Chapter Text
Bruno waits until the apartment is quiet and still, waits until the snoring begins. Then, he carefully, slowly, counts to 200 in his head.
Only then does he tip-toe out of bed, pick up his backpack, open the door of his bedroom carefully, and tip-toe into the living room.
There are several glass bottles sitting on the coffee table, all empty. Bruno carefully picks them up and puts them in his backpack. He’ll stop by the building’s trash room in the morning.
Having glass bottles in the apartment is Bad.
(Bruno tries very hard to not think about the sound of glass breaking against the wall, far too close to his head.)
(That happens when he makes a Mistake.)
(It also sometimes just happens when it is a Bad day, and there are empty glass bottles in the apartment.)
(Bruno supposes that maybe that is also because he made a Mistake.)
(He fell asleep and couldn’t get rid of the empty bottles.)
(Or…)
(…his parents say he Ruined Everything. As far as Bruno can tell, he Ruined Everything just by existing.)
There is also a stack of change on the coffee table. Bruno carefully takes two pennies from his pocket and swaps them for nickels. He contemplates taking the dollar note that is under the coins, but decides against it.
(He can’t afford to take Too Much.)
Bruno shoves his hand in his pocket so he does not feel tempted to take the dollar bill.
He has enough laundry powder for a few more days, he reminds himself. He has almost an entire loaf of bread, because the really-nice man working at the convenience store down the block let him have the loaf despite being a quarter short; the really-nice man took the quarter out of his own pocket and put it in the till instead. He has almost an entire small jar’s worth of peanut butter, because he was able to afford a big jar last time, because it was on special. (The jar has passed its best before date, but it still tastes the same.) Bruno reminds himself that he even has two chocolate bars for Emergencies, because the also-really-nice lady who works at the convenience store gave him one the last two times she was working when he came in after school, praising him for being polite. The also-really-nice lady has a really kind smile.
(The chocolate bars had expired the day before she gave them to him, but Bruno knows these things are quite safe to eat after expiring.)
Bruno tip-toes back to his room. He carefully puts down his backpack full of glass, and wiggles underneath his bed to his hiding place. He pulls up the loose floorboard quietly, and puts his two nickels with his little pile of precious change, quickly counting it. He’ll have enough for laundry powder in a few days, as long as everything goes well.
(Bruno hopes it does.)
(Last time he ran out of laundry powder, he had to go to school in dirty clothes.)
(One of his teachers had Noticed.)
(Thankfully, it was a Friday and he had managed to buy laundry powder that afternoon – though he had no peanut butter for a week – so had clean clothes the next school day, so the teacher Noticed that too, and Bad Things did not happen.)
Bruno picks up his butter knife (pilfered from the kitchen a couple of years ago) and spreads just enough peanut butter on one of his precious slices of bread. He puts another slice over the top, and puts his sandwich into a paper bag for tomorrow’s lunch.
He ignores the rumbling of his stomach.
(Bruno hasn’t eaten since lunch at school this afternoon.)
Sometimes, Bruno gives in and eats a slice of bread in the evenings.
But that usually results in him running out of bread before he can afford to buy another loaf, which means he has to stretch the last couple of slices and take single-slice sandwiches, or take no lunch at all, which is Worse.
(The teachers Notice when he has single-slice sandwiches, most of the time. The teachers always Notice when he doesn’t bring lunch.)
(Being Noticed is Bad.)
Bruno tells himself no, and reminds himself that he’ll have this sandwich at lunchtime.
His eyes fall on his precious collection of books.
Bruno didn’t steal them! He found them in the trash. No-one wanted them anymore, he swears!
His collection is small, but he loves every piece of it. There’s a Star Wars novel that is apparently for middle-schoolers, even though it’s really easy to read despite the fact he is half their age. Two comic books about Captain America, who is brave and noble and heroic and a superhero. (Sometimes, Bruno daydreams that Captain America will come kidnap him from his parents and take him somewhere Better.) He has a textbook about chemistry called Chemistry by a guy called Zumdahl, and another book called Calculus Made Easy by Thompson. (Those are much harder to read and understand, but Bruno thinks he’s learning. They’re interesting, even if they are hard to understand. Maybe because they are hard to understand?) Bruno also has a 10th grade biology textbook. (That is easier to read than the other two textbooks, but also very interesting. He now knows the difference between a tortoise and a turtle.)
Bruno shakes his head at himself.
He has to sleep before school; being too tired gets him Noticed too.
His stomach rumbles again.
Bruno looks at his loaf of bread.
He’s so tired. He’s so hungry.
He gives in.
Bruno pulls out the heel of the loaf of bread and nibbles on that slowly, drinking water from his water bottle, glad he remembered to refill it at school this morning.
-
Bruno knows that his parents are Bad parents. Even…even though sometimes there are Good weeks or Good days.
(Less frequently, lately.)
Kids with Good parents don’t wash their clothes in the sink with laundry powder they bought themselves. Or ration out their own bread and peanut butter for lunch. Or have to steal change from their parents for their laundry powder and peanut butter and bread. Or have to hide all the glass bottles in case they make a Mistake (including by just existing).
But Bruno also knows that if he is Noticed, Bad Things will happen. Worse Things.
It’s better if he isn’t Noticed.
He’s safest if he isn’t Noticed.
-
The TV is gone.
Bruno Notices one night, as he swaps nickels for quarters and cleans up glass bottles, but he can’t bring himself to care right now.
(It happens, sometimes. His parents will sell something like the TV or the couch or a phone, and a few weeks or maybe a few months later, they’ll get a new one. Which is sometimes an old one, but it’s new to them.)
