The 10 P.M. Question (3 page)

“Honestly, Frankie, I’m sure it’s just heat or something, or a tiny insect bite — definitely nothing serious. . . .” And then Frankie would lie in bed trying to believe Ma but dwelling on all the things the rash could be: scabies, ringworm, flea infestation, meningitis, dengue fever, malaria, cancer, Ebola virus . . . The list was potentially endless. . . . And then, he would have to ask Ma again the next night, and the next. And finally she would say, “Would you feel better if you asked the doctor?” and he would nod sheepishly, and Ma would feel bad that she couldn’t take him but she would ask Uncle George, and Uncle George would say he couldn’t till next Friday because he was up to his eyeballs and it looked exactly like a heat rash to him, anyway, so Ma would ask Gordana and Gordana would say, oh, good
God,
was he
always
going to be such an incredible
freak
?

The bus was picking up speed now, down Memorial Avenue, past his grandmother’s old house, past Centennial Park, where he and Uncle George had bowled thousands of balls, past Bava’s, where they’d always bought their ice creams. Those were the days, Frankie thought — when Uncle George had time to bowl two hundred balls and eat a three-scoop cookies ’n’ cream afterward. He sighed again. Maybe he’d just go to the doctor by himself. Why not? He was twelve. He didn’t need a child minder.

“Want some?” said Gigs, offering him half an apricot.

Frankie chewed the fruit slowly, enjoying the plump sweetness, and mentally added apricots to the ongoing grocery list in his head, which frankly — ha! — he was rather tired of having to compile on behalf of everyone else.

“You watch any
Get Smart
?” Gigs asked.
Get Smart
videos were their favorite thing just now.

“Tried to,” said Frankie. “But Gordana was practically having phone sex with Ben right beside me on the couch.”

“Really?”
said Gigs.

“No, not really, just kissing crap. And loud.”

“Nothing new.”

“No.”

And that was another thing: Gordana. Frankie didn’t really care that his sister was habitually rude and mean to him, but he did care that she never did
a thing
around the house. All the work fell his way these days — getting the groceries, delivering stuff for Ma, picking up library books, buying birthday presents for the relatives. It was so
unfair
. And, as far as he could see, extremely unlikely to improve. Gordana’d leave home next year, he just knew it. Like Louie. She’d move in with Ben or Christa or Tamara or one of her forty-seven friends (she’d counted them) — but she’d swing back home for laundry and dinners. He sighed yet again.

“Could you
stop
that?” said Gigs. “You’re just like Chris. She’s always sighing and doesn’t even know she’s doing it. She sighs when she’s eating, when she’s reading, when she’s looking something up in the phone book . . . the phone book especially. The minute she gets it out of the drawer, she starts this massive sighing campaign.”

Gigs had finished his breakfast now. He put away his plastic containers and bottles and settled back to read his comic book. Frankie surveyed his best friend’s freckled face with fondness, and envy.

Gigs
never
seemed to worry. His life was a steady, tidy progress from one activity to another. He would have a task (breakfast, say; or getting his watch fixed; or doing his trombone practice; or buying an ice cream; or finishing a math project) and he would just
do
it. He didn’t think about the nutritional value of the breakfast or the ice cream (Gigs never worried about fat intake). He didn’t stress about his math ability, or his chances for Boys’ College next year, or his batting average, or whether blowing a sustained forte passage on the trombone might accidentally trigger a brain hemorrhage.

There were no detours or distractions, nor interruptions by any of a catalog of pressing problems. Gigs didn’t worry about his household, his parents, his health, his safety, his future, the probability of earthquakes, terrorism, global warming, or McDonald’s taking over the world. He was a funny guy, and a smart one — and the smartest thing about him, in Frankie’s view, was that he never, ever,
ever
worried.

Frankie dreamed of having such a disposition. If only you could win a temperament like that in Lotto, or get it through mail order, or bid for it on Trade Me.

The bus came to another precisely judged stop outside the midtown terminal, where a number of the kids at Frankie and Gigs’s school boarded. Cassino had a comment or a quip for everyone — except, of course, the Kearney twins, Seamus and Eugene. They’d been getting the cold shoulder from Cassino for nearly a year now — ever since they’d set fire to the seat nearest the back door.

