Captain Nobody (6 page)

After JJ and Cecil left, I tore the house apart, desperate to find some idea—
any idea—
for my Halloween costume. I looked through all the DVDs in the den, searching for inspiration from a screen hero. I paged through books and magazines, and I switched on every TV—upstairs and downstairs—hoping that I might hear or see something that would make me shout, “Yes!
That's
my inner other!”

It didn't happen.

By the time I heated a can of SpaghettiOs for dinner, I was feeling awfully low. My dad called at ten-thirty to tell me not to wait up, but just as I started to ask him about Chris, a doctor came into the waiting room, and Dad had to hang up.

I put the phone next to my bed in case he called back, and I fell asleep watching
Saturday Night Live
.

When I was four, Chris taught me to skate on my grandparents' frozen pond. In the dream I had that night, we were back there again. I felt my brother holding me up as I stumbled and slid, shivering from the cold but determined to learn what Chris was teaching me. I couldn't remember ever being so happy. But then, just as Chris gave a gentle shove that sent me gliding smoothly across the ice, I heard a noise like thundering cattle. I looked back to find that we were now . . .

. . . on the football field in the last seconds of the Big Game. Chris was in his uniform, standing in the path of the stampeding teams. In the next second, with a blur of colors and a blitz of body parts, the world crashed down on my brother while I stood by and watched, helpless.

I woke up with a jolt. After a few blinks, I realized that it was already Sunday morning. From my bedroom window I saw Dad's car in the driveway. My first thought was
He'll need some breakfast!
Sitting down to eat with my dad—just the two of us—was such an exciting plan that I raced downstairs to scramble eggs and brown some sausages.

Just as everything was about ready, Dad bolted through the kitchen. “Hey! I bet you're hungry, huh?” I called out.

“Oh, hey, kiddo,” Dad said as he grabbed his car keys. “I told your mom I'd eat with her at the hospital. Then she'll be back later this afternoon.” The beeper on his belt buzzed. “Oh, great,” he said, and raced out.

I chased him through the laundry room and out to the driveway.

“Wait, Dad! What's happening with Chris?”

“Well, his blood tests are back. They're all good,” Dad explained, climbing into his car. “His heart scan's good. Breathing's good. Everything's good.” He started the car and backed down the driveway, calling out, “Now all we can do is wait.”

I went out to pick up the
Sunday Appleton Sentinel
off the porch. On the front page, above an amazing photo of Chris flying through the air on his way to that winning touchdown, was the headline: “Newman's Bittersweet Victory.” The article was about my brother's first day in the hospital, but it was the second paragraph that made me catch my breath.

“Chris Newman,” it read, “the only child of Patrick and Mary Newman of Appleton . . .”

I turned the paper over and left it on the washing machine.

As I ate breakfast, I listened to Cecil's CD of drum solos. It was very energetic. It even got me tapping my foot, although I'm sure I was nowhere near the beat.

All that noise and energy lifted my spirits, and I began to think that maybe . . . maybe I could still save Halloween. Maybe it wasn't too late. Maybe any old costume would be better than no costume at all.

I dug through bins and boxes in the garage again until I found my old cowboy outfit. But it was worse than I remembered: the pants were torn and way too short. The hat was crushed, and the shirt was stained red, purple and green where I had wiped off my sticky candy hands on past Halloween nights. I had to face the fact that this cowboy had come to the end of his trail.

I went back into the kitchen and shut off the drum CD. I knew what I had to do. When JJ and Cecil arrived at six o'clock, I would greet them at the door, admire their costumes, and wish them well with their trick-or-treating.

Because I didn't really feel like Halloweening this year.

The torrent of phone calls had slowed to a trickle. That afternoon I did my homework, spent a little time on my latest fantasy character—a crimefighter named Storm Dwayne who could launch tornadoes with a blast from his eyes—and dozed off listening to JJ's Harry Potter CD.

By the time I woke up, evening shadows were slanting through the blinds in my room. I stretched and wandered down the hall. When I passed Chris's room, I was surprised to see that Mom was home. I hadn't heard her come in. I was going to say hello, but the way she was acting made me stop at the doorway.

She was folding a basket of Chris's clean laundry, but she handled every piece of clothing so slowly that it almost looked like she was moving underwater. She carefully smoothed the wrinkles from one sweatshirt, then hugged it as if my brother was still in it.

Finally, so that I wouldn't scare her, I softly said, “Mom?”

She turned and smiled when she saw me. “Hey, honey.” She swiped at the corners of her eyes, but I still saw a tear or two.

