— Chapter 8 —

For the third time, Oscar got lost trying to find the caboose. He saw the tree with trash sitting in its hollow, but nothing else looked familiar. Asha stood several feet away, watching him and shifting her weight from one foot to the other.

Oscar turned around and around, looking in all directions. In his frustration, he kicked a cardboard box that was lying on its side next to the tree. To his surprise, a raccoon skittered out of it and ran past him. The animal disappeared into a concrete pipe poking out of a small hill that Oscar could have sworn hadn’t been there a moment ago.

“It’s this way,” he shouted to Asha. Oscar ran over the small hill with Asha following him, and soon they were standing in the clearing under the big tree.

“Isn’t it great?” Oscar panted, out of breath with excitement.

Asha looked confused. “It’s a… nice tree,” she began, “but what did you want me to unlock?”

“Oh!” Oscar exclaimed. He ran over to the caboose, feeling proud that he had hidden it so well even Asha hadn’t noticed it. “It’s this!” He lifted up one of the vines.

Asha walked over to where he stood, her eyes wide. “Wow!” she cried as she took in the size of the thing. “What is it?”

“I think it’s an old doctor’s office or something,” Oscar said. He lifted up the vines from Dr. Oopsie’s picture. “See, this guy was a doctor. Come on, it’s even cooler inside.”

Oscar led her to the back of the caboose, and they climbed up the steps. “The latch was rusted shut, but I put some of this stuff on it and I got it open,” he said proudly, showing her the can from the hardware store. He slid open the door and stood to the side so Asha could see. She gasped and jumped back. “Don’t worry, it’s just a tree,” he told her wisely.

Asha stepped into the caboose carefully. Oscar grinned as she looked around, exclaiming about how interesting everything was. He giggled as she pulled back the curtain and swatted away the startled moths.

As she made her way around the rest of the caboose, Asha discovered something Oscar hadn’t noticed: a cupboard full of glass jars and tubes and small rubber corks.

“It looks like a laboratory,” Asha said, picking up a thin glass tube and examining it. “Maybe that guy painted on the side was a scientist or something.”

“But it says he’s a doctor,” Oscar said.

“A scientist can be a different kind of doctor,” Asha said. Oscar shrugged. Asha’s parents were very smart and worked at a university. He figured she was probably right about these things.

On the top shelf of the cupboard sat several jars, all of which had things floating in them. Asha took out one of the jars and held it up to the light, and she and Oscar peered at its contents. A dead rat floated inside, its thick tail curled up in the bottom.

“EWWW!” they both exclaimed.

Oscar was proud he had explored the caboose by himself first, but he had to give Asha credit. She was much braver than most of the girls in their school — and most of the boys too. Oscar liked to think he would have picked up the rat jar himself, but he wasn’t sure.

“It must be in formaldehyde,” Asha said.

“What’s that?” Oscar said, wrinkling his nose.

“It keeps dead things from decaying,” she explained. “My mom uses it in her lab. She says it preserves things so she can run tests on them.”

“Well,” Oscar said, “if this guy was a scientist, maybe he did tests on the rat.”

Asha put the rat jar back in the cupboard. She and Oscar leaned closer to get a better look at what was in the other glass containers. Toward the back was a small jar with something familiar-looking suspended inside. Their eyes widened as they realized what it was — a finger.

“AUUUGH!” both kids screamed. They slammed the cupboard door shut and fell backward, scooting away from it as if they expected something to come out and bite them.

“Was that a… a finger?” Oscar asked, his eyes wide. “Where did it come from?”

“I don’t know, but I don’t want to reach in there and find out,” Asha said.

Oscar didn’t want to either. He was secretly glad it had scared her too.

Asha slowly stood up, brushed off her shorts, and walked over to the wooden cutout of Dr. Oopsie. She crossed her arms and peered at the figure for a while. “This place is kind of creepy,” she finally said, turning back to Oscar. “I can’t tell if he’s a good doctor or a bad one. I don’t know if I want to see what else is in here.”

“No, you have to,” Oscar said. “You haven’t seen the coolest thing. It’s in here.” He scrambled to his feet and went over to the long glass display case that held the bottle of gravity repellent. He crouched down and pointed to the spot he’d cleaned off earlier with his sweatshirt. Asha crouched next to him and looked inside.

“Repellent keeps something away, right?” Oscar said, watching her face for a reaction. He was pretty sure that was correct, but he wanted a second opinion.

Asha nodded. “Yeah, I think so. Insect repellent keeps bugs off of you, so…” she said, slowly trailed off.

“So gravity repellent must keep gravity away from you!” Oscar exclaimed. “Right?”

Asha shrugged her shoulders. “Yeah, but… it probably doesn’t even work.”

Oscar felt stung by Asha’s words. He stood up slowly. This thought hadn’t occurred to him, and it made him a little angry — partly at himself for not thinking of it sooner and partly at Asha for thinking of it so quickly.

“What do you mean?” he cried. “We haven’t even opened it!” The squeak in his voice embarrassed him.

“I mean, it might be a gimmick,” Asha said. “A trick. Like a toy that flies around in a TV commercial, but then when you get it home and play with it, it just sits there.”

Suddenly Oscar felt very heavy, like his heart had slipped down into his shoes. He thought of all the times he’d fallen or tripped or made a fool of himself. Then he thought about gravity, the awful force that pulled him and spun him and caused all of it. He’d been so sure the little bottle would be the solution to all his problems. Now he feared Asha was right.

Tears welled up in Oscar’s eyes. He walked out of the caboose and sat down at the top of the steps. He hated crying in front of other people even more than he hated falling or tripping in front of them. He was glad that only Asha was there to see him. He didn’t think he could hold back the tears just then even if he’d been standing in front of his whole school.

“Hey,” Asha called from inside the caboose.

Oscar didn’t answer. After a few minutes, he heard scraping and tapping noises, and he knew Asha was trying to pick the lock.

Maybe that’s a good sign, he thought. Maybe she thinks the gravity repellent will actually work.

Or maybe she just liked the challenge of getting into a locked case.

Oscar sat on the steps and tried very hard to make the tears stop. He thought about baseball and riding his bike down big hills and ice cream cones and a lot of other things that made him happy. But his thoughts of baseball turned to thoughts of tripping over a base, which turned to thoughts of gravity, which made the tears come back.

Oscar was still sitting there feeling miserable when he heard Asha again. “I did it!” she cried. “I opened it!”

Oscar got up and went back inside the caboose. Asha held up three little bottles triumphantly. “There were two others under the shelf,” she explained, grinning. “Maybe there’s even more in here somewhere.” She looked around curiously.

Oscar half-smiled at her and wiped his eyes with his sleeve.

“Aren’t you excited?” she asked.

“It probably doesn’t even work,” Oscar said, shrugging. “You said so yourself.”

“I know. And maybe it won’t. But we have it now, so we might as well try it!” Asha said, handing him the bottles.

Oscar reluctantly put two of the bottles into his backpack and stared at the one in his hand.

“Don’t be such a pessimist,” Asha said, smiling.

“I don’t even know what that means,” Oscar mumbled, sniffling.

“It means that you don’t believe good things ever happen,” Asha explained. “But how can you know unless you try?”