Aaron’s words come back to me: You didn’t have to attack him. And Shoshanna’s: Goon. That haunts me a little. I don’t regret stopping Joey from bullying Brendan, but was fighting really the only way to make that happen? Worse, I didn’t even consider trying to talk Joey down. I just grabbed the kid and manhandled him—the same way he was manhandling Brendan.
I get that the old Chase could be like that—before the accident. But now I’m starting to wonder if that person is still inside me, emerging from the darkness, bit by bit, along with my memory.
As weird as it was to lose my past, this might be even weirder: The more that comes back, the less I recognize myself.
Dr. Cooperman also pronounces me fully recovered physically. Then he drops the bomb: He still wants me off football for the rest of the season.
I must seem pretty devastated, because he adds, “It’s all out of an abundance of caution. You’re fine. But concussions can’t be taken lightly. We’re learning new things about the long-term effects every day.”
“I know you’re disappointed, honey,” my mom adds. “I understand how important football is to you.”
How can I explain it to them? Sure, I’d love to play, but what really bugs me is that football is my biggest connection to my old life. I don’t think I’ve had a single conversation with Dad that wasn’t about either my past gridiron glories or the ones he still expects me to have. And since the incident with Joey, the only Hurricanes who’ll talk to me are Aaron and Bear. Even with them, half the time I get the impression that their main interest is getting their team captain back. For sure, those guys are never going to forgive me for a) doing my community service when I don’t have to, and b) not hating it enough.
To be honest, I don’t hate it at all. One thing no one ever tells you when you’re laid up—like I was in the hospital—is how boring it is. You really appreciate anybody who comes to break the monotony. So now I get to be that person for the residents of Portland Street. It makes me feel good about myself. And that’s huge at a time when I’m learning I have so much to feel bad about.
Besides, I get stuff out of it too. I’ve learned how to play mah-jong, and I’ve picked up a lot of great tips on how to grow stuff, mostly from Mrs. Kittredge, whose room looks like a botanical garden. I think I’m going to be able to save a lot of Mom’s plants, and maybe even the ficus in Helene’s room—the one she bought at her preschool’s flower sale and is at least ninety-eight percent dead. That’ll make points with Corinne, who is losing her enthusiasm for the fallen leaves and the tiny white bugs that are all over them.
As for Mr. Solway—despite the fact that I’ve forgotten most of what’s happened to me, I feel confident saying he’s the coolest person I’ve ever met. Anyone who could jump onto a moving enemy tank, throw open the hatch, and take it out with a grenade has to be a pretty amazing guy.
Mr. Solway doesn’t see it that way. “That’s what I did, not who I am. If I’d bothered to think about it, I wouldn’t have done it. I’m not that stupid.”
The sad part is that Mr. Solway can’t find his Medal of Honor. Nurse Duncan thinks it probably got misplaced during Portland Street’s big repainting project, and it will turn up sooner or later. But he’s convinced he flat-out lost it.
“I haven’t been as sharp since my wife died,” he tells me. “We never had kids, so we were the whole world to each other. She looked after everything, and I looked after her.” He sighs. “You can see which one of us did a better job. When she was gone, that’s when my life pretty much ended. This”—a sweep of his arm takes in the room—“is marking time.”
I hate it when he talks like that. “Come on, Mr. Solway. You’ve got a good life here. Plenty of friends.”
He glares at me. “Have you ever asked about me around this place? Old ladies on crutches do the hundred-yard dash when they see me coming. I’ve got my own personal table for one in the dining room. The nurses all call me Mr. Happy Face—they think I don’t know, because they assume I’m just as deaf as everybody else in this funny farm.”
“I’m getting the sense that, before my accident, I was kind of Mr. Happy Face at my school,” I confide to him.
“I could have told you that,” he replies. “When you first showed up here, you were just like those other two good-for-nothings—maybe the worst of the three. Sometimes a whack on the head is exactly what a fellow needs.”
