Why Eddie Believed In Magic
by Hannah Hartsfield
In the eighth grade, a normal morning for me began with accidentally knocking over the tower of pizza boxes collected in our living room, which my crazy, scatterbrained mother whom I love had taken upon herself to build. My older sister Angela yelled at me to shut up when I didn’t say anything, and after eating breakfast, I set my dirty cereal bowl amongst the mountain of dishes already stacked in the sink.
My mom left early that day, leaving our mess of a house and other domestic responsibilities to the invisible servant she believes in. Angela stomped around the house, griping about teenager things and how her cheerleader outfit wasn’t clean.
“What do you expect, Angela?” I said as she passed me.
“Don’t you have a bus to torment?” she grumbled.
Angela and I rarely talked when I was in eighth grade, mostly because she hated me and everything else she considered “immature.” Shaking my head, I grabbed my backpack, left the house, and ran to the bus.
The day dragged on as usual. I went to Frasier Van Carson Middle School and High School, where nobody cares about academics, but everybody cares about football. Lunch was always the longest part of the day, as I sat by myself with my PB&J and studied because no one was there to talk to.
At the end of the day, I sat down on the cold metal bench at the bus stop and dropped my sister’s hand-me-down pink and orange backpack at my feet. I told my mother multiple times that every other boy had a backpack with some cool design, or at least one that wasn’t pink. She didn’t care. She gave me a keychain with a racecar on it to make it look better.
So I waited there for the bus. Girl classmates of mine passed by, shrieking with laughter. The shrill noise of the whistle-happy traffic boy was the theme song for the end of the day. I thought about doing my math homework, but high schoolers stood nearby, and I didn’t want them to assume I was a nerd. Instead, I pulled out my old flip phone––good for calling and that’s about it––from my backpack and pretended to play a game to avoid any unfortunate eye contact.So I waited for the
Suddenly, a strong whiff of some potent perfume overwhelmed the bench as an elderly woman appeared next to me. She faced me as soon as she sat down; her lips were pursed from all her wrinkles, which gave her a disgusted expression. I put away my phone, because my grandfather yelled at me once for being on my phone too much and I negatively associate phones with old people. I fixed my gaze on the ground, counting the tiny stones next to my backpack and hoping she would realize she was mistaken in the kid she had sat next to.
“Hello, little boy,” she said in a raspy voice that sounded like glass was shattering.
I nodded at the ground. “Hello.”
She touched my hand with her pruny one. Shocked because my own grandmother won’t even hug me, I looked up to meet her startling bright blue eyes.
“And what’s your name?” she asked with a small smile.
“Eddie,” I squeaked and cleared my throat. “Eddie,” I said in my deep voice.
She leaned in closer. “I’m sorry, I couldn’t hear you. What did you say?”
“Eddie!” I said louder.
She shook her head and leaned in further.
“EDDIE!” A group of high schoolers turned to watch me yell at an old woman. I didn’t care about the reason; I snatched the opportunity and waved.
The old woman nodded and let go of my hand. “And what grade are you in, Eddie?”
“Eighth.”
“My, you are getting old,”
“Not as old as you,” I blurted out, entirely unsure of what came over me to say such a thing.
She let out a low chuckle. “Yes, I am quite old.” She picked up my backpack. “This is nice,” and turned it around in front of her, examining it.
I observed her for several moments in bewilderment as she looked at my horrible backpack. “So why are you at the bus stop?” I said, irritated because she had sat next to me but I was the one keeping the conversation going.
She smiled, returned my backpack to its original place, and said, “It’s the bus stop. I’m waiting for the bus to stop.”
I shrugged and turned away just in time to face the huge yellow monster puff to a halt. I stood and picked up my backpack.
“Well, it was nice meeting you,” and without waiting for her response, I got on the bus and sat down in my usual spot at the front.
