He was also a good guy. Jack liked him because he never said anything about the fact that Jack was only a little taller than most fire hydrants and a lot shorter than most girls.
“You look okay to me,” Waddy said after Jack had finished telling him he was supposed to be dying.?“I know I look okay.” Jack frowned at his friend impatiently. “This isn’t the kind of thing you can see, you know.”
“You sound okay, too.” Waddy took a bite of his jelly sandwich. “Does anything hurt?”
Jack shrugged. “Just when I have the headaches.”
“Well, you don’t have them more often now than you did six months ago, do you?”
“No.”
“And they don’t last any longer now than they did then, do they?”
“No.”
Waddy shoved the rest of the sandwich into his mouth and chewed thoughtfully. “Well, then, who’s to say you’re really dying? This could be one of those conditions that just goes on indefinitely. Meantime, they might find a cure for it; they’re always finding cures for this kind of stuff.” He chewed some more. “Anyway, maybe the doctor made a mistake. That’s possible, isn’t it?”
Jack nodded doubtfully.
“The point is, you don’t know for sure. Not for sure.” Waddy cocked his head. “Here’s something else to think about. They’re always telling someone or other that they’re going to die and then they don’t. People get well all the time just because they believe they can do it. Sometimes believing is all it takes.”
He gave Jack a lopsided grin. “Besides, no one dies in the seventh grade.”
Jack wanted to believe that. He spent the afternoon trying to convince himself. After all, he didn’t personally know anyone his age who had died. The only people he knew who had died were much older. Even Uncle Frank. He was just a kid. How could he die when he still didn’t know anything about girls? How could he die without ever having driven a car? It just didn’t seem possible.
Nevertheless, the feeling persisted that he was only fooling himself. It didn’t make any difference what he believed; it didn’t change the facts. If he really had cancer, believing he didn’t wouldn’t make it go away. He sat through his afternoon classes growing steadily more despondent, feeling helpless and wishing he could do something about it.
It wasn’t until he was biking home that he suddenly found himself thinking about Pick.
The McCall house was a large white shake-shingle rambler that occupied almost an acre of timber bordering the north edge of Sinnissippi Park. The Sinnissippi Indians were native to the area, and several of their burial mounds occupied a fenced-off area situated in the southwest corner of the park under a cluster of giant maples. The park was more than forty acres end to end, most of it woods, the rest consisting of baseball diamonds and playgrounds. The park was bordered on the south by the Rock River, on the west by Riverside Cemetery, and on the north and east by the private residences of Woodlawn. It was a sprawling preserve, filled with narrow, serpentine trails; thick stands of scrub-choked pine; and shady groves of maple, elm, and white oak. A massive bluff ran along the better part of its southern edge and overlooked the Rock River.
Jack was not allowed to go into the park alone until he was out of fourth grade, not even beyond the low maintenance bushes that grew where his backyard ended at the edge of the park. His father took him for walks sometimes, a bike ride now and then, and once in a while his mother even came along. She didn’t come often, though, because she was busy with Abby, and his father worked at the printing company and was usually not home until after dark. So for a long time the park remained a vast, unexplored country that lay just out of reach and whispered enticingly in Jack’s youthful mind of adventure and mystery.