Come, Thou Tortoise Read online

  My dad doesn’t like it when I pretend a mouse equals a person. Or when a story does. For instance, those Beatrix Potter books Grandmother sent had to be thrown out because of the way my dad’s voice sounded while reading them. Beatrix Potter makes a mouse equal a person. She has a small stupid brain, apparently.

  Now we only read books about real people. True books that don’t make my dad’s voice lie.

  But here is a secret about my dad’s brain. Say you followed the path all the way from the word mouse to the word person. It is very long. Say you walked for days along that path. Finally you reach person, but if you look beyond, you see that the path keeps going. It gets narrower and narrower, until it’s thin as a mouse’s tail. And there, at the very end, what do you find. You find the word Audrey.

  Assume life can go on indefinitely. Translation: Yours.

  On the day of the Forced Swimming Test, the book waiting for us at home is a biography of Andrew Toti, inventor of the life vest. He also invented the automated chicken plucker. My dad says the automated chicken plucker is just as important an invention as the life vest and not celebrated enough. So now we must celebrate the ACP every time we eat chicken. Which is a bit gross.

  Anyway, as we conduct the FST, I am designing a life vest for mice in my head. I imagine little hooks outside each hotel room where the life vest could hang to dry. The mice could be taught to put the vests on themselves. They have such nimble fingers. Imagine the mice looking down while they do up their life vests. Imagine how cute they’d look from behind.

  Heads up, Audrey.

  Sorry.

  My dad is drying the mice. It is my job, when he’s finished, to carry them back to their hotel rooms. They are damp and all aflutter but I never scream or drop them. I put them back and secure the metal grids. Their pink hands press the glass. Their chests rattle.

  Dry me some more.

  They love being dried. My dad has a super-soft, super-absorbent towel that makes them go all dreamy and close their eyes.

  Now we are ready for the final heat, numbers 16 through 20. The stopwatch starts. In they go, one minute apart. They have to be dropped in quickly or they might run back up my dad’s arm. Once, a mouse got as far as his shoulder.

  In the water it’s like their fur explodes. Poof. I feel a pang. But it’s only ten minutes. Chin up, little guys. And they do keep their chins up. I have never seen a chin go underwater. Never. Until today.

  Dad.

  What.

  I point at the third pool.

  That’s funny, he says.

  No it’s not. He’s drowning!

  Give him a sec.

  So we give him five. He lands on the bottom of the pool. Doesn’t move. I would not say no to a life vest. Bubbles fly up.

  He can’t swim.

  All mice can swim.

  I splash my arm into the water, but I’m not tall enough. Dad!

  Okay. He plunges his own arm in.

  I turn away. Is he alive. Don’t look at him.

  He’s fine, Audrey. Look.

  So I look. Some very rapid mouse breathing. Some very wide mouse eyes.

  Little frigger, my dad says. His sleeve is wet up to the shoulder.

  And so number 18 gets dried, but not as gently as the others, and for not as long.

  I guess he’s no good for a Forced Swimming Test, I say as I carry him back to his room.

  Well, no. Not if he can’t be forced.

  My dad’s lab is in the B-4 building, which I call the Before Building. In the basement of the Before Building is the Animal Care office. We stop by on our way home. Verlaine has her feet up on the desk. She is the animal caregiver. She is from Switzerland and she always wears short sleeves, no matter how cold her office is.

  My dad knocks on her desk.

  She has her big arms bent at the elbow like she is holding reins, but what she is really holding is a magazine with a horse on the cover and a rider wearing a top hat.

  Bonsoir. And she lifts an imaginary top hat.

  Is it soir already, says my dad, checking his stopwatch.

  It is always soir in the bowels of the earth, she says.

  Verlaine looks after my dad’s mice and Dr. O’Leery’s cats, as well as some pigeons, chickens, and rats. She says the situation is saddest for the pigeons because they have to watch their free confrères parading back and forth on the third-floor window ledges.

  All four walls of the Animal Care office have pictures of horses on them. There are no pictures of mice, cats, pigeons, chickens, or rats.

  My dad tells her there is a problem with number 18. He won’t swim.

