Boys in the Back Row

by Mike Jung

“That’s why you—are you kidding me? YOU WENT TO DEFENDERCON WITH SEAN?”

  “Nooooo, not with Sean. The police arrested Sean—he’s in even worse trouble than me. I went by myself.”

  ?????

  “Did you—” I sat up without thinking, remembered how hard it is to sit up without thinking when your ankle’s in a cast, flailed my arms, and toppled over. Eric grabbed my shoulder and held me steady. His grin was fully in place, a great-white-shark kind of grin.

  “Totally. I met Jonah Burns.”

  “HOLY CRAP! He was really there??”

  I felt like I’d fallen in and sunk to the bottom of a swimming pool of envy.

  “Yeah, he was super nice. Signed a comic for me and everything.”

  That snapped me out of it. Jonah Burns only signed one comic for my best friend? THAT JERK …

  “What happened?? We had that whole list of different comics, we calculated how much everything would cost to buy, why didn’t he sign all of them? Or at least TWO of them?”

  “No, that’s not—”

  “Did he think we were gonna try to sell it all on eBay or something? I can’t believe—”

  “I only ASKED him to sign one thing because I only BOUGHT one thing.”

  I blinked.

  “Why’d you only buy one thing?”

  “It was kind of expensive.”

  “What, did you light the shopping list on fire and buy something else?”

  “Kind of. Hang on a second.”

  Eric went to the closet and pulled out a backpack, which he zipped open as he sat back down.

  “Here,” he said, handing me a rectangular package wrapped in green and black paper. Sandpiper’s costume colors, I thought.

  “What is it?”

  “Open it and find out.”

  I held the package up to my ear and shook it, which was stupid because it was obviously some kind of book. I sliced the taped-down edges of the paper with my thumbnail, opened the paper in mostly one piece, and stopped when I saw the cover of the book inside. The top half of it, anyway, which said “25th ANNIVERSARY OMNIBUS.”

  Gulp.

  “Dude, is this—”

  “Yup,” Eric said with a grin.

  I tore the rest of the paper off, knowing I’d see “SANDPIPER” in giant letters above a picture of Sandpiper herself, poised to leap off the roof of a skyscraper, silhouetted by a full moon.

  “NO WAY.”

  “Totally way.”

  “Eric, this is out of control! Why—”

  “Look inside.”

  The detail on the cover was incredible, so I admired it for a second longer before opening the book. I wanted to read the introduction, but I REALLY wanted to see the art credits on the splash page, so I started to flip ahead. Eric stopped me by putting a hand on top of the first page of the introduction.

  “Look at the last page of the introduction first,” he said.

  I flipped ahead again, looking for the end of the introduction—it was a long intro. The last page of the intro had a final short paragraph, a single line that said “Art is everything” (Jonah Burns’s standard tagline), another single line that said “Jonah Burns,” and another paragraph of … handwriting?

  Was that Jonah Burns’s handwriting?

  Hey, Matthew, Eric told me what happened to your leg—I’m sorry you couldn’t make it today. Maybe this drawing will keep you company until you’re back on your feet? I hope so.

  All the best,

  Jonah Burns

  Under the autograph was a drawing of Sandpiper with a smile, a thumbs-up, and … a cast on her leg?

  Jonah Burns had drawn what was definitely a one-of-a-kind portrait of Sandpiper with a broken ankle.

  Autographed for me.

  Just me.

  The new lump in my throat was the size of a basketball, and I had to swallow hard to clear it.

  “This is the limited edition omnibus,” I said in a voice not much louder than a whisper. I couldn’t stop staring at the autograph.

  “Yup. The one with thirty extra pages of bonus content.” Eric sounded so weirdly cheerful that I tore my eyes away from the book to look at him. He was grinning so hard that he looked like a cartoon character.

  “They’re only selling five hundred of them. They cost—”

  “Kind of a lot, yeah. And they only had fifty of them at DefenderCon. I had to leave the hotel pretty early.”

