On Thin Ice

by Michael Northrop

  After that Dad and I got something called “catastrophic coverage.” Basically, it will cover us if we get hit by a bus. Short of that, we’re on our own. The doctors got a lot more blunt after that, or maybe just more honest. I remember waiting forever to see our new doctor. He was really young for a doctor. When he finally came in the room, he looked at my dad and said we’d have to let my condition “run its course.”

  “Like a forest fire?” I asked, but he didn’t answer me. He barely even looked at me. I should’ve asked: “Isn’t this catastrophic?” I bet he would’ve looked at me then.

  I don’t want to talk about that now, though.

  What I want to talk about is that pale butt in the mirror.

  THE REASON MY BUTT was so much paler than the rest of me was because I used to go to the lake a lot in the summer. The lake is probably the nicest thing about my town.

  People call Norton “a failing mill town.” It has a lot of broken-down houses and rusty cars and empty stores with signs in the windows that say “Commercial Space Available,” and it has a big old factory right on the river. They used to make paper in that huge brick building, and then they used to make shoes. Now it’s half empty. It’s cheaper to make shoes somewhere else, so they just make the “leather uppers” for those cheap shoes here. And my dad works half the hours he used to, for half the pay.

  That’s what they mean by “a failing mill town.” Jobs leave, people leave; no one new wants to move in. The town gets hollowed out, and the people who are left get bored and desperate and do dumb things. Dad complains about it a lot—then he turns around and does something dumb himself. But Norton has been failing for my whole life, so it’s taking its time about it. And in the meantime, it has a really nice lake.

  That first summer, after I found out, I still went to the lake all the time with my friends. With Danny, Nephi, and especially Maps. His real name is Tom Mapplewitz, and he was my best friend by then. Even though Danny lived closer and I’d known him longer, Maps was my best friend for pretty much as long as I’d known him. We were like brothers. We liked all the same video games and comic books and corny jokes. We liked all the same sports too, even though Maps was always better at actually playing them than I was. Maps was better at playing them than everyone was.

  Anyway, we would swim out to the big raft, where the little kids aren’t allowed. It was the first summer we could go out there, and we were proud of it. Plus it had a high dive, and even if it wasn’t all that high, it was something to do. We’d sit on the edge of the raft and talk and just kind of marvel at how far from shore we were. Then every once in a while someone would do a cannonball or a jackknife or dive straight down and try to swim all the way to the bottom of the lake. The deal with that was you had to come up with some seaweed or no one would believe you.

  One day, toward the end of summer, we were sitting out there and talking about school. We couldn’t believe that summer vacation was almost over.

  “Fifth grade …” said Nephi. “Just when I was starting to figure out fourth.”

  I chuckled. Fourth grade had been pretty good by the end, but now: new teachers, new rules, middle school looming. We all stared down into the water and tried to imagine what it would be like. We weren’t afraid or anything. We would be the oldest students in the upper building. We just didn’t know what it had in store for us.

  Danny, who’d known me longest, kept looking over at me. I knew something was on his mind. Finally he just went ahead and said it: “Dude man, what’s up with your back?”

  Maps shot him a look. Maps was our leader. He was already taller than the rest of us. His legs stuck farther down into the lake when we sat on the edge of the raft. It would be a long time before I understood the look Maps shot Danny that day.

  I was still deep in denial then. I refused to believe that my back was really that different. It took a little more effort, maybe, but I could still stand up pretty straight. And okay, the lump was a little bigger, but not much. I told myself that the fact it had taken the others so long to notice was proof of how little I’d changed. But of course it hadn’t taken them that long to notice. It had just taken that long for one of them to say something.

  “It’s nothing,” I said. And because they were my friends, they let it go at that.

  And then we were back to school. The days of hanging out in swim trunks were over. Fall starts early and winter lasts a long time in Maine, and you better believe you are fully clothed for both of them.

