by Jack Gantos
“What stupid thing have you done?” she whispered, with her fist hovering over her shoulder. “Tell me before the doctor gets here so you don’t embarrass me.”
Just at that moment the doctor pulled aside the curtain. “Well,” he said, after taking a long look at me, “what do we have here?” He sat on a stool, and with the rubber tip of his pencil he began to poke my boils. He took my temperature and then looked inside my mouth.
“I think he has done something stupid,” my mom blurted out. “He does stupid stuff all day long.”
“Is there something unusual you have done to yourself?” the doctor asked calmly, trying to offset my mother’s tone. “You can tell me. I won’t think it’s stupid.”
“Well…” I said, getting ready to tell him, when I made a mistake and glanced at my mom. That big fist of hers was still making a circle above her shoulder, and she was squinting at me like she wanted to split my skull. One wrong word and I knew she would knock me to the other side of the room.
I turned back to the doctor. “No,” I said innocently. “I can’t think of anything unusual I may have done. This is a complete mystery to me.”
“Peculiar,” he replied. “I think you should go into the next room.” And he pointed toward another curtained space. I stood up and half smiled at my mom. She nicked her chin with her fist as a warning while she mouthed, “Tell the truth or else!”
I was so happy to get away from her that for a moment I forgot I was dying. But it didn’t take long before I remembered. In an instant a big nurse in a stiff white dress pulled aside the curtain and looked at me revoltingly as if I were infected with the plague.
“Take off all your clothes and stand like an X in the middle of the room,” she ordered.
“Did I hear you correctly?” I asked.
“Like a big naked X!” she snapped. “Now, no monkey business.” Then she pulled the curtain closed and dashed off.
I did what I was told, taking off all my clothes, and that’s when I saw the bandages—no way was the nurse not going to notice those. I peeled them off, slowly, throwing them in the garbage by the curtain. My foot looked like the big hunk of ham you see behind the counter at the deli. Blood immediately started seeping through the cotton balls, but I pressed my foot against the ground to keep it all in. If I angled my foot in a bit, you couldn’t even see the red streak, which was almost at my knee, unless you were looking directly at it.
Before she returned I got into my big naked X position. I looked straight up at the blinding lightbulb because I couldn’t bear to stare down at my naked, pus-covered self. In a moment the nurse returned. In one hand she had something like a gallon of paint in a bucket and in the other she had a wide paintbrush. She surveyed me up and down with her eyes. I dropped my hands to cover my private parts.
“Don’t you dare touch yourself!” she snapped. “Now get those hands in the air, mister!”
I threw my hands straight up as if she had pulled a gun on me.
“Now stand still while I paint you with this medicine,” she growled, “or I’ll put you in quarantine with the rabid animals.”
I stiffened up as she dipped the brush into the bucket and began to paint me from the top of my head on down, and to my dismay the medicine was bright, neon purple.
“What is this?” I whimpered.
“An antifungal agent,” she replied as she brushed my chest up and down like a fence. “It’s called Gentians Violet, and we paint kids with it who have really bad hygiene. Now stick out your hand.”
I did as I was told and she pressed the brush handle into my palm. “Now swab your private parts—both front and back and all around your behind,” she instructed. “Do a good job because the parts and cracks of the body that don’t get much sunlight are where fungus hides and grows.”
I didn’t need to know that.
She watched with her big hands on her hips as I did a very thorough job, and while I had the brush, I ran it down the red streak on my leg and over my foot. Then I gave her back the brush. It didn’t take long before she was finished and I was glowing purple from head to toe. I stood still for as long as it took to dry off then put my clothes on and slowly ambled out to my mother. She looked at me and grimaced. “You look like a pickled beet,” she said, shaking her head in amazement.
“Can I have a hug?” I asked, and held my arms open.
“Maybe tomorrow,” she replied, poking at my skin. “You are still tacky.”
