Captain Nobody (20 page)

Before I could explain, Mom jumped in. “Did you know the thief had a gun?” she gasped. “You could have been hurt!”

“It was right about then,” Dad went on, “when all the reporters started wondering, ‘Who is this mysterious Captain Nobody?'”

“And that's the first time we saw JJ and Cecil on the air,” giggled Mom. “They were so funny! Cecil grabbed the poor reporter's microphone to explain that Captain Nobody was actually Chris Newman's younger brother . . .”

“. . . and the reporter had the gall to say, ‘I didn't know Chris Newman had a younger brother!'” Dad fumed. “Do you believe that?”

Then Mom blew up. “And what were you doing on the freeway yesterday?”

“Why?” I tried to sound innocent. “What are they saying?”

“Dozens of people are now telling the police how they saw Captain Nobody stop traffic on the Westside Highway!” Mom wailed. “What have I told you about playing in the street?”

“And that plane that made an emergency landing?” Dad exclaimed. “They're saying you saved lives!”

“I-I was just trying to save Ferocious,” I stammered.

“Ferocious? The ferret?” Dad asked. “What were you doing with—”

“They had a sleepover,” Mom interrupted, patting his arm.

“Oh. Well, you've had one heck of a week, Newt. Why haven't you said anything?”

“You guys were kind of . . . busy,” I said meekly.

Outside my curtain voices suddenly started shouting:

We all looked up to find Reggie Ratner standing at the foot of my bed. Through the open curtain behind him, I could see a crush of reporters clustered outside the sliding glass doors of the recovery room, all wagging microphones and pointing cameras in Reggie's direction. They were held back by a line of security guards who had locked arms.

“Hey,” he mumbled, and closed the curtain behind himself.

“Hey, Reggie,” I waved weakly. “Did you meet my parents?”

He raised a hand in greeting, and they nodded curtly. I figured that maybe they were still sore about Reggie's role in the Big Tackle.

“Oh, just so you know,” I said, “Reggie didn't knock out Chris.”

Dad's eyes flew open. “Excuse me?”

“I was there. I saw it. It was Darryl Peeps.”

“Darryl Peeps?” Dad sounded confused.

“I swear. It just took me a while to remember. So don't blame Reggie for what happened to Chris, okay?”

“Even so,” Mom said sourly, “he
did
land on you.”

“Well, yeah,” I admitted, “there's that.”

“Could I, uh, talk to you?” Reggie asked me.

“We'll get some coffee,” Mom said. As she and Dad passed Reggie, I heard Dad whisper, “You might want to start with ‘I'm sorry.'”

When they exited the recovery room, the glass doors slid open again and the questions and shouts from the reporters built to a frenzy. But once the doors closed, the uproar subsided.

Reggie moved up to the head of my bed.

“How you doin'?” he said.

“I don't really know,” I shrugged. “They gave me a pain shot.”

“Oh.” He looked to the ceiling for a moment, before drawing a deep breath. “Okay, here's the deal: I'm sorry. Seriously. I never meant for anybody else to get involved, y'know? But I totally appreciate how you helped me out. So, thanks. Okay?”

I shrugged. “I just untied your shoe.”

“Yeah, about two hundred feet in the air.” He leaned close and whispered, “One more thing: You won't tell anybody about the spray paint, right?”

“Huh?”

“I mean, all this fuss? All because of a senior prank?” he scoffed. “It'd make me look like such a loser.”

“So you'd rather let everybody assume you were up there to jump?”

“To
think
,” he corrected me. “I'm telling people I went up there cuz I needed to
think
. Since I've been, y'know . . .
upset
.”

“Oh, right,” I said slowly. “You've been upset.”

He held up a fist for me to punch as a show of agreement. “Our secret?”

I studied his face, so massive and muscled. And so afraid.
I guess I'm not the only one who gets scared,
I thought.

I raised my arm, bristling with tubes and needles, made a fist, and bopped his. “Our secret.”

Reggie sighed with gratitude.

By the time my plaster cast was dry, the mob of gawkers and reporters had grown to the size of a small suburb. As the nurses wheeled me out of the emergency room, they went bonkers, shouting questions and holding up cameras and cell phones to snap photos. Mom and Dad shielded me as I was rolled past them into the elevator.

On Chris's floor, the doctors and nurses who were crowded around the door to his room parted to allow us through.

And there he was.

My brother was still hooked up to all the wires and beeping machines I remembered seeing in the ten-second video on Dad's cell phone. He hadn't been shaved in nearly a week, so his beard was now scruffier than I'd ever seen it, and with his tousled hair drooping over his closed eyes, he looked more like a rock star than a football hero. A feeding tube connected him to an IV bag, but even so, I could tell Chris had lost weight.

