I sat in my bed, in my tiny apartment, wondering where it had all gone wrong. I'd been doing that a lot lately. I was halfway to heaven, a little over fifty years old, and I couldn't help but think that they were, pretty much all of them, wasted years.

It hadn't always been so. I was, supposedly, an academic prodigy. All my teachers had said so. But here I sat, not even a college degree. Never lived up to my potential--too easy to take the easy way out and just do enough to get by in class and just be average. I could be brilliant later. I was always a loner, not many friends, not by personal choice. I’d thought things were looking up when I got married. I was wrong there, too. Everything was fine at first, in fact, better than fine. But then it went away. The breakup was amiable. I had a couple of flings after that, but love seemed beyond my reach.

So I sat there thinking (cue the sad violins) "Who would want me?" I was overweight. Smoked a pack a day. Lived in a dump. Locked in a job that sucked. Really. What did I have to offer?

I decided to give up thinking about it...and pretended to read. Then, all of a sudden, I didn't feel so good. It felt like someone clamped a set of vise-grips around my chest. At first, I thought it was heartburn. That was something I got regularly, but this was bad. The pain ran across my chest and traveled down my arm. Stabbing pains shot through the muscles of my neck and I began to realize that this was the real thing.

I was having a heart attack.

Geez, it figured, I told myself; although I'd always thought I would come down with lung disease before my heart packed it in. As I said earlier, my cigarette habit was up to a couple of packs a day.

I looked at the phone, thinking I should call 911 and get some help. But the pain turned to white-hot agony when I tried to sit up. I flopped back onto the bed and gasped for air. What was the point in calling for help? I mean, who would miss me? Maybe my parents. But they were old. My brother? Yes, but he lived on the other side of the country. I hadn't seen him in years. And my sister and I didn't get along. That took care of just about everybody who would notice, so maybe it was better this way. Maybe it was time for me to pack it in. Meet God and see if Heaven was all it was cracked up to be.

I closed my eyes and the pain, if anything, increased.

I felt something crack inside my chest and, for an instant, felt a deep sense of peace flow through me.

Then everything went black.

When I came to, it was morning.

I lay there, puzzled. One deep breath. Another. No pain at all. I could feel the blood coursing through my veins and arteries. Everything felt okay. Maybe I hadn't died after all.

I opened my eyes and looked around. I wasn't in my room. I wasn't even in my apartment. What the--? I frowned. Something was familiar here. I had the distinct impression I'd been in this room before...and then it hit me. Yeah, right. This was my room, but I hadn't been there since my childhood. How did I get here, I wondered. Then I wondered how the room could be here. My parents' house had been torn down years ago.

I swallowed and looked around.

The room looked exactly like it did during my childhood, but the Beatles posters were missing from the walls. I remembered putting them up back sometime when I was in the eighth grade. I looked at my feet under the covers and felt a sudden shock. I was thin, ridiculously skinny! But I had only been that way when I was small. I didn't get fat until after I quit college the first time.

This had to be a dream, I decided. Didn't it?

I heard the door open, the one outside my room and down the stairs.

"Charles!" I heard. "Get up! You don't want to miss the bus to school!"

"Okay, Mom," I grumbled, seemingly automatically. And then...wait a minute. School? Mom? What was going on here? Where was I? Or, more accurately, when was I? I got up, stumbled over to the mirror in my room, and looked at myself. What looked back was a kid who looked to about twelve. It was me, but I was fourteen years old. When I was a kid, I always had looked a couple of years younger than I was. It was one of the many crosses I had borne. All the grown-ups thought it was cute but I never did. This had to be a dream.

I slapped myself. I pinched myself. Anything to wake up, but it didn't work. Okay, fine, I told myself. Just go back to sleep. When you wake up, you'll be back in your apartment and everything will be fine.

I went back to sleep...and the alarm went off.

"Charles! Get up! Breakfast is almost ready!"

If this was a dream, I was still in it. I got up, found some clothes, and pulled them on. Gathered up my books. What grade was I in? Eighth, a part of my brain supplied. Oh, yeah. Right. Eighth grade. Shit.

As I got ready for school, every move seemed automatic. It was as if I had two sets of memories. The first set, the prominent, or, dominant, set contained all the events of my life up to the heart attack. The other set of memories were sort of floating around in the background. They were the memories of the kid, Charles. These memories I could access almost like a database or something--memories of things that I wouldn't have been able to remember after all these years. The little things--day-to-day stuff, like where I kept my clothes, what day it was, my class schedule. Stuff like that.

I sat on my bed, thinking. While I was thinking, I realized that I wanted a cigarette. No, needed a cigarette. Whoa! How could that happen? It must be the older me needing the smoke. It had to be. The younger Charles hadn't started smoking yet. So, the craving is psychological, I told myself. Get over it.

