Finding the Worm (2 page)

“So why did you pull us out of class?” Shlomo asked.

Miss Medina nodded. “That’s a fair point. I didn’t intend to frighten you, and I’m
so
sorry if I did. I just wanted to let you know that I’m here for you. It’s natural that you’d be worried about Quentin. We worry about the people we love. We worry so much, in fact, that worrying can sometimes get in the way of the work we’re supposed to be doing. It can become a distraction. Does that make sense to you?”

That was when Lonnie spoke up again. “I think about Quentin all the time.”

“When you do, what do you think about?”

“You know—just stuff. Sad stuff, I guess. But it’s a real distraction. I can hardly think about anything else.”

“That’s normal. It’s very normal. And it’s nothing to be ashamed of.”

Lonnie began shaking his head, laying it on thick. “It’s like, ever since he got sick, I’ll be sitting at home, trying to do homework, but no matter how hard I concentrate, I keep thinking about Quentin. I can’t stop myself, and like an hour goes by, and I’ve only done one math problem.”

“How do you feel afterwards?” Miss Medina said.

“I just feel so … distracted.”

“That’s all?”

“I feel like I let myself down,” he said. “Plus, then Mr. Montgomery chews me out the next day in math class.”

Miss Medina nodded, then rolled her chair to her desk
and made a note on a pad of paper. “I’ll have a talk with Mr. Montgomery.”

“I don’t want to get Mr. Montgomery in trouble.”

“You’re not getting him in trouble, Lonnie. I’m just going to talk to him.”

“Thank you, Miss Medina,” Lonnie said.

“What about the rest of you?” As she reached again for her pad and pencil, Shlomo leaned forward and was about to say something, but Lonnie shot him a look, and he clammed up. “So the rest of you are doing all right in your classes?”

“Yes, ma’am,” we mumbled at the same time.

“But you’ll let me know if that changes, right?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“That’s a promise?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Second period was about to end as we left Miss Medina’s office. That meant we had to rush back to our classes and pick up our books before the start of third period. There was no time to talk about what had happened—which was just as well. If I’d looked Lonnie in the eye, neither of us could’ve kept a straight face. I couldn’t believe he’d come up with a get-out-of-jail-free card for math. It was his worst subject, and now he had the guidance counselor telling Mr. Montgomery to go easy on him. Lonnie might
not be the greatest student, but he’s the quickest thinker I know.

It was also a relief to know Quentin was going to be all right. Just the same, it was hard to see why Miss Medina had pulled us out of class like that—Shlomo was right about that much. The more I thought about it, the more pointless it seemed.

Beverly and I, meanwhile, were half walking and half running back to science class. We were near the stairwell at the end of the first floor when she tapped me on the arm and said, “That was
really
scary. Do you believe her?”

“Who? Miss Medina? Why would she lie to us?”

“You think she’d tell us if Quentin was dying?”

“No, but she wouldn’t call us down to her office to lie to us. That would be stupid.”

“So you believe her?”

“You were there, Beverly. You heard the same thing I heard.”

“Why are you being so crabby?”

“I’m not being crabby,” I said. “I just don’t want to talk about it.”

She stopped on a dime and grabbed my arm, which forced me to stop too. Then she took a step back and got a weird smile on her face. She pulled her long brown hair behind her and began to twist it into a knot. “I’ll race you back to science class.”

“What?” I said.

“C’mon, let’s race back to science.”

“What’s the point?”

“The point is to see who’s faster.”

“We both know the answer to that, Beverly.”

“I kept up with you, step for step, on the way down. I was
ahead
of you—”

“That’s because we were running
together
,” I said.

“So you
let me
keep up? Is that what you’re saying?”

“Well, yeah.”

“Then why not race me?”

“I’m
not
racing you,” I said. “It’s a stupid idea.”

“Sixth grade was last year.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You were the fastest kid in sixth grade. You were faster than me last year, and I admit it. But things change, Julian. Different grade. Different school.”

“Yeah, but it’s still you and me.”

“I’ve gotten
a lot
faster since last year. I’m five feet tall now. I’m as tall as you are.”

