XL

by Scott Brown

  “Will’s a big volleyball fan,” Brian told Sidney helpfully. “We used to play on the beach a lot. You play volleyball?”

  “Yeah. Varsity. And intramural, just for fun.”

  “In-tra-mu-ral!” said Brian, with the kind of overenunciated wonder normally reserved for alien first contact. In my mind, I was strangling him to death with a volleyball net. And he wasn’t finished! “Y’know, a while ago, we took a road trip to New England, and we visited the Volleyball Hall of Fame in Holyoke, Mass. It’s very near the Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield. Remember that, Will? Our ‘Hall Crawl’?”

  “Yeah, we didn’t call it that—”

  “Two Halls of Fame! In one day! Have you ever been? To the Volleyball Hall of Fame?”

  “No,” Sidney said, “but it sounds cool.” She got up. “See you this weekend, Will?”

  “Um. Sure! Enjoy the rest of the, y’know…”

  “Yeah,” said Sid. “Drew’ll bounce back, I’m sure.”

  And then Sidney Lim took her soda and left, just as Monica was coming back from the dragon drain. She watched Sid go, sucking her teeth thoughtfully. “So. You and Sidney.”

  “Huh? What? We were in AP bio together.”

  “Indeed.” Monica grinned. But it wasn’t—how to explain this?—the nicest grin. It was just lips over teeth.

  The team was filing back onto the court.

  Monica spotted Drew and screamed: “C’mon, Harps! WOOOOO!”

  Wooooo?

  It felt less like a sincere fan hoot and more like a javelin thrown at my face. What the hell happened on the algebra killing fields? I wanted to ask Monica. But that might make things weird. So I just watched the game, sipped my free soda, and thought warm, happy thoughts, and some of them were about Sidney Lim, for a change.

  * * *

  —

  The second half was even worse. Drew came out strong in the worst possible way: aggressive, but dumb about it. He got in foul trouble early and rode the bench for half the half. For the first time that Summerhoop season, the Mobys closed a lead without him. I watched him on the sidelines, tapping his foot, head down, eyes floorward.

  With twelve seconds left and a chance to tie, they brought him back in.

  He went for the three. From way out. For no good reason. CAROM! The ball hit the front of the hoop with stunning force, delivered itself into the hands of a Portola shooting guard, who ran out the last five seconds. The Portola bleachers went absolutely bug nuts.

  And Drew cursed. Audibly. F-bomb-inably. It sounded like a gunshot.

  That was…strange. Uncool. Un-Drew.

  “Ah, jeez.” Brian shook his head. “Not good. So hard on himself.”

  We watched the coach call Drew over, watched him lean in and give Spesh what I can only assume was a talking-to.

  Monica and I went into triage mode.

  “Let’s kidnap him. Take him Whailing.”

  “That,” said Monica, “is precisely what I was thinking.”

  On reflex, we still knew how to circle the herd.

  So we waited for him in the parking lot, Monica and I, with Brian and Laura bringing up the rear.

  “Refs, man,” said Monica when Drew finally appeared, rumpled, showered but uncombed, and slumping toward us.

  Drew didn’t say anything. He was digging in his gym bag for something, or pretending to. He hadn’t met anyone’s eyes.

  “Lotta ticky-tack fouls,” Monica went on. “I mean, what’s the accreditation for these high school refs anyway—”

  “They did their job,” muttered Drew. “I didn’t do mine.”

  Brian pursed his lips. “Sometimes you eat the bar…”

  “Thanks, Brian.”

  Laura was nodding. She’d seen this before in Drew. I saw her touch Brian’s elbow, a small warning. “We’ll see you at home,” she said to Drew. “Shake it off.”

  “Okay, Mom.” Drew was back in his bag, still looking for the fake thing he pretended not to have found.

  When they were gone, Monica said, “All right, Tannenger. Get your ass in the car. This is a Hot August Night night, methinks. We’ve got cetaceans to serenade.”

  Drew just blinked at her.

  I stepped up: “You heard the lady. Time for some Whailing.”

