The Summer Experiment Page 10

  The incident was important enough that at last Marilee e-mailed me. Attached to her e-mail was a photo of shards of glass sticking out of her mother’s rosebush. Another photo was taken from her bedroom window and was of the greenhouse itself, which now looked like a giant mushroom had exploded. The trouble with Henry was that he had about three really bad ideas until he came up with a brilliant one. And that’s what worried me. In the past, he had always rooted up a gem in time for the fair. Such as the potato battery that could power a digital clock. Or the solar oven made inside an oatmeal box that could fry an egg. And he always won.

  I went on our school’s Facebook page and saw a photo of Henry. It was posted by Mrs. Dionne, our science teacher, in the hopes that his classmates would offer him their condolences. So far, only Mrs. Dionne had posted anything. Get well soon, Henry, was all her message said. And then Henry’s little sister, Pearl, had posted something too. My new Barbie doll is missing! It better not be because of you, Henry! I didn’t even want to remember the time Henry got involved with a Barbie doll project. It had to do with Barbie’s fibers. Or rather the synthetic fibers her hair is made from. But I’ll save that story for later when I have the stomach to tell it.

  I guess Henry’s mother took the photo of him. His cucumber face was all wrapped up in a white bandage, enough that just his beady eyes were peering out. I figured if you undid the bandage, the face beneath would now look like a toasted Tootsie Roll. Below the photo, Henry had offered these words of wisdom for the world: This accident will only make me stronger. I suspect that great botanical minds before me have also blown up their moms’ greenhouses. If the Brassica family does not wish to join the Solanum family, so be it. You’d think he was the godfather of the Mafia or something, instead of a nerdy kid trying to win the science fair. Once healed, I shall be back on track with a much bigger and much more important project!

  Darn. For a minute there, I thought the Bunsen burner was on my team.

  ***

  Marilee was obviously willing to talk to me about Henry, but not Peterson’s Mountain. After lying on my bed for two more hours and staring at the light fixture on my ceiling, I’d had it. I hoped the horse would whinny so loud that Marilee’s bedroom windows would rattle.

  AllagashRobbie: NEVER MIND ABOUT HENRY!

  AllagashRobbie: I WANT TO TALK AND I WANT TO TALK NOW! AND YOU KNOW ABOUT WHAT!!

  The rooster sounded almost scared when it crowed.

  MeMarilee: Be right over.

  When she arrived, Marilee sat on the end of my bed, wearing her black Nikes instead of those ugly red sneakers.

  “What do you want me to say?” she asked. She looked pale.

  “Only the truth,” I answered.

  “Okay, I saw a big, big ship of some kind. It was huge. It had lights under it. It chased Johnny. The light that shone in the cave wasn’t a four-wheeler. It had to be that thing in the sky. We lost two hours of time. Satisfied?”

  “Finally,” I said, and let out a sigh of relief.

  “I think this calls for an ice cream,” said Marilee.

  Marilee and I have a philosophy about ice cream. It’s good for the brain. We might even have our brains preserved after we die and then donated to science. But we’ll only sign the papers if our brains are frozen in ice cream.

  ***

  At Flagg’s Grocery we ran into two girls from our class, Lydia and Sydni. The four of us bought our ice creams and were sitting next to our bikes on the grassy hill by the library when we heard a siren in the distance. The thing about a siren in a small town like ours is that it gets your attention right away. In the city, I figure people hear sirens all day long and don’t pay any attention since there are hundreds of thousands, even millions, of people there. But in a town like Allagash, a siren means that someone you know is in trouble.

  Sometimes, although it’s rare, they’re in trouble with the law and that siren is blue and on the top of a police car. But most of the time it’s red and on the top of an ambulance. And it’s coming to pick up a neighbor or a family member. So it’s a scary sound until the ambulance stops at someone’s house or at the nursing home, and then telephones ring all over town and you finally have an answer as to who it’s for. We watched in awed silence as the red light flew past us and disappeared around the corner at Flagg’s Grocery.

  “I bet it’s for Mr. Kingsland,” Lydia said. “Mom said the hospital sent him home too soon, especially since it’s pneumonia he has and he’s almost ninety.”

