Sunny Days Inside Read online

Alek was horrified. “But she’s in our kin group!”

  The cave mom appeared on the other side of the parking lot, pushing a half-empty cart, her scarf wrapped around her nose and mouth.

  “The shelves were practically bare,” she said when she reached them.

  The cave twins helped transfer the groceries into the basket under the stroller. Alek carried the ball.

  “Did you see a bladder?” Ivan asked.

  “A what?” she asked.

  “A bladder. In the meat department.”

  “We want to make a cave soccer ball,” Alek explained.

  “If there had been a bladder, I would have bought it and cooked it for lunch. I got the last two cans of tuna.”

  The hunter-gatherers gave a grunt-cheer. Yay for tuna!

  On the way home, they kept an eye out for long sticks lying on the ground. They could use them to make spears after lunch.

  5. Use rudimentary language.

  Nobody knows for sure how cave people talked, but it probably wouldn’t have been in full sentences.

  If the cave brothers asked their cave dad a question while he was reading the newspaper, he would grunt. The news about the virus was terrible, but he couldn’t stop reading. By then his hair was longer than they’d ever seen it, as thick as a scouring pad, just like Ivan’s. Alek’s straight hair had grown past his ears, while their cave mom now wore hers in a tangled-looking ponytail that nobody had seen her brush recently. The cave baby was still pretty much bald.

  The cave dad had also stopped shaving, even though he still went to work every day to gather money. He said all the men at work had stopped shaving out of solidarity with everybody who had been laid off and had no reason to shave.

  The cave twins thought there was another reason. Since cave people became Homo sapiens by a long slow process called evolution, there was no reason they couldn’t reverse the process and turn from Homo sapiens back into cave people. This was called devolution and was apparently a much faster process. It was practically happening before their eyes! The cave dad was becoming hairier every day and grunting more and more.

  As well as grunting, cave people gestured to communicate. But they probably used some words. It would have been too frustrating not to be able to say anything. Ivan and Alek were often frustrated by the limitations of grunting, growling and underarm scratching.

  One day when the cave mother was gathering at the grocery store, and after unsuccessfully hunting squirrels, the cave twins got to work writing a cave dictionary. They wrote it in the dirt with a stick because paper and pens didn’t exist in the Stone Age. Hardly anything was left behind from the first Stone Age. Just those Paleolithic tools and some cave paintings.

  They decided to call the language Ooaw-eek because those were two ape sounds they’d heard on the video they watched. Since they were inventing this language, they named themselves after it. Ivan became Ooaw, leaving Eek for Alek.

  ooaw-eek = hello

  eek-ooaw = goodbye

  oo = yes

  aw = no

  googoo = cave baby

  oogoog = good

  moomoo = cave mom

  poopoo doodoo = cave dad (still hilarious!)

  numnum = animal (also food)

  This was as far as they got with their cave dictionary when Moomoo called that it was time for numnum.

  “Aw!” Ooaw and Eek called back, because they weren’t finished inventing words. But Moomoo headed for home pushing the googoo so Ooaw and Eek had to follow.

  On the way back from the grocery store, they met a friend from their apartment building. He was out walking his dog.

  Ooaw and Eek stopped, confused about what to do in this situation. Technically, Louis was not in their kin group and neither was Sweet Pea. Also, Sweet Pea was technically a numnum that Ooaw and Eek should kill with stones and roast on a stick.

  No way could even Ooaw do that! They loved Sweet Pea!

  Clearly, their devolution was not yet complete.

  Louis and Sweet Pea crossed to the other side of the street. They all waved to each other and the cave twins shouted, “Ooaw-eek!” Then, “Eek-ooaw!”

  After numnums, Ooaw and Eek went out on the balcony to knock stones together. They were making spearheads. It was taking forever to sharpen those stones. No wonder the Stone Age lasted so long!

  Moomoo put the googoo down for a nap and came out with her phone to video what they were doing.

  “Moomoo, aw!” they yelled, waving her away.

