“Hey, it’s way past your bedtime,” I say, sitting next to him.
“The storm’s too noisy. Besides, I wanted to finish this.”
He holds up a poster as big as he is, with fireworks, hearts, and smiley faces all over the place. In the middle, it reads WELCUM HOME JAKE!
“Whaddaya think?” he says.
When I open my mouth to answer, nothing comes out. I feel sick.
“You don’t like it?”
“No, it’s great.”
Just great. Jake’s dying, and Freddy thinks he’s coming home.
Chris thinks I’ve got it all under control, but I don’t know what I’m doing.
I wish Mom and Dad were here to explain everything, but they’re not. I take a deep breath and do my best to “step up.”
“Hey, Freddy? How ’bout you put that down for a second?”
He lays down the poster carefully, grabs his bunny, and joins me on the bottom bunk.
“Jake would definitely like the poster… but I’m just not sure he’s gonna see it.”
“How come?”
“Remember when we saw him in the hospital last?”
Freddy nods.
“Remember the tubes and everything? How he couldn’t drink from a bottle or eat any food?”
Another nod.
“Well, you know how much Jake loves to eat. So he’s thinking about going to Food Island and getting all the pizza and fries he wants.”
“Can we go, too?”
I get up from the bed, walk over to the window, and stare at the storm. As bad as it looks, I’d rather be out there than having this conversation.
I’m still trying to figure out how to answer when Freddy says, “I’m sleepy.” He and Pita crawl under the covers while I put the poster and markers away, turn out the light, and pull myself up to the top bunk. The storm’s going crazy outside, and my thoughts are going crazy inside my head.
“Ethan? You awake?”
“Yeah.”
“Me too. Ethan?”
“Yeah.”
“There isn’t really a Food Island, is there?”
“No,” I whisper into the darkness.
He’s quiet for so long, I figure he’s either asleep or too upset to talk. What if I said the wrong thing and made everything worse? Maybe I shouldn’t have said anything.
“Ethan?”
“Yeah.”
“If God is outside, can He hear our prayers through the wall?”
“I guess.”
“Even if there’s a really loud storm?”
“Sure, I guess.”
I wait to see if he has any more questions, but he’s quiet again.
Between worrying about Jake and waiting for Mom to call, I thought I’d never fall asleep. But I must have, because a really loud clap of thunder wakes me up. Freddy’s probably scared.
“Hey, Freddy. You awake?”
There’s another gigantic thunderclap, right over our heads. It’s so loud it even scares me. No way he can sleep through that.
“Freddy? You okay?”
I jump down to check on him, but he’s not there. Neither is Pita.
“Freddy?” I look under his bed, then grab my flashlight and head down the hall, calling his name softly so I don’t wake anyone.
I check the bathroom, living room, kitchen… then I see it. The door to the carport is open just a bit. Just enough to let me know Freddy’s not in the house—at all.
I grab the first two raincoats I see hanging in the hall closet and head out through the carport.
“FREDDY! WHERE ARE YOU?” I scream into the storm. I race around outside the Todds’ house shouting until my throat hurts. It’s cold and pouring and pitch-black everywhere I look. I’m drenched and shivering and I’ve only been outside a few minutes.
Freddy’s gone.
I decide to count to one hundred. If I don’t find him by then, I’m getting the Todds.
I’m up to thirty-seven when I get another idea. I run across the street to our house, shining my light in every direction.
And there’s my little brother, standing under our carport. Lips moving, eyes closed, hands wrapped around Pita Rabbit.
“FREDDY!” I sprint toward him as lightning zigzags overhead.
“God? Is that you?”
“It’s me, you idiot!” I shout over the thunder.
“Ethan? What are you doing out here?”
I wrap his shivering, skinny body in a wet raincoat. “What do you think I’m doing? Let’s go!”
I take his cold, clammy hand and we run across the street together.
