Alan Cole Is Not a Coward

by Eric Bell

  Whenever Dad’s told me to do my best, it was always to make him look good. My voice comes out very thin. “Why don’t you ever talk about this?”

  “Dad has so much pain in his heart,” Mom says. “He thought everyone in his family was so much smarter than him. He knew he could never compete with his parents, or with you or Nathan, even though you’re only kids.”

  She finally turns to face me. She looks me up and down, then shuts her eyes. No tears. “You look just like him.”

  I swear, even from up here, I can hear the ticking of the wooden clock. I clutch the new sketchbook to my chest.

  “That’s his story,” Mom says.

  “What about you?” I ask. I want to find out everything I can before she retreats into her shell. “What’s your story, Mom?”

  She smiles. A sad, humorless smile. “This is my story,” she says, gesturing around her. “You and Nathan are my story. Your father is my story.” She falls silent.

  Not every story has a happy ending.

  “But what about your parents?” I ask, remembering the special cross Mom wore to the dinner. “Why don’t you ever talk about them?”

  “Your dad wants me to focus on happier times,” she says softly.

  I have to pick my jaw up off the floor. How can Dad force her to break off contact with her own family? Then I remember the phone call Mom was having the other night, when I thought she was talking to Denise, when she got paranoid after she thought I was listening in. I wonder what else my mother is hiding.

  “Maybe now you understand him more,” Mom continues.

  “I understand him more, yeah,” I say, unable to stop myself. “But I don’t think that’s an excuse.”

  “You should show Dad respect—”

  “He burned it.”

  Mom wrings her hands together.

  “Mom,” I say. “Don’t—” I swallow.

  Her hands are squeezed together so firmly they turn shock-white. “Before Dad left home, your grandmother tried to make amends. She told him, ‘Today, do your best.’ It was too late though, and he left without saying good-bye. They always invited him up to their lakeside cabin every summer. But one year there was an awful accident, and they drowned.”

  “. . . what?”

  I don’t have time to teach you.

  We’re never going to the ocean anyway, so why even bother?

  No more swimming. It’s bad enough you’re doing it in school, but now you’re doing it for fun too? No more swimming!

  “I—” I open my mouth. “I never—he never—”

  “I never told you,” Mom whispers. “That was when everything changed. We were supposed to finally go up to the lake to visit, but you had gotten sick after you kept the window open all night painting that picture of a sunset. Dad got sick too. He thought maybe if he’d been there, he could’ve . . .” She closes her eyes. “I think he still blames you.”

  My earliest memory comes rushing back. Me sick in bed, Dad screaming at me, “This is all your fault”—is that really it? Is that when everything fell apart?

  Mom inches the door open. “Be careful, Alan.” And she’s gone.

  He could have had different reasons for not wanting to teach us. Maybe it brought up too many bad memories. Maybe he didn’t want to go near the water himself, that’s how traumatized he was. Maybe he didn’t want to teach us a valuable life skill out of spite.

  Maybe he was trying to protect us.

  Maybe sometimes people act like they’re doing things for selfish reasons, like not teaching their kids how to swim, or maybe they try to downplay the good things they do, like protecting a sketchbook, but they’re really looking out for you.

  Maybe sometimes people retreat from their families because they’re scared of the world, so they hold their love in a tight ball and bury it deep inside. Maybe there’s hope for even those people too.

  Maybe.

  FIFTEEN

  I’m the first one to board bus 19 on Tuesday, as usual. This is Nathan’s second day of swim practice, so he’s been biking to school instead of carpooling with Marcellus. I look out the window as we mosey on over to Evergreen and I watch the cars zoom past. Are the people inside introverts or extroverts? Do they have fiery darkness inside them? Are they being true to themselves? What would a cretpoj of them look like? Am I—

  “Alan Cole,” a voice says next to me. “Scooch.”

  Talia doesn’t wait for me to actually move, shimmying onto the seat and practically forcing me over to the side. “Good morning,” I grumble.

  My class president nods stiffly. “This isn’t a social call. As the leader of our class, I’m conscripting you for an assignment.”

  Goody. “Can it wait until we get to school?”

