by Chad Morris
I was still wet with stream water, sitting in a plant cave with someone I met just a few days ago who seemed like she was crying. It was one of the strangest situations I’d ever been in, but all that was going through my mind was one question: Did she just say “friend”?
“Flint Keith Minett, you had me as worried as a long-tailed raccoon in a sawmill,” Grandma said hugging me tighter than I’d ever wanted. As soon as I walked in the front door, she’d nearly attacked me. “And your eyes are okay?”
I nodded.
I had forgotten to text Grandma to tell her I was walking home and I’d be late. And my phone was on silent in my backpack so I hadn’t heard it.
“Is he back?” Grandpa asked from another room.
“Yes.” She let go, but sighed in relief.
“I told you he was fine,” Grandpa said. I knew he was sitting at the kitchen table with his newspaper and a mug of milk. “Should we eat?” It was only like five-thirty, but that’s usually when we ate. Grandpa didn’t sound nearly as upset as Grandma.
“I called the school. I made Grandpa drive around looking for you,” Grandma scolded, her eyebrows up.
“She did,” Grandpa confirmed from the other room. “And Clark let me off the end of my shift so I could do it. Got back a few minutes ago. We were set to go out again if you didn’t come home.” He must not have driven from the library to our house, because we didn’t see each other.
“And that costs us for Grandpa to leave early,” Grandma said. “Plus, I imagined the worst things as I drove around.” She turned and went into the kitchen.
“I’m sorry,” I said, following behind, my shoes squishing a little. My eyes were tired and I just wanted to eat and get some rest. “I wasn’t thinking.” I felt terrible for forgetting to call. I didn’t mean to make her worried.
“What’s that sound?” Grandma called out. “Flint, are your shoes wet?” I checked and found a trail of wet footprints. “Don’t walk wet shoes through my house. Take those out to the carport to dry.”
I had totally forgotten. Thankfully my shirt and pants had dried, but I had forgotten about my shoes. I pulled them off and hurried to the door to the carport. I noticed that there was spaghetti sitting in the middle of the table as I passed through the kitchen to the door. Cooking calms Grandma when she’s worried.
“Where were you?” Grandpa asked, scooping up some spaghetti and plopping it on a plate.
“Hiking,” I said, dropping my wet shoes. “With a friend.”
“Hiking? Where?” Grandma asked.
“On a trail behind the library,” I explained, accepting the towel Grandma gave me and pushing it around the kitchen floor with my foot.
“And we had no idea,” Grandma said, pointing to a small puddle on the ground I missed. “What if you got lost? What if something happened with your eyes? Flint, you have as much sense as a hen has teeth.”
“There were other people hiking there,” I defended. “And there were houses not far away.”
Grandma continued, “I’m not sure you understand how worried I was.”
I reached for my plate, but Grandma ordered me to wash my hands first.
Grandpa cleared his throat. “Who was this friend?” he asked.
“What?” I asked, still a little surprised, sudsing my hands in the sink.
“Who was he?” Grandpa repeated.
“She,” I said, rinsing off in the sink. “Her name is McKell.”
Almost simultaneously I saw Grandma’s mouth turn to a frown and Grandpa’s turn to a smile. I know their faces well enough to tell.
“Is she nice?” Grandpa asked.
“Yeah,” I said. “She’s really nice.” I dried my hands off and made my way to the table.
“Are you nice to her?” Grandpa asked, his voice a little sterner.
“Definitely,” I said, taking my seat.
He leaned forward. “Always treat women with respect,” he said, and then gave the usual Grandpa nod. “Treat everyone with respect, but especially women.” He turned to Grandma, “You can continue.”
And she did. She continued through most of dinner. She listed all the rules I broke and made some more so this would never happen again. Thankfully, the spaghetti was okay and when I was done, Grandma let me go to my room. I wasn’t sure if I was going to be punished or not, or if going to my room was my punishment. They hadn’t really addressed that. But I was grateful to escape.