I headed downstairs.

Mom and Dad were there. I took one look at Dad and had a shock. Boy, did he look young! Oops. Of course, he looked young, I told myself. Or, more accurately, younger. Mom also looked...well...shockingly young. She would've only been, what, thirty-four? And I was looking at her with eyes that were fifty, yesterday--well, of course she looked young. My sister Carol--who was maybe ten or eleven--was sitting at the breakfast table. So was my brother, Craig, who had turned nine in July.

Mom was dishing out bacon and eggs and we ate, while that "other" set of memories kept me acting how I was supposed to act, saying what I usually said, letting me know what current jokes were passing through the family.

After breakfast I trudged off to school. I instinctively remembered where it--and the bus stop--was, too. I kept asking myself, How can this be real? When do I wake up? Quite honestly, if some supreme being he decided to send me to Hell, plunking me down at the beginning of my eighth-grade year would have been diabolically clever. Eighth grade had been the worst time of my life. I couldn't remember a lot of it but most of what I did remember was one long unhappy blur of emotional pain and agony and loneliness.

That was the year I went to school every day knowing I had a fifty-fifty chance of getting the living daylights beaten out of me. I had no friends. I was skinny. Not physical or into sports. I was smart enough to wreck the curve for the other students in my classes, since I could ace the tests most of the time without really cracking the books. A lot of the stuff bored me, so sometimes I would refuse to do my homework, which didn't make the teachers like me, either.

I sat on the bus, by myself, and it all washed over me. I felt despair creep in. I began to remember, in detail, just how horrific my eighth-grade year had been...and now I was going to live through it again. Whose idea of a sick joke was this? Hell was looking like a good explanation.

I didn't get beat up that morning, but I was pushed around a bit. I was also taunted, but it was the pushing and the physical intimidation which bothered me more. This time. I mean, this time around. When you're a kid, you think that's just the way it is. Some things will never change. And so, I was confronted with my fourteen-year-old physical weaknesses. A skinny kid who looked a couple of years younger than everybody else was a tempting target for all the bullies and low-life’s who are part of any group of kids.

I ate lunch and headed for English class. After that, I made it through the rest of the school day relatively unscathed and got on the bus to go home. When I got home, I did my homework before supper. Not that I had much to do. As I said, I got good grades without cracking a book. Then, homework done, I wandered around my room, looking for something to do. To my delight, I found a book; one of my favorites in my childhood. It was a large compendium of science fiction. I hadn't seen it in years and thought it had gotten lost. I fell asleep reading it and dreamed uneasily; wondering where or when I would wake up.

By my fourth day "back" it had sunk in that this was going to be real--or as real as reality gets, anyway. It looked like I was going to be stuck here. What I decided I needed to do was be an eighth grader and use my older experiences and memories to make this time period better for me. I was, as a fifty-year-old, much more confident and, relatively speaking, witty and eloquent. I'd outgrown my nervous habit of stuttering when I got excited, and I could draw on that, use it for me, not against me. I started looking for things to change.

On Saturday, I asked Dad about the possibility of purchasing a weight set. At first, he looked shocked that his lazy, bookworm son would want to lift weights, but he was all for it. We went right out and found a set. I started lifting weights and I started running. I also decided I needed to learn how to study, so I wouldn't wash out of college again.

The next couple of weeks went fine. I was still experimenting with how I reacted to things. Just subtle changes. But I was trying to change my attitude and tried to walk around with more confidence. It seemed to be working, somewhat.

It was about this time that I realized something. I knew the future. I knew what stocks were going to be doing well when I was fifty. But what could I do with that information? I was just a kid, here. Who would believe me when I made stock purchase suggestions? I would have to figure something out about that. What, I didn't know, but something. I also wondered what would happen to the future I came from if I changed too many things here. Would it be a case of a butterfly's wings flapping in Malaysia causing some catastrophic event later on? I didn't know.

Anyhow, I found an old guitar that one of my aunts had bought me a few years back. It was a nice acoustic. I knew that this was about the time I had started playing the guitar the first time around. Of course, this time around, I learned much more quickly. In my future, I had been playing the guitar for fun for more than thirty years.

So I was suddenly a different son to my parents. I quit moping in my room. Instead, I was actually reading my textbooks, doing my homework without complaint, and spending hours running. I got odd looks from them but ignored their confusion. After all, I was becoming the model son, wasn't I? Wasn't that what every parent wanted?

Saturdays were spent running. I alternated my running routine so I wouldn't get bored. Some Saturdays, I went for a couple of miles in a loop, heading through the neighborhoods to the east of our house. Sometime I headed through Cabot Park. a neighborhood a half mile in the other direction from my house.

