Bullyville (13 page)

“Sort of. I guess you could say that.”

“Right,” said Stimmer. “I get it now. The picture becomes clear.” And he instantly lost interest. We sat in silence for a while, watching TV. On the screen, a white guy in a stocking cap was showing off his fancy house: game room, pool table, pinball machine, humongous flat-screen TV.

“Nice crib,” said Stimmer. “Not bad at all.”

“I'd take it,” I said.

“Sweet,” said Stimmer. “Except that you don't see the guy actually turn on the TV or work the pinball machine. Ever notice that? Because these dudes are always too dumb to know
how
to turn on the TV and make the machine run. That's why he's got to have an entourage, probably a butler and a maid.”

In a high voice, he said, “Jeeves, my good man, could you please get your white ass over here and turn on the television set?”

Okay. This was more like it. This felt like something you might do with an actual friend, watch TV
and insult the people on it. I wondered why Stimmer was in the hospital. He seemed healthy, energetic enough. Actually, he seemed overly energetic, bouncing on his bed and snorting each time the white guy with the fancy house said something stupid.

Then abruptly Stimmer switched off the TV and turned to face me.

“I've got an idea,” he said. “I mean if you're really my friend, my new best friend, why don't you
act
like a friend?”

“Like do…what?” Here it comes, I thought.

“Why don't you give me a part of your liver?” Stimmer said. “Just a teensy piece. A baby bite. It'll grow back on its own. That's what I'm doing in here, waiting for a liver transplant. I'm probably at the bottom of the list, down below anybody who happens to be related to a big CEO or a movie star or somebody in the government. And I'm probably going to die if I don't get a chunk of somebody's liver. So why not
you
, dog? Isn't that what friends do for friends?”

“Gosh,” I said. “I don't know. I don't know if I could do that.” I felt like a coward or a completely selfish person. But I didn't want to have surgery and give up part of my liver for someone I'd just met. I mean, I would have done it for Mom or Gran if they needed it, maybe even my aunts or cousins. But I'd only walked into Stimmer's room five minutes ago. On the other hand, no one in my family needed a liver—no one that I knew about—and Stimmer did. It seemed like a pretty high price to pay for taking my house keys to Tyro's Escalade. Still, it was the right thing to do.

By now I was so confused that I couldn't speak. Stimmer took one look at me and read the answer in my face.

“Is that a negative?” he said.

“Yes,” I said. “I mean no. I can't. I'm sorry.”

“Not
can't
. You mean you
won't
. Some friend.” He turned away from me and looked up at the TV.

And that was how we were—not talking, watching TV—when Mrs. Straus came back to get me.

“How did you two get along?” she asked.

“Great,” said Stimmer. “Slammin'. Just don't bring the dude back again, okay?”

“But Stimmer—”

“Don't mess with me, okay?” he said. “You pull any of this funny shit again, I'm complaining to the doctor and the nurses. I've got some rights here, too.”

Mrs. Straus looked at me, and I rocketed out of my chair.

“Bye,” I said, but Stimmer didn't reply.

“What happened?” asked Mrs. Straus when we were out in the hall.

“Things were going fine. And then he asked me to give him part of my liver.”

“Oh, the poor kid,” said Mrs. Straus, and tears sprang to her eyes. “He asks everyone. I should have anticipated that. I should have warned you.”

“I guess you can't blame him,” I said.

Mrs. Straus shot me a quick look. “What did you tell him?”

“I told him I was sorry.” I couldn't look at her.

“
I'm
sorry,” she said. “I should have seen it coming. Don't feel guilty, Bart. He shouldn't have asked you. I shouldn't have let it happen.”

“That's okay,” I said. “It's not your fault.” It was strange that I was the one trying to make Mrs. Straus feel better about my second strikeout in a row. She'd said I'd only have to meet three kids today, which was reassuring. I only had one more spectacular failure and humiliation to go, and then I was free to leave and find Fat Freddie and take my pitiful self home.

