Finding the Worm (8 page)

As usual, I slid the paper under the door of Principal Salvatore’s office as soon as I got to school, and as usual, Miss Medina handed it back to me an hour later. Principal Salvatore had written on the back:

I couldn’t stop thinking about Quentin’s
sneakers. It kept nagging at me, the picture of them dangling on that branch, swaying in the breeze, waiting to be noticed. On the one hand, it was a decent tribute to Quentin, but on the other hand, it was also disrespectful to the Quakers. It was both. But the more I thought about it, the more the disrespectful part outweighed the tribute part.

Last night, when I couldn’t stand it anymore, I decided to climb the tree and take them down. I felt pretty skunky about it, knowing how much thought Lonnie had put into the thing, and how much trouble he’d gone through to get them up there. It was like a work of art, in a way. It
was something he had accomplished, and I hated to ruin it. But I figured he’d made his point. He’d shown it off to the rest of the guys on the block, and he’d even taken a Polaroid and brought it to the hospital to show Quentin. There was no need to keep it going.

So I waited until after dinner and told my mom I was headed over to Shlomo’s house to trade baseball cards, but instead I headed up to the Bowne House. Lying to my mom made me feel even skunkier than I already did, but I couldn’t very well tell her the truth.

The Bowne House might not be much to look at during the day, but after dark it’s downright creepy. What I mean is it’s got a cemetery feeling even though no one’s actually buried there. Don’t get me wrong. It’s not like I believe in any of that haunted house stuff. Besides, from what I’ve heard about Quakers, they’d be the most polite ghosts ever—they’d hover around, saying prayers, eating oatmeal, telling you to have a nice day.

I guess what creeps me out about the place is just the fact that it’s so old, the fact that real people were walking in and out the doors, living their Quaker lives, worrying about their Quaker stuff, not having the slightest clue that a kid named Julian Twerski would someday climb that old tree in the backyard and take down a pair of worn-out sneakers. They likely didn’t even know what sneakers were! But I was doing it for
their
sake, for the Quakers, as
much as for Lonnie and Quentin. How could it be that they’d lived and died without knowing what I was doing for them?

As I turned onto Bowne Street, I shook my head to shake loose those thoughts. I wanted to get up the tree, get the sneakers, and get out as fast as I could. But the second I hopped the stone wall and landed on the scraggly grass of the backyard, I had a feeling I wasn’t alone. I squatted down as low as I could get and looked side to side. No one was there. But the feeling of not-aloneness was strong. It sent a shiver across the back of my neck, which came at the exact same time as a cold gust of wind. It gave me second thoughts. I decided to come back another night.

“Help me, Julian!”

It was a girl’s voice, a whisper, but still loud. It was coming from above me.

I looked straight up. “Who’s there?”

“Please, please help me!”

“Where are you?”

“I’m here, Julian!”

That was when I realized the voice was coming from the tree, right around where the sneakers were dangling. I glanced up and saw a shadow clinging to the branch maybe five feet below them.

“It’s
me
, Julian!”

“Beverly?”

“Help me. I’m stuck. I can’t move,” she said.

“What are you doing in the tree?”

“Please!”

“All right, I’m coming.” The lowest branch was just out of reach, so I had to jump straight up to catch hold of it. After I pulled myself up, there were plenty of other branches to grab for balance. Beverly was another twenty-five feet up and ten feet out from the trunk, hanging down like a human hammock, with her arms and legs wrapped around the branch.

“Hurry!”

It wasn’t a hard climb. The branches were close together, and you could pretty much step up from one branch to the next. It didn’t get hairy until the branch below Beverly’s, which was thinner than the lower ones. I could feel it starting to sag as soon as I put my weight on it, so I dropped down and shinnied out until I was right underneath her.

“All right, I’m here,” I said, then tapped her foot.

“Don’t touch me!”

“All right … but what do you want me to do?”

“Race me,” she said.

“What?”

She started to crack up. “My hero!”

“Are you stuck or not?”

“What do
you
think?”