Tonight, the pizza box is full of crusts, and it’s been a long time since he’s had a full stomach.
He sneaks back to his room, wraps his blanket around his shoulders, and sits there criss-cross-apple-sauce to eat his pizza crusts, feeling himself smile.
Afterwards, he curls up, warm and full and sleepy, and quickly falls asleep.
-
He’s stupid. Useless. So stupid. So useless. So, so stupid!
Bruno should have known. Should have Noticed. He should have Noticed!
He wakes up one summer morning to find that his parents are gone.
They’ve taken everything with them.
Something – that same voice that tells Bruno his parents are Bad parents – tells him that they won’t be coming back.
Ever.
(He Ruined Everything.)
(He continues to do so by just existing.)
(They don’t want him. They don’t want him around anymore.)
-
Bruno searches, frantically. He even finally dares to go into his parents’ bedroom.
He needs to make a Plan. Find a Solution.
Unfortunately, he discovers, all he has is a total of $4.17, three cans of expired tuna, a half-pack of Ritz crackers, a bag of crushed and stale Goldfish that appears to have been opened but not eaten, two unlabelled mystery cans, a can of Cheese Whiz and a third of a bag of spaghetti, as well as most of a loaf of bread and half a jar of peanut butter and two Emergency chocolate bars. He also has a half-roll of duct-tape and a box of paperclips.
(He also has a couple pieces of furniture left – the couch, coffee table and fridge were also sold last week – but none of them are worth anything; his parents have never sold the bits that are left before, so he assumes no-one wants them.)
(His parents sold everything that was worth anything; that was a hint, he should have Noticed, he’s so stupid…)
Bruno also has a drawer full of unpaid utility bills.
(He supposes they belong to his parents, but they’re gone, so Bruno thinks he has inherited these bills.)
(He thinks that is how bills work?)
(The electricity and water people are going to want their money, after all. They’re not going to care that his parents are gone.)
(Besides, if they found out, they’d probably call CPS and Bad Things would happen.)
As far as Bruno can tell, the power is going to be cut off within a few days, but he’s got longer with water.
Things are Bad.
Very Bad.
-
Things get Worse a few days later, when an eviction notice is shoved under the door.
Bruno has a week to come up with more money than he’s ever seen in his life, or he’ll be evicted.
(Technically, his parents will be evicted, but since they’re gone, it really means him.)
He eats his only remaining Emergency chocolate bar, sitting on his bed with his knees tucked to his chest and his blanket around his shoulders.
This is a Big Emergency.
And Bruno is feeling very dizzy and lightheaded – he’s been rationing his food out as hard as he can, because he has to make it last.
If he’s going to come up with a Solution for this problem, a Plan, he’s going to need some energy.
-
(He’s…he’s lying to himself.)
(Bruno concluded a couple days ago that there isn’t a Solution for this, that he won’t be able to come up with a Plan.)
(It’s Impossible.)
-
Bruno is a kid. He’s just turned seven.
How can he do this?
He hasn’t got a cent, and nothing is free. Everything has a Price.
-
Bruno carefully packs his backpack, making sure that the duct-tape patch stays secure. He puts in his box of paperclips and his precious books, and the nineteen cents he has left. He stuffs in his blanket, his butter knife and his three empty paper sandwich bags. He stuffs in as much of his best clothes as he can, having put on two layers already, even though it’s a bit hot. He adds his water bottle to the side pocket, and takes a few deep breaths, before slipping out the fire escape.
He can’t be here when the landlord comes. Especially not if he brings people to make sure that Bruno’s parents – meaning Bruno – are evicted.
(The evicting people are really scary.)
(Bad Things will happen – Very Bad Things – if they catch him still in the apartment, Bruno knows.)
-
This is much harder than he thought.
Bruno jumps up and down again, trying to get into the dumpster outside the convenience store.
He knows he’s risking being Noticed, but he’s too hungry to not take this risk.
The jumping, however, is making him feel even dizzier and lightheaded.
Bruno startles when he hears a voice, and a figure emerges from the back door of the store.
Stupid, stupid, useless…he should have been paying attention, he should have noticed, should have heard, and now he’s been Noticed and being Noticed leads to Bad Things!!!!
‘What’s going on…’ The male voice trails off, and a phone flashlight is turned on. Bruno recognizes the face with its patchy beard, thankfully. It’s the really-nice man whom Bruno owes two quarters, from two loaves of bread he let him have despite being a quarter short each time. The really-nice man looks very worried and very sad. He turns his head towards the store, and calls out for help. Bruno has a moment where he thinks about running, but he’s too tired. Too hungry. Too dizzy and too weak. And the really-nice man is a very young grown-up, he’s already Noticed him, and Bruno couldn’t out-run him. The window closes, anyway, as the really-nice man looks back at Bruno. He crouches down so he’s not towering over him, his voice turning soft, kind. It seems…it seems real. Good. ‘Hey, kid…you hungry?’ He gestures with his head towards the side-door of the store. The also-really-nice lady has appeared there. She doesn’t have a kind smile right now; instead, she looks horrified and is clutching at the bottom edge of the pink cloth that covers her head and hair and drapes a little over her shoulders and chest. ‘We’ve got better stuff in there if you want it, we’ll hook you up, no worries…’
The really-nice man holds a hand out to Bruno. He hesitates.
If he is Noticed, Bad Things will happen.
Nothing is free. Everything has a Price.
(Except…except fifty cents worth of bread and two recently-expired chocolate bars.)
He’s already been Noticed.
And, Bruno thinks, things are already Bad. Very Bad. How much Worse can they get?
