Eleven (2 page)

Sam almost laughed, but he thought of the attic again, and reading the clipping. He glanced over at the new girl, her head bent over her book.

Lunchtime came. “We're all friends in fifth grade,” Mrs. Stanek said, as she always did. That meant everyone had to sit in the cafeteria the way they lined up. She never noticed the switching around on the stairs, kids sliding along the banisters, using their elbows to get where they wanted. But no one had elbows as sharp as his. By the last turn, he was in back of Caroline New Girl, and managed to slide onto the bench next to her.

He opened his lunch bag, feeling the sun that gleamed in from the high windows overhead. He glanced at her: the lunch bag on her lap, the book on the table in front of her. She began to turn the pages, reaching into the bag for a sandwich.

He cleared his throat. “I'm Sam.” Dumb, she had to know that by now.

The ends of her sandwich were ragged, the crusts torn off. It looked as if the whole thing had been glued together with purple jelly.

Sam didn't know what his own lunch was yet. Every morning he stopped at Onji's Deli next door and had a second breakfast in the warm back room while Onji made a sandwich, a meatball hero maybe, or turkey on thick slabs of rye bread. Best lunch in the school. Sam unwrapped today's, pastrami with sauerkraut on rye, a couple of pickles in a Baggie, and a bunch of salty pretzel sticks.

He knew she was looking at him. Maybe he should ask if she wanted some, but already she'd taken a huge bite of hers, jelly dripping onto her sweater. And she was smiling a little, bread on her braces. Nice smile.

She pointed with a jelly-tipped finger.

He looked down: a Gummi Bear poked out of his sandwich. That Onji!

“There are more of them in with the pickles,” she said as if she might laugh.

He picked them out. Eleven of them. “It's my birthday, but don't tell anyone. Mrs. Stanek will make me wear that crown thing.”

She grinned again. “So, Sam.”

“Yeah.”

“Sam as in
Sam 1 Am?
As in My
Brother Sam Is Dead?

Samuel Morse,
Sam and the Firefly!
Maybe Sam Spade, the detective?”

He knew them all from books Anima had read to him. “Samson.”

“Samson was tough.”

“I'm tougher, but don't tell anyone that, either.”

“I'm a sphinx.” A quick smile and she swiped at a blob of jelly at the corner of her mouth, her bracelets clinking. “Sam what, again?”

“MacKenzie.” Something lurched in his chest.
Bell.

“Hey, Sam MacKenzie, birthday kid, slide over one of those Gummi Bears. Just one won't kill my braces.”

She was the one. Somehow he'd get her to help. He grinned at her and handed her a couple.

“One thing.” She looked up at the windows the way he'd done. “Don't think I'm going to be friends. I won't be here long enough.”

He sat there chewing, pretending he didn't care whether she was his friend or not. The lunch hour seemed endless, but at last they went back to the classroom to work on the medieval project.

He glanced up at the clock: a half hour before he had to go to Mrs. Waring's Resource Room.

Five kids were writing a play, and Eric was jumping around in front with a sword.

“Calm down.” Mrs. Stanek went around the room. She stopped at Sam's desk. “I have another picture of a castle for you.”

Sam looked at it: fields, a knight in armor, and a dark castle in the mist with turrets, and a moat, and slits for windows. A castle so dark you could hardly see to copy it. He held it up. Something was wrong with it. He'd seen a castle once somewhere, and it didn't look much like this.

“All right?” Mrs. Stanek asked.

“Nothing to it.” Impossible with cardboard.

“Need some help?”

He shook his head. But Mrs. Stanek snapped her fingers. “Caroline—”

“A girl?” He curled his lip.

“We're all friends in fifth grade. Caroline?”

Caroline blinked, her eyebrows a V over her forehead.

“I'd like you to work on the castle project with Sam.” Mrs. Stanek smiled at them with large teeth, as if she were doing them a favor.

Caroline closed her book. She screeched her desk over a few feet, Kleenex floating out behind her.

“You might keep a diary of your progress,” Mrs. Stanek told her as she moved toward another group. “Write down the steps you take.”

Caroline rummaged around inside her desk and pulled out a lipstick.

A lipstick?

She ran it over her mouth, smacking her lips, then smeared most of it away with the back of her hand.

