“Yes,” I admit.
“And I’m guessing that even though you and I supposedly released all your illegal turtles, you disobeyed and kept this endangered turtle, am I correct?”
“Yes,” I say.
“And where is this turtle currently?”
“Uh,” I say, aware of how ridiculous this will sound, “it lives on the seventh floor of Horicon General Hospital.”
“And why is this turtle living in a hospital room?” says Ms. Kuper, with forced patience.
“Because my friend RJ is dying from a mitochondrial disease, and he needed a pet.”
“Endangered, wild turtles are not pets,” Ms. Kuper says crossly.
I roll my eyes.
“Do I need to worry about this Blanding’s turtle’s well-being, Will?” she asks. “It’s too cold to release it now. Have you been going over there and caring for it every day?”
“Yes,” I lie.
Obviously, I don’t mention the lesions or the soft spots on its shell. Or the fact that a rabbi has been feeding it crickets.
Mr. Firenze and Ms. Kuper look at each other.
“Will, would you excuse us for a second?” says Ms. Kuper. She pulls Mr. Firenze aside. For a moment, I watch them gesturing and talking and even pointing to the tree line of the Back 40. Snow is gently settling around us, soft and fluffy, with flakes so large I can hear them landing: thup, thup, thup. The sun gleams through the clouds and around the jagged edges of the trees. A bit farther down, the pond must be close to frozen, dusted with snow, jagged with cracks, brown and mysterious and terrifying.
“Okay, Will!” calls Ms. Kuper. “Let’s get out of this cold and talk. The county is supposed to sell the land to the developers in a week or so. We have some important planning to do, and we think you can play a significant role.”
Rabbi Harris and I walk into RJ’s room, where he’s lying back, eyes closed. I’m glad to see that the bank of monitors and breathing tube are gone, but still…I’d hoped he might be awake, maybe looking a little better. Instead, he looks exhausted, thin, almost brittle. Someone has tried to cheer up the room with a plush Thanksgiving turkey, dressed as a pilgrim. It isn’t working.
Rabbi Harris puts his hands on RJ’s cheeks for a second, then sits down and pulls out a thick book with tiny Hebrew print and starts to read.
“Can you keep an eye on the door?” I say to Rabbi Harris. “I need to clean the tank.”
Rabbi Harris nods but keeps reading. I use a small scoop to remove some cricket carcasses and half-eaten vegetables. With my head closer to the terrarium, I catch that bad smell again. I wonder—is that the smell I remember from Ms. Kuper’s bio lab? She was treating a turtle for shell rot, trying to catch it before it spread from the shell to the body cavity. Once that happens, it’s hopeless. I’m pretty sure Grampy doesn’t have shell rot, though. I look closer, and I also see a few small lesions on the turtle’s neck.
“Who’s there?” asks RJ. “Will?”
That startles me. He spoke without moving. I drop the curtain and straighten up.
“It’s Will and your favorite rabbi,” says Rabbi Harris. “How are you feeling today?”
“Not—so good,” says RJ. “Rabbi Harris, did you hear—from the doctors?”
He speaks slowly, and he’s having trouble getting through sentences.
“I did,” says Rabbi Harris.
I don’t know what they’re talking about. Usually, Rabbi Harris gives me the update on RJ on the ride to the hospital, but today, we only reviewed my Torah portion.
“I’m scared,” says RJ.
I realize now that I’ve risen to my feet.
“I know you are,” says Rabbi Harris. “You’re not alone. You’re never alone. People who love you are with you all the time, okay?”
He’s holding RJ’s hand, and the fainting feeling returns. I sit back down and put my head between my knees.
“Did you tell Will?” asks RJ.
“Last time we talked, you said you wanted to tell him yourself,” says Rabbi Harris. “Did you change your mind?”
RJ shakes his head a little.
“I forgot,” he says. “Hey, Will.”