Bruno nods a little. The really-nice man smiles, even though he still looks sad.
He follows the really-nice man and the also-really-nice-lady-with-the-really-kind-smile into the convenience store.
-
Bruno sits quietly in the corner of the convenience store, eating the Turkey Salad sandwich the also-really-nice lady had given him, after fussing over him and cleaning his hands and face with wipes she pulled out of her purse.
She also offered him a Ham and Cheese sandwich from the pre-packaged sandwiches the store sells. She said he could have whichever one he wanted, or both if that was what he wanted.
Bruno has the strangest feeling she wanted him to take both, despite that being two sandwiches, because she left the Ham and Cheese one next to him too.
The really-nice man has also been Extra Nice; while the also-really-nice lady was cleaning him up, he put a juice box, a bag of pretzels, and a chocolate bar down next to Bruno.
Once the two adults had gone over to the far corner to talk in quiet grown-up voices, Bruno had hidden the juice box, pretzels and chocolate bar in his bag for later, and started eating his sandwich.
(He tries to nibble, but he’s so hungry he scarfs it down.)
Bruno tries not to be too worried about the Bad Things that are about to happen.
It’s hard to do that, because he hears bits of the grown-ups’ Grown-Up conversation.
I can’t believe it, I should have noticed earlier.
Hey, it’s not your fault, we should’ve seen something. Someone should have said something.
He definitely hears CPS.
Bruno eyes the Ham and Cheese sandwich as he finishes the Turkey Salad one. They are kept in the fridge at the convenience store, but in Good weeks, he would sometimes get ham and cheese sandwiches to take to school, and they were still fine to eat several hours later.
He takes the Ham and Cheese sandwich and puts it in his backpack too.
He’s quite sure the really-nice man and also-really-nice lady see him do that, when they turn back to him after their serious Grown-Up conversation.
But they don’t scold him for taking both sandwiches. They don’t scold him for taking Too Much.
They just look sad.
-
(Good people, that little voice tells Bruno. Good people, he thinks.)
-
Bruno has a Nonna.
He knew he had to have grandparents. Has to have four, actually. Two grandmothers, who each contributed an ovum, and two grandfathers, who each contributed a sperm cell, thus producing his parents, who then contributed a gamete each to produce him.
Humans can’t reproduce asexually. Like parthenogenesis.
(Bruno is still trying to understand parthenogenesis, but what he does understand seems really interesting so far.)
(His 10th grade biology textbook is interesting, full stop.)
Bruno knew he had a grandmother. But Bruno didn’t think he had a Nonna.
His Nonna is Good. Very Good, he learns. Very Nice. Kind. She has a kind smile too. It’s real.
Nonna says she loves him very much, and apologises for not knowing he existed and thus not coming to rescue him like he used to daydream Captain America or Obi-Wan Kenobi would.
(Not kidnap, she’s his nonna and his parents were Bad, so it’s a rescue, not a kidnapping, apparently.)
Nonna calls him tesorino, because that means little treasure in Italian, she says, and he is a little treasure.
Nonna teaches him Italian when he asks. She doesn’t even ask him why he wants to learn.
(Bruno thinks…he thinks it’ll make him feel Safer, if he can understand everything she says.)
It takes Bruno longer than it takes him to learn Italian to trust Nonna completely – to trust her love – and to love her back, but Nonna doesn’t mind.
-
Nonna says he’s very smart, to learn Italian so quickly. Nonna also doesn’t seem to understand Chemistry by Zumdahl or Calculus Made Easy by Thompson, despite being a Grown-Up.
She looks at Bruno funny – it’s not a Bad funny, though it took a while for him to understand that – when he reads them.
-
More food makes it easier to think. It also seems to make Bruno’s brain busier. There are more Ideas and Thoughts and Plans running around in there now.
Bruno thinks he understands the explanation of parthenogenesis in his biology textbook now, though he still has some questions it did not answer. Nonna took him to the library to get more biology books, but all the ones in the section for elementary school kids were kinda boring compared to his precious textbook.
Chemistry by Zumdahl and Calculus Made Easy have become even more interesting.
Bruno also comes up with a new Plan for re-stocking the Circle-Q Nonna manages, based on what he sees from behind the counter when Nonna takes him downstairs while she is working (which is almost all the time, it feels like). Nonna works very hard. She’s always tired. This Plan should make Nonna’s life easier.
Nonna looks at him funny – not Bad funny, maybe Good funny? – when he presents it to her. She says thank you very much, tesorino.
Nonna also looks at him much like that when she finds Bruno drawing plans for a spoon-catapult and a rocket-ship on the scrap paper she gave him to draw on behind the counter while she is working.
Apparently, she was expecting him to draw pictures, not make Plans.
At the very least, his rocket-ship is a picture as well as a Plan. Bruno does not actually know how to make a rocket-ship.
-
Nonna also starts taking him to a therapist, Ms Sidra.
She is also Very Nice. She doesn’t mind if Bruno doesn’t want to talk or can’t talk or doesn’t want to look at her when he’s talking. He can draw or write too, if that’s easier.
She has toys he can fiddle with, or toys that he can talk to instead.
Bruno has realised that his parents were Very, Very Bad. And his life with them consisted of them doing Bad Things to him.
Ms Sidra and Nonna promise – pinkie-promise - that they’re going to help him get Better.
-
Nonna is having friends over for dinner, she says. They are having friends over for dinner, she explains.
Mr and Mrs Shah are Nonna’s very good friends, since before Bruno was born. They run the busy restaurant down the block from the Circle-Q that smells very tasty but different.
