The Sky at Our Feet

by Nadia Hashimi

  “But you’re from another country, so it’s different for you. I bet you eat different foods and speak a different language and all that. You’re not plain old American.”

  I never thought any of that made me more interesting. I always thought that’s what made me strange compared to other American families. Max glides her finger along the buttons of my television remote. Am I glad Max doesn’t think we’re plain? Sure—but what about being American?

  Max sighs deeply. I don’t argue with her because I feel like this is an idea she’s been working on for a long time, an intricate idea she’s carved out of a block of wood.

  “For now, all I wanted to do was see New York City. At least New York City isn’t as blah as where I live.”

  “Maybe your parents are going to take you around the city when you’re done with your, um, testing.”

  Max scoffs at my suggestion. “That’s not going to happen. All my parents think about is this . . . this . . . brain stuff.”

  “Where are your parents now?”

  “They’re back in my room.”

  I wish my mom were just down the hall. I try to push that thought aside.

  “I don’t think you need to sneak out of the hospital to see places. Your parents are here. Can’t you just tell them you want to go and see stuff?”

  “Jason D,” she says, and I put my finger to my lips, warning her not to say my name out loud.

  She nods, and lowers her voice. She still sounds very determined, though. “You don’t know what it’s like. They don’t even want to hear about what I want to do. It’s all about what they think we should do. I’m just supposed to go along with everything as if it doesn’t bother me. For once, I want to be in charge of me and I just want to be me. Not the girl with the . . . genius issues.”

  “Max, I really don’t want to get you in trouble. They’re probably already wondering where you are.”

  “They’re meeting with some doctors now. And I told them I needed some space anyway—to do, you know, typical genius hobbies.”

  She waves her hand in the air as if I should know what a typical genius activity is. Or maybe she wants me to ask. I take the bait.

  “What’s a typical genius hobby?”

  “Thinking. Sculpting. Writing. I’m actually writing a book,” she says, tapping her finger on the cover of her notebook.

  “What kind of book?” I ask. I’ve never written more than three pages.

  “It’s an autobiography. The story of my life, so far. There’s lots still happening every day, so I’m just trying to keep up with . . . well, myself.”

  Max is like no one I’ve ever met. Teaming up with her is either the worst idea ever or the best thing that could happen to me.

  “Getting out of here isn’t going to be that easy. I think you could use a little help from someone like me. I bring experience, my friend. I know how to trick the docs and nurses.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “It’s not hard. They asked me to pee into a little plastic cup once. I went into the bathroom and poured apple juice into the cup instead. They rushed it off to the lab for some test and came back so panicked that I burst out laughing. Another time, I rubbed some faded blue marker on my fingertips and palms right before a nurse came in to check me. I pretended to be shivering under the covers and showed her my hands. She hooked me up to three different machines before she figured out what I’d done.”

  This girl might just be a genius after all.

  “I’ve . . . uh . . . noticed that the nurses and docs use a badge to swipe in and out of the locked door,” I say, testing the waters.

  “I’ve noticed a few things too,” Max adds. She puts her notebook aside and peeks into the hallway to be sure no one’s coming in.

  We spend the next forty-seven minutes designing our grand escape.

  Eleven

  At five thirty in the morning, my eyes are closed but I am wide awake. It’s still dark outside when Nurse Eric enters.

  “Hey, buddy,” he whispers. He puts a stethoscope to my chest and swipes a thermometer across my forehead while I pretend to sleep. Eric stands at the curtain inside my room for a moment, silently, as if giving me one last chance to wake and speak. When I don’t, he turns and leaves.

  A few moments later, my door opens quietly, and Max slips in with a teal backpack at her side. I am sitting upright in my bed and watch her enter. She closes the door behind her and presses her nose to the glass to check once more if anyone’s spotted her.

  “Did your dad wake up?” I ask in a whisper.

  “He didn’t even twitch. He’s snoring hard on the pull-out chair right now.”

