“Homer!” I whisper-yelled. “What are you doing?”
“My mom packed my lunch.”
“Come on! Aren’t you old enough to pack your own lunch?”
He gave me a look. I guess he knew that half the time my dad made my lunch too. “She doesn’t like that I gave up lunch meat.”
“This isn’t how you do it, you know.” I didn’t say this wasn’t how you made friends, fit in, protected yourself. One way for sure not to do those things is to say any of them out loud.
“I know.”
“Okay. Well, keep it under the radar. Eat fast.”
He nodded and then poured some soup—tomato soup, of course it was tomato soup, the only thing that would have been worse would have been chicken noodle—into the lid that was also a cup and drank it and then ate some crackers.
Nate slapped his lunch down on the desk. First was a sandwich wrapped in waxed paper, like it had come from the past in a time machine. There might as well have been a sign on it: MADE BY GRANDMA. Next were two juice boxes, an apple, and a stack of cookies still in their plastic wrapping but that had mostly already crumbled into pieces.
Nate stared at Homer. “You planning on staying a skinny little dude your whole life?”
“What?” Homer bobbled the cup and the drops of the tomato soup on the desk looked like blood. We were all thinking it.
Daniel tried not to laugh. Tyler had trouble too. Nate breathed loudly and slowly the way I imagine a bear might when it’s out of its cave and sees a person and it’s just deciding that it’s going to have that person for dinner.
“Nate.” That was me. I don’t know what made me want to distract Nate from Homer and his industrial-accident soup. We were still friends, even though I was still upset about the eggs and pheasants and stealing talk and all the times he’d called me Itch, but I said his name all the same. I knew what it was like. Maybe not the bear part. But I know that feeling before. Before it all falls apart. Before it all changes. Before the tornado. Before the itch takes over and the beast is out. Because right now, right now there’s a chance to stop it and because I knew how things could go for Homer. “Nate. I got a salami sandwich. Can I trade you for one of yours?”
It took a minute but Nate said, “Sure, man,” and I passed my sandwich over. Homer finished his soup like it was a contest and then he must have realized he was still hungry and Nate was at least a little bit right, because he kept studying all the food the rest of us had spread out.
When I peeled back the waxed paper I realized I’d gotten a rotten deal, because Nate had a bologna sandwich. Now it was mine. Bologna is disgusting. I hate it. Nate’s sandwich also had a slice of smooth orange cheese that probably didn’t even have to be refrigerated and was incapable of melting. The white bread was the kind that was so soft it was almost impossible to chew. Also, I actually like salami. Dad only bought it because Mom was away. He’d probably have to tear up the grocery store receipts, that’s how much Mom hates salami. She says it’s way too unhealthy and it will never be in our home. And I had a roll. Just to try something new. One of those nice round rolls that’s kind of golden on top and there’s a little bit of white flour on the bottom as though it’s from a fancy bakery and not from a bag in the bread aisle of the grocery store. I had a roll, salami, and spicy mustard. For once, I had a good sandwich, and I went and traded it for a bologna and maybe-cheese sandwich that Nate’s grandma packed a million years ago.
Next to me, Daniel had a lunch pack of two mini hot dogs, ketchup and mustard, juice, a chocolate bar, and some stubby carrot sticks. “Want to trade?”
He looked at the sandwich wrapped in waxed paper. “What is it?”
“It’s bologna,” I told him.
Nate said, “I’ll trade with you, Daniel.” Nate held up my salami sandwich.
“But we just switched!”
Nate shrugged. “It’s mine now.”
“Want to trade back?”
“Nah. But I’ll trade Daniel.”
Daniel’s lunch was the best and we all knew it. Daniel said, “I’ll trade for Tyler’s cold pizza. Hot dogs and carrots only.”
That’s when Homer the stickler spoke up. “You can’t trade lunches! It’s against school rules! You can’t trade lunches! You can’t share food!”
“Nobody’s asking to trade for yours,” Daniel said, “so you don’t need to care.”
