Smiles to Go Read online

  “They’re little,” I said.

  He brightened. “Like ants?”

  “Smaller,” I said.

  He thought. He looked around. He grinned. “A cootie?”

  “Smaller.”

  He wasn’t sure whether to laugh or not. He knocked my knee. “You’re funnin’ me, Will. Nothing’s littler than a cootie.”

  “You could fit a billion protons into the eyeball of a flea,” I told him.

  His mouth dropped. His eyes went wide. He knew from my face and my voice that I wasn’t kidding, he knew it must be true, but it wouldn’t stick to his brain. I wanted to say, Korbet, I’m sad. Can you make me feel better?

  I said, “Protons die.”

  He looked at me. “Do they go to Heaven?”

  How could I answer that? “Korbet,” I said, “what would you do if you liked a girl—”

  He jumped in, beaming. “I do! Tabby! I love her!”

  “—I know—if you liked a girl and you asked her to go to a dance with you but somebody else already asked her first? What would you do?”

  He uncurled his index finger, propped his chin on it. He pondered grimly for half a minute, staring off down the street. At last he nodded. He looked up. The gray of his eyes matched the flagstone. He looked older than five. He spoke: “Ask her to the next dance.”

  PD221

  I’ve been playing a lot of chess with my father. The tournament is this coming Saturday. Every once in a while it occurs to me that I’m defending champion. I used to practice all the time. I should have been gearing up for weeks, but I haven’t. I can’t concentrate. My father beat me yesterday. I stunk.

  Today was no better. It felt like all I did was stare at my father’s defense. Did I want to sacrifice my queen to open up the board? Or take the safe route and capture his knight? My eyes kept drifting to the back row, to his king and queen. But that’s not what I saw. Instead of the royal couple, I saw Mi-Su and Danny Riggs, dancing in a black-and-white checkerboard ballroom.

  “Daddy! Come here, quick!”

  Tabby was at the door. Dad and I were locked in my parents’ bedroom. It’s our Tabby defense. She knows chess takes concentration, so she tries to disrupt us whenever she gets wind that we’re playing. She always calls out for my father, but of course it’s me and my concentration she’s really after. Sometimes I’m amazed at how devious a five-year-old can be.

  “Daddy!”

  My father ignored her. He once told me that he allows her to do it because it’s good training for me—I must be able to shut out distractions.

  “Daddy!”

  “I can’t think,” I said.

  “Focus,” he whispered.

  Except for the pest, we tried to simulate tournament conditions. A timer sat on the table.

  “Daddy! There’s something in the hallway! Come quick!”

  The king and queen were waltzing across the floor…time was running out…couldn’t think…couldn’t think…blindly I moved my rook, took his knight. I hardly had time to pop my clock before Dad pounced, sending his bishop clear across the board, into my king’s face. “Check,” he said.

  Never saw it coming. Now I was in big trouble.

  “Daddy! Mommy wants you!”

  My turn again. It was no disgrace to lose to my father. It happens half the time. But I never get trounced, and today he was trouncing me. I could tell he was disappointed in me. But I also knew he wouldn’t let up. Even when I was little, he never let me win. When I finally did, I knew I’d earned it. He groomed me for that tournament. When I won, he was so proud. And now I was letting him down. Somewhere Mi-Su and Danny Riggs were smiling dreamily at each other and my sister was pounding on the door and I couldn’t think…couldn’t think…the clock was ticking…

  “Daddy! I’m bleeding!”

  Ticking…

  I roared: “Tabby! Shut up!”

  My father’s eyes flared.

  The clock pinged.

  I was out of time. I couldn’t believe it. That hadn’t happened to me since I was six. My father was staring at me. I couldn’t read his face.

  “It’s her fault,” I said.

  My father was moving pieces, resetting them for another game. But something was wrong—when I told Tabby to shut up, she shut up. For the last minute, nothing but silence from the other side of the bedroom door. And now I heard a faint sound. A kind of hissing, sipping sound. I turned in my chair. A red and white striped straw was poking under the door. She’d done this before. She was trying to force us to come out by sucking the air out of the room. When I turned back, my father’s neck was red. He was biting his lip.