  Whoever heard of a Palaeolithic video?

  6. Don’t wear clothes.

  It got hot quickly with summer-like weather in the spring. Probably it would cool off again, but for now the cave brothers didn’t need coats, or even sweaters.

  Inside the cave, they left the door to the balcony and all the windows open. Then they closed them again and turned on the air conditioner, which in Ooaw-eek was a “brrbrr.” But the brrbrr wouldn’t work and the brrbrr repairer wasn’t allowed to come because of the virus.

  Cave people wore animal skins around their waists to cover their noonoos. Ooaw and Eek wore underpants while they were in the cave. When they went out to hunt and gather, which they did for hours every day because it was cooler outside (and because Doodoo was working at home now and needed it to be quiet), Moomoo made Ooaw and Eek put on shorts over their underpants.

  Eek’s hair grazed his shoulders now, and Ooaw’s was like a black cloud around his head. Doodoo’s, too. Doodoo sat scratching his beard at his desk, wearing his underpants because of the broken brrbrr. And because of devolution.

  Moomoo was always videoing their Stone Age activities now. They couldn’t stop her. But when she questioned them about what they were doing, they would only grunt or answer in Ooaw-eek.

  Moomoo: Why are you banging the rocks together? Is it music?

  Ooaw and Eek: Aw.

  Moomoo: Aw? What’s that?

  (Eek shakes his head.)

  Moomoo: Ah. Aw is no?

  Eek: Oo.

  Moomoo: Oo is no, or Aw is? I’m confused. And what are you doing with the rocks?

  Ooaw: Numnum! (He grabs a nearby spear shaft and shows her where the spear tip will go when it is finally sharp. He mimes throwing it.)

  Moomoo: Ah! You’re making a spear?

  Ooaw and Eek: Oo.

  •

  Moomoo played the videos for Doodoo.

  “It’s their presentation! They’ve turned it into a performance piece!”

  Doodoo sighed and shook his head.

  In the basement of the cave — actually in the basement of all the caves, which were stacked one on top of the other — there was a storage room. Moomoo went down at night when she was sure she wouldn’t meet somebody from another kin group. She came back with a cardboard box full of art supplies and art books. She showed the brothers pictures of actual cave paintings from the Paleolithic period, of hunters chasing numnums around with spears.

  The next day they rearranged Ooaw and Eek’s cave, pushing the furniture away from one wall. Moomoo spoke to them in the voice she used with the baby, which was also good to explain things to cave people with rudimentary language. Paints were made from crushed-up stones, she told them. Paleolithic meant “early stone age,” and lith meant “stone.”

  Eek pointed to the pile of stones in the corner. “Lith?”

  She nodded. They had a new word for their dictionary!

  Then she ran her thumb over the bristles of the paintbrush and said, “Numnum,” and pointed to her tangled hair. She was speaking Ooaw-eek to them, assuring them that a paintbrush was made of animal hair, which was a proper Stone Age material. What an oogoog moomoo!

  Moomoo put on an old shirt of Doodoo’s. The googoo sat in her googoo chair in her diaper, happily gumming a stone that was too big to choke on. She really liked t
hat stone. It was covered in drool. She watched while the rest of her kin group painted the cave.

  The Stone Age was here! It was now! The deer and bison and woolly mammoth migrated across the wall in Paleolithic colors — ocher and raw umber and burnt sienna — while a nimble kin group of hunters pursued them with spears. Moomoo showed them a picture of another cave where cave artists had placed their hands on the cave wall and painted all around them. Ooaw, Eek and Moomoo painted their hands into the Stone Age scene. Then Moomoo lifted the googoo and placed her tiny hand next to their hand pictures for Eek to trace around.

  Doodoo appeared in the doorway with a plastic bag in either hand, his hair like a million flies swarming his head. He must have been out gathering. They’d been so absorbed in their painting, they hadn’t even realized he’d left.

  “Doodoo?” Eek beckoned for Doodoo to come inside. He placed his own hand on the wall to show him what to do. “Oogoog!”

