When the World Turned Upside Down, page 5
Ai dug through the kitchen drawer, wondering if she was doing the right thing. This was the second time she was hanging out with Shayla in one week. It would be so easy to slide back into her friendship with Shayla. But what if Shayla had apologized to her because they were all trapped in the building together and she had no one else to hang with? Ai didn’t want a pretend friendship. She didn’t want to fix things just to watch things fall apart all over again once school reopened.
She grabbed the can opener and went back to the hallway. Swiping the can out of Shayla’s hands, she turned away to hide what she was doing. She bumped the opener to the top of the can. Nothing happened. She twisted the can opener and clinked it against the can. Still nothing.
Shayla reached around Ai and snatched the can back.
“Let me hold it for you,” she said.
Ai frowned and grasped the can opener with both hands while Shayla held it in place. It was easier with Shayla’s help, but instead of thanking Shayla, Ai avoided catching her eyes. She stared at the can and tried everything she could think of—she wiggled the can opener, flipped it, then squeezed it, but still nothing happened.
“I don’t think that’s how it works,” Shayla said. “Let me try.”
They switched jobs and Ai watched Shayla go through the same struggles with the can opener. When she started tapping it against the top of the can, Kartika poked her head out of the door. Her dark hair was piled high on her head and her glasses were tucked behind her ears. She looked annoyed.
“I should have known it was you two out here. Why are you so noisy?”
Before they could respond, Kartika saw how Shayla was holding the can opener and burst out laughing. “Who taught you how to use a can opener?”
“So you come all the way out here to make fun of us?” Ai asked.
“I came out here to see who was making noise in the hallway,” Kartika shot back.
“Oh, sorry, didn’t mean to disturb your precious studying.”
Ai expected Kartika to snap back, but instead she locked eyes with Ai and stared at her softly. In those seconds, Ai felt the fullness of everything that had changed swim between them. If things were normal, Kartika would have been rude, but now that her father was always working and her mother had locked herself away, it seemed like Kartika had lost her spark.
“If I help you,” she said, “will the two of you go somewhere else?”
“Yep, you’ll have all the quiet you need,” Ai said, making her voice sugary-sweet.
“Hold the can,” Kartika said. She took the opener from Shayla and made a big show of opening it and clasping the round blade to the top of the can. She squeezed the arms until the blade broke through the metal with a pop.
“Oh!” Shayla said.
Ai and Shayla watched with fascination as Kartika turned the handle and the blade cut through the metal top. When Kartika was done, Shayla took the opener back. While she was examining the blade and handle, Ai snatched the opener out of her hand.
“Can you stop thinking about gadgets for a second? We don’t have time for this,” she snapped, and handed the opener to Kartika.
Ai pretended not to see the hurt expression on Shayla’s face and led the way back to Mrs. Connor’s. Ben was waiting there with masks and gloves. He handed the masks to the girls.
“Let’s double up,” he said.
Ai looked at Ben skeptically as she put the new mask on top of the mask she was already wearing. Then he handed them each a pair of blue plastic gloves.
“Ready?” Shayla asked when everyone had pulled on a pair of gloves.
Ai nodded and Ben pushed Mrs. Connor’s front door open. Ai looked at Shayla, silently trying to figure out which one of them should step in first. When Ai noticed Shayla tilt forward, she darted ahead and stepped in ahead of everyone else. Shayla and Ben walked in behind her and let the door slide shut. In an instant, all the light was sucked out of the air. A strong odor surrounded them, making Ai hunch in the hallway, clutching the open tin of dog food in her hands.
In that moment, Daisy whimpered.
“Daisy!” Shayla said, and moved past Ai. Light coming from deeper in the apartment showed Ai a shadow of Shayla’s body drifting down the hallway.
“Let’s go,” Ben whispered. Ai stepped forward, groaning “Owwww” under her breath when she banged into a shelf that jutted out from the wall.