That’s a pretty harsh thing to say to someone with amnesia. But that’s just the way Mr. Solway is. He isn’t being mean; he’s being honest. He’s lived a long time and been through a lot, and he doesn’t feel like he has to pull any punches. I respect that more than anything.
“That ‘whack on the head’ cost me thirteen and a half years of my life,” I remind him.
“Remembering is overrated,” he assures me. “You know that heroic act that earned me that fancy medal? I don’t remember one second of it. The only reason I know what happened is from the report my captain filed with headquarters.”
“I guess when you get older it’s hard to hang on to every detail,” I offer.
He shakes his head. “It isn’t old age; it’s looking into a T-34 tank after a grenade’s gone off inside it. Not a pretty sight. That was the medic’s explanation, anyway. You block out what you can’t face.”
“They were the enemy,” I say gently. “There was a war on.”
“They’re always the enemy when they’re shooting at you, kid. But a dead man doesn’t care what uniform he’s wearing. I’m better off forgetting the whole rotten business, medal and all.”
That’s another thing I have in common with Mr. Solway. We’re memory-loss buddies. I wonder if I blocked out what a jerk I used to be because I can’t face it. I don’t think it’s the same thing, though. Besides, my lost past has started to come back.
I wouldn’t exactly call it a tsunami of recollection. More like that water torture where the blindfolded prisoner feels a drip on his head just often enough to drive him crazy anticipating the next one. I can’t even be sure they’re real memories—blowing out candles at what could have been one of my birthday parties, a view of the Hollywood sign that might have come from our family trip to California, being crushed under a dog pile of football players—a flashback to one of my sports triumphs?
Who can tell? My mind plays tricks on me. Last night, I had a dream about cherry bombs going off inside a piano, scaring some poor kid half to death, and woke up in a cold sweat. But when I checked the school yearbook for a picture of Joel Weber, he wasn’t the guy in my dream. That was no memory—just the product of a guilty conscience.
My theory is my brain invents fake memories of things I heard about, because I’m trying so hard to remember stuff. I even had a nightmare from the Korean War, and for sure I was never there. I actually saw myself in uniform, climbing up the side of a tank like Mr. Solway did. I yank open the hatch, pull the pin on my grenade, but when the soldiers inside look up at me, I can’t bring myself to drop it in on them. I just hang there, not knowing what to do, until the grenade goes off in my hand.
Believe it or not, the impression from before my accident that seems the most vivid is that little girl. Sometimes so much so that I feel like I should be able to reach out and touch the white lace on her blue dress, or the red ribbon in her hair. I have to question whether she’s any more real than the dreams. She never moves. She just stands there, not looking at me, but off to the side somewhere.
She must be important, though. She’s the one image that was still with me when I woke up in the hospital.
I wonder who she is.
School triggers a few memories too, but they’re mostly random images and feelings of déjà vu. There’s nothing solid enough to be useful—I still don’t really know the faculty, the kids, or the custodians. I’m just now learning my way around a building I’ve been attending since the sixth grade. I obviously don’t remember what a lousy student I was, because my teachers are all so impressed with how well I’m doing now. Some
of them seem like they’re ready to faint when I actually hand in a homework assignment.
Video club is the one place that’s brand-new to me because it actually is. We’ve collected a ton of footage for the yearbook. I’m lagging behind the other members, since most kids run a mile when they see me coming. I always shout, “Brendan sent me!” so they’ll know I’m not looking for trouble. Ms. DeLeo wants me to work on my interviewing skills, because my subjects seem so ill at ease. Yeah, no kidding. They’re all waiting for me to pull their underwear up over their heads and stuff them into the nearest locker.
At least the video kids are getting used to having me around—except Shoshanna, who hates me for good and always. I can’t blame her, even though I have no memory of what Aaron, Bear, and I did to her brother. It’s pretty strange to be despised for something that, in your mind, never happened—and to someone it seems like you never met.
