Things There Are Only 1 Of — Alice Pulsinelli
1 . Vanilla, Apparently
At this self-serve soft-serve ice cream place five blocks away from our house, the vanilla machine’s label says “the one and only.” What confused me about it was that vanilla was actually the only flavor that had two machines you could serve yourself ice cream from--not even chocolate had two, just “the one and only” vanilla.
I pointed this out to my mom and she said, “There’s irony for you,” and then got some strawberry ice cream. At the toppings bar all she put on was strawberries, which really bothered me because a) why would you put strawberries on strawberry ice cream; that creates no depth of flavor at all, and b) why would you put fruit on your ice cream when there are a million candies to choose from? When I tried to bring this up, my mom just said that the sweetness of a good strawberry could outlast any candy. This seemed to me to be fairly objectively inaccurate, but I just shrugged and dug into my salted caramel ice cream with M&M’s and Reese’s mini cups.
My brother Johnny’s favorite soft serve flavor is vanilla, but he’s the kind of kid who gets like a tablespoon of ice cream and then absolutely loads on the toppings (candy, not strawberries). My mom doesn’t really approve of this (“If you begged to come get ice cream, the least you could do is actually get ice cream,” I remember her saying). Johnny hasn’t come with us for a while, though, so his ice cream habits might have changed. I really hope not.
My dad says he doesn’t like ice cream, except I know he likes pistachio because he ate it when my mom brought some home for him. Maybe he just doesn’t like coming with us to get it.
2. My Favorite Rooms in My House
In fifth grade, we had to write a list of favorites, and one of them was “favorite room in your house.” I knew right away which 1 mine was, so I wrote it down, but then I erased it and wrote “my bedroom” because that’s what everyone else at my table wrote and I realized that maybe my actual 1 was kind of weird.
My 1 favorite room in my house is my brother Johnny’s room. Sometimes I go in there just to read, or write, or do homework. This really bothers my mom, who asks me, “Why don’t you just go work in your room? It’s much cozier in there.” I don’t really know how to respond to this. How would I possibly explain that my peach walls and quilted bedspread and nice polka-dot lamp that was a birthday gift just don’t feel like home as much as the gray walls and corner drumset of Johnny’s room?
One time I was reading in Johnny’s room really late because my mom forgot to come up and tell me to go to bed, and Johnny got home from wherever he was, and he came up and turned on the light and saw me and yelped and said, “[Expletive] El, you scared me [expletive]less.” I thought about reminding him that that language makes Mom mad, but I decided to just say, “Sorry.”
He sighed and said, “It’s okay,” and then he grabbed something off his desk and left again. I went back to my work until Mom came up and told me to go to bed and asked me again why I don’t just read in my room since it’s much cozier.
3. Blue Dodgeballs in Gym Class
Since I don’t like playing dodgeball in gym class, one day instead of playing I counted how many of each different color of ball there were. It was a challenge since they were being thrown around, so I can’t guarantee any of the totals, but I noticed that there was only 1 blue dodgeball.
Since I don’t like playing dodgeball in gym class, now I play a game instead where I try to get out only by being hit with the blue dodgeball. I don’t really want anyone to know I’m doing this, since it seems a little weird, but sometimes I also pretend that it’s good luck, somehow, to be hit only by the 1 blue dodgeball, like maybe if I get hit by it Johnny will be home before dinner, or maybe he’ll actually be at school tomorrow. It’s never worked, but I read somewhere that the very definition of superstition involves ignoring logic. So I do it again. And again, and again.
4. My Parents’ Favorite Children
I read in the advice column of the newspaper a letter from a mom who liked 1 of her kids better than the other and felt all guilty about it, and I wondered if it was from my mom, but then I figured it wasn’t because a) I’m pretty sure my mom doesn’t have time to write to the advice column, and b) I’m not sure she’s guilty about it.
You can even hear it in the way she says our names: the L’s in Ellie roll off her tongue like silky molasses, but the N’s in Johnny stick in her throat like mud. Cold, sticky, unsweet mud, and I wish I could somehow transfer some of the softness from me to him, but everything seems frozen exactly how it is.
5. Cookie Recipes My Mom Likes
At Christmas, my mom has 1 recipe that her mom cut out of a newspaper back in the 1960’s, and that’s the only 1 we ever make. I wanted to try this one with cream cheese that my friend Myra sent me, but my mom said we have to stick with tradition.
When I was little my mom would tell me that our cookies were Santa’s favorite; our house was his favorite stop on the block; etc. I would always squeal delightedly when I woke up and saw the plate covered in crumbs, and then I would wonder if Johnny ever squealed like that.