“I’m telling the lunch lady,” Homer said.
“Sure thing, Homer,” Nate told him.
By the time the lunch lady at the desk made her announcement, Daniel had Tyler’s pizza, and my salami sandwich with spicy mustard was still with Nate.
“No sharing food,” she said, hardly looking up from her phone. “School rules.”
“Yeah,” said Tyler, “school rules,” and everybody laughed and the lunch lady probably thought we meant it. Homer just packed up his thermos and cleaned the cracker crumbs off his desk.
Sydney came up and tapped Nate’s shoulder. “Did I hear somebody say they were trading a salami sandwich? I’ve got a chicken roll.”
“A chicken roll?”
“Yeah,” Sydney told Nate, showing him her plastic lunch container, “chicken in a tortilla.”
“Is that like a burrito?”
“Maybe,” she said. “It’s cold. Does that count? And some of the ingredients are different.”
“Yeah,” Nate said. “I’ll take it.” He gave me a look.
I handed over my former salami sandwich on a roll with spicy mustard once again, but this time to Sydney. She peeked under the bun. “Is it buttered or anything?”
“Nope.”
I was glad to give it to her. I’d rather have her eat my sandwich than Nate. Nate was happy about it too. He had a silly look on his face and I hated it so I told Sydney, “Enjoy your sandwich,” and she smiled and said, “Good luck on the math test today,” and Nate rolled his eyes.
I still ended up with Nate’s bologna sandwich.
Nate took a couple of bites of Sydney’s chicken tortilla. Two minutes later I was laughing at him when he called back to her, “There’s no cheese!”
“Duh,” I said, “she’s allergic.”
Unrolling the tortilla, he demanded, “What’s in this?”
Sydney’s face was red. I hated Nate for yelling at her. That’s all I was thinking about. I knew the stuff Sydney’s mom cooked and saw that the chicken tortilla was shredded chicken with white bean dip to hold it together instead of cheese. It was just bean spread and Nate was acting like it was some big deal, making Sydney’s face all red as she ate my sandwich in the back of the room.
Nate stood up and stared at her. Everyone else was staring at her too. “Come on,” I said, “stop picking on her. It’s bean dip.”
Nate stood stretched like a rubber band, ready to go. “Shut up, Itch.”
Sydney’s head was down on her desk and her friends next to her were pulling her up and one of them was crying and the lunch lady asked if someone was choking and Maria booked it out of the room. Nate pointed at Homer. “You,” he said, “right now. Where’s your stuff?”
Nate had figured it out before I had. So had Homer. Sydney was having an allergic reaction. Anaphylactic shock. Her face was red and puffy and watery with tears and a runny nose and drool because her tongue or lips or both were swelling.
I don’t even know how I got to the back of the room but the next thing I knew I was dragging Sydney out of her desk and laying her down on the floor, and Abby shoved stuff out of the way to make room for her and she held Sydney’s hand and Sydney looked at me and I could tell she was scared. Her face didn’t look like her face at all anymore. I was careful with her head on the hard, cold floor, and Nate was there too, and he was all snarl. “I’ll punch you,” he said, and I said without even thinking, “I’ll punch you back,” and Abby told us to shut up.
<
br /> Looking at Homer, I told him to hurry up and do it. Give her the shot.
“Now,” Nate said.
Homer clutched the zippered pack with his EpiPens. “Maria went to get the nurse?”
Nobody knew for sure. The lunch lady was on the phone with the office.
“We don’t have to wait for the nurse,” Nate said, grabbing for Homer’s pack.
“Stop it. I can’t do it.”
“What do you mean, you can’t do it? Stop being a wimp.”
Everybody shouted at once. It was a lot of different sounds and words and voices but it all meant the same thing: Go. Do it. Now.
I’d wrapped my hand around Sydney’s braid and Abby squeezed her hand. Sydney squeezed back. She didn’t say anything. Her eyes were swollen shut. Abby had her other hand on Sydney’s stomach and Abby’s hand moved every time Sydney breathed, and that was all I wanted to pay attention to.
