by David Lubar
“Are you getting sick?” Mom felt my forehead. “You’re chilled! Oh dear, I knew you were coming down with something. I’d better take your temperature.”
“I’m fine.” I pulled back as it hit me that my temperature might not be normal. “They had pizza for lunch. The slices were huge. Can I save the chicken for later?”
“I guess . . . ,” Mom said.
I sat there while my parents ate, and stared down at the pieces of meat on my plate. Dead meat. I was starting to think that the chicken wings and I had a lot in common.
After dinner, I called Abigail. She didn’t answer.
That night, I kept thinking about that fork sinking into my nose. Maybe Mookie was right. I could be in some sort of shock from the accident. My brain might have switched off. But I hadn’t felt the hot pan, either. And my tongue was still numb.
Midnight came and went. I still couldn’t sleep. I turned on my light and did the next couple days’ worth of math homework. Then I read five chapter of social studies. Even that didn’t put me to sleep. It was nearly two o’clock now. I went downstairs and turned on the computer.
What to do?
I thought about that zombie game. Maybe I could find some tips online, and prove to everyone that I wasn’t a total vidiot loser. I started to search. I found a bunch of sites with hints and walk-throughs, but I also stumbled across a PC version of the game. Better yet, you could try the first level for free.
Dad always warned me to be careful about downloading anything. But the game came right from the company Web site, and our virus checker said it was okay.
It took almost fifteen minutes to download, and another ten to install. So I didn’t start playing until around two thirty.
I set it for EASY. The PC version was pretty much the same as the handheld one, which meant I got killed right away. Normally, that’s when I’d start feeling all nervous and distracted. I held up my hand and stared at it. I wasn’t shaky at all. My hand wasn’t sweaty, either. My second guy lasted longer. My third guy made it all the way to the first checkpoint. I was getting better.
The next thing I knew, it was three fifteen, and I’d beaten the first level. I bumped the difficulty up from EASY to NORMAL, and played again.
I got right through it. Maybe I really could prove I was better than everyone thought. I decided not to switch to HARD. Not yet. So I played through again at NORMAL. This time, I beat the level without losing a guy.
When the first bits of light crept across the floor, I got up from the computer, went to the kitchen, and watched the sun rise. I didn’t really feel tired, even though I hadn’t slept at all, so I went back to the computer and played some more. An hour later, I heard Mom and Dad get up. I slipped back in bed so Mom could wake me for breakfast.
“This should perk up your appetite,” Mom said as she placed a plate in front of me.
I stared down at the waffle. After skipping dinner, I should have been starving. But the waffle might as well have been a piece of wood. I wasn’t interested in food. I wasn’t interested in anything except talking to Abigail’s uncle.
“I’m going to get you an appointment with Dr. Scrivello,” Mom said.
That was the last thing I wanted. Dr. Scrivello would definitely figure out there was something wrong with me, and then Mom would totally freak out. She’d probably put me in a sealed room or something. I had to keep her from getting suspicious.
“Mom, there’s nothing wrong with me.” I wondered whether any kid in the history of the world had ever told a bigger lie. I picked up my knife and fork, cut off a chunk of waffle, and forced myself to swallow it. Her frown relaxed a bit, but she was still staring at me. I ate another bite. By the time I’d choked down half the waffle, Mom seemed satisfied. So I got out of the house without being dragged to the doctor.
I searched for Abigail in front of the school, but she wasn’t there yet. Mookie was there, waiting for me next to the front steps. “You look awful,” he said.
“Thanks, Mom,” I said.
“You put on some weight, too.” He poked my stomach. “You’re going to lose your hold on second place. And face it, third-skinniest kid in the class is a pretty worthless title. Unless there are only three kids in the class. Because then you’d also be the fattest.”
I looked down at my waist. I had to admit my stomach bulged a bit. I leaned from side to side and heard a sloshing sound. I guess I had to add one more symptom to my growing list. “I don’t think I’m digesting my food.”
“Ick. That’s not good. It could start to rot. When’s the last time you went to the bathroom?” Mookie asked.
I opened my mouth to answer him, and discovered I wasn’t sure. Definitely not today. Maybe not yesterday. I started to tell this to Mookie, but what came out of my mouth was “Uuuhhhbluuuuppppuuuhhhuuubooorrruppp.”
The burp lasted about thirty seconds, though it seemed more like a lifetime.
Mookie’s face paled, and he staggered back. “Man, I didn’t know burps could stink so bad. Something’s definitely rotting in your stomach. We have to get it out of you before you kill everyone.”
I nodded and let out a smaller burp. It lasted only about fifteen seconds. I waited to see if there was any more coming, but it looked like that was all the excess gas I had for the moment. “How am I going to do that?”
“Stick your finger down your throat,” Mookie said.
“Good idea.” I didn’t want to throw up where people would see me. That’s the sort of thing that can earn a kid a nickname that stays with him for years. There’s no way I want to go through life as “Pukey Abercrombie.” I led Mookie to the Dumpsters behind the school. Then I stuck my finger down my throat.
Nothing.