I look up, and Rabbi Harris motions for me to step closer. I do. I wish he would put his arm around me. Just as I wish it, he does that exact thing: he puts his arm around me, and it feels like the safety bar on the roller coaster.
“Will,” says RJ. “Pretty soon I’m going to check out of this crappy hotel.”
I understand immediately what he means. He’s going to die.
“It could be a month or so,” he says. His voice is flat. Matter-of-fact. “Maybe just a few weeks. My kidneys and my liver and pretty much everything else is messed up.”
He doesn’t say anything more. Then he starts to cry.
I don’t know what to do with myself. I can’t handle the sight of RJ crying. Rabbi Harris holds me a little tighter and hands RJ a tissue with his spare hand.
“I want to give you something,” says RJ, wiping his nose. He reaches over and picks up his headphones.
“These are for you,” he says. “I want you to have them.”
I feel their weight in my hand, heavier than I expected, and when I put them around my neck, I can feel them pulling down on me, pulling down on my heart.
“And, Will, I have one last thing on the list,” he says. “And please don’t say no.”
“I won’t,” I say. I realize now that I’m crying as well, with no sound and no motion. Just tears on my cheeks, gathering on my eyelashes, making my eyes burn.
“Okay,” says RJ. “The list. I’ve never been out with a girl. I want to go on a date. And I can’t leave the hospital, so it’s got to be here, which sucks, but that’s the way it is.”
I force myself to look at RJ. His face is all hope, fear, trust.
“Can you help me?” he asks.
“Sure,” I say immediately. “Of course.”
“How was your visit?” Mom asks. I walk past her and hang my coat on the hook by the basement stairs. She’s stirring a pot on the stove.
“Fine, I say. “Good.”
“Any change?” she says.
“With RJ?” I say. “About the same.”
“Okay, so that’s good,” she says. “We’ll have to keep sending our hopes and prayers. Would you set the table for soup and salad? Bean soup with leftover turkey and stuffing.”
Mom goes on about how Thanksgiving food is better as leftovers, but I’m not listening. I put the bowls and napkins out, and then I stop, spoons in my left hand, forks in my right. I can’t go on.
“Actually…,” I say.
My throat tightens. Mom immediately realizes what’s happening and turns off the stove. She comes over and guides me by the elbow into a chair. She sits down next to me and puts a hand on my shoulder.
“What is it?” she asks. “Tell me.”
I shake my head.
“Will,” she says. “Please let me in. Please tell me what’s happening.”
“RJ, he’s…he’s getting a lot worse….” I’m forcing the words; my instinct is to run away, to block her out. But maybe this isn’t a time for instincts. If I don’t let go of some of this pain, I’ll crack. “He says his kidneys are messed up, and…”
I’m struggling to breathe.
She reaches out and touches the huge headphones around my neck.
“Are these his headphones? Did he give them to you?”
I nod.
“Is he starting to say goodbye?” she asks.
I nod again.
“Oh, Will,” says Mom. She pulls me in for a hug, and I’m crying. I haven’t cried in front of Mom since the visit to Dr. Haffetz, when I found out about the surgery and passed out. I take a deep, trembling breath.
“
It’s hard,” Mom says in a soothing voice. “It’s hard to learn to love someone and then have to say goodbye.”
I know she’s talking about me and RJ, but it sounds like she’s talking about Dad. Maybe she said goodbye to him, but I don’t think she ever let him go. It’s as if speaking his name would cause him to drift farther away, to recede into the past.
As for me, I never got to say goodbye. I was too young to understand.
“Will, I want to tell you how proud of you I am,” Mom says. “You’ve already lived through enough loss for one lifetime, but you found the courage to go and connect with someone who needs you. You’ve given him such a gift.”
What gift? I think. The bucket list is incomplete. And what courage? Courage is swimming in a murky pond, even when you’re afraid. Courage is taking opportunities that come along, not running from them, not hiding. But I run. I hide. I won’t swim. I’m still a coward.