On the one hand, I was so thrilled to see him that I had to fight the urge to yell, “Hey, Chris!” At the same time, I was shocked to see my big brother looking so pale and . . .
small.

I caught my breath when a terrifying question popped into my head.

I bit my tongue so I wouldn't slip and ask it out loud. A lump the size of a baseball formed in my throat. I finally understood how frightened and worried my parents must have been all week.

My bed was wheeled to a spot against the window. Dozens of flower arrangements and balloon bouquets covered every available surface, but they were beginning to droop, as if they were losing hope. Hundreds of unopened cards and letters were piled up on Chris's bedside table. Nurses' shoes squeaked softly on the tile floor, while Chris's monitors beeped faintly. Everybody whispered here, so when the bedside phone rang, we all jumped a little.

“It's for you,” Mom said, handing me the receiver. “It's JJ.”

“Hey, JJ,” I said dreamily into the mouthpiece.

“Omigosh, you're so famous!” JJ screamed. In the background I could hear Cecil making drum and trumpet noises like a one-man band.

“How are you?” JJ asked, but before I could respond, she barreled ahead. “What am I saying? I
know
how you are! It's all over the news! You've got multiple fractures of the right ankle, two broken ribs and a mild concussion.”

The concussion was news to me.

“Anyway,” JJ went on, “we just wanted you to know that we're handling the press. The stories of Captain Nobody's bravery are filling the airwaves . . .”

“. . . and don't forget about the newspapers!” I heard Cecil shout.

“Oh, right . . . we're everywhere.”

“Wow” was all I could say. There was a rustling sound on the other end, and the next thing I heard was Cecil's voice: “Hey, man! When can we come see you?”

“I . . . I don't know,” I mumbled. “But I'm getting real sleepy, so can I call you guys later?”

“Solid,” Cecil said, “but be sure you ask your nurses for tomorrow morning's papers, because I gave those reporters a lot of good quotes.”

“And look for our pictures!” JJ chimed in from the background. “They took a ton of pictures.”

Mom hung up the phone for me. Dad arrived, carrying a tray of food.

“You hungry, Newt? They've got meat loaf and potatoes and Jell-O.”

I was actually starving, but, as drowsy as I was, I couldn't imagine being able to lift a fork.

“Later,” I slurred. “But, wait . . . Is Chris any better?”

Mom looked to Dad, who simply said, “Let's talk about that when you've had a little rest.”

Before I could object, my eyelids dropped like stones, and I slept.

The growling of my stomach woke me up. I didn't know what time it was, but, except for a faint glow from Chris's machines, the room was dark. I had no idea where Mom and Dad were, but my food tray was gone. My ribs ached and my foot throbbed. I thought about calling a nurse to get another pain shot or something to eat, but I didn't want to cause a fuss.

Because, to tell the truth, I was feeling pretty dumb. All week I had made such a big deal about getting to the hospital. The whole time I had imagined that if I could just show up at Chris's bedside, I could somehow make a difference. I could tell him about Captain Nobody and the robbery and the plane on the highway. I could tell him silly things, too—like how JJ and Cecil cut up his old clothes to make my costume, or how I came up with the name Captain Nobody by using the initials C.N. on his T-shirt sleeve.

He would have loved all of that.

But here I was, three feet away from him, and what was I doing? Staring at the ceiling, counting the beeps from his machines. And starving. After all my adventures of the last few days—after all the people I had managed to help in so many ways—I still wasn't able to help my brother.

“Useless,” I whispered.

The more that word bounced around in my brain, the more frustrated I got, until I wasn't just upset—I was steamed! And the last time I could remember being that
steamed
was the morning of the Big Game, when I'd whipped up that big, healthy breakfast, and my brother had snored right through it. The last time I'd shouted at him, “Hit the showers!”

Yeah, that's right.

Oh, my gosh. Did I just yell?

Did I really shout in my brother's hospital room?

Oops.

I could still hear my voice echoing off the walls when a pair of nurses burst through the door and raced to my bedside.

“What's wrong?” the first one whispered.

“I'm sorry,” I whispered back. “I didn't mean to be loud. I'm never loud, I swear.”

“You're in a hospital!” hissed the second.

“I know, I know. Maybe it's because I'm hungry,” I tried to explain, “or because my foot hurts, but I promise I won't ever do it—”

A pillow hit my head.

The nurses and I exchanged confused looks.
Where did that come from?

And then, from the bed next to mine, came a hoarse groan.

“I'm up. I'm up.”