The Fourteenth Goldfish (13 page)

“It’s the cycle of life,” I say, remembering
Starlily’s words. “Things need to move forward, not backward.”

“Who wants to move forward? Not me.”

My mind is racing now and I think of things not moving forward. Like my mom. She’s scared of making a mistake again, even though anyone can see that Ben’s the perfect missing piece for her puzzle.

“What about the whole law-of-motion thing? You’re supposed to keep moving or you get stuck! Like Mom with Ben!”

“She can do better than him,” my grandfather says, ignoring what I’m really saying.

“What if we’ve gone too far? What if we ruin the whole world?”

“So dramatic,” he observes. “Just like your mother.”

“What about the trash cans?” I ask.

“I’ll put them out tonight,” he says.

“How’s that going to work? When all the old people are young again, who’s going to be in charge? Who’s going to decide when to put out the
trash cans and turn up the heat?
Who’s going to be the grown-up?
”

He looks momentarily off balance, as if he hasn’t considered this. Then his expression hardens.

“You don’t understand. You haven’t had to live through this,” he says.

The words tumble from my mouth before I can stop them. “But I want to!”

I look at him imploringly. “Is growing up, growing old—
life
—is it all so terrible?”

His eyes go still, and he looks at me, like he’s seeing me for the first time.

I take a deep breath, remember the feeling of dancing on that dark floor, the music pounding through me, the possibility of
something
—I don’t know what—so close, and I want to feel that again.

“Because I want to try it,” I whisper. “I’m only twelve.”

The garage door rumbles open. My mom walks into the kitchen carrying bags of takeout.

“I picked up Chinese,” she says with a smile.
“And, yes, Dad, I got you moo goo gai pan and extra soy sauce.”

He stares at the bags and then at me.

“I’m not hungry,” he says, and walks out.

My mom turns to me. “Guess there’s a first time for everything.”

I’m wearing my warmest sweater, but it does nothing to warm the chill between me and my grandfather.

At the lunch court, he eats his lunch in two bites and then races off.

“What’s going on with you guys?” Raj asks me.

“We had a fight,” I say.

“About what?”

“Just stuff,” I hedge.

As if “stuff” can describe a disagreement about the fate of all humankind.

My mom hates having a half-empty theater on opening night, so she enlists me to help fill the unsold seats for
Our Town
. She gives me a ton of free tickets to pass out around school.

During science class, I ask Momo if she’d like some.

“They’re free,” I explain. “My mom’s the director.”

“Sure,” she says. “Will you be going?”

I make a face. “Oh, I’ll be there.”

She laughs. “I know the feeling. I have to go to all my brother’s soccer games.” Then she says, “You want to do something after? Maybe get some frozen yogurt?”

I smile at her. “That sounds great!”

Our Town
opens on Friday night. My mom’s already at the theater getting everything ready, so Ben
drives my grandfather and me over. My grandfather’s wearing a jacket and tie. I expect him to complain about having to see
Our Town
, but he’s unusually quiet.

The theater is packed. I guess all my hard work paid off. I wave at Momo, who looks like she brought her whole family. We settle down in our seats. The houselights go dark and the curtain comes up.

Maybe I was too young when I saw it all those times before, because this time it’s interesting. Or maybe it’s the actors. My mom was right—the kids playing Emily and George are great, especially Emily.

She starts out as a teenager. She grows up, gets married, and then dies while having her second baby. After she’s dead, she comes back to Earth for one day—as a twelve-year-old. Just like me.

She has a line about whether anyone understands life when they’re living it. I get what she’s trying to say: life is precious and we don’t realize that at the time. But maybe life’s also precious because it doesn’t last forever. Like an amusement
park ride. The roller coaster is exciting the first time. But would it be as fun if you did it again and again and again?

I can’t help myself; I glance at my grandfather. His eyes are locked on the stage, transfixed. As if sensing me looking at him, he glances at me. Our eyes meet and hold. Something in his face softens, and I think for a moment that he gets it, too. That he
understands
.

But then he blinks.

And looks away.

The play gets great reviews. They even get a standing ovation on closing night. But at home, there’s no clapping, no encore. It’s just me and my grandfather not talking to each other.

I put a new packet of ponytail holders out for him in the bathroom as a sort of peace offering, but he just leaves them there.

Part of me wants to smooth everything over, tell
him I was wrong. But deep down, I know I’m right. The world isn’t ready for
T. melvinus
. I wonder if this is what it’s like to be a scientist. To believe in something so strongly that you’re willing to go against everything, even someone you love.

Maybe I am a little bit mad after all.

The house is empty when we get home from school. My mom’s at the high school striking the set. My grandfather and I go our separate ways: me to the kitchen, him to the bathroom.

