Turtle Boy Page 4

  On the same shelf I can see a bunch of bags of Funyuns. I’ve never had Funyuns—Mom doesn’t let me have junk food.

  Suddenly, there’s a sharp knock on the door, and it swings open. It’s a nurse—not Roxanne but a different one. She has short gray hair and glasses. RJ stops drumming and sticks his arm out obligingly. The nurse sets up some packaged medical stuff on a tray table. RJ ignores her and the nurse ignores RJ as she unwraps a needle.

  I hate needles.

  I start to feel faint. I want to leave the room, but I’m afraid I’ll pass out. I put my head between my knees and start to take deep breaths.

  “OW!” says RJ. “Denise! You’re trying to find a vein, not dig for treasure!”

  The nurse doesn’t say anything back. Then RJ starts singing, really loudly:

  “You see the rate they come down the escalator!

  Now listen to the tube train accelerator!

  Then you realize that you got to have a purpose

  Or this place is gonna knock you out sooner or later!”

  He sings in a loud British accent—“escalaytah!” and “acceleratah” and “sooneh o’ laytah!” Then he sings: “Ner! Ner-ner! Ner! Ner-ner!” over and over, like he’s imitating an electric guitar. Finally, the nurse sweeps up the equipment and leaves the room. My head is still between my knees.

  “You all right down there? Drop a contact lens?”

  “Needles,” I say. “I hate needles.”

  “How original,” says RJ. “Do you also hate spiders, homework, and the word ‘moist’?”

  “Last summer, I needed about twenty blood tests,” I say, ignoring his sarcasm. “The nurse couldn’t find the vein, and she kept sticking me with the needle and I actually passed out.”

  “Ooh, wow. Twenty blood tests,” he says. He still sounds unimpressed. “Sounds like an average Tuesday for me. What did you need ’em for?”

  I’ve opened a topic I really do not want to talk about. I’m going to keep my head down and see if he changes the subject.

  “What did you need them for?” he asks again, louder.

  “I was getting tested to see if I might have any joint diseases,” I say, looking up.

  He raises his eyebrows.

  “And I don’t,” I say. “But I have aplasia of the mandibular condyles, and micrognathia.” As soon as I say it, I wonder why I’m telling him these things. I don’t talk about this stuff with anyone.

  “I don’t know what those things are,” he says. “Micro-whatever you said. What is that?”

  “It means I need surgery on my jaw,” I say. “In December.”

  “Okay, for what?” He sits up a little straighter.

  I really don’t like talking about the surgery. It feels different from just thinking about it—something about the words coming out of my mouth makes it real, and I don’t want it to be any more real.

  “I’m waiting!” he says.

  “They basically move my jaw forward,” I say, and stop, but I feel like I haven’t said enough, so I add, “And they take bone out of my hip and put it in my jaw and then wire it shut, and I have to blend up my food so I can eat through a straw for two months.”

  “Yum!” says RJ. “Like one of those ice cream Blizzards! Vanilla ice cream, Butterfinger, and meatballs!”

  I can’t believe my ears. This is the scariest, worst thing I can imagine, and he’s making fun of it. I’m trying to keep my patience.

  “Mint chip with chicken!” he continues. “Ooh, here’s a good one: chocolate ice cream with tacos! Compared to the slop they feed me in this place, that actually sounds good.”

  He grabs his drumsticks and plays—b’dump-bump—on his stupid practice pad. It sounds like “b’dack-dack” because the pad is made of rubber and plastic, but I still know what he’s doing: he’s teasing me.

  “I’m not telling you anything else,” I say. I pick my book up and angrily page through it.

  “You seem like a perfectly normal weirdo seventh grader,” he says. “Believe me, I’ve had my share of Rabbi Harris’s dorky Bar Mitzvah kids come through here, and you’re all weenies.”

  I ignore him and continue to page through my book.

  “Do they tease you?” he wonders. “The kids at school…Do they pick on you?”

  I ignore him further, although I realize I’m flipping pages too fast to read anything.

  “They call you names?”