She spun around and sat on the branch, then squirreled out the last five feet, reached up with her left hand, and snatched down Quentin’s sneakers. Then she dropped them. It took a long time for the sneakers to thud onto the ground. It kind of spooked me, how long it took. The sound of them hitting down seemed like it came from about a mile below us. I’d never climbed so high, not even in a neighborhood tree. I doubted Beverly had either. Not to mention she was so far out on her branch that it had drooped down level with mine, even though my branch was lower on the trunk of the tree.

“Want to keep going?” she said.

“Keep going where?”

“To the top.”

“No!”

“C’mon, we’re halfway already.”

“The branches aren’t strong enough, Beverly.”

She stood up, which caused her branch to droop even more. Balancing herself with just her fingertips against the branch above hers, she took a step farther out, and her branch made a noise that sounded like a groan. I was about to tell her to stop, but she stepped off her branch and onto mine, which caused it to droop and groan too. I tightened my grip and pressed my stomach into the bark. It felt cold and damp, but I wasn’t letting go. With how much the branch was drooping, my head was actually
closer to the ground than my feet were. It was a queasy, terrifying feeling.

“You’re going to kill us both!”

“You think so?”

She hopped several times on one foot. Every time she landed, the branch vibrated into my guts.

“Stop it!”

“Say I’m a better climber than you are!”

“What?”

“Admit it,” she said. “I’m a better climber than you are.”

“All right, I admit it,” I said.

“What do you admit?”

“You’re a better climber than I am,” I said.

“And a faster runner.”

“C’mon, Beverly!”

“Just admit it!”

“But it’s not true! I’m not going to admit something that’s not true!”

She began hopping up and down again.

“Stop doing that!”

She stopped and said, “Then admit it. Admit I’m faster than you. Just say the words, all right?”

“Nothing’s going to change if I say it.”

“Then why not say it?”

“I told you,” I said. “It’s not true.
Why is that so hard to understand
?”

“So you’re like George Washington?”

“What does that mean?”

“
You cannot tell a lie
, right?”

“This is a stupid conversation,” I said.

That made her hop up and down again.

“I’m
not
doing it, Beverly!”

She stopped jumping up and down. “You’re really afraid, aren’t you?”

“I’m afraid of getting killed, yes.”

She stepped over me, then stretched and swung from branch to branch until she was back on the ground. It took her less than a minute. She
was
a better climber than I was. She called back up, “So are you stuck, or what?”

“No!”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m fine, Beverly. Just leave me alone.”

“C’mon, Julian. You can do it.”

“I know I can do it! I got up here, didn’t I?”

“I’m not leaving until you’re down.”

“All right, I’m coming down,” I said.

She was making such a big deal out of it that I had to remind myself that I
wasn’t
stuck. Still, I was thinking about falling—which always makes climbing feel harder than it is. You don’t want to let go of the thing you’re holding on to, and you don’t trust the thing you’re reaching
for. It was only after I got to the last few branches that I relaxed again.

Beverly started to laugh as I hung from the bottom branch and dropped to the ground. “You’re the world’s slowest climber.”

“That’s
real
funny.”

“It’s
kind of
funny.”

As we were talking, she walked over to where Quentin’s sneakers had landed. She picked them up and slung them over her shoulder.

“Why do you care about those?” I said.

“It was a stupid thing that Lonnie did.”

“How is that your business?”

“You came for them too!”

“Lonnie’s my friend. I didn’t want him to get in trouble. Or Quentin. I didn’t want either of them to get in trouble.”

“Well, I came for the Quakers,” she said. “You know what? I think you did too.”

I couldn’t think of a good comeback for that. She had me dead to rights. She and I were there for the same reason. There was no use denying it, which meant there was nothing more to say. We were staring at one another, on the lawn behind the Bowne House. It felt weird, like a gunfight in a Western movie, except it also felt different,
since now the two of us had a secret, and we had to trust each other to keep it between us.

“You don’t have to admit I’m faster than you.…”

“C’mon, Beverly!”

“As long as we both know it.”

