Dr. Ruby’s setup in the garage was pretty dang cool!
Years ago the garage stored things that weren’t cars. Out here a treasure hunter might find tricycles bound by cobwebs, Dad’s few forgotten power tools, or plastic totes jammed full of winter clothing from Mom’s years in Wisconsin, because snow really was a thing there. The whole room had smelled like pennies.
When Dr. Ruby’s snaky tent went up, the garage transformed! Now the floor was always clean. The garage was so bright that Milo wanted to wear sunglasses, but she wouldn’t let him. The walls were lined with crinkly stuff that looked exactly like tinfoil, but Dr. Ruby called it “insulation.” There were comfy chairs, and an empty table, and machines that beeped and blinked if Dr. Ruby asked questions. A lot of the machines looked really old-fashioned, like sad garage-sale toasters. But what did Milo know?
Dr. Ruby got upset when Milo called her a mad scientist. Even though he was joking! And especially since she was wrapping him up like a baked potato.
The first time she put Milo in there, he was having a bad day. Dr. Ruby had to strap his arms to his chair. She made Milo sit until he stopped screaming. She waited without earplugs, turning the pages of an enormous book with dragons on the cover.
These days Milo was grateful for the garage makeover. Dr. Ruby had this amazing microphone-and-headphone setup that allowed him to listen to music and her questions at the same time, so it never got too quiet. The Roaring Nothing didn’t stand a snowflake’s chance in the garage.
“Milo?” Dr. Ruby had a voice like paper. She was at least as old as thirty-seven. That made her pretty wise. “Are you with me?”
“Uh-huh.”
Dr. Ruby stared at her laptop. It was attached to a boxy little machine with lights on it. The boxy little machine was attached to Milo’s head with sticky little wires. “Okay. What are you thinking about?”
Milo blinked. “Don’t your machines tell you?”
“I heard you had a pretty tough first day at school. Do you want to talk about it?”
“Ahhhhh. Did you like Mom’s dinner, Dr. Ruby?”
Dr. Ruby tapped her nails on the microphone. “Your mother makes some knockout enchiladas.”
“Dad taught her to make those, did you know that?”
“I didn’t, Milo. And remember—you don’t have to shout in here.”
“Mom only made them because she knew you were coming.” After they’d made it home, she’d slid the spare set of headphones onto his head and locked herself in her bedroom. “She would have made me a mud pie if she could. I’m in her bad books today.”
“Want to tell me why?”
Milo kicked the table. “Don’t you think she cooked too much food?”
“I’m glad she cooked so much. There’ll be leftovers for your siblings, won’t there? Did Ana or Hank tell you they’d be home late?”
In Milo’s left ear, Radiohead played a song about burning a witch. It seemed a little mean! “They never tell me things. Hank doesn’t talk to me even a little.”
“Because of this summer?”
“Ahhhh,” was all Milo would say.
“Did they use to tell you things?”
Milo thought hard about this. “They’re a lot older than me. They have a lot of business to take care of.”
“Milo, please don’t shout.”
“I didn’t.”
“You didn’t mean to. What are you listening to?”
“I’m almost finished with Radiohead.”
“You’ll need something new! I may have a band for you. They’re from Iceland, and the lead singer has a lot of range. Remind me—was Luz’s voice high or low?”
“I already told you. Like a thousand times.”
“Your answer keeps changing.”
“Well, people’s voices are always changing. So are their lips. They can’t even make circles!”
“That’s a very unique observation, Milo.”
“You’re the one doing observations. But you don’t even have an observation deck, mad scientist!”
Dr. Ruby sighed. “This isn’t like the movies, Milo. How can I change your mind about me?”
“You should wear a different coat,” Milo advised. “Plus, you still think Luz was an alien.” Milo tried to roll his eyes at least three times better than Ana.
“And you still think Luz wasn’t an alien?”
“He definitely wasn’t.”
“Milo, do you still think it was your father who visited you this summer?” She paused the pressing of her laptop keys and hummed gently in his earphones.
“Everyone thinks I don’t know things because I’m little. But I woke up with a crick in my neck this morning.” Milo tapped his nose.
