“And then she said WHAT?” he practically shouted.
“Shhh,” I whispered. “It’s embarrassing!”
“But she really called you retar —”
“Yes, Tad, my mother called me ‘retarded.’ Are you happy now?”
“In those exact words?”
“Pretty much.”
“Tell me the whole thing from the beginning.”
“Well, I already told you everything that happened when I got home. And then my father came in the front door, so I went up to my room. I listened from my closet, and they had this big argument.”
“And your mom was just all, like, ‘Honey, the boy’s a retard’?”
“Kind of. My mom told him about the test, and the letter, and he said, ‘Jeffrey will pass that exam.’ So she said, ‘I don’t know. Something like a quarter of my students failed their math statewides last year.’ Then my dad goes, ‘I’m telling you, Jeffrey isn’t a quarter of your students. He’s Jeffrey Alper, and he is NOT going to get held back in eighth grade.’”
“So she thought you might fail. That’s not the same as —”
“Would you let me finish? Then my mom goes, ‘No matter how hard you try, you can’t just wish Jeffrey into passing this thing.’ So my dad said something I didn’t quite hear, and then my mom kind of shouted, ‘No, YOU listen! I’m going right up to that school tomorrow, and I’m going to tell them to appeal this all the way to the state. In his three years there, Jeffrey has never failed ANYTHING. So how can they hold him back on the basis of one day of testing? It’s not right.’ So my father goes, ‘You can’t do that. Jeffrey has to stand on his own two feet in this world. If he can’t pass the test, then maybe he doesn’t belong in high school.’ I could hear my mom pacing the floor, smacking her hands together, and then she said, ‘Honey, I know you’ve never believed in Jeffrey’s disability —’ and he said, ‘That’s not the point. Disability or not, he still needs to —’ and she said, ‘It IS the point! They can’t use this test to ruin my child’s future. For God’s sake, he has brain damage! The counselor said the only students who would be exempt from this new rule are the developmentally disabled kids, but I don’t see what the difference is. How can they hold a child responsible for having a brain injury?’”
“Whoa, Jeff. Then what happened?”
“I don’t know. The phone rang, and it was Steven. So my parents pretended nothing was wrong, and by the time they got done talking with him it was dinnertime. I didn’t say anything to either of them the whole meal, and neither of them was talking too much, either. Then, as soon as I could, I went for a long bike ride.”
“Dude, it was, like, twelve degrees out last night.”
“Well, I’d rather freeze to death than sit in my house and listen to my parents talking about how stupid I am. Plus, it was thirty-eight. And I wore a hat. And anyway, my grounding starts today, so I figured it was my last chance to ride for a while.”
“Big difference. Anyway, your mom didn’t say you were a retarded kid. She just said your situation wasn’t that different from theirs.”
“OK, that’s fine, then. Tad, you’re not the ugliest kid in the world. You just look like him.”
“Ha-ha. Don’t be bitter, Jeff. That’s my job.”
Just then, Lindsey came over and sat down next to me. “Hi, Tad!” she said. “Hi, Jeff! Hey, I’m not interrupting anything, am I?”
“Uh, no,” I said. “We were just … I mean, Tad was … uh, nope.”
“So what were you guys talking about?”
“Well,” I said, “it’s very complicated. We were discussing … umm … hats. You know, hats. Like, the head kind.”
“There’s another kind?” Lindsey asked.
“Hey, Jeff?” Tad said. “If your mom needs any evidence to prove that you’re retarded, let me know. I’d be glad to record you talking to Lindsey. I’m pretty sure that would do the trick.”
In English that day, we started a new unit on drama and “the world of the theatre.” I know that in America, it’s spelled “theater,” but somehow you could just hear the “-re” at the end of the word when Miss Palma said it. Miss Palma got so excited telling us about the first play we were going to read that I thought she might pass out right in the middle of our warm-up activity. She said it was her favorite literary work of all time. Then she put the back of her hand against her brow and said, “Oh, I’m sorry, Mister Shakespeare!” She went on to tell us that this play, Cyrano de Bergerac, was about a French knight dude with a huge nose who falls in love with an impossible-to-get beautiful girl named Roxanne. Of course, Roxanne’s in love with a really good-looking dumb guy named Christian, because let’s face it, why would she be into the guy with the schnoz? Well, when he’s not busy being a hero, Cyrano is also a famous poet. So he makes a deal that he will pretend to be Christian and write a bunch of love letters to Roxanne.
