Here the Whole Time(47)

I realize that I haven’t been back since my grandma died.

“It’s true. I’ve just been so busy. With school and everything. But now I’m on vacation. I came to catch up and to look for an important book. One that I’m sure I’ll find here.”

Marta starts rolling up her sleeves right away, ready to help me with my search.

“All right, which book do you need? Is it for school? It must be for history, no? Boys your age will only show up if they’re looking for some historical thing. It seems as if they haven’t been able to put all of history online yet.”

“No, no. It’s not for school. I think I can find it myself. That is, if everything is still in the same place.”

“Everything here is still the same; nothing has changed.” Then she takes one look at me, and I think she remembers that my grandma isn’t here anymore. “Well, almost nothing.”

Marta pats my shoulder, and that’s my cue to start my search. I walk down the main hall (so empty it’s almost scary) and stop at the end, to the left, at the children’s books section.

I run my fingers down the book spines on the top shelf, searching one by one. It doesn’t take me long to find the old, yellowed edition of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, and when I take it off the shelf, I feel the memories coming back little by little.

I was ten or eleven that day. Right when being fat started becoming a reason for the boys in my class to make fun of me. My grandma came to pick me up early from school. I don’t remember if it was Indigenous Peoples’ Day or Easter, but I remember I wasn’t wearing my normal clothes. So, accordingly, it was either an offensive headpiece made of paper or not-so-offensive bunny ears. You can pick your favorite to imagine the story from here on.

Anyway, we were walking down the square on our way to the library when we saw a group of kids from school on the playground. I remember it had just been renovated and there was a line of kids waiting to use the new metal slide that would burn our butts on hot, sunny days.

“Want to go play with the boys for a bit?” Grandma asked, pointing at a group of boys from my class. Boys who, at the time, already had a list of nicknames for me and would use that list all the time, without thinking twice. Because when you’re ten or eleven, you don’t care.

“No. Let’s go to the library,” I answered, pulling my grandma in the opposite direction.

“Do you want to go play with the girls, then?” she asked, and at the time I didn’t understand what she meant. Now I do.

“I don’t want to go, Grandma. Let’s get out of here,” I whimpered like a brat to see if that would work. She took my hand, and we kept on walking.

“You need to make more friends, Lipé. I was just trying to help. Grandma’s sorry,” she said.

“I don’t think I want to be friends with them.”

“May I know why?”

“I don’t know, Grandma. I don’t feel well. That’s all.”

“What is it that you do feel?” Grandma asked, and I think that was my very first therapy session.

“Afraid,” I answered without thinking. And my grandma went silent, not knowing what to say. I also wouldn’t know what to tell a ten-or eleven-year-old who’s afraid of his classmates. Maybe I’d call the police.

All I remember is, on that day, when we got to the library, my grandma handed me this edition of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (which at the time was already old).

“There’s a scared lion in this book. He learns to be brave. Maybe you can, too,” Grandma Thereza said, stroking my head as I scanned the illustrations on the pages, searching for a quick answer that wouldn’t involve me reading the entire book.

Grandma was always like that. She always had the right book for the right occasion. And I, with nothing else to do that afternoon, sat in an armchair and started reading. I remember reading until my head hurt, and at the end of her workday, I hadn’t finished yet. I took the book home, where I read it to the end.

At the end, the Lion kills a giant spider that was scaring all the animals. He’s then crowned as the new king of the forest.

Right after he kills the spider, he says proudly, “You need fear your enemy no longer.”

That part was stuck in my head forever. I read and reread it, trying to put myself in the Lion’s shoes. Trying to see a way to defeat my giant spider and be crowned the king of school. For days I went to school determined to face the spiders, but when the time came, I always put my head down and listened in silence as my schoolmates chanted, “Chubby, fat, punching bag.”

Six or seven years later, the solution hasn’t come to me yet. And today in therapy, when I heard Olivia say those words, I thought I could find the answer here.

“I’m borrowing this one,” I tell Marta, sliding the book across the counter.

“The Wonderful Wizard of Oz? One of my favorites. We have a newer edition. Revised, all illustrated, exquisite. Would you like me to get it?”

“No, no need, Marta. I’m taking this one right here. It’s special.”

Marta thinks for a second and then comes closer to me, as if about to tell me a secret. As if the library wasn’t almost completely empty.

“If it’s that special, you can keep it. But don’t tell anyone I let you do that.”

Even though it’s an old, yellow book with some loose pages, it’s one of the best gifts I’ve ever received. So I don’t bother being coy and accept it right away.