Waiting For Sarah

by James Heneghan

  But he had looked forward to working alone. He could have asked for a boy, but boys steered clear of committees, everyone knew that; the yearbook committee was usually a girl thing. But a young girl would be a disaster. Young girls chattered. How would he get any work done with a chattering girl? And eighth-grade girls giggled; everyone knew how much they giggled; eighth-grade girls hardly ever stopped chattering and giggling; that was what eighth-grade girls mainly did; they chattered and giggled. And worse, they were always asking questions and wanting to take over and boss you around. An eighth-grade girl was a no-no; an eighth-grade girl was definitely out.

  Except Becky. Becky chattered all the time, but she was different; hers was interesting chatter; he wouldn’t have minded that, not at all. Besides, she was only ten, and had opinions on almost everything, like cloning, for example: “Boys are unnecessary. They’re selfish and rude and stupid. I won’t ever get married; I’ll clone my daughter, and when she grows up she can do the same and that way I’ll never ever die.” And she asked stupid questions that made him laugh.

  Used to make him laugh. Before the accident. Before she was squashed to death like a summer bug on a windshield.

  His thoughts were black. Think of something else.

  Maybe Robbie could help get the stuff off the high shelves!

  Except there might be a problem getting him out of class. Could the powerful editor-in-chief Cowley arrange that too? If she convinced Dorfman she could convince anybody. He would ask her today. Robbie would be perfect: he didn’t chatter, didn’t giggle, didn’t make silly suggestions, didn’t try to take over and boss you around, and was the best pal a guy could ever have.

  Meanwhile, to work. Make a start. He pulled out a file box and blew off the dust before letting it fall into his lap. It was heavy. He wheeled over and lifted the box up onto the table and suddenly felt closed in, trapped in his wheelchair and a prisoner in the dimly lighted room. He felt the shortage of breath that signaled a panic attack. His heart started thumping and his lungs tightened like fists. Don’t panic, he told himself, swallowing and sucking in deep breaths and letting his shoulders and arms hang limply the way the therapist at the Rehab Center had taught him whenever his heart and lungs acted up on him like this. Don’t panic, he always told himself, relax and drink the air, like sucking a thick milkshake through a straw, easy does it, close your eyes, one breath at a time, stay calm.

  Usually an attack lasted no more than half a minute, but today it took longer, probably because of the dust in the air. After a while his heart slowed and he could breathe once again.

  But the attack had left him feeling wrung out. Anxiety made the room press in on him once more, and he felt a strong claustrophobic desire to be out in the fresh air. He rolled quickly to the door and jerked it open. Hidden behind a bank of shelves labeled “Classics of English Literature,” the archives room was a place of almost guaranteed safety from intrusion. He wheeled out of the archives room, past “Classics” and down the length of the library towards Miss Pringle’s desk at the far end, near the exit. By the time he reached the librarian the feelings of anxiety were gone and he was ashamed. He had panicked. Get a grip, Mike Scott, he told himself.

  The librarian was a thin woman with sad eyes and wispy gray hair, who always wore a black dress. Twenty minutes ago she had offered to push him into Archives, but he had refused, telling her he could manage just fine. “Are you sure you’ll be all right?” she had asked. “Let me open the door for you at least.” Again he’d refused, holding out his hand impatiently for the big old-fashioned key. He preferred to do things for himself even though opening doors could be difficult. The librarian had stood by, watching him open the door, wringing her thin hands together helplessly.

  But now he did need her help.

  “Miss Pringle?” he barked.

  She looked up from her desk. “Yes, Mike?”

  “I need a vacuum cleaner,” he snapped at her. “The dust is killing me in there.”

  She looked at him with her sad eyes, noticing the dirt on his clothes. “You are a mess,” she clucked sympathetically. “I could ask one of the janitors to vacuum the room for you tonight when they come on shift; that’s the best I can do. Union rules. Though I really don’t like anyone going in when I’m not here. I’ll try and get Joe; he’s reliable.”

  “He mustn’t disturb the books and papers.”

  “He’ll be careful.”

  “And it’s dark in there. I can hardly see what I’m doing. I need a desk lamp.”

  “I’ll make sure a lamp is put in there for you.”

  Without thanking her, he swiveled away, back to the archives room. He felt fine now. He must try harder to resist those panic attacks, he told himself. He wheeled over to the file box he’d left on the table, and opened it up. Photographs, hundreds of them it looked like, were squashed together inside. He closed the cover and examined the outside of the box for a contents label. There was none. He opened the file again and spread a handful of photographs out on the table in front of him. Most were candids, original snapshots. He pushed them back in the box; it might be easier to examine the pictures in the yearbooks; at least they had a date.

  Moving slowly, taking it easier this time, thinking about disturbing the least amount of dust as he possibly could, he slid the box back into its original position on the shelf and looked around for a new place to start. The newspapers perhaps. So many years, so much history.

  What he needed was a plan of organization. He thought for a few minutes, elbows on the table, chin in hands. He could write the school history in chapters of decades maybe: Carleton High of the fifties, sixties, and so on. Fifty years. Five chapters. The school really was old. Ancient. The archives room was like a tomb. Tombs were scary places. He glanced at the door. It was closed. He felt the flesh on the back of his neck prickling.

