Oddest of All

by Bruce Coville

  I think of our glory and our despair. I think of all we do to one another in the name of love, of peace, of freedom, of God—all the good, and all the bad.

  I think of how far we have come in just a few thousand years. I think of how far there is to go and how many people will suffer and die before we get there.

  I think of the stars, and of the worlds out there waiting for us to join them.

  I think of all these things, and I wonder what I will do in five minutes when the Lyrans force me to choose between the riches they offer and the freedom to find our own sad and starry path.

  I look at the strip in my hand, at the yes and the no, and I wonder.

  What’s the Worst That Could Happen?

  IF THIRTEEN is supposed to be an unlucky number, what does it mean that we are forced to go through an entire year with that as our age? I mean, you would think a civilized society could just come up with a way for us to skip it.

  Of course, good luck and I have rarely shared the same park bench. Sometimes I think Murphy’s Law—you know, “If something can go wrong, it will”—was invented just for me.

  I suppose the fact that my name is Murphy Murphy might have something to do with that feeling.

  Yeah, you read it right: Murphy Murphy. It’s like a family curse. The last name I got from my father, of course. The first name came down from my mother’s side, where it is a tradition for the firstborn son. You would think my mother might have considered that before she married Dad, but love makes fools of us all, I guess. Anyway, the fact that I got stuck with the same name coming and going, so to speak, shows that my parents are either spineless (my theory) or have no common sense (my sister’s theory).

  I would like to note that no one has ever apologized to me for this name. “I think it’s lovely,” says my mother—which, when you consider it, would seem to support my sister’s theory.

  Anyway, you can see that right from the beginning of my life, if something could go wrong, it did.

  Okay, I suppose it could have been worse. I could have been born dead or with two heads or something. On the other hand, as I lie here in my hospital bed trying to work out exactly how I got here, there are times when I wonder if being born dead might not have been the best thing.

  To begin with, I want to say here and now that Mikey Farnsworth should take at least part of the blame for this situation. This, by the way, is true for many of the bad things that have happened in my life, from the paste-eating incident in first grade through the bogus fire-drill situation last year, right up to yesterday afternoon, which was sort of the Olympics of Bad Luck, as far as I’m concerned. What’s amazing is that somehow Mikey ends up coming out of these things looking perfectly fine. He is, as my grandfather likes to say, the kind of guy who can fall in a manure pile and come out smelling like a rose.

  The one I am not going to blame is Tiffany Grimsley, though if I hadn’t had this stupid crush on her it never would have happened.

  Okay, I want to stop and talk about this whole thing of having a crush. Let me say right up front that it is very confusing and not something I am used to. When it started I was totally baffled. I mean, I don’t even like girls, and all of a sudden I keep thinking about one of them? Give me a break!

  In case it hasn’t happened to you yet, let me warn you. Based on personal experience, I can say that while there are many bad things about having a crush, just about the worst of them is the stupid things you will do because of it.

  Okay, let’s back up here.

  I probably wouldn’t even have known I had a crush to begin with if Mikey hadn’t informed me of this fact. “Man, you’ve got it bad for Tiffany,” he says one day when we are poking around in the swamp behind his house.

  “What are you talking about?” I ask. At the same time my cheeks begin to burn as if they are on fire. Startled, I lift my foot to tie my shoe, which is a trick I learned in an exercise magazine and that has become sort of a habit. At the moment, it is mostly an excuse to look down.

  What the heck is going on here? I think.

  Mikey laughs. “Look at you blush, Murphy! There’s no point in trying to hide it. I watched you drooling over her in social studies class today. And you’ve only mentioned her like sixteen times since we got home this afternoon.”

  “Well, sure, but that’s because she’s a friend,” I say, desperately trying to avoid the horrible truth. “We’ve known each other since kindergarten, for pete’s sake.”

  Mikey laughs again, and I can tell I’m not fooling him. “What am I going to do?” I groan.

