Houdini and Me

by Dan Gutman

  But the train was not slowing down. Nobody was putting on the brakes. Why would they? The engineer probably wasn’t even looking ahead. There was no reason to think anybody would be inside the tunnel.

  The rumble had become a thunderous roar that echoed off the walls as the train got closer. I kept tugging at my shoelace, desperately trying to get it loose. Sweat was pouring down my forehead. I wiped it away with my sleeve.

  “Hurry up!” shouted Zeke.

  I looked up. The train was closer.

  I felt my heart racing. In a few seconds the train would be right on top of me.

  “Forget about the lace!” shouted Zeke. “Just pull your sneaker off!”

  “I can’t!” I shouted back. “The knot is too tight!”

  Zeke crawled over to try to pull my sneaker off. But he couldn’t get it off either.

  “Yank it!”

  “I’m trying!”

  There was no more time. The train was right on top of us. There was nothing we could do.

  “Roll!” Zeke shouted, as he dove out of the way.

  I rolled my whole body over, stretching out so I was as far away from the rail as possible. My shoelace was taut, still attached. If I was going to lose my foot, that was the price I’d pay for my stupidity. I just didn’t want to lose my life.

  The train sounded like a rocket taking off. I couldn’t communicate with Zeke anymore. The noise was too loud. I covered my ears to block it out.

  As the train roared past, it must have sliced through my shoelace, because I fell backward, landing on the rocks next to the tracks and hitting the ground hard.

  And that’s all I remember.

  THE BOX

  I think I was dreaming. It was something about a test at school that I didn’t study for.

  Then I woke up, and I sensed immediately that something was wrong. I felt lousy. I had a headache. My nose and throat were sore. But it was more than that. Something was different. My bed didn’t feel right. My pillow didn’t feel right. I felt sore all over. It was like I had run a marathon or something. But I didn’t remember doing anything different before I went to sleep. I didn’t remember going to Riverside Park with Zeke, or anything about the train tracks. Not then. Not yet.

  Somebody was holding my right hand. That was strange.

  I was hesitant to open my eyes. They didn’t want to open. It was like they had forgotten how to blink. I had to force them open.

  The first thing I heard when I opened my eyes was the sound of my mother screaming.

  “You’re awake!” she shrieked. “He’s awake! Harry’s awake! My baby is awake!”

  The next thing I knew, she was all over me, hugging and kissing me and crying tears of joy.

  “Harry’s back!” she shouted. “Nurse! Nurse!”

  “Can you close the shades?” I mumbled, shielding my eyes.

  Everything seemed so bright. My eyes had been shut for so long, it seemed. They needed to adjust to the light. My voice felt rough. My mother was hollering like she had won the lottery or something.

  I looked around. I was in a hospital room. There were a bunch of machines beeping, like those old-time video games. Tubes were going into my nose, and an IV was in my arm. I had never even spent a night in a hospital before. I wasn’t even born in a hospital. So I didn’t know if all this stuff was normal or not.

  A couple of nurses rushed in, one of them a woman and the other a man. They seemed really happy to see me.

  I looked myself over, searching for clues about what had happened to me. I had all my limbs. There was no blood. No cast. I could move all my fingers. It didn’t seem like I had any broken bones or anything. I couldn’t imagine why I was in the hospital, or why everybody was acting like it was such a big deal. All I did was wake up.

  “Where am I?” I asked. My mother was too emotional to answer.

  “Mount Sinai Hospital,” the male nurse told me. “You’re in the ICU. We’re going to check your vital signs. Then the doctor will come in to look at you.”

  ICU? That’s the Intensive Care Unit. That’s where they put people who need…intensive care, I guess. But I didn’t even know what that meant. I thought everybody in a hospital is supposed to get intensive care. That’s why they’re in a hospital.

  “Why am I here?” I asked.

  “You were in a coma, honey,” said the female nurse. Then she told her partner, “Vital signs look good.”

