WE ACED IT.
Ro didn’t stumble one bit. She talked like she’d known this stuff for her entire life, which probably wasn’t much of an exaggeration. Over and over again, as different judges wandered over, Ro explained the angles and the settings of the rockets, and I explained the graphs. At some point, more and more judges kept coming over to our poster, until there was a small crowd around our table. Every time someone asked us a question, her face lit up. The judges practically spent hours looking over her radio transmission system, saying they’d never seen middle schoolers with the likes of this project.
Get this: I liked talking. My face and hands didn’t turn all red and itchy like they used to. My words didn’t close up before I spoke them. Each time we finished, the judges’ eyebrows went up and they scribbled something on their clipboards. Each time, one of them was grinning ear to ear.
During one of our breaks, a judge who taught physics at a college asked Ro a question. They started talking about dark matter and stuff I didn’t have a single clue about, so I wandered off to look at some of the other projects. I saw Ping-Pong catapults and balloon-powered soda bottle cars and clocks that were powered by potatoes.
It was actually way cool.
After our last presentation, Ro and I just leaned against our table and sat in silence, because we’d done hours of talking. She put her windbreaker back on and took off her name tag. She pulled her hair back with her white hair tie. “So, where’s your mom?”
“Home,” I said.
“How did she . . .” Ro wouldn’t quite look me in the eye. “You know. React?”
I looked down and shook my head. All last night, I’d been dreading the moment I’d face Mom. When I walked through the door Mom stared at me for a moment, as if she didn’t recognize me. And then she sprinted across the hall and threw her arms around me, clutching me in a death grip and burying her face in my shoulder. “Oh, you’re here,” she said, her voice shaking, over and over again. “Thank God you’re here.”
And then after she’d taken a moment to collect herself, she sat me down at the table and wouldn’t let me leave until I told her every last thing; about how I’d found my dad through his comics and how I’d found out about his movie premiere. She interrogated me on how exactly I’d ridden my bike to the Greyhound station and then bought a one-way ticket to Los Angeles with my birthday money. And then when I told her about how I’d met Dad, her face paled and her lips pressed into a thin, flat line. I pulled out the napkin with his phone number on it, but she didn’t even glance at it. And after I finally finished telling her everything, she was quiet. I noticed how dark her eye circles were. Her hair puffed out around her face; I could tell she’d spent the night nearly pulling it out.
The silence stretched on between us until Mom rose from the table, and, without speaking to me, turned and left.
Danny was the one who drove me to the science fair this morning. “How is Mom?” I asked.
Danny’s hand tightened on the steering wheel. He let out a long sigh through his nose. “You shook her pretty bad. Running off like that. She was worried, Benji.”
And that was all. I almost wished he would say something more—that he would yell at me, or ask about Dad, or say I told you so, or tell me something, anything, that I could do to make this right, but he fell silent. I’d felt so awful that I practically wanted to evaporate.
But I totally, completely, one million percent deserved it.
And now here I was at the science fair, and with every passing minute I felt more and more guilty about what I’d done. “She’s still a little mad. Okay, really mad.” I shrugged. “I mean, I did run out on her. She’ll talk to me sometime in the next decade or so, probably.”
“I’m sorry,” Ro said. “I’m so, so sorry I made you do this.”
I glanced up. “Hey, fifty-fifty, remember? It’s just as much my fault.” I squared my shoulders. “Besides, we’ve got a science fair to focus on.” I stood up. “Wanna see a Ping-Pong catapult?”
And so we went and looked at all the projects, wandering through the endless rows of poster boards before returning to our spot. At some point in the afternoon all the sleep we didn’t get last night finally hit us. Ro got tired first and then I did. We almost fell asleep, leaning against our tables.
Until we were woken up by Ro’s mom.
“Congrats!”
I bolted up. “Mmm-what? Did we miss something?”
“No,” she said. “They’re just starting awards right now. But you’re done with science fair! I brought donuts.” She waved a paper bag in front of our faces and looked around. “Aiyah, this place is huge.”
