“Can a ram kill me, Charlie ‘Mega-Man’ Roth?” Red asked.
“Definitely,” Mega-Man answered.
“What about a deer?” Red said. “Can a deer kill me?”
“Definitely,” Mega-Man said again.
Diego and I cracked up.
We were in our hotel room playing can-this-animal-kill-me. It’s not really a game, but it felt like one. Red was twirling a mini-basketball in his lap on the cot at the foot of my bed. He had a cot because Red doesn’t like sharing a bed. Mega-Man and Diego had the other bed. Mega-Man was sitting against the headboard. Diego was perched on the edge of the mattress. I had the other big bed all to myself. I had given up trying to spin a basketball on my finger and was just relaxing.
“Can a falcon kill me?” Diego asked.
“Definitely,” Mega-Man said.
“A falcon can’t kill me.” He picked up a mini plastic football and started tossing it at the ceiling.
“Yes, it can,” Mega-Man said.
“The peregrine falcon can dive at two hundred miles per hour. It would take you out like that.” He snapped his fingers. “But peregrine falcons mostly go for ducks.”
Suddenly, Diego dove onto my bed. “Odell!” he shouted as he pretended to make a diving catch.
Diego had been diving from bed to bed like that for a while. Each time, he called out the name of another wide receiver, like “Dez!” or “Megatron!” or “Amari!”
I checked the connecting door. We’d closed it about a half hour ago when Ms. Yvonne and the girls went back to their suite down the hall. When they left, Coach Acevedo had told us not to stay up much longer. At any moment, I was expecting him to pop in and tell us to keep it down or to say “Lights out.”
“What about an owl?” I asked. “Can an owl kill me?”
“Some owls fly super fast,” Mega-Man said. “They could dive-bomb into you like a peregrine falcon and take you out. Owl vomit looks like turd.”
“Turd!” Diego dove back onto his bed.
“Turd!” Red and I said at the same time.
We all laughed. Some words make fifth graders laugh. They just do.
I stared at Mega-Man. He was finally talking. He still seemed strange, but not nearly as strange as he did on the bus and at the pool. I think he liked it better with fewer kids around.
“How do you know so much about animals?” Diego asked.
Mega-Man laughed. “Wild Kratts!”
“Yo, I used to love that show,” Diego said.
“Me too, Diego Vasquez,” Red said. “I used to watch Wild Kratts all the time.”
“My aunt is a veterinarian,” Mega-Man added. “During the summer, I work at her animal hospital. I’m working there next week over vacation.”
“What do you do there, Charlie ‘Mega-Man’ Roth?” Red asked.
“He picks up turds!” I said, laughing.
“Steaming fresh turds!” Diego bounced to his knees.
We all laughed again.
“I do all different things.” Mega-Man adjusted the pillow behind his head. “One time, I got to watch a horse give birth. This other time, there was this goat that got really sick and…” He stopped and looked at Diego. “Did you think you were going to die?”
The basketball rolled off my finger and onto the floor.
“What?” Diego asked.
“You’re the kid with cancer, right?” Mega-Man said.
“Yeah.” Diego gripped the mini football.
“I’ve never met anyone my age with cancer,” Mega-Man said.
“Yeah, you have.” Diego sat down.
I placed my palms on the bed. I’d never heard anyone ask Diego about his cancer. Not like this. I checked Red. He was pinky-thumb-tapping his leg. His eyes were glued to Diego.
“What was the worst part?” Mega-Man asked.
“Probably when I found out how bad it was. Or maybe when I first heard the word cancer. Or…” He paused. “I don’t know. There were lots of worst parts.”
Whenever anyone talked about Diego being sick, it always used to freak me out. Especially when they said the word cancer. But right now, I wasn’t freaked out at all. Come to think of it, I hadn’t been the other day at practice either.
I stared at Mega-Man. He was asking the questions I wanted to know the answers to but would never ask. Not in a gazillion years.
What’s it like having Coach Crazy for a father? Does he act like that at home? Did that ref press charges?
Those were the questions I wanted to ask Mega-Man but never would. Not in a gazillion years.
“One of the worst parts was also one of the best parts,” Diego said.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“My uncle was one of the worst parts,” Diego said softly. “What I put him through, what I put him and my moms through. Yo, my uncle was there for me the whole time. The whole time.” He picked at the tip of the football. “My uncle was also one of the best parts because … he’s a hero. A real hero. I wouldn’t be here without him. My uncle is the best.”
“Ducks are the best,” Mega-Man blurted.
Diego and I looked at one another. “What?” we said at the same time.
“Ducks are my favorite animals,” Mega-Man said.
“Where did that come from?” Diego asked.
“They are.” Mega-Man pulled the buds off his neck and put them on the table between our beds. “Next week, my aunt’s taking me to this pond to check out the ducks.”
Diego laughed. “How do you do that?”
“Do what?” Mega-Man asked.
“One minute you’re asking me if I thought I was going to die, and the next minute you’re talking about duck ponds! What are you going to talk about next, oyster poop?”
“Oyster poop!” Red and I said together.
I laughed so hard I rolled off my bed. Red rolled off his cot. Yeah, Red was on the floor. Up until a few months ago, Red would never even sit on a floor.
“Ducks don’t have thingies,” Mega-Man said.
“Thingies?” I said.
“You know,” Mega-Man said, pointing to his privates.
“Get out!” Diego said, popping back up. “How can they not?”
“They don’t.”
“Who told you that?” I asked.
“They don’t,” Mega-Man said. “Their thingies are like corkscrews and—”
“Ha!” I cut him off. “So they do have thingies.”
“Thingy, thingy, thingies!” Diego plopped back down.
Mega-Man shook his head. “When they’re about to mate, they unfurl and circle around the females.”
“Stop!” Diego laughed. He rolled off the bed and landed between Red and me. “I can’t take it!”
“Their thingies are really big,” Mega-Man said. “They have to keep them inside their body.”
Diego, Red, and I laughed harder and louder. I rolled onto Diego and kicked my feet against the side of the mattress.
Mega-Man crawled to the end of the bed and looked over at us. “Mallards are sexually dimorphic.”
“Sexually dimorphic!” Diego smacked the floor with both hands.
“A lot of songbirds are,” Mega-Man said.
“What does that even mean?” I asked.
“Males and females look different. Males have dark and shiny green heads with yellow bills. Females are brown with orange and brown bills. One sex—”
“Sex!” Red laughed harder than I’d ever seen him laugh. “Charlie ‘Mega-Man’ Roth said sex!”