Jeffy, I’m sure the doctors know what they’re doing. They wouldn’t do the bone-marrow test early unless they thought it would be OK.
But it might not be OK. It might really really not.
Well, buddy, you’re in luck. Check out what I brought you.
And with a flourish, I pulled his favorite Rescue Heroes action figure out of his bag.
Look! It’s Matt Medic. He’s here to protect you.
Matt Medic, I’m scared.
Don’t be frightened, young man.
He always loved it when I pretended to be one of his toys, and Matt Medic was perfect for the occasion. He carries a huge plastic paramedic pack and a giant gunlike thing that we always pretended was some kind of vaccine syringe.
But what if I’m still very sick?
Well, son, just concentrate on my Matt Medic Shot Shooter. It’s full of magic antiblast gas—guaranteed to save your bone marrow. Here we go.
And I used Matt Medic to give Jeffrey a “shot.”
That ought to do it. Just remember, you never have to worry when Matt Medic’s on the job. And one other thing: Don’t kiss the nurses. It gets them in trouble!
My parents came into the room then, and we had the whole obligatory hugs-and-farewells scene. It was fairly touching, all things considered. We said we’d be back together again soon and that everything would be fine, and at that moment, everyone in the family was united toward the common goal of getting Jeffrey well.
The last thing I said to Jeffrey was, I’ll see you in no time, pal. Just remember to listen to Matt Medic, and there will be no trouble! As things would turn out, though, there would be a lot more of both time and trouble before we were all in one room again.
TROUBLE
While I was waiting for the school bus on Monday, I had a horrifying realization: People were going to ask me why my mom had pulled me out of the dance on Friday night. By the time the bus pulled up at my stop, I was convinced that as soon as I got on, all eyes would immediately swing to the front, pinning me in the merciless glare of massed teenage inquisition. Of course, nobody even looked my way. Renee Albert went running onto the bus right before me, and you just don’t get a lot of attention if you’re walking behind Renee Albert. A 7-foot-tall Mickey Mouse could have slipped on in between us, but all anyone would have seen was Renee’s outfit or her new hair or the gigantic charm bracelet Biff had given her when he met her after the dance.
So I was OK. I sat down alone in a seat, with my head kind of tucked down into my sweatshirt. It was a really stupid and pointless defense, like when a turtle tucks into its shell because a locomotive is barreling down on it. In my case, Annette was the locomotive. She came over to me and completely ignored the fact that I was trying to burrow my way through the bottom of my seat and into the luggage compartment.
Hi, Steven. Are you all right? I was worried about you all weekend. Is everything OK at your house? My mom said she saw “Get Well” balloons tied to your mailbox the other day. Or are you in trouble for something? Did your parents find out you skipped out of math last week? If that’s what it is, I’m so sorry. It’s all my fault. I’ll tell them if you want me to. It’s…
Annette! This has nothing to do with you. It’s a family thing, and I’m fine. I’m fine.
So you’re not mad at…
I SAID I’m fine.
OK, I was just asking. You’ve changed lately, though.
I have NOT changed lately.
Yes, you have. You never do your work anymore, you space out all day unless you’re in band, and you yell at me half the time when I try to talk to you.
Oh, yeah? If I’ve changed so much, how come no one else has noticed anything?
Well, I just think…
I’m serious, Annette. Nothing’s wrong. Everything’s perfectly normal. I’m just…tired of school, that’s all. And my mom picked me up because we had to go somewhere. You have to give me credit for that last one—I didn’t lie to her.
All right, Steven. Whatever.
So how was your weekend, Annette? Did you practice a lot? Are you going to be ready for Juilliard?
I thought for sure I could distract her by starting a discussion about the whole piano-genius thing, but it didn’t entirely work. She knew something was up, and even if she couldn’t immediately tie me down and administer truth serum on a yellow bus in the middle of South Main Street, I could see in her eyes that she was wanting to wrestle the info out of me somehow.