I’m full of nervous energy and decide to cook something. I flip through my grandmother’s recipe box and settle on quiche. I make sure we have all the ingredients: flour and butter for the crust, eggs, ham, cheese. There’s only one block of cheese, and it’s way in the back of the refrigerator. When I pull it out, I realize it must have been in there for a long time: there’s fuzzy blue-green mold growing on it. My first reaction is to be grossed out, but my
second reaction is to be intrigued. I kind of want to see what it looks like under a microscope.

I get my microscope and set it up at the kitchen counter. I scrape off some of the mold, put it on a slide, and look at it through the eyepiece. It looks like delicate threads.

My grandfather walks into the kitchen, carrying The Catcher in the Rye.

“The toilet’s clogged again,” he tells me. “What are you looking at?”

I feel awkward explaining it to him. “I was making a quiche, but the cheese was all moldy, so I decided to observe the mold under the microscope.”

He gives me an unfathomable look and says, “Of course you did. That’s what a scientist would do.”

I don’t know what to say.

My grandfather holds up the book. “I finished it. It was good.”

My mouth drops open. “It was?”

“Yes. I judged it prematurely and I was wrong about it.” He hesitates. “About other things, too.”

He plucks an apple from the bowl of fruit. It’s red and bruised, almost starting to go.

“You were right,” he says with a lift of his shoulders.

I hold my breath, waiting. Hoping.

He looks at the apple. “The seed is planted, it grows into a tree, the fruit ripens, falls onto the ground.” He takes a bite. Juice drips down his chin. “And then it starts all over again. The cycle of life. I don’t need to be Galileo to make that observation.”

I swallow.

“Science is powerful. There are always consequences—wonderful and terrible. I suppose I lost my way for a moment in all the excitement and forgot what Salk said.”

“What did he say?”

His eyes meet mine. “Our greatest responsibility is to be good ancestors.”

I nod.

Then he heaves a great sigh. “I guess this means I won’t be getting a Nobel.”

“Scientists don’t give up. You can still get a Nobel someday. For something even more important. Something that nobody’s ever done before!”

“And what would that be?” he asks, sounding skeptical.

I point to the pimple on my chin. “Finding a cure for acne.”

“Hmm. That
would
be revolutionary.” He shakes his head. “Enough about all this. Is the plunger in the garage? I need to use it to clear the toilet. It took a few tries to get the
T. melvinus
down.”

“You flushed it? Why didn’t you just put it in the trash?”

He scoffs. “The trash? Your mother would probably forget to put it out. Then raccoons would get into the cans and eat the
T. melvinus
, and who knows what would happen next? Vicious raccoons that never get old rampaging around the neighborhood?”

We laugh.

Nicole calls to tell my mom that she wants her old babysitting job back. The ear-piercing place is not turning out to be the great opportunity she thought it would be. My grandfather greets this news with enthusiasm.

“It’s time for me to move on anyway,” he informs us.

I look at him in horror. “You’re leaving?”

“I’ll be back. Don’t worry about that,” he says.
“I have to make sure you get into a decent PhD program.”

“But who’s going to look after you?” my mother exclaims. “You’re thirteen years old!”

My grandfather gives my mother a steady look. “Melissa, we both know this isn’t working out. There are things I want to do—that I need to do. And I’ll look after myself. I’m a grown-up.”

She looks like she wants to disagree, but then she purses her lips.

“Where will you go?” I ask him.

“I’m not sure exactly. I thought I’d travel. Take a bus ride.” He pauses. “See the country.”

I remember my grandmother’s dream.

My mother arranges for movers to put everything from his apartment in storage. She also gets him a cell phone and puts him on our family plan so that he can stay in touch on the road.

On the day he’s leaving, we wait with him in the bus station. It’s bustling with people coming and going, rushing to catch buses leaving for
everywhere. My grandfather’s not sure where he’s going. He says he has nothing but time and money.

“Will you be okay?” my mother asks him.

“Of course I will. I have two PhDs,” he says firmly.

I hand him my going-away present.

“What’s this?” he asks, surprised.

He opens the wrapped box and looks at what’s inside: my collection of ponytail holders.

Tears prick at my eyes. I don’t want him to leave. I grab him, hug him tight.

“I love you,” I say.

My grandfather hugs me back, whispers in my ear, “I believe in you, Ellie. You’re my
possible
.”

I watch him board the bus and know I will never look at a bowl of fruit or cheese, or anything ever, in the same way again. It turned out that what I needed to teach me about life was my grandfather.

He was the fourteenth goldfish.

Everything’s back to the way it was before, but it doesn’t feel the same. The house is oddly empty. Who knew you could miss the smell of teenage-boy socks?

I decide my room needs a makeover; I don’t want to look at all those little handprints anymore. My dad helps me one weekend when he’s home. We paint the walls a deep sea blue. We use glow-in-the-dark paint to add jellyfish near the ceiling. When I lie in bed at night, it feels like I’m on the bottom of the ocean.