Squint

by Chad Morris

  “What are you going to do?” Emma asked.

  McKell lifted her ukulele case. “Just playing and singing a little.”

  “She’s really good,” I said. It just slipped out.

  All of a sudden I realized the implications of what I’d said. It meant that I knew something about McKell that they didn’t. That meant that I had spent time with her outside of school and that she showed me something that she hadn’t shown them. I had given a lot away with one stupid sentence. I wished it was in a comic so I could erase it and shut up.

  “Thanks.” McKell smiled at me. I didn’t know whether to be terrified that Emma and Chloe had seen McKell and me sitting together—or thrilled that McKell seemed fine with it.

  Chloe looked at me and then McKell and then at Emma. Her face looked a little confused. “Well, we’ve got to go. Good luck.” She pointed at my eye. “You might want to have that looked at.”

  “Break a leg,” Emma said. “Or whatever they say when you’re about to sing.”

  And then they left. I didn’t know what to think about that. They didn’t mock her. That was good. But shouldn’t they have stayed? Watched their friend? Maybe they had somewhere they had to be. Of course, I was pretty glad they didn’t stick around.

  I worried that they were going to tease McKell about this later. About hanging out with me. About singing with a ukulele in the talent show.

  On stage, a yo-yo flew away from Caleb’s hand then zoomed over his shoulder and back in front of him. Pretty cool. I did have to blink a little extra. Maybe my eye was drier than normal.

  McKell tapped her fingernails on the ukulele across her lap.

  Beside me. At school. I was still surprised.

  “You okay?” I asked.

  “Terrified,” she said, tapping faster. She had seemed so confident talking with Chloe and Emma a couple of minutes ago. Now she was practically trembling. Maybe it was because it was getting closer. Maybe she needed to be distracted or something.

  “He’s good,” I said, nodding toward Caleb.

  “Yeah,” she said, not really looking at him. She eyed the exit door a few rows back. Was she regretting coming? Did she want to run and catch up to Chloe and Emma and tell them she had just been joking?

  Caleb finished with several giant whirls and catching the yo-yo. Everyone clapped. Mrs. Lin called up JanaLee Gonzalez and she approached a piano on the side of the stage. I closed my eye to give it just a bit of a break. JanaLee started to play something calm and peaceful. Good timing. I hoped it might relax McKell.

  “Maybe it was good enough that I came this far,” McKell mumbled. “I’ve never even sat in a room waiting to audition. Danny would understand.”

  “Maybe,” I whispered back. JanaLee played a little louder. “But I don’t understand. You’re really good, McKell. Plus, you rock the ukulele. Well, if anyone can rock a ukulele. It seems like a weird thing to say. But you’re really good.”

  She let out a quiet laugh, but it was still a little too loud.

  “You’ve got this,” I said.

  She looked back at the exit sign.

  I tried to reassure her by patting her forearm, but she grabbed my hand and clutched it tight. “No, I don’t,” she said. Her hand trembled a little. It was like I was a lifeline and she couldn’t let go. This was not what I’d thought my first experience holding hands with a girl would be like. It was more of a death grip. I squeezed back, trying to reassure her and hoping it didn’t come across as too awkward.

  We saw three more acts: a monologue about someone’s father dying (super dramatic), a juggler, and someone who sang “The Star-Spangled Banner” while pogo-sticking. Which was weird, but cool.

  McKell’s clutching and fidgeting just got worse.

  “McKell Panganiban,” Mr. Mueller, the choir director, finally called out in his deep voice. He always spoke like he was in a play.

  McKell swallowed. Her face reminded me of the squirrels that the Hulk liked to corner in the backyard. She let go of my hand and stumbled trying to get out to the aisle.

  I didn’t know what to do, so I did the only thing I could think of. “McKell, will do well,” I rhymed. “And cast a spell over all of us, like a . . .”

