Squint

by Chad Morris

“Ahhh!” My eye was nearly on fire.

  Those strong arms scooped me up and Marco started to run.

  I would have rather faced Galactus trying to devour my entire planet than go back to school, but six days after the eye incident I moved down the hall toward my next class. Six days of rest and headaches. Turns out the sun hadn’t really been brighter. My cornea, the thin outside layer of my eye, had torn. My wonky windshield broke. Now I had to keep it covered and put eye drops in every few hours until I could have some terrifying surgery to fix it. I tried not to think about it.

  “Whoa!” Gavin came at me head-on and grabbed me by the shoulders. Others in the crowded halls passed us. “Look who we have here.” He closed one eye, put up a bent pointer finger, and used his best pirate voice. “It be Squint. And he be squintin’. Arrr.”

  It was the eye patch. Yep. I was a seventh grader walking the halls of middle school wearing an eye patch under my glasses. Doctor’s orders and Grandma’s nonnegotiable commands. I still had to wear my glasses because my other eye needed them to see anything.

  Middle-School Rule: If there is an easy joke, someone will take it. (And a boy wearing an eye patch under his glasses is definitely an easy joke.)

  At first, I kind of liked the eye patch. I felt like Nick Fury, the bald guy who led the Avengers and S.H.I.E.L.D. But then I tried to draw and it was even harder than before. I guess it made sense; I could only look through one of my kind-of-­broken eyes. I was down to under a month to finish my comic and it was more difficult than ever.

  “The glasses over the patch just isn’t working,” Travis said, then turned to Gavin. “It’s like he’s trying to look tough, but can’t quite pull it off.”

  Gavin laughed loud at that one. “He be the Dread Pirate Four-Eyes.”

  And we were back to the pirate voice.

  “That wouldn’t really work,” I said.

  They looked at me for a moment.

  “I wouldn’t have four eyes,” I explained. “People call people with glasses ‘four-eyes’ because the lenses reflect the eyes underneath. But because of the patch you couldn’t see an eye, so I would only have three eyes, or maybe two eyes depending on how you count them. And the Dread Pirate Two-Eyes sounds like . . . most pirates. Well, most people. Not like anything extraordinary. You know?” I forced myself to close my mouth before I went off on how glass over your eye doesn’t actually constitute another eye.

  “Whatever,” Travis said and pushed me. It wasn’t super hard or anything, but I stumbled back a few inches.

  “You’re alright though, right?” Gavin asked, putting one arm around me. He used to do that when I had made a good catch and we’d walk back to the sideline. “Your eye didn’t fall out or anything?”

  “Kind of,” I admitted, “I’m going to need surgery.” Because my cornea had torn so badly, I needed a new one. It was like putting on a new windshield. Except before I could have surgery done, they had to have another cornea available. I was on some waiting list.

  A replacement cornea sounded pretty awesome, but the amount of things that could go wrong had me worried. Really worried. It was like those commercials for pills where they pay the fastest-talking man in the universe to go over all of the possible ways their drug could kill you if you take it. Except this was about me and my eye, and going blind was on the list. They expected the surgery would happen in a month or so. I needed to finish my comic before then.

  “Whoa. No fun,” Travis said. I’m sure he wasn’t actually worried about it.

  “Yeah,” Gavin added. “But the patch? That’s crazy.”

  “Dread Pirate Four-Eyes,” Travis repeated. I guess he didn’t understand my explanation. Or he didn’t care. Eventually the two broke off. “See ya later, Squint.”

  This was going to be a very long day.

  As soon as I walked into science class, I looked for McKell. Her desk was empty. Too bad. I kind of wanted to see her, even if I’d only been a challenge.

  I plopped down in my seat, pulled out my portfolio, and started working before class started.

  I heard whispers about my patch.

  But I had to draw. At least the best I could. Then I’d finish my comic and I’d win the contest and everyone would regret making fun of me.

  I tilted my head and got to it.

  Flashes of light burst through the dark as Gunn and Squint fought. Rock even got in a chomp on Gunn’s leg.