Thankfully, we were both quiet on the ride home, but when we pulled back into the driveway, my sister was just leaving the house. “Oh, puke!” she shouted as I stepped from the car and into the full sunlight. I was blinding to look at, and she covered her eyes with one hand as she shouted out loud to the neighborhood, “Hey, everyone, come see our new yard gnome. Its name is Purple Pus Boy!”
I lowered my head and marched toward the front door. “Thanks for all your kindness,” I hissed as I passed her. I went into my room and closed the bedroom door. I took off my shoe and then peeled off my sock, which was already soaking through with blood, and wrapped bandages around it again. The clean wrapping felt better but not by much. Then I got up and walked over to the windowsill, where my journal was drying out. I reached forward and touched the pebbly surface of the wart. It was great, and I smiled just a little.
That night my mother brought me my dinner on a tray. “I thought you’d rather avoid the family spotlight,” she said, and reached out to hug me but then remembered that I was repulsive and pulled away with a look of fear and loathing.
The next morning I woke up and when I put my foot down on the floor, I knew there was a problem. It felt like that little volcanic wart had erupted and now I was standing on red-hot molten lava. And then there was the streak. Even though I was purple, I could still see it. I almost wanted to cry because now it was running up the inside of my leg, over my hip, and aiming for my heart. “This can’t be good,” I said slowly, and instantly I knew the terrible, hard thing that I was going to have to do. I put on a pair of long pants and a long-sleeved shirt, and pulled a baseball cap down low over my forehead, and slipped my hands into a pair of work gloves, and painfully limped down the hall.
“Hey, Mom,” I said as casually as I knew how. “I forgot to tell the doctor one little bitsy thing that I think would be really helpful for my future health.”
She gave me a withering look that would scare a bear. “Back in the car,” she commanded with one stiff finger pointing toward the front door.
I got into the car as if I were taking a ride to where I would meet a firing squad. The whole way there she drove with one hand on the wheel and the other balled up into a red fist and aimed at me. She knew I had done something colossally stupid. But I still wouldn’t tell her what. And why should I? She’d never understand. It was a boy thing.
She pulled into the parking lot. “Out!” was all she said.
I scurried from the car and hobbled up the stairs and into the emergency room. Very sick people pulled back from me. The ones who were too sick to move just closed their eyes.
The nurse receptionist escorted us to the same little room with the curtain. My mom and I sat on the same bench. She held the same fist up in the air, but she looked at me in a new way, a way that confirmed all her fears. “You are one of them,” she said, passing a final judgment on me. “You’ve become a Pagoda. Admit it!”
Before I could put together some flimsy lie, the doctor pulled aside the curtain and stepped toward me. “What did you forget to tell me?” he asked.
“Yes,” my mother echoed, “what did you forget to tell us?”
There was no other way to say it except to blurt it out. “It slipped my mind the other day,” I said breathlessly, and I pointed toward my foot. “I had this big volcanic wart on the bottom of my foot, and I took this rusty pair of needle-nose pliers, and…and…and ripped it out!”
“Ripped it out?” my mother shrieked. “Are you kidding me! Ripped it out with a pair of pliers! Oh sa
ve me, doctor,” she said mournfully, “my son is an idiot.”
The doctor patted her on the knee to calm her down as he looked up at me. “You know what you did, don’t you?”
“No,” I replied, “I’m too stupid to know what I did. What’d I do?”
“You gave yourself blood poisoning with the rusty pair of pliers,” he explained.
“Oh,” I said quietly as my pride shriveled up like the ugly wart in my journal.
Then the doctor gently removed the bandages and looked at what I did. Neither he nor my mother said anything. They just sadly shook their heads, which was worse, in a way. The doctor gave me antibiotics.
On the way home I tried to tell my mother I would never do something this stupid again. “I promise,” I said tearfully. I raised my hand and began to cross my heart to swear on it, but she reached out and clamped down on my hand with a steel grip.
“Don’t cross your heart and hope to die,” she warned me, “because you will. Even if I cut your legs off, you will drag your severed torso across the ground to go over to that Pagoda madhouse and somehow maim yourself.”
