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Does the ocean care if you build a city by it? Does it notice? There’s more fishing in a city, the fish have to notice when their friends go missing more often. The parent fishes have to notice, don't they?
The ocean view through the car window was new to Gerry, he hadn’t been able to see it from Manchester.
Can you have a city be just one building? How big does a building have to get before it’s a city? The magnus institute was very big (to a boy of his height at least,) should it count? Did Manchester care that the institute was built on it? He knew he wasn’t the only ‘fish’ to find themselves caught in the net.
Gerry counted himself lucky someone did notice, and did something about it. Now, that someone sat in the front seat after having told him with a certain air of finality that they were leaving and she would be taking care of him now.
Why are there two ‘U’s in Bournemouth if neither one was going to make the sound they are supposed to?
Gertrude Robison hadn’t planned on becoming a parent. A mum. No, not a mum that wasn't quite it, grandmum? Grandmother would do just fine. She had refused to uproot her life and leave after the… incident with the thing in the bottom of her garden in some sort of act of spite, but it was different to be running for something, to protect someone else, than running away would have been. Or at least, that’s what she told herself.
The small figure in her rearview mirror, gently rocking back and forth, happily gazing out the window, and eating only the cheese off his sandwich was worth running for.
Did kids not like ham? Was this something other guardians know and only Gertrude doesn't? She hadn’t picked up any books on the subject when she had stolen the boy. For the past 30 years she’s made it for herself everyday so it probably doesn’t taste bad, it’s food and it does the job of lunch. This was uncharted territory for her. But it was hard to be particularly upset about it around the little ray of sunshine she now protected.
Experiments on the exact parameters and limits of Gerry's new… ability are high on Gertrude's list of priorities. When she had been planning it out by herself, it seemed perfectly logical and grounded, but now, standing on opposite ends of the hallway, squeezed up against the wall, as far away from her grandchild as she could be, really trying to be upset, felt like a lot less serious of a business than she had initially thought it would be. She didn’t have easy access to a large field or open space, but clearly this amount of distance was not enough to mitigate the effect.
Gerry was sitting on top of a large stack of books, his legs dangling off the edge. His oversized, practically falling apart, combat boots, covered in dirt, grass, and little splatters of paint, were swinging freely.
He had seen those boots at the thrift when they first arrived in town a few weeks ago. They were clearly too big for him but the pure joy that lit up his face when he saw them on the rack was… difficult to counter with logic. But impressively, Gertrude had been initially successful in redirecting his energy to a more sensible, better fitting, pair of loafers. She really couldn’t blame any alchemical effect when she went back the next day, by herself, and purchased them for him. She had told herself when she knew that the active danger they were in declined, or at least plateaued, she would order a new, pair of similar boots that would be more suited to him, but for now, this would do.
The hallway is littered with tomes and encyclopedias, as well as boxes of markers and loose children’s doodles scattered about. A few of the stacks of books were organized, but for most of them, the common factor was that they had to be off of a surface so Gertrude could work, or out of sight of guests. Before, Gertrude would have been content to do the dramatic sweeping of everything off of a desk to spread out a map, like in the movies, but Gerry had a system for where he put his things that she had yet to decipher, and the risk of broken glass on the floor from a forgotten orange juice glass was a little too high for her liking.
Hopping down from his spot when Gertrude sighed and let out a small chuckle (a signal the experiment is probably not success), Gerry crushed the corner of an unopened shoe box from an expensive children’s brand that had arrived over a week ago and quickly became a part of the scenery with his preferred and mended (with insoles, brightly colored embroidery thread, band aids, and staples) shoe as he made his descent.
“No luck, Gee Gee?” Gerry asked, tilting his head.
“Not this time.” Gertrude responded as she scribbled down a record of this attempt in her logbook (Her plans for grandmother as her title were quickly proven futile, and she had succumbed to her fate as 'Gee Gee'.)
Picking at the sleeves of his jacket and averting his gaze from his Gee Gee, Gerry said nothing.
This silence was somewhat uncharacteristic and broke Gertrude's focus. The look of disappointment and, -is that guilt? That looked like guilt- she saw on her ward’s face was the priority now. She wasn’t having any of that. Her records could wait.