She’s stopped fighting with me directly. Mostly she makes pointed comments about how the club should have closed up membership while they had the chance. That’s unfair, because I’m not even the last to join. Kimmy got here after me, and if I’m a newbie, I don’t know what you call her. She doesn’t know a camera from a kumquat. For her interview with the head cheerleader, she left the lens cap on, so there was audio and no video. On her second try, she zoomed in so close that all you could see was a mouth talking.
I think Brendan has kind of a crush on Kimmy, because he won’t hear anything bad about her. Shooting a mouth but no face is “expressionism” and “lens caps are too analog for a digital age.”
Whatever.
Brendan’s true love, though, is YouTube. This afternoon, he shows us his latest clip of a tiny goldfish bravely swimming against the pull of a bathtub drain, while electric guitars roar in the background. Just as the struggling creature is about to be sucked away to his doom, a toilet plunger slams down over the drain opening, saving his life.
Brendan pauses the video to scattered applause. “I call it Plunger Ex Machina,” he announces grandly.
Shoshanna doesn’t approve. “You’re wasting your time with this stuff. You should be helping me with my entry for the National Video Journalism Contest. It would be a huge boost for the club if we win.”
He brushes her off. “The kind of Internet traffic I’m trying to generate isn’t going to come from some senior citizen reminiscing about the good old days.”
“That depends on who we pick,” Shoshanna insists. “Seniors have lived through amazing times and accomplished incredible things. We just have to find the perfect subject—”
Before I realize who I’m talking to, I blurt, “You should talk to Mr. Solway over at Portland Street.”
Her angry eyes skewer me. I’ve contaminated her precious project with the sound of my voice. Another of my crimes against humanity, like bullying her brother, and not dying when I fell off the roof.
“Who’s Mr. Solway?” Kimmy asks.
“A hero from the Korean War. He won the Medal of Honor—that’s the highest award any soldier can get.”
“And how would you know someone like that?” Shoshanna demands. It’s obvious she doesn’t believe a word out of my mouth.
“I work there—Aaron, Bear, and me. It’s our community service for …” My voice trails off. She of all people knows exactly what we’re doing community service for.
“He sounds perfect,” Brendan agrees.
“Maybe I can get him to ride a tricycle through the car wash,” Shoshanna retorts icily.
“At least talk to the guy,” Hugo prods.
Ms. DeLeo wades in to play peacemaker. “I know you’ll find a way to make the school proud,” she says to Shoshanna. “And thank you, Chase, for a marvelous suggestion.”
Shoshanna’s cheeks darken through pink and red to full crimson.
I hope I never hate anybody as much as that girl hates me.
I get it. We’re nerds. The video club, I mean.
We own it too—take something meant as an insult and be proud of it. Nerd Power. After all, the shoe totally fits. We wouldn’t be as happy doing whatever it is the so-called cool people do.
That’s how I always looked at it. We are who we are, and we’re good with it. I figured the others felt the same way. Who cares what the popular kids think of us?
Was I ever wrong about that! As soon as someone from the A-list showed even the slightest interest in video club, we all went weak in the knees and lined up to love him.
My friends used to act like attention from the cool people meant nothing to them because they never thought they’d get any. But now that they’ve had a little taste, they’re hooked.
Brendan—who was bullied by Chase almost as much as Joel was—has turned into Chase’s biggest fan. And none of those sheep can stop raving about Chase’s “amazing” suggestion for my National Video Journalism Contest entry.
I can think of a lot of words to describe Chase, and amazing isn’t any of them. Except maybe that it’s amazing he isn’t in jail.
On the other hand … well, that contest is important to me, and it’s not like I’ve got a better idea. I did a little research, and the Medal of Honor turns out to be just as special as Chase says it is. Even a broken clock gives the correct time twice a day.
I figure I’ll go talk to this Mr. Solway. If he really did win a Medal of Honor, I owe it to myself to check him out.