“Don't despair.” How did Mrs. Straus know that was what I'd been doing? “I've saved the best for last. You'll love Nola, everyone does. The nurses fight to take care of her. She's a total trip. And I just know that Nola will love you back.”

It was just occurring to me that Nola was a girl, and that—if you didn't count my girl cousins, which I didn't—I hadn't even
talked
to a girl since I left public school. I was afraid that I might have forgotten
how
to talk to a girl, not that I ever knew, exactly.

For a moment I let myself imagine that Nola was an incredibly beautiful hot chick suffering from some not-so-bad disease of which she was just about to be cured, at which point she would leave the hospital and become my girlfriend. Then I thought: With my luck, she'll be the bald one or the burn victim or the one with the hideous skin condition that wasn't catching but you still didn't want to look at it. Well, fine. I would visit my three sick kids, make my quota. I'd get through my first day of reaching out, and then I would be free to go home no matter how badly I'd done.

Walking into Nola's room, I practically had to fight my way past a small army of teddy bears and stuffed animals. Many of them still had gift cards and get-well-soon messages tied around their furry necks. Obviously Nola was extremely popular.

I saw the face of a little girl staring at me from among all the stuffed-animal faces. She was maybe nine or ten, and I guess she would have been really cute except that her face was a brilliant, glow-in-the-dark shade of yellow.

“Nola, this is Bart,” said Mrs. Straus. “He's come to hang out with you.”

Nola narrowed her eyes and stared at me. You could tell she was smart, just by looking at her. She didn't say anything; she only raised one eyebrow.

“Hi, Nola!” I said, too loud, like a total jerk.

“Hello.” Nola was one of those little kids with a weirdly deep, throaty, smoker's voice.

I remembered Mrs. Straus telling me not to ask what condition the kids had, not to make a deal about their diseases, not to do anything that would make them feel worse about being sick. But the color of Nola's skin—that blazing canary yellow—was so intense that I couldn't stop myself from staring.

Nola and I looked at each other. Once more, I dimly heard Mrs. Straus tell us what fun we were going to have between now and whenever she was coming to get me.

There was a long silence. Then Nola said, “It's chameleonitis. In case you're wondering. That's
my diagnosis, that's what I've got.”

“Excuse me?”

“You should see me in the blue room,” she said. “I turn this totally crazy cobalt color.”

I couldn't believe how slow I was! Because only now did I look around and see that the walls were the same yellow, more or less, as Nola's skin, which was part of what made the whole thing seem so peculiar.

I said, “You're kidding. That
is
a joke, right?”

“Ask my doctors if you don't believe me,” she said. And she raised that one eyebrow again and looked as if she was trying to figure out exactly how retarded I was.

I had no idea where I got the nerve to say, “You know, you're kind of bratty for a little kid.”

“Self-defense,” she said. “You wouldn't believe what having people stick you with needles all day long does for your personality.”

“Have you been in here a long time?” I asked.

“Since I was born,” she said.

I said, “You're kidding about that, too, right?”
I wanted her to be joking.

“I've been in here a lot. On and off. They keep saying they know how to fix what's wrong with me, and then it turns out they
don't
know how to fix it, and
then
it turns out they don't even know what's wrong with me.”

I kept wanting to ask what they
thought
it was, what had turned her that color.

“How old are you?” I said instead.

“Ten,” said Nola.

I thought how strange it was to meet a ten-year-old who sort of reminded me of my mom.

It seemed like we'd run out of things to say when Nola asked, “So what are you doing here? Are you one of those kids who get off on hanging with sick and wounded freaks?”

“No,” I said. “Of course not, no way. I—”

“Don't feel bad if you are. I don't care. To tell you the truth, I'm glad for some company. I don't care who it is.”

“Thanks a lot,” I said.

“Sorry,” said Nola. “I didn't mean that the way
it sounds. It just gets so boring here watching soap operas all day on TV. I don't know why you can't get the cartoon channel in this place, but you can't. The hospital's too cheap, I guess.”