I grab a couple of towels and we dry off the best we can. As we peel off our wet clothes and slip into dry ones, part of me wants to yell at him for running out in the storm. But the bigger part is just relieved and grateful that he’s okay. Still, I can’t help saying, “Freddy, you can’t run out like that. It’s the middle of the night! And there’s thunder and lightning and I woke up and you weren’t here and…”
“Sorry,” he says. “Are you mad at me?”
He looks so pitiful. His hair is soaking wet; even his eyelashes are dripping.
“No,” I admit. “I’m not mad at you. But it still doesn’t mean—”
“Do you think God heard me?” Freddy asks.
I hesitate. I don’t want to say the wrong thing. So I go for the truth, and tell him, “I hope so.”
He wraps his skinny arms around me and I hug him back, then we crawl into our bunk beds. I pull the blanket over my head, but it’s impossible to go back to sleep. All I can think about is Jake.
Did he make it through the storm?
Breakfast is surreal. I’m so tired I can’t even pour milk in my cereal without spilling it on the table. “Sorry.” I reach across for napkins and almost knock over my orange juice.
“I’ve got it.” Mrs. Todd sops up the milk with paper towels.
“That was some storm last night,” Chris says. “I thought the roof was going to cave in!”
“Did you two get any sleep?” Mr. Todd asks Freddy and me as he takes his coffee cup to the sink.
Freddy opens his big cereal-filled mouth, sure to get us in trouble, but I beat him to it.
“A little,” I say.
As I try to finish breakfast without falling asleep in my cereal bowl, Mr. Todd walks back into the kitchen, carrying a wet raincoat.
“Anybody know anything about this?”
Uh-oh. I was so glad Freddy was okay and we were out of the rain, I threw the coats straight into the closet and forgot about them.
Freddy stops chewing and looks at me, the guilt on his face so clear a jury would convict him in a heartbeat. The Todds look at me, too: four pairs of eyes staring; four pairs of ears waiting to see what I come up with.
I do what I always do when I’m about to get in trouble: change the subject. “Did my mom ever call last night?”
Sure enough, it works. After a few seconds of silence, Mrs. Todd says, “You know, it’s possible she couldn’t get through because of the storm.”
“That’s a good point,” Mr. Todd agrees. “But it still doesn’t explain these wet coats.” He raises his eyebrows in my direction.
“It’s my fault,” Freddy says. “I—”
“We left Pita Rabbit at our house,” I say. I know it’s not the truth, but it’s less complicated. I look at Freddy, wondering if he’ll go along. He looks at me, too. Then he looks at Mr. Todd.
“Sorry about the coats,” Freddy says.
He smiles at Freddy. “That’s okay. They’ll dry.”
“Next time,” Chris adds, “take an umbrella.”
At school, I have the weirdest sensation, like there’s this layer of glass between me and everyone else. I see my teachers’ worried expressions through it and hear my friends’ voices, but nothing touches me.
I’m staring at my blank math quiz, wondering why decimals were invented, when there’s a knock at the door. Miss Wright answers, speaks with another teacher, and t
hen makes a beeline toward my desk.
“Ethan,” she whispers, “your parents are here. Please pack up and go to the front office.”
My heart starts pounding and I feel sick to my stomach. I shut my binder, grab my backpack and leave the room, feeling like a robot. Before reaching the office, I stop by the band room and pick up my trumpet. Then I stop at a water fountain, even though I’m not thirsty, and take as long a drink as I can to put off seeing Mom and Dad. Put off hearing what they couldn’t say last night.
Some things you just can’t say over the phone.
I feel like I’m at the doctor’s office waiting to get a shot. I want someone else to do this instead of me. Only the one who always goes first isn’t here.
I have to be brave like Jake.
I take a deep breath, let it out in one big whoosh, then put one foot in front of the other and head to the front office.
Before I’m halfway there, Mom is in the hallway running toward me.
My legs turn to spaghetti and I slide down to the floor and shut my eyes. Maybe this is all a nightmare and if I keep my eyes closed long enough…
“Sweetie? Are you okay?” I feel her hand on my shoulder. “Ethan…”
I open my eyes.