  “Stupid rock dog,” Gunn said, turning his fireball bazooka on him.

  Rock dove behind a broken octopus assassin bot just in time for a fireball to blast it into a million shards of almost nothing. “A little help?” Rock barked out to Squint. “I’m going to be pebbles soon if you don’t do something.”

  But Squint was a step ahead of him. Streams of light shot from his daggers back at Gunn. “This is for stealing the Empress and leaving me for dead.”

  “Ahhh!” Gunn screamed, shooting back to block the attacks.

  Suddenly a stone the size of a basketball backboard slammed into Squint, throttling him to the side. He barely stayed conscious.

  He knew what had hit him. Another Centurion had shown up. Traz. A punch from the gloves of his former friend sent large stones careening toward anyone he attacked. Another stone rocketed toward Squint.

  His head still swirling, Squint barely leapt to the side and his cape maneuvered under him. The boulder rushed past, close enough that he could feel the breeze from its momentum.

  Awesome action. I was proud of that one.

  Squint soared and dodged as his two former friends attacked, but they had capes like his. Traz joined him in the skies, while Gunn attacked from below. As Squint swooped past Gunn, he noticed something strange. Something was different about the back of his neck.

  After another swoop, he got a better look. He still wasn’t sure what he saw. It seemed like a group of black scales on the back of Gunn’s neck.

  “What’s growing on your neck?” Squint asked, firing his daggers.

  Comic Rule: Even during the most intense battle ever, comic-book characters take the time to have a conversation.

  “What are you talking about?” Gunn asked. “Are you trying to distract me?”

  As he soared by Traz, Squint saw that the boulder-­punching Centurion had it too.

  I loved the mystery of the black scales. I still had to decide when Squint was going to figure out what they were.

  Rock leapt from his hiding place and raced at Gunn. He wanted to take him by surprise, but Gunn heard him and leveled his bazooka at the rock dog. This was it.

  “Nooooooo!” Squint screamed and dove at Gunn, firing his light-daggers as fast as possible. He was able to knock his former friend off his feet, but got slammed by one of Traz’s boulders at the same time. Squint careened from his cape and was pinned against the wall.

  The right side of his face seared with pain. His vision blurred and started to fade.

  He hadn’t been clever enough. Not fast enough. Not good enough.

  “We left you alone,” Traz said, now standing over him. “You should have stayed away.” Apparently, a blurry version of his former friend would be the last thing he ever saw.

  I heard my teacher say something, but I was in the middle of this. Squint was trapped in a desperate situation.

  A diamond hand punched out from nowhere and Traz went flying.

  “I don’t think this fight is fair,” a female voice said. As Squint fell unconscious, he saw what he thought was a girl entirely covered in diamond. She wasn’t sparkly like the gem on the end of a ring, but uncut rock naturally formed in the shape of a girl.

  “Flint,” an adult voice said.

  “Here,” I said, sketching my new character. She was hard to draw. I wasn’t that good at girls, and drawing one that looked like uncut diamond wasn’t easy. But I really thought she was working. I tilte
d my head again to try to see a bit better. I had to admit, McKell had a great idea.

  “This isn’t the beginning of class,” Mrs. Brunner said. I looked up. Of course it wasn’t. I’d been sitting in her class for at least eight minutes while she went over some announcements.

  Oh.

  “I’m passing back your tests,” Mrs. Brunner said. “Come and get yours.” She raised a stapled sheaf of paper.

  I wanted to punch the desk. Completely embarrassing. Worse than back when my eyes were going bad and I hadn’t even realized Gavin had thrown the ball to me in a football game. It had nearly hit me in the back—I hadn’t even tried to catch it. This was worse. I was wearing an eye patch with glasses over it, and I answered my teacher like she was taking attendance when she was trying to hand me a test. I jumped up from my front corner seat and walked toward the center of the room.

  Something hard slammed into my hip. I swallowed a grunt and bit my lip.

  “You okay?” A girl in my class asked, but I didn’t turn around.

