It's the End of the World as I Know It

by Matthew Landis

  “You said you knew.”

  “Everybody knows what’s down there. They’re sewer tunnels. Poop goes into the sewers.”

  “I want to see it for myself.” Misty moves the crowbar between her hands and almost drops it. “I want to pry it off, slide it over, and look down.”

  “But, like—why?”

  Misty’s face gets all serious. “Because I want to. So are you in or what?”

  “No.”

  “Your loss.”

  “Just don’t drop my crowbar into a bunch of poop, okay? I need it.”

  We go back in the house and Misty heads for the front door. Just walks right out to the street. The moon is pretty bright, so I can see her standing over the manhole cover right near my driveway, her phone light on. How the heck is she even gonna pry it off? It probably weighs more than her. A neighbor is gonna hear the noise and see her and probably call the police. And then I’ll get busted too as an accomplice or something because I gave her the crowbar.

  Also, she could get run over, which would be so lame since she just got back from being sick.

  Ugh.

  I run up to my room, grab my headlamp from the go bag, and race back down and out the front door.

  “AH!” she yells when I sneak up on her. “Stop doing that.”

  “Do you know how to actually do this?”

  She thinks for a second. “The YouTube guy said you put the hook end in the hole, twist it, and then just pry it off.” She does it and pulls back really hard.

  Not budging.

  I grab it with her and we’re leaning way back now and the cover lifts up an inch but my grip slips and the whole thing slams down with a gigantic bangclang! Misty chokes on a laugh and I switch off my headlamp. We look around.

  No lights on.

  “Come on,” she says. “Come on!”

  I switch my lamp back on and we reset the crowbar and lean with our whole bodies. This time it comes up farther and then all of a sudden we’re falling back as the whole thing slides off.

  Misty crawls over and shines her phone down the gap. “Wow,” she whispers.

  I look around. A light down the street is on. Another one pops on, closer. “We gotta go.”

  “Come look.”

  I peek down and see a ladder that goes about ten feet into some water flowing by. There’s some bigger pipes but not much else.

  “So where’s the poop?” she asks.

  “Maybe this isn’t the poop tunnel.” Then real quick I say, “We’re not going down there.”

  “I know. But it would be cool if we did.”

  “Seriously, we need to go.”

  “Okay.”

  We try to push the cover back into place with our feet. It’s harder than getting it off because it won’t just sit any way—it has to be perfectly over the hole. And it’s really heavy. I try to shove it with the crowbar, but that makes a big, loud bangclang.

  “Crap!” I whisper. More lights pop on—one right across the street. “Oh man.”

  “Come on!” Misty says, but there’s a laugh behind it as she kicks at it. “Come on!”

  “I’m trying.”

  “Hey!” somebody yells down the street, just as the cover sinks into place. We scramble up and I grab the crowbar and a guy yells “Stop!” but there’s no way that’s happening. We pound down the pavement, away from our houses. We’re fear sprinting like those gazelles on a safari, bounding over bushes and around trees in total panic. We keep running until our lungs give out two streets away and then cut back through a couple yards to my shed. Inside Misty collapses on the cot and does this laugh that sounds like a choking donkey.

  “Oh man,” I say. “Oh man.”

  She keeps laughing, rolling and building as she works up to a huge “Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat!” that echoes off the shed walls.

  1

  “So I ask the kid for his hall pass,” Brock says. “And he tells me that Mrs. Mason didn’t give him one.”

  Tommy is staring at his phone, refreshing it every five seconds. I’m inhaling everybody’s tater tots because I didn’t eat yesterday—too busy sleeping after Misty almost got me arrested. My dad wanted to take me to the doctor, but I made something up and just lay in bed all day.

  “Which is hilarious,” Brock says, “because Mrs. Mason would never let a seventh grader out of her room without a pass. She has records of every kid who left her room going back decades. That is the truth.”

  “Guys,” Tommy says. He shakes his head. “I’m not going to make the team.”

  “I thought you wanted to get cut,” I say.

  “I did before.” He eats his nails. “But, like, now it’s fun. And Kelly said if I don’t make the team, I have to go to the YMCA. It smells like bleach and everybody has big calves.”

  Brock pulls his tray away from me. “What’s your situation?”

  “I’m starving.” I look over and see Misty at a table with some other girls. They’re talking and looking at stuff on their phones. She’s reading. Probably a book about sewers.

  “Come on,” Tommy says to his phone.

  “Dee, you keep staring at Misty,” Brock asks. “Do you like her?”

  “What?” My face gets hot and I stop eating. “No. No.”

  “You said no, like, pretty fast,” Tommy says.

  “I’m not. She’s—” Tommy’s eyebrows are going up and down like Hey, hey, hey. “Okay. Okay. Listen.”

  I tell them about Operation Manhole Cover. By the end, Tommy forgets he even has a phone. Brock’s shaking his head, smiling.

  “Whoa,” Tommy says. “She’s, like, way, way off.”

  “I know. Right?”

  “She’s awesome,” Brock says.

  “What?”