  I slam my book shut. “Yes, actually, they do!”

  “What do they call you?” His eyes are trained on me, and this doesn’t feel good at all. He’s not asking because he cares; he’s asking because he’s looking for something new to make fun of. I’m not saying a word, but I’ve opened my book again, and I’m flipping pages and trying to hide my face, and I’m crying silently.

  “They call me Turtle Boy,” I say.

  My eyes are fixed on my book, so I can’t see his reaction, but he’s quiet for a minute.

  “Turtle Boy,” he repeats.

  “Yeah.”

  “So the thing that’s making you cry,” he says slowly, “sitting right here in front of a kid you don’t even know in a hospital, is the fact that kids call you Turtle Boy? What does that even mean?”

  I don’t lift my head. I look at my shoes. “They say I look like one,” I say, wiping my nose with my sleeve. “Something about my face.”

  I can feel RJ squinting at me for a second.

  “Come here,” he says. “I can’t see for crap because the mito’ has wrecked my eyes. Come over here a second.”

  I don’t move.

  “Come here,” he repeats, not loudly but firmly.

  I stand up and take a step closer to him. He’s quiet for a minute. “Oh, yeah. I can kind of see that—kind of like a cartoon turtle. Because of how your chin goes—bloop-bloop.” He draws a little curve in the air with the tip of his drumstick.

  What? That’s all he has to say?

  He grabs his other drumstick and starts playing a rhythm on his practice pad. He sings, “Tur-tle Boy, Tur-tle Boy; he’s a Jew and I’m a goy.”

  He stops. “Rabbi Harris said I’m never supposed to say ‘goy’ because it’s a derogatory word,” he says. “Sorry about that.”

  He continues playing the rhythm on his practice pad. I turn and go into his bathroom for some toilet paper to dry my eyes. I never should have come here. This is Rabbi Harris’s fault. I come out of the bathroom and, big surprise, RJ’s still drumming away: ticky-ticka-ticky-ticka-ticky-ticka.

  “I have to go,” I say quietly. My legs and hands are numb, and my backpack seems weirdly heavy as I lift it by one strap.

  “What?” he says. He looks really upset. “Where? Why? It’s only—” He looks at a clock on the wall. “You have forty-five minutes left.”

  I don’t respond and avoid his eyes as I cross the room. “Stop!” he says. “Where are you going? You just got here!”

  His tone changes further as I start to close the door behind me.

  “Get lost!” he yells. “Who needs you here, anyway?”

  I slip my arms under my backpack straps and hustle toward the hallway restrooms as fast as I can without actually running.

  Afterward, I’m in the car with Rabbi Harris, my backpack on my lap.

  “So? How was the visit?” he asks.

  “It was okay.” I don’t mention that I spent the final forty-five minutes hiding in a bathroom stall. We pull out of the hospital parking lot into traffic, and Rabbi Harris points to the glove box. “Pop that open, would you?”

  I do, and my eyes nearly fall out of my head. The compartment is loaded with all kinds of junk food. The kind you see in gas stations: Moon Pies, Hostess apple and lemon pies, pink Sno Balls.

  “Grab me a banana Moon Pie,” he says.

  I pull out a smushy cream-y
ellow disk and hand it to him. He grips the steering wheel with one hand, and with the other, he holds the Moon Pie, tearing the wrapper open with his teeth.

  “Help yourself,” he says. “It’s my post-hospital snack stash.”

  I grab a Hostess lemon pie, rip through the packaging, and bite into the tangy goo at the center. I don’t care if flakes of crust scatter everywhere as I eat—I devour half the pie before stopping to breathe.

  “So,” he goes on. “I’m gathering you had a rough ride in there?”

  We’re waiting for the car in front of us to move, and Rabbi Harris turns; I can tell he’s smiling at me, but I don’t look. And I don’t care if he sees me eat. My eyes are fixed on the pie in my hands—the glazed crust and almost fluorescent yellow filling. Mom doesn’t let me have junk food, so I’ve always coveted gas-station desserts like this, but now that I’m halfway through one, I think it’s kind of gross.

