Fruit

by Brian Francis

  “Did you get a new lawn mower?” I asked.

  He nodded. “I got one on sale at Canadian Tire.”

  “You’re stalling, Peter,” my mom said.

  “We have to go see Dr. Luka again, dad,” I said.

  “Now, Peter,” Dr. Luka said, closing the file and sitting down across from me. “How are ve doing?”

  “Fine,” I said. I was trying to hold my breath because the old person smell in Dr. Luka’s office was super strong.

  “Vhat’s new?”

  “Not much.”

  I still wasn’t sure what I was going to tell Dr. Luka. My dad was in the waiting room, reading an old copy of Reader’s Digest. He didn’t say too much when I told him about the bandage, other than he was sorry that I felt I had to do something like that. I’m not sure what he meant.

  “Now, Peter,” Dr. Luka said again. I was breathing through my mouth by this point. “Your mother is very concerned about you. She is very vorried.”

  “Dr. Luka, pardon me for saying so,” I said, “but air makes my mom worry.”

  Dr. Luka started laughing his head off when I said that. I thought he was going to choke and die right on the spot. Then I’d really be in trouble.

  “BOY COMMITS MURDER TELLING JOKE!” the Observer headline would read.

  “That’s very funny, Peter,” Dr. Luka said after he had calmed down. “You’re a very clever boy.”

  “Really?” I asked.

  “Your mother said that you had an accident at school the other day. She said you fainted in the schoolyard. Can you tell me vhat happened?”

  “Certainly, Dr. Luka. You see, my nipples popped out last fall. I didn’t want anyone to notice them, so I taped them down every morning. About a week ago, I moved on to an elastic bandage because buying all that tape got to be expensive. Plus, I could tell Mr. Bernard at the Shop ’N’ Bag started to get suspicious because really, who ever heard of masking tape animal sculptures? Anyways, the elastic bandage came undone the other day in gym class and I tripped on it and conked out. That’s what happened. Did I mention that my nipples also talk to me?”

  Dr. Luka sat there, waiting for me to answer. I noticed a booger in his right nostril that kept popping out every time he exhaled.

  “Tell him,” my nipples whispered from beneath the masking tape. I had to go back to the old way of doing things since my mom hid the elastic bandage. “Tell him.”

  I froze. My nipples had never spoken while someone else was in the room.

  “Did you hear that, Dr. Luka?”

  “Hear vhat?”

  “The voices. Did you hear them?”

  Dr. Luka narrowed his eyes and twisted up his mouth. “Mmm hmm,” he said, opening my file again. “Can you tell me how long you’ve been hearing voices, Peter?”

  “Tell him,” my nipples said.

  I stared at Dr. Luka, hoping he heard that time. But by the way he was scribbling in my folder, I knew he hadn’t. I had to think fast or else Dr. Luka was going to send me away to a crazy hospital.

  “Sorry,” I said. “It must’ve been Mrs. Luka I heard. I think she’s on the phone. She’s quite a talker, isn’t she?”

  “Yes, you could say that,” Dr. Luka sighed.

  “How long have you been married?”

  “Thirty-seven years.”

  “Wow. Has it been a good relationship?” I figured the more questions I asked, the better my chances of Dr. Luka forgetting about me. “Where did you meet? Was it love at first sight?”

  “Stop it,” my nipples said. “Tell him.”

  Dr. Luka shook his pencil at me. “You are a very curious boy, Peter. Maybe next time, I’ll answer your questions. But about you, now. Can you tell me vhat happened?”

  I was backed into a corner. “The truth is . . .” I started.

  “Tell him.”

  “The truth is that . . .”

  “Go on.”

  “The truth is that I’m out of shape, Dr. Luka. I was running after the soccer ball and I got short of breath and I tripped and I think I need to lose some weight.”

  “Coward!” my nipples hissed.

  “Yes!” Dr. Luka yelled and clapped his hands.

  “Vhat is it?” I heard Mrs. Luka call out from her desk.

  Dr. Luka was smiling at me like I’d just won the jackpot. “That’s very good, Peter! Very good! I am so glad to hear you say that because you are the von that has to lose the veight, you see? You are the von who must decide, yes! I vant to be healthy! Yes! I vant to be in shape! Yes! I vant to have energy! You see?”

