The Absolute Value of Mike (22 page)

It was kind of hard to focus on Do Over Day after that. But I had a job to do. And there wasn't anything I could do about Dad. Yet.

—the distance between two points

 

 

B
y the next day, Poppy had three different styles of boxes made, and I have to give the man credit. They were the most beautiful pieces of art I'd seen in a long time. I took pictures of them and went to Past's office to load them on eBay. I noticed Past's latest shirt had been bid up to $340! It's amazing what people will pay for stuff on eBay. Good thing, too, since that shirt might be the last one. Who knew when Past was coming back.

I posted the photos on the website, too, and updated our deadline—nine days!—and only two days until Do Over Day. I added another brick to the LEGO bridge. We were finally in the Atlantic Ocean on our way to the Azores, islands about one third of the way across the Atlantic from Europe.

I stared at the map of Romania. I thought about Dad in the hospital and Misha in the orphanage, and I hoped they'd both be out of those institutions soon. I decided to IM Ferdi. I had to adjust the Pringles can several times before getting a strong enough signal.

He said Dad was doing okay many times, because I asked him about five different ways, just to be sure he understood. Then, I don't know why, I decided to tell him about Misha.

If he only knew. If Dad only knew. But it was better that he didn't. I gave Ferdi the YouTube sites so he could take a look at what we were doing. I sort of wanted him to pass on the info to Dad. And I sort of didn't.

“Hey, Me-Mike!” Guido yelled.

I looked across the street to the soup kitchen, where the three stooges were dragging piles of flattened boxes into the building.

“What are you guys doing?”

“Packing porch pals,” said Jerry. “We just got fifty-nine orders through eBay! You can add seventeen hundred dollars to the website!”

That was almost two LEGO bricks! I quickly updated the money goal and stretched the LEGO bridge closer to the Azores, then ran across the street to help. Inside the soup kitchen, porch pals were leaning up against the wall like a bunch of kids in a lunch line. Guido was assembling boxes while Spud packed them and Jerry filled out mailing labels. I took a spot beside Guido and went to work assembling boxes.

When we'd almost finished, I noticed a separate heap of porch pals. “What's with the pile in the corner?” I asked Guido.

He kept taping a box as he looked around. “Those are the rejects.”

“What's wrong with them? They look okay to me.”

“They're practice ones.” He stopped unrolling a strip of tape long enough to rip it off the roll with his teeth. “If you look closer, you'll see poor stitching, stuffing coming out—just not good enough to sell.”

I stared at the face of one of them. It had bushy eyebrows like Past. I couldn't help thinking about him and how much he liked these guys. They'd still make Past smile, even if they weren't perfect. That's when I got my idea. “Hey, can I borrow some of the rejects?”

Guido narrowed his eyes at me. “What for? We can't have any imperfects floating around the Internet.”

“They're not leaving town, I promise. I'm using them for . . . advertising purposes.”

He grunted. “I guess that's okay.”

I gathered up the five imperfect porch pals and headed to the park.

Knowing that Past was handling the final paperwork for the adoption, I was feeling a lot better about that deadline. Now it was just a question of the money. And preparing for Do Over Day—I sure hoped kids liked bananas as much as Past seemed to think, and they wouldn't mind the all-natural version of M&M's, not to mention sparkling raspberry water. I got Guido to handle face-painting, Spud was supposedly a whiz at balloon animals, and Jerry would do magic tricks. The moms were happy to run the sack race, three-legged race, and egg-on-a-spoon race. Dr. and Mrs. P said they'd handle sales—everything from Moo's vinegars and Mrs. P's fruit spreads to Gladys's bling and the three stooges' porch pals. Dr. P even wanted me to make up a bunch of Pringles Wi-Fi antenna kits to sell because he liked the idea so much. It was hard to smile when he grinned and said, “I'll buy all the supplies and I'll let you eat all the Pringles!” I knew I wouldn't be able to eat the Pringles without choking, thinking of Past.

 

With all the craziness of organizing Do Over Day, it was the next afternoon before I got to Past's office to IM Ferdi again and check on Dad.

I tried to stop worrying about Dad. Instead, I worried about Past. Moo and Poppy seemed smugly confident that he was fine. In fact, their smirks at the mention of Past's name made me wonder if they had inside knowledge. As irritating as it was to be out of the loop, I felt better thinking that Past was okay. And Poppy had gotten a new battery in his Suburban, so he was actually driving Moo around, which I felt a whole lot better about. For both of them. Things were looking up.

Until the next day.

—patterns of shapes that fit together without any gaps

 

 

D
o Over Day dawned gray and threatening, and there was still no sign of Past. Even Moo didn't look quite as smug. I helped Poppy load his boxes and Moo's vinegars into the Suburban. When we were done, it started sprinkling. Raindrops made a plink-plunk sound as they fell in the plastic buckets scattered around the front yard.

We waited for Moo on the front porch, watching the rain get heavier and heavier. Poppy sat with his arm around Doug while I leaned on the handrail. Poppy pointed at Doug's head, now missing the Life Is Good hat. “Mike, do you know what happened to the hat?”

“Uh . . . yeah. I had to borrow it.” I added quickly, “I don't think Doug will mind.”

Poppy grunted. “It's a stuffed doll, Mike. Of course it won't mind.”

