by Rob J. Quinn
As his brakes screeched the trucker laid on his horn, knowing he didn’t have a chance to stop the 18-wheeler before he hit the little girl who was suddenly frozen in place from fear. “Alexis!” her mother screamed helplessly as the boys and Red’s mom looked on in horror.
Red pushed the wave out of his head in such a rush that he almost wanted to pull it back, fearing it might be just as devastating to the girl as the impact of the truck. Wishing he had gone for the 18-wheeler instead, he threw his arms out in front of him as if he could catch her and cradle her to the ground on the grass she’d been rushing toward. A short screech of the tires ended with a bang that sent a gasp through the small group of spectators as Alexis was launched into the air. She tumbled to the ground, cartwheeling once as she came to rest on her hands and knees. Stunned for an instant, she quickly began fumbling for her purple hairpin, which she spotted on the grass.
As if regaining the power of movement after an instant that felt never-ending, the little girl’s mother rushed to her. Taking Alexis into her arms, she frantically checked her daughter for cuts and bruises, stopping intermittently to ask the child if she was okay. The truck driver jumped down from his rig and hurried to the girl as well. His apologies mixed with people yelling for someone to call 9-1-1 and amateur instructions on what to do with the child. It was only later that the driver and others inspected the front of the truck, the entire face of which was smashed in several inches as if it had met its equal head-on.
With the scene unfolding around them, Red and his mom stood motionless for several minutes. Mary instinctively looked at her son after the realization settled in that a tragedy had been averted. He seemed to do more than take in what was going on around them. He looked slightly pale, his body just starting to relax after having tensed up, which she knew wasn’t unusual given what he had just seen. But his eyes looked as though he had tried to absorb everything. It was his somehow, as though he’d been more than an observer of what had occurred.
Finally, their eyes met. Red exhaled and felt his pulse begin to slow as the wave receded. No spots had come to his eyes. No dizziness. He wanted to wipe some sweat off his forehead, but the look on his mom’s face told him not to. She already suspected something, he knew, just as much as he knew the absurdity of what she was thinking wouldn’t allow her to say it out loud.
“I think she’s alright,” he said, struggling a little with his speech from the emotion of the moment but trying to force himself and his mom to move on.
Mary nodded. “Yeah,” she said, absentmindedly. “Yeah, she seems to be fine.”
Taking his arm, she looked directly into his eyes and wondered again if her son had done more than witness the events that had just unfolded. Red felt her grip becoming firmer as if she was supporting him, and they finally began walking to the car. As they circled around the grassy island, which was now swarmed by onlookers, including people rushing out of the rest stop, he spotted Alexis, still in her mother’s arms. Despite the growing crowd around her, she looked up and made eye contact with Red. She was unconsciously holding her hairpin with both hands, like a safety blanket, thwarting her instinct to wave.
Instead, she smiled, allowing Red to offer an easy smile in return.
Chapter 17
Most of the staff in the administrative offices got nervous whenever one of the students with disabilities went in to ask for a late pass or hand-in a note from home after an absence, so Red did his best to casually walk by when he entered the school building. He knew his speech disability would be especially nerve wracking for whichever secretary happened to be at the desk, and explaining something out of the ordinary—like stopping in on a day when he had an excused absence to grab a textbook from his locker—would take way more effort than it was worth. He was relieved when he made it through the lobby without being noticed.
His mom insisted on running another errand while he went inside to grab his book. As he walked toward B-wing he had to admit she had a point about making it back before he was outside. Used to moving through the halls in his power chair, he felt like he was walking in quicksand.
He remembered using the spare manual wheelchair in the nurse’s office one day during freshman year when the battery died on his chair. Walking to a couple classes was more than enough for Red to never again forget to make sure he had enough of a charge to get through a day—getting bumped and knocked into by other students despite hugging the wall the whole way, he almost fell three or four times. But what he remembered most were the comments from Mr. Nicklaus when Red finally had a period in the resource room and asked if someone could get him the manual wheelchair from the nurse’s office.
All he had to do was get the wheelchair, Red remembered. I got myself to all of my classes that day. But for a week the teacher constantly asked him, in mock baby talk, “Does Weddy need anything else?”
Poor Li’l Nicky actually had to do something besides work on his graduate degree all day, Red thought. He shook his head and laughed as he continued walking down the hall, realizing the chair was still in the corner of the resource room because Mr. Nicklaus never bothered to bring it back to the nurse’s office.
Finally making it to his locker just outside the resource room, Red checked the clock that hung over the exit sign at the end of the hallway leading to the outside walkway to A-wing. He rolled his eyes, realizing he’d be lucky to make it back outside to meet his mom before the bell rang and the hallways filled with students. I can stop an 18-wheeler and pick up a child at the same time, he thought, but it takes forever to walk down the frickin’ hall.