“I’m not doing it, Beverly.”

“Why not?”

“Because you’re a girl!”

“So you’re afraid of losing to a girl?”

“I’m not afraid of losing. It’s just not a fair race.” I
pushed open the door to the stairwell. “C’mon, the bell’s gonna go off any second.”

As soon as I opened the door, she shot through it and raced up the stairs.

“See you in science class!” she called back to me.

“C’mon, Beverly!”

She was making clucking chicken noises as she disappeared up the first flight.

My sister, Amelia, who’s starting college
next fall, levels with me about most things. Not because we’re
close
or anything. I mean, it’s not like we sit around and have
Brady Bunch
talks. The reason she levels with me, I think, is that she doesn’t like the idea of people kidding themselves. It’s like she’s allergic to it. “Get a grip” is one of her big sayings. What she means is
Get a grip on reality. Don’t pretend the world isn’t the way it is
.

When I told her that Quentin had a tumor, she did this thing where her eyes got real wide, and she brought her hands up to her mouth, but only for a couple of seconds. By the time she brought her hands down, she had that get-a-grip look on her face. “What are his chances?”

“His chances of what?”

“Julian, do you understand what’s happening?”

“Miss Medina said he’s going to be all right.”

“Who’s Miss Medina?”

“She’s the guidance counselor. She spoke to Quentin’s doctors.”

“What if she’s wrong? What if the doctors are wrong?”

“What you really mean is, what if Quentin dies? Right?”

“That’s what I mean,” she said, real calm. “Have you thought about it?”

“Yes,” I said. Which was the truth. I mean, how could you not?

“And?”

“I need you to drive me and Lonnie to Jamaica Hospital tomorrow.”

“What time?”

“One o’clock,” I said.

“I have school, Julian!”

“C’mon, Amelia, you’re a
senior
. I know you cut classes.”

“Don’t
you
have school?”

“Lonnie got us permission to leave early—as long as we get picked up in front of the school.”

“Let me guess,” she said. “He talked to Miss Medina.”

“That’s right.”

She smiled. “Why don’t you get Mom or Dad to do it?”

I just kind of stared her down.

“All right, I can cut out early and drive you there,” she said. “But you’ll have to take the bus home.”

“Thank you,” I said.

The thing of it is, I
didn’t
have a grip on what was happening with Quentin. Not until I got to the hospital. Not until I walked into Quentin’s room and got a look at him. His forehead and skull were wrapped in bandages and gauze, and there was a thick tube coming out of his mouth, and a narrow tube coming out of his right arm, and a medium tube coming out of his left side. I couldn’t see how the side tube was attached, but it ran out from under his hospital blanket to a machine with pumps going up and down. The only good thing you could say about him was that he was awake. The lights were on in his eyes. They sparked up as soon as we walked into the room, and a couple of times he looked like he was trying to say something. But he couldn’t because of the tube in his mouth.

Lonnie and I sat there with him for an hour, just yakking about stuff that was going on on the block, and every so often he’d blink back at us, which told us he was interested. That’s the thing about Quentin. The guy
is
Thirty-Fourth Avenue. I don’t know how to describe it, but he’s the heart of the block. He’s the kind of guy who squirrels don’t run away from, the kind of guy other guys’
moms love to pinch. I mean it. You sit Quentin down in the middle of a mah-jongg game, you might as well drop him into a tank of lobsters.

An hour after we got there, Quentin’s parents came in and said he needed rest, so Lonnie and I left. We headed downstairs and waited for the bus and got seats in the back. For the first couple of minutes, neither of us said a word.

When I couldn’t bear the silence anymore, I said, “He’s going to be all right, right?”

Lonnie exhaled real loud. “You heard Miss Medina.”

“You think she’d tell us the truth?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “If I knew, I’d tell you.”

“Beverly doesn’t think she’d tell us the truth.”

Lonnie grinned. “Well, if that’s what
Beverly
thinks …”

“You think there’s such a thing as heaven?”

That made him laugh. “Where did that come from?”

“I’m just curious,” I said.

“How the hell should I know if there’s a heaven?”

