.

I waited till after dark. He was on his back on his bed, reading an X-Men comic. I had hardly stepped into the room when he said, “What?” Actually he didn’t
say
it. He
snarled
it. Practically spit it.
What’s the use
, I figured. I went back to my room.

I stood before the poster on my wall. It shows
a California Zephyr from the 1950s, way before we were born. Two engines pulling, silver with red faces and red stripes down the sides. Sleepers. Coaches. Dining car. Sightseeing dome car. I counted thirteen cars in all. Crossing the empty, endless Great Salt Flats somewhere in Utah. We were there, Jake and me, right
there
, crossing the flats just like the passengers behind the black windows in the poster. The sway of the train. The click of the wheels. I got a chill.

S
upergoobers are like hot peppers. Or staring at the sun. You can’t take too much at once.

So we busted back to the hideout and spent the rest of the day hooting and replaying every moment. We were sitting in a circle.

“Care to help!”

“Consolidate our efforts!”

“Hi, guys!”

“Want some lemonade!”

“
Hi, Soop!
I can’t believe you said that.”

“He never noticed.”

“
Wow, Ernie—you’re really somethin’.
That was awesome, Bump. How’d you keep a straight face?”

“We can’t help—we got blisters!”

We laughed so hard our stomachs hurt.

Then questions came.

“How did he get that way?”

“He was born that way.”

“Don’t parents have something to do with it?”

“Every goober I knew, their parents were perfectly normal.”

“What if a supergoober has a brother or sister? Would they be supergoobers too?”

“I got a cousin who’s a goober. Some days he’s even a supergoober.” This was Bump talking. We were all ears. “He has two sisters, my girl cousins. And they’re normal. I mean, for girls.”

“So,” said Nacho, “there’s five people in the family and only one is a goober?”

“Right,” said Bump.

“So,” said Burke, giving Bump the sly eye, “there’s a goober in your family.”

Bump stared at Burke. “Yeah. You got a problem?”

“Me?” said Burke. “
I
ain’t got no problem.”

“So
I
do?” said Bump.

“Hey—you said it, not me. There’s a goober in your family.”

Nacho poked Burke. “So what’re you saying?”

Burke shrugged. “I’m saying, ever hear of genes?”

Nacho’s brain couldn’t take it. “Huh?”

Personally, I was getting a kick out of all this. I spoke up. “Burke says maybe gooberism runs in a family. Even though Bump isn’t a goober, maybe he’s got a little bit of goober blood in him.”

Suddenly I was in the dirt. Bump had stuck his foot in my back and pushed me over. I got up laughing, but I was the only one. Bump looked like he wanted to jab a stick down my throat. “It don’t run in the family,” he said.

“Cool,” I said, sitting back up. “Tell Burke. He’s the one who said genes. Look at him.” I pointed. “Look at his face. He can’t stop grinning. He’s jukin’ you, man. Chill out.” I poked Bump. “Take a joke, dude.”

Nacho got us back on track. He made goggle circles over his eyes with his fingers and chirped, “No problemo, señors.”

We picked up our laughing where we left off.

“W
hy?”

I must have said that word a thousand times this week. And I’m still waiting for an answer from Poppy.

Oh, he’s given me answers to a lot of little whys.

Like “Why does Jake need his own room?”

“Because your parents said so.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re getting older.”

“What’s that have to do with it?”

“Maybe Jake shouldn’t be getting undressed in front of you.”

“I won’t look.”

“He’s a boy and you’re a girl.”

“No we’re not.”

“Oops, my mistake.”

It was the day after Jake walked out. We were sitting on Poppy’s living room floor. There was no furniture yet. We were playing poker. Our money was the dried beetles Poppy collected from around the world. It’s the only thing he has a lot of.

“Poppy,” I said, “you
know
what I mean. You’re missing the point. We’re not a
regular
boy and girl. We’re brother and sister. And we’re not regular brother and sister. We’re twins. And we’re not even regular twins. We’re
special
.” I squeezed his finger. “You know what I mean, Poppy. You’re the only other person who totally
knows.
”

He smiled, nodded, patted my hand. “I know. Raise you one beetle.”

“You know about the snow fort and the bruises. You know about the day at the beach. You know about our birthday and the train station. You know about goombla.”

He patted. “I know…I know….”

“So?” I said.

“So what?”

“So why?”

“Why what?”

“Why everything? Why won’t Jake ride and play with me anymore or even hardly talk to me? Why did he change? Why is he so different now? Where did our goombla go? Raise you two beetles and call you.”

“That’s a lot of whys—and one where.”

“So give me a lot of answers.”

