Pluto (5 page)

When we got to Mom's hospital room, we found her sitting up in a wheelchair watching TV. She had a huge cast that started from her thigh and went all the way down to her ankle.

“There's my guy!” she said happily as soon as she saw me. She held her arms out to me, and I went over and hugged her. I was relieved to see that Daddy had told the truth: except for the cast and a couple of scratches on her face, Mom looked totally fine. She was dressed and ready to go.

“How are you feeling, Lisa?” said Dad, leaning over and kissing her cheek.

“Much better,” she answered, clicking off the TV set. She smiled at us. “Totally ready to go home.”

“We got you these,” I said, giving her the vase of flowers we had bought downstairs in the gift store.

“Thank you, sweetie!” she said, kissing me. “They're so pretty!”

I looked down at her cast. “Does it hurt?” I asked her.

“Not too much,” she answered quickly.

“Mommy's very brave,” said Dad.

“What I am is very lucky,” Mom said, knocking the side of her head.

“We're all very lucky,” added Dad quietly. He reached over and squeezed Mom's hand.

For a few seconds, no one said anything.

“So, do you need to sign any discharge papers or anything?” asked Dad.

“All done,” she answered. “I'm ready to go home.”

Dad got behind the wheelchair.

“Wait, can I push her?” I said to Dad, grabbing one of the handles.

“Let me just get her out the door here,” answered Dad. “It's a little hard to maneuver with her leg.”

“How was your day, Chris?” asked Mom as we wheeled her into the hallway.

I thought about what an awful day it had been. All of it, from beginning to end. Science, music, math, rock band. Worst day ever.

“Fine,” I answered.

“How was band practice? Is Elijah being any nicer these days?” she asked.

“It was good. He's fine.” I shrugged.

“I'm sorry I didn't bring your stuff,” she said, stroking my arm. “You must have been wondering what happened to me!”

“I figured you were running errands,” I answered.

“He thought you went to Isabel's house,” laughed Dad.

“I did not!” I said to him.

We had reached the nurses' station and Mom was saying goodbye to the nurses, who were waving back, so she didn't really hear what Dad had said.

“Didn't you ask me if Mom had gone to—” Dad said to me, confused.

“Anyway!” I interrupted, turning to Mom. “Band was fine. We're playing ‘Seven Nation Army' for the spring concert on Wednesday. Can you still come?”

“Of course I can!” she answered. “I thought you were playing ‘The Final Countdown.' ”

“ ‘Seven Nation Army' is a great song,” said Dad. He started humming the bass line and playing air guitar as we waited for the elevator.

Mom smiled at him. “I remember you playing that at the Parlor.”

“What's the Parlor?” I asked.

“The pub down the road from our dorm,” answered Mom.

“Before you were born, buddy,” said Dad.

The elevator doors opened, and we got in.

“I'm starving,” I said.

“You guys haven't eaten dinner yet?” Mom asked, looking at Dad.

“We came straight here from school,” he answered. “When were we going to stop for dinner?”

“Can we stop for some McDonald's on the way home?” I asked.

“Sounds good to me,” answered Dad.

We reached the lobby, and the elevator doors opened.

“Now can I push the wheelchair?” I said.

“Yep,” he answered. “You guys wait for me over there, okay?” He pointed to the farthest exit on the left. “I'll pull the car around.”

He jogged out the front entrance toward the parking lot. I pushed Mom's wheelchair to where he'd pointed.

“I can't believe it's still raining,” said Mom, looking out the lobby windows.

“I bet you could pop a wheelie on this thing!” I said.

“Hey, hey! No!” Mom screamed, squeezed the sides of the wheelchair as I tilted it backward. “Chris! I've had enough excitement for the day.”

I put the wheelchair down. “Sorry, Mom.” I patted her head.

She rubbed her eyes with the palms of her hand. “Sorry, it's just been a really long day.”

“Did you know that a day on Pluto is 153.3 hours long?” I asked.

“No, I didn't know that.”

We didn't say anything for a few minutes.

“Hey, did you give Auggie a call, by the way?” she said out of the blue.

“Mom,” I groaned, shaking my head.

“What?” she said. She tried to turn around in her wheelchair to look at me. “I don't get it, Chris. Did you and Auggie have a fight or something?”

“No! There's just so much going on right now.”

“Chris…” She sighed, but she sounded too tired to say anything else about it.

I started humming the bass line of “Seven Nation Army.”