  There was someone behind him. He spun his wheelchair around quickly.

  14 ... because i’m in a wheelchair

  don’t mean i’ve got to be nice

  “Careful!”

  A girl slipped back out of his way and then stood, regarding him gravely.

  The dark shadows and shades of gray in the room slipped and shifted. Light drizzled through the cob­webbed window and rode the drifting dust motes.

  His heart was pounding. He was gripping his wheel rubbers hard; he willed his arms to drop and relax.

  The damned kid had scared him.

  “Hasn’t anyone ever told you not to sneak up on people?” he yelled angrily.

  The girl flinched at the force of his anger.

  His heartbeat steadied.

  Damned kid!

  The anger went out of him. He felt weak, drained. He said quietly, “I didn’t hear you come in.”

  She said, “What happened to your legs?”

  “Did you hear what I said?”

  Instead of answering she came closer to the wheelchair, examining him boldly. “What happened to your legs?” she asked again.

  Wasn’t the answer obvious? Stupid kid! “I don’t have any damn legs.”

  “Why not? And you mustn’t swear.”

  “Accident. And damn isn’t a swear word.”

  “It is so.”

  “No, it isn’t.”

  “My name is Sarah. And I know who you are: you’re Mike Scott. You’re in twelfth grade, a senior. You graduate this year.” Her eyes went around the room.

  He understood: she was one of the eager beavers from the yearbook committee, sent by Margaret Cowley. Small and skinny, gray eyes, brown hair; that summed her up. Like all the eighth graders, she wore new clothes, bought especially to mark their first year of high school — jeans, shirt, sweater, white socks, runners, and a tote bag. He growled at her. “I told Cowley I don’t need anyone.”

  She made no move to go.

  She was holding up the work. “Look, kid ... ”

  “Sarah.”

  “ ... I’ve got work to do ... ”

  “I’ve co
me to help you.”

  “I told you. I don’t need anyone.”

  “Everyone needs someone. Parents, for instance; everyone needs parents.”

  “I’ve got no parents.”

  “Everyone’s got parents.” She thought for a second. “Unless you’re an orphan.”

  “I’ve got work to do. So get lost.”

  “You’re not very nice.”

  He scowled. “Just because I’m in a wheelchair don’t mean I’ve got to be nice.”

  She stood watching him, saying nothing.

  He growled, “Don’t you have a class to go to?”

  “Michael is a nice name even if you’re not so nice.”

  “It’s not Michael, it’s Mike.”

  “I like Michael better. It’s more ... dignified.”

  He scrunched up his face into his most powerful, sure-fire scowl. This one always worked; people left him alone. But not this kid.

  “What is the stuff you’ve got to do?” she asked.

  “Write a history of the school.” To his own ears he sounded self-important, like Margaret Cowley, and felt disgusted with himself.

  “I’ve come to help you,” she said again, moving forward and stroking a wheel rim of his chair. Her fingers were long and white, like chalk.

  “There must be something wrong with your ears, kid. You want me to spell it out for you? I don’t need help. So get lost.”

  She stepped back. “My name is not kid, it’s Sarah.”

  “I’ve got work to do, so be a good girl and go play on the railway track.”

  Her gray eyes darkened. “But I want to help you.”

  She seemed upset, watching him, saying nothing for a while, and then she said, “It must be tough, sitting in a wheelchair all the time.”

  “You get used to it.”

  She probed for details. Would he always be in a wheelchair? Couldn’t he get artificial legs? Was it hard to get out of the chair when it was time to go to bed? How did he manage to go to the bathroom? What was it like looking up at people all the time?

  Instead of answering he waited until she had run out of breath and then he growled, “You finished?”

  She was immediately contrite. “Sorry, Michael, really I am. I get carried away sometimes. My mother says — ”

  “Okay already! If you stop with the questions and keep your mouth shut I’ll let you help.”

  “Gee, thanks. I won’t say anoth — ”

  He interrupted her, pointing. “Do you think you could reach those books off the top shelf?”

  “Of course.” She climbed up on the stool, took down the books and dropped them gently onto the table below.

  He growled, “You can come for a few minutes tomorrow if you like. Get stuff down off the shelves for me.”

  His acknowledgment of her usefulness seemed to please her. She became more animated, sitting on the edge of the table and swinging her jeans-clad legs. “Helping will be fun.”

  “I’ve got to go through all those old newspapers.” He pointed to the high shelves. “And I need to find one of each yearbook starting from 1950 when Carleton first opened its doors.”

  “I can do that for you.” She started rooting around among the yearbooks, her clothes already begrimed with dirt, no longer new and spotless. He remembered how Becky, starting the day off with clean clothes and shining face, was often a disaster area by noon.

  They worked together. Mike toiled through his bundle of newspapers; Sarah gathered yearbooks, stacking them in order of date on one of the lower shelves. The bell went for second period. He could hear it far away throughout the school, on the other side of the closed door. “Come on, kid. Gotta go.”