  Doodoo walked off, shaking his cloud of flies.

  A few minutes later, the cave artists heard a sound coming from elsewhere in the cave — a sound that was both familiar and not.

  Bzzzzzz.

  Actual flies?

  Ooaw and Eek dropped their paintbrushes and hurried in search of the sound.

  They found Doodoo in the bathroom, the door ajar. He was kneeling on the bathmat, his head and shoulders inside the tub like a woolly mammoth drinking at a water hole, a small cardboard box and scattered wrapping paper beside him.

  “Bzzbzz?” Eek asked Ooaw, who shrugged.

  They came closer to see what was in the water hole. Not water. Not flies either. What they saw was Doodoo’s shorn hair piling up.

  Doodoo changed the hand that held the electric clippers and began shearing that side of his head. Then he had a go at his chin. When he pulled himself out of the watering hole again, the cave brothers saw standing before them — a Homo sapiens!

  What a terrible moment that must have been for the cave people! It was terrible for Ooaw and Eek, too.

  “Ivan? Alek?” the Homo sapiens said. “Come here. I’m going to cut your hair.”

  “AAAAAAW!”

  They ran off to get their spears.

  3

  Reo and Juliet

  In kindergarten he was a cuddly little doll who brought his lunch wrapped up like a present. Juliet remembered watching, entranced, as his small fingers untied the knot of the pretty patterned cloth. Inside was a shiny box. When he lifted the lid off, she’d gasped. Everything was tucked into tidy compartments — sandwich triangles, hard-boiled egg, three strawberries, a piece of roasted seaweed wrapped in cellophane.

  Everything so perfect, like him!

  Yet she didn’t speak. She couldn’t. And later, whenever she saw him in the hall of their apartment building, or in the playground, instead of saying hi, her whole head would turn into a big fat strawberry. They went to the same birthday parties, played in the same playground. Often they were in the same class. But she never spoke to him, only thought of him.

  Reo Reo Reo Reo Reo …

  Year by year, the cuddly little doll grew. His legs elongated like an antelope’s and the cuddliness became muscle. If they would have made a mismatched pair in kindergarten — bulky Juliet towering above doll-like Reo — by grade seven they were the same height, though Juliet was still bulkier.

  But then she had to get braces, which gave her a new reason not to open her mouth. Her teeth were in jail, encased in wire, bound together with elastics.

  Anyway, plenty of girls with straight teeth were interested in Reo by then. They lingered after school when the track-and-field team practiced. Sometimes two or three who didn’t even live in their building would show up in the playground, hogging the swings, hoping he’d make an appearance on his balcony.

  Juliet, who lived in 4B, saw them when she came out on her balcony, which was one floor above and to the left of 3D, where Reo lived. Though she could see onto his balcony, see the foldable patio table and chairs and the plants, Reo rarely showed himself.

  Juliet would wave to the girls on the swings if she knew them. They’d wave back out of boredom, then leave.

  •

  Then they stopped coming, these other girls who were prettier and in love with Reo, too. Everybody stayed home.

  One day Juliet was about to step outside when she noticed Reo on his balcony hunched on a patio chair, hood up, hands stuffed angrily in his pockets. She stayed where she was in her doorway, out of his sight, secretly watching. Admiring.

  A few minutes later Reo’s mom came out and said something in Japanese. She was only about as tall as Reo sitting down, but her angry expression would have scared Juliet if she were in his place.

  He answered her in English. “But I’m supposed to be training!”

  She talked some more while Reo ripped leaves off a plant and tossed them over the balcony. His mom scolded him for that, too. Then they both went inside.

  Juliet felt his pain, which was how she knew she truly loved him. Because she hated sports, especially running — jiggling all over and gasping for air, the strawberry head and agonizing side stitches. She liked staying home. Her pops called the three of them homebodies.

  But it had to be hard for Reo, an athlete.