“One minute,” Homer said. “I’ll give the nurse one minute.” He knelt down next to us.
I don’t know if Homer was scared or not or if he was being Homer, the person who wasn’t going to break any rules. What if one minute was too long to wait? Sydney always said, Epis first, Epis fast. “You wouldn’t be hurting her,” I told him.
He looked at me then. His face was as pale as a chicken’s egg. “Unlike you.”
I’d been so scared I hadn’t even thought of that part yet. That I did this to her.
The nurse ran in. She had Sydney’s EpiPens in her hands and she knelt on the floor and then boom, click. Just like Sydney had shown me with her trainer. She popped off the blue safety tab and stuck Sydney’s outer thigh, right through her clothes. Blue to the sky, orange to the thigh. That’s what Sydney had said when she’d shown me how her injectors worked.
One one thousand. Two one thousand. Three one thousand.
Outside, ambulance sirens wailed and it was the best sound in the world. I never thought a siren could sound like a good thing. When Mrs. Anderson skidded into the room everything was a mess. Kids huddled in the back of the classroom. Desks covered with uneaten lunches pushed everywhere, chairs knocked to the floor. Mrs. Anderson made all of us but Abby go out into the hallway, all the way out by the gym. Maria, crying with her hands over her face, escaped to the bathroom.
Nate’s face was flushed the way it was after gym class. He couldn’t hold still. He bounced on his toes. Swung his arms. He jabbed my shoulder. “This is your fault, Itch. What was in that sandwich of yours you were bragging about?”
“I wasn’t bragging.”
Nate and Daniel crowded close to me and no one else would look me in the eye. Not Lucas, who’d turned to face the wall, and not Tyler, who’d crossed his arms and looked like maybe he’d join in too, like if someone was going to start chanting Fight, fight, fight, it was going to be him.
Daniel started. “What was in your sandwich, Itch?”
They asked so many questions I couldn’t have answered them even if I’d known what to say.
“Why would you do that?”
“Aren’t you two friends or something?”
“Don’t you know what she’s allergic to, Itch?”
“Where was your famous air sandwich?”
“How come the day you don’t have an air sandwich, you give it to Sydney?”
Nate still hadn’t stopped moving. Even when he pointed at me he swung his arm a few times to fix his aim and his hand flexed. “I will punch you. I will punch you right now. I will clean your clock.”
That’s when I laughed in Nate’s face. I laughed in his face right then because I was sick and sad and scared and it was one of those times when you just didn’t know what you’d do, only that it would be wrong, and because I didn’t know what was in my sandwich that hurt Sydney. I laughed because Nate’s sandwich had been wrapped up funny and he’d said clean your clock, which is something I’d only ever heard my grandfather say. It’s old-fashioned for beating somebody up, mostly the head.
“Go ahead.” Maybe it would wipe out the image of Sydney, red and swollen, lying on the floor.
Nate sneered at me and shook his head as though my reaction was so wrong he could never punch me now.
I started to itch.
Homer said, “Don’t.”
“Don’t what? Don’t punch him?”
As long as the guys were talking to me he was practically invisible. He could have stayed invisible. “Don’t itch.”
“Yeah,” Nate said, “don’t itch, Itch.”
“Aren’t you making it worse?” Homer didn’t mean Nate.
What did he know? I kept scratching the skin by my shirt collar. For another minute or so it would be a relief but then the beast would take over.
When Daniel told Homer, “You’re a coward,” I realized that wasn’t true. Homer was brave. He stood up to Nate. He could have stayed invisible right now in the hallway while we all felt sick and mad and scared, but he didn’t. Seeing Sydney like that probably was the scariest for him, because he knew. If it hadn’t already happened to him, he knew it could. And now he tried to help me.
Tyler said, “You could have saved her.”
Homer said, “The nurse was there. Sydney’s going to the hospital.”
“You missed your chance. You could have done something. You’d have been awesome.”