Cassino was a kind and easygoing guy, everyone knew. He let kids eat on his bus and sing loudly and even get physical; he let people on for free if they’d mislaid their cards; he often waited for kids in case they were running late. But even Cassino had his threshold, and damage to his bus was something he neither tolerated nor forgave. Gigs and Frankie reckoned it’d be a cold day in hell before Seamus and Eugene cracked even a faint smile from Cassino. Earning Cassino’s permanent wrath, Frankie thought, ranked as one of life’s least bearable punishments.

“Wasim Enegue arcnarum multiplicitum et feralum?” Gigs muttered. (Eugene Kearney’s zits are growing in number and size and repulsiveness.)

“Gigantum Saccum et maladits personalitonium,” said Frankie. (Too much McDonald’s combined with an evil personality.)

Frankie slumped in his seat as an alternative to sighing. He didn’t really feel like analyzing his schoolmates in Chilun. Usually it was a great way of passing the last half of the bus ride to school, but this morning his litany of worries was causing an irretrievable gloom to settle on him, heavy as a saturated beach towel.

It was strange the way this happened. He’d noticed it before. One week he’d be bouncing along relatively happily, only a couple of minor problems bothering him. A week or two later, the problems would have burgeoned and multiplied until the list of matters to solve dominated his thoughts and none of his usual pleasures could give him a scrap of comfort.

He sank lower in the seat and frowned at the semicircle of rolled-up bus tickets describing the wide arc of the seat-back in front of them. There were hundreds, jutting like white porcupine quills from the gap between the seat leather and the aluminum frame. He and Gigs had been building the quills for four years now and it was quite a sight. It was another example of Cassino’s extreme tolerance; he’d never mentioned the bus ticket stash, but he’d never interfered with the display, either.

“February the fourteenth,” said Gigs suddenly. “Hot damn, it’s Valentine’s Day. We might get cards.”

“Fat chance,” said Frankie with infinite pessimism.

“Norbo B, Norbo B,” whispered Gigs. This was their Chilun name for Bronwyn Baxter. Gigs was convinced that Bronwyn Baxter had her eye on Frankie.

“Shuddup,” said Frankie. “I don’t believe in Valentine’s Day. Loada crap.”

Months later, remembering that moment, Frankie would smile to himself. He liked to go back over that little exchange, drawing it out, remembering his bleak mood, enjoying the before and after. Having declared his disgust with Saint Valentine, he was just preparing to submerge himself fully in his slough of despond when the new girl got on the bus.

Months later Frankie liked very much to remember that February the fourteenth had begun badly and shown every sign of becoming a real horror, but — as the benefit of hindsight proved — it marked, ultimately, a turning point in his mood and fortune, because at 8:36 a.m., the new girl boarded Cassino’s east-west school bus.

The new girl tripped up the steps in her beige Ugg boots, flashed a bus card, gave Cassino a wide smile, tossed her long, hefty dreads —
dreads!
— and strolled down to the rear of the bus, where Gigs Angelo was ruminating on the possibility of valentines and Frankie Parsons was prostrate and maudlin on the brown bench seat.

The new girl was smallish and round and had a very tanned face. She wore jeans and a bright red T-shirt, which read
You gonna
?
I’m gonna
. She wore gold hoop earrings, and a tiny diamond stud in her left nostril.

“Is this the dormitory, or can people actually
sit
here?” she said to the slumped Frankie. Her voice had the faintest of accents.

“I’m Sydney,” she added. “Can you believe this is my fourth school in nine months? No? I’m having trouble with it myself. Want a salted licorice?” She held out a small brown paper bag, and the bangles on her hand made a brief musical rattle.

“Ta,” said Frankie, raising a languid arm and digging in the bag. He looked at the black pebble candy, then put it in his mouth. It was as odd as its donor, but he quite liked it.

“You?” said Sydney, passing the bag over Frankie to Gigs, who was staring a little defiantly at her.

“No, thanks,” said Gigs. “Hate that stuff.”

Sydney sat down and Frankie slid up the seat until he was quite straight again. Gigs gave him a look.

“Nogis golody callistus freakano. Dispatchio presto,” he said. (What colossal nerve. Have to get rid of her fast.)

“My dad sent me this stuff,” said Sydney. “From Holland. You can get it here but I don’t like to rain on his parade. Not a bad breakfast substitute, if you’re in a hurry. Which I usually am.”

“Nollis gannat negey comadonatus,” said Gigs, staring straight ahead at the bus ticket quills. (Lordy, she’s a talker.)

