Your Move, J. P.! Read online

  "Yeah," J.P. mumbled, looking at the floor. "I feel okay."

  Mrs. Hunt stood and gathered her papers from her desk. "Well," she said dubiously, "you're a sensible boy, J.P., and I assume you'll stop in to see the school nurse if you're having problems."

  J.P. looked at his watch.

  "I do care about all my students," Mrs. Huntwenton. "And it worries me when I think something might be wrong. Goodness," she said sadly, "I still remember little Raymond Myerson, and my heart just breaks."

  "May I go now?" J.P. asked politely. "I'm going to be late for History."

  She nodded. J.P. turned, and bumped the corner of her desk with his hip. He winced. So did Mrs. Hunt.

  Raymond Albert Myerson

  There is no Death! What seems so is transition...

  H. W. Longfellow

  J.P. stood in the hallway outside the science lab and stared at the face in the framed photograph. Raymond Albert Myerson looked like a wimp. Apparently he had been a rich wimp, because after his death, his parents had donated the science lab to the Burke-Thaxter School in his memory. Technically, it was called the Myerson Lab; a plaque on the door said so.

  The picture had hung there for as long as J.P. could remember—as long as he'd been a student here—but he had never really looked at it before. Now he did.

  Raymond wore glasses and had Brillo hair. He stared at the camera without smiling. J.P. squinted, looking more carefully, trying to perceive whether Raymond was already dead when the photograph was taken. His face was so expressionless that J.P. thought he might have been a propped-up corpse. But on careful examination, he saw a tiny blurred spot around the ear, indicating that Raymond Myerson had moved his head a tiny bit just as the camera's shutter was released.

  There was no information except his name, the Longfellow quotation, and the dates of Raymond's birth and death in the corner. No explanation of why Raymond Myerson had died at the age of thirteen.

  But Mrs. Hunt had thought of Raymond when she talked to J.P. about his own clumsiness. Had Raymond bumped into doorframes and desks, too?

  "Who's that?" Angela's voice, so close to his shoulder, startled him.

  "A dead kid," J.P. replied. Instantly, he hated himself. He couldn't believe he had said something so stupid. He should have said "a deceased kid." He wouldn't blame Angela if she stomped away in disgust.

  But she continued to stand there, so close he could smell the fragrance of her skin.

  "Did you know him?" she asked sadly.

  Of course J.P. didn't know Raymond, who had been dead for ten years. He had never even really looked at him before, not carefully. And he had no reason to lie to Angela, who had never lied to him.

  But the sweet sadness in her voice had affected him in an odd way. The sound of that little tremble as she spoke entered his skin and burrowed into his brain and heart and turned him into a person he had never been. It turned him into a liar.

  "He was my cousin," J.P. said reverently, looking straight into the glassy eyes of Raymond Albert Myerson.

  Angela gasped slightly. Then she did an incredible thing. She did it right there in an almost public place, the hallway outside the Myerson Lab on the third floor of the Burke-Thaxter School.

  She reached over and took J.P.'s hand in hers.

  He said nothing. Mentally he ordered his hand to stop perspiring. He continued to stare sadly at the dead wimpy face of Raymond.

  "What did he die of?" Angela whispered. "Do you mind talking about it?"

  "I don't talk about it to just anyone," J.P. said in a terse, low voice. "But I don't mind telling you. It was a—a—very rare disease."

  "Oh," breathed Angela sympathetically.

  They stared together at Raymond. Angela's hand was still in his. He thought he felt her squeeze his hand, very slightly. He wasn't positive, but it seemed as if a tiny squeeze had taken place, just for a second.

  "What was it called?" Angela asked mournfully, in a whisper.

  J.P. froze for an instant. He hadn't any idea what had done in poor Raymond Myerson. He could only guess that maybe Raymond, like J.P., had tripped over his own shoelaces and bumped into doorframes.

  Angela was waiting for his answer.

  "He had triple framosis," J.P. told her.

  She gasped. And now—he was certain, this time—she did squeeze his hand.

  "It runs in families," he whispered to her in a stricken voice, just as a bell rang, the doors at the end of the hall opened, and students began swarming toward them. Angela dropped his hand, but she was looking at him with awe and grief.