  “Watch out for those desks that jump out at ya,” someone said. Neither Gavin nor Travis was in my class, but there always seemed to be someone like them or trying to be like them.

  “Be respectful,” Mrs. Brunner said, correcting whoever said it.

  Middle-School Rule: If something terribly embarrassing can possibly happen, it will.

  Apparently, I had walked into the corner of another desk. Hadn’t seen that coming. It had taken me by surprise like the boulder that hit Squint. I bit the inside of my mouth, trying to hide the pain, and grabbed my test. I narrowed my eyes, trying to make out my grade in red ink at the top of the page. I didn’t want to bring it right up to my face where I might be able to make it out. Not with everyone watching. Plus, I needed to make sure I noticed any desks that might attack me on the way back.

  When I made it to my seat without incident, I checked the page again.

  C+.

  Ugh.

  I used to get good grades. Of course, that was back in elementary school when I could see what the teacher wrote on the board.

  “McKell Panganiban,” Mrs. Brunner said. She had obviously practiced that last name before. “McKell.” She held another test in her hand. “Oh,” her voice dropped a little, “that’s right.”

  What did that mean? Did the teacher know why McKell was gone? I hoped it was a family vacation, but something about the way Mrs. Brunner spoke didn’t make it seem like a happy reason. I hoped McKell wasn’t sick or something.

  I looked back at my drawing. I was going to make the next panel completely black, like Squint’s hopes and consciousness. It was deep and symbolic and stuff.

  During the entire lecture, I kept glancing at McKell’s empty desk—and sneaking in a little more drawing time. If I was always this distracted, I would definitely need a science tutor.

  After class, I couldn’t take it anymore. I walked up to Mrs. Brunner. “Hey, Mrs. Brunner, I have a question for you.”

  “Sure,” she said. “And I meant to ask—are you okay?”

  “Yeah,” I said. I was grateful she didn’t ask in front of the whole class. “My cornea tore. Now I’m waiting to have surgery.”

  “Oh. Wow.” Her brows lifted. “I’m sorry. How serious is the surgery?”

  “Well,” I paused a second, “I hope I’ll be okay. I need a new cornea, so right now I’m waiting for a donor.”

  Mrs. Brunner exhaled a little longer than normal. “That’s pretty intense. Anything I can do?”

  I shook my head, but appreciated that she asked. Students never did.

  “I hope it all goes well,” Mrs. Brunner said. “And keep me updated. When you have to miss some class, I can make sure you get the notes and homework.”

  “Thanks,” I said. Then I stood there more awkwardly than I liked. “Um.” How should I ask this? I opened my mouth and let the words tumble out. “How long has McKell been gone? Not that it’s really my business. I’m just curious.”

  Mrs. Brunner looked at me for a moment before answering. “She’s been gone as long as you have.”

  “Is she okay?” I asked.

  Mrs. Brunner looked at me for a moment. I tried to read her eyes, but though my left eye had been better than my right, it still had its issues. “It’s not really my place to answer that,” she said. That sounded serious. Like my surgery serious. Was McKell going through something like that?

  But I didn’t know how to find out. I could wait until she came back to school, but I didn’t want to. If she was going through something tough I wanted to know about it. “Could you give me her number so I could call her?” I asked.

  Mrs. Brunner shook her head. “Sorry,” she said. “I have that information, but only because I’m her teacher. I can’t give it out.”

  “What if I ask the office?” I asked.

  She shook her head again. “Same answer.”

  “Okay,” I said.

  “Hopefully she’ll be back soon,” Mrs. Brunner said. “But I do feel comfortable telling you that she could probably use a good friend when she comes back.”

  I nodded, though I wasn’t really sure what that meant.

  I hadn’t even made it to my next class when my leg vibrated. Well, not my leg. My pocket. A text.

  It was probably my mom. Grandma and Grandpa had called and told her about my torn cornea and she’d said she would come by and visit. She hadn’t. No surprise there. She had texted me to say she was sorry it had happened. And she sent me a picture of herself with some new boyfriend in front of a random piece of street art. I guess she was trying to cheer me up.

