The Bubble Wrap Boy (19 page)

I
should've been nervous the day before I unmasked myself, riddled with doubts about the potential for everything going wrong, guilty that I was about to pull the fastest trick imaginable on my parents.

But you know what? I wasn't any of those things. I felt like I had momentum, and not just from my wheels spinning faster and faster as I practiced.

I'd been pushing myself harder than ever before, cramming in every antisocial hour on the ramp that I could. Setting foot on it at five-thirty in the morning should have been painful, but it wasn't. I'd never felt more awake in my life, even after two hours of grueling drills. By the time I finished, I'd eaten up every inch of the half-pipe, felt like I could scale its heights in a single step if I had to.

Stan, Dan, and the others were in for the shock of their lives. I could do this. No doubt about it.

It was a rare thing for me, having self-confidence and belief. It bubbled so constantly that I was in danger of hurting myself by holding it in. So I decided to let off pressure with the person who I knew would listen. I went to tell Dora.

Or I tried to. After all, the sun was out, so the odds were I'd find her beneath the big tree, eyes cast skyward.

But when I screeched up to the gates I found the birds soaring unnoticed. Dora was nowhere to be seen.

I thought nothing of it. It wasn't the first time she'd been elsewhere. She could've had a doctor's appointment, or physical therapy, or been on a blind date, for all I knew, so I pushed on, knowing a bit more endurance work would do me no harm.

Instead, I returned an hour later, blinded by sweat and needing a rest in the shade, only to find her spot still vacant.

I still had choices. I could give it a while and hang out or call it quits and surprise her on the big day itself.

Neither option was ideal. My nerves rubbed up against me, reminding me that tomorrow might bring another no-show. And then what would I do? Aside from buying some dynamite and blowing the doors off the place.

Begrudgingly, I made my way home, failing to shake either the nerves or a newfound tiredness out of my limbs. By the time I reached Sinus's, I didn't have the energy to go any farther and knocked for him, recognizing his angular silhouette as he came into view.

“Where the heck have you been?”

A typical Sinus greeting.

“You been gargling with acid again?” I asked.

“You were supposed to drop it off yesterday,” he continued.

“Drop
what
off?”

“What do you mean
what
? I'm not talking about your pants, you idiot. Your board. I need to customize it, don't I? As planned.”

“Oh, right.”

I
had
forgotten, and wasn't too thrilled to give it up now.

The board and my feet had barely been apart in the last week, and the thought of it now made me feel sort of bereft.

“Well, come on, then,” he said, but before I could even lift the board up, he ripped it from my grasp and began to shut the door. With me still on the outside.

“Aren't you going to invite me in?” I shouted.

“No chance. You've already set me back the best part of a day, and I can't have you distracting me while I work.”

“But what are you going to do to it?”

The door was shut by now, Sinus's next words escaping through the letterbox, which I had wedged open.

“We're a team, Charlie, aren't we?” I could see him through the peephole; he was walking away, toward his kitchen, shaking a spray can.

“Well, I…I…”

“There's no
I
in
team,
my friend.”

“No, but there is in IDIOT!” I yelled as he disappeared from view. “And don't get any paint near the trucks. If they seize up ahead of tomorrow, I'm done for.”

His voice pealed back a dismissive “yeah yeah” before telling me to go home and rest up.

I did as I was told, though it felt like the longest walk imaginable, not to mention the most boring of afternoons.

The apartment was empty, and no matter what I turned my mind to, I couldn't settle down. All I could do was play tomorrow's scenarios over in my head in one sickening loop: missing aunts, mobilized police forces, and livid parents, but strangely, not a lot of images of me and Sinus being lifted aloft on the shoulders of a dozen beaming girls.

I tried to take my mind off the premonitions of failure with some TV, and then a book. Even considered starting some homework before remembering I was supposed to be designing some kind of outfit, which gave me an even bigger case of the jitters. I mean, what did Sinus think I was going to come up with?

Was he expecting some kind of superhero suit? Because I didn't think a mask and cape were going to do anything to help my performance. All right, a cape might billow dramatically when I was airborne, but I could also see it getting caught in the trucks and pulling me up before I even started. Couldn't imagine it looking so dramatic tucked under me on the stretcher.

Instead, I thought about the hard work Sinus had already done and tried to copy his genius on one of my old white T-shirts. The only problem was that he was the design genius, not me, which became evident as soon as the pen made contact with the fabric.