  "I have to go to gym," J.P. told her in a normal voice. Then he added, more quietly, "I try to keep up my strength by exercising."

  "Of course," she said, looking into his eyes with sorrow and with—yes, he was quite sure—it was with love. "I understand," she whispered.

  A folded piece of paper dropped onto his desk during Math class just as Angela walked past on her way to the blackboard. "Private" was lettered neatly on the outside in impeccable handwriting.

  J.P. unfolded it surreptitiously, in his lap, and glanced down.

  "DOES ANYBODY KNOW?" the note said. It was signed simply with her first initial. "A."

  J.P. gazed at it. What a wonderfully sophisticated way to sign a note, he thought. What a British thing to do. He wondered if Prince Charles signed notes that way, with a simple C. Or maybe P, for Prince.

  He looked at the front of the room. Angela had just finished solving the problem on the board. She turned, brushed some chalk dust from the sleeve of her blouse, smiled at the teacher, and headed back to her desk. J.P. followed her with his eyes. Finally she looked back at him quizzically, as if she were waiting for an answer to something.

  Oh. He had almost forgotten the question in her note—he'd been so captivated by the signature initial. He read the note again. "DOES ANYBODY KNOW?" Does anybody know what, J.P. wondered. Was it a math question? She had done the problem on the board without any trouble. Angela seemed to be quite good at math.

  Finally, using his ballpoint pen, J.P. wrote on the same sheet of paper: "KNOW WHAT?"

  Then he made a large J and folded the note again. On his way to the pencil sharpener, he dropped it in her lap.

  Angela read it. He watched her from his desk. Then she looked over at him with a sad, affectionate smile.

  When class ended a moment later, she edged her way close to him through the crowd of students heading to the hall. "I meant about your disease," she whispered. "Does anyone else know about your disease?"

  "My disease," J.P. repeated stupidly.

  Angela stood very close to him and spoke quietly in his ear. "Triple framosis," she whispered. "Does anybody know, besides your family? Is it a secret?"

  J.P. cringed inwardly. He hadn't even remembered the name he'd made up for the disease. He knew exactly what he should do at this moment. He should start to laugh. He should laugh loudly. He should explain that it was a joke.

  But her large sad eyes were so close to him, and they were so sympathetic, and so sweet. There was no way he could laugh, not as long as those eyes were there.

  "No," he whispered to her. "No one knows. Only you."

  5

  Ordinarily J.P. took a bus home from school in the afternoons. But today he walked. It was a long walk, through Central Park, from one side of Manhattan to the other, and usually he didn't have time. Usually he was in a hurry to get home so that he could finish some project or do his homework in time to watch TV. But today he needed this extra time for thinking.

  He strolled through the park, his book-filled backpack thumping against his shoulders. Around him, people walked either babies, their chubby overalled legs dangling from strollers, or dogs on taut leather leashes. Other people roller-skated, jogged, bicycled, threw Frisbees, sailed past on skateboards, or simply sprawled on the grass or a bench.

  J.P. paid no attention to any of them. He was completely absorbed in his own thoughts. His posture and stride took on the rhythm
of his thinking.

  I am in love with Angela Patricia Galsworthy, he thought, and his shoulders straightened. His steps became jaunty.

  And she likes me, I'm sure of it, he thought. He almost tap-danced, almost clicked his heels like Gene Kelly twirling romantically down a city street in an old movie. J.P. grinned.

  But, he told himself, the reason she likes me—his steps slowed a bit—is because I fibbed. Well, okay, I lied to her.

  His shoulders slumped and his backpack began to feel heavy, as if it were weighted with boulders.

  And now she thinks—J.P.'s walk had turned into a plod; his feet dragged—"7 have a terrible disease!" he wailed aloud.

  "Jeez, kid," a rasping voice said, "don't take it so hard."

  Startled, J.P. looked around. The voice had come from a rumpled-looking man who was sitting on a park bench, all alone. Several squirrels scampered around his feet. From a paper bag on his lap, the man drew a handful of peanuts and tossed them to the ground. The squirrels turned instantly into two Super Bowl teams going after a fumble.

  The man wasn't watching the squirrels. He was looking at J.P. with interest.

