Tall Story (20 page)

I’m dead!
he thought.
I’m dead!
If this was death, it stank. Foul toilet smells wafted around him. A pipe must have broken somewhere nearby. The air billowed with concrete dust. When he breathed in, his lungs filled with grit instead of air. But his head seemed to be in some kind of space. He could turn his head right and left. Perhaps he had found his little triangle.

There was a crushing weight on his legs, and his shoulders, chest and ribs hurt. His left hand had gone numb. A sharp pain scythed up his right elbow.
I’m broken
, he thought.
My legs must be broken, my arm is definitely broken and my ribs must be broken too.

And then he realized that nobody knew where he was. The only person he’d ever shown the secret entrance to was me. He had not told anyone where he was going, of course. Nobody was going to find him.

And then a tiny square of light appeared in the total darkness somewhere to the left. There was a beep. It was his cellphone, which had somehow fallen
out of his pocket into the rubble, opening the most recent text message on impact.

DREAMED U CD DUNK.

My text message.

He could see the message by craning his neck. Pain flared hot and sharp up his arm at the movement, but he smiled.

And then he thought,
Bernardo, I think you’ve just saved my life!

He only had to call me back.

Tell me to tell everybody where he was.

So he gritted his teeth and forced himself to move his broken arm towards the phone. The pain slammed into him in waves, and he actually saw stars.
There, I’ve done it. Probably severed my arm.
But when he checked he had only moved his arm a few inches.

It was going to be harder to get rescued than he thought.

In fact, once he got his hand on the phone, his hand was so rigid, he could not possibly dial or send a text message. He could not do anything that involved any kind of dexterity.
The only way I can dial is if the phone had buttons the size of platters
.

Then he remembered. He could press the green
send button. Pressing the green send button should call the last person he had dialled. That last person being Bernardo.

He closed his eyes and gritted his teeth, flexing his shoulder muscles (probably torn) to raise his hand and drop it haphazardly on the phone. Nothing happened. He craned his neck.

Call Bernardo?+63091703333
, the phone wanted to know.

‘Yes!’ he yelled. And then, since yelling didn’t seem to have any effect on it, he dropped his hand on the phone again.

It dialled.

The ringing was thin and distant in the little space. ‘Hello? Hello?’ he shouted.

But the phone was not finished. ‘Pick up, Bernardo.’

There was a click. ‘Hello? Hello?’

He craned his neck.

Call ended.

In a temper, he tried to grab the phone; he wanted to shake it until it begged for mercy, shake it and break it and stamp on it. But his arm would not do it, and the sudden movement launched a wave of pain so intense that he screamed.

He closed his eyes.

Try again.

And again.

And again.

As long as it took to get through.

Or as long as he could still move his arm.

Or as long as his battery held out.

‘T
ry again,’ I begged Mum.

‘The Arena people said the dome was empty at the time of the earthquake. They said it was locked up. They were going to gut it and turn it into a market, you know. The wreckers are coming tomorrow,’ Mum said. ‘How could you be sure Jabby was at the dome? For all you know he was visiting one of his other friends.’

I looked at Mum. She was right. I didn’t even know Jabby. All I knew was that Bernardo had told me he liked to play in the dome, unbeknownst to the contractors, unbeknownst to anybody. It was the logical place to look for him. But we couldn’t organize a rescue operation on the basis of twenty missed calls. Jabby could be anywhere.

‘Could you try the Red Cross again?’

Mum sighed. ‘Look, Andi, they’ve got enough on their plates at the moment. Even if I got through, the
Red Cross are already stretched to breaking point. They weren’t interested. I really don’t want to call them again.’

‘What about the army?’

‘Andi!’ Mum shook her head. ‘There are hundreds of people who need help. The army wouldn’t have the time.’

Poor Jabby.

Bernardo’s phone was totally silent. No more missed calls. Time was ticking away.