I didn’t gag. I really couldn’t tell my finger was there. The more I thought about all that food just lying around inside me, rotting like the bottom of a swamp, the more I panicked. Some of it was probably sitting there since Friday or Saturday. I needed to get it out as soon as possible. “Maybe if I hang upside down.”
“Let’s go inside,” Mookie said. “We’ll find something you can hang from.”
I followed him through the side door and down the hall to the gym. He peeked in, then headed over to the parallel bars and said, “Try hanging down from these.”
Great. Gymnastics equipment and I didn’t get along very well. But I was ready to try anything. I got up on the bars, hooked my knees over them, then hung upside down. My stomach moved like a gigantic water balloon.
“Now what?”
“Open your mouth and wait, I guess.” Mookie said. “The food should fall right out.”
It didn’t. “We need to try something else.” My mind went racing through all sorts of ways to empty my stomach. I pictured myself swallowing a garden hose or taking a wild ride on a playground merry-go-round. I grabbed the bar so I could pull myself off.
“Hold still,” Mookie said. “I think I know what to do.” He reached out and pressed against my stomach. “I saw a vet on TV help a cow give birth this way. Or maybe it was a bull. No, wait. It had to be a cow.”
I tried to tell him that was his stupidest idea ever. But the moment I opened my mouth, something plopped onto the floor.
“What was that?” I bent my head back as far as I could and tried to look at the floor, but it was hard for me to see anything in my position.
“You have waffles for breakfast?” Mookie asked.
“Yeah.”
“You really need to learn to chew your food better. You could choke or something.”
Mookie kept pressing. I didn’t say anything more. My throat was busy with other tasks. The waffle was followed by more hunks of stuff and lots of liquid.
“Feel better?” Mookie asked when I got off the parallel bars.
“I don’t feel anything.” I stared at the mound of food. The sight should have at least made my stomach quiver a bit. I didn’t feel sick at all. That scared me. There was more going on than just the fact that I didn’t feel pain
or digest my food. A whole bunch of parts of me had shut down. Important parts. At least I could see and hear. Unfortunately, I could also taste. Even with my numb tongue, I got far too good a lesson about the flavor of rotting food.
“You still don’t feel anything at all?”
“Nope. That Hurt-Be-Gone must have messed up my nerves or something. It’s not wearing off.”
Mookie leaned closer to me and stared at my face.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
He stared for a long time before speaking. “I’m pretty sure it’s worse than you think,” he finally said. “A whole lot worse.”
7
Gone, but Not Forgotten
What are you talking about?” I asked Mookie. “What could be worse than being totally numb and not digesting my food?”
“Being totally dead,” he said.
I stared at him as his words sunk in. “I’m not dead. I can’t be dead.” I smacked him in the shoulder. “Could a dead person do that?” I smacked his other shoulder. “Could a dead person do THAT?” I kept smacking him. I was dangerously close to switching from his shoulder to his face.
“Ouch! Stop that. Listen to me for a minute. You don’t feel pain. You don’t digest food. On top of that, I don’t think you’re breathing.”
“Of course I’m breathing.” I dropped my fists and wondered why I wasn’t out of breath from smacking him. I’d played around with a punching bag at the YMCA once, and I’d started gasping after a couple minutes.
“Are you sure you’re breathing?”
“Yeah.” Even as I spoke, I realized I wasn’t all that sure. I just assumed I was breathing, because I’d been breathing my whole life.
“Hang on,” Mookie said. “There’s one unbeatable test.” He clenched his fists. His face scrunched up for a second so his cheeks and forehead swallowed his eyes. He looked like a badly made Play-Doh sculpture of himself. He grunted. Then his face relaxed. “Smell that?”
“Smell what?”
“Wow. If you don’t smell that, you can’t possibly be breathing.” He fanned the air in front of his face. “You didn’t smell your burp, either. Did you? And that was a real killer.”
“I must have.” But I had no memory of it.
“Let’s make sure. Pinch your nose.”
I pinched my nose and kept my mouth closed. I waited for that feeling—the one where your lungs start to scream for air, like the time I tried to swim all the way across the community pool underwater. My lungs didn’t seem concerned, no matter how long I waited. I looked up at the clock behind the backboard and watched the minutes tick off.
Four ticks later, I let go of my nose. “I’m dead.”
The words hung in the air, too large for me to really make sense of them. A wad of fear started to grow in my brain. But it was lonely fear—no trembles, twinges, or jittery butterflies—just fear itself. It looked like I could be afraid in my mind, but I couldn’t feel fear in my body.
I dropped to the floor and put my head in my hands. “I’m really dead. This is it. Dead . . .”
Mookie dropped down next to me. “I don’t want to go to a funeral. I’m scared of them.”
“There isn’t going to be any funeral,” I said. “Nobody’s sticking me in a coffin.”
“I totally don’t know what to do.” He got up and started pacing. “Am I supposed to get you a present? Or maybe a card. I’m completely lost.”
“Will you stop babbling? I’m the one with the problem.”
“Hey,” Mookie said. “This is hard for me, too.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, usually if a guy’s friend dies, the guy gets all sorts of sympathy and stuff. And his teachers cut him a break. I could really use a break after my score on our last math test. I get the feeling I won’t be enjoying any of that because you don’t act like you’re dead. I guess maybe you’re half dead, which doesn’t do either of us any good.”