  A coma? That’s serious stuff. Being in a coma is like being somewhere between sleep and death, but probably closer to death. I don’t know much about it, but I do know that some people who are in a coma never come out of it.

  “How long was I out?” I asked.

  “A week,” my mother said, wiping her eyes with a handful of tissues. “I didn’t think you’d ever wake up.”

  “Your mom was here the whole time,” the female nurse said. “She’s a real hero.”

  A week? No wonder I was sore all over. I needed to move. I started to roll over so I could put my feet on the floor and stand up.

  “Not so fast, cowboy,” the male nurse said, pushing me back down on the bed.

  I wasn’t strong enough to resist.

  “What happened to me?” I asked.

  “You were playing by the railroad tracks at Riverside Park,” my mother explained, still sniffling a little. “You must have hit your head on something. You had a concussion. Honey, I’m so glad you’re back!” And then she started crying again.

  Railroad tracks? I had no memory of being around the railroad tracks. My mom didn’t seem mad that I had done such a stupid thing. She just looked so grateful that I was alive.

  The nurses were checking my vital signs—whatever they are—when another lady came in. Her nametag said “Dr. Fischer” on it.

  “Well, it’s about time you woke up!” she said, winking at me. “I thought we might have to start charging your mother rent to stay here. She never goes home.”

  The doctor put her hand on the back of my head and moved it around.

  “The swelling has gone down significantly,” she said. “That’s a good sign. You don’t have a subdural hematoma.”

  “That sounds scary,” I said.

  “It is,” the doctor replied. “How do you feel?”

  “Weak,” I told her.

  “That’s normal,” she explained. “You haven’t moved your muscles in seven days.”

  The doctor shined a little flashlight in my eyes and asked me a bunch of questions any dope could answer: “What year is it?” “Who is the president of the United States?” “How old are you?” That sort of thing. I answered all of them, no problem. Then she told me a little bit about concussions.

  Apparently, a concussion means “a stunning, damaging, or shattering effect from a hard blow to the head.” Football players get them all the time, and it’s a big controversy over whether kids should be allowed to play football.

  “Are you hungry, Harry?” the doctor asked.

  “No.” And then I asked, “If I haven’t eaten anything for a week, how come I’m not hungry?”

  “We’ve been giving you nutrition through the tube in your nose,” the doctor told me.

  Eating through my nose? Gross.

  “What kind of nutrition?” I asked.

  “A fluid with a balance of protein, carbohydrate, fats, sugars, vitamins…”

  “It sounds disgusting.”

  “You’re going to be just fine,” Dr. Fischer said, writing something on a clipboard.

  “So can I go home?” I asked.

  “I want you to stay here one more night, just so we can keep an eye on you,” she said. “You may have a little difficulty standing and walking at first. The physical therapist will talk to you about that. When you get home, I want you to take it easy for a few weeks. No sports. No parties. And let’s stay away from railroad tracks, shall we?”

  “Okay.”

  “Any questions for me?” the doctor said.

  “Am I going to be normal
again?” I asked.

  “Were you ever normal?” she replied.

  When I didn’t laugh at her little joke, she said, “Young people usually bounce back quickly from these things. I think you’ll be just fine. If you continue to have a headache, or nausea or vomiting, we’ll take another look.”

  When Dr. Fischer left, I noticed for the first time that the windowsill was filled with flowers, boxes of candy, cards, and letters. I struggled to prop myself up in the bed. My arms felt so weak. My mother put a pillow behind me, and pushed some button on a remote control that made the top of the bed rise up a little. Then she handed me a few of the get-well cards. They were written by my classmates at school. Really nice notes. Even a few of the kids I didn’t particularly like said they missed me and hoped I’d get better soon.

  Mom and I were looking at the cards when there was a knock at the door. It was Zeke.

  “Remember me?” he asked cautiously, as if he really thought I might not remember him. I gave him a fist bump.

  “Zeke saved your life,” my mother told me. “If he hadn’t been around to run and get help, I don’t know that you’d be with us today, Harry.”

