Finding the Worm (23 page)

I slammed my fist down on the desk. “You killed him!”

But then I looked up, and he was wiping away tears.

Rabbi Salzberg was crying
.

“You must keep the truth to yourself, Mr. Twerski.”

“But how?”

“You’re not a boy anymore.”

“It’s too much,” I sobbed.

“God knows what each of us can bear.”

I jumped up from the chair and ran out of his office. What I mean is I
ran
out of his office. I was running full speed down the hall between his office and the temple, and I crashed through the front door and then jumped down the six concrete stairs. My legs kept churning while I was in the air, and when I finally hit the ground, I hit it running.

I ran down Roosevelt Avenue in the direction of Bowne Street, and then I turned right on Bowne, and I ran past the Bowne House. I thought about the Quakers, and how dead they were, and then I thought about Quentin, and how alive he was, and I could barely breathe.

So I tried not to think. I tried to run without thinking. I tried to focus on how hard and loud my heart was beating, how I could feel it in my chest, and how I could hear it in my head. My heart seemed to be beating in my ears, making them throb from the inside.

I caught the light at Northern Boulevard and sprinted across, then turned left in front of Flushing High School. It looked like a huge medieval fort, with thick stone walls and a high stone tower, and even though I didn’t want to
think the thought, and I tried to push the thought out of my brain, I thought about how Quentin would never see the inside of Flushing High School, and how, in three years, when the rest of us were rushing to classes inside those walls and climbing the stairs into that tower, Quentin would be buried in the ground. How was that possible? How was it thinkable?

How was it bearable?

By the time I got back to Thirty-Fourth Avenue, I was gasping for breath. I slowed down to a trot and then to a walk. There was a soft, damp breeze in my face as I headed up the block. The first person I saw was Beverly Segal.

“You want to race?” I called to her.

She eyed me suspiciously. “You going to run hard this time?”

I nodded.

So the two of us headed around the corner and back to Ponzini.

As we turned into the alley, she said, “Where’d you come from?”

“The Bowne House,” I said.

“What were you doing there?”

“Nothing.”

“You sure you want to race?” she asked.

“Yeah,” I said. “I’m sure.”

“What’s wrong?”

“I just want to race, Beverly.”

She must have seen that I meant it since she clammed up at that point. We hung our jackets over the fence and walked to the far end of Ponzini. My heart had just slowed down to its normal speed, but it began to beat faster again as we got to the starting line.

I turned to her. “Remember, this is what you wanted.”

“Are you mad at me?”

I shook my head. “No.”

“Do you want to say, ‘On your mark, get set—’ ”

“On your mark,” I said.

She took her mark.

“Get set,” I said. “Go!”

It was the fastest I’ve ever run.

I think Beverly stopped running after the first ten yards. Either that, or I was so far ahead that I couldn’t hear her footsteps. But I kept going faster.

My heart got real loud again, but not just loud. It felt like it was swelling up, like it was banging away at the front of my chest, straining to get out. Still, I kept pushing and pushing, going faster and faster. Because I wanted it to happen. I wanted my heart to blow up, to blow a hole in the front of my chest, and to land on the ground in Ponzini and flip-flop like a dying fish until it was dead and I was dead. I know that sounds stupid and gross.

But I also had poetical thoughts. I thought about my soul rushing out of my body, rushing out through the hole in my chest, swimming up to heaven, and then just hanging out, waiting around for Quentin’s soul, and then the two of us yakking it up for however long it took for Lonnie and Howie and Eric and Shlomo to show up. After that, things would be all right again.

I was just a few steps from the finish line. I closed my eyes and bore down.

That was when the thing happened. There was a sudden spasm of pain in the back of my right leg, about three inches above my knee. It felt like someone had reached underneath my skin, grabbed a hunk of flesh and twisted it to the side. I started hopping as soon as I felt it. I hopped the last three steps, then crumpled to the ground, holding the back of my leg.

“Julian!” Beverly yelled.

I couldn’t have answered her even if I’d tried. The only sound I could get out was a moan. I heard her running toward me a few seconds later. But there was nothing I could do except lie on my stomach and clutch the back of my leg.