  He shrugs. “Either you suffer in silence or you tell her you like her.”

  Is he nuts? If you tell a girl you like her, it puts you totally out in the open. I mean, you’ve got no place to hide. And there are really only two possible responses you’re going to get from her: (a) She likes you, too, which the more you think about it, the more unlikely it seems or (b) anything else, which is, like, totally, utterly humiliating. I’m sure girls have problems of their own. But I don’t think they have any idea of the sheer terror a guy has to go through before any boy-girl stuff can get started.

  I sure hope this gets easier with time, because I personally really don’t understand how the human race has managed to survive this long, given how horrifying it is to think about telling a girl you like her.

  Despite Mikey’s accusation, I do not think I have actually drooled over Tiffany during social studies class. But it is hard not to think about her then, because she sits right in front of me. It’s the last class of the day, and the October sunlight comes in slantwise and catches in her golden hair in a way that makes it hard to breathe.

  It does not help that eighth-grade social studies is taught by Herman Fessenden, who you will probably see on the front of the National Enquirer someday as a mass murderer for boring twenty-six kids to death in a single afternoon. It hasn’t happened yet, but I’m sure it’s just a matter of time.

  I spend the entire weekend thinking about what Mikey has said, and I come up with a bold plan, which is to pass Tiffany a note asking if she wants to grab a slice of pizza at Angelo’s after school. I am just getting up my nerve to do it—there are only five minutes of class left—when Mr. F. says, “So, what do you think the queen should have done then, Murphy?”

  How am I supposed to know? But I blush and don’t hand the note to Tiffany after all, which wouldn’t have been so bad, except that Butch Coulter sees I have it and grabs it on the way out of class, and I have to give him the rest of my week’s lunch money to get it back.

  Tuesday I try a new tactic. There’s a little store on the way to school where you can pick up candy and gum and stuff, and I get some on the way to school, and then kind of poke Tiff in the back during social studies class, which is about the only time I see her, to ask if she wants a piece of gum. Only before she can answer, Mr. Fessenden comes up from behind and snatches the whole pack out of my hand. So that was that.

  Then, on Wednesday, it’s as if the gods are smiling on me, which is not something I am used to. Tiffany grabs my arm on the way out of social studies and says, “Can I talk to you for a second, Murphy?”

  “Sure,” I say. This is not very eloquent, but it is better than the first thought that crosses my mind, which is, “Any time, any where, any moment of the day.” It is also better than “Your words would be like nectar flowing into the hungry mouths of my ears,” which was a line I had come up with for a poem I was writing about her.

  She actually looks a little shy, though what this goddess-on-earth has to be shy about is more than I can imagine.

  She hands me a folded-over set of papers, and my heart skips a beat. Can this be a love letter? If so, it’s a really long one.

  “I wrote this skit for drama club, and I thought maybe you would do it with me next Friday. I think you’d be just right for the part.”

  My heart starts pounding. While it seems unlikely that the part is that of a barbarian warrior prince, just doing it means I wi
ll have an excuse to spend time with Tiffany. I mean, we’ll have to rehearse and . . . well, the imagination staggers.

  “Yes!” I say, ignoring the facts that (a) I have not yet read the script and (b) I have paralyzing stage fright.

  She gives me one of those sunrise smiles of hers, grabs my arm and gives it a squeeze, and says, “Thanks. This is going to be fun.” Then she’s gone, leaving me with a memory of her fingers on my arm and a wish that I had started pumping iron when I was in first grade, so my biceps would have been ready for this moment.

  Mikey moves in a second later. “Whoa,” he says, nudging me with his elbow. “Progress! What did she say?”

  “She wants me to do a skit with her.”

  He shakes his head. “Too bad. I thought maybe you had a chance. How’d she take it when you told her no?”

  I look at him in surprise. “I didn’t. I said I would do it.”

  Mikey looks even more surprised. “Murphy, you can’t go on stage with her. You can’t even move when you get on stage. Don’t you remember what happened in fifth grade?”

