Brendan Buckley's Universe and Everything in It (10 page)

CHAPTER 17

At the police fund-raiser, Mom and Dad won a fancy overnight getaway at some expensive hotel. Gladys would spend the following Friday night and all day Saturday with me.

It was my chance. I would sneak away—one last time, I
promised
—and ask Ed for an explanation of what he’d done. I would be disobeying Mom, but I needed an answer to my question. And she wasn’t going to let me see him—at least not for a very long time.

Plus, what if Ed had changed his mind about Mom and Dad’s marriage but, like Gladys said, was just too stubborn to admit it? Maybe he knew things were broken and he just didn’t know how to fix them, like me with the pick in my closet. But maybe I could help bring everyone back together again.

I also wouldn’t mind having that thunder egg I wanted.

On Monday, I called Ed. He didn’t pick up, and no answering machine came on. I tried five more times that week before I finally reached him Thursday night. I had to whisper because my parents were home.

“Didn’t think I’d be hearing from you again,” he said.

“I’ve called you six times. You should get an answering machine.”

“Don’t need one,” he said.

I didn’t have time to argue. “This Saturday.” I felt like one of the undercover detectives Dad works with. “Can we go on the expedition?”

The line buzzed between his phone and mine.

“I don’t know about that, now. Your mom—”

“She’s going away. It’ll work.”

“Well…I guess if you really want to go. It’s hard for me to turn down a request to hunt thunder eggs. Six a.m. At the end of your street.”

“Six a.m.,” I repeated.

“Make sure you bring a hat. The sun can get hot.”

“Okay. Um, Ed?” It was the first time I’d called him anything. He didn’t respond. “Are you glad?”

“About what?” he asked.

“That I’m your grandson.” I held my breath.

More silence. The buzzing sound moved into my head.

“Sure I am,” he said.

My heart jumped into my throat.

“Saturday morning, then,” he said.

“Saturday morning.” The expedition was on.

Friday night, I told Gladys I didn’t feel well so I could go to bed early. I even skipped ice cream to make it seem more convincing. She tried to get me to suck on the thermometer, but I talked my way out of it. I would feel better if I just went to sleep, I said.

In my room, I ripped a piece of paper out of one of my notebooks. I needed to write Gladys a note. I didn’t want her to do something crazy like call the police, which she would do if I disappeared with no explanation. And if she did that, the police would contact Dad in a nanosecond.

I sat at my desk and wrote.

Dear Gladys,

You might be mad when you read this, but try not to be. You always say you like surprises, right? SURPRISE! I’ve gone on a rock expedition with Ed DeBose. I don’t know if Mom and Dad told you, but I found out where he lives and I’ve gone to see him a few times.

Now I need to ask him about something very important. So don’t worry, and if my mom calls, please don’t tell her. I don’t mean to make you an accomplice, but this is just something I have to do. If you help me out, I will buy you one of your favorite Peanut Buster Parfaits at Dairy Queen (even though there are way too many peanuts per square inch in those things). I will be home before dark.

Your Milk Chocolate,
Brendan Samuel Buckley

I folded the note and wrote Gladys’s name on it. Then I put my question notebook, my Tacoma Rainiers cap and some money from my tackle box into my backpack and lay down to sleep. When I closed my eyes, though, all my thoughts whirled around my head like atoms.

I got up and put Ed’s black bundle into my backpack—broken pick and all. It was time for me to give it back to him and tell him I was sorry I’d let it get busted.

Then I stretched out on my bed and waited for the sun to rise.

When the alarm on my watch went off at 5:15, I shoved my arm under my pillow to muffle the sound. A gang of wild geese could probably land on Gladys’s head and she wouldn’t wake up, but I didn’t want to take any chances.

I brushed my teeth quietly, then grabbed my backpack and tiptoed into the kitchen to get a root beer. I pulled on the fridge door and a bottle of salad dressing fell over, setting off a chain reaction. The crash sounded like a multicar pileup in the silence of our house.

