The Graham Cracker Plot (2 page)

I changed the subject. “Can I get a candy bar from the machine when we get there?”

“You're going to get a big belly. That's where carbs go. Belly fat,” she said. “But I guess I can spring for a candy bar.”

“I had eggs for breakfast!”

“You're a pretty girl, but you've got roly-poly in your mom's side of the family. You're going to have to watch what you eat.”

Grandma can talk for hours about working out and low-carb diets. She likes to point out she's in better shape than Mom. The Chemist always says Grandma's happiness is directly related to Mom's weight.

*   *   *

Grandma drove into the visiting center parking lot. I studied the tall fence that surrounds Club Fed. “Do you think it's electric? Like if we touched the fence, would we get electrocuted?”

“God no. It's not Alcatraz.”

“What's Alcatraz?”

“It was a horrible prison for the worst of the worst. They put it on an island off California so nobody could ever escape.”

“So nobody ever escaped Alcatraz?”

“Actually, they did. A couple of guys made it out. They were never found. It was such a big deal that Hollywood made a movie about it.”

I made a mental note to rent that movie. “Think anyone ever escaped from Club Fed?”

She held my hand as we walked to the door. “I think about it every day.”

That's what she said, and she hadn't even seen the Chemist's face yet.

*   *   *

On Sundays, the guard at the entrance was Aaron. His big belly made the buttons on his shirt stand at attention. If he laughs too hard, one of those buttons is going to pop and someone is going to lose an eye, and let me tell you, Aaron laughed a lot. He'd tell me I'm going to be as pretty as my mother someday; then he'd swoop his eyes at Grandma. She'd smile, run her fingers through her frosty, blond hair, and remind him I'm her grandbaby, and he'd act shocked. He always said, “I didn't know it was possible to be a grandmother at twenty-five!” And he laughed, and Grandma laughed, and I laughed because I thought he'd be nicer to the Chemist if I made him think he's funny.

We had to leave coats, purses, bags, and stuff in a locker. We could bring money for the vending machine if it was in a clear sandwich bag.

Grandma told me if I had something lumpy in my pocket, Aaron would bring me to a special room and do a pat-down. At school, we'd call a guy like that a creeper, but at Club Fed, he's security.

After we cleared out our things, we walked through the metal detector and pushed through two heavy doors to the visiting center.

It was a big room with lots of windows, tables, and folding chairs. It used to be the student union, which means the student hangout. Against the wall were magazines, books, and board games. There were two Ping-Pong tables in the back. And kids. Lots of kids. I high-fived Derrick and Shane and Luci. I just waved at Juan-the-Nose-Picker. And I bent over and patted Calvin's head.

Then I saw him.

The Chemist waited at a small table by the window. At first I thought it was the sunlight hitting the glass, that somehow the bright light made the left side of his face look puffy and red and almost purple. Then he smiled. Only half of his lips moved. The other half was frozen.

Grandma sat down in a lump. “What the hell happened?”

“Looks way worse than it feels.” The Chemist winked at me with his puffy brown eye, but the lid didn't quite close.

“Jacob? Really. What happened?”

“It was late, like midnight, and I got out of bed to take a leak and I walked into the wall!” He laughed. But it was a half laugh because his cheek was stiff.

Grandma's face went red. She slapped the table and said, “Stop with the crap. What happened?”

“Mom, it's nothing.”

“Jacob Bauer. Tell me what happened.”

“You know how we take classes? I accidentally welded my head. Clumsy, eh?” The Chemist smiled at me. I tried to smile back, but I couldn't make my face work.

“Jacob—”

“Mom! Let it chill, okay? No reason to worry the rug rat.” He winked at me again. It was gross. His eyelids couldn't come together on account of their puffiness.

Grandma nudged me. “Daisy. Go find a magazine.”

“I don't want a magazine.”

“I want to talk to your father for a minute.”

The Chemist stood up and gave me my first hug. You get two at Club Fed: one at hello and one at goodbye. But you can't linger because if you linger Aaron yells, “No lingering!”

“Daisy. Magazine. Now,” Grandma said. “Be a good girl.”

“But I want to talk to him, too!”

