And Now, For My Last Act, I Will Disappear

The sun rose early on the very first day of summer break and so did Dorian Peters. He freshened up, ate breakfast with his siblings and parents, brushed his teeth after the meal, and went straight to doing his chores. He was an obedient kid but he had an aversion to cleaning up. That’s why it was a surprise to his family to find him doing his chores with zeal and a tune on his lips. He was doing a better job at cleaning than his siblings. And whistling.

“What’s with him?” Mr. Peters asked his wife.

“He’s just excited,” Mrs. Peters answered. “Lucas and Mauricio asked if he could come out to The Lot to play some baseball later today. I told him last night he could go after he finished his chores.”

“That explains the sudden zeal,” Mr. Peters said with a laugh.

After his chores were done, Dorian ran up the stairs to his bedroom to change into his play clothes.

“Have you showered yet?” Mrs. Peters asked.

“Nah, I’ll shower later,” Dorian said. “I’m gonna get dirty anyway. What’s the sense in showering now?”

“Why do you wipe your bottom?” Mrs. Peters asked. “You’re just gonna poop again later anyway.”

“Ugh! Fine,” Dorian said with a roll of his eyes. “I’ll go shower.”

“You better!” Mrs. Peters called after him. “You guys are gonna stink, you’ll be up at The Lot all day!”

After taking a shower and putting his play clothes back on, Dorian rushed back down the stairs and out the door.

“Bye, Mom! See you later,” Dorian shouted.

“Don’t be late for lunch and dinner!” Mrs. Peters said.

“I won’t!” Dorian said. “Promise!”

And with that, he was off to meet up with two of the Three Musketeers of Tulip Lane. He arrived at The Lot where Mauricio and Lucas were waiting impatiently for him, bored out of their minds. Lucas was kicking the dirt with his feet and making brown cloud after brown cloud of dust until it looked like a miniature sandstorm. Mauricio was throwing pebbles.

“Yo! Waddup?” Dorian greeted them excitedly as he ran up the street to meet them.

“Took you long enough,” Mauricio said, a hint of displeasure in his voice. “We were about to leave.”

“You mean you were about to leave,” Lucas corrected him. “I wasn’t. I’d stay for you. Even if it was just the two of us playing catch and whatnot.”

“Thanks, Lucas,” Dorian said, giving Lucas their secret handshake. All three boys were close friends, but it was Dorian and Lucas among them who were closer. They were, as the cliché goes, thick as thieves. The two were glued together at the hip. This caused no end of jealousy on Mauricio’s end.

“So? Are we gonna play ball or not?” Mauricio asked.

“Here we play!” Dorian said.

“All for one?” Mauricio said, putting his hand in a fist in.

“And one for all!” they all shouted, with Dorian and Lucas adding their fists to the circle.

And so the games began. They all took turns pitching, catching, and batting. During one of Mauricio’s turns to bat, he hit the ball too hard that Dorian was unable to catch it. The poor kid had no other choice but to duck or he’d break his wrist—or worse, his head. It sped through the air like a rocket from a bazooka, flying past Dorian’s head, and into a neighbor’s house. It struck a window on the second floor, shattering the glass into a hundred little jagged pieces. Their guilty consciences made the sound of breaking glass too loud for their young ears. It screeched like feedback from a malfunctioning speaker. They knew exactly whose house it was and they were in deep, deep trouble. It was the house of a curmudgeonly old man that the whole town had nicknamed “Grumpy Gary” Fowler.

“No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No!” Mauricio said repeatedly in panic as he paced back and forth. “No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No!”

“Aw, crap!” Lucas shouted.

“Aw, Hell naw,” Dorian said.

“You!” Mauricio said, suddenly rounding on Dorian. “The Hell is wrong with you? Why didn’t you catch the ball?!?”

“It’s your fault!” Dorian retorted. “You hit the ball way too hard, I couldn’t do anything but duck! I could’ve cracked my head open or snapped my arm!”

“Better than cracking Grumpy Gary’s window!” Mauricio shot back, picking Dorian up by the collar of his shirt.

“Guys!” Lucas shouted, pointing in the distance, where an old man was hobbling along on his cane, closing in on the frightened trio.

“M-m-m-m-m-Mr. Fowler, sir,” Mauricio said nervously. “H-h-h-h-how’s your morning going? D-d-d-did you have b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-breakfast yet?”

“How do you think my morning’s going, you knuckleheaded idiots?” Grumpy Gary shouted. “How’d you like it if someone broke your windows? I should set my bees on you lot! See how you feel then.”

“To be fair, Mr. Fowler,” Lucas explained. “We didn’t mean to break your window. It was just an accident, honest.”

“I swear on my Nana’s grave, Mr. Fowler,” Dorian added.

“Yeah, it’s not like we vandalized your house or something,” Mauricio said, emboldened by his friends speaking up. Dorian and Lucas shot him a look.

“Not helping,” Lucas mouthed, shaking his head.

“We’re really very sorry, Mr. Fowler,” Dorian said. “What can we do to make things right?”

“We could find summer jobs and pay for the repairs,” Lucas suggested.

“The Hell are you playing at?” Mauricio whispered.

“Hmmm…” Grumpy Gary said, scratching his stubbly chin and cheeks while he gave Lucas’s words some thought. “Well, slap my creaking knees and call me a monkey’s uncle. You know what? That just might work.”

“We’ll work hard for it, Mr. Fowler,” Lucas said. “We promise.”