  But fifth grade was the year things changed. I was in the bathroom at home again. The mirror was even steamier because I’d finally given up on Mr. Bubble and started taking showers. I wiped the mirror with my towel and took a good long look. I couldn’t pretend any longer. The first thing I noticed wasn’t even the lump, even though that was growing. It was how much I was bent over, leaning forward. I tried to straighten up all the way, but I couldn’t get there. I ran my own hand over the curve of my spine, as far back as I could reach. I remember thinking: This is my new normal.

  I called my mom again and this time, standing there in all that Ivory soap smell, she came clean. “It’s a progressive condition,” she said. “Progressive” sounds like it should be good—progress! But she meant the opposite of that.

  I finally understood. This change wouldn’t be slow or small. My spine was curving in more, and it was happening faster. My spine was going to bulge out more and more. I felt the tears welling up in my eyes and I knew that I could either start bawling or start shouting. So I yelled at my mom for lying to me, for not telling me more the first time.

  By that next summer, the lake was out of the question. I told my friends that I “wasn’t into” swimming anymore. That I was thinking about taking up running instead. It was a total bluff. The little pinching pains had gotten worse by then. Even just standing up for too long was starting to cause a dull throbbing in my back.

  I did go back to the lake once. My mom—still around, but just barely—had some errands to run nearby. I tagged along and wandered over to the lake while she was getting a haircut.

  I stood there on the shore wearing an unbuttoned dress shirt loosely over my Avengers T-shirt, I had my new brace on underneath that. It was a good one, as light as they come. You could barely see it, but I was still sweating like a maniac under all those layers. I could see them out there on the big raft: Danny, Nephi, and Maps. Everyone except me. When I went back to the hair salon, Mom’s hair was shorter than mine.

  I snuck down to the lake again toward the end of the summer. It was just Danny and Nephi, no Maps. He was hanging out with them less and less. I think I was kind of the glue there, to be honest. I’m not bragging about that, because he was hanging out with me less too. He went to baseball camp and then to soccer camp. That was the story, anyway. I mean, it was true, but it was still an excuse. The real truth is that he had new friends: baseball friends, soccer friends.

  So when I was finally ready to say something, I had to say it twice. First to the others and then to Maps. Both times, I admitted that something was “going on” with my back. “It’s just a phase,” I told them, which was kind of true. “Totally temporary,” I added, which was less true. They all nodded very seriously.

  “That’s cool, man,” said Nephi, even though it wasn’t. “I was wondering.”

  Danny just shrugged and said, “I figured it was something like that.”

  Maps nodded too, when it was his turn, but he didn’t say anything at all at first. So with him I had to keep talking. He kept nodding, but that wasn’t enough. Suddenly I needed to hear him say something. We both knew the deal. He was my best friend. I didn’t know if I was still his, but he was still mine. Either way, I’d been keeping something big from him, something big and getting bigger. Finally, I blurted out the name of the condition.

  He cut me off. “I know,” he said. “I looked it up.”

  If you look up my name online, you can find the name of my condition. It’s that rare. I’m medical famo
us. I just stared at him. I wondered how long he’d known. I wondered why it had taken me so long to tell him.

  Sixth grade was when the train really started to go off the tracks. Part of it just happened to me, and part of it I did myself. First of all, I kicked off the year with my brief, unfortunate Hawaiian shirt phase. It was like making lemonade out of lemons, or that’s what I told myself. Like: Look how fun this extra shirt is! But the shirts weren’t fun—they were ugly and tent-like. It was like my upper half was going on a big, tacky campout.

  We went from being the oldest kids in the upper building at school to being the youngest ones in the lower building. But more than that, we went from being a “we” to being a bunch of “mes” and an occasional “us.” Maps made it a few months before he abandoned us at lunch. That’s how it started. A month later, I was the only one he was still hanging out with.

