Read The Unlikely Hero of Room 13B for Free Online Page B

rocket. Even fully braced, Adam was almost knocked over.
    “Adam! Adam! Adam!”
    “Batman,” whispered Adam. “Remember? I’m Batman now.”
    “Oh yeah! I just forgot, Batman. I won’t ever never forget again, Batman. Okay, Batman?”
    Adam hugged him back. “Okay, little guy. Don’t sweat it.” He felt his brother’s thumping little heart beating way too fast. “It’s cool.”
    Ironically, it was Adam’s mom who was responsible for dubbing Wendell “Sweetie.” Carmella Ross called everyone “sweetie”; it unburdened her from the task of remembering names, especially at work. In Sweetie’s case, however, as she often said, “It pains me to admit it, but that little dumpling really is a
Sweetie
.” Everyone else agreed, including his pediatrician, nursery school teachers
and
Sweetie, who began referring to himself as such as soon as he was able to form words. Now, at almost five, there was no disabusing him of it. Sweetie
was
Sweetie and that’s all there was to it. He clung tightly to Adam as if to secure him until they reached the safety of the car.
    “Hey, Brenda.”
    “Thank you, Adam.”
    “Batman!” corrected Sweetie from the back seat.
    “Moms are exempt,” Adam said.
    “Exempt,” Sweetie parroted, and Adam knew he would store the word away and bring it out for rehearsals until he figured out how to use it correctly.
    “I mean it. Thanks for this,” Brenda said as they drove away. “I know we’re both a pain, but look …” She gestured to the back seat with her head and lowered her voice. “It’s instant. An hour ago, I could barely reach him.”
    Sweetie had launched into a rousing if garbled rendition of “Puff, the Magic Dragon.” Carmella had sung it to Adamas soon as she’d brought him home from the hospital, and Adam had sung it to his brother as soon as Brenda and Dad had brought
him
home from the hospital. It was their go-to song, the one that Adam would sing when Sweetie was in need of industrial-strength comforting.
“A dragon lives forever but not so little boys. Painted wings and la, la, la …”
    “Is Dad home?” Adam asked above the singing.
    Brenda shook her head. “Argentina. But he’ll be back for your double birthdays next week. Your father thought that you would both enjoy the chef’s special magic at La Tourangelle for your birthday dinners. Wait until you see your
C-A-K-E-S
!”
    Only perfection for the perfectionist
, Adam thought but did not say.
    “We’re going to a really, really pretty restaurant! I saw it. I’m going to have oysters! Do you know what oysters are? I’m going to have three. And your mom, Mrs. Carmella Ross, is coming, and Ben too, but that’s a surprise.”
    “Sweetie!” Brenda groaned.
    “Sorry,” came a small voice from the back seat.
    “That’s okay,” said Adam. “You know I’ll forget by the time we get home, uh, your home.”
    “
Our
home, Adam,” said Brenda.
    Adam tossed his backpack onto one of the twin beds in Sweetie’s room. Adam still had his very own room there, but as soon as Sweetie had learned how to walk, he’d also learned how to sneak into his brother’s double bed, hog all the covers, smoosh them into himself and toss about the whole night long. Sleep was impossible. One day whenSweetie was older, Adam would reclaim that room. Until then, he settled for having a twin bed all to himself.
    Sweetie hopped onto his own bed, folded his hands neatly in his lap and waited. Adam sat across from him, mirroring him exactly—except, of course, that Adam’s feet touched the floor.
    “Okay, so what’s up, little guy?”
    Sweetie took that as his cue to propel himself toward his brother and snuggle into him.
    “Bad, eh?”
    He could feel rather than see Sweetie nod slowly. “The scary bits are biting me.”
    “Got it,” said Adam. None of them could ever figure out what the triggers were. What was it that set Sweetie off? “Right, so let’s think about something awesome, okay?” More nodding,