Battle of the Beasts

“Hey, Mom!”

Mrs Walker was on the couch. Brendan and Cordelia were off upstairs. Dr Walker had never showed up for dinner.

“I think it’s time for an upgrade.” Eleanor presented her phone. “I know you don’t want me on the internet a lot, but you can get me a data thingy with tiny internet, or I could just take Dad’s other phone if he doesn’t want it—”

Mrs Walker sat up straight. “What do you mean, ‘Dad’s other phone’?”

Eleanor backpedalled. “I meant, Dad’s old phone.”

“No,” said Mrs Walker. “You definitely said other.”

“Right, well … you know, being dyslexic, I sometimes screw up words,” Eleanor said.

“You and I both know that isn’t part of being dyslexic,” said Mrs Walker. “Does your father have a secret phone?”

Eleanor gulped. Her mother’s eyes were … Eleanor looked for the word. Not mad … not sad … Anxious. And that’s worse than anything.

“I don’t know. I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Look.” Mrs Walker took Eleanor’s hand. “Your father hasn’t been acting like himself and I really need to find out what’s going on. I can’t promise you that it will be easy, but if he has a secret phone, and you show it to me, it will help us figure out what his problems really are.”

“And then we can solve them?”

Mrs Walker nodded.

“And be a normal family again?”

“Well, I don’t know if any family is normal.”

“We used to be more normal.”

“I will grant you that.”

“Okay,” Eleanor said. “I’ll show you, Mom. But you can’t tell anyone what I’ve been doing.”

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Eleanor brought her mother into the kitchen and said, “First, you need to cook up some pizza rolls.”

“What? Now you’re hungry? I thought you were going to show me the phone—”

“It’s in the attic.”

“Yeah …”

“Brendan’s in the attic,” said Eleanor.

Mrs Walker made a face, knowing this was underhanded. Still, within five minutes, the pizza-roll smell was wafting through the house and Eleanor was pulling her mother out of the kitchen as Brendan ran down towards it.

“I’ve been going to the attic when Bren’s not around,” Eleanor admitted as they went up the back staircase.

“Nell! It’s his room! Why would you do that?”

“To pretend—” started Eleanor, but she was cut off as they heard Brendan chanting: “Pizza rolls! Pizza rolls! Pizza rolls!”

“What do you pretend when you’re up there?” asked Mrs Walker.

“That the house is a big ship,” Eleanor said, “and the attic’s the captain’s quarters, and I’m the captain. Or that it’s the starship Enterprise and I’m Spock. Brendan does this thing where he hangs the rope in a certain way to try and catch if people go in there, but I know how to put it back so I don’t get caught.”

“Nell,” Mrs Walker said admonishingly, “it’s important to use your imagination, but it’s equally important to respect other people’s space.”

Eleanor nodded. She couldn’t admit the real reason she played in the attic: to look out the window and remember how it felt when she first saw the forest outside Kristoff House. Back on their adventure. When everything was so exciting. And when the Walkers were working together, facing challenges, being close – not lying to one another.

They reached the attic steps. Eleanor explained to her mom: “Okay, so sometimes, besides playing in the attic, I play in the dumbwaiter.” She pointed to the square metal door in the wall.

“That’s awful!” said Mrs Walker. “I mean, if the thing broke, you would—”

“Break my neck?”

“What on earth are you going to tell me next? That you’re joining a gang?”

“Relax, Mom. I’m just explaining how I saw Dad go into the attic.”

“Oh.”

“Friday after school, I was playing in the dumbwaiter, and I saw him go in. Like, secretly.”

Eleanor led her mom up the stairs.

There were two big piles of magazines in Brendan’s attic – Sports Illustrated and Game Informer – and one continuous snaking pile of dirty clothes that led to a hamper, which curiously held no clothes. Posters on the wall had started to peel off and been reattached with gum. A plate of blue-tinged grilled-cheese crusts rested on top of a goldfish bowl where Brendan’s goldfish, Turbo, refused to die.

“Dad was only in here for a minute,” Eleanor explained, “but after he left, I came up to see what he was doing. He left that bottom drawer open. Just a crack. When I looked inside … I found the phone. It was tucked under Brendan’s old dinosaur pajamas, which he would never wear.”

Mrs Walker went to Brendan’s bureau and opened the drawer. Nestled under the bright green pajamas was an iPhone.

Mrs Walker picked it up. The phone was locked. She tried to unlock it with Dr Walker’s birthday: 0404. That didn’t work. She tried her own birthday, 1208, and sighed.

“What?” Eleanor asked.

“No matter what I find on here,” said Mrs Walker, “I know he’s still thinking of me.”

Mrs Walker went to Recent Calls, but all the outgoing calls were made to just one number.

“415-555-1438,” Mrs Walker read.

“What’s that, Mom?”

“We’re about to find out.”