“Very hard,” Mauricio added. “Swear. We’ll ask around, work any job…”

“No need,” Grumpy Gary said with a proud sinister smile. Grumpy Gary rarely smiled if ever. And if he smiled, you knew you were in boiling hot water. “Here’s what we’re going to do. Because it was, as you say, an accident, I won’t press charges for damages. But you will work for me, doing anything and everything in the house that needs doing, until you earn enough money to help with the repairs.”

“Yes, sir!” Lucas said with a soldierly salute.

“Excellent,” Grumpy Gary said, his smile melting back into his normal sour face. “You will start tomorrow. I’ll talk to your parents and let them know. They will know what you all did here today.”

“That’s fair,” Lucas said with a shrug. “I guess.”

“And while you work for me, you will live in my house,” Grumpy Gary added. “Your meals will be provided for. It’s more than you deserve.”

“Now, hold on a minute there, Wrinkles,” Mauricio protested. “That’s ridic—”

“Shut up, Mauricio,” Dorian whispered through gritted teeth. He looked and sounded like a lawyer advising his client to take the deal.

“Do we get to go home?” Lucas asked.

“Yes,” Grumpy Gary said. “You get to go home and see your families on Friday evenings, spend Saturday and Sunday with them, but you must be back first thing Monday mornings.”

“We’ll take it,” Dorian said with a nod.

“Good,” Grumpy Gary said and turned away, hobbling off without another word.

“Great,” Mauricio said. “Just great. This is all your fault, Dorian.”

I wish I could just disappear, Dorian thought with a sigh.

The next day, Mauricio, Lucas, and Dorian reported for work at Grumpy Gary’s house, with their bags on their shoulders, in their hands, or on their backs. The old man gave them a brief tour of the house and the gardens and then set down the ground rules.

“The latest you will stay up is 8:45 at night,” Grumpy Gary warned. “The latest you will stay in bed is 6:45. Anything beyond that, I consider to be laziness. And trust me, you do not want to be lazy in this house. Am I making myself clear?”

“Crystal,” Mauricio answered.

“You are to cook four days a week and you will rotate—breakfast, lunch, and dinner,” Grumpy Gary continued. “On Fridays, you can take a break from the cooking. You can leave that to me.”

“Yes, sir,” Dorian responded.

“You will clean the whole house from floor to ceiling, top to bottom,” Grumpy Gary instructed. “But under no circumstance are you to go down into the basement. That is my sanctuary. Leave that to me. If you see the door open, close it. You will also work in the garden, watering and weeding my plants, collecting honey from my hives—I will provide you with the proper suits for your protection.”

“Understood, sir,” Lucas said.

“Perfect,” Grumpy Gary said with a curt nod. “What are you all waiting for? Deposit your bags to your room in the attic and then come back down to start working. Scram! Move! Shoo! Skedaddle!”

As the days and weeks of the summer rolled by, the boys fell into a familiar routine. Grumpy Gary was a hard taskmaster but a reasonable one. If you did your job right, he acknowledged it. They also warmed up to him and he to them. One morning, Lucas came down to cook breakfast and accidentally called Grumpy Gary “Grandpa Gary”. The new nickname stuck and that was that. To the boys he was Grandpa Gary, not Grumpy Gary. They discovered that he had a soft heart beneath that gruff exterior and that he wasn’t so grumpy after all. He even gave them produce from the garden to take home to their parents every Friday evening. He learned their secrets and they learned his—well, most of his secrets, at least. They still couldn’t figure out the secret of the basement. What was down there? What in the Sam Hill was he hiding? They thought it best not to pry lest they fall once more from his good graces.

As the Fates would have it, however, one of the boys would accidentally discover this closely guarded secret. Or was he let in on said secret? I’m leaning more towards the latter, dear reader. You see, Mauricio still blamed Dorian for the predicament that they were in and took no responsibility whatsoever. He rarely spoke a word to Dorian, and if he ever did, it was either a scathing word of unearned rebuke or an attitude so cold it could put out the fires of Hell and make Satan himself shiver. Only Lucas spoke to him kindly. Dorian and Mauricio’s friendship was become more and more strained each day that it could snap at any moment. The old man took pity on the boy. He knew how much damage a strained relationship could do. So he devised a plan—a plan that would grant Dorian’s wish to disappear and a plan to teach the oldest boy a very important lesson on friendship and treasuring someone while they’re still around. He went down into his basement and put his plan into action. While the boys slept in the attic upstairs, he tinkered down in the basement below. It took almost all night, but at long last, he reemerged from the depths—and left the door open.

In the morning, Dorian saw the open door and everything inside him screamed at him to shut it or risk Grumpy Gary’s ire. However, his curiosity won and he made his way down the stairs into the basement. What he saw shocked, confused, and amazed him in turn. This was no ordinary basement. The walls were lined with shelves that showcased ancient leatherbound books, scrolls, and clear glass bottles that glowed and swirled with all manner of magical potions inside them. In the middle of the room was a heavy oak table with a burner, bubbling and smoking potions, scrolls, more books, handwritten notes, a pestle, and a fine purple powder within a marble mortar. Curious, Dorian took a pinch of the powder and smelled it. It gave off the aroma of lavender, rampion, and honeysuckle. Next to it was note that read: “For invisibility.”

I wish I could just disappear, Dorian thought to himself as he closed his eyes. And that’s just exactly what he did. When he opened his eyes again, he was shocked to find that he couldn’t even see his own arms, hands, legs, and feet. He had turned completely invisible. Even his clothes had vanished despite the fact that he could still feel himself wearing them. He looked into the ornate oval mirror and saw no one there. Even his reflection wasn’t showing. It was disorienting to say the least. And it was frightening. But it was also exhilarating and a relief. He had gotten his wish. He had vanished.