She’s smiling, not crying. “Jake took a huge turn last night. The doctors couldn’t believe it!” She’s hugging me now, laughing and crying. Then Dad’s there, too, hugging and laughing and crying. And so am I.
“The doctors are calling Jake ‘The Miracle Baby.’” Mom eases out of the hug and pulls some tissues from her pocket for all of us.
“He was touch and go all night but all of a sudden…” Dad breaks off, unable to finish his sentence. Mom touches his hand and starts tearing up again. Dad lets out a breath, then puts one arm around her shoulder and the other around mine. “Should we go tell Freddy the good news?”
On the ride home, Freddy asks a thousand questions, and our parents do their best to answer: Jake is doing a lot better; they don’t know when he’ll come home yet; Mom’s going to spend days with him and nights with us; and we can see him later this week.
Once we get home, Mom makes a zillion phone calls while I help Dad collect the laundry. I grab a pair of jeans from my closet and toss it on top of the other clothes on my bed. I’m about to carry everything downstairs when I remember something. I search through the pockets and find red crinkly paper in one and a fortune cookie message in the other. I unfold the small white paper and read my fortune: “The greatest gift of all is one you already have.”
“Ethan, my prayers worked! I saved Jakey!” Freddy barges in and plops down on my bed, even though it’s covered with dirty laundry.
Is Jake alive because God answered Freddy’s prayers? Does that mean if Freddy hadn’t prayed, God wouldn’t have saved him? Or what if Freddy hadn’t prayed, but I had? Would God still have saved Jake?
“I’m going to start praying every night,” Freddy announces. “Do you think, if I pray hard enough, God will let me get a really expensive Star Wars Lego?”
I throw my pillow at him. “It doesn’t work like that. You don’t just pray for something and get it.”
“How do you know?” he asks.
“Because everyone would get everything they want all the time.”
“What’s wrong with that?”
“It doesn’t work that way. What about all the poor people? Or the hungry people?” Or all the sick people who don’t get better?
Freddy-the-Philosopher shrugs.
“What about Jake?” I ask.
“What about him? He’s gonna be okay.”
“Why wasn’t he okay in the first place? Why did he come home with an oxygen tank and NG tube and all that other stuff? Why can’t he walk and talk and eat like we do?”
“Maybe no one prayed hard enough,” Freddy says.
“That’s dumb.”
“So you explain it,” he says.
I think about it, off and on, all night. And I can’t.
Next day, after school, I linger in my English classroom, hoping Ms. Carlin and I can talk for a bit. Sure enough, she tells me to grab a seat, then takes a chocolate bar from her desk drawer and joins me. She hands me the bigger half, then says, “It’s been quite a rollercoaster for your family, hasn’t it?”
I nod. “We weren’t sure Jake was gonna make it, but he pulled through.”
Ms. Carlin smiles. “That’s wonderful, Ethan.”
I nod again. “Freddy went out in the storm to pray. The next day, Jake was better. Freddy says it’s because God answered his prayers.… Do you think he’s right?”
“What do you think?” She smiles, using one of those annoying tricks they learn at teacher school.
I don’t smile back. “If God answers our prayers, why was Jake hurt in the first place?”
“Excellent question.”
I wait for an excellent answer. It doesn’t come.
Ms. Carlin looks at me for what feels like forever, then says, “Maybe you need to ask a different question.”
“Like what?”
“Instead of asking why Jake is hurt, maybe think about why Jake is here.”
I close my eyes and picture him in my mind. I see him so clearly, gulping down his bottle, shaking his jingle sticks, smiling. Jake makes more out of the little he has than some people make out of a whole lot more.
All this time I thought I was helping Jake, but he’s been helping me, too. He helps me keep trying when it’s easier to give up. He shows me that even little things can be huge and can make people happy. And he helps me believe in myself—makes me feel like I can do anything. And like anything I do is the greatest thing ever.