  “Or it could be for Della’s mother,” said Sydney. “She’s been sick for some time now.”

  “Or maybe Joey Wallace made another fake phone call,” said Marilee. It was known all over town that Joey would get bored now and then and start phoning up places he shouldn’t. Sometimes he would call Flagg’s Grocery store and ask the owner if he had pigs’ feet. When Bill Flagg said yes, that he did indeed have them, Joey would shout, “Well, put on shoes and no one will ever know it!”

  “Maybe Freddy jumped off his dad’s barn again,” I said. “Or the schoolhouse roof.” Joey Wallace had once bet Freddy Goble a dollar that he didn’t dare jump off his father’s barn. Freddy did dare and he broke an ankle in doing so. But he got his dollar before he limped into the back of the ambulance, which had been called since Freddy also knocked himself out when he hit the ground and people weren’t sure for a time if he was still alive. Just as the ambulance was pulling up next to the barn, Freddy sat up and asked for his dollar.

  Then Joey gave him five dollars to jump off the school building, which was a lot higher than the barn. Freddy broke both ankles in that jump and also cracked his funny bone, which wasn’t funny at all, especially to his mother. But, businessman that he was, Freddy made four more dollars than with the barn jump. So when we heard the ambulance, we always hoped that it might be Joey Wallace or Freddy Goble behind it. That meant no one was sick or dying, unless it might be Freddy jumping from the bridge or parachuting out of an airplane.

  We were just finishing our ice cream cones when the ambulance came roaring back down the road, headed to the hospital in Fort Kent. When an ambulance goes by, I always feel like maybe I should put my hand across my heart or something, the way folks here do when a hearse goes by with a dearly beloved. And this time, I really felt that way and I wasn’t sure why. I noticed the outline of a person in the back, leaning over what was probably a patient on a stretcher. Something seemed familiar about that silhouette. But I figured it might be Freddy’s mom and maybe he’d broken both his legs this time. Possibly even his neck.

  I was wrong. Dead wrong. But I didn’t know that as Johnny biked by and I decided to follow my brother home. I said, “See ya later,” to Marilee and Sydni and Lydia as I got back on my bike and kicked up my stand.

  Funny how just the sound of a siren can change your life forever.

  15

  Our Great Loss

  I was just biking into my front yard, following Johnny’s rear bumper, when it hit me who that silhouette looked like. I got a sick feeling in my stomach, but I was still telling myself it was just a feeling, not a fact. But then I saw Mom standing on the front porch waiting for us, and I knew it wasn’t just a feeling anymore. Her face was the kind of white I rarely saw, the color human beings keep for the real big and sad stuff that life has to offer. Deathly white. She had a hand up to her mouth. Her other hand held the remote phone to her ear. Then she lowered the phone and looked at us, her eyes shiny with big tears.

  “Your grandpa just had a heart attack,” she said. It was Grandma’s silhouette I saw in the ambulance. I knew it. “Uncle Horace is driving up from Bangor as fast as he can. Marilee’s mom has taken your sister over to her house. You kids stay here and wait until Daddy gets home.”

  And then, before we could even beg to go with her and just sit in the waiting room, as if maybe we could help by being there, she went running toward her car. It backed
out of our drive and up onto the road. Mom gave us one last quick look, as if to say she loved us and please stay safe until she got back from the hospital. And then she sped off down the road.

  ***

  Johnny and I had microwaved a pizza, which was my specialty since how many science geeks do you know who are great cooks? And we had eaten it while we watched Top Gear, which is his favorite show about cars, and I sort of like it too. But nothing could take our minds off Grandpa and what might be going on at the hospital. I imagined him getting up from the bed, smiling and happy, and saying stuff like maybe Loring Air Force Base was behind them making him wear a hospital gown and stuff like that. I thought if I pictured him being well and happy, maybe he would be. But then Dad drove in the yard really fast and we heard his door slam. By the time he came in the front door, he was pretending he was all calm and that he hadn’t driven fast at all. We both knew he was putting on a face for us so we wouldn’t get upset. A kid can tell a lot from what parents don’t say.