“How old are you, anyway?” he asked.

“Ten years, eight months”—she screwed up her face with its dots of freckles—“and nine days. Or so.”

“You left about ten years, eight months, and—”

“Nine days?”

“—worth of Kleenex on the floor, and you have lipstick on your braces.”

“Whatever.”

“That's what I say.” This kid was terrific. He kept his mouth still. No smile. Not friends.

She picked up the picture of the castle, turning it one way and then another. “Who knows what this is about?” But then she stood one of the cardboard pieces he'd found in the closet on end and made cutting motions. “I guess we could cut squares into the top and glue the whole mess together.”

As he looked at her, the idea came to him. Suppose they built a castle out of wood? It wouldn't have to be much, just four slabs knocked together. And then maybe—

“My grandfather has a workshop. We could build a wooden one there,” he said, almost as if he didn't care one way or the other.

And read what was up in the attic.
He'd fix the pipe, or maybe Mack would be out and they'd use the pulldown stairs.

“Not work in the classroom?” she said.

“Well, some of it, I guess.” He glanced up toward Mrs. Stanek, who was watching them, looking pleased. “I don't think she'd mind.”

“One thing. Where do you live?”

“One thing.” He echoed her words, for fun. “It's on the road out of town. We'll take the school bus.”

“But how will I get home again? I live near the school.”

“A town bus goes along the road. Don't worry—”

“I can come on Wednesday, or maybe Friday.” She hesitated. “I have to babysit for my little sister sometimes.”

“Wednesday's good. Friday's good.”

Possible. Anything was possible.

Caroline's fingers went to her hair, twirling a piece in front. “Maybe.”

He grinned. “Yes.”

Mack brought out the crocheted tablecloth that he kept for special occasions, a web of a cloth that had belonged to Sam's grandmother Lydia, dead before he was born. Some of the holes were meant to be there, a pattern of stars; others Sam had poked in when he was five, to surprise Mack.

Had Lydia really been his grandmother?

Sam helped put out the plates, taking quick looks at Mack. He'd thought about Mack all day. When he was five or six, he'd lean his head back to see Mack's blue eyes crinkling, the lines around them deepening, convinced that Mack was a giant; Mack could do anything, even though he limped sometimes, bending to rub his leg. Lately flecks of gray were coming into his dark hair and beard, and Onji
would nudge Sam: “Your grandfather's getting to be an old guy.” Onji, who had only a fringe of hair around the edges.

Mack was quiet, and that was fine with Sam. They spent hours in the workroom, Mack humming, with just a word here or there:
“Onji's cooking roast beef in the deli, smells good.
….A
hawk's circling above the river.
… “Mack running his hands over a shelf Sam had finished: “I
couldn't have done better.”

Could it be that Mack wasn't his grandfather? But didn't everyone say they looked alike, even though Sam was bone thin? A walking skeleton, Onji said, a Halloween costume. Sam touched his nose, ran his fingers over his mouth. How could he tell if his face was really like Mack's?

And hadn't Mack showed him a picture of his parents, Julia and Luke ? He had no memory of either of them; both had died, his father in the army, Mack had told him, and Julia from a heart problem.

Just before dark, Anima came upstairs to their apartment from her restaurant, her dark shiny braid bouncing on her back. Her arms were filled with trays of food. “Ah, please take these, Mack. Watch, they're hot.”

Anima's voice was clear and high, laughter always just behind her words. She touched Sam's shoulder. “How's my boy?” She moved lightly, like one of the small yellow finches that flew by every fall. The sari she wore tonight was yellow too, floating behind her.

“Beef curry because it's your favorite, Sam,” she said, a little breathless. “So spicy you'll taste it on your tongue until bedtime. And chicken korma for Mack with lots of
coconut milk.” She winked at Sam. “I have to be nice to him until he finishes making the cabinet for the restaurant.”

Mack looked up at the ceiling, his eyes crinkling. “And after that you want shelves in the hallway, a bookcase for your living room—”

“All the chicken you want forever,” she said.

Sam looked from one to the other. Did Anima know about him?

She helped them set everything out, talking about the cabinet, which would have glass doors and carved feet. She glanced at him. “Quiet tonight, Sam?”