Mr. Devlin hurried over. “They’re announcing our categories now!”
“In third place is . . . Michael Banks and Lenny Goldstein from Buena Vista!”
“Want to go over?” Mrs. Geraghty asked.
“Hold on,” Ro said through a mouthful of chocolate sprinkled donut. “Wanna finish this first.”
“And in first place of the Northern California Regional Middle School Science Fair . . . Rosalind Geraghty and Benjamin Burns!”
Wait.
Hold up.
What?
Did they just—
“It’s you!” Mr. Devlin shouted. “Go, go, go!”
We stayed frozen until Ro’s mom said, “What are you waiting for?” We put down our half-eaten donuts and hurried toward the stage. Cameras flashed.
I really, really hope I didn’t get chocolate frosting on my face.
They first placed the medal around my neck. As Ro walked up to the podium, her blue-and-white windbreaker billowed out behind her like a cape, and I swear, with the red medal ribbon around her neck, she kind of looked like Gemma Harris right then and there.
We turned. Cameras flashed, and the crowd burst into applause.
When I came home, Mom was sitting at the kitchen table, phone in hand.
“Hi, Mom,” I said in a small voice. She glanced up but didn’t reply. I was about to turn and head up the stairs when she said, “Benji.”
I turned back.
“Come here.”
I padded over and sank into the chair next to her.
“I just got off the phone with your father.”
I froze. “I’m so, so sorry,” I burst out. “I know you probably never wanted to talk to him again and you’re still probably mad at me for doing the whole running-away thing—”
“It’s okay,” she said. “He called for you, but you were still at the science fair, and then . . . he and I had a talk. A long talk, but a necessary one.” She looked up. “Listen, Benji. I’m not saying that it was okay to do what you did. But you wanted to know who your dad was, and I never gave you the chance. And that was my fault.”
She clasped her hands together. “Separating from your dad wasn’t easy. I think about it all the time, you know. What things would have been like otherwise. I tried to raise you two just like every other kid on the block. But I know I couldn’t make it the same. I know how much it affected you and Danny.”
Mom used to joke to other people that she lived in scrubs. She’d always show up to Danny’s games in them, because she’d rushed from her shift. How many times had she worked extra hours at the hospital just so she could afford a new mitt for Danny? Or my allowance?
She sighed. “I knew that questions about your dad and I would come up. I’d have to talk about it someday, but I always just got so upset thinking about it that I never wanted to. But you’re growing up, Benji. Danny too. And I wanted to let you know that if you want to talk to your dad, I’m okay with that.”
I nodded in relief.
“There . . . were a lot of good parts to your dad. He was a really talented artist. I see that in you. You should show me more of your art sometime.”
She’d never said that to me before. I swallowed. “Yeah. I will.”
“It’s been a while since I’ve seen him.” She sighed. “I think I forgive him a little more now. And guess what?”
I looked up. Mom looked like she was trying to hold back a smile. “What?”
She burst out, “He’s paying for Danny’s college!”
I stood up. “He is?”
“He better, now that he’s making the big bucks!” She laughed. “But yes, he promised. And I’m supposed to get the first check by the end of next week.” She grinned. “Now Danny can apply wherever he wants without having to get a baseball scholarship.”
Mom had absolutely, positively never been happier.
I smiled. “Glad he’s trying to keep his promises.”
“Things are changing, for sure,” she said. She leaned over. “But hey.” She jabbed a finger in my face. “Next time you want to see your dad, give us all a heads-up instead of running off to the nearest Greyhound bus, will you?”
She held me at arm’s length with a smile in her eyes. “Because if you ever pull this again, I swear, you’ll be grounded until you’re fifty years old.”
I laughed. “I promise I won’t.” Mom grinned and pulled me into a tight hug, still laughing. And crying a little, but mostly happy crying, I think.
Why had I ever thought my dad would be the superhero? Mom had been standing in front of me all along, holding our world up on her shoulders.