A Boy Named Queen Read online

  The man doesn’t look anything like the other Hillsberry dads.

  “You rascal!” the man booms, approaching Patti Smith. He pulls a penknife from his back pocket and cuts the dog free. Patti Smith runs circles around the flagpole, then jumps into the truck, barking twice — Goodbye! — in the direction of the classroom window.

  Queen’s dad revs the engine and chugs away, taking the sound of flutes and violins with him.

  Tick. The minute hand spasms. The kids pick up their pencils again. Evelyn blinks at her quiz.

  Numbers always act as they should, she thinks.

  She kicks off her tight shoes. Her feet unsquish. Relief bubbles up in the spaces between her toes.

  3

  At recess, Evelyn joins her friends in the alcove by the double doors. They’ve been waiting since kindergarten to occupy this special spot, which by some unspoken rule is for grade fives only. The alcove is sheltered and private, and it has a good wall for handball. The planters make good benches, too, but you have to be careful about squashing the plants.

  “I followed him when he went to the bathroom,” Anneline is saying. “He used the Boys.”

  “My grandma’s dog is named Queen,” Isabella volunteers. “She’s a toy poodle. Her collar has real diamonds.”

  Connor balances along a planter, head high.

  “Make way,” he warbles in a stuffy English accent. He waves weakly. “Make way for the queen.”

  Everyone laughs except Evelyn. She glances at Queen, who is shooting baskets near enough to hear.

  Does he hear them? She can’t tell. He squats, puts his tongue between his washer-and-dryer teeth and pushes the ball away from his chest.

  Every time, the ball bounces off the rim.

  Evelyn walks over to him. Last year she played noon-hour basketball and got quite good.

  “Use the backboard,” she tells him. “It’s called a bank shot.”

  Evelyn’s mother often introduces her as a shy lass because she speaks so quietly. Over the summer, her friend Anneline kept telling her to speak up. At summer camp, when Evelyn asked Anneline to be her archery partner, she sighed, “I can’t hear you, Evelyn,” and skipped off with a girl named Kimmi.

  But Queen has no trouble hearing her. He nods and adjusts his shot.

  Bop-whoosh.

  “Yay!” Queen jumps up and down. He and Evelyn high five each other. It’s a perfect smack.

  Evelyn’s hand tingles as if it’s electrified.

  Evelyn pretends she’s walking home from the first day of school one hundred years ago. The problem is, the photos from a hundred years ago are all in black and white. But that was the camera’s fault. The world wasn’t black and white. The grass was green and the brick houses were red, just like now.

  Squinting a little, she cancels out the cars and the telephone poles. The trees and birds stay. A man passes by on a bicycle. She replaces his helmet with a bowler hat.

  “Wait up!” Queen rolls toward her on his skateboard. “Can I walk with you?”

  Evelyn shakes her head. The telephone poles replant themselves. Queen’s face falls.

  “I was just clearing my mind,” Evelyn says.

  Queen tucks his skateboard under his arm. Evelyn looks around in case Anneline is watching.

  “Do you like Hillsberry School?” she asks.

  “I don’t know yet. Mr. Zhang is nice. And some of the kids seem nice.”

  “Not all of them,” she says, thinking of Parker and Connor.

  “Some of them,” Queen says, smiling.

  As they pass under a tree, something clicks in the upper branches. A chestnut bounces down toward them. Queen reaches out to catch it but misses. He bends and picks it up from the ground.

  Evelyn loves the feel of a chestnut in her hand. Like a springy stone. She looks for one, too.

  “That might have been the first chestnut to fall this year,” she says. She looks under the next tree. No luck. “Maybe the first in all of Hillsberry!”

  “I wish I’d caught it. It could have been good luck.”

  “Or bad luck,” Evelyn says. “Maybe if you caught it you would have triggered some spell. All of Hillsberry would have been turned into … into …”

  “Saliva.”

  “Saliva?”

  The two burst into laughter. Queen’s laugh is like hard rain. Evelyn’s is like a waterfall going backwards.