  “So, what, you stood on line all day? And spent all your money on one thing?”

  “Well, not all day. Just all morning.”

  “WHY??”

  “Dude, why do you think?”

  I lifted my shoulders in an awkward who-the-heck-knows gesture. Eric stopped grinning, leaned his head back against the wall, and looked at the opposite wall. He lifted a hand up to his shoulder, then snapped it forward and down while popping his index finger in the air.

  “One, because it was fun going to DefenderCon, but it was also terrible going without you. Two, because you’re the one who taught me about comic books, especially about Jonah Burns.”

  With each number Eric raised his hand and snapped it back down while popping out another finger.

  “Three, we planned this together, but after you got hurt, this was the closest I could get to us going there together. Four …”

  The emphatic hand motion thingy was slower this time.

  “… Four, I’m moving to a whole different part of the country.”

  Instead of raising his hand one last time, Eric stuck out his thumb so all his fingers were extended, starfish-style, and instead of karate-chopping that hand down, he used it to reach over, grab my shoulder, and gently shake me, his eyes still focused on the far bedroom wall.

  “And five, you’re my best friend. The best friend I’ve ever had, actually. I wanted to get something to, I don’t know … help you not forget that we’re friends.”

  I sniffled.

  “I’m not going to forget,” I said, trying not to sound too blubbery. “You’re my best friend too.”

  “I know.”

  “I didn’t … I didn’t get anything for you,” I said, feeling suddenly terrible about it. My best friend is going away and he gets ME a going-away present? How wrong is that?

  “Sure you did. You came over here before it was, you know, too late.”

  A whole week down the drain. The last week of our friendship had just ended—gone, kaput, over—and I’d missed it. We’d missed it.

  “I’m … I’m gonna miss you, you know,” I said. “It’s not like after you move we’re gonna hang out a lot. Or at all.”

  “I’m gonna miss you too,” Eric said. “I mean, you know, I love you and all that.”

  Suddenly we both had to look everywhere else in the room except at each other.

  “M—me too. I … love you too.”

  “I know.”

  I snorted, but it was a more sentimental-feeling snort than usual.

  “Sometimes I wish we were brothers,” I said. “I know that’s weird …”

  “I’ve wished that too,” Eric said. I glanced sideways at him, and he was smiling. “We can be, you know. Kind of. Not biological brothers, but, like, brothers by choice.”

  “Kind of like how my mom says ‘found family’?”

  “Yeah, like that. Found brothers.”

  “Yeah. That sounds … really good.”

  “We’ll still talk, you know. Maybe your parents will finally get you a phone.”

  “Yeah, maybe, but it won’t be the same.”

  “I know,” Eric said. “But hey, we’re hanging out now.”

  “This is … it’s amazing,” I said, holding up the book. “This is so … thanks. Have you read it yet?”

  “Duh, no.” Eric looked at me with an are-you-kidding look on his face, all raised eyebrows and twisted-up mouth. “It’s a GIFT, Matt.”

  “We should read it now, right? Do you have to do moving stuff or anything?”

  “Yeah, but not right away.�
�

  Good enough for me.

  “You mind if we skip the intro?”

  “Nope.”

  I smiled down at the autograph one more time, then flipped to the opening splash page, which was for a brand-new Sandpiper story, written and drawn by Burns just for this omnibus.

  “OOOOOOOHHHHH, DUDE,” Eric and I said in unison.

  Sandpiper was leaping off a wall into what looked like a harbor behind her, but she’d twisted her body as she jumped so she was facing back the way she’d came while bullets whizzed past her. Some kind of glowing orb was tucked under one arm, and her other arm was cocked over her head, ready to hurl a Stinger at whoever was shooting at her. It was a classic Sandpiper pose—perfectly balanced, fearless, and ready to strike.

  “This is incredible,” I said.

  “The best,” Eric said.

  We leaned into each other to get a really good look at the details, and for a second I thought about the hundreds of times we’d read comics together, which was usually us reading separately, but not always. So this wasn’t the first time we’d read the same comic together, but it was probably the last.