  “It’s actually time for some practice,” Drew snapped. “So you two go sing to the whales. I’ve got to fix this.”

  He walked off through the parking lot and onto the soccer field, and a small but dangerous crater opened in the parking lot. All our words fell into it.

  “Oh. Kay?” I was running plays in my head, trying to figure out how to salvage this. How to unweird that which Drew had made weird. “Not a Neil Diamond fan, I see.”

  Then I saw Monica. Her eyes. Wet. I saw them before she had a chance to turn away.

  Not possible. I’d never seen her cry. Maybe once. Watching Fellowship, when Gandalf bites it on the bridge with the Balrog. That was the last time I’d seen the mist roll in. But never because of something real. Not even when she got rolled and ate shit at BoB and left a long scroll of skin on the cheese-grater cove bottom.

  Not even when her dad had one of his weekends.

  “He’s not mad at you,” I told her, and started to reach an arm around her shoulder, pure instinct, before thinking better of it (CAUTION: WEIRD!) and veering off.

  “I know.” Neutral voice. Scary neutral. She was still turned away from me and was drifting toward the bike rack.

  “Throw the bike on the Yacht. I got a bungee—”

  “No, I’m good.” She stopped. “Tell Drew: I get it.”

  She was already on the bike, swinging toward the mouth of the parking lot, the reflector on her busted-ass helmet catching the streetlight. Her face, in the half glow, was restored to its resting state: detached, room-temperature amusement.

  “Just another crazy week, Daughtry,” Monica called as she wheeled by. “The chimps are making spears! Extraordinary times!”

  * * *

  —

  “Mon says to tell you she ‘gets it.’ ”

  The ride had been silent. I was just doing my best to fill a void.

  Drew didn’t appreciate my best.

  “Do me a favor,” he said, “and don’t talk to Monica about me behind my back?”

  Ker-chunk. Sound of a spear sinking into a blood brother’s sternum.

  “Um. Okaaaay. That’s a…rule? Bylaw? Part of the New Plan?”

  “Maybe,” Drew said pissily, chewing a finger and staring out the window. “Maybe it should be. I know how new this is, it’s new to me, too, but…what happened to Don’t make it weird? Seriously, man: boundaries.”

  Wow. WOW. Boundaries.

  That was…that was…choice.

  Yeah, Drew was a real font of dickery that night.

  And part of me—out of nowhere—wanted to snap that font right off and feed it to him.

  So Dr. Helman calling?

  At that precise moment?

  Was fortunate, I think, for all involved. The call Bluetoothed automatically onto the Fiat speaker and interrupted my Vesuvius-in-progress—

  “I wanted to call right away, Will,” said Dr. Helman. “I just spoke with your dad, he said you were out….”

  Oh, God. Here it was. The verdict that I supposedly wasn’t waiting for, that (I suddenly realized) I’d completely, totally, and panic-strickenly been waiting for.

  “Count is normal. Scans are normal. Everything’s normal.”

  THANK YOU. Thank you, all generic and nonspecific deities! Thank you, Science, thank you, Chance. Something bubbled up inside me, something I hadn’t even realized I’d been tamping down, something warm and grateful, and it didn’t matter to whom or for what exactly.

  “What’s abnormal is how damned normal
you are.” She made a sound that was half relief, half exasperation. I, on the other hand, just grinned like an idiot. “But we’re going to monitor you for the next six to nine months. At least. Okay?”

  “Okay.”

  Dr. Helman, having sentenced me to life, hung up, and I started involuntarily bouncing in my seat as I drove.

  Drew was grinning, too. The icky, icy shitscape of six minutes ago? Gone. Forgotten. I realized that this little question of Will Will die? had been hanging over both of us. And now? The clouds were parting.

  “Pull over,” Drew said.

  We were passing a playground. I pulled in, next to the monkey bars, and Drew came over to my side, hauled me out of the car. Hugged the living hell out of me.