I held my breath, waiting to hear Gladys’s door open and her croaky voice asking me what I was doing up so early. I peeked around the corner. Nothing.

I grabbed a root beer, then decided to take two, one for Ed. I put my note to Gladys on the counter and slipped out the door into the early gray light.

When I got to the end of my street, my watch said 5:57 a.m. Ed had said you can’t be too early. I watched for his truck to come over the hill. At 5:59, it appeared. My body felt like it was having an earthquake. I couldn’t tell if I was cold or nervous or both.

What if Mom and Dad came home early? What if my note spontaneously combusted and Gladys didn’t know where I’d gone? It could happen. I’d read stories about spontaneous combustion—where something, or someone, suddenly caught on fire for no apparent reason. I knew there must be a reason and science could explain it, but so far no one had figured it out.

The green truck pulled up to the curb. “You’re on time,” Ed said as I got in. P.J. barked from the back. He jumped up and put his front paws on the window between us. His breath steamed the glass.

“I have an alarm on my watch,” I said. “It works underwater up to five hundred feet.”

“That’s handy. In case you ever need to meet someone at a sunken ship. You wouldn’t want to be late to that.”

I couldn’t tell if he was being serious or making fun of me. We drove in silence. I looked out the window a lot. Was it okay just to be quiet? Grampa Clem and I were always quiet when we went fishing, but it didn’t matter, because we were used to each other. Ed DeBose and I weren’t so much.

Plus now I knew the secret about him, the reason I hadn’t known him all these years. The truth hung in the air, unspoken. I could almost feel it, like a boulder sitting between us.

“Where are we going?” I asked.

“Red Top Mountain.”

“Have you been there before?”

“A few times, but not to the place we’re going. My buddy told me about a new spot.”

We were silent again for a long time.

“Want a maple donut?” He pointed to a white bag on the floor by my feet. “Bought ’em fresh this morning.”

I picked one out. The frosting oozed over my fingers. I bit into it and the sweet stickiness coated the top of my mouth and made my teeth shiver.

“Kind of gooey, but they’re good,” Ed said, taking a bite of his own.

I finished the donut and wiped my fingers on my pants. My eyeballs felt coated with a thin layer of sand and my eyelids drooped in spite of how hard I tried to keep them open. I leaned my head against the door and fell asleep.

A bump to the side of my head woke me up. The truck was bouncing along a gravel road. Pine trees closed in on either side. The road grew narrower with each turn as we wound our way up a mountain.

“How long have we been driving?” I asked.

“Couple hours.”

A couple of hours? I’d slept the whole way.

We came around a bend and Ed slowed down. I sucked in my breath.

Two gigantic animals, like horses with small heads, tiny ears and huge bodies, stood less than twenty yards away! Their reddish brown fur gleamed in the sunlight. They looked at us, then trotted up the road. Their rear ends were light tan.

“What do you think about that?” Ed asked.

“Are they moose?”

“No moose around here. Elk cows. Females. See how they don’t have antlers?”

I nodded as the elk turned sharply and disappeared down the hill to our left. When the truck reached the spot where the elk had been, I looked into the young pine trees, standing side by side like rows of Roman soldiers. The animals had been so large and yet, just like that, they had vanished, as if they’d never been there at all.

“People go to London and Paris to see what they think are the wonders of the world, but I could stay right here and not see everything I want to before I die.”

I didn’t like Ed talking about dying, but at that moment, I felt exactly the same way.

The truck climbed and climbed until I thought we would drive into the bright blue sky; then the road flattened and we drove along a ridge. Across the valley rose mountains like the one we were on. Trees, everywhere I looked. The pointy green tips crowded so close together, I could have been seeing double. I squinted. A giant green blanket covered everything.

Ed pulled over at a wide spot in the road and we got out. “That’s where we’re going.” He pointed down the hill. “I love thunder eggs—like Christmas presents. You never know what you’re going to find inside.”

He grabbed a huge pick from the back of the truck. It looked like the kind miners used. “Think you can manage this?” he asked.

