Captain Nobody (21 page)

Imagine Christmas morning, New Year's Eve and the Big Game touchdown all happening at the same, exact moment. Our room was suddenly swarming with doctors and nurses and more doctors, all chattering loudly. Mom and Dad pushed their way through the crowd. They hugged and kissed Chris and hugged and kissed me and then hugged Chris again. Doctors shook my hand and ruffled my hair, and the nurses kept hugging us both. And everybody was crying and laughing.

Above the other noise, I heard Chris, in a raspy voice, ask, “How long have I been out?” while doctors kept asking him questions like, “How many fingers am I holding up?” and saying things like, “Amazing!” and, “His vital signs are excellent!”

I tried to raise myself up to get a glimpse of my brother, but my ribs screamed out, so I flopped back against the pillows. Once I was able to get Mom's attention, though, I said, “Not right now, but when you have a chance . . . can I get a hamburger? And maybe some aspirin?”

“Of course!” She clapped her hands and shouted above the noise in the room, “Everybody!”

They all quieted and turned to her. “Newt is hungry!” she announced. “Can we get him a hamburger, please? Lettuce, no tomato. Lots of mustard. And he's hurting, so, please, give my son—my
other
son—his shot.”

Everybody laughed and scattered in many directions. Five minutes later, an official-looking, bleary-eyed woman in a rumpled suit raced in and announced, “The press wants a statement!”

Dad and about six doctors followed her out of the room. As the mob at my brother's bedside thinned, I caught sight of him through the few bodies that still lingered. I wanted to say, “Hey, Chris!” but I figured I shouldn't interrupt all the important medical stuff that was going on. So I lay quietly until a nurse came with my hamburger and another one arrived to administer my pain shot.

Right about then, from the parking lot outside, a loud, long cheer rose up. “Must be the press conference,” one of the nurses commented. “Sounds like they just told them the good news.”

In the five minutes that it took for me to eat, the pain medication began to work its magic. I didn't really want to sleep any more, but apparently I wasn't going to have a choice in the matter. As my head began to droop, I turned my face in Chris's direction, hoping I'd catch a peek before I dropped off.

Chris was looking back at me. After being asleep for a week, he still seemed a little dazed, but he smiled and extended an open palm across the space between us. I stretched out my hand to high-five his, and I was
thiiiiis
close to connecting when the tubes and wires in my arm pulled taut. I opened my mouth to speak, to say, “How're you doin'?” but my tongue wouldn't cooperate. Then an orderly with a thermometer stepped between us. In the next instant, I dropped into a deep sleep.

When I finally opened my eyes, the morning sun was streaming in. I looked down the length of the bed, past the enormous white mound of my foot's plaster cast, and was amazed to see my own desk and my own closet.

“Welcome home,” came JJ's voice from my bedside. “Sleep enough?”

I turned to find her and Cecil munching on a couple of waffles and shuffling through stacks of newspapers.

“What happened?” I asked in a froggy voice. “How'd I get here?”

“Well, there were so many people crammed around the hospital,” JJ explained, “that the police decided to take you out the back way in an ambulance.”

“I came home in an ambulance?”

“We all did!” Cecil hooted.

“Your dad invited us to ride along,” said JJ, “so we raced down there first thing this morning.”

“It was so cool!” Cecil gushed. “There were all these motorcycle cops stopping traffic, so we went
screaming
through every red light!”

“They used the siren?”

“You didn't hear the siren?” he asked. “Man, you
were
out!”

“And check this out,” JJ said, holding up a fistful of morning papers. “While you were asleep, we all became stars!”

Every front page carried aerial photographs of me and Reggie Ratner on the roof of the water tower. There were pictures of me falling into the blue inflatable rescue mattress and shots of JJ and Cecil waving at the camera. Thick black headlines screamed: “He Went Up a Nobody, but He Came Down a Hero!” and “Reggie Ratner Rescued by Human Fly.”

“And here's a direct quote from me,” JJ proudly announced: “‘Captain Nobody is now a somebody!'”

They told me about appearing on TV, and how they had been interviewed by twenty reporters at one time. Cecil even got to perform his drum sounds on a radio show and to demonstrate the Cecil Seesaw on the evening news.

“I decided I'm a natural in front of the camera,” he announced.