  “Saliva from vampire bats might stop people’s blood from clotting in their brains,” Evelyn says. “It’s called a stroke. My grandfather had one.”

  “People rub it on their heads or what?”

  “I don’t know. I just wonder how they get it from the bat.”

  “Maybe they wave yummy things under its nose. What would make a vampire drool? Blood sausage?”

  “Stornoway black pudding.” Evelyn shudders. “My mother makes it. Pig’s blood and oatmeal.”

  “Where does she get the pig’s blood?”

  “She buys it at the butcher.”

  “My grandfather has a part of a pig in his heart. A valve from the pig’s heart. They had to stop my grandpa’s heart to do the operation. A machine took over.”

  “I hope he’s okay,” Evelyn says.

  “Me, too. He snorts every so often. As a joke. Oink oink. It’s called xenotransplantation.”

  “When an old man grunts like a pig?”

  Queen laughs.

  “Xenotransplantation is a transplant between species. Xeno means stranger,” he explains.

  “Like xenophobia.”

  “Yeah. Fear of strangers.”

  Evelyn thinks about xenophobia. Is that what Parker and Connor have? Is that why they teased Queen all day? They called his gym shorts disco shorts because they were shiny. But their basketball shorts were ridiculous. Way down past their knees. And shiny, too. A different kind of shiny, but still.

  “I know about Xeno’s Paradox,” Evelyn says.

  She read about it in one of the World Wonders books her grandparents sent her for her ninth birthday. These were your mother’s when she was a girl, Grandma’s card explained. As far as Evelyn can tell, her mother never read the books. The spines are stiff and her mom doesn’t talk about any of the amazing stuff in the pages.

  “A paradox is a puzzle.”

  “Yeah. This one says you can never get from one place to another.”

  “How does that work?”

  “Well, for me to go home from school, I have to go halfway there, right?”

  “Of course.”

  “Okay. So, halfway to my house from the school is the fire hall. To get to the fire hall, I have to go halfway there, too, right? Let’s say this chestnut tree is the halfway point. And to get to this chestnut tree, I have to go halfway. Say, to the school fence. To get to the school fence, I also have to go halfway.”

  “To the swings.”

  “And halfway to the swings —”

  “The bike rack.”

  “And halfway to the bike rack —”

  “A gum splat.”

  “And halfway to that —”

  “It goes on and on.”

  “For infinity. But it’s just an idea,” Evelyn says. “A math trick. I don’t know what it has to do with strangers. Anyway, it isn’t really true. I mean, we got here.”

  They’re at the fire hall. A firefighter is polishing a fire truck’s hubcap. He looks into it and whistles. “Aren’t I handsome!”

  Queen and Evelyn laugh.

  “I go this way,” Queen says, pointing with his chin.

  “That way,” Evelyn says, pointing her chin.

  Queen jumps on his skateboard and zooms off. And Evelyn runs all the way home. That way she can get out of her tight shoes sooner.

  4

  Two weeks later, the ground is carpete
d with chestnuts and the sky is like the underside of a frying pan. Gray and heavy. Evelyn has done up every button of her cardigan and wishes the sleeves were longer. If she breathes out from deep in her throat, she can see her breath.

  Evelyn and Queen never meet on the way to school. Evelyn is already at her desk when he hurries through the classroom door, his long hair knotty from sleeping.

  “We are spending the week in ancient Egypt,” Mr. Zhang announces. “We’ll write poems, put on plays, draw comics, even dance —”

  “You’re in a good mood, Mr. Zhang,” Anneline says.

  “You’re right, Anneline. I am.” Mr. Zhang’s mouth wobbles.

  “Did you get a puppy or something?”

  Mr. Zhang’s mouth bubbles into a smile. “No, not a puppy. I’m getting married.”

  “To who?” everyone asks.

  “To whom,” Mr. Zhang says. “To a very nice person. And that’s all I’m going to say.”

  “Is she going to wear a poufy white dress?”

  Mr. Zhang laughs. “No. Definitely not. And I’m not going to, either. Now, what do you know about ancient Egypt?”