“I didn’t expect you to
know
.…”

“Use your brain, Julian! The only way I’d know would be if I was dead, which I’m not.” He balled up his fist and punched me in the arm. Not hard, just enough to get my attention. “You see? If I was dead, you wouldn’t have felt that. But you did. So I don’t know the answer.”

“I thought you might have an opinion,” I said.

He leaned back. “Well, sure I have an
opinion
.”

“What is it?”

“
If
there’s a heaven, it must be full of old people.”

“Really?”

“Who do you think does most of the dying? So I’m guessing, if there
is
a heaven, it’s most likely like a humongous old-age home, except with wings and harps.”

“What about kids who die?”

“I’m talking about the
majority
,” he said.

I rolled the idea over in my mind. “Maybe there’s a separate heaven for kids.”

“So it would be like a giant sandbox, just floating around up in the clouds?”

“Maybe,” I said.

“That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard,” he said. “Sand is
much
heavier than clouds, so it would fall right through. We’d wake up one morning, and it would be raining sand outside.”

“I’m not saying it
is
that. I’m just saying it could be.”

“Yeah, and the moon could be made of Swiss cheese,” he said. “Except it’s not.”

“The moon is
way
different than heaven,” I said. “We
know
what the moon is like. Neil Armstrong flew a rocket to the moon. The last time I looked, no one’s flying a rocket to heaven.”

“You asked me my opinion. You got my opinion.”

“Thanks a lot,” I said, rolling my eyes.

He nudged me with his elbow. “You’re welcome.”

The bus rumbled and sputtered along Jamaica Avenue, then turned left onto Parsons Boulevard. It was a hard turn, and it sent us careening to the right.

“Do you want to goof on the bus driver?” Lonnie said.

“I don’t know. I’m pretty tired. Plus, it’s cold outside.”

“C’mon, Jules!”

I took a deep breath, then stood up and walked to the front of the bus. “Excuse me, sir, can I have a transfer?”

The driver was a tall skinny guy with a bony face. “Why didn’t you ask for it when you got on?”

“I guess I forgot,” I said.

“Your pal need one too?”

“No, just me.”

He tore off a transfer slip from the roll next to the coin machine and handed it to me. “Here you go.”

“Thanks,” I said. “I want to get off at the next stop.”

“You sure cut it close, kid!”

He pulled the bus to the curb, and I hopped off. As soon as the doors slid shut, a gust of cold wind came up Parsons. It felt like a hard slap in the face. The truth was I didn’t mind goofing on the bus driver. But it was a lot more fun in July than in December.

I stood on the sidewalk and watched the bus pull away from the curb. Down at that end of Queens, Parsons
Boulevard is a real narrow street, with lots of twists and potholes, so I waited a long time—until the bus was out of sight. Then I tore out. The one good thing about the cold weather was that the sidewalks were deserted, so I didn’t have to dodge moms pushing baby strollers or kids playing hopscotch or clusters of old people walking slow.

The first half block, the wind was hitting me so hard in the face that I kept blinking. I could feel tears leaking down my cheeks. But then, without warning, the wind changed direction. It came up behind me, and it pushed hard against the back of my coat, getting up underneath the hem, and for about ten steps I felt like, if I leaned forward another inch and lunged, I might take off. The only thing keeping me on the ground was knowing how hard the sidewalk was, and how much it would hurt if I fell. You know what it felt like? It felt like, if I could just get myself to believe it was possible, I could’ve flown.

Two blocks later, I caught up with the bus. I ran even with it for another block, hanging back so the driver wouldn’t notice me. Then, when the next stop came into sight, I sprinted ahead. I got to the yellow line a good ten seconds before the bus, then put out my hand to signal for it to stop.

The driver recognized me the second he cracked open the doors. I was huffing for air as I handed him the
transfer, and he shot me a dirty look, but he was also kind of smiling.

“Wise guy,” he said, just loud enough for me to hear it.

Lonnie was grinning at me as I stumbled toward the back of the bus, still out of breath. He made room, and I slid back down onto the seat next to him. Then he gave me a quick shove, just playing around. “You look sort of familiar, but I can’t place the face.”