  “Your mom wants to know if you’d like to come and visit your grandpa,” he said, his voice soft and steady. I almost got excited about seeing my grandfather, but I could tell by Dad’s eyes that it wasn’t good. Johnny grabbed his jacket and I grabbed my sweater.

  ***

  Mom was in the waiting room, peering up at the clock when we got there. She smiled at me, a sad smile, as she wrapped her arms around me and squeezed me tight. Then she did the same to Johnny. There was a peace about her now, as if she had accepted whatever was to come.

  “Your grandpa is probably not going to make it,” she said. She pushed hair behind both of my ears, and ordinarily I’d have told her, “Mom, pleeeeezzze don’t do that. You know how I hate it!” But I said nothing. Let her push all the hair she wanted to. She wasn’t even aware that she was doing it anyway. “But I have a feeling he can hear us. And I knew you two would want to say good-bye.”

  I felt my head nodding and then my dad took my hand just as if I were still a little girl. That was okay too, because I felt like a baby just then. I needed my father and my mother and my big brother. We followed Mom down the long hallway, passing rooms where faces peered out at us. When we reached a door that said No Visitors, she looked back at Johnny and me.

  “Ready?” she asked.

  “We’re ready, Mom,” Johnny said, and I was glad because I really didn’t feel like talking, even if I could. Mom opened the door, and Johnny, Dad, and I followed her into Grandpa’s room. I saw Grandma sitting at the bedside, her hand holding her husband’s hand. When she saw us, she smiled as if she really meant it.

  Johnny went first to Grandpa and reached for his other hand. I saw a tube in Grandpa’s nose, giving him oxygen, I guess. He was hooked up to an IV as well. His hair looked more gray in that room, as if maybe he had aged in the time it had taken the ambulance to get him to the emergency room. Usually, when he was sitting in our backyard by the fireplace, he looked almost as young as my dad. Well, not really, but I wanted to think thoughts right then that would make Grandpa happy.

  “It’s me, Grandpa,” my brother said. “It’s Johnny.” He squeezed Grandpa’s hand and then stepped back for me to take my turn. My knees felt all rubbery, but I stepped forward and reached for my grandfather’s hand. It felt too cold for a hand to feel in the summertime, even in an air-conditioned room. I wanted to say something smart-alecky, knowing it would make him smile. But somehow I just couldn’t find it in my heart right then to say, “So, any pretty nurses around here? Better not let Grandma find out.”

  Instead, I squeezed his hand tight and then leaned close and whispered in his ear. “Grandpa?” I said, so softly no one else could hear me. “It’s me. Your favorite blond granddaughter. Thank you for showing me the robin’s nest. I’ll never forget it.”

  “I think his eyelids just moved,” I heard Mom say. I hope she was right, and that my grandfather heard me. It was our little joke since I’m his only blond granddaughter. Tina is dark-haired, like our dad. So at least I put some humor into saying good-bye, especially since I got my sense of humor from him. Everyone always said so.

  We sat in the waiting room then, Johnny and Dad and I, since Mom thought it would be best for us. Uncle Horace finally arrived, having driven up from Bangor where he’d gone on business. Aunt Betty was with him. They disappeared down the hall and into Grandpa’s room. That was at 4:45 p.m.

  At 7:34 p.m., Mom and Grandma came into the waiting room to find us. Grandma had a handkerchief and was blowing her nose. Her eyes were red and swollen. Mom looked as pale as ever. But she smiled at us again, and I knew she would come and hug us tight and tell us how much she loved us. And that Grandpa had loved us too, but that now he was gone. And that’s just what she did.

  ***

  On the morning of the funeral, three days later, I got on my bike and went riding down the path that led to Frog Pond. I leaned my bike against a birch tree and then walked in under the leaves and branches. On weekends, Grandpa always cut our firewood for winter there, rock maple and birch and poplar. When he was working, I’d sometimes bring him a thermos of hot tea. Then we’d sit and talk about anything and everything.

  “Cut your wood in the spring, and it’ll season well enough for autumn and winter,” Grandpa said. “Rock maple burns longest.” It was just that spring while we were having our tea that he showed me the robin’s nest. It was wedged into the branch of a poplar. “Robins have been building a nest there every year that I’ve been cutting my firewood here,” Grandpa said. “You watch, Robbie. Any day now, that nest will have sky-blue eggs and then babies.”