  Of course he will swim.

  My dad lifts his wet sleeve.

  She shakes her head. Cheeky souris. She drops her feet and rolls her chair across the room. Jots something down. TantaMouse, she says. Shall I not order from them again.

  When she writes a muscle high up on her arm twitches.

  What’s going to happen to number 18, I ask.

  I feel like a mouse sandwich, says Verlaine, still writing. That is what’s going to happen.

  I laugh. Obviously people do not eat mice. Then I stop laughing. What do giant people from Switzerland eat. Verlaine pats her stomach. No trace of a smile.

  Don’t tease her, says my dad. Number 18 will be youthenized.

  I nod. That’s what I thought.

  Verlaine seems surprised. She tilts her head in my direction and says, Chip off the old block, non.

  When we step outside the wind knocks me over. This is not the first time I’ve been blown down on campus. The university was designed with wind speed in mind.

  Whoa, says my dad, picking me up. Where’s your rock.

  I’m supposed to carry a rock when it’s windy. Forgot it, I say and tighten my ponytail by one notch. Dad.

  He skips down the steps. I hold on to the door of Before.

  Dad!

  He turns. The wind is loud.

  I don’t trust Verlaine as far as I can throw her, I yell. What, he yells back.

  His hair flaps around. His sleeve is instantly dry. He holds it up like, look, dry, amazing. Then, since I’m not moving, he comes back up the steps. What.

  I don’t trust Verlaine as far as I can throw her.

  He smiles. Which wouldn’t be very far.

  I want to do an experiment with number 18. My own experiment. I want to youthenize him myself.

  My dad says nothing for a moment. Then he lifts his chin. Oh Audrey—

  Like the frog who turned back into a tadpole. Why not. Why not.

  You don’t understand.

  Yes I do.

  We can’t bring lab animals home every time—

  Verlaine wants a mouse sandwich!

  We can’t bring lab animals home. Period.

  I say nothing. I keep holding the door.

  My dad pretends to carry on home. Then looks over his shoulder. Comes back. Okay. Tell me your experiment.

  I wasn’t asleep. I was resting my face. On the table. Like in kindergarten when the teacher said, Settle down, enfants maudits. Heads on desks.

  My head is where Wedge should be. Did I squish Wedge. I sit up and pat my head.

  He’s not in your hair. He’s back in the terrarium. Uncle Thoby puts coffee in front of me. Poor little guy was about to rappel off the table.

  I wipe away drool. Did I sleep, I mean rest my face, through the coffee maker.

  Yeah.

  Wow. The coffee maker is pretty loud.

  Uncle Thoby is not wearing a bright sweater. Uncle Thoby always wears bright sweaters with one sleeve stretched. Today’s sweater is black. Sleeve not stretched. One of my dad’s.

  When was the last time you ate, he says.

  I try to remember. I recall some fudge in Terminal 1. Which might have been soap.

  He opens the fridge.

  Don’t make me anything.

  How about an Orange in a Castle, he says.

  And some Piety pie, I add.

 
Outside it is dark and windy. When did that happen. I look at the clock. Noon.

  If I put my head back on the table in the same enfant-maudit position, I will remember my montage. Which is code for dream. My dad was against dreams. Well, against their prolonged discussion at the breakfast table. Dreams are of interest only to the dreamer, he said. So spare the rest of us.

  This from a man who used to be a psychologist.

  Actually I mostly agreed with him. I did not much like hearing about other people’s dreams. Unless of course I was in them. But discussing my own, at great length, over breakfast—one of life’s great pleasures.

  Uncle Thoby agreed. He suggested we refer to our dreams as montages.

  What is a montage.

  Something fast and true and mixed up.

  I nodded. That’ll fool him.

  My dad was fooled for all of two seconds.

  I saw this montage.

  Where.

  I glanced at Uncle Thoby. On the news, he suggested.

  Right, on the news. About this girl who found a secret compartment in her arm. And inside that secret compartment was a message. And guess what the message said.

  Do tell.

  It said DNA.