Well, the keyboard-themed small talk smoothed over the end of the bus ride, anyhow.
I made it through homeroom without speaking to anybody and was just settling in for a nice period of off-topic journal writing in Miss Palma’s class when the intercom blared, calling me to the office. As I was walking out of class, I could feel two pairs of eyes pinned on me. Miss Palma gave me a sad, sympathetic look, and Annette was studying me like she was Sherlock Holmes and I was a handkerchief at a crime scene.
The school secretaries told me to walk through the front office into the guidance area. Whatever was about to happen to me apparently had a mental-health angle—I had become what my mom refers to as a “student concern.” The counselor waved me right into her cubicle-y office and gestured toward a seat. I had never been there before, but I got the vibe pretty fast—if you’re into pastels and motivational posters, that little cube was definitely the place to be.
Steven, my name is Mrs. Galley. I called you down today because some of your teachers are concerned about you.
Something about this situation got my inner smart-mouthed child going.
I would kinda hope all of my teachers are concerned about me. But if you would kindly tell me which ones aren’t, maybe I could buy them some apples or something?
Steven, I think you know what I mean. You’re here because you have apparently stopped doing work in your major subjects. You’ve never been in any kind of trouble here before, but you’re suddenly in danger of failing everything across the board. Can you talk to me about why that might be?
Well, truthfully, Mrs. Galley, you may have heard about the worldwide pencil shortage. I like to think that by skipping my homework, I’m doing my little bit to conserve.
Then she did something that generally works pretty well on me: She administered the Silent Treatment. She just looked and looked at me. I tried desperately to occupy my attention by looking at other things in the office: the little poster with all the different smiley emotion faces on it, the stuffed-animal Garfield on top of the filing cabinet, the jar of candy hearts on the desk. The candy hearts did it, in a way—they distracted me from Mrs. Galley’s stare, but they also made me really want to eat one of them. After the high-powered battle of wills reached an unbearable peak of tension, I asked for a candy heart.
You want a candy heart, huh?
Yes, Mrs. Galley.
Well, I have a little rule here, Steven. You talk, you eat.
I began to realize, perhaps too late, that I had underestimated this lady. The silence fell over us again. I was not ready to tell anyone about Jeffrey. And after three weeks of keeping this secret in, I was darned well not going to crack over a stupid piece of penny candy.
Just then, the bell rang.
OK, I guess I’ll just be going now. It was nice meeting you. Thanks for nearly giving me some candy.
HOLD ON, Steven. You have gym this period, don’t you?
Yes. Why?
Did you ever wonder what all of your subject teachers do second period, if every single student on your team has gym?
Well, ummm, not really. Do they hang out behind the shop room and smoke unfiltered Camels?
Nope. They all meet with each other. In fact, they’re meeting right now. And you and I are going to head on down there and meet WITH them.
Do we have to?
Yup.
Do we REALLY have to?
Uh-huh.
I started to walk out of her office on the little Walk of Doom she had arranged for me.
; Not so fast, Steven.
I whirled back around.
Want a candy heart?
OK, I wasn’t feeling too proud at the moment. I took a candy heart, and the long walk began.
When we walked in, all of my major-subject teachers were sitting around a huge conference table, drinking coffee, laughing, grading papers. They looked up at me without any surprise on their faces: I had been set up, for sure. Mrs. Galley led me to a seat and sat down next to me. Next, the teachers started in. Here’s what I heard:
Steven, we like you…blah, blah.
And you’ve always been an excellent yada yada.
But suddenly you’re not performing up to your hmrf hmrf hmrf.
Your grade in my class has slipped from a ninety-two to a hurga hurga hurga.
We’re here today so that you can help us understand how to help you with nonny nonny nonny.
Steven? Can you tell us what has been going on?
Steven?
STEE-VEN?
Ummm…there’s nothing going on. I’ve just been busy. You know, with band, and jazz band, and All-City High School Jazz Band. So, uhhh, I just haven’t…haven’t been home much.
