11: Bobby Hooper

As Brig­it ex­it­ed 72 St. Mark’s Place, she closed her eyes to the bright light of the por­tal that would take her to the next as­sign­ment. When she opened them again, she was stand­ing on a tree lined street with cook­ie-​cut­ter hous­es on ei­ther side. White pick­et fences sur­round­ed a few of them, mark­ing the bound­aries of one lot from the oth­er. Stand­ing in the mid­dle of the street, Brig­it with­drew the sec­ond port­fo­lio from her coat pock­et.

Bob­by Hoop­er, aged five, had passed in the mid-​fifties and his par­ents had left the area short­ly af­ter his pass­ing. His fa­ther had been in the Air Force and, as such, had been re­as­signed to an­oth­er base with­in months of his old­est son’s death. Mrs. Hoop­er, Bob­by’s moth­er, had re­luc­tant­ly fol­lowed her hus­band de­spite the heart­break of los­ing her child. Brig­it read his short sto­ry care­ful­ly, hop­ing to find a sign that would make this task easy.

The fact that it was a child both­ered her. She had nev­er been par­tic­ular­ly good with chil­dren de­spite her ev­ery ef­fort to charm them. That had been Mag­gie’s de­part­ment. Mag­gie had a way with chil­dren that made The Pied Piper look like a char­la­tan. It was part of her suc­cess as an el­emen­tary teach­er. The chil­dren nat­ural­ly loved her. Brig­it had of­ten imag­ined that Mag­gie would one day be the Ma­ma Dee of the neigh­bor­hood.

Brig­it turned and eyed the small square house that had been in­di­cat­ed in Bob­by Hoop­er’s port­fo­lio. It was a small place with faux shut­ters out­lin­ing the win­dows that faced the street. The white pick­et fence that had been put up around the yard was now a fad­ed brown, the white wash hav­ing peeled and erod­ed away with time. The yard was void of any flow­ers and the hedge plant­ed on ei­ther side of the tiny front porch was over­grown from years of ne­glect. It was ob­vi­ous to Brig­it as she opened the gate and be­gan walk­ing up the cracked-​ce­ment walk that there had been many short term res­idents in the small house and none of them had cared enough to keep up ap­pear­ances.

As she en­tered the house, she lis­tened care­ful­ly for the sound of a child play­ing. Si­lence was all she heard as she stood in the front room. Her ears strained for the slight­est sound to in­di­cate the boy’s pres­ence. She was about to dou­ble check the ad­dress in­di­cat­ed in his port­fo­lio when she heard the deep sigh car­ry across the si­lence from the back of the house. Slow­ly, Brig­it be­gan to walk to­ward it’s ori­gin in the kitchen.

He was sit­ting on a chair in the cor­ner of the kitchen. His roly-​poly frame was slumped against the back of the chair as if he had been pun­ished and he was wait­ing for the word that he had served his time. His brown hair had been nice­ly combed to one side as be­fit­ting a lit­tle boy of the time. His shorts and striped t-​shirt were clean and pressed. Bright white socks set off the navy blue of his can­vas sneak­ers as his pudgy legs dan­gled over the edge of the chair. Brig­it no­ticed the look of fear that came in­to his eyes as she emerged from the hall in­to the near emp­ty kitchen. How long he had been sit­ting in this room, she didn’t know. All she could see was his sud­den fear that a stranger was present. She won­dered if it was an emo­tion that he had ex­pressed each time a new fam­ily had come in­to his home.

“Hi Bob­by,” she said gen­tly. She stopped a few feet in front of him, not want­ing to ex­cite his fear any more than she al­ready had. The chub­by lit­tle boy gave no re­ply. “How long have you been sit­ting here?” she asked. Si­lence fol­lowed her ques­tion and she be­gan to be­lieve that get­ting him to talk to her was go­ing to be an act of God.

“You’re mom sent me to bring you to her,” she said.

