Ned Vizzini - Battle of the Beasts

“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.”

“No, wait, what are you doing?”

“What does it look like I’m doing?”

“We should get out of here! What if Brendan comes back? Or Dad?”

“It’s already ringing, Nell.”

“Then at least let me listen!”

Mrs Walker knelt and held the phone so her daughter could hear it. A voice answered, “Doc?”

It was a man’s voice, thick and gruff, like the voice of someone with two raw slabs of bacon wrapped around his vocal cords.

“Doc? You there? Whadda you got? Niners are three over this week, Warriors are—”

“Who is this, a sports bookie ?” Mrs Walker asked.

Click. The call was over.

“Who was that?” Eleanor said.

“Some coward,” her mom said, calling the same number again.

This time, the man answered on the first ring. “Listen up—”

“No, you listen! I’m Jacob Walker’s wife, Bellamy Walker, and I demand to know—”

“I’m guessing you ain’t got picks for the doc?”

“No! And what you’re doing is completely illegal—”

“Hey. Mrs Walker. Don’t judge. I just do business with your husband. You got a problem with that, you take it up with him. And tell the doc if he wants in on this week’s games, he better call back. And one final thing—”

The man spat a very nasty curse word at Mrs Walker.

Click.

Mrs Walker looked stunned. Eleanor looked at the floor. “Are we in trouble?”

“Not at all,” her mom said. “Mommy’s going to handle everything.”

“We should go, I think I hear Bren.”

Mrs Walker stuffed the secret phone back in the bureau, and the two of them climbed out of the attic. Eleanor placed the rope back into the same position that Brendan had left it in. On the back stairs, Eleanor stopped and turned to her mom. “See, I was telling the truth!”

“You were.”

“And this will help our family, right?”

“Yes. Sure. Of course.”

“And do you realise, Mom? We just went on a little adventure ?”

“Sure, honey. An adventure. Dad is spending all our money on sports bets. Big adventure.” Suddenly Mrs Walker had tears in her eyes.

“I don’t understand when I lost this family,” she said. “Do you? Did you see when it happened?”

Eleanor shook her head sadly. All she could do was hug her mother.

The next morning, Dr Walker was sitting at the breakfast table, dressed in jeans, a bright polo shirt, and an argyle golf sweater, as if everything were all right. It made Eleanor want to scream.

“Yes, that’s right,” Dr Walker said, speaking into his legitimate phone. “No, we’re perfectly happy with the service … We’re just on a tighter budget now. He was really very good at his job. I’ll miss him. Thanks.”

He hung up. “Who was that?” Eleanor asked.

“Limousine company,” Dr Walker said. “I got rid of Angel.”

“What?” Brendan asked.

“Why?” Cordelia said before sipping some water. She was using it to mush-ify the muffin in her mouth so she could eat without chewing. She had woken up today and run her tongue across her teeth only to realise with horror that they all felt loose. Like piano keys, wiggling back and forth, ready to come out!

“Because with our family’s unforeseen expenses, we need to cut back,” Dr Walker said. “And before you complain: It affects me too. Angel was supposed to drive me to my conference today. So I’ll take a cab.”

“Where’s your conference, dear?” Mrs Walker asked innocently.

“Downtown. I’m planning on asking Henry for my old job back—”

“But it’s Friday.”

“Yes …”

“Isn’t Henry on call Fridays?”

“People’s schedules change,” Dr Walker said. “Why are you always questioning everything I do?”

The room got quiet. Mrs Walker turned away. Dr Walker stood up, put a hand on her shoulder. “I’m sorry. I don’t know where that came from.”

Brendan waited until his parents had an awkward hug before he spoke. “How are we getting to school?”

“You can walk. It’s only thirty minutes,” Dr Walker said. “Beautiful San Francisco air, friendly people walking their dogs … Cordelia will go with you to make sure you don’t get lost, and then she’ll go to her dentist appointment.”

“I dunno, Dad,” Brendan said, “I think it’s against the rules for kids to walk to Bay Academy. They like their students to be dropped off by shiny, expensive cars. They might expel us for walking.”

“Our family did just fine before we had Angel,” Dr Walker said, “and we can do fine without him. No new income is coming in, you know. This money won’t last forever.”

Because you’re gambling it all away! Eleanor wanted to scream. She saw that her father was still trying to be nice, but that didn’t stop her from wanting to call him out. She gave a questioning look to her mom, who shook her head: Not yet.

Outside, the Walkers started off on a trek through heavy Golden Gate fog. It was rolling up from the bay on to the street like a clammy quilt. Not only was the air not beautiful, they couldn’t see a thing.

“I hate when this city is actually foggy,” Brendan said. “So cliché.”

“Guys,” Eleanor said in a very serious tone.

“What?” asked Cordelia.

“Dad’s in trouble.”

Brendan and Cordelia both looked at her, but now the fog was so dense that they could only see a small, determined shadow with hands clutching backpack straps. Cordelia asked, “How?”

“He’s gambling.”

“Dad?” asked Brendan. “No way. Dad’s not cool enough to be a gambler.”

“There’s nothing cool about what Dad’s doing,” said Eleanor. “You think it’s cool that he lies to us all the time? You think it’s cool when he says he’s going to ‘conferences’, but he’s really betting all our money?”

“How do you know?” Brendan asked.

“I can’t tell you” – Eleanor didn’t want to reveal she’d been in his room – “but I know, and Mom knows, and we’re going to have to— aargh! ”

She tripped, landing hard on her elbows. A man was sitting with his back against a stone wall, his legs stretched across the pavement, almost impossible to see in the fog.

“What do you think you’re doing?” she said, getting up. “You can’t just sit in the street like that. I almost just busted open my whole face!”

“Nell,” Brendan whispered, “forget it. It’s just some homeless dude. Don’t get him mad.”

“Spare change?” the man asked, and as the fog wisped around him, the Walkers could see his thin beard and cap; his dirty skin; and the old Starbucks cup in his hand, with a smattering of coins inside.

“Yeah, sure, no problem,” Cordelia said, digging into her pockets.