The Planet of Junior Brown by Virginia Hamilton

a suspicion, like a bad taste.
    His mother tried to get out of the suspicion by being sweet to Junior.
    She said, “I’ve made you some coffee. You can have milk in it but no sugar. There’s cereal and milk, with peaches—fresh peaches—sliced on it. There’s toast. I cannot allow you to have butter on the toast.”
    â€œI want some eggs and bacon and hot rolls and pancakes.”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œMama, I’m so hungry.”
    â€œGet up,” she said to him.
    Junior sat up on the edge of the bed. His mother helped him into a clean shirt, manipulating his heavy arms as though they were lifeless hams, first one arm and then the other. She gave him one-word directions. “Lift. Move. Turn. Lift.”
    She had Junior dressed in a few minutes. Junior made his own way into the kitchen while his mother stayed behind to order his room. When she returned, she found Junior had prepared his own breakfast. He had six eggs on a plate in front of him. He had cooked a mound of bacon placed next to the eggs.
    Junella stared at the bread she had toasted for him. Junior had spread it with butter and a thick layer of jelly.
    Junior wolfed down the food, eggs first, in oozing gobbles. He consumed everything he had prepared, every bit of bacon and all of the toast his mother had made.
    Without seeming to notice, Junior saw every look, even the slightest movement of his mother watching him from the doorway. He loved his mother. He had this toy he had kept for a long time, he didn’t know why. You wound it up and it would do the same thing over and over until it wound down. You wound it again and always it would do just what it only could do. Like his mother. Junior always knew she would do the same things over and over. There was safety in knowing that.
    He loved his father. At fifteen and a half, his father had walked out of the Big Black River country of northern Mississippi. He had taken one last look at the rich and bloody river-bottom soil and had headed into sandy foothills of scrub piney woods. His daddy told him, by the time he had walked across a third of the state and into Tennessee he was no longer a boy. He had become a man who ever after carried with him the scent of Mississippi danger.
    Slowly Junior started eating the cereal his mother had wanted him to have. He ate it all while staring at her and willing her to sit down. She did come and sit down right next to him at the table. She gathered her skirt in around her. She crossed her legs under the table. She folded her hands in front of her and cast her eyes down to one side.
    â€œWe can go to a museum,” his mother told him. “We can go to the park. It’s cold, but we can walk around. Junior? Try to believe I’m sorry. I thought he was coming home. Maybe he’ll come home by tonight. No. Don’t even think about it. No, just don’t get your heart set again.”
    Junior could hear movement, televisions, in other apartments, so still were he and his mother. He could hear the street; and beyond their street, other streets. The city out there was loud and bright. All of it revolved around Junior like a wheel, like a system in an immense spiral. Junior knew he was the center and the point of it all.
    He commanded the system to halt. A thunderous roar was the city stopped. With the crack-up of the last corner, Junior was left with the kitchen. His mother hadn’t moved or made notice of ended sound. She was caught there in time with him. She dangled in rhythm with him drinking his coffee. Junior knew the fire-chord which could make her spin and dance. He played one red tone at a time. Their street crackled, other streets kindled. The city flamed and lived.
    â€œBuddy Clark might be waiting for me to come on down and spend some time with him.”
    â€œThe boy has gone and left you,” his mother said.
    â€œWhy didn’t you wake me?”
    She shook her head rapidly, as if to dislodge cobwebs.