  I am reassured. Still, we need to move fast.

  “Ready to wash your hands?”

  First, we head into the bathroom and rub soap and hand lotion onto our wrists. This part was my idea. I saw my mom do this once to get off a ring that was too tight. With a whole lot of wiggling, we’re able to take the security bands off. The bandages on Max’s hands get wet, and I watch as she takes them off. She tries to turn away but not before I see lots of thin red scratches on the palms of her hands.

  “What happened to your hands?” I ask.

  “Just a scratch. It’s no big deal.” I’ve learned that when people say “no big deal” with that tone of voice, that’s a sure sign of a very big deal. We slip the security bracelets into the top drawer of my nightstand.

  “So, how’d it happen?”

  “How’d it happen? I was . . . I was working on a sculpture. Did I mention I carve sculptures out of wood? Kind of like the ones you see in museums. Cool stuff but lots of splinters.”

  Carving sculptures, I repeat in my head. My most incredible sculpture was a soccer ball I made out of Play-Doh when I was four years old. It was not something that belonged in a museum, but my mom kept it on our coffee table for so long that it dried and crumbled. Max and I are two entirely different people, I realize. She’s American and has parents who can travel with her and stay in a New York City hotel. That’s not my world at all. I’m American but a different kind of American. I don’t know how Max and I ended up doing what we’re doing together.

  We change into the clothes we were wearing when we came into the hospital. For Max, that means jeans and a red-and-white-striped long-sleeved tee. For me, it’s jeans and a green polo shirt. We put our sneakers on and lace up. Then we put our hospital gowns on over our clothes just in case anyone pops in before we’re ready to make our exit.

  I am at the door, peering into the hallway to see if there are any nurses wandering around. The nurses have just finished their last overnight checks, and Max said no other nurses will come in until well after the seven a.m. shift change. Max and I asked for extra snacks last night so we’ve got a few packets of graham crackers and a few apple juice cups with foil lids as well. She throws the snacks into her backpack.

  “Basic survival skills—always think of food.”

  Max zips the bag, and I cross the room to look out the window. On the street, I see a fruit vendor stacking oranges and small plastic containers of strawberries on his cart. The sidewalks, the buildings, the lights—they all seem to sparkle with excitement. People call New York “the city that never sleeps,” but I think it must close its eyes at some point. How else could it rise and shine with the energy I can feel buzzing from the sidewalks and into the hospital’s walls before the sun is even up?

  “It’s almost time,” I say, taking a deep breath.

  “Nervous?” Max asks me.

  “Can’t be,” I say simply. It’s the truth. There’s no room for nerves. I need to find Auntie Seema, the only person who really knows me, and the only person who could possibly help me reconnect with my mom.

  Max is rolling her shoulders, as if she’s getting ready to pitch a ball.

  “I saw Eric sitting at the desk on my way over here.”

  “Sitting there? Then he’s going to see us!”

  “Would you relax? That’s what
he’s done for the past two days. I can’t sleep well in hospitals, so I’ve been watching him.”

  I close my eyes for a beat. Just because I can’t be nervous doesn’t mean I’m not. I might sneak onto rooftops to feed pigeons, but I’m not the kind of kid who breaks big rules. This is all new to me.

  “All right, let’s look then. It’s almost time.”

  Max opens the door. I’m right behind her, looking to see if Eric’s still sitting at the nurses’ desk. He’s not. Max silently points out a sweatshirt hanging on the back of a rolling chair. There’s an ID badge clipped to the open zipper.

  “Easy grab,” Max whispers.

  “Close the door,” I reply, and Max does. She turns around and looks at me. It’s time for the next phase of our escape plan. “Ready to play hair stylist?”