  I looked at Zeke. He locked eyes with me and silently shook his head very slightly to let me know my mother didn’t know the whole story.

  “You look good, you lazy bum,” he told me. “I wish I could go to sleep for a week.”

  “What about school?” I asked Zeke. “I must have missed a ton of homework.”

  “Don’t worry about that stuff now,” he replied. “You’ll catch up. The important thing is that you came out of it and you’re gonna get better.”

  My mom got up and told me to smile so she could take a picture of me with her phone. Then she took her purse.

  “I’m going to go out in the hall to make some phone calls and tell everybody the good news,” she said. “I’m sure you boys have a lot to talk about.”

  As soon as my mom left, I turned to Zeke.

  “Okay, what happened?” I whispered. “What were we doing by the railroad tracks?”

  “You don’t remember?” he asked.

  “I remember going to the park,” I told him. “After that, it’s a blur.”

  Zeke reached into his pocket and pulled out a small, flat piece of silver metal. He handed it to me. It was shiny.

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  “It used to be a quarter,” Zeke told me. “Now it’s a flattened piece of whatever they make quarters out of.”

  I was beginning to remember. “We put this on the train tracks?” I asked, handing it back to him.

  “Yeah.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  “Because we’re idiots,” Zeke told me. “It was a stupid thing to do. Just as the train was coming, your shoelace got caught in the track. You couldn’t get it loose. At the last second, you rolled out of the way. That’s when you hit your head. It was all my fault. I’m really sorry, man. I’m so glad you’re okay. I don’t know what I would have done if you didn’t come out of it.”

  Zeke looked like he was getting choked up. I opened one of the boxes of candy somebody sent me and gave him a piece. That seemed to cheer him up a little. He told me that after the train passed by and I was unconscious, he dragged me out of the tunnel and ran to get help. He wasn’t sure if I was dead or alive.

  When my mom came back to the room, she took more pictures of me and hugged me a lot. One of the nurses suggested she go home and get a good night’s sleep. Mom didn’t want to at first, but when I assured her that I was okay, she finally agreed to leave. She offered to give Zeke a taxi ride home.

  “I’ll be back in the morning,” she said, kissing me on my forehead. “I’m so glad you’re with us, honey.”

  I was by myself. I turned on the TV with the remote at my side and flipped through the channels, but nothing good was on. I skimmed a few of the cards and letters people had sent, but I was too tired to go through them. Why was I so tired if I had just been asleep for a week?

  There were a bunch of boxes of candy on the windowsill next to the bed. I reached over and picked up one of them. There was a ribbon wrapped around it. I knew I wasn’t supposed to eat anything until I spoke with the speech therapist, but what harm could one piece of candy do?

  I untied the ribbon and ripped the wrapping paper off the box. There was no note attached to it. I opened the box and was surprised to find that there was no candy inside.

  Instead, there was a cell phone. It was one of those old flip phones people used before everybody had smartphones.

  I wondered—why would somebody give me a cell phone? All my friends know that my mom won’t let me have one. They make fun of me about that all the time. And if they saw me using a flip phone, they’d make fun of me for that. The only reason I even know about flip phones is because I’ve seen them on old TV shows.

  One of the nurses came in to check on me. I slipped the phone under my pillow. I didn’t want anybody to see it, and possibly let my mom know about it.

  The nurse looked at one of the beeping screens and said she was monitoring my blood oxygen level. She wrote something down, and left the room.

  I reached under my pillow and pulled out the flip phone. Maybe it was a gag gift, I figured. The thing was so old. It couldn’t possibly still work.

  I flipped it open anyway and pushed the power button.

  The screen lit up.

  YOU COULD HAVE ESCAPED

  I couldn’t believe it. That phone must have been ten years old, at least. It had a black-and-white screen! And the battery hadn’t died? Amazing. The screen doesn’t light up unless the phone works, right? That’s what I always thought. Not that I know much about cell phones. But technology moves so fast. I just assume anything that’s so old isn’t going to work anymore.