“But, omigosh, those mobs of photographers . . . the paparazzi?” JJ sighed. “Honestly, Newt, they can be such a pain.”

“What about Chris?” I asked. “Did he come home in the ambulance, too?”

“Chris?” laughed JJ. “He left the hospital in a limousine.”

“To go where?”

“Where do you think?” Cecil asked as he switched on my small desk TV.
Good Morning, Appleton!
was just starting, and there was Chris being interviewed. He had shaved and showered, and, even though he was a little thinner than usual, he still looked awesome.

“So, Chris Newman,” the hostess of
Good Morning, Appleton!
was saying, “after six days in a coma, how are you feeling?”

“Well, my legs are a little wobbly,” Chris said in his new raspy voice, “and I'm so hungry that I could eat for a week. But I'm really happy to be back.”

He and the hostess laughed. “I think all of Appleton feels the same way,” she said. Chris bobbed his head and quietly said, “Thank you.”

“And what's this I hear?” said the hostess. “You have a younger brother? Is that true?”

“Yes, it's true, you ninny!” Cecil barked back at the screen.

“Oh, yeah, I have a great brother,” Chris smiled on-screen. “Newton. We call him Newt.”

“Also known as ‘Captain Nobody,'” JJ reminded the TV.

“Newt has become quite the hero, it seems,” the hostess continued, holding up the same newspapers that JJ and Cecil had shown me.

“It sure looks that way,” Chris answered.

How weird,
I thought. I'd spent so much time watching my brother talk about himself on TV, and now there he was, talking about me.

“Now, just before coming on the air with us, Chris, I'm told that you met with the mayor?” the hostess asked.

“I sure did.” Chris nodded. “He asked me if I was ready to ride in this year's victory parade.”

“And what did you tell the mayor?” the hostess asked.

Chris paused before he answered. “I told him no.”

“What?” Cecil, JJ and I all shouted at the screen.

“What?” I could hear my parents yell from downstairs.

“What?” gasped the startled hostess on TV.

“I told the mayor that parades should be led by heroes,” Chris continued, “and I told him that there's only one real hero in Appleton today.”

Then he looked directly into the camera so that it felt like he was right there, inside my television set, looking out at me.

“So, what do you say, Newt? Can I ride in your parade?”

The rest of the afternoon was a blur of phones ringing, doorbells gonging and cars honking as they drove past our house. JJ and Cecil eventually left because now that they were going to be riding in the Appleton parade (that was my only request), they had more interviews to do.

I had some dinner, but because I didn't want to fall asleep and miss seeing Chris again, I refused any more pain medication.

“I'm feeling much, much better,” I lied to Dad.

Hours slipped by, and the room grew dark. I tried to watch TV, but every channel kept showing the footage of me falling into the inflatable blue cushion with Reggie dropping on top of me. Finally I switched off the set just as someone behind me cleared his throat.

I turned my head. Chris was standing at my bedside.

“Hey, Captain,” he said and smiled.

“Chris,” I exhaled sleepily. “Are you home for good?”

“Thanks to you.”

He extended his palm.

I slapped him five.

And at that moment, all the hurting stopped.

The parade took place two days later on a crisp, sunny November Sunday. Because it wasn't just a victory celebration for the Ferrets anymore, the Fillmore High School marching band was joined by Merrimac's band, and together, they made an awesome sound as they strutted through the heart of town.

I was propped up on a dozen pillows in the back of an open convertible. On a little cushion in my lap sat Ferocious the Ferret, tilting his head in constant surprise as throngs of people lining the streets cheered and tossed confetti.

JJ and Cecil rode along with Ferocious and me. Because my ribs were still tender, they did most of the waving.

Right behind us, another convertible carried Chris and some of his teammates, including Darryl Peeps. Nobody blamed Darryl for knocking out my brother, nor did they continue to blame Reggie Ratner. “It's all a part of the game,” my brother said in an interview for the
Appleton Sentinel
, and after that, it seemed like everybody shrugged and forgave everybody else.

I had started using crutches to get around (JJ warned me that if I kept it up, I'd be in danger of developing biceps). When we got to City Hall and I hobbled out onto the stage that had been built over the front steps, the crowd roared and Cecil did an air-drum solo. Then the speeches and presentations began.