  That night at dinner, Juliet and her parents discussed how to get through the crisis. School was online now, restaurants and nonessential stores all closed. Many people were laid off or working from home. You could go out if you had to go to work, or to buy food or medicine, or walk a pet. Otherwise, everybody was supposed to stay inside.

  “Let’s do more than survive this,” Juliet’s mom said. “Let’s use this time to achieve something.”

  “You’re not talking about losing weight, are you?” Pops asked.

  “No, this isn’t the time for dieting. Too stressful!”

  Juliet and Pops exchanged relieved glances. They were a jiggly family and okay with it.

  “I mean, if there’s something you’ve always wanted to do, now’s the time.” Mom gave both of them a sly smile.

  “Is there something you’ve always wanted to do, Mom?”

  “As a matter of fact, yes. I’ve always wanted to write a novel.”

  Juliet hadn’t known this. Her mom had worked as an education coordinator at the YWCA before all the classes were canceled. She always had a library book on the go, but she had never mentioned wanting to write one.

  “Believe me, I’ve tried to write, but I always give up out of lack of discipline. Or lack of courage.” She stood up from the table. “No more. I’m starting my novel right now.”

  She strode out of the room, leaving Juliet and Pops to do the dishes.

  Pops was a supply teacher, laid off, too. Juliet knew her parents worried about neither of them working and how long their savings would last. She’d heard them talking about it. Maybe writing was Mom’s way of distracting herself. Or maybe she’d write a bestseller.

  Juliet asked Pops, “Do you have something you’ve secretly wanted to do?”

  “I’m pretty content, actually. I’ll see if I can come up with something. What about you?”

  “I wish I could be less shy,” Juliet said.

  Chuckling, Pops handed her another plate to dry. “You decide to become less shy while social distancing?”

  “I could be less shy with one person,” she said.

  •

  No, she couldn’t. She peeked out and saw Reo on his balcony again, probably hiding from his parents. Her head started to swell and redden. Her caged teeth ached. She backed into the apartment.

  But there was something familiar about the way he was leaning over the railing.

  The previous summer her parents had taken her to see Romeo and Juliet at Shakespeare in the Park. They’d sat together on a picnic blanket on the grass in the middle of a modern city, but Juliet
may as well have been in Renaissance Verona. Later, she asked if she’d been named for the Juliet in the play and was disappointed to hear that they’d just liked the name.

  “Don’t get any ideas,” Pops said, meaning she shouldn’t run off and marry a boy she’d only known for twenty-four hours, then drink poison because of him.

  The most famous scene — even more famous than the poison drinking — was the balcony scene where Romeo climbs over the garden wall and stands under Juliet’s balcony and they pledge their love.

  This Juliet had been waiting on her balcony for practically her whole life! What a boring play her life would make! And what would those not-shy girls hanging out on the swings have done in her place? At least they would have said something.

  Juliet pictured her mom striding off to write. She threw back her shoulders and strode out on the balcony.

  “Hi!”

  Reo looked up, squinting at her. So handsome! Her head was already swelling, cheeks burning.

  “I’m Juliet,” she blurted.

  He looked confused. “I know who you are.”

  “You do?”

  “Of course.”

  “You’ve never talked to me before.”

  “You’ve never talked to me.”

  Good point. Juliet mentally groped around for something not-pathetic to say next. “How’s it going?”

  “Terrible,” he said.

  Juliet was doing great! This was possibly the best day of her whole life! She couldn’t tell him that, of course.

  Instead she asked, “What’s wrong?”

  “What’s wrong? I’m in the Junior Development Program. And I’m thirteen, which is the optimal trainability window for my age group. I’m supposed to run the 5,000 meters at the track championships in June, which is less than two months away. I’ve got to run thirty miles a week to be ready for it. And my mom won’t let me leave the apartment!”

  He tore a leaf off a plant and threw it over the railing. “That’s what’s wrong.”

  “But we’re supposed to stay in,” Juliet said.

  “You can go out if you have a good reason, which I do.”

  Reo’s mom was right, Juliet thought, but she was desperate to say something encouraging. “Could you get a treadmill?”