Closing the distance, and lowering herself onto her knees (*pop* ow that’s not ideal), Gertrude, now at eye level (or a little below), put a hand on his shoulder,
“But, we must think like the academics we are. At this point in our research, any data is valuable. Now we know where to go from here for our next step. An experiment being what a layperson would call a ‘failure,’ to us only means there is one less combination of factors we have to test before we achieve the goal. process of elimination.” Gertrude mentally sidestepped the fact that this was absolutely untrue and her last job for three decades was to dispose of failed experiments as she looked at the one success, the one good thing to come out of those years.
A pair of arms wrapped around her neck as a small body landed on her lap, sobbing. Between sobs, Gerry’s muffled voice could be heard from where his face was buried in her cardigan.
“Are you-” hiccup “-are you mad at me that it didn't work? Am I in trouble?”
“What? Don’t be preposterous my boy, I just said it was good data!” She rested her hand on his head and positioned herself more comfortably on the floor. This wasn’t where she thought this conversation was going to go but he hadn’t really cried while with her, except when they were leaving Manchester and he realized he hadn’t gotten to say goodbye to anyone, so despite how difficult it was to stay in the difficult moment with him, she wasn’t going anywhere.
Her grandson's wide and reddened eyes looked up at her as he sniffled.
“But- how do you know you're not mad? What if you're just saying that because you have to, because I'm… different now?”
Silence,
For just a moment, as they sat in the dusty old house.
One pair of eyes searching for even a hint of contempt or condemnation that their owner was certain must be lurking in his protector's mind at his failure,
The other set, studying the face of the child in her care, the only scorn in her mind directed inwardly, regarding how she had never properly considered what sort of background her grandson come from. Institute papers made it rather clear he would not be missed or searched for. Gerry hadn’t volunteered that information and Gertrude had had a lot on her plate at the time and hadn’t dug about it, and she wouldn’t dig now. But she wouldn’t let him live with that uncertainty, not under her roof.
The undertones of her smile shifted from concern and sadness to set determination.
“Gerry, help me up and grab two lunches from the fridge.”
This wasn’t the approach her parenting books would recommend, but scientists were dead wrong about alchemy being fake, maybe these experts were wrong too. They would say this was a tantrum that should probably be punished, but Gertrude still remembered how this specific kind of helplessness felt, and discipline right now wasn’t going to stick in any effective way other than to create fear. Besides, this didn’t seem like willful misbehavior to her.
The radio played quietly; Gerry still occasionally blew his nose as he doodled in his car sketchbook. There were probably closer fields to where they lived than the one Gertrude had chosen, but she trusted this one not to be heavily populated like the beaches would have been, so the 45 minute drive was worth it. She hadn’t been specific on where they were going, just that they were going to alter a few factors and attempt another iteration under an alternative environment and this had been sufficiently science-y sounding for Gerry’s questions to be temporarily warded off until they arrived.
Gertrude hated when people didn’t say what they felt or when the premise of a soap opera was a preventable miscommunication. If saying what you meant was the standard, the world would run a lot smoother in Gertrude's opinion. But of course, it would be hypocritical of her to say that then proceed to withhold or misrepresent her own sentiments with her one meaningful connection in her life.
The doors to the car shut behind them as they got out at a large barley field.
Gertrude walked about 10 paces away and called to mind the thing from her garden. Nothing yet.
Gerry began to pick at his nails and almost make himself smaller where he stood.
Another 10 paces, she pulled the memory of her father.
Still not there.
10 paces more, finding the image of her sister as a young girl, no older than Gerry, she felt her smile drop and her throat tighten with emotion. There it was.
“Gerry.” Turning back to call out to her grandson, she steadied her voice and pushed aside how similar the image of Gerry was to the one she had been remembering “I believe we have found ourselves the limit to your reach. That is, at least, for someone who is familiar with the alchemical and with no physical barriers in the way.”
“So, it's a success?” his voice sounded hopeful.
“Indeed. However, there is one other piece of business to attend to while we are here” his shoulders slumped again as he almost braced for some kind of mental blow.
“I’ve checked quite thoroughly while outside your area of effect, and I have found no part of me that is ‘mad at you’ nor do I think you should be ‘in trouble.’ Even if this had not been a ‘success’ as you say, I believe I still would not have felt as such.
“For as long as you are in my care, you will not be in trouble for things you cannot control, and clear parameters will be laid out for what you can. You will not be caught off guard and punished for a rule I did not communicate to you.”
A cool autumn breeze rustled the stalks around her.
