Up All Night Read online

  The woman reached over and turned off the water.

  “Brittany-Michelle, I swear to God I’m going to come out there and smack you if you don’t stop bothering me. Can’t you see I’m busy?”

  “But that lady’s shirt is falling off.”

  “What lady?”

  “The one from yesterday with the key.”

  “Mrs. Androtti?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “What do you mean, her shirt is falling off?”

  “Come and look.”

  “I can’t. I’ve gotta wipe down all these cupboards before we can put anything in them. There’s roaches.”

  “She’s asleep.”

  “Who? Mrs. Androtti?”

  “Uh-huh. There was a man with her before, but now he’s gone.”

  The woman brushed a strand of hair out of her face with the back of her hand. “Yeah, well, looks like Mrs. Androtti and I have something in common then.”

  She reached over and turned the water back on.

  I stop reading.

  “What?” says Nick.

  “Nothing. That’s it. That’s the end of the story.”

  “Are you kidding? That can’t be the end of the story. You haven’t told us why Mr. Androtti killed his wife yet.”

  “It doesn’t matter why he killed her.”

  “Yes it does. Everybody’s going to want to know.”

  “That’s okay. Writers do that all the time—leave stuff up in the air.”

  “I hate when they do that.”

  “Sorry,” I say.

  “I’m telling you, man, it’s not right,” says Nick.

  Superman’s on the move again. Shht-shht-shht.

  “I don’t think those Tums are working,” I say. “Any other bright ideas?”

  “Yeah. Work on a better ending for your story.”

  “Why don’t you worry about your own story? What are you going to write about, anyway?” I ask.

  “I don’t know,” says Nick. “It’s going to be hard. Compared to cold-blooded murder and half-naked women, anything I come up with is going to seem pretty lame, you know?”

  It’s after midnight when we hang up. I do my chemistry lab while I watch Conan. Nick was right, it’s a hard one, but I manage to get through it without calling for help. I study a little for a Spanish quiz and then take a long shower. As I’m getting out, my cell rings.

  “City Morgue,” I say, figuring it’s Nick and he’ll get the reference.

  “Not funny.”

  It’s my father calling from the hospital.

  “Sorry to call so late,” he says, “but I thought you’d want to know. You have a new little brother.”

  “Half-brother,” I say.

  “We’ve named him Harrison.”

  “Okay.”

  “Brenda’s doing fine. Fourteen hours of labor, though. She had a pretty tough time.”

  I resist the urge to say “Good.”

  “Do me a favor. Let your mother know, will you?”

  Oh, great, I think. Thanks for letting me be the one to deliver the happy news. I don’t say anything.

  “You okay?” my dad asks.

  “Yeah. Just tired. Plus Superman is sick.”

  “Superman?”

  “Joe’s mouse.”

  “Oh, right, your mother’s idea of a pet.”

  “Yeah, well anyway, he’s sick. Really sick.”

  “I had a guinea pig once when I was a kid, and when it got sick, the vet told my mother to put it in a plastic bag and stick it in the freezer for five minutes.”

  “Grandma did that?” I say. I’m having a hard time wrapping my mind around it.

  “Most humane thing you can do with a small animal. No point in letting it suffer.”

  “Right,” I say.

  “Anyway, I need to get back to Brenda,” my dad tells me. “I just thought you’d want to know about the baby.”

  I hang up, finish drying off, and go check on Superman. I’m relieved to find that he’s somewhat deflated, but he still looks bad. There’s something foamy leaking from his mouth now. It’s pretty clear he’s not going to make it.

  I have tried to stay up all night twice in my life. Once at a sleepover party on Nick’s birthday and once on New Year’s Eve. Both times I ended up feeling sick somewhere around three, gave in, and went to sleep. It’s three o’clock now, but I’m wide-awake. I decide that no matter how long it takes, I’m going to stay up with Superman until it’s over. There’s nothing on TV but infomercials, so I pick up my notebook and read my story again. I like it, but I decide maybe Nick is right about the ending. I sit on the couch for a while thinking about all the reasons why a man might decide to murder his wife until I finally find the one that fits.

  The woman waiting in the car was nervous. He had told her it wouldn’t take long, but she’d been sitting out there for at least ten minutes. Feeling some movement, a tiny internal flutter, she placed her hand protectively over her swollen belly and continued to stare out the window. Finally, he came out from around the side of the house and cut across the yard. He had taken off his suit coat and carried it folded neatly over his left arm.

  “Did anybody see you?” she asked anxiously, as the man tossed his jacket into the backseat and ducked into the car.

  “No.”

  I call Nick and wake him up.

  “What’s the matter?” he says, all groggy.

  I tell him I took his advice and I read him the new ending.

  “How do you come up with this stuff?” he says.