“Aurora Dawn Bauer! Go get a magazine from the rack. Find a long article and don't come back until you've read it twice. March!”

I marched. I picked a magazine with a sports car on the cover, held it nose level, and watched them. The back of the Chemist's head was still, but Grandma's mouth moved like the wings of a hummingbird. Occasionally she'd slam her hands on the table or cross her arms. Then she started dabbing the corners of her eyes with her sleeves, and I could see mascara smudges. I marched right back.

“Daisy—” Grandma began, but I blurted out, “Eco-friendly sports cars!”

“What?”

“I read it twice. Eco-friendly! Sports cars!”

She sighed. “Hon, I'm not feeling so well. My stomach's all twisted up. We have to go soon.”

“But I didn't even talk to him!”

The Chemist leaned forward and put his hand over my fist. “We have our Wednesday night phone date, right?”

Grandma stood up. “I'm going to the bathroom to fix my face. You two say goodbye.” Off to the bathroom she went.

The Chemist pulled his hand away and crossed his arms just as Aaron called out, “No touching.”

“I don't want to go yet,” I said. “We just got here. Why's Grandma crying? And what happened to your face?”

“Baby, it's all good. Grandma's freaked out about nothing. It's how she gets. But you got no worries, okay?”

“What happened?” I tried to sound like my school principal, who I see when I forget my manners and talk back. She's Mrs. Tell-the-Truth-or-Else.

“Just a disagreement between gentlemen.”

“You hit him back?”

“You don't think I'd just lay there and take it? Of course I hit them back. You should see their faces. Pepperoni pizza, baby.”

“Them? More than one?”

“Hell, they were small. Like Muppets.”

“Did you see a doctor?”

“It's Club Fed! Free medical care. Dental, too.” His smile was swollen.

“Dental?”

He pointed in his mouth where a tooth was missing.

I gasped. “Does it hurt?”

“Truth?”

“Yes. Complete and total.”

He shrugged. “Not much.”

“How can you get hurt in Club Fed? There are guards! Are they napping or watching cartoons or what?”

“You ever see someone get bullied at school? You know, right under the eyes and ears of the teachers and janitors?” I nodded. That happens to Graham all the time. At recess Jesse Ellman yells, “Graham Cracker is a total slacker!” Sometimes he pushes Graham, too. That's when I pretend to be looking at the sky. So do the playground supervisors. I'd say something to Jesse, but I'm just a kid! The adults are supposed to take down the bullies. Plus Graham acts so stupid sometimes. If you don't want to be a bully magnet, then comb your hair and chew with your mouth closed and don't wear the same shirt three days in a row.

The Chemist said, “Club Fed's no different than school. It happens. But it's all good.”

“It's not all good. It's bad!” I felt my chin shaking. This means I'm going to cry.

“Well, there is one bad thing.” He leaned forward and whispered, “A terrible thing.”

I was afraid to ask, but I did. “What?”

“The Tooth Fairy. She's not allowed in Club Fed. No special passes for fairies.” He pretended to be all serious; then he laughed.

I rolled my eyes. “Right. Whatever.”

“Can you smile for me? Please? It's my once-a-month Daisy smile. You know what I do with it?”

I shook my head and tried to hold my chin steady.

“I make a picture of you in my head. Your perfect face. Today it's gonna be your beautiful smile with your big brown eyes and those pretty braids Grandma put in your hair and your nails all done up. I memorize it all. Red sweatshirt. Little hoop earrings I gave you for Christmas.” I touched my earrings. “I put that picture in my head and file it away. Then when I need to feel good about something, I pull it out and look at it. So smile for me, okay?”

I smiled. It was fake. It was lame. It was dumb. But it was for the Chemist.

Grandma put her hand on my shoulder. “Let's go, baby.”

That's when I broke my first prison rule. I sat on the Chemist's lap and eased my cheek against his swollen one. And I gave him the tightest gentle squeeze I could. He was so skinny.

“It's fine, baby,” he whispered. “I'm fine.”

I didn't believe him. I didn't want to let him go. If I could just stay there, sitting on his lap, nobody would hurt him because they'd have to pry me off first. And nobody in Club Fed needs the extra trouble of pulling an almost twelve-year-old girl off her dad's lap.

