4
A few hours after my Crenshaw sighting at the beach, he appeared again.
No surfboard this time. No umbrella.
No body, either.
Still. I knew he was there.
It was about six in the evening. My sister, Robin, and I were playing cerealball in the living room of our apartment. Cerealball is a good trick for when you’re hungry and there’s nothing much to eat till morning. We invented it when our stomachs were grumbling to each other. Wow, I would love a piece of pepperoni pizza, my stomach would growl. And then hers would grumble, Yeah, or maybe a Ritz cracker with peanut butter.
Robin loves Ritzes.
Cerealball is easy to play. All you need are a few Cheerios or even a little piece of bread all torn up. M&M’s would be good too, if your mom isn’t around to say no sugar. But unless it’s right after Halloween you probably don’t have any.
In my family those guys go really fast.
First you pick a target to throw at. A bowl or cup works fine. Don’t use a wastebasket, because that might have germs. Sometimes I use Robin’s T-ball cap. Although that’s probably pretty gross, too.
For a five-year-old, that girl can really sweat.
What you do is throw your one piece of cereal and try to make a basket. The rule is you can’t eat that piece until you score. Make sure your target’s far away or you’ll finish your food too fast.
The trick is that you take so long to hit the target, you forget about being hungry. For a while, anyway.
I like to use Cheerios and Robin likes Frosted Flakes. But you can’t be picky when the cupboard is bare. My mom says that sometimes.
If you run out of cereal and your stomach’s still growling, you can always try chewing a piece of gum to distract yourself. Stuck behind your ear is a good hiding place if you want to use your gum again. Even if the flavor is gone your teeth get a workout.
Crenshaw showed up—at least he seemed to show up—while we were busy throwing my dad’s bran cereal into Robin’s cap. It was my turn to throw, and I got a direct hit. When I went to take out the cereal piece, I found four purple jelly beans instead.
I love purple jelly beans.
I stared a long time at those things. “Where did the jelly beans come from?” I finally asked.
Robin grabbed the cap. I started to pull it away, but then I changed my mind. Robin is small, but you don’t want to mess with her.
She bites.
“It’s magic!” she said. She started dividing up the jelly beans. “One for me, one for you, two for me—”
“Seriously, Robin. Stop kidding around. Where?”
Robin gobbled down two jelly beans. “Shlp tchzzzn muh,” she said, which I figured meant “stop teasing me” in candy-mouth.
Aretha, our big Labrador mutt, rushed over to check things out. “No candy for you,” Robin said. “You are a dog so you eat dog food, young lady.”
But Aretha didn’t seem interested in the candy. She was sniffing the air, ears cocked toward the front door, as if we had a guest approaching.
“Mom,” I yelled, “did you buy some jelly beans?”
“Sure,” she called back from the kitchen. “They’re to go with the caviar.”
“I’m serious,” I said, picking up my two pieces.
“Just eat Dad’s cereal, Jackson. You’ll poop for a week,” she answered.
A second later she appeared in the doorway, a dish towel in her hands. “Are you guys still hungry?” She sighed. “I’ve got a little mac and cheese left over from dinner. And there’s half an apple you could share.”
“I’m fine,” I said quickly. Back in the old days, when we always had food in the house, I would whine if we were out of my favorite stuff. But lately we’d been running out of everything, and I had the feeling my parents felt lousy about it.
“We have jelly beans, Mom,” Robin said.
“Well, okay, then. As long as you’re eating something nutritious,” said my mom. “I get my paycheck at Rite Aid tomorrow, and I’ll stop by the grocery store and pick up some food after work.”
She gave a little nod, like she’d checked something off a list, and went back to the kitchen.
“Aren’t you gonna eat your jelly beans?” Robin asked me, twirling her yellow ponytail around her finger. “Because if you want me to do you a big favor I guess I could eat them for you.”
“I’m going to eat them,” I said. “Just not … yet.”
“Why not? They’re purple. Your favorite.”
“I need to think about them first.”
“You are a weirdo brother,” said Robin. “I’m going to my room. Aretha wants to play dress-up.”
“I doubt that,” I said. I held a jelly bean up to the light. It looked harmless enough.
“She especially likes hats and also socks,” Robin said as she left with the dog. “Don’t you, baby?”
Aretha’s tail wagged. She was always up for anything. But as she left with Robin, she glanced over her shoulder at the front window and whined.
I went to the window and peered outside. I checked behind the couch. I flung open the hall closet.
Nothing. Nobody.
No surfing cats. No Crenshaw.
I hadn’t told anybody about what I’d seen at the beach. Robin would just think I was messing with her. My mom and dad would do one of two things. Either they’d freak out and worry I was going crazy. Or they’d think it was adorable that I was pretending to hang out with my old invisible friend.
I sniffed the jelly beans. They smelled not-quite-grapey, in a good way. They looked real. They felt real. And my real little sister had just eaten some.
Rule number one for scientists is this: There is always a logical explanation for things. I just had to figure out what it was.
Maybe the jelly beans weren’t real, and I was just tired or sick. Delirious, even.
I checked my forehead. Unfortunately, I did not seem to have a fever.
Maybe I’d gotten sunstroke at the beach. I wasn’t exactly sure what sunstroke was, but it sounded like something that might make you see flying cats and magic jelly beans.
Maybe I was asleep, stuck in the middle of a long, weird, totally annoying dream.
Still. Didn’t the jelly beans in my hand seem extremely real?
Maybe I was just hungry. Hunger can make you feel pretty weird. Even pretty crazy.
I ate my first jelly bean slowly and carefully. If you take tiny bites, your food lasts longer.
A voice in my head said, Never take candy from strangers. But Robin had survived. And if there was a stranger involved, he was an invisible one.
There had to be a logical explanation. But for now, the only thing I knew for sure was that purple jelly beans tasted way better than bran cereal.
5
The first time I met Crenshaw was about three years ago, right after first grade ended.
It was early evening, and my family and I had parked at a rest stop off a highway. I was lying on the grass near a picnic table, gazing up at the stars blinking to life.
I heard a noise, a wheels-on-gravel skateboard sound. I sat up on my elbows. Sure enough, a skater on a board was threading his way through the parking lot.
I could see right away that he was an unusual guy.
He was a black and white kitten. A big one, taller than me. His eyes were the sparkly color of morning grass. He was wearing a black and orange San Francisco Giants baseball cap.
He hopped off his board and headed my way. He was standing on two legs just like a human.
“Meow,” he said.
“Meow,” I said back, because it seemed polite.
He leaned close and sniffed my hair. “Do you have any purple jelly beans?”
I jumped to my feet. It was his lucky day. I just happened to have two purple jelly beans in my jeans pocket.
They were a little smushed, but we each ate one anyway.