  PD222

  We were first at the lunch table. Alone for the moment, if you can call being in the same room with three hundred other students alone. We had both brought our lunches from home. We unwrapped our sandwiches. I felt her staring.

  “Hi, Grumpy,” she said.

  I looked up. She was smiling sweetly.

  “Huh?”

  “I said, ‘Hi, Grumpy.’”

  I looked around. “You talking to me?”

  “No, I’m talking to your chicken salad sandwich.”

  “Who’s Grumpy?” I said.

  “You.”

  “Me?”

  “Yeah, you. Grumpy. Sourpuss. All week.”

  I smiled. “I’m not grumpy.”

  She laughed. “That…is the fakiest smile I’ve ever seen in my whole life.”

  “Fakiest isn’t a word,” I told her.

  She was silent for a while; then: “Will.”

  “What?”

  “Will.”

  “What?”

  “Look at me.”

  I looked at her.

  “Will…it’s just a dance. He asked me first. We’re only in ninth grade. There’s three more years. No big deal. I still like you. Get over it.”

  BT and others were heading our way. I shrugged. “I’m over it.”

  PD223

  I lost again to my father yesterday. And on my way to losing today. I’m going to lose in the first round on Saturday. I’m not only going to lose, I’m going to be embarrassed. I’ll be exposed as a fake and a fraud and a fluke. People will say, “He’s no good. Last year’s win was a fluke.” They’ll make me give my trophy back. “You’re a disgrace to the tournament,” they’ll say. I don’t want to go. I hope I get sick. I’m losing and I’m sad and I’m grumpy and the rooks and pawns keep looking up at me, like, “So what’s the next move, dummy?” and I’m not over it and Tabby was pounding on the door…pounding on the door…

  I punched my clock button.

  My father looked up. “You didn’t move.”

  “I’m not going,” I told him.

  He cocked his head. “Not going? Not going where?”

  “To the tournament. Saturday. I’m not ready, and I can’t get ready because of her. Maybe you can focus with all that racket, but I can’t. I’m not you. I’m not going.”

  My father yelled past me, “Tabby! Stop!”

  My father hardly ever raises his voice. When he does, Tabby hides in her bedroom closet. I heard her running off.

  My father restarted the timer.

  I punched it.

  “I’m not going,” I repeated. “It’s too late. She’s ruined a week of practice.”

  “She’s gone,” he said. “She won’t be back.”

  “It’s not just that,” I said. “She’ll be there all day Saturday. She’s into my head now. Just knowing she’s there in the audience—” I knew I was reaching but I didn’t care; I’d unleashed my mouth and it was taking off. “I’m hearing her in my dreams. I’ll be stinko. I’ll make a fool of myself.”

  He stared at me. I met his eyes. Did he believe me? His shoulders went up and down as he took a deep breath and let it out. Was he giving up on me? My son, the quitter? He nodded. “Hang in there. We’ll see. Give yourself the rest of the night off. Watch some TV. Clear your head.” He got up and unlocked the door.

 
; PD224

  My father hasn’t said a word about tomorrow. Is he letting me off the hook? At least there’s one thing I can control: Mi-Su and BT. They cheered me on last time. This morning at school I told them both I wasn’t entering the tournament this year, so don’t bother showing up. Of course they wanted to know why. I was going to make up some fancy lie, but then I had a brilliant idea: tell the truth (or at least part of it). So I told them my sister was driving me crazy and I couldn’t get any quality practice time in and I didn’t want to embarrass myself in front of my best friends and so I wasn’t going. They believed it.

  In the afternoon I came around a corner and bumped smack into Danny Riggs. He said, “Hi, Will,” and we went our ways. My name coming out of his mouth—why did it shock me? Why am I surprised he even knows it? He gave a little smile with it. Was he being the gracious victor? Being nice to the poor pathetic loser, the former boyfriend?

  I’m aching for the old days, before the star party and the kisses and the complications, before the tiny flying flashes, when we were all just friends and the biggest problem on Saturday nights was how many hotels to build on Park Place.

  PD225

  My pillow was warm with sun when my father poked his head into my room. “Let’s go, champ. Up and at ’em.”