  As if I could forget. Not only was it one of the three most humiliating moments of my life, but according to my little brother it has become legendary at Westcott Elementary. Here’s the short version: Mrs. Carmichael had cast me as George Washington in our class play, and I was, I want to tell you, pretty good during rehearsals. But when they opened the curtain and I saw the audience . . . well, let’s just say that when my mother saw the look on my face she actually let out a scream. She told me later she thought I was having a heart attack. As for me, my mouth went drier than day-old toast, some mysterious object wedged itself in my throat, and the only reason I didn’t bolt from the stage was that I couldn’t move my arms or legs. Heck, I couldn’t even move my fingers.

  I couldn’t even squeak!

  Finally they had to cancel the performance. Even after the curtains were closed it took two teachers and a janitor to carry me back to the classroom.

  “This time will be different,” I say.

  Mikey snorts.

  I know he is right. “Oh man, what am I gonna do?” I wail.

  “Come on, let’s look at the script. Maybe all you have to do is sit there and she’ll do all the acting.”

  No such luck. The script, which is called Debbie and the Doofus, is very funny.

  It also calls for me to say a lot of lines.

  It also calls for me to act like a complete dork.

  Immediately I begin to wonder why Tiffany thinks I would be just right for this role.

  “Maybe she imagines you’re a brilliant actor,” says Mikey.

  He is trying to be helpful, but to tell the truth, I am not sure which idea is worse: that Tiffany thinks I am a dork, or that she thinks I am a brilliant actor.

  “What am I gonna do?” I wail again.

  “Maybe your parents will move before next week,” says Mikey, shaking his head. “Otherwise, you’re a dead man walking.”

  I ask, but my parents are not planning on moving.

  I study the script as if it is the final exam for life, which as far as I am concerned, it is. After two days I know not only my lines but all of Tiffany’s lines, too, as well as the lines for Laurel Gibbon, who is going to be playing the waitress at the little restaurant where we go for our bad date.

  My new plan is that I will enjoy rehearsals, and the excuse they give me to be with Tiffany, then pray for a meteor to strike me before the day of the performance.

  The first half of this actually seems to work. We have two rehearsals, one at school, and one in Tiffany’s rec room. At the first one she is very impressed by the fact that I know my lines already. “This is great, Murphy!” she says, which makes me feel as if I have won the lottery.

  At the second rehearsal I actually make Laurel, who is perhaps the most solemn girl in the school, laugh. This is an amazing sound to me, and I find that I really enjoy it. Like Tiffany, Laurel has been in our class since kindergarten. Only I never noticed her much because, well, no one ever notices Laurel much, on account of she basically doesn’t talk. I wondered at first why Tiffany had cast her, but it turns out they are in the same church group and have been good friends for a long time.

  Sometimes I think the girls in our class have a whole secret life that I don’t know about.

  Time becomes very weird. Sometimes it seems as if the hours are rushing by in a blur, the moment of performance hurtling toward me. Other times the clock seems to poke along like a sloth with chronic fatigue syndrome. Social studies class consists of almost nothing but staring at the sunshine in Tiffany’s hair and flubbing the occasional question that Mr. Fessenden lobs at me. Some days I think he asks me questions out of pure meanness. Other days he leaves me alone, and I almost get the impression he feels sorry for me.

  Mikey and I talk about the situation every night. “No meteor yet,” he’ll say, shaking his head.

  “What am I gonna do?” I reply, repeating the question that haunts my days. I can’t possibly tell Tiffany I can’t do this.

  “Maybe you could be sick that day?” says Mikey.

  I shake my head. “If I let her down I will hate myself forever.”

  Mikey rolls his eyes. “Maybe you should run away from home,” he suggests, not very helpfully.

