Spiderman

Nolan was wearing his sweater that he wore for his first-grade school picture, and she, Alex, was wearing a jumper with owls on it. The house was a long way away and was bigger than theirs, so big Alex wondered if two families lived in it. Nolan pushed the head of his Stretch Armstrong doll into Alex’s thigh as the car climbed up the driveway. She hit him on the arm with her stuffed octopus. Their mother opened the car door on Nolan’s side before they could hit each other again. She carried a casserole dish of bread pudding, her father the wine that someone else had given them, Nolan his Stretch Armstrong, and Nola her octopus as they filed up the stone steps to the house. The woman standing at the front door, Aunt Clarissa, let them in.

The house smelled like nothing, which surprised her. She had always thought that houses smelled like Chef Boyardee and Daddy’s feet or cigarettes. She wanted to take her shoes off and slide down the long hallway but knew, in this house that smelled like nothing, she would not be allowed.

Mitchell’s down in the basement. Aunt Clarissa pointed to the door at the end of the hallway. Why don’t you go down and play?

Take off your shoes, their mother said, holding out her hands. Alex and Nolan sat on the floor. Nolan had shoes that tied, little brown shoes. Alex had Mary Janes. Nolan had promised to teach her how to tie her new shoes, but he had not. Now she got her old shoes off first and was glad he hadn’t, and she scurried ahead of him down the hall, sliding a little, not too noticeable, and went down the stairs to the basement.

Mitchell sat in front of a Lego castle. He was Nolan’s size, maybe a little heavier. His hair was blond like Nolan’s but straight. The castle was finished except for one brick, which rested in his hand, and Alex wondered why he hadn’t waited for them.

Where’s your brother? Mitchell asked, unsmiling.

He’s coming. She approached the castle shyly. I’m Alex.

Don’t touch my Legos, he said. You’re too little.

I am not! She curled her fists. Nolan and I have Legos at home.

She heard Nolan thumping down the stairs in his socks and turned. Nolan, we have Legos at home, don’t we?

Not these Legos, Mitchell said. These are new. He dropped the Lego on the table and walked over to Nolan. You want to play video games?

What do you have? Nolan approached the television, eyes hungry. They were only allowed to play board games at home.

Everything, Mitchell answered.

Can I play? Alex stood by her brother, looking at the colorful rows of plastic squares that were the games.

We’ll play first, Mitchell answered, handing Nolan a controller. Alex turned and looked at the shelves of Lego toys: a pirate ship, a helicopter, a police station and hospital, a racetrack. Their Legos at home weren’t so nice, it was true. They didn’t make such special things, only the crudely molded, vague buildings and cars of their imagination. She went to the back of the basement, where the washer and dryer and bins of seemingly neglected toys had been tossed. Action figures and airplanes and things Nolan had wanted at the store but their parents could not afford lay forgotten. She moved along their crypts as the disembodied voice of her brother said “crap” from the front room. She saw the shopping cart. It had a plastic yellow basket and orange wheels, the kind of cart one put plastic groceries in, except that it was filled with rubber monsters and GI Joes. Alex put her hands on the handle and pushed it slowly. It was just her size. She pushed it to the front room.

Why do you have a girl’s toy? She asked Mitchell, whose man onscreen was hitting Nolan’s man onscreen.

It’s my sister’s, he answered without looking at her.

Where is she?

She’s dead.

Alex looked back at the cart. She wondered if there were other toys of the dead sister’s. She went into the back of the basement and looked again. All the toys were Mitchell’s. She rolled the cart back and forth, taking things out and putting them in.

Can I have it? She asked him after he had beaten Nolan in the boxing game. Nolan had gravitated toward the back room toys, touching loose things but trying not to be too interested, too excited.

It’s mine. Mitchell pulled it from her and sent it careening into a corner. Come on, let’s play Spiderman.

He motioned them to an old refrigerator against the wall. He pulled an old mattress in front of it and walked to the wall, where some two by eights were stacked diagonally against it. He flattened his body against the unfinished cinderblocks of the wall and inched his feet up the two by eight to the top of the refrigerator. There, he crouched, his hands splayed open, as if to shoot them with invisible web.

Come on, he said. Nolan, scared of heights, shied away. Alex put her feet on the boards and hugged the wall. The cinderblocks bit her hands as she inched upward.

You’re going to get it, Nolan whined, and Alex hoped that Mitchell would like her better because she was braver. She joined him on top of the refrigerator.

What do we do now? She felt scared. Mitchell grinned at her and leapt into the air, hitting the mattress below and tumbling away.

Come on, he egged, springing up. Alex pushed slowly off the fridge, hitting the mattress with her stomach first. Her body closed against the pain and the air and light left her.

Now we’re in trouble, she heard Nolan say when she woke. She struggled to suck air into her throat, wondering whether she had killed herself. She wondered whether this was how Mitchell’s sister had died. She wondered whether Mitchell had pushed her.

She’s fine, she heard Mitchell say. Just got the wind knocked out of her.

Air filled her fully. She ran upstairs, finding her mother and father sitting cross-legged on the rug in the living room, thick like a pelt. The cigarette her mother held smelled funny. A Paul Simon record was on the stereo, hop on the bus, Gus, which she loved to sing always with her father.

What’s the matter, honey? Her mother opened her arms and Alex crumpled into them.

I want to go home, she cried. Her tears bled through her mother’s blouse.

Everyone was quiet before they laughed. It wasn’t a funny laugh and it couldn’t be because she didn’t say anything funny, but before anyone could say anything she ran out to the car and climbed in the back seat. She watched the stars blinking through the windows and cried because her shoes were in the house and her feet were wet and flecked with grass. She cried because Mitchell was stupid and she was glad the girl was dead. She cried because she was going to Hell. When she stopped she swore to be good the rest of her life so she could go to Heaven.

But what does it smell like? She asked her dead goldfish, hamster, the girl, the night. The front door opened. Her mother stood in it, gauze light behind her, like an angel, a ghost, a person waving her back to shore.