A lot of kids I knew lived in Cabot Park. One of them was Kathy. I never ran down her street, Roosevelt, but I did run through the adjacent subdivision. One of her friends, Kelly Stevens, lived there. I'd known Kelly since the first grade. Kelly had actually been my first crush, back in the third and fourth grade. Of course, when I was that young, I showed my affection by throwing various bugs, dirt, and other critters at her. As I ran up Mohican Drive, there they were, Kathy and Kelly, walking together.

"Charlie?" Kelly said as I ran towards them.

I hated being called "Charlie." My name was "Charles" and I knew Kelly was doing that deliberately. In fact, she had instigated a conspiracy with all the other girls I knew to have everyone call me "Charlie." But I would be cool, I said to myself. You know better than to get wound up. Your voice will crack and then you'll start stammering. So, I kept it simple.

"Hi," I said as I came to a stop by them.

"Hey, you've taken up running?" Kelly said.

"Yep," I said and nodded. "And I'm lifting weights now." I hesitated and then added, "I'm really sick and tired of being out of shape."

"Good for you!" Kathy said with genuine enthusiasm.

"You're not fat, though," Kelly said.

"I will be," I said and laughed. "If I don't watch out. I just had a growth spurt this past year. When everything catches up...well, fat runs in my family. I'm going to try and break the mold."

"Oh," Kelly said, as if she wasn't really certain she understood what I meant but agreeing, anyway.

"I'm also getting tired of getting picked on in school," I added.

"Yeah," Kathy chimed in with what sounded like sympathy. Maybe she wanted to get into the conversation. "I notice everybody seemed to be picking on you last year."

"I hope I don't get fat," Kelly piped in, "because I can't touch anything right now with this thing on." Kelly gestured toward the large brace on her back. She had been diagnosed with scoliosis and her doctor had put her in a brace. At the beginning, Kelly had fought against wearing it--saying it made her look like a freak--but her parents had put their foot down.

"That brace doesn't look so bad," I said. "Just don't eat." The three of us laughed and then I asked, "How long will you be in that thing, anyway?"

A sour expression appeared on her face. "Six months to a year. Maybe longer," she replied, her voice dark.

"That sucks," I said, "but it's all for the best." I gave her a pat on the shoulder. "Just hang in there, okay?"

A smile appeared like a ray of sunshine. "Thanks."

I nodded my head in an imitation of a little bow. "Least I could do." I looked around. "Well, back to running. See you later, ladies."

At the one-month mark, I took a day off from running and sat in the city park, thinking. Things were going fairly well. I had accepted that this second childhood was "real" and that I was not going to be waking up to my old life any time soon. My parents had expressed surprise with the speed with which I had learned to play the guitar. I'd also gotten a paper route, started making some money and bought a bunch of new clothes. I would never be outrageously handsome, but I figured that I could dress better. I also got new glasses. I couldn't get contacts--at that time they were way too expensive--but I could get glasses that weren't so damned ugly, like the ones I had picked out the first time around. I don't know what that other me had been thinking when he'd picked those the first time.

The new glasses were noticed by all. My parents began making references to the "stranger in the house" and even my sister noticed them. I was now in control of things. I had changed myself and began working on plans to change our family finances. I was now a fixer, not a loser. Like a god, I could change everything for the better. I could fix all the problems that had plagued me all my life.

Then God spoke and said, No you can't. Not everything.

I was sitting in the lunchroom eating lunch when I felt a hand on my shoulder. I looked up and there was Beth Adler. I had known her since we were toddlers. I felt something throbbing in the back of my head. Why hadn't I seen her here before? I had been so busy running and stuff I guess I hadn't noticed. Where had she been? Then my brain supplied the answer and I said, "Beth! You're back? You're out of the hospital?"

"Yup," she said and nodded. "Chemo's over and I'm in remission. Cross your fingers." Then she grinned and walked away.

The throbbing got worse and I almost ran for the boy's restroom. Luckily there was no one in there. I was alone. I went into a stall and the tears started almost immediately. Beth had leukemia and I knew she would go out of remission and be dead and buried before the Easter holidays. I had lived through it once before and now I was going to have to go through it again. There was nothing I could do to change what was going to happen to her. I didn't have a cure for leukemia in my back pocket. It still hadn't been cured in my time. There were better treatments, bone marrow transplants had become commonplace treatment, but they still didn't always work.

I took the next day off from school, pleading illness. Since I hardly ever missed school, Mom let me get away with it. In fact, I think she might have been secretly relieved. This was more like the "old" me. I stayed in my room all day, thinking. I wasn't too proud of the way I had dealt with Beth during last days of her illness. So, I decided that that was what I was going to change this time around.

