One more catastrophe to explain when Dad got home.
Shutting it out of my mind, I bolted out the back door and got my bike from the garage. The air was cold and bracing, and I quickly buttoned my peacoat.
As I sped onto the sidewalk, I leaned right and headed toward school.
If Red Beard was there, I didn’t see him.
THE ACCIDENT
“YO, SPACE MAN, watch out!”
I didn’t hear the warning. I was at the end of my bike ride to school, which involves a sharp turn around the corner of the building. You’re supposed to walk your bike by that point, but I was in too much of a hurry. Not that it matters, because most people are too smart to stand close to that corner anyway.
But most people doesn’t include Barry Reese, the Blowhard of Mortimer P. Reese Middle School.
There was Barry’s hammy face, inches away, his eyes as big as softballs. As always, he was involved in his favorite hobby, making life miserable for littler kids. He was hunched menacingly over this tiny sixth-grader named Josh or George.
I slammed on the brakes. My front wheel jammed. The rear wheel bucked upward, flinging me over the handlebars. The bike slid out from under me. As I flew forward, Barry’s face loomed toward me at a zillion miles an hour. I could see three hairs sticking out of a mole on his cheek.
Then the worst conceivable thing happened.
He caught me.
When we stopped spinning around, I was hanging from him like a rag doll. “Shall we dance?” he said.
All I could hear was cackling laughter. Kids were convulsing. Barry grinned proudly, but I pushed him away. His breath smelled like bananas and moldy feet.
Josh or George scrambled up off the ground. No one offered to help pick up his books, which had been scattered all over the playground.
I don’t know why Barry was a bully. He was rich. Our school was named after his great-great-grandfather, who’d made his fortune creating those little plastic thingies that protect the toilet lid from hitting the seat. Personally, if I were rich and the heir to a toilet-thingy fortune, I’d be pretty happy. I wouldn’t pick on smaller kids.
“I don’t dance with apes,” I said, quickly stooping to pick up my bike to lock it to the rack.
I stole a look at my watch. The bell was going to ring in one minute.
“My apologies.” Barry elbowed me aside and scooped up my bike with exaggerated politeness. “Let me help you recover from your ride, Mario. From the cut on your head, I guess you had a few crashes already.”
I tried to take back the handlebars, but he was too fast for me. He yanked the bike away and began walking fast toward the rack. “Hey, by the way, did you finish the bio homework?” he said over his shoulder. “’Cause I was helping my dad with his business last night, and it got late. And, well, you can’t think about homework before profits. Not that I wouldn’t get all the answers perfect anyway—”
I pushed him aside and grabbed the bike. “No, Barry, you can’t copy my homework.”
“I just did save your life.”
As I locked the bike to the rack, Barry leaned closer with a twisted, smilelike expression. “Don’t think there won’t be some financial reward…”
Before I could answer, he took two quick steps to the side. Josh or George was making a break for the safety of the school yard, clutching an unruly mass of papers and notebooks. Barry thrust his arm out as if yawning. He clipped the kid squarely in the chest and sent him flying, the papers scattering again.
The blood rushed to my head. I wasn’t sure if it was from the Ugliosaurus hit, the crazy bike ride, the near crash, or Barry’s extreme obnoxiousness. Math test or not, he couldn’t get away with this.
“Here’s my homework!” I blurted, yanking a grocery list from my pocket. “You get it if you pick up Josh’s stuff and say you’re sorry.”
“It’s George,” the kid said.
Barry looked at me as if I were speaking Mongolian. “What did you say, McKinley?”
I was shaking. Dizzy. Maybe this was fear. How could I be so afraid of this doofus?
Focus.
Barry reached toward my sheet, but I pulled it away, backing toward the street. “Tell him you’ll never do it again,” I insisted. “And don’t even think of saying no.”
Balling and unballing his fists, Barry stepped closer. His white, fleshy face was taking on the color of rare roast beef. The bell rang. Or maybe it didn’t. I was having trouble hearing. What was happening to me?
“How’d you get that little cut on your head, McKinley?” Barry’s voice was muffled, like he was speaking inside a long tunnel. “Because I think you need a bigger one.”
I barely heard him. I felt as if something had crawled into my head and was kickboxing with my brain.
I struggled to stay upright. I couldn’t even see Barry now. The back of my leg smacked against a parked car. I spun into the street, trying to keep my balance. The blacktop rushed toward me and I put out my hands to stop the fall.
The last thing I saw was the grille of a late-model Toyota speeding toward my face.
FLATLINING
BEEP…
Beep…
Harp strings? What was that noise?
The street was gone, and I could see nothing. I felt as if I were floating in a tunnel of cold air. I had dreamed my own death, and then it had really happened. I pried my eyes open briefly. It hurt to do it, but in that moment I had a horrifying realization.
The afterlife was beige.
I tried to cry out, but my body was frozen. Odd whistling sounds drifted around me like prairie winds.
Slowly I began making out voices, words.
Peering out again, I hoped to see cherubim and seraphim, or at least a few clouds. Instead I saw nostril hairs. Also, really dark eyebrows and blue eyes, attached to a man’s face that loomed closer.
I felt a hand push my head to the side. I tried to speak, to resist, but I couldn’t. It was as someone had turned the off switch on all my body functions. “Extremely odd case,” the man said in a deep voice. “No diabetes, you say? He had all inoculations? No history of concussion?”
“Correct, Dr. Saark,” came an answer. “There’s nothing that would indicate these erratic vital signs. He’s a healthy boy. We haven’t a clue what’s wrong.”
I knew the second voice. It was my family doctor, Dr. Flood. She’d been taking care of me since I was a baby.
So I was not dead, which was a big relief. But hearing your doctor’s voice is never a cheery thing. I was tilted away from the voices, and all I could see were an IV stand, electrical wires, and a metal wastebasket.
It had to be Belleville