(Well, Bruno used to think it smelled different.)
(Now he just thinks it smells delicious.)
He and Nonna have food from there quite a lot. It is different from what Bruno was used to, but in a Good way. It’s delicious, though he doesn’t like the spicy ones that Nonna likes. The food seems to appear in their fridge or freezer, which doesn’t make sense to Bruno. Nonna might go there during her lunch breaks while he is at school to buy it and puts it there before going back to work?
Nonna tells him that if he feels nervous or scared or tired, he can go sit in his room, or come sit by her, or whatever makes him feel Safest and Happiest.
She promises – pinkie-promises – that her friends are Very Nice. They have kids too, though they – Babar, Amal and Tasneem – are all older than Bruno. Tasneem – or Tas, as Nonna calls her – is only two years older than him, though, so maybe they’ll be friends.
-
Bruno discovers at the dinner that Mr and Mrs Shah are Very Nice. So are Babar and Amal and Tas. They are obviously Good people, like Nonna. A Good and Happy family. Like him and Nonna, Bruno thinks, if the two of them can be a family on their own.
Bruno has the oddest feeling that Mrs Shah wants to hug him a lot. He also overhears her muttering with Nonna that he is still too thin. That probably explains why Mrs Shah and Mr Shah kept trying to offer him more food, even though he already had More than Enough. That might also explain why Mrs Shah fiddles with the edge of the scarf that she has draped around her neck. It reminds Bruno a little of the way the also-really-nice lady played with the scarf over her head and hair and shoulders.
The Shahs brought things they call sweets with them to dinner, in a big box that smells like milk and sugar and deliciousness.
Tas drags Bruno over behind her after dinner is cleared away to ask if they can have dessert now.
(Tas is Nice. She is also loud and brave.)
Tas also names all the sweets for him, and tells him that her favourite is the pistachio kalakand. Babar likes the ice-cream barfi. Amal prefers plain kalakand. Bruno takes one of those, a milky-coloured square that has a texture that seems really nice. He nibbles off a corner. It tastes like milk and sugar and deliciousness too. And the texture is really nice, but he thinks that adding pistachios like Tas’s square might ruin it, though.
-
Bruno and Nonna start having dinner with the Shahs at least once a week. Babar becomes responsible for picking him up from school and bringing him back to the Circle-Q, which makes things a little easier for Nonna.
Nonna explains that the Shahs have been helping them by giving them the food that keeps appearing in their fridge and freezer. (Bruno knew it wasn’t appearing from nowhere, even if Nonna had made a joke about fairies; fairies aren’t real!) They wanted to help more, but they didn’t want to overwhelm him, she says.
They also helped him get his appointments with Ms Sidra. Bruno’s pretty sure they’re somehow helping with the money for the appointments too. He’s gathered that therapy is expensive, and he knows Nonna doesn’t have much money, though she manages without having to sell things all the time like his parents did, and there’s always plenty of food for both of them to eat.
The Shahs know Ms Sidra from mosque. The Shahs are Muslims, so they go to mosque. They also don’t eat pork, because they only eat halal food, which is why Nonna’s lasagne recipe is a bit different from her nonna’s, and why the Shahs have turkey bacon for breakfast on Saturdays instead of regular bacon.
Bruno starts doing a Big Project: cataloguing all the snacks they sell in the Circle-Q – which is a lot of snacks – and memorizing which ones are halal and which ones are not. If he’s going to be friends with Uncle Rashid and Auntie Salma and Babar and Amal and Tas, he needs to know what snacks they can eat.
Something tells him that that is Important.
-
Nonna and the teachers at Bruno’s new school and Ms Sidra explain to Bruno that they’re going to ask him to do a bunch of tests. They explain what these tests are for.
Bruno learns that it is apparently not normal – at all – for kids his age to read things like Chemistry by Zumdahl and Calculus Made Easy by Thompson and sort-of understand bits. Or slightly more than bits.
(That probably explains why the other kids don’t want to talk to him about the fascinating things he read about and learned to understand over the weekend.)
(The other kids don’t really want to talk to Bruno much at all. He’s the new kid, and small and skinny and too weird and too smart. Bruno doesn’t really have friends, except Tas, who always comes over and sits with him at recess and lunch, but she’s two grades up from him.)
The test results come back.
No-one – not Nonna or his teachers or Ms Sidra – is surprised.
Apparently, Bruno is a genius.
He gets moved up two grades and into Tas’s class.
-
By the time he turns fourteen, Bruno has long-realized that a family can absolutely be an Italian-American boy and his nonna.
He has also realized, however, that his family is him and his nonna and the loud, proud Pakistani-American family who basically adopted them.
As Uncle Rashid says, we do not get to choose who we are born to, beta, but we get to choose who we call our family.
Working his shift in the Circle-Q, Bruno grins and waves at Babar, as his (basically) older brother walks out of the store with a bag of Hershey’s Kisses, which he doesn’t even like.
Bruno also pulls out his phone to send a message to the Shah kids’ group chat.
As the younger siblings, he, Amal and Tas have agreed it is their duty to tease Babar relentlessly about his massive crush on Zainab, his best friend Umar’s cousin who has come to Jersey City from Karachi for college.
Bruno hypothesizes that Zainab is very fond of Hershey’s Kisses.
According to Amal, he finds out not even ten minutes later, that hypothesis is correct.
According to Tas, the way to Zainab’s heart is definitely through her stomach.
Tas mischievously asks if they want to take bets on when the wedding will be.
Bruno laughs and shakes his head – his younger big sister is bold – before thinking seriously, and throwing his five bucks into the ring for two years from now.
