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himself warm during the chill desert night.
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There wasn't much shade, and the sun was getting really fierce. Johnny got to his feet and walked slowly
to a clump of bushes that surrounded a stunted dead tree. He sat down and leaned his back against the
shady side of the tree trunk.
For a moment he thought about his parents.
His mother was probably worried sick by now. Johnny often got up early and left the house before she
was awake, but he always made sure to be back by lunchtime. His father would be angry. But he was
always angry nowadays most of the time it was about losing his job. But Johnny knew that what was
really bugging his father was Johnny's own sickness.
Johnny remembered Dr. Pemberton's round red face, which was normally so cheerful. But Dr.
Pemberton shook his head grimly when he told Johnny's father:
"It's foolish for you to spend what little money you have, John. It's incurable. You could send the boy to
one of the research centers, and they'll try out some of the new treatments on him. But it won't help him.
There is no cure."
Johnny hadn't been supposed to hear that. The door between the examination room where he was sitting
and Dr. Pemberton's office had been open only a crack. It was enough for his keen ears, though.
Johnny's father sounded stunned. "But& he looks fine. And he says he feels okay."
"I know." Dr. Pemberton's voice sounded as heavy as his roundly overweight body. "The brutal truth,
however, is that he has less than a year to live. The disease is very advanced. Luckily, for most of the
time he'll feel fine. But towards the end& "
"These research centers," Johnny's father said, his voice starting to crack. "The scientists are always
coming up with new vaccines& "
Johnny had never heard his father sound like that: like a little boy who had been caught stealing or
something, and was begging for a chance to escape getting punished.
"You can send him to a research center," Dr. Pemberton said, slowly. "They'll use him to learn more
about the disease. But there's no cure in sight, John. Not this year. Or next. And that's all the time he
has."
And then Johnny heard something he had never heard before in his whole life: his father was crying.
They didn't tell him.
He rode back home with his father, and the next morning his mother looked as if she had been crying all
night. But they never said a word to him about it. And he never told them that he knew.
Maybe it would have been different if he had a brother or sister to talk to. And he couldn't tell the kids at
school, or his friends around the neighborhood. What do you say? "Hey there, Nicko& I'm going to die
around Christmas sometime."
No. Johnny kept silent, like the Apache he often dreamed he was. He played less and less with his
friends, spent more and more of his time alone.
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And then the ship came.
It had tomean something. A ship from another star doesn't just plop down practically in your back yard
by accident.
Why did the strangers come to Earth?
No one knew. And Johnny didn't really care. All he wanted was a chance to talk to them, to get them to
cure him. Maybe who knew? maybe they were here to find him and cure him!
He dozed off, sitting there against the tree. The heat was sizzling, there was no breeze at all, and nothing
for Johnny to do until darkness. With his mind buzzing and jumbling a million thoughts together, his eyes
drooped shut and he fell asleep.
"Johnny Donato!"
The voice was like a crack of thunder. Johnny snapped awake, so surprised that he didn't even think of
being scared.
"Johnny Donate! This is Sergeant Warner. We know you're around here, so come out from wherever
you're hiding."
Johnny flopped over on his stomach and peered around. He was pretty well hidden by the bushes that
surrounded the tree. Looking carefully in all directions, he couldn't see Sergeant Warner or anyone else.
"Johnny Donato!" the voice repeated. "This is Sergeant Warner& "
Only now the voice seemed to be coming from farther away. Johnny realized that the State Police
sergeant was speaking into an electric bullhorn.
Very slowly, Johnny crawled on his belly up to the top of the little hill. He made certain to stay low and
keep in the scraggly grass.
Off to his right a few hundred yards was Sergeant Warner, slowly walking across the hot sandy ground.
His hat was pushed back on his head, pools of sweat stained his shirt. He held the bullhorn up to his
mouth, so that Johnny couldn't really see his face at all. The sergeant's mirror-shiny sunglasses hid the top
half of his face.
Moving still farther away, the sergeant yelled into his bullhorn, "Now listen, Johnny. Your mother's
scared half out of her mind. And your father doesn't even know you've run away he's still downtown,
hasn't come home yet. You come out now, you hear? It's hot out here, and I'm getting mighty unhappy
about you."
Johnny almost laughed out loud.What are you going to do, kill me ?
"Dammit, Johnny, I know you're around here! Now, do I have to call in other cars and the helicopter,
just to find one stubborn boy?"
Helicopters! Johnny frowned. He had no doubts that he could hide from a dozen police cars and the
men in them. But helicopters were something else.
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He crawled back to the bushes and the dead tree and started scooping up loose sand with his bare
hands. Pretty soon he was puffing and sweaty. But finally he had a shallow trench that was long enough
to lie in.
He got into the trench and pulled his food pouch and canteen in with him. Then he spread the blanket
over himself. By sitting up and leaning forward, he could reach a few small stones. He put them on the
lower corners of the blanket to anchor them down. Then he lay down and pulled the blanket over him.
The blanket was brown, and probably wouldn't be spotted from a helicopter. Lying there under it,
staring at the fuzzy brightness two inches over his nose, Johnny told himself he was an Apache hiding out
from the Army.
It was almost true.
It got very hot in Johnny's hideout. Time seemed to drag endlessly. The air became stifling; Johnny could
hardly breathe. Once he thought he heard the drone of a helicopter, but it was far off in the distance.
Maybe it was just his imagination.
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