Finding the Worm

You know the noise the intercom makes
when it comes on, the crackle you hear a second before the principal starts to talk? You can hear that noise a hundred times, and you know, just from the crackle, you don’t have to pay attention. But then, the one time you
do
have to pay attention, the noise sounds different. The crackle sounds different. It sends a chill through you, and you know the principal is going to say your name. It’s like that creepy old saying “Ask not for whom the bell tolls. It tolls for thee.” Except instead of a bell, you’ve got that crackle.

It was the middle of second period when the intercom crackled, and the announcement came. I was in science class, converting Farenheit degrees to Celsius. Here’s
what Principal Salvatore said: “Will the following students please report to the guidance counselor’s office: Lonnie Fine. Eric Haft. Beverly Segal. Julian Twerski. Howard Wurtzberg. Shlomo Zizner.”

That’s the entire Thirty-Fourth Avenue gang—minus Quentin, who’d gone into the hospital over the weekend, plus Beverly, who lives on the block and who hangs around with us sometimes. It didn’t take a genius to know that something was going on with Quentin.

As soon as Beverly and I stood up, the class began to hoot, like the two of us had gotten in trouble. My heart thumped up into my throat, and my face went hot and then cold.

I thought Quentin was dead.

“Look, he’s gonna bawl!” a guy two rows to the side of me said. At that point, I couldn’t have cared less what he thought. What anyone thought. I left my books on my desk and rushed out the door.

Beverly was a couple of steps behind me. Once we were out in the hall, she ran to catch up and said, “He’s going to be okay, isn’t he?”

I was afraid if I answered her I
would
bawl, so I just kept walking.

“Julian!” she said.

The way she said my name made me mad. “You think I know more than you do?”

What I knew, what the entire block knew, was that Quentin was sick. Not just cold-and-flu-season sick. It was the third time in the last three months he’d gone to the hospital to get checked out. Beverly knew that as well as I did. She’d been there the first time, when he got dizzy tossing around a football. She’d been there the second time, when he threw up after a half hour of wolf tag, and then the third time, over the past weekend, when he sat down on the sidewalk for no reason and his eyes rolled back in his head.

She grabbed my shoulder, and for a split second, we stopped and looked at one another. Then the two of us started running toward the stairwell. Her long brown hair was flying out behind her as we hit the stairs. It looked like a comet tail as I trailed a step behind her. The entire time, I could hear my heartbeat. Not just feel it, I could
hear
it. It had gone from my chest to my throat, and now it was in my ears.

The guidance counselor’s office was at the far end of the first floor, next to Principal Salvatore’s office. It took us about a minute to run down the two flights of stairs and across the entire first floor, but that was a long minute.

The guidance counselor, Miss Medina, was standing in the hall outside her office, leaning against the door. The hall was deserted, so we saw her as soon as we turned the corner, but she would’ve been easy to spot even in a
crowd. She’s almost six feet tall and has curly blond hair that’s piled up on her head to make her look even taller. I was trying to read the look on her face. What I focused on was her mouth. It was clenched in a tight smile—the kind of smile you get when you’re forcing yourself to smile.

“Go inside and sit down with your friends,” she said. “We’re just waiting for two more.”

Lonnie and Howie were sitting on wooden folding chairs pushed against the far wall of the office. They both glanced up as we came in, but then Howie turned his head and looked out the window. He always got squirmy around Beverly because he’d been sweet on her from the start of third grade until the end of sixth grade—when the rest of us clued him in that he had no chance with her. I sat next to Lonnie, and Beverly sat next to me, and for another minute we just stared down at the worn-out gray carpet.

That was when Shlomo staggered in. His face was pink from running, with a bead of sweat trickling down his forehead, and he was gasping for air. He held up his left hand as he caught his breath and straightened his glasses on his nose. Then, at last, he said, “You don’t think he died, do you?”

“Just sit down,” Lonnie said, and nodded toward an empty chair.

But Shlomo wouldn’t let it go. “
Do
you think he died? I mean, he couldn’t have just—”

“Sit down and shut up, all right?” Lonnie said. “You know as much as we know.”

Shlomo slid into the chair Lonnie had nodded at, and bent his head down almost to his knees. It always took him longer to catch his breath, since he was out of shape. His breathing was the only sound in the room for another half minute, until Eric the Red walked in, followed by Miss Medina. Eric hustled to the last wooden folding chair as Miss Medina walked behind her desk. I thought she was going to sit down there, but instead she rolled out the chair and parked it in front of the desk, so that she was sitting right in our faces. She still had that same clenched smile on her face. It was scaring the daylights out of me.

Miss Medina said, “I’m sure you’re all curious why you’re here—”

“Did Quentin die?” Shlomo blurted out.

“No, no, no!” she answered, waving her hands back and forth. “Did you think that? I’m
so
sorry. Quentin is doing fine. He’s a very sick young man, but he has the best doctors in the world looking after him. I spoke to one of them this morning, and he said Quentin has a tumor. It’s in the back of his head, close to his brain. That’s the reason he hasn’t been himself lately.…”

“Tumor means cancer, right?” Shlomo said.

“It’s a kind of cancer,” she said. “I know that’s a scary word, but Quentin has a good prognosis. Do you know what a
prognosis
is?”

Beverly answered, “Isn’t it like a prediction?”

“Yes, it’s like a prediction,” Miss Medina said. “It’s a medical prediction. It’s the kind of prediction doctors make. Quentin’s doctors predict he’ll be back in school in no time. If all goes well, he’ll be going to classes, doing homework, even shooting baskets in the school yard just like old times.”

“Quentin didn’t shoot baskets,” Eric said.

“Maybe he will when he gets back,” she said. “The point is, he’ll be able to shoot baskets if he wants. Isn’t that good news?”

“How long until he gets back?” I asked.

“You’re Julian, right? The boy who keeps a journal?”

“That was last year.”

“It’s good to keep a journal,” she said. “It’s good to get your feelings down on paper. This might be an opportunity—”

“You still didn’t answer Julian’s question,” Lonnie said. “How long until Quentin comes back to school?”

“And your name is?”

“Lonnie.”

“No one can answer that, Lonnie. But sooner rather than later.”