I think of the definition for magic I used in my report on Magnus the Magnificent: “any mysterious, seemingly inexplicable, or extraordinary power or influence.”
Suddenly—finally—I see what I should have all along: Jake is the real magician in our family.
It’s been a week since “The Miracle Baby” pulled off the best magic trick of all, and today he’s finally coming home again.
I’m in such a good mood, I don’t even mind going to school. When I get to the corner, Betty is there like always, blowing her whistle in the freezing cold. “Hey, Ethan, how’s it goin’?”
“Better,” I tell her. “Much better.”
In band, I reach the highest note I’ve ever played and Daniel and Brian give me high fives. I manage to remember all my French vocabulary, and when I get to math class, I raise my hand when Miss Wright asks who can answer question seven in our homework. I even get the answer right.
It’s not like I love math all of a sudden; I’ve just decided to start trying my best… like someone else I know.
“When’s Jakey gonna be here?” Freddy asks for the thousandth time.
And, for the thousandth time, Emma looks up from the latch hook rug she’s making and says, “Soon, sweetheart. Soon.”
Satisfied for the moment, Freddy searches for the next piece to his jigsaw puzzle. Bubba brings another cup of tea to Emma, and I get back to The Fires of Merlin. I’m rereading the chapter where Merlin is trapped in the stone and can’t move or talk or anything. It’s one of my favorite parts of the whole book, but it’s hard to focus.
We’re all pretending to be busy, but what we’re really doing is waiting for Jake.
I think of the first time he came home from the hospital, when he was just a baby. I remember the blue minivan pulling into the carport, and my grandparents all teary-eyed and Freddy jumping up and down. I remember Dad carrying Jake toward us, and Mom saying, “Jake’s home.”
Most of all, I remember touching Jake’s face and putting my finger in his teeny hand, and how he held on really tight, like he would never let go.
After what seems like forever, the same blue minivan finally pulls into our driveway.
“They’re here!” Freddy shouts. He races to the door, with me right behind.
And everybody’s smiling and hugging and we’re all tog
ether and it’s magic.
Jake is home.
It’s one o’clock in the morning. I’m wide awake, staring at the glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling. My thoughts are racing, but my body is still. My nose itches, but I don’t scratch it. My right leg is stiff, and I have a crick in my neck, but I don’t move, not even a fraction of an inch. I barely even blink.
I am stone, like Merlin.
I am trapped, like Jake.
There are so many things he’ll probably never do, but he smiles anyway—even all those times I let him down and don’t stretch him.
Even when I said I did… but I didn’t.
Tears slide down my cheeks. I don’t move a muscle to wipe them. Words ricochet in the dark without being spoken: I’m sorry, Jake. So sorry.
A few more minutes go by. Then I crawl out of bed, open my door, and cross the hall. I enter Jake’s room quietly, in case he’s asleep, and gently sit down on his little bed. There’s just enough light from the Tweety Bird night-light for me to see a pair of blue eyes looking at me expectantly.
“Hey, Jake. I know it’s late, but I couldn’t sleep. Guess you couldn’t, either.” I pull him toward me and hug him close, then put him on his rainbow-colored quilt and bring his hands together. “I’m really sorry about all those times I didn’t stretch you. I promise I’ll do better from now on, okay?”
He smiles as always, and I know he’s forgiven me. Even if I don’t deserve it.
I squeeze his hands again, then move his stiff arms up and down and in and out and up and down and in and out.…
Since Jake is back home, Mom and I have time to work on the fund-raiser again; it’s only a couple weeks away now. Luckily, a lot got done without us. Like Tina told me, she lined up the high school jazz band and show choir, plus got a bunch of local restaurants to donate food and gift certificates for that night. Katie’s mom made flyers and put together a silent auction. And Peter’s mom teamed up with C.K.’s to research playground equipment.
Super Jake and the King of Chaos Page 15