  “Alan Cole, I need to make a splash. I need to make change happen today. Our classmates are crying out in desperation. Can’t you hear them?”

  (She actually pauses, like she expects me to cup a hand to my ear.)

  “I thought you had big ideas,” I say.

  Talia sighs. “Principal Dorset says my ideas are a lot of fluff—and if you ask me, he’s still sore about the debate. I told him if we had a good sex education course I wouldn’t have had to explain your question, but he didn’t want to hear it. So I need something big.”

  “I don’t know,” I say. “Why are you asking me?”

  Here she hesitates. “You’re the only one who listens when I talk.”

  Oh.

  “Except when you don’t,” she says, the steel returning to her voice. “You forgot about the favor, didn’t you?”

  “The what?”

  She shakes her head. “Unbelievable. Alan Cole, you are unbelievable. The favor I owe you over the election. You’d better come up with something soon, or the offer goes away. I’m a busy girl and I don’t have time to wait around for indecisive boys.”

  I completely forgot about that. With everything that’s happened since Friday, Talia and her weird favor haven’t even been on my mind at all. “Well, do you know how to break into a vending machine?”

  Talia gasps. “Alan Cole! I’m Sapling class president! Unbelievable! If I ever hear about you trying to damage a vending machine, I’ll tell Principal Dorset. Don’t test me. Unbelievable!”

  “It’s not like that,” I protest. “It’s hypothetical.”

  “Well, take your hypothetical scenarios and march them off this bus right now. You know, I don’t even think we should have vending machines in school. They encourage obesity. I’ve already talked with Principal Dorset about getting rid of that broken one outside Miss Richter’s room—”

  “No!” I choke out. “That one’s, uh, got to stay. For sentimental reasons. Yeah.”

  Talia sighs. “Alan Cole, you’re a strange boy. That machine’s days are numbered. Did you know someone shoved a dirty piece of paper inside? We can’t have things like that clogging up the halls. I’m glad you agree with me.”

  Great. That’s the last thing I need—Talia tossing out the vending machine, paper and all. She can do whatever she wants after Friday, after I solve Nathan’s riddle. Somehow.

  When I get off the bus, kids start giving me funny looks. At first I think it’s still leftovers from my question at the debate, but these are different looks, like they’re trying to figure something out, like I’m a missing piece of a weird jigsaw puzzle.

  “What’s going on?” Madison asks at my locker. “I heard a rumor about the pool, but nothing specific.”

  “Maybe they canceled swimming forever,” I say, letting the pleasant thought float through my head.

  Madison taps his chin. “Hmmm. Unlikely. It sounds like something happened to a student this morning.”

  “Alan!” Zack yells from the other end of the hall, sprinting past Mrs. Ront (“No running!”) and a group of older kids (“Watch it, Nesthead!”) before stopping in front of us. “Did you hear?” he pants, grabbing his side. “It’s—”

  Then he freezes completely, like a deer on a highway
, as a girl walks over. Her face is bunched up in a bushy scarf, despite the fact it’s only October. She keeps her head ducked but clearly makes a beeline for us. Zack literally jumps behind me and pokes his head out from my side.

  “Um,” the girl says quietly. “Hello, Alan.”

  I sort of recognize her. I think she’s in my art class, but I don’t know her name. “Hi,” I say.

  “Hello,” Madison says. “I’m Madison Wilson Truman, Alan’s friend and life coach. Who might you be?”

  Behind me, Zack gulps. “Hi, Penny.”

  Penny Schmidt only has eyes—hazel eyes—for me. She ignores Zack and Madison and says to me, “I heard about your brother. That’s, um, pretty scary, huh?”

  “What?” I ask. “What do you mean?”

  “That’s what I came to tell you!” Zack says, stepping out from behind me. “I heard some guys talking about it in the bathroom—your brother almost drowned!”

  My heart pounds in my chest like a timpani. “What?”

  “I heard he’s fine,” Penny says. “But I bet he’s pretty embarrassed.”

  Madison crosses his arms. “Why would he be embarrassed? There’s nothing wrong with not knowing how to swim.”