Ten minutes later I had a design that any color-blind six-year-old would've been proud of—but Dad wouldn't even have used the shirt as a kitchen rag. Embarrassed, I buried it so deep in the garbage that not even a bloodhound trained on felt-tips could find it.

In the end I found myself turning out every drawer in the apartment in the blind hope of finding some kind of inspiration, but aside from a load of soy sauce packets and outdated menus, all I could find was an old roll of bubble wrap, with most of the bubbles popped. It made me shiver to even look at it, but since it was all I had, I took it up to my room and laid it beside me on the bed. All I had to do now was figure out what to do with it.

But I never did, as somehow, probably due to nervous exhaustion, I fell asleep, waking only when someone hammered loudly on the front door. Startled, I rolled onto the bubble wrap, squeezing out whatever life was left in it, before jumping in shock and whacking my head on the headboard.

I rolled onto the floor, dazed, hearing ringing in my ears, which slowly changed from a dull buzzing to the endless shrilling of the takeout's phone. It merged with the knocking on the door, morphing into the most irritating, discordant piece of dance music I'd ever heard. Seriously, why wasn't Dad answering? He always opened on time, couldn't wait to get in the groove, because once the pans were sizzling, he couldn't hear Mom.

Within another minute it was too much to bear, and I crawled to my bedroom door, noting the time. Ten past five. Ten whole minutes after we usually open.

I reached the front door of our Chinese place to find three portly, strung-out guys pointing at their watches. They didn't react well to being told we weren't open.

“Gas leak,” I told them. “Try the place on Carr Lane.”

They looked at me with the kind of anger normally reserved for mass murderers or war criminals before slinking off, shoulders slumped.

Strangely enough, I didn't give them much of a second thought. Instead, I went straight for the phone to call Dad's cell.

Nothing.

So I tried Mom's, which went straight to voice mail.

Madness. We never had family vacations, in order to keep the takeout open, so for them to simply not show up?

Odd.

The next hour saw my paranoia increase as I stewed in the same brew of voice mails, dial tones, and livid hammering on the door.

In the end I taped a
CLOSED DUE TO MISSING PARENTS
sign to the door and hid on the stairs. I took the phone off the hook too, only to worry that one or both of them might be calling me on it.

And once the phone
was
connected again, it rang. Of course it did. With people selfishly wanting to order food. So I did what any self-respecting kid would do and pretended the line was breaking up, coughing and spluttering until the customers got so annoyed that they ended up putting the phone down.

It wasn't doing anything for business, but I was beyond caring. Desperate times and all that.

I juggled waiting, calling, and spluttering until about eight-thirty, when I was on the verge of calling the police, though what I was going to say to them was a bit of a mystery. Not opening a takeout on time didn't exactly lead to your parents' having been abducted, did it?

Still, by that point it was
so
out of character that my stress levels were through the roof. With the one finger I had that wasn't shaking, I hit 911 on the landline and heard, “Emergency services. Which service do you require?” just as I felt my cell phone vibrate in my other hand.

The screen said everything I needed it to—
DAD—
so after a garbled “wrong number” to the operator, I shouted into the phone.

“Where are you? What's wrong?”

“I'm at the hospital, son. It's not good news.”

I felt my stomach lurch and my head spin, but I forced the words out.

“Is it Mom? What is it? Is she okay?”

“No, no. It's not Mom and not that hospital.” His words got louder, slower, more serious. “I'm at Oakview, son. It's, er…well, it's Dora.”

I
pounded on Sinus's front door. It wasn't him or the board I was after, it was his mom.

Her orange face cut through the darkness as the door opened, and she knew instantly that something was wrong.

“Charlie, dear? You all right?”

“I need a lift,” I blurted. “I'm sorry to ask, but it's urgent.”

Two minutes later we were tearing out of their drive toward town. It would've been quicker had she not wanted “a moment” to fix her face.

There were a hundred punch lines that could've been inserted there, most of them revolving around her needing more than a moment, but even Sinus didn't crack them as he hurtled down the stairs, hands coated in spray paint. He could see something was up and threw himself into the car along with us. No way was he missing out; plus it meant he could fill in the background for his mom. My nerves were way too on edge to even start.

Dad's call had been brief. Dora had suffered a stroke. Triggered by a seizure. It was serious. That's why he was calling. His voice was quiet, echoey, like he was trying to hide the secret from the corridor in which he stood.

“Does Mom know you're calling me?”