That a miracle had happened in San Andres had not escaped the news. The TV was full of heart-warming stories about the only village to survive the earthquake, every report ending with a photo of Jabby in his Mountain Men kit. ‘Sadly the miracle is marred by one casualty. Young Henry Montano is missing and presumed dead.’

It was not just that Jabbar was Bernardo’s best friend. Bernardo felt responsible for San Andres. In a weird way, he himself had believed he could keep the village safe.
I am the blame
. If Jabbar was found safe and sound, surely then Bernardo would be free? He wouldn’t have to spend his life worrying that he was responsible for an entire village’s
well-being. Because the village would have survived without him.

We had to keep trying. For Bernardo’s sake.

‘Mum,’ I said. ‘Call Auntie.’

I
t’s dead
, Jabby thought.
And I am dead too. Goodbye, cruel world.

The mobile phone battery had lasted a long time. Long enough for Jabby to make twenty excruciating attempts to call me. But always the phone disconnected itself.

‘Why? Why?’ he raged at it. ‘What’s wrong with you?’

And then he harangued the phone, only stopping because his sand-blocked lungs could not summon up enough air for another shout. At one point, the pain in his arms and legs became so intense, he could feel himself surrendering, falling into oblivion. He was tired, so tired. It was tempting to slip away, close his eyes, stop feeling, stop the pain. But he forced his eyes open, even though he could see nothing. If he allowed himself to sleep, he was sure he would never wake up.

He tried praying. Tried to pick the appropriate
saint to pray to – the Saint of Lost Causes? The Saint of Calamity? Was there such a thing as a Saint Who Kept Earthquake Victims Alive? But then his mind went blank and he couldn’t remember any saints’ names so he gave up and started praying to the Basketball Hall of Fame.

O Most Loving, Most Gentle Kareem. Save me.

O Most Skilful Larry Bird. Save me.

O Most Powerful Michael Jordan. Save me.

Save me, please.

And then he prayed to God and made the sort of pledges a boy thought worthy of a second chance – that he would take out the garbage for his mother every night, that he would eat the bitter melon in the stew instead of leaving it on the side of his plate, that he would do better in sciences so that he would grow up to become a rich and famous doctor and look after his parents when they were old.

And then he wept.

And when he finished weeping, there was nothing to do but pray again.

That the pain would stop.

That the darkness would lift.

That the phone battery would come back to life.

And then the cellphone lit up again and he
thought, My prayer worked! A miracle! But it did not ring or beep.

In fact, it wasn’t the phone at all. He realized the light was coming from a chink in the distance. And the chink became larger and larger and then a shadow appeared.

‘Henry?’ a voice called. ‘Henry, are you there?’

And Jabby spat some rubble from his mouth and replied in a voice that almost sounded like his own, ‘Please, it’s not Henry any more. It’s Jabbar. Short for Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.’

W
e had to return the trophy.

The Colts sniffed around and it was not hard for them to find out that Rocky’s Secret Weapon was in fact a girl. Their school wrote a stiff letter to Saint Sim’s.

The Souls (and I) did five days of detention.

But it didn’t matter.

We won the game, didn’t we? The fact that I was a girl was a technicality. The team knew it. The whole of Saint Sim’s knew it. The entire league knew it. The Colts never lived it down.

None of us ratted on Mrs Green: nobody ever needed to know that she took me to her office and helped me pass myself off as a boy.

It wouldn’t have done to rat on our new coach.

Turns out Mrs Green was a fully qualified basketball coach. She signed on as Saint Sim’s Basketball Coordinator and immediately set up a girls’ team. I play point guard, of course.

Bernardo was fine.

All the time, I had thought it was the pituitary tumour. I Googled it once and read a few horror stories, people growing big heads, big hands or big feet because of a tumour in their pituitary gland. And people who grew to seven, eight, nine foot but died before they were old.

But afterwards Mum explained that the operation had not been for a tumour. It had been something else.

‘It was an aneurysm, a weak blood vessel in his brain that was about to burst,’ Mum said, glancing at Dad, who smiled encouragingly. ‘The doctors operated just in time. He’s going to be fine.’