  Until that moment I wasn’t sure I was going. I still didn’t want to. I had hoped he would let me sleep, but I guess I knew better.

  By the time I got down to breakfast, Tabby was wagging her head and saying, “No…no…” Her mouth was full of dry Lucky Charms.

  “Don’t you want to be with Aunt Nancy?” said my mother.

  “I hate Aunt Nancy.”

  “Stop being silly. You’ll have a good time.”

  “I want my ice cream.”

  “There’s ice cream in the fridge. Rocky Road. Just for you.”

  “I’m going to Purple Cow. I want my banana split.”

  “We’ll take you to Purple Cow next week.”

  She pounded the table. She spewed Lucky Charms. “No! Today! I go to the termament!”

  I was getting the picture. My parents had told her she was staying home, to be babysat by Aunt Nancy. For the last two years they’ve brought her with them to the tournament. It takes place in the gym at Lionville Middle School. There’s not much for little kids to do but sit and watch from morning till night. She kept getting itchy. Once, she ran down from the bleachers and snuck up behind me and put her hands over my eyes and said, “Guess who?” When the monitor came after her, she ran screaming like a banshee around the players’ tables. Another time she stood up in the bleachers and belted out: “Go, Will! Beat his pants off!”

  That’s when my mother dragged her off and took her to the nearby Purple Cow and told her she could get anything she wanted. She got the deluxe super-duper banana split. It took her over an hour to eat. For the last couple of weeks my mother has been telling her that if she’s good at the tournament, they’ll go to Purple Cow for another banana split. That’s really why Tabby wanted to go to Lionville, not to see me play chess. And Aunt Nancy couldn’t take her to Purple Cow because Aunt Nancy doesn’t drive.

  Tabby dumped her bowl of milkless Lucky Charms onto the kitchen table. She stood on her chair. She stomped her foot. “I’m going!”

  My father took her by the upper arms and lowered her to the floor. He kept hold of her as he sat on the chair and brought his face down to hers. “You have lots of days. You get your way a lot. This is Will’s day. You’re not going.” He said it calmly, softly. She jerked away from him and ran upstairs bawling. But not before giving me a look, a look that said, Will’s day, huh? So you’re the one behind all this.

  Actually, it’s not exactly true that Aunt Nancy doesn’t drive. She does drive a bicycle. She pulled into the driveway at 7:30, and a minute later the three of us were on our way to Lionville.

  My first opponent was a girl named Renee from Great Valley. Much to my surprise, I beat her. In only ten moves. Then I beat a guy from Conestoga High, a senior. I called checkmate before his king had time to straighten his crown.

  I was on a roll, and I didn’t know why. Maybe my father was right, taking time off cleared my head. Maybe my sister’s shenanigans distracted me from Mi-Su and Danny Riggs. All I know is, the more I won the more I wanted to win. Sixty-four kids had started the tournament. Two quick games—twenty-two moves—and already I was in the Sweet Sixteen. I began to picture a second trophy standing alongside the first.

  We went out for lunch break, to Purple Cow. Back in the gym, I zipped through my first match of the afternoon. That put me in the quarterfinals. Three rounds to paydirt. I was thinking: Cakewalk. Then, finally, I met some competition, a huge blobby crew-cut freckled red-haired junior from Henderson. Even his fat arms had freckles. And tattoos. Whales. Swimming in a sea of freckles. He called himself Orca. Not exactly your chessy type. But as soon as he rejected my queen’s gambit, I knew he was trouble.

  Five moves. Ten moves. Twenty. Thirty. Moves and countermoves. We were neck and neck. The board was smoking. You are truly focused when you’re so focused that you don’t know you’re focused. I wasn’t seeing trophies. I wasn’t seeing the crowd. I wasn’t seeing Orca. I wasn’t even seeing pawns and rooks and bishops. I was seeing the board. The whole board. Everything. That’s the key, to see it all, to see the patterns, the pitfalls, the possibilities. To blinder your brain until you’re in the zone, until your whole universe is the eighteen-by-eighteen-inch checkered chessboard in front of you.

  Me: Rook to bishop, one.

  Orca: Pawn to bishop, three.

