The Square Root of Summer(6)

It’s a pointed remark. Back in ninth grade, Sof opted for art, geography, German. I went with her choices to save making my own, which sums up our entire friendship. I never told her I had different plans, once we switched schools right before junior year—it was easier to wait for her to notice I wasn’t at the next easel.

“Physics quiz,” I explain.

“Whatcha do to get thrown in the gulag?” she croaks. For a white-witch-tiger-balm-super-hippie, she sounds like she gargles cigarettes for breakfast.

“Daydreaming.” I fiddle with my pen. “What about you?”

“Nothing,” she says. “It’s time to spring you.”

When I look up at the clock, she’s right. The teacher’s gone. The room’s empty. Detention ended an hour ago. Huh. It doesn’t feel like I’ve slept for that long.

“They lock the bike sheds at five.” She stands up, fiddling with the strap on her portfolio. “Do you want to catch the bus with me?”

“Okay…” I say, only half paying attention. I stare at the notebook: it’s only paper, but I shove it right to the bottom of my book bag like it’s to blame for what just happened.

Was I really asleep? Is that where the last hour went? I think back to Saturday, a whole afternoon lost before I found myself under the apple tree.

Perhaps I am insane. I take that thought, and shove it as far down as it will go too.

Sof’s waiting for me at the door. The silence that rides between us all the way home is so heavy, it deserves its own bus ticket.





Monday 5 July (Evening)

[Minus three hundred and seven]

Schere. Stein. Papier.

It’s after dinner, and we’ve been standing outside Grey’s bedroom door playing rock-paper-scissors for twenty minutes. Food was eaten in silent disbelief after Papa suggested Ned and I might want to clear out Grey’s room.

“Dare you,” says Ned. Stein beats Schere.

“You first,” I say. Papier beats Stein.

“Best out of, uh, fifty?”

I’ve only been in there once all year. It was right after the funeral. Ned was leaving for art school in London and Papa was falling apart and pretending he wasn’t by hiding at the bookshop, so I did it. Not looking left or right, I took a garbage bag and I swept in everything I needed to—deodorant sticks, beer bottles, dirty plates, half-read newspapers. (Grey’s cleaning philosophy: “Here be dragons!”)

Then I went through the house, picking out the things I couldn’t bear to look at—the enormous orange casserole dish and the Japanese lucky cat; his favorite tartan blanket and a lumpy clay ashtray I made; dozens of tiny Buddha statues tucked into shelves and corners—and I put it all in the shed. I did the same with his car. Papa didn’t notice, or didn’t say anything, not even when I rearranged the furniture to hide the spectrum of crayon marks on the wall, marking our heights as we grew up—Mum, Ned, me. Even Thomas, occasionally.

Then I shut Grey’s bedroom door, and it hasn’t been opened until now.

Paper beats rock, again. I win.

“Whatever.” Ned shrugs, no big deal. But I notice his hand rests on the doorknob for a full minute before he turns it. His nails are pink. When he finally pushes the door open, it creaks. I hold my breath, but no swarm of locusts emerges. There are no earthquakes. It’s exactly as I left it.

Which is bad, because there are books everywhere. Double-shelved from wonky floor to sloping ceiling. Piled up against the walls. Stacked under the bed. Word stalagmites.

Ned clambers past me and yanks open the curtains. I watch from the doorway as the evening sunlight pours in, illuminating approximately eleventy million more books and sending up dust tornadoes.

“Whoa,” says Ned, turning around, taking it all in. “Papa told me you cleaned it.”

“I did!” God. I lurk in the doorway, afraid to go in any farther. “Do you see any moldy coffee mugs?”

“Yeah, but…” He turns away and starts fiddling with cupboard doors and pulling things open. There are more books inside a chest of drawers. After Ned opens the wardrobe, he lets out a long, low whistle.

He doesn’t say anything, just stands there staring as if he’s seen something … odd. As in disappearing-notebook-hole-in-the-universe odd.

“Have you found Narnia in there or something?”

“Grots.”

“What is it?” I take a step into the room, keeping my eyes on Ned and not the rest of it—the photographs of our mum everywhere. The huge painting on the wall above the bed.

“Grots,” Ned says again, not looking up, talking to the wardrobe. “Fuck. Gottie. His shoes are still in here.”

Oh. There’s that swarm of locusts.

“I know.”

“Couldn’t face it, huh?” Ned gives me a sympathetic look, then turns to sit on the piano stool. When Grey was steamed on homemade wine, he’d leave his door open and tunelessly pound out music hall hits. “It’s not the melody that counts, it’s the volume,” he’d boom, not listening to our many declarations otherwise.

Ned runs his hands up and down the keys. The notes emerge in a series of muffled plinks, but I recognize the song.

Papa’s left a stack of flattened cardboard boxes on the bed. I walk round to the other side so I don’t have to see the painting, and start assembling them. I’m careful not to touch the bed itself, even though it’s covered in a dust sheet. This is where Grey slept. In twenty-four hours, Thomas is going to erase his dreams.