Shayla was already crouching on the floor, rubbing Daisy’s fur, when Ai made it to the kitchen. Ai flicked on the light switch and gasped. Daisy—curled against the bottom of the cabinets—didn’t seem to have much energy to do anything more than wag her tail hopefully. That’s when she saw a row of empty dog food cans lined up on the counter. Daisy’s water bowl was lying on the other side of her, bone-dry. How many days had Daisy lain there, starving and terrified? Ai felt sadness pressing against her chest.
Daisy let out a desperate yelp and Shayla leapt into action. She stood and filled Daisy’s water bowl in the kitchen sink, then knelt again, holding the bowl close to Daisy’s face. For a few tense seconds, Ai held her breath as Shayla urged Daisy to drink. When Daisy finally started lapping up the water, Ai let out a sigh of relief.
Once Daisy lifted her head for herself, Shayla placed the water bowl on the floor, patted Daisy on the head, and backed away.
“Bring the food,” Shayla said.
But before Ai could move, she heard a rustling coming from the hallway. She shoved the can of food at Ben. She waited for Ben to approach Daisy with the food, then she slipped away. She was halfway down the hall when she heard Shayla whisper, “Ai, come back!”
“I just want to see if she needs help,” Ai whispered, tiptoeing farther down the hall.
“You’re not a doctor,” Shayla whispered back, but Ai didn’t stop. The second she heard the rustling, her mind latched on the need to check on Mrs. Connor. Everything else—all sound and thought of safety—faded away.
Just enough light filtered into the hallway to reveal the photographs in fancy frames covering the walls. There were black-and-white, old-timey baby pictures, brownish photos with people in old-fashioned clothing, colorful school photos and family group photos with kids who looked like they were her age. With all these people in Mrs. Connor’s life, Ai thought, how is it possible that no one knew that she was sick?
Ai heard a loud outburst of coughing coming from a room at the end of the hall. A streak of fear swept through her, but she couldn’t turn away. Her need to know if Mrs. Connor was in trouble was stronger than her fright.
She crept to the doorway and slowly peeked inside. The room was dark, but a part in the middle of the curtains let a spear of light shine through. Ai took a tiny step forward and felt a crinkling underfoot. She looked down and saw towels and frozen food bags scattered across the floor. Deeper into the room, there was a bucket next to the bed. Ai squinted at the bed and saw a mess of rumpled blankets and sheets spilling off the side of the mattress. The sheets moved and Ai backed up. Mrs. Conner rolled over and leaned over the side of the bed as a fit of coughing sounded out and shook her body.
Mrs. Connor’s coughing stopped as suddenly as it began. She caught her breath and looked up at the doorway. When their eyes met, Mrs. Connor stared at Ai for a few seconds. Ai stared back, wide-eyed, as Mrs. Connor shook her head as if trying to clear it. The hair around her face was wet and stringy and stuck to her skin. Her nightgown was dark with sweat.
“Mrs. Connor?” Ai said.
Mrs. Connor opened her mouth to speak, but another coughing fit grabbed hold of her.
Suddenly, Ai felt Shayla and Ben grabbing her from both sides and pulling her away from Mrs. Connor’s bedroom.
“She really is sick,” Ai said softly, like she couldn’t believe it was true. Her mind was spiraling through all the things they could do. They could tell the super, bring more food for Daisy, call 911, find her family, but none of her thoughts formed into words.
We have to help, she wanted to scream, but her brain felt completely disconnected from her ability to speak. All she could do was follow her friends as they swept her out of the apartment, with Mrs. Connor’s coughing echoing in her thoughts long after they had left the sick neighborhood behind.
Ben stood outside his front door and squeezed his hands together. Ringing the doorbell was the last thing he wanted to do. What he really wanted to do was teleport himself to his room and hide under the covers. But seeing Ai standing in the hallway while Mrs. Connor was having a coughing fit just a few feet away wasn’t really something Ben could hide. He wasn’t sure what his parents would think, but he knew that Mrs. Connor needed help—and they couldn’t do it alone.