At that precise moment, Mr. Watras walked in. What—do these people have psychic powers or something?
Steven, I’m concerned about your grades, too. Your teachers asked me to be here today, because if things don’t improve, you might not be eligible to practice or perform with the All-City group.
I was thinking, “Hey, Mr. W.—where’s all your ’Dude’ and ‘Cat’ lingo? Now all of a sudden, just because we’re in a big meeting, you’re like Mr. Teacher Man?” But I didn’t have too long to concentrate on this particular betrayal, because Mrs. Galley chimed in again.
Steven, nobody wants to punish you, but we need to get to the bottom of this drastic change in your attitude and habits, and we need a commitment from you to do your work. I’ll ask you again, is there anything that we should know?
No, I’m just…it’s just…
And then all of a sudden, I got choked up—which, of course, was becoming a pattern with me. And I started to be honest—which hadn’t been my pattern for a while.
My brother…my brother…
While I paused to cry and my math teacher passed me a box of tissues—do all the kids crack like robins’ eggs when they get hauled in here?—Miss Palma said, Tell them, Steven.
Not “Tell us, Steven,” but “Tell them, Steven.” Which meant she knew.
My brother…has cancer.
Boy, if you ever want to shut up a room full of grown-ups, evidently “My brother has cancer” is the secret command code. They all just looked at me in silence for a good fifteen seconds. Well, not a good fifteen seconds, but you know what I mean. Even as I tried to blow my nose and wipe my eyes on the thin, crappy school tissue without looking too horrendously gross, I was thinking, “Why do these people basically beat the truth out of you if they don’t want to hear it?”
When they did start talking again, their tone was a lot softer and gentler. Mr. Watras said that, of course, under the circumstances, I could stay in All-City—provided that I started to do my work again. Each subject teacher agreed to put together a packet for me to do as makeup work, and they went so far as to give me the Christmas break to get the papers in, because the marking period would be over in January. Mrs. Galley even gave me another candy heart. But there was one more item on my agenda.
Do my parents have to know about this? If I swear I’ll make up all the work on time, can you wait to call them? My mom is with my brother at the hospital, and my dad is really…upset right now. I’ll do every bit of work, I promise. Can I please just have a chance?
Everyone agreed to that, and the meeting was adjourned just as the period ended. I wasn’t ready to walk out into a school hallway yet, so I took my time, using up some more tissues and taking a series of very, very deep breaths. Miss Palma stayed behind with me for a minute.
Steven, if there’s anything else I can do—
You read my journal, didn’t you?
No, I didn’t read your journal. What do you mean?
You knew my brother had—you knew about my brother.
Steven, I assure you, I didn’t read your journal. I never read anything a student doesn’t want me to, ever.
Then how did you know?
Other…people know about your brother’s condition.
Who?
Steven, we’re both going to be late to our third-period classes.
Who? Who knew? Who told you?
A student, Steven. A student came to me because she was extremely worried about you and didn’t know what to do.
Annette. I was going to have to go to the bathroom during math class and have a talk with that girl.
For the next couple of periods plus lunch, I sat around worrying about how much work I was going to have to make up and fuming about how Annette had known my secret all along. And not told me. AND told a teacher!
Then it was math time. I got permission to leave the room with no trouble. Even though I had skipped out after going to the bathroom the week before, no teacher was about to deny me anything on this particular day. Just so I would know I hadn’t been lying completely, I did go to the bathroom on my way to the band room. Even from there, I could hear that Annette was playing something really fast and angry-sounding, which was like a perfect soundtrack for my mood. I followed the sounds and burst into the room so hard that Annette stopped playing and jumped up.
Hi, Steven. Are you OK?
Yes, I’m fine. I’m more than fine—I’m peachy. I love getting led into a teacher meeting and dragged over the coals by half the grown-ups in the school because SOME GIRL ratted me out.
What are you talking about?
Oh, like you don’t know? I’m talking about how you ran and told Miss Palma.
