just walk into his room and hand them to him. Or later when he started reading the Nate the Great books. She saw he liked the first three and so she went out and bought the entire rest of the series, numbers four through sixteen. When it was almost more fun not to have them yet—to know they existed out there somewhere and waited patiently to be found. He didn’t know how to tell her this.
Of course she didn’t only bring him things he’d asked for. Once in a while she’d buy a few CDs and they’d sit on the living room floor and listen, and if there were one or two he didn’t show any interest in, they probably wouldn’t play those again. There was one called
Flight of the Bumblebee—
as soon as that one was over he asked if he could hear it again, and his mother’s face softened, like that was what she’d been waiting for. Pretty soon she told him that he didn’t need to ask permission every time. He knew how to operate the stereo himself though he wasn’t supposed to fiddle with the volume knob.
April said one day that if she heard
Flight of the Bumblebee
one more time she’d go postal. He didn’t know what that meant but it made him self-conscious so he didn’t play it again for the rest of that day.
“He’s got an unusual attention span,” he heard his mother telling someone else in Zabar’s one day. “For a kid his age, a boy especially, he can focus on one thing for a long time.”
He finally found a way to pursue his interests without having to worry about others spoiling it with their own enthusiasm or else getting their feelings hurt: he started a secret collection, which, given hislimited freedom of movement in the outside world, pretty much restricted him to collecting things from inside the apartment. Also, in order to maintain the collection’s integrity as a secret, it had to consist of items people had forgotten about or would eventually be willing to forget about. He knew that this was pretty close to what people called stealing but he chose not to dwell on that. So far he had one of his mother’s lipsticks, a combination lock from his father’s gym bag, April’s hairband with the sunflowers on it, four different wine corks, his father’s empty money clip (this he had found serendipitously under a couch cushion), an electricity bill, one photo from his parents’ wedding album, April’s preschool report card that said she had a “quick temper,” two mismatched earrings from the bottom of his mother’s purse, a tiny wooden carving of a cat from Dad’s boss’s house in Connecticut, and a book light that clipped onto the top of the book you were reading in bed. That last one almost undid the whole project, because his mother had searched for it with unusual thoroughness before giving up.
No one ever looked in the old Lego box that was inside a drawstring bag that was at the bottom of the toy chest that he sat on to read or to draw. He didn’t need to look inside the box to remind himself what was in there—he could tick off its contents in his head at any moment of the day, or while lying in bed at night—but once in a while he liked to open it up anyway. It made each item seem even more valuable to know that everyone else had given up on it, because he was the only one in the family who knew the secret, which was that things might disappear but, thanks to him, rarely was anything ever really lost. He held each object between his fingers for a while, recommitting it to memory; then he packed them all away and opened the door of his room and walked past his mother at the kitchen table and into the living room to hear
Flight of the Bumblebee
again.
For Christmas break they were going to a resort in Costa Rica; some guy from Morgan Stanley Adam still played basketball with had said the beaches there were the most beautiful beaches on earth.To the kids, one resort was the same as another, which was to say a kind of paradise where all strangers were nice to you and your parents
Of course she didn’t only bring him things he’d asked for. Once in a while she’d buy a few CDs and they’d sit on the living room floor and listen, and if there were one or two he didn’t show any interest in, they probably wouldn’t play those again. There was one called
Flight of the Bumblebee—
as soon as that one was over he asked if he could hear it again, and his mother’s face softened, like that was what she’d been waiting for. Pretty soon she told him that he didn’t need to ask permission every time. He knew how to operate the stereo himself though he wasn’t supposed to fiddle with the volume knob.
April said one day that if she heard
Flight of the Bumblebee
one more time she’d go postal. He didn’t know what that meant but it made him self-conscious so he didn’t play it again for the rest of that day.
“He’s got an unusual attention span,” he heard his mother telling someone else in Zabar’s one day. “For a kid his age, a boy especially, he can focus on one thing for a long time.”
He finally found a way to pursue his interests without having to worry about others spoiling it with their own enthusiasm or else getting their feelings hurt: he started a secret collection, which, given hislimited freedom of movement in the outside world, pretty much restricted him to collecting things from inside the apartment. Also, in order to maintain the collection’s integrity as a secret, it had to consist of items people had forgotten about or would eventually be willing to forget about. He knew that this was pretty close to what people called stealing but he chose not to dwell on that. So far he had one of his mother’s lipsticks, a combination lock from his father’s gym bag, April’s hairband with the sunflowers on it, four different wine corks, his father’s empty money clip (this he had found serendipitously under a couch cushion), an electricity bill, one photo from his parents’ wedding album, April’s preschool report card that said she had a “quick temper,” two mismatched earrings from the bottom of his mother’s purse, a tiny wooden carving of a cat from Dad’s boss’s house in Connecticut, and a book light that clipped onto the top of the book you were reading in bed. That last one almost undid the whole project, because his mother had searched for it with unusual thoroughness before giving up.
No one ever looked in the old Lego box that was inside a drawstring bag that was at the bottom of the toy chest that he sat on to read or to draw. He didn’t need to look inside the box to remind himself what was in there—he could tick off its contents in his head at any moment of the day, or while lying in bed at night—but once in a while he liked to open it up anyway. It made each item seem even more valuable to know that everyone else had given up on it, because he was the only one in the family who knew the secret, which was that things might disappear but, thanks to him, rarely was anything ever really lost. He held each object between his fingers for a while, recommitting it to memory; then he packed them all away and opened the door of his room and walked past his mother at the kitchen table and into the living room to hear
Flight of the Bumblebee
again.
For Christmas break they were going to a resort in Costa Rica; some guy from Morgan Stanley Adam still played basketball with had said the beaches there were the most beautiful beaches on earth.To the kids, one resort was the same as another, which was to say a kind of paradise where all strangers were nice to you and your parents
Similar Books