Beth was strong-willed and smart. She could detect a con or a platitude the instant it hit her ears. She knew exactly what was wrong with her. In the beginning, she had demanded to be told everything, no matter how bad. And then she had gone to the library to make sure what they had told her was the truth. For her strain of leukemia, the survival rate was five per cent for five years. Twenty-five per cent lived two years. Half lived for one. It was a death sentence and she knew it.

So, this time around, I would be the supportive friend that I wasn't the first time around. This time, I would be different.

It was strange, but after I made the decision, I didn't feel any better. I felt like I should do more. Do a little pushing back against God or Fate or whoever had decided that Beth had to die before she had even had enough time to be alive. After supper, I was sitting with my Dad. He asked if I was feeling better and I told him that I was.

Then I said, "I had a really strange dream last night."

"Oh?" Dad said. "What was it?"

I put on an uncomfortable look. "You might think it's strange. Like I'm clairvoyant or something."

He gave me an odd look and then laughed uneasily. "Okay. Let's hear it and I'll tell you if you've got ESP."

I gave him my intense, serious look. "The message in the dream was kind of murky." I paused and then said, "Eye protection."

He stared at me. "Eye protection?" he echoed, his voice puzzled.

"Yeah," I replied, nodding my head. "I know the dream was about you, so if you even have a glimmer of a thought that you might need eye protection, get some. Don't take a chance."

An expression of skepticism had replaced the puzzled one, but after a moment he nodded and said, "Okay, Charles. I'll keep that in mind."

"Thanks."

There was no dream, of course. But sometime during the next three months my Dad would be in a bar, getting a cold one after work. The place had strange floor mats. They were made of rubber but surrounding them on the outside was a strip of metal. On the day in question, the owner of the bar asked him if he could fix one of those mats. One part of the metal edging had broken and was sticking up in the air. The owner was afraid someone would step on it while wearing some thin-soled shoes and get hurt. Maybe resulting in a lawsuit or something. Dad was known as a kind of fix-it man and always carried his tools with him in his truck. He went out and got his wire cutters but didn't put on his safety glasses. He didn't lose an eye or anything, but the metal piece had cut through one eyebrow and embedded itself in the boney ridge of his skull, just above the eye socket. They'd had to remove it at the hospital. The doctors had said at the time that if he'd only been wearing his safety glasses, the metal piece would had probably hit the glasses and bounced away instead of embedding itself in his skull.

Two days later was Saturday and I was running again. Besides keeping me in shape, I found running was good for thinking. On this particular Saturday I had pushed myself. It a good day for running, just about fifty degrees--cool, not too hot, but not really frigid, either. I'd gone longer than usual and when I wound my way through Cabot Park, I was winded. By the time I reached Mohican, I was basically walking. I had overdone it a little bit.

"Hey, it's Running Man! But he's walking!" I looked over and on Kelly Steven's porch sat Kelly and Kathy, chatting. Kelly was the one yelling.

"Hi, girls," I said and gave them a little wave.

"Sit," Kathy said, grinning. "Rest a bit."

"Okay," I said. "Maybe I should." I grinned and sat next to her.

"Hold on," Kelly said and ran into her house. She came back out with a glass of lemonade.

"Kelly, you're a doll," I said and happily accepted it.

"We've been talking about you," Kathy said and then added, "Kelly and me."

"Oh, really?" I replied with a grin--something I never would have been able to pull off a couple of months ago.

"Yes, really," Kathy grinned back. "You've changed. A lot. In like just two months."

"I'm trying to," I admitted. "I haven't been too happy with myself...lately."

"Does it help?" Kathy asked. "The running?"

"Sometimes. I think lot while I'm running."

"Hey," Kelly interrupted, "I've been meaning to ask you. I've seen you talking to Beth so, obviously, you know her. Is she sick?"

I looked at the ground. "Yes, she's sick." Beth wasn't keeping it a secret, but she wasn't broadcasting her illness to anyone and everyone. But she had told me as soon as she'd found out...the first time around. I brought my gaze up and looked Kelly and Kathy straight in the eye and said quietly, "Beth has leukemia."

Their eyes got big.

"Oh," Kelly said. "Is she going to...?"

"Most likely," I replied. "The prognosis isn't good at all."

"Oh, that's terrible," Kathy said.

I took a deep breath. "You girls have known me for a long time," I said quietly. "You know the list of people I consider friends is very short. Beth's at the top of it. I've known her since I was born. She's like a sister."

"I am so sorry," Kathy said, lightly laying a hand on my shoulder. Kelly nodded, looking as though she wanted to put a hand on my shoulder, too.

"Thanks," I said, "to both of you. It means a lot." I stood up and forced a smile. "Well, back to running. Thanks for the lemonade, Kelly. It really hit the spot."