She was right. I would. I knew I’d take the antibiotics and get over my boils, but when it came to the Pagodas, I was infected for life and there was no cure from them other than death. Or maybe if I was extremely lucky, I would only be crippled for life.
“Mom,” I asked, and reached for her free hand. I lifted it up to my purple lips and kissed it. “If I were paralyzed and strapped to a bed, and in a coma, and unable to speak, would you take care of me?”
“Of course,” she said without hesitation. “I’m your mother. I’m compelled to take care of you even if you can’t take care of yourself.”
Yessss! I thought. Just then we turned the corner on to our street and Gary Pagoda was on the peak of his roof, balanced precariously on a unicycle.
This is going to be good, I thought. I turned and looked at my mother. She was staring up at Gary and then she winced. I turned back to watch Gary, but he was gone and all I heard was a bloodcurdling scream. A little later we heard the ambulance. And that night Mom was in such a great mood, she baked her special-occasion red velvet cake with chocolate icing. And I got busy writing Gary a get-well-soon card. I was sure his spine would heal just fine and he’d return to us soon. I’d be waiting for him. Now that I had one souvenir in my journal, I was ready for another. Perhaps a tooth, or a toe tip, or a bit of earlobe—something that my mother would never understand.
Guys E-Read
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Biographies
JACK GANTOS (“The Bloody Souvenir”) is the celebrated author of JOEY PIGZA LOSES CONTROL, which received a Newbery Honor. He is also the author of the popular picture books about Rotten Ralph and JACK’S BLACK BOOK, the latest in his acclaimed series of semiautobiographical story collections featuring his alter ego, Jack Henry. His book HOLE IN MY LIFE was a Robert Seibert Honor Book and a Michael J. Printz Honor Book. Jack lives with his family in Boston, Massachusetts. You can read more about him online at www.jackgantos.com.
SELECTED TITLES
The Joey Pigza series, including JOEY PIGZA SWALLOWED THE KEY
The Jack Henry series, including JACK ADRIFT:
Fourth Grade Without a Clue
The Rotten Ralph series, including THE NINE LIVES OF
ROTTEN RALPH
HOLE IN MY LIFE
THE LOVE CURSE OF THE RUMBAUGHS
JON SCIESZKA (editor and coauthor, “Your Question for Author Here”) has been writing books for children ever since he took time off from his career as an elementary school teacher. He wanted to create funny books that kids would want to read. Once he got going, he never stopped. He is the author of numerous picture books, middle grade series, and even a memoir. From 2007–2010 he served as the first National Ambassador for Children’s Literature, appointed by the Library of Congress. Since 2004, Jon has been actively promoting his interest in getting boys to read through his Guys Read initiative and website. Born in Flint, Michigan, Jon now lives in Brooklyn with his family. Visit him online at www.jsworldwide.com.
SELECTED TITLES
THE TRUE STORY OF THE THREE LITTLE PIGS
(Illustrated by Lane Smith)
THE STINKY CHEESE MAN AND
OTHER FAIRLY STUPID FAIRY TALES
(Illustrated by Lane Smith)
The Time Warp Trio series
(Illustrated by Lane Smith)
KNUCKLEHEAD: Tall Tales & Mostly True Stories
of Growing Up Scieszka
ADAM REX (“Will”) is the acclaimed New York Times best-selling author and illustrator of many books for kids. His middle grade novel THE TRUE MEANING OF SMEKDAY is currently under development as a feature film. He admits his favorite things are animals, spacemen, Mexican food, Ethiopian food, monsters, puppets, comic books, nineteenth-century art, skeletons, bugs, and robots, and lives in Arizona with his wife, who is a physicist. You can find out about these things and more online at www.adamrex.com.
SELECTED TITLES
FRANKENSTEIN MAKES A SANDWICH
FRANKENSTEIN TAKES THE CAKE
PSSST!
THE TRUE MEANING OF SMEKDAY
FAT VAMPIRE: A Never Coming of Age Story
Copyright
“The Bloody Souvenir” copyright © 2010 by Jack Gantos
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
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