  “Reminds me of being a kid,” Rabbi Harris says, lifting the Moon Pie wrapper. “So, you want to tell me about what happened that was so bad?”

  “He told me he didn’t want me to be there,” I say, omitting the fact that RJ only yelled this when I got up to leave early.

  “That’s sort of standard for Ralph,” he says. “But I can guarantee, he definitely did want you there. And you survived a challenging experience. I truly believe it’s good for you.”

  I scoff and take another bite of my pie. I didn’t agree to do this to survive. I already have to survive every day at school.

  “Here’s the thing I want you to know,” says Rabbi Harris. “Like anyone sick in the hospital, RJ has a lot of powerful feelings about his situation—he’s mad and he’s sad and he sometimes feels depressed, and mainly, he’s scared.”

  “That doesn’t give him the right to take it out on some kid who’s just trying to be friends,” I say. I’m not sure why I said that thing about friends. I’m not looking for friends.

  Rabbi Harris finishes his Moon Pie, crunches the wrapper, and tosses it onto the floor by my feet. Five or six other wrappers are already down there; I hadn’t noticed earlier. “This is how it works,” he says. “When someone’s really sick…they’re the bull’s-eye in a target.” He traces an invisible circle close to the windshield. “And they take out their feelings on the people one circle around them.” He draws another circle, wider than the first. “And the people farther out in the bull’s-eye, that’s us. It’s our job to be there for the sick person. And if we’re having a hard time, we turn to the people that are farther outside the bull’s-eye to help us. If you’re having trouble, you can talk to me.”

  I’m silent for a minute while we pull into my driveway. I feel suddenly self-conscious about the state of our house: the huge cracks in the driveway asphalt, the dent in the garage door from when Mom thought the car was in reverse, the holes in the screen door.

  The light is on in the kitchen. That means Mom is home and making dinner. Rabbi Harris is waiting for me to say something before I get out.

  I understand what he said about sick people taking out their feelings on the people around them, but I have my own problems. RJ shouldn’t take his feelings out on me.

  I throw the pie wrapper on the floor, like he did, and I open the door and climb out. Before I slam it shut, I lean down and say “I’m not going back.”

  For the past three days, I’ve eaten lunch in this bathroom stall. I don’t like it. Actually, I hate it. My nose tricks my mouth into thinking that my PB-and-J sandwich tastes like raspberry-scented urinal cakes. Still, it’s better than the cafeteria, where Jake and Spencer start the Turtle Boy chant every time they see me.

  The bell rings for fifth period. I open the stall door, taking a huge bite of my sandwich, and who’s standing there?

  Jake and Spencer.

  “Hey, Turtle Boy!” they say. “Long time no see!”

  I stand frozen. Should I leave? Lock myself back in the stall? There are three other boys in the bathroom; two are peeing and one is gazing into the mirror, smoothing down his hair. They’re ignoring us.

  “You gonna be at Dena’s Bat Mitzvah party tomorrow?” asks Jake. “I’m sure turtles are allowed.”

  I gawk at him. Jake is going to Dena’s Bat Mitzvah?

  “Don’t look so surprised,” he says. “Dena’s on the volleyball team. The whole lacrosse and volleyball team are friends.”

  Say something! I tell myself. My limbs and tongue are turning to ice. Say something!

  “You’re eating lunch in here?” asks Spencer. “Gross.”

  I look down and see that I’m still holding the final corner of my PB-and J-sandwich. It’s a mangled wreck because of how I chew.

  “You got a little something on your chin,” says Jake.

  Do I have peanut butter on my face? I feel around my chin.

  “Oh, my bad,” says Jake. “You don’t have a chin.”

  * * *

  • • •

  We’re halfway home on the bus when I hear the bus driver yell, “Sit down!”

  Shirah is coming down the aisle. She stops next to me.

  “Dena’s Bat Mitzvah is this weekend,” she says. “We’ll be up late on Saturday. We should get our science homework out of the way now and do math on Monday morning.”

  “I’m not going,” I say.