First thing I usually did in my room was pull out a comic. Not today. I’d do that later. I made my way to my old laptop. I closed my eyes, trying to calm down the beginnings of a headache. I’d pushed myself too hard with the hike. Or maybe Grandma had repeated herself too many times.
After a minute, I heard the tune my computer makes when it’s finished booting. My fingers typed quickly along the keys: Pangani . . . I didn’t know how to spell her last name. I threw in a lot of letters: Panganifslm. I hit enter. Within seconds, hundreds of hits came up. Most of them were pictures of people from different countries. There was a story about police in Kenya, and apparently Pangan was a place somewhere.
McKell said her name was from the Philippines or India or something, right? Maybe I was on the right trail.
I guess you can’t just type in a misspelled version of someone’s last name and get exactly what you’re looking for. Unless you want random pictures and a story about Kenyan police. What had she said her brother’s name was? Danny? And he had a YouTube channel. “Danny’s Challenges.” I typed in “Pangani Danny’s Challenges YouTube.”
I hit enter and almost instantly stared into a smiling face. A really different smiling face. The boy’s head was bald and looked bigger and rounder than any head I’d seen. He had large eyes that seemed too close together. He also had a thin, pointed nose and almost no chin. This couldn’t be him. Other than the same skin tone, he didn’t look anything like McKell. I clicked back to scroll through the results. But there he was, listed by the YouTube channel, “Danny’s Challenges.”
Could this boy actually be McKell’s brother?
Click.
There was that unique face, smiling as big as his small mouth could, large glasses on his nose, and wearing a Huskers hat that sat oddly on his round head. Danny was at a desk with books and Huskers posters behind him.
“Hello!” Danny said with a wave of a thin arm and hand. His voice was high and squeaky. “And welcome back to another episode of ‘Danny’s Challenges.’” He spoke quickly and with a lot of inflection. That surprised me a little. For some reason, I thought with the way he looked Danny would speak slower. When he said, “Danny’s Challenges,” the screen shook and his voice echoed. He obviously put that together in editing. I scanned the details under his video. It had hundreds of thousands of views. And he had 400,000 subscribers? I would have never guessed. What could he possibly say that would get so many people listening to him?
“If you haven’t watched this channel before, my name is Danny, and I should apologize for being so much handsomer than you.” He pointed and then laughed.
I couldn’t help but smile.
“The secret to my good looks?” He leaned in. “It’s a genetic disease called progeria. Sorry, but if you weren’t born with it, you’ll never look as good as me.” He clapped and laughed at his own joke. “I always put a link in the description if you want to know more about the disease. There are only like 130 known cases of it in the world. I’m pretty unique.” He pointed at himself with both thumbs.
Only 130 known cases? That was way rarer than my keratoconus.
“Here’s the deal,” Danny continued. “Though I’m a happy, good-looking sixteen-year-old, my body thinks it’s a lot older than it is. That’s why I have to worry about stuff like heart disease.” He pounded his chest over his heart. “It’s also why I have this awesome head.” He rubbed his bald scalp then winked. “Don’t be
jealous.”
“But,” he said, “I’m not as young as I used to be.” He imitated an old man grumbling, though with his high squeaky voice it couldn’t get very low or gravelly. “I haven’t been feeling great. I’m on some extra medications, etc. Boring stuff.” The video cut to Danny snoring. Then it cut to the next scene and he was awake. “The bottom line is that I want you to go out and do what I can’t right now.”
He pointed both of his thin index fingers at me through the screen. “Your challenge this week is to go outside on an adventure. Explore a swamp. Climb a mountain, canoe across a lake . . . do something outside. Go somewhere I would want to go.” The screen flashed with pictures of him in the outdoors, canoeing on a lake, rappelling off a mountainside, hiking with a light backpack. “It doesn’t have to be a big deal. Those who know me well, know that my muscles can’t take me as far or as fast as others, but I still love it. For example, I love to do a simple little hike with my sister really close to our house that ends in this awesome secret place.”
