said Robin. Which was not a line from the book.
“A sister is to drive you slowly insane,” I replied.
The sun was beginning to set. The sky was tiger-coloured, with stripes of black clouds.
“I have to get my stuff ready for the yard sale,” I said.
“Hey, stick around, dude,” said my dad. “I’ll read A Hole Is To Dig. Assuming we can find it, that is.”
“I’m way too old for that book,” I said, even though it was the first thing I’d put in my keepsakes bag.
“Lyle one more time,” Robin said. “Pleaseplease pleasepleaseplease?”
“Dad,” I asked, “did you buy some purple jelly beans?”
“Nope.”
“Then where did they come from? The ones in Robin’s T-ball cap? It doesn’t make any sense.”
“Robin went to Kylie’s birthday party yesterday,” said my mum. “Did you get them there, sweet pea?”
“Nope,” Robin said. “Kylie hates jelly beans. And anyway, I told you they were magic, Jackson.”
“There’s no such thing as magic,” I said.
“Music is magic,” said my mum.
“Love is magic,” said my dad.
“Rabbits in a hat are magic,” said Robin.
“I would put Krispy Kreme doughnuts in the magic category,” said my dad.
“How about the smell of a new baby?” asked my mum.
“Kitties are magic!” Robin yelled.
“Indeed,” said my dad, scratching Aretha’s ear. “And don’t forget dogs.”
They were still going at it when I shut the door.
I love my mum and my dad and usually my sister. But lately they’d really been getting on my nerves.
Robin was a little kid, so of course she was annoying. She’d say things like “What if a dog and a bird got married, Jackson?” Or sing “Wheels on the Bus” three thousand times in a row. Or steal my skateboard and use it for a doll ambulance. The usual little sister stuff.
My parents were more complicated. It’s hard to explain, especially since I know this sounds like a good thing, but they were always looking on the bright side. Even when things were bad – and they’d been bad a lot – they joked. They acted silly. They pretended everything was fine.
Sometimes I just wanted to be treated like a grown-up. I wanted to hear the truth, even if it wasn’t a happy truth. I understood things. I knew way more than they thought I did.
But my parents were optimists. They looked at half a glass of water and figured it was half full, not half empty.
Not me. Scientists can’t afford to be optimists or pessimists. They just observe the world and see what is. They look at a glass of water and measure 125 millilitres or whatever, and that’s the end of the discussion.
Take my dad. When I was younger, he got sick, really sick. He found out he has this disease called multiple sclerosis. Mostly he has good days, but sometimes he has bad ones when it’s hard to walk and he has to use a cane.
When he learned he had MS, my dad acted like it was no big deal, even though he had to quit his job, which was building houses. He said he was tired of listening to hammering all day long. He said he wanted to wear fancy shoes instead of muddy ones, and then he wrote a song about it called ‘The Muddy Shoes Blues’. He said he might work from home, so he taped a sign on the bathroom door that said OFFICE OF MR THOMAS WADE. My mum put a sign next to it that said I’D RATHER BE FISHING.
And that was that.
Sometimes I just want to ask my parents if my dad is going to be OK or why we don’t always have enough food in the house or why they’ve been arguing so much.
Also, why I couldn’t have been an only child.
But I don’t ask. Not any more.
Last autumn we were at a neighbourhood potluck dinner when Aretha ate a baby’s disposable diaper. She had to spend two nights at the vet’s until she pooped it out.
“Poop in, poop out,” my dad said when we picked her up. “It’s the cycle of life.”
“The cycle of life is expensive,” my mum said, staring at the bill. “Looks like rent’s going to be late again this month.”
When we got to the car, I came right out and asked if we had enough money for stuff. My dad said not to worry. That we just were a little financially challenged. He said sometimes it’s hard to plan for everything, unless you have a crystal ball and can see the future, and if I knew someone with a crystal ball, he would love to borrow it.
My mum said something about winning the lottery, and my dad said if they won the lottery, could he please get a Ferrari, and she said how about a Jaguar, and then I could tell they wanted to change the subject.
I didn’t ask any more hard questions after that.
Somehow I just knew my parents didn’t want to give me hard answers.
After I got ready for bed, I lay on my mattress and thought things over.
I thought about the stuff I’d put in my keepsakes bag. Some photos. A spelling bee trophy. A bunch of nature books. My teddy bear. A clay statue of Crenshaw that I’d made when I was in second grade. My worn-out copy of A Hole Is To Dig.
I thought about Crenshaw and the surfboard.
I thought about the purple jelly beans.
Mostly, though, I thought about the signs I’d been noticing.
I am very observant, which is a useful thing for a scientist to be. Here’s what I’d been observing:
Big piles of bills.
Parents whispering.
Parents arguing.
Stuff getting sold, like the silver teapot my grandma gave my mum and our laptop computer.
The power going off for two days because we hadn’t paid the bill.
Not much food except peanut butter and mac and cheese and Cup O’ Noodles.
My mum digging under the couch cushions for quarters.
My dad digging under the couch cushions for dimes.
My mum borrowing toilet paper rolls from work.
The landlord coming over and saying “I’m sorry” and shaking his head a lot.
It didn’t make sense. My mum had three part-time jobs. My dad had two part-time jobs. You’d think that would add up to two whole actual jobs, but it didn’t seem to.
My mum used to teach music at a middle school until they cut her job. Now she worked as a waitress at two restaurants and as a cashier at a pharmacy. She wanted to get another job teaching music, but so far nothing had come up.
After my dad had to quit construction work, he started a handyman business. He did small fix-it stuff, but sometimes he wasn’t feeling well and had to cancel appointments. He also gave private guitar