After forever, I got out of bed and went to the closet where I kept the phone.

After forever, I got out of bed and went to the closet where I kept the phone. I hadn't taken it out since the worst day. It just wasn't possible. A lot of the time I think about those four and a half minutes between when I came home and when Dad called. Stan ouched my face, which he never did. I took the elevator for the last time. I opened the apartment door, put down my ag, and took off my shoes, like everything was wonderful, because I didn't know that in reality everything was actually orrible, because how could I? I petted Buckminster to show him I loved him. I went to the phone to check the messages, nd listened to them one after another. Message one: 8:52A.M. Message two: 9:12 A.M. Message three: 9:31 A.M. Message four: 9:46 A.M. Message five: 10:04 A.M. I thought about calling Mom. I thought about grabbing my walkie-talkie and paging Grandma. I went back to the first message and listened to them all again. I looked at my watch. It was 10:22:21. I thought about running away and never alking to anyone again. I thought about hiding under my bed. I thought about rushing downtown to see if I could omehow rescue him myself. And then the phone rang. I looked at my watch. It was 10:22:27. knew I could never let Mom hear the messages, because protecting her is one of my most important raisons d'êetre, so what I did was I took Dad's emergency money from on top of his dresser, and I went to the Radio Shack on Amsterdam. It was on a TV there that I saw that the first building had fallen. I bought the exact same phone and ran home and recorded our greeting from the first phone onto it. I wrapped up the old phone in the scarf that Grandma was never able to finish because of my privacy, and I put that in a grocery bag, and I put that in a box, and I put that in another box, and I put that nder a bunch of stuff in my closet, like my jewelry workbench and albums of foreign currencies. That night when I decided that finding the lock was my ultimate raison d'etre--the raison that was the master over all other raisons--I really needed to hear him. I was extremely careful not to make any noise as I took the phone out of all of its protections. Even though the volume as way down, so Dad's voice wouldn't wake Mom, he still filled the room, like how a light fills a room even when it's im. essage two. 9:12 A.M. It's me again. Are you there? Hello? Sorry if. It's getting a bit. Smoky. I was hoping you would. Be. Home. I don't know if you've heard about what's happened. But. I. Just wanted you to know that I'm OK. Everything. Is. Fine. When you get this, give Grandma a call. Let her know that I'm OK. I'll call again in a few minutes. Hopefully the firemen will be. Up here by then. I'll call. I wrapped the phone back up in the unfinished scarf, and put that back in the bag, and put that back in the box, and that n the other box, and all of that in the closet under lots of junk. stared at the fake stars forever. invented. gave myself a bruise. invented. got out of bed, went over to the window, and picked up the walkie-talkie. "Grandma? Grandma, do you read me? Grandma? Grandma?" "Oskar?" "I'm OK. Over." "It's late. What's happened? Over." "Did I wake you up? Over." "No. ver." "What were you doing? Over." "I was talking to the renter. Over." "He's still awake? Over." Mom told me not to ask questions about the renter, but a lot of the time I couldn't help it. "Yeah," Grandma said, "but he just left. He had to go run some errands. Over." "But it's 4:12 A.M.? Over." The renter had been living with Grandma since Dad died, and even though I was at her apartment basically every day, I still hadn't met him. He was constantly running errands, or taking a nap, or in the shower, even when I didn't hear any water. Mom told me, "It probably gets pretty lonely to be Grandma, don't you think?" I told her, "It probably gets pretty lonely to be anyone." "But she doesn't have a mom, or friends like Daniel and Jake, or even a Buckminster." "That's true." "Maybe she needs an imaginary friend." "But I'm real," I said. "Yes, and she loves spending time with you. But you have school to go to, and friends to hang out with, and Hamlet rehearsals, and hobby shops--" "Please don't call them hobby shops." "I just mean you can't be around all the time. And maybe she wants a friend her own age." "How do you know her imaginary friend is old?" "I guess I don't." She said, "There's nothing wrong with someone needing a friend." "Are you actually talking about Ron now?" "No. I'm talking about Grandma." "Except actually you're talking about Ron." "No, Oskar. I'm not. And I don't appreciate that tone." "I wasn't using a tone." "You were using your accusatory tone." "I don't even know what 'accusatory' means, so how could that be my tone?" "You were trying to make me feel badly for having a friend." "No I wasn't." She put her hand with the ring on it in her hair and said, "You know, I actually was talking about Grandma, Oskar, but it's true, I need riends, too. What's wrong with that?" I shrugged my shoulders. "Don't you think Dad would want me to have friends?" "I wasn't using a tone." Grandma lives in the building across the street. We're on the fifth floor and she's on the third, but you can't really tell the difference. Sometimes she'll write notes for me on her window, which I can see through my binoculars, and once Dad and I spent a whole afternoon trying to design a paper airplane that we could throw from our apartment into hers. Stan stood in the street, collecting all of the failed attempts. I remember one of the notes she wrote right after Dad died was "Don't go away." Grandma leaned her head out the window and put her mouth incredibly close to the walkie-talkie, which made her voice sound fuzzy. "Is everything OK? Over?" "Grandma? Over." "Yes? Over." "Why are matches so short? Over." "What do you