  I remembered then: we were two people who’d lost people. We both knew what losing was like. Nothing else—not tonight’s stupid fail against Portola, not the New Plan or the new awkwardness, not even Monica—was as important as not losing someone.

  “Goddamn, you’re heavy,” said Drew as he let me go. “So okay: can you officially start enjoying yourself now?”

  “I…I think so? I think maybe I already started. Enjoying myself. Even before I stopped dying.”

  Drew smiled, smacked my shoulder. “Brother of blood, you are the opposite of dying. You’re a goddamn tragedy in reverse.” His eye caught on something over my shoulder. “C’mon,” he said, and popped the hatch. Thump, thump. Ball on asphalt.

  “C’mon where? What’s happening?”

  “What’s happening,” said Drew, “is my jumper was a goddamn garbage fire tonight. And I can’t sleep until I work it out. You mind…helping? With a little defense?”

  I cannot overstate how crazy this was.

  Drew wanted me on D. He needed a sparring partner. A partner. If not an equal, then at least equal enough.

  As you may have noticed: I like basketball.

  I like the pick-and-roll, I like the give-and-go. As the poet says.

  And I watched basketball. I studied basketball. But did I play basketball?

  Sure. All the time. But only with Rafty, in his driveway, far from prying eyes.

  I hadn’t played with anyone bigger than Rafty since…well, since basketball camp. With Drew. Eons ago. Back when we were players of roughly similar size and skill.

  That night? The night I was sentenced to life? We were eight again.

  Play was still pretty lopsided. I lost by six. But at one point…I led. By as many as five. For ninety whole seconds.

  Against Drew, this was a phenomenon.

  I mean, he was holding back. Obviously.

  For sure. A thousand percent.

  I think?

  “Not bad, right?” I said, panting, after draining a lucky fadeaway over Drew’s block. “Pretty fly…for a five-ten guy!…”

  “You’re not…five ten….” He was panting, too. Not quite as hard as I was, but still. “Guard who was all over me tonight, he was five ten. When was the last time you measured?”

  “Uh. Weekend before last.”

  Drew shook his head, flicked off some sweat. “You’re my height, I’d put money on it.”

  We sat down on the blacktop, passed a Powerade.

  “Can I, uh, admit something?” I panted.

  “Anytime.”

  I gulped at the bottle. “I…don’t think I’m in the right body.”

  Drew squinted. “Explain.”

  “It’s like…I’m six and wearing my dad’s shoes. And it’s hilarious.”

  “Well,” said Drew, “if you play like this as a six-year-old in your dad’s shoes, then by fall, we’re starting you at center.”

  We laughed. Because that was funny.

  And the truth is, that night? Going one on one with Drew? Was the first night I started feeling at home in that new, possibly wrong body. Like my proprioception had finally started…propriocepting again.

  Drew clapped a hand on my shoulder, and I noticed: my whole torso didn’t jerk forward when he did it. Sea change, right there. All of a sudden, I could absorb the normal impact of brotherhood. I could survive a backslapping.

  “You’re gonna clear me, Will. You realize that, right?”

  I just nodded, noncommittally. I’d been trying not to think of where this was heading.

  “You know why I lost tonight?”

  That snapped me out of my reverie. Drew was reflecting.

  “I lost…for the same reason I was a dick to you and Monica in the parking lot. I wasn’t playing Portola. I was playing the next game, see. In my head, I’d already beaten Portola, I’d already moved on to the next game. Problem is…I didn’t beat them. And by the time I realized that…I was already back at practice, at least in my head. Instead of standing in a parking lot with my two best friends.” He smiled. “I am clearly in need of serious Whailage. And maybe a smack in the face.”

  I loved Drew in those moments when he felt the need to explain himself. Because Drew was very bad at explaining himself, and he knew it. He only did it when he felt something important was at stake. So once again, not for the first time: I was flattered. I was grateful.

  I was probably looking for my reflection, in his reflection.

  Drew wanted to be known. So did I.

  People worry so much about being known, don’t they? We think: Will anyone ever find out who I really am? As if we know.