  McKell’s look of confusion suddenly gave way to a nervous smile. “A school bus? A fuss? A little phosphorus? You need to think it through a little more.” She shook her head as she walked away. If nothing else, she made it all of the way up to the stage.

  McKell walked quickly and nervously to the center of the stage. She mumbled into the microphone, “I’m McKell Panganiban and I’m going to sing a song that I wrote.”

  Part of her was blurry. Dumb dry red eye. I took off my glasses and rubbed my temples. I clenched my eyes shut and then opened them. Still blurry.

  McKell adjusted her ukulele. This was it. Danny wanted her to do this and she’d finally found the guts to do it. Soon everyone would know how talented she was. Then she would be on the trail to becoming famous. She’d feel more confident. Like she was becoming the type of person her brother wanted her to be.

  She raised her hand and gave a few strums. I tried to blink away the blurriness. It must have been a headache setting in. She strummed a few more times.

  She was about to start singing in three, two . . .

  A few more strums.

  I must have been off. The words were coming now.

  But she never said them. She opened her mouth, then ran across the stage behind the curtain.

  Oh, no. What was wrong?

  Then we heard it. An unmistakable sound.

  Throwing up.

  My heart dive-bombed. No. This wasn’t the way it was supposed to go.

  A few boys in the crowd snickered, but I jumped out of my chair and ran up to the stage and behind the curtain. With my weird blurry sight and my headache, I almost missed a stair.

  Thankfully, there had been a garbage can back there and McKell had made it. She still had her face buried in it.

  “Are you okay?” I asked.

  “Go away,” she said, a mix between trying to catch her breath and crying.

  “McKell, I’m sorry,” Mrs. Lin said. Apparently, she had followed me backstage. “Is there anything you need?”

  “No,” McKell said, her voice echoing through the bottom of the can. She looked up at Mrs. Lin. “I’ll dump this when I’m done.”

  “Are you sure?” Mrs. Lin asked. “Maybe take a few deep breaths and—”

  “Just keep going,” McKell interrupted, turning back to the garbage.

  The drama teacher nodded. “Okay, but you can still audition when you feel better.” She patted McKell and as she turned to leave, she glanced at me. “Is your eye okay?” Mrs. Lin asked.

  I nodded.

  She looked again and then left the stage. It was better that way. Less attention to McKell.

  “Do you think you can finish your audition?” I asked. “I’ll take care of the garbage can.” I had never offered to clean up anything gross like that ever before.

  “I can’t,” McKell said. “Performing makes me sick. Like really, legit sick.” She pulled the liner out of the can and held it tight. “The anxiety just takes over. I did the same thing during sixth-grade speeches—”

  “Just try. They’ll like you. I promise,” I said. “And Danny . . .”

  She looked up at me and I didn’t finish my sentence. I was getting better at reading faces, even blurry faces. It wasn’t the right time to push this.

  McKell didn’t believe she could do it.

  And now she wouldn’t finish Danny’s challenge.

  As she walked away with the garbage liner, McKell started bawling.

  Part of me wanted to cry too. Not only had the worst thing happened, but I closed one eye and then the other before admitting to myself that there was a problem with my n
ew eye.

  My grandpa taught me better than to let a lady carrying a bag of her own vomit just walk away. He didn’t actually have a story for that one, but I was pretty sure that he would want me to help. I had no idea what to do. Did McKell want me with her? Would she rather be alone? A lot of the time I wanted to be alone, but McKell wasn’t like me.

  I could text her to see how she was doing, but that didn’t seem like the right thing to do. I figured the least I could do was to follow her home at a distance and make sure she got there safely.

  By the time I got outside, McKell had dropped the bag in the dumpster and was carrying her ukulele down the street. She was a couple of blocks ahead so I hoped that she wouldn’t think I was creepy following her.