I know you’ll be shocked to hear that it all ends badly.
Anyway, all the other guys in the class were complaining that we had to read a love story, but a lot of them calmed down when Miss Palma told them the play had a sword duel and a war in it, with cannons and everything. Plus, she promised that at least one character would die a painful, violent death, which sounded promising.
At our tutoring session that night (of course, my parents said I could still slave away over math even while I was grounded from everything else in the world), Tad was all worked up about Cyrano. “Jeff,” he said, “did you hear what she said about how the ugly guy gets the girl by pretending to be the stud-master? I can totally do that. I’ll just get a girlfriend online!”
“And what good would that do you, exactly?”
“I don’t know, maybe she’d fall so madly in love with my personality that she wouldn’t get all freaked out later on when we met in person and I was all gimped out.”
“Uh, Tad, I don’t mean to be all, like, ego-deflating, but A. I’m not sure your personality is a massive tourist attraction, and B. It’s not like you’re having some genius news flash. Everybody lies online. It’s expected. In fact, if I were a girl in some chat room and you told me you were some kind of chick-magnet, I’d automatically think the opposite of what you said. Like, you’d go, ‘I’m a six-foot-tall football player with stormy blue eyes,’ and she’d go, ‘Aha, a mousy-brown midget.’ Or you’d tell her, ‘In my spare time, I enjoy helping out poor South American orphans by building them sturdy wooden tree-dwellings,’ and she’d think, ‘Swell, yet another computer geek who’s never left his room, much less the continental United States.’
“And eventually, you’d have to meet in person. So you’d be all nervous about the wheelchair, until she walked in and you found out she was actually a Siamese twin with only half a head or something.”
“You’re probably right,” Tad said. “And she’d go, ‘Tad? I’ve had my eye on you for a long time, but now I’ve got half a mind to just leave you here.’”
I groaned. “Dude, that’s terrible!”
“Well anyway, I still think I could learn a lot from this Cyrano guy. Like, what about the whole beau geste thing?”
“Uh, what are you talking about? What’s a ‘bow zhest’?”
“Didn’t you pay attention during the unit vocab definitions? A beau geste is a beautiful gesture — like throwing your coat down over a puddle so a fair damsel can walk on it and keep her feet dry.”
“OK, so this is important why?”
“Well, haven’t you ever wished that, just once, you could do something completely magnificent?”
“Dude, mostly I just hope I won’t forget to zip my pants in the morning. Or trip and fall down the front steps of the school.”
“Oh, come on, Jeff. Don’t you ever want to do something grand to impress — I don’t know — Lindsey?”
“I guess. Maybe. I don’t know. It’s kind of hard to do anything really impressive when you’re chubby, brain-damaged, and grounded forever. Why?”
“I’m just saying, I think it would be awesome t
o do something larger than life, something people would talk about for a long time.” Tad was staring out the window of my family room into space, and I shuddered to think of what insane stunts he could come up with if I didn’t get him off the subject.
“Whatever, Tad. You know what would be a really beau thing for us to do right now? We could study mathematics, the beautiful and fascinating science of numbers.”
So we got to work. But I should have realized that once Tad gets an idea in his head, he’s on it like a pit bull with a bad case of lockjaw.
Between then and Christmas vacation, school was crazy. Tad was staying on the exercise bike a little longer each day, and I was pumping iron and doing word problems. Meanwhile, the classwork was piling on. Every teacher made some huge project due the last week, even though half the kids were missing tons of class time because of holiday concert practice. We also took a gigantic pretest for the statewides, which came as a surprise. The teachers all said not to worry too much, that they had purposely given us no advance warning because they wanted to see what we really knew without a whole flurry of test preparation.