‘But what about the tumour?’

Mum was silent for a heartbeat.

‘Well, they scanned him again, took more blood tests to check his hormone levels.’

‘And?’ Why was she being so blank? I steeled myself for some bad news.

‘It’s dead.’

‘Dead?’

‘It’s a miracle. The tumour is dead. His blood tests show that it has stopped releasing the growth hormone that makes Bernardo tall. It’s not doing anything any more.’

A miracle. My mouth dropped open.

‘What does it mean?’

‘That’s it. Bernardo isn’t going to grow any taller.’

‘Is he going to grow any shorter?’

‘Of course not. He’ll just be eight foot tall for ever.’

And I was glad.

Because I like Bernardo exactly the way he is.

T
he bad headache didn’t go away for weeks after the operation. But it was no longer the jagged knife turning and turning in my brain. And when it went, it was gone for good.

And the most inescapable fact was that I was alive.

From my hospital bed I could see out of the window to the rooftops below. There were the fields, so green, with the grey rectangle of the asphalt basketball court where I saw Andi play for the first time. Yellow brick houses swept up the brow of a hill. That roof must be Saint Sim’s. Somewhere just beyond was our house. Our home.

And beyond, over oceans and continents, lay my other home.

Mama got me one of those international phone cards and I spent an hour talking to Jabby about the earthquake. He said Timbuktu was selling T-shirts that said
SURVIVOR
across the chest. He was making a killing.

‘Have you got one?’

‘Of course!’ Jabby said. ‘Even your auntie wears the T-shirt. It’s practically the uniform in San Andres!’

I was afraid that the village would blame me for the earthquake but the fact that there were no fatalities was seen as something of a miracle.

According to Jabby, Old Tibo now says that my power reaches across the world and will always keep our village safe.

I don’t know about that.

Some people might think so. Some people say it was a miracle that my tumour died. That it was a miracle that the people of San Andres survived one of the worst earthquakes the world has seen.

I wouldn’t know.

I am just a boy with a mother and a stepfather and a sister.

That’s miracle enough for me.

In memory of Ujang Warlika, the Indonesian giant who only briefly enjoyed his time as a basketball star.

My daughter Mia, who faithfully assures me I am an author when I don’t feel like one; and my sons Nick and Jack, who keep faith with basketball even though they live in the wrong country.

My big little sister Joy Ramos, who told me Ujang’s story.

My niece Camille Ramos, an awesome basketball player, who provided the inspiration for Andi.

To my Huckleberry friend, Mandy Navasero, from whom I’ve borrowed the name Amandolina.

Fe B. Zamora, flat-mate in a previous life, who one late night told me the story of a pretty girl bitten by a rabid dog.

Rachiel de Chavez, whose legal work has helped many families like Bernardo’s over the years – and who tells me the system today is much improved: nurses from other countries are now allowed to bring
their immediate family when they come to the United Kingdom.

The creators of
The More the Manyer
and
Without Further Adieu
for providing a field guide to barok English.

Letty Jimenez-Magsanoc and Eugenia D. Apostol – my writing heroes.

The writers who generously commented on my work in progress: Miriam Halahmy, Helen Peters, Paolo Romeo and Christine Vinall, as well as Malorie Blackman, Melvin Burgess, Kathleen Duey and Fiona Dunbar, for their support.

The kind folks at Caffé Nero in Highgate, who know that I like my Americano black with one shot, and that I like a tall glass of ice cubes with my soft drinks, whatever the season.

Fiona Dunbar for opening the door.

My Philippine publisher, Ramon Sunico, who found me on Facebook, and Frankie Joaquin Drogin, who brought us together.

Hilary Delamere, David Fickling, Bella Pearson and the denizens of DFB and Random House for making my dreams come true.

My mom, Cynthia Lopez Quimpo, who gave me a love of books, and my dad, Orlando Quimpo, who gave me patience.