“Fascinating, Milo.”
Milo fought back a yawn. Dinner had really robbed him of all his energy. Nobody had talked much, and Dr. Ruby kept looking at Mom, and Mom kept looking at the empty chairs where Hank and Ana were supposed to be sitting. She was smiling in this way that looked an awful lot like crying. Milo read her lips or just decided that she was saying, Sorry, they should be back by now, I’ve called them a dozen times, but I’m sure it’s no big deal, probably Hank’s just at practice and Ana—
Milo felt like shouting, “But I’m right here!”
But his throat still hurt, and also it didn’t seem like a very grown-up thing to do. Milo had already been a baby today, a screaming enormous baby in front of Antonio and everyone else.
“If it was really your dad who visited this summer, can you tell me how he ended up ‘living in your ears’?”
“One time Dad brought an opossum back to life. Dad’s magical, Dr. Ruby.”
“Doesn’t it make more sense, Milo, that maybe the voice in your ears was only pretending to be your dad? Like I told you? You remember what I told you.”
“You told me Luz was my imagination. I didn’t believe you.” Dr. Ruby had pushed that idea for two weeks before caving. Looking stubborn could do wonders!
“So then I told you the truth. What did I tell you, Milo?”
Milo took a breath as big as anything! “You told me, ‘The thing you call Luz or Dad was actually a parasitic organism of, um, unknown organ that entered through your ears and infected your insular cortex to take advantage of your emotions and make you a willing host.’ ”
“Wow, Milo. Perfect, except it’s ‘origin,’ not ‘organ.’ ”
“You only told me like a million times!”
“I’ll repeat it until you understand it.”
“I already do understand, Dr. Ruby.”
“As in … ‘I understand that what happened to me was a sickness that intended to harm me,’ Milo?”
“I understand you.” Milo rolled his eyes. “Of course a scientist wouldn’t know about magic.”
She sighed. “Milo, what if I told you I’m going to recommend your mother take you out of school?”
The walls really did look like tinfoil. And real doctors wouldn’t wear stupid white coats or have really old machines or show up from nowhere.
“Mom put too much sriracha on the enchiladas. Dad never made them that way.”
Before she left, Dr. Ruby handed Milo another music player with a bunch of new songs on it. Milo couldn’t imagine a land of ice, because he lived in a land of hot dirt. He wondered if music from an ice-land would make his ears cold.
Usually Mom waited for him in the laundry room attached to the garage. Last time she was even sitting on the washing machine! She always had ten million questions for Dr. Ruby.
Today the laundry room was empty, except for a ton of warm clothes, fresh out of the dryer. The laundry room door was open just a crack. Dr. Ruby went after Mom.
Milo stayed behind.
He thought Mom might like it if he folded some clothes. He used to. He used to sit right next to her on the couch! Even though folding was boring and the fabric burned his lap. Mom had laughed at his technique: “It’s not the tuck and roll, Milo. The clothes aren’t on fire.”
Milo hadn’t liked that, had thrown the T-shirt back into the basket. “Girls are better at folding.”
“They are not. That’s called sexism, Milo. Girls are just the ones people expect to do it. We’ll start you on towels and socks, all right?”
Now Milo buried himself in boiling clothes. He was ready to pull out jeans or shorts or a sweater. Or maybe even the ultimate challenge: a fitted bedsheet. Maybe if he folded enough clothes, Mom wouldn’t look how she’d looked when he ran away today.
The new album had been playing for seven minutes now. It was making his chest feel funny. This music felt like hot water being poured into a tub. Nothing like the sound of a Chevy pulling away.
Dr. Ruby had given him something so beautiful!
It was the sound track to the warm basket of clothes. It was Mom’s warm fingertips outlining numb ears, it was Hank’s old high fives and Ana’s rare winks.
Milo’s entire face was sopping wet.
He knew he shouldn’t, not with snot all over his face, but he leaned forward and dove headfirst into the laundry basket. The clothes only reached his neck, but he imagined them covering all of him just like the music. Milo wondered if he was steaming.
The clothes welcomed him. Milo buried himself, burrowing like any kind of rodent. It didn’t have to be an opossum.