  I nod and Max pulls a pair of wide-bladed scissors out of her backpack—the kind nurses use to cut gauze and tape. She sits sideways on the edge of the hospital bed. I start clipping the wires as close to her scalp as possible. The rainbow-colored wires fall away, and Max is left with her straight brown hair. Her fingers start scratching at her scalp where clumps of glue hold stickers in place. She pulls a baseball cap out of her backpack and puts it on. It’s got a picture of a woman in a blue-collared shirt showing off her bicep muscle. Her hair’s tied back in a red bandanna, and she’s got a no-nonsense look on her face. It’s the perfect hat for Max, and it hides the frayed ends of the wires I’ve trimmed.

  Cutting the wires means we are definitely going through with this plan. How could we explain what happened to her wires? We turn our attention back to getting off this pediatric floor. Locked double doors stand between us and the elevator bank, which is why we need Eric’s ID. If we swipe his card at the door’s security panel, the doors will swing open and get us closer to the outside world. Since our security bracelets are off, we won’t set off any alarms once we’re on the other side.

  I open the door again. I am nervous, but the clock is ticking. As we get closer to seven o’clock, the day shift nurses will start trickling in, and there’ll be more of a chance of us being spotted. We slip out of our hospital gowns and quietly duck into the hallway, the backpack strapped onto Max’s shoulders. The fluorescent hospital lights are still dimmed, and it’s so quiet that I can hear my heart thumping in my ears. If anyone spots us now, we’re doomed. There’s no way to explain our street clothes, Max’s wireless head, or why our security bands are in a drawer instead of on our wrists.

  Max hunches forward and tiptoes over to the half-circle work station where all the computers and chairs are clustered. With the grace of a ninja, she slides through the opening and crouches under the counter. I can see just the top of her hat bobbing as she inches her way to the chair with Eric’s sweatshirt.

  I’m pressed against the door of another room. My job is to be the lookout and warn Max if I see anyone. I can hear voices coming from behind the door of the staff room, just behind the work area. The sound of beeping monitors and the hum of a breathing treatment make it impossible to listen for footsteps.

  Between computer screens, I see Max’s hand reach toward the sweatshirt. Her fingers blindly grab at the zipper. She’s trying to stay under the counter and maintain her cover, but her hand is making the chair swivel and roll around, and the ID badge goes farther out of reach.

  I am about to whisper to Max to just stand up, grab the badge, and go when I hear the double doors down the hall swing open. I hear the rattle of wheels.

  Someone’s coming.

  My room is too far down the hallway to make it back there. Max pokes her head out from under the desk. She’s heard the wheels too. The light of the computer screen gives her face an eerie glow. We lock eyes and understand that we’ve both got to hide. Without thinking, I open the door behind me and disappear into a patient room. I am relieved to see an empty bed and turn back to look through the glass window in the middle of the door. I peek out nervously, certain I’m going to watch Max get caught where she has no business being. If she gets in trouble, it’s going to be all my fault.

  A man comes down the hallway. With one hand, he’s pushing a beige cart with narrow drawers. As he walks, he’s reading from a piece of paper he holds with his other hand.

  Max is so startled that she goes from a sneaky ninja to a lumbering bear. I hear a grunt and then see the empty chair roll from one side of the half circle to the other, and the man freezes, his eyes turning to the center of the main nursing station and widening. Behind the counter, the chair comes to a slow stop but continues to spin, spookily.

  The man blinks slowly and looks around as if he’s hoping someone will confirm what he’s just witnessed. He adjusts the thick, round lenses on his face and scratches at his cheek. He leaves the cart and makes his way to the counter. My breath catches in my chest to see him getting closer and closer to where Max is cowering.

  The man stands just inches away from Max, separated only by a thin piece of plywood beneath the desk. The man stares at the chair, now motionless, and takes one final look around. He looks like he’s been up all night.

  By some small miracle, he does not detect the ninja under the counter. He also does not spot the wide-eyed boy staring at him through the square of glass. He rubs his eyes with his fingertips and goes back to rolling his cart down the hallway.