  Penny whispers, “There’s something wrong with diving into the deep end and not knowing how to float and needing Coach Streit to give you mouth-to-mouth.”

  Madison’s eyes bug out. “Why on earth would he dive into the deep end if he’s still learning?”

  “Because he thinks he can do anything,” I say, breathing a little easier. “So he’s okay then?”

  “He definitely won’t want to show his face for a while,” Penny says quietly. “Now everyone knows him as the boy who almost drowned and made out with Coach Streit.”

  Zack laughs, really forced. “Ha! Good one, Penny. You’re so funny.”

  Penny smiles but doesn’t look at Zack. Instead she looks at me. “I guess we know who the cool one in the family is.”

  When she walks away after I don’t say anything to her weird comment, I’m left holding on to my algebra textbook, weighing me down even more than usual. He almost died . . . but he’s okay.

  “Oh no,” Madison says quietly. “Do you know what this means, Alan? He’s winning. He’s ahead of you in points.”

  “He’s—huh?”

  “He’s the most well-known kid in school now, isn’t he?” Madison asks. “Everyone’s talking about him.”

  Zack gasps. “And he kissed Coach Streit. He got his first kiss! That counts, right?”

  “CPR is not a first kiss,” I grumble. The idea’s so absurd I can’t imagine anyone arguing it seriously.

  Except Nathan. He’ll try and spin this around like he had it all planned, like even though he won’t learn to swim he traded one CvC task for two. Nathan Cole, genius mastermind. And because CPR is called the kiss of life, he’ll argue it counts. This is what he used to do in other CvC games: find loopholes. I’m always powerless to stop it. Which means, indeed, he’s up four to two.

  Once we walk into homeroom, Connor nods at me as he looks over science notes. “Hey, man. I hope I do okay on this quiz today. This chemistry stuff is tough.”

  I plonk down in my seat, doing my best not to think about how much harder I’m going to have to practice at Helen’s Crest—if that’s even possible—or how mean I’d have to actually be to make someone cry. “Hey.”

  “Man, Ron’s got it easy,” Connor says. “He’s in the slow classes. All they care about is if you show up.”

  I almost say, it’d be nice if Ron stopped showing up, but I don’t. Instead I shrug.

  “You okay?” Connor asks. “Hey, if you’re still upset about Ron saying that stuff to you, don’t take it personally. He’s a good guy. Even if he’s gay.”

  “Uh . . . w-what?”

  Connor laughs. “Yeah. He’s a little punk. He’s probably got some gay little crush on me and that’s why he acts like such a tough guy. What do you call that—overcompensating?”

  “Yeah . . . overcompensating.”

  “You know what I mean? The homo’s hopeless. He’s so gay. Right?”

  Something inside me, in a place closer to the surface than I thought, gets a chip in it. “R-R-Right,” I whisper.

  Connor’s smile gets big. “See? I knew you’d get it.” He pops his gum and goes back to his notes, looking over a formula scrawled in messy handwriting.

  I sit in my desk, trying hard not to let those words fire around my brain like a machine gun, popping holes in the gray matter. Trying hard and failing. So what if he says “gay” like that? So what if he thinks Ron has a “gay little crush” on him? Lots of guys trash talk like that. It doesn’t mean he wouldn’t be interested in—in—

  In my pocket, my phone vibrates. With a trembling hand I read the text message:

  u shold tlel him

  To my left, Zack gives me a goofy smile.

  I quickly tap out a reply:

  you should get a reality check.

  Zack frowns. He starts typing something else, but the bell rings, and the phones get put away, and I realize maybe Zack’s not the only one who needs a reality check.

  After homeroom I’m summoned to Principal Dorset’s office. He explains how Nathan was rushed to the emergency room this morning, how our family has been notified (meaning Mom, thank God, so here’s hoping she does what she does best and keeps quiet), and how Nathan will be home the rest of the day. So he’s fine, and that’s what matters.

  I kind of doubt he’d say the same about me, but hey.

  I have art right before lunch, and today Mrs. Colton gives us a lecture on perspective, which is basically how you make distance and dimensions in a two-dimensional drawing. We try sketching out an image of a street stretching into the horizon. Across the art table, I notice Penny Schmidt for the first time. I wonder: What does Zack see in her? What does somebody like Zack look for in a crush? Maybe I should be taking notes. (Then again, I don’t know if Zack should really be doling out romance tips.)