Her voice was frantic. “What happened?”

I bit my tongue and said, “Don’t know.”

“Should I get help?”

“No!”

“What should I do?”

I took a deep breath and winced. “Let me rest for a minute.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’ll be all right,” I said, even though I knew I was hurt.

“Did you break something?”

“I think maybe I pulled a muscle,” I said.

“Where?”

“The back of my leg.” I rolled over onto my side but couldn’t make myself let go of the back of my leg. The muscle still felt like someone’s fist was clenched around it, about to twist it again. “Ouch. Ouch.
Ouch
!”

“What are you doing?”

“I’m trying to sit up.”

She knelt down next to me and took hold of my right shoulder. Then she rolled me onto my back, stepped around behind me, and pushed me upright. As soon as I switched positions, the muscle in my leg unclenched. I let go of it and braced my arms against the ground.

“First Quent, and now you,” she said. “I’m not racing you guys anymore.”

“I’m going to be fine, Beverly. It’s just a pulled a muscle.”

“It’s called your hamstring,” she said.

“What is?”

“The muscle you pulled.”

“How do you know that?”

“That’s the main injury that fast guys get,” she said. “I did a book report on Jesse Owens last year. There was a guy named Peacock who was probably faster than him, but he never made it to the Olympics because he pulled his hamstring. It’s the big muscle in the back of your leg, between your knee and your butt.”

“I guess that’s what I pulled,” I said.

Neither of us spoke for a couple of seconds.

“How many book reports do you do?” I asked.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, you know about Jesse Owens, and you know about Mary Dyer.”

“I like doing book reports,” she said. “I do them on my own sometimes, for extra credit. I like reading the
World Book
and knowing stuff.”

I forced a smile. “I guess that’s why you’re in Fast Track.”

She sat down next to me. “Why did you keep going?”

“What?”

“You made your point. Why did you keep running?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know. I felt like it.”

She was staring at me in a weird way. I stared back at her, trying to figure out why she was staring at me, and suddenly I felt the wind gusting up inside me warmer and stronger than it had ever gusted up before. She leaned forward and kissed me.

She kissed me right on the lips. That would’ve been weird enough, but here’s the weirder thing:
I kissed her back
. It wasn’t something I thought about doing. It just happened. It must have lasted for five seconds, her kissing me and me kissing her back. Then, at last, she leaned back and looked at me.

“Why did you do that?” I asked.

“I don’t know. I felt like it,” she said.

“Does that mean you’re my girlfriend?”

“Do you
want
me to be your girlfriend?”

I thought it over. “What would I tell the guys?”

“You can tell them whatever you want,” she said. “I don’t care who knows or who doesn’t know. The only thing that matters is
we
know.”

“But if no one knows, then what’s the difference between your being my girlfriend and your being my friend?”

She leaned forward and kissed me again.

“Oh,” I said.

“So am I your girlfriend?”

“I guess so.”

“You don’t sound too happy about it.”

I reached for her face, leaned forward, and kissed her. It only lasted a half second, because my leg seized up, but I did it.
I
kissed
her
. “There.”

She smiled at me and then stood up. “Can you walk?”

“I think so,” I said.

“Do you need help getting off the ground?”

“Yeah.”

She put out her right hand, and I grabbed it. As soon as she began to pull, I felt my leg start to spasm again, but I didn’t let go. I held on, and she pulled me to my feet. The first thing I felt was the chill of the air against my back.

“I’ll get our jackets,” she said.

She jogged off toward the end of the fence, where we’d hung our jackets, and I watched her, and I began to smile. But as soon as I realized what I was doing, as soon as I felt the shape of my mouth, I remembered about Quentin, and the sadness came back in a wave. My heart was still in my chest, and it was drowning.

Beverly came jogging back with our jackets.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” she said.

“Like what?”

“Like you’re sorry about what just happened.”

“I’m not sorry,” I said. “I’m glad it happened.”

“Are you crying?”

“I’ve got a pulled hamstring, all right?”

“It’s nothing to be ashamed of,” she said. “It must hurt a lot.”

