Unfamiliar

by

Matthew McFarland

León Beaumont stared at the wheels of the passing cars because he was too scared to look anywhere else. Looking at the windows meant looking at people’s eyes, and they might glare or stare him down. Looking at the ground would mean he wouldn’t see his mother’s car. So he stared at the wheels as they spun by, trying to read the hubcaps.

He shifted uncomfortably against the chain-link fence. He would have waited in Miss K’s classroom and helped her clean up, but she hadn’t wanted him there. He didn’t know why or what he had done wrong, but she hadn’t talked to him, or even thanked him. She kept touching her belly, and León thought she might have a stomachache. When he had stomachaches, it always helped to lie on his belly, but he didn’t know if that worked for teachers.

“Mom, where are you?”, he sang softly. It was cold, and León felt his cheeks growing numb and bitten. He tapped his toes together and rocked back and forth. He didn’t know if his mother was late, but it felt like it. Maybe she had forgotten him. It had happened before. She had forgotten to get him because she thought he was going home with Joe Penny and he’d been there until it was almost dark and the principal had called his mother because he was there late, too.

León’s palms were sweating. He stood up and walked down the gate and then back to his bookbag, running his hand along the fence, letting his fingers catch in the chain-link.

A car pulled out of the school, a little blue car with a bumper-sticker that said ABCDsomething. León read English slowly, and sometimes pronounced things wrong. He could read okay in French, and one time he’d brought in a French book for show-n-tell, and everybody had been amazed.

Miss K was in the car with the guy that had come in while León had been walking to the swings. He looked like a punk. He even had an earring. He had smiled at León, sort of, but León had kept walking.

He sat back down by his bag just as his mother pulled around the corner and beeped her horn at him. She stopped the car, and he climbed in and fastened his seatbelt. “Hi,” he said.

“Hi, honey,” his mother answered, looking in the mirror. She was wearing make-up, which probably meant she was going out tonight. She never wore make-up in the evening otherwise, and León liked that. He didn’t like lipstick - it felt slimy when she kissed him hello. Maybe she knew that, and that’s why she didn’t kiss him today.

“What’s for dinner?”, he asked.

“We’re going to stop at McDonald’s on the way home.” León looked at his mother quizzically. She never ate fast food, and usually didn’t let him. “I’m going out to dinner with some friends.” León looked back out the window. “Is that okay with you?”, she asked, sort of laughing.

“Yeah.” It was okay. He had kind of wanted her to stay home and read to him tonight, but she’d been less willing to do that lately. She always told him that he should be reading to himself. It’s not the same, he always said. He liked her voice, liked lying in her lap as she read, and that heavy-eyed sleepy feeling he got after about a chapter. Once or twice, he’d read to her, but that wasn’t the same, either.

“Misha’s going to come to stay with you.” León smiled at that. He liked Misha. He didn’t usually like baby-sitters; mostly they just drank his mom’s pop or talked with their boyfriends on the phone. Once he had snuck upstairs and turned on the speaker phone to listen, but all they had talked about was some girl who was pregnant. León had listened for anything he could report to the guys the next day to make them laugh, but they had only cussed a few times, and never said anything really interesting.

Misha was nice, though. She was hardly ever on the phone, and the one time she had gotten a buzz (she carried a pager, which made her extra cool), she had called someone, and said “I can’t talk now, I’m busy with my friend León.” She had said Lee-on, but León hadn’t cared.

His mom pulled into the McDonald’s. León stared at the menu for a while, and then decided he’d get a hamburger Happy Meal with just ketchup. One time they had put onions and mustard and gunk on it, and he’d tried to eat it, but it had just tasted rotten and his mom hadn’t wanted to go back. “Make sure they get it right,” he told his mother, and she nodded.

He got his food, sipped at his Coke, and found the toy: a little black dragon with a pen for a tail. He sat there making its wings flap. He loved dragons. Sometimes he’d dream that he was walking along a forest path and kicking at leaves, when a big orange dragon would rise up and taking him riding on it’s back. He told his mother that once, and she’d asked if he wasn’t afraid it would eat him. “It’s not that kind of dragon, mom,” he informed her. She’d seemed surprised that there were different kinds of dragons. León thought everybody knew that.