-
The first seven years of his childhood were terrible, Bruno thinks. But, he thinks, the next seven years? Where he’s ended up now? There’s nowhere he’d rather be.
-
With an arm around his nonna, the two of them both coughing as their eyes and noses and throats fill with smoke, Bruno hurries as fast as Nonna can manage towards the side-exit of the Circle-Q.
The building is on fire.
The fire had started while they were asleep, and though the smoke alarm had woken them up pretty quickly, the fire had spread fast.
Especially given Nonna’s not as quick on her feet as she used to be.
(Nonna isn’t that old. But her life’s been hard, and it’s aged her prematurely, Bruno knows.)
(Nonna should’ve retired by now, rightly. But she keeps working herself to the bone because she’s still got the Circle-Q mortgage to pay off, largely because…raising a child is not cheap.)
They couldn’t get to the fire escape, and were instead forced by the flames to flee downstairs to the store.
Bruno had hoped they could get out of the front glass doors or windows, but the entire storefront is violently on fire. Nonna coughs horribly, and Bruno tries to help her bend down more to avoid more of the smoke.
He helps Nonna to the side-door, which while on fire, is at least accessible. He lets go of his grandmother, and acting purely on adrenaline-fuelled instinct, rams his shoulder against the side-door, ignoring the fact that it is on fire.
It takes three rams for the door to open, and Bruno shoves Nonna out the door and into the alleyway.
‘Tesorino!’
Oh, he realises, oh.
The arm of his shirt’s on fire. That’s why the heat of the flames seems especially bad.
Bruno jumps out of the doorway and tugs off his shirt as soon as he’s clear, getting it off before most of the rest of it catches.
He puts an arm around Nonna again, and coughing, they hurry out onto the street.
-
It takes arriving on the main street, safe from the fire, for Bruno to come back to himself.
It takes hearing the shouts of the neighbours and seeing people come running out onto the street and yelling call 911.
It takes him coming down from whatever adrenaline rush or hyperfocus he was in – get out of here, get Nonna out of here – to realise just what’s happened.
To realise that his arm really hurts.
To realise that the Circle-Q is burning down.
(Thankfully, their immediate neighbours are all commercial buildings, there would be no-one in them in the middle of the night.)
It takes that adrenaline rush or straight-out-of-a-comic-book hyperfocus to disappear for Bruno to realise…
…that he’s not breathing right, and from Nonna’s coughs, she’s definitely suffering smoke inhalation…
…and that his arm doesn’t just really hurt, it’s fricking killing him.
Mr Chen, who lives in the apartment building across the road, gently disentangles Nonna from Bruno, supporting her himself instead as Bruno winces, hisses, in pain, trying to resist the urge to touch his arm.
‘Tesorino! Bruno!’
It hurts so much. His head might be swimming. He’s unsure if it is insufficient oxygen or the result of pain and shock.
Scratch that previous hypothesis, his head is definitely swimming.
Bruno vaguely registers Nonna putting her hands on his face, trying to shrug off Mr Chen, who instead grabs her shoulders to steady her.
Bruno hears Umar shouting, and Najaf from Gyro King shouting back.
He’s not in that hyperfocus or adrenaline rush or whatever straight-out-of-a-comic-book state he was in just moments ago, but Bruno realises that he feels disconnected from himself and what’s happening again.
He blames the pain. The burn on his arm he doesn’t dare look at.
Umar tips a bucket of cold water over his arm. It helps the pain a tiny bit.
Bruno tries to focus on something – anything – to try and ignore that pain.
Najaf is leaning out of his ground-floor window, passing another bucket of water to Umar, who throws the bucket over Bruno again. His wife passes him a large pot full of more water, taking back the bucket, as their daughter runs over to the window with another large pot of water.
Most of Bruno is shivering, because he’s shirtless in Jersey City in the middle of the night in fall and sopping wet.
The rest of Bruno – that being his upper right arm and shoulder – is on fire.
The pain is a good sign, he reminds himself. Means there’s no nerve damage. Yet.
Just as he thinks that, of course, he stops feeling that pain.
He tries not to panic at that, tries not to panic as it seems to get harder to breathe, tries not to panic as Nonna coughs especially badly, and almost-collapses into Mr Chen’s arms.
Bruno tries to focus on the other things, as the sirens in the distance get louder and louder.
Focus on the Good.
The cool feeling of the water on his arm. Najaf and his family and Umar’s makeshift bucket brigade, their concerned questions. Najaf and Hina’s questions are all in Urdu; part of Bruno’s brain wonders if they’re so panicked and worried they’ve reverted automatically to their first language. He does his best to grit out answers in Urdu, but words in any language are currently difficult.
Mr Chen’s son Paul, whom Bruno goes to school with, comes running out of the apartment building with a chair, which Nonna is summarily deposited into.
Mrs Torres comes out with a jacket for Nonna and yelling at her son Danny to go get the Percocet he has leftover from his wisdom tooth extraction. She’s followed by Auntie Mahira with what appears to be half her dupatta collection; she drapes several over Nonna and then starts muttering about trying to make sure Bruno doesn’t catch a chill, draping a dupatta over his left shoulder, then a second for good measure.
‘Bruno!’
‘Beta!’
‘Nonna!’
The Shahs come running up from their home two blocks away, all dressed in pyjamas and hastily jammed on shoes. Amal’s sneakers don’t match. Babar is wearing one flip-flop and one boot. Uncle Rashid is missing his glasses.
‘We thought-‘
‘-you’re alive…’
‘Alhamdulillah…’
-
The Circle-Q and everything in it is gone. It’s been reduced to ashes, to lumps of indeterminate mostly-carbon.