Brig­it felt the sud­den ridicu­lous­ness of the state­ment as soon as she had fin­ished it. Par­ents had been preach­ing about strangers us­ing that line to snatch chil­dren for decades. Bob­by Hoop­er had ob­vi­ous­ly been a re­cip­ient of that preach­ing. On­ly his eyes showed the wari­ness he was feel­ing as her words sank in on him.

Won­der­ing how she was go­ing to get any kind of re­sponse from the child, Brig­it with­drew her field guide. Hope­ful­ly, the last page would have a sug­ges­tion on how to deal with silent chil­dren. Quick­ly, she flipped to the last page.

My ba­by loved to sing…

Brig­it’s eyes snapped from the words that had ap­peared there to Bob­by Hoop­er’s round face. He was sullen, sit­ting in the chair and star­ing back at her with un­trust­ing eyes. She could on­ly imag­ine his chub­by lit­tle cheeks up­lift­ed in a smile of de­light as he sang. As she looked in­to his dark brown eyes, her mind quick­ly be­gan the search for any child­hood song that had long been hid­den in her mem­ory. She pushed her­self to re­mem­ber the songs her moth­er had taught her when she was a small girl…

“Hey, Bob­by,” she said gen­tly. She slipped the Field Guide back to her pock­et and knelt be­fore the child. “I heard you like to sing. Do you know the song about the Ten Lit­tle In­di­ans?”

The roly-​poly boy’s eyes snapped to meet Brig­it’s in sud­den cu­rios­ity. His fear was be­gin­ning to ebb.

“Do you know the song?” Brig­it pressed, glad to fi­nal­ly have some sign of ‘life’ from the child. “Will you sing it with me? One lit­tle, two lit­tle, three lit­tle In­di­ans…” Brig­it sang soft­ly. She wait­ed to see if he would join. He mere­ly stared at her as if she had sud­den­ly lost her mind. Brig­it re­al­ized he wasn’t go­ing to join in and quick­ly searched for an­oth­er song. “How about The Mul­ber­ry Bush? Do you know that one?”

A move­ment caught her eye and she paused. The boy had wig­gled his fin­gers where they lay on his thigh even though his pudgy hand had bare­ly made any oth­er no­tice­able move­ment. Brig­it smiled and re­turned her at­ten­tion to his face. Slow­ly, she sang the first verse about go­ing around the mul­ber­ry bush as a small light be­gan to dance in his brown eyes. She wait­ed, hop­ing his small mouth would open and he’d sing with her. His si­lence per­sist­ed, though.

“Bob­by, let’s do Lon­don Bridge. You know that one, right?” she praised. “Do you want to sing with me?”

Brig­it stood up and of­fered the child her hands to in­di­cate her will­ing­ness to go through the mo­tions of Lon­don Bridge with the child. She hoped it would do the trick in get­ting him close to her so the door he need­ed to pass through would ap­pear. Once it did, she would open it and urge him through. She was sure there were plen­ty of sing-​along ses­sions on the oth­er side. If not, she would re­mind her­self to speak to John about it when she re­turned to the of­fice. Sure­ly, he could put in a re­quest to have them so Bob­by Hoop­er would be en­ter­tained through out eter­ni­ty.

“C’mon, Bob­by, let’s do the dance,” she urged.

Brig­it be­gan singing again and found her­self try­ing very hard to re­mem­ber words in the right or­der. Fi­nal­ly, the lit­tle boy could no longer con­tain him­self and slid from the chair to join her in the dance. To­geth­er, they held hands and swung their arms as Brig­it watched his face, pleased to see the de­light that had fi­nal­ly erased the sullen ex­pres­sion she had first en­coun­tered. She felt her heart be­com­ing light for the first time in weeks as she fell to the floor with the lit­tle boy when Lon­don Bridge came tum­bling down. She felt her spir­its ris­ing as she be­gan to belt out the words of a song she had nev­er thought she would sing again. Brig­it sud­den­ly un­der­stood the dif­fer­ence be­tween grow­ing up and grow­ing old.

