The 10 P.M. Question by Kate de Goldi Page A

parents had been killed in a car crash, and Ma had gone to live with the Aunties.
    Frankie closed his eyes and listened to the mutated “Lara’s Theme” slowing and slowing and finally stopping.
    It was because of Ma that Frankie couldn’t possibly go to camp. He could admit this to himself in the privacy of his bedroom, where only Robert Plant and Morrie were witness to his thoughts. It was not something he could discuss with Gigs or Louie or Gordana — with anyone else in the world.
    The
problem
was, he just knew that those in charge — Uncle George and Ma herself — would not accept Ma as a reasonable excuse for Frankie staying at home. Which meant he would have to go. Except that he couldn’t, because if he did, he would spend the week disabled by worry, the rodent voice taking up permanent, deafening residence in his head. He would feel nauseous with anxiety about Ma. (Who would do her errands? Who would keep her company? Who would chat to her at night when Uncle G was working and Gordana was doing as she pleased? Who would keep a constant and careful — though carefully nonchalant — eye on her? Who would hold her hand when she was feeling a little bit wobbly?)
    But almost as bad, he, Frankie, would inevitably develop new and pressing worries, about himself and the world in general; he would lie awake in the camp bunk while everyone else was sleeping, obsessing about Chinese industrial pollution, about the ozone hole, about Peak Oil, about the diseases carried by horses and the perils of kayaking, about the possibility of campylobacter from camp food and septicemia from grazes and cuts. He would lie in his bunk while this catalog created a progressively more high-pitched white noise in his head and there would be no possibility of padding down the hall to Ma’s room for reassurance.
    Frankie banged the music box lid shut, and plastic Lara was confined once more to her horizontal position in the dark. He flung himself back on his bed, and the Fat Controller mewed halfheartedly at this rough treatment.
    Frankie raised his eyes to Robert Plant and silently spoke his treacherous thought:
I’m tired of it.
He looked at Morrie and said the thought aloud: “I’m tired of it.” He was tired, tired,
tired,
so
tired of all the worry — worry about himself, worry about Ma, worry about the world. Then instantly he felt shabby and mean, disloyal to Ma, ashamed of himself.
    He curled his fists so his nails dug into the skin of his palms. It was his way of being stern with himself, of pulling himself together. He clenched his teeth, then wobbled his jaw furiously so that it clicked and the sound rang in his head. He often did this to banish rodent thoughts before they took hold.
    So, he was tired of it all, but what could he do? Nothing, that’s what. It was just how it was.
    There were worse things, of course there were. Floods in India. Earthquakes in Peru. Children with tuberculosis or kwashiorkor or polio. What was he complaining about? It was nothing, really, just an eternal inconvenience. But, so what?
    He uncurled his fists and looked at the half-moon marks on his palms. He knew what he was going to do.
    He would fake Uncle George’s signature on the camp forms and tell Mr. A — with just the right amount of regret — that family circumstances meant he couldn’t attend. Uncle George would never realize about camp because he was just too flat out these days to register anything, especially events on anyone’s school calendar. And Ma would never know; Frankie was very practiced at protecting Ma from information that might upset her.
    And good old Mr. A would be too sensitive and kind to ask awkward questions; he would just pat Frankie kindly on the back and suggest some books to read while they were away. Gigs wouldn’t ask questions, either, because he never did. That was the good thing about Gigs.
    Nor would his classmates say anything, because in five years they never had. Of course, Frankie hadn’t told