“No.” I could imagine him looking furtively over his shoulder as he spoke. “But I didn't know what else to do. The doctors say, well…that it's…”

I didn't let him finish the sentence. Was grateful that for once he wasn't keeping the big stuff secret. Although my head refused to believe a word of what he was telling me.

There was no way it was as serious as he was making out. I mean, she'd hung on for the better part of twenty years, bouncing back from god knows how many seizures. No way she'd give up now. Not when I'd only just met her. Anyone related to Mom was made of stubborner stuff than that.

It wasn't just Dora I was thinking about. It was Mom too. I had no idea how she'd be coping, had no point of reference when it came to Dora. Could she see this as a blessing, a chance for her to finally get some relief? Somehow I doubted it. From what Dad had said, she'd probably see it as another stick to beat herself with.

I tried to think of what I'd say when she saw me, what I'd do. Would she be so distracted that she'd accept my being there? Or would it just prompt another confrontation, one I didn't think I could take right now?

I tried to let my head play the scenarios out, but they turned quickly into a jumbled mess that made my panic even worse.

Sinus's mom was driving the car, but she still glanced in the rearview mirror occasionally, eyes widening as the story unfolded.

“Must've come as a real shock, Charlie.” I hoped she wasn't enjoying the drama as much as she seemed to be, couldn't help but wonder if she'd get on her cell phone just as soon as she dropped me off. It wasn't like she and Mom were friends. Fortunately, Sinus stopped me from worrying about that, with a rare comforting word.

“It'll be all right.” He smiled, turning around. “And don't worry about people finding out. We'll keep it quiet, won't we, Mom?”

She flushed scarlet, a new kaleidoscope of color beneath her neon blush. “Goes without saying.” She turned back to the road with a newfound concentration that lasted all the way to Oakview's gates.

With a garbled “thank you” I leapt from the car, feeling the first spots of rain pierce my scalp.

“Do you want us to wait?” Sinus shouted after me.

“No point.” I didn't look back.

I don't know if the rain was an omen, but by the time I reached the doors it was bouncing off the asphalt, pounding the flowers by the door, flattening them to the ground. My first steps on the polished floor sent me skidding into the receptionist's desk, grabbing her attention instantly.

“Can I
help
you?”

Dad appeared quickly over her shoulder and ushered me through the double doors, before folding me into the biggest hug imaginable. I had no idea if it was for my benefit or his.

“I'm sorry,” he whispered, though I had no idea what for, not this time.

“I'm just glad you called.” I smiled sadly, looking for a sign on his face that things weren't as bad as he'd made out.

“How could I do anything else? I waited as long as I could, but the doctors have said it won't…” It was like the words were actually causing him pain. It wasn't like I wanted to hear them either.

“Have you told Mom I'm coming?”

He shook his head, cheeks burning.

“I didn't know how to. How to stop either of you from being hurt any more than you already are.”

“It's all right,” I offered. And it was, sort of. He didn't know how she'd react; I understood that. Now more than ever. “We'll tell her together, okay?”

We rushed through the corridors in silence, neither of us daring to form any kind of plan. We were going to have to wing it.

As we reached Dora's room, Dad peered through the glass and paused, hand shaking on the panel. Carefully, I moved him to one side. I was all waited out, couldn't put the moment off any longer.

The room was darker than any hospital ward I'd ever seen, the only lights coming from a host of machines that flashed and whirred around the bed. When you added the tubes and wires that draped across Dora, you had a scene of purest science fiction. I couldn't believe that none of the technology had the simple ability to bring her back to us.

I walked slowly. Mom was leaning forward, forehead resting on Dora's twiglike hand. Neither of them was moving.

I'd never experienced anything like this, never had to give the idea any kind of headspace or thought. And now it threatened to drown me. It was only a supportive, guiding hand from Dad that allowed me to go any farther.

My eyes fell on Dora, the pads attached to her chest and temples threatening to dent her already fragile skin. She looked smaller than ever, like the mattress was claiming her inch by inch, sucking her down toward the floor. I looked for any kind of pain but couldn't see any.

The only sign of life was coming from the machine's pulse rather than her own.

I searched for the right words to let Mom know I was there—but they hid from me. Instead, I kept walking until I reached the bed, crouching as I took Dora's other hand in mine.

At first Mom didn't move, probably thinking I was a nurse, but after a while her eyes traced up my hand to my arm, to my shoulder, then my face. It wasn't until she'd stared through me for a good few seconds that she realized who she was staring at, and that her secret had collapsed around her.

This was it. There was no going back. For any of us.