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PARTNERS

Humans! Ye shall live upon another earth,
a people of science and dust.

FROM “THE ORDERING OF THE WORLD,” AN ELENIL STORY

After what had happened to his sister, Jason Wu had made a decision. He would never keep quiet about what he saw again, and he would never lie. No matter the cost, he would speak up and speak truth.

Sure, he’d gotten detention over the whole Principal Krugel fiasco, but his toupee was on backward. Maybe Jason shouldn’t have mentioned it in front of the football team. He almost certainly should not have repeated it over the school intercom. He could still hear the principal’s shrill voice shouting, “JASON WU!” from his office. That could have been the end of it, but when Jason refused to apologize or retract his statement, the principal had taken to the intercom to explain he did not wear a toupee.

That didn’t excuse what Jason had done next. He saw that now.

Seeing Principal Krugel in front of the whole school at the football rally the next day, his ridiculous fake hair sitting on top of his head like a shag carpet, had driven Jason right to the edge of madness. Then Darius Walker had shouted to Jason, “Krugel’s hair looks real to me! What are you going to do?”

Jason had said, “Pull his toupee off,” meaning it as a joke.

But then he thought, I promised never to tell a lie.

Taking off the man’s toupee wouldn’t be good.

But if he didn’t, he was a liar. Again.

It was a moral conundrum.

Anyway, it had earned Jason detention and earned Principal Krugel the nickname Principal Cue Ball.

He had received a second detention when the principal called his parents, put them on speakerphone, and made Jason explain what he had done. When the principal said there had been a mini riot at the assembly, Jason’s mom asked if it was true. Of course Dad didn’t say anything. He hadn’t spoken —well, hadn’t spoken to Jason —since things had happened with Jenny. Before he could stop himself, Jason said, “Yes, everyone was wigging out.” Even that didn’t get Dad to speak up. It had, on the other hand, turned Principal Krugel’s face a shade of red Jason had never seen before, so it wasn’t a complete loss.

So he wasn’t trying to be insensitive when his chemistry partner, Madeline Oliver, came in to class looking like someone had given her a swirly. “You look terrible,” he said. “Your mascara is running everywhere. Your eyes are red.” All true.

Madeline choked out a sarcastic thanks, then started coughing. She coughed a lot. He knew she was sick. She didn’t talk about it, ever. Everyone at school acted like it was a big secret, but he noticed that meant they couldn’t take care of her, either. Couldn’t ask how she was doing, couldn’t make sure she was taking care of herself. That’s why he’d asked to be her chem partner. She didn’t know that —she had been at the doctor the day they picked partners. Besides, she was better at chemistry than he was. So they were watching out for each other, in a way. That’s what partners do.

“You sound terrible too. Should you even be in class?” Jason spun a pencil in one hand, twirling it like a baton.

“I can’t skip school all the time.” She slammed her bag down and slid onto a stool, leaning against the counter.

“You already skip half the time,” Jason said. “You’re the worst lab partner I’ve had. Besides, it’s a sub today. We’re probably doing some idiotic worksheet.”

“You just described half of high school,” Madeline said. “Who are you to say I look terrible, anyway? Your clothes look like they’re on day three of being picked up from your floor.”

“Day four,” Jason said. He hadn’t combed his hair, either, and he knew it went five directions at once. Only one of his shoes was tied. The other one he had overknotted yesterday and couldn’t get it undone. He had actually worn his left shoe to bed last night. He watched Madeline coughing and digging through her backpack for her textbook. She really shouldn’t be here. She didn’t even notice the substitute call her name. “Here,” he said.

The substitute looked at Jason over the top of his glasses. “Your name is Madeline Oliver?”

“Nah, it’s my partner, but she’s busy coughing up a lung. She needs to go to the office.”

The sub regarded Madeline skeptically. He had a big nose and a wreath of brown hair that stuck up on the sides. He looked like an angry koala bear. “It’s not my first time as a substitute,” he said.

“I’m fine,” Madeline said, still coughing.

“Try not to distract the class,” he said, and continued calling roll.

Jason spun on his stool. He knew what was coming. He leaned over and whispered to Madeline, “He’s going to read my Chinese name, I can feel it. And he’s gonna say it wrong. I hate this guy already. Maybe you should take your inhaler.”

“Already took it,” she said, gasping for air between words.