  I hadn’t texted back.

  I didn’t know if I wanted to see whatever random thing she texted now.

  I waited until I got into class and pulled out my phone. I didn’t want to try to squint and walk at the same time.

  It wasn’t from Mom.

  It was from Grandma. That was different. She never texted during school. And unlike everyone else in the world, she always took the time to write out every word. No shortcuts. All caps. I think her phone has been stuck that way since she first tried to use caps. And she punctuated everything.

  WE’VE GOT NEWS. WE’VE GOT A CORNEA AND YOU’RE SCHEDULED FOR SURGERY ON THURSDAY. IT MAKES ME NERVOUS, BUT WE’VE GOT TO DO IT.

  I looked at my phone in disbelief. It was going to happen, and much sooner than anyone had thought. Just a few days away. A mix of excitement and terror filled me. I looked down at my portfolio case resting against my desk. I wasn’t done with my comic. Not even close. Squint was in more trouble than ever.

  I looked back down at one word on my phone—THURSDAY.

  If all went well, I could be back in this school sooner than later, seeing and drawing better than ever. Hopefully that would still be enough time to finish Squint’s story before the competition deadline.

  Or maybe I would never see out of my right eye again.

  Cue the fast-talking commercial guy telling me everything that could go wrong.

  Grandma’s knees bounced as we waited in brightly colored chairs in one of the examining rooms.

  “When you’ve been injured,” Grandpa said, “sometimes surgery needs to happen and then you can come back better than ever. For example, when Drew Brees hurt his shoulder, a lot of people thought he was done. But he recovered and he went on to lead the Saints to the Super Bowl and won offensive player of the year. And then there’s Peyton Manning and Tom Brady who . . .”

  “That’s enough,” Grandma said. “Unless one of them took a football to the eye, I don’t want to hear it.” She was breathing faster than I was and she wasn’t even going under the knife . . . err, laser.

  But it didn’t stop Grandpa. He told at least two more stories of players recovering from injuries. And he mentioned how his friend growing up recovered from a broken collarbone. And t
hat one had nothing to do with football. Maybe he was nervous too.

  But I knew Grandpa wasn’t telling the other true stories. The stories where an injury ended a player’s whole career or a friend didn’t recover. I’d heard those too.

  “Is Mom coming?” I asked. I didn’t really expect her, but I asked anyway.

  “She said she would,” Grandma said. “But she might be running late.”

  “Or she’s out at some party and she’ll never show,” Grandpa said.

  Grandma glared at Grandpa. “At one o’clock in the afternoon?” She brought her hands to her chest then wiped them on her skirt. “Goodness, I’m so sweaty, my palms are slicker than a greased waterslide.”

  Her jittering wasn’t helping. I was the one about to have his eye cut open. I held my not-sweaty hands firmly in my lap and prayed that everything would be okay.

  Soon enough I was on a table and Doctor Something—I couldn’t remember his name—leaned over me, looking into some huge microscope over my eye.

  “Aren’t I supposed to be asleep or something?” I asked. Maybe I was just as nervous as Grandma. Probably. But I think that’s understandable. They were going to cut out part of my eye and replace it. And who knew if it would work?

  “We’ll do that soon,” Doctor Something said. “But you shouldn’t be able to feel anything by now. Watch this.” He shifted and moved over my eye. “Did you feel that?”

  “What?” I asked.

  “Exactly,” he said. “I just touched your eye, but you couldn’t feel it.” The numbing drops he’d put in a few minutes before had done their job. Which was good. Very good. I did not want to feel this. And the throbbing headache that had grown worse and worse since my cornea tore had calmed down. Let’s hear it for numbing drops.

  I had watched a bunch of this kind of surgery online. Mostly when I should have been working on my comic. It’s called a keratoplasty. That’s the technical name for it, anyway. And I was really glad Grandma hadn’t watched any of them with me.

  All of my body would be pretty much covered up in hospital surgery blanket things except for my one eye. That would look creepy. Just a sheet with an eye staring out—seemed like a good visual I could use for a comic sometime.