His tongue was gone, cut out. His left cheek was numbed, lost. His left ear stopped hearing. It belonged to someone else now. This thing that was being born, this mineral thing replacing the wooden log, this disease replacing healthy animal cell.
He tried to scream and he was able to scream loud and high and sharply in the room, just as his brain flooded down, his right eye and right ear were cut out, he was blind and deaf, all fire, all terror, all panic, all death.
His scream stopped before his mother ran through the door to his side.
It was a good, clear morning, with a brisk wind that helped carry the doctor up the path before the house. In the window above, the boy stood, fully dressed. He did not wave when the doctor waved and called, ‘What’s this? Up? My God!’
The doctor almost ran upstairs. He came gasping into the bedroom.
‘What are you doing out of bed?’ he demanded of the boy. He tapped his thin chest, took his pulse and temperature. ‘Absolutely amazing! Normal, Normal, by God!’
‘I shall never be sick again in my life,’ declared the boy, quietly, standing there, looking out the wide window. ‘Never.’
‘I hope not. Why, you’re looking fine, Charles.’
‘Doctor?’
‘Yes, Charles?’
‘Can I go to school now?’ asked Charles.
‘Tomorrow will be time enough. You sound positively eager.’
‘I am. I like school. All the kids. I want to play with them and wrestle with them, and spit on them and play with the girls’ pigtails and shake the teacher’s hand, and rub my hands on all the cloaks in the cloakroom, and I want to grow up and travel and shake hands with people all over the world, and be married and have lots of children, and go to libraries and handle books and—all of that I want to!’ said the boy, looking off into the September morning. ‘What’s the name you called me?’
‘What?’ The doctor puzzled. ‘I called you nothing but Charles.’
‘It’s better than no name at all, I guess.’ The boy shrugged.
‘I’m glad you want to go back to school,’ said the doctor.
‘I really anticipate it,’ smiled the boy. ‘Thank you for your help, Doctor. Shake hands.’
‘Glad to.’
They shook hands gravely, and the clear wind blew through the open window. They shook hands for almost a minute, the boy smiling up at the old man and thanking him.
Then, laughing, the boy raced the doctor downstairs and out to his car. His mother and father followed for the happy farewell.
‘Fit as a fiddle!’ said the doctor. ‘Incredible!’
‘And strong,’ said the father. ‘He got out of his straps himself during the night. Didn’t you. Charles?’
‘Did I?’ said the boy.
‘You did! How?’
‘Oh,’ the boy said, ‘that was a long time ago.’
‘A long time ago!’
They all laughed, and while they were laughing, the quiet boy moved his bare foot on the sidewalk and merely touched, brushed against a number of red ants that were scurrying about on the sidewalk.
Secretly, his eyes shining, while his parents chatted with the old man, he saw the ants hesitate, quiver, and lie still on the cement. He sensed they were cold now.
‘Good-by!’
The doctor drove away, waving.
The boy walked ahead of his parents. As he walked he looked away toward the town and began to hum ‘School Days’ under his breath.
‘It’s good to have him well again,’ said the father.
‘Listen to him. He’s so looking forward to school!’
The boy turned quietly. He gave each of his parents a crushing hug. He kissed them both several times.
Then without a word he bounded up the steps into the house.
In the parlor, before the others entered, he quickly opened the bird cage, thrust his hand in, and petted the yellow canary, once.
Then he shut the cage door, stood back, and waited.
The end