He opened her purse —she tried to stop him, and yes, he knew you shouldn’t dig in a girl’s purse —and pulled out her inhaler. He shook it three times and handed it to her. She took a deep puff, her eyes shut. She leaned on the counter, panting.

“Song Wuh,” the substitute said.

“Jason,” he called. “It’s Jason.”

“Says Song Wuh here.”

Jason sighed. Should he correct the guy? He got so tired of correcting people when they said his name wrong. “With Jason in parentheses, right? And it’s pronounced woo, and the o in Song is long, like in hope. Wu Song, that’s how you say it —family name first. It’s not that hard. Seriously.”

The substitute wrote something on his paper. “Ah. Jason. Yes, the principal mentioned you.”

The principal mentioned him? It made him sound like some sort of troublemaker. One little incident with a man’s fake hair and you’re branded for life. Was it in his personal record? Would it follow him to college? Make sure this boy never gets near a toupee —he will take it and run around the gym, waving it like a hairy flag. Oh yeah. He had done that, too. He hadn’t run it up the flagpole, though. That had been someone else.

“Is my name so hard?” Jason asked Madeline. “Wu Song is famous, too. Killed a man-eating tiger with his bare hands. Doesn’t seem like it’s asking too much to get my name right, especially when I’m named after a famous guy.”

“Your life is hard,” Madeline gasped. She had her phone out and was texting someone.

“It’s like mispronouncing Robin Hood.”

“Jason.” Her body listed to one side, like a sinking ship. She grasped at the counter, trying to keep herself upright. Jason grabbed her sleeve, pulling her toward him, pulling her upright, and then she was slipping, falling. Her arm slid out of her jacket, and she half rolled, half fell onto the floor, her head knocking against the polished cement.

Jason jumped off his stool, knocking it over with a clang. He threw Madeline’s stool out of the way and knelt over her. He asked if she was okay, but she didn’t answer.

“Mr. Substitute,” Jason shouted. “Call an ambulance.”

“You two stop messing around.”

“She’s actually sick,” Jason shouted, and other kids in the class chimed in, telling the sub it was true, that she had some lung sickness or something.

“I’ll call the office,” he said, but he was still standing there, staring.

Madeline’s eyes rolled back into her head, and her skin went pale. Jason put his hand on her face. Cold and clammy. She wasn’t breathing. A knot of panic sat in his chest, small and cold as her skin. For a second he was looking at Jenny’s face, still and pale, but he shoved the image out of his mind, hard. He needed to think about right now. He tilted Madeline’s head back and got ready to do chest compressions.

One of the other kids said, “Dude, you’re not going to —”

“Shut up,” Jason said, and started chest compressions.

He pinched her nose shut, sealed his mouth over hers, and breathed two quick breaths into her mouth. Her chest rose, she coughed, and she started to breathe again.

“Her color is coming back,” one of the kids said.

The substitute stood there at the end of the row, the stack of worksheets in his hand. His mouth was open, and his glasses had slid down his nose. He cleared his throat. “Calm down, class. We’ll —”

Jason interrupted him. “Mr. Koala Bear. Snap out of it. Call the office. Right. Now.”

This was taking too long. The sub was in shock or something. Jason pointed at a kid in the row in front of him. “You. Kid with the braces. Call 911. Tell them we’re headed to the hospital.”

He leaned over Madeline. “It’s gonna be okay. Keep breathing.” He slipped one hand under her neck, grabbed the belt loop on her jeans with the other, and lifted.

The classroom door slammed open, and Darius stood on the other side, panting. “What happened? She just texted me.”

“Help me get her to the car,” Jason said.

The security guard in the parking lot said something to them, but Jason rushed past. Darius shouted an explanation, and then he helped sling Madeline into Jason’s sports car and put her seat belt on.

“Where are you taking her?”

“She can’t breathe, Darius, where do you think? The hospital. Get in the car or step back.” Why were people such idiots during times of pressure?

The car settled under Darius’s weight as he got in the back. “Drive,” he said.

Jason peeled out of the parking lot and screeched onto the road.

“Red light!” Darius yelled.

Jason punched it through the intersection.

“An accident won’t get us there faster,” Darius said.

“This isn’t driver’s ed,” Jason said. “I know what I’m doing.” He glanced at Madeline. She was coughing up blood now. There’s no way he was going to stay quiet, no way he was going to wait for an ambulance. No way. “Hang in there, partner.”

She coughed until she fainted. Jason laid on the horn and sped toward the hospital.