He always waited until he got inside to start eating. When they got home, he plopped down in one of the kitchen chairs, and shrugged out of his jacket. “Don’t sit down in those so hard,” said his mother. He nodded. He always forgot to sit gently in the kitchen chairs.

The fries were cold and stiff when he got to them, but the burger was still warm, so he ate that first. He buried his fries in mayonnaise from the fridge so that he wouldn’t taste how cardboardy they were. His mother said that he ate mayonnaise on his fries because of his father, but León didn’t remember that. The kids at school thought it was gross though, except Joe Penny tried it once and said it wasn’t bad.

He was almost finished with his fries when the doorbell rang. His mom let Misha in, and he heard her say, “Sorry I’m late. I got tied up with stuff.”

“It’s OK,” his mother said, and León could hear her putting on her coat. “I’ve gotta go. I should be back before eleven, but can you stay ‘til I get here?”

Yes, thought León, thinking that would be what Misha would say. But instead she was quiet for a minute, and then she said, “Yeah, I should be able to.”

“You sure?” His mother sounded worried.

“Yeah.”

“I’ll try to get back as soon as I can.” His mother walked into the kitchen and pulled her keys from the rack. “Bye, sweetie.” She kissed him on the cheek.

“Yuck,” he said, wiping the lipstick from his face. “Bye, mom.” His mother opened the back door and left, pulling it shut with a slam. León winced. You had to slam the back door, or it didn’t close right, but León hated the sound. Misha sat down in front of him. He didn’t look at her. He was staring at the dragon on the table, wishing it would come to life and grow and take him flying.

Misha leaned down and put her chin on the table. “What’s wrong, pal?”

León looked across at her. She was sort of half-smiling, and León smiled back. He looked her hair. She had long, straight brown hair, not like his mom’s, which was curly and always stayed curly. When Misha stayed with him in summer, sometimes they’d go to the public pool and her hair would all lump together, and León would play with it. It fascinated him, how when it was dry it was many different hairs, but when it was wet it was like all one piece.

She waved a hand in front of his face. “What’s up?”

“Nothing.” There wasn’t really. He was just thinking.

“You sure you’re OK?”

He sighed. “Yeah.” He got up and threw his paper away, and put the mayonnaise back in the fridge. He wished he could always do that with dishes, instead of washing them off and putting them in the sink.

Misha turned around to look at him. “So, whaddya want to do?”

“I don’t know.” He took his shoes off and set them next to the door, then walked back into the kitchen and sat back down.

“Well,” said Misha, thinking, “we could watch some TV, or we could read a book, or we could play a game. There’s lots of games in your closet.”

León thought about it. “I don’t really want to watch TV.” Misha nodded. “Let’s play a game,” he decided. Misha was cool to play games with, because she made it fun. One girl who had stayed with him had played checkers, but hadn’t said a word the whole time. And then she’d gotten mad when he beat her, and called him Bobby Fisherman or something.

“OK”. She got up, picked him up, and turned him upside down to carry him into the living room. He watched his house go by upside down. He wondered what it would be like to walk on his hands and see everything that way. “Hey,” he said.

“Hey what?” she asked, still holding his head just above the floor.

“If everybody walked around on their hands, would you shake feet?” She started laughing. “What?”

“That’s a very good question. Can you do that?”

“No!” The most he’d ever done was a headstand in gym class.

“OK, guess what?”

“What?”

“You’re learning!” She pulled him farther off the ground, then dropped him and caught his ankles. He put his hands out, and she slowly lowered him to the ground. Then she walked him, like a wheelbarrow, to the wall, and leaned him there on his hands. He looked up at her and smiled.

“OK, now hold that pose,” she said. She tucked in her shirt, and pulled her hair back with a red scrunchy. Then, she tipped over onto her hands, and stood straight up in a handstand.

“Wow!” León was amazed. He’d seen stuff like that in the movies, but he always thought there were invisible wires or something to help people do that.

“Oh, I ain’t done yet.” Her face was getting red, but she walked on her hands over to León and stuck her left foot back a bit, and then her right foot forward. “OK, hi, I’m Misha, what’s your name?”