  “She threw that hatchet until she hit a bull’s-eye,” he says. “And then, boom, she’s on to the next thing. Midnight robbery and looking down manholes. She’s unstoppable.” He slides his tray back so I can have the last of his tots. “She’s crushing life.”

  “We could’ve gotten arrested,” I say. “Or run over. Or maybe put the cover on wrong and a car crashed because of us.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Guys,” Tommy says. His phone is an inch from his face. “Guys.”

  “Yes!” some kid at another table yells. He’s on his phone too, showing it to the guys around him.

  “You guys.” Tommy leans in and says real low, “I made it.”

  Brock lets out a whoop and smacks the table. He stands up and shouts, “Ladies and gentlemen: Witness the newest member of the Kennesaw Middle School eighth-grade soccer team.”

  Tommy looks like he won the lottery.

  “Would you like to say a few words?” Brock asks, sticking his fist in front of Tommy like a fake microphone. “Something to let us know how you overcame the odds and made this possible.”

  Tommy is just laughing and in shock.

  “Good job, dude,” I say.

  “Thanks. Maybe, like, you guys can come to my game or something.”

  “Oh, we’re coming,” Brock says. “Starting with practice today.”

  Mr. Killroy announces that it’s time to clean up. I can see Tommy eyeing me. I wait a couple seconds and then say, “Yeah. Yeah, we’ll be there,” even though the soccer field is a mosquito playground and I have a million things to do for the shed still.

  “Cool.” Tommy bumps into me as we’re dumping our trays. I want to elbow him out of my space really hard. “Cool.”

  2

  Tommy sprints down the sideline and catches up with the kid who has the ball. He forces him to the outside, and then blocks the ball as the kid tries to kick it.

  “He’s really fast,” I say. “Like a rabbit.”

  “He might be the fastest person here,” Brock says.

  Brock holds up the
sign he just made during Resource, this study hall we get at the end of the day.

  TOMMY EATS ONLY BEEF AND YOUR TEARS it says.

  “Maybe everybody else is just really slow,” I say.

  A dad turns around and gives us a face like That’s rude.

  “Kelly is loving this,” Brock says. We watch Tommy’s mom follow him up and down the sideline with water bottles in each hand. Tommy runs a circle around another kid with the ball.

  “Hey.” Misty plops down next to me on the bleachers. Smells like the beach. “I have a present for you.”

  She digs into her backpack and hands me a picture of a doomsday bunker.

  “This is the Underground ArkMini—the best bomb shelter on the planet. It’s got everything: kitchen, toilet, water pressure pump, and a solar-generated charging system. Best part is, it’s underground, so it’s not really another structure.”

  “Yeah.” I already know the specs because anybody who knows anything about The End knows about the ArkMini. “Thanks.”

  “You should get this.”

  “It costs forty thousand dollars. Plus the money to dig the big giant hole to put it in.”

  “Isn’t your dad in construction? He could do it.”

  I stick it in my pocket. “I’ve got a shelter.”

  She shrugs. We watch soccer for a while. Brock whacks a hornet with his binder.

  “Can I get a ride home with you guys?” Misty asks. “I had bass cello lessons, but they’re over and my sister has swim practice until six.”

  “Kelly is taking us home,” I say. “We can ask her after practice, I guess.”

  “Cool.”

  A kid is winding up for a shot on goal when Tommy streaks in and boots the ball out of bounds.

  “He’s fast,” Misty says.

  “He might have jet fuel for blood.” Brock waves his sign.

  “That’s funny,” she says. “I got one—here.”

  Misty grabs the sign and flips it over. She pulls a Sharpie from her pocket—who carries a Sharpie?—and writes TOMMY’S DINER: NOW SERVING SPEED AND HUMILIATION.

  “Because he’s so fast,” she says. “And his speed humiliates his opponents.”

  “Boom,” Brock says.

  Misty gives him the sign back. “I really wanted to try out for the team, but my doctor said I can’t.”

  I say, “Why?” and Brock says, “Because of the cancer,” and then we’re both staring at the field waiting for her to say something.

  “’Cause of my kidney,” Misty says. “I got a transplant in June, so I can’t play contact sports for a while. Plus I’m not supposed to be in the sun that much. I’m on these medicines that make it really bad for my skin.”

  Kidney.

  Transplant.

  “Right,” I say. “Yeah.”

  “I’m totally fine and everything,” she says. “I mean, I almost died, but now I’m good.”

  “That would make a great sign,” Brock says. “For people to carry around hospitals and cheer sick people on to get better.”

  Misty does her choking donkey thing. Brock sort of grunts out a laugh. I look between them wondering how almost dying is funny. My fingers buzz a little and my palms feel kinda wet, so I rub them on my shorts really hard.

  Kidney.

  Transplant.

  The soccer coach blows his whistle to end practice. Tommy weasels out of Kelly’s mama bear hug and walks over to us.

  “Witness me, like, not being totally bad,” he says.

  Brock high-fives him and shows him the sign Misty made. “Because you’re fast and force-feed people lots of humiliation.”

  A soccer ball trickles over from the field. Misty runs at it full speed and boots it really hard but really awkwardly. It goes flying off at a side angle I don’t think she was aiming for. She’s grinning. She doesn’t care.

