her attention away from the mild pain on her arm and into the eyes of a mortified little boy. She took his hand and led him to the nurse’s office.
Ms. Lasko is…
Ms. Lasko is…putting vodka in her thermos.
Ms. Lasko is…chewing gum to cover the smell.
Christopher lay on the hard plastic cot in the nurse’s office. His head ached and his forehead was hot with fever. He tried to see the thermometer over the bridge of his nose, but his eyes crossed. He could barely see the numbers climbing.
99. 100. 101.
He looked over at the nurse treating the burn on Ms. Lasko’s arm. She slowly rubbed a cream on the blisters and wrapped it loosely with gauze.
“Just keep it wrapped,” the nurse said. “The blisters will be gone in a day or two.”
The thermometer beeped. The nurse came back and grabbed it out of Christopher’s mouth.
“One hundred and two degrees,” she said. “Stay here. We’ll call your mother.”
The nurse thinks…
The nurse thinks…I hurt my neck on purpose.
Ms. Lasko and the nurse walked into the office next door to call Christopher’s mother. Christopher suddenly panicked. If his mother knew he was sick, she would never let him out of the house. No school. No tree house. No way to help the nice man. But it wasn’t just the fever. His mother would see the urine stains on his corduroy pants and the cuts on his neck. She would ask him questions. Questions he could never answer. Because the hissing lady was watching him now.
“Excuse me, Ms. Lasko? May I clean up in the bathroom?” Christopher asked.
“Of course, Christopher.” She smiled.
Ms. Lasko is…
Ms. Lasko is…thinking about the drink in her thermos.
Ms. Lasko is…drunk drunk drunk all day in school.
Christopher slipped into the hallway and rushed to the first-floor boys’ bathroom. There were no kids in there. No boys doing “long shots” into the urinals. Christopher was finally alone. He looked up at the clock. The test wouldn’t be over for another five minutes. There was time. He quickly stripped off his pants and ran the cold water. He put his corduroy pants into the water and started to rub them back and forth. Throwing in a little soap. Trying to rub out the urine stains. But they wouldn’t come out. He scrubbed over and over. Manically cleaning and rinsing and cleaning and rinsing. But nothing worked. His pants got wetter and wetter. His cheeks redder and redder. His face flushed with shame.
It’s not working. She’s going to see my pants.
She’s going to see my neck.
She won’t let me go to the tree house.
Christopher knew he had to get back to the tree house. Promise or no promise, he needed to find the nice man before the hissing lady killed him. What if he was too late? What if the nice man was like the autumn leaves of the woods? When the branches went bare, the nice man would be gone. And Christopher would be alone.
He looked up at the clock. He had two minutes left. He stopped the water and wrung out his pants. He held them up to the hot-air dryer. He hit the button and let the hot air fill his corduroys like balloons in the Balloon Derby. He looked at himself in the mirror, and rolled his turtleneck sweater up to cover his neck like he did when he was afraid of vampires. He hit the dryer again and saw the brown chestnut color get a little more faint. But it wasn’t drying fast enough.
It needs more heat.
Where am I going to get more heat?
Christopher closed his eyes and felt the heat rising on his forehead. He pictured the Mission Street Woods. The branches bare except for the evergreens like Christmas trees. Christmas trees all in a row.
And they were burning.
Christopher looked up at the clock. Two minutes had gone by in a daydream, and he was standing in his tighty whities, holding his pants up to the blow dryer. The pants were so dry, they were hot in his hands. Brady Collins and his group of friends stepped into the bathroom as Christopher tried to put his pants back on.
“No, we’ll take those!” Brady said, snatching them out of his hands.
“Give them back, Brady,” Christopher said.
“Give them back, Brady,” Brady Collins mocked. His friends joined in a chorus of mocking. “Please, don’t eat me!” “Please, don’t kill me!” They walked forward, pushing Christopher out into the hallway. Christopher landed on the ground in front of Jenny Hertzog and a