“You okay?”

“Oh, yeah,” she nodded. “I just miss your brother, that's all.”

“Me, too.”

“I know.”

After a long silence, I asked, “Is there anything I can do?”

Mom picked up the laundry basket, and as she passed me at the door, she patted my cheek. “No. Not a thing.”

Not a thing
.

I know she probably didn't mean anything by it, but she was right. There
wasn't
anything I could do. After all, what had I done all weekend? I hadn't cooked a meal that anybody had eaten. I hadn't made a Halloween costume. I hadn't visited Chris and, even in my dreams, I stood by like a mailbox while my brother got slammed over and over.

I just felt so
useless
.

Okay, so maybe I am just ten. And not very tall and not very strong. But still, wasn't there something that I could do to make things better? Something to make it so Mom wouldn't feel like crying or . . .

Wait! That was it! I could cheer up Mom. And I knew
just how to do it!

My big brother had grown up so quickly that he never wore out any of his clothes, so over the years I inherited all the jerseys and shorts and sweatshirts and running shoes that Chris couldn't fit into anymore. I keep them in the bottom drawer of my dresser, because they actually don't fit me, either. Oh, the size might say “small,” but whenever I put on anything from that drawer, I always get swallowed up in the same clothes that Chris used to fill out so well. One time I went downstairs wearing one of Chris's hand-me-downs, and Dad peeked down the back of my shirt and called, “Chris? Chris? Is that you in there? Have you seen your little brother?”

Since then, whenever I'd show up in anything my brother had outgrown, all Dad would have to say was “Remember that time when . . . ?” and Mom would laugh so hard that she'd get hiccups. So when I stood over the drawer filled with Chris's old clothes, I was thinking I could dress up and cheer up Mom before she left. But I had to move fast.

I stripped to my underwear and started digging through the drawer. I slipped on a baseball jersey, but I ripped that off before trying on a pair of running shorts. And then another and another. Clothes I was putting on were getting tangled with clothes I was tearing off. I was hopping around on one leg trying to pull a long-sleeved sweatshirt over my head when Mom called from downstairs.

“Newt, honey? I'm going. There's pizza in the freezer. Or it might be lasagna.”

“Mom! Wait till you see this!” I tried to yell, but the sweatshirt muffled my voice.

Frantic, I lunged for my bedroom door, but my feet got twisted in all the clothes I'd been tossing around, and I stumbled backward, falling onto my bed. As I lay there panting, I heard Mom close the garage door. I stared at the ceiling.

“Useless,” I groaned.

I stayed there until the doorbell rang.

I struggled to my feet and careened into the hallway.

“In a minute!” I shouted.

Halfway down the stairs, I tripped over something I was wearing and tumbled the rest of the way into the entryway. The doorbell rang again. I grabbed the door-knob to pull myself up, and yanked open the front door.

JJ and Cecil took one look at me and gasped. I can't blame them. I was red-faced and sweaty and twisted up in a tornado of Chris's old pants and shirts and shorts.

I took one look at them and gasped, too. Because they looked
amazing
.

JJ was dressed from head to foot in a black gown with a thick silver cord sewn along all the edges. She wore long black gloves, and her hair was twirled around wire pipe cleaners so that it stuck out from her head like rays from a black sun. Her lips were shiny with black gloss, her eyelids were painted with streaks of black and white, and from her ears dangled what looked like silver crystals.

Cecil wore a green velvet jacket crisscrossed with colored ribbons; his green velvet pants were cut short and the bottoms were held in place just below each knee by rubber bands. Long gray socks and green high-top tennis shoes completed the outfit, and he had puffed up his curly black Afro and dusted it with baby talc until it looked like a powdered wig.

“Whoa! You guys!” I sputtered.

“Pretty awesome, huh?” Cecil winked.

JJ smiled as she did a little twirl. “It helps to have four sisters who all know how to sew.”

“You wanna know who we are?” Cecil asked.

“Yeah!” I said. “Who are you?”

“Me first!” JJ clapped her hands excitedly. “I am Splendida, the Queen of the Dungeon of Dreams in my favorite,
favorite
saga,
The Crystal Cavern Chronicles
. People think she's an evil witch just because she dresses all in black, but that's only because there are no colors in her world. She's actually the guardian of all the dreams and hopes in the universe, so she's a really good witch. And these,” she pointed to her ears, “these are supposed to be the Diamonds of Destiny, but I don't have any diamond earrings. So I made these out of tinfoil and cellophane.”