Yeah, I never find it stressful when I suddenly have to drop everything and spend twelve hours taking a surprise exam.
As soon as I saw the actual cartons of booklets being wheeled into my homeroom, I realized, Oh, those are the boxes from Dr. Galley’s office. And then I thought, Hey! She totally knew this was coming, and THAT is why she checked in with my parents. But none of them told me.
So you can imagine my mood by the time I was finishing the math portion, which took most of the second day. Then we had some nutty rearranged schedule that sent me to English class. Because I get extra time on tests to help make up for my “educational challenges,” I walked in late. An extremely popular preppy girl was just reading the class the last sentence of her journal entry.
The assignment on the board was: Cyrano de Bergerac faces tremendous challenges and pressures but refuses to compromise. Write about a time when you had to face a challenge head-on.
Apparently, the popular girl’s answer to this question hadn’t sat well with Tad. A few minutes later, Miss Palma called on him, and he started reading:
“Hi, everybody. Thank you for listening to my journal about challenges. I have faced some terrible ones, but I have always, like, totally come through. I am really exceptionally awesome.
“Like this one time, my friend Muffy was planning a big sleepover party on a Friday night, but she wasn’t going to invite my other friend, Madison. Naturally, this put me in a bad place. I thought and thought about what to do. I mean, Muffy throws really amazing parties, so I didn’t want to miss it. But on the other hand, I knew that if Madison found out I had gone, I would be so dead the next time I saw her. So what I did was, I pretended I had leprosy for the weekend, but then it got better. On the Friday night, my mom and I went shopping in this mall an hour away instead!
“On Monday, everybody felt so sorry for me being a temporary leper and all. Plus, I got this amazing Kate Spade purse.
“And another time, I was supposed to have swimming in gym, but it was the day of a dance, and I had gotten my hair all done already. I was all, What am I going to do? Chlorine is, like, the kryptonite of hair. But being unprepared for gym is, like, the kryptonite of my grade point average. There was only one thing to do: I went up to Mr. McGrath and told him I couldn’t go in the water because I was having my —”
“That’s ENOUGH, Mr. Ibsen!” Miss Palma roared. Wow, I hadn’t even known she could roar. From the look on Tad’s face, neither had he. “Look, Tad, I know you’ve faced some, um, unusually challenging situations, but that doesn’t give you the right to mock other people’s journal entries. Just because you have suffered doesn’t mean that your fellow students haven’t. This room is supposed to be a safe place for sharing thoughts and feelings. But then you go and make a mockery of other students’ pain. Why?”
Tad didn’t say anything. Which was kind of a first.
Miss Palma continued. “Never mind. Tad, from this point on, you are not allowed to share anything you’ve written until you show it to me first. And I will allow you to read your words out loud only if they add to the class discussion, if they don’t make fun of anybody else, AND if they are an honest reflection of your thoughts and feelings.”
Tad nodded. “Fine,” he muttered. Then even more quietly, he mouthed, “Be that way.”
“Oh, and one more thing: Please redo this entry and have it on my desk tomorrow morning, first thing.” She turned her back on Tad, and tried to smile at the rest of the group. But you could still see that her teeth were all clenched up. “All right, now. Does anybody else feel like sharing?”
The whole rest of the class just sat there like they were auditioning for roles in Night of the Eighth-Grade Zombies. Finally, Miss Palma announced that we would have the rest of the period for silent reading and reflection, which she always called “R&R.”
I opened the file on my computer that has all my social studies notes, and tried to study. Tad kept IM’ing me, though. After a day of high-pressure math, and his ugly scene with my favorite teacher, I really wasn’t in the mood. But then an e-mail message popped up and I realized he was sending me his new answer to the journal question:
SO, you want to hear about a challenge? Maybe I should write about the challenge of being a seven-year-old with a brain tumor, although if you don’t mind having your head sawed open, that’s not really so bad. I will admit that the challenge of being a nine-year-old with a recurrent brain tumor is harder, because then the sawing isn’t enough. On the other hand, if you don’t mind projectile vomiting for weeks on end or glowing in the dark a little, then maybe you won’t think chemotherapy or radiation is so tough, either.