“Doesn't your family visit you?” I couldn't believe I was asking Nola such a personal question, I'd only just met her.

“Sure, pretty much every evening and all weekend. But my parents work all day, my brother and sister go to school, so I'm mostly on my own till the evening visiting hours. And as you may have noticed, the other kids on the ward are not exactly a barrel of laughs.”

“I noticed,” I said.

“I keep hoping someone fun will show up, but no one ever does.”

“That'll be me,” I said. “Mr. Fun.”

“Right,” said Nola. “So what
are
you doing here?”

I wanted to tell her the truth, because it seemed like the right thing to do but also because something about Nola's clear blue eyes, shining
out of that strange yellow face, made you think that she could see right through you and that she would know if you were lying. On the other hand, I didn't want to tell her about trashing Tyro's car. I wanted her to think well of me, or anyway, not to think I was the kind of person who'd solve a problem that way.

I said, “It's a kind of community service thing. You know, like when celebrities get busted for something and they wind up getting their picture taken with some poor kid on their lap and a book propped open. Well, it's kind of like that.”

“Did you get busted?” said Nola, perking up. “For what? Shoplifting? Drugs?”

I said, “I got into trouble at school—”

“What kind of trouble?”

“I don't feel like talking about it.”

“That's okay,” Nola said. “I can respect that. So your school made you come here to punish you for what you did?”

“You got it,” I said. “Not that it's punishment—”

“And you're supposed to be my babysitter or guardian angel or something?”

“Not exactly.” I could feel myself blushing. “More just like somebody to hang out with.”

“What school do you go to?” she asked.

“Bullywell,” I said. “I mean, Baileywell.”

“Poor you!” Nola rolled her eyes.

“So you know about it?”

“Doesn't everybody?” she said. “Doesn't everybody know about Alcatraz? Sing Sing? San Quentin? Devil's Island?”

I thought: She sure knows a lot of prison names for a ten-year-old kid. And then I thought: Her whole life must be like a jail.

“So where do you live?” said Nola.

“Hillbrook.” I made a face.

“What does your dad do?” she asked.

“Did,” I said. “He worked in the World Trade Center. He was killed on 9/11.”

Tears popped into Nola's eyes. “Holy smokes,” she said, then clapped her hand over her mouth. “Oh, I'm so sorry. I'm such a creep. I'm an idiot. I
didn't mean to say that.”

“That's okay,” I said.

“Your
dad
,” she said. “That's the worst thing I ever heard.”

It was odd. I did and didn't want Nola to feel sorry for me. “It happened to a lot of people,” I said stupidly. “A lot of kids' dads.”

“I know that,” she said. “But it was
your
dad.”

I said, “He'd left us, anyway.”

“What?” said Nola.

“Six months before he died. He left me and Mom to go live with this slut who worked in his office.”

“That's even worse,” said Nola.

“What do you mean?” I said, though I sort of knew. In fact, it was what
I
thought. But I'd never heard anyone else say it. Maybe the reason no one had ever said that was that I'd never told anyone. It was this awful secret me and Mom had, and I'd never trusted anyone enough to let them in on it. So that made it even stranger—I mean, that I had just let it slip out the very first time I met this blue-
eyed, yellow-faced little girl propped up in her hospital bed.

“What about your mom?” said Nola.

“She worked there, too,” I said.

“No,” said Nola. “Oh, no. Please tell me you're not like a total orphan.”

“I'm not,” I said. “My mom was supposed to go to work that morning. But I had the flu, I was home sick from school, and she stayed home with me, and it saved her life. There were stories about it in all the papers. I was really famous for about fifteen minutes. I was the Miracle Boy. I kept expecting people to ask me to pray for them and stuff.”

A funny expression passed over Nola's face. “Wait a minute,” she said. “I heard about that somewhere. Maybe I even read about you. I don't know. It's like I already
know
that story.”

“Everybody knew that story,” I said. “And now I'm ready for everybody to forget it. It just makes the whole thing about my dad a million times more complicated.”