“I don’t know how it was where you were before, and I will not make you tell me. But I can confidently say, while not being under any sort of known paranormal influence, that I care for your wellbeing and that this is how our household will function. I do not want to raise you to feel like you must fear mistakes or blame yourself for things going wrong outside of your control.”
Jonathan Sims wasn’t very skilled at being a kid. At least, that’s how he and his grandmother felt. He couldn’t sit still without a book, he couldn't play pretend ‘right’ (to be fair: the other children wouldn’t follow his rules, and theirs were unclear and changed all the time, so it wasn’t really his fault), and he didn’t like what 11 year olds were apparently supposed to like.
But this was nothing new, he had always been somehow behind and ahead at the same time. Reading too high above his level but not able to write his letters as neat as he should or using too much vocabulary but not talking to peers enough. There was always something unbalanced about him.
Right this moment he was feeling very unbalanced, quite literally. The old bicycle he had found for free at a car boot sale in his wanderings was more than a little ill fitted to him, and it was hard to reach the petals when they were at the bottom of their rotation. But he was determined to make it to the tracks to see the train pass by. His grandmother wouldn’t take him to ride it and instructed him not to take it by himself, but she hadn’t said anything about just going to watch.
Not wanting to be late, his downfall was not caused by him making a quite valiant attempt to look down at his cracked wrist watch. In this, he was successful, seeing it was 10 past 11, he still had 15 minutes to make it. What did cause him to fall however, was the small spider crawling on his arm that he now saw.
In a panic, Jon let go of the handlebars and scrambled to remove the wretched creature. The wheel twisted sharply as he lost control of his transportation and swerved into the grass patch off the sidewalk, landed with a crash and a yelp.
The spider was dead. But, Jon was under the bike now and could see the intricate webs he had missed before in his excitement and rush to see the wonderful locomotive. Quickly pushing himself out from under the bike, he wanted to run as fast as he could back home. But he couldn’t really leave this here outside someone’s house. What if there were more spiders hiding in the gears and another kid would be gotten by them because he left it there?
His hands and forearms where he had caught himself stung and he couldn’t tell if they were wet with grass or if the impact had broken skin. Either way, he was definitely going to be in trouble for the state of his trousers, with one knee torn and scrapped up from where the bike had fallen on him. He was stuck, trapped by indecision.
“Are you alright?! You were going so fast! Did a fly hit you? We get flies on the when we're driving sometimes; I don’t like flies, Gee Gee says that all bugs have a job but I’m not sure about them I think they are just there to bother people and put germs on fruit, which seems like a bad job to me. Maybe they have a secret, better job? Do you need a plaster? I can go get one!” The child standing in front of Jon with his hand outstretched was a stranger to him. But, he didn’t feel as apprehensive as he is normally does to with strangers. He was almost a little startled at the speed at which he accepted the theory that this was probably someone he had met but forgotten. It would be rude to ignore a friend, even if he didn’t remember being friends with this boy.
“Erm, well yes thank you. No, flies are fine, they are important scavengers and we need them to help with recycling dead things, it was a spider.” Taking the other child's hand, Jon pulled himself up. Instead of letting go, the other boy held on and began walking up to his front porch. Jon didn’t really mind.
“Oh I see! So that’s you wouldn’t like spiders, because you know about how cool flies are!” Jon didn't care to correct him, as he had just collected another reason to dislike them. As he swung open the door, an elderly woman’s voice called from somewhere inside,
“Gerry! Wipe your feet!”
Jon looked down at what this ‘Gerry’ was wearing for the first time, a colorful striped shirt, paint stained overalls with the pockets full of trinkets and paper bits, with small pins and buttons littered on it, and large boots, clearly in need of cleaning before going inside.
Gerry however, did not look at his mud caked shoes (there had been a puddle practically calling to him, what else could he do?) and instead looked up at his new friend.
“Oh no! I forgot to say! I’m Gerry, I just moved in a few weeks ago with my Gee Gee, she knows a lot of facts, I think you’ll like her!”
“Jon,” he crossed the threshold and wiped his already pretty clean shoes, not wanting to take any risks of upsetting his host, “this ‘Gee Gee’ person, is that your grandmother?” Releasing Jon's hand and tromping over to the first aid kit on the wall, getting dirt all over the carpet, he stood on tiptoes to pull it down.