  “What? Why not?” she asks. She’s reacting more strongly than I’d expected. “Why won’t you go?”

  I can’t tell her. I wish I could. If anyone would understand me, it would be Shirah, but she’s on the volleyball team. She’s popular. She has so many friends, she doesn’t need to hang out with me on weekends or after school anymore. And I know she means well when she says not to let the teasing bother me, but all that does is make me feel worse. Jake and Spencer aren’t at the top of the bullying pyramid: they don’t pants me in the hallway, and they don’t duct-tape my arms behind my back and stuff me into a trash can. But that’s exactly why it’s so bad: no one else can understand why being called “Turtle Boy” is the worst thing on earth.

  “Hey!” calls the bus driver. “If you don’t sit down, I’m gonna pull this bus over!”

  I turn to Shirah, maybe to apologize. Maybe to explain. But she’s already gone.

  It’s Saturday, the morning of Dena’s Bat Mitzvah, and Mom tries to pry me out of bed. I decide to play sick. She sticks a thermometer in my mouth and goes downstairs to boil water for Theraflu, this medicine that tastes like hot lemonade. While she’s gone, I reach over and dangle the thermometer around the heating lamp of the box turtle’s terrarium, making sure to check it before putting it back into my mouth. Those heat lamps get really hot.

  She returns, studies the thermometer, and looks straight at the terrarium. She seems like she’s about to speak, but then sighs, like she’s too tired to fight.

  “That’s a pretty bad fever,” she says. “I think we need to go to the doctor.”

  “I don’t need the doctor,” I say, rasping like a brave, fallen soldier. “I just need rest.”

  “Fine, Will,” she says. “But Shirah’s Bat Mitzvah is in one week, and you are not missing it. I don’t care if you have a fever of a hundred and nine.”

  Normally, when I’m ill, Mom makes me chicken soup or Jell-O and endless refills of tea, but this time, she doesn’t offer anything but medicine. In fact, a couple hours later, she comes and tells me she’s going to do some shopping and get her hair done.

  After she drives away, I leap out of bed, get dressed, and check the time to make sure I’ll be home before her.

  Twenty-five minutes later, I’m at the Back 40.

  * * *

  • • •

  Two things catch my eye.

  First, next to the chain-link fence, a huge yellow excavator is parked on its giant treads.

  Second, Max is here, standing on the roof of the
cab, jumping up and down, yelling and waving his arms, like a castaway on an island, flagging down a plane.

  “What are you doing here?” I shout.

  “What’s it look like?” he shouts back. “I’ve taken control of this claw machine. Climb aboard!”

  “No, like—what are you doing here?” I ask. “Why aren’t you at the Bat Mitzvah?”

  “Sooooo boring,” he says. “My therapist told me I need to move around a lot. I’ll go to the party tonight, though—I gotta get my dance on.”

  He starts dancing, shaking his butt around.

  “Hey, maybe that isn’t a good idea,” I call.

  Using his good arm, he climbs up the slant of the enormous digger arm and tiptoes a few feet out. He’s about ten feet off the ground. I’m very afraid of heights, and even watching someone else climb that high makes me woozy.

  “Watch this!” he says.

  I try not to look, but I can’t help it; he leaps way up into the air and lands on one foot. I look away in horror. My pulse is speeding up and I’m getting dizzy.

  “Max!” I yell, covering my eyes. “Come down! You’re going to break your neck!”

  “Am not!” he says. “I’m a track-ee-ur! Watch this!”

  I peek between my fingers. He starts shuffling toward the end of the digger arm, then leaps up and lands on the hinge, the highest point of the excavator.

  “Come down and I’ll make a parkour video with you,” I say.

  Max freezes and looks at me.

  “For real?” he asks.

  “Yes,” I say. “If you come down. Now.”

  “You sure you don’t want to come up here?” he asks. He crouches and extends an arm, as if he could reach down and pull me fifteen feet off the ground. “It’s an awesome view. I can see all the kick balls that’ve landed on the school roof.”

  “You promised you’d come down,” I say. “And don’t parkour down. Just be careful and come down normally.”