Yep. This was definitely the right guy. And McKell had brought me to that place. I felt kind of flattered.
The camera zoomed in on Danny. “Got a place in mind?” He paused for a moment as if waiting for the listener to say something. “Good. But there is one more catch to the challenge, you have to bring at least one other person along. It’s always more fun with someone else. Take a friend. Meet a new friend. Take someone with you.” The camera came in for a close-up and he wiggled his eyebrows. “Uh huh,” he said. “Maybe even someone you kind of like. Or someone you want to find out if you kind of like.” The camera zoomed back out. “Or someone who’s lonely. Or someone you want to meet. I would want to meet them all, and I’d go with you if I could.”
Wait. Which category was I in? McKell only said a friend. She didn’t kind of like me, did she? Or maybe I was someone who looked lonely. That seemed much more likely.
“So go out there and explore. Climb, hike, adventure. Climb something. Wait. Did I say climb twice?” Why didn’t Danny edit out his mistake? I would have. I mean, I edit my comics until I have them the way I want them. “Go somewhere I would go.”
Danny seemed like a great guy. A little weird, and definitely different looking, but a good guy.
I clicked on another video. Danny was even more energetic. I watched several videos, clicking on whichever one came up in the playlist next. He challenged people to read a book, to listen to a whole album of music they had never listened to before, to be nicer to their moms, to go a whole week without desserts—all sorts of things. There was a decent amount of variety to his challenges. I clicked on another.
Danny talked about how he wanted to make lots of friends and be with people, but sometimes he didn’t have the energy. “But there is always a way to do what you really want,” he said. Then he shared about making his YouTube channel. He said he was really nervous to show it to others. But he said that a friend named Yellow saw it, was super supportive and helped him edit it. I have no idea what kind of a name Yellow was, but at least he was helping out in a good cause. “So share something you create with someone else. I share my videos. Maybe you write cool songs and rhymes like my sister. Maybe you take amazing pictures. Maybe you draw. I know you have a talent. Use it and share it.” He bobbed his eyebrows up and down. “Use it and share it,” he repeated.
My mind immediately jumped to my drawings. Other than my grandma and grandpa, McKell was really the only one that had seen them. I had kind of already done that one with her. But I was in no hurry to let anyone else look at them. I didn’t want anyone else making fun of them. Not Gavin. Not Travis. No one. Well, I guess I’d have to let the contest judges see them.
But this challenge would explain why McKell shared her rhyming with me. Maybe when she was messing with her phone she wasn’t recording anything but checking her list of challenges.
I clicked the subscribe button. I’d watch one more before getting back to Squint and his quest to save the Empress. I clicked the next video.
“Hey, world,” Danny said and jumped into one of his usual intros. “Here’s a story for today,” he said. “When I first moved to Lincoln, I was pretty out of place. Plus, I don’t know if you’d believe this or not, but some people couldn’t stop staring at my beautiful face.” He framed his face with his hands. “I ate lunch alone. I hated it. I wanted so badly to be with people. To laugh, to joke, to hang out. But none of them gave me a chance at first.” He took a breath. “So I decided to help them along. I looked for someone who looked lonely and I went and sat with them. And that turned out to be one of the best things I’ve ever done. It put me on a path to make some great friends.”
That sounded hard. I mean, I figured that nobody wanted to eat lunch with me—that’s why nobody did. If I went and sat with others I could only imagine that going badly.
Danny pointed at the camera again. “Your turn. Find someone at school, or work, or wherever. Maybe they look lonely. Maybe they don’t have any friends. Introduce yourself. Sit with them. Get to know them. That is your challenge for the day.”
Could I do it?
Wait.
That’s what McKell was doing. I was the lonely kid. That was why she ate part of lunch with me in the first place.
Maybe I wasn’t a friend.
Maybe I was just a challenge.