“I’m León,” he said, and stuck his foot out, and they grabbed each other’s toes and giggled. Then Misha just folded in her legs and arms, and sat on the floor. She looked at León. “You’re all upside down. Now how do we fix that?” She smiled. “I know!” She reached out and tickled his ribs, and León fell in a heap.

“No fair!” Misha wasn’t ticklish except when she wanted to be. León didn’t get that, since he never wanted to be ticklish and always was.

“Life ain’t fair, kiddo.” She took out the scrunchy and tossed her hair out behind her, then tied it up again. “OK, what’re we playing?”

León open the closet in the living room that held all his games. Checkers, Mousetrap, Junior Trivial Pursuit, Clue...there were lots of games here. León liked games, but he liked them better when they were like Mousetrap or Candyland, when you won by rolling dice. That way you didn’t feel bad when you lost. León never felt bad about losing a game, but he knew some people did. When they played kickball in gym class, everybody on the team that won laughed at the team that lost. León didn’t think that was much fun. “How would you feel?” his mother always asked him when he did something mean to someone.

Misha stood up and started dancing. León turned around to watch her. She stopped when she noticed him. “What? Did you pick a game?”

“What are you doing?” He knew what she was doing: dancing. But he couldn’t think of what he really wanted to ask.

“Dancing, silly.”

“How come?”

“Because I like to dance.”

León lay down on his stomach in front of her and kicked his feet together. “But there’s no music.”

“Not playing, I know.” She sat down in front of him. “But I know what music sounds like, so I keep it in my head. You ever have songs in your head?”

“Sometimes.” León sang to himself a lot, really, but usually he just sang whatever he was thinking. Sometimes he sang songs from summer camp, just because he liked the sound.

“Yeah, so I just listen to that.” León nodded, and turned around to look at games some more. Finally, he chose checkers, and pulled the board out. “Checkers, huh? OK, you’re probably gonna cream me, but I’ll put up a good fight.”

“I beat Jenny once at checkers.”

“Oh, yeah? Who’s that, your girlfriend?”

León blushed. “No! Another baby-sitter.”

Misha put her hands on her hips. “Well! Cheating on me with another baby-sitter. I’m hurt.” León glanced up, but Misha was kidding. He smiled. “So, you beat her, huh? What’d she do?”

“She called me Bobby Fisherman,” said León, hoping Misha would know what that meant. She started laughing.

“Bobby Fischer, buddy, Fischer. He was a kid who was a master of chess.”

“I don’t even know how to play chess.”

“Yeah, but if you did, you’d be pretty good. You’re a smart kid.” León blushed again, and smiled. He was trying to remember English for merci. Sometimes he forgot simple things like that. One time at a birthday party, he had wanted to go to the bathroom, and all he could think of was ou sont els toilettes? He had raced for the bathroom when he got home.

They set up that board. Misha wanted to be red, which was fine, because León always liked to be black. They started playing, sometimes laughing or groaning over a move, but mostly staying quiet. By the time the first of León’s pieces had been kinged, they hadn’t said a word for several minutes. The house was quiet, it was dark and cloudy outside, and the wind blew, rattling the tree that stood next to house. In summers, León climbed that tree to play hide-and-seek with the other kids, but in October, the tree had skeleton-fingers for branches that scratched at the windows when the wind blew.

Misha and León both jumped at a sudden buzzing sound. It was Misha’s pager. She laughed, breathing heavily, and turned the buzz off. “Yike,” she said. “That was fun.” León smiled, feeling better. It wasn’t quite as bad, being scared suddenly, as when you got scared slowly. Like in a scary movie when the bad guy would creep up on somebody: that was scary. But it wasn’t as scary when he just jumped out. It was over quick then.

“Who was it?”, asked León.

“Hmm?” Misha was looking at the board.

“Who buzzed you?”

“Oh,” she looked up. “I don’t know. There’s a message for me on my voice mail.”

“What’s that?”

“Like an answering machine, except this little thing goes off and tells me if someone leaves a message. And then I can call a number on a phone and listen to it.”