  “Mummies,” Khalid calls out.

  “Pyramids.”

  “Pharaohs!”

  “Scarabs.”

  “The Sphinx.”

  “Hieroglyphics.”

  “I know what Queen likes about Egypt,” Parker volunteers. “Cleopatra.”

  “And Nefertiti,” Connor adds.

  The two boys chuckle. Evelyn can’t stand it. She raises her hand. She wants to change the subject.

  Mr. Zhang looks pleased. She hardly ever talks in class.

  “Teeth,” she says, remembering a chapter of World Wonders.

  “Teeth?” Connor smirks.

  “The ancient Egyptians looked after their teeth. They had recipes for mouthwash, with frankincense and cumin. And some mummies have been found wearing braces. Gold wires holding their teeth together. Also, their teeth got ground down by all the desert sand that blew into their bread dough.”

  “Disgusting,” Anneline says.

  “Ancient Egyptian dentistry,” Mr. Zhang says, writing in his notebook. “That’s a new one.”

  The afternoon sky is white and wooly like a donkey’s belly. Evelyn imagines a great donkey straddling the world. She’s waiting for Queen so they can walk home together — as far as the fire hall, anyway.

  Connor and Parker are by the school doors, peering into a cell phone. Queen comes out of the school. He walks differently from other kids. He rocks with each step, dips and rises, as if his knees are springs.

  “Hey!” Parker calls. He raises the phone and yells, “Smile!”

  Connor jumps on his bike and starts pedaling around Queen in tight circles. Parker and Connor have the nicest bikes in school, with sleek seats and heavy locks.

  “You’re in my way,” Queen finally says.

  Connor stops pedaling.

  “Loser!” Parker calls after Queen. He holds his phone up. “Smile for the camera!”

  Queen catches up with Evelyn.

  “How was field hockey?” he asks her.

  Evelyn’s heart is pounding. But she pretends to be as calm as Queen is.

  “Good,” she says. She tries to smile. “How was chess/environment club?”

  “Three people showed up! That’s pretty good.”

  Queen started a club that meets one week to play chess and the next week to come up with a recycling plan for the school. Evelyn doesn’t like chess, but the recycling ideas interest her. Queen says you have to join both.

  The fire truck is heading out on a call. The firefighters wave as they pass by.

  “Would you like to be a firefighter?” Queen asks Evelyn.

  Evelyn laughs.

  Anneline once asked her if she’d like to be a pop star. Her mom says she could work for the government one day. A desk job, like hers.

  Maybe she’d like to be a dentist.

  But a firefighter?

  Evelyn imagines clomping through a burning house in rubber boots, helmet on her head, mask over her face, heavy water hose under her arm. She lumbers up a charred staircase. Her feet break twice through the charcoal steps. Her breathing sounds like Darth Vader’s. A Dalmation dog starts to bark. It’s in a small smoky room on its hind legs. Its front legs rest on a baby’s crib. Evelyn takes the sleeping baby in her arms and hurries down the stairs — skipping the broken ones — and out onto the lawn. The baby wakes and howls, taking in great gulps of fresh air.

  “A firefighter would be okay,” Evelyn says. “What about you?”

  “Nah. I’m going to be a nurse.”

  “A nurse is good. But what about a doctor? Or a surgeon? All those shiny instruments.”

  “Maybe. Dad cut his finger with the bread knife last year and the blood didn’t bother me. And I liked dissecting a cow’s eye at science camp.”

  “Do you like sewing?”

  “Yeah.” Queen smiles. “Yeah. I could be a surgeon. That could be awesome. Oh …” He pulls a wrinkled envelope from his hoodie pocket. “My birthday party. Tomorrow. Sorry for the late notice. We do things last minute in my family. I hope you can come.”

  At home, Evelyn hangs her cardigan in the hall closet and lines up her shoes by the door. A hole is wearing through the end of her right runner already. She hopes her mom won’t see. If she does, she might put Evelyn back in loafers.

  Every day, her mother leaves a glass of milk in the fridge and a plate of oatcakes on the counter. Evelyn peels the plastic wrap off them and sits at the kitchen table. The cold milk is sharp against her throat. It nearly hurts.

