THE THIEF

The next day was a Saturday. I(mezzo-piano) peed. I ate a bowl of cereal like sludge. I read a story in the newspaper about someone’s tractors getting stolen. I(mezzo-forte) spit toothpaste and(mezzo-forte) gargled mouthwash. I(piano) peed again. I went into my backyard to talk to my brother the tree.

BROTHER WILL YOU ASK THE BIRDS YOU SPEAK TO WHETHER THEY ONCE SAW OUR GRANDPA ROSE HIDING A KEY ON AN ISLAND MANY YEARS AGO? my song said.

THE BIRDS IN THESE WOODS ARE YOUNGER EVEN THAN YOU OR ME, my brother’s song said. WHEN OUR GRANDFATHER WAS HERE IT WAS NOT THESE BIRDS WHO WOULD HAVE SEEN HIM. IT WAS THEIR GREAT-GREAT-GREAT-GRANDFATHERS.

My mom was bent over the sink in the kitchen window, leafing through phone books, calling hospitals and homeless shelters to ask about Grandpa Rose. A pair of hummingbirds hovered around my brother, near where my dad had scarred the bark. I plucked more notes into my violin.

THEN WILL YOU ASK THE TREES YOU SPEAK TO WHETHER THEY KNOW THE MEANING OF X18471913? my song said.

I waited while my brother spoke to the other trees in the woods. Some of them had trunks as thick as three or five people—they were older than our house, older than our village, even.

With the wind in his branches my brother said, THE TREES SAY THAT IS A QUESTION FOR THE STONES.

My mom leaned through the kitchen window.

“Someone’s at the door,” my mom(forte) shouted.

I calculated the odds it wasn’t Zeke, which were about 0%. No one else would be willing to be seen standing at my door.

But when I ran around my house, it wasn’t Zeke.

Jordan stood on my stoop, his hands on his knees, bent over panting. His cheeks hollowing when he inhaled, billowing when he exhaled. The armpits of his shirt wet with sweat.

“I was just downtown,” Jordan(piano) panted.

He waved toward downtown.

“I saw Boylover. At the antique shop. Trying to sell your grandpa’s music box,” Jordan(mezzo-piano) panted.

He waved toward the ghosthouse.

“He stole it,” Jordan(mezzo-forte) panted.

My bow dropped into the grass. My violin dropped into the grass. I was dumbfounded^betrayed.

“We have to get it back!” I(forte) said.

Jordan stood up, wiping sweat from his cheeks.

“What’s this ‘we’? I only tag along for treasure hunting. With anything else, you’re on your own,” Jordan(forte) said.

He crossed into Emma Dirge’s yard, then walked down Emma Dirge’s driveway, so he wouldn’t have to be seen walking down from mine.

I ran to the ghosthouse to tell Grandpa Rose, but as I rounded the bend in the road, Zeke and his wolfdogs came slipping from the woods.

“Hey,” Zeke(forte) said.

When your locker partner has betrayed you by stealing your only living grandfather’s only worldly possession, what’s right and what’s wrong isn’t a matter of fact. It’s a matter of belief. And, at that moment, I believed the logical thing was to tackle the thief.

So I ran at Zeke.

“Whoa whoa whoa…!” Zeke(forte) shouted.

I tackled Zeke into the road. We rolled across the painted lines, our bodies leapfrogging.

“Where’s the music box?” I(fortissimo) shouted.

“What are you talking about?” Zeke(fortissimo) shouted. He tried to shove me off. His wolfdogs(forte) snarled, crouching to pounce. “It’s at the ghosthouse!”

“Jordan saw you trying to sell it!” I(forte) shouted.

A truck whipped around the bend, dead leaves scattering in its wake. As the truck(fermata) blared its horn, we scrambled out of the road into the woods, then watched the truck blow past the spot where we had been.

Zeke’s wolfdogs were still(piano) growling. My elbows were tingling where my skin had been peeled raw by the gravel.

“I had to know whether the heirlooms were actually worth anything or whether we were wasting our time,” Zeke(forte) said. “My grandfather was friends with the woman who owns the antique shop, before he died, and she helps me with things sometimes. So I took the music box there to find out what it was worth. But afterward I returned it. It’s in the ghosthouse again.”

“Show me,” I(mezzo-forte) said.

We hiked up the hill, through sunny ferns, shadowed boulders, the rotting white trunks of fallen birch trees. Grandpa Rose was smoking on the porch of the ghosthouse, feeding raspberries to birds. Grandpa Dykhouse was reading the endnote of some book. My elbows were bleeding.

“Boys,” Grandpa Rose(forte) nodded.

“Hungry?” Grandpa Dykhouse(forte) said.

We shook our heads, then hopped through the living room window.

I unlocked Grandpa Rose’s suitcase. The music box was inside, tucked between pairs of socks with gold toes.

“See?” Zeke(fermata) said. “I didn’t steal it. I only steal from kids who hate me. They steal my happiness, so I steal stuff from them.”

By now my fingers knew every hooked gouge and jagged scrape on the bottom of the music box. There wasn’t even a single new scuff or nick. I popped the lid. The same parts were there, on the inside, as always. Nothing was missing that hadn’t been missing all along. Someone had even cleaned the dust from the hinges.

“Did you learn anything about the heirlooms?” I(forte) said.

“When the owner saw the music box, she said she would have to take out a loan if she was going to buy it. It was priceless, she said. A handful of these music boxes still exist, but none that works,” Zeke(forte) said. “But then she wound it. And when she saw it was broken, everything changed. Broken, it’s worth the same as the others. A couple hundred dollars, tops.”

I stuffed the music box back into the suitcase.

“What about the other heirlooms?” I(forte) said.

“The hammer, the clock, and the revolver, she said a lot, a fortune, and nearly priceless,” Zeke(forte) said. “Probably. In that order. Provided they aren’t broken.”

That night at the ghosthouse I told Jordan what Zeke had said.

Jordan only(forte) laughed.

“Now I wish I would have tagged along,” Jordan(mezzo-forte) said. “I would pay anything to have seen that look on his face when you tackled him.”