"Anytime," she said and grinned.

I took off.

Time went by and I got complacent. You see, I had been back for almost three months, and then Mark Herron nailed me in shop class. I hated shop. It was one of those mandatory things schools do to make guys into guys and the girls (who have to take Home Economics) into girls. He was sitting behind me and thought it would be fun to take a piece of sheet metal, heat it up with his lighter and then grab my hand and slap the hot metal onto my palm and curl my fingers over it.

This had happened the first time around, but later. I wasn't expecting it. And, just like the first time, I got second degree burns on my hand. What happened next hadn't happened the first time around. Strengthened with adrenaline from the pain, I had gotten out of my seat and nailed him with a backhanded left, knocking him out of his seat. His head hit the floor and knocked him cold.

It was the first fight I had ever won in my life.

The last time around, Mark had gotten in trouble for burning my hand. It pissed him off, so later in the week he had beaten the crap out of me. I figured this part of the future would repeat. More so, given that this time I'd knocked him out in front of the shop class--skinny little me. And in case you are wondering, the trouble he got into for burning me was just a stern lecture from the principal. No suspension or reprimand. But it still pissed him off.

Later that week came the fight, just like the first time. We were in gym class, waiting for something, I forget exactly what. Maybe for Coach. I knew I wasn't a match for Mark. Even with all the weight lifting and running, he was almost a foot taller and thirty pounds heavier than I was. Of course, I was different this time around. One thing I had learned as an adult was that bullies like Mark could smell fear. And the first time around I had been a walking bundle of fear. This time I wasn't scared. I knew the world wasn't going to end with this fight. My adult self knew what to do. First, I didn't wait for him.

I walked right over to him and said, "Hey, Mark, I hear you want another go-around."

He looked at me as the rest of the gym class formed a group around us.

So I said, "Why do you want to fight? I think putting second degree burns on my hand should have been enough for somebody like you. But if you want to go at it again, we can do it."

He moved his feet, settling himself into a stance...reluctantly, it seemed to me. "I have to keep my rep," he said.

"As what," I asked. "The school asshole?"

His face turned red. "Better than being the school wuss," he spat at me.

So we went at it. I held my own and he didn't mop the floor with me but it was more or less a draw. He got a few good hits in, but I did too, and then Coach and a couple of gym teachers came in and broke it up.

We were sent to the principal's office. The principal seemed to want to place more of the blame on me than on Mark. The, "It takes two to fight," theory, I guess. So, I interrupted him and said, "Tell me, why don't students who give other students second degree burns get suspended?" The principal stopped talking and stared at me. I went on and said, "Maybe if you'd clamp down on some of this shit, you wouldn't have to spend so much time yelling."

This time, Mark joined the principal in staring at me.

I was suspended for three days.

As I headed home to tell my parents that their "Perfect, Good Son" had just been suspended for profanity and fighting, it hit me. I was entering uncharted territory. This hadn't happened the first time. The first time, Mark and I had just gotten chewed out by the principal and then sent back to class. When I got home, Mom and Dad were in the kitchen talking to each other in quiet tones. When I came in, they looked up, startled.

Mom spoke first. "What are you doing home so early, Charles? Are you sick again?"

I shook my head and swallowed. "No, Mom." I hesitated and then decided to just say it. "Um, Mom, Dad...?"

"Yes?"

"I've been suspended from school for three days."

They blinked and then looked at each other. I guess that me getting suspended was the last thing they had expected. The three of us stood there for almost a minute. Then Mom said to Dad, "Carl, I think I'll let you handle this."

She got up and left the kitchen. Dad studied me for a moment.

"Do you want to tell me about it?" he asked.

I shuffled my feet. "Well, there's not much to tell."

"Try me."

I hesitated and then said, "Okay. The guy that burned my hand came after me again. We fought. They sent us to see the principal. When I saw that he wasn't going to do anything again, I got mad and said some stuff."

Dad nodded. "I see."

"I told him if he clamped down on some of this shit, he wouldn't have to spend so much time yelling."

"The suspension is for three days?" Dad asked.

I nodded my head.

"Okay. You're grounded for three days. No TV, no reading, no lifting weights, no running. Understood?"

It was my turn to be surprised. That was it? I nodded my head. This was okay with me.

Dad studied me for a moment and then said, "Charles, come and sit down at the table." I did and for a couple of minutes Dad drummed his fingers on the surface of the kitchen table. He stopped and then studied me again.

"You've really changed a lot since you started running and using those weights," he said quietly. I didn't reply. After it became apparent that I wasn't going to answer, he continued, saying, "You've changed a lot...emotionally, as well."

"Adolescents change a lot as they grow up," I commented in an offhand tone.

