Back when I was five I met Peter for the first time We were at Margaret’s house for dinner long before she moved to Vermont There were other kids there like Peter’s brother and mine but Peter was the only one who didn’t talk He kept close to his mom who had the longest black hair I ever saw with butterfly clips in it and I wondered if she was Indian like us Peter sat next to me at the table He was thin and his hair was curly and dark as black licorice Sometimes his mom gave him stuff on his plate like potatoes or a bread roll but mostly Peter sat without eating After they left everyone shook their heads like they were sorry Sorry for what I wondered There wasn’t much I was sorry about not at the age of five Then I heard the story of what happened to Peter’s dad I don’t think I was meant to hear but the adults got to talking and didn’t pay attention to what the kids were listening to Years later when I saw Peter again I’d forgotten Margaret’s party I’d forgotten thinking his hair was like black licorice But I didn’t forget what happened to his dad There are some things you never forget Maybe it was a coincidence Peter moving to Dobbs Ferry Maybe Margaret was the common thread Or maybe as Peter says it was all a kind of magic For him it started with the duffel bag For me it was the necklace Actually it started further back with Rose and what she did to hide her secret But I’d have to imagine that part Instead it’s better to tell what we do know the part that happened to us
At the end of August before sixth grade started Cheetah broke my bed My best friend Ana and I were in the kitchen eating ice cream when we heard a loud crash We ran upstairs our cones dripping chocolate mint and found my nine-year-old brother sprawled on the caved-in mattress a big stupid grin on his face Sorry he said but he wasn’t Mom said It was just waiting to happen If you saw my bed you’d understand why When I was young I was afraid to sleep on a real one So I slept on a mattress on the floor I liked that fine until two years ago when I woke up eye to eye with a long black spider on my pillow Then I was done with sleeping on the floor I took a sheet of plywood from the garage plus some leftover cinder blocks and I built myself a low bed I even made a headboard and painted it white with the spray paint we used on our fence Dad said proudly Myla my engineer That’s because he’s a math teacher and math people are into building things Mom was different What if it breaks But it didn’t It held up for two years until my dorky brother jumped on it and snapped the plywood in two So now Mom was adamant It’s time you had a real bed Myla I didn’t go back to work so my children could sleep on cinder blocks I don’t know what the big deal was But nothing could change her mind so on Sunday we headed to a furniture store in Yonkers where we bought our dining table last year I invited Ana because we were going to Spice afterward and the tandoori pizza there was so good it was worth buying a bed I didn’t want In the car Ana leafed through a magazine she’d brought Look at this cool bed It has curtains hanging over it from the ceiling It’s ugly Cheetah said Plus it’s too tall for Myla She’d be scared No I wouldn’t I gave him a shove Cheetah was always saying the wrong thing And it isn’t ugly Ana said It’s beautiful She tucked her pale hair behind her ears Ana is Norwegian on both sides her grandparents are from Norway but her parents grew up in Seattle Which makes her American like me I still don’t get why you were jumping on my bed I said My brother was always destroying my stuff like opening my Harry Potter books too wide until the spines broke or using up all the ink in my Sharpies I poked him but he still didn’t answer For a