She turned and walked toward the stone wall, then jumped down to the sidewalk below. I wasn’t going to follow her, but then she stopped and looked back. We were going in the same direction. If I waved her away and waited until she turned the corner, I’d only wind up walking home half a block behind her.

She rolled her eyes when I hopped down to the sidewalk beside her, but I let it go. I’d had enough of the Bowne House and Quakers for one night. Counting the painting, I’d had enough of them period.

As we started to walk, I said, “What are you going to do with the sneakers?”

“I’ll tree them on the block.”

“Lonnie’s going to be mad.…”

“If you’re worried about that, you can tell him I did it.”

“I’m not going to tell him who did it. I’m just saying he’s going to be mad.”

We walked another half block without talking. Then, at last, she said, “Do you think they’re grateful?”

“Who?”

“The Quakers.”

“How can they be grateful? They’re dead.”

“Didn’t you ever hear of the Grateful Dead?”

“That’s the worst joke I’ve ever heard,” I said.

But then the two of us cracked up. Hard. We kept cracking up the entire walk back to Thirty-Fourth Avenue.

It turned out Lonnie’s reaction wasn’t
the one I should’ve been worried about. He noticed Quentin’s sneakers hanging from a tree in front of the Hampshire House, where Quentin lived, a couple of days later. They were real noticeable, swaying back and forth in the breeze. He asked me if I was the one who’d done it, and I told him no—which was the truth, even if it wasn’t the
whole
truth.

The two of us stood there, staring up at them, and Lonnie nodded. He had to admit: whoever had done it had done a good job. They were even higher than he’d treed them behind the Bowne House. Plus, the sneakers were back on the block, right below Quentin’s fifth-floor
window. When Quentin got home from the hospital, he’d be sure to notice them every time he looked outside. It was a good tribute.

Like I said, though, Lonnie wasn’t the one I should’ve been worried about. Rabbi Salzberg was ticked off, and I mean
ticked off
, at how I’d run out of temple the past Saturday. When I showed up for my haftarah lesson on Thursday afternoon, I could almost see puffs of steam leaking out from under the yarmulke on his head.

“You have a problem with your ears, Mr. Twerski—am I correct?”

I sat down in front of his desk and shook my head. “No, Rabbi.”

“Because I’m sure the congregation would take up a collection for a hearing aid.”

“I don’t have a problem with my ears, Rabbi Salzberg.”

“No?”

“I’m sorry I rushed out after services,” I said. “It was a real rude thing to do.”

“There’s no need to apologize, Mr. Twerski. You’re a busy fellow. I’m sure God understands that. He’s busy too. I’m sure he wouldn’t want to keep you from your next appointment.”

That kind of got under my skin, the way he brought God into it. Maybe I had insulted Rabbi Salzberg by running off, but
no way
did I insult God. Plus, if you stop and
think about it, I wouldn’t have insulted
anyone
if I hadn’t gone to temple in the first place. If I’d just slept late and skipped temple, I wouldn’t have wound up standing in front of Rabbi Salzberg, taking his sarcasm.

“Do you really think God cares, Rabbi?”

As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I wanted them back. Not because of what I’d said, but because I knew I’d opened a can of worms.

Rabbi Salzberg arched his shoulders. His eyes got real wide and then, a second later, got real narrow. “The question isn’t whether God cares, Mr. Twerski. The question is whether
you
care.”

“Why should I care if God doesn’t care?”

His eyes narrowed even more, until they were slits. “You’re quite a clever boy.”

“Thank you,” I said.

“But tell me this: When will you become a man?”

“It was
your
idea to push back my bar mitzvah, Rabbi.”

“Mr. Twerski, the bar mitzvah does not make the man.”

Then I blurted out something without thinking about it … which I guess means I must have been thinking about it without realizing it. “If God cares so much, why doesn’t he care about Quentin?”

“Ah.”

“What did Quentin do to deserve a tumor? Why did he get one and I didn’t?”

“You think you deserve a tumor?”

“As much as Quentin does,” I said.