“Yup! She takes care of me. I think she is the coolest grandma.” He was very serious about the level of coolness as he rummaged through the box.
“How can you be so sure? Have you checked all of the other grandparents? I don’t believe my grandmother would outrank her but there might be one out there,” Jon questioned. He hadn’t met many other kids who lived with their grandparents and was happy to have this in common but had to make sure Gerry was serious about what he said.
Gerry seemed to heavily contemplate this for a moment before responding.
“Well, someone out there has probably done an actual survey, they’ll do surveys about everything I've heard, but I don't know how to find that. But I've met a lot of people and grandmas are also people, and she’s the coolest I've met in the bigger category of people… So i think it’s reasonable to guess she's also the coolest grandma. But there’s too many for me to check all of them, but I don't think they check everything when they make statistics, there’s too much stuff out there for that. You have a grandma too?”
“Hm, yes I guess that does make sense. Yes, she’s my guardian.”
“Hey! So it’s like we’re matching! Nice! Where is your grandma then? I haven’t seen you around while I’ve been here.”
Jon rearranged his shoelaces to have something to focus on.
“Well, she’s at home. I was going to go see the the train.”
“She lets you go by yourself” Gerry asked with awe in his voice.
“I’m 11! I can go where I want now!” Misinterperting the admiration as disbelief, he dodged the question but still completely lied. He hadn’t explicitly been told he wasn’t allowed to go (because he had not asked) but it certainly wasn’t encouraged. Luckily this falsehood seemed to be enough for Gerry.
“Oh, well I’m only 10 I can’t do that yet. But I can ask Gee Gee to take us!”
“Us?”
“Well yeah,” Gerry responded as if it was the most natural thing in the world, “When you tried to go by yourself that clearly didn't go very well, no offense, and now I want to see the train now too! I want to draw it! Besides I don’t think you can get there in time now just biking.” Jon looked down at his watch, only 3 minutes now. He let out a big sigh for a small human.
“I think I’m done with that contraption. We’ve practically already missed it now,” Jon said, disappointed.
“When’s the next one?” Jon pulled out a crumpled schedule from his pocket. He knew it by heart, but he didn’t want to misinform his new acquaintance on accident.
“Assuming no delays, 1:15”
“Then you can stay for lunch and we’ll go after!” Gerry suddenly remembered his task of patching up his new friend and returned to digging through the disorganized box (he could have sworn they had a plaster with trains on it and he was now determined to find it). Before Jon could protest to this plan (he didn’t want to say no, but it was polite to decline first when someone offers, right? That was what grown ups did) Gerry was already talking again,
“I don’t know about the trains in this town yet, so I don’t know what colors to bring, Gee Gee won’t let me take all of them, I lose them in the car. Will you tell me about them?”
Jon’s eyes lit up with the kind of excitement that simply must be expressed through movement as he plopped down on the floor next to where Gerry had set up his little medic station, and rapidly flapped his hands as he launched into a long winded, in depth, explanation of the intricacies of the Bournemouth railway and tube system.
Gertrude had initially guessed that Gerry had found another stray cat when she had heard his excited voice downstairs. However, when another voice joined in that was distinctly not her grandson (or a cat) she grew suspicious that the crashing noise and Gerry coming back inside had been more connected than she had though.
When she had first quietly descended the stairs and seen the two boys sitting by the open doorway, the unfamiliar child happily going on about something he was clearly passionate about (she walked in on a part about seat material and the evolution of that so it was kind of hard for her to infer the greater subject) and the familial child putting an absolutely excessive number of plasters on the other ones knee and nodding along enthusiastically, she chose not to interrupt. This seemed developmentally appropriate and probably not too risky. Gerry would need to be fed soon, and this other child probably would to. Given the apparent lack of a parental figure supervising the bike rider, Gertrude supposed she would end up being the one to return him to his home. But that could wait, just a little bit.
Gertrude didn’t care for going to the shops. She found herself caught in a dilemma. The best practice for avoiding notice is to move in a mundanely unpredictable manner. Never go to the same place on the same day every week. Don’t become a regular anywhere. The problem was, this was incredibly opposite to Gertrude's nature. Her routines were dependent on consistent access to resources, and in this size of town, those were frequently at the same places as before. It also didn’t help she tended to run out of them at predictable intervals. This town was too small to have reasonably have anonymity and consistency.
