Free The Birth of Super Crip by Rob J. Quinn Page B

“Red!”
     

 
     
     
    Chapter
12
     
    Midday sunlight soaked the room despite the drawn
shades. He could hear himself breathing as he lay still, having no
desire to get out of bed. Red rubbed his face. A long,
lung-clearing yawn escaped from him. Every muscle in his body
yearned to go back to sleep. Before pulling the covers back up over
his shoulders, he reached for the clock to turn it around so he
could see the time, but it was already facing him.
     
    He couldn’t believe his eyes when he saw the
daylight-dulled digits read 12:09. Sliding his legs to the edge of
the bed, he sat up.
     
    How is it afternoon already? he thought.
     
    Red suddenly realized he didn’t remember going to bed
the previous night. What did I do? Running his hand through his
hair, he noticed his clothes in a pile on the floor and his
sweatshirt slung over the desk chair. It triggered a memory of
pulling the hood string as far as he could to try to stay warm
against the wind.
     
    A strange knock, more like a light thud, came at the
door, and his mom gently pushed it open with a tray holding his
breakfast.
     
    “Well, it’s about time,” she said softly. “I was
getting worried. You never sleep this long.”
     
    “Hi,” he said, in a low early morning voice. “What’s
going on?”
     
    His mom put the tray down on the desk and cleared
away a couple books. “I just thought I’d bring your breakfast up,”
she said, and took him by the arm to help him to the desk chair. “I
want you to take it very easy for a couple days. Besides, you’re a
bit of a celebrity.”
     
    Too tired to resist and not really wanting to, Red
sat at his desk and took a long drink of orange juice through the
straw. A disjointed memory of talking to Scott at the game the
previous night raced through his mind. “Celebrity? Why? How’d I get
to bed last night?”
     
    Beginning to straighten up the room, his mom pulled
the shades up. “Your father carried you,” she said. “Scott called
from the game after you passed out. A doctor was there and gave you
a quick once-over, and said you just needed some rest. You woke up
a couple times, even talked to him, but you were pretty out of
it.”
     
    He didn’t remember talking to a doctor at all.
     
    “Since we’re going out to York for the specialist on
Monday, I figured he can just check you out,” she said. “And a
photographer for the Folsom school paper caught a picture of Scott
hauling you over the railing. It made the front page of the Philadelphia Times. ”
     
    It all rushed back to him now. The cold wind. The
rain. Freezing most of the game. Pushing passes with the wave. The
tree. The booth.
     
    “Pete!”
     
    He had a mouthful of waffles and even his mom
couldn’t understand him at first. Swallowing, he repeated, “Pete,
is he okay?”
     
    “He’s fine,” Scott said, coming in and slapping the
front section of the paper on his desk. “Pretty cool picture,
eh?”
     
    The two of them, seen from behind, were in the
foreground of a photo showing the broadcast booth about to topple
under the weight of the tree. Red was still looking back at the
booth as his brother pulled him over the railing. Pete could be
seen attempting to reach his feet, serious injury at the very least
appearing inevitable. The picture covered a quarter of the front
page above the fold, the headline asking a one-word question:
“MIRACLE?”
     
    Red looked up and Scott answered the question that
was on his face. “Some people swear a mini tornado formed at just
the right time,” Scott said with a subtle shake of his head that
told Red no one knew that he had done it. “I think they’re full of
shit.”
     
    Their mother stopped making the bed just long enough
to lightly smack him in the back of the head. “You know I don’t
like that language,” she said, returning to making the bed without
missing a beat. “Besides, how else do you explain that booth—and
the tree—being pushed backwards all of a sudden?