Last year my mom forgot to come down and eat the cookies and leave a bunch of crumbs, and she felt really bad but I told her not to worry about it. Johnny wasn’t home anyway so I already knew it wouldn’t feel like Christmas.
6. People Who Understand My Brother Johnny
Sometimes I think/hope that this 1 isn’t true, like when Johnny is actually in the kitchen eating breakfast at 7:30 when he’s supposed to be and my mom actually says some throwaway comment that doesn’t sound critical. But then she’ll have to ruin it by saying something about his attendance, and “make sure you aren’t late to school,” and they’ll be back to silence that sounds like rock grating on metal.
So it’s just me.
7. Movies that Resonated with Me
Mostly I don’t really watch movies, only at sleepovers or whatever with my friends, and then we’re mostly talking and not paying much attention to the screen anyway. But in second grade I remember my mom took me and Johnny to the movies to see Frozen, and this is maybe my most vivid memory of all time, ever: the feeling of Johnny against my right arm and my mom against my left; the way my heart felt like floating little sparkles when Elsa realized the key to thawing the land was love; the way I thought Johnny might be Elsa, and that meant I might be Anna, with enough courage and power to bring him back from his lonely ice castle. Maybe he’d even be able to thaw all the cold he’d left everywhere, maybe even thaw himself. I didn’t really know, just reached out toward that reminder that not all ice is forever.
Before the movie, my mom and Johnny had a big fight because Johnny wanted popcorn and my mom said $8 for a tiny bucket of popcorn was crazy. I remember Johnny didn’t even care that much at first, but when my mom started saying no over and over again he got really worked up until finally he was sort of crying. Then I started crying because I just wanted them to stop and Mom finally bought us a small popcorn to share. Johnny didn’t eat any of it.
After the movie I kept drawing pictures of Johnny as Elsa and me as Anna, just to remind myself that he would always come home, no matter how far away his ice castle was or how far I had to go to find it. I taped one of them to the fridge, but the next day it was gone. I still don’t know who took it down.
8. Colleges That Will Admit Someone Who Has Not Attended a Whole Week of School since the Sixth Grade
Sometimes I worry that this number is actually 0. But then I remind myself that it only has to be 1; surely there is 1 that will take him.
There has to be.
9. Posters on the Wall of Johnny’s Room
It’s a poster of the drummer from this metal band, a guy who Johnny supposedly wants to play like. Sometimes when I’m reading in there, I look up and see him staring down at me and see his spiky earring and hair that is half dyed red and imagine that he actually is Johnny. Except that Johnny hardly ever even plays his drums anymore.
One time I climbed up on the drumset seat and picked up Johnny’s drumsticks and clicked them together and got ready to hit the hi-hat with one of them. But for some reason I just sat there with the stick hovering over it, until finally I carefully replaced the sticks and went back to my book.
10. People My Mom Makes Cookies With
I sometimes wonder if my mom wants Johnny and my dad to help, but it always ends up being just me and her working through the newspaper-clipping recipe from the 1960’s. My mom is really into making the cookies as perfect as possible, so she’s one of those people who weighs the ingredients instead of just measuring them in cups, and she has a nice sifter for the dry ingredients, which it’s my job to operate. Last year I told her that Johnny was really good at cracking eggs (he is; I’ve seen him make an omelet at 3 in the morning), because I was hoping she’d say, “Okay, why don’t we wait for him to make the cookies” (It looks so stupid in writing, but I read somewhere that hope is not always rational; it just clings and clings and looks for reasons to stay alive).
What she actually said: “You are too,” and handed me the eggs.
11. My Brother, Johnny
In my elementary school, by the west door where the first graders walked in, there was a sign on the wall that said Everyone is Unique. It’s not true, though; I know I’m not, because when it comes down to it, I’m just another drop of water ready to merge with everyone else: afraid to stand out, afraid of looking weird, afraid to be just 1.
Johnny is oil; he can never splash into that ocean; he just can’t. He’s the 1 person I know who’s just 1, and that’s why I know, all deep in my heart behind the irrational hope and blue dodgeball games, that he will never really come home.
His favorite soft serve flavor is vanilla.
He wants to be a drummer.
He is like Elsa from Frozen.
I don’t even know if those things are true anymore.
Alice Pulsinelli is a high school junior from Lawrence, KS (home of the best college basketball program in the country). Since self-publishing a 36000+ word novel in sixth grade at the recommendation of her English teacher, her love for writing has expanded, with her favorite form being short fiction. She has participated in a variety of writing electives at school, including Creative Writing, Independent Study on Writing, and Journalism, where she is the copy department editor.