  Me: Bishop to queen, three.

  My hope here was to lure Orca into moving his pawn to queen’s knight, three. It’s a trap Dad often sets for me.

  Orca: Pawn to queen’s knight, three.

  Yes!

  I pinched my pawn. With it I would take his pawn. By itself, an innocent little move, but it would be the beginning of the end. He was doomed, and he knew it. He was on the gangplank, and every move of mine from now on would be a sword tip poking him farther and farther out until—Checkmate!—he became shark meat.

  I was about to lift my pawn when I felt a hand on my shoulder. But even then I stayed with it, stayed in the zone, my eighteen-by-eighteen-inch world.

  “Will—”

  My father’s voice.

  “Not now,” I said.

  The hand squeezed. “Will.” I turned my head, looked up. His face wasn’t right. “We have to go.”

  “I can’t,” I said. I didn’t know why he was doing this, but I was sure he was kidding. Or testing me.

  “Come on,” he said. His voice was husky.

  “I’m winning,” I said. I might have whined.

  “Four more moves and I’m in the semis.” Orca was staring, mouth open.

  My father pulled my chair out as if I weighed nothing. He pulled me to my feet and led me off the floor. The gym was silent except for our footsteps. Only now, with my dad yanking me out of my zone, did I realize how much fun I had been having. I couldn’t remember the last time chess had been fun.

  My mother was waiting in the hallway. She was crying. She reached out and took my hand. I didn’t know she could squeeze so hard. “Tabby’s hurt,” she said.

  All I could come up with was one brilliant word: “What?” She was already heading out the door.

  My father talked as he drove to the hospital. Aunt Nancy said the morning had gone normally, Tabby watching her Saturday cartoons. They had hot dogs for lunch. About an hour later Aunt Nancy went upstairs to check on Tabby. The TV was on in her room, but no Tabby. Aunt Nancy looked around the house—dormer, basement, everywhere. Called for her. Nothing. She went outside. Korbet was playing in his backyard. No, he hadn’t seen Tabby. Neither had his parents.

  Aunt Nancy walked up and down the street, calling. She got on her bike and rode around the block. She rode in bigger and bigger circles around the house. She was all the way out to Heather Lane when she heard an ambulance s
iren. People were standing at the top of Dead Man’s Hill.

  “Little girl—” they said.

  “Skateboard—”

  “Crashed—”

  “Trauma center—”

  Aunt Nancy wouldn’t know a cell phone from a muskrat. She raced back, called my folks from the house.

  We passed the first carnival of the year, at the Greek Orthodox church. Tilt-A-Whirl looked like an alien spaceship gone berserk. A sign said “Souvlaki! Folk Dancing!” At the hospital all the closest parking spaces were for doctors. My father cursed them and parked in the last row. Halfway across the lot my mother gave a little squeak and broke into a run. In all my life I had never seen her run. My father started running, too. Then me.

  Emergency smelled like mouthwash. There were no rooms, just spaces divided by white curtains. Behind a counter a nurse looked up. She seemed surprised to see us. “Yes?”

  “Tabby Tuppence,” said my father.

  “Oh yes.” She pencil-pointed to one of the spaces. It was mobbed with white-coated people. You couldn’t even see the bed. “Right there. But we’ll have to ask you—”

  My mother was already marching. The nurse called, “Ma’am!” like my mother was really going to stop. At the bed my mother stood on tiptoes and looked over the white shoulders. Then a man nurse led her away, and we all went to sit in a little room with a TV and old magazines and a man and lady in the corner. The lady was sniffling. The man had his hand on her knee. He had the biggest ears I’d ever seen.

  We sat. Waited. Read year-old health and gardening magazines. After forever, a white-coated man came in. He smiled and looked down at us. “Mr. and Mrs. Tuppence?”

  A mangled syllable fell out of my father’s mouth.

  “I’m Dr. Fryman.”

  I thought: No, you’re not. You’re Dr. Short. Because he was so short. Not a dwarf, but not a heck of a lot taller either.

  He held out his hand for shaking. When he came to me, he said, “And you are?”

  “Will,” I said. I was surprised at the strength of his tiny hand. It felt funny looking down at a doctor.