Her hand trembled.
“I’m not a hero. I’m just a kid.”
Her eyes moved around the room nervously. “Well. Well, I’m glad, at least, that everything’s okay.”
“I’m not okay, either, Mom.”
She dropped her eyes. She couldn’t stand for him not to be okay. He’d learned that so long ago he couldn’t remember when he didn’t know it. He had to be okay, not for his own sake, but for hers. It was a burden that she couldn’t carry in any pocket for him not to be okay.
“Mom.”
He held her hand the way Marion had held his, like it was a thing to be wondered at. He’d found her, just like Marion said he would. Maybe the Good Deed did change the microverse, but not always the way you thought. How could he tell her about pocket aliens leading you to worlds where you didn’t exist, or how a painting that made you really look made him more of a hero than drawing a hundred superheroes? How could he explain to her that you couldn’t make quantum reality without first observing it?
“We have to stop pretending that Everything’s Okay. Because we need some help. Don’t we, Mom?”
She shrugged.
“I know you lost your job at the Pepper Bar.”
She nodded at her feet.
“We have to trust some people. We have to ask for help. Everything isn’t okay, Mom, but it will be if we get some help, right?”
She looked at him, and her eyes were twelve and her mouth was sixty. Even her body couldn’t stay in one time and dimension. He was breaking the trust. Tears came to her eyes, and Heck suddenly couldn’t think straight.
Then he remembered the art assignment for Mr. Bandras, and he remembered he was going topworld. He wasn’t going to play himself and his mom out of the microverse anymore. He was going to deal with the one they were in.
“I’ll tell Mr. Bandras about my semester artwork. And the Carters about my teeth. And that we don’t have a place to stay.”
“No,” she said.
“No?”
“No,” she said. “I’ll tell them. I’ll go for help.”
“Maybe once you’re out of the hospital.”
“No. I can do it. I’ve already started getting help, and I—I can do it.”
She looked at him a long moment. “Have you been doing your homework?” She’d never asked him that before. It felt … good. He thought about all the work he’d missed and what he was going to have to do to catch up.
He grinned. “Well, I do have this art assignment due today.”
“Okay, find something you can work on. I’m going to go talk to someone.”
Heck was working on a self-portrait on hospital graph paper when Spence came into the room.
“Shhh. I snuck in,” he said. He poked at the hardware behind Heck’s bed. He was trying not to look Heck in the eye. “So, new Fortress of Solitude?”
Heck shrugged.
“Guess you failed in your mission to bring peace and joy to the entire planet.” He fiddled with the blood pressure cuff. He put it on Heck’s arm.
“I’m still young,” Heck said.
Spence pumped the blood pressure cuff. “I’m sorry about your friend,” he said. He sounded sad, almost as sad as Heck felt.
The cuff was getting too tight. “Hey!” He pushed Spence away and released the blood pressure cuff that was about to amputate his arm. They both laughed, and then they both stopped laughing. “Well, thanks for caring,” Heck said finally.
“I guess it’s the molecular joining,” Spence said.
Heck stared. In a world of quantum jumps, no one could predict where a particle would end up. Even scientists could only explain five percent of reality. The other ninety-five percent of the universe, of reality, of everything, they called dark matter. They didn’t know anything about it, not even whether it was dark.
There was a soft knock at the door, and Mr. Bandras walked in.
“Hey, Mr. B.,” Heck said in his best suck-up voice.
“Heck. Spence.” Mr. Bandras nodded at Spence and came closer to the bed. He looked more awkward in a hospital room than in a police station.
“I’m glad you’re here,” Heck said in a rush, before he could chicken out. “I have to tell you—that portfolio you gave me is gone. All my work was in it.”
Heck was ready for the tirade, the lecture, the inevitable F in Art. He was ready. It was all part of his new plan to interface with reality whenever necessary. Then, as soon as Mr. B. was all yelled out, he’d ask for help. What if he worked all summer at some projects, he’d ask. Could he still pass?
He wasn’t prepared for what Mr. Bandras said.
“You pass, Heck. The painting makes up for all of it.”
“Painting?”
“I was expecting pencil. You gave me oils.”
Heck looked at Spence, who shrugged. Then he remembered. “You mean … the Art Store?” He felt himself flushing.
“I was one of the judges at the high school art competition,” Mr. B. said. His mouth was mad, but his eyes were glad.
“Did I win anything?” Heck asked.
“Of course not. You’re not good enough yet. They said something, though. Do you want to hear it?”
Heck nodded.
“‘This artist demonstrates an otherworldly talent.’” Heck smiled. In a universe that was part math and part magic, maybe there was a way to integrate his kid self and his good-deed-doing self after all. He wondered if Mr. B. would let him paint him.
“Well?” Mr. Bandras said. “What have you got to say for yourself?”
Heck opened his mouth and out came “I’m hungry.”
Mr. Bandras said something about thank goodness because of Mrs. B. and tomato sandwiches, and then he folded Heck in his arms, squeezing him small, small as a little kid, and Heck felt on top of the world.
MARTINE LEAVITT, has always loved fairy tales and fantasy, and grew up reading such authors as CharlesKingsley, Mary Norton, and Madeleine L’Engle. In her last year of high school she picked up a copy of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings two weeks before her final exams and couldn’t put it down. She almost failed. When she was much older, she went back to school and graduated from the University of Calgary with an Honors English degree. Martine lives in High River, Alberta, Canada, is married to Greg Leavitt, and is the mother of seven children.
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