  Then word got out about my back, not just that there was “something going on” but also exactly what it was. I still refuse to believe that Maps is the one who told. We gave each other dumb, cheap Christmas presents as usual. I got him some graphic novels from the library sale, he got me a Batman key chain, and that was that. They were like parting gifts. He wasn’t my best friend anymore after that. By February, he was officially one of the cool kids, I was officially one of the uncool kids, and we’d pretty much stopped talking. No one was surprised. It was just the next logical step for each of us. It was like evolution.

  My mom pulled pretty much the same thing, but she dialed it way up. She showered me with Christmas presents. She spent big on my dad too.

  “This is too much,” he said, sitting on the floor in his red Christmas pajamas and looking down at his new guitar. They’d already started keeping their money separate. I knew that much from the arguments. They did it because Dad had a problem: gambling. With separate accounts, he couldn’t lose all our money—just all of his. “How much did you spend?” he asked.

  Mom just smiled at him. If I hadn’t been breaking in my brand-new Xbox, I probably would have noticed how hard she was trying not to cry. She was in Oregon by New Year’s. Dad and I watched the ball drop alone. I was wishing I could be playing my Xbox the whole time. He was probably wishing he could be playing his guitar.

  That was the end of the Hawaiian shirts. We were down to whatever money Dad made and maybe the occasional check from Mom. Maybe from Granddad too. Dad never really says where the money comes from these days, but I know there isn’t much of it.

  That was the end of the brace too. The old one wasn’t working. The problem is in my upper back, and I needed a different kind. The picture of the cheap-o one Dad showed me was pretty bad. It had all these straps and a metal band that went around your neck.

  He said I’d have to wear it “up to twenty-three hours a day,” and even then he couldn’t promise it would make much of a difference. I heard him out, but I was like, “I am not wearing that.” Honestly, he seemed relieved. I don’t think he could really afford it.

  Even good regular clothes are a stretch. We both get ours on the big seasonal sale days at the factory outlet stores. That way we get an extra markdown on already-marked-down clothes that were cheap to begin with. But they’re “name brand.” Dad always reminds me of that. He’s not buying me junk.

  I usually smile and say, “I really like this one!” or whatever, because at least he’s still trying.

  Dad buys my shirts extra big now. I think I said that already. He’ll hold a shirt up in front of me and size it up like it’s the shoe leather and I’m the shape he needs to cut it into. I’ll look at it later and see that it’s extra large.

  “You’ll grow into it,” he’ll say.

  I nod, and what I think but don’t say is: Part of me will.

  ALL RIGHT, WELL, I hope you enjoyed that little walk down memory lane. I know I didn’t. Lunch is over now, and it’s time to walk back down the hill to the middle school. It’s the first week of March, but it’s not that cold by Maine standards. Lately it’s been climbing above freezing during the day and then slipping back below it at night. Pretty much none of the boys are wearing coats. It’s a short walk and it’s considered super uncool to wear a winter coat up the hill on the first halfway warm days of the year.

  Danny is still talking to two of the guys from his new table. I’m too embarrassed to interrupt, so I just kind of trail behind them as we head out. He’s not looking back, but he’s got to know I’m here.

  They make us line up once we get to the doors. Honestly, it’s kind of a relief. I just line up where I am, behind two random girls named Haley and Becca.

  We march through the double doors like soldiers going off to war, or at least that’s what I pretend. The day is blustery and bright. The late-winter wind is whipping my face, and I squint into the light like I am a hard man about to make enormous sacrifices for his country.

  This lasts like two seconds because I am wearing really loose clothes, as usual: a Yoda T-shirt with an unbuttoned shirt over it, plus cargo pants to balance out all the bagginess up top. Anyway, halfway across the parking lot a gust of wind hits me just right. It catches my clothing and suddenly I balloon up like the sail of a ship. Anchors aweigh, boys!

  My oversized white button-up is flapping around me. My T-shirt is inflating into a big bubble, Yoda expanding like a puffer fish.

  “Holy cow,” whoops a boy named Gino. “Freakins is gonna take off!”