“Oh, neat.” León was impressed. He wanted a pager, but nobody really ever called him anyway. He said to his mother once that when he was older, he’d get one. His mother had said that when he was older, they’d probably have gadgets that contacted a person if you thought about them. “Like on the X-men,” León had said, and she’d just sort of nodded.

Misha made her move, then León, then Misha, and so on. It was a good game, and it ended up with Misha and León each with on piece, chasing each other around the board. “I think it’s a tie,” said Misha finally, and León agreed.

Misha got up to go to the bathroom, and León put the board away, then sat on the couch and stared out the window. The leaves were changing color, but it was too dark to see now. The wind was still blowing pretty strong, and it kicked an old McDonald’s cup across the sidewalk in front of the house. It looked cold out there, and lonely.

León started to sweat. He didn’t know why, but suddenly he felt alone and scared. What if someone was to just jump through the window? It was big enough, and Misha was in the bathroom. He’d heard at school about the man who had grabbed a little girl right out of a slumber party and carried her away and killed her. León pulled his legs up to his chest and rocked back and forth on the couch, staring at the dark and hoping that the man wouldn’t crash through, because maybe it wasn’t so great to have it happen quick.

Misha came out of the bathroom and sat on the couch. She stared out the window with him for a moment. “Looks cold,” she murmured.

“Yeah.” León was nearly whispering.

“You OK, pal?” She glanced over at him, concerned.

He looked up at her, eyes wide. His face was a bit flushed, and he was sweating a bit. He stared at her, unable to think of a single word in English. He pushed forward and wrapped himself around her, burying his face in her shirt. She held him, pulled him tight, and rocked gently. He could feel her heart beating gently, smell her perfume. It smelled strange. It was different than what he was used to, different than his mother’s. It wasn’t unpleasant, but unfamiliar, and so instead of the smell, he focused on the rocking. After a few moments, the fear left him. He sat up and smiled at her.

“You OK?” she asked again.

“Yeah.”

“Just get spooked?” She smiled gently, not laughing at him, just smiling.

“Yeah.”

“Let’s go watch a movie, OK? A funny movie.”

“OK.” They went into the TV room and put on a Disney movie. Misha made popcorn for herself and grabbed a handful of pretzels for León, who didn’t like popcorn. Towards the end of the movie, León felt himself getting sleepy, and by the time the bad guy got killed and the good guys got married, he was only barely aware of Misha carrying him upstairs, helping him into his pajamas, and tucking him into bed.

He woke up with his mouth dry. It was dark - it felt late- and he’d been dreaming. About what he didn’t know, but not dragons. About glass, he thought, about glass and scares and other things that weren’t good to dream about.

He sat up and listened. He didn’t hear the TV, but Misha might be reading. His mom might even be home; he didn’t know what time it was. He climbed carefully out of bed and walked down the hall to the bathroom to get a cup of water.

On the way back from the bathroom, he leaned into his mother’s room. The door was open, so she wasn’t asleep. He looked around the room, but it was dark and the bed was made. Her digital clock said 11:11. León made a wish - for a dog or cat - and then wandered downstairs to find Misha.

When he reached the landing, everything was quiet. The lights were off on the first floor. Misha was not here.

Of course she is, thought León. She can’t just leave me here alone. She’d get in big trouble with my mom. Cautiously, he walked into the living room and sat down on the couch. He really couldn’t think of where she’d be. Maybe she went out to her car to get something. He looked out the window, but it was raining and he couldn’t see if her car was even there anymore.

A scratching sound startled him. He turned and saw the tree branches knocking against the window again. He thought about how scared he’d been before. He looked out of the large windows again, thinking that if someone did come crashing through these windows, he’d never see him in time with the rain.

León got up and backed away from the window. “Misha?” he called out carefully. He walked around to the front hall, then downstairs to the TV room.

He wasn’t afraid of his basement like some kids were. He knew the furnace was just a furnace, the laundry on the rack was just laundry. He’d been down here a night plenty of times and never been scared. Today, though, he couldn’t get halfway down. The room looked messed up, like a burglar had been through it. He couldn’t see well from the stairs, but it looked like there were clothes on the floor, and a box, or something.