The Circle-Q has been destroyed…
…and it was arson.
It was deliberate.
Someone – or, more accurately, several someones - tried to burn down his and nonna’s home on purpose. Maliciously.
They succeeded.
They also almost killed him and Nonna.
That…may also have been deliberate. That’s currently under investigation.
Bruno stares at the wreckage, fenced off by the police.
His arm itches. He ignores it.
He shouldn’t scratch the healing skin, and he couldn’t scratch it anyway. His arm is still swathed in bandages.
Bruno is assured by the doctors that the damage is mostly superficial, if cosmetically rather severe. He’ll have scars for the rest of his life, from his shoulder down to a couple inches below his elbow.
Alhamdulillah, Uncle Rashid and Auntie Salma had said when they came to pick him up from the hospital. Inshallah, it’ll heal better than the doctors think, beta, Auntie had said. Uncle had nodded in agreement and said to Bruno with great pride and very teasingly that now, when he is grown up, he will be able to tell girls how he heroically and bravely saved both his and his nonna’s lives!
Yeah, Bruno doesn’t think he’s reached that stage of acceptance yet.
He might still be processing the whole thing (okay, fine, he’s definitely still processing it), but at least it’s an easy enough set of scars to hide.
He isn’t exactly a walk-around-shirtless kind of guy. Closest he ever gets to being shirtless in public is getting changed for gym class, actually, which isn’t exactly an experience he intends to repeat once he graduates from high school.
Bruno is more of a flannel shirt over his T-shirts kind of guy.
Lifetime of being a weird skinny dorky nerd, he thinks, with wry dark humour. Besides, he lives in Jersey City, which is famously warm and sunny year-round. Not.
Yeah, maybe Bruno reads too many comic books.
(When facing down Thanos, genocidal maniac, about to snap while wearing the Infinity Gauntlet, knowing he’s about to die to save the universe, about to make the sacrifice play, Iron Man – Timothy Strike – had made a witty, snarky quip.)
(That’s just one example from his beloved Marvel Comics of the superhero playbook: irreverent snark, witty quips and exchanging absurd and ridiculous banter with their teammates and villains is how superheroes keep their calm and courage in the face of danger and overwhelming odds.)
Bruno sighs and rubs at the bandages over his arm. That seems to trick his brain a little into thinking that he’s scratched at the itch.
He stares a little longer at the ashes of the Circle-Q. Of his home.
He and Nonna have nothing left. Absolutely nothing to their names.
They’ll have to wait for the insurance ruling, which is going to need the arson court case to finish first, apparently.
Bruno tries not to be bitter and angry. He and Nonna didn’t have much in the first place, and their apartment was kinda old and crappy…
(Bruno has learned a lot about plumbing that he’d prefer to not have had to learn, but it was either that or call a plumber, and he’s free and plumbers are expensive.)
…but their apartment was home.
He didn’t have much. Just his cheap unbranded clothes and a few cooler T-shirts and hoodies, like his buffering T-shirt, that were mostly gifts from the Shahs. Just the computer he built himself, and his prototypes (which he mostly builds with stuff he gets cheap or even out of the trash), and his posters and precious comic books and a couple pieces of Marvel merch he saved up for or got gifted…
…and now it’s all gone.
Look, Bruno tries not to be materialistic, but…it’s hard, sometimes.
The rich kids at school – including Josh – have cars. Bruno rides his bike everywhere, and even before the fire, knew it’d be years before he could afford a car (certainly not in two years when he turns sixteen and can get his license), and it’s certainly not going to be a BMW like Josh’s.
He’s the Circle-Q Boy, as most people at school call him, with tones ranging from ambivalence to…distinctly not.
(Josh is particularly fond of that not-nickname.)
(It’s just Bruno’s luck that his worst bully is also the most popular kid in their year.)
(Tas stopped telling Babar any stories about Josh a couple years ago. Josh had escalated the older they got, to the point where Babar started threatening to get the brothers from the Masjid to go with him to teach Josh and his friends a lesson for messing with his baby brother.)
(Violence does not solve things, it generally only makes things worse.)
(Babar knows that; he wouldn’t actually do it, he’s just being a big brother.)
Bruno’s a genius.
Mr Wilson is convinced he’ll get accepted into at least a couple Ivy League institutions and the likes of CalTech and MIT. The Coles guidance counsellor was insistent that Bruno apply for CalTech’s prestigious early immersion program.
But even with the little college fund that Auntie Salma and Uncle Rashid insistently put aside for him, going through their finances line by line until they found a way to afford it, Bruno didn’t know before the fire if he could make college (at least, those expensive four-year schools) work without a scholarship, not with having to help Nonna with the Circle-Q mortgage at the same time.
(She won’t ask, but Bruno won’t take no for an answer.)
(His nonna sacrificed so much when she took him in. She gave up any chance of ever retiring, and signed up to work herself to the bone for at least a decade to support him).
And now, after the fire…
…if the insurance doesn’t pay out fully – and even if it does, honestly; he’s done the math and it doesn’t look good – there’s no way Bruno’s going to college at all unless he gets a full-ride scholarship, one of the ones that pays for literally everything, from tuition to books to food to accommodation, like a Stark Foundation Scholarship.
So…he tries not to be jealous, but it’s hard, okay?
He’s a teenager. Bruno is fourteen, and he’s homeless – technically – again with basically nothing to his name – again - and he probably didn’t have great self-esteem in the first place (skinny weird dorky nerd two years younger, and thus two years more awkward, than everyone else), and now he’s got these scars and…
Bruno tries his hardest to let go of that jealousy, that bitterness and resentment.
