Copyright: 1991, Terry Brooks
Published by: ??
Cover Artist: ??
Jack McCall was ten days shy of his thirteenth birthday when he decided that he was dying. He had been having headaches for about six months without telling anyone, the headaches being accompanied by partial loss of vision that lasted anywhere from ten to twenty minutes. He hadn't thought much about it since it only happened once in a while, believing that it was simply the result of eyestrain. After all, there was a lot of homework assigned in the seventh grade. But ten days before his birthday he had an attack as he was about to go out the door to school, and since he couldn't very well ride his bike in that condition or stand around pretending that nothing was wrong he was forced to admit the problem to his mother. His mother made an immediate appointment with Dr. Muller, the family pediatrician, for that afternoon, sat Jack down until his vision cleared, then drove him to school, asking him all the way there if he was all right and calling him "Jackie" until he thought he would scream. She returned promptly when school let out to take him to his appointment. Dr. Muller was uncharacteristically cheerful as he checked Jack over, even going so far as to ruffle his hair and remark on how quickly he was growing. This was the same Dr. Muller who normally didn't have two words for him. Jack began to worry. When the doctor was finished, he sent Jack and his mother over to the hospital for further tests. The tests included X rays, blood workups, an EKG, and a barrage of other examinations, all of which were administered by an uncomfortably youthful collection of nurses. Jack endured the application of cold metal implements to his body, let himself be stuck repeatedly with needles, breathed in and out, lay very still, jumped up and down, and mostly waited around in empty, sterile examination rooms. When the tests were all done, he was sent home knowing nothing more than he had when he arrived beyond the fact that he did not care ever to go through such an ordeal again. That night, while he was upstairs in his room fiddling with his homework and listening to this stereo, Dr. Muller paid a visit to his house. His parents didn't call for him, but that didn't stop him from being curious. He slipped down the stairway to the landing and sat there in the dark on the other side of the half wall above the living room while Dr. Muller and his parents spoke in hushed tones. Dr. Muller did most of the talking. He said that the preliminary test results were back. He talked about the body and its cells and a bunch of other stuff, throwing in multisyllabic medical terms that Jack couldn't begin to understand. Then he used the words "blood disorder" and "leukemia" and "cancer." Jack understood that part. He might only be in seventh grade, but he wasn't stupid. He stayed on the stairway until he heard his mother start to cry, then crept back up to his room without waiting to hear any more. He sat there staring at his unfinished homework, trying to decide what he should be feeling. He couldn't seem to feel anything. He heard Dr. Muller leave, and then his parents came up to see him. Usually they visited him individually; when they both appeared it was serious business. They knocked on the door, came inside when invited, and stood there looking decidedly uncomfortable. Then his father told him that he was sick and would have to take it easy for a while. His mother started crying and calling him "Jackie" and hugging him, and all of a sudden he was scared out of his socks. He didn't sleep much that night, letting the weight of what he had discovered sink in, trying to comprehend what his dying meant, trying to decide if he believed it was possible. Mostly, he though about Uncle Frank. Uncle Frank had been his favorite uncle, a big man with strong hands and red hair who taught him how to throw a baseball. Uncle Frank used to take him to ballgames on Sunday afternoons. Then he got sick. It happened all at once. He went into a hospital and never came out. Jack's parents took him to see Uncle Frank a couple of times. There was not much left of Uncle Frank by then. His once-strong hands were so frail he could barely lift them. All his hair had fallen out. He looked like an old man. Then he died. No one came right out and said it, but Jack knew what had killed him. And he had always suspected, deep down inside where you hid things like that, that it might some day kill him, too. The next morning Jack dressed, wolfed down his breakfast as quickly as he could and got out of there. His parents were behaving like zombies. Only his little sister Abby was acting as if everything was all right, which was the way she always acted since she was only eight and never knew what was going on anyway. It was Friday, always a slow-moving day at Roosevelt Junior High, but never more so than on this occasion. The morning seemed endless, and he didn't remember any of it when it was finally over. He trudged to the lunch room, found a seat off in a corner where he could talk privately, and told his best friend Waddy Wadsworth what he had discovered. Reynolds Lucius Wadsworth III was Waddy's real name, the result of a three-generation tradition of unparalleled cruelty in the naming of first-born boys. No one called Waddy by his real name, of course. But they didn't call him anything sensible either. It was discovered early on that Waddy lacked any semblance of athletic ability. He was the kid who couldn't climb the knotted rope or do chin-ups or high-jump when the bar was only two feet off the ground. Someone started calling him Waddy and the name stuck. It wasn't that Waddy was fat or anything; he was just earthbound. He was also a good guy. Jack liked him because he never said anything about the fact that Jack was only a little taller than most fire hydrants and a lot shorter than most girls. "You look okay to me," Waddy said after Jack had finished telling him he was supposed to be dying. "I know I look okay." Jack frowned at his friend impatiently. "This isn't the kind of thing you can see, you know." "You sound okay, too." Waddy took a bite of his jelly sandwhich. "Does anything hurt?" Jack shrugged. "Just when I have the headaches." "Well, you don't have them more often now than you did six months ago, do you?" "No." And they don't last any longer now than they did then, do they?" "No." Waddy shoved the rest of the sandwich into his mouth and chewed thoughtfully. "Well, then, who's to say you're really dying? This could be one of those conditions that just goes on indefinitely. Meantime, they might find a cure for it; they're always finding cures for this kind of stuff." He chewed some more. "Anyway, maybe the doctor made a mistake. That's possible, isn't it?" Jack nodded doubtfully. "The point is, you don't know for sure. Not for sure." Waddy cocked his head. "Here's something else to think about. They're always telling someone or other that they're going to die and then they don't. People get well all the time just because they believe they can do it. Sometimes believing is all it takes." He gave Jack a lopsided grin. "Besides, no one dies in the seventh grade." Jack wanted to believe that. He spent the afternoon trying to convince himself. After all, he didn't personally know anyone his age who had died. The only people he knew who had died were much older. Even Uncle Frank. He was just a kid. How could he die when he still didn't know anything about girls? How could he die without ever having driven a car? It just didn't seem possible. Nevertheless, the feeling persisted that he was only fooling himself. It didn't make any difference what he believed, it didn't change the facts. If he really had cancer, believing he didn't wouldn't make it go away. He sat through his afternoon classes growing steadily more despondent, feeling helpless and wishing he could do something about it. It wasn't until he was biking home that he suddenly found himself thinking about Pick.