Shutting the door at the top of the stairs, León was trying not to panic. He was trying not to think of all the horror stories he’d heard at sleepovers, about the crazy guy with the ax or the knife or the hook on his hand who breaks in and kills the baby-sitter and then waits for the kid to find her. He ran to the back door to check it. The door was unlocked.

He locked the door, then turned around and held his breath, listening for sounds in the house, for some clue as to where the guy might be. Something was wrong; he knew that for sure now. You couldn't lock that door from outside without a key, and his mom always locked it when she left. So someone had either unlocked it, or someone without a key had left. Maybe Misha had left. But where would she go? León sat down, quietly, sure that anybody could hear his breathing no matter where in the house they were.

If Misha was still here, her coat would be here. He walked to the coat rack to look. Nothing. Just his coat, hanging there looking lonely. León wasn’t lonely. He was scared. He went back to the kitchen to look for a note. He found one on the kitchen table. He took it into the bathroom and turned on the light and read it.

“Had to go. Leon is asleep. Called the restaurant and they said you had just left. Sorry. Tonight’s free. Misha.”

That helped. At least León knew she was OK, and some crazy guy hadn’t grabbed her. But he was still scared, and confused. Why had she left? Maybe someone had buzzed her and called her away and it had been important. Maybe she had a date or something. His mother was late; she’d said she’d be back before eleven.

He walked back into the living room and plopped on the couch. He lay on his back so he wouldn’t have to look out the window. The rain made him sad when he watched it, but he didn’t mind just listening. He wondered why his mother was late. She was on her way home, according to note, so Misha couldn’t have left too long ago. His mother would still be mad, though. He hoped she wouldn’t tell Misha not to come back.

The phone rang. León started, then jumped up and ran to the kitchen. He picked up the phone, and paused, trying to think of what to say. Finally, he just said, “Hello?”

“Yeah, is this Lee-on?” A man’s voice. Rough. He said Lee-on, and really it sounded more like “Lee-ah”.

“León.” His mother had told him to correct people politely if they said his name wrong.

“Lay-OHN. OK. Misha there?”

The name still wasn’t right, but sometimes people had a hard time with it. “No, she-” he stopped. He looked at the door, still locked. He was sweating again. “Who’s this?”

“Is she there?” Just like horror stories, thought León. And he knows my name!

“Ummmm....” León was trying to think of what to say, but didn’t know what to do. His mother had told him never to say that he was home alone, but he was alone, and this guy knew him and Misha and wanted to talk to Misha. “Elle ne peut pas -” he began.

“What?” The voice was louder. León’s mind struggled with the English. Finally, he remembered. “She can’t come to the phone!” He was almost crying.

“Bullshit!” The man on the phone was yelling. “Bull-fucking-shit! You get her on the phone! Now, you little shit frog!”

León was crying now, and he could remember any English at all, except “She can’t come to the phone.” But the man didn’t believe that, even though it was true. She couldn’t because she wasn’t there. Then León remembered more and cried out, “She’s not here!” And the man hung up.

León’s hand was shaking so badly he dropped the phone twice trying to hang it up. He stumbled back to the couch and collapsed in front of it, not wanting to see or hear or feel the rain or the cold. He was still crying, but not sobbing - he was too afraid. He was sure the man had been calling from a cellular phone outside his house, and any minute he’d jump through the window and carry him away.

He didn’t hear the key in the door, nor did he hear it open, but he heard it slam. He cried out, a long, high sound that he didn’t recognize as his. He heard something in the kitchen fall with a jingle and a thud, and footsteps, and then his mother was in the room. She walked over to him, quickly, and knelt down in front of him. León wrapped his arms around her and buried his face in her shirt and fell the familiar hands on his back and smelled the familiar smells and sobbed and sobbed. His mother asked him questions, but he didn’t hear, and when she kissed him, he didn’t care about the lipstick.

His mother held him, gently, and rocked him, and gradually, his sobs changed to hiccups, and then to long breaths. Soon he heard her questions and tried to answer them, but the answers came in French for a long while. But his mother understood.

© 2000 Matthew McFarland

No reproduction is allowed without the author’s express permission.

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