This changed when she lined up a home in London that they could move that next year. She wasn’t sure if it was worth it to for such a big change for what could end up just being a minor inconvenience. That is, until one day at the shops.
“Oh! You must be Mrs. Robinson!” Gertrude's shopping was interrupted by a friendly voice in the isle with her
“Yes, this is she.” she responded, not prepared for a conversation.
“I knew I recognized you from somewhere I just couldn’t place it! Sorry, I’m Lucy I live on the same street as the Sims. Jon watched my little one sometimes.” the young woman hiked the small toddler on her hip up as she talked, “He talks about your Gerry all the time and I see you when you drop off or pick them up sometimes!”
“Ah, that’s quite lovely, they are both good children, yes.” Not exactly sure how to respond in this situation Gertrude did her best.
“They are always so cute running around! It’s definitely good for Jon to have a friend his age, I’ll say, keeps him out of a good amount of trouble. I never see his folks pick him up though, is your son in the picture or…?” She looked at the older women expectantly, Gertrude looked back blankly,
“Oh jeez I am so sorry, he could be your daughters, or that could be a sensitive topic, aah come on me, sorry! I’ll let you get back to your shopping I’m so sorry love.” While Gertrude would love nothing more than to leave this interaction as soon as possible, she had to maintain the ‘ I'm just a sweet old lady’ act, and rumors needed to be shot down if she wanted to fly under the radar so she spoke up.
“No it’s quite alright, deary. I never had children, he’s my sister’s. There was a large age gap and she had him later in life so he calls me grandmother instead. She passed on when he was very young, but we make do; he’s a joy to have,” She did technically end up in this spot because of her sister’s passing (although she did not mention it was by her hand) and it seemed like a sad enough story to not be worth spreading around.
But, it was still a story, and what people will find entertaining is unpredictable. Gertrude Robinson needed to be lost in a crowd, part of a machine, once again. Hopefully London would be that for her.
When Gerry and Jon first met, it wasn’t under the best of circumstances, but that wasn’t going to stop Gerry from making the best of it. They were fast friends and became a part of each other’s daily life. The weather was getting cooler school was beginning. Gertrude homeschooled Gerry, much to Jon’s disappointment (mostly that he had to go to school and didn’t get to stay home, school wasn’t a very good environment for him).
The move to London kept getting postponed and Gerry was still in town when the end of the term approached.
Jon was not what anyone would call a relaxed kid. His head was constantly filled to the brim with countless ideas and fears, it was a lot to manage.
Normally he could deal with it relatively well, but he ended up with teachers who were all quite fond of large cumulative exams, which turned Jon’s mental battles up to 11. The only way to mitigate this that Jon had found, was to be with his best, and really only, friend. After his grandmother had been consistently cheerful when Gerry was around, Jon began to pick up on the situation, but that wasn’t really something you could ask someone about in a casual way.
One Sunday afternoon, it was particularly bad. The weather was gloomy, the caffeine he had consumed (bad, it tasted awful, he knows he shouldn’t) was just making him tired and sad instead of helping him focus, and he had to memorize four pages of vocabulary before the morning. When he attempted to sleep (take a break they say, it’ll help they say, sleep helps your brain, they say) it just have him time to spiral but not in silence and slightly cozier. After 45 minutes of tossing and turning, he gave up on trying to figure this out alone.
“Oh, hello Jon.” Gertrude opened the door to see the slightly out of breath, tired looking, damp boy standing outside with a bag of books slung over his shoulder.
“Can I study with Gerry, please?” Jon skipped the pleasantries, he felt bad but he didn’t have the energy to find the polite words.
“Does your grandmother know where you are?” Gertrude didn't mind bypassing polite conversation.
“Uh, no she was asleep when I left.”
Gertrude stepped aside to let him in.
“I’ll call her and let her know. Gerry is working on a project upstairs, I’ll bring tea up later.”
She sighed to herself as he went up the stairs, two at a time, almost fell, but caught himself on the railing and continued his assent.
An hour later, Gertrude brought a tray of chamomile tea and biscuits.
She found Gerry deep in focus, sitting on the floor, cutting and gluing bits of paper, small pieces covering the floor, but he was clearly having a good time. Jon was curled up into a small ball on the couch near him, books clearly abandoned, fast asleep. He clearly needed it and Gerry was quite content with simple proximity to his friend.
Maybe Gertrude could put up with the discomfort or being perceived in Bournemouth for just a little longer.