His hat was old, his coat worn, his cloak was out at the elbows,
the water passed through his shoes -- and the stars through his soul."
- Victor Hugo
Chapter 2
The Man in the Red Converse Sneakers
The cardboard box was sitting in the center of the front lawn when Nick pulled up to the house. He stopped his car and stared at the box, intrigued.
Unbuckling his seatbelt, Nick clicked the button on his keys and the car beeped twice to indicate it was locked. He walked carefully around the length of the car and stepped up onto the sidewalk, never tearing his eyes away from the box. A tiny hand poked out from inside, and he was certain he could see eyes, watching him.
Is it proper etiquette to greet someone when they are hiding in a box? Nick wondered, Or was he supposed to be invisible?
He decided to go with invisibility, and walked past the box. He heard the box shuffle to turn around on the grass to continue watching him, and he struggled not to turn to look again. Nick’s feet felt heavy as he climbed the steps to the front door – a red door with a big brass knocker. He lifted a hand and knocked on the wood, then leaned against the rail and pretended to look around at the clouds and trees and stuff in the yard, but really sneaking a peek at the box.
The hand had disappeared, but there was still a crack in the box top that faced him.
Max was peeking out of the crack, studying Nick carefully. He looked, to Max at least, like a funny grown up. He had on messy clothes and -- to Max's very great, very curious surprise -- a pair of red Converse sneakers that looked exactly like Max's, only bigger. Just to make sure they were the same, Max counted the eyelets for the shoe laces in Nick's sneakers, then laid on his back, hoisted his own feet up on the wall of the box, and counted carefully three times to make sure he was right and there were exactly the same number.
Mimi opened the door. It had been almost four years since Nick had seen her but she hadn't changed much. Mimi still reminded him of the blonde Pekingese dog in The Lady and the Tramp. The only thing that had changed were the deepening of some laugh lines around her eyes and corners of her mouth and the hair was now dyed blonde instead of naturally so.
Mimi engulfed Nick in a hug and patted his back, "You look so grown up," she said, smiling brightly and holding him out at arm's length, "Look at you. Nick's dark brown hair was still shaggy and messy, like it had always been - and, Mimi thought, probably always would be. He wore jeans and a ratty old t-shirt. He was tall - even on the second step from the top he was as tall as she was. She shook her head, "To think you first came here when you were just a teeny little thing..." Mimi smiled sadly.
Nick smiled. Max liked Nick's smile, because he had a little gap between his front teeth. Max had that same gap. He had gotten that gap when he lost one of his front teeth and the new one had grown in. The other tooth was a baby tooth and it hadn't fallen out yet. He liked that about Nick an awful lot.
"Max is in the box," Mimi said, gesturing towards the lawn.
"What box?" Nick winked at her, "I didn't see a box."
Mimi pretended to strain her neck. "Oh," she said, "The invisibility shield must be working again."
"Must be," Nick agreed.
Max smiled, pleased that he'd managed to repair the forcefield that morning using the tool box that Jake, one of the older kids, had gotten for Christmas. It had taken some markers, too, to add buttons inside to turn the shield on, but it had been a relatively easy fix, and Max was proud of his handiwork.
"Maybe I could come inside until Max becomes visible again?" Nick suggested.
Mimi nodded, and stepped back, letting Nick into the house. Max watched carefully as Nick scraped his shoes on the mud rug. "If there are any invisible people out here that want to come inside, too," Mimi called into the yard, holding open the door wide, "They better come quick!"
Max tipped the box over and his little feet stuck out of the bottom as he walked the box up the steps and into the hallway, careful not to bump into anything. Mimi closed the door and shrugged to Nick, "I guess there wasn't anyone outside, then," she said.
Max sat down with the box positioned so he could see the kitchen, where Nick and Mimi went. Nick sat down at the small kitchen table where some of the kids colored on rainy days and he looked around. "Not a lot has changed in the last four years," he commented.
Mimi shook her head, "Only the kids." She smiled.
"Any of the kids I knew still here?" he asked.
"Jake's still here," Mimi answered. "He's in junior high school now."
"Does he still play baseball?"