  They’re laughing, but I can’t see them. I’m struggling to pin my shirt down with one hand and button it with the other. Everything is flapping and moving. I’m leaning forward, head down. And then: BAM! My forehead crashes into something.

  I look up. Oh no. It’s Haley. She must have turned around to see what was happening, and I ran into her. I basically head-butted her.

  More laughter busts out up and down the line. Mrs. Gallego yells at everyone to quiet down and then rushes over to see if Haley is okay. She’s holding her nose, and I’m going, “Sorry sorry sorry sorry” and still trying to button the last few buttons. The laughter turns to excited chatter. I get the last button buttoned and look around.

  Danny looks away fast, but it’s too late. I saw him. He wasn’t smiling or joking like everyone else, but to me, his expression was a million times worse. It was relief. He decided to ditch me at lunch, and what did I do? I proved him right.

  Things quiet down and it feels like maybe this will blow over. But then I hear a single voice, loud and deep. “Freak broke her nose!”

  “Landrover!” shouts Mrs. Gallego. He’s not really in trouble, though. He’s a total golden boy. The teachers just draw the line at “Freak.”

  “Sorry,” he says, but he’s not really sorry either. I know because he’s smiling his big, perfect smile.

  Landrover Jones is named after a truck and built like one. He’s huge, and he’s given me trouble for years. It started when I was Maps’s best friend and he was Maps’s biggest rival for best athlete, but it’s gotten worse lately. He pushed me to the ground right before Thanksgiving. He said I bumped into him. I stayed down and didn’t argue. I avoid him as much as possible.

  “It’s broken,” I hear. “He totally broke it.”

  I didn’t! I would have heard it or felt it or something, right? But all I manage to do is shake my head and go, “Nuh-uh!”

  Becca slaps me on the back and says, “Jerk! Look where you’re going.”

  I clench up and suck in air through my teeth. It hurts when people hit me there.

  “Becca! That’s enough!” yells Mrs. Gallego, and everyone knows Becca won’t get in trouble either, even though she hit me.

  “I’m really sorry,” I say to Haley.

  She takes her hands away from her nose. No blood. Not bent. I relax a little.

  “Everyone back in line!” Mrs. Gallego shouts.

  Haley turns back around without a word and everyone else falls into formation. I can hear the talk all around me as we march down the hill. People will be picking over the bones of thi
s for the rest of the day, at least.

  Then, from way at the front, I catch a glimpse of Maps, a full head higher than everyone around him, looking back over his shoulder at me. He gives me an in-between look, not a smile and not a frown. I’m not sure what it means, but I know it’s not relief.

  He didn’t want this. None of us did. It’s just middle school. It’s rough.

  I don’t want to make this seem worse than it is. Most of the time, my classmates are fine to me. Sometimes they’re even nice. We’ve all been told to “choose kind” a million times by now. There’s this one girl named Allie who used to come up to me every week and say, “Hi, Ked. How are you feeling?” And the way she said “feeling” had a few extra e’s in it. Then she’d listen to my answer, blink a few times, and say, “That’s good” or “That’s too bad” and walk away.

  Other kids are more normal about it. They’ll complain about a test, ask me about homework, even joke around—as long as it’s more or less one-on-one. As long as they don’t have to go on the record as actually liking me. As long as I don’t try to sit at their table at lunch.

  One day, about a month ago, I walked up to Allie. I don’t know why. Danny was out sick, and I guess maybe I was feeling kind of alone. Anyway, she was with her friends, and they all got really quiet when I walked over. I pretended not to notice and was just like, “Hey, Allie. What’s up?”

  She looked horrified. She turned bright red and mumbled, “Not much.” And those were the last two words she said to me. She hasn’t asked me how I’m feeeeeling since. It’s like we had an agreement and I broke it.

  It kind of feels that way with my old friends too. They’ll still smile at me in the hallway sometimes, still nod as we pass. They just won’t stop. I’ve seen it so many times by now that I already know how it’s going to go with Danny. I’m being blown off.