“Sure,” I said, rushing forward and taking it. P.J. nipped at the handle. Ed turned back to the truck for a shovel. The air smelled a lot better than it did in Tacoma, fresh and cold like ice water.

A dark slash in the sky made me look up. A brown hawk dipped one wing and circled right over us. I pointed it out to Ed and we watched it together—dipping, soaring, floating.

Then we crossed the road and started down the hill.

Thunder eggs, here we come.

CHAPTER 18

Ed pointed to a fluorescent-orange ribbon tied to the top of a short pine. “My buddy put those up to mark the way,” he said.

Without the ribbons, we would’ve been lost. I felt like Lewis and Clark. No path. Not even footprints. The brush came halfway to my knees and I had to pick my feet up high each time I stepped.

Bushes rustled nearby and my legs jumped to action, ready to perform a
yup cha gi
—side kick. Brown and white fur flashed between the trees.

P.J.
I hadn’t been able to see him through all the growth. I exhaled, then kept tromping through the brush.

I held the pick in front of me and used it to push tree limbs out of the way. Ed’s jerky movements caused branches to whip around everywhere. I used
sang dan mahk kees
—high blocks—to keep from getting smacked in the face. Dew soaked my shirt and pants. We kept going down.

By now, Gladys had found my note. I could see her yelling at me, or more accurately, at the air. What if she called the police anyway? As long as I had my thunder egg and an answer from Ed by the time they found us, I didn’t care.

My arms ached from holding the pick. Water drenched my face and shoulders. I kept my eyes on the back of Ed’s heels. Step. Step. Step-step. I made a rhythm in my head. Step. Step. Step-Step. I got so focused on the rhythm, I didn’t notice that Ed had stopped. My face crashed into his backpack. He stumbled forward. “Sorry,” I said.

“Watch what you’re doing, now. Don’t want you to get hurt.” Adults were always saying things about being careful and not getting hurt, but I didn’t mind so much hearing it from Ed. Even though I knew what he’d done in the past, it was still nice to have a grandpa to go places with again.

We reached a clearing, a ledge with large rocks sticking out from the reddish brown dirt. The ground had already been dug up in places, including into the mountainside. Tree roots hung down in the cleared-out channels like pieces of used dental floss.

“This is it—where my buddy said there’s a bed of ’em.” Ed shook off his pack. “Been a lot of digging already.” He took the large pick from me, raised it overhead and brought it down hard. I was glad Ed was going first. My arms felt weak after carrying the tool down the mountainside.

He grunted each time the end hit the ground. “You bring those tools I gave you?”

My throat tightened. “Yeah,” I said quickly, my face hot. I waited for him to tell me to get them out, but he didn’t.

After he had loosened the packed soil, he handed me the shovel. “Your turn,” he said.

I could only get a small amount of dirt with each stab at the ground. This was going to take a long time. P.J. plopped onto the ground and looked at me with his head on his paws.

The end of my shovel clanged and P.J. sat up. Had I found one already? Ed bent over and picked up a dirt-covered chunk. Not an egg.

He brushed off the rock.
Phht.
He spit on it! He rubbed the place where his spit had landed. “Rhyolite,” he said. “That’s a good sign.”

I smiled and dug faster, feeling like Popeye after a can of spinach. Each time my shovel disappeared into the dirt, I willed it to hit something solid. I imagined reaching down and pulling out the Thunder Egg that Ruled the World.

Digging for your own rocks took a lot more work than just being handed them—but it felt a lot more exciting, too. I had wanted to become a rock hound this summer, and here I was, being one. This was the real deal.

I started slowing down again and Ed took over. I popped my root beer open and handed him the other can.

“Thanks.” Ed stepped out of the hole we had created and sat on a rock. Should I ask him about what he’d done? Things were going so well…. I didn’t want to ruin our good time.

He wiped his forehead with his handkerchief and chugged down what seemed like half the can before coming up for a breath. “Nectar of the gods.”