Shaking his head, Homer said, “The nurse did it better. She did it right. I was just the backup.” I knew Homer well enough that he’d had a million questions swirling through him as he’d held his meds and stared at Sydney on the floor. Homer was skinny. Sydney probably weighed more. Maybe they had different dosages. Maybe there was something else I couldn’t even come up with because I wasn’t Homer.
I kept itching.
I said, “She’s going to be okay.” I couldn’t imagine it any other way. Talking wasn’t easy. Nate’s bologna sandwich was stuck up in my throat. It felt totally indigestible. It felt like it would be there forever.
I said it again. “She’s going to be okay.” Nobody else said anything.
She had to be okay.
* * *
—
At the nurse’s office I took my medicine. “I couldn’t get ahold of your dad,” the nurse told me. “Don’t you have a backup emergency contact? That part of your form is incomplete. You should really have a backup.”
“We don’t know anyone here,” I told her. “We moved from New York. State. That’s where everybody is.” When she gave me a look, I told her, “My family everybody.”
“How about a friend’s parent?”
I thought about Sydney’s parents on the way to the ER. “No.”
Dad and I hadn’t managed to update my medications at school and all the forms and so I had to take the older medicine. It tasted a lot better but it didn’t last as long and eventually conked me out. I hadn’t taken my new medicine this morning the way I was supposed to. I’d thought it was overkill to take something every day for something that happened once in a while and might not even stop it. Maybe it wasn’t. But being sleepy was a good thing. I’d sleep until my dad came to get me. The dark nurse’s office with its green cots and paper sheets never looked so good. I’d stay there forever.
It turned out that the principal was looking for me and they still hadn’t found my dad, and eventually I made the mistake of opening my eyes and the nurse decided to escort me back to class.
“I can’t go back.”
“Sure you can,” she said.
“I’m not awake.”
“Your hives are pretty much gone and the swelling’s reduced.”
What did it matter if I went back to class? Sydney was in the hospital. Because of me, Sydney couldn’t breathe. Because of me, Sydney’s heart pumped too slowly to move her blood the way it was supposed to. Because of me, Sydney might die.
As we walked toge
ther through the quiet hallway I was too sleepy to plan my escape. To think about running. Boom. Gone. Bye. Out the door. Just run somewhere. Home. The farm. Straight to China. My brain and my legs weren’t really working together and the idea and my commitment to it didn’t really join up until it was too late and the nurse blocked me in by my classroom door.
“Don’t you understand what happened in there?”
“I do,” she said. “Everybody will be fine.”
“Sydney?”
“Sydney will be okay. You will too.”
She was lying about the second part. I just hoped she wasn’t lying about the first.
All the rows were back in perfect order and everyone sat in their seats. Sydney wasn’t there. The room was very quiet. Everybody looked at me. I looked at nobody. When I walked by Nate on the way to my desk he said, “Enjoy your sandwich.”
Mrs. Anderson passed out the math tests. I couldn’t believe it. How could she still expect us to do this? How could anyone concentrate? How could this be fair? But everyone else picked up their pencils and leaned forward and got to work. I felt the choke coming a mile away. I didn’t even hope for good luck.
When I looked at the test I couldn’t even think. I knew I was supposed to know this stuff—I thought I knew this stuff—but I didn’t. My only hope was partial credit but then all I could think about was my dad and how he’d say that thanks to partial credit there were people in this country who were building bridges and they’d never even gotten one whole math problem right in their lives. Ever.
I flipped over the math test and looked out the window. Out in the distance I saw the dust cloud that ran along with a farmer’s harvester. I put my head down on the desk and fell asleep.
CHAPTER 14
LOOK, I CAN tell you right now how part of this ends.
I never found a good food for lunch and I never loved peanut butter the way I used to, but maybe that’s how it goes.
At lunch, Sydney sat with Abby and Maria full-time. Lucas drew a picture of me eating in the corner—my hands were fat and my sandwich was crying. When he showed it to me he didn’t look mean about it. He might have been trying to be nice.
Itch Page 9