He looked back at Ai and Shayla, then pressed the bell. When his mom pulled the door open, confusion swept over her face.
“Ben?” she said. When she saw Ai and Shayla behind him, she flashed them a warm, welcoming smile.
“Wait,” she said, closing the door. She reappeared wearing a mask.
“Mama, we have to call 911,” Ben said.
Her shoulders got tense and she ran her eyes over Ben’s face and body.
“Who’s hurt?” she asked, looking Ai and Shayla over.
“It’s not for us,” Shayla piped in.
“It’s Mrs. Connor,” Ai added.
When his mom looked at him again, Ben knew he’d better talk fast. He launched into the story, starting with Mrs. Connor asking for the dog food. His mom’s face got more and more red as he explained how they went into Mrs. Connor’s apartment and found Daisy. When he got to the part about hearing Mrs. Connor coughing in her bedroom, her eyes bugged out and she grabbed both sides of her head like it was about to explode.
“Abel!” she yelled.
Ben’s dad stepped into the open doorway and Ben was struck silent with fear.
“Well,” his mom said. “Tell your papa what you just told me.”
Ben glanced back at Shayla and Ai. There was nothing but warning in their eyes. He hadn’t mentioned that Ai had gone deeper into the apartment and forced him and Shayla to drag her out. Their faces told him he had better be careful about what he said. He launched into the story again. This time, he talked slower and chose words that made everything sound more safe and reasonable. But it didn’t matter how softly he spoke. His dad’s face tightened into the same shocked expression his mom’s had.
“Get in the apartment,” his father snapped.
Ben flushed with embarrassment. He felt heat on the back of his neck where he imagined Shayla and Ai were staring at him.
“Bye,” he muttered, peeking at the girls over his shoulder before stepping into the apartment. Ben held his breath as he passed, hoping his father wouldn’t say another word in front of Ai and Shayla.
“I’m disappointed in all three of you,” Ben heard his mom say.
“We just wanted to help,” Ai said.
“How much help would you be if you got the virus and infected your families?” his mom replied.
“But we were—” Ben wanted to say that they were safe, but before he got the word safe out, his mother cut him off midsentence.
“Inside,” she snapped, then she turned back to Ben’s dad. “I’m taking the girls home. I will let their parents know that they have been exposed.” Then she pushed her feet into a pair of slippers and charged out of the apartment. Without being asked, Shayla and Ai turned on their heels and followed.
When they had walked a few feet away, Ben’s father slammed the door shut and whirled around to stare at Ben. After a while, Ben’s eyes wandered away from his father and he stared at the shelf of Mexican pottery his mother brought back home every time they took a trip to south Texas to visit his grandparents. As he waited, tense and worried about what his father would say, he looked at the bowls and plates and animals his mother had collected.
Ben held himself perfectly still, waiting for his father to blink. After what felt like forever, his father let out a sigh and rubbed the sides of his forehead.
“I’m racking my brain trying to figure out what you were thinking,” he said.
“Daisy sounded like she was in trouble. We didn’t want anything bad to happen to her.”
His dad held his hands out. “A dog!” he said, lifting one hand. “Your life!” he said, lifting the other hand. “A dog,” he repeated. “Me and Mama’s life!” He seesawed his hands back and forth over and over again.
Ben hung his head down. His father didn’t understand. He didn’t even get a chance to tell him about the double masks and the gloves. And what about Mrs. Connor? They got her a Christmas card every year and always helped her with her groceries. When she asked for help, what was he supposed to do?
Ben peeked up to see that his father was no longer staring at him. He was pacing from the front door to the living room and then back again. Ben stood perfectly still as his father walked back and forth, muttering under his breath about tests, ambulances, and quarantine. Then, with a motion so sudden Ben felt the air brush across his cheek, his father charged out of the room.
Ben didn’t move. When his dad rushed back into the room with his phone in his hand, he was still standing in the some spot. His legs were starting to ache, but he didn’t dare walk away from his father, so he shifted his weight from one foot to the other as his father dialed 911 and pressed the phone to his ear.