  Of course, I tried to test the phone right away. I needed a phone number to call. There’s this horribly annoying TV commercial for a company that asks people to donate their cars to raise money for underprivileged kids. I’ve heard their commercial about a million times, and the 800 number would be stuck in my head forever. I dialed it, and waited.

  Nothing. Nobody picked up. There was no recording. The phone didn’t even ring.

  I tried calling Zeke’s cell phone number, which I had also memorized because I’ve called it so many times from our landline at home. Nothing.

  I tried dialing a few other random phone numbers. The same thing happened. The screen lit up, but the flip phone couldn’t make an outgoing call. Too bad. Just when I was getting my hopes up.

  But that made sense, I guess. You have to pay extra money to get cell phone service, I think. My mom pays over a hundred dollars a month. She’s always complaining about it, because she doesn’t use her cell phone very much. And I know she would never agree to pay for service for my phone too. Bummer. I put the phone back in the box and went to sleep.

  When I woke up the next morning, my mom was already in the hospital room with me. My headache was gone. The nurses were monitoring me closely, but it wasn’t necessary. I was feeling just fine. They took the tubes out of me. The physical therapist, a really nice lady, helped me get out of bed and walk up and down the hall. I had no problems. She showed me some exercises to strengthen my muscles. Then the speech therapist came in and did something called a “swallow test” on me. I must have passed the test, because after that I was given real food—eggs, home fries, and toast with jam. It tasted great.

  Dr. Fischer came in, looked at my chart, and gave me the okay to be discharged from the hospital. My mom was overjoyed. When she wasn’t looking, I stashed the box with the flip phone in my backpack. Someday, I hoped, I might be able to make it work.

  I told my mother that I didn’t want to bring home all the flowers that people had sent, and she arranged for them to be given to other patients in the hospital who didn’t have a family. But I boxed up the candy to bring home with me. I’m no dummy! I said goodbye to all the nurses and doctors who had taken care of me and been
so nice while I was in the hospital.

  My mom had to sign a bunch of paperwork to get me discharged. Then an orderly rolled a wheelchair into my room to bring me downstairs.

  “I really don’t need this,” I told him. “I can walk fine.”

  “Hospital rules,” he replied.

  I said that was awfully nice, but my mom whispered in my ear that the hospital wasn’t just being nice to me. If a patient falls or gets hurt on the way out of the building, they might sue. So even if you only have a hangnail, they put you in a wheelchair until you’re out of the hospital. Down on the street, my mom hailed a taxi.

  It felt good to be home. The first thing I did when I got to my room was take the phone out of my backpack and stash it in the back of the junk drawer in my night table. I stuck it under some stuff so my mom wouldn’t come across it while cleaning.

  For the first couple of days I was home, my mom treated me like a fragile flower. She didn’t want me to lift a finger. But soon life returned to normal. I went back to school and everybody was really happy to see me. On Thursday, my mom didn’t want me to go to Zeke’s birthday party, but I talked her into letting me go.

  Have you ever been to an escape-room party? They’re actually cooler than I thought. Basically, you get locked in a room and you have an hour to figure out how to get out. There’s usually some kind of a theme to the room, like it’s a haunted house, a space station, or a secret laboratory. You have to solve a series of riddles and clues that lead to a solution in order to escape. Escape rooms were a big thing a few years ago. Everybody was doing them.

  So Zeke and I, his dad, and a couple of Zeke’s other friends from his church went to this escape room place in Harlem. They have four different rooms. One is called “The Hoosegow.” One is called “Zombie Attack.” One is called “Treasure of the Catacombs.” The room we were locked in was called “The Dungeon.” It was described as “a human research project.”

  The room looked like a prison cell and everything in the room was there for a reason. Everything was a clue. For instance, there were a bunch of gummy bears glued to one wall. At first we just thought that was strange, but then we figured out that the numbers of red, green, yellow, and blue gummy bears gave us the solution to a four-digit combination lock—4-5-2-3.