“There’s still things I haven’t done,” I say, wiping tears from my eyes.
“What?” she asks. “What haven’t you done? You’ve been his friend. That’s all he needs right now.”
I don’t want to tell her about the bucket list. Now, more than ever, the bucket list is something private between me and RJ. But then a thought bubbles up: What if RJ dies before I finish?
I can’t leave the bucket list incomplete.
* * *
• • •
After school the next day, I take the bus to Herb’s Herps. Gwen is talking to a customer, explaining how to feed a snake.
“Snakes will pretty much eat anything smaller than they are,” she says. “You could do grasshoppers, but mice are really the way to go.”
“Mice?” asks the customer.
“And sure, you can waste your money on frozen mice,” she says. “But why do that when you can breed ’em yourself? Grow your own snake food.”
“Cute little mice?”
“Yummy, nutritious little mice,” says Gwen, a bit condescendingly.
The customer thanks her and heads off to another area of the store. Gwen turns to go back to work, when she sees me.
“Oh great, it’s the King of the Turtles,” she says. “Here to argue about turtle habitats? I don’t have any free gear for you today.”
I can feel my face flush, but this is no time to give in to shyness. I take a deep breath. I want her to meet RJ, but I don’t want her to do it out of pity. I’m going to have to swallow my pride.
“I have a friend with a turtle that’s got an infection, and I can’t fix it,” I say quietly. “I was wondering if you could help.”
She looks at me funny. I’m afraid she’s going to tease me, but she doesn’t.
“Sure,” she says. “Tell him to bring it in and we’ll look at it. If I can’t fix it, my dad can.”
“He can’t bring it in,” I say. “Can you come see it?”
“Okay, where is it?” she asks suspiciously.
“In the hospital,” I say.
“Wait a minute,” she says. “Is this the same ‘friend’ who needed Medi-Eye for his turtle about two months ago?”
I nod.
She crosses her arms and purses her lips. After a moment, she looks down and kicks the side of one boot with the toe of the other and talks to herself, as if running a complex calculation.
“Unusual situation,” she says, counting on her fingers. “Nothing else interesting going on in this town. Demands my expertise. Possible college application essay subject.”
She looks at me. “Sure. You got it.”
Gwen and I are on the bus. She has a phone, so I borrow it to call RJ.
“Hey, it’s Will,” I say when RJ answers. “I’m bringing a friend. Be ready.”
“A friend?” RJ is quiet for a minute; then, in a hushed voice, he says, “Will, is this what I think it is?”
“Is there a room we can use that’s good for…hanging out?”
“How about the family room? It’s like a lounge with chairs and stuff. It’s on floor six.”
“Great,” I say. “You have any food? Snacks?”
“Snacks,” he says. “I’ll see what I can do.”
Twenty minutes later, we’re in front of a door labeled FAMILY VISITING ROOM. I knock and open the door. RJ is sitting in a big chair. His hair is combed. He’s wearing a T-shirt—THE CLASH: LONDON CALLING—and green sweatpants. On his wrists, he’s wearing his bracelets—woven brown string and colorful beads. It’s exactly what he wore the first time I came to visit. There’s no way he made it here on his own. Roxanne and Denise must have helped him.
“Gwen,” I say, introducing her, “this is—”
“Ralph?” she interrupts.
“Who’s that?” he asks. He’s squinting toward her.
“Gwen!” she says.
“Marching Band Gwen?” he asks.
“Well, I prefer regular Gwen, but sure.”
I’ve seen people do double takes in cartoons, but I’ve never done one myself until now. I gawk at her, then him, then her.
She goes over to RJ.
“Dude,” she says. “I haven’t seen you in a million years!”
“I know,” says RJ. “We moved up north to Baraboo halfway through sixth grade, but then I got sick, and we came back because of the hospital.”
I can hear that he’s straining to complete his sentences without pausing for a breath.
“Wait, what are you sick with?” she asks. “What’s the matter?”