After a few minutes, the red hatchback pulled up in front of the exit, and Dad came jogging out of the car, holding an open umbrella. I pushed Mom outside the front doors. Dad gave her the umbrella to hold, and then he pushed her down the wheelchair ramp and around to the passenger side of the car. The wind was picking up now, and the umbrella Mom was holding went inside out after a strong gust.

“Chris, get inside!” said Dad. He started picking Mom up under her arms to transfer her to the front seat of the car.

“Kind of nice being waited on,” Mom joked. But I could tell she was in pain.

“Worth a broken femur?” Dad joked back, out of breath.

“What's a femur?” I asked, scooching into the backseat.

“The thighbone,” answered Dad. He was soaking wet by now as he tried to help Mom find her seat belt.

“Sounds like an animal,” I answered. “Lions and tigers and femurs.”

Mom tried to laugh at my joke, but she was sweating.

Dad hurried around to the back of the car and spent a few minutes trying to figure out how to fold the wheelchair to get it inside. Then he came around to the driver's seat, sat down, and closed the door. We all kind of sat there quietly for a second, the wind and rain howling outside the windows. Then Dad started the car. We were all soaking wet.

“Mommy,” I said after we'd been driving a few minutes, “when you got in the accident this morning, were you on your way home after dropping me off? Or were you driving back to school with my stuff?”

Mom took a second to answer. “It's actually kind of a blur, honey,” she answered, reaching her arm behind her so that I would take her hand. I squeezed her hand.

“Chris,” said Dad, “Mommy's kind of tired. I don't think she wants to think about it right now.”

“I just want to know.”

“Chris, now's not the time,” said Dad, giving me a stern look in the rearview mirror. “The only thing that's important is that everything worked out okay and that Mommy's safe and sound, right? We have a lot to be thankful for. Today could have been so much worse.”

It took me a second to realize what he meant. And then when I did, I felt a shiver go up my spine.

The first year after we moved to Bridgeport, our parents tried really hard to get Auggie and me together at least a couple of times a month—either at our place or at Auggie's. I had a couple of sleepovers at Auggie's house, and Auggie tried a sleepover at my place once, though that didn't work out. But it's a long car ride between Bridgeport and North River Heights, and eventually we only got together every couple of months or so. We started FaceChatting each other a lot around that time. Like, practically every day in third grade, Auggie and I would hang out together on FaceChat. We had decided to grow our Padawan braids before I moved away, so it was a great way to check how long they had gotten. Sometimes we wouldn't even talk: we'd just keep the screens on while we both watched a TV show together or built the same Lego set at the same time. Sometimes we would trade riddles. Like, what has a foot but no leg? Or, what does a poor man have, a rich man need, and you would die if you ate it? Stuff like that could keep us going for hours.

Then, in the fourth grade, we started FaceChatting less. It wasn't a thing we did on purpose. I just started having more things to do in school. Not only did I get more homework now, but I was doing a lot of after-school stuff. Soccer a couple of times a week. Tennis lessons. Robotics in the spring. It felt like I was always missing Auggie's FaceChat requests, so finally we decided to schedule our chats for right before dinner on Wednesdays and Saturdays.

And that worked out fine, though it ended up being only Wednesday nights because Saturdays I had too much going on. It was somewhere toward the end of the fourth grade that I told Auggie I had cut off my Padawan braid. He didn't say it, but I think that hurt his feelings.

Then this year, Auggie started going to school, too.

I almost couldn't imagine Auggie at school, or how it would be for him. I mean, being a new kid is hard enough. But being a new kid that looks like Auggie? That would be insane. And not only was he starting school, he was starting
middle
school! That's how they do it in his school—fifth graders walking down the same hallways as ninth graders! Crazy! You have to give Auggie his props—that takes guts.

The only time I FaceChatted with Auggie in September was a few days after school had started, but he didn't seem to want to talk. I did notice he had cut off his Padawan braid, but I didn't ask him about it. I figured it was for the same reason I had cut mine off. I mean, you know, nerd alert.

I was curious to go to Auggie's bowling party a few weeks before Halloween. I got to meet his new friends, who seemed nice enough. There was this one kid named Jack Will who was pretty funny. But then I think something happened with Jack and Auggie, because when I FaceChatted with Auggie after Halloween, he told me they weren't friends anymore.