Moo opened the front door and stepped onto the porch with a proud grin. She was wearing a pale green sheet, her yellow sneakers, and a wreath headdress, looking like a Halloween costume version of Julius Caesar. Junior was slung over her shoulder.

I looked at Poppy, who only shrugged.

“Moo, why are you dressed like that?”

“It's my chorus costume. Some of us decided to wear international outfits to add some flavor.”

“But . . . Misha is Romanian, not Roman, remember?”

“I know that, dear.”

“Then why are you wearing a toga?”

She grinned and held a neon green flashlight high above her head. “I'm the Statue of Liberty! Can't you tell?”

We had to move Do Over Day into the soup kitchen because the rain wasn't letting up. Everyone was running around like crazy, and I mean crazy. The three stooges were dressed as wacky as Moo. It took me a moment to figure out that Spud was dressed as a porch pal dressed as the Pope. Jerry's skinny, hairy legs stuck out from under his leather shorts and suspenders. “My German grandfather's lederhosen from when he was a teenager—and I can still fit into them!” he announced to everyone who'd listen and those who tried to avoid him. Guido was dressed all in green, looking like a leprechaun, and sporting a large button on his chest that said, KISS ME, I'M IRISH!

“Guido?” I said. “Guido is Irish?”

“I'm Irish-Italian, a regular melting pot right here,” he said, thumping his chest.

I had too much work to do to worry about the costumes. We got everything set up inside and I made sure everyone had what they needed at the various booths and that the food was in place. I'd already set up Karen's laptop and the one from the soup kitchen with a photo collage of Misha pictures and the video from the orphanage in an endless loop. With the projectors Dr. P got, I was able to use the opposite walls of the room as screens to show larger-than-life videos and photos of Misha.

On the other full wall that wasn't broken up with the opening to the kitchen, I put up my huge map of Romania to Pennsylvania. It was on butcher paper, compliments of the soup kitchen, and I did a pretty good outline of the countries of Europe and eastern North America. The moms had brought buckets of crayons and markers for kids to be able to draw the countries in different colors and the ocean in blue. I made the LEGO bridge myself, though, and we were now almost to the Azores, heading for Do Over, PA. Heck, we were so close to the Azores, we could probably swim there. On top of the last LEGO piece, I put a blown-up photo of Misha. I stepped back and smiled.

“It's lovely!”

I whirled around and there was Whitney.

“H-hi,” I said, suave as usual.

“Tell me about your map. I see you used LEGOs, just like Misha.”

I told her all about it. It was a lot easier to talk about something I really understood as Whitney scribbled away, and this time I even knew the numbers.

It wasn't as easy when I saw the TV camera. And lights. And those huge boom microphones that look like horizontal black lampposts. And guys holding them, looking around for someone's mouth to put the mike in front of. So they picked mine.

Desperately, I looked around for Past. He'd know what to say. He was smooth. He even looked good. I glanced down at my Radiohead T-shirt with their song on it: “These Are My Twisted Words.” Yeah, that was about right. I looked around for Past again. Still no luck.

The bright lights blinked in my face. I had to squint and shade my eyes.

A guy in a suit with lots of makeup on his face was smiling at the camera, saying my name and a bunch of other stuff that I didn't catch. Soon his smiling mug was next to mine and the mike was in my face.

“Uh . . .”

The guy's smile lessened just a little. “Maybe you can tell us how much you've raised.”

“Oh! Yes, we have $19,853.88, but we need to raise forty thousand by July fifteenth.” I warmed up fast, stopped shading my eyes, and looked right into the camera. “That's only one week from today, folks! We need your help!” I grabbed a flyer with Misha's picture from the table next to me and held it up in front of the camera. “He needs your help. This is Misha, the kid we're saving, and if you'd like to see a video of him, it's right over there!” I pointed to the wall that was showing the orphanage video. “He's a great kid. I know you'd love him if you just had a chance to meet him. Come on, send in your money to Bring Misha Home, P.O. Box 29, Do Over, PA, 159—”

“Do Over?” the news guy finally interrupted, laughing. “Don't you mean Donover?”

“It's Do Over for Misha.” I looked at the camera again. “Come on, guys, this kid needs a home. Is that asking too much? Just a second chance, someone to believe in him.”

“Perfect!” someone yelled. “That's a wrap!”

“Thank you, Mike!” the news guy said. “Good luck getting twenty thousand dollars in one week!” He turned to his crew. “Now, let's get the healthy snack angle.” They all headed to the food table.

My heart sank at what he'd said.
Good luck getting twenty thousand dollars in one week!
Even I could do the math—that was almost three thousand a day. It had taken us two weeks to raise that much. It felt pretty hopeless. Not that I was giving up, but for the first time I felt, really felt, like this might never happen. Sure, I'd been scared about it before, but Past had been there, and there had been time, or at least it felt like it. Now . . . twenty thousand in one week?

I walked over to the map of Romania and Pennsylvania and looked at the photo of Misha sitting on his LEGO brick. In the middle of the ocean. I had to finish that bridge. Somehow. Do Over Day would make some money, and hopefully this press coverage would help, but . . .

A boy a little older than Misha, with unnatural pink stuff on his face that was definitely not Past-sanctioned food, stood next to me. I smiled at him.