I look at RJ. His lips part, as if he’s considering what to say. I’ve never seen him at a loss for words before.
“Oh, it’s nothing,” he says. “I’ll be out of here really soon.”
For a second, I think I see his eyes dart over to me, but I know that’s impossible: he can barely see.
“Hey,” he continues. “I was just having a little picnic here. Want to join me?”
On the floor, he’s spread a green and white hospital blanket and about ten bags of chips, all of which I recognize from the vending machine. There’s also a few bottles of lemonade.
I’m filled with a strange mix of emotion: RJ has a kind of energy that I’ve never seen before. And I’m happy that he’s reconnecting with an old friend. But I’m a little jealous, as if I don’t want to share him. I know I should be happy for him. RJ doesn’t belong to me.
“Funyuns!” says Gwen. She plops down cross-legged on the blanket and tears open a bag.
RJ is clearly thrilled and trying to play it cool. He’s slouched back in his big chair, as if a visit from someone like Gwen is an everyday occurrence. His face is radiant. He hasn’t asked me to leave, but I’m starting to feel weird standing here. Should I remind them that I’ve brought her here to look at the Blanding’s turtle? Somehow, this doesn’t seem the time for it. I decide to wander the halls.
As I pass the nurses’ station, Roxanne turns around from her computer.
“Well, hello, Will,” she says. “Did you have a nice Thanksgiving?”
“Yeah, it was good,” I say.
“What are your plans for winter vacation?” she asks. “Traveling somewhere tropical, I hope?”
This catches me off guard. Ever since this summer, the plan was for me to have the surgery during winter break. But all that changed when I told Mom I wouldn’t do the surgery. We haven’t talked about it since. I guess that means winter break is in limbo, but I don’t feel like explaining any of that.
“Nothing special,” I say.
* * *
• • •
A long while later, I go back to the family room. The door is closed. I reach my hand to open it, but something makes me think that I should knock first.
“Come in,” calls a voice. RJ’s voice.
I don’t know why, but I’m hesitant to enter. I open the door, an
d they’re sitting on the sofa. RJ is leaning back with his legs on Gwen’s lap. His socks are off and she’s rubbing his feet.
“Reflexology,” she says abruptly. “Very good for the renal system.”
Reflexology? I have no idea what she’s talking about. I don’t understand what’s going on with them: they’re making a connection that doesn’t involve me.
“I need to go home,” I say to Gwen. “Do you want to see the turtle or not?”
She looks at RJ, and he nods.
“I’m going to stay,” she says. “I’ll look later.”
Without another word, I grab my bag and walk into the hall.
It’s about eight-thirty. When I came home from the hospital, I closed myself in my room, and since then I’ve been rehearsing my lines over and over, preparing for tomorrow’s action to save the Back 40. It’s only four sentences, but every time I learn one, I forget the one before it. I drop the page of notes and cover my eyes with my hands. How did I get myself into this?
The phone rings, and a minute later, there’s a knock on the door.
“For me?” I yell.
Mom opens the door and mouths the words, “It’s a girl!”
She knows Shirah’s voice, so it’s definitely not Shirah. What other girl would call me at home?
I jog downstairs and grab the phone.
“Dude!” a girl’s voice says sharply. “What were you thinking, giving Ralph a Blanding’s turtle?”
Oh great. It’s Gwen.
“I can explain,” I say, though really, I can’t.
“Ralph said he wanted a pet, and that’s what you brought him?”
“It’s not a pet,” I say. “Turtles aren’t pets.”
“You took an endangered species out of the wild and gave it to a guy in the hospital!” She’s practically screaming. “That sounds like you turned a wild animal into a pet, doesn’t it?”
I can feel my arms going numb with fear.
“You’ve put an endangered turtle in actual danger,” she says. “It can’t stay in that terrarium. It has lesions and a bad case of shell rot. Is that what you want?”
Turtle Boy Page 19