The last time I FaceChatted with Auggie was right after winter break had ended. My friends Jake and Tyler were over my place and we were playing
Age of War II
on my laptop when Auggie's FaceChat request came up on my screen.

“Guys,” I said, turning the laptop toward me. “I need to take this.”

“Can we play on your Xbox?” asked Jake.

“Sure,” I said, pointing to where they could find the extra controllers. And then I kind of turned my back to them, because I didn't want them to see Auggie's face. I tapped “accept” on the laptop, and a few seconds later, Auggie's face came on the screen.

“Hey, Chris,” he said.

“Sup, Aug,” I answered.

“Long time no see.”

“Yeah,” I answered.

Then he started talking about something else. Something about a war at his school? Jack Will? I didn't really follow what he was saying, because I was completely distracted by Jake and Tyler, who had started nudging one another, mouths open, half laughing, the moment Auggie had come on-screen. I knew they had seen Auggie's face. I walked to the other side of the room with the laptop.

“Mm-hmm,” I said to Auggie, trying to tune out the things Jake and Tyler were whispering to each other. But I heard this much:

“Did you see that?”

“Was that a mask?”

“…a fire?”

“Is there someone there with you?” asked Auggie.

I guess he must have noticed that I wasn't really listening to him.

I turned to my friends and said, “Guys, shh!”

That made them crack up. They were very obviously trying to get a closer look at my screen.

“Yeah, I'm just with some friends,” I mumbled quickly, walking to yet another side of my room.

“Hi, Chris's friend!” said Jake, following me.

“Can we meet your friend?” asked Tyler loudly so Auggie would hear.

I shook my head at them. “No!”

“Okay!” said Auggie from the other side of the screen.

Jake and Tyler immediately came on either side of me so the three of us were facing the screen and seeing Auggie's face.

“Hey!” Auggie said. I knew he was smiling, but sometimes, to people who didn't know, his smile didn't look like a smile.

“Hey,” both Jake and Tyler said quietly, nodding politely. I noticed that they were no longer laughing.

“So, these guys are my friends Jake and Tyler,” I said to Auggie, pointing my thumb back and forth at them. “And that's Auggie. From my old neighborhood.”

“Hey,” said Auggie, waving.

“Hey,” said Jake and Tyler, not looking at him directly.

“So,” said Auggie, nodding awkwardly. “So, yeah, what are you guys doing?”

“We were just turning on the Xbox,” I answered.

“Oh, nice!” answered Auggie. “What game?”

“
House of Asterion.
”

“Cool. What level are you on?”

“Um, I don't know exactly,” I said, scratching my head. “Second maze, I think.”

“Oh, that's a hard one,” Auggie answered. “I've almost unlocked Tartarus.”

“Cool.”

I noticed out of the corner of my eye that Jake was poking Tyler behind my back.

“Yeah, well,” I said, “I think we're going to start playing now.”

“Oh!” said Auggie. “Sure. Good luck with the second maze!”

“Okay. Bye,” I said. “Hope the war thing works out.”

“Thanks. Nice meeting you guys,” Auggie added politely.

“Bye, Auggie!” Jake said, smirking.

Tyler started laughing, so I elbowed him out of screen view.

“Bye,” Auggie said, but I could tell he noticed them laughing. Auggie always noticed stuff like that, even though he pretended not to.

I clicked off. As soon as I did, both Jake and Tyler started cracking up.

“What the heck?” I said to them, annoyed.

“Oh, dude!” said Jake. “What was up with that kid?”

“I've never seen anything that ugly in my life,” said Tyler.

“Hey!” I answered defensively. “Come on.”

“Was he in a fire?” asked Jake.

“No. He was born like that,” I explained. “He can't help the way he looks. It's a disease.”

“Wait, is it contagious?” asked Tyler, pretending to be afraid.

“Come on,” I answered, shaking my head.

“And you're friends with him?” asked Tyler, looking at me like I was a Martian. “Whoa, dude!” He was snickering.

“What?” I looked at him seriously.

He opened his eyes wide and shrugged. “Nothing, dude. I'm just saying.”

I saw him look at Jake, who squeezed his lips together like a fish. There was an awkward silence.

“Are we playing or not?” I asked after a few seconds. I grabbed one of the controllers.

We started playing, but it wasn't a great game. I was in a bad mood, and they just continued being goofballs. It was irritating.

After they left, I started thinking about Zack and Alex, how they had ditched Auggie all those years ago.

Even after all this time, it can still be hard being friends with Auggie.