I never asked her what her name was or if she required any assistance with anything, which is what my mom told me to do with any old person. But as an eighth-grade boy insensitive to the elderly, as soon as I stepped on that bus, I forgot about the whole encounter.
As students began to pile onto the bus, I opened my backpack to search for my phone. To my great surprise, a chain with what appeared to be something shiny on the end was curled up in a gleaming pile on top of my books. I stared at it for a few moments, then lifted the chain out of my backpack. It was a pendant necklace––a golden shark tooth hanging on a thin chain.
If I had had any common sense, I would have left it in my backpack until school the next day and turned it into the lost and found like a normal person.
Instead, I put it on. I don’t know what I expected; no life-changing feelings or epiphanies overcame me. I was just a nerdy eighth-grader wearing a necklace.
I didn’t expect the running back for the high school football team to sit down next to me.
I wasn’t aware he was on the bus till that moment. He was sweaty and puffing but radiant with confidence as he slid onto the seat, faced me, said something that I don’t remember in my astonishment, and put up a fist for me to bump back.
I will eternally regret that horrible moment when I sat there like an idiot, staring at his fist and frozen in my chair. Eventually, he put down his fist when I had, I assumed, permanently destroyed whatever hope there was for a social life in high school. He didn’t seem to mind. Instead, he flipped his hair back and smiled.
“You coming to the game tomorrow, bro?” I nodded vigorously. “Good. We’ll need you cheering us on.”
He talked about football until my stop. As I hastily grabbed my backpack and tripped on my own feet standing to leave, he pointed at the pendant necklace and said,
“Hey, nice chain, man.”
I glanced down and touched the golden shark tooth, then looked back at him.
“Thanks,” I whispered, the first word I had said to him, and I left. The bus driver yelled, “Bye Eddie!” at my back. The bus driver never talks to anyone. He hates kids.
When I walked into the house, Angela was sitting on the couch and watching TV, surrounded by the pizza boxes I had knocked over that morning. Most of the DVDs we keep on the bookshelf––all of the books were stuffed in my room––were scattered on the floor. I walked over to the couch to pick up some of the trash.
“Hey Angela,” I said as an afterthought in an effort to be nice.
I didn’t expect a response. Instead of ignoring me as usual, she muted the TV and smiled in a creepy, happy way. “Hey Ed! How was school?”
I stared at her, stunned. Angela’s tone towards me is always either sarcastic or outright harsh. Something had to be wrong.
“Um… fine?” I said, hoping someone hadn’t died.
She nodded. “That’s good. I like your necklace,” she replied and pointed to the tooth resting on my chest.
I much preferred this change in her mood to the ordinary grump; I took off the chain and held it out. “You want it? It sort of just appeared today.” Almost immediately, her familiar frown returned and she unmuted the TV.
“Shut up, twerp. Tell it to someone who cares.” I rolled my eyes and stood next to her, watching the garbage that she enjoyed on TV because she had no life, then slipped the necklace back on. She muted the TV again and grinned.
“Do you want me to make you a snack?” I shook my head and walked away, yelling that I would make it myself and chalking her mood swings up to teenage girl syndrome.
It was my turn to cook that night, which nobody looks forward to. My expertise is Kraft macaroni and cheese, which I could survive on every day, but my mom and Angela grew tired of it within one week. However, they were strangely complementary of my cooking that night, commenting on the creaminess of the powdered cheese––every master chef’s secret ingredient––and the addition of the chopped hot dogs. They even offered to do the dishes, which are rarely done at all.
Before that night, I didn’t believe in magic or anything resembling it. But after my conversation with Angela and the strange macaroni dinner, I began to wonder if the pendant had anything to do with the way my family was treating me. My mom, the notorious hoarder, came into my room that night and said, “I just wanted to let you know that I’m about to clean the living room. I know the mess has been bugging you.” And I heard the vacuum cleaner buzzing a few minutes later.
I listened to the hum and accepted the magic of the necklace.