He and Nonna don’t have nothing. They’ve got each other and the Shahs. That’s…that’s so much more than nothing.
(It might be everything that truly matters.)
He’s very lucky. He and Nonna are very lucky.
The Shahs have taken them in, despite the fact that their house is very crowded as a result. What else could we do, leave you on the streets? Don’t be ridiculous, beta! Here, have some more goat! Babar, give Nonna some more of the spicy one there!
The Jersey City Masjid community rallies around them too. Partially due to the Shahs, but also because some of their neighbours and a good chunk of their regulars attend the Masjid…
…and because they see that there’s good they can do.
(Bruno learns that as astoundingly impressive and mildly disturbing the efficiency of their gossip tree is, that it is matched by the efficiency of their ability to give, and to organize giving.)
Sheikh Abdullah, the imam, comes and offers, in his words, whatever counsel and advice and comfort Bruno and his nonna will take from him. He – as one of their regulars - also promises to be one of the first in line at the rebuilt Circle-Q, to replenish his stash of snacks.
Food arrives in huge and frankly impressive and possibly mildly terrifying quantities. Various aunties that Bruno recognizes vaguely from the Circle-Q or the Eid he was able to go to three Eids ago order him to eat up so he can heal properly.
Toiletries for them and school supplies for him almost appear before their eyes.
The Dar brothers, who are contractors, even volunteer to donate labour and supplies for the Circle-Q rebuild.
A beautiful and luxuriantly soft pashmina is gifted to Nonna. Extra blankets and clothes are produced from cupboards and even made for him and Nonna. Someone – Bruno has officially lost track of where all the gifts are coming from – brings over an air mattress for Bruno, and another one for Tas, who has given up her bed to Nonna.
Bruno comes home from his first day of school after to find a quilt in bright green and bold purple, clearly a homemade, handmade item, folded on his makeshift bed in the Shahs’ living room.
The colours remind him of his favourite Marvel Comics character, Dr Barney Brummer, better known as the Incredible Hulk.
Nonna smiles at him, from where she is sitting on the couch, wrapped in her new pashmina and sipping on a mug of haldi milk.
(Nonna has been sick ever since the fire; her lungs didn’t bounce back the same way Bruno’s did.)
(Auntie Salma fusses, because she worries.)
(They all worry.)
Nonna also tucks away the documents sitting on the couch next to her before Bruno can do more than glimpse at the folder.
‘Nonna…’
He trails off. Bruno’s grandmother sighs and pats the couch next to her, shaking her head, a motion interrupted by concerning coughing. She gestures at herself and seems to shrink down into herself as she gestures at him again.
Another concerning cough. Bruno gently takes the mug of haldi milk from Nonna’s hands because they’re shaking too much and the milk might spill. Nonna puts her hand on his when he does so; the touch feels colder than he thinks it should.
‘It might be necessary, tesorino.’
Bruno knows what those documents are. The previous copies were destroyed in the fire. These are new copies, just in case.
They’re arrangements for the Shahs to take custody of him in the event of Nonna’s death or incapacitation as his guardian, so he doesn’t have to go into foster care.
(Inshallah, Uncle and Auntie had said when they signed, it will never be required, but you will always have a home with us, beta.)
Nonna coughs again. Bruno sits down and puts an arm around his grandmother as he feels a hint of tears prickle at his eyes.
He’s growing, he knows.
(It’d be tough to forget, given Nonna and Auntie’s tendency to remind him at meals at least three times a week.)
(He’ll be strong and handsome and hopefully tall when he’s done growing up, they say.)
(Bruno is far more sceptical of that than Nonna and Auntie – who are also very biased.)
Bruno is growing. All of his recently-destroyed jeans were starting to show his ankles. His T-shirts and flannels were getting tighter at the shoulders and chest.
But Nonna still seems smaller than she should.
Bruno swallows, wipes his eyes with his still-bandaged arm. Nonna pats his knee.
‘I am not giving up, tesorino. There are many more years I want to live.’ She pats his knee again. It feels like a promise. ‘I still have to see you graduate. See you get that PhD and tell all of our customers about my grandson, Dr Bruno Carrelli. See you sell those inventions of yours or cure some terrible disease.’ Nonna smiles a little wider, with a bit of a twinkle in her eyes. ‘See you add to our family, build a family of your own.’ Nonna shifts and with more effort than it should take, pats his cheek. ‘I want to see you live, tesorino.’
‘You should get to too, Nonna.’
Nonna’s life has always been hard, Bruno thinks. His grandfather – whom he does not refer to as Nonno – was…well, that was possibly where his father got it from. After his grandfather’s passing in what Bruno is pretty sure was a bar fight – his nonna doesn’t talk about it, much like how Bruno doesn’t talk about his parents – it was just Nonna and his dad…
…who after saying and doing some truly terrible things, walked out of Nonna’s life. Good riddance, Nonna had thought…
…until CPS basically dumped the grandson she didn’t know she had on her doorstep and left him for her to support and raise.
(Bruno has absolutely no intentions of touching alcohol ever.)
(This has almost nothing to do with being partially raised by Muslims.)
(Being raised by Muslims and his very Italian nonna has, however, taught him that food is clearly superior for all of your celebratory, comfort, relaxing and party needs.)
Nonna kept her husband’s surname of Carrelli after he died. Sometimes, Bruno isn’t sure why.
Frankly, Bruno only has zero intentions of changing his name by deed poll when he turns eighteen for two reasons.