  She skipped ahead and held the door open for him as he wheeled through. He turned, locked the door and hung the key on its hook in the librarian’s office. Sarah grabbed the handles of his chair and moved him towards the library door.

  “I don’t like being pushed,” he yelled angrily over the noise coming from the hallway outside.

  But she ignored his objection, pushing even harder.

  Being pushed by an eighth grade girl was a major embarrassment. He felt himself propelled out the library door and into the crowded corridor. The chair stopped.

  Mike swiveled around to tell her never to do that again, but he was too late, she’d gone. He craned his neck, searching back along the hallway, but she had disappeared into the crowd.

  15 ... vanished from the face of

  the earth

  The next day was Friday.

  The archives room had been vacuumed; much of the dust and dirt was gone, though he was sure there would be more once he started moving the newspapers about. But for now breathing was easier. And Miss Pringle had supplied a desk lamp.

  Sarah didn’t come. Too bad. He knew he hadn’t been too nice to her yesterday and felt a twinge of guilt.

  He started work. Maybe she would come tomorrow. No, tomorrow was Saturday. Oh, well, maybe Monday.

  His aunt had let him have her portable radio, an old-fashioned thing in a worn leather case — a Walkman would be better, but a Walkman was expensive. He set his aunt’s radio down on the desk, plugged in, switched on.

  “ ... Egyptian airliner crashed into the sea shortly after taking off from Kennedy airport, killing all 217 people on board ... ”

  Instant death.

  The radio was set to his aunt’s gloom-and-doom station.

  He twisted the dial to a music station and started work, trying not to think of 217 people in an airliner vanished from the face of the earth, all dying in the same instant.

  On Monday Sarah didn’t come again. Margaret Cowley had probably assigned her to a different job; or her classroom teacher had put her foot down, insisting she attend class; or she didn’t like the archives and had refused a second day working in the dust; or she simply didn’t like him. No problem; he didn’t need a girl anyway. He would ask Miss Pringle for help if he needed materials off the upper shelves.

  He worked and listened to his radio.

  Later that evening as they were slurping their milkshakes in the Dairy Queen, Robbie wanted to know what the eighth grader was like.

  “She was just a kid,” said Mike. “Nothing special. She came once and hasn’t been back.”

  “You probably scared the spaghetti out of her.”

  “What are you saying, Robbie? Cripples are scary?”

  Robbie recoiled from his friend’s sudden anger. “Take it easy, Mike. I wasn’t saying anything of the sort. You know me better than that.”

  “Sorry, Robbie. I don’t know what’s the matter with me.”

  “What’s her name?”

  “Look — the kid only came the once. I told you: she quit already.”

  “But you remember her name, right?”

  “I told you. Sarah.”

  “Sarah what?”

  “She didn’t say. People do that, just tell their first names. Anyway, it doesn’t matter. She didn’t like the job, I guess. No big deal. You know how girls are: they hate to get dirty.”

  “Was she big, small, medium, good-looking, ugly, what?”

  Mike said, “I didn’t really notice. Small, I think. All the eights are midgets.”

  “No way,” said Robbie. “These days? Eighth graders come in all sizes.”

  They finished their shakes and Robbie ordered his usual bag of fries chaser.

  He was surprised when Sarah showed up on Tuesday. She was more subdued, less talkative, seeming to sense his desire for silence and solitude. He felt more depressed than usual; he didn’t know why. Life was a drag. You had only to look around. Innocent people were killed by stupid, irresponsible, not-.t-to-live drunks; many people had nothing, while others had everything; or they died young, in wars or in airplanes falling from the sky, like that Egyptian plane the other day; or they died from starvation or terrible diseases, while others lived to be eighty or ninety or a hundred without ever being sick or missing a meal their entire lives. Life was senseless
and unfair: life was the pits.

  Sarah worked quietly, not bothering him, tidying the Clarions, returning loose copies to their proper bundles, retying and restacking, moving about soundlessly as though in a sick room.

  She didn’t even say goodbye; just before the bell he looked over at the other side of the dimly lit room and she wasn’t there, had escaped a few minutes early, no doubt, to gossip with her locker partner or do herself up in the washroom mirror.

  She was several minutes late on Wednesday. Girls spent a lot of time in washrooms, he knew that, or they chattered and giggled together at their lockers long after the bell had gone. “Thought you’d decided to take a day off,” he grumbled.

  She smiled, but said nothing and sat in her usual place at the table with her denim tote bag and took out a sketch pad and pencil box. “Do you need anything from the shelves, Michael?”

  He shook his head and turned the radio up.

  After a while she said, “Michael, could we have the radio off so we can talk a little while we work?”

  “There’s nothing to talk about. Besides, I need to concentrate.”

  “There’s plenty to talk about; for instance...”

  He turned the radio up some more.

  She reached over, grabbed it, turned it off and put it beside her on the floor, smiling at him cheekily across the table. She had nice teeth, small and white and even.

  He narrowed his eyes at her threateningly. He hadn’t really wanted the music so loud anyway, and if truth be told didn’t mind the silence, but he wasn’t about to let her know that. “Look, kid! You better put — ”

  “Michael, be nice. Here, have some of my Snickers bar.” She broke her chocolate bar in half and proffered the package.