Read Hero for Free Online Page A

medical problem of yours, it's got us worried. See, we have extremely high insurance premiums to pay here at school. It's getting to the point where I don't know how any athletic program can survive. Do you understand what I'm saying?" He fiddled with a burned chip in his puffy fingertips. He focused on the chip so that he didn't have to look me in the eye. Finally, he popped it in his mouth.
    Why wouldn't he look at me? It couldn't be the seizures. People haven't thought you could catch those since the Dark Ages, since they thought all you needed to feel better was a good leeching. Plus, the coach had a daughter with cerebral palsy.
    My mind drifted and I looked at a potted plant on his desk. It was made of three branches—the first branch was dark green and normal, the second was pretty normal except for the cobwebs on it, and the third was desiccated and dying. Coach spotted me staring at the dying branch, then watered the plant with the dregs of his coffee mug.
    "Thorn, I don't think you can be on the team anymore."
    What the hell was he talking about, he didn't think I could be on the team anymore?! Did I just have my hands amputated and nobody told me? Of course I could still play on the team.
    "Maybe you'd be more comfortable on the junior squad."
    I tried to get this straight in my head. He wanted me to go play with a bunch of kids in junior high because I have a seizure disorder?
    "It's really a matter of priorities, the safety of the school, your health," he rattled on. "Insurance premiums, liability issues ..."
    And suddenly it all made sense. Why he'd been giving me the silent treatment at practice, why he wouldn't look at me anymore. I'd known all along, but I just didn't want to admit it. He'd heard what that little Gary Coleman twerp had said about me outside the gym after the game, and now he didn't want me around. I made him uncomfortable.
    "Because I'm different?" I wanted to hear him say it.
    He finally looked at me, and I could see something right behind his eyes. It wasn't a look of disappointment. It was a look of disgust.
    "Because you're different." He bit down on a potato chip.
    I touched the dead branch of the potted plant on his desk. I fiddled with its brown leaves while I thought about what I should say. I was fuming, burning inside out with anger. I wanted to tell him that I didn't deserve this. I considered begging him to let me stay on the team so I could still play. Then I considered telling him he could take his JV squad and shove it up his—
    But then I saw something that told me exactly what I was going to say. As Coach reached for another chip, I noticed that from the depths of his chest a dark, black glow emanated, a murky wave. I can't explain how I knew what it meant, but it was as natural an understanding as you have when you pull your hand away from scalding hot water.
    A strange thought occurred to me. A voice in my head said I could reach out and touch the thick, murky darkness and shape it in my hands and roll it like a lump of Play-Doh until it dissolved into my palms. My hands felt hot, seething. But I didn't reach out and touch the darkness. That same voice in my head
    told me it was too much for me to handle, that it would hurt me. So I didn't go near him. Instead I put my hands in my pockets and stood up.
    "If you don't go get a cardiogram soon," I said, "you're going to die." I stopped at the door on my way out and added, "You probably won't even make it to next season."
    I glanced at the potted plant—now with three healthy branches—and I slammed the door behind me as I left.
    I came home early and stood in the hallway and watched the sun go down outside. Walking upstairs, taking off my jacket, or grabbing a snack required too much effort. I didn't have to work and I wasn't supposed to be at the learning center, so there was nothing to unglue my feet from the floor. My head throbbed, and I wanted to sleep for a million years until there was nothing left to worry