  “You know girls can play on the boys team,” Tommy says. “If, like, they’re playing another sport in the spring when the girls play.”

  “She can’t,” Brock says. “She almost died. But now she’s fine.”

  Tommy leans real close to Misty and says, “The cancer.”

  “No,” Misty says. “Kid-ney. And I’m totally fine.”

  “Like, for good?”

  “Yup.”

  “’Cause Kelly rented this movie where the kid got better but then he got sick again,” Tommy says. “Kelly was crying.”

  “Just Kelly?” Brock asks.

  “It’s not like that,” Misty says. “Literally impossible for it to come back.” She spots another ball on the sideline way down and rushes at it like a freight train, pulverizing it with her foot. It goes a little more straight.

  “Crushing life,” Brock says.

  “Why weren’t we friends with her before?” Tommy says. “She’s, like, the coolest person ever.”

  “Hmm,” I say.

  Before.

  1

  Beep-beep-beep goes the alarm on my watch.

  I launch upright and jam my feet into my shoes in one motion—super-clean.

  I throw the gas mask on and cinch the strap tight— perfect seal.

  I throw my go bag on and sprint out of my bedroom and down the hallway. Claudia is probably snoring and I might wake her up, but too bad. She should thank me, actually. Sleeping in this close to The Big Day is like swimming in a gator swamp.

  I fly down the steps three at a time and barrel out the back slider. I’m at the shed in twenty steps, opening the doors, and slamming them behind me. I hit the STOP button on my watch and rip the mask off to check the time.

  Thirty-two seconds.

  New record.

  I open the shed doors to let some air in. It’s only six thirty, but already super-humid. I really hope summer decides to get out of here in the next two weeks, or the shed is gonna be a sauna.

  I practice the whole escape plan three more times and then drink a gallon of water. I inventory all my supplies, rearrange my medical kit so I can get to the bandages easier, and then push the earth until I’m all sweaty again. I stink pretty bad, so I take a shower and head to the garage to make sure all my drill batteries are charged for when the steel door gets here.

  My dad pops his head inside. “Wanna go to the driving range and hit some golf balls?”

  “Nah.”

  “Batting cages are right there too,” he says. “Could do those.”

  “I’m good.”

  He stands for a couple seconds. “You sure?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I can wait till you’re done.”

  My phone buzzes and it’s Tommy saying I’m feeding Pete tomorrow come over. “It’s fine.”

  He goes away.

  I put the drills away and open the garage doors. Claudia never checks her tires, which is stupid because a blowout might send you into a ditch or into another car. I roll the air compressor out and do it for her, then go inside and make a giant turkey sandwich.

  “Thought you were going to hit golf balls,” Claudia says. She’s at the island taking notes from a giant textbook.

  “Nah.”

  “Would it kill you to do something with him?”

  “Yeah,” I say. “It might, actually.”

  I pile the turkey so high it’s ridiculous. Maybe this is the best sandwich ever, I’m not sure. Maybe I’m just so pumped to have gotten my time down to thirty-two seconds. Maybe I’m still coming out of that sleep hibernation.

  “So what happened with Misty the other night?” Claudia asks.

  “She wanted to take off a manhole cover. To see what was underneath.”

  “Did you?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I love that girl.”

  “Ugh.” I grab a Gatorade and wash down a huge chunk of turkey. “What’s even her deal, anyway?�
��

  Claudia doesn’t answer, just keeps taking notes. I think about Misty saying kidney transplant.

  “She was sick,” I say. “How bad was it? Was it bad?”

  Claudia looks up at me like Really?

  I look at my sandwich and chew for a while. My brain is whirling like crazy on kidney transplant, but I got nothing. “Just tell me. Jeez.”

  “It was pretty serious,” she says. “I forget the name of it—FSG something. She was in the hospital most of last year until the transplant.”

  That makes sense. I don’t remember seeing her in school. “When did it all start?”

  “October,” Claudia says. “Right after.”

  After.

  I’m watching her real close, wondering if that’s the end of her sentence. She stares back and says, “Derrick: You’re freaking me out.”

  “Gotta check on something,” I say, and get the heck out of there.

  2

  In my room, I email the company I bought the steel door from to see what the crap is going on. They send me this message that they’ll respond within two days, which is what they said when I emailed them last week, and they never did. I look at the big calendar above my desk and count backward from The End trying to figure out when is the last possible day the door could come and I’d still have time to install it. My room feels really hot, so I stand right under the AC vent and make fists, trying to get rid of that buzzing.

  “Dee,” Claudia calls up the steps. “Misty’s here.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know.”

  I go downstairs and meet her on the deck.

  “Do you have a net?” she asks.

  “What kind of net?”

  “Any kind. Fishing or butterfly net.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Huh,” she says. “Could you make one out of something? With a really long handle?”

  “I don’t know. Probably. For what?”

  “To catch a bird.”

  “What bird?”

  “Don’t worry about it,” she says. “Just will you make it or not?”

  “I can’t right now.”

  “Why not?”