“No extraneous touching and no lingering!” Aaron called.

Grandma patted my head. “Let's go, Daisy. We'll get fries and a shake today. Carbs be damned.”

“No.” I said it loud, but my face was buried in his shoulder. The Chemist gave me a squeeze and said, “We'll talk Wednesday, okay?”

“I want to know what happened.”

“Daisy, you're super chill, but Grandma's a mess,” he whispered. “She needs to get out of here. You take care of the old lady today. Go shopping. Hey, if you act cute, she'll probably buy you something. That'd be fun, huh?”

“No lingering!” Aaron's cheerful voice was less cheerful this time.

The Chemist put his hands up to show
he
wasn't the one lingering. I squeezed him tighter.

“Let's go,” Grandma said.

“No!” I turned my face away from the Chemist and shouted at Grandma and Aaron. “I can hug my dad if I want! I'm not doing anything wrong. You can't stop me!”

Everyone was watching. Luci and the other kids shook their heads at me, and even Juan stopped picking his nose. Aaron pointed his finger and marched from the vending machine toward us. “Daisy, if you don't release your father, I'm going to have to write you up. And that means you'll be banned from visiting for six months. You don't want that, do you?”

“This is not school!” Grandma hissed to me. “Here you have to listen!”

By now, everyone was watching, even the fed-mates. The Chemist tried to push me off his lap, but I hung on tight. “Time to be a big girl,” he said.

“No!”

“Daisy, this is your final warning.” Aaron hovered over the Chemist, and there was no danger of his buttons popping off his shirt from jelly-belly laughter. “You've got me on the edge of a cliff, here. Don't push me over. Stand up now or I'll have to write a report.”

So I stood up, to show I was listening, but I kept my arms around the Chemist, like my hands were glued to his back. Grandma pulled on me while the Chemist pushed. They were both telling me to stop and let go and listen and be good. As the Chemist talked to me, all I noticed was how half his face couldn't move. And the empty spot that had been home to a tooth.

I thought about how Mom kicked him out before I was old enough to have memories, how she yelled at him for money and called him deadbeat, how his own dad left and never took him out for mozzarella sticks, how a judge didn't care the explosion was a mistake, how fed-mates clobbered him for no reason, how the clerks at our visiting-day McDonald's stop knew to give Grandma extra napkins because she'd cry instead of eating a cheeseburger, hold the bun.

Aaron was going to give me the six-month visiting ban. I could see it in his mean eyes. Right then and there I decided to help the Chemist.

I pulled away from Grandma and the Chemist and climbed on the table. And I screamed, “If any of you creepers hurt my father, I will come after you! I will take a stick and poke out your eyeballs and play marbles with them! And I will fill your empty eye holes with … with … worms! And crickets! My dad shouldn't even be here! You're all mad because you're guilty and he's not!”

That's when the other security guards poured into the room.

 

DEAR JUDGE HENRY,

I'm supposed to say I'm sorry I linger-touched the Chemist and threatened those guys and their eyeballs. So, here you go: I'm sorry I linger-touched the Chemist and yelled about eyeballs and worms. Okay?

I am COOPERATING!

You know what happened next: I got the six-month visiting ban, and the prison people called the County, and the County sent a social worker to see me and my mom. He said the County could help me cope with my troubles by paying for counseling, but Mom said the County just wants in our business again. We'd had enough of the County.

After we got the papers for the visiting ban, Grandma and I drove back to her house. I couldn't erase what I'd done at the prison. But I wondered if the prison people might forgive me.

“Can you call the lawyer who gave me to you once a month? Maybe he can fix this mess.”

She sniffled and said, “Please see if there's a napkin in the glove compartment.” I found one, and she drove with one hand and blew her nose into the napkin. Then she said, “Daisy, I'm afraid he's going to get hurt, really hurt. He's not like them. He's a sweet boy.”

“Either tell me what happened or stop talking about it.” My chin was shaking again.

She sighed. “Some of the men there don't like him. Your father can be a smart talker, you know. He needs to learn to keep his mouth shut.”