"He'd like to play hockey instead," she said.
Max inched the box closer to the kitchen. He could see Nick's feet stretched under the table, like they could just barely fit. Nick's sneakers were scuffed and had writing on the white parts that was fading off and wasn't really legible anymore. He wondered what it used to say.
"Whatever happened to Lucy?" Nick asked.
"A nice couple from Boston adopted Lucy," Mimi answered. "She goes to a private academy now."
Max watched Mimi's feet as she moved between the cupboards and the stove at the far side of the table. Mimi wore mules with little sequins on them, not cool kid shoes like Converse. He heard pans clanking and clanging and the stove clicked as it turned on and the fire came out. Max liked the sound the stove made.
"I took a couple of the kids down to Boston to visit last month," Mimi continued, "We went to the Science Museum for Lucy's birthday. It was a wonderful time."
"Did Max go?" Nick asked.
"No," Mimi answered. "I offered him to come along, but he didn't want to come out of the box, so he stayed home."
Max remembered that day. Jake had come home and pushed a stuffed giraffe into the box. Max had named it after Jake, but he spelled it Gake so that the G matched the G in Giraffe even though Jake didn't spell it that way.
"That's too bad," Nick said with a sigh. "I remember when you took us to the science museum," he laughed.
"And you wouldn't stop trying to climb the trees in the rain forrest exhibit," Mimi added.
Max smiled. That sounded like fun. He imagined climbing up a tree and sitting in the very highest-up place in the whole world and seeing everything just like he was a bird. He crawled further back into the box and leaned against the inside wall and stared at the crack.
"You do a really great thing here, Mimi," Nick said seriously, "I can't complain."
Mimi's feet shuffled slower for a moment, and Max knew that mean Mimi was thinking. He watched Nick's chair push back and those red sneakers walked over to Mimi's mules and stood there. Max leaned forward so he could see better and saw Nick had his arms around Mimi and Mimi was hugging him tightly.
Max was a little jealous of Nick, that he got a hug from Mimi. Max had always wanted to give Mimi a big hug, but he didn't really know how to do it.
"Thank you," Mimi said, her voice thick and gooey sounding. Max watched as Nick sat back down and Mimi put some eggs on a plate. "Ketchup?" she asked.
"Yes please!" Nick was enthusiastic.
"Somethings never change," Mimi said, laughing deeply. She pulled the refrigerator door opened and took out the ketchup. "Here you are," she said, and Max listened as Nick squeezed the bottle and it made that funny squelchy noise that made Max afraid of ketchup bottles almost as much as he was of mustard.
Mustard was yellow.
Things were kind of quiet for a minute as Nick ate his eggs and Mimi sat down, her feet tucked under her chair. Max listened carefully as Nick's fork clinked on the plate every now and again and tried to hear the tick of his teeth to make sure he was chewing twenty-five times. He didn't want Nick to drop dead from not chewing it enough. But he couldn't really hear good enough from inside the box.
He'd just have to venture out and make sure Nick was chewing it right.
"So tell me about Max," Nick said through a mouthful of eggs.
"Max..." mumbled Mimi, "Max is..." she paused.
Nick followed Mimi's gaze across the kitchen and turned around and saw Max had pushed opened one of the doors of the box and was staring at them from his position on his hands and knees, a very serious expression on his face. He crawled out and moved carefully, slowly, to the side of the table by Nick's elbow. He stared up at him.
Nick hesitated, not sure what Max wanted. "Do you want some eggs?" he asked.
Max shook his head.
Nick pushed back his chair and got down on his knees. "My name is Nick," he said slowly. He looked Max over, head to foot, and spotted his shoes. "Hey, Max," he said, sticking out his foot, "Look! We have the same shoes."
Max stared up at Nick with big, wide eyes for a long moment, studying him carefully. Nick looked back. Max's eyes were deep, dark green, and in them, Nick could see something of himself, and not just in the glassy reflection, either. Max looked away, and he scurried back into the box and pulled the flaps closed behind him, not even leaving a crack to peek out of.
Nick, it seemed, had looked inside of him somehow, and it made Max feel very, very, very UN-invisible.