  When she got to the library she went around back. I knew where she was going. I slowed down. To give her some time. Quiet time to think and work things out in her head. Eventually, I reached the library and made my way through the parking lot to the wooded path. I could hear the birds chirping in the trees as I made my way up the path. It was beautiful. Even with my blurry eye I could see twice as much as I could the last time I was on this path. Rays of sunshine glittered in the air along the trail. There were so many shades of green, above me, in front of me, below my feet.

  Maybe it was just a little problem with my eye. I really liked seeing and didn’t want that to change.

  I got across the stream much easier this time, hopping from rock to rock like McKell had done. I reached the other side dry.

  Before I knew it, I climbed over a toppled trunk and was face to face with an eight-foot bush. A blurry bush.

  An eight-foot, blurry, crying bush.

  An eight-foot, blurry, crying, ukulele-playing bush.

  I wasn’t going in there. That just seemed too forceful. I backtracked to sit on the trunk and wait.

  The ukulele playing stopped. McKell’s head poked out of the hole and looked up at me.

  I guess she’d heard me moving.

  Her eyes were swollen and red. “Squint, you scared me. What are you doing here?”

  “I . . . was worried,” I said. I was using all of my self-­control not to dive-bomb into a spiral of every word that was in my head. They all wanted to come out but she didn’t need my blabber-mouthing.

  “You can come in if you want.” She backed herself into the bush.

  I crawled in, trying to give her a lot of room once I was inside. Of course that was hard to do in such a small space. Inside, the bush never ceased to be magical. The green light, the small twisting, hanging branches. Even if it was fading in and out of blurriness.

  McKell sniffled. “Your eye really doesn’t look good.”

  Why did everyone have to say that? “I’m not here to talk about my eye.”

  “Why did you follow me?”

  “Um,” I stalled, trying to think of how to answer. “I wanted to make sure that you were okay.” I let the silence hang there for a moment. “Are you?” I realized my question might not be clear. “Okay?”

  More tears, her ukulele now on her lap. “I failed, Squint. And not just a little. Like this is a big fail. I failed you . . . I didn’t follow through on our deal. I failed Danny—” She really choked up. “I couldn’t do his last challenge. I knew this would happen. I just knew it. That’s why I fought you so hard about doing the auditions. That’s why I fought Danny too. I have terrible stage fright. My head goes wonky, like all of the blood slips down to my toes. I get an instant headache, my hearing goes muffled, my stomach gets sick. Every time. Every. Stupid. Time.”

  She picked her ukulele up and started strumming fast and angry. I had no idea that tiny instrument could sound so fierce. She slowed down, soft and sad. Soon it faded. “I’m failing,” she said. “At everything. I’m failing at school. There’s no way I can get as good of grades as my dad wants. I’m failing socially . . .” Was that last one my fault? “I’m failing at life. And my mom is no help. And my dad is trying to act like nothing’s wrong. Like he didn’t lose a son, and his wife isn’t slowly going crazy, and his daughter isn’t a total failure.” She brought her knees up and rested her head against them.

  “I don’t think it’s as bad as—” I started, wishing I could see her clearly.

  “It is,” she insisted, cutting me off.

  “No,” I said, “I—”

  “It is,” she repeated.

  “No, it isn’t. At least you have a mom and dad,” I said, surprised at how it slipped out. But I didn’t stop. “At least you had a brother. At least you weren’t the kid born with the genetic disease. And at least you have a social life to fail at.” I knew that she wasn’t trying to make me upset, but the thoughts flowed through me like lightning through Squint’s daggers.

  McKell opened her mouth before saying anything. “I didn’t mean . . .” We sat there not looking at each other.

  Then without a word, she left.

  I had screwed up.

  I hadn’t said the right things. I might have driven away my one and only almost-friend.

  And my eye wasn’t good enough to see her clearly as she went.

  I walked into my house and threw down my backpack.

  That wasn’t the way things were supposed to work out. McKell was supposed to show them her awesome rhyming and everyone was supposed to be completely wowed. She was supposed to realize that she was an amazing person with serious talent and be proud of herself. She was supposed to feel good about doing Danny’s challenges and finally have a way to show how much she loved and appreciated him.

