NIGHT. AUGUST 1989
Something terrible is about to happen.
It’s exactly 1:30 a.m.
I don’t need a watch to know.
I wake every night at this time to make sure they don’t kill us all.
First I check that the chain is still around my neck.
Hanging from the chain is a small plastic bottle I once found.
Inside the bottle there’s a note.
The note tells you how to find this notebook.
That way you’ll know what happened when you find my body.
I open the small bottle and check that the note is still inside.
The note says:
The closet in the children’s room: open the far right shoe drawer all the way and lift up its front edge. The notebook is on the floor under the drawer. It explains everything.
I put the note back into the small bottle and close it.
I get out of bed and walk quietly from my room to the entranceway. I walk in my socks so no one hears my steps. Dad’s keys are hanging from the lock. Still, they may have forgotten to lock the door.
I push down very slowly on the handle so as not to make a sound and then I gently pull on the door.
It doesn’t open.
It’s locked.
I push down very slowly again on the handle and again pull on the door.
And again.
A little quicker now but still quietly, 7 times:
Click
Click
Click
Click
Click
Click
Click
The door doesn’t open.
I walk back to my room and pass by Dad and Mom’s room. They’re asleep. Their breathing is peaceful and deep. They don’t breathe quickly like I do.
Back in my room.
I remove a ruler from my pencil case.
I take quiet steps back to the kitchen.
No one hears me.
Stuck on the fridge door is a magnetic calendar with pictures of wildflowers. Every month, you tear off a page and the picture changes. This month there’s a picture of a red-black flower with the words Coastal Iris written underneath. Above, in bigger letters it says August, and higher up it says 1989, and that means I’m already 10.5-years old because I was born in 1978, which is a number that divides by 2 without a remainder but not by 3 or 4 or 5 or 6 or 7 or 8 or 9. Only by 2.
I open the fridge door. The light from inside floods the kitchen. I wait for a minute to make sure I haven’t woken Dad or Mom. If they wake up, I’ll say I was thirsty and got up to get cold water from the fridge.
I take the ruler and measure the level of water in all the bottles in the fridge. In one there’s 20 centimeters and 7 millimeters and in the other there’s exactly 15 centimeters. I don’t use a pencil to mark the level of the water on the bottles because Mom tells Dad that’s not appropriate behavior for a child my age or any child at all actually, and it worries her.
I’ll check the level of water in the morning again. That way I’ll know that no one added poison or some other material to the bottles.
I check the level of the water again.
One last time and I slowly close the door.
I peer through the crack in the door to make sure the light in the fridge goes out just before the door closes completely. It’s important.
I go into Mom and Dad’s room and stand in front of their bed.
They’re asleep.
I watch them for a few more minutes.
They don’t know how dangerous it is.
If I tell them they’ll die.
I need to protect us all.
I go to my room and put the ruler back in the pencil case and the pencil case back in my schoolbag. In just a minute I’ll put the notebook back in its place under the drawer.
Mom says I should keep a journal.
That’s what the school counselor told her.
“It’ll help him,” she said.
Copyright © 2014 by Nir Hezroni
Translation copyright © 2017 by Steven Cohen