  "I'm sorry," J.P. said, embarrassed. "I didn't realize I was talking out loud."

  The man didn't bother acknowledging the apology. He tilted his head. He was wearing a filthy baseball cap, and with moist, pink-rimmed eyes he peered up at J.P. from under the visor.

  "I got a million diseases myself," he said with a wheeze. "You name it, I got it. But you don't hear me complaining."

  "You look all right to me," J.P. said skeptically. It wasn't entirely true. The man looked awful; his shoulders were slumped and his hands shook, though his facial expression was friendly.

  "Appearances can't be trusted," the man said. "Name a disease. Go alphabetical."

  "What?" J.P. stared at the man.

  The man sighed. "A to Z," he explained impatiently. "I got a disease for every letter. Bet you can't match that. Start with A."

  The orderliness of the project interested J.P., who was himself a very orderly person. He wandered over to the bench and sat down at the opposite end from the man. The man tossed the last of his peanuts to the head squirrel, the quarterback squirrel, who was instantly sacked by all the others.

  "Tell me your name first," the man said, crumpling the empty bag and putting it into his pocket.

  "J.P. It's my initials, but it's what everyone calls me."

  "Mine's Ralph. Name a disease for A. I got one. Bet you don't."

  J.P. thought for a minute. Actually, until today, he had never really had any disease, only chicken pox when he was four. But the man had presented him with a challenge. It seemed more intriguing than a chess game and less troubling than his romantic life at the moment.

  "Acne," he announced.

  Ralph frowned and leaned forward, squinting with his inflamed eyes to examine J.P.'s face.

  J.P. tilted his head to give the man a better view. "See?" he said. "Look at my chin."

  Ralph snorted. "Mild," he said. "Hardly counts."

  "Well," J.P. told him, "you don't have it at all. What's your A?"

  Ralph lifted his baseball cap briefly, with a flourish. His bald head gleamed in the afternoon sunlight. "Alopecia," he announced. He replaced the cap. "Hair loss," he explained smugly. "Got a B?"

  "Lemme think," J.P. told him. "I'm sure I do." He sat still for a minute, thinking about his physical self. Then he looked up. "Body odor," he announced.

  Ralph looked at him in disgust. "We're talking serious diseases here and you're coming up with routine puberty items. Listen, kid, I'm going to let you have a point for body odor, but it's a gift on my part and I'm not going to maintain my generosity throughout the entire alphabet; got it?"

  J.P. nodded. "What's your B?" he asked, with interest.

  "Bursitis," Ralph said. "Fancy name for bum shoulder. On to C."

  "Easy," J.P. said. "Common cold." As if to prove the point, he sneezed. Ralph nodded, acknowledging the sneeze as legitimate. "What's yours?" J.P. asked.

  "Cataracts. Like a coupla window shades pulled down over the eyes. I can't even see to tell time. You got a watch?"

  J.P. nodded and looked at his wrist. "It's four-thirty. "

  Ralph stood up. "I gotta go. Listen, kid, we only got to C, but like I said, I got a whole alphabet. You wanta admit defeat?"

  "You think that's my D?" J.P. asked. "Defeatism?"

  Ralph shrugged, coughed, and zipped his jacket. "You got a worse disease for D, tell me tomorrow. I'm here every day. You don't show up, I win by default."

  He turned and walked away without saying good-bye. J.P. watched him go. Then, with a puzzled smile, he turned to head on across the park toward his own home. He found himself chuckling as he walked. He already knew what his D was going to be: dandruff.

  "Is Mom home yet?" J.P. asked his sister.

  Caroline groaned. "J.P., you ask that every single day. And you know she doesn't get home from work till five-thirty. That's not for another half hour."

  He shrugged. "Well, there's always a chance the bank could close early. Maybe if they got held up or something." He grabbed a dishtowel and tied it around the lower half of his face. Then he made a pistol out of his right index finger and pointed it menacingly at Caroline.

  "This is a stickup," he said in a low, harsh voice. "Give me everything you've got."

  "Ha," Caroline said sarcastically. "I've got three baking potatoes and an uncooked meatloaf that Mom put together this morning. Come on, J.P., help me get dinner started. Find a vegetable in the freezer."