“Flint!” A shrill voice rang from down the hall. Sometimes Grandma’s voice was all singsongy, but not now.
“Flint!”
A tingling feeling started at the front of my right eye and streamed behind it. Apparently, my grandma’s voice was actually breaking things inside of me. I always suspected as much. Or maybe my eye was extra irritated today. I don’t know if it was those awful contacts or going on that hike.
“You need to answer me.” Grandma stepped into the doorway. I could see her big blonde hair and blue jeans.
I looked up. “Hey, Grandma.” I tried to sound like I had barely heard her for the first time.
“Do you have rocks in your ears?” she asked.
“No,” I said. “Sorry, I was looking something up.”
She softened a little. “You didn’t walk the Hulk, did you?” she asked.
“Sorry,” I said. “I meant to, it’s just that—”
“So,” Grandma interrupted, “this is when you show that you’re sorry by running out there and taking care of it.” She only waited a moment.
I got up out of my chair and passed her before wiping my weepy eye. No use getting her worried.
I found the Hulk in the brush outside of Grandma’s flower bed, the moving mound of brown fur among all the other colors. “Hey, Hulk,” I said, and lowered my voice. “Come here, I’ve got a . . . job for you.” I tried to sound like Batman or something. Real tough. It was the same way Squint would talk to Rock.
I caught the Hulk around the back and belly, then worked my hands up to the loop on his collar to hook on the leash. I tried not to get too close to his mouth. His Hulk breath smelled worse than the boys’ locker room. That’s definitely a downside to the gamma rays that they never mention in the comic books.
Blinding light hit me and immediately my eye stung. Stupid sun—right in my eyes.
It took a couple of seconds to recover, but then we set off. I passed our neighbors, the family from Italy. At least I think they were. Something like that. What was their last name? Grandma said it all the time. The dad was working on a car he had parked in the street.
“Hey, Flint,” he said. Adults usually call me by my real name. But what was his name? Marco? Marcello? Milano?
I nodded and let out a mumble that meant hello. Why did people say hello when passing each other? Most people don’t stop to talk and I’m fine with that.
“Well,” he said, realizing I wasn’t going to say anything else, “it was good catching up with you, too.” He chuckled as he leaned back in over t
he car. He did like to laugh, especially at his own jokes.
Wow, the sun was bright. I felt like I stood under some massive vaporizing laser. Of course having the light go through my thick glasses didn’t help. The glare lingered. I had to blink a few extra times and shaded my eyes. Or maybe it was bugging me so badly because I had that headache coming on. I could already feel the throbbing start behind my right eye.
The Hulk stopped his stubbly waddle to sniff the base of a tree. He slobbered a little on it too. “Come on, boy,” I said and tugged on the leash. “Remember that job you’ve got to do.” Again, I used my Batman voice.
My right eye pulsed. I wiped it under my glasses with my sleeve. It was full on watering now.
Why did it still seem bright even with my eye closed?
Pain.
Real pain.
All through my eye.
I stopped. The Hulk yanked at the leash. “Stop it,” I said, my voice short and sharp. No more Batman voice. I wasn’t playing. “Let’s go back.”
I turned and started back with my hand cupped over one side of my glasses and my eye. The Hulk ran back the other way, pulling on the leash and letting out short, happy, but demanding barks. He definitely wanted a full walk. I tugged back hard. I had to get inside.
“Ahhh!” I almost dropped the leash. The pain surged so much I almost didn’t realize that I let the scream out. I faltered and fell to one knee onto the cement. I covered my eye with the other hand as well. The Hulk licked my face. I pushed him back.
“Ahhh!” I let out again.
“Are you okay?” A deep voice asked.
“My eye is killing me,” I said without thinking.
“How can I help?” he asked. It was Marco, or whatever his name was.
I didn’t answer.
“Can you walk?”
I nodded and I stood while the pain faded a little. But I knew the next wave would hit soon. A strong arm reached around my back and under my arm. It smelled like grease and sweat, but I didn’t care.
