The Giant-Slayer by Iain Lawrence

believe that he was seeing himself. And just then, he could hardly believe that he would ever get better.
    How many doctors had come to see him? He couldn’t remember. One after the other, they had come and bent his legs like a rubber doll’s, and said in loud jolly voices that he would be up and around in no time. Even when his lungs had stopped working and he was put into the respirator, they’d said that it wouldn’t be for long.
    He believed that doctors never lied. There had always been that day in the future when he would get out of the iron lung and breathe on his own again. And on that day hewould march right out of the hospital, strutting along like the boy he had seen in a poster somewhere.
    It was thinking of that day that had kept him happy. He had thought of it often, especially at night as he fell asleep. It would be a wonderful day, but a terrible day—happy and sad together. He would say goodbye to Chip and Carolyn, and promise to come and visit. Then he would pick up his box of comic books and stuff, put on his coonskin cap, and walk out with Miss Freeman. At the door he would look back and see the bellows moving, Chip and Carolyn watching. “See ya soon,” he’d say, and wave. He and Miss Freeman would stop at the other rooms, and he would say goodbye to all the others he’d met: Jennifer and Ruth and Peter and Steve, Mark and Kathy and the three Susans. And then he would ride down on the elevator with Miss Freeman and walk toward the big glass doors. He would see his parents on the other side, waiting in the sunshine. They would be holding each other and smiling at him. Miss Freeman would shake their hands, then get down on her knees, in her white skirt and white stockings, and give him a hug. She would smell a bit of perfume. “Oh, Dickie, I’ll miss you,” she’d say. “I’ll miss you so very much.”
    But now, for the first time, Dickie wondered if that day would come at all. It was hard to believe the boy in the mirror could
ever
get up and walk away.
    He thought of all this in a moment. Then Miss Freeman raised the mirror again, to aim it at the window, and the boy vanished as it tilted. She went to work on his withered body, changing his sheet.
    Dickie closed his eyes and counted days. In his mind heused his fingers, and he decided that it was four nights until his parents came again. He wished it weren’t quite that long, but he didn’t doubt they would come—no matter what Carolyn said. In the beginning they had visited every day, and on the first day they missed, Carolyn had laughed about it. She could be so mean sometimes.
    “You know, they’ll never be back,” she’d said.
    “Don’t say that!” Dickie had told her. “It’s just one day. They promised.”
    But Carolyn had laughed again. “That’s always how it starts,” she’d said, “with ‘just one day.’”
    Dickie counted the days again. His parents would bring him candy or cookies, because they always did that, and they would have enough for Carolyn and Chip as well. They would bring a new comic book, and maybe something about Davy Crockett, but probably not the bowie knife that he always
hoped
they’d bring. They would have a funny story of something that had happened, and his father would tell it in a way that would make everybody laugh—even Carolyn. But after that they would both get very sad, and Dickie would have to cheer them up.
    They would leave slowly, saying goodbye a dozen times before they reached the door, and then a couple more as they moved down the hall. They would keep waving until the last moment. Then the whole room would be sad. The bellows of the respirators would hum and puff, and through the doorway would come the muffled chime of the elevator. Then maybe Chip would laugh again at Mr. Espinosa’s story. “You sure got swell folks,” he’d say. He said it everytime. “You sure got swell folks, Dickie; you’re pretty lucky.” And Dickie would lie there with his head turned aside,