  And then maybe she might even sit next to me again.

  That was a whole string of “supposed tos” that hadn’t happened. Not even close. And my eye wasn’t supposed to be giving me problems again. Especially with my comic due tomorrow.

  Middle-School Rule: If anything can go totally, completely, epically wrong, it will.

  I kicked my backpack.

  “I’m not sure what that backpack did to you, but you might need to kick it a few more times.” Grandpa swiveled his orange recliner around to face me. “What’s wrong?”

  I turned away from him. “I don’t really want to talk about it.” I could only imagine he would have a football story for me. And that was about the last thing I wanted right now.

  “Is something wrong with your friend?” Grandpa asked.

  I shook my head. It was kind of a lie, but I did it.

  “Is it your comic?” he asked.

  “I don’t care about my comic,” I said, walking into the kitchen. And I didn’t. Not now. Why had everything gone wrong? She had come so close to trying out, to doing the challenge. I sat at the kitchen table and let my head fall against the wood.

  “Well,” Grandma said, looking up from her old laptop. She had been typing at the counter. “What critter creeped in your basement?”

  “I said I don’t want to talk about it.” Why did they both have to ask?

  “Talk or don’t talk, you’ve got to be careful,” Grandma said. “You just slammed your head on that table and your eye’s still fragile.”

  “No, it isn’t,” I said.

  “Yes, sir,” Grandma said. “Just because you’re seeing clearly now, doesn’t mean that—”

  “I’m not seeing clearly,” I blurted out. “It’s going blurry again.”

  “What?” Grandma moved quickly across the kitchen, sat down next to me, and tilted my head back so she could look into my eye. “Oh, my goodness, look how red that is. What did you do, child?”

  “Nothing,” I said. “It just happened.”

  She let go of my face and called into the other room. “Keith, come look at this.”

  “What’s going on?” Grandpa asked. “Is his backpack out for revenge?”

  “No,” Grandma said, “his eye. It’s really red and he says it’s blurry again.”

  G
randpa came over and looked so close his long beard brushed against my face. “Hmm, looks murky, too. It may be nothing. But it may be a problem. Let’s call the doctor.”

  A few minutes later, we were traveling down to Dr. Young’s office. They were staying open late for us.

  The doctor looked at my eye with his instruments from all sorts of angles then said exactly what I didn’t want to hear: “It looks like corneal rejection.”

  “That sounds bad,” Grandma said.

  He explained that my body’s immune system thought that Danny’s cornea wasn’t a normal part of my body. It wasn’t, but we wanted it to think it was so it would adopt the new windshield. But it was trying to get it to go away. Stupid body. I remembered that one of the videos I’d watched before my surgery had talked about corneal rejection. The dude went blind in that eye.

  “It happens sometimes,” the doctor said. “I’ll give you some eye drops and hopefully that will take care of the problem.”

  “That’s it?” Grandpa said. “Eye drops and it’s fine?”

  “Well,” the doctor said, “in the majority of cases, drops are all it will take.”

  I didn’t like those words, “In the majority.” What if I wasn’t in the majority?

  “Everyone’s different,” the doctor explained. “We actually need to suppress the immune system to help your eye accept the new cornea. And it was good you rushed down. The sooner we start on the drops, the better.”

  “But what if my body won’t accept the cornea?” I asked. “What if the drops aren’t good enough?”

  “Then it will lead to other complications,” the doctor said. “But let’s cross that bridge if we get there.”

  We sipped hot cocoa around the table in the kitchen. I guess with the possibility of my eye going terrible, we could use something to cheer us up.

  “Do you remember when we lost the last game of the season when you were a third grader?” Grandpa asked.

  “No,” I said. I wasn’t in the mood for a story, but Grandpa was determined to tell it. At least this one had me in it.