  Mrs. Colton hums a little song as she flits about the room, offering feedback and suggestions to everyone. “Nice shading, Omar. You could tighten up the lines there and really make it eye-popping, Shannon. Rudy, I don’t think streets have googly eyes, but I’ve never said no to creativity before. Alan—”

  She stops at my seat and looks down at my paper.

  Blank.

  My teacher sighs. “Alan,” she says quietly, “all you need to do is draw a street. You have free rein. Isn’t that liberating?”

  “I’m sorry,” I whisper.

  When Mrs. Colton walks away I reach into my backpack and pull out my old sketchbook, and I turn to the last page, where Connor’s half-painted big smile beams up at me. There’s a deep tightness in my chest as I stare back at my crush. Then, like tugging off a Band-Aid, I rip the page out of my sketchbook and crumple it up into a little ball. Unlike tugging off a Band-Aid, it isn’t any easier to do it fast. The tightness doesn’t go away. In fact, it expands, and it threatens to pop out of my eyes and throat, and it’s all I can do to keep it bottled inside.

  Oh wait, I’m in class. Whoops.

  I look around to make sure nobody’s watching, but everyone’s busy putting gravel on their streets or something. Except Penny, who looks back down at her paper when I catch her eye.

  After a big, fat zero from Mrs. Colton, class wraps up, and there’s a storm cloud over my head, raining lightning bolts onto my earlobes. I can hardly get out of the art room, normally my favorite spot in all of Evergreen, fast enough. Before I get far though, somebody taps me on the shoulder.

  “Um, hi,” Penny says when I turn around.

  Oh God, she’s going to ask me what’s wrong, why did I crumple my paper, is everything okay, why are you so upset about your gay little crush . . . “Hi.”

  Penny shifts her feet as the noisy crowd flows by. I should really tell her about Zack. Maybe it’ll help him break the ice if she knows how he feels. “Uh,” I say, “my fri
end—”

  Before I know it, she stumbles forward with her eyes closed and her lips out and her bushy scarf scrapes my chin and oh my God we are on full alert here, battle stations at the ready, Code Red repeat we have a Code Red this is not a drill THIS IS NOT A DRILL—

  I scream about three octaves higher than usual and dash halfway down the hall by the time I come to my senses. Laughter comes from everywhere.

  That was—she was—she wanted to—she—and me—

  Something tells me that’s not how that’s supposed to go.

  Someone who isn’t me might have said, Oh hey, I’d love to swap spit with you in broad daylight when anyone can walk by, especially since I basically met you today and my friend has a crush on you. Oh, and also, I’ve got it bad for a homophobe. That’s cool, right?

  I wasn’t thinking of any of that at the time though. At the time, I just panicked.

  Come on, you would’ve panicked too.

  Humor me a little, all right?

  When I get to the cafeteria, I walk on tiptoes, because there’s this nagging dread that bubbles up that somehow, some way, I’ve done something bad. And maybe I have—Penny probably feels really stupid. But you better believe I’m not about to go up to her and do a group hug and toast some marshmallows.

  Could’ve checked off another task, a Nathan-esque voice in my head says. Nobody’ll ever want to kiss you ever again. Too bad, huh, Al?

  A spit-filled blatty fart noise fills my ears. I spin around and say, “Knock it off, will you?”

  Zack leans back. “Oh. Sorry.”

  I take a deep breath. “I’m sorry. You . . . scared me, that’s all.”

  He shrugs. “It’s okay. I thought of another idea for the vending machine. We take the machine to a river and send it downstream. When it fills with water, the paper will fall out. Nobody said it had to be in one piece, right? It’ll clean off the paper too!” He gives a thumbs-up, then goes on about this until we finally get seated, finishing with, “Salmon swim upstream, so we might have to worry about them—”

  As I put fried chicken from last night’s dinner in with the cafeteria’s mac and cheese, I feel someone standing at the edge of the table. I look up and immediately turn bright red.