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“Nobody really knows,” I say.
“Hey, no offense, but isn’t that fatal?”
Nobody’s come out and said it so directly. Gonzo’s just gone up a notch in my book. “Yeah. Supposed to be. They’ve got me on some experimental stuff.”
“Man. That sucks.” Gonzo adjusts his bed. The back rises up with a mechanical groan till he’s at a ninety-degree angle.
“So … what are you in here for?” I ask.
“Me? I’m in here a few times a year.”
“Oh,” I say, not sure if it has something to do with his Little Person status.
Gonzo pours his can of Rad XL soda into a plastic cup and swigs it, following up with an impressive belch. “My mom’s always convinced that there’s something terrible wrong with me and that I’m going to die. If I get a rash, she thinks it’s beri-beri. If I lose a little weight, she thinks I’ve got colon cancer or a tapeworm. If I get a cold she thinks it’s pneumonia. I think I hold the record for most chest X-rays ever performed on a single human being under the age of twenty.”
“How old are you?”
“Sixteen.”
“Me too.” I take another sip of my water. “What are you here for this time?”
“I took this growth hormone?” he says, like he’s not sure whether he took it or not. “It was supposed to help me get taller. Didn’t work. You probably figured that out already. Anyway, the stuff was made from cows—there was this whole class-action lawsuit—so when my mom read about you in the paper, she kinda freaked, wanted them to, you know, test my blood and stuff, make sure I wasn’t gonna … you know, go bovine.” His smile pushes his cheeks up like Venetian blinds, till his eyes have nowhere to go but into a squint.
“So,” I say. “What’s the word? Is your brain sponging out even as we speak?”
“No, dude. I’m good. But I’ve had this bad cough, too, so you know, gotta do the old chest X-ray and rule out pneumonia. Or TB. Or lung cancer.”
The phone beside Gonzo’s bed rings. He lets it ring twice, like he doesn’t want to pick it up, but the third ring he cuts short.
“Hi, Mom. Nah, I’m okay. Lunch? Some kind of gross, pureed chicken thing with mashed potatoes and carrots, a little pudding. Mom, how could the chicken be poisoned—it’s in a hospital? I’m not being mean. ¡No soy malo! Okay. Okay, okay, siento. Yes, they took me for the spinal. No. No meningitis, so I’m cool. Mom, I don’t have a brain tumor. I don’t! What do you mean? What article? Well that doesn’t mean … but not every dwarf gets it!”
Gonzo shifts down low in the bed. “When are you coming by? Can you bring me some books? My Big Philly Cheese Steaks CDs? Oh, and my Star Fighter DVD.”
Of course he’s a Star Fighter guy.
“All right. You too. Mom. I can’t. I can’t.” He sighs, then lowers his voice. “Love you, too.”
The minute Gonzo hangs up, he grabs an asthma inhaler from his bedside table, puts it in his mouth, and takes two huge puffs, finally letting everything out in a big exhale and a few dry hacks.
“You okay?” I ask.
He nods. “Yeah, dude. My mom was just freaking me out a little, that’s all. I’m her only kid. She raised me totally on her own and shit. My dad wasn’t up for kids, especially not a dwarf kid.”
“Oh,” I say.
“Hey, you like the Copenhagen Interpretation?” Gonzo asks. “Got the remix of ‘Words for Snow.’ Did you see the commercial they cut to that song for Rad XL: ‘For when you’re too much for any other soda!’? Dude, it is severe! Hey, do you like Star Fighter?”
“Who doesn’t?”
“Dude, I have that whole movie memorized! My favorite part? When Odin—right? He’s the old master?—when he says, ‘These Star Fighters are not worth the trouble. You will help them escape,’ and totally mind-numbs the guards into letting those guys go. Man, I wish I could do that to Mrs. Rector. ‘These are not the grades you wish to assign me, teacherling. You will reach for a higher letter or taste the righteous mojo of my Ultimate Peace Weapon.’ Awesome. Hey, do you—”
The phone goes off again. Gonzo’s jaw tightens. He stares at the phone like he’s afraid of it. He makes it to four rings this time. “Hi, Mom,” he says with a deep sigh. “You what? Mom. Why? Why did you look up the nutrition content of the hospital food on the Internet? No way. No, they don’t. They have to clean the table free of peanuts before they make the chicken, okay? I mean, it’s a hospital. I’m sure they’re super careful. No hago esto. I’m not asking for an EpiPen. Mom! You’re not listening to me …”
I turn over and slip my headphones on, scroll through the dial till I find my cache of Great Tremolo songs. One press, and Gonzo’s increasingly desperate arguing with his mom is drowned out by the familiar recorder-and-helium voice of my favorite cheesy musician. The notes swoop and fall, like someone trying to sing while being tickled. It’s the only thing that’s made me happy in the past two weeks, and I’m not letting go of it.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Of What Happens When I Am Assigned a Mission of Crazy Importance or Just Plain Craziness. Because Sometimes It’s Hard to Know the Difference.