On the walk over to Portland Street, my phone pings. A message from Joel.
JWPianoMan: Where u?
Shosh466: In town.
JWPianoMan: Hot date?
Yeah, right. With a guy who must be at least eighty. I thumb back:
Shosh466: Video club business.
JWPianoMan: ???
Shosh466: Meeting possible subject for contest video. Korean War hero.
JWPianoMan: Wow, where’d you find him?
I hesitate. I never told Joel that while he’s suffering at Melton, Chase has moved in and taken over his spot in the video club. It would only make a miserable situation worse. And I’m definitely not going to admit that Chase put me onto Mr. Solway. I don’t like keeping secrets from my brother, but there are some things you just can’t say. Maybe, in a few months, if Joel starts fitting in at boarding school and making some friends there—or at least not hating it—I can break the news to him and he won’t care so much.
So I message back:
Shosh466: Friend of a friend.
I put away my phone, praying that he doesn’t ask for more information. Joel is a cross between a prosecuting attorney and a bloodhound if he gets the idea that you’re holding out on him. Especially now, when he’s lonely and bored, with nothing better to do than think about home.
At Portland Street, I ask at the desk, and they direct me to room 121. As I make my way through the halls, I get a sense of just how elderly some of the residents must be. My grandfather is seventy-three, and he still Rollerblades every morning. These people are way older than him. A lot of them must be in their nineties, and maybe even over a hundred.
The door of 121 is ajar, so when I knock on it, it swings open.
“Mr. Solway?” I ask tentatively.
A gruff voice announces, “We don’t want any.”
“I’m—uh—not selling anything.” I step farther into the room and get my first view of him. I can’t see him directly, since he’s facing away from me, watching a news channel on TV. He’s short but sturdy, with thick white hair. “I just want to talk to you. I’m in the video club at my school and—”
“You call yourself a governor!” he bellows suddenly at the TV. “You couldn’t run a hot dog cart! You’re an idiot!”
I keep talking. I do that when I’m nervous. “And there’s this national contest where you have to interview a senior citizen who’s had an interesting life—”
He turns in his chair and fixes me with his burning gaze. “Do I know you?”
I’m still babbling. “And I heard you won the Medal of Honor in the Korean War—
”
He reddens. “Is that what this is about? That medal doesn’t make me any more special than a lot of other people who were there. Go interview one of them and leave me out of it.”
I’m trying to be reasonable. “Don’t you want your story to be told?”
“No. It’s my story. It’s enough for me to know it.”
By now, I’ve caught sight of the picture of President Truman hanging the medal around a younger Mr. Solway’s neck, and I’m convinced that he has to be my subject. “A lot of kids my age don’t understand the sacrifices people like you made for our country.”
“Don’t flatter me, kid. I’m eighty-six years old, and there’s precious little left of me to flatter. I don’t want to be interviewed. I don’t want to be thanked. All I want is for the dining room to stop serving creamed spinach.”
I’m completely defeated. The guy is impossible—absolutely determined to stew in his own misery. He almost reminds me of Joel, who is so ticked off at where he ended up that he can’t allow himself to try to make the best of it. Because then he’d have nothing to complain about, and complaining is the only thing that keeps him going.
The difference is that Joel has every right to be angry at the curveball life pitched him; this old creep is just plain mean.
I’m about to back out the door in defeat when a familiar voice announces, “Good news, Mr. Solway—I snagged the last prune Danish.”
There he is—the Alpha Rat of my family’s nightmares, bearing a pastry on a paper plate. He’s got a name tag on, proclaiming him to be CHASE—VOLUNTEER.
The change in Mr. Solway is incredible. His crabby glower morphs into a grin that lights up the room. Come to think of it, it makes perfect sense: Who can cheer up a miserable jerk who would never give anybody else the skin off a grape? Only another miserable jerk, someone even nastier and more selfish. The two of them were made for each other.