Told her what?
About Jeffrey’s cancer!
Annette stood dead still and looked as though I had slapped her.
Jeffrey has cancer?
Oh, my God. You didn’t…know?
As awkward moments go, this one just took the cake. Annette was clearly stunned by this news. Now I was in the strange position of comforting her about my brother’s deadly illness. I must have said something right, though, because after a few minutes she stopped being so sad about Jeffrey and started being furious at me for not telling her. To make a long story short, she pretty much lectured me for about ten minutes, until I realized I had to get back to math. I knew I had to end this fiasco of a conversation.
Thanks for your sympathy in my time of pain, Annette.
I turned to storm out and heard her shouting after me.
Steven, wait!
But I never stopped walking away. I knew I was being unreasonable, but I had taken a lot of abuse already that day, and I just was not going to make peace with anyone at the moment.
When I was halfway back to my classroom, a weird thought occurred to me: If Annette hadn’t told Miss Palma, then who had?
Of course, when I walked back into math class I got a big look from the teacher, but it wasn’t the withering one I would have gotten the week before. Instead it was the same kind of semi-pitying, semi-trying-to-be-cheerful grimace that all of our home visitors had pasted onto their faces just as they rang our doorbell. I went back to my seat and actually paid attention until the end of the period. On my way out the door, the teacher handed me a huge folder: the worksheets I would need to do as catch-up work. He might have been my fastest-moving teacher, but his approach wasn’t unique. By the end of the next day, I was carting around five of these fun packs in an alarming assortment of pastel and Day-Glo colors.
Anyway, I went to other classes, played some drums, and walked out to the bus. Annette got on after I did but didn’t come over to sit next to me. Instead, yet another bizarre event came crashing into my day—Renee sashayed onto the bus, looked around until she locked eyes with me, and took Annette’s empty seat.
&nbs
p; Hi, Steven.
Uhhh…hi, Renee. Can I…ummm…help you with something?
You might notice what a smooth talker I was. I’d lived around the corner from this girl since we were, like, embryos, but that was the best response I could come up with. Amazing.
Well, I…ummm…my mom ran into your mom at Shop Rite last week and…
Yeah?
I’m sorry about your brother.
My brother?
You know? About his being sick and all? This must be really hard for you.
No, I’m OK. Really. It’s no big deal.
Your mom says Jeffrey’s being really brave about this.
Yeah, well, we’re fine.
You know what, Steven? You’re brave, too.
I am? (I am? I don’t feel brave. I feel like a galloping idiot, stumbling from crisis to crisis, barely able to speak to any normal person, much less Renee Albert.)
You are. I knew something was wrong. I even…
You even what?
I even…I hope you’re not mad.
Then she did this little lip-biting thing she always does, which always makes me think about kissing her for some reason. I looked away for a minute, because being so attracted to Renee made it hard to concentrate on what she was saying. Annette, sitting a few seats up and to the left, was glaring at me. I didn’t have time to ponder that too deeply, though, because Renee spoke again.
I even…I told Miss Palma about Jeffrey.
Holy cow. Renee Albert knew I was alive. But I wished I were dead.
STARVING IN SIBERIA
Time passed. Jeffrey came home. Winter blew into town with full force. Somewhere in there was a very strange Christmas, where Jeffrey got a mound of presents that was nearly taller than our tree. Relatives flew in from every corner of the country, but nobody smiled much. Meanwhile, I did worksheets. Lots and lots of worksheets.
At home, I was worried that my parents would notice the massive amount of work I was cranking out, wonder about it, comment on it. But on the days Mom was in Philly, Dad was still in mute mode, and when Mom was back, she slept and my dad spent time with Jeffrey. I seriously think I could have sat in the middle of the kitchen floor rubbing two sticks together over a pile of dynamite blocks and gasoline cans, and my parents would have been oblivious, as long as I was keeping myself occupied. What nobody was tuning into was that there’s a big difference between keeping myself occupied and actually taking care of myself.