  I slip back into the hall just as Max emerges from beneath the counter. There’s the sound of another door opening and closing, somewhere down the opposite end of the hall, in the direction of both our rooms. In a flash, Max is beside me, pulling me toward the double doors and away from the fast-approaching footsteps. In front of us, just a few yards down the dimly lit hallway, I see the locked doors and my stomach sinks, thinking of the way Eric’s sweatshirt rolled away from Max. Without that ID badge, we’re running toward a brick wall.

  “Max, the locks—”

  “Come on!”

  In one swift motion, she pulls Eric’s ID out of her back pocket and swipes it against the security panel on the wall. The doors spread open like bird’s wings, and Max and I bolt through them, uncaged.

  Max hits the button for the elevator, and we look back at the closed double doors. We’re both expecting someone to burst through them. That’s when I spy the door to the stairwell.

  “This way!” I say, and put my weight behind the door to swing it open.

  “Good idea,” Max says. Her voice sounds shaky but I can’t tell if she’s nervous or excited. The stairwell is empty, and we go down the steps as quickly as we can. I can hear the tinny echo of her feet and mine as we land on each step. Down nine flights of stairs we go. When we reach the ground floor, I shoot Max a look of caution.

  “Max . . .”

  I’m giving her one last chance to turn back.

  “You’re not going to survive out there without me,” she says.

  “But your parents are going to flip out, Max. You don’t have to do this.”

  Max puts one hand on the metal lever of the door. She looks at me, unblinking.

  “Jason D, this is my only chance,” she says. With one push she swings the door open and propels us into the stirring city street.

  Twelve

  “Do you always smile like that?” Max mutters out of the corner of her mouth.

  “Like what?”

  “Like you’re sitting in the dentist’s chair?”

  My lips clamp shut. I didn’t think my smile was that wide.

  “I don’t want people to think we’ve done something wrong,” I explain.

  “Then I’d suggest getting that suspicious grin off your face.”

  Max and I are on the sidewalk, sneakers hitting the concrete with a steady rhythm. We’re walking fast enough to give people the impression we know where we’re going.

  It’s now 7:20. The sun will be up in a few minutes.

  The nurses will be huddling by the computers, coffee mugs in hand, for change of shift. Any minute now, someone will walk into my room and gasp to see an empty b
ed and severed wires. Down the hall, another nurse will be waking Max’s snoring father to ask him where she’s gone.

  I look at the people walking toward us. Their eyes are trained straight ahead or on the ground. I don’t look directly at them. Instead, I spy their reflections as I look into the window displays of the shops and restaurants. Max catches me investigating and nods approvingly.

  “How much farther to the subway?”

  “It’s a few more blocks,” Max answers. “I remember seeing the entrance on my way into the hospital. Maybe we should ask someone.”

  “We can’t ask anyone, Max. The police are already on my case, and soon people are going to be looking for both of us. The more people we talk to, the more likely it is we’re going to get caught. We’re going to have to figure it out.”

  We see a man coming toward us, less than a block away. He’s walking two dogs, their leashes crossing and uncrossing as the dogs try to get ahead of each other. One is a wolf-like, white German shepherd, and the other is a much smaller mixed breed. The man’s wearing warm-up pants and a white T-shirt with Brooklyn written across the chest. He’s looking at us with a curious expression. He slows his step, and it’s easy to see the dogs aren’t too happy about it. Their leashes are stretched taut, and they turn their heads to see what’s holding their owner back.

  “Should we cross the street?” Max asks.

  I think of the mess under her hat. Then I wonder how it’ll look if we suddenly dart across the street midblock. This is followed closely by the memory of my mother telling me crossing the street anywhere but the crosswalk is a crime called jaywalking.

  “Let’s just play it cool. Maybe he’s not looking at us.”

  That’s wishful thinking. While it is New York City, the sidewalks are far less crowded then they would normally be because:

  It’s just around sunrise.

  It’s a Sunday.

  The man’s squinting and his lips are parted, ready to shape words. Max stops abruptly. She beats him to the punch and starts talking.