When I woke up the next morning, I stared at the pendant on my nightstand for several minutes and thought about possible consequences of what might happen if I wore it to school. Of course, as an eighth-grade boy with no friends, none came to mind. I slipped it on, said goodbye to my mom and Angela, and left for school in excited apprehension.
Almost everyone who passed me in the hall made pleasant small talk. But lunch was the best part of that day. I sat with Doug, the coolest kid in the eighth grade, and his seven friends.
“I’ve decided to run for eighth-grade representative in student council,” Doug said. His friends whooped and hollered, and I whooped and hollered along with them.
“I think you would make a great representative, Doug. I’ll even help you with your campaign!” a cheerleader named Louise said with wide hand motions. Alice, Louise’s best friend, echoed her.
“Oh, yes! We can help you with your campaign!”
I smiled at the group, who had started talking over each other about plans for the campaign and getting progressively louder.
In study hall, Louise sat by me as I was researching and leaned over. “Can you believe Doug is running for student rep? Like anyone would vote for him,” and she returned to her computer without another word. I sat at my computer, confused because she had volunteered to help him with his campaign. I assumed she must have been joking with me and struggled through the rest of the period.
I sat by Alice in math class at the back of the room. I was bent over my paper, trying to work out the problems when she tapped me on the shoulder.
“Did Louise say something to you about Doug’s campaign?”
I nodded, hoping that truth was always right. She huffed and tossed her hair back, then tapped her nails on the desk as she stared intently at the blackboard. After several minutes, she touched my shoulder again.
“You and I should start our own campaign!”
“Um… I have to do the problems,” and I turned back to the paper, trying to ignore Alice’s whispering.
By gym class, I was involved in three new campaigns within the group, and I didn’t understand how the people at the lunch table and the same people I talked to outside of the cafeteria could be so different.
Gym is my least favorite class, as I am less than athletic. All of Doug’s group were in my gym class, and despite their divisions of campaigns, they came in laughing and appeared to be best friends. As I walked over to them, Coach Jim stopped me and pointed to my pendant necklace.
“No jewelry allowed in gym class, Ed. Sorry. It does look good on you, though,” he said and grabbed a ball. This was the nicest thing Coach Jim ever said to me. On a normal day, I was confident I ranked the lowest on his score of students in the school.
I slowly took off the pendant and set it on the bench. Coach Jim announced dodgeball as our game and smirked in my direction. I walked over to my group of friends, praying that some sort of charm from the pendant had rubbed off on me.
“Hey guys!” I said to the circle. They looked at me for several awkward moments until Doug started laughing.
“Hit the books, nerd,” and the others laughed along with him. I turned and walked over to the other team. I was determined to stay in the game when Coach Jim blew the whistle, just to save the little dignity I had left, but they targeted me as their first victim. I hopped around the court for a few moments dodging the red rubber balls, but I hit the ground with a thud when Doug threw one at my stomach. They laughed and forgot about me as I stood up with no breath and wandered off the court.
When gym class ended, I didn’t put the necklace on; I shoved it in my backpack. As I walked up to my regular bench at the end of the day, I saw the old woman. She watched me approach her. As memories of the day before returned, it all began to make sense.
I sat down beside her and pulled the necklace from inside my backpack. I held it out to her.
“I don’t want it,” I said.
She smiled as much as she could with all her wrinkles and put her hand over mine. “Keep it,” she replied in her raspy voice. “To give you the choice.”
I held it out for a moment longer, then slipped it back into my backpack, convinced I would never take it out again. As the bus pulled up, I looked at her and smiled.
“Well, see you,” I said. She nodded, and I climbed on to the bus, sitting in my regular seat behind the driver.
The seat next to me remained empty the whole ride home.
Hannah Hartsfield is a graduate of Belhaven with a BFA in Creative Writing. She spends the majority of her time in cafés, writing and reading and observing the diversity of life.