  J.P. pulled his gunman's mask off, opened the freezer, and pulled out a package of frozen peas. "These are rich in carbohydrates," he said, tossing the package between his hands. "I probably need extra carbs. I have a whole mess of diseases."

  Caroline put the meatloaf and potatoes into the oven and adjusted the temperature. "There," she said. "That'll all be done in an hour. I'll cook the peas later. Or Mom can, after she gets home." Then she looked quizzically at her brother. "What do you mean, you have a whole mess of diseases? You're never sick. You're always bragging that you've never thrown up once in your entire life."

  "True," J.P. said. "And I've never had a cavity, either." He opened his mouth wide and aimed his teeth at Caroline. "Perfect alignment, too. Unlike some people."

  Caroline made a face at him. The dentist had recently told Mrs. Tate that Caroline needed braces. Now there were a lot of telephone calls back and forth to Iowa, where their father lived, calls having to do with the question of who would pay for Caroline's braces.

  Herbert Tate said that he would be responsible for J.P.'s dentistry, since his son had inherited his perfect teeth. And Joanna, his ex-wife, could be in charge of Caroline's, since Caroline had inherited her mother's less-than-perfect ones.

  "That's not fair!" Joanna Tate had sputtered angrily after she had hung up. "Is it, kids? I ask you: is that fair?"

  Caroline and J.P. had both cringed and answered noncommittally. Secretly J.P. thought his mother was right; it wasn't fair. But he loved his dad, and he felt a little guilty, being the one with the perfect teeth.

  "Maybe I'll inherit his appendix," J.P. had suggested, "and need expensive surgery when it ruptures, the way he did. That way you'd get even."

  His mother had frowned at him and shook her head with a sigh, as if appendicitis was not the solution.

  Now, with dinner in the oven and their mother due home soon, J.P. and Caroline wandered into the living room of the apartment.

  "How's Angela?" Caroline asked. "Did she like the map?"

  J.P. nodded. "Yeah," he said. "Thanks."

  "Are you going to ask her to the Spring Fling?"

  "I forgot all about it," J.P. admitted. "That's right—it's almost May."

  The Spring Fling was a custom at the Burke-Thaxter School: a celebration of the season, a time when all the students and teachers wore wild costumes and spent an entire day in wacky enterprises. Usually J.P. avoided the s
illiness of it as much as he could. Even when his closest friends dressed as rabbits and bumblebees, J.P. always wore his regular school clothes, and he stood on the sidelines, watching, a little embarrassed, each year, as everyone else danced and sang and participated in skits and contests.

  He had been vaguely aware of preparations starting. And he remembered that among the older kids, sometimes a boy and girl got together and created matching costumes so that it would be clear they were a couple.

  J.P. had never expected to be part of a couple. He had never thought he would want to be. J.P. had always, before this, wanted to be the dignified, intelligent loner who stood on the sidelines watching revelry of any sort with a slightly bored, amused look.

  Now he was astounded to realize that he wanted to be out there in the middle of things, dancing with Angela Galsworthy, the two of them wearing bright orange butterfly wings.

  "Angela won't even know about the Spring Fling," J.P. told his sister, "because she's new. They wouldn't have something like that in London. She'll think it's weird."

  Caroline giggled. "It is weird. But she'll love it. Anyway, she'll know about it because the new spring calendar came out today. Didn't you get yours?"

  She reached into her notebook on the table and pulled out the printed sheet with the Burke-Thaxter logo on top.

  "I'll pick mine up tomorrow," J.P. said. He reached for his sister's. "Lemme see yours."

  Quickly he glanced down the list of scheduled events: the basketball games, the science fair, the kindergarten trip to the zoo, the parents' meeting, the chess tournament, the—there it was, in a large boxed announcement decorated with computer-drawn flowers—the Spring Fling.

  J.P. decided that he would get up his nerve to describe it in more detail to Angela, and ask her to pair up with him in a matching costume.

  He took a deep breath. The thought of it was terrifying—it would, after all, be almost a date. His first date. And he was someone who had quite consciously planned never to have a date in his life. Never to fall in love. Never to marry. To devote his life to computer science. To go to MIT and maybe stay there forever, even after graduation, living in one of the labs, coming out only after dark, for food.