  I counted five baby birds, their red mouths open and begging their mama for food, before I biked back home and put on a dress for Grandpa’s funeral.

  ***

  Grandpa Bob’s funeral was one of the biggest ones Allagash had ever seen. It took Harold Hopkins, our temporary sheriff, and two men he had deputized just to direct the traffic out to Woodlawn Acres, the biggest of the three small cemeteries in Allagash. Johnny and I rode with Grandma and my parents in the car behind the hearse. Uncle Horace and Aunt Betty followed in their own car. I tried to imagine the jokes Grandpa would be telling, such as, “Well, I always knew I’d own a long, black, fancy car one day.” Thinking of him that way gave me some comfort, even if I knew he was never coming back. Grandma was being brave for the children, or so I heard her telling my mother before the service at the church. Mom was doing the same.

  “I never saw so many flowers before inside that church,” Grandma said as Mom squeezed her hand. “Bob would be so proud of that.”

  “He had a lot of good friends,” said my father.

  The hearse put on its blinker and then just sat there in the middle of the road, blinking. Cars pulled up behind us and stopped. Everyone was too polite, given the event, to do any honking. So we waited, wondering what was happening that the procession had come to a halt. Then we saw two skinny hands waving like flags in front of the gate to the cemetery.

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake,” said Grandma. “That poor simpleton Harold Hopkins is trying to direct traffic with the sense God gave a goose.”

  “He probably doesn’t know his left from his right,” said my dad.

  And then we were all laughing and saying how it sounded just like the things Grandpa might say. It was a nice way to say good-bye. Finally, when Harold Hopkins figured out which was left and which was right, the hearse started moving again and soon pulled up alongside the grave site. Our car parked next to it. My dad got out and helped Grandma and my mom out. Then Johnny and I followed. We met up with Uncle Horace and Aunt Betty, and as a family unit we stood and listened to the minister talk about my grandfather’s good life. Grandma threw some gravel onto the top of his coffin as it was being lowered. Then the rest of us did the same.

  My grandfather, Robert Allen Carter, disappeared from our lives that day.

  16

  Mending
Our Hearts

  After Grandpa’s death, life seemed dreamlike for a time, slow motion, as if we were living underwater. I put all plans to contact aliens aside since my heart just wasn’t in it. Mom said we wouldn’t have any more cookouts that summer at the backyard fireplace, since it would only make Grandma sad. Instead, we found a huge rock by the river and Dad brought it to our backyard in his pickup truck. We all took our turns writing messages on it to Grandpa. Even Grandma did it. It was like a little memorial in our backyard. I was the last one to take the Magic Marker. All the baby robins have flown from the nest, Grandpa, I wrote. It was true. I had walked down to count them just that morning.

  Marilee continued to call and e-mail and instant message and just be a soft shoulder when I needed one to cry on. But I think she was grateful that I’d stopped talking about contacting aliens. And then, I’d grown up a lot in just the past month. Loss can do that to a person. For me, it was getting up at night to go to the bathroom and hearing my mom crying in her bedroom. Or seeing Grandma’s sad face when her own birthday came, even though we took her to the River Café for the all-you-can-eat breakfast and Darlene brought out a cupcake with a big candle on it. Or seeing Uncle Horace sit alone to watch the Boston Red Sox, instead of next to Grandpa on the sofa, both of them wearing caps with a big red B, for Boston. Those were the things that hurt me the most, even though I missed Grandpa too.

  On a sunny day, a month after Grandpa died, I decided to go visit his grave and also check on the geranium I’d given Mom to plant for me. I hoped it had made it through the last big thunderstorm. The seeds the funeral home planted had sprouted well, and now the grass was thick and green on his grave. And the geranium was all pink blossoms. I noticed other flowers and plants near the headstone and assumed Grandma and Mom had put them there. I didn’t have to wonder who had left the Boston Red Sox cap. It had been pushed inside a plastic freezer bag and then placed next to my geranium.