  I nodded and tried to smile, but Dr. Luka was making me nervous. I’d never seen him so excited before.

  Mrs. Luka was standing in the doorway. She had a monkey arm in her hand. “Vhat’s going on?” she asked. I wanted to die, I was so embarrassed.

  “Peter vants to lose veight!” Dr. Luka said.

  “That’s vonderful!” she exclaimed. “Vonderful!”

  The next thing I knew, my dad was standing beside Mrs. Luka.

  “What’s all the commotion about?” he asked.

  Dr. Luka smiled and told him that I vanted to lose veight and vasn’t he proud of me? My dad looked at me with this half-grin on his face.

  “Is that true?” he asked me on the ride home.

  I shrugged. “I guess so,” I said. “Maybe if I lose weight, I can play baseball this summer.” I think I managed to sound excited. It was the least I could do for him.

  “You don’t like baseball, do you Peter?” my dad asked. We were stopped at a red light.

  I sighed and shook my head.

  “Then why do you want to sign up?”

  “Because you like it.”

  “I don’t like baseball.”

  “You don’t?”

  “No!” my dad said. “I can’t stand it. Never could.”

  “What about golf?” I asked.

  “Love golf,” my dad said. The light turned green.

  I figured I could live with that.

  My mom let me stay home for the rest of the week.

  “It’s better if you just take it easy for the next little while,” she said. “You could have suffered some brain damage from the fall, so I don’t want you to exert yourself in any way.”

  We spent the mornings watching The Price Is Right and in the afternoons, we watched Another World.

  “I don’t want you to think that this is what I do all day while you kids are in school,” my mom said, sitting down in the armchair with a glass of Pepsi. “Taking care of a household is a lot more demanding than some people might think. Every now and then, I just have to take a break and relax. Peter, will you look through the TV Guide and tell me who’s on Donahue tomorrow?”

  We got along pretty well for the most part, except when she got on the topic of dieting.

  “I don’t trust that doctor. I’m sorry, but I don’t,” she said to my dad when we first got back from seeing Dr. Luka. I was listening to them from behind my bedroom door. “I suppose he has some magic diet pills he wants Peter to buy now?”

  “You’re overreacting,” my dad said. “Peter was the one who brought it up. Not Luka.”

  “I just don’t approve of making a fourteen-year-old go on a diet. It’s not fair to him.”

  “It’s not fair for him to wrap bandages around himself, either, Beth.”

  That must’ve got my mother thinking because the only response I heard was the sound of her nose honking into a Kleenex.

  She tried to get me to change my mind when we were alone.

  “Are you sure about this?” she asked me during a Price Is Right commercial break.

  “Yes,” I said. To be honest, I hadn’t really thought about it too much.

  “You don’t really want to eat grapefruits all the time, do you? They don’t taste very good.”

  “Who says I have to eat grapefruits?”

  “Oh, I don’t care,” she said. “Do whatever you want. I’m sorry if you kids don’t feel you were raised right
.” She reached for the box of Kleenexes.

  “Mom . . .”

  “And I’m sorry if I wasn’t Miss Perfect Mother all the time. But you were all so persistent. Always at me for a cookie or a chocolate bar or a donut. And sometimes, it was just easier to give you what you wanted than to fight, fight, fight all the time.” She took off her glasses and wiped her eyes. “Maybe I should have been more strict with you kids. I don’t know. But you never had the time for me unless I had something sweet in my hand. Do you know what that felt like?”

  The TV audience cheered as someone on The Price Is Right got called to “Come on down!”

  “Your father is right,” my mom sighed, holding up her glasses before she put them back on, “I can’t keep these clean to save my life.”

  The Sunday night before I went back to school, I tried to get on the Virgin’s good side again. I needed her help more than ever. There was no way I could go back to school and face everyone again. I took my Yoda poster down. It was disrespectful of me to put it up there in the first place. I lay on my bed and sent telepathic messages to her. I twisted my nipples with my fingertips, like they were dials on a radio. I figured I might get better reception that way.