  Now when I put my head back on the table, I remember that it is four and a half days earlier in Oregon. Oregon is still in the comma. In my montage, my dad was making a W with both hands in the air.

  Heads up. Uncle Thoby puts an Orange in a Castle on the table. More coffee.

  I would not say no to more coffee.

  An Orange in a Castle is the prettiest thing you will ever see. It is an orange sitting in a castle made of its own peel.

  I saw this montage on the news that my dad was alive and waving from the west coast.

  Me too, says Uncle Thoby.

  You had the same montage.

  Similar.

  I notice you have ignored my request for pie. But that’s okay.

  He sits down across from me. Drops two tablets of Alka-Seltzer in a glass. Look, the Tycho crater. Our old routine. There is a point at which every tablet of Alka-Seltzer looks exactly like the moon.

  Thank you for the castle and the coffee.

  Welcome.

  The orange is bright against his black sweater. I remove one piece. I have a question, I say. Get ready.

  Okay.

  Did you make a moving speech at the bedside.

  He looks up from his drink.

  Did my dad know I was coming home. Did you tell him.

  I told him.

  And did he wake up.

  No, sweetheart.

  I see. I chew. It is all a bit sick-making. Do not throw up. If you throw up, Uncle Thoby will throw up too. If you even talk about throwing up, he’ll gag. He is very sensitive that way.

  I chew carefully.

  I have a theory about sympathetic throwing up. It is a naturally selected trait. If one person in a group throws up, it is likely (or at least possible) that others in the group have ingested the same poisonous thing as the thrower-upper. Therefore, as a preventative measure, the others throw up too. The sooner you all throw up the ingested poison together, the more likely you are to survive.

  I look over his shoulder at the pond. Which is what you are supposed to do if you feel sick. Look at the distance. The swans are really bouncing. Boy are they.

  I don’t feel so good.

  Want to lie down.

  I shake my head. But I can’t eat all the ramparts.

  That’s okay.

  I rest my cheek in my hand.

  He notices the CRYNOT bracelet. I heard you on the phone, he says.

  Yeah.

  Not to Darren Lipbalm again.

  Lipseed. No. I called Winnifred.

  Winnifred. Uncle Thoby’s eyebrows fly up. He had forgotten Winnifred. And there is a glimmer, not quite a smile but almost. She’s got her own phone, of course, he says.

  Cell.

  Ah.

  And for a moment it’s like everything is going to be funny and good. But then his face collapses and he says, Oh Odd, I know how hard it must have been to leave—

  No, it wasn’t hard. It wasn’t. It was a piece of pie.

  Did I say how good it is to see you. Did I say that last night.

  I think so.

  I can’t remember. I can’t think.

  S’okay.

  So Winnifred, he says after a moment.

  I tell him that she’s with Linda and Chuck. I tell him that she was in a comma too. But she woke up.

  Dark clouds build like fists over the pond. Look, I say.

  We’re getting a Weather Bomb, he says, turning.

  A what.

  He explains that this is a new meteorological term. It means what you’d think.

  A Weather Bomb. Coming here. Sounds like a term my dad would have loved.

  Oh yes. He’d been using it, ad nauseam.

  I nod. And experience a wave of nauseam.

  Sorry, says Uncle Thoby, hand over mouth.

  S’okay.

  My dad used to stand by the range hood when the wind whistled through it and rub his hands together and say, Is that a B-flat I hear.

  Because if the wind whistled a B-flat, bad weather was coming.

  I think it’s A-sharp, Uncle Thoby would say.

  And my dad would say, You say potayto. I say potahto.

  Let’s call the whole thing off.

  And I would say, What the.

  Ssh and listen to the wind, Audrey. It’s music.

  Uncle Thoby gets up to clear the table. Speaking of weather, he says. I hope Toff’s flight gets in okay.

  Toff. And isn’t that a punch to the castle-filled paunch. What.

  Innocently he looks at me. I thought I told you last night.

  Let me think. Um, no.

  I must have seen a montage on the news that I told you last night.

  No.

  I had a montage that I told you Toff was en route from London and you took it really well.

  You didn’t tell me!

  Don’t yell.