A, his nonna is known to everyone as Nonna Carrelli. He’s proud to be her grandson, proud to wear that every day.
B, the Shahs offered him their surname, but as he is a very pasty white guy, it would probably be rather weird to be Bruno Shah.
Nonna just looks at him and smiles, fond and proud and a little sad, and pats his cheek again. She then resolutely gestures at the quilt now on his air mattress, insistently changing the subject.
‘I thought you would like it, because of the colours. Amal said the auntie who brought it over mentioned making matching costumes for the whole family, she was thinking either Incredible Hulk or one of the Captains, she couldn’t remember which one, and said she’d have to ask her son. She said her little girl is obsessed with Marvel Comics and that Avengers cartoon you love too…’
Bruno hears that the auntie had purchased the fabric because it was Hulk colours, thinking to make a surprise for her little girl, but then she heard about the fire, and realised the fabric was warm and sturdy and not just perfect for the Hulk shalwar kameez for the whole family she had planned. The auntie had told Amal who told Nonna that she realised she was perhaps drawn to buy the fabric for a better reason, mashallah.
He looks at the quilt and can’t help but smile. The colours really are nearly perfect, even if the green is also paisley patterned.
It’s a beautiful quilt.
The nicest bed covering he’s ever owned.
Bruno just hopes that there isn’t a sad little girl out there who’d been looking forward to Hulk shalwar kameez for a family Halloween costume.
-
That night, Bruno lies on his borrowed – or possibly gifted, it’s not clear – air mattress, under his gifted Incredible Hulk paisley quilt in the Shahs’ living room.
The Shahs describe the easy, automatic kindness and generosity of their community with mashallah.
Bruno doesn’t know if he believes in a God. But he also can’t disagree with the wonder and awe and gratitude that that phrase describes, the way the Shahs say it.
-
Bruno opens the package that CalTech sent him, the post having been redirected from the still-ash Circle-Q, with far more ease than he would have a week ago. He’s glad to be free of the bandages and over to a protective sleeve, that’s for sure.
He stares at the bright blue hoodie emblazoned with CALTECH on the front that’s at the top of the box.
He stares at it for a long moment, takes a deep breath, before taking it out and holding it up.
Mr Wilson had called Bruno into his office after school on his first day back, told him to make sure he was sitting down – when Bruno was obviously sitting on the chair opposite the guidance counsellor – and told him that he hopes he’s doing better, he’s got an awesome surprise that should help him get well faster. While Bruno was away recovering enough from his injuries to return to school, Mr Wilson got word that Bruno was accepted into the CalTech early immersion program…and immediately accepted on his behalf.
Bruno had protested, saying that it sounded very expensive, and he’d been about to try and remind Mr Wilson about the existence of, well, boundaries (likely futilely as Mr Wilson is Mr Wilson) and question whether the guidance counsellor is even allowed to accept on Bruno’s behalf when…
…Mr Wilson, being Mr Wilson, had declared that the entire program was all expenses paid (a relief) and that he does a great impression of Bruno over the phone (not a relief).
Bruno’s brought back to reality by his grandmother’s voice.
‘You have to go, tesorino.’
Nonna says that from where she’s making pasta for seven at the kitchen counter, sitting on a stool. She’s turned a corner with her health, Bruno thinks. He hopes-wishes-prays that that continues. Nonna is well enough to make pasta for seven slowly and leisurely, but she’s in no shape to try and handle everything that’s going on with the Circle-Q, or to look for another job so they don’t keep living off the Shahs’ (and the people of the Jersey City Masjid’s) generosity.
‘But Nonna…’
If Bruno stays in Jersey City, calls CalTech and explains that Mr Wilson basically temporarily stole his identity…
…he can help. Get a job after school, since he’s obviously not working shifts in the Circle-Q right now.
(It’s a bit weird having so much free time right now, actually. He’s sketched out a very large number of new Ideas, though he keeps reminding himself to keep any projects to the absolute minimum so as not to bother the Shahs.)
(He fixed their toaster last week. He’s also working on a special project, which he’s dubbed Zuzu, as a thank you gift for them.)
Nonna shakes her head, shaping orecchiette with ease.
(How Nonna does it so easily remains somewhat of a mystery to Bruno.)
(He’s filmed it from several angles to analyse it to work out exactly how she does it.)
(Nonna indulged him, but smiled and shook her head and told him not everything can be worked out with science, tesorino, not even by someone so clever as you.)
‘I will be fine! I have Rashid and Salma, and Babar and Amal and Tas, do you think they would turn me out onto the streets?’ No, Bruno thinks, no. He smiles sheepishly. The Shahs hardly let Nonna help with the dishes, and won’t let him leave the dinner table without at least three offers of seconds. (He and Nonna are so lucky to have them in their lives. To have them as family. To have been adopted by them.) Nonna puts more orecchiette into the pile. ‘I will work in their restaurant until we have a home again, are back on our feet, tesorino.’ Nonna pauses, looks at her pile of pasta dough for a moment, and then looks back up at him. It’s loving and proud and sad and wistful again. ‘Bruno, this is your chance. I have had to ask so much of you, and you are just a boy. You deserve this chance, to go and have this opportunity. To be noticed-‘
‘-Nonna-‘
‘-you are so brilliant, tesorino. You can do amazing things.’ Nonna shakes her head, eyes lingering a little on his arm. ‘You do amazing things.’ She turns her eyes to the Shahs’ toaster, then to the little corner where Bruno has shared with Nonna that he’s working on a surprise for the Shahs, then to the coffee table where her formerly-broken phone buzzes again with a notification. ‘The world needs to get the chance to see that.’