The Shadow Year by Jeffrey Ford

dictionary, much to Mr. Rogers’s obvious sadness, he said, “It must have been the black olives.”
    Back in Krapp’s classroom, though, after library, Patricia Trepedino puked, and then after watching her, Felicia Barnes upchucked. Boris and his barrel of red stuff were in hot demand, because reports of more puking came in from all over the school. Krapp was visibly shaken, his nostrils flaring, his eyes darting. After everything was cleaned up, a lingering vomit funk pervaded the room. He opened all the windows and put on a filmstrip for us about the uses of fossil fuels, featuring atalking charcoal briquette. He sat in the last row in the dark, dabbing his forehead with a handkerchief.
    When I got home, Dr. Gerber was there. He had pulled the rocker over by the living-room couch, where Mary was sleeping wrapped in a blanket with a bed pillow under her head. A big steel pot we knew as “the puke bucket” was on the floor next to her. He opened his eyes and waved to me as I came through the door. He was smoking a cigar, which he took out of his mouth momentarily to put his finger to his lips, and cautioned me to be quiet.
    Gerber was the town doctor. He was a heavyset man with a thick wave of black hair, a wide face, and glasses. I never saw him without his black suit on and his black leather bag sitting next to him or in his hand. He gave us kids all our shots, choked us on flat sticks, rubber-hammered our knees, listened to our hearts, and came to our houses when we were too sick to make it to the office. When my mother first brought Mary, small and weak, home from the hospital, he stopped by every day for a month to help my mother administer a special medicine and to assure us that Mary would live. It was not unusual to find him, morning or night, dozing for a few minutes in our rocking chair, pocket watch in hand.
    Once, during a snowstorm, when it was impossible to drive and my mother thought Jim was having an appendicitis attack, Gerber came the half mile from his office on foot, trudging through the snow. When he pronounced that Jim was merely suffering from a bad case of gas, he shook his head and laughed. Then he went next door to see Pop, with whom he shared an interest in horses, had a glass of Old Grand-Dad and a cigar, and was off. I watched him through the front window as he left, the darkness falling hard with the snow.
    He didn’t stay long the day Mary was sick but told Nan that he had another dozen kids to see, all of whom had the same thing. When he left, I sat at the end of the couch and watchedcartoons on TV with the sound off. Just when I was about to get up and go outside, Mary opened her eyes. She was shivering slightly. Her mouth started to move, and she mumbled something. I got up and went to the hall closet where the towels were kept. Taking a washrag, I wet it with cold water and placed it on her forehead. She grabbed my hand.
    â€œThe boy,” she said. “He’s to show. I found him.” She pointed one finger down at the floor.
    â€œOkay,” I said. “Okay.”
    She fell back to sleep and seemed to be more comfortable. I went out into the yard, bored, and looked for something to do. Jim, I knew, would not be home soon, as he had joined the wrestling team and now took the late bus. In the middle of smacking the cherry tree’s trunk with an old yellow Wiffle ball bat, it suddenly came to me what Mary had meant.
    I ran back inside and went into the cellar. Leaning out over Botch Town, I pulled the string for the sun. I started at Hammond Lane and scanned up and down the block, searching for the clay figure of Charlie Edison. Mrs. Harrington was standing, round as a marble, in her front yard. Mr. Conrad was out of place, standing next to Mrs. Hayes in the Hayeses’ backyard. Mr. Mason had fallen over in his driveway, Boris the janitor worked on his car. I did find Mrs. Edison making her way down Willow Avenue toward the school but