some are sharp, some are pretty, some are dull, while others bright, some have weird names,
but they all have learned to live together in the same box.”
- Unknown
The Boy in the Cardboard Box
Max lived inside his cardboard box.
But living inside a cardboard box doesn't mean you can't hear things.
Like Mimi, on the phone. Max could hear Mimi. He was clutching his box of Cinnamon Toast Crunch and licking the cinnamon off the cereal in his palm, listening intently.
"Three months," Mimi was saying, "And he's only come out of the box a couple of times." She sighed heavily, "I just don't know what to do with him. I've never had his sort of trouble with a kid before, not even with you."
Max turned the cereal over and began licking the other side of the square carefully. He had to take his time. He couldn't hear over the crunching.
"I just wish I could get him to talk," Mimi's voice was sad. Max frowned into the cereal. He didn't like it when grown ups were sad. "If he'd just talk to me, maybe I could help him. But he just won't speak."
Max hadn't said any words in a very long time. He didn't know why, particularly, he just didn't feel like saying anything. Saying things meant the grown ups noticed you, and Max much preferred the shield of invisibility that surrounded his box.
"I know you're busy, but," Mimi sucked in a lot of breath. "I really need your help. I feel like if anyone could help this kid that it would be you. He's so much like you were."
Max had gotten all the cinnamon off the cereal and he had to crunch. His teeth methodically chewed the cereal square and he counted - one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty, twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-three, twenty-four, twenty-five - and swallowed. Someone once read a magazine article out loud to him that mentioned chewing twenty-five times before swallowing. Sometimes this was easy, but sometimes it was hard.
Max preferred to be safe than sorry, though. You never know what might happen if you don't chew twenty-five times. He didn't dare to find out.
"When can you come over?" Mimi was saying after Max's twenty-fifth chew was completed.
Max crawled onto his knees and peeked out of the crack in the box's doors. He saw Mimi sitting cross-legged on the green velvet chair with the phone to her ear. The TV glow was casting a funny blue-white light on her that flickered. She was wearing jeans and that green sweater again.
"Anytime before lunch is fine. The other children have activities then, but Max won't play with them."
Max didn't want to play. He had better things to do.
"Okay, so we'll see you then," Mimi said. "Thank you again, this means a lot to me."
Max pulled the crack of his box shut as Mimi uncrossed her legs and stood up. Mimi had said before she picked up the phone that it would be bathtime when she hung up. He pressed his back against the far inside wall of the box and vowed for the hundredth time to be brave tomorrow and go outside of the box and fix the invisibility shield so that this couldn't keep happening.
"Take care, bye-bye," Mimi hung up the phone with a click and Max held his breath.
"Max," Mimi called gently. He heard her shoes tap-tap-tap across the wooden floor and stop just outside. He closed his eyes. Thump, thump, thump; Mimi knocked on the box door. "Ma-aaax?" Her fingers wrapped around the door of the box and light flooded into the space inside as she opened them wide. "Max, come on out, it's time for your bath."
Max shook his head.
"Max, come on." Mimi reached inside and took hold on Max's red Converse sneaker and pulled him out.
Max's eyes were squeezed tight-shut and little tears leaked out of their very corners. Mimi sighed and lifted him up gently, kicking the box aside. Max stared at the box over Mimi's shoulder as she carried him to the stairs. He hoped nobody got inside and figured out how it worked.
"You have a visitor coming tomorrow," Mimi told Max as she rubbed strawberry scented shampoo into his red hair.
Max had his eyes closed again, and had scooted as far away from the drain as possible. White bubbles floated around in the water. Mimi had put a rubber ducky in, too, but Max was wary of all yellow things.
"He's a very special visitor," Mimi explained. "You know why he's so special?" she asked. And here she paused, as though waiting for Max to speak. After a moment of silence - the same response she got when ever she'd tried to talk to Max - she continued, "Because he used to live here, just like you."
Admittedly, this intrigued Max just a little bit, but not enough to make him respond. Instead, he kicked at the rubber ducky, sending it spiraling through the bubbles, closer to the drain. If one of the two of them were going to get sucked in there, Max thought, it was going to be the ducky.
"His name is Nick and he lived here for twelve whole years!" Mimi added. "He's a very special person and he wants to be your friend. Isn't that neat, Max?"
Max watched as the ducky bobbled in the water.
Mimi sighed. She grabbed the plastic cup she used to rinse the kids' hair and blocked Max's face with her hand before pouring water over his head. The soap drained out of his hair and into the water in white, foamy trails along his back. She worked until all the soap had come out and reached for the plug.
Max pulled his knees to his chest, holding his toes in his fingers to make sure none of them fell off. He made note in his mind to make sure he counted them before going to sleep that night to be certain that he hadn't lost any. He watched as the rubber ducky spun in circles around the drain on the whirlpool current. Mimi grabbed the ducky by the head and put him on a wire shelf that hung over the faucet in the bathtub before he could be sucked down the drain.
Mimi grabbed a towel from the hook and held it up, arms open. Max stood up, but he didn't jump into her arms like most of the kids did when she held open her arms like that. She reached out and wrapped the towel around his tiny frame and started patting him dry.
The only part of bath time that Max actually sort of liked was the pajamas. Mimi pulled out his favorite pair - a blue pair with dinosaurs all over it and green cuffs at the ankles he could tuck his socks into. He liked red socks only because those matched his red sneakers and he liked to wear his sneakers, even with his pajamas, because they kept his feet safe.
Mimi went downstairs and got Max's box. She'd fought with him many times about taking the box to bed, but Max never slept if she didn't let him have his way. She got the box into the cavern of the bottom bunk in the boys' room and pushed pillows inside, propping open the doors and patted the bed. Max climbed in and let Mimi tuck the blankets around him, but he kicked his feet until they were loose at the bottom and the tight corners had been uprooted from the mattress.
Max watched intently as Mimi picked up The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle, which was Max's favorite book, and began to read about the little bug that ate too much fruit everyday of the week. She held up the pages of the book and peeked through the holes in the pictures of fruit, but Max watched and listened intently instead of giggling and wanting to touch the pages like most of the kids did.
When the story was all over and the caterpillar had become a butterfly once again, Mimi closed the book and laid it on her lap. She leaned on her elbows on the book and stared into the box at Max.
"I love you so very much Max," she said quietly, "I wish I knew how to help you better."
Max hugged a pillow to his chest and rolled over, smooshing his face into the pillow. He waited.
Mimi sighed, "Goodnight, Max." She stood up and pushed the chair she'd been sitting on into the desk where it belonged and turned out the light on her way out. The base-ball shaped nightlight glowed from the socket across the room and the door creaked as she bought it to a close so that only the very slimmest of cracks remained.
Max stared at the wall of his box, closed his eyes, and, eventually, he fell asleep, curious and thinking about the special visitor.