Before he could answer, heavy footsteps came up the stairs, and Onji filled the kitchen, carrying a huge chocolate birthday cake that had
SAM
scrawled across the top. All of Onji was wide and round, his face, his nose, even his thick ears that looked as if they'd been stuck on the side of his head like blobs of clay.

Onji clamped his hand on Sam's shoulder: “Eleven years old, this skinny little kid. Who could believe it?”

“Some cake, Onji! Thanks.”

Mack nodded. “That's a pretty good-looking cake for a guy who does nothing but slice roast beef all day.”

“Not bad at all,” Anima said.

“Believe it,” Onji said, setting the cake on the counter.

Sam knew they were waiting for him to slide his finger around the edge of the plate and scoop up a dab of icing. He reached out and took a mouthful of the sweet chocolate. “Terrific.”

He looked at the three of them, and then at the table with its cloth as they sat down. The paneled kitchen was always cozy, with flames from the fireplace casting orange light over them, but now everything seemed strange, almost as if he didn't belong.

Sam had dreamed of another kitchen last night, white, cold. He'd reached for an apple on the counter, and a woman had come toward him, her arm raised. Night Cat had darted under the table, and Sam had backed up against the huge refrigerator, terrified.

Concentrate on dinner, on now
, he told himself.
Think about the birthday cake that Onji covered with candles.
He caught the word
pipe.

Onji looked at Sam from under bushy eyebrows. “It's falling off the side of the wall, banging back and forth.”

Everyone was looking at him.

“Last week he lost an oar,” Onji said. “The week before, the shed door was off its hinges.”

Onji was teasing, and Mack and Anima were laughing, but Sam couldn't stop himself. “Not me,” he said. “I didn't touch the pipe.”

“You sure?” Onji grinned.

“Sure I'm sure.”

It was too late to take the lie back, too late to say yes, he'd been up at night, up in that attic, and to please tell him what that clipping was all about.

“For the first time,” Anima said, “we found a perfect place to hide your presents.”

Mack stood up and opened the oven door. He turned to Sam, smiling.

“Fooled you this time.” Anima's teeth were white against her warm dark skin.

If only he'd looked in the oven. He never would have gone up to the attic, never would have known about the clipping, never would have had to find out more.

Anima handed him a square package wrapped in blue paper. “Wait, I have to tell you—” She leaned over him. “It's a book but you won't have much to read.”

He tore the paper away and opened it to see drawings, patterns, measurements: dozens of wood projects, and very few words. He looked up at her. “You're the best, Anima.”

She smiled. “Banana crepes later in my apartment.” Her favorites. She'd learned to make them as a child in Kerala, and told him once that her mother's recipe book was one of the few things she'd brought to America with her.

“But wait,” Onji said, putting a bag in front of Sam. “Here comes a terrific present.” Mack and Anima were laughing again.

“Not one of those T-shirts.” Sam held it up. It was a blinding yellow, miles too big,
ONJI'S DELI
—
MEAT AND MORE
spelled out in green.

“You'll grow into it,” Onji said.

Sam laughed too, feeling better. The clipping in the attic had to be a mistake.

Mack took the last package out of the oven and put it on
the table. “Heavy,” he said, and Sam could see how pleased he was about it.

Under the paper was a second wrapping of flannel. Sam pulled the cloth away and sat back to look at his present. It was much older than he was, older even than Mack, and the handle was worn from years of use: a plane, a tool to smooth wood.

Sam rested his hand on the knob that would move almost by itself. It would take only a little pressure to run the bottom of the plane across the wood, to curl the roughness away from whatever he was making, until the wood felt like satin.

“It was my father's.” Mack spread his hands wide. “You're old enough, you deserve it.”

Sam looked across the table; it was a wonderful thing to have, to add to the tools on his worktable, but even more special because it had been in his family.
His family?
His grandfather? His great-grandfather?

He reached out to hug Mack.
Please let things be the same.

It didn't take long to finish dinner. Mack lighted the candles on the cake. “He's only eleven, Onji,” he said. “There must be thirty here.”

Onji ran his hand over his bald head. “Thirty-three.” He turned to Sam. “Mack can't count very well. Three for every year.” He looked up at the ceiling as Mack and Anima laughed. “Is that right? Yes.”