As he rode the bus home after school, thoughts of Mr. Walters and the way he taught fifth grade filled Thomas’s head. He was so familiar with the path from the bus to his driveway he might have stayed distracted until he’d reached the side door.
But today, without even looking closely, he knew something about the view of his house had changed. A tall rectangular box sat propped against the front door. Glancing over at Mrs. Sharp’s house, Thomas wondered if she’d left something on the stoop. No. She would know it was impossible for him to sneak a package like that into the house.
Thomas approached the box. It looked like a proper package, with a mailing label and a bar code on the side. Oh. The package had his name on it. He took a few steps back.
Thomas thought for a moment. It was better for his father to discover it when he brought in the recycling bin from the curb that night when Aunt Sadie was there.
For the briefest of moments, Thomas allowed himself to hope.
Could this be a good thing?
He didn’t indulge in that feeling for long, but forced himself to think about his chores, the weather, Mr. Walters’s strange homework assignment.
“I’d like to get to know you as quickly as possible,” Mr. Walters had said, passing out strips of poster board eleven inches long and three inches wide.
“Print your name on this card and bring it in tomorrow along with three things you love. I’ll take a photo of each one of you surrounded by your special things and voilà, you’re completely unique—not just a name.”
“What if the thing we love is big—like my dirt bike?” George wanted to know.
Mary Mallender raised her hand. “I have a Great Dane,” she said, “but they only allow special-assistance dogs in school.”
“If it’s too big or it’s not allowed, bring a photo of it.”
As Thomas took off his coat and hung it up, he thought about what he loved. His mother, his father, Aunt Sadie, Mrs. Sharp, Giselle, Martin; but they were people, not things.
This box on the front porch then? Thomas felt as if he loved the box without even knowing what was in it.
“What is going on?” Dave unfolded his wings and flicked them against the sides of Thomas’s stomach—like butterfly kisses. “Are we inside? Have you made an X on the calendar yet?”
After dinner, Aunt Sadie was doing the thing with her tea again. Stir, stir, stir. Clink, clink, clink. Breathing through his mouth so he didn’t have to smell dirty socks, Thomas watched his father watch her, watched him listen to the stirring and the clinking and decide whether to say anything.
“I’m going to get the recycling bin,” Mr. Moran said finally, and left the room, returning a moment later, kicking at the door with his foot.
There wasn’t space on the counter for the box, so Thomas cleared his plate and pushed Aunt Sadie’s to the side. When his father set the box on the table, Thomas could no longer see his aunt.
“I didn’t order anything,” Thomas’s father said. “Sadie, did you have anything sent here?”
“No,” came the answer from behind the box.
Squinting at the small print on the label, Thomas’s father said: “All it says is that it’s from ADV Processing. But it’s got our name on it. In fact, it says ‘Attention Thomas Moran.’ Thomas?”
Thomas shook his head.
“Hand me that knife on the counter.”
Even though his aunt was closer, Thomas moved around her to reach the knife.
After his father sliced through the tape, both he and Thomas leaned in to get a look at the contents. But all they saw was another box top, this one shiny white.
“Keep hold,” his father instructed as he reached into the box, and Thomas held the sides so his father could pull out a white box revealing the glossy photo of the Revolutionnaire Classic Food Processor on its side.
Placing the larger box on the floor, Thomas’s father said: “Can someone enlighten me?”
Thomas shook his head and stared at his fingers on the placemat waiting to see what would happen next. It absolutely positively was something good.
“I can’t think who—” his father began.
“Of course not. You’d have to use your imagination.”
“For God’s sake, Sadie. Snap out of it. Even if it were meant for Thomas, what would he do with it? We hardly need a food processor for the two of us.”
Rubbing her temples, Aunt Sadie said, “Return it, then.”
Thomas stared at his father. The presence of the machine—the actual machine and not the image of it on the DVD—had the strangest effect on him, as if Dave was down in his stomach blowing bubbles. It tickled him inside, and the ticklish feeling curled up the back of his neck.
“Thomas! Why are you smiling? What is going on here?” his father said.
Dave stopped blowing and rolled over onto his stomach, curling his wings over his body.
“Thomas, I’m not angry at you. I’m just trying to—”
His father was waving the notepad Thomas used to answer questions. “Who did you tell about the DVD you and your mother watched?”
Thomas turned around and reached out his hand for the pad. He picked up a pencil and wrote: “It’s mine. It has my name on it. I want Aunt Sadie to take it to her house and teach me how to use it.”
His father took the piece of paper, read it, and handed it to his aunt. “That’s not a viable plan, Thomas. Your aunt doesn’t know how to cook any more than I do.”
Aunt Sadie kept her head down. She flipped over the piece of paper, grabbed the pen, and printed in large capital letters. “Aunt Sadie will learn.”
She put her arms around the box and stood up.
Thomas ran to the pantry and grabbed his apron, the one his mother had sewn for him, from the hook below where his mother’s apron hung. He always wore that apron when he and his mother cooked together. Returning to Aunt Sadie, he set the apron on the box.
“I’ll pick him up Saturday afternoon for our first lesson.”