  “I don’t know. I just make it up,” I say. But I know that’s a lie.

  At five o’clock I’m sitting there thinking about what a dumb name Harrison is when Superman starts to squeak. At first I think maybe they’re happy squeaks, and that he’s making a miraculous recovery. But one look in the cage tells me that’s not the case. Talk about an audible exhalation: With each breath Superman writhes and pushes out an agonized squeak. I finally have to cover my ears.

  Narrow bands of grayish sunlight appear between the venetian blinds. Dawn, and Superman is still hanging on. I may not be the best brother in the world, but I know that I can’t let Joe see this. I go and get a sandwich bag out of the drawer. My hands are shaking so bad, I almost drop him as I slip the mouse into the bag. It’s a ziplock, so I press the seam and watch it turn from yellow and blue to green. I open the freezer and put the bag on top of a box of Weight Watchers ice cream sandwiches. On top of everything else, my mother thinks she’s fat now. I close the door and set the kitchen timer for five minutes.

  I lean my head against the freezer door, and out of nowhere I start to bawl my eyes out. I’m still bawling when the timer dings. I wipe my nose on my sleeve, open the door, and take the bag out. Superman is dead.

  “Brian?”

  Joe is standing in the doorway. I didn’t hear him come down the ladder.

  “Go back to bed,” I tell him.

  “Where’s Superman?” he says. “The cage is gone.”

  “I have him,” I say, and I quickly turn my back and take the stiff mouse out of the bag.

  “Is he okay?” Joe asks.

  “No, Jo-Jo. He’s not okay. He’s dead.”

  Joe starts to cry.

  “Poor Superman,” he says. “Where is he?”

  “He’s right here, Joe.”

  “I want to hold him.”

  Superman is half frozen, but Joe is insisting, so I carefully wrap him in a dishcloth, and Joe sits on the couch crying softly over his dead mouse. After a while he looks up at me and asks, “Why is Superman so cold?”

  “That’s what happens when you die,” I say. “You get cold, but you don’t feel it.”

  Joe hands me the mouse and goes into his room. When he comes back, he has Honey in his hand.

  “I want to bury him in this.”

  “Oh no, Jo-Jo. You don’t want to do that. You’ll miss your Honey.”

  But Joe’s mind is made up. He carefully unwraps the mouse an
d gently lays him on the tattered square of blanket.

  “This will keep you warm,” he says.

  The sun is barely up as my little brother and I carry Superman down to Riverside Park to bury him. We dig a hole under a bush with my mother’s wok spatula and lay the tiny bundle in it.

  “He was a good mouse,” says Joe solemnly.

  I never even liked Superman, but I am overcome with sadness. Joe thinks we should sing something, but the only song we can think of that we both know is “Itsy Bitsy Spider.” We sing it together. My voice cracks a couple of times and I almost lose it again. When we finish singing, I take Joe’s hand, and together we walk back up West End Avenue to our apartment.

  About Sarah Weeks

  Sarah Weeks is an award-winning author of many books for children. Her novel So B. It was an LA Times bestseller and was named an ALA Notable Book and a Top Ten Best Books for Young Adults. Her other novels include Jumping the Scratch and the popular Guy series. She is one of the founding members of A.R.T. (Authors Readers Theatre) and an adjunct faculty member in the prestigious writing program at the New School University. She lives in New York City with her two teenaged sons. You can visit her online at www.sarahweeks.com.

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  THE MOTHERLESS ONE

  Gene Luen Yang

  About Gene Luen Yang

  Gene Luen Yang is the creator of the bestselling American Born Chinese, which won the Michael L. Printz Award and is the first graphic novel ever to be nominated for a National Book Award. He is also the creator of the graphic novels Gordon Yamamoto and the King of the Geeks and Loyola Chin and the San Peligran Order, as well as The Rosary Comic Book. When he’s not writing and drawing, Gene teaches computer science at a Roman Catholic high school in California. You can visit him online at www.geneyang.com.

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  Credits

  Jacket art © 2008 by Christian Michaels/Getty Images

  Jacket design by Neil Swaab

  Copyright

  UP ALL NIGHT: A SHORT STORY COLLECTION. Copyright © 2008 by HarperCollins Publishers. Introduction copyright © 2008 by Laura Geringer. “Phase Two” copyright © 2008 by Pas de Deux. “Not Just for Breakfast Anymore” copyright © 2008 by Martha E. Bray. “The Vulnerable Hours” copyright © 2008 by David Levithan. “Orange Alert” copyright © 2008 by Patricia McCormick. “Superman Is Dead” copyright © 2008 by Sarah Weeks. “The Motherless One” copyright © 2008 by Gene Luen Yang. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

  EPub © Edition JANUARY 2009 ISBN: 9780061971648

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