His mom hadn’t said anything about the little girl on the long ride from the rest stop to the dry cleaners, where they’d picked up his dad’s shirts. Maybe she didn’t know what to say, Red thought. He’d spent most of the ride trying to figure out how he had done both things at once. I didn’t know what to say about it either. Even if I wanted to. But he did want to, and he knew it. Red wanted to tell his mom everything, but he didn’t know where to start.
He replayed the moment again in his head. It was like hitting the pause button on a VCR.
I could see everything that was about to happen, he thought. Everything I needed to do. But even with the wave it was too late. Only it wasn’t. Everything I thought, everything I wanted to do. It was like I just did it as fast as I thought of it.
He remembered Dr. Scheinberg telling him he was just scratching the surface. Was he right? Red hadn’t even been totally sure he was talking about the wave. He wondered if the shot he’d gotten that morning could already be giving him more control of the wave. Maybe that’s why I didn’t feel any dizziness or see spots, he thought.
Struggling to talk for a second after the girl was safe and everything was over also came back to him. But he knew in his heart that the second it took to relax and be able to speak was from the cerebral palsy and trying to regroup after watching the little girl almost get hit.
He pulled on the lock for the third time and slammed it against the locker when it failed to open. Quickly looking around, he was happy not have drawn attention to himself. He checked the resource room door last, especially happy Mr. Nicklaus hadn’t stuck his head out into the hall.
Taking the lock in his hand again, Red took another look around. The hallway was completely empty. The adrenaline from the frustration of struggling with the lock and the quick fear of thinking he’d made too much noise, not to mention the leftover rush from the rest stop, already had the wave swirling. In seconds he pushed the wave at the dial to move it to the right to 34, left to 16, right to 22, left to 14, and right to 27. The numbers of all his favorite Philadelphia athletes. Pulling the lock open, all he could do was smile. It’s getting easy, he thought.
Before he pulled the locker door open, his body went into a complete spasm as the fire alarm pierced the quiet of the hallway. Able to let the spasm pass a second later, he couldn’t believe his eyes. The front of his locker had been smashed in.
“Holy shit,”
Red whispered, with a laugh. He managed to stay calm as the first few people rushed into the hallway. He was still able to open the locker. Focusing on the inside of the door, he gently but firmly pushed the wave to pop the metal back to being flat. Again, he couldn’t help but think how easy it was.
Grabbing his social studies book, he tucked it under his left arm, swung the locker closed, and cupped the lock in his right hand. Already thinking about how to get down the hall in the throng of people, he jammed the lock against the inside of the hole in the handle of the locker to close it and spun the knob on the lock with a push of the wave so it wasn’t near the last digit of his combination.
Suddenly, he felt a hand slap down on his shoulder. Startled, he turned to find Pete inches from his face, trying to avoid the crowd surging toward the main exit. Red was just glad he hadn’t accidentally pushed Pete into the lockers on the other side of the hall. Hearing his lock continue to whirl, he hoped Pete didn’t notice it.
“What the hell are you doing here?” Pete shouted over the alarm that continued blaring and the clamor of the other students.
“Test tomorrow,” Red shouted. “Forgot my textbook.”
“Chuck’s got your brother,” Pete said.
Red offered a confused look and shook his head to say he didn’t hear him.
“Chuck!” Pete screamed, leaning into Red’s ear. “He was looking for you all day. Now he’s got Scott. Guess he didn’t want to wuss out and figured your brother was the next best thing since you weren’t around.”
“What d’ya mean, ‘got Scott’?”
“The idiot has a gun,” Pete said. “He’s got him in one of the science labs upstairs in A-wing. Just barged in with a gun and told everybody else to get out. Mr. Harris pulled the alarm to get everybody out of the building, but they’re still up there.”
Red couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Fear ripped through him. “He shot my brother?” Red asked, having no trouble being heard over the alarm and hallway noise.
“No,” Pete said, “I don’t think. But he’s got a gun on him.”
“How do you know this?” Red demanded.
“I gotta walk up for lab,” Pete said. “We’re in the next room. Saw ’em through the window on the way down the hall. Then Mr. Harris helped Ms. Callahan walk me down the steps. He was telling her.”
Red froze for a moment, wanting to do twenty things at once. Gathering himself, he realized he had to get up to his brother as quickly as possible. “Take this,” he said as he put his textbook in the backpack that Pete always carried over his shoulders, leaving his arms free to use his crutches. “I’ll get it from you later.”
“Alright, but what are you gonna do?”
“I don’t know,” Red said at first. After he zipped the backpack closed, he knew. “He wants me, he’s gonna get me.”
Pete looked him in the eyes. He didn’t bother to try to talk Red out of whatever he was planning. “Good luck, dude,” he said with a grim look on his face.
Red nodded. Starting for the opposite end of the hall to take the outside path to A-wing, Red wanted to get there instantly. He thought of pushing into the floor to propel himself, but he feared getting hurt. I don’t have time to screw up, he thought, and Scott doesn’t have time to wait.
