The Year of Billy Miller (10 page)

“We could have a snack,” Billy suggested.

“Are you kidding?” said Gabby. “I’m so full from dinner I feel like I’ll never eat again. I still have my food baby,” she said with a chuckle, tipping her head and casting her eyes downward. “Seriously, are you hungry already?”

“Not really. But if you were, I’d sit with you while you ate.”

Gabby twisted her wrist to check her watch. Her bracelets—inches of them, silver and gold, surrounding the watch—jingled. She looked him up and down. “I’m sorry, Billy Boy, but it’s time for bed.”

“Wait—you said one more hand.”

“Okay,” said Gabby. “A quick one.”

During their final hand, Billy held back from playing certain cards when he could have won, prolonging the game as long as possible. But soon Gabby was the winner and he was off to bed.

He went to the bathroom and brushed his teeth. He put on his pajamas and crawled under his covers. He said good night to Gabby and waited.

And waited.

And waited.

When the house was quiet, he checked to see if the light in the guest room was still on. It was. So he went back to his room and waited some more. When he checked again, the light was out.

And, now, here he was, in his room, ready to begin the night of staying awake.

He told himself he could do this. He felt a shiver of excitement, then a buzzy sensation. If he made it through the night without sleeping, he’d be a different person, somehow. A more important person.

His eyelids were the problem—they were as heavy as steel. The situation was worse if he lay down, so he rose from his bed and paced around his room. But the bed was so inviting—soft, warm—that he couldn’t help taking a break, allowing himself only to sit on it.

He turned his bedside lamp off and on and off and on. He tried to read. He tried to draw. He tried counting backward from one thousand.

He looked at the dragon stamp on the envelope from Ms. Silver. Then he took the pearl in his open palm and stared at it until it blurred. He pretended it really was magic. “Stay awake,” he whispered. “Stay awake.”

Just then an idea came to him. Billy’s idea was to scare himself so badly he couldn’t sleep. He turned off the lights and sat in the dark on his bed, resting his back against the wall, his legs crisscrossed into a pretzel. He tried to imagine the worst possible things he could.

He envisioned a life on his own without Mama and Papa, but that just made him sad.
Think.
A few memorably frightening scenes from movies danced before his eyes.
Think.
Some of the pictures in Papa’s big, thick art books were weird and made him uneasy; he recalled them as best he could.

Think.

He began to convince himself that there was something hiding in the black space beneath his bed.

Think.

The something had white melted flesh with oozing clusters of pimples for eyes. Its nose was a wet hole that made a whistling noise with each breath. It had long, stringy gray hair and thin, knobby fingers and bloody sores all over its naked body. It creaked and rattled and groaned. The thing ate children. Its teeth were sharp as needles. It was stretching and reaching, reaching and stretching. Creeping. Right under him.

The mattress groaned.

The wind whistled.

The radiator rattled.

The house creaked.

The curtains moved.

The shadows vibrated.

Billy found it hard to breathe. His heart was pounding. He still had the pearl in his hand and his grip around it was so tight his knuckles hurt.

Awful things were where they didn’t belong. Awful things were hidden everywhere.

Billy repositioned himself; his bedspread pulled as if something were grabbing it from below. Then his room tilted and the walls started closing in on him.

Billy sprang from his bed and bolted out of his room. He stopped suddenly. What should he do? Where should he go? He didn’t want Gabby to think he was a baby. He fled down the hall and threw open the door. “Sal,” he said, his voice soft, but frantic and breaking. “Sal, wake up.”

4

Sal’s night-light was so bright that the yellow walls in her room glowed like the inside of a jack-o’-lantern and had an instant calming effect on Billy. The only visible part of Sal among her pillows, the Drop Sisters, and her messy blankets was her snarl of dark curls, but it was a familiar snarl and Billy’s heart slowed down; his breathing steadied.

Billy sat on the bed and bounced. The dark snarl moved a little. Billy knew his question was the dumbest in the world, but he asked it anyway. “Are you sleeping?”

The snarl moved again.

Billy bounced harder, and then Sal’s head emerged from the shadowy lumps and bumps of bedclothes and stuffed animals like a chick from an egg. She looked at him with uncertain eyes—slits, really.

Billy scooched nearer to Sal. He didn’t know what to say. He couldn’t say
I need you
, which was the truth. “Hi,” he whispered.

Sal’s eyes closed and her head drooped. Billy shook her. It was strange, but already he felt less afraid. How could a three-year-old make him feel safe? Especially one who was mostly asleep. Although part of him knew there was no monster under his bed, he did not want to go back to his room. He wanted to stay here.

Billy shook Sal again and blew at her eyes. When she opened them, he blew again. He’d been holding the pearl the whole time, and now he raised it up to Sal’s face, inches away from her nose. “Sal, look,” he said. “It’s the magic pearl. And, I’ll give it to you
if—
”

Sal perked up. Her eyes widened. “You will?” She reached greedily for the pearl.

“
If
—” said Billy, pulling the pearl back a bit.

“If what?”

Billy’s brain had clicked back to his plan to stay up all night. He could not do it alone in his room. But he thought he could do it in Sal’s room. With her. He’d never shared anything this big with a girl before, but it would be worth it.

“If you can stay up all night with me, it’s yours,” said Billy.

“Why?” asked Sal.

Billy explained the importance of his idea. He finished by reminding her, “We’ve never even made it to midnight on New Year’s Eve.” He kept holding up the pearl as if it were a priceless gem, turning it between his fingers, hypnotizing her with it.

“Can I have it now?” she asked.

“You can borrow it,” said Billy. “But you can’t have it until morning.”

“How long is it till tomorrow?” asked Sal.

It was a good question. “I’ll find out,” said Billy. He went to check the digital clock in the bathroom. He was relieved that he didn’t have to pass his room to get there; still, he was cautious and quick. The red numbers on the clock were clear and bright: 10:32. We’ve got a long way to go, he thought, feeling some of his optimism drain away.

Back in Sal’s room, he crammed her throw rug under the door and flipped on her overhead light. They both blinked, adjusting to the change. “Now it’ll be easier to stay awake,” he told her.

Sal was fingering the pearl with loving care. “How long till tomorrow?” she asked again.

“A long time,” said Billy. “But we can do it. It’s only an hour and a half until midnight.”

“What are we going to do?” asked Sal.

“What do you want to do?”

“We could play with the Drop Sisters,” said Sal.

“Will that keep you awake more than anything else?” asked Billy. He was willing to do whatever it took to achieve his goal.

Sal nodded.

“Okay,” said Billy. “How do we play with them?”

“You tell a story about them. And you move them around. Like this.” Sal slid off her bed, pulling the Drop Sisters with her. She placed them in a circle on the floor. She picked up Raindrop and swooped her back and forth through the air. “One day Raindrop flew. ‘I’m a bird! I’m a bird!’”

“Shh,” Billy murmured.

“Your turn,” said Sal.

Billy chose one of the Drop Sisters. He didn’t think he could do this. He felt self-conscious. He wouldn’t want Ned to see him now. Or Emma. He sighed. Finally, he said, “One day there was a big explosion, and the unlucky Drop Sister felt the jolt, like lightning.” He tossed the stuffed whale up a few feet and let it fall and tumble. “She was stunned,” he said. “Then the doctors came to do CPR.” Billy took his fist and pumped the unlucky Drop Sister’s midsection, quietly grunting with each thrust.