  “Peter to Virgin,” I whispered and slowly turned my nipples to the left. “Come in Virgin.”

  “Ow!” my nipples yelled. But I ignored them.

  I lay there as still as I could, rolling my eyes back and making my body as stiff as a board. That’s what happens when people go into religious trances. It’s very dramatic.

  Anyways, while I was in my trance, I waited for the Virgin’s voice to come through. I was expecting her to give me some kind of riddle that I’d have to solve, like the world was going to explode, only she’d say it in Pig Latin.

  But after what seemed like forever, I gave up. Maybe the Virgin was still cranky at me for covering her up in the first place. I sent her a telepathic message, telling her that I was sorry.

  I had a hard time sleeping that night because I kept hearing everyone’s laughter in my head. How would I ever face anyone again?

  “You should’ve told the doctor the truth,” my nipples said.

  “I did tell him the truth. I do need to go on a diet.”

  “You didn’t tell him about us, though. Why not?”

  “Because no one can ever find out about you. Besides, you’ll go away if I ignore you long enough. All you want is attention.”

  “Do you really think we’re going away?” my nipples asked.

  “Of course,” I said. My head was starting to hurt. I wanted my nipples to shut up, but they had a mind of their own. I thought about the smell of orange pop on Andrew’s breath and my hand over Billy’s dink and the way Mr. Hanlan looked at me when he asked if I wanted big or small marshmallows in my hot chocolate.

  “Do you really think we’re going away?” my nipples asked again.

  Why wouldn’t they be quiet? It was 11:32 at night and I had to get up for school! I closed my eyes and tried to concentrate on falling asleep, but it turned out to be a very long night.

  I was so afraid the next morning, but in the end, no one said anything to me, except for one person. I got to school just as the bell was ringing. I stood in line like everyone else behind the yellow line spray-painted on the asphalt. Lisa Miller was in front of me. She was whispering something to Michelle Appleby. At first, I thought she was saying something about me, but then Michelle reached into her purse and put a tampon in Lisa’s hand. Lisa gave Michelle a dirty look and said, “Not here!” Then Lisa stuffed the tampon in her jean pocket.

  Behind me, Jessica Lewis, one of the Goody-Goody girls, was trying to make a sticker deal with Julie Tilson.

  “The Coke smell is so strong,” Jessica said and held the sticker up to her nose. “It smells soooo good — just like a real Coke. Are you sure you don’t want to trade?”

  Behind them was Andrew. He was reading a science-fiction book.

  “He looks so sophisticated,” I thought, even though I didn’t dare look at him for too long or else he might catch me.

  When Mr. Mitchell came out, he was wearing his usual brown pants/white shirt/blue tie combo.

  “All right class,” he called out, “single file. No talking or pushing.”

  I kept my eyes on the floor while I walked to the classroom. I couldn’t take any chance of being noticed. I was so afraid that Mr. Mitchell was going to say something when we took our seats.

  “Students, I’d like you to welcome back Peter Paddington. You may remember that Peter had an unfortunate fainting spell last week due to an elastic bandage he had wrapped around himself to hide his deformed nipples.”

  So I was relieved when Mr. Mitchell pulled out Christian Tales for Modern Youth. I’d never been so happy to hear one of his stories in my whole life.

  At recess, I went to the library as usual. Mrs. Kraft said she was glad to see me.

  “We missed you around here. Say, I need to get these shelves sorted out by school’s end. Do you think you can start on the far wall?”

  While I was working my way through the Judy Blume books, I looked out the window. It was warm and sunny outside. Most of the students were wearing T-shirts and shorts. The Athlete Group boys were playing a game of touch football. The Indian kids were standing in a circle behind the gym. The Slut Group girls were talking to some of the members of the Banger Group. The Goody-Goody girls were sitting in the field with their photo albums of stickers. The Short Group boys were playing King’s Court. Eddy Vanderberg was yelling, “No spiking or dribbling!” Off the far edge of the tarmac, the Geek Group was passing around Fangoria magazines. Andrew Sinclair was looking over Sean Dilworth’s shoulder.