  Was I yelling. Does Uncle Thoby think he can just slip Toff in under the radar like this. This is not the way to introduce a major new development.

  How does one introduce a major new development. I tried the montage.

  Fuck.

  He’ll be here in a few hours.

  Why. Why.

  Because I called him.

  When.

  After the accident.

  Collision, I correct him.

  He pauses on his way to the counter. He is unshaven and pathetic in my dad’s too-small sweater. Don’t look at him.

  Also, do not think about the collision. Because if you do it will have a new embellishment. Such as: The tree is now decorated. Which of course it could not have been. The tree that hit my dad was en route to decoration. So technically not a Christmas tree. Yet. But in this new version, the tree has lights, and they are lit up with that lonely inventor’s blue.

  Oddly.

  I scrape my chair back. Call him and tell him not to come.

  He’s over the ocean.

  And just like that, I wish the plane down. Wow. It’s easy. I imagine the plane nose-diving into the Atlantic. Toff, engrossed in the incomprehensible section of the newspaper with the smallest font, has not bothered to figure out his flotation device. Oh dear. Oh well.

  Toff is, or was, my dad’s “best chum” from Cambridge. He is also Grandmother’s whipping boy, and let’s see what else. A lawyer. And, as Uncle Thoby now informs me, my dad’s executor.

  Oh oh oh, is that what he’s telling you.

  Please sit down. Yes that’s what he’s telling me, because that’s what he is.

  My dad would not hire an executioner.

  Executor.

  Toff the Lord High Executioner!

  Try to understand, Uncle Thoby says quietly, that I can’t do everything that needs to be done here. I can’t.

  I’m here.

  There ar
e things only Toff can do.

  Well he can do them from a distance. Because he’s not staying here.

  Uncle Thoby looks disappointed, not that Toff won’t be staying with us, but that I could be so inhospitable. He didn’t ask to, Oddly.

  So Toff’s plane will (probably, unfortunately, safely) land. At which time he will assume command. Toff the cartoon assassin. He is coming to make my dad really dead.

  But when you called Toff, my dad was alive. Why would an alive person need an executor.

  Because there was no hope.

  I stare at him. You didn’t tell me there was no hope.

  Yes I did, sweetheart. But you didn’t hear.

  Chuck rehearses with a book propped open on his bare chest. The book is called Lowering the Bard: Shakespeare for the Uninitiated. He’s wearing boxer shorts and that’s it.

  Pool: 75 degrees, approximately.

  Chuck does this thing where he opens Lowering the Bard at random and drops his finger on the page. Then he rehearses that passage. More often than not it’s by someone called Antonio. If this happens he keeps dropping his finger until he gets someone important.

  Linda left for work at the crack of dawn. She mows the same mountain Audrey used to. So it’s just me and Chuck. This will be the new routine.

  One of Linda’s long blond hairs floats on the surface of my Lemon Pie pool like a golden bridge. A bridge for a termite. Linda does not keep her hair tidy. I spent three hours this morning extracting a single strand from my throat. Three hours. I was so tired afterwards I had to take a nap.

  And how did this hair mishap occur. It occurred because last night Linda bent over my castle and said, Hanging in there, Winnifred. And her hair touched my pool. Hasn’t she heard of a ponytail. Then she knocked on my shell even though I was clearly awake. Just checking, she said.

  Jesus Christ this had better not be a nightly occurrence.

  Later I took a drink from my pool. Big mistake.

  At least it is warm. The radiators chatter constantly in Morse code. When Chuck walked by my castle earlier, he said, I hope you’re happy. Now we live in an oven.

  Yes, well. That is the price you pay for a tortoise you will not pick up and hold under your armpit. Not that you are really paying any price, since I overheard Linda say heat is included in your rent. So why complain. Enjoy the air boiling over the radiators like a highway mirage. Enjoy.

  Will Audrey come back. That is the question. Or is an allegiance switch in order. And is an allegiance switch even possible, considering my options. Linda the Unkempt or Chuck Stanch. Stanch is Chuck’s last name. This I learned last night when a Red Cross representative came to the door and referred to him as Mr. Stanch.