“How about if I give you one? One answer fits all.”

“Give it.”

“He’s a boy. Three jacks.”

“Bull,” I said. “Four queens.” I took the pot.

He shrugged. He got up. “Let’s go shopping. I need furniture.”

“Poppy, you
have
to have an answer. You’re old. Old people have the answers.”

“Ask me tomorrow,” he said. “Maybe I’ll have a better answer then.”

So we went to Goodwill and got him some furniture. And he got a secondhand bike till he can afford his own car. And he looked for a job. I went with him the next day and the next. And every
day, as soon as he opened the front door, I said, “Why?” And every day he said, “He’s a boy.”

Until today, when he said, “Maybe you’re asking the wrong question.”

I got excited. “What’s the right question?”

“I don’t know,” he said.

I pounded his chest and buried my face in his shirt and pretended I was bawling, but part of me wasn’t pretending.

A
s I said before, it’s not enough to just observe a goober. You have to mess with him. You
have
to.

So day after day we pulled up to the curb at Soop’s house and we watched him hammer and saw away in his orange hat. He asked how our blisters were coming along, and we told him they were still pretty bad and we acted all sad because we couldn’t help him build the clubhouse.

We asked him tons of questions, just to keep him talking. He was our daily entertainment. Better than the movies. For instance, when we asked him what his favorite subject was, he said, “Oh, I would say mathematics.” Not just
Math
. But
Oh, I would say mathematics
. Classic goober answer.

If we didn’t get a good goober answer right away, we kept digging.

“Do you have a girlfriend?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“I’m still a little young for that.”

“You like girls, don’t you?”

“Sure.”

“Why?”

“They’re people. I like all people.”

“Do you think girls are as good as boys?”

“Absolutely. I believe in gender equality.”

Bingo!
I believe in gender equality.
It’s like digging for night crawlers. If you keep at it, sooner or later you’ll come to a beaut.

Our questions got sillier and sillier.

“How many bites does it take you to finish a hamburger?”

“Where would you wipe your nose if you forgot your handkerchief?”

“Did you ever pee while standing on your head?”

By now we didn’t even try to hide it. We were hooting and howling at the stuff he said, and he
was laughing right along. Goobers don’t know when they’re being laughed at. They just think they’re funny.

I’ve been thinking about it, and here’s the thing. A true goober—you can’t insult him. You can’t hurt him. Physically, sure. But that’s all. So go ahead, mess with him. Insult him. Mock him. Embarrass him. Boo him. Everything rolls off the inhabitants of Planet Goober. They’re invincible.

Anyway, that’s how it went—until today. Somewhere along the line Bump asked him where he moved here from and he said, “Gary, Indiana,” and Bump said, “Did you like it there?” and he said, “Yes,” and Bump said, “So why did you leave?” and there was no answer.

We were all so shocked, it took a minute to reach our brains:
He didn’t answer
. It’s totally ungoober-like to not answer a question. He just went on hammering. “Must not’ve heard,” Bump whispered. So Bump said, “Ernie?”

The hammer stopped. Ernie cocked his head. That’s another thing he does—he cocks his head when you say his name or ask a question, like he’s moving his ear to scoop up every last sound wave
from your voice. So he cocks his head and says, “Hello?”

And Bump says, “I guess you didn’t hear me. I asked you why you moved away from Gary, Indiana.”

And Soop just stares at Bump. Stares and blinks, stares and blinks. Then he suddenly jumps up and says, “Oops, I just remembered, guys. I have to go in and do something for my mother.” He runs for the door. “Seeya later!”

We all looked at each other, like,
Huh?
We hung around for a couple minutes to make sure he wasn’t coming back out. As we coasted up the street we started talking.

“He’s lying,” said Bump.

We all agreed.

“Unbelievable,” said Nacho. Because goobers don’t lie.

“And he acted like he didn’t hear you the first time,” said Burke, “but he did. So that’s like a lie too.”

We pedaled for a while, trying to make sense of it. I figured I might as well ask the obvious question. “So why’s he lying?”

We came up with lots of theories:

His father is in the mob and they’re in witness protection.

His mother is a shoplifter and they were kicked out of Indiana.

His parents lost their jobs and had to move.

Soop has allergies (most goobers have allergies) and Indiana was bad for his health.

Soop is a firebug and they had to get out before he was caught.

They lost their house in a flood.

Or an earthquake.

Or termites.

Soop is a shoplifter.