  You think you’re already someone: this fully formed, all-done organism, completely evolved and adapted.

  Like you already are who you’ll end up being.

  So sorry to break it to you, but you aren’t. You never will be. You’re a phase. Forever and always a phase.

  Take it from a phase.

  [jack]: hey

  WillD: Hi!

  [jack]: saw ur page

  WillD: Cool. Thanks for following!

  [jack]: dont thank me save ur strength

  …

  WillD: sorry?

  …

  [jack]: ur going to die big man

  WillD: [YOU HAVE BEEN BLOCKED]

  …

  [jacksback]: me again nice try c u soon

  BY SEPTEMBER, I was a changed man. The man part being the biggest change.

  Being seen as one. Being seen, period.

  I’d left for summer vacation almost five foot six—strange enough, considering I’d started the year four eleven and under the impression I was likely to stay that way forever. Other than the fact that my two best friends, one of whom was my secret crush, were quite possibly having sex with each other (and no, I never asked, and not just because I didn’t want to know—I was determined not to be the Weird Maker or Plan Breaker), I had a very normal summer for a growing boy of sixteen: I lifted some weights, played some hoop, hung out with friends, and monitored my endocrine system.

  The next fall, I came back to school six foot one. Not just taller, either. Not just the bone scaffold of a Big Person Coming Soon—Watch This Space! No, I was a fully filled-out, height/weight-proportionate male human of above-average size. Dr. Helman’s weight lifting routine had paid off, and not just for my proprioception (which was getting better all the time: I was still growing fast, but my brain had started anticipating it, I guess, and I stumbled less, missed fewer stairs). I was barely recognizable. And people recognized that. People looked. Not just the kids at school.

  “Is this you?”

  People in the waiting room of HUGE noticed. People with a dog in the fight.

  “Is it?”

  A small hand on a short arm held a phone in front of my face. On the phone I saw myself. Doing my thing. Growing.

  It was the time-lapse video Rafty had shot for “my” fan page, wittily titled “Will Daughtry Gets High.” (Not my idea. Neither was the fan page. But…c’est la Rafty!) In the video (since
shared under tags like “Grow-liath,” “DamnSamwise!,” etc., etc.), I stand next to my Fiat every day for ninety days, getting taller. In the process: my jaw squares off, my arms and chest thicken. I watched them become more like Arms and a Chest, less like American Girl doll parts. The view counter said I’d done this about 235,000 times since the video’d been posted.

  (Only 5,000 of those views are mine, I swear.)

  The video starts on March 4, my birthday. I’m five foot two (even though I don’t know it yet) in my birthday photo, taken by Laura: a boy and his Yacht. Tiny car, tinier boy.

  By July 4, I’m five seven, and Sidney’s there (Rafty: “You gotta put a girl in the video, dude, if you want views, that’s just basic”) and she’s five seven, and the Fiat’s a Fiat.

  By September, Sidney’s still five seven, the Fiat’s still a Fiat, and I’m sailing past six one. Averaging two inches a month. A handful of NBA players have kept up that pace, but only for two or three months, tops. There are some similar cases in China, Mongolia, Russia, but as far as I could tell from my hunt-and-peck research, I was among the fastest-growing humans on record.

  Got questions? Some totally legitimate but still slightly creepy questions? Here are all my standard answers off the FAQ, from those giddy early days of the Heightening:

  No, I don’t “feel” it.

  No, it doesn’t hurt. Not really. Not that much. A little.

  Yes, I’m hungry all the time.

  No, I won’t answer questions re “foot” size. Or “hand” size. Or “proportions.”

  (Fella’s gotta preserve some mystique.)

  I’ll say this: Mostly? It was great.

  But the FAQ didn’t cut it for some folks. Like, for instance, the kids in the waiting room of HUGE.

  “So?”

  The voice asking the question didn’t quite match the hand holding the phone, and the hand holding the phone didn’t quite match the arm attached to the hand, and the arm didn’t match the torso. She was about fourteen, I guessed. Pituitary dwarfism.