Ooh, I know one. How about coming home from the hospital with a giant hole in your skull, and finding that your own parents have replaced you with a cute little healthy baby while you were under the knife? Because, you know, they didn’t think they would lose you, but better safe than sorry.
Not that any of those things can compare with coming back to school for sixth grade, after years of being absent all the time, and finding out that everybody is scared to be friends with you.
That’s right, scared. Maybe they’re afraid that what you have is contagious, and if they share their pretzels with you on the bus, a gigantic glistening lump o’ death will start growing into the side of their brain. Or maybe they’re worried that other kids will think they’re freaks if they’re seen hanging out with a kid who can’t even walk right.
Or maybe my mom is right, and their biggest fear is that they will get close to you again, and you’ll go and drop dead. So they’ll have to totally rearrange their lunchroom seating plans again.
Which is such a hassle.
Geez. I had a weird feeling that this wasn’t exactly the tone Miss P. was expecting. On the other hand, he was completely right. When you’re actually in treatment, you’re like the town mascot. Everybody is rooting for you, and helping out with a million fund-raisers for your treatment, and sending you class sets of get-well cards with cute little crayon illustrations for your hospital-room wall. But kids don’t have the greatest attention spans. I mean, come on — people don’t have the greatest attention spans. So they can only sit around worrying about you for so long. Then, gradually, your illness becomes old news, until all you are is an empty seat.
Thinking about it made me feel sorry for Tad, almost. On the other hand, nobody owes you their friendship, either. Even though I knew it wouldn’t help my headache, I IM’ed Tad:
Dangerous_pie:
Yeah, you’re right. But you can earn your way back into the circle.
Tadditude:
Thanks, Yoda. Then a Jedi will I be?
Dangerous_pie:
Oh, stop. You were trying to come up with a grand gesture, right? I’ve got a grand gesture for you: Be nice.
Tadditude:
I’m nice to you.
Dangero
us_pie:
Meh.
Tadditude:
I can be nice, you snapperhead. Watch me. I’ll be so sweet your teeth will hurt.
That’s when the real challenge began. On the way out of the room, Tad apologized to Miss Palma, then turned to shoot me a blazing glare. In the hallway, he held the door for a sixth grader. Going down the wheelchair ramp in front of the building, he got hit in the stomach with a Frisbee. He winced, but instead of getting all hissy like he normally would, he flicked the disk to the nearest player. With a smile.
“Nice one,” I said.
“Bite me,” Tad replied.
That night was supposed to be my last tutoring session before the holiday. When Tad arrived at my house, I almost died of shock. There was a steaming platter of chocolate chip cookies in his lap, and he was struggling to hold on to a container of eggnog while using both hands to roll himself along. My mom grabbed the cookies, and Tad smiled up at her like a Christmas angel.
“You know, Mrs. Alper, I suddenly realized today that I’ve never really thanked you for all the kindness you’ve shown me. And I also want to thank you for raising my best friend.”
Make me puke, I thought. Mom looked rather startled, but she’s pretty smooth socially, so she said, “Why, thank you, Thaddeus. Come on into the house and we’ll get down some mugs for this.” She shouted for my dad to come downstairs, and he got the exact same treatment from Tad. But knowing how phony the whole charade was, I didn’t even want to take the stupid eggnog.
Except I really like eggnog. Tad knows it, too, the rat.
When we finally got around to work, I raised an eyebrow in his direction. “What?” he said. “Can’t a guy be appreciative?”
I snorted.
“No, I’m serious. You inspired me today with your totally rude and unsympathetic remarks. From now on, I am going to be kind to everybody — that’s my beau geste. And if the people around me keep acting like total snapperheads anyway, I am going to harden my heart and be bitter until the day I die. Now, turn your workbook to page twelve. Please.”