His head came up and he studied me in a way that made me feel uncomfortable. "You've been doing and saying a lot of things lately which aren't like you. Your mother is worried."

"Why?" I asked. "Haven't I been acting like the kind of kid a parent would kill for?" I was speaking off the top of my head, trying to think of a way to defuse the situation. Dad frowned and I saw my mistake. "Um, sorry," I said hastily. "Wrong choice of words." I ran my fingers through my hair. "What I meant to say, was--"

"Never mind," Dad said, cutting me off. "Then there is your dream. Your mother wants me to take you to a doctor."

I was puzzled. "What dream?" I asked.

He rubbed his mouth and then said, "Eye protection."

My mouth almost fell open. What? It had happened? This morning? "But that wasn't supposed to happen until some night after work," I said without thinking.

Dad's eyebrows went up in surprise. Then he frowned quietly and went on to explain that he had gone to the grocery store that morning to get some stuff for Mom before he went to work. The grocer asked him if he could trim this metal strip which had just come loose after they'd opened. Dad had gone out to his truck to get his wire cutters, no big deal, when he remembered my "dream" and grabbed his safety glasses, too.

"I couldn't believe it," he told me. "That little piece of metal snapped loose and shot right into my face." He pointed toward the kitchen counter and I saw his safety glasses sitting there, left lens cracked at a forty-five-degree angle, all the way across.

"If I hadn't been wearing those glasses," Dad said quietly, "I would have lost an eye."

"Whoa," I said.

"Yeah," he said. "Whoa." He slid his chair so that it was next to mine. "Charles, we were talking about this when you came in. We're both worried about the changes that are happening to you, so we are going to have a doctor check you over. Just to make sure that nothing is wrong with you," he added hastily.

Well, okay, I thought. I've taken all kinds of assessment tests as an adult. I couldn't see any pitfalls looming.

"How soon can we do it?" I asked. "I've been kind of worried about things myself."

The day before Thanksgiving Break, I was walking from one class to another. I was in an area of the school that didn't get much traffic. It was the end of a hallway, with stairs leading down to the bottom floor. There were only a few classrooms down there. The school was on a hill and instead of excavating for an entire floor of "underground" class rooms, the school district had simply extended the "upper" floor out and built a couple of class rooms underneath--sort of like an upside-down "L" with four class rooms under the end of the building which extended out from the top of the hill. There was a side set of stairs midway down the hall which angled to the rooms along with the stairway at the end of the building. It was quicker to just zip down the angled stairs. Because of that, the end staircase was usually deserted.

But today, it wasn't.

Up ahead, I saw Kelly Stevens at the top of the stairs, but she wasn't going down. She was surrounded by three of the nastier bullies of the school. They were taunting her, making fun of her back brace, calling her Quasimodo and making a bunch of hunchback motions and saying, "Here comes the cripple!"

Kelly looked like she was about to cry.

Did this happen the first time around? I searched my memories but couldn't remember. I felt a rush of anger. Where did these guys get off hassling those who were less fortunate?

I walked up to the ringleader and stopped. He and his two companions quit talking and looked at me. After a moment, he said, "So, what do you want?"

"I want you to leave her alone," I replied. I was careful to pitch my voice low so I wouldn't do that pubescent squeak. I hated it when my voice cracked and this would have been a bad time for it to happen.

"Yeah?" the asshole sneered. He leaned against the railing.

"Yeah!" I snapped back. "Don't you have anything better to do than pick on the nicest girl in school just because she's got a bad back?"

He glanced at his two buddies. "Look at this!" he said and laughed. "The school wuss!" He looked back at me. "What do you plan to do about it?"

I cocked my head to one side. "How about I toss you over the railing?"

He looked startled and involuntarily glanced over his shoulder. It was a long drop down. His two buddies looked at me nervously and started to edge away. Their movement was not lost on the ringleader. He glared at me and said, "You're lucky it's almost time for class, you skinny little shit." He glanced at his two cohorts. "Come on, let's go."

They stalked down the hall.

I turned and watched them go. I felt weak, but good. I had really not expected it to turn out this way. When I turned back around, Kelly was looking at me like I was some kind of alien who had just stepped out of a spaceship. Hell, I couldn't blame her. I was just as surprised by my actions myself.

"C'mon, Kelly, let's get you to class," I said. I grabbed her arm and steered her toward the stairs. We walked down the stairs and the whole time she looked at me like I had four heads. We got to the bottom and headed for the class rooms. Hers was right across the hall from mine.

"Are you okay?" I asked as we got there.

"Yes, I'm fine," she said. And then she kissed my cheek! "Thank you, Charlie," she said and disappeared into her class room.