Suddenly, he turned and hustled into the resource room. Mr. Nicklaus and the teacher’s aide had cleared out. Probably before the students got out, Red thought, spotting the wheelchair from the nurse’s office on the opposite side of the room. Pulling it out of the corner, he looked out the window across the courtyard. Quickly scanning the second-floor classrooms, he saw empty room after empty room until his eyes stopped on a teacher, who lingered despite the fire alarm. He continued scanning, desperately trying to spot his brother. More empty rooms.
Then he saw them. A couple windows over from where he stood. Chuck pointed a gun at his brother, who stood motionless. The wave surged through Red so fiercely he knew he could blow A-wing to ashes if he wanted. He looked away, fearing his own strength would get away from him.
Unfolding the wheelchair, he sat down on the sunken-in seat. The arms on the chair practically went up to his armpits and his feet barely reached the footrests. Red remembered thinking on the day he’d had to use the antique that it was probably made in the ’70s. Doesn’t matter now, he thought.
He used his feet and hands to angle himself toward the door, then put his feet up and grabbed the piping of the armrests from the inside. Ducking his head like a bobsledder, he pushed the wave into the floor. The wheelchair moved as if a toddler had shoved it from behind. Red thought of pushing the spokes but feared snapping them in half. He tried pushing the wave into the rims of the wheels and got some momentum. Looking up as he approached the classroom door, he continued to push the chair with the wave and picked up speed.
As he emerged into the now-empty hallway, Red pushed the wave harder on the right rim as he would have if he was using his hand to grip the rim to turn right.
Finally moving down the hall, he again thrust the wave into the rims of both wheels. Getting a feel for it, he was able to look up as he continued to push the wave down into the rims. He grabbed the armrests tighter, bent forward, and pushed the wave with a fury that had the wheelchair hurtling down the hall at speeds that had Red briefly wondering if he could maintain control of the chair. Approaching the exit to the outside walk connecting the two halls at the rear of the building, he opened the metal doors with hardly a push of the wave, not even noticing that the door on his right came off its top hinge.
Red swerved around two teachers sauntering across the walk as if a fire drill had been a major inconvenience in their free period. They looked at each other with stunned expressions, two streaks of torn-up grass the only clear evidence that something had blown past them. The doors on the opposite side of the walkway had been left open, and Red was halfway down A-wing before they looked back to try to see what had ripped up the grass.
Careening into the middle stairwell, Red wrapped his arms around the armrests and without thinking about it pushed the wave into the floor. Seeing the first set of steps from above as he propelled himself over them, he leaned to his left and took the landing in the middle of the stairs on the rim of the left tire, leaving a skid mark that would have made the skateboarder crowd envious. The hole that he put in the landing with his second push would become the source of rumors and a part of Penn Valley lore for years to come.
Red could feel the wheelchair spinning to his left off the turn. He was losing control and suddenly panicked at the prospect of landing on rubber wheels at the top of the stairs. Nothing else coming to mind, he let go of the wheelchair and sent the wave into the second floor landing area in the hopes of breaking his fall. Tumbling to the floor, he rolled a couple of times as the wheelchair crashed against the side of the doorway leading to the hall.
A mental check for pain told Red he was okay as he got to his knees and leaned against the wall to stand. He took a moment to gather himself, and glanced at the wheelchair. The right back wheel was bent as if someone had begun to try to fold it in half, one of the footrests was on the floor next to it and the other was nowhere to be found, and the whole thing slumped like a child sent to the corner.
Alley’s shocked expression met him in the hall as her quick steps came to a shuffling stop. “How did you . . .” she started to ask, trying unsuccessfully to process the noises she’d just heard. “What’re you doing here?” she continued, ignoring her own confusion. She reached for his arm, trying to guide him back downstairs. “We gotta go. Get out of here.”
He barely looked at her as he gently put his hand on her back. “Go. Chuck has a gun on my brother.”
“What?”
“He’s got my brother.”
She put her hand on his shoulder as he took a couple steps past her. “Red, don’t,” she urged. “C’mon, I should’ve been long gone too. I was in the bathroom and thought it was just a stupid fire drill. Let the police handle it. He’ll b
e okay.”
Red looked back briefly, more than a little touched by the genuine concern he saw in her eyes. “Go,” he said firmly.
“No, stay, you little bitch!” Chuck’s voice boomed from down the hall.
They both turned to see him pointing a gun at Scott’s head and holding his shirt from behind. Red wanted to push Chuck through the window at the end of the hall, but he wasn’t sure he could avoid doing the same to his brother. And they could all see Chuck’s hands shaking. Red knew he had stopped Mr. Taylor from shooting into the darkness on Saturday night, but the slug had still been fired into the ground. He had no idea if he could actually push a bullet away, and he was afraid Chuck could pull the trigger at any second.
