From Ant to Eagle(60)

“Hey, Cal,” he said.

“Hi, Oliver.”

He fidgeted with his hands as he spoke. “I just wanted to say that I’m sorry. Sammy deserved better. It’s not fair.”

I nodded unenthusiastically.

He stopped fidgeting and stood staring at me for a while. Finally, he let out a long sigh, then turned around to see if anyone was listening. He turned back and said, “Look, I know there’s nothing I can say that will make you feel any better so I won’t pretend to. Sammy is gone and that’s the worst thing I can imagine. Dying is as bad as it gets. I could tell you that he’s not suffering anymore, and there’s something to that, take it from someone who’s been suffering for years, but even that won’t make you feel any better. So I just wanted to let you know that I’m thinking of him and of you. I’ll be praying that your family is okay.”

I nodded. I knew what he was talking about—the cancer crumble. It almost seemed inevitable but I didn’t want to think about that right then.

“And here, I wanted to give you this.”

He reached into his breast pocket and pulled out the yellow, crinkled paper.

“Your version of heaven?” I asked.

He nodded.

“Don’t you want to keep it?”

“Nah, I’ve already got it up here,” he said, pointing to his head.

I took the piece of paper between my fingers.

Oliver glanced over his shoulder and I followed his eyes. At the bottom of the hill was a small woman standing alone—Oliver’s mom.

“Back to the hospital?” I asked.

Oliver turned back around and smiled. He waved his hand up and down, gesturing at his clothes. “No,” he said, “I’m going home.”

I smiled. “Good.”

Aleta and Oliver hugged, then he stood in front of me awkwardly for a moment. I put out my hand to shake his but instead he pulled me in for a hug too. His shirt smelled musty and his body was still a birch tree with branches.

“Thanks,” he said, “for everything.”

I watched him walk down the hill to his mom and that was the last I ever saw him. I don’t know how long he lived, or if he’s still alive somewhere, but I hope that one day we’ll meet again in a drop of rain somewhere—just like he said.

When everyone had said all there was to say, and all the tears that would come had come, Mom, Dad and I were left standing alone with Sammy. Mom hugged me tightly from behind as we stared at the little mound of dirt. I wasn’t ready to leave but the silence was killing me so I pulled out the copy of Cuckoo Clock of Doom from my jacket pocket and looked up at Mom and Dad. They nodded and I opened it to the last chapter—Sammy’s favourite.

I read.





CHAPTER 38

WHEN THE FUNERAL WAS OVER AND THE HOSPITAL VISITS BEcame a thing of the past, all that was left was a broken family in a yellow-bricked farmhouse on the outskirts of nowhere.

Dad started a rebellion against the world and spent most days in his upstairs office. Sometimes I’d forget he was even there. Mom took a different approach—she became so overbearing it was suffocating. When Sammy was sick I had complained that I’d felt forgotten, suddenly I had the opposite problem.

“Where are you going? When will you be home? Are you meeting Aleta? Do you want me to pack you snacks? Promise me you’ll be back before it gets dark?”

She wanted me to see a grief counsellor, and talk to Reverend Ramos, and join a soccer league, but all I wanted was to be left alone.

So I found ways.

After school I’d get off the bus, leave my bag by the front door and just walk. I’d never really know where I was going but that didn’t matter. I’d walk through the woods, and through the frozen, empty fields, and sooner or later I’d turn up at the tree house in the woods. I didn’t know where I was walking but I knew why.

I was looking for Sammy.

I kept thinking about Oliver’s version of heaven and trying to find signs that my brother was still around. I looked everywhere—everywhere but the Secret Spot. I couldn’t bring myself to go back there. An invisible wall of guilt kept me away.

So instead I’d lie down in the middle of a big open field and stare up at the passing clouds and think, that one, no, that one. But it never really felt like Sammy was there.

Other days I’d go inside the tree house and open the wooden chest where we kept all our Goosebumps books.

“Which one should we read today?” I’d say, then I’d choose the one I thought Sammy would pick.

I’d read out loud just like I used to and when I’d come to a word I thought Sammy wouldn’t know I’d stop and say, “Hideous, it means really ugly or disgusting or something like that.”

As the days rolled on I began to give up hope that I would ever find my brother. I started thinking Oliver was wrong. I felt cheated. I grew angry.

I’ll never find him, I thought.

Until the day I did.

I had been sitting beside the river thinking about all the hours Sammy and I had spent fishing in that tiny stream with rods of sticks and string.

“I can’t believe we actually thought we might catch something,” I said, forcing a laugh.

I thought I heard Sammy laughing too, but when I stopped and listened carefully it was just the sound of the wind rushing between the trees.