Free The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry: A Novel by Gabrielle Zevin Page A

but she always holds A.J.’s hand. She would not want to be left in a sandwich shop.
    In the afternoon, she draws reviews. An apple means the book’s smell is approved. A block of cheese means the book is ripe. A self-portrait means she likes the pictures. She signs these reports maya and passes them on to A.J. for his approval.
    She likes to write her name.
    maya .
    She knows her last name is Fikry, but she doesn’t know how to write that yet.
    Sometimes, after the customers and the employees have left, she thinks that she and A.J. are the only people in the world. No one else seems as real as he does. Other people are shoes for different seasons, nothing more. A.J. can touch the wallpaper without getting on a chair, can operate the cash register while talking on the phone, can lift heavy boxes of books over his head, uses impossibly long words, knows everything about everything. Who could compare to A. J. Fikry?
    She does not think of her mother almost ever.
    She knows that her mother is dead. And she knows that dead is when you go to sleep and you do not wake up. She feels very sorry for her mother because people who don’t wake up can’t go downstairs to the bookstore in the morning.
    Maya knows that her mother left her in Island Books. But maybe that’s what happens to all children at a certain age. Some children are left in shoe stores. And some children are left in toy stores. And some children are left in sandwich shops. And your whole life is determined by what store you get left in. She does not want to live in the sandwich shop.
    Later, when she is older, she will think about her mother more.
    In the evening, A.J. changes his shoes, then puts her in a stroller. It is getting to be a tight fit, but she likes the ride so she tries not to complain. She likes hearing A.J. breathing. And she likes seeing the world moving by so fast. And sometimes, he sings. And sometimes he tells her stories. He tells her how he had a book called
Tamerlane
once and it was worth as much as all the books in the store combined.
    Tamerlane,
she says, liking the mystery and the music of the syllables.
    “And that is how you got your middle name.”
    At night, A.J. tucks her in bed. She does not like to go to bed even if she is tired. The offer of a story is the best way for A.J. to persuade her to sleep. “Which one?” he says.
    He’s been nagging her to stop choosing
The Monster at the End of This Book,
so she pleases him by saying, “
Caps for Sale
.”
    She has heard the story before, but she can’t make sense of it. It is about a man who sells colorful hats. He takes a nap, and his hats get stolen by monkeys. She hopes this will never happen to A.J.
    Maya is furrowing her brow, clutching A.J.’s arm.
    “What is it?” A.J. asks.
    Why do monkeys want hats?
Maya wonders. Monkeys are animals. Maybe the monkeys, like the bear in the wig who is a mother, represent something else, but what . . . ? She has thoughts but not words.
    “Read,” she says.
    Sometimes A.J. has a woman come to the store to read books aloud to Maya and the other children. The woman gesticulates and mugs, raising and lowering her voice for dramatic effect. Maya wants to tell her to relax. She is used to the way A.J. reads—soft and low. She is used to him.
    A.J. reads, “. . . on the very top, a bunch of red caps.”
    The picture shows a man in many colored caps.
    Maya puts her hand over A.J.’s to stop him from turning the page just yet. She scans her eyes from the picture to the page and back again. All at once, she knows that r-e-d is red, knows it like she knows her name is Maya, like she knows A. J. Fikry is her father, like she knows the best place in the world is Island Books.
    “What is it?” he asks.
    “Red,” she says. She takes his hand and moves it so it is pointing to the word.

A Good Man Is Hard to Find
    1953 / Flannery O’Connor
    Family trip goes awry. It’s Amy’s favorite. (She seems so sweet on the surface, no?) Amy and I do