“Good
scheme,
” said Sydney, pointing to the quills. “A bus installation. I like it. Urban art.” She leaned into the seat, examining the quills. Then she sat back and rolled up her own ticket, correctly fashioning the point in the particular way Frankie and Gigs had pioneered years ago. She wormed the new quill carefully into the seat gap and smiled around at Frankie.

“Nozdoreeshna!” said Gigs. (Oh, my
God
!) His voice had a distinct tone of outrage.

Frankie looked at Sydney and back at Gigs.

“Glasnostov aginwia plovik?” (Are you going to answer me, or what?)

“Is he actually speaking Russian or just being an idiot?” asked Sydney. She pulled a shuffle and earphones from her bag. Her bag, Frankie noticed, was covered in drawings and words. It looked old and well worn and loved. He looked up at the bag’s owner.

“So,” she said. “He’s speaking Russian or something and you’re completely mute. Once again, I hit the jackpot. Why is it I never end up at schools with
normal
people? Could you even tell me your name?” She bulged her eyes at Frankie. They were black eyes, with dark lashes. Her raised eyebrows were thick half-moons.

“Frankie Parsons,” he said, and surprised himself by holding out his hand. He could feel Gigs stiffen beside him.

“Frankie Parsons,” repeated Sydney, taking his hand. She gave him the trademark wide smile. “Sounds like a country and western singer. Or a mafia boss. Or a famous tennis player.”

“Nozdoreeshna!” said Gigs again.

Frankie let go of Sydney’s hand and tried a small smile. He felt suddenly and inexplicably cheerful.

“So,” he said, and picked up Sydney’s shuffle, surprising himself once more. “Nice machine. Wouldn’t mind one of these. My brother’s got one, too. Are you planning to stay very long at this school?”

“A fruitcake,” was Gigs’s judgment as they walked into school.

He had been heavily silent for the remainder of the bus ride, his silence louder and louder, it seemed to Frankie, the more he and Sydney had chatted. Silence was the major indicator of Gigs’s fury, Frankie had found over the years. Though Gigs Fury was, in fact, a rare thing and Frankie himself had seldom earned it. Gigs reserved fury almost exclusively for his siblings. He’d been silent for more than a week a couple of years back, when Dr. Pete and Chris had announced that they were having another baby.

Frankie threw the cricket ball toward the ceiling of the locker room and caught it one-handed.

“Throw downs?” he said.

Gigs walked toward the door, cupping a hand behind him. Frankie threw.

“Let’s hope she’s not in our class,” said Gigs, taking the ball expertly.

But of course she was. When Frankie and Gigs came into room 11, Sydney was standing beside Mr. A at the front of the classroom, surveying her surroundings with open interest, smiling broadly at kids as they came through the door.

Frankie was rather admiring. Most kids would have been restless and nervous on their first day in a new school. Most kids would have looked a little pinched and shy. Most kids would have been staring at the floor, or at a vague point in the distance, avoiding the eye of anyone in particular.

“Okay, friends and Romans,” said Mr. A in his customary way, when everyone was more or less seated and the noise was subsiding. “Lend me your ears, please. Shut up and listen up. This is Sydney Vickerman. Please make her welcome. Show her the ropes. Ask her sympathetic questions. Tell her about yourselves —”

“If you can get a word in edgewise,” muttered Gigs.

“Sorry, what was that, Gigs?”

“Nada,” said Gigs.

“Try not to interrupt the teacher when he’s in full flow, there’s a good fellow. As I was saying — tell Sydney about yourselves, share your books where necessary, and your lunch if you feel so disposed . . .”

He thrust his hand toward Sydney. “
Bienvenue à salle onze,
Sydney.”

“Merci beaucoup,”
said Sydney in a faultless French accent.
“C’est bien.”
She shook his hand with vigor.

“Très bon,”
said Mr. A, grinning. “A rival for Frankie.”

“Oh, mervil yerks,” said Gigs, in his ridiculous French accent. “Just what we don’t need. A foreign language expert.”

“You seem to be suffering from an uncontrollable urge to express yourself this morning, Gigs,” said Mr. A. “Could I offer you some gaffer tape? A small gag?” Gigs looked stony.

He was no happier a few minutes later when Mr. A directed Sydney to the seat beside Frankie at the Pepys table, where Frankie sat with Gigs, Solly Napier, Esther Barry, and Vienna Gorman. It was the obvious place for a new person; there’d been a spare seat at the Pepys table since Fletcher Armstrong had left at the end of last year.