We stopped to pick up hoagies and went to the hideout and kept making theories. Most of them were just silly and we didn’t believe them ourselves. We were mostly just laughing and scratching our heads over the whole thing, but then I started to notice something. The longer the list of theories got, the more it bothered us that we didn’t know the real answer. Then Burke said something. It seems pretty innocent, even now when I think of it and write it down. He said, “It was just a simple
question.” That’s all. “It was just a simple question.” But now that I look back on it, and I remember his face as he said it and the sharp edge in his voice, I think maybe that was the moment things turned in a different direction. Because then the guys started saying stuff like:

“Yeah, a simple question. ‘Why did you move here?’”

“So why can’t he answer? Don’t we deserve an answer?”

“He didn’t have to go in and do something for his mother. He made that up.”

“He lied.”

“We come over every day. We keep him company. Look what he does.”

“He lies to us.”

By the time we were done saying all this, something had changed. Soop was still funny, but funny wasn’t the
only
thing he was. Something else was in there too, I wasn’t sure what. Then Bump said, “He didn’t just lie. He lied to the Death Rays.”

There it was. It was like the last skinny sunbeam went behind a cloud and the sky was dark
and getting darker and you knew you better pedal for home before you got wet.

And then Bump rolled his hoagie paper into a ball and threw it across the hideout and said, “He’s gonna pay.”

“I
’m getting scared,” I told Poppy.

We were in his kitchen. He was making me a PB&J sandwich. Without the J. He forgot to get jelly. There are lots of things his house doesn’t have yet.

So he said, “This about your brother by any chance?”

I told him it was.

He handed me the sandwich. “Milk?”

“Yes, please,” I said. “Do you have chocolate syrup by any chance?”

“Sorry,” he said. “So—it seems like you were mad at first. Then sad.” He gave me a glass of milk. “Now you’re scared?”

I stared at my lunch. “Yeah.”

“How so?”

“We’re writing our journals, you know? Like you said?”

“Right. Good.”

“Well, we always kind of knew what the other one was writing. But now I don’t know. I, like, try to tune in to him. But I can’t.”

“Eat your sandwich.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“I’m not going to talk to you unless you eat.”

I took a bite. “Talk.”

“So why does that scare you?”

“Because it means I’m losing him.”

He chuckled. “You’re not losing him.”

“I’m glad
you
think it’s funny.”

He came over to my chair, lifted me off, sat down, and plunked me onto his lap. “I don’t think it’s funny. I just think you’re wrong, that’s all. You’re never going to lose him. He’ll always be your brother. This is just a phase.”

I pounded the table. “Phase, my hiney. It’s bad enough he doesn’t want to be around me anymore. But now our goombla is starting to go away.” I quick turned to look into his face. Our noses
bumped. “Poppy…” In his eyes I found all the love there was, and still it wasn’t enough. “Poppy, we’re becoming untangled!” I was crying again.

He hugged me and rocked me for a while. He put the sandwich in front of my face. Finally I took another bite.

“I’d wipe your tears with a napkin,” he said, “except I don’t have napkins.”

“You don’t have anything,” I sniveled. “Who ever heard of a house without jelly?”

“Let me know when you’re finished feeling sorry for yourself,” he said. “I have something to say.”

I wanted to grump for a year, but I only lasted a minute. “Okay,” I said finally, “what do you have to say?”

He tapped the table twice with his fingernail. “I think I know your problem.”

“Big deal,” I said. “I know it too. It’s
him
.”

“I don’t think so,” he said. “I think”—he pointed—“it’s you.”

I sneered. “Right, Poppy. I’m being dumped by my own brother and it’s my fault.”

He stared at me for a long time, squinting, then
he said, “You know what you need?”

“I can’t wait,” I said. “What?”

“A life.”

“Huh?”

“You need a life.”

I looked around. I couldn’t find a mirror. I pulled at my shirt. I poked my stomach. “Isn’t this me? Aren’t I real? Alive? What am I—a ghost?”

“You’re too wrapped up in your brother. You need a life of your own. Not a Lily-and-Jake life. A Lily life.”

“But you’re the one who said we’re entangled. Now you’re telling me I’m too wrapped up in him? Did you lie to us before?”

“No, I didn’t lie.” He got up. He sat on the edge of the table. “It’s true, there is something very special between you and Jake. And it will always be there. But you can’t allow it to stop you from becoming your own person. There’s a life waiting for you away from Jake. You need to find it.”

I turned away. I looked out the window. I saw backyards and fences and houses and sky. I remembered the day at the beach: Jake and me secretly grinning under our parents’ scolding, knowing
we weren’t really lost, knowing—even if we were at opposite ends of the universe—we could never be lost. I tried to imagine life away from Jake. I couldn’t.

I turned to Poppy. He was getting blurry. I felt my lip quiver. I croaked, “I don’t have a life!”