I pretty much floated into mine. In class, I thought about what I should do next. I figured, what with the way bullies seem to think they have to maintain their bully status, that I would just keep quiet about the incident and not say a word to anyone about the altercation on the stairs. Well, I did tell my parents, who seemed proud of me, although they also looked worried at yet another example of strange behavior on my part. But I didn't tell anyone about it at school. I figured the bullies sure wouldn't be telling anyone about it, so I figured that any repercussions would be avoided. But I had forgotten about Kelly. Never one to keep quiet, she told all her friends about what had happened and how I'd come to her rescue. The next day she was waiting for me at the top of the stairs and walking down them together to our respective first-floor class room became a daily occurrence.

A week after the stairway incident, I was dawdling around my locker and missed my school bus. This had been a long-term problem of mine the first time around. I tended to lose track of time. Some things are hard to change. I gathered my school book and headed for the pay phones in front of the school. Christ, I missed cell phones! I dropped my spare change into the coin slots and called home. No answer. Crap. Where was Mom when I needed her? I scowled and slammed the receiver down, and the shoved my hands into my pockets and glared at it. Then I heard someone behind me giggle. I turned around and there was Beth, grinning at me.

"Missed your bus and your Mom's not home again, right?" she asked.

I nodded my head. "You got it, Beth."

"Well, come on, then. We can walk over to my house and you can call her again from there. Just like old times."

Beth lived close enough to the school to walk. I couldn't remember how many time in the last year or so that I'd walked home with her to her house and then hung out there until I could get hold of my mom. There was a short cut we always took from school through an undeveloped lot which formed a ragged "C" behind the hill the school was built on.

So," she said, "is what I hear true?"

"It depends on what you've heard," I replied. Beth didn't say anything, so I said, "So...what did you hear?"

"That you're in love with Kelly."

"What?!" I stopped short and frowned at her. "Who told you that?"

"She did," she replied and grinned. "She's nuts about you! You are all she wants to talk about."

"Oh." I laughed and felt uncomfortable. "Well, yeah--I came to her rescue. But anybody would have done what I did. So, 'nuts about me'? No, you're wrong. I don't think so."

"Hey, I don't think 'anybody' would have done what you did. I think that your coming to her rescue was sweet."

"Sweet?" I echoed. "Oh, yeah, right. Geez, Beth, guys don't get the girl by being sweet!"

"How would you know?" Beth retorted.

I thought about that for a moment. "Okay," I conceded. "Maybe I 'don't' know. But I do know that wusses don't get the girls, either."

"You're not a wuss!" Elizabeth snapped. "It's just those Neanderthal pinheads who say so. You just need someone to watch out for them for you!"

"Hey, I know I'm not a wuss," I replied. "And I know you were watching out for me all last year and I want to say, thank you."

She stopped walking and looked at me in complete shock.

"What?" she gasped.

I took a deep breath. "You helped me get through last year. I don't know what I would've done if you hadn't been there." I paused, thinking, and then you got leukemia. I took another breath and continued. "Seventh grade was the worst year of my life. I felt like a complete outcast. But you introduced me to your friends. You told the jerks to get off my back in English class. If you saw me eating alone, you dragged your friends over to eat with me. Last year was hell, Beth, but the bright spot was you." I stopped talking. A lump had come into my throat. Beth was looking at me like I was an alien being. I took a deep breath and added, "And then they discovered you had leukemia and now you might die."

I watched her reaction, wondering how she would take my words. The first time around I hadn't said them. I had swallowed the words and the feelings that I had felt and started avoiding being around her. And then she had died and it was too late to say them. It had haunted me into adulthood. I saw tears forming in her eyes and thought, "Oh, crap! I've blown it." I had made her cry.

Then, without warning, she threw herself against me and I was holding her in my arms, her face buried against my chest. I didn't know what to do or say, so I didn't do or say anything. I just stroked her hair as she sobbed and let her cry it out.

Finally she calmed down and tried to explain what she was thinking. "I'm sorry, Charlie," she said. "But lately I've been worrying...wondering, you know, if my life's going to mean anything at all. You know...have I done anything good? Life seems so short. I mean, I won't have done anything in my life...before I, you know..."

"Die?" She looked at me, her eyes tragic, and I continued, saying, "Hey, I know how you feel because I've thought about that a lot, too. Ever since you told me about having leukemia."

"So...you know I'm probably going to die?" She pulled a tissue from her coat pocket and wiped her eyes. I nodded and she blew her nose, noisily. Then she started walking again and I fell into step beside her.

"Good," she said, looking at the ground ahead of us as we walked, her voice sounding a little harsh. "Everyone else around me seems to be in denial."

"That's not true," I protested.