  I blinked twice, hard, not wanting to make Eric wait for me because I couldn’t read through my own tears. I guess it wasn’t just me, though, because he started to talk, but then had to stop and clear his throat.

  “Is that Whirlybird?” he said. The wobble was back in his voice.

  “That is totally Whirlybird.” I sniffled and rubbed the back of my hand across my eyes, fast and hard. Whirlybird was Sandpiper’s early crime-fighting partner turned longtime nemesis.

  “That’s a new costume, isn’t it?”

  “I think so.”

  “Awesome.”

  “I can’t believe you got this for me.”

  “Believe it.”

  I did, actually. When I thought about it, it was no surprise coming from my best friend.

  “I believe it,” I said in a low voice, almost to myself.

  And I flipped to the next page, because the best thing about a Jonah Burns comic is that even when things are totally going wrong for Sandpiper and it’s scary or weird or even sad, even if she was about to lose someone she cared about, I still wanted to find out what happened next.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  The Boys in the Back Row isn’t an autobiography, but the friendship it’s inspired by is very real. Thanks to Chris Eliopoulos, my fellow drummer and superhero enthusiast of old, for the gift of friendship that eventually led to the creation of this book. This is really something, isn’t it, Chris? We’re still here, we’re still friends, and I’m so glad.

  It’s an honor to be among the very first authors published by Levine Querido, and my appreciation for the stellar work and buoyant spirits of Antonio Gonzalez Cerna, Alexandra Hernandez, Meghan Maria McCullough, and Nick Thomas is boundless. I mention Arthur A. Levine separately because come on, it’s Arthur. He’s the best of editors and the best of friends, and this is a story we were meant to work on together.

  Thanks to Dion MBD for a cover illustration that so thoroughly captures the spirit of friendship I was aiming for, and to Chad Beckerman for a design that pops and zings in all the best ways. I have a giant oak aging barrel of respect for the people of Chronicle Books and the work they’ll do to get my book out into the world.

  My endless gratitude goes to agent extraordinaire Ammi-Joan Paquette, whose guidance and knowledge were essential in getting both The Boys in the Back Row across the finish line and my career out of the starting gates. The same goes for all my friends in the Erin Murphy Literary Agency community, whose love and support has truly meant the world to me.

  Ellen Oh, Martha White, Ann Braden, and Olugbemisola Rhuday-Perkovich read early, preposterously untidy drafts of this book, and their literary acumen and insight stuck with me the rest of the way. Charlie Nelson generously shared his insider knowledge on the sequence of events that would follow the deployment of a hotel fire alarm.

  Finally, and most importantly, all my love goes to Miranda, Zoe, and Leo. They’re more than just my support system (although Miranda does more to support my career than everyone else on Earth combined), and they’re more than just my connection to the panoramic weirdness of life during childhood (although Leo and Zoe are the most riotously joyful connections I could ask for). They are the people in this world who I love and cherish more than all others, and I’d be neither the person nor the writer I am today without them.

  SOME NOTES ON THIS BOOK’S PRODUCTION

  The jacket illustration was created by Dion MBD using Procreate. First, it was sketched in grayscale silhouette to determine the composition and lighting. The final linework was drawn on top of the magnified sketch, and then it was colored. To finalize the piece, prescanned textures were layered onto the illustration. The text was set in Adobe Garamond, designed by Robert Slimbach in 1989. It was based on a Roman type by sixteenth-century Parisian engraver Claude Garamond and an italic type by Robert Granjon. The display type, Gotham Bold, was designed by American type designer Tobias Frere-Jones in the early 2000s. Initially commissioned by GQ magazine, the Gotham typeface was inspired by Frere-Jones’s walks through New York City, and the lettering he admired on older buildings. This e-book was created by Westchester Publishing Services.

  Production was supervised by Leslie Cohen and Freesia Blizard

  Book jacket and interiors designed by Chad Beckerman

  Edited by Arthur A. Levine