He jiggled his legs as he listened to his father explain that a neighbor was sick with COVID-19. After sharing Mrs. Connor’s apartment number, his father had no other details to offer. He stared at Ben as he said “I don’t know” over and over.
Just when Ben felt like his knees were going to buckle, his father said “I understand” and clicked the phone off.
Ben tensed up, expecting his father to yell, but instead, he just reached down and squeezed Ben’s shoulder.
“Do you understand how serious this disease is?” His voice was angry but calm.
“Yes,” Ben said.
“You hear the sirens every night? The ambulances?” he asked. Ben nodded.
“Are you tracking them?”
Ben nodded again. He had created a chart in his notebook for tracking the number of ambulance sirens he’d heard since the beginning of the quarantine. When he started, he may have heard the ambulance once every few days. In the past week, though, he had heard sirens two or three times per night.
“And what do your observations tell you?” his father asked.
“That more people are getting sick?” Ben said. He ended his sentence like a question instead of a statement. He was confident about his research, but he was trying to make sure he said whatever his father wanted to hear.
“And if we are not careful—” Ben’s father leaned even closer and poked Ben softly in the chest. “If you are not careful, one of us will be next. Is that what you want?”
Ben shook his head. The idea of him or his parents being rushed to the hospital in one of those ambulances stabbed him in the chest. As his father hovered over him, his face warmed and he felt tears struggling to break through his calm. Ben’s dad held him by the chin and looked deeply into his eyes.
“Are you trying to bring the virus home to me and your mama?”
Ben pulled his chin away from his father’s fingers and shook his head. The tears felt even closer to the surface.
His father straightened up and crossed his arms.
“Go to your room and write down why it was irresponsible of you and your friends to go into Mrs. Connor’s apartment, then write an apology to me and your mother.”
Ben rushed out of the room, relieved to be able to walk away before his tears spilled over. As soon as he left the living room, they broke the surface. By the time he got to his room, tears were streaming down his face. He threw himself onto his bed and pressed his face into the pillow, trying to hide the sound of his wailing.
In the middle of his crying, he heard a muffled clattering coming from outside. He wiped his cheeks and went to his window. When he opened it, he heard the neighbors cheering and clapping. His father came to his room. His face wasn’t as angry and his energy was calmer. Without a word, he handed a spoon and pot to Ben, then rested his hand on Ben’s shoulder. Together, they joined voices with their neighbors to thank all the people in the hospitals and the ambulances who were taking care of people with the virus.
When the cheering was done, Ben heard the front door open. His father pointed to his desk and left the room to talk to his mother. He sat down at his desk. He didn’t want to think about his family getting sick—and he didn’t want to think about it being his fault. He heard his parents talking in low voices. Guilt punched him in the chest. It was bad enough that he had probably gotten Shayla and Ai in trouble, but he knew that if his parents started fighting, that would be one more thing he ruined today.
He stared at the family picture that sat on his desk. It was taken three years ago, so he was smaller. He was standing in his grandparents’ yard underneath a tiger piñata with a big stick in his hand. He was surrounded by cousins on both sides of him. His grandparents stood behind him. They each had a hand on his shoulder as if they wanted to keep him close. To the right of his grandparents were his aunts and uncles; to the left were his parents. They had their arms around each other and they were laughing. Looking at the photograph, Ben was sure that all the fighting between his parents wasn’t the way it was supposed to be. They belonged together, and maybe, somehow, if he didn’t cause any more trouble, they could get along again. He took a deep shaky breath, then he grabbed a few blank sheets of loose-leaf paper, gripped his pencil tightly, and started to write.
Liam was surprised to hear the doorbell ring right in the middle of the girls’ bath time.
On his way to answer it, he peeked at the couch. His mom was leaning on the armrest and she was fast asleep.
He was even more surprised when he opened the door and saw Ai standing there alone.
