I don’t know if Ms. Lowry ever called Jonah’s mom in the end. Mrs. Golden had been acting so nervous recently that a little more worry wouldn’t have been noticeable to me. She did her best to hide her fears in front of Jonah. But no matter how phony she was or how cheerful she pretended to be, it was clear that she was becoming more and more frightened for her son. And for some reason, the only thing that seemed to calm her down was having me around. I didn’t realize this at first, but after the tenth invitation to come for dinner, I began to get the picture. So when school let out, I frequently went straight to his house and stayed there until my mother called me home.
The Monday before Thanksgiving break, I came over as usual to spend the evening at Jonah’s. I waved hello to Mrs. Golden and then followed Jonah upstairs to his room. We curled up on his bed together, and I pulled out our notebooks and spread them across his blanket. He was falling behind in math, and I’d promised to help him with his homework. It was rough going for a while, but we plowed through half of the chapter before I realized that he’d stopped listening to me and was just copying down my work.
“Jonah, you can’t do that,” I said, shoving my textbook aside. “You actually have to understand how to solve these questions yourself, or you’ll just fail the test next week.”
He stared at me for a moment and then shut his book. “I know. I just can’t—it’s hard to concentrate today.”
I sighed and leaned back against the wall. “You haven’t been able to concentrate for a while. Everyone’s been noticing that you’re distracted. Even your teachers have commented about it.”
I regretted the words as soon as they were out of my mouth. Jonah sat up straighter; I saw the muscles in his neck go taut. “Hold on, which teachers do you mean? Have they been talking to you about me?”
“It was just one teacher, and seriously, you need to relax!” I exclaimed. “Ms. Lowry was concerned about you, and I—”
“Ms. Lowry!” he shouted, pushing himself off the bed and swinging around to face me. “I should have known that she would rat me out!”
“What are you talking about? Since when do history teachers rat their students out?”
He looked confused for a moment. “Just stop, please,” he muttered finally, turning his face away from me. “I need you to stop. I just can’t—I can’t listen to you right now.”
“What do you mean you can’t listen to me—”
“Damn it, April!” he interrupted furiously. “I’m begging you! I need a break from the noise!”
Before I could speak again, he bent down and clutched his head, covering his ears with white, clenched fists.
“Jonah?” I whispered, drawing closer him. “Why are you doing that?”
He didn’t answer me. His breathing was deep and ragged; a cold sweat spread over his forehead. “I need to be alone,” he whimpered. “Please, just go help my mom or something. Five minutes, that’s all I’m asking.”
“Jonah—”
“Please, April!”
I backed away and slipped out of his room without another word, then wavered for a few seconds outside his door, trying to decide which way to go. There was no way that I was going to leave him alone in pain. I couldn’t just run down to the dining room and fold napkins like nothing was wrong. But he didn’t want me anywhere near him either.
I crouched down on the stairs outside his room and waited, silently listening for some sign that he was going to be okay. A few minutes passed like that; I didn’t move, just sat there on the top step, my chin resting on my knees. The clock on the landing ticked. Lady waddled by and sniffed me, then passed on to more interesting things.
Mrs. Golden’s voice drifted up to us, calling us down for dinner. I heard Katie shout out, “April! Meatloaf!” and still I didn’t move. For the first time since this all began, I was really frightened for Jonah. Ms. Lowry’s words echoed in my mind: “Jonah stopped making sense.”
It was true, I realized. He’d sounded really strange. But maybe if I waited, maybe if he would just explain himself…
I was knocked out of my daydream by a muffled shout and a soft kick from behind. “God, April! I didn’t see you.”
I scrambled to my feet and turned around to face him; Jonah was staring at me like I’d just lost my mind. “What are you doing here?” he asked. “I almost tripped on you!”
“I was waiting for you. I had to make sure you were okay.”
He laughed and put his arms around me. “I’m fine. I was just a little stressed out. Thanks for waiting for me.” He looked down at me and smiled, and I felt my throat contract. Ms. Lowry is crazy, I told myself. There was nothing wrong with him. How had I doubted that?
But even as I hugged him, something still felt off to me. He seemed different now. His smile didn’t reach his eyes; they were frightened and far away, like a child’s after a nightmare. His face had changed too. He was a lot paler, and there were dark hollows in his cheeks.
“I’m having trouble sleeping,” he’d told me earlier in the week. If I hadn’t been so blind, if I hadn’t been so busy pretending everything was fine, I would have seen it sooner. It was time to pay attention.
So when he sat down across from me at the dining room table, I began to watch him, really watch him, for the first time. I watched him nod pleasantly at his mother and scoop out a large helping of potatoes. I watched him joke with Katie and throw a green bean at her. I watched him duck when his mother smacked him playfully and laugh when she scolded him for throwing food.
“Stop messing around and eat,” she chided. The pinched, worried look in her eyes had faded a little. “You’re getting thinner every day, Jonah.”
“I’m eating,” he mumbled through mouthfuls of potato. “I just don’t like the school cafeteria food, that’s all.” He swallowed and poked at the beef at the edge of his plate. “Mom, what’s in this meatloaf?”
“Oh, I was trying something new. I didn’t expect you’d notice. Your school newsletter has a recipe section on the back page. I got the idea from there. Do you like it?”
I didn’t need to be watching him carefully to see the change that came over his face. We could all see it. He paled as if she’d punched him in the stomach. Then slowly, deliberately, he wiped off his fork and placed it on the table. “Why would you do that?” he asked her, his voice sinking into an accusatory whisper. “What are you trying to do?”
She looked confused. “I—I just like making new things, that’s all. The potatoes are also a new recipe. I got a few ideas from the newsletter…”
She never finished her thought. Jonah froze in place and glared at his food as if he’d just seen something nasty crawling about inside his mashed potatoes. He swallowed, and his face convulsed; he seemed to be choking back the urge to gag.
“Jonah,” she ventured, her voice cracking like a child’s. “I can make you something else. If you don’t like that, I have some frozen stuff that I can thaw…”
He shook his head and pushed himself back from the table. “No, I’m fine.” He sounded like he was trying to keep his voice steady. “I’m not hungry anymore.”
Katie was watching her brother as closely as I was. While his mother and I stared helplessly at him, she slipped quietly off her chair and, before he could protest, climbed onto his lap and laid her curly head against his cheek. “I’m not hungry either, Jonah,” she whispered confidentially. “It tastes pretty weird to me too.”
He looked down at her and smiled, but it was a vacant smile, like a ceramic doll’s grin. “Thank you, Katie,” he murmured and closed his eyes.
A few minutes later, when Mrs. Golden and I began to scrape our plates, Jonah lifted his head suddenly, glanced around as if he’d just woken up, and gently nudged his sister off his lap. “I’m going to go upstairs for a little while,” he told us. “There’s a book that I need to finish for school, and I’m sort of…”
No one interrupted him. We were all quiet, anticipating the end of his thought. But his sentence stopped there, as if he’d been shut off, like a tape recorder that someone suddenly disconnected.