Did God drink root beer? To me, God was a giant scientist, and the universe was His biggest experiment. “Do you believe in God?” I asked, leaning against a fallen tree trunk.

Ed blew his nose. “Can’t say I think about that kind of thing all that much. I believe in what can be tested and measured—proven.”

“My fifth-grade teacher, Mr. Hammond, says science can’t prove. Only disprove.”

“And God can’t be proved
or
disproved.”

I sat next to Ed on the ground. He had talked earlier about dying. “Where do you think we go when we die?” Mr. H. said this question couldn’t be answered by science, but I believed it would be—one day.

“Back to the soil,” Ed said, kicking up some dirt with his toe. A clod landed on my shoe. “In the end, we’re all just dust.” He raised his can to his mouth again.

There it was again. Dust.
To dust we shall return.
I crumbled the dirt clod between my fingers. Soil was broken-down rocks. Was Ed saying we were all just rocks?

But rocks didn’t die. People did. I pictured Grampa Clem in his casket. “What about heaven?”

“Wishful thinking on the part of people who’re afraid to kick the bucket.”

I didn’t like him saying that. Whenever I thought about Grampa Clem and where he was now, I imagined him on a boat reeling in a giant fish and shouting, “Ooo-ee, would you look at that one, Bren?” And I would think back to him, “Save some for me to catch.” And he would say, “This is heaven, son. They never run out of fish here.”

I looked at Ed. “If there’s not a heaven, that means this is the only life we’ve got and when we die, it’s all over. We’re gone forever.”

“That’s what I believe.”

My arms prickled. “If that’s what you believe, why’d you let so many years go by without talking to us? That was a big waste of time.” I hadn’t planned it. It just popped out.

He squinted and his lips looked like that fissure again, but he didn’t say anything, just stared into the air. Then he got back in the hole and swung his pick as if the dirt had done him wrong.

I looked at his wrinkled face, leathery from the sun, red and sweaty from the hard work. Ed was old. He might not have that much time left. And if heaven didn’t exist, I didn’t have that much time left with him.

Finally, he stopped. He leaned on the pick handle, then stooped over and peered into a hole in the hillside. “Let’s try in there. Hopefully whoever dug it left a few behind.”

I stepped forward with the shovel, but Ed put out his arm. “I’ll start.” He took a smaller shovel from his backpack, then crawled into the shallow tunnel on his forearms. Only half his body would fit, though. His rear end and feet stuck out from the hill. I didn’t know why he wouldn’t let me do it. I would have fit a lot better in there. I heard the shovel stabbing the dirt at the back of the hole.

Stab, stab, clank, stab. “Did you find one?” I called.

“More rhyolite,” Ed yelled back. He dug some more.

When it happened, there was no sound. The dirt above Ed’s head fell in one big piece, like a giant rug covering him up.
Poof.

“Ed!” I yelled, lunging for his feet. I could still see the bottom half of his body. P.J. barked wildly. I tugged on Ed’s leg, but he kicked as if he wanted me to let go. He struggled to free himself, but it wasn’t working. My eyes bounced around the landslide looking for a solution. How would I ever move all this dirt? Ed would run out of air first.

I heard his voice, muffled, but there. “Get help!” he called. Somehow he had room enough to yell. Maybe he’d be all right if I left.

But where would I get help? Not a single car had passed us on the road up the mountain. Only the elk. We were probably the only ones out here for miles. What should I do?

“Get help!” he cried again. P.J. barked and growled. He dug at the ground with his front paws.

I ran to Ed’s pack and searched every pocket until I found his keys. If only he’d had a cell phone. But of course he wouldn’t. He didn’t even own an answering machine.

“I’m going!” I yelled. Then I sprinted up the hill, pushing tree branches out of my way and tripping over fallen logs. Limbs snapped under my feet. Twigs grabbed at my pant legs and poked at my eyes, but I kept moving, looking up and ahead for the orange plastic ribbons, flickering like flames against the Ellensburg Blue sky.