Spoonbenders

Outside, the air is still humid, but he has to admit that it’s lovely out. Frankie routinely needles him for never leaving the house, but of course that isn’t true. He goes out all the time, when he remembers he’s supposed to. And he loves his little neighborhood, in all its various phases: the times when there are as many empty lots as houses and the grasses run with garter snakes; the other times when the mini-mansions start to pop up in place of the run-down ranch homes; the long, stable times in between. He feels a kinship with the trees of his street: the Benevolent Brotherhood of Patient Sentinels. They take the long view.

Two doors down, he knocks at the front screen door and calls out, “It’s me.” Inside, Miss Poppins barks excitedly, tiny electric yips, and then the little puff ball is there at the door, paws against the screen.

“I was wondering if our little old lady would like to go out,” he says.

He feels safe talking to Mrs. Klauser. Her days are so regular, and their conversations so circumscribed, that there’s little danger of causing side effects. She calls him in, and he edges through the door to keep the dog inside.

Mrs. Klauser is in her usual chair, the TV on. “How’s your project?” she asks. “I could hear the band saw from here.”

“All’s good,” he says, and hooks the leash to the dog.

“And your father’s doing well?” Mrs. Klauser is frail currently, and that frailty makes her more tentative. Other times she’s energetic and forthright. During the year following his mother’s death, Mrs. Klauser made the Telemachus family meals two times a week. No one asked her to do this. She saw a need and did something.

“Just fine,” Buddy says. “Back in a bit.”

Miss Poppins quiets as soon as they get outside and trots eagerly ahead. Within minutes she squats and delivers a polite poop, which he nabs in the plastic bag he’s brought with him. They resume their walk, both of them perfectly in sync. The dog knows their usual route through the neighborhood. Today, though, halfway through their walk, Buddy surprises her by cutting between two houses, a shortcut back to their block. It’s a surprise to him, too. He didn’t remember he’d do that until he was almost about to make the turn.

Miss Poppins adjusts to this detour with aplomb. Dogs live in the moment. Sometimes he wishes he were a dog.

A silver van is parked a few doors down from his house. He remembers this van. A month from now, he will briefly talk to the van driver, a black man whom Buddy recognizes from his childhood. Weeks after that, on Zap Day, the driver will walk into the house. Is it the same driver who is behind the wheel now? Buddy doesn’t look through the windshield to check, because that’s not something he remembers doing. It’s possible

to walk up to the van and yank open the doors and demand to know what the men are doing there, but not advisable. The consequences could be catastrophic. He walks past the vehicle, past his own house, and up to Mrs. Klauser’s door.

“She was a good girl,” he tells her.

“Did she poop?”

“Oh yes,” he says. Then he remembers something. Something vital. “You should think about getting a puppy,” he says.

“Oh no, Miss Poppins is enough for me.”

“Think about it,” Buddy says. “She’d probably like the company.”

He walks back home without once looking at the van.

6 Matty

“This one’s Bones,” Polly said. Or maybe it was Cassie who’d spoken. He’d never been able to tell the twins apart. “And this one’s Speedy.”

“Which is ironic, because he’s a turtle,” Matty said. The twins weren’t interested in irony, or commentary. They just wanted him to sit on the Pepto-Bismol-colored carpet in their bedroom while they dumped small stuffed animals onto his lap.

The other girl—Cassie or Polly—hauled more creatures from the long drawer set into the base of the bunk beds. “This is Zip the Cat, and Quackers, and Valentino”—she pronounced it “tine-o”—“and Pincher, and…Squealer.”

She placed this last one, a beanbag pig, in his palm. The heart-shaped tag attached to it listed its name (Squealer the Pig) and birth date (April 23, 1993). Keeping the tags intact—most of which, like the pig’s, were clipped to the ear, pirate-style—was evidently part of the deal, in the same way that hard-core nerds kept their Star Wars action figures in their original packaging. “Squealer the Pig is a little obvious,” he said.

“This is Inky,” the first twin said, dropping a plush octopus in his lap. “And this is Goldie, Snort, Nip, and…Ally the Alligator.”

“Ally the Alligator? That’s not even trying,” he said. “Plus, he’s clearly dead.”

“He’s not dead!” one of them said angrily.

“Sure he is—they put his tag on his toe.” They stared at him. He said, “Someday you’re going to get that joke and just la-a-a-ugh.”

That was one of Grandpa Teddy’s most common lines, but these girls weren’t laughing. The twins looked at each other, brows furrowed, and one of them said to Matty, “It was an accident.”

“They were on top of the TV,” the other one said.