"Oh, it's true, all right," she said kicking at some gravel. "Mom, my Dad, all my aunts and uncles," she glanced at me, "most of my friends. Everyone either won't talk about it, like pretending it isn't there is going to stop it from happening, or they act like there's going to be some freaking miracle or something and then I'll live happily ever after." She scowled, as if daring me to disagree with her.

"Beth, they want you to have some hope."

"Yeah, hope," she agreed, "but I'm a realist." She gestured angrily with her hand. "Somebody has to be realistic! The odds are against me. Stacked as high as the sky. I don't think anyone really thinks that I'll be living to a ripe old age." She pulled the tissue out and wiped her nose again. "And then they say, focus on the future. Like that's ever going to happen! 'Honey, maybe this treatment will work. Maybe that treatment will work.' Here, take some vitamins, they'll make you stronger. Shit, for all they know, maybe Marvel Mystery Oil will work or make me stronger!" She stopped and faced me, her hands on her hips. "I can't keep doing that. If I focus on a future that never comes, I'll have wasted the present--which was here when I still had the time to be focusing on it and living in it!"

We started walking again and I said, "So, what's your plan?"

She shrugged. "I don't have a 'plan.' I don't have any answers, either. I just wake up each morning and lay there in bed making sure I'm really still alive. Then I go to school and go about pretending I have a life." She looked at me. "Is that a plan?"

I shrugged my shoulders. "I guess."

"A good plan?"

"I guess."

"That's not much help."

I put both hands on her shoulders. "Any time you need my help, ask. I'll support you in any way I can." I gave her shoulders a little squeeze and added, "Count on me. I got your back."

Beth's dad greeted us when we arrived at her house. Her dad worked as an investment advisor and I suddenly remembered my idea of making a fortune on my knowledge of where stocks would be when I was fifty. That idea abruptly crashed to the ground when I asked about setting up an account in my name.

He smiled at me, indulgent amusement in his eyes. "Going to be one of the great Robber-Barons of the Twentieth Century, eh, Charlie?"

I frowned. "I have some ideas about investing," I said. "I would like to try them out. Why?"

He smoothed the indulgent expression from his face. "Well, if I were you, Charlie, I would read the stock sections of the newspaper and note the stocks you want to buy and how many shares you can afford to purchase. Then, when you plan to sell them, note the selling price and the profit gained."

I folded my arms across my chest. "And this helps me...how?"

"Hey, don't get mad at me, Charlie," Beth's dad said quietly. "You're only fourteen. You need to learn the basics before you play the game. Do what I suggest and it will help you learn and understand the fundamentals of the market--buying and selling."

I felt the blood rushing to my cheeks. He thought he was looking at some little kid with pie-in-the-sky fantasy dreams of being a stock broker and wasn't taking me seriously. He was doing everything but patting on the head and telling me to go back and play with all the other little kids.

"Just suppose I want an account set up now," I said. Oh man, I sounded like a little kid--even to me. I took a deep breath and continued. "How would I do it?"

"You wouldn't," he said bluntly. "You're a minor, Charlie. Brokerages and banks can't set up a commercial purchase account until you're twenty-one."

"But I have my own savings account."

"In your parents' name."

Crap. I'd forgotten about that. Funny how I kept forgetting that I wasn't an adult with "adult" privileges. I was going to have to think of another way to do this. "Okay," I said, smiling to show there were no hard feelings. "I see. Thanks for talking to me, anyway."

"Sure, Charlie," he replied. Then he added, as if as an afterthought, "If you decide to try that little exercise, Charlie, let me see the notes in a couple of months and we can talk further."

"Okay," I said.

Beth's mom came into the room and asked if I wanted to come into the living room and have some cookies and watch TV with Beth while I waited for my mom. I went out into the living room and ate a couple of cookies while waiting for Beth to come in from the kitchen. The cookies were good. Totally natural, made with real oatmeal and molasses. Beth's parents were really going all out on the all-natural, organic foods and vitamin thing. I could have told them that it wasn't going to make any difference...but why ruin their hopes?

Beth came in, looking a little green from swallowing all her afternoon medications, plus all the extra herbs and things her mom was making her take, and said, "Hey, what were you talking to my dad about?"

"Stock accounts," I said with a superior tone in my voice as I grabbed another cookie. Boy, they were good--even if they were organic.

"What about them?"

"Well, I want to set up an account for myself and I didn't know how to go about doing it. I thought your dad could help."

"Did he?"

"Not really. He shot down the idea before I could really go into detail about what I want to do."

She grinned at me. "What are you going to do, Charlie? Become a millionaire stock market tycoon?"

"I just have some ideas about buying penny-stocks on margin accounts," I said.

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Beth retorted.

She grabbed the television remote control. "What show do you want to watch?"

End of Chapter.