  Finally we do come up with a plan, which is that Mikey will stay in the wings to prompt me in case the entire script falls out of my head. I don’t know if this will really do much good, since if I freeze with terror, mere prompting will not be of much use. On the other hand, knowing Mikey will be there calms me down a little. It’s like having a life jacket.

  Hah! Little do I know what kind of life jacket he will turn out to be.

  To my dismay, I have not been able to parlay my time working on the skit with Tiffany into anything bigger. This is partly because she is the busiest person in the eighth grade, with more clubs and committees and activities than any normal person could ever be involved with. It is also because I am stupid about this kind of thing and don’t have the slightest clue how to do it. So I treasure my memory of the two rehearsals and, more than anything else, the sound of her laughing at some of what I have done.

  Despite my prayers, Friday arrives. I don’t suppose I really expected God to cancel it, though I would have been deeply appreciative if he had. I go through the day in a state of cold terror. The drama club meeting is after school. Members of the club have invited their friends, their families, and some teachers to come see the skits. There are going to be four skits in all. Tiffany, Laurel, and I are scheduled to go last, which gives me more time to sweat and worry.

  Mikey is backstage with us, but Tiffany does not know why. I tell her he came because he is my pal. Getting him aside, I check to make sure he has the script.

  At 2:45, Mrs. Whitcomb, the drama club coach, comes back to wish us luck. She makes a little speech, which she ends with, “Okay, kids, break a leg!”

  This, of course, is how people wish each other luck in the theater. According to my mother, the idea is that you’re not going to get your wish anyway, so you wish for the thing you don’t want, and you may get the thing you do want instead.

  I suddenly wonder if this is what I have been doing wrong all my life.

  On the other hand, Tiffany is standing next to me, so that is one wish that is continuing to come true.

  “Are you excited?” she asks.

  “You have no idea,” I answer, with complete honesty.

  Laurel, who is standing on the other side of me, whispers, “I’m scared.”

  “Don’t worry, you’ll be fine,” I reply.

  I am fairly confident this is true, since I expect to make such an ass of myself that no one will notice anything else, anyway. Inside me, a small voice is screaming, What were you thinking of, you moron? You are going to humiliate yourself in front of all these people, including the girl you would cut out your heart for, who will be even more humiliated than you are, because it’s her skit that you are me
ssing up! Run away! Run away!

  If I could get my hands on this small voice I would gladly beat it to a bloody pulp. Instead I keep taking deep breaths and reminding myself how funny I was during the second rehearsal.

  The first skit goes up. I think it’s funny, but at first people don’t laugh. This terrifies me all over again. Then someone snickers. A moment later someone else lets out a snort. Pretty soon people are enjoying themselves. Clearly it takes people a while to get warmed up when they are trying to have fun.

  At first the sound of that laughter is soothing. People are ready to have a good time. But it takes only a few minutes for me to get terrified by it. What if they don’t laugh at our skit? Even worse, what if they laugh for the wrong reasons? What if Tiffany is totally humiliated and it’s all my fault?

  I go back to wanting to die.

  The second skit goes up, and dies in my place. It just lies onstage, stinking the place up like a week-old fish. It’s as boring as last month’s news. In fact, it’s almost as boring as Mr. Fessenden, which I would not have thought possible. I feel a surge of hope. We can’t possibly look worse than this. In fact, next to it we’ll seem like geniuses. Too bad we can’t go on right away!

  Unfortunately, we have to wait for the third skit, which turns out to be brilliant, which makes me want to kill the people who are in it. Now we’ll be compared to them instead of the dead fish of that second skit.

  The curtain closes.

  “Our turn,” whispers Tiffany. “Break a leg, Murphy.”

  “Break a leg,” I murmur back. Then, so Laurel won’t feel left out, I say the same thing to her as we pick up the table, which is our main prop, and move it onto the stage. Tiffany is right behind us with a pair of chairs. Once they’re in place, we scurry to our positions, Tiffany and me stage right, Laurel stage left.

  My stomach clenches. Cold sweat starts out on my brow.