By the sixth time through the song, Brig­it no­ticed the child had be­gun to sing. His voice still be­trayed his sense of wari­ness, but the joy of the song put a small on his face. When the song end­ed, she found her­self ly­ing on the floor be­side Bob­by Hoop­er. His eyes were danc­ing with de­light as he turned his head and looked at her. She felt his silent gaze urg­ing her to get back up and sing it again. In­stead, she sat up and took his chub­by hand in her own.

“Bob­by, it’s time to go away from here. Are you ready?” She looked deep in­to his eyes. A slight pan­ic flashed in his brown eyes as he pro­cessed what she had just said. Hop­ing to re­as­sure him, she con­tin­ued: “Where you’re go­ing, sweet­heart, they sing all kinds of songs all the time. Wouldn’t that be fun? You’d have so many friends to play with. Do you want to go there?”

“Is my mom there?”

It was his first spo­ken words to her. Brig­it felt the depth of his ques­tion on her heart. He had been wait­ing a long time for his par­ents to come back. Of course he would want to see his mom again.

“If she isn’t, she will be soon,” Brig­it replied. “Do you see that door there?” she point­ed at the plain white door to her left.

“That’s the pantry,” Bob­by point­ed out.

“That’s the way to where you need to go. They have so much fun on the oth­er side. Are you ready to go make some new friends?” she asked.

Bob­by sat up and eyed the door sus­pi­cious­ly for a sec­ond while he made up his mind. He looked back to Brig­it to see whether she might be pulling his leg. When he re­al­ized she wasn’t, he nod­ded en­thu­si­as­ti­cal­ly. Still hold­ing the child’s hand, Brig­it stood and walked with him to the pantry door. While the door had been pur­pose­ly built with the house, Brig­it had felt the en­er­gy that was vi­brat­ing be­hind it when she had first tak­en Bob­by Hoop­er’s hand. It was his por­tal, his en­try to the eter­nal sing-​along.

When they were near the door, Brig­it put her ear to the door. Play­ing ‘mon­key-​see-​mon­key-​do’, Bob­by did the same. A broad smile lift­ed his chub­by cheeks as the mu­sic drift­ed through the wood to his ears. The la­dy had been right. Ev­ery­body was singing and hav­ing a good time.

“Can you hear it Bob­by? Can you hear the mu­sic?” She looked down and saw him nod ex­cit­ed­ly. Brig­it pulled away from the door and slow­ly opened it. Bob­by looked up at her. A light of grat­itude was danc­ing in his brown eyes.

“Bob­by Hoop­er,” Brig­it said. “May you find eter­nal peace, lit­tle man.”

Bob­by wast­ed no more time in the kitchen of the house he had last seen his par­ents in. The mu­sic from the room be­hind the pantry door was blar­ing, call­ing him to join in. He flashed a broad grin at the tall la­dy in black and dart­ed through the door. Brig­it closed it gen­tly be­hind him. A smile was burn­ing across her face as she left the small house.

Brig­it re­turned di­rect­ly to the of­fice. John was sort­ing through a pile of port­fo­lios at his desk when she sat down across from him. He was still hunt­ing for can­di­dates, she guessed. He glanced up at her briefly.

“You’re back, fi­nal­ly,” he said. He sound­ed bored or an­noyed, Brig­it was un­sure.

“Sor­ry,” she apol­ogized. “Did you know Lon­don Bridge could be so repet­itive?” she asked, de­cid­ing to ig­nore the tone of his re­mark. John looked up at her and was sur­prised by the smile on her face.

“No, I was un­aware. I was nev­er much of a singer as a child, I’m afraid. How were your as­sign­ments?”

"The first one was in­ter­est­ing,” Brig­it be­gan. She ex­plained the tac­tic of break­ing Matthew-​Matil­da Swen­son from the time loop he was on by let­ting him tell his sto­ry. John lis­tened in­tent­ly, nod­ding his head oc­ca­sion­al­ly to ex­press his ap­proval for what she had done.

“Very good,” he fi­nal­ly said. “How about the sec­ond one? Bob­by Hoop­er?”

“That,” Brig­it sighed, “was a lot of fun.”