  She has challenged herself not to open Queen’s envelope until she’s in her room. She can’t rush. She chews at a normal speed and swings her feet back and forth the way she usually does. As if she has all the time in the world. She places her dishes in the sink and neatly folds up the squares of plastic wrap for her mother to use again tomorrow. Then she heads upstairs, normal speed.

  But halfway up the stairs, she starts to run, yanking her backpack buckles on the way.

  The invitation is a funny picture made with magazine pictures. At the bottom it says Collage by Queen. Queen has stuck Abe Lincoln’s long face onto a horse’s body that’s balanced on a duck’s two legs. The creature stands on top of a refrigerator.

  It’s my birthday, Queen has written on the white fridge door.

  Instead of a gift, bring two dollars

  One dollar is for a ukulele, the other dollar will help animals at the SPCA

  From: After school

  Until: 7 p.m.

  A corner of Lincoln’s hat is peeling. Evelyn gets her glue stick and presses it down. She pins the invitation to her bulletin board.

  Queen must have made an original collage for each guest, she thinks. That’s a lot of work.

  5

  Evelyn is sewing the tear on the toe of her right shoe when her mother comes home from work. Evelyn hurries downstairs and kisses her cheek as she always does.

  It’s hard, but she manages to wait for her mother to hang up her blazer and transfer her orthotics into her slippers.

  “I’m invited to a birthday party,” she blurts when her mother is ready.

  “Whose birthday?”

  “The new boy.”

  “What new boy?”

  “Queen.”

  “Quinn, you mean.”

  “No, Queen.”

  “Quentin.”

  “Queen.”

  “That’s not a boy’s name.”

  “He’s nice,” Evelyn says. “Creative.”

  “I should guess he’s creative with a name like that! Why on earth would his parents name him Queen? I mean, I could almost understand King. Or Prince. Isn’t there a musician named Prince? A rock sta
r?”

  Evelyn itches with impatience. “Can I go?”

  “Go where?”

  “To the party.”

  “Right,” her mother says. “Well.”

  She pauses. Evelyn feels like she’s going to burst.

  Finally, her mother nods. “When is it, then?”

  “After school.”

  “Yes, but which day?”

  “Tomorrow,” Evelyn says, barely opening her mouth.

  “Tomorrow? He doesn’t give you much warning, this boy named Queen. How will we get a present in time?”

  Evelyn explains about the two dollars, but her mother doesn’t like it.

  “I can’t send you to a birthday party without a gift.”

  “But he said no gifts,” Evelyn begs.

  “Just a wee one. After supper we’ll go to the mall.” Evelyn’s mom wanders into the kitchen. “I’ll wash you an outfit tonight. Tomorrow already! A boy named Queen.”

  At least Evelyn’s mother and father have something to talk about at supper. Usually the only sounds are of their cutlery across their plates. A knife sawing a pork chop, a fork chasing a pea.

  Evelyn feels like she’s wearing a costume. She feels like she’s pretending to be someone she’s not. But her mother wants her to wear a dress to Queen’s party. And she didn’t want to argue and maybe lose the chance to go. Her mother said the dress makes her look graceful. But it’s the opposite. She feels clunky and stiff. The only thing keeping her from joining the weekend field hockey team is the uniform. That awful short skirt. Luckily, Girl Guides lets her choose between pants and a skirt. She chooses the pants.

  But she’s not allowed to go to Queen’s birthday party in pants.

  They went to the mall last night and bought Queen a small basketball hoop to clip over his bedroom door. It comes with a felt ball.

  The present is now in a plastic bag in Evelyn’s cubby. It is wrapped in brown paper that Evelyn covered with stickers of dogs.

  Evelyn worked hard on the card. It’s a drawing of Queen shooting baskets. She taped eight quarters between Queen’s hands and the basket. They’re supposed to be a ball traveling a perfect shot. The problem is that together the quarters are heavy. The card droops badly. Evelyn wishes she had chosen cardboard.