“Cheer up,” I told him. “Maybe one of your other friends will die for real.”
“I don’t have any other friends.”
“Well, maybe you can make friends with someone who’s real sick, if sympathy is that important to you.”
“Now you’re making me sound selfish. I guess it’s sort of worse for you than for me. I really am sorry. I wish you weren’t dead.”
I stared at my hands. They didn’t look dead. I felt for my pulse. I couldn’t find anything, but I was never very good at finding my pulse, anyhow. I still wasn’t totally ready to accept that I was dead. “If I’m not breathing, how can I talk?”
“I don’t know. Maybe you can suck in air when you want to say something. So your lungs work. They just don’t work on their own. Try it.”
I drew in a deep breath through my nose. Now I smelled something. “Oh man, Mookie. And you think I’m rotting inside? What did you eat last night?”
“Mom made pork and beans with sauerkraut and coleslaw. And onion soup. But this is great. You can make your lungs work. Like I said, you’re not totally dead. Just sort of half dead. Maybe your heart can work, too. I’ll bet we can start it back up.”
I took another breath—through my mouth, to avoid a second helping of Mookie’s toxic gas blast—and watched my ribs expand. “You really think we can get my heart going again?”
“Sure. I see them do it on TV all the time. They have one of those things in Mr. Lomux’s office.”
“What things?”
“Defiber-something . . .”
“Defibrillator?”
“Yeah. That’s it. Come on.”
I checked the gym clock again. It was almost time for the bell. I didn’t care. If Mookie could get my heart going again, that would be the best thing that had ever happened to me.
I followed him into Mr. Lomux’s office. The defibrillator was in the corner. It had a couple switches and a button. And all sorts of large red warning labels filled with exclamation points, lightning bolts, and pictures of skulls.
“This thing could kill someone,” I said.
“So you’ve got nothing to worry about.” Mookie flipped the main switch. A display showed the word CHARGING. Then it beeped and changed to READY.
“Take off your shirt,” he said.
I took off my shirt. Then I stretched out on Mr. Lomux’s desk.
“Ready?”
“Go for it.”
He put the paddles against my chest and shouted, “CLEAR!”
“Why are you shouting?”
“That’s what they do on TV.”
“Forget that and just do it.”
Mookie pushed the button.
Zzzzzap!
My body jolted so hard, I bounced on the desk. I put my hand on the side of my neck. No pulse. I pinched my palm. No pain. “Try again.”
Mookie turned a dial to a higher setting and zapped me again. Nothing happened, except that the lights in the gym dimmed for a second. After the third try, Mookie sniffed, then said, “I smell bacon.”
I looked down at my chest. Wisps of smoke rose from around the paddles. I pushed Mookie’s hands away and slid off the desk. “That’s enough.” There were dark marks from the paddles. I brushed at them, and little bits of charred skin peeled off. I was almost glad I couldn’t feel anything.
I put my shirt on as the first bell rang. “Come on. We don’t want to be late.”
“What do you care?” Mookie asked me. “You’re dead. You can probably get out of school. Or at least, out of gym.”
“Whatever is happening, I’m not ready to drop out of school.” Or out of the human race. Maybe I was dead—or half dead—but I didn’t plan to stay that way. I had too much living I still wanted to do.
“What’s that?” Mookie asked.
“Footsteps!”
We ducked. I peeked into the gym through the office window as someone came through the door on the other side of the bleachers. Oh great—I’d know those blue sweatpants anywhere. “It’s Mr. Lomux.”
He was headed right t
oward us. “Hey—who’s in there. I see you. You can’t hide from me. You kids are in big trouble.”
He sprinted toward the office. I thought about making a run for it, but there was no way I could escape. He’d catch me before I reached the hallway. But as he ran past the parallel bars, his foot landed right in the slimy pile of food. His legs shot out from under him, and he went up in the air like a very uncoordinated high jumper.
If his leap was bad, his landing was even worse. He came down flat on his back. Mookie and I both winced at the sound of his head bouncing off the gym floor. Luckily, the soggy waffle chunks cushioned the blow a bit.
We ran out to the parallel bars. Mr. Lomux was staring up at the ceiling, but I had the feeling he wasn’t seeing much of anything.
“He’s breathing,” Mookie said.
“Hard head,” I said.
“Put me in, Coach,” Mr. Lomux said. “I can score. I know I can. I won’t drop the ball again. I promise.”
Mookie leaned closer. “Wow, no veins popping. I guess he’s finally found a way to relax.”
I pulled Mookie away. “Let’s get out of here.”
We raced toward our class. The rest of the morning went by without leaving much of an impression on me. My head was too full of the one huge idea I could no longer ignore.
I was dead. Oh man, if my mom found out, she’d kill me.
8
Brain Trust
Iwas so late getting to class that I didn’t have a chance to talk to Abigail right away. At lunch, I rushed over to her table. It felt weird approaching the Table of the Doomed. Fear flashed across a couple faces, and Ferdinand slid under the table. I realized that to some of them, anyone was a potential bully.