“Yeah, it does.”

Lonnie knows there’s something wrong.
He got to the bus stop before I did yesterday morning, and when he saw me limping toward him, the first words out of his mouth were “What’s eating you?”

“I hurt my leg,” I said.

“
That
I can see.”

“I pulled my hamstring.”

“Your what?”

“It’s a leg muscle. I pulled it.”

“How’d you do that?”

“Racing Beverly,” I said.

“Did you beat her this time?”

“Yeah,” I said.

“Bad?”

“I beat her by a lot.”

“Well, that’s a relief,” Lonnie said.

“I guess.”

“Now you want to tell me what’s eating you?”

“What do you mean?”

“Something’s eating you, and it ain’t your hamstring.”

I glanced behind Lonnie at the rest of the guys. They were yakking it up, razzing one another, paying no attention to the two of us. Quentin was sitting in his wheelchair, between Shlomo and Howie, giving as good as he got.

I looked Lonnie straight in the eye. “You’ve got to keep it a secret, all right?”

“How long have we known each other?”

“Yeah, but this is different.…”

“C’mon, Jules,” he said. “You’re hurting my feelings even saying that. You
know
I can keep a secret. You could stick bamboo shoots under my nails, and I wouldn’t say a thing.”

“Beverly’s my girlfriend.”

“When did that happen?”

“Right after I raced her.”

“Did you kiss her?”

“Three times,” I said. “Don’t say anything to the guys!”

“Bamboo shoots under the nails, remember?”

“Because I don’t think Howie’s going to be too happy about it,” I said.

“He’ll get over it,” Lonnie said. “But he won’t hear about it from me.”

“It feels good to tell someone.”

Neither of us spoke for the next couple of seconds.

Then Lonnie said, “Now you want to tell me what’s
really
eating you?”

“I just did.”

“All right,” he said. “Whenever you’re ready to tell me, I’m all ears.”

It was between third and fourth periods, as I pushed open the door to the stairwell, that I heard footsteps rush up behind me. “Wait up, Twerski!”

I turned around. “What do you want, Devlin?”

“Just to talk for a minute.”

I sighed. “I’m running late.”

“Did you hurt your leg? I saw you limping.”

“I pulled my hamstring.”

“Ouch!” he said. But his eyes were blank. He had no idea what I was talking about.

“The nurse told me I just have to rest it for a week.”

“That’s good news then, right?”

“I guess.”

“The thing is, I got something I want to say to you.”

“Does it have to be right now?” I asked.

“I was talking to my brother Duane about the thing that happened—he works the Music Express at Adventurers Inn. You met him last year when you showed up with that girl Jillian.”

“I remember, Devlin. Can you get to the point?”

“I just … I didn’t know your friend was sick with cancer,” he said. “I mean, I kind of figured it out when the wig came off. Except I didn’t figure it out quick enough. The thing is, I shouldn’t have done what I did. With the wig, I mean. I shouldn’t have grabbed it and thrown it. He can’t help it that he’s got cancer.”

“Who said he does?”

“Duane said a bald kid in a wheelchair equals cancer.”

“Well, that’s Duane’s opinion,” I said.

“They have parties for ’em when the park’s closed. He gives ’em free rides because … well, you know.”

“Quentin is sick,” I said. “But he’s going to be okay. He’s going to be just fine. You can ask Miss Medina if you don’t believe me. He doesn’t even need the wheelchair. His dad makes him use it.”

“The thing is, I wouldn’t have teased him so bad if I knew. I mean, I got an aunt who died last year.… I saw your friend getting in and out of the chair, and it looked kind of funny, and I just didn’t know.”

“I’m sure he understands,” I said.

“Tell him I’m sorry, would you?”

I turned and started toward the stairs, but he caught me by the shoulder.

“What do you want, Devlin?”

“I just didn’t get it. You know?”

I was tempted to ask him about the painting, about whether he’d scratched my initials into it. But I didn’t since I wanted the conversation to end. Besides, it didn’t matter who’d done what at that point. What mattered was that Principal Salvatore
thought
I’d scratched up the painting, so I had to write a two-hundred-word essay.