  “Oh, Andrew,” I whispered to myself. Then I looked down at my hand and saw I was holding a copy of Blubber. I put it back on the shelf.

  “H-h-h-hi P-Peter.”

  I turned around to see Jackie Myner standing behind me. She was wearing a wrinkled green track suit and red shoes. A piece of masking tape was wrapped around her right shoe, holding it together. She had a Tiger Beat magazine in her hand and I noticed it was folded open to a picture of Adrian Zmed in his T.J. Hooker police uniform.

  “Are y-y-y-you feeling b-b-better?” Jackie asked.

  “Yes, I’m fine,” I said and looked around. The last thing I needed was for someone to walk in and see me talking to her.

  “Th-th-that’s good,” Jackie said. “I d-d-didn’t know if you were in th-th-th-th-the hospital. When M-M-Mr. Nunzio and Mr. M-M-Mitchell carried y-y-you off the field on th-that stretcher, I th-th-th-thought you w-were a g-g-goner.”

  I looked over Jackie’s shoulder and tried to smile. “Well, I have a weak heart.”

  I wanted Jackie gone. At any moment, someone could walk into the library and see us. I glanced out the window again at the Athlete Group, the Short Group, the Goody-Goody Group. I had spent the whole week worrying about what people were going to say about me. But no one had said anything. It was almost like no one noticed I was gone at all. They were out there and I was in here so what made me think that anyone would care if I was talking to Jackie? I was Jackie Myner.

  “Wh-Wh-When you were unconscious, d-d-d-do you think you d-d-died? D-d-did you see your body lying in the f-f-field?”

  I hadn’t thought about that. It was true that I couldn’t really remember what happened between the time I passed out and when I woke up with ugly Mrs. Terribone yelling at me. But what if I did die? What if I did have a near-death experience? I mean, I had an image of my body lying in the field, but that’s because I was nervous about what I must’ve looked like. Or so I thought.

  “I think the answer to your question is a definite maybe,” I said. “The chances are pretty good that I did die for a couple of seconds. Maybe over time, more will come back to me. I’ll probably remember a tunnel and seeing my dead grandma, telling me to ‘Go back, Peter! Go back!’”

  Jackie gasped. “Th-That’s really sp-sp-spooky. You m-m-must feel very lucky to
have c-c-c-c-c-c-come back from the dead.”

  Outside, I heard Craig Brown yell “Touchdown!”

  “In some ways,” I said.

  BEDTIME MOVIE #5

  Mr. Nunzio asks me to stay after school. He says he needs help washing down the blackboards.

  “Thank you for coming,” he says when I walk into the classroom. He’s wearing a white T-shirt and blue gym pants. I can see his dink poking out, but I pretend not to notice.

  Mr. Nunzio hands me a cloth.

  “I have to make a phone call,” he says to me. “Will you excuse me for a moment, Peter?”

  I say sure and he leaves. Though he doesn’t tell me, I know he’s gone off to the staff room to call his wife. He tells her that he’s running late and not to stay up waiting for him.

  “All you do is work!” Mrs. Nunzio yells into the phone. She’s combing her straight hair. “I’m sick of it! I should have never married you!”

  When Mr. Nunzio comes back into the classroom, I can see he’s upset. I put down the cloth.

  “What’s wrong, Mr. Nunzio?” I ask him.

  “Oh nothing, Peter,” he says, looking at the picture on his desk. But I can tell he wants to tell me. He needs someone to talk to. No one understands how hard he works. No one except for me.

  “Hey,” I say quietly and sit down in the chair next to him, “it’s me you’re talking to.”

  Mr. Nunzio smiles in a sad kind of way.

  “You’re too mature for your age, Peter,” he says. “How did you get to be so wise?”

  Mr. Nunzio says that he’s not getting along with his wife, that she’s angry with him and is going to leave him. I tell him not to worry. He’s better off without her.

  “You need confidence, Mr. Nunzio,” I tell him. “Confidence in everything you do.”

  “Call me Al